OK, after a long time typing up my notes from the scores of wines tasted at the Planet of the Grapes tasting last week I am finally ready to release my opinions to the public. Originally my plan was to present my complete and unabridged notes. However I am not a professional taster (if only) and so, after about 40 wines my concentration began to wane (along with my ability to write) and I don’t think that my readers would be greatly assisted by the resultant notes, which consisted of incisive remarks such as “minrmmmly/chooolfm…dog” and “orly +? shiraz?” together with smears of bodily fluids.
So instead of being prolific but boring (like the Etudes of Czerny), I propose to present two smaller batches of hopefully worthwhile notes (like the Etudes of Chopin). The first, contained herein, is called “interesting and different” and comprises notes of those wines that, rather obviously, I either found particularly interesting or were made from different or unusual grape varieties. A further post will follow with my notes of other wines that I simply found to be of high quality or value or otherwise worthy of comment.
And here they are:
2006 Domaine Felines Jourdan Picpoul de Pinet (£9)
I had never tasted a varietal Picpoul before, the grape being known to me only as one of the permitted whites in Chateauneuf du Pape. The guy behind the counter described it as being ‘real peasant’s wine’ (‘peasant’ being a compliment these days in certain circles), so I will start drinking it regularly once I buy a beret and take up backgammon. Austere nose of slate, armpit and grape fruit. Palate shows hay, grape fruit, moderate acid and a lingering sappiness/greenness. Worthwhile.
2006 Nautilus Pinot Gris (Marlborough, NZ) (£14.50)
There is a real dispute as to whether Pinot Gris smells of ‘pork fat’. James Simpson MW thinks it does, and he’s an MW so his opinion is probably valid. I have found it less helpful as a descriptor, but this wine really does have a pork fat/pork scratchings nose, together with the poirewilliam/pear drops more commonly associated with Pinot Gris. Unfortunately I had already lost credibility as a taster with the guy behind the counter because I had described a 2005 Pazo Senorans Albarino (Spain) (£12) as smelling like pork fat and nacho cheese flavour Doritos. So he did not accept my pork fat comment. (You really have to earn respect at ‘public’ tastings. At ‘trade’ tastings they assume you know what you’re talking about – at public tastings it’s quite the opposite, and usually for good reason. Still, it annoys me). He insisted instead that this Pinot Gris had a ginger and lemon tea dimension to the nose, which I’ll allow. In any case the wine has a zesty entry, with green pears, a bit of hay, and a soft lingering finish with even a hint of parsley. Perfect for Chinese food/noodle dishes. (Incidentally the Albarino DID smell of Doritos, at least initially, with hay, chorizo, and olives on the nose. The palate is all lemons and melons with a rather short finish).
2005 Jean Daneel Signature Chenin Blanc (South Africa) (£20)
I’ve already noted this wine elsewhere, but it was showing particularly well today – in fact I would say it was the best white wine of the tasting. Golden yellow – dried apples, pears, caramel and vanilla on the nose. Palate shows honey, caramel, sandalwood. Rich, lots of finesse, no corners. A small percentage of botrytis affected grapes is included in the blend, to great effect. This wine is definitely going in the ‘wines I pull out for wine lovers’ box. (One MUST have interesting things of high quality in reserve for one’s wine loving friends. Interest alone is insufficient – they also have to be good wines. If you start bringing Bulgarian Traminer to tastings you will get a reputation for stinginess that is hard to shed…)
2005 J Lohr ‘Wildflower’ Valdigue (USA) (£10)
Valdigue is pretty common in the Midi, apparently, but the only reason they grow it in the US is that they thought they were growing Gamay for decades before ampelographers told them otherwise. A bit like learning that the ‘original’ Rembrandt on your wall is actually a fake. Still, it shouldn’t matter if the quality of the wine produced is good. The wine has rhubarb, red fruit and boiled lolly characters on the nose, and slightly vegetal hint. There is some Cottee’s strawberry jam on the entry with some sweetness. (For my UK readers, Cottee’s is a very mainstream Australian brand of cordial and jam, one step up from Home Brand products. Only one step up though – still lots of sugar). An interesting one off, but too sugary and confected for my liking.
2004 Cline ‘Small Berry’ Mourvedre (USA) (£21.50)
It is not usual to find an American attempt at a wine that is more subtle than its French equivalent. Usually US wines are a bit like the Canyonero – 12 yards long, two lanes wide, 65 tons of American pride. Loads of coffee, spearmint, eucalypt and anise on the nose. Palate shows loads of black fruit, intense, liquoricy. Supple but firm tannin finish. A big wine, let there be no doubt, but not as black and gothic as some Bandols I’ve had.
