The Fox has changed his spots

There really is quite a lot of wine out there. You can't track every wine through every vintage. Sometimes this throws up surprises.

It's two years, and two vintages, since I have tasted d'Arenberg's Feral Fox Pinot Noir, and I was really rather surprised by the way it has changed. It is much, much lighter than in the past. I followed this wine from the 2002 to 2006 vintage without seeing any change from the rich, concentrated, McLaren Vale style - the anti-Burgundy, as it were.

Savoury - soy, minerals, stones - and also juicy like cherries, the 2008 vintage is still a straightforward sort of a Pinot, but much less concentrated than the 2006 was. I wasn't alone in this judgement, B said so too.

I don't think the wine is worse, or better, for the change (it's a relaxed juicy, 3+), but it is surprising, and I can imagine that people who liked it in the past might be disappointed by this year's version.

Where there's life...

... there's pleasure.

In this case, it was the second half of a bottle of d'Orschwihr Bollenberg Riesling '08 which I had left in the fridge for a couple of days. The life in it was expressed as a lovely tension, a pull back and forth between sweet and dry, from lime-splashed minerality to soft honey, an excellent 4.

On the following night the wine was still there, if quieter, but very refreshing, suggestive of the moist smell of a damp but sunny glade early in the morning.

Another day later and there was only a one-dimensional grapefruity sourness - the genie had fled the bottle: no life, and pleasure only in using the last half glass to enhance a tomato sauce.

So, lesson learnt, I shan't leave Riesling any longer than three days. Or perhaps I shall. After all, to be entertained by the same wine for four days is pretty good value for money, don't you think?

( Interesting aside. d'Orschwihr's website says the 2007 Bollenberg Riesling is from a site of 1.5 hectares yielding 15 hectolitres per hectare. Assuming that the 2008 vintage is the same there were only, hmmm, 2800 bottles made. So if you like the sound of this one, the answer is probably, "tough cheese".)

Dill pickle is tasty...

... but it's even tastier when it's actually tequila which manages to smell of dill, and popcorn, and bubblegum, and grappa.

At a Bibendum tasting a very persuasive chap called Will was holding forth in barnstorming fashion about "the best tequila in the world". I was enjoying a senescent champagne (Bruno Paillard Blanc de Blancs 95), but so persuasive was he that I tried the El Tesoro Silver, then the Reposado, then the Añejo, and lo, I was converted. Well, converted is too strong a word, since I already like grappa, but certainly I was mightily impressed.

These are complex spirits, with great depth of flavour, and some really quite unusual flavours at that. Dill I have already mentioned, but what about freshly toasted cumin, greenness, and even a muscat grape character? Quite lovely, and all wrapped up in a delicate texture, with no harshness. I wonder if they would go with gherkins....

Pink, Fizzy, and English. Yum

As I may have mentioned, TallAsAVan is no longer Malbecista-in-Chief. These days, it seems, he takes a wider view, if the bottles he left with us on his last visit are a guide.

And so to England, in the shape of Chapel Down Vintage Reserve English Rose (although I Swear I couldn't see a vintage date anywhere on the bottle)

It's a very pretty wine, pale salmon pink, with a slightly sweet nose which hints at sweet spices, in the same way that certain champagnes are spicy. I like the creamy mousse very much, and there is a lovely coppery or mineral flavour in there.

My rather disparaging tasting note says, "not quite the depth of good champagne but v good fizz". This is harsh; it is the best English fizz I've yet tasted, and a definite excellent, 4.

I'm a drink you don't meet every day

It's a malt whisky - except it ain't, yet. Abhainn Dearg, one of the new breed of craft distlleries (trans: small, hand-made, local), have just released a limited quantity of spirit. Legally, it won't be whisky until late in 2011.

I tasted it at McSorley's, straight from a 30 litre oloroso sherry cask. "Spirit of Lewis" is a complex malt, with an interesting back and forth of flavours. The texture is light and airy - not watery, but airy, like good Condrieu. It is also very like grappa, very spirity, but there is also a big whack of honey and nougat, and a little milk chocolate.

The palate is delicate. There's green leafy, cigar, seashells, and plenty of sweetness. With water it moves from grappa towards a malty whisky character. I couldn't find any peat in it. In conclusion it is a good one (good one = 4+), and already very drinkable, especially compared with other new make spirits I have tried.

I tried to describe it to someone, and they said, "so it's like Jura then", but I think a better comparison, assuming a few years in cask, would be to Abunadh.

Sweet Wine Wednesday # 11

Winemakers do some odd things, but occasionally you taste the result and wonder why everyone isn't doing likewise.

Larry Brooks at Marmesa Vineyards in the Central Coast region of California decided that, ahead of the main harvest, he would go through the Pinot Noir picking the botrytised grapes and then make them into a sweet wine.

Marmesa Red Harvest Dessert Pinot Noir 2006 is a beautiful dusky rose-pink colour. It smells fantastic - tea and roses and freshness, and tastes just as good. There's a buttery texture to it, and tangy oranges into orange/lime marmalade. The 18% residual sugar - that's more than many Tokays - is well balanced with acidity. Altogether a fantastic wine. (fantastic = 4++(-5?), by the by)

We also tasted a Spanish oddity. Tasted blind I took it for some sort of sherry but in fact the Reserva Especial de Rotllan Torra 12anys comes from the north-east of the country, from Priorat. It's made from Garnacha and Carignan, aged in ancient barrels for four years and then in glass bonbons for another eight, estufagem style ("changes in temerature rust and produce the mature wine"). Yes, it does say 'rust'.

It has a complex nose, strongly sherried or rancio, with elements of cardamom spice alongside lanolin or Nivea. The palate is bone dry and sour green citrus, almost tamarind-sour. You might distinguish it from sherry by noting that it isn't quite as bracing. Not bracing, but still an excellent 4+.

Chile in Helensburgh

Off to a formal tasting for a very knowledgeable group, in the grand surroundings of the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club.

It became apparent early on that they were really quite traditional in their tastes, falling into two camps, Classic French and Beefy Oz, with only one kindly soul declaring themselves in favour of the Terra Andina Carmenère Rosé, which is a shame, for it is a lovely wine really, refreshingly sharp, water-light, and showing the traditional strawbs-n-cream flavours.

The other Carmenère of the evening was from the De Martino Legado range, and red of hue rather than pink. It is such a Chilean wine, with an attractive green herb streak running under the sweet fruit and cedary woodiness. This was the leader in the Classic French camp.

The Beefy Oz brigade were made happy by the pouring of the Peñalolen Cabernet, from Quebrada de Macúl, which this year seems softer than previously, as if 2007, bruited by the Chileans as a perfect Cabernet year, was perhaps too kind to the Peñalolen grapes. Does it make sense to talk about a languid Cabernet?

Both groups enjoyed the Ocio Pinot Noir, the cream of the quintessence of Cono Sur Pinot Noir from Casablanca. The Beefy squad because of the sheer concentration to be found in the wine, and the Francophiles because it is clearly a classy, complex wine, well worth storing for the next ten years. And I enjoyed it because it has that shiny, expensive-marine-varnish aroma. A rare perfume, but always worth seeking out, oh yeah.

Another New Year,..

...another World of Wine. With a very enthusiastic group of tasters this time, and the relaxed surroundings of McPhabbs (comfy chairs already) really helps.

Tonight's star turn was the Ribbonwood Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand - everybody liked it. A soft, medium bodied wine with a nicely rounded array of cherryish fruit flavours and an interesting to and fro between savoury and sweet. There's a hint of smoke, which makes the sweetness resemble bacon, as well as occasional touches of vegetal stinkiness.

It is made by Framingham, a winery whose first vintage dates to 1994. You can find it in your local Oddbins, and is, I think, really rather good (-4).

The Best of 2009

After discovering, last time, that my memory of the year's best wines didn't quite match up to how I had scored them, I cast my net a little wider, paid less attention to scores, and came up with a list of about sixty wines from nine hundred tasting notes.

It is a fairly diverse selection, weighted towards France and Australia (the Oddbins bias, I suppose). So, passing by the Domaine d'Ardhuy Clos de Langres '05 and the Hiru 3 Racimos Rioja '03, fondly smiling at the memory of the Sizeranne '99, and pausing to be amazed once again by the flavours in the Dr Bürklin-Wolf Wachenheimer Rechbächel R Riesling '90, here are my top two for 2009.

Champagne Laurent-Perrier Brut 1999. If I were a rich man I would drink champagne every day, and if I were still richer then I would drink vintage L-P. It has the intensity of flavour, the lightness of touch, the delicate rasping mousse so reminiscent of a gentle cat's tongue, and the sheer blooming deliciousness that, all taken together, discreetly scream, “Drink me. Here. Now”.

I was tipped off about my other choice, the Innocenti Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2004, by a chap who, if he were a rich man, would drink classed growth claret every day (Mouton, if I recall correctly), with occasional forays into vino like this one, for indeed it is very claret-like. It has structure without being harshly tannic; there is complexity, with layers of flavour weaving back and forth; there is a strong fresh-earth-and-mushroom aroma; but best of all, it has the delicate dark floral top note I often see in, yes indeedy, classed growth clarets. Actually no, best of all is the price - only eighteen pounds in your local Oddbins. Assuming, of course, they haven't hidden it all away for themselves...

