Blind tasted a Cava/New World sparkler and champagne blanc de blanc.
Waitrose blanc de blanc just like tasting a mature chardonnay smokey toast buttery with lovely layers of biscuit.
The Cloudy Bay Pelorus was fresher, sparkly and quite beautifully made. The cava lost its fizz.
Two rhones, including an E.guigal, much loved by Kiran.
Rounded off with a Chateau Sudairaut ’05 and a Feiler Artinger dessert wine.
The wines for the Channing night are finalised!
Chateau Moulin Riche 2005, Langoa 1997, Margaux 2000 – a fine way to celebrate Tuesday’s highly enjoyable outdoor Spanish tasting. Very thick rare ribeyes were a great acompaniment for this selection of Bordeaux’s, and seemed to clear the mind and the air as we decided on the future of the business.
We will continue the small format wine events but make it clear that we don’t intend to make a profit from these.They are primarily fun and educational. We will build on these and then have experience and knowledge to be able to offer a host of tastings on a more commercial level. We will start work on the Channing event, with the suggestion to run corporate events and expand our distribution list.
We have received samples from Bodegas Vizcarra and we are acting as agents to find JC and importer. We have a business meeting planned regarding our wine app.
We plan to go to Austria in September for our next wine tasting tour, and will do a small format educational event later in the year.
We visited some fine wineries in and around Barolo, many arranged by Roger Barlow of Gerrard Seel.
These included Paulo Scavino, Giacomo Conterno, Ascheri , Moccaggata and others.
We sourced the finest for our Piemonte tasting in June.
In preparation for our Four Decades of Bordeaux tasting, I reread an excellent book on wine by Phillip Hills called ‘Appreciating Wine – The Flavour of Wines Explained’. Although slightly technical, it gives an excellent explanation of what factors contribute to the aromas and flavours found in wine and in particular the aging process.
Hills is the first to admit that there are plenty of gaps in the scientific (biochemical) understanding of exactly what is going on. For instance, we don’t know what gives cabernet sauvignon its characteristic black currant flavour. Apparently it’s not the same stuff that gives black currants themselves their taste.
It appears that the tannins derived from the grape skins and pips and contact with toasted oak barrels account for most of the wine’s flavours and aromas and for the way that these change with age. This is particularly true of cabernet sauvignon.
Tannins are part of the group of chemicals called phenols which are smelly and often referred to as aromatic compounds. Small changes in these complex polymers can result in very different aromatic characteristics. As a wine ages, this is exactly what happens. The phenolic compounds change and combine with each other, many eventually becoming so large and heavy that they come out of solution and form the sediment that you find in older bottles.
The effect of this is to remove some of the harsher bitter tastes that ‘young’ tannins often have and also to remove some of the colour of the wine. By implication some of the primary black currant and fruit flavours are also eventually lost, and secondary more subtle flavours are either formed or allowed to come out from under the shadow of the young wine’s strong cassis, graphite and wood notes. Taking this to its logical conclusion, at some point the aromatic compounds may just retreat entirely.
For a wine to have good aging potential it needs good acidity because the acids play a part in the polymerisation of the tannins. They also change and reduce. From experience, I’ve noticed that wines which are too old offer fleeting interest and then seem to quickly oxidise. Apparently this is because there is not enough acid left to resist oxidisation.
We have had a run of fine tastings, including the Bordeaux Index en-primeur burgundy, New Zealand annual trade fair, a Portuguese trade tasting at Lords and today, the Enotria annual event.
A highlight was definitely the ben Glaetzer Amon -ra. In fact, the whole range were magnificent, also Henschke wines and Trimbach gewurtztraminer. Not overwhelmed by the Italian selection, but met Fontanafredda and others in preparation for the Barolo trip coming up and have arranged some Sunday tasting. Also a pleasure to bump into the great Robin of Swig.
It was with great delight that I fell upon Bennetts Fine Wine in the lovely town of Chipping Campden. Whilst the family were busying themselves way buying Christmas presents and coffee drinking, I luxuriated in the fantastic collection.
One of WanderCurtis’s favorites Kumeu River was represented in abundance as one of the first importers. I tried a 2008 Kumeu River pinot noir – smokey, rich, fruity and gorgeous with Christmas day roast beef and chicken in sherry and mango! Also went for Shaw and Smith M3 chardonnay 2008 – highly rated. This shop has a superb collection, and highly recommended to anyone passing through this truly unspoilt area of green rolling hills of our beautiful country.
Boxing Day evening was complemented by ‘The Caracal’, a South African Bordeaux blend – shared with my brother and washed down with Muga 2007. Another slightly blurry, very merry, antioxidant packed festive season.
Off to Bistro d’Aix in Crouch End tomorrow to investigate venues for our January ‘Four Decades of Bordeaux’ tasting.
Started with ‘The Crossroads’ chardonnay Hawkes Bay – abundance of tropical fruit – then Mt Beautiful Sauvignon Blanc, Canterbury, crisp classic NZ.
Joe brought over a taster of Yealands Gruner Veltliner, Marlborough, very aromatic, lovely balance. NZ could do very well with Gruner. It went well with gratin of prawns and smoked haddock.
NZ fillet of lamb and sweet potato with Mt Beautiful Pinot Noir – Canterbury Cheviot hills and Willunga Shiraz Viognier Mclaren Vale. A lovely varied selection of antipodean wines.
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.
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!
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.
WanderCurtis Wine 