Laphroaig Cairdeas 2013

At a Glasgow's Whisky Club tasting, John Campbell, distillery manager at Laphroaig, led us through a tasting of five whiskies, and provided some very interesting background material. We started with the Ten Year Old, which, along with the cask strength Ten and the Quarter Cask, accounts for 95% of the distillery's 3.4 million litres annual output. It is matured exclusively in first fill ex-Bourbon barrels, a policy which has been in place since about 1990 (previously the cask quality was variable).

Mr Campbell emphasised that The Ten Year Old  is the standard by which all other Laphroaigs are measured. No matter what extra flavours they acquire from extended ageing or a change of cask, other bottlings must always express the same sweet, peaty, medicinal character.

There is great balance in the Ten Year Old, with the sweetness reining in the strong earthy peat, and softening the effect of the bitter and dry notes in the finish. The defining flavour of Laphroaig is TCP, a heavy phenolic note which perhaps comes from the deep cut on the spirit still (Laphroaig has the longest foreshots of any Scotch distillery).

To ensure consistency, each batch of the Ten Year Old has about 20% of whisky from the previous batch added to it. It is the distillery's most important product, and until 1980, the only one. Bottled at 40%, chill filtered, coloured, and widely available, for about £33.

The Laphroaig Eighteen Year Old (about £70, 48%), which unlike the Ten is not chill filtered, was until tonight my favourite Laphroaig. The extra ageing adds a depth of fruity and perfumed wood character, and a superb creamy texture. The finish is deeply earthy. John Campbell describes the Eighteen as a “Dry-Sweet” whisky.

Laphroaig Triple Wood (about £45, 48%) was introduced in 2010 (to travel retail, but now generally available). The maturation process is initially the same as for the Quarter Cask, and the whisky is then put to first fill Oloroso sherry hogsheads for two more years.

It's a spicy whisky, with notes of red fruits, and the smokiness seems to have gained a caramel / butterscotch / crème brûlée note. Still very smoky-peaty-medicinal, of course. The first of tonight's drams to seem at all hot, and rather drier in the finish than the previous whiskies.

We were then given the first public tasting of the Laphroaig Cairdeas 2013. Initially the whisky followed the same path as the standard Ten Year Old, ageing in first fill ex-Bourbon, but after eight years it was transferred to 68 first fill Port pipes for 14 months.

The nose is markedly sweeter than the Ten, and milky. There's a lovely strawberry / raspberry fruitiness. The peat seems a little ashy to me, contrasting with the more earthy flavours of tonight's other Laphroaigs. On the palate it's all red fruits, fusty wood, ashy-salty-woody, and earthy peat. There's a sweet cream texture. Delicious, and a great price for a limited edition cask strength whisky (51.3%, about £47)

The last dram was a rare cask sample. John Campbell thinks that no one else in the Scotch whisky industry is using puncheons (a larger barrel-size, which is sometimes only half charred). These barrels were virgin European oak made for Laphroaig, although that must have been a fair while ago, since the dram we tasted is both twenty four years old and refill cask.

As you would expect in a twenty-four year old whisky there is indeed a ton of woody character, but there are also attractive floral notes of hyacinth or violet, and the whisky is still very bright and fresh. On the palate is has a meaty note which wasn't in the younger whiskies. There is still plenty of peat, fruit, and cereal. The finish is bitter burnt.

We finished the tasting with an old Ten Year old Laphroaig (probably bottled in the 1990s, pre-Royal Warrant, and 43%ABV). Apart from what I took to be a couple of signs of bottle ageing (a cabbage-y note, and a much softer mouth feel), the main difference compared with today's Ten Year Old seems to be that the smokiness is a little less earthy, a little more charred wood. A tribute to the consistency of Laphroaig?

In another millennium I used to be a Laphroaig bore, finding other whiskies to be lacking in flavour. Whilst I certainly wouldn't go back to that position, I do think the Cairdeas 2013 is an outstanding dram. If you are on Islay this week or next for the Fèis Ìle, it's the bottle to buy. The rest of us will get a chance when it is offered to the Friends of Laphroaig in June.

Le Clos Du Serres Les Maros 2011

The whole time I was drinking this  - two bottles, two occasions - I was thinking, "Châteauneuf". I really did think it was that good

Le Clos du Serres "Les Maros" is 60% Grenache, 20% Syrah, and 20% Carignan, from a single vineyard site on the Terrasses de Larzac, which is a highly regarded sub-zone within Languedoc.

The wine is dark, almost purple. The shorthand description of the aroma would be Fruits of the Forest Yoghurt.

It tastes lovely. Strawberry, bramble, creamy yoghurt, ultra ripe soft tannins. But the main attraction is its sheer welcoming drinkability. I don't think it's a wine to age, but given its present deliciousness, that really doesn't matter.

For another take on this wine, here's my video review.

And you can watch Nicolas Mollard of Le Clos du Serres talking about another of their wines, Le Clos, here.

Domaine Bachelet Maury 1929

We had convened with but one wine in mind, an 83 year old Grenache Vin Doux Naturel. But one bottle doth not a tasting make; and so there were ten sweet wines lined up for us to try. Such a lovely selection of wines, and so very sweet that for the half hour or so after the tasting it seemed to me that the world was sparkling and glittery.

We started with two supermarket muscats from Southern France. A Rivesaltes with an annoyingly punctuated name, Mu: is for Muscat (Waitrose) and a St Jean de Minervois (Sainsbury) . The former was dried tropical fruit and rose scented talc, the latter was fresh elderflower, but there was a spicy note in both. The Sainsbury bottle had a terrible whiff of cabbage about it when opened, but that was gone after an hour.

Then came two Chenins, one aged 27 and the other just 2 years old. The elder, Moulin Touchais Coteaux de Layon 1985, had lost interest in its original fruit character in favour of distinguished age, while the younger, Château de la Roulerie Coteaux de Layon Chaume 2010 complemented the typical green apple notes with a peachy touch and intense sweetness. In a double handful of sweet wines, this one seemed the sweetest by a country mile.

The main attraction and purpose of our meeting, Domaine Bachelet Maury 1929, still had some red glints in the depths. The nose was of middling intensity, with the dried fruit and wood richness of old armagnac, edging into rancio.

Very mellow, although still having enough smooth tannin to give it structure, the palate was in harmonious agreement with the nose. Lots of rich dried fruits, prunes, and red berries.There was a bitter note in the finish, but overall a very good to excellent wine, and a rare treat to have such an ancient.