Chateauneuf du Poop

What exactly is that smell you find in expensive red wine which seems to be some kind of animal crap? And why is it so lovely?

Mont Thabor Châteauneuf-du-Pape '06 was promising from the outset, long before the odour of poop raised its ugly yet curiously attractive head. Smelling intensely of very expensive leather, this evolved through spice, cherry, and a whiff of pampered pets into the aforementioned animal crap. But delicious animal crap.

Yes, I know, it's nonsense, but there doesn't seem to be another more accurate comparison to make, so there it is. Mont Thabor '06, expensive, lovely, and poop, 4-5.

(no website, but a bit more info here)

Excitable Spanish Fun

Two spiffing Spaniards provoked me into a flurry of exclamation points today.

First off was the Torresilo Ribera del Duero 06, an intense wine which immediately seduces with sweet soft spice aromas under a distictive gunpowder note and velvet licorice (I know, I know, pseuds corner. I don't care).

The palate is soft sweet juicy licorice, followed by long lasting expensive sizzled herb butter. Mmmmmm, expensive butter. The finish is long and elegant. Profound and Excellent, 5.

Next was the Geol 06, a dense purple looking wine with a nose of mint chocolate and cat fur, which evolves into the expensive barrel treatment afforded to a top-end Speyside. It's a little young for maximum pleasure, but not by much. Very good, -4.

As I say, a flurry of exclamation points. It's because of wines like these that I love my job. Try either of them and you'll be more than satisfied.

Small But Sullen Horn

Then the lucciola, the fire-fly of Tuscany, was seen to flash its sudden sparks among the foliage, while the cicala, with its shrill note became more clamorous then even during the noon-day heat, loving best the hour when the English beetle, with less offensive sound, winds his small but sullen horn.

The Mysteries of Udolpho, Anne Radcliffe

Lucciolaio is a super-Tuscan from mid-level Chianti producer Torraccia di Presura. Fermented in steel, given 18 months in French oak, and with a healthy 20% dose of Cabernet Sauvignon to complement the Sangiovese.

It's poshly expressive, without being any sort of fruit bomb. Heavyweight when compared to Chianti, it still offers the full range of Tuscan delights. There's a very fine dark floral note on the nose, along with something mushroomy or earthy or undergrowthy.

The palate is dry, full and still quite tannic (which isn't really surprising; the producers suggest it will age 15 to 20 years). It tastes rich and lovely, with clear cut cherry fruit, and a mineral note which - I don't know why - reminds me specifically of obsidian.

When I manage at last to lift my nose from the glass I can see that tonight's tasting group are enjoying this one much more than the too-young Barolo. The flashing of the firefly has truly entranced them all.

A tannic, rich, and lovely 4++, Lucciolaio is one of the brighter stars in the Sangioverse.

Sweet Roses and Sunshine

Comparisons to fruit, vegetables, animals, minerals or what have you are all very well, but it's illuminating to compare more directly, so as to see what is really going on.

This thought was triggered by a glass of Trimbach Gewürztraminer '06 (truly excellent wine, 4+), since it bore a strong scent of rose petals and lychees, along with an interesting mealy, cooked grain character which for me is very typical of Alsace. And by a handy coincidence, the next day I was in a lovely garden with several varieties of rose. None of them bethought me of Gewürz. In fact, the more I sniffed, the more I found other, un-flowery scents. One had a definite lemon sherbet edge and something of milk, while another was very rose-y, but in an expensive talc sort of way. A third was green and fresh, but also, surprisingly, buttery.

I suppose Gewürz will still remind me of roses, but perhaps now the memory will be more vivid, and precise. Or perhaps not, but it was a lovely way to spend twenty minutes on a sunny summer day.

Buy this before it's gone. Really

The other night someone remarked, "this smells like a good cheap wine - the sort of thing you give people and tell them to rush out and buy some". I'm not going to say what that wine was, since it cost £9. Instead let me tell you about a different, eight quid, wine which you really should rush out and buy.

Les Tourelles de Sipian 2004 smells, well, wonderful. It has that aroma of posh about it which usually means you are way past the £20 mark. The bouquet is a delicate floral back-and-forth between violets and hyacinths, with the true earthy undertone of the Northern Médoc. The true claret nose.

Sadly, the palate can only disappoint. Oh, it's by no means bad (my notes say delicious, savoury, tangy, mineral) if a little short in the finish - but after that wonderful nose it is very hard not to be let down.

But still I say toddle along to your local Oddbins and try a bottle. It truly is worth £7.99 just for the bouquet.

Avast ye scurvy Costermongers!

I've never been much persuaded by the fruit-salad approach to wine descriptions. I sometimes like to taste fruit alongside the wine it's compared to, just to see what's what (For example, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which is often said to taste of passionfruit, lacks a certain earthy, leafmold character I find in the fruit itself).

The wine I tried today only made me more suspicious of those wine critics who one might take for moonlighting greengrocers.

Selvanova 'Vigne del Sasso' Aglianico 2006 is a fresh herby and fruity red, with a touch of ripe sweetness and nicely mellow tannins. Loads of fruit (cherries and currants and rhubarb, is what I wrote), tasty, and Excellent.

But look at this. The Decanter list of Ten Best Wines from Oddbins says, "blackberry and plum flavours". So does that mean cherries and currants and rhubarb and blackberry and plum? Or do you have to shake you head and just backtrack to plain old fruity?

I don't know, but I do urge you to dig out some fruit next time you find the flavour of it in a wine, just to see for yourself how similar and different they are.

Indefinable Pleasure

The best, most enjoyable wine experiences, say I, are the ineffable ones. The tasting where your notes are non-existent, or contradictory, or mainly consist of splash marks, but you have an urgent memory of a delicious, complicated something which makes you grin as you recall it.

So it is with the Verget Saint-Véran 'Terroirs de Davayé' 06. There are better white Burgundies, but Verget has long been a favourite producer of mine. The ambiguous number I arbitrarily attached to my notes(4++(-5?))summarises the battle between objective analysis and hedonistic pleasure. Plainly described, this is a medium bodied dry Chardonnay with some oaky character. Huh. Babblingly described, it's a back and forth, constantly evolving range of flavours, from white flowers to smoke to cooked grains to almonds to hazelnuts to brazil nuts to cashews to varnish to sharp metal.

Sharp metal. I don't know what I meant when I wrote that. But I know I liked it a good deal.

Sweet Wine Wednesday #5

After our Rieslingfest last time, we opted for a mixed bag - very mixed, as it turned out; we finished the evening with a curious basil flavoured sweet white wine called Longo Maï!, which did indeed, as promised, go very well with Crème Brulée.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Tonight's ampeloleptic treat, courtesy of the Tall Guy, was a blend of Merwah and Obaideh, but it might as well have been Viura, so much did the Château Musar White 01 resemble an old Rioja. I certainly don't recognise it from the description the Musar website gives, but nevertheless it was lovely. Mushroom soup and buttered toast on the nose, accompanied by a hard acrid note, led onto a palate of surpassing concentration, refreshing, light bodied and distinctly salty. A very fine 4+.

TN: Terra Andina Altos Carmenère / Carignan 07

As I may have mentioned before, Carignan is nectar to me, so I was excited to see this bottle. The Terra Andina Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc have gone down well with customers, and I rather rate them myself. High expectations then.

The first thing that hits your nostrils is intense blackcurrant, so much so that one is looking for Cabernet on the label, but then comes a herbaceous note, not the green-ness so common in Chilean wine, but rather some savoury herbs. The palate is intense, concentrated and very acid, and finishes slightly sticky.

After twenty-four hours of ventilation, the acidity has calmed down somewhat. Now there is a delicious aroma of coffee cake, and the metallic or bloody element which was there has strengthened. Add in notes of green tea and smoke, and you have a delightful and complex wine. It is definitely too young, except perhaps as a half-time refreshment for rugby players, if you see what I mean, but the rest of us can buy three, put two away for a couple of years, open the other and then drink it the day after tomorrow. Yum. Terra Andina 'Altos' Carmenère / Carignan 07: excellent (rugby players), very very good (the rest of us), 3++-4.

Tea! And Fruit! But Mainly Tea!

And I don't particularly mean that the wine smells tannic. Rather it has the fragrance of tea, some sort of dark leafiness. Then there is some more leafiness, of the tobacco sort, and then interestingly, braised red cabbage, and then finally a bit of smoke.

By contrast the palate has lots of bright fruit, and indeed it isn't all that tannic. It's fresh and medium bodied (viz, that means light for a Malbec), and really rather tasty.

My good friend TallAsAVan, Malbecista Supremo, observes that Malbec always says blue fruit to him, which I don't find. What I do often find is fishy. I've never even seen one, but that sort of dried fish called Bombay Duck (Why is it called Bombay Duck? It's been around too long to blame the name on Google Translate. Perhaps it's another case of Your Finger You Fool?) often pops into my head on tasting the bigger, more full bodied kinds of Malbec.

So it is an interesting change to find this lighter example of the grape. Well done chaps.

(Whoops – the details: Viu Manent Malbec 2007, Colchagua Valley, Chile, 14%, £7 from Oddbins. really rather tasty = 3++)

Sweet Wine Wednesday #4

Another SWW, another new flavour. This time it was dill (the herb, not the dog), found in a very lively eighteen-year old Riesling from the Pfalz region of Germany, the delicious (delicious = 5, before I forget) Dr Bürklin-Wolf Wachenheimer Rechbächel Riesling Auslese '90. But dill was only one of the flavours. There was a ton-load of buttery goodness, another herbaceous note which I think was nettles, definite popcorn, and a wee bit of rubber.

