Flash Blog: Rebel 10 Year Old Single Barrel

 

This post is part of a flash blog / mass blog / blog mob / flash mob organised by Steve Rush of the Whisky Wire, who kindly organised for samples to be sent out to the mob / the mass / the flashers (ok sorry I'll stop now).

It's part of range that includes whiskeys bottled without age statements, but presumably much closer to the four year mark that designates a Straight Bourbon. What with Kentucky being relatively hot and dry, spirits matured there come along much faster than they would in Scotland and releases with double digit ages are very much in the minority.

On top of that, this is an annual Single Barrel release, which means that, although the corn, wheat and malt mashbill are the same as last year's, and the process is the same, there will be subtle differences from year to year.

I have tasted some of the Rebel range before, so I consulted my notes, and hence what I'm describing now is very much in comparison with the 'standard' releases.

The nose is loud and proud Bourbon -  caramel, oak spice, sweetness, and I can see the family resemblance.

But the palate - Boom! - is much bigger and more punchy. It starts with a bold broad new oak spiciness. The spiciness builds (yes I did go and double check there isn't any Rye in the mashbill. It's that spicy) in the mid palate, along with a mouthcoating toffee sweetness, then the finish returns to fresh white oak.drying. new oak dryness.

The second taste is sweet and spicy (more sweetness than the first), with crème brûlée and cinder toffee. After a while I'm finding what seems like a grilled orange peel note, or perhaps orange oil that has been expressed onto grilled peaches - whatever it is, it's deliciously fruity.

In conclusion, this is an amped up version of the Rebel that places the oak front and centre and givs you something to chew on. A dram to contemplate and sip at your leisure.

Flash Blog: Yellowstone Select

 

Many years ago I worked in a caff. A moderately greasy spoon, where the chicken in a basket was deep frozen (and occasionally, still deep frozen when it reached the table). One of the weekly jobs was to swap over the five litre keg of cola syrup attached to the soft drinks dispenser, replacing the empty with a new, full one. That this was a once a week job will give you some idea of how concentrated said syrup was.

Smelling this dense liquid, it being the treacly quintessence of Coke, it was evident even to my naïve palate that an important aspect of cola is its citrus aspect. And yet even today I have to consciously look for that lime-y side of a glass of cola when it is delivered at the diluted, drinking strength.

None of the foregoing really has much to do with bourbon, except in two important points.

1) I nosed my glass of Yellowstone Select and smelled lime-y cola, and fell back through four decades to a time when I had only ever drunk Bells, or Grouse, or perhaps a stolen nip of Macallan Ten at Christmas time. When the height of sophistication would be to mix apple juice with Jack Daniels and call it Applejack.

Now, in my current job I taste a lot of liquids, in  many different categories. Whilst this is undeniably a lot of fun, it doesn't often provoke that kind of jaunt down memory lane. Whilst it's hardly a petite madeleine, this is definitely plus one to Yellowstone.

2) When I've finished with my tasting note for this glass of whiskey I'm going to take the rest of the sample of Yellowstone and mix it with Coke⁽¹⁾ and see where it takes me. I have high hopes.

So. Enough of the throat clearing and meandering preliminaries (as if this were some sort of recipe blog!)

This post is part of the flash blog organised by the Whisky Wire to taste and describe Yellowstone Select, a straight bourbon produced at the Limestone Branch distillery.

Yellowstone is a blend of four and seven year old straight bourbons, which is a decent age by American standards, if less impressive seeming in Scotland.

(Perhaps there ought to be something like dog years for whisk(e)y which isn't matured in a cold climate. Perhaps I should be looking at this and thinking, "ok, so a solid fifteen years maturation - in Kentucky years".)

On the nose there's the already mentioned citrus/lime aspect. Which, for me, shades rapidly into the plentiful coconut of Quercus Alba. It also promises sweetness. I can see a kind of icing sugar thing too.

Hah! The palate is much less sweet than I expected. Yes, there's a sweet fruit-syrup attack, but that very quickly gives way to dry, oaky spice, with menthol and cedar notes.

My initial conclusion is that this is a mixing bourbon. That dry spicy finish is crying out for a modifier or two.

And so on to the mini-Manhattan, which involves careful use of teaspoons and one small ice cube. (oh yes, and Cocchi and Regan's)

This. Is. Delicious. Lovely vibrant coconut vibes, icing sugar and Christmas spices. The Regan's orange bitters chimes⁽²⁾ in alongside the whiskey, and the strong vanilla of the vermouth tempers the drying oak finish. 

And so my final conclusion—at least until I do the Yellowstone / Cola thing—is that this is a very good mixing bourbon, especially if you have a sweet tooth.

(1) Please. Hand crafted artisanal cola, obviously. I simply didn't want to disturb the flow of the narrative.

(2) Or should that be, "chime"? I really can't decide, but I wouldn't want you to think I hadn't considered both options.

Cider With Honeysuckle (and no Indole)

I'm working through all the episodes of the Neutral Cider Hotel podcast. In the one I listened to last night, No Quilt For You, Queenie, James from Little Pomona talked about an aroma that I've encountered in a different context this week. It seems that the planets were aligned last night, for I recently shared a magnum of the very cider he mentioned, and there is honeysuckle in the garden, and I had to hand a preview sample of the next vintage.