2004 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel (USA) (£25)
A really serious attempt at Zinfandel here. Liquorice, black jelly babies on the nose, with something fruity like fibrous peach or peach stones. Thick, fruity palate, very supple, almost no discernible acid or tannin on the finish. Zin isn’t really my cup of tea, but this is as serious as they come.
Friday, 15 June 2007
Monday, 4 June 2007
Wines from the Magdalen College cellar
Not everybody is lucky enough to have a boyfriend in the SCR at Magdalen College Oxford, and therefore vicarious access to that institution’s vast cellar, the contents of which are available to the lucky few at insanely low prices.
But I am, so I might as well write a few notes about what I have been drinking from there over the last term.
But first, a rant about the ridiculous glassware that one is expected to drink from when dining (on the High Table, no less!) We are talking here about a college with an endowment of £116 million. A place with its own deer park and constitutionally mandated chapel choir. A place where water at dinner is served in hand engraved, double handled, 19th century silver tankards; and which has a designated common room the sole purpose of which is to eat fruit after dinner in Summer only. (There’s a different room for Winter). A place where coffee is drunk in one room on Thursday but a different one on Sunday.
This place is so oozing in wealth that I at least expected the wine to be served in Riedel ‘Sommeliers’ series lead crystal glasses, and even half expected each person at dinner to have his or her own personal butler to recline each chair back and pour the wine into our mouths to save us the hassle of tilting our heads.
But no. Instead of good stemware, or even the modest but functional Luigi Bormioli large ISO glasses (which come in at about £2), which are totally acceptable budget glasses, one has to drink from a shitty thick glass goblet that not even Argos sells, and that would be more at home in a JD Weatherspoon pub after they’ve run out of glasses on Curry Club Thursday. And to make things worse they serve the white wine in Champagne flutes! This might seem like pedantry, but when you’re serving something as worthy of appreciation as aged Grand Cru Alsace Riesling, or Premier Cru red Burgundy, it is disgraceful to put it into a vessel that (for various reasons) decreases one’s ability to enjoy the beverage and that would be more accustomed to receiving box wine or West Coast Cooler.
2005 Isabel Estate Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough, NZ)
Just when I was becoming disenamoured with Marlborough Sauvignon, on account of so many of them being so aggressively herbaceous, this one restores my faith. It is at the very tropical end of the spectrum – zesty nose of passion fruit and lime sherbert (Almost Mosel-like!), lean, clean palate with a slightly herbal dimension and crisp acidity. A very energetic, fresh, lively wine.
1996 Zind Humbrecht Wintzenheim Riesling (Alsace)
I don’t often think of Riesling as being ‘big’. But this wine is very big. Deep gold. (I was slightly late to dinner on this day on account of some idiot crashing their car on the M40 meaning that the Oxford Espress had to use an A road, making the journey last about 3 hours. Anyway, in my absence, my dining companions were slightly worried that there might be something ‘wrong’ with the wine, because it was ‘so yellow’, as Stefanie put it. No, no. The wine is very right indeed). Intense mouth- and eye-watering lemon juice on the nose, slightly sweet, sherberty entry, major minerality/steeliness on the mid palate, finishing tight, austere and chalky. Still incredibly youthful.
2003 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre
Red Sancerre. A pretty ordinary proposition I’m afraid (I didn’t order it). A certain blackcurrant leafiness to it, but all in all just a bit too thin, green and under-ripe for my taste.
1993 Domaine Rion Chambolle Musigny ‘Les Cras’
A very agreeable red Burgundy. Perfumed nose of lavender, redcurrants, dried cherries and leather. Palate follows through – flavours seamlessly integrated, subtle, pure. Good balance between fruit and secondary characters. I don’t like my Burgundy that old, to be honest (sacre-bleu!) and I think this wine is probably about as old as I would want it. Mid-palate fades away a little bit but it’s beautifully supple and elegant.
1998 Chateau Potensac (Medoc, Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel)
Utterly exemplary claret. Integrated nose of blackcurrants, cedar wood and cigar box, following through onto a very smooth, supple palate, warm mouthfeel, ripe tannins.