All that was just the nose. The taste was intense lime-lemon meringue pie, and then a tiny hit of mushrooms at the tail end. An absolutely delicious wine, and well worth keeping for decades yet, I would guess.

Blanc, Sec, and Foursquare

Hugh Johnson uses the term 'Plain Wine' in describing Gaillac in his 1983 Companion to Wine. I don't supppose he meant to compliment the wine, but here I am drinking a Gaillac Blanc Sec and finding that Plain Wine sums it up very well, and that plain wine suits me very nicely please-and-thank-you.

Lions Lamartine Gaillac Blanc Sec 07 is made with Mauzac and Loin de l'Oeil, grape varieties found in no other part of the world. Mauzac is said to impart a flavour of apple peel, but instead I find a strong taste of honey in this old-fashioned wine. It's very, very refreshing, (very very refreshing = 3+),but in a style which is a thousand miles away from Kiwi Sauv Blanc refreshing.

Update : After I decided I liked Johnson's term 'plain wine', I found another wine that falls into the category. Le Monache Bianco is a Cortese / Sauvignon Blanc / Chardonnay blend made by Michele Chiarlo in Monferrato, in Piemonte, Italia. On tastings, people find it uninteresting, but with certain foods it sings. Less fashionable, but nonetheless a useful style of wine, long may it continue.

It Cos how much?

I'm lost in thought, drinking Cos d'Estournel'99, from a magnum. It's like being in a conservatory full of fresh cut flowers. A sunny conservatory, where the warmth has made the earth in all the pots come alive and breathe, so that the air is full of leafy foliage scents intermixed with a powerful whiff of humus, maybe with mushrooms in there somewhere, a crazy mix of freshness and mouldering earth. And the texture!

Silky, but more delicate than silk - say, perhaps, lace made from silk, or spider silk - and tougher too, the tannic strength of the wine a basso counterpoint to the delicate contralto freshness; a refreshing freshness, even as the tannins coat your tongue. A kind of paradoxical watery toughness. It is difficult to figure it out, but who needs to anyway. It's enough to enjoy the pleasure.

And then I refocus and see that there are a lot of faces being pulled, noses being wrinkled. Tonight's tasters are decidedly not Francophiles, or at least, they are not keen on youthful, dark, tannic, earthy, Bordeaux. It is quite startling to me how much dislike the Cos engenders, so that I need to taste it again, in case there is a problem, but it's lovely. Tannic, yes, earthy, decidely, but also fresh and powerful and delicious (delicious = 4-5, while I remember). Like all good Claret, it is of course priced at a point which brings general expressions of disbelief from the room.

Sweet Wine Wednesday #3

To kick off SWW3, Puddleglum, a fellow singularly obsessed, provided us with a very fine Very Old Reserve Sherry (officially, it is designated VFVORS... all right, that's a lie, but it ought to be true).

As ever, it begged the question of why such fine wine is not more popular. My notes on the Sacristia de Romate VORS Oloroso are full of question marks - always the mark of a good wine - but the flavours I've noted are dry, leafy, chocolate, struck flint, salty - no fruit y'see, which probably explains why it's not the trendy drink de nos jours. A crying shame, as it would make the perfect apéritif with a handful of almonds, and is decidedly excellent, 4+.

The Next Big Thing?

Fashions run through wine, as through everything. In antiquity, the Romans drank wine saturated with honey and diluted with seawater (I offered this, or something like it, to a history-themed tasting. Nobody liked it save one taster, who compared it to a dirty martini). Dry champagne swept across Britain late in the nineteenth century, and so far shows no sign of leaving. More recently, there has been a fashion for enormously extracted, dense, heavy red wines. d'Arenberg's Dead Arm Shiraz is one such, but I am beginning to think that the spotlight is ready to move on.

There were many excellent wines at the Australia Day Tasting in Edinburgh, but one of the best I tasted was the Gemtree 'Obsidian' Shiraz ('05). It had the expected red fruitiness, and some fragrant smoke, but much more interesting was the savoury, herbaceous aspect. At three-and-a-half years old it is perfect right now, mellow and chocolate-y, with a brilliant balance between acidity and fruity sweetness. A fantastic 5 pointer, and definitely ready to step into the limelight.

Oh the oak! **swoons**

Tastings often throw up surprises. Once at a (red) Burgundy tasting, two people independantly suggested that one of the (red... RED) wines smelt like Sauvignon Blanc.

Tonight's oddity was Shelmerdine Chardonnay 05.

The Tall Guy immediately wondered if the wine was matured in American oak. Then another taster asked if it had been in ex-Sherry or -Bourbon casks, à la whisky, and another chimed in saying the wine reminded her of whisky.

These remarks make it sound like some sort of crazy wine, when in fact Shelmerdine is a straightforward oaked Ozzy Chardy (straightforward = 3++). But perhaps the barrel influence seemed rather too strong compared with the delicate, zingy, mineral-y Debavelaere Rully 'Les Cailloux' 06 (a very good 4), or the complex and strong - but in a much sweeter way - Scarbolo Friuli Chardonnay 07 (Don't take this to mean that the Scarbolo was anything but dry. Nevertheless, the oak was sweet. And I rated it a tangy 4)

Château La Roche '04

Château Lauduc is a forty hectare property just to the east of the city of Bordeaux, in Entre-Deux-Mers. Confusingly, one of their reserve wines is called Château La Roche (perhaps it alludes to some historical whatnot?). La Roche comes from just one hectare of the vineyard, and rather unusually for Bordeaux these days, it is half Malbec, half Merlot.

It's a tasty , light, juicy mouthful, not too fruity, but rather earthy and very claret-y, if that's useful. But it didn't call to mind any Malbec characteristics at all, nor Merlot. One of those wines where the whole is decidedly more than the sum of the parts. And a very, very good match for the Beetroot, Orange and Chocolate soup I made. Château La Roche Première Côtes de Bordeaux ('04, cork), very good (3++).

World Wide Wine - Syrah, Shiraz, Shyraz

Tonight's tasting was looking at the differences that terroir make to a grape variety but for me the similarities were much stronger.

There was a common thread of high-toned fresh foliage in the three wines, a much stronger similarity than the more obvious ones like chocolate or black pepper.

I liked the Paul Jaboulet Ainé Hermitage 'La Chapelle' ('01, cork) best, probably because I'm a Francophile, but ostensibly because of its silky texture, tobacco notes and a little hint of merde. Truly excellent, 4+++.

d'Arenberg 'Footbolt' Shiraz ('05, cork), from McLaren Vale in Australia, had the same whiff, along with great fruit concentration and real ripeness. Also excellent, (albeit not French, so it doesn't get the excitable plusses) 4.

The third red, Chono Reserva Syrah ('06, cork), from Geo Wines of Chile, excited me rather less than the others, perhaps because it's ultra-clean, but it did occur to me later that the interesting herby, sausage-y savouriness would probably make it the best partner for the Burns Night Haggis¹ which you are no doubt already planning (only eleven days to go!). Still and all, another excellent wine, 4.

1: assuming you want syrah with your haggis. Far be it from me to counsel against Vendange Tardive Gewürztraminer or Grand Cru Chablis.

Four lovely corks...

...for four lovely wines. The Mendel is mentioned elsewhere. The Ollieux Romanis Corbières, was a fresh, bright carbonically macerated wine, delicious, and for early drinking, so it only needed a very temporary stopper. The Mandolás, from a bottle of Oremus Dry Tokaji, probably isn't meant to last, but still they gave it first rate cork, presumably because they are proud of their lovely steely, sharp refreshing wine. The Jaboulet, the poshest cork here, is from a bottle of 'Les Cèdres', which one might want to keep for perhaps a decade (Hugh Johnson says in his 1983 Wine Companion that the best Châteauneuf he ever drank was a 1937, tasted at 44 years of age)

Best Schmest

So it seemed like an idea to do a best of 2008 list. But I inspected my notebooks, and discovered that there are actually two lists - the best wines, and those which gave me the most pleasure. Which leaves me wondering what best really means.

Leaving that tricky problem aside, I here present, in no particular order, my top six, extracted from the 1008 listed in my notebooks.

Murdoch James 'Saleyards' Syrah '06. I haven't tasted any other syrah which combines the lightness and intense sweet spiciness of this wine. And at twenty quid, it's not utterly out the window.

i Clivi 'Brazan' Tokai Friuliano / Malvasia '03. Brazan makes the cut for reasons of eccentricity, I suppose. And me being partial to a fair degree of oxygen. Tallasavan would not approve, but Puddleglum probably has a six pack of this under his bed.

Château Cantenac-Brown Margaux '01. This particular bottle was truly singing - second-growth quality, really - with a remarkable freshness and a lovely light floral character.

David Duband Gevry-Chambertin 'En Reniard' '05. A truly Burgundian wine, ethereal and difficult to pin down - the more so in that my notes, although they rave, don't bring it even faintly back to mind.

Carmes de Rieussec Sauternes '05. The second wine of Château Rieussec rather falls into both my 'best of' lists, because we had it with some Roquefort. Sweet-salty perfection, but somehow the honey, wet leaf, and marmalade notes are in harmony too.