 

It took me a little while to get into the Neutral Cider Hotel. It's a very relaxed four way chat (plus guests), but, as is often the case with podcasts (probably due to the huge success of My Favourite Murder), there are an awful lot of in jokes, and incoherent wheezy laughter at said jokes. As the Hoteliers frequently say, they want the podcast to feel like talking to your mates in the pub. In any case, I'm now at the stage where I'm sitting at the next table over, sipping a glass of something from the Three Counties, and enjoying the blether. If you have an interest in cider you should go check it out. (Or go check in. Or listen to it. One of those.)

 

Old Man and the Bee is a cider Little Pomona have made for four vintages now. It uses fruit from their home orchard, and mostly avoids oak. It's an attempt to express as purely as possible the year and the place.

(That's a magnum I was very kindly given by James. No label, but, you know, gift horse / mouth, yeah?)

My first impression is of plumpness, a soft, rounded ripeness. There is indeed a creamy florality which is honeysuckle adjacent. It's close to the creaminess of honey on buttered toast, which I think is perhaps why Martin on the podcast was reminded of oak, as that's an aroma I occasionally find when a fruity spirit has been matured in an ex bourbon cask.

This is a dry cider, but it give a strong impression of sweetness, so ripe are the fruit flavours. Yellow apples, shading into nectarine, with honey and a soft woody note. The finish evolves some spice, rather like the clove aspect of humbugs.

 

I used the phrase honeysuckle adjacent because there's an aspect to honeysuckle which I'm certain would not be welcome in cider, and that's indole. 

Indole is what makes shit smell of shit, but a tiny touch of it lends an animalic or musk note to perfumes. And it's found in honeysuckle.

I was lucky enough to experience this for the first time last month, on a humid evening after a blazing hot day.

 

The previous day I'd tweeted my happiness at the huge spread of honeysuckle and someone with a deep knowledge of aroma replied to say I should look out for the Indole aspect of the flower. So I went back and had another long sniff and sure enough, what I'd thought was something dead and rotting in the bushes was in fact coming off the flowers. Indole.

 

The conclusion to—nay, the moral of—this story is of course that we should remember that all tasting notes are approximations, and partial ones at that. Old Man and the Bee has the sweet, creamy, rose-adjacent aspect of honeysuckle, but (thankfully) not the the indole. And the spice aspect of Old Man is nearer to clove than the sandalwood I find in honeysuckle.

 

I do believe that's why we end up with the kind of word salad being gently mocked by Fake Booze this week, as an honest attempt to capture every aspect of a tasty drink ends up being more like what happens when you mix all of the paints on your palette.

 

If you like the sound of Old Man and the Bee you can grab a bottle from the Little Pomona webshop here.

Horse Chestnuts

Back in 2019 I learned from twitter that horse chestnuts are not just on trees, they're also on horses. I read a couple of blog posts, including this one, about the equine version, and then, seeing as I'm lucky enough to know some folk who are very horsy, I acquired some horse chestnuts.

They look like very thick chunks of dried skin. You could even mistake them for some sort of mineral (or perhaps a growth on a tree, heh).

Don't you think that looks awfully like a piece of flint? Of course, to touch it's much more like leather, but the appearance!

They grow on the back of horses legs, and when they're big enough they'll fall off, or be picked off in the course of grooming.

They're pretty stinky, but, for someone who is interested in aroma, they're also oddly compelling - kind of the way triple salted liquorice gets me: I think it's horrible, yet I can't help but want another piece.

I cut up some bits from four different horses, and put them into grain neutral spirit. I didn't have any plan for the resulting liquid, I just though it would be an interesting thing to do.

At this point I suppose a perfumer would go ahead and make up a blend or two, but I'm not a perfumer, I'm a drinks retailer, so instead I made some notes on the aromas. You'll be relieved to know I didn't absent-mindedly sip any of the liquids.

The base note across all four samples was waxed jackets (the UK brand I'm thinking of would be Barbour). All four also had an animalic, sweaty aroma, although, interestingly, in two of them this was unpleasant whereas in the other two it was really rather nice.

As I say, I'm not a perfumer, but I do think that a small fraction of horse chestnut could well add a leathery, animal note to a perfume.

If you're interested in flavour or aroma, I can most definitely recommend trying this for yourself. At the very least it's an excuse to go look at a horse.

My notes on four horse chestnut extracts

Martini (a nine year old)
Waxed jackets. It evolved a sour cheesy note, which reminded me of what you taste when you put the rind of a parmesan into a sauce, and once it's soft you eat it. Left in the glass the off notes vanished leaving a pleasant waxy-leathery aroma.

Yogi (a thirty-plus year old Shetland pony)
Stinky and cheesy, but also sweet. The most unpleasant of the four, and the least waxy-leathery.

Polar (a seven year old)
Hay-grassy & waxed jackets. Over time the grassy note went, to be replaced by the baseline waxed jacket note. The most pleasant of the four.

Unknown Horse #4
This one was the mildest of the samples. Alongside or over the baseline Barbour jacket there was a lifted, menthol, or mint note (or at least, something that tickles the nostrils). Over time an earthy note appeared.

Pure Dead Cramant

I recently attended a lunch event with Hervé Jestin of Champagne Leclerc Briant.

We tasted four of their wines, and he spoke at length about how they are made, and about biodynamic viticulture, and about Champagne. One of the ideas raised, which I didn't really understand, was the notion that the dosage for a champagne should speak to the wine, otherwise it won't benefit the finished product. He demonstrated this by sitting a glass of champagne on its side on a metal plinth which was connected by a wire to a pair of antennae which he then held over some sugar - there was no reaction or reading on the scale attached to the antennae, because the sugar had nothing to say to the wine. I didn't understand, but it surely was interesting.

