I tend to eschew wine from my homeland. It was all I drank until I was 26 and moved to the UK. Ever since I’ve been playing catch-up with the rest of the world’s wine regions, whilst earnestly defending Australia’s ability to produce excellent wine (perhaps a view that is gently being eroded the more my palate becomes attuned to old world wines).
Anyway, Australia DOES produce superb wine, as a tasting of Yalumba’s top cuvees yesterday, proved.
The star for me was the 2000 Yalumba ‘Octavius’ Barossa Valley Shiraz (£45). The nose is dark, introspective, brooding: cool coffee grounds woven with caramel, chocolate, vanilla and pepper. It is the Shostakovich of wines, or perhaps the James Joyce of wines – many layered, complex, difficult to understand and hard to consume in all but small doses. The palate is dense as a black hole but maintains its elegance. There’s no doubt this is an extraordinarily powerful wine, but not in a jammy, over-baked, overtly fruity, flabby way. It’s just extremely amplified. It's all muscle and no fat. Perhaps a good match for venison or kangaroo.
The 2002 Octavius is similar in style and structure, but a little too young for drinking now (the 2000 is developing nicely but still has many years ahead of it). The nose shows wood smoke, plum jam and perfumed violets. The palate, again massive, is still fresh and youthful with clean acid and tannins pronounced enough to maintain good structure. It’s hard to believe the Octavius is matured in American oak, let alone in such tiny vessels as the tiny 90-litre new ‘Octaves’ that are used, as the oak treatment is subtle. It lends a spicy hint to the wine – but not at all the dusty, woodchippy, bitter hiding that American oak so often gives to a wine.
Just to compare what the old world does with shiraz, we tried a 1996 Chapoutier Cote Rotie against the two Octaviuses (Octavii?). Here we move from Joyce to John Steinbeck. This wine has a fuck-off savoury nose, with celery salt, leather, pepper, bacon, dry meat. It is as if water has never deigned to fall on the land these vines were planted on. The thin palate has very developed dry cherry and leather-bound library book characters. It may have been open a little long – to my palate it was getting thin and tired, but still showed a remarkable contrast to the oily, voluptuous Australian versions.
The 2002 Yalumba ‘Menzies’ Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon (£23) is Yalumba’s top cabernet. At the moment it is far too young to drink but will get there, I think. The nose is laden with fresh green capsicum, cedar bark, menthol oil and, as my flatmate Andy’s friend put it – Silvo. The palate is very tight. After breathing for several hours it is more recognisably cabernet like, with blackcurrant and cedar characters. But frankly, everything is just a little too primary and aggressive at the moment. It had been said that the winemakers had made a decision to modernise this wine in recent years, making it less tannic and green. Having no basis for comparison, I don't know whether this has worked or not. To me, it was still a very tight, green wine. But in a good five years it may well be a different wine altogether.
Then a few odds and ends to finish off the afternoon. 2004 Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir just stinks of every horrible smell ever to adorn a South African wine – soot, ashtray, roadworks, burnt rubber, you name it. Underneath it tastes vaguely like pinot noir. And finally 2003 Pontodi Chianti Classico is a very fruity version. Heady maraschino cherry liqueur characters, with liquorice and strawberries. On the palate, some cherry blossom characters, a little smoky and great creamy length.
Showing posts with label tuscany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tuscany. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 May 2007
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Barbecue Reds
‘Barbecue wine’ is a veiled insult used by the likes of Jane MacQuitty when trying to find something nice to say about a brackish £3 red that has nothing to recommend it and that must feature in their columns out of fear of isolating people who aren’t prepared to spend more than £3 on a bottle of wine. (Do such people read wine columns? I ask you.)
Not me though. I take rather decent wine to barbecues, and it was no exception when Tom and Cookie invited me to a spontaneous roof-top barbecue at 1 Old Buildings this afternoon. ‘Barbecue wine’ is the ultimate compliment for liquor chosen to complement some of God’s greatest uses for ground, otherwise nondescript meat – sausages and hamburger patties. And people who dare bring Oddbins Own Red to such religious occasions deserve a jolly good knee-capping and a lesson in robust reds from the south of France and Italy.
2003 Domaine du Joncier Lirac (£9) is mid red, with a classic Southern Rhone nose of pepper, purple fruits and sour cherries. The palate is at once spicy and savoury, but at the same time with attractive, peachy undertones on the mid palate, finishing with a hint of minerality.
2005 Piarncornello Poggio dei Leicci Rosso di Toscana (£10) is translucent purple. The nose shows cherry sherbet, almonds, and cherry liqueur. The entry is sweet and woody with a vanillin palate, spicy oak and chipper tannins.
Not me though. I take rather decent wine to barbecues, and it was no exception when Tom and Cookie invited me to a spontaneous roof-top barbecue at 1 Old Buildings this afternoon. ‘Barbecue wine’ is the ultimate compliment for liquor chosen to complement some of God’s greatest uses for ground, otherwise nondescript meat – sausages and hamburger patties. And people who dare bring Oddbins Own Red to such religious occasions deserve a jolly good knee-capping and a lesson in robust reds from the south of France and Italy.
