Bordeaux Tasting

Hey Everyone!

Long while since I posted to this or any blog but I'm happy to be doing so again! Today I'm writing about a wee tasting I put on for a few friends of mine as they prepare for a high profile tasting competition at the Residence de France in London a fortnight from now. The theme of the evening is Left Bank Bordeaux, including Médoc, Graves, Sauternes and Barsac. I took part in this tasting last year and despite doing somewhat poorly (then having my spirits lifted by a stunning meal and lovely wine) I feel that the exercise of analysing Bordeaux from a blind tasting perspective was very enlightening.

When training for blind tasting, you always look at the general styles of grapes and regions in the following manner: Syrah tastes of violets, but is fruiter in Australia and more briny in the Rhône and so on. Basically you paint a region with a broad brush and Bordeaux is the same. There is a character to Bordeaux that makes it unique from wine anywhere else in the world. I am fairly confident I could pick out a Pomerol in a line up of Merlots from the rest of the world, but when it comes to picking apart the differences between the various cabernet-based communes of the Left Bank things get a bit tricky. So today's tasting was aimed at four appellations and three vintages.

1. Chateau Le Pey 2010 Médoc- The nose was creamy, sweet salted caramel and milk chocolate followed by cherry and crème de cassis. The colour was youthfully red; no traces of ageing yet lighter than some of the older wines showing the wine to be less concentrated. The palate agreed with lighter tannins, less intense flavours and acidity. A pleasant wine, but not the product of great grapes.

2. Chateau de Cardaillan 2007 Graves- Deeper colour but with some brickish hues showing the affects of ageing. 2007 is an early drinking vintage so it follows that maturity was reached quickly in comparison with the older Fourcas-Dupré. The nose was marred by a slight cork-taint but the character showed through in a perfumed fruit nose

3. Chateau Fourcas-Dupré 2004 Listrac-Médoc- This one was difficult to describe. There was not a whole lot to distinguish it from general Bordeaux wine. It lacked the cocoa powder of St-Estephe, the perfume of Margaux or the woody cedar of Saint-Julien. It was a good wine, but there really wasn't a whole lot to tell us what exactly a Listrac-Médoc was like. That said, it was a lovely bottle of wine!

4. Chateau Martinens 2007 Margaux- Classic to Margaux, the nose showed plenty of floral aromatics, perfume (almost like Campari smelled from a distance) and something along the lines of kirsch liquer. The palate showed fine grained tannins and an elegant finish. A really great wine and amongst this line up, I think it showed as an amazing wine.

Overall, I find the concept of blind tasting a highly invigorating experience, especially when put into such a singular context as Left Bank Bordeaux. It also shows what a versatile region Bordeaux is for wine production. It's not a tired region only good for putting out overrated and expensive wines. Rather it does offer some good value and quality across the board. Especially in an age where so many new world wineries boast of their high altitude or extreme conditions, Bordeaux is temperate by comparison and never more than a few metres above sea level.

For whatever reason, wine from Bordeaux is often overlooked by the casual drinker, but it should not be. It offers good quality, easy drinking and food friendly wine at a reasonable price point. These four bottles showed particularly well, but there are countless others like them.

Much Love,

George

 

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American in Paris (Drinking Wine)

Hey Everyone,

Today I am writing to you all on the last night of my trip to Paris, where I've been wandering aimlessly and without itinerary for about 4 days now.  No agenda, no contacts and no travel companions has led me to realise that my best friend in this city right now is a good bottle of wine and I am happy to report that I have been spoiled rotten.

Before I get into the more enjoyable parts of my visit and talk about the wine one can find in Paris, I will acknowledge the shortcomings of the French wine market.  While this country produces more wine  than any other apart from Italy and is known around the world for leading the rest in quality and fame for it's producers, there is a lack of context for it all.  I mean to say that I have seen exactly one bottle of Spanish wine (2007 Marqués de Riscal Rioja Reserva) and not much else from outside of France.

What I lamented in particular was the absence of many interesting wine regions of this very country.  In my visit to many different caves in the city I came across one Bandol, one Cumieres, one Cahors and two Juras (a red and a white from the same producer next to each other on the shelf).  I was hoping for a chance to find a selection of unique French wines I may not have heard of, but by and large all that was on offer consistently was very recent Bordeaux Supérieur, Dotes du Rhone, Bourgogne Aligoté (oddly enough) and a large amount of Petit Chablis.  Then of course there was the ocean of Beaujolais. I've come to the conclusion that Paris is less concerned with the variety and more focused on a consistent selection.