Hegarty Chamans No 2 '04. This one gets on my list because it has Carignan in the blend, and because the winemaker, Sam Berger, seems happy to let the Carignan run naked and unfettered through the herb meadows of funky wildness.

All but one of the wines on this list are five-pointers. I leave it as an annoying exercise for the reader to figure out which one ain't - but there is a vinous prize for the first correct guess posted as a comment.

Random Grapeage, but it works...

... Carignan / Syrah / Grenache / Cabernet / Merlot.

Oh yes, and semi-carbonic maceration.

But it definitely works: the wine is a very dark purple, very fresh looking. On the nose is a hint of coffee or chocolate, but sadly none of the herbaceousness I enjoy in Carignan.

The palate, on the other hand, is herby. It's a relaxed, rounded, mellow, gentle, balanced wine with a warm finish.

On the second day the nose is now smoky cheese and a hint of flintiness, whereas the palate has become soft rich spicy, smoky and full bodied, with dark cherry flavours. Upscore to -4.

Château Les Ollieux Vin du Pays de l'Aude 'Capucine' 07, very good indeed, 3++ (or -4 if you let it breathe). Oddbins, £6.99, 13%abv (but you'll need to be quick, or ask nicely - this is a brilliant and hugely popular wine which never lingers on the shelves).

Well I Never

Mendel Malbec ('06, under a rather decent cork), was a revelation. My mental shorthand for Malbec says “beefy bruiser”, but these guys have taken it to places entirely new to me. Light in body (all things are relative, of course: for an Argentinian Malbec it seems light to me, but on an absolute scale of Moscato d'Asti to freshly fermented Madiran, it is up there with the garagiste Bordelais), it still has the tannins one would want to accompany roast beast, and is a-swirl with all sorts of interesting flavours – green peppercorn, dried fruit, chocolate, savoury stews – that kept me sniffing for ages. Decidedly excellent, 4.

Sweet Wine Wednesday #2

Old Wines are rare beasts. As Sillynote has it, "drink now through teatime". Something like 95% of wine bought in this country is drunk the same day. Most wine, of course, is made for now & won't benefit from bottle age (although I find that some new world wines are better if given time to get over their initial tartaric-induced tartness). So there's a special gloss on an old bottle.

Tonight's shiny bauble was a Viña Tondonia Blanco 1987 (excellent). It was the colour of brass, but with beautiful glints of gold through it. The nose was strong - acrid - and very earthy, loads of mushroomy notes, as well as a novel scent for me, of caraway seeds.

It tasted very mellow, gentle, but still with a strong core of citrus acidity. It was lovely.

Interestingly, we had another white Rioja, Finca Allende 2005 (excellent), to compare with the Tondonia. The Allende was only three years old rather than twenty-one, and matured in French oak for rather less than the four years the Tondonia underwent. Yet the similarities were there to see.

An Old Friend

By chance I happened across a small stash of Hegarty Chamans No3 2003. 2003 was their first vintage, made in an unfinished winery, which had to be sold as Vin de Table, presumably because they didn't manage to deal with the bureaucracy in time.

At the time I was very excited about Hegarty, because they use a fair whack of Carignan, making the sort of funky, herbaceous wine that really gets my goat floating, and I said I would try some at a later stage to see how it was evolving. Of course, being such good wine, it rapidly sold out, before I tucked some away. So unexpectedly finding three bottles was a treat. And it has evolved rather handsomely.

The jumping acidity and powerful herb stink have calmed down rather. The wine seems much darker, and the fruit flavours – bitter cherries, plums, that kind of thing – stand out more. Also, there is a mineral, stony flavour which wasn't evident three years ago. Very rich, with medium grained tannins, at five years old this Minervois is in fine fettle and truly excellent.

I'm not planning to save either of the two remaining bottles. They are the ideal winter warmer for this weekend's family gathering in Moffat. The only problem is, what else can I take that's going to be even half as tasty?

Novel Organoleptic Joy

You would suppose that the frequency of finding a completely new taste in wine must lessen as one tastes more of the stuff. This ought to make me glum, but the wine which sent me off along this thoughtway is so very excellent that I'm not glum, in fact I'm verr verr happy.

Rijckaert Chassagne-Montrachet Premiere Cru "Saint Jean" 2006 is a huge wine. Ultra-concentrated, with a fair oxidative whiff about it, a little bit of white pepper, and some honied notes, the main, powerful scent for me was white chocolate, a completely new experience. I don't even like white chocolate, but this smelt just fab (I know, I know; what on earth was I thinking of, drinking Chassagne 1er when it's not even two years old. Look, it was there, it's Rijckaert, what can I say. It's just another fine wine débacle. Get over it).

The oxidative note is very interesting. Rijckaert, these days, is based in Jura, to the East of Burgundy where the most prestigious wine is Vin Jaune, which sits in barrels for 75 months without topping up. Crazy stuff, like sherry, but bracing, since the Savagnin grape is naturally very acidic. I suppose his Burgundian wines are feeling the Jura influence. The other comparison in my notes is to Bollinger Grand Année, it being rather oxidative in style too. If you like Bolly I guarantee you will love this wine.

So anyway, pay attention here folks. Actual factual "Outstanding" wines don't come along very often. In the 1300 or so tasting notes I have made and indexed over the last year-and-a-half, I have found a scant half-dozen worthy of the name, so I heartily advise you to track down this nectar and just splash the cash (a mere forty squid for a brand new organoleptic experience).

Great Wine Defined

The greatest bottles of wine are a kind of intersection or coming together of a good year, on a good vineyard site, in the hands of a skilled winemaker. And of course the best of the best are made from one of the handful of noble grape varieties.

Nebbiolo is one of these noble grapes, because it shares with Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon the knack of being simultaneously powerful and graceful. In remembering some of the greatest wines I have tasted, their delicacy or textural subtlety is just as important as intensity of flavour.

Tonight's wine will be added to this mental list of mine. Luciano Sandrone's Nebbiolo d'Alba 03 isn't even his top wine (he makes Barolo in various spots, including Cannubi Boschis, if I remember right). It certainly has intense, and interesting, and surprising flavours - fresh cut flowers, solvents, shit, anchovies, leather, nivea hand cream - but just as important is the near perfect balance on the palate, a kind of tension between softness and tannin, where, in the end, the tannin wins by a nose, which is why the wine is only (only! Ha.) delicious, rather than, say, superb.

TN: Maycas del Limari Chardonnay '07

Maycas del Limari is a modishly styled offshoot of Concha y Toro, a venture aimed at premium (how I hate that word. It reeks of marketroids doing their well-oiled duty) - a venture aimed at making posh wine in the far North of Chile. The Limari valley is hard by the Atacama desert, which means fewer pests or diseases to attack the grapes, and vast quantities of sunshine for ripening.

This particular bottle is the strongly oaked version of Limari Chardonnay, and the oak has been nicely done; clean and fresh, giving the wine a mealy or nutty scent, with notes of mandarin oranges or tangerines. It tastes dry, full and lovely, with an excellent mineral or salty endnote. And for once I am persuaded by the rear label, with its mention of 'green apple flavours', although I'd say it is rather riper than that. Concha are too polite to say so themselves, but I do think this wine is aimed squarely at Meursault, and it's pretty much on target. Excellent.

Château Branon 2000

One night expect a garagiste wine made by both Jean-Luc Thunevin and Michel Rolland to be be fairly approachable after eight years, but the Château Branon '00 was decidedly not for playing. There were hints of the possibilities - a whiff of fresh cut flowers, plenty of shiny oak - but my abiding impression of the wine was of dark, dark fruitiness and endless tannins. Immensely enjoyable, but undoubtedly it will be much better ten years down the line. So I rate it as merely excellent.

(Hah, "merely")

TN: Rubino Vermentino 07

Tenute Rubino Vermentino 07 is that somewhat rare beast, an Italian white wine with character. Rather than the neutral-foil-to-great-tasting-food style, there's tons going on here. A biscuity nose, but not sweet biscuits, the savoury sort, and probably with paté spread in them, seafood paté to be precise, and then the palate is sour and refreshing, with just the tiniest hint of dirtiness about it; a peck of dirt, which as any fule kno, is good for you. Interesting dirtiness, such as you would never find in a supermarket wine. All in all, mighty tasty.

Certainly there is a place for neutral wines, spear carriers. But it's good to find an Italian white which can happily take the leading role.

Style, and a little substance

From the Estremadura, the region which includes Lisboa, here's a neatly packaged table wine made from the principal Port grape.

Point West Touriga Nacional '05 has a Giacometti-like figure pointing off into the distance, which I suppose is a reference to Lisboa being a setting-off point for many of the great voyages of exploration of the fourteen hundreds.

It's very modern in style, with lots of fruit, and the tannins are well reined in. I liked the suggestion of leather on the nose, and I found it to be a very good match to smoked cheese. All in all, a very respectable effort.

That Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi

If you are going to pick a wine to drink regularly, it ought to offer the promise of continuing interest. Variability is more desirable than unvarying high quality (that's my clumsy rewording of Trollope - I do apologise).