The point of this was, I believe, to explain why Leclerc Briant is moving towards zero dosage wine making, and indeed to zero sulphur winemaking. On of the things that M. Jestin said was, "I want to train the wine to discuss with oxygen". And of course, until the relatively recent past, all wine making was done without the "benefit" of sulphur, so in a sense, M. Jestin merely wants to go back to the old ways. As I say, I don't really get biodynamic viticulture, but I do know that pretty much without exception I enjoy the end product, so I'm very happy to see more such wines.

The wines we tasted were the Brut Réserve, Extra Brut Premier Cru, Abyss, and Pure Cramant. They were all of very high quality, albeit very pricey. The Abyss didn't speak to me, but I thought the other three wines were complex, and I particularly enjoyed the fine mousse they all exhibited.

I want to single out the Pure Cramant in particular, as being a wine at the very edge of champagne-making: 100% Grand Cru Chardonnay from Cramant, fermented in used oak, unfined, unfiltered, five years sur lattes and then bottled with zero dosage and zero sulphur. And the result? A big, rounded, lush, ripe wine, as pure an expression of white and yellow stone fruit as you could wish for. My tasting notes also mention cranberries and 'something balsamic'. Wonderful wine. But, paradoxically, my enduring taste memory of it is of a warm, pink, lively, ripeness. Pink fruit, not white or yellow. It has somehow evolved in my memory into something approaching the Platonic ideal of rosé champagne.

Can one attribute that complexity, that evolving taste memory, to the biodynamic viticulture? I've no idea, but it surely was lovely.

More on Pure Cramant here.

A Negative Tasting Note

My main interest in writing about booze is trying to capture flavours in words. This is, of course, a doomed enterprise, but it has the merit of being entertaining (and offers the side benefit of occasionally getting me sloshed).

Over the years I have tinkered with many different structures or schemas or layouts for tasting notes, from many different sources, which aim to help one record various aspects of a drink's flavours, but I don't think I've ever come across anybody advocating the negative tasting note - recording everything that a drink isn't.

(I should say that I'm not sure that it's all that helpful in itself, but I certainly find it useful as part of a larger descriptive effort. Absences can define a presence, to an extent)

So, here it is, a negative tasting note for

That Boutique-y Whisky Company Millstone 6 Year Old, 48.9%

Nose
Not smoky.
Not estery.
Not malty.
Not dry.
Not dirty.
Not faint.
Not feinty.
Not soft.
Not stony.
Not grassy.
Not purple.
Not green.
Not yellow.
Not floral.

Palate
Not light.
Not dry.
Not soft.
Not malty.
Not spicy.
Not fruity.
Not raw.
Not green.
Not yellow.
Not sour.
Not bitter.
Not oily.
Not coffee.
Not sherry.
Not vanilla.
Not bacon.
Not diesel.

Frustrating, isn't it? And yet accurate.

Knightor Trevannion 2016

I tasted this as part of a "West Coast Wines" themed evening for Sweet Wine Wednesday. I dithered for quite a while between this wine and a Camel Valley Bacchus. I know, I know, I should have gone for the other, seeing as it's located that bit closer to the Atlantic, but on the few occasions I've had Bacchus I've not been particularly impressed.

Knightor are a small outfit located close to the Eden Project and St Austells. The current farm dates to the mid 19th century, but their website says that there are references to the property dating to 1305. (Not particularly relevant if your vines were only planted in 2006, but on the other hand probably quite appealing in a wedding venue.) They say they have 17000 vines, but I can't tell from the tone of their website if this is a way of saying they're really getting big, or that they're really boutique.

Trevannion is a blend of Siegerrebe and Schonberger, two pink skinned varietals. Siegerrebe is a 1929 cross of Madelaine Angevine and Savagnin Rose. It's favoured for cool climates - there's even some grown in Denmark, according to the big book of grapes. Schonberger is another cross, of Pinot Noir and Pirovano I, and in turn Pirovano I is a cross of Chasselas Rose and Muscat of Hamburg. (Is this too much grape breeding information?)

We're told that both varieties were picked when very ripe. They were cool fermented separately in stainless steel, then left on the lees for eight months before blending and bottling.

My initial impression is a very strong aroma memory of some rather rustic vin gris from the middle Loire - a wine which I remember being rather rustic but extremely gluggable.

The nose is fresh and fairly aromatic, with rose petals (or tinned lychees if you prefer), which evolves into a fairly elegant perfume, perhaps something like soap

The palate is strongly aromatic and off dry, with a subtle Muscat or Gewurz-like spiciness. The finish is long and warming, if a little simple.

Over time the wine becomes more floral, but this is probably just me over-chilling it.

Just like that Loire vin gris, this stuff is stupendously gluggable. And well worth the £19 I paid for it. If you see this one, I urge you to buy it. And don't over-chill it.

Wine Trivia!
That vin gris which the Trevannion called to mind was from the valley of Le Loir, a river which flows into La Sarthe, which in turn joins La Loire. The appellation is the (mostly deservedly) obscure Coteaux-du-vendômois. But very gluggable.

Beavertown Sapling IPA

On the one hand: oh dear, another Beavertown special. If only I still used ratebeer I could look it up and see what it is. Nice graphics tho.