That said, I was lucky enough to find two or three very good shops in Paris and I was able to grab a couple of nice bottles during my time here.  One such shop, identified only by the titles "Cave des Cigares, Cave des Vin" was a shop very much up my alley.  Aside form finding a myriad selection of cigars from some of my favourite houses at a fraction of the British price, I also found an interesting assortment of Bordeaux and Rhone.  I could count perhaps 40 wines in total but the selection was an exciting one.  With under twenty Euros I was able to grab a 2000 Saint-Émilion which was really fabulous stuff as well as a brilliantly concentrated 2009 Cahors.

I've never had a good Cahors and this one for under ten quid was a nice cheapie.  It was rich and had a thick layering of black currant, smoke, flint and really firm tannins.  I know why this stuff doesn't come often to the UK seeing as it is somewhat impenetrable for all that tannin and acidity, but when you get your palate to grips with it, it's like gaining a taste for cask strength whisky; it pleases on a whole new level.

Just on the other side of the hill of Montmartre and the Sacre Couer lies the neighbourhood of Abbesses; the only part of town where people would put up with my poor French and encourage me along.  The Cave des Abbesses is pretty much a hall way lined with shelves and bottles and here I found a wide selection of mature wines for a damn good price.  From 2001 alone I found bottles of Cornas, Côte-Rotie, Bergerac, Pomerol and half a dozen other amazing appellations allowing the drinker the chance to buy wine ready to go or age depending on preference.  A nice collection of white Burgundy, white Rhône and bordeaux blanc (I treated myself to a bottle of white Graves for the composition of this post) made for an interesting range of whites, especially for the oak-crazy palate I get at this time of year.

The one to take the cake and eat it too, however was the Épicerie Legrand Filles et Fils, located on Rue de la Banque in the 2nd Arrondissement may be a bit out of the average price range, and in particular seeing as I was on my own, however it was a uniquely engaging place.  A good selection of Wines from pretty much every major appellation as well as a great selection of half bottles including Chateau Gazin, Beychevelle and others made for interesting browsing.  Of particular interest to me was the wide selection of top notch growers' champagnes and a fair selection of single malt.  The shop itself was never overly self conscious with the newer parts being evidently new but tasteful and the older rooms showing their age gently, and none of the faux-olde-worlde look a lot of wine shops go for.

The tasting room was more of a bar with the sort of feel that it could equally welcome a business lunch as it could host a couple of curious twenty-year-old oenophiles.  The selection of first growths in magnum, double magnum and larger was certainly inspiring.

As my bottle of Graves grows more and more empty I am afraid I am becoming sentimental about my trip to Paris.  Rarely does one spend so long without conversation, or so much time within one's own thoughts, yet I find the situation invigorating.  While I can tell that Paris is a city for pairs, it isn't all bad for ones, and if you can find a spot in the big city for yourself you will enjoy your stay to be sure.  I look forward to returning to Paris with company and to venture more regularly into the wine world of this city but for now I leave you with these bits of wisdom from a wine-loving traveller; look high and low in Paris and you will certainly be rewarded with some of the best wines you can find.

Much Love,
G

Art Series Wines

Hey everyone,

Today I'm writing for the first time in a while, and I've had a couple of interesting bottles over the past weeks. Looking back I found that I had accumulated a streak of wines which I believe can be best considered "Art Series" wines. These all have stand out labels but the wines inside are less consistent. Just to show off, I'll chuck in a note on another artist label wine I had at Christmas time. So I ask, "what does the Artist Label lend to the overall experience of a wine?"

Grover Cabernet/ Shiraz Art Series - Though I've tried this wine before, I recently revisited just to refresh my memory, and to (slightly ironically) match a nice juicy steak. This is an Australian style blend, which I usually avoid as being a bit too predictable and boring, but when you read a label stating "Wine of India" the interest is bound to be piqued.

When I first tried this wine a year and a half ago at a trade tasting in London, I felt that I had for the first time recognised the character of a place translated into the bottle. The nose evoked many of my preconceived notions of this massive country, and in particular the northern region of the Nandi Hills. It was warm and spicy with plenty of dusty, wooly aromas. It's a fragrant wine with a cedar woodiness reminding me a bit of incense. Possibly Nag Champa but maybe that's in my nose because I want it to be.

All in all, it's a damn good wine for a country relatively new to modern winemaking. More than that, it's a good wine all together. Especially for the light price tag it carries. One thing that pleases me greatly reading back on this tasting note, is that I haven't mentioned the label, which is a rather nice piece but one that only adds to the bottle. The wine justifies itself, and the label is secondary. Looking for something to surprise you a bit? Check out this tasty Indian bottle for just about a tenner.

The next few wines I tried were more shocking than surprising. Another "art" series of wines from southern France, by Christian Audigier sported some of the most garish, patronising labels I have ever seen in wine. I can appreciate the label for Grover, because it's well done, it's the kind of art you could feasibly see hanging on a wall rather than just on a bottle.