Wine six was a surprise. Pure cherry juice, backed by cedar and meaty notes; Corte Sant'Alda Recioto della Valpollicella 2008 seemed very different from a previous tasting. Vintage variation or just age difference? I don't know.

The next two were also Italian, and served to demonstrate the lightly regulated and heterogeneous nature of the sweet wines of the Appenine peninsula. Maculan Torcolato 2003 managed the clever trick of being simultaneously buttery, petrolly, and minty. I should note here that it goes fantastically well with honey-sweetened goats cheese. Castillo de Querceto Vin Santo di Chianti Classico 2008 was so aromatic that we seriously considered the possibility that it might be aromatised. Coriander, fennel,walnut skins, plus a sherried note made for a delicious and very unusual wine.

The Mission Hill Reserve Riesling Icewine 2003 seemed very fresh. The nose was pure strawberry jam, but oddly the palate was very clear-cut pineapple juice - an unlikely combination of flavours, no? Not very Riesling-y, but very very lovely.

Last up was Kereskedőház Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos 1993. It was dryer than expected (and much less sweet than the Roulerie). In an oxidative style and with notes of raisins, butter, brazil nuts and torrefaction, it was, if not unctuous, certainly very richly textured.

And after all that, as I say, the world sparkled.

Santa Carolina Dry Farmed Carignan 2008

Some of the most exciting flavours I've ever found in a glass have been thanks to Carignan, a Spanish variety which was also, for a time, the most widely planted grape in France.

It was, of course, popular because of the large yields it offered, but it's a truism in wine that quantity and quality are generally in inverse proportion, and tonight's wine, I'm fairly sure, comes from low yielding vines.

Santa Carolina don't give much away on their website, but the vines are said to be 80 years old, and - most unusually for Chile, they are not irrigated, two factors which would lead to smaller crops.

And the wine looks, smells & tastes very concentrated. Initially appearing black, a close examination of the rim shows it to be deepest ruby, and it has legs like a dessert wine.

The aromas are lush and super-concentrated, with black plums and smooth woody spices. There's also a thread of vegetal green, and I found a wee touch of black pepper.

The palate is complex. The attack is sweet, the middle is dry, and the finish is sweet again. Lots of black fruits - more bramble than plum I should say - and creamy flavours. A second mouthful reveals bitter chocolate and dried cherry notes. Peppery notes return in the finish.

While I was tasting this wine I also had a glass of Parducci Mendocino County Zinfandel 2007 (although I wasn't really comparing them - that wouldn't be very fair, since the Zin was half the price of the Carignan).

I tried both as a match for a Raclette salad*. While the Zinfandel was fine, the Carignan was fantastic: the cheese was lifted and less sticky, and the wine seemed to get more red.

Santa Carolina Dry Farmed Carignan 2008, altogether altogether an excellent wine, if a couple of years young for my taste, 3+ -4.

*I know, I know, Pinot Gris.

The Edinburgh Raspberry Gin

Unmistakeably gin in all its bitter juniper loveliness, this beautifully coloured drink has a delicate - nay, elusive - red fruit edge.

If you did not know (I didn't - I was handed a glass with instructions to taste it) you might suspect cranberries or pomegranate; anyway, some sort of tangy red fruit.

Made by Spencerfield Spirits, the company responsible for Pig's Nose and Sheep Dip, this stylish bottle is doubtless colonising style bars everywhere. (or so I imagine. My knowledge of style bars is somewhat hypothetical)

It's sweet in the same way that sloe gin is, and with the same bitter backbone. At the second or third nosing the raspberries are there to be found - Himbeergeist is a good comparison.

It is lovely to drink by itself, but I should think this would make an interesting, if rather potent, alternative to red vermouth in, say, a negroni.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #74

This is my post for Wine Blogging Wednesday 74 - Value Sparkling Wine. I did briefly think about Champagne Pierre Gimonnet, because it's so good that I believe it offers great value for money, but the price of one bottle of the Gimonnet gets me four of tonight's wine, with enough left over for a bag of posh crisps.

Condesa Blanca Cava NV is really rather hoopy.

It's a simple wine, although if you pay closer attention it doesn't fall apart - there is careful wine making here, and good accurate flavours. There's a very refreshing lemon & grapefruit palate, and something which I think might be floral. It is absolutely bone dry, in a way that seems to speak more of chalk than of tart citric acidity.

In the making of this wine the Cavaliers* use the same expensive, time-consuming procedures as the Champenois. Granted, the wine is only matured for 15 months rather than the three years of champagne, but this bottle only costs £7. It's not champagne - lacks the finesse, the lace-like texture - but it only costs £7. That makes it everyday drinking material. Who needs finesse?

And finally, the Condesa Blanca comes with a brilliant food match - fairy cakes. Not iced fairy cakes, just fresh, plain little vanilla sponges. Delicious.

Condesa Blanca Cava Brut NV - delicious: 3-4 (good to excellent).

 * Cavaliers. Ok, I made that one up. No habla español.

Thank you very, very much to the Corkdork for hosting this Wine Blogging Wednesday, on the theme of "The Spark - the wine that got you hooked". In writing this post, it turns out I've managed to make a fair go of summing up everything about me and wine and blogging.

To start with the meta:

• late  - that's me. Congenitally late in more or less everything (starting with having to be forcibly removed from the womb a fortnight past time, and continuing thus ever since)
• a list - that's me. Confronted with any situation where I need to get the finger out (say for example an overdue blog post) my first instinct is to make a list (practical, but also a delaying tactic)
• Um. Is it even a list with only two items on it (obviously this doesn't count because it's about the list (note, please, the meta meta)?

To the wine. Le Roc Folle Noire d'Ambat, a big soft red from Fronton in South-West France. Good Lord but it ticks every box. It's French; from an obscure appellation; made with an even more obscure grape variety; with a comedy label; and closed with a cork.

It's a dark red, wild feral stinky wine. Delicously refreshing on the palate thanks to a nicely judged acidity and grainy but ripe tannins. And it smells of horse (dear reader, this is a good thing, trust me).

Crucially, for a person with a massive caffeine habit, a short little attention span, and severe neophilia, it keeps changing. It's a wine which has been evolving nicely over the past few months, and also offers an interesting series of flavours and aromas in the forty-eight hours after you open it. I think the equine note is gradually going away, however, and taken with the level of tannins, I don't think this is a wine for long keeping.

