David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

Finesse and Verve at Verveine

Posted on 03/09/2015 by dccrossley

It’s easy right now to completely lose the plot with visiting new London restaurants, so many exciting places seem to have opened in the last twelve months or so. But I’m also getting behind everywhere else. The New Forest used to be a culinary backwater, unless you counted Chewton Glen, but now there are several restaurants of national repute.

There is one, however, which may have slipped under the national radar, though I know a few Londoners who have come back with ecstatic reviews – it’s Verveine in Milford-on-Sea. The chef-patron is the extremely talented David Wykes whose experience spans the UK and French Michelin-starred establishments. The restaurant has been open for five years and specialises in Fish…some of the finest fresh landed fish you’ll eat. In fact you have to walk through the fishmonger’s shop before reaching the restaurant out back (on the web site it is actually called “Verveine Fish Market Restaurant”). Don’t let that put you off.

If you dine a la carte you select your starter from the menu and then your main course fish from a blackboard selection (about 18 