Lovely coastal South African Syrah, the splash of viognier adds floral, apricot notes on the base of plummy, fruity, slightly burnt toasted syrah. A real bargain recently in Majestic, also available at SWIG .
Author Archives: WanderCurtis
Amarone della valpolicella, Valpentena winery 2008
Rich, powerful, chocolate, coffee damson. This wine is made from partially dried grapes in a process called apassimento, which concentrates the flavours to give a wonderfully rich wine. Available from Sainsburys online at £16.
Vini Italiani
It was well worth a trip to Old Brompton Road to check out this newly opened, beautifully decorated shrine to Italian wines. Simone the managing sommelier kindly arranged an impromptu tasting. The highlight was a simply superb gewurztraminer from Alto Adige – so perfumed, like fresh crushed rose petals, and fine crisp balance. £24 a bottle, so a special one with Christmas dinner. Kiran and I must make another trip here. Also has a tasting room downstairs with a lovely selection of wine books.
Wine quiz and tasting – New Hall, Channing, Highgate
The evening started with a few glasses of Heidsieck Gold Top Vintage 2004, classy steely fizz with a hint of biscuit that will no doubt develop. A round of questions on champagne was followed by three whites.
Wine 1: Grüner Veltliner, Terraces, Domaine Wachau 2008, Austria. Lovely nose of apple and cinnamon, fresh limey notes in the mouth. Lovely balance. £7.50 from Waitrose. Great value every day drinking.
Wine 2: Gewurztraminer Réserve, Trimbach Alsace, 2005, France. Exotic nose, good balance lychee and honey. £15.50 from the Wine Society. People either love it or hate it.
Wine 3: Chardonnay, Kumeu River Estate, 2006, New Zealand. Citrus, minerally, complex and delicious with nice woody notes. This wine evolves in the glass and sustains ones attention. Mistaken for a premier cru Mersault or Puligny in many blind tastings. £15.50 from the Wine Society. Tremendous value.
After a break for the buffet four red wines followed:
Wine 4: The Wine Society Exhibition Cairanne, 2007, Grenache/Syrah, Cote du Rhone, France. Did not show well this evening. Rather dumb on the nose and struggled to come across as more than pleasantly fruity. Normally this opens up after an hour’s decanting. £8.95 from The Wine Society. The Society’s Exhibition Vacqueyras, 2007 at a pound more is a clear step up and superb, also needs a good half hours decanting.
Wine 5: Emilio Moro, 2006, Tempranillo, Ribera del Duero, Spain. This wine also didn’t shine on the evening as it has on previous occasions. Again it would have benefited from decanting to bring out the black fruit, chocolate and smokey characteristics that normally make this wine so moreish, great value at the price. £12.95 reduced from £17.95 from Majestic.
Wine 6: Wither Hills ‘Winery Matured’ Pinot Noir, 2005 Marlborough, New Zealand. Smokey and boiled sweets on the nose, toasty notes over fruit on the palette. A rare chance to buy a matured new world pinot. £16.99 from Majestic
Wine 7: Langoa Barton, 1997, Cab Sav/Merlot, St. Julien, Bordeaux. Lovely nose of cedar, fruit and earth, still enough fruit on the palette underneath, vegetal and further earthy notes, complex, evolves in the glass. At its peak now. Very good value for a mature claret. £25.50 from Farr Vintners (minimum order of £500).
The evening was rounded off with chocolate brownies and Waitrose Sauternes Château Suduiraut 2005 Bordeaux. Lovely honey and beeswax nose, complex flavours sustained by just enough acidity to keep it fresh and very quaffable. £13.50per half bottle from Waitrose.
Lots of great feedback from 90 guests who seemed to really enjoy the quiz format and rolled home happily still arguing about the number of calories in a glass of white wine.
The Society’s Exhibition Gewurztraminer 2007
Beautifully scented, floral rich gewurtztraminer from Hugel. Viscous, oily, lovely mouthfeel and length, dry with a hint of sweetness. Great with panfried sea bass in Soller olive oil.
£13.95 from The Wine Society.
Martinborough Vineyard Te Tera Pinot Noir 2010
Succulent fruit, fine supple tannins, gamey savoury notes. Chameleon like, sometimes like wet fur, other times ripe plums. Currently on special at Majestic, normally £15.99 but 20% off. Recommended.
Auction gamble on mature Bordeaux
I recently bought a mixed case of 21 bottles of mature Bordeaux mostly from the 1970’s with a couple from ’66 and ’64, both birthday years of wine loving family members, which is what initially drew my attention to the lot.
For some time I’ve been trying to pick up some mature wines at auction. But taking the view that one should expect a discount of around 30%, given that the provenance of Duty Paid auction wines cannot be a hundred percent guaranteed, I have been consistently disappointed. Admittedly I had been targeting full cases but was still quite surprised to receive an invoice for both mixed lots that I had placed absentee bids on. I had thought they were cheeky bids.
Clearly by pursuing mixed lots one eliminates the investment market and probably most merchants, BUT one is taking a gamble. So far, I have opened five bottles – three bottles of Grand Puy Lacoste 1975 (classed growth), and two Chateau Houissant 1975 (St Estephe cru – never heard of it either). Three of these have been excellent (2x Houissant & 1 GPL) and two undrinkable.