 And on the other: 65 IBUs? Yep, I'll take one ta! And hey, it's Beavertown - gotta be good, right?

Cracking open the can I can smell the smell that means lots of bitter hops - but what is it? Resinous? Green? Dank? (However nebulous a descriptor that last one is)

So. It's not particularly fruity. Perhaps some yellow citrus notes. Not too tart. There's a fresh white wood thing. A peeled stick maybe? Or is that just me channelling the cool label?

There is a smell I can only describe as bitter. Clearly, this ain't a smell according to the current model of human olfaction, so I must be smelling some hard to verbalise aroma which I generally associated with bittering hops.

Pouring out the last of the can I'm sooking (or "huffing", if you like) the very final dregs trapped behind the lip of the opening. As always, this creates a fine aerosol or mist of what is—at least in this sort of beer—the very essence of the bitterness.

If you haven't done this before you really should (but go and get a properly hoppy can to do it with). It highlights a particular aspect of the beer in a way you don't otherwise experience. As when rubbing heavily peated malt whisky onto your hands to find the cereal behind the peat, or misting your tongue with brandy from an atomiser spray, it's good to explore flavour from odd angles occasionally.

In the particular case of Sapling, the huff reveals a powerfully bitter dry earthy sandiness behind which there is sweet yellow fruit juice, although not orange. Perhaps it's one of those odd mixtures of banana, apple, and a token gesture's worth of pineapple. I think I mean 'smoothie'.

I'm still not getting very close to what the bitter-associated smell is. Let's just leave it at "bitter" and ask the smell scientists to revamp their model to fit.

The taste is satisfyingly dry. There is a juiciness and a persistent bitter hoppiness which dries things out nicely.

A lemonade note. Metallic hops. Ripe yellow fruit - perhaps tropical.

This is a very, very fine beer, and especially in its 65 IBUs - the best kind of bitter.

I have but two complaints. The first is that 330ml is not quite enough, even at a strength of 7.1%. 500ml would perhaps be excessive, but 440 is a pleasant number. The second is that the ABV is entirely deceptive. Only in the thick texture is there any indication that the alcohol is higher than normal.

In conclusion, well done to Beavertown, good work. And, by way of a post script, it occurred to me some time after I'd written my notes on this beer that maybe the name is quite apt, since it reminds me of peeled green sticks. Or perhaps not.

Little Pomona C'est Si Bon-Bonne

My first thought is that the tannins are beautiful. Present, prominent, yet in no way abrasive. They curl round your tongue and in behind your teeth like a cat settling on your shoulders; it's lovely but if it it weren't lovely the cat wouldn't care and would still do it. Purring, rounded, but irresistible.

Then there's a metallic, earthy note, which isn't quite iron. Is this bottling perhaps slightly less clean than other Little Pomonas? After all, relinquishing control of the maturation of a cider to an oak barrel, however carefully sourced, however thoroughly the bunghole has been sniffed, is always something of a risk.

Peach pits. And a rather pleasant acidity.

They're definitely mineralic, these tannins. Almost blue steel (as when one has made steel tough by heating it, perhaps by drilling it at too high a speed or without lubricants).

It seems to me tonight that of all the Little Pomonas this is the one where tannic structure is most important.

From memory I think I can dismiss The Rainbow and The Unicorn as flighty creatures of fruit.

The Old Man and the Bee had a ripe richness which dominated other aspects of its character. Feat of Clay was brighter and sunnier - youthful choirboys beautifully chanting psalms rather than the Mongolian throat songs of Bonbonne.

If this were wine I'd call these tannins chalky. Can I do that with cider?

Blue steel.

It's too full bodied to compare with Chablis, and there are these compelling tannins. But the blue steel.

It stays with you. The tannins don't want to leave. Like Secret Service agents, inexorably polite, Ma'am-ing to left and right and not moving no matter what you say.

Behind all that tannic action, there's something which might be fruit cake or dried apricots.

Here, tonight, this is the best cider I've yet tasted from Little Pomona, and I think it's a strong contender for my cider of the year. You should seek it out and try it.

(Now, quite clearly I'm not in any way impartial. The owners and makers of Little Pomona are very dear friends of mine, and I've helped out at every harvest since 2014. But that aside, I do think this is an exceptional bottle of cider)

Boring technical stuff: C'est Si Bon-Bonne is a dry, still cider from Herefordshire. It's made mainly from Dabinett, along with Harry Masters Jersey, Ellis Bitter, and Foxwhelp (I helped pick and press these last two). It was a wild ferment in an ex bourbon barrel, left for six months then racked into glass bonbonnes and aged without oxygen for a year.

You can read more about Little Pomona here.

Pilton Ice

Is it just me, or does everybody think of the Piltdown Man when they see a bottle of Pilton? Just me? Right. Fair enough.

This empty bottle held a most rare, and most tasty, liquid. Britain doesn't have the right climate to permit cider makers to make ice cider al fresco, so there's a good deal of faffing about with chest freezers, not to mention the difficulty of pressing frozen apples, or, as has happened in this case, the freezing and slow careful thawing of already pressed juice. The result is delightful.

(I should say, by the way, that this tasting note was written at a point when the bottle had been open a few days)

Colour is a vivid red amber. Not quite copper. Vivid and beautiful.

