The Spoken Grape

Domaine Sainte Rose "La Garrigue" 2007

Back up in Scotland and I've forgotten that it tends to be three or four degrees cooler than in the south. As the brisk spring winds whip around the hills, driving white clouds across the cool blue sky, it feels time to open up a wine that was born in the dry dusty heat of the Languedoc. A wine which has touched the long hot summers that Scotland can only dream of. Domaine Sainte Rose "La Garrigue" 2007, a boutique producer, run by a British couple who are making wine in a new world style, with Australian winemaker Leigh Sparrow.  They've done well with the marketing, the bottle looks good and is definitely leading the way, sporting a black embossed screw-cap and simple, straight forward label. The back label explains that this a blend of Syrah and Grenache, grapes which have proved extremely successfull in this part of France. The vineyards are situated just outside the small village of Servian which lies in between Beziers and Pezenas, historic market towns with long standing connections to the Cathars.  Back to the wine, I have to be honest, I was expecting better. It has a good colour, a simple nose and a slightly hard, breif and hollow palate. On reading back the last sentence to myself I think it sounds pretty harsh, OK, so it does have certain aspects which I enjoyed, the tannins were quite nice and easy going, there was some ripe berry fruit present and if you like the vanilla and coconut aromas of oak then you won't be dissapointed. It's a very simple wine which has been made in a very contempory way, employing plenty of modern winemaking techniques to produce an early drinking wine which will definitely give some satisfaction if washed down with a thick BBQ steak or some other smoky meaty dish. The best point about this wine is that it falls into a price point that will make it quite appealing, £6.99 from Majestic.

There are definitely potential pit falls associated with screw capping wines, put simply it's not as easy as it should be. Corks are extremely forgiving, they also give bad winemakers a good excuse, "oh, it must be the cork....". With screw caps, what you get in the glass is pretty much the same wine that the winemaker tasted before he made the important decision to bottle. In wine, the screw cap can offer more transparency, displaying the creators skill, or sometimes lack of it.

Weingut Albert Gessinger, Zeitinger Sonnenuhr Auslese 1976

So, who said German wine labels were confusing? I'd love to know the reaction of asking the kind man reading FHM behind the counter at Bargain Booze whether he had any of this particular wine in stock. Throwing this mouthfull of a wine out at the average high street off-license would probably get you chucked out the store with the shop assistant accusing you of calling his son a shiteganger. So Germany really needs to simplify their wine labels, the average consumer in the UK, sure a hell isn't going to take the time to learn the Qba hierarchy or ripeness indicators. The label is important, and German labels are one of the main obstructions to people enjoying these great wines. Ask any sommelier and they'll tell you how much they admire German Riesling, but then ask them what wine they struggle to sell and, what a surprise, it will be the German Rielsing. The trade loves it because they know and understand it. Check out this page on getting to grips with German wine from winepage. There are a couple of simple words to look out for "trocken" which means the wine will be dry (not sweet, think NZ Riesling) or "halbtrocken" which means semi-dry ( There will be some sweetness there). Sweetness in wine really shouldn't put people off as with these Germanic wines the sweet taste will be counter-balenced against the natural grape acidity. This balence creates an mouth-filling wine, lovely texture with a refreshing zing on the finish that lifts the sweetness and stops it becoming cloying (cloying like Cadburys chocolate). These wines are perfect aperitif wines. After long days of feeling like you're getting nowhere, tube rides with all the other slightly worn down and sweaty people, walking along grubby streets with broken glass and irregular paving whilst the sun sets as a Tango'd congé for the city's concrete and cramped existance. This is when to drink these wines, pull the bottle from the fridge, slide the cork from the elegant neck and pour yourself a glass. Sit back and escape.

Weingut Albert Gessinger, Zeitinger Sonnenuhr Auslese 1976. I bought a half bottle of this wine when I was last up in Edinburgh for an absolute bargain price of £15 at Edinburgh Wine Merchants. The nose gave up honey, bee's wax and a slight wet stone minerality. The wine came out as a bright yellow gold. From the glass to the palette this wine gave a lovely velvet texture enclosing a resolute acidity keeping the wine fresh. Honey notes intermingle with floral tones. Surprisinly fresh and light. This wine delivers a good balance with a definite mineral quality. Well worth the money, especially for a wine with that much age on it.