The lot description of the GPL did highlight that two had ‘cut capsules’ one with ‘mid shoulder’ and the other with ‘high shoulder’ level (the level of the wine in the bottle is a critical indication of how well it has been stored and its likely quality). However when opened, the bottles only had about 1.5 cm of cork left. The corks must have pushed out (perhaps over heated?) as sometimes happens and burst the capsule. Someone then just trimmed them off but the remaining cork was not enough to stop the wine from completely oxidising.
The good bottle of GPL clearly from the same case had a level of ‘very top shoulder’ (apparently anything down to high shoulder should be fine for such an old wine) and still had a core of fruit with a bit of steel to start with and lovely savoury notes developing as the wine opened up over the evening, incredible. The two bottles of Houissant have also been delicious, less fruit but more of the classic, leather, tobacco, earthiness, which is impressive for a humble wine.
So far then I think I’m ahead, though sadly the levels of the ’64s are not so good, we shall see. Happy gambling!
Aunty Jan’s wine surprise
Best known for her awesome collections of art not wine, it was with quite a shock that I fell upon an untouched case… 1979 Chateau Musar-Gaston Hochar! Gently removed the fragile cork and had a glass with breakfast.
Musty, earthy, ammoniacal, it took a bit of getting used to, but opened up after five minutes, revealing a hint ofremaining fruit. Over the hill and a subsequent bottle was cloudy, but great excitement to come across such a rare relic.
Domaine Wachau, Gruner Veltliner Terrace 2009
Great value summer drinking – for when the sun arrives! Wonderfully crisp, fresh, well balanced with minerality. Excellent value at approximately £8 from Waitrose and often discounted in store.
Austria trip June 2011 – Wachau Kamptal
Day 1
Thursday night Chez Franz in Mank. Eighteen Austrian reds served in pairs blind, 1989-2010. Four dessert wines, Kracher 2008.
Present: Eric Boudot from Bordeaux and local merchant, Didi local restauranteur.
Wines included:
- Round 1: Native zweigelt (after a Professor)/Blaufrankish( Blue Franc in Napoleonic times) – cherry fruity spices.
- Round 2: Pinot Noir Gesselman 2003, 13% floral earthy composty classic pinot ( Eric called Gesselman during tasting!) and Pinot 2004 Markowitsch – a bit cooked.
- Round 3: Blaufrankisch 2001 Chevalier -earthy 14% powerful and Zweigelt OLvin 2000.
- Round 4: Merlot 2000 (highlight). Lilies, flowers, lavender, smokey, Blaufrankish – barrel sample pichler, too young/acetone.
- Round 5 1999 in signo Leorus cuvee V saira grande reserve 2003 cab merlot (tiring).
- Round 6: corked 2000 Guiser V Blaufrankish 2000 Durran savoury/sweet/hoisin sauce (Kiran +++).
- Round 7: 1994 Blaufrankisch – over the hill, spicy, HP sauce +++V th suprise 1996 Chateau Montrose! wet dog/fur.
- Round 8: 1989 Blaufrankisch Markowitch V 1989 Zweigelt. Very interesting to try such old Austrian reds, but past their best.
A marathon with tonnes of cheese. Finished off with the famous Krachers, 50 euros, plus a bottle generously supplied by Eric, a rosen muskateller 2008 and variety of 2008 6%, 8% and 11%. Oh, and a lovely Doisy Daene thrown in! What a tasting!
Day 2
Drove to Spitz on the Danube. First stop, Mauritshof Britz for a whole array of gruners and rieslings. Unfortunately the 2010 was not a great vintage with lots of rain and other problems. This showed in the 2010. Then a trip to Lagler slightly overshadowed by a leggy loud American group but some lovely wines (see The Wines of Austria event).
We checked in at the lovely hotel on the banks of the Danube and headed off on our bikes to Emmerich Knoll. He was a wee bit surprised to see us and was sat with his grandchildren. We gladly joined the Knoll family and thus commenced a three hour afternoon tasting of some fantastic wines including barrel selections of all his 2010, served from the most remarkable blown glass contraption. A truly memorable afternoon.
Finished the day at the restaurant opposite Knoll in Unterloiben. The smoked, herb crusted trout was the highlight, but some other great food. Rob et al none too happy as hot desserts stopped at 9.30pm!
Day 3
More intense cycling and a rather longer trip than expected to Langenlois and missed the first tasting! A real test for me in my rehabilitation from back surgery and just managed. Rewarded at the Brundlymayer restaurant with the most awesome display of around twenty wines, with beautiful food. Highlights for sure were the rose brut – the quality of top champagne and the Ried Lamm, which had spent time in wood and is compatible with top white burgundy.
Later that afternoon in Strass tried maybe fifteen wines with Mr Shreibess. These were great value for money and very crisp clean wines. Luckily, it was downhill to Krems and along the river through Unterloiben and Durnstein. Back to the hotel for schnitzel, a delicious stinging nettle soup and the most ridiculously large eggy meringue type and a thick, pancake-like dessert.
Another great trip – next stop, Italy…
WanderCurtis Wine 