The only box left unticked by Le Roc is that of price. It is neither ultra cheap, a bargain to be hoarded and gleefully shared with good friends, nor yet is it hideously expensive (which is always allowed if the wine can justify it in terms of quality. See these past examples). I bought it in Oddbins for £9.50, which seems about right to me.

So to Wine Blogging Wednesday. This institution (is it an institution? It has been going for quite a while) played a part in motivating my early Sentir le Bouchon postings, and the theme for this post, Spark, has been very interesting to address.

In truth I might have picked any number of wines to write about. What really truly sparks my interest - and continues to do so after ten years in the wine trade - is the endless infinite diverse variety of wine. I love that Burgundy has 500 (or is it 700?) appellations. I love Carignan when it's made old style and reeks of garrigue herbs and blood. It delights me to know that until 1994 Chilean winemakers thought their wonderful Carmenere was just plain old Merlot. I even love (well maybe not love. Like. I admit I can't bring myself to love it). I even like Bastardo, that vile Portugese grape which reeks of silage, because unless you taste the bad stuff you can never know just how good the gems are, and anything is better than awful bland homogenous supermarket tripe.

So thank you to Wine Blogging Wednesday, and thank you for proposing Spark. I really enjoyed writing this.

Whoops, nearly forgot. Le Roc La Folle Noire d'Ambat 2009: delicious, savoury, floral and complex, 4.

Lochside 1965

The star of an excellent tasting by Adelphi for Glasgow's Whisky Club was this rare, unusual, old single blend (that's right, single blend) from the long closed Lochside distillery.

Lochside, which operated at Montrose between 1957 and 1992, is one of a small number of distilleries to have produced both malt and grain whisky. But it's rare indeed for the two to be blended together before being put into cask.

46 years is a very long time for a spirit to spend in cask, and it does result in aromas and flavours which younger whiskies never exhibit. Indeed even the appearance is unusual - it's as dark and viscous as a Pedro Ximinez sherry.

The nose is frankly amazing. Super sweet, but also savoury like a marinade for something about to be grilled, there is a complex array of notes from coconut to chocolate to malt to floor polish to violets. It changes too, sometimes showing the grain character, and seeming very rum-like, as old grain whiskies do. At other times it seems much maltier, with the classic christmas cake nose of a rich old Highland dram.

The palate does not disappoint. Treacle, chocolate, coconut, burnt toasty malt, creamy coffee, burnt toffee, dried vine fruits, this is a real meditation dram, but it's also very moreish. Those sweet flavours are so attractive, yet so well balanced by the bitter notes, I could drink this all night (whilst stopping occasionally to wonder at that rare violet note - something I almost never find in whisky).

A truly excellent dram, but sadly rather out of my price range at around £225. Not to worry: once tasted, never forgotten!

You have to warm to a winemaker whose website opens with a haiku from Basho. The stylish label, with its Böcklin-like lettering, also helps.

97 Parker points rather spoils the party, and the 15.9% ABV doesn't promise greatness.

The alcohol is immediately apparent on pouring - this is a very teary wine.

It smells fantastic, combining freshness and green notes with more evolved aromas like preserved lime peel and, oddly, coffee creams. I say oddly because the wine didn't see any oak.

Not surprisingly, it is very full bodied, concentrated, and delicious. The flavours match the aromas exactly, and it has an attractive creamy texture.

There is a little bitterness late in the finish, but at fortified wine strength that would be hard to avoid, I should think. An altogether excellent wine, 4.

These Romans Are Crazy

I was talking before about the mysteries of taste, and how wine can seem to offer aromas which ought not to be desirable, yet in some mysterious fashion are.

Brossette's Empreinte Beaujolais is a case in point. It smells decidedly of strawberries sizzled in butter—a delicious smell—but who would fry strawberries? (Admittedly, I have a recipe for risotto alla fragola, but as has been observed elsewhere, these Romans are crazy)

Perhaps a better analogy - it is all analogy, after all - is with the making of jam, where you add a little butter to the boiling pan, a smell which always throws me back into childhood and innocence.

Or perhaps the point of wine (if it even needs one) is to intoxicate us while offering unlikely flavours and aromas. And that's good enough for me.

Whisky for Grappa Drinkers

I'm sitting here enjoying three "whiskies" (lawyer-types: I know, I know, "new make spirit") from the recently re-opened Glenglassaugh distillery, which between them can't even scrape up a single year of ageing. As a grappa fan, I couldn't be happier. They all have that solventy, estery fruity nose found in fresh distillates - lovely.

The Clearac is a straightforwardly fresh, plain spirit . It definitely smells of barley, but I also found marmite and toffee pennies. It's a bit rougher than the other two. The palate is oily, sweet, a little malty, peppery, and mineralic (the sea, ozone, ammonia). The metallic finish lets it down, but still, I'd rate it Good.

Blushes  is the old lady of the bunch, with a whole six months in ex- red wine casks, which we are told come from California (as if you could tell otherwise from tasting). It is a beautiful pink gold colour, what Aunty would call rose gold, and smells very youthful still, with the same salty and ammonaical  notes found in the palate of the Clairac. On top of that there's a pippy, stalky, vinous element - tannin, I should think. Left in the glass for a while it evolves some very attractive red fruit notes, plus the classic grappa nose of honeycomb nougat. It  tastes interestingly earthy or musty, and I found a floral note too. Complex and interesting.

And so to the Peated clearac. I don't know what the Parts Per Million of Peat is for this, but they haven't stinted. And it's a fantastic interesting smokiness - dry, charred wood. If you could have smoked grappa - which would be a good thing  - you would want it to smell like this. It tastes sweet, oily, and very smoky, with more of that charred wood in the finish. Very good.

Newly opened malt whisky distilleries are always confronted with a huge cash flow problem, and have come up with various wangles to get round this. Glenglassaugh's approach is very interesting, and in the case of the 'Blushes', a definite winner. There is plenty of flavour and complexity in it, even for folk who don't usually enjoy young spirits.

Directly Above The Centre Of The Earth

A Helpful Bottle Top

I've been occupied with WSET diploma lectures and a jaunt to North Wales, so the Miles From Nowhere Sémillon / Sauvignon Blanc (which arrived in the shop a couple of weeks ago) has had to wait.

Resisting the urge to do a full diploma-style tasting note (they are great, but I haven't yet mastered the trick of combining a diploma note with catching the soul of a wine), I enjoyed the wine outside in the glorious spring sunshine, sitting basking in the kind of warmth which this wine was made to complement.