The nose is very earthy. It seems tannic  - so I guess it's making me think of apple skins. Mossy sticks. Spices and apple skins. Herbal? Aye, herbal, green-grey, lichen on stones . It's a fascinating herbiness. Grey-green, but not as sweet as sage.

The taste is tangy sweet, but with drying tannins. Earthy again. Vivid fruit acidity. Red fruits. Dark. Not yellow. Perhaps some green gooseberry acid. The tannins are very gentle. There's some bitterness in the finish, but it serves to balance the intense sweet attack. A delicious, complex drink.

I'd class it as Outstanding. Can I have some more please?

Tannins of Wood and Skin

I've thought about it every time I opened the cupboard and saw the can looking at me (and it's been in there for a solid month and a half). I can't escape the feeling that I'm missing some sort of cultural reference or in joke or something. I've googled 'BAE' and think I have a handle on that, but then, a badly formed search term can throw one off the scent forever.

Despite all that, I'm reasonably confident that I can still assess this beer fairly. If not, well, oh dear, how sad, never mind.

So, what I'm drinking is a Sour Ale with Pinot Noir grapes, aged in French Oak. I don't know anything about Stillwater Artisanal except that they're American (and that only because of the label).

This is a beer not heavily carbonated - although the style doesn't seem to lend itself to a good head. (Note to self: Investigate relationship between pH, acidity, brewing adjuncts, and head formation / retention) It has an attractive red-amber colour with an interesting (and, to me at least, unusual) gold rim.

The nose starts off with the sort of grubby, earthy sweetness that French oak so often gives to beer or whisky (something to do with malt perhaps?). Then there's the flat sweet note of sour beer, and something a bit straw-like - akin to a cider, but not as sweet.

The palate has a sherbet-y acidity. Perhaps it's a combination of oak sweetness with kettle souring but it seems more sweetie-like than many sours.

(NB! I'm assuming this is a kettle sour, purely on the basis that it lacks the depth of a koelschip/lambic style beer)

There's less tannin than I'd expect given the Pinot Noir grapes and French oak, although now that I've mentioned Pinot, I can indeed taste red fruit. And perhaps the tannins of wood and skin are coming through in the bitter finish this beer has. Or perhaps not.

The red fruit notes are really quite generic - there's not a specific fruit I can pick out.

I would rate this beer as Good. It's more interesting than most kettle sours, but then they have thrown Pinot grapes and French oak at it, so one would expect some complexity.

I'm still not sure what to think about the name. I suppose brewers produce so many different brews that after a while it must be difficult to think of new names. Certainly, it's no sillier than, say, Disco Forklift Truck. I suspect it comes back to my original point -  I feel that I'm not in on the joke.

I Might Change My Name To Hendre Huffcap

My very good friends TallAsAVan and DrinkBritain kindly gave us this bottle last Christmas. They said that it was something rather special, so when the Prodigal Wean came up the road for a few days that seemed like a good occasion to open it.

I could tell straight away that it was something out of the ordinary. The muzzle took nine half twists to remove. Nine, I tell ye! And take a look at that picture. Have you ever seen such a nubbly little cork, even on a bottle of gueuze?

The three varieties of perry pear used for this bottling are Antricotin, Rock, and Hendre Huffcap. Gotta love perry, just for the fruit variety names! 

To start with I was a wee bit concerned that it seemed very bretty but that cleared off pretty quickly, so maybe it was just bottle stink.

The nose was very complex, and quite intense. There was pear and elderflower, mossy sticks, a touch of what might have been spicy honey, plus fresh silage or cheesy straw. Inexplicably, the overall effect reminded me of stir fry. The Prodigal Wean liked it too - she suggested, "the fresh greenness of spring onions without the onionyness", and, "ginger?”.

The palate was light and airy (one of the things I  love about good perry - that it can be so light and yet also intense). It tasted of green apple skins, more of the green sticks from the nose, a touch of clean dark earth, and honeyed pear juice. 

And just to wrap it all up, there was such a lovely clean finish. Pretty much everything about this bottle was perfect.

So thank you DrinkBritain & TallAsAVan for the gift, and thanks Wean, for that spring onion tasting note. 

Things Not To Do With A Pineapple

That Boutique-y, the hydra-headed bottling offshoot of Master of Malt, produce some very fine drinks. Indeed, I was lucky enough to attend a tasting hosted by the estimable and very congenial Dave Worthington earlier this summer where he let us try a two decades old Tormore which was quite the best expression I've ever had from that distillery.

However, their approach is somewhat scattershot. And whilst an open mind and a willingness to experiment is to be commended, I'd respectfully suggest that some things might be better left unbottled.

As witness this oddity, That Boutique-y Gin Company Spit-Roasted Pineapple Gin Batch 2.

According to the accompanying press release, during the second Golden Age of the Cocktail fruit gins were all the rage. But then, and again according to the press release, the second Golden Age of the Cocktail was the 1950s-1960s, an era which also gave us whiskey flavoured toothpaste and jellied salads. Which makes their judgement in matters of taste suspect, wouldn't you say?

The nose is certainly very pineapple-y. Not fresh pineapple, but the juice, from a carton, or perhaps the syrup from a tin. Hang on though, where's the juniper? Seriously, there's no juniper.

The palate is suprising. It's very thick, sweet, syrupy, and sticky. I'm reminded (although I'm pretty sure it's a false memory) of an old liqueur that's been at the back of the drinks cupboard for years, perhaps a dodgy knock-off Benedictine clone, or a not very orange-y Cointreau-alike. I suppose the faux-Benedictine memory must be the gin botanicals.