So it a definite bonus to find that Salomon Groovey Grüner Veltliner 07 is both changeable and tasty. This time around it smells mealy, like cooked rice or barley, and then perhaps a little metallic, but on other occasions it has smelt of lime jelly, as if it were Riesling, or green and grassy like a Sauvignon. Today it tastes very clean, and the white pepper note is very clear. On other occasions the green-ness is to the fore, and on yet others it is off-dry.

I'm sure these particular differences are down to me, since Salomon Undhof are skillful winemakers, and it is bottled under stelvin, but I know I'm not alone in finding interesting variations in the Groovey. It is never quite intense enough to be an out and out great wine, but still, it is an excellent and complex 4.

Condrieu it ain't....

... is pretty much my observation on every Viognier I taste. Fashion dictates that everybody wants to make a Viognier, and some of them are really rather tasty, but none of them has the astonishing silky mouth-filling lightness of good Condrieu. Quite a lot of them achieve a decent peachiness, and one or two have a decadent, almost cloying perfume - I'm thinking now of the Doña Paula Naked Pulp - but that magical texture never quite materialises...

So, opportunities for grumbling aside, what does the Fleur du Cap Unfiltered Viognier 2006 have to offer? Well, there's an interesting mélange of browned apples and oak smoke on the nose, without an excess of fruit. The palate is tangy, zingy, zesty, dry and full-bodied, very enjoyable to drink, excellent in fact...

But...

Oops! I seem to have opened next year's bottle…

The theme for tonight's World of Wine tasting was balance, so of course we had to have some wines which are out of wack somehow or other. An easy call is a young wine from tannic grapes, especially one which is super-extracted: the kind of bottle which still needs a few months or a couple of years to let the tannins calm down. The Sur de los Andes Winemaker's Selection Malbec ('05, cork) is just the thing, with the added advantage of having loads of interesting flavours to it.

When I opened it I wondered if it was faulty, since it seemed to smell of fish food, but then two of my fellow tasters found similar aromas (seaweed, fish). My note also says, "inky", and "octopus", but then it also says "spice", "gingerbread", and "Yeehaw!".

It scores 4+, excellent. If I have the willpower, I expect it might turn into a five-pointer by 02009.

World Wide Wine - Sauvignon Blanc

By good luck, I am hosting a series of six tastings with the aim of whizzing round the main grapes / countries / regions / styles of wine. So it seemed to me that a good start would be with Sauvignon Blanc from France, New Zealand, and South Africa: strongly contrasting styles, a very distinctive flavour, and all sure to be good wines.

First up was the dry, zingy, lovely, lively Christian Salmon Sancerre ('06, cork). The nose was quietly green, perhaps peppery, and the palate was full of fantastic lemon, lime and sorbet flavours. Excellent, well worth a 4.

De Grendel Sauvignon Blanc ('06, stelvin) seemed to be a little smoky to me, along with lovely green notes (green beans, definitely). The palate was light - lighter than the Sancerre - with a long sour finish, but without the hint of root ginger I sometimes find in South African Sauvignon. Nevertheless, another excellent, 4+.

The Kiwi candidate was Villa Maria Cellar Selection Sauvignon Blanc ('07, stelvin). I loved the strong passionfruit nose, and the tropical fruit flavours on the palate. It seemed to me to be softer - less acidic - than either the French or South African wines. Another excellent, 4.

Three very different styles of Sauvignon, and all worth drinking. The Sancerre came out favourite with the World of Wine tasters, but only by a nose, so to speak.

Fruit. What is it good for?

Over Christmas I tried several rather posh bottles from my stash. The one from which I was expecting the best was Chapoutier Hermitage "La Sizeranne" ('99, cork). Fairly mellow, and very savoury, with lots of mineral and salty notes as well as a strong whiff of white pepper, perhaps even meaty or gravy-ish, there was nothing fruity about it at all. I absolutely love drinking this kind of wine. It was certainly excellent, 4, but I suppose I had been hoping for greatness (ie 5, on a scale of 0-5).

What was really interesting about it, however, was the discussion the wine set off. My Aged Pater, having been alerted to the poshness of the bottle, took pains to try it carefully, but then asked - very politely, mind - "so what is it that's so good about this?"

I didn't want to get defensive about the wine, so I tried to describe it, much as I have done in the first paragraph above. I believe I also said something about the magic of such savoury flavours coming from fruit juice, which prompted the AP to observe that the lack of fruitiness had surprised him. He did remark that the wine was growing on him.

I suppose my conclusion is that there are too many straightforward fruity quaffers, and not enough wine-y wines. What do you think?

New Year's Blow Out

We drank rather a lot of very decent wine over the last couple of days. No tasting notes, just a picture to make me grin (and you, I hope).

It was purely coincidence that all six bottles came from just two years.

Ageing gracefully

Puddleglum very kindly offered me a glass of Smith Woodhouse '85, which I accepted with alacrity bordering on haste. I have such a weakness for old wine.

It was quite sherried, but still very rich and fruity, with a hint of salty pungency about it. To taste, it was fairly tannic, and of course rich and sweet. It reminded me why Christmas Eve is so much fun, with spicy food, rich warming drinks, and a roaring fire to chase away the winter. Living in Britain requires something like port. If only it could always be something as good as this.

What will they think of next?

I mean really, Pinot Noir in Sicily? Yes I know they have mountains and all, but still, think of the sunshine.

But then, looking at their web page, they really are very high up, and it says it's a Vineyard of Cold Terrain, so that's all right then.

And the wine, Maurigi Terre di Ottavia Pinot Noir 02, is indeed excellent. Clean fresh raspberry juice, which still smells faintly of the flinty earth it comes from, and laced with aromas of the sweet oak which has held it for two years. At five years old it remains rather sharp, but in a way which nicely complements a dish of garlicky beans in olive oil. Excellent, 4+.

Petaluma Frostline

Two amazing rieslings, in hugely different styles: Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling 2006; and Jack & Knox Frostline Riesling 2004.

Petaluma is one of the leading producers of Eden Valley riesling, and this bottle was a great example. Intensely limey (both fruit and blossom) and quite weighty, verging on oily, it finishes with a big big hit of mineralic, kerosene, petrolly notes, despite being only eighteen months old. Superb.

The Frostline is an experimental bottling by South African innovators Bruce Jack and Graham Knox, using grapes from a vineyard at some 1200 metres above sea level. Here vitis vinifera struggles to ripen, but the resulting flavours are absolutely worth it. Light, delicate floral notes, fresh intense acidity, and great minerality in the finish, but without any of the petrol notes found in the Petaluma. Frostline seems to me to be much closer in style to Germany. I think we drank this one too young, so it wasn't quite up to the superb standard of the Petaluma, but still excellent.

Remember the Alamo Berrio?

I mean the '02 vintage of the Berrio, the first. Ever since the altogether mellower Berrio '03 appeared I've been looking for another sauvignon blanc with that mix of rasping acidity and intense green-ness; capsicums, green beans and sherbet all intertwangling on the tongue to wake up your hind brain and set it dancing the Fandango of Vinous Tastitude. Well, it might just have arrived.

The Lands End Cape Agulhas Sauvignon Blanc ('06, stelvin) is the new contender for the title of Best Sauvignon of the Year. Apparently it gets better with a little bottle age, which is promising, since right now it's a blooming 4+, truly excellent.

The nose is green, clean and sour, with sherbety hints. It tastes, well, truly excellent. Mouth watering sour green-ness, beans or capsicums, and sherbety-stony. It doesn't quite have the gingery warmth in the finish that I really enjoy from sauvignon, preferring instead to gently fade out on a long lemon-lime sherbet note. Green, green, green. If you had taste/sight synaesthesia, then this wine would taste the colour of brand new just unfurled beech leaves.

Elim, the John O' Groats of South Africa, where both this wine and The Berrio come from, might just be the next Marlborough, the next Leyda Valley. All my extremities are crossed.

Do I know The Kangarooster? No, but if you hum it I'll try to join in the chorus...

Truth is, there's no such beastie, which is why you need to go to Bordeaux rather than Australia for a truly elegant, balanced Cabernet / Merlot blend (I know that doesn't make sense, but bear with me).

At this tasting, "Cabernet/Merlot blends of Aquitaine", we had eight such wines.

First up was the Tour de Mirambeau '05, bringing early news of the good things to come from what is said to be 'the vintage of the century'. Ever so fresh and fruity, light and easy to drink. If Georges Duboeuf uppped sticks and settled in Entre-Deux-Mers (where Mirambeau are based, although the wine is classed as AC Bordeaux, since Entre-Deux-Mers is a white wine appellation) he would likely be very pleased to make this sort of wine.

The Chateau Coucy '02, from a Saint Emilion satellite, seemed rather less complex than last year, and perhaps a little sweeter, but still very good value at £11.

Ch Troplong-Mondot '99, Saint Emilion Grand Cru, was very fine. A slightly sweet sandalwood perfume-y nose, just exactly as it should be, then on the palate a poised dry medium-bodied savoury red wine. For claret it is markedly stand-alone, as opposed to being a food wine.

l'Arrivet Haut-Brion '99 is a wonderful example of wine which expresses place. There is a distinct mineral stony element to the palate, just as one would hope for in a Pessac-Leognan.