Miles From Nowhere smells fresh, grassy and fruity. After I'd tasted it I went back and confirmed that, yes, there is a little bit of waxiness on the nose.

The wine has a really clear-cut lovely waxy texture to it, along with plenty of lemon and grapefruit juiciness. There's also a tiny touch of citrus pith, a wee bitter note which is just enough for refreshment without being obtrusive.

It's an excellent summer drinker, and I wish I'd tasted as soon as it arrived in the shop - we would have taken several bottles on holiday. (excellent summer drinker = 4++)

Precision Wine

Sometimes (not often enough, sad to say) a less expensive bottle really over-delivers.

And so it is with the Schiefer Dry Riesling 2007, from Kendermann. It's not really a complex wine, but what it does is expressed so purely that it's a delight to taste.

The abiding impression I took from my glass was of pure lime fruit alloyed with delicate mineral oil. Right the way through from first sniff to final after taste, this wine gives those two aroma or flavour notes. Harmoniously sustained, they are deeply satisfying (Deeply Satisfying = -4).

Best of all, this bottle sells for a mere seven quid. Buy one today and make a Riesling lover happy.

Ave atque Vale

I'm drinking the last glass from the last but one bottle of Château De La Selve Palissaire 2007. I say this because if you are quick (and, I suppose, lucky) you can rattle off to the shop and get the final bottle, and I am feeling well-disposed to the world, and in particular to you, dear reader.

You might want to taste this fine drop because it's from an organic, biodynamic, low-yielding family-run domaine. But better to taste it because it is so very fine.

The aromas are a poised contrast, from metallic iron-rich minerality to animal, leathery sharpness to bright red fruits. The palate is dry, medium bodied and sharp (oh how this wine likes fatty foods). The tannins are, rather like an experienced butler, discreet but persistent. The flavours are red winey much more than they are red fruits, and a good thing too, say I. Altogether excellent, 4, and even if the 2007 is all gone, I'm sure the 2009 vintage will be just as tasty, given a little time.

Fyne by Name, Fine by Nature

Fyne Ales are a wee brewery at the head of Loch Fyne. Set up in 2001, and almost from the start collecting awards, I like their beers because they take a generous approach to hopping. Here's a round up of tasting notes for five of the beers. I should also mention Avalanche, which I have a clear memory of being the best beer of a very good selection in the Guildford Arms in Edinburgh. A clear memory, but, alas, no tasting notes.

Hurricane Jack is a well hopped blonde ale. Of course this means it's the slightly worrying shade of yellow best described as 'sample coloured', but that's balanced by a lovely creamy white froth.

It smells very bright and clean, and, promisingly, there's plenty of bitter hop character. Dry too.

The taste matches the nose most excellently, being dry, clean and exceedingly hoppy, with the long aftertaste being dominated by the hops. This is a properly refreshing glass of beer. All it needs for perfection is a long hard bike run. Hurricane Jack, excellent.

Highlander is a fruity Amber Ale. Slightly sweet, but with a nice drying finish from the hops, which are rather less bitter and more coppery than in the Hurricane Jack.

Definitely fruitier too. Highlander, good to excellent.

Pipers Gold is the beeriest of these beers, by which I suppose I mean the most malty. It has a light but persistent froth, and a good dry, hoppy nose.

It tastes light, dry, and hoppy, with an interesting salt/sweet finish. It's perhaps a little too gassy to be a good session beer. Pipers Gold, good.

Vital Spark is a dark brown ale, which smells beautifully of sweet jammy fruit - strawberry jam, to be precise.

Off-dry and lighter bodied than the colour would suggest, it has a nicely rounded nutty-to-hoppy palate with a neat wee salty note like the Pipers Gold. A very decent session beer.

Holly Daze, a winter-only beer ("available Advent to Epiphany"), is a dark amber ale. It smells nutty, woody-spicy, and a little bitter - good hoppy bitter, that is.

It tastes dry, with a really good creamy texture. There's a hint of smoke, a generous dollop of hops, and the finish is toffee-sweet but also a little salty, before fading to a memory of very fine hops. Interesting and nearly excellent.

Sweet Wine Wednesday #13

Tonight's theme was Chardonnay, but as ever there were a couple of ringers thrown in.

We started with an elderly fizz, the Sieur d'Arques Cremant de Limoux NV. If it were a person you'd feel the need to qualify "elderly" with "sprightly" or some such. The sparkle didn't last long after pouring, but that didn't matter, because it had a lovely masculine perfume, spicy and woody; and a well developed palate alternating from candied orange peel to almonds. Excellent, 4.

Then, an interesting pair of wines from Marlborough. Cloudy Bay Chardonnay '03 and Highfield Chardonnay '05 were both very full bodied and elegant. The Cloudy Bay, being older and under cork, had a much more evolved character, with plenty of butterscotch and a little bit of earthiness. The acidity was still fairly tangy, though, suggesting that the wine has a couple of years in it yet, and is still excellent, 4. The Highfield was by far the oakiest of the evening's wines, but for all that it is two years older than the winery seem to recommend, it was still fantastically well balanced, with plenty of tropical fruit in the mix. Only the acidity seems to be diminishing, but there was still enough to make it an excellent 4+.

Next, two youthful wines were a refreshing contrast (yes I know we should have tasted the younger ones first, but the logistics of tasting blind make this rather difficult to achieve). Innocent Bystander Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2009 was very fresh, cool, and intriguingly perfumed with flowers over toasty oak; an excellent 4. By contrast the Michelot Bourgogne Blanc 2008 was much greener, lighter, and with a distinct green tang. Almost excellent, -4.

The first of the ringers gave itself away by being red. Domaine Pouderoux Maury 2005 in fact looks very like a young ruby port. It had a lovely blue fruit and flowers aroma which follows through on the palate, and it does in fact taste rather porty. Porty and excellent, to be precise (porty and excellent = 4++)

And the Pérez Barquero Gran Barquero Pedro Ximinez was fairly unmistakeable (I was convinced it was Rutherglen Muscadelle). It smelled intensely of licorice and cold tea and had that trick of coating the sides of the glasses and then not running down again. It tasted like sweet sticky treacle toffee or honey sweet cold tea. Really rather tasty, 3-4.

Wild Roses

Goodness, I've never seen such a dark champagne before. If I didn't know what it was, I'd be guessing Shiraz for the grape, or perhaps a Cabernet - Merlot blend.

The Piper-Heidsieck Brut Rosé Sauvage NV is really dark, but when you hold it up to the light you see more of onion-skin than raspberry. And it smells pretty fantastic.