Barbera D'Asti Tesco Finest 2005

Right, this wine a Barbera D'Asti comes under the Tescos Finest label, however it has been made by the same large cooperative producer as Canti which can't be too bad, as most of  the Canti wines come out as modern, fruit forward, technically sound and clean wines. They do however lack character and any serious appeal, but they are drinkable and would fall into the party wine category. So, this wine, produced from the same stable as Canti, has been bought and then marketed by Tescos, under a different label. I've got to say, Tescos has done well, for the price point there's some pretty good packaging around a wine that is definitely something different. It really delivers on that Northern Italian richness without being chunky or too over-ripe. The tannins, are very user friendly, leaving your palette with the subtle sensation of dryness. The balance of the alcohol is good. Being a 2005, its drinking really well now, good integration, a little oak, some dark slightly under-ripe blackberries and leather on the palette. The best thing about this wine is that it is under £6 at Tescos (during their Half-price wine sale) my advice, go buy as much as you can carry, this is a stand up wine at a really great price.

So, this week, the London International Wine Fair, a great big trade show that was there to allow buyers to make deals, producers to showcase new wines and give the trade a feel good moment for the rest of the year. It will have given wine buyers a lot to think about over the next couple of weeks, especially as Decanter so optimistically told us that the leading names in the UK have a pessimistic outlook for the future. What a surprise, have they failed to realise that since being British it's in our bloody nature to be reserved and demure. I can't ever imagine self-important "leading names" in the UK wine industry ever jumping over backwards and giving each other high-fives when asked how the industry is doing. It's one of the problems with the recession, no one wants to be seen to be doing well or having a optimistic outlook. Saying that, I can appreciate how some of the high-end more luxuryry wines have taken a battering. I wouldn't like to be a Champagne producer right now, having sales drop by some 30% over the past year. We should now try to be more selective in the wine we drink. Lets buy wine by the case (12bottles) as nearly all retailers give a discount on a case or more. Lets stay away from the big brands. It's not the end of the world guys, we can still source wines from anywhere in the world, we still control the wine worlds strongest global market and we can still have a jolly good time doing it. This recession will hit most of us in someway or another, like a threat to our way of life we can't let it compromise our ideals or happiness. We'll get over it, and to that a toast, Prost!  

'You better take care of me lord'........London International Wine Fair

Wandering lost, alone, along foreign streets, I try to keep myself from bumping into people. Vendors with their wears displayed on brightly lit shelves, lean out of stalls and beckon me in. Where should I go, here or a little further on? I'm not interested in the rubbish and can't afford to linger around the mediocre. I keep moving down the strip, obviously lost but moving with the flow, I can't and won't turn around, just keep looking to tread a different path so those behind the bottle don't see my obvious delusion. Here, where the indoor artificial lights show the world a little too clearly I get accosted by those better looking and more confident than me, they try to pull me in and make me listen to their preacher. I'm lost in way too many ways, where's my layer?

So, i'm somewhere in between Excel and Excel at the London International Wine Fair, a little lost and feeling quite over-whelmed by the presence of the world's wine giants. It's an awesome testiment to the strengh of the wine industry that a show of this size can be put on. I hate to think of the organization that went into it. Wow!

Sassicaia 2005

 Right, I was wanting not to like this one. It would have been fashionably to dismiss it, rather like a teenager back-handing Sir Paul McCartney for getting top of the charts and trumping Dizee, squashing N-Dubz and sliding past Lady Gaga. Before you start googling the radio one chart show, Sir Pauls not there, this is metaphorical. The point I want to make is that what’s cutting-edge one day, with hits like Yesterday and Hey Jude, can become predictable the next. Maybe that's what hit Super Tuscans like Sassicaia and Tignanello. Over the years more and more producers began selling so-called Super-Tuscans that owed less to a winemaker’s vision than a good marketing scheme. Packaging and a fantasy name (preferably one ending in "-aia") became much more important than the actual wine.

Sassicaia is a super Tuscan, with the Antinori Familia backing, established by Mario Incisa della Rochetta and creating wines in the image of fine Bordeaux. In the late 1990s Sassicaia was granted its own DOC (Bolgheri), the only wine from a single estate in Italy to enjoy this privilege. Before that, and in similarity to other wines made outside the traditional DOC/DOCG regulations, Sassicaia was classified as an Indicazione geografica tipica (IGT).

 

The wine came out the bottle with a little reductive funkiness, this blew off after a few minutes of swirling in the glass. On the palette this wine is full bodied with well built tannins that would give this wine a good long life. There was a lovely creamy note, that combined with blackcurrant and briar splashed around with red spice made this wine lovely to roll around the mouth. Expense and class came through with a great length of taste evolution on the palette. This is a no holds spared, expensive wine. The barrels are only the best, new oak, attentive viticulture with low concentrated yields and a wine maker who really knows what he's doing.