Ch Brillette (bottle 2) ((bottle 1 was actually Ch Old Socks)) is a cracking bargain. £16 for a rounded, mellow, chocolate and plums style of claret. It's a mere Cru Bourgeois Superior, but that's only because the 1855 classification moves more slowly than Lord Kelvin's Pitch and Cork Experiment.

l'Ermitage de Chasse-Spleen (second wine of Ch Chasse-Spleen) was very well liked by most everyone else at the tasting, but I took against it because the wine had a whiff of brimstone or maybe cabbage when opened.

Wine #7 was tonight's shiny bauble: Ch Leoville-las-Cases, Saint-Julien 2eme Cru. Even with five hours of airing it remained dark and tight. I could find hints of the mocha and unlit cigar aromas that top notch Bordeaux can provide, but mainly the Little Genie was saying, 'let me sleep for another five years, or ten'. Perhaps I'll have made my million by then.

Tour de Pez, like Brillette, is a Cru Bourgeois which deserves higher ranking. Spicy and a little sour on the nose (but in a good way. Not volatile acidity or any such malarky), the palate seemed rather closed to me. not ready yet, or in need of lengthy decanting.

To sum up. l'Arrivet is the one to drink right now. If the France vs Australia tussle were a rugby match, then l'Arrivet is the Rooster the Gauls would release onto the pitch to strut about crowing, leaving the poor kangaroo hopping sadly in its wake, dropping oak staves from its pouch and dripping the juice of squished currants from its boxing gloves.

Tonight's Tasting Brought to you by the Letter B

Small Island Boy was up to his tricks again, this time with some brilliant whisky. He gave us two Balvenies versus two Bruichladdichs (kind of) and then finished off with that ne plus ultra for whisky-twitchers, a bottling from a deceased distillery.

It was a hellish cold night in Partick, but after the tasting I found myself to be quite comfortable sans jacket. More to the point, all the next day I was clad two layers lighter than usual saying to myself from within my cereal glow, "uisge beatha truly is the water of life" - I really have to tell you, whisky fires you up and gets you going, it fires and inspires me, all hail the acrospire!

Whoops... slightly carried away there. For your convenience: acrospire defined. Things not any clearer? Just ask SIB, for he is the Man Who Knows.

The whiskies:

Bruichladdich 1993 recioto cask finish versus Balvenie 1993 Port wood
I liked the nosefeel of the Laddie - kinda velvety - but the Balvenie won this bout, by virtue of its relaxed mellowtude and digestive biscuit finish.

Port Charlotte 5 year old versus Balvenie 14 year old roasted malt
I suppose the malt one might imagine regularly sipping, of all tonight's offerings, would be this Balvenie, for its easy character, and especially for the hint of honey-dipped cigars it occasionally offers. Yet the winner here was the PC5. Freshness, that full on Islay Wow! character that first drew me to malt whisky, or just the complexity in the glass. Or all three...

the Brora 30 year old scored highest for the night (4 - 5: excellent - astonishing) and brought me a new organoleptic experience : the scent of lilies. Only once, and fleetingly, but lilies. From malt whisky. There were other things, perhaps less desirable. Cowbyres. Sunwarmed animals. Seabirds. Leaves - mouldering ones. Caboc (also know as 'Here, this butter is past the sell by date. I know! Let's repackage it as cheese')

A great night. Thanks, SIB. Thanks, 'B'.

Chalk and Cheese

SmallIslandBoy hosted a tasting of wines from the Chalk Hill winery in McLaren Vale, South Australia - not to be confused with the other Chalk Hill. SIB is very keen on having a relaxed atmosphere for his tastings - this one featured an interesting variant on the Australian Philosophers Rules ("Rule 1: No Not Drinking") - and I fear I relaxed too much because I came at the first wine, the only white of the night, from quite the wrong angle.

Chalk Hill The Procrastinator Sauvignon Blanc (02006, stelvin) is bang on target if you think of it as an Italian aperitif wine. As an Ozzy SB it sucks. It's fairly neutral, you see, rather than being green grass and wet pebbles. I should have been nibbling the tasty cheeses along with this one. As it was, cheeseless winegeek that I am, I made a face and scored it as 1-2 (crap - ordinaire). Sorry SIB, I promise to try it again, this time with a selection of antipasti.

The Italian Red varietals, on the other hand, were absolutely top notch. The Barbera in particular is well worth trying. For £12.99 you get an excellent glassful, with a complex nose, full of earthy, olive-y and green pepper notes. The palate is mellow, smooth and savoury, with remarkably good balance for such a strong wine - 15.5%. Chalk Hill Barbera (02005, stelvin): 4 (excellent).

Chalk Hill sponsor the Glossy Black Cockatoo Project, to the tune of 12 acres of drooping sheoaks every year. I wonder if they ever pause to consider the effects of the Australian-led move from corks to screwtops on the habitat of birds like the Iberian Eagle.

Brilliant. Bonkers, but Brilliant.

To the rather posh Hotel du Vin for a tasting of Mas de Daumas Gassac, presented - by Samuel Guibert - very informatively, and with almost no smoke or mirrors. He told us we would have had the product of forty five varieties of grape by the evening's end. This in itself excited my inner list-ticker, and I was not disappointed.

There were several lesser wines, all very tasty and pretty much accurately priced, but reaching the Mas de Daumas Gassac Blanc (02005, cork) was something of a two or three level power-up.

As the Big Egg says, the Blanc is bonkers. A blend of Viognier, Chenin, Chardonnay, Manseng, with other varietals for seasoning, this one utterly bamboozled me. Here's my initial tasting note.

"over-ripe fruit, fish, smoke, animals, bananas, more smoke, Lagavulin, sherry fish. Then green. celery juice, then nutty."

Over the evening it evolved into a brilliant full viognier dominated blend, although without the wonderful downy billowing texture of Condrieu. Rather there was a soft oiliness, like good white Chateauneuf. Whatever that note means, the wine certainly deserves its score of 5 (astonishing).

The Mas de Daumas Gassac Rouge ('04, '03, '02, cork) were all very good to excellent (score 3-4), complex and fascinating. The technical note says they are currently in their 'Period of Youth'. I should very much like to try them when they have reached their Period of Plenitude, aged between 14 and 21 years. Fingers crossed. Anyway, here is - just to persuade you to rush out and buy some - my tasting note for the Rouge '03.

"strong cow poo and warm fur. chocolate melted on the hands of a toddler who urgently needs changed. chocolate bananas"

Ahhh! Lovely.

The Small Egg raised a very interesting point. Can a wine which varies so much over three consecutive vintages be said to have its own character? He asserted that all great and/or unique wines have their own recognisable character. Can one say this of Mas de Daumas Gassac? I don't know. After all, 02003 was an odd year, and '04 was kind of the rebound from that, in terms of vine growth / production, so you might argue that these three vintages are not a typical vertical tasting.


Update: a bit of rummaging has resulted in this partial list of grape varieties used at Daumas: Clairette, Sauvignon Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Grenache Noir, Mourvèdre, Carignan, Chenin, Chardonnay, Viognier, Petit Manseng, Malbec, Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, Petit Verdot, Muscat de Alexandria, Sercial, and Cabernet Franc. Nineteen, which is some way short of the promised forty-five. Any information you might have would be very useful as a comment.

A Wee Australian Sweetie

Ha! Gotcha.

(Sorry. just trying to bring more traffic here by sucking in the Kylie fans. My bad. But hey!, now that you're here, stay for a bit. The Dots are very restful)

I've had some delightful Sweet Wine Saturdays, but this time SmallFierceGlasses had the genius idea of Sweet Wine SundayMonday: tasting de Bortoli Noble One Botrytised Semillon (02001, cork) over two days, to see how it evolves with a touch of air.

We were a little concerned about the colour of the wine - as a dark as a well-sherried malt whisky - but the first sniff chased that concern away like a gentle spring breeze clearing out the chilly remnants of winter.

Fresh and leafy, and somehow the air in my glass was cleaner than the surrounding air, with perhaps a touch of salt, as if there were ozone or sea air to it. Then marmalade, and later, a hint of soy or five spice powder. Lovely!

The palate was crisp lime marmalade, with a buttery feel. The finish was very, very sticky. An excellent 4++.

Day two was where it really got interesting. The nose now had added a very fleeting floral perfume, and perhaps a wee earthy note, but as to the palate and mouthfeel...

Ka-Wow...

If you could shrink-wrap a lime around a gooseberry, spray it with barley sugar crystals and then make it spin on the back of your tongue, you would get a notion of what the Little Genie in the Bottle was doing to me with this wine. Rarely have I tasted a wine which seemed so alive, tingling, moving. It didn't last long, perhaps only half a minute or so, but this is what the whole blooming wine thing is all about, these moments of pure sensory pleasure.

Re-reading this post, I'd be inclined to rate the wine as a 5, but my tasting notes say 4-5. Probably just churlishness.

Minervois (Again) (What's your point caller? Minervois pure dead rules!)

Doing a tasting of crowd pleaser wines tonight, I threw in the Hegarty No3 (02004, cork), laughing all the while. There were one or two down-drawn lips, but it drew a reaction from everyone, and nearly all good.

Last time I tried this, I figured I could cellar some and give an updated report, so natch the whole lot disappeared straight away. Tonight's was the new vintage - also, it's AC Minervois this time, not Vin de Table.