It smells, in fact, properly Champagne-like, but with a big blast of red fruit flavours and a strong mineral - specifically metallic, most specifically copper - element. The coppery tang almost makes me think of a well-hopped amber ale.

The palate is complex, offering a dry attack, a sweet mid-palate, a drying finish, and lovely red-fruit aftertaste. There's more of the coppery flavour in there; coming from, I think, Pinot Noir.

It looks really beautiful too. The dark colour is complemented by a very lively stream of fine bubbles. An excellent and unusual champagne, 3-4.

Penderyn, Bunnahabhain, Machrie Moor

Lightly peated whiskies are a tricky business.

Big bold peated malts are a great style, shouldering their way across your palate with their salt and smoke and earthiness, but at times they can leave you feeling like a crockery salesman in Pamplona.

Speysiders or Highlanders would say they have a touch of peat in them (from the water), before changing the subject to honey or sherry or such like.

Lightly peated malts fall somewhere between these two stools, landing in an awkward area which not many whiskies can comfortably inhabit.

Hence the great fascination of Bunnahabhain. Good Bunna is one of life's pleasures. Bad Bunna, as Oz Clarke says of bad Burgundy, leaves you discontentedly fingering your wallet.

So where do Penderyn Peated and the new Isle of Arran Machrie Moor fall?

My first impression is that they are mood whiskies - sometimes fantastic and other times so-so. This isn't a criticism, it's true of most drams.

The Isle of Arran Machrie Moor has a quietly attractive nose, starting with toffee and then letting out a little puff of smoke, nothing ferocious. To taste it is nicely oily, with a lemony spicy sweetness and a fair bit of dry smoke - dried pine twigs rather than big bonfires. It dries out in the finish, leaving the smoke behind to remind you to take another sip (yes, it is rather moreish).

The Penderyn Peated is less intense to smell, with something like mint tea and a sort of fresh smoke - maybe smoke on a windy day. Tasting it reveals a herbaceous edge to the smoke, like throwing thyme on a barbeque, and then it gets all hot and peppery in the finish.

After these two the Bunnahabhain 12 year old seems pretty mild mannered. Sweet, malty or cerealy to begin, becoming really as sweet as a toffee penny. Tasting it, the body is much fuller than the other two, and I can't really see any smoke in there at all. Perhaps the peat is doing the Highland trick of broadening the malt, but behind the scenes, so to speak.

Both of the newcomers have been growing on me with repeated tastings. But (it's a small but), my overall impression, as has been the case with the standard release from each distillery, is that, while good, they'll be better when they are older. I'm really enjoying the standard Arran 10 just now, which has a decent breadth that younger releases lacked, and I'd love to taste a smoky version of that. So the Penderyn Peated is pretty good, 3; the Isle of Arran Machrie Moor is really rather good, 3++; and good old Bunna (tonight, at least) is comfy and reliable, 3.

A Penderyn cyber-tasting

With a view to synchronising our palates, SF and I (with expert kibitzing provided by TallAsAVan) conducted a tasting of Penderyn whiskies at a distance of four hundred miles, using Skype. This worked really well, except that I found myself rather bellowing.

I'm in two minds about what Penderyn do. They have a weird setup which seems to be the bastard offspring of a pot still and a column still. And they distill to 92% ABV. In other words, they are making something like grain spirit, and relying on the casks to impart a much higher proportion of flavour than normal. On the one hand, selecting high-quality casks to finish your spirit can produce lovely whiskies (think Compass Box), but on the other, what about terroir, typicity?

We tasted the Madeira, Sherrywood, and Peated finishes, and while they are all what I'd call restrained whiskies, I enjoyed them. There's a common theme of tangy fruit; oranges or apricots, and often with a lick of chocolate to them, as well as the same minty note I've found in the Saint George English whisky - the same mintiness you find in Glenkinchie 12 year old.

The Madeira finish is Penderyn's standard expression. No age statement, but it doesn't taste young (no new make spirit character I can see). Instead it tastes smooth, light, and fruity - definitely chocolate oranges. Good to Excellent.

The Sherrywood is the woodiest of the three. On top of the orange-to-apricot flavour, there's a generous handful of dried fruit and nuts, and a surprising, but very tasty, layer of butterscotch. Good.

The Penderyn Peated is drier than tonight's other drams. It has a nice dry smoke to it, with dry earth and a smell of sheds. It tastes of the seaside, but the sweet chocolate orange character comes through nicely. Also Good.

Tasting via Skype was good fun - much laughter - and certainly easier than tweeting, if you are trying to take notes too. I'd recommend you try it. Just don't spill anything into your keyboard...

A peck o dirt willna kill ye

I once attended a tasting presented by Bruce Jack, the endlessly innovative chief winemaker at Flagstone. The conversation came round to the subjects of hygiene, and specifically Brettanomyces. Mr Jack boldly suggested that all wine made in Burgundy is dirty. Fortunately there were no Frenchmen present, but I was reminded of that evening when I tasted this wine.

Badia di Morrona I Sodi del Paretaio Chianti 2007 is an absolutely wonderful wine, with a good deal going on. There's a great big chunk of leather in there, loads of red fruits (definitely red, not black), dry sandy loam, something biscuity, a sharp solventy edge, dry autumn leaves, five spice powder, beefsteak mushrooms, and a touch of some animal smell.

To taste it's delicious, with sweet red cherry fruit, tangy acidity, fairly smooth tannins, a slight earthy or musty note (which seemed very claret-like), a refreshing juiciness, and even a scrap or two of leather.

It's 85% sangiovese, made and matured without any oak, and I think it's just fabulous (just fab = 4-5). Strictly, it doesn't really deserve that score, since it lacks true finesse, but it's so cheap for what it does.

You do need to like Brett, mind.

Gruss Muscat d'Alsace Ottonel 2009

I had to go and look it up, and the Oxford Companion to Wine says that Muscat Ottonel is "paler in every way, a relative parvenu".

Well, in that case it's probably just as well that M. Gruss isn't growing Muscat Blanc à petits grains, since this bottle was amply aromatic enough to please us, and indeed to stand up very well to the spicy pakora we were having as a starter.

The nose was really very fresh, with white flower, lime jelly, and mealy or grainy aromas, along with a touch of something green and herbaceous, like angelica.

The palate was fresh, juicy, and just off dry. A layered, complex wine, with lots of floral loveliness coming and going to an almost oily, steely minerality.