Feeling bad about drinking such a young wine early I decided to shove the cork back in, tear myself away from the bottle and try it two days later. Leaving a wine one glass down will give you a rough idea of how a wine will mature as it oxidises and ages. When opening it for the second time, the funkiness had gone, the lumpy awkward Cabernet character had disseminated, integrating well. The body and texture had developed into silk. The wine had grown up and matured, shedding that slightly gawky image and really transforming into something beautiful.

So how goods Sir Paul McCartney? Well check out the first paragraph on Wikipedia, nuff said!

Lovely Spain

As the grey sky beams down on London with the looming threat of drizzle I think it suitable to write about a bottle of wine born on the hot and rocky slopes of the Proirat region of Nothern Spain. Just two hours drive from Barcelona this region was once neglected and never regarded particularly highly until a group of dynamic young winemakers decided to revive the old vines as well as planting newer, more contemporary varieties like Cabernet and Syrah. The terraces, carved into the slopes are like enormous staircases, creating a pretty picture but back-breaking work for those who have to look after the vineyards. Thankfully, these difficult conditions mean that no machine harvesting takes place, instead all the viticulture  is done by hand. The summer heat, the steep dry terraces, the altitude at which these grapes are grown and the unique slate-and-quartzite soil gives the wines from this region of Spain a quality unlike any other.

So, onto the wine, 2005 MAS MALLOLA Bodegas Marco Abella  this is  Lea & Sandeman's find, a lovely well priced red wine made from a blend of Garnacha (45%) and Cariñena (40%) together with Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. I found that the fine grained tannins flowed across the palette, persisting for about 10 seconds from swallowing. They are a shade away from being too intense, remaining delicate whilst still resolute. Now, these tannins,an essential component of red wine, form the backbone of what we appreciate red wine for.  But after a glass or so I found that the tannins here were a touch too dry, with the fruit component of the wine not quite hanging on as long in the mouth, leaving the palette lonesomely dry. The fruit appears at the beginning as you let the wine flow down onto your tongue, flashy smartly placed fruit with the acidity that keeps the sour berry and savoury taste alive. A touch of spice and minerality go on to form the background of the portrait. This wine is well worth the money, however if you find a long lost tenner in your pocket, take a step up to this wines older sister 2005 CLOS ABELLA Bodegas Marco Abella  , a decidedly more elegant and sexy wine with a hidden power  that after finishing the bottle, will make you put down your swirled glass, stand up straight and realise what an immature wine drinker you really are.

FUNHOUSE

With my purple VIP badge hidden discretely beneath my jacket, I pretend to know what I'm doing, casually walking through the modern leather and beige lounge, between rich oligarch families, short haired wanna be rock stars and the lesbian equivalents of WAGS. I finish my G&T quickly, needing that shot of confidence to swagger though like I've done this before. Thankfully I'm not alone, but accompanied by my beautiful fiance, who although feels similar, has the good-looks and self confidence that allows her to completely take this in her stride. 

We get taken back stage. Free beer and wine, all you have to put up with are the posers and people who know they have more experience of this than you and therefore will act annoyingly smug. But hey, I'm not complaining. We miss Raygun, but who the toss are they? Well actually they may have been quite good. Anyway they were't the main act, so with pretensions running high we sat and drank a few more beers.

The woman we came to see, is an intellectual with a limitless enthusiasm for learning new things, whats more she's a wine lover, with a particular affection for Supertuscans oh and she's a global hard punching Rockstar. Now, Ibet you can't guess who, NO NOT JANCIS ROBINSON! Alicia Moore, otherwise know as Pink. Once it started her concert was explosive. The acoustics of the O2 arena suiting the belting guitar, husky power driven vocals and fired up rock.

So, that was Monday night, Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting in her managers swish London pad tasting some bloody beautiful wines. First up Sean Thackery ORION 2005 which is labled as a Californian Native Red Wine, otherwise translated as "I've no idea whats actually in it". It is red, well maybe a bit more, purple-blueish. It stains the side of the glass as you swirl, falling in long legs down the sides. On the palette there's a sweet and sour, stewed fruit and dark cherry thing going on which gives a lovely mouth watering sour berry finish. It reminded me of raw rhubarb or cranberries. This wine has lovely tannins that grasp the inside of your mouth letting go before it gets too drying. On the nose the 100% new french oak comes through with vanilla aromas over lying the fruit. The alcohol, pushes this wine a little off balance and I think its possibly a little on the expensive side  but it is still a very good wine.

I will continue the tasting tomorrow with Mas Mallola, a sultry Spanish senorita heralding from the Priorat region.......