Do  drinkers need such incredible phaff to sell them on a bottle?

If the wines were anything special, I'd be willing to forgive the bottle-covering plastic coats with which they had been plastered. Conversely, if they didn't have these ridiculous eye catchers, and cost a bit less, they'd be perfectly acceptable wines. The Sauvignon Blanc was generally poor, the Cabernet was alright and the Syrah was okay, but as a whole, they weren't good enough to support the silly advertising campaign they were obviously attempting. At the price tag they demand, they do not justify the ridiculosity of their branding.

Some wines that go for a stand out shelf appearance are tough to get behind. Dinastia Vivanco Rioja is a good example of a patronising bottle shape that is saved by the fact that actual wine in the bloody thing is a decent, friendly and affordable Rioja. The Audigier collection, however is not. Though it would sell from our shelves based purely on the eye catching factor, it would fail to attract a repeat customer because they would realise that it is in fact a bad wine. In short, it is a dishonest way to sell your product.

The next artist label wine I tried is the Leeuwin Estate Riesling. I'm a big fan of Leeuwin estate and I am a bigger fan of riesling so it may come as no great shock when I say that I liked this wine and I like the branding. Though it is an art series label, the piece on the label is very subtle and understated. It may well be a winery's standard branding device for its simplicity. That said it adds a nice bit of uniqueness to the vintage.

The wine itself was a tasty, engaging example of an Australian Riesling. I believe that with its bright pear aromas and rubbery, viscous texture, I would happily say that it is worth the considerable but relatively modest £17 asking price. This is a classy version of the art series concept. Make a good wine. Then make an attractive labeling scheme. The other way around is like coming up with a music video before the song is written. Leeuwin did it the right way around.

The last wine I'll mention here won't take up many words, mostly because it was too special an occasion for me take notes and I can only remember the basics as well as how I felt. Still grippy despite thirty years ageing, this was the original art series wine, with some vintages sporting labels from some of history's most famous artists. Warhol, Picasso, Dali and Miro to name but a few of the most illustrious names, as well as a surprisingly nice label by Prince Charles. The wine was fantastic, so much character and truly satisfying making for one of the best wines I've ever had. The wine stands alongside the art and the two are fitting for each other. A great artist doing the label for a great wine. In this case, as the king of the art series, Chateau Mouton Rothschild reigns supreme.

Much love,

G

Taste of the Place

Hey Everyone,

My favourite thing about wine is always its ability to express a region.  My favourite advertising campaign, for sheer irony's sake, is Anakena saying that their wine is an expression of the people.  If so, it does not bode well for the people of Chile.  Fortunately, there are better wines from the narrow stretch of land between the Andes and the sea.  That said, they are right that a wine should be an expression of people, but it should also be an expression of the place.  Though I usually disregard the notion of "Old World/ New World" distinctions, there is one consistency which I find appealing and that is the expression of soil found in Old World wines.

Chateau Palmer 1998 Margaux

This all came on me as I am trying to revisit those classic regions which I tend to neglect in my pursuit of finding new wines from interesting parts of the world.  I recently had a beautiful bottle of Mercurey (Red Burgundy) which tickled my fancy as being a true classic of it's appellation.  Big juicy raspberry fruits, plenty of bracing acidity and a hint of tannin all made for a complete wine which I feel truly expresses the character of this very specific region of Burgundy.

While I was in Champagne last weekend, visiting the premises of Bollinger in Ay, I was allowed to try some truly beautiful wines made to express the soil and the atmosphere around the vines.  The environment which sustains and gives life to the vines should be present in the final bottle of wine and no country more so than France shows this in the glass.  The house's own wines, in particular the more recent vintage, the Grande Année 2002, showed a beautiful character of chalky texture and aroma which is just so definitive of the Champagne region alongside the hints of green pepper and bright green fruit which makes young vintage champagne just so quaffable.

During the competition we were once charged with the identification of three red wines.  We were provided with the context that one wine was French and the others should be identified with their appropriate regions.  Upon smelling these wines, the three presented very different styles, but the first and the third wines gave themselves away.  The third, clearly a jammy Australian Shiraz, told no lies.  It was open with it's fruit and it's deep blueberry body.  The first one, smelling of a bit of cracked black pepper and a lot of a maritime breeze jumped forward as a classic Syrah form the Northern Rhone.  Though we guessed Crozes-Hermitage and it turned out to be the appellation down the road at Saint Joseph, we knew exactly why we selected France as it's country of origin.