The flowers versus minerality had the effect of making the wine seem to gently swing back and forth from dry to off-dry. I do so like it when a wine constantly changes, and this is a cracking example. Really very lovely, 4+++.

It's the bubbles, y'see

That's what makes champagne special. Watching the tiny specks rising slowly up through glass (as plain as possible, please. Crystal just gets in the way) is mesmerising; a gentle, slow, soothing pleasure.

Tonight's fizz was a very fine example, with plentiful tiny bubbles continuing to rise even as the glass was emptied.

It smelled very fresh, like fresh sea air, followed by the classic champagne nose of wet stones and plain bread.

To taste it was dry, full-bodied and delicious. I was starting to wonder where the sweetness was when it slipped in at the end, along with a nice woody note, but then both sweetness and wood sidled off again leaving a brisk refreshing minerality somewhere between sherbet and aspirin.

Altogether a very fine wine, and a lovely way to kick off the Festive season.

Pol Roger Brut Vintage 2000, 4++.

Garnacha Peluda, Sin Filtrar

I'm sorry to keep banging on about typicity, but I do think it ought to matter. You see, I really rather like this wine, with its dark, burnt earth and licorice flavours, but it just doesn't seem very Grenache-y.

Monte La Sarda Garnacha 2009 is a Vino de la Tierra de Bajo Aragon, from near Zaragoza; somewhere in between Rioja territory and the likes of Priorat, in a region where it ought to be too hot and too dry for wine. It's a collaboration between Bodegas Leceranas and Joan Mila, dating to 2005. By only using fruit from vines that are 45 years or older, and consequently having yields restricted to 3.7 tons per hectare, they have arrived at a wine of great concentration.

This is a fairly straightforward wine, which I think ought to be drunk young. It smells dark dry and rich, with lots of fruit which has been generously sprinkled with black pepper and then grilled. To taste, it is darkly fruity, and there's a real big chunk of earthy licorice right in the middle. It gets a little bitter in the finish, but that's probably just the 14.5%ABV. Looking round the web it seems lots of people like it a lot, but I rate it, because it doesn't seem very Grenache-y, sort of good, -3.

I suppose I ought to stop thinking about typicity (of the grape variety), and start wondering about terroir (of Bajo Aragon). There's an interesting project: to drink only wines from Bajo Aragon, and see what it makes of its grapes.

A lovely Porcupine

A full bodied, oily, rich wine from Boekenhoutskloof, the Porcupine Ridge Viognier / Grenache Blanc 08 only comes over to the UK in limited parcels, which is a bit of a shame, as I do believe I could drink a lot of this.

South Africa these days seems to do just as well with Rhône grapes as with the Bordeaux varieties; Marc Kent and Boekenhoutskloof are at the forefront of this trend.

There's a strong spiciness to the nose of this one, along with an oily, mineral character and tropical fruit which is, I think, mango. The palate is full-bodied, not quite dry (as so many ostensibly dry New World wines are), nutty, lemony, and woody. The wine is a very good example of the way producers outside of the Northern Rhône handle Viognier, given that they can never hope to achieve the delicate, vaporous strength of Condrieu.

Porcupine Ridge Viognier / Grenache Blanc 08: somewhere between Very Good and Lovely, 3+ - 4.

Fresh and Tasty and Formerly Fashionable

Yes indeed, it can only be Beaujolais Nouveau. Not quite the first French wine from the 2010 vintage - that would be something white and primeur from Gascogny, I should think - but the first red, and a lovely, traditional, refreshing, all too drinkable glass it is too.

This particular bottling comes from Domaine Brossette, based at Theize, in a district called the Golden Stones. It's a fantastic fresh wine, starting out with loads of bubblegum and banana aromas, although with a little air it becomes more red fruit-y, cherries and raspberries.

Almost without tannins, and decently sharp, it has a lovely flavour of bubblegum, pink Edinburgh rock, and fresh red fruit. Altogether excellent.

Brossette Domaine des Coteaux de Cruix Beaujolais Nouveau 2010. Altogether Excellent = 4(+?).

Glasgow's Whisky Festival

A lovely afternoon, spent in the Arches, sampling my way around some very fine whiskies. The inaugural Glasgow's Whisky Festival was a great opportunity to taste some obscure, rare, hard to get or, frankly, unaffordable drams (fifty year old Speyside anyone?).

As it happens, my favourite whisky of the day was neither old or ridiculously expensive.

The Creative Whisky Company's 4-year old Bunnahabhain was the kind of drink which makes me laugh out loud when I smell it. This doesn't happen often, but it's one of the reasons why booze remains so endlessly fascinating.

Matured in a bourbon cask from 2005 to 2010, this malt is powerful, natural cask strength stuff. The initial nose smells exactly like the dentists, but then a well balanced range of citrus, brine, and spicy wood notes come through.

I had to add water to be able to taste it (57.7% alcohol you see), but when I did I found it to be a lovely smooth salty whisky, with a strong nutty note, like brazil nut toffee. The finish was long and salty. Altogether a fantastic Islay malt, probably the best Bunnahabhain I've yet tasted, and my malt of the Festival.

(Malt of the Festival = 4-5)

Does Typicity Matter?

At a WSET blind tasting tonight three of the wines tasted did not seem to have a clear sense of place about them.

One of them, the Louis Michel Chablis Premier Cru Montmain 05, seemed so far removed from Burgundy I was reaching for Sicily or Sud-Tirol as a place to park it.

For sure, it was a fine glass of wine. A mature nose of vegetal notes, earthy minerality, and a little toffeed sweetness led onto a medium bodied, bone-dry, balanced palate with plenty of green fruit, and a definite sharp stony character.

But, it just didn't seem like Chablis. However I tried, I couldn't find steeliness. Nothing green in the colour. It was perhaps a little unfair to look for raciness in a five year old white wine, but I did look. Alas, in vain.

Later I was complaining about lack of typicity to a non-wine drinking whisky buff, who asked, "does typicity matter as long as it tastes good?".

"Well of course it does", is what I ought to have said. "You wouldn't want me to hold up Benriach Curiositas as a canonical Speyside Malt". Failing to be even remotely as snappy as that, I mumbled something about authenticity and expectations.

But, l'esprit de l'escalier aside, typicity does matter. Which is why this lovely wine scores a rather measly -3.

Ridgeview Merret Fitzrovia 2007

All the best bits of Cremola Foam.

I'm now going to use another 150 words to justify those seven, but really,I ought to just write them out another 21 times.