2003 Domaine du Joncier Lirac (£9) is mid red, with a classic Southern Rhone nose of pepper, purple fruits and sour cherries. The palate is at once spicy and savoury, but at the same time with attractive, peachy undertones on the mid palate, finishing with a hint of minerality.
2005 Piarncornello Poggio dei Leicci Rosso di Toscana (£10) is translucent purple. The nose shows cherry sherbet, almonds, and cherry liqueur. The entry is sweet and woody with a vanillin palate, spicy oak and chipper tannins.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Friday afternoon miscellany
Here are a few notes about what I’ve been drinking so far this weekend. I’m going up to my old college ball tonight, so unfortunately that means my Saturday drinking will consist entirely of seedy cocktails made from rotten fruit, cheap rum, and served in plastic cups. Nevertheless, this small Friday afternoon bracket more than makes up for what I will have to deal with this evening.
2003 Amayna Chardonnay (San Antonio Valley, Chile, £17)
When as a kid we used to go on long driving holidays through places like Gundagai, we used to stay at country town Motor Inns – the sort of place that boasted having ‘COLOUR TV’ as one of the facilities. The breakfast menus at these places used to offer, quite incredulously, ‘Compote of Fruit’, which was code for an ungenerous spoonful of tinned fruit salad with little cubes of some sort of yellow fruit (peach?) some sort of white fruit (pear?) and cherries, coated in thick syrup. Back then I thought this was the poshest thing in the world (I was probably 4 at the time). I was devastated when I eventually learned that ‘compote’ is a legitimate culinary term that should evoke orchard-fresh fruit lovingly combined with sugar and spice and all things nice and slowly reduced in a copper pot atop an environmentally unfriendly Aga in the kitchen of a 17th century stone cottage, that had been fraudulently deployed when used to describe fruit salad ladled out of a 5 litre tin by a stinking man in a wife beater. Anyway, this wine has a weirdly fruity nose of rhubarb and cream, toasted marshmallows, and – there it was on sniff number 3 – Gundagai Motor Inn Compote of Fruit. Then there are aromas of baked fruit – possibly even a caramelised apple/tarte tatin character. Only when you taste it do you realise it is an alcoholic beverage (very much so at 14.5%) – with a fleshy palate, bordering on the flabby. Yes, it does taste like a Chardonnay (and a good and interesting one) but to my mind not acidic enough to deal with the Golden Circle train wreck that is the wine’s opening gambit.
2005 Jean Daneel Signature Chenin Blanc (Stellenbosch, South Africa, £17)
Now I’m not the world’s biggest fan of either Chenin Blanc or South African wine, but I do like this (indeed I’ve liked the vast majority of Jean Daneel wines I’ve tried), and it is allegedly the best Chenin produced in South Africa. Nose of butter and caramel, with dried apples in the background and that characteristic South African pong (which, in fairness, is very faint and you only notice on the first sniff). The palate is ripe and full, with caramel, apricots, viscous melons and butter, and a searing acid finish leaving a hint of caramel behind it. It is, however, a very attention-seeking wine (at 15% alcohol), made almost as if it’s there to prove a point, and you do have to concentrate very hard on it. I’m not sure I could drink this wine and hold a conversation with someone at the same time.
2004 Jean Luc Colombo Crozes Hermitage ‘La Tuilière’ (£12)
This is the third Jean Luc Colombo wine I’ve tried in the last week or so, and although they are all quite good wines the opinion I’ve formed is that they’re rather characterless. The white Cotes du Rhone is quite didactic in the way it sets out benchmark viognier characters. ‘Benchmark’ is one of these words that looks like a compliment when it isn’t one. Although the initial sentiment is that it is something by which others are judged, the implicit sentiment is that one is always hoping to come across something better. Just as the Cotes du Rhone was benchmark viognier, this was benchmark Crozes Hermitage. Nose of white pepper, and forward red fruit, perhaps even a little confected. The palate leads with black peppercorns and straight forward, clean red fruit. Well made, but ultimately not a wine for showing off. The sort of wine that could fairly be included in a blind tasting match, but that you just don’t get that excited about having a second glass of.
2001 Marchesi de Frescobaldi Castel Giocondo Brunello di Montalcino (£30)
This was presented to me blind, and to think that Marc quibbled with my identification of it as being a Tuscan Sangiovese. Is Brunello not another word for Sangiovese? Can anyone tell me definitively whether these are merely synonyms, or if there is actually a botanical difference between Brunello and Sangiovese? Anyway, that’s beside the point. The wine is a lustrous red. A nose of cherries, chocolate, fragrant lavender, anise, and a hint of cedarwood. The palate is less complex than the nose might lead you to expect, but is big and full, fruit driven and chocolatey, finishing with full, ripe tannins. A really impressive wine.
