Game of pairs

This week’s adventures begin with a tasting on Thursday night hosted by Genesis wines, where a string of pairs presented blind produced some surprising results. Here are the highlights.

We started with a pair of sauvignons blancs. The 2006 Matetic Vineyards EQ Sauvignon Blanc (Chile, £9) is virtually clear. The nose is pungent, grassy, herbaceous, smoky, but in a balanced way. There is real interest on the palate, which shows smoke, salt, melons, passionfruit, pepper, a hint of sherbet. Real freshness, great length. It's about as complex and interesting as sauvignon blanc gets. I took it for Pouilly Fuimé, such was both its intensity and finesse. I preferred it to the 2006 Staete Landt Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough NZ, £10), which was presented along side it. It’s hugely green, grassy, herbaceous, with gooseberry elements. It’s the usual Marlborough story, but very ‘Grand Cru’ in style by which I mean the flavours are the same as pretty much any Marlborough sauvignon (let’s face it), but the intensity is stepped up a notch. If that’s your preference, then it wins over the EQ, but mine is for a fresher, more interesting drink so I preferred the Chilean attempt.

Next a pair of chardonnays, starting with the 2004 Saronsberg Chardonnay (Tulbagh, South Africa, £10), a precocious wine. Ripe, woody nose. In fact the wine shows huge ripeness all round with loads of butter and spice. The palate is racy, with plump melons at their peak of ripeness and virtually oozing their juices. It reminds me of Chekhov’s story “The Lady with the Little Dog”, specifically the post-coital melon-eating moment. This wine seems to have a red-blooded tremor to it that is cooled by tropical fruit. I don’t think I could be happier than to drink it with roast chicken at about 4pm on a Sunday afternoon in May. Against it, the 2005 Domaine Mouscaillou Chardonnay (Limoux, £13) is a very ordinary pedestrian white that I wouldn’t bother with. The lady standing next to me (who was very nice, actually – her name was Caroline and we got chatting) said “vanilla”. But she didn’t mean vanilla the flavour she just meant that the wine was plain, and she’s right.

Then two very serious red Burgundies. The 1994 Domaine Confuron Cotetidot Vosne Romanee 1er Cru Les Suchots (£35) is pale red but bright, it has a lovely old school leathery nose. It’s a veritable luxury handbag of perfume – floral fragrance, burnt brandy, undergrowth, caramel, even a hint of coffee. On the palate it’s seamless, and trying to identify individual flavours is a complete waste of time. Definitely the most elegant wine of the night – a wine I would be delighted, well, to simply drink rather than study. Beside it, the the 1996 Domaine Confuron Cotetidot Bourgogne Rouge (£14) was a surprise and a revelation at less than half the price. An initially stinky nose gives way to cigar ash and pencil shavings (very Bordeauxy – blind, I took it for aged cabernet franc). The palate has supple jammy fruit, and is very silky with ripe grip.


To finish, not a pair, but rather a trio of Rhone-grape blends. The 2004 Domaine Marcoux Chateauneuf du Pape (£30) has an engaging nose – prune, port, intense fruitcake. The palate is big, ripe, juicy, spicy, with cloves, cinnamon, cocoa powder, coffee, bark and orange rind. An excellent example of the style. But beside it, it was the 2005 Santbru Portal de Montsant (£14), a blend of carignan, grenache and syrah, that drew gasps and cheers from the audience. Frighteningly purple, the nose shows marzipan and Christmas cake, with a porty liqueur-like palate. It’s hugely amplified – it smells sweet, finishes dry (sounds like an ad for deodorant…) and I can’t help but think it’s as if a side of bacon fell into a vat of port. It’s a huge wine but won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, not least mine. I admired Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron, but it doesn’t mean I want to sleep with him, and it’s the same with this wine. It’s a “trophy wine”, and unlike some others, I don’t mean that as a compliment. It’s just too much, although I did end up buying a couple of bottles to put away for a rainy day when I’m bored of wines that I actually like to drink, because it is after all a very interesting wine for its sheer range of unusual flavours. Perhaps a happy medium between intensity and drinkability comes with the 2004 Domaine les Luquettes Bandol (£13) which Neil and I tried at St John on Saturday night. Intense nose – minerals, liquorice, bramble jam, toasty oak, the palate is rich and forthcoming with substantial grip on the end. Like Australian shiraz but without the sweetness. A nice plump wine but at the same time muscular, sinewy and toned. All right, enough with the body building analogies…