St. Andrew's Tasting Team at Bollinger

In the Northern Rhone Valley, the most striking character of the wines, which sets them apart from 'New World' Shiraz/ Syrah is that lovely elegant aroma and texture given by the dusty, rocky soil.  The effect of this so-called 'minerality is the sensation of tasting a smooth river-stone in your mouth.  While that may not sound great in writing, it is genuinely a pleasing characteristic in a quality red wine.  In this particular wine, it was a thing of beauty.

In the tie breaking final round, the red which was presented to us, a Chateau Palmer 1998 from Margaux in Bordeaux, leapt forward as a bottle of minerality.  Though I personally thought it to be a Cabernet Franc/ Merlot blend from Saint-Emilion on the other side of the Gironde, it's stoney texture and smoothly slate-like tannins were definitely a mark made upon the wine by the soil.  While this is a supremely expensive bottle of wine, you can f course get ahold of some lovely wines with the expression of the soil in the glass.  Check out my earlier post on a nice affordable Crozes-Hermitage form Paul Jaboulet-Aîné.  Similarly, Chablis is a good place to start for picking out the chalky wonders possible in a good Chardonnay.

Basically I love the idea of being able to experience a place in the wine.  When you are unable to go to taste a wine in the region of it's production and smell all the aromas of the vineyard, the next best thing is to taste it in the glass.  I hope you all get the chance to try out something unique, which celebrates it's place of origin.

Much Love,

G

South Africa- Old Soul, New World

Poised at the southern tip of the great African continent, South Africa is a land of breathtaking natural beauty and stunning possibilities for wine making.  It produces some of the best value wines on the market, and in some cases, it offers glimpses of what fine wine is like for a relatively light price tag.  In the (in my opinion) antiquated vocabulary of the wine world, South Africa is 'New World', meaning essentially anything outside a poorly defined area of the Eurasian supercontinent, but in it's heart, it is an old soul to be sure.

I qualify this of course, by mentioning the fact that South Africa is particularly prolific in the realms of producing big, jammy Shiraz, much-maligned Pinotage and plenty of other distinctively 'New World' wines.  But I believe that there is so much more to this dynamic region, capable of displaying excellent, classic examples of any given grape's potential.

I'll give a few examples of wines I believe show the old world soul of South Africa as a wine-producing country.  Thelema Mountain Vineyards, for instance, produces a line of marvelous wines in the most traditional of veins.  Thelema's Cabernet Sauvignon, though only 6 years old, is already showcasing what an elegantly aged Cabernet should be.  It is full of dark cherries, a hint of the fruit once prevalent, but the nose is now dominated by saddle leather and farm soil, with notes of mint and a minerality; characteristic of old-school Cabernet from Bordeaux or Bergerac.  The Merlot is like a wonderfully aged Pomerol, with big dark chocolate, velvety, grippy tannins and the gaminess lacking in Merlot from many other new world countries.

Very few producers are as committed to traditional style wines as Anthony Hamilton Russell.  In blind tastings, many thought his Chardonnay was an Olivier Leflaive white Burgundy.  His Pinot Noir is fragrantly floral as a red Burgundy should be.

But the best example, for me, is the affinity South African producers show for the varieties of the Rhône Valley.  In some ways, the shortcomings of many producers in the southern Rhône, in particular Châteauneuf-du-Pape, is highlighted by the successes of beautifully structured, well-balanced blends based on the Southern Rhône's holy trinity of Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvèdre.  Maintaining the Châteauneuf tradition of adding anything to the blend which might help, Malagas producer Sijnn (pron. 'sane') has crafted a red which shows a very modern vision for a very Old World wine.  Blending Shiraz and Mourvèdre, with the surprising appearance of Portuguese grapes in the form of Touriga Nacional, Trincadeira and a seasoning dash of Cabernet Sauvignon.  The end result; a beautiful classic which, in my opinion shows us what Châteauneuf should be!

Beyond that, producers of fine wines in South Africa are confident in their abilities and they clearly show a great level of innovation as they pursue the best expressions of their wines, whether its a Rhône blend, a Cabernet or even the inspiring Vin de Constance.  They are classics, and while the term New World applies for reasons of convenience and pure tradition, in practicality, the best of South Africa is old at heart.

"But George," you might say, "hasn't California also been trying to make old-world style wines for ages as well, but still they're New World?"  Well the answer is most certainly yes.  Perhaps what I'm going for is that a notion of Old and New Worlds from the age of Ferdinand and Isabella may be out of date.  Even France produces wine which a blind taster would think to be New World, and in a way, it is.  It is a style more than anything else.  South Africa as a wine-producing country deserves a bit more credit for it's classic styles of wine, and I hope you will agree with me, that if South African Wine were a person, it would certainly be an old soul.

Much Love,
G