It's a very dark purple-to-black carignan/syrah/grenache blend, and (heh heh) it's a stinky wine. Earthy, farmyard-y, big, herbaceous. The carignan has been so skillfully vinified. It shines. The palate is rather softer than the previous vintage, perhaps a little less funky, but oh so tasty. Prunes, sweet-perfumed smokiness, perhaps a little chocolate, some bitter apple pip notes. One day carignan will rule the world {Thppt! That for your malbec sirrah!}, and it's this sort of wine that will be in charge of the Department of Keeping the People Happy.

Pointy scoring thing: 4 - 5 (compares with 15/20 last time, which is roughly (3-)4 ).

Hmmn. Didn't anticipate that

Time for a change of plan, perhaps. At the Oddbins Wine Fair in Edinburgh, someone (nameless, so far, but that may change, depending on what mileage can be extracted) recognised me from the little picture that sits in the top left corner of this blog. All well and good, I hear you say, everyone likes egoboo. Except that what happened was this. We said hello, he poured me some wine, I drank it, we said goodbye, I turned away, then he shouted after me (corporate venue / noisy / crap acoustics), "Smell my cork!, Smell the Cork!".

I could see people on all sides edging away.

Ah well. Lovely wine, too.

Tongue-velvet, and it gets you loaded

Ben Glaetzer is some kind of wine-making demon. He does very fine work for the Heartland label, runs a contract operation which produces hundreds of different wines, and yet he still has time to produce some amazing bottles under his own name. I've mentioned the Glaetzer Bishop before, and have greatly enjoyed the Wallace and the Glaetzer Shiraz. Now I've had a sniff at the Amon-Ra Shiraz (02004, cork), and by golly it's mighty stuff.

We weren't even going to open the bottle, but Smiley's finger accidently pressed the enter key and I went into a sort of de-corking trance, which only ended when I smelt something which made me think of nothing so much as a very youthful Penfold's Grange, all vanilla custard and dark chocolate. But then it evolved through a whole series of tasty treats: fruity blackcurrants, sweet oakiness, meaty savoury notes, smoke and then into more chocolate and a great walloping punnet of blackcurranty juiciness. When I finally stopped pleasuring my nose and tasted the stuff, I found the familiar Glaetzer ultra-smooth tannins, mellower than a stoner Gong fan at a Winter Solstice celebration gig, full of sweet dark fruit and delicate smoky notes, all backed up by a full-bodied deeply satisfying texture.

Big Bad Bob rated the '03 vintage Amon-Ra so highly as to cause an unseemly ruckus amongst his followers, yea unto the point of price hikes, hoarding, and general snapping up of all available stock before a reasonable man might gather his wits enough to find a bottle. I didn't taste the '03, but if it's better than this, I may have to do a deal with Anubis, or someone equally shady, to obtain some (Sorry. I've been reading Goethe. It warps a person. I'd never sell my soul for a mere bottle of wine. Honest). Meanwhile, if I were you, I'd grab some of this before it vanishes. It's a genuine five-pointer. Glaetzer Amon-Ra Shiraz '04: 5 (= Good Lord! Astonishing!).

Boroli Barolo By Golly

Heh heh heh heh. I get to taste this twice in the space of a fortnight, and I haven't done a good deed in, oh, weeks and months. The world has gone awry, but the slope is all towards me, so that's OK.



Boroli Barolo (1999, cork), was offered to us as 'basic' Barolo (translation: cheap, and thus perhaps crap), but I am pleased to say it is the very antithesis of basic. It has such a complex nose, you could spend an hour teasing out the different elements, and still not be half done. I found molasses, aniseed, chocolate, a softly floral note, and some medicinal high tones, all laid over a solid dark fruitiness. As a result of lingering over the wonderful bouquet, I rather glugged it, but I can say that it has a medium body, still with loads of tannins despite being seven years old, and very tasty in a dark fruit way. Superb (= 5).

Green! And Verr Verr Tasty

Frog's Leap Vineyard in the Napa Valley, California, are a forward thinking outfit who make their wines with a strong regard for their environment. Using biodynamic principles, and dry farming, they have been in production for about a quarter century now.

They also approach their work with a light heart, as is evidenced by the name of this one, Leapfrögmilch (2004, synthetic closure). I like a pun, the worse the better, if you see what I mean, and what's more, I liked this wine, really rather a lot.

It's a blend of 70% Riesling and 30% Chardonnay (picked early, according to my notes - not quite sure what that means, but probably refers to the Chardy), and it is lovely.

Floral and green, with lime-y notes on the nose, the palate is soft, smooth, delicate, easy (you get the idea), but the finish - ah the finish! - is sublime. Long, and delicately growing ever more sherbety on the centre of my tongue. If only Liebfraumilch had been like this, the Australians would have given up and gone home back in, oh, 1982, I should think. Excellent, perhaps even Superb (= 4 - 5 ).

TN: Borie de Maurel Cuvée Sylla

At a tasting of syrah / shiraz from around the world, this was the wine for me. I am a Francophile, but even setting that aside, this was a skelper.

A powerful nose of very ripe dark fruit (?cherries?), strangely mixed with what I took for apricot, and the near-suffocating perfume of strongly scented flowers such as lilies makes wild promises that this will be a bold, sensual, sexy wine, and the palate fulfils those promises in a manner which allows me at last to use the adjective 'saturnine'. Strong and smooth and dark, with loads of acid, fruit and tannin, this is a big wine, which will go on being big for years. Go and read 'Snow Crash', if you haven't already, then come back and taste this stuff and see if you find yourself agreeing when I say that if this wine weren't called Sylla it would be called Raven.

We tasted the '03 vintage (cork closure) and I scored it 4-5. (New scoring system! More details to follow. Runs from 0 (faulty) to 5 (Astonishing) with a theoretical possibility of 6 for such marvels as d'Yquem, Observatory, Mouton-Rothschild.)

Link to Borie de Maurel website.

"Peers an Happel"

To a presentation of some of the wines of Marqués de Cáceres by Florent Thibaut, their Export Sales manager. He spoke most knowledgeably and entertainingly, and, I must add, with a wonderful accent - "peers an happel" are the fruit flavours to be found in the Blanco Crianza '03 (cork) which scored a solid 14/20.

The most interesting wine of the evening was the Gran Reserva 1995 (cork). It was still fairly purple, not really aged looking at all, and boy did it show well tonight. Last time I tasted this we opened a second bottle, so dull was the first, and the second bottle only confirmed our opinion of the first. But tonight's bottle was full of wild flavours and aromas - my notes include "spaghetti hoops on very buttery toast, talcy perfume, bananas, ?toothpaste". Yeeeeha! (Also a very strong 16+/20).


I must also mention the Satinela Semi Dulce ('05, cork), which possesses one of the dodgiest labels on any sweet wine anywhere. Don't be put off as I was for so long - try this one soon. It's very, very pale, only just green; mildly aromatic, fruity and very clean; and has a lovely sweet vinous palate. This late harvest Viura scores 15/20.

More Minervois

Last time it was an AC wine - La Cuvée Mythique - for only £3.49. Tonight I'm drinking a Vin de Table which costs twice that. Yup, it's Hegarty Chamans No.3, under cork (£6.99 from Oddbins). The way the wine is labelled though, it's clear that it is from the 02003 vintage.

In truth, the label would make you think this wine was Australian, but one sniff tells you otherwise. I originally wrote, "...it can only be Southern France", but then I thought about how it rather reminds me of the Observatory Carignan/Syrah, from South Africa, so I intend to keep that assertion in reserve until I can test it against my precious last bottle of that finest of nectars.

The No.3 is very youthful looking - bright purple - and has a powerful nose, with a complex mix of herbs, burning green twigs, molasses, licorice, soy sauce and five-spice powder. There is also a fair whack of bright fruit, I'm told, but I was too distracted by all the savoury elements to pay any attention to that. The palate is strong, dry, somehow bitter and sweet at the same time, with fairly rough tannins and a long finish with a sharp little twist to it.

Despite all these good things I'm saying about it, I only rate the wine as 15/20. It falls into the same category as the de Bortoli Gulf Station Pinot Noir (blogged here); interesting but not satisfying. I think it's just not knitted together yet. I'll try it again in six months or a year and tell you how it is evolving.

'42 Cuvées'

... it says on the label - obviously this wine is the ultimate answer. The question must have been, "What bargain wine should rodbod buy this week?"

The more different wines I taste, the more I like them all. But if I do have a weakness, it has to be for Minervois, the first cheap-yet-decent red wine I came across. So to find the Coop doing La Cuvée Mythique for only £3.49 gladdened my heart. It's the 2001 vintage, under cork , so obviously they are keen to clear it, but it certainly isn't past it.

It is still a youthful looking purple. The nose is strong and clean, with notes of pepper and cherry jam (or maybe pie filling). There are more cherries on the palate, which is full, dry and rich, with a spicy peppery finish.

A solid 15/20. Grab some before I complete my tour of Coops of the West of Scotland - once I've finished there won't be any left.

Shurely Shome Mishtake, Vicar

I was preparing to present some Pinot Noirs at a tasting last week, and also thinking about how we describe wine. I found a very long list of scents and flavours which were said to have been noted in Pinot. I wrote some of them out, but dismissed a fair number as implausible, and then read out the list at the start of the tasting just to get people in the mood.

Imagine my surprise when three people - at two different tables - said that one wine smelt like Sauvignon Blanc (this flavour/scent was not on the list).