In conclusion, bleh. If this had a clear gin character, or fresher pineapple notes, then maybe. But as it is, bleh.

Rereading the blurb, I see that pineapple gin was supposedly also popular in the 1920s. Which means that after this batch of 3300 bottles is done, we ought not to see any more until the 2060s. Fingers crossed.

Sweet Wine Wednesday - Aged Sauvignon Blancs

Sweet Wine Wednesday, a Glasgow-based wine trade tasting group, has been on the go, sporadically, for nigh on ten years, and for most of that time it's been a running joke that one of us would threaten to bring along his vertical of aged Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Well, it finally happened, and it was a delightful surprise. (I hesitated over my choice of adjective there. Really, I need a word which means delightful with a touch of astonishment)

We tasted three vintages of Villa Maria Clifford Bay Sauvignon Blanc, the 2001, 2002, and 2003. The oldest of these was bottled under cork.

All three were in very good condition, very clean and lively, with plenty of fruit still showing. I'd say that the ripe tropical notes of a fresh Kiwi Sauv had diminished in all of them, and green flavours were much more to the fore. "Peas and asparagus" is a bit of a Sauvignon Blanc cliché, but it was very applicable here.

For me, the 2002 was the most tart, and I found plenty of gooseberry notes, as well as an intriguing green chilli aroma. The 2003 rather reminded us of Riesling, in that it seemed to have a mineralic or petrol note, and a distinctly sherbet-like palate.

But the real revelation, and my favourite, was the 2001, the last vintage of this wine to be bottled under cork. There was a richness to it, a creaminess, which I've never encountered in a Sauvignon Blanc before. It reminded me of rice pudding or lemon cream. It was wonderful.

I can't quite credit that I'm actually writing this down, but the conclusion that we took away from this tasting was that we ought to lay down some Awatere Valley Sauvignon Blanc, with a label tied to the necks saying, "Not to be drunk before 2030".

What I can credit, and say most firmly, is that New Zealand winemakers, and Villa Maria in particular, have risen considerably in my estimation. Whilst I've always known that they are experts in capturing the fresh fruit flavours of wine to be drunk young, I never entertained the notion that these sorts of wine could be in it for the long haul. Until now....

A note on Nicolas François Billecart 2002

I hosted a champagne tasting last night, with wines from Pierre Peters, Fleury Père et Fils, Palmer & Cie, Moutard, and Billecart-Salmon.

It was my first tasting of a Pierre Peters wine, in this case the Cuvée de Reserve Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru, and rather disappointingly I didn't really understand the wine, although I suppose that's an excuse for another bottle.

But that's not the main thing I wanted to say. I've tasted the 2002 Nicolas François three times now; in 2015, last year, and last night. The first of these was in ideal conditions, and the wine, while clearly still very youthful and tightly wound, also managed to be reasonably expressive. Last year's bottle was completely unexpressive, so I was a little apprehensive about opening it again last night, but I have rather done Krug and Dom Pom to death over the last twelve months, so Billy it was.

And I'm so glad I did. It was beautifully expressive. Lean, yes, tight, indeed, but it had such lovely aromas of white flowers, and there was a slight saline edge to it which I hadn't seen before. It was the wine of the night by a country mile, and I look forward very much to tasting it again in another year's time.

Tasting Notes: Some Things To Read

This post gathers up some links to articles (and one or two books) I've read which have some bearing on the matter of Tasting Notes, and which I've found useful. I then give a brief summary of Peynaud's classification of types of tasting, and finish with a quote from the master.

I ended up in the booze trade by accident, and stayed because I found it congenial. Over the years my particular interest has shifted from topic to topic, region to region, but whatever my current obsession I've always been very keen on writing tasting notes. It's not the easiest habit to acquire, and the craft of writing good tasting notes isn't learned overnight. Indeed, after sixteen years I'm still trying to improve my tasting ability.

A good starting point for writing tasting notes is the Wine & Spirits Education Trust Systematic Approach to Tasting. It imposes a structure and vocabulary which is very helpful when one is just setting out on the tasting journey.

The Taste of Wine, by Émile Peynaud, whilst perhaps a little dated in places, remains the foundational text for tasters. It introduced me to many useful tasting exercises, and is beautifully written too.

Having read The Taste of Wine, it is useful to then read Classification and hierarchy in the discourse of wine: Émile Peynaud’s The Taste of Wine, by Nigel Bruce. This is an analysis of Peynaud's book from (I think) an anthropological point of view. Reading this probably won't make you a better taster, but it will certainly make you think more deeply about Peynaud.

Next, a couple of short pieces by Andrew Jefford, plus a slightly longer one from Bianca Bosker. These all address the perceived shortcomings in present day tasting notes, and suggest a few ways to improve your notes.

http://www.decanter.com/learn/how-to/how-to-write-wine-tasting-notes-272531/

http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/opinion/jefford-on-monday/jefford-on-monday-tasting-notes-the-shame-of-the-wine-world-272488/

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/is-there-a-better-way-to-talk-about-wine

Lastly I must mention Gordon Shepherd's books Neurogastronomy and Neuroenology. Reading them has given me a much better understanding of the workings of the human sense of smell.