But my favourite wine of the day was the second Tuscan Sangiovese I tried, a 1999 Le Fioraie Chianti Classico. Perhaps I was just a bit excited that I had bought some bottles for £10 each, a substantial discount from its usual price, or that maybe I just like a mature old-style Chianti Classico, but it was just lovely. Subtly perfumed nose of dried and fresh cherries. Smooth, full palate, creamy, with cherry liqueur and a slight charry/cigarry dimension, supported by supple fruit and ripe tannins. My flatmate Andy said it reminded him of those little ‘Campino’ strawberries-and-cream lollies you can get on the continent, and I think he’s exactly right. It’s probably at the peak of its maturity now, and even after being open for about two hours it began to turn a little sour, so drink up now.
2003 Amayna Chardonnay (San Antonio Valley, Chile, £17)
When as a kid we used to go on long driving holidays through places like Gundagai, we used to stay at country town Motor Inns – the sort of place that boasted having ‘COLOUR TV’ as one of the facilities. The breakfast menus at these places used to offer, quite incredulously, ‘Compote of Fruit’, which was code for an ungenerous spoonful of tinned fruit salad with little cubes of some sort of yellow fruit (peach?) some sort of white fruit (pear?) and cherries, coated in thick syrup. Back then I thought this was the poshest thing in the world (I was probably 4 at the time). I was devastated when I eventually learned that ‘compote’ is a legitimate culinary term that should evoke orchard-fresh fruit lovingly combined with sugar and spice and all things nice and slowly reduced in a copper pot atop an environmentally unfriendly Aga in the kitchen of a 17th century stone cottage, that had been fraudulently deployed when used to describe fruit salad ladled out of a 5 litre tin by a stinking man in a wife beater. Anyway, this wine has a weirdly fruity nose of rhubarb and cream, toasted marshmallows, and – there it was on sniff number 3 – Gundagai Motor Inn Compote of Fruit. Then there are aromas of baked fruit – possibly even a caramelised apple/tarte tatin character. Only when you taste it do you realise it is an alcoholic beverage (very much so at 14.5%) – with a fleshy palate, bordering on the flabby. Yes, it does taste like a Chardonnay (and a good and interesting one) but to my mind not acidic enough to deal with the Golden Circle train wreck that is the wine’s opening gambit.
2005 Jean Daneel Signature Chenin Blanc (Stellenbosch, South Africa, £17)
Now I’m not the world’s biggest fan of either Chenin Blanc or South African wine, but I do like this (indeed I’ve liked the vast majority of Jean Daneel wines I’ve tried), and it is allegedly the best Chenin produced in South Africa. Nose of butter and caramel, with dried apples in the background and that characteristic South African pong (which, in fairness, is very faint and you only notice on the first sniff). The palate is ripe and full, with caramel, apricots, viscous melons and butter, and a searing acid finish leaving a hint of caramel behind it. It is, however, a very attention-seeking wine (at 15% alcohol), made almost as if it’s there to prove a point, and you do have to concentrate very hard on it. I’m not sure I could drink this wine and hold a conversation with someone at the same time.
2004 Jean Luc Colombo Crozes Hermitage ‘La Tuilière’ (£12)
This is the third Jean Luc Colombo wine I’ve tried in the last week or so, and although they are all quite good wines the opinion I’ve formed is that they’re rather characterless. The white Cotes du Rhone is quite didactic in the way it sets out benchmark viognier characters. ‘Benchmark’ is one of these words that looks like a compliment when it isn’t one. Although the initial sentiment is that it is something by which others are judged, the implicit sentiment is that one is always hoping to come across something better. Just as the Cotes du Rhone was benchmark viognier, this was benchmark Crozes Hermitage. Nose of white pepper, and forward red fruit, perhaps even a little confected. The palate leads with black peppercorns and straight forward, clean red fruit. Well made, but ultimately not a wine for showing off. The sort of wine that could fairly be included in a blind tasting match, but that you just don’t get that excited about having a second glass of.
2001 Marchesi de Frescobaldi Castel Giocondo Brunello di Montalcino (£30)
This was presented to me blind, and to think that Marc quibbled with my identification of it as being a Tuscan Sangiovese. Is Brunello not another word for Sangiovese? Can anyone tell me definitively whether these are merely synonyms, or if there is actually a botanical difference between Brunello and Sangiovese? Anyway, that’s beside the point. The wine is a lustrous red. A nose of cherries, chocolate, fragrant lavender, anise, and a hint of cedarwood. The palate is less complex than the nose might lead you to expect, but is big and full, fruit driven and chocolatey, finishing with full, ripe tannins. A really impressive wine.
But my favourite wine of the day was the second Tuscan Sangiovese I tried, a 1999 Le Fioraie Chianti Classico. Perhaps I was just a bit excited that I had bought some bottles for £10 each, a substantial discount from its usual price, or that maybe I just like a mature old-style Chianti Classico, but it was just lovely. Subtly perfumed nose of dried and fresh cherries. Smooth, full palate, creamy, with cherry liqueur and a slight charry/cigarry dimension, supported by supple fruit and ripe tannins. My flatmate Andy said it reminded him of those little ‘Campino’ strawberries-and-cream lollies you can get on the continent, and I think he’s exactly right. It’s probably at the peak of its maturity now, and even after being open for about two hours it began to turn a little sour, so drink up now.
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