I don't really have anything to say about this, I just want to share my bamboozlement with you.

Exploding Plums and Chocolate Shrapnel

This time it's Colomé Estate ('04, cork). A big, dark, plummy blend of two thirds Malbec, a fifth Cabernet Sauvignon, and some Tannat from the Salta province of Northern Argentina. I was impressed by its claim to be from "The highest vineyard in the World", but Puddleglum assures me that all Argentinian wines have this on the label. The wine is very concentrated, dry, warming, and satisfying. It seems complex, too (my tasting note mentions herbs, barley sugar and blackcurrants), and has a long finish. A very good 16++(?17)/20.

There are two points to note here. My first impression of the wine was, "Whoah! Fruit bomb! Hee-hee!", but that's such a tired description, hence this blog's title, which conveys something of the attention-grabbing nature of the wine, and also tells you a little about the flavours. There was an anonymous comment on the previous post about how we describe wines, but I did detect the hand of TallAsAVan, who once characterised a poor Argentinian Malbec as being "like the dissonant clatter of a filing cabinet falling down some stairs". Perhaps he might think of Colomé Estate as an October storm rushing through a beech copse high on the Downs; powerful, exhilarating, exciting.

Second point: scoring. What exactly does 16++(?17) mean? Mainly it reflects my inability to settle on a single number, but that isn't very satisfactory. This year I am resolved to improve my wine scoring system. Along the way I may well try out Parker-style scoring, a star rating, or anything else which is suggested to me. In the meantime, have a look at this radical new scoring system.

Plum jam and old iron

I'm drinking de Bortoli Yarra Valley Gulf Station Pinot Noir (2004, stelvin) and wondering how to describe it. I don't really hold with the fruit-salad-throw-lots-of-adjectives-and-something'll-stick approach, but I can't just leave it at 'plum jam and old iron'. Then again, if I say that I mean the sort of cheap Polish plum jam Safeway used to sell long ago, before Solidarity got started on doing away with the Communists, rather than the rich, fresh - FRESH! - confection that Bob whizzed up from Mrs O's glut last autumn I'm inviting a nomination to Pseud's Corner.


It's interesting, this challenge we face of trying to translate our impressions of a wine from the personal to the universal. For me, it's a fair proportion of the pleasure I find in wine.

"This is all very well", I hear you say, "but should I shell out £9 for a bottle?". Hmmn. Probably not. It's a decent wine, interesting, does show varietal character a little, but it's not all that satisfying to drink. In truth, I think it's too young. So, buy it and keep for a year or two, or nod wisely and move on. Despite which, I do think it rates 14/20. Interesting but not satisfying.

TN: Lamura Grillo '04

January is a month for belt-tightening, underspending, and general parsimony, so you will be pleased to hear about Lamura Grillo ('04, terrible little spongy doo-dad), one of the extensive range of wines from Casa Girelli.

For only £4.49 (from Oddbins) you get a very decent glass indeed. A strong mainly savoury nose, but with interesting hints of herbs and grass, leads onto a dry clean palate which is full, savoury and long, veering into a refreshing touch of bitterness at the finish.

Grillo is the Sicilian grape variety traditionally used to make Marsala, but here modern techniques have produced a very decent dry quaffer. A solid 14/20.

Whisky! Arrrr!

An Ardbeg tasting, hosted by Stuart Thomson, distillery manager.

Having braved the gauntlet which is First Rail, I managed to arrive at more or less the critical point in this tasting, Ardbeg Kildalton 1981. This astonishing whisky made me laugh out loud, a reaction which few whiskies (or wines for that matter) engender. Kildalton, to explain, is a more or less unpeated Ardbeg (!). What's more, you can't buy it, because they have pretty much run out. So why am I writing about it? To annoy you, of course. No, no, no, I don't mean that. That would be bad. I have to talk about it because it is such a good product. And Ardbeg might make something of its ilk again - y'never know. If ever you hear someone saying,"this is just like Kildalton 1981", bloomin grab it while you can.

Imagine, if you will, a gentle Ardbeg - yes, yes, yes, noisy boys at the back, I know, oxymoron, military intelligence, etc, etc, but that is what it is. The nose is gentle, sweet, a powerful blast of chocolate coated cherries, then becoming very mealy, with the salt finally coming through, and then more chocolate. The texture of the nose (nose feel?) reminded me of Port Ellen 24 y.o.

On the palate it is salty AND sweet, very mellow for an Ardbeg, with the charred wood / smoke character coming in on the long gentle finish. 17/20 (No really)

Having started with such a good whisky it was a little tricky to give the others a fair go. The Ardbeg 17yo was very stinky - fishy, in fact - at first, but then the smokiness came in, followed by dried fruit, saltiness, perhaps a hint of chocolate, and just a wee further touch of salt at the end. 16+/20

I was very taken, too, by the Uigeadail. This is blended from 10yo, 13yo, and some 1975 fino sherry cask, and the complex nose reflects this. It starts off metallic and seaside-y, there is a wee burning nip to it, then the fruity aromas, the smoke, more of the metallic character and a strong mealy note come through. These elements swirl round, first one then another coming to the fore, never settling on a single note. 16/20

A very fine tasting. I'm only sorry I missed some of it, since Stuart Thomson very evidently knows his stuff, and can talk about it most entertainingly.

Gosh! Isn't it dusty around here!

Four months since my last post. Which means I failed to tell you about Amayna Pinot Noir, Bonnefond Côte Rôtie, Cirsion, Cline small berry Mourvèdre, Château Talbot, and a load of other goodies. Ah well.

It' s not often that I find myself in complete agreement with what a label says about a wine, but here's one now. La Otra Vida Tempranillo ('04, cork) from the Mendoza region of Argentina did indeed hint at raspberries, and it did go very well with spicy food. In this case, a bean and vegetable stew with fresh green chillies. This is the perfect £5 quaffer to take if you are going to a mate's for supper. A solid 14 pointer.

History in a Glass - Ancient History...

As I was saying, one fishtank emergency, one unexpected visit from the ELF (featuring cremant du Jura, prosecco, much beer, and amaretto), one trip to Edinburgh (featuring a wine tasting, a three hour lunch, Greyfriars Bobby, and the Scott monument, as viewed from the top), one visit to A&E, one car service, one two-cousin sleepover with pizza and four part harmony, one broadband installation, a very thin chianti and a wholly atypical muscadet later, here is the rest of last Thursday.

Château de la Garde `La Tulipe` Rosé ('04, cork) is a deep dark merlot based rosé, drier and more flavoursome than most. I served it up chilled, but since I was rashly asserting that it can be compared to what was called 'clairet' in the dim and distant past (say around 1400AD), maybe it should have been room temperature. My favourite rosé wine this year - 15/20.

Carillon Mercurey rouge ('02, under cork). The Carillon family have been making burgundy since 1520, and I like to imagine that this one is very similar to the glass you would have been offered 500 years ago. It's dark, earthy, a rather rough and ready wine, and should you happen to have some big flat mushrooms, or better yet, some random wild fungi, then flash fry them in olive oil and butter (for forty-five seconds) pile them on toast, and eat accompanied by a glass of this. Bliss. Bliss to the tune of 16+/20.

Ducru-Beaucaillou ('97, cork). "Not a good year". "For early drinking". Pshaw! This is a fantastic wine. Savoury, concentrated blackcurrant juice, meaty and dense, with notes of coffee, even mocha, and a gentle woody spiciness. In the 1855 classification Ducru was classed as a second growth, but these days the consensus seems to be that it rivals the first growths. Certainly the consensus amongst Thursday night's tasters was that it was equal first wine of the night. The consensus amongst me was 17/20, just for the bouquet.

The disappointment of the evening was Masi Costasera Amarone ('01, cork), although of course it did have to follow on from the Ducru. Very rich, like chocolate-dipped cherries which have lain cheek by jowl with crystallised figs, but for a twenty quid wine I would expect flavours that lingered rather longer. Sad to say, only 14/20. Made from partly dried grapes, the Recioto wines of the Veneto date back to the fifth century...

...whereas the last red of the evening, Glaetzer Bishop shiraz ('01, cork) only just dates back to the twentieth. It is the vinous equivalent of a fruit smoothie: powerful, fully fruity Barossa shiraz, but with tannins more akin to butterflies kisses than rasping lions tongues. This is the kind of red wine that converts white wine drinkers, and Thursday's tasters ranked it top alongside the Ducru. 16/20.

And finally, a dessert wine. In the seventeenth century tokaji was the wine of kings. It's a style of wine that could never develop today, given that two kinds of microbes insinuate themselves into to the winemaking cycle, and both contribute to the unique flavour of tokaji. We sampled Disznókő Tokaji Aszu 5 Putts ('95, cork). This one definitely divided us: some of us were put off by the somewhat sherried character (I wasn't one of them! I love sherry, In fact, I 'm just going to go and have a glass right now) whereas others loved the rich complexity of it. 15+/20.

We rounded off the evening with a couple of historical oddities. Take white wine, honey and seawater, mix them thoroughly, and you have a delicacy of the Roman Empire. One person compared it to a dirty martini. Most of the commentary was less kind. Our other experiment was sour, unhopped beer - just as a reminder of what booze was probably like for the majority of the inhabitants of Britain for much of the country's history (and prehistory!). Not surprisingly, the vote was Three Cheers For Wine.