Some notes derived from The Taste of Wine, Emile Peynaud 
All tasting can be classed as either:

• hedonic – purely for pleasure
• analytical – tasting done with some professional or commercial aim in mind 

It is important to be clear in advance what is the purpose of an analytical tasting, as otherwise the results may not be useful.

Peynaud divides analytical tasting into three types:

Descriptive tasting – studying, identifying, and listing all of one's sensory reactions to a drink, and explaining them as far as possible according to the raw materials and production methods of the drink. One important part of descriptive tasting is the use of a precise vocabulary, which is understood by other professional tasters.

Differentiation between & identification of samples – necessary for comparisons between eg different drink recipes, or when making a choice between two similar products. Often done 'blind', so as to minimise preconceptions. This type of analytical tasting often leads into:

Appraisal and quality ranking – assessing a product in terms of commercial quality, for example in choosing which of two rums to stock, or in tasting a range of one product type at a trade show

All analytical tasting is a form of comparison (even when only tasting one sample – in this case, one is comparing with memories of previous similar products), but none of the three types of analysis listed above includes personal preference. The key thing in becoming a good analytical taster is to set aside one's likes and dislikes, at least until after the analysis is done.

Tasting accurately is a skill which can only be acquired with regular practise, and all tasters will have good and bad tasting days. The following quote (about blind tasting) sums it up nicely

...all of us go through some periods that are better than others, during which we can be remarkably successful at blind tasting. I know of tasters who live by a reputation forged on two or three inspired guesses. I myself have experienced moments of glory when everything seemed obvious to me, and I have also drunk the cup of humility to the dregs when, unable to interpret any clue at all, I have ended up making enormous blunders. Blind tasting is one of the finest schools for teaching modesty

Domaine Trimbach: Some Wines

To the capital city and to Good Brothers for a tasting with Julien Trimbach, the young man who will one day be the 13th generation winemaker at Domaine Trimbach, one of the best Alsace producers (top three, I'd say). He's a remarkably accomplished speaker, and had some very interesting things to say.

I've never heard another winemaker (or perhaps I should say apprentice winemaker) talk so much about the taste of soil. Perhaps that reflects the diversity of soil types in Alsace, which range from granite, to limestone, to iron-rich soils, and even volcanic to a kind of crumbled granite called grés de Vosges.

We tasted through eleven wines taken from the currently available range, plus a beautiful Pinot Gris from 1990. The house style is decidedly dry, which suits my palate very well.

Riesling Réserve 2014
The grapes for this cuvee are harvested from several different soil types and vineyards, but M Trimbach described it as having a "limestone nose". It's a zingy, fresh wine, with intense lime and grapefruit aromas and a long lasting citric acidity. Delicious.

Riesling Sélection de Vielles Vignes 2012
Described by M. Trimbach as "a classic vintage", he also told us that for this vintage 80% of the fruit is from the Vorderer-Haguenau vineyard, from vines over 80yo. At 4.5 grams per litre of residual sugar it's still a dry wine, but definitely softer than the Reserve. I found a beautiful waxy note on both the nose and palate, and the citrus fruit elements were so ripe they seemed almost tropical.

Cuvée Frédéric Emile 2008
Trimbach are famous for their refusal to use the Alsatian Grand Cru designations on their labels (although that is changing now), and Freddy Emile is in fact a blend of Riesling from two different Grand Cru vineyards, so they wouldn't be allowed to label it as such. That doesn't stop it being a fabulous drop. Where the Vielles Vignes was showing spicy notes, this has evolved into savouriness, while still showing the intense citrus fruit of the younger wines. The texture was wonderfully buttery too.

Clos Sainte Hune 2008
M. Trimbach had stressed that the company likes to hold back wines until they are ready for release, but I guess that's not feasible in this case. Even López de Heredia in Rioja don't wait a quarter century to release Vina Tondonia. And that's the sort of time to mature that I think this wine probably needs.

The Clos Ste Hune is a lieu dit within the Rosacker Grand Cru in Hunawihr. There are just 1.67 hectares of sixty year old Riesling vines, yielding a mere 10,000 bottles annually, on average. Clos Ste Hune's soil is a kind of shell filled limestone called muschelkalk, which is the kind of uniquely Alsatian word which illustrates the mixed Franco-German heritage of the region nicely.

The nose showed petrol and a leafiness - not quite leaf mold, but old leaves. There was also a silky, creamy, mineralic whiteness, as if I were smelling white chocolate, but sans vanilla, or some sort of very rich white flowery perfume.

The palate was soft, rounded, and intense, but very, very tight. It was very well balanced, with a dominant flavour of lime. Of all the wines, this was the only one which seemed warm in the finish. To me, it was on the same level of quality as the other wines I tasted, which I'm inclined to attribute to its relative youth.

Pinot Gris Réserve 2014
Described as "Pinot d'expression", I found this to be very savoury and spicy, indeed almost meaty. I found chestnuts on the nose, which I've never seen in a wine before. The palate was much more about fruit, with green apples and grapefruit, plus a leafier version of the spices from the nose.

Pinot Gris Réserve Personelle 2013
Made with grapes from the Grand Cru of Osterberg, this wine was rather gentler than the 2014, and there was more fruit on the nose; ripe, honeyed yellow apples, even a touch of banana. The palate was sweet and rich, with a lovely soft lemon sherbet finish.

Gewurztraminer Réserve 2011
Less intense than the previous wines, this showed classic Gewurz notes of rose, lychee, and/or turkish delight (take your pick. Or we could just agree to use Gewurztraminer as a descriptor). The palate was very easy going, with a tasty background note of dry savoury spice which somehow made me think of suede.