2002 Samos Grand Cru Muscat
In the dessert room they send the bloody wine around in carafes so one has no idea what it is (there being no printed menu). Good blind tasting practice though. I thought this was a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, being such a competent expression of the flowery Muscat Blanc a Petit Grains. But I sneaked a look at the label before I left and was quite surprised that this was a Greek wine of the same grape variety. Fresh, fragrant, with that agreeable oily/bitter finish that Muscat has. I thought it was great. I even resisted the temptation to correct everyone who had been calling it ‘Sauternes’ (which is just SO wrong, on so many levels). People think anything sweet and white is ‘Sauternes’ (little learning being dangerous and all that). Perhaps a rant for another day.
But I am, so I might as well write a few notes about what I have been drinking from there over the last term.
But first, a rant about the ridiculous glassware that one is expected to drink from when dining (on the High Table, no less!) We are talking here about a college with an endowment of £116 million. A place with its own deer park and constitutionally mandated chapel choir. A place where water at dinner is served in hand engraved, double handled, 19th century silver tankards; and which has a designated common room the sole purpose of which is to eat fruit after dinner in Summer only. (There’s a different room for Winter). A place where coffee is drunk in one room on Thursday but a different one on Sunday.
This place is so oozing in wealth that I at least expected the wine to be served in Riedel ‘Sommeliers’ series lead crystal glasses, and even half expected each person at dinner to have his or her own personal butler to recline each chair back and pour the wine into our mouths to save us the hassle of tilting our heads.
But no. Instead of good stemware, or even the modest but functional Luigi Bormioli large ISO glasses (which come in at about £2), which are totally acceptable budget glasses, one has to drink from a shitty thick glass goblet that not even Argos sells, and that would be more at home in a JD Weatherspoon pub after they’ve run out of glasses on Curry Club Thursday. And to make things worse they serve the white wine in Champagne flutes! This might seem like pedantry, but when you’re serving something as worthy of appreciation as aged Grand Cru Alsace Riesling, or Premier Cru red Burgundy, it is disgraceful to put it into a vessel that (for various reasons) decreases one’s ability to enjoy the beverage and that would be more accustomed to receiving box wine or West Coast Cooler.
2005 Isabel Estate Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough, NZ)
Just when I was becoming disenamoured with Marlborough Sauvignon, on account of so many of them being so aggressively herbaceous, this one restores my faith. It is at the very tropical end of the spectrum – zesty nose of passion fruit and lime sherbert (Almost Mosel-like!), lean, clean palate with a slightly herbal dimension and crisp acidity. A very energetic, fresh, lively wine.
1996 Zind Humbrecht Wintzenheim Riesling (Alsace)
I don’t often think of Riesling as being ‘big’. But this wine is very big. Deep gold. (I was slightly late to dinner on this day on account of some idiot crashing their car on the M40 meaning that the Oxford Espress had to use an A road, making the journey last about 3 hours. Anyway, in my absence, my dining companions were slightly worried that there might be something ‘wrong’ with the wine, because it was ‘so yellow’, as Stefanie put it. No, no. The wine is very right indeed). Intense mouth- and eye-watering lemon juice on the nose, slightly sweet, sherberty entry, major minerality/steeliness on the mid palate, finishing tight, austere and chalky. Still incredibly youthful.
2003 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre
Red Sancerre. A pretty ordinary proposition I’m afraid (I didn’t order it). A certain blackcurrant leafiness to it, but all in all just a bit too thin, green and under-ripe for my taste.
1993 Domaine Rion Chambolle Musigny ‘Les Cras’
A very agreeable red Burgundy. Perfumed nose of lavender, redcurrants, dried cherries and leather. Palate follows through – flavours seamlessly integrated, subtle, pure. Good balance between fruit and secondary characters. I don’t like my Burgundy that old, to be honest (sacre-bleu!) and I think this wine is probably about as old as I would want it. Mid-palate fades away a little bit but it’s beautifully supple and elegant.
1998 Chateau Potensac (Medoc, Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel)
Utterly exemplary claret. Integrated nose of blackcurrants, cedar wood and cigar box, following through onto a very smooth, supple palate, warm mouthfeel, ripe tannins.
2002 Samos Grand Cru Muscat
In the dessert room they send the bloody wine around in carafes so one has no idea what it is (there being no printed menu). Good blind tasting practice though. I thought this was a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, being such a competent expression of the flowery Muscat Blanc a Petit Grains. But I sneaked a look at the label before I left and was quite surprised that this was a Greek wine of the same grape variety. Fresh, fragrant, with that agreeable oily/bitter finish that Muscat has. I thought it was great. I even resisted the temptation to correct everyone who had been calling it ‘Sauternes’ (which is just SO wrong, on so many levels). People think anything sweet and white is ‘Sauternes’ (little learning being dangerous and all that). Perhaps a rant for another day.
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