To start with, I have to deal with the age thing. If you aren't old or Scottish enough to have enjoyed the sharp, pungent fizz and sweet squishy raspberry (ersatz raspberry, I know, but still delicious) of a freshly stirred glass of Cremola on a hot summer's day, well - that doesn't matter, because you can have this.

And then, I wouldn't want Ridgeview to think I was suggesting there was anything artificial or saccharine about this lovely wine. That's why I say, "All the best bits".

And there's more. I found a definite spicy edge to it, which I suppose comes from the one third Pinot Noir. This particular bottle seemed slightly reductive, but that actually added to the impression that I was drinking Cremola, so it's hardly a criticism.

So, 155 words later, let me recommend the Ridgeview Merret Fitvrovia 2007, because it offers all the best bits of Cremola Foam. (All the best bits = -4)

Aberlour a Go-go

Another entertaining tasting at the Bothy, this time, a Sunday afternoon whisky school, with some very interesting food matching going on.

Dalwhinnie 15yo was rather excellent tasted with honeycomb nougat. Ardbeg 10yo went surprisingly well with a mildish remoulade; the horseradish wasn't overly fiery, and the creamy dressing pulled everything together nicely. But the culinary star of the day was Aberlour A'Bunadh batch 31.

A'Bunadh is a true sherry monster, in the best way possible. This batch seems particularly wine-y and fresh - it reminds you that sherry is a wine, and sometimes a rather fruity one. But more than that, and always, A'Bunadh tastes of cherries; sweet red cherries, not the black ones.

So served with a big fat cherry that had been dipped in dark chocolate, the Aberlour was very heaven (very heaven = 5).

Trifecta, apparently

Or what you or I might call a Rhône blend, but to be fair, the quality of the wine is sufficiently high to bear such high-flown winemaker's language.

I'm talking about the McHenry Hohnen 3 Amigos Red 2007, a Western Australian blend of Shiraz, Grenache, and Mataro. It smells like fruit leather, or even fruity leather - really concentrated fruit juice, but with something deeper to back it up. The palate is dry, mid to full bodied and noticeably spicy. This spiciness grows stronger, so that after a few minutes you have a rather delicious mix of dark fruit purée and chilli, with subtle, but grippy, tannins. After being open for a few hours the chili pepper calmed down and the wine was much more balanced, reminding me of Priorat somewhat.


It really is very very moreish indeed, which is a definite good thing. Lately most of the new world reds I've tried have been hard work, what with their biting youthful acidity and overly concentrated fruit, but 3 Amigos is much more civilised, a very tasty 4+.

Three cheers for 3 Amigos, and a fourth cheer for Margaret River.

Taleggio and Grappa

A man who knows about these things suggested to me that Taleggio ought to go well with Grappa. By a handy coincidence, I happened to have both these items to hand.

Now, Taleggio, (which I believe must be the Italian word for Athlete's Foot), is a washed rind cheese made in the region of Milan, and as is typical of such cheeses, the aroma is pretty powerful, sharp, and sweaty, while the taste is mild, very creamy, and nutty. With this particular sample I also noticed a wee fresh green note in the nose, celery or cucumber.

The Grappa, Brotto Grappa di Moscato d'Asti nelle Dolci Colline Astigiane, is made from grapes from hills rather to the West of Milan, but Brotto are based over to the East, in the Veneto. It's a lovely sweet Grappa, not aged, and thus perfectly clear and full of a fine blend of grapey perfume (from the Moscato), quintessence of bitter cloves, a new make spirit character (solvents, nail polish), and a generous dose of what I take to be tannins, from the grape skins and pips, finishing with a touch of camphor. An excellent 4.

Taken together, the sharpness of the cheese's aroma is balanced by the solvent character in the Grappa, and in turn the Grappa is softened by the cheese, so the combined taste is fantastic. But texturally they don't meet at all, remaining completely separate in the mouth. So for flavour, Grappa and Taleggio do very well, but texture lets them down: fairly good, 3+.

Where's the Sherry?

Well who'd have thought it? Mortlach is a fruity whisky.

I tasted this particular bottling (Cadenhead Mortlach 14yo 1992/2006, 46%) blind, and never in a decade would I have picked Mortlach as the source, because, to repeat my initial question, where's the sherry?

Actually, no, don't tell me. Leave it in Spain. Mortlach without sherry influence is a lovely dram, all green apples and highland toffee and angelica and very, very fresh. Also, light and watery - not lacking intensity of flavour, I mean the texture is watery. A breakfast Mortlach, or, (for the more puritanical) an aperitif.

It does say on the bottle that this whisky has been matured in sherry casks, but they must have been very old, for there really isn't any sort of influence on the flavour. And a good thing too, say I. Mortlach 14yo, a very good thing indeed, 4+.

Whither Cragganmore?

I'm not the only one, I think, who has the idea that Cragganmore isn't what it was ten years ago.

My - admittedly not very systematic - impression was that the spirit had become lighter and less intense. Obviously, this called for a taste test, so I rummaged about the interwebs and came up with a Gordon & MacPhail 1969 Cragganmore from the old brown label Connoiseurs Choice series. Conveniently this was bottled at the same 40% as the Official 12 Year Old I compared it with (which was bottled around 2010).

Neither of these is an outstanding dram, although they are both good single malts. The two were pretty similar, unsurprisingly, but I did find that the older bottling had a little more complexity. It seemed to have rather more woody notes, in an elegant sort of a way, and I was pretty sure that there was a touch of smoke about it (although this could be a barrel effect I suppose). On the whole, there wasn't a great deal between them.

In conclusion, I have to say case not proven. And I hereby resolve to drink whisky with a little less cynicism in future.

Comfort Food

If you got into wine when the Australians were selling us bottled sunshine for not much money, then this will probably take you back most beautifully. (Apart from the money bit. Sadly the Australians will require fourteen of your Pommie pounds if you care to try this one, although they will give you a penny back)

Heggies Chardonnay 2008 is a big buttery whoosh of mushroom cream and lemony zing. It's dry, mid-bodied, and not remotely oily, as the nose had implied might be the case. Not a complex wine, but what it offers, it expresses most charmingly. Nearly excellent.

Synchronicity?

I organised a tasting last month for some folks who wanted a selection of "interesting" wines, rather than any regional or grape theme. We had a great discussion about wine in general, and afterwards one of them sent me a bottle from a producer I haven't tried. So I tried it, purely for the purpose of assessing the wine, of course, no actual hedonistic drinking involved.

The Bradgate Syrah 2007 is a densely purple wine, with the utterly characteristic South African nose of rubbery smoke - oh how I love it. Of course you can't say that when you are selling a wine, so let me add that it's sweetly fruity (plums, I think), a little savoury - like soy - and there's a touch of vanilla structure from the oak barrels.

On the palate it's rich and fairly sweet, again very South African, with smokey notes, a little herbal tobacco, and a touch of chocolate. It has a nicely drying finish, where the fine-grained tannins come through. Altogether good to excellent, 3-4, and by a happy coincidence, soon to be available from Oddbins.

Off to Alloa...

...for a charity fundraising whisky tasting. The six whiskies were all donated, so there was no theme, but some interesting contrasts arose anyway.

Tullibardine was mothballed in 1995 and did not produce whisky again until 2003, when they became independent. They have approached the problem of this gap in production (which leaves them unable to offer a ten year old whisky until 2013) and made a virtue of necessity by presenting the whisky as a Bourbon Cask Edition, which is rather like Hovis offering their bread as the Yeasted Edition. It's a light easy whisky which reminded me of Auchentoshan 10yo, being spirity and sweetly floral. Good, 3+.

Tormore 12yo and Dufftown 12yo (sorry Diageo, Singleton of Dufftown) were both very easy Speysides in the toffee-ish mode, although I did see an interesting herbaceous aftertaste in the Tormore. Bunnahabhain 12yo was also an easy malt, and tonight it seemed maltier than usual for an Islay whisky.

Lagavulin 16yo and Laphroaig Quarter Cask were a fine pairing. The Lagavulin (the oldest standard release of any malt?) is all smoke and brine and intense oily saltiness, but the Quarter Cask has reined in the usual Laphroaig TCP aroma somewhat, perhaps allowing the whisky to appeal to a wider audience. The texture, too, is easier -smoother- than the ten year old. Both these whiskies I rated as excellent, 4 to 4+.

The best description of the night, about the Lagavulin, was, "like a mixture of amyl nitrate, ether and methylated spirits", from a chap who claims that he fuels model airplanes with such a mixture.

Always read the small print... and then disregard it

Tasting the delicious Cuvée Amandine Chablis 08 my first thought was – well actually, my first thought was, “Mmm, this is intense, in an iodic, salty, fish stock way.” And my second thought was, “Ooh, there's an interesting flowery perfume in there, and that iodic element is almost verging on ammoniacal”.

My third thought was, “despite the dry fullish body, and long savoury aftertaste, this wine is not steely”. So it was actually my fourth thought which was, “Hey! the back label says steely”.

Then I looked at the bottle again and it seems the carefully pedantic Oddbins back label writers have in fact made a general observation that Chablis tends to be steely, without actually saying so about the Cuvée Amandine.

I suppose the consumer looks for the word 'steely' on a Chablis label, so you can't blame the labelista, but it's a tiny little bit of a shame, because this lovely wine has plenty going on without needing to be steely. (Delicious and lovely amounts to 4+, by the by).

Beer Night at the Market Gallery

Somehow Eric Steen persuaded everybody that his idea for a Beer Project ought to be part of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts, which is how I found myself at the Market Gallery on Duke Street, sampling some fine Alloa ales.

Williams Brothers work out of Alloa making a fine range of beers, including some historical oddities like Fraoch (Heather Ale), Ebulum (Elderberry), and Grozet, which is infused with Gooseberries. Made with lager yeast, it's a light soft beer, which seemed quite vegetal to me, as if there might secretly be parsnips in it. There was a nice touch of spice too. Good, -4.

The best beer of the evening, for me, was the Williams Midnight Sun, a black porter style. It had an intense savoury nose, which also reminded me of seashells, warm attic dust, and toasted oats. The palate was dark and creamy, slightly sweet but balanced by good hoppiness, a drying finish, and a suggestion of saltiness. Excellent, 4+.

Gordon Gelsthorpe, brewer, and Des Mulcahy, PR, came along from Williams Bros to present the beers and field the questions from home brewers. A very interesting evening, and I'm looking forward to April 30th when the Beer Project will present a selection of home- and craft-brewed beers. The best of these will be made commercially for a small production run by Williams. I intend to vote with my palate.

Cut Stick Sherry

Palo Cortado is a bit of a rarity in sherry. Generally, once the solera master has set each wine on its course, towards fino or oloroso, that's it.

But occasionally a fino will up and change in some mysterious fashion. The layer of flor which keeps oxygen out and allows the fino to retain all of its initial fresh delicacy dies, and the wine begins to age oxidatively, like an oloroso. If all goes well, you end up with a wine which shows aspects of both fino and oloroso character.

I am happy to report that all has gone well, and the Lustau Dry Old Palo Cortado NV (Marks & Spencer) offers flavours and aromas across the dry sherry spectrum.

It has the intense pungency of a fresh fino - the aldehydic note, not the apples - but at the same time, and in a tidy fashion, the contrasting aromas not fighting each other, it also smells very nutty, with even a little dried fruit character.

Absolutely dry, and light in body, with a clear nutty character giving way to a strong mushroom streak, and finishing slightly salty. And there's a definite edge of aldehyde, too.

The wine really didn't agree with a piece of rocquefort, but nut cake (from Delizique, I think) was a beautiful match. An excellent wine, 4+.

Z is for Zinfandel (just don't mention the Primitivo)

Le Z de l'Arjolle is a mere table wine, not permitted to display its vintage date, obliged to skirt around the edges of Appellation Controllee rules, for it is a Zinfandel (officially Primitivo **ahem** (you have to ask, why, if all the vines are planted on American rootstocks, is it so wrong to have actual American vines?)).

So, Primitivo, from vines sourced from Italy, unofficially the 2007 vintage, and given the full-on Zin treatment by an acolyte of the canonical Californian grape.

So, Z. Is it worth it?

Oh boy yes, - 'tis excellent, 4 - and I drank it too young. It has a strong dark fruit nose, with a distinct rum and raisin element, along with the expected dried figs. It tastes somewhat mellow, but basically a bit sharp, since it could do with more time in bottle. There's a good suggestion of chocolate and orange oil, but I drank it too young. This is a slight problem, since there is but a single hectare in all of France, so there can't be more than, oooh, 5200 bottles left.

If you do obtain some Z, be sure and share it with a cinephile, just for the creaking wordplay that the finishing of the bottle will engender.

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.