Gewurztraminer Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre 2011
Drawn from two Grand Cru vineyards, Altenberg Mandelberg, this wine smelt more spicy than the Reserve, but had less of the floral elements. The palate was riper, too, with the fruit veering into mango territory and a lovely broad mid-toned spiciness.

Pinot Noir Réserve 2015
This was a surprise - a tasty surprise. From a dry vintage, and made "without oak" (actually 80 hectolitre very old oak tanks), it was juicy, fruity, clean, and utterly gluggable. Or, as M. Trimbach more elegantly put it, "not an intellectual wine". The nose was cherry syrup, the palate was redcurrants. Lightly chilled on a warm day, this would be gone in twenty minutes.

Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives 2008
This wine perhaps whould have been aired for a little longer, as it initially showed that hint of cabbage which occasionally appears in old whites. With time it developed concentrated buttery and mossy notes. The palate was sweet, with butter orange peel, some green lime notes, and a surprisingly light body for a VT.

Gewurztraminer Vendages Tardives 2014
This was described as being a "difficult vintage".

A nose of ripe roses and powdered ginger, which evolved over time to show some leafiness and a slight mushroom character. The palate was very fresh, light, and completely unsticky - brilliant acidity. I found flavours of ripe yellow apples and honey.

Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives 1990
A wee treat from the cellar to finish off. If you made a plate of wholemeal toast with lashings of butter and runny honey, and then took away the toast, then you'd have the nose of this wine – except of course that buttered toast is never really elegant, and the wine was so very elegant.

The palate was soft and elegantly glamorous, with plenty of acidity to suggest that the vintage will evolve for many years to come. It was much, much sweeter than the other VTs, and had a glorious complex spiciness which might have been cedar wood.

Beech Leaf Gin

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, so I picked a load of freshly budded beech leaves and put them in a glass jar with a litre of gin dregs.

It must be seven or eight years since I last made noyau, but I was inspired to have another go by @_littlebrowndog, a fellow member of the whisky world who is also responsible for the fascinating #projectPEAT.

The discarded scraps of bud. Very fiddly.

In the past I've not managed to catch the leaves at quite the earliest stage, but this time I was able to select the freshly budded leaves, many of which still had the wispy pink bud covering. This made preparing the leaves rather fiddly, but they were so soft (and importantly, not at all waxy) that the process of extracting flavour is sure to be much faster.

The gin dregs were selected from about forty different gins on the simple basis of whether on not I consider them to be any good. So the bland, the odd, and those with any off notes were rejected. It does mean that there are rather a lot of botanicals competing with the fagus silvestris, but it's so long since I've made noyau that everthing about the process is once again experimental.

I'll update this blog post in a wee while (a few days, a few weeks? Not sure yet) once I reckon the gin is sufficiently green (although I seem to remember it's more of a yellow than green).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freshly picked leaves

Leaves, jar, but no gin.

My Big Book of Grapes

A few years back I received the wonderful gift of Wine Grapes : A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, including their Origins and Flavours, by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding, and José Vouillamoz.

It came in very handy last night on tasting this Lyrarakis Psarades Dafni 2015. It was by far the most unusual wine I have tasted in the last I don't know how many months. Just look at my tasting note:

Nose: Vermouth, bay leaves, herbs. slightly sherried. A green, nutty note.

Palate: Dry, mid- bodied, mid acidity, mid alcohol. Herbal, green, bay leaves. Very very distinctive, unusual, delicious.

No kidding, this wine tasted remarkably like Noilly Prat. It was delicious.

So anyway, turning to Wine Grapes I learned that Dafni is a variety from the Greek island of Kríti (aka Crete), which had all but disappeared by the end of the 1980s. Fortunately, Lyrarakis, the producers of this lovely wine, continued to cultivate it, and is now back up to around 15 hectares. It seems that it needs to be intensively pruned for low yields in order to give these lovely flavours, which is perhaps why it fell out of favour.

I'm so glad it survived. I don't suppose I'd want to drink it all the time, but for a food-friendly change of style it's just about perfect.

If you don't yet have a copy of Wine Grapes, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's worth it for the pedigree charts alone. Here's a not very good picture of the entry for Dafni:

Tasting Note: If Savoury Frangipane Were A Thing

To be honest, I only wrote this tasting note because I wanted to use the title. That aside, I'm enjoying a great glass of wine.

Vajra is an absolutely top notch producer of wines in Piemonte, Italy. This bottle is from an estate that Vajra bought towards the end of the 2000s. It's Luigi Baudana Dragon 2015, a fantastic blend of 50% Chardonnay, 30% Sauvignon Blanc, 15% Riesling and 5% Nascetta (whatever the heck that is).

My tasting note:

Nose:  Complex, nutty, and herbal, with a suggestion of something phenolic (or terpenes?) possibly analogous to the petrol note in Riesling. If savoury frangipane were a thing, this is how it would smell.

Palate: Complex, rounded, and delicious. The acidity is somewhere between lemon juice and grapefruit pith. Green notes are less in evidence than on the nose. There's something of the phat of a brazil nut. A very clean refreshing finish. Nothing of the individual grape varieties, but that is absolutely not a criticism.

Conclusion: This is superb wine, and awfully cheap for what it offers. Also, it has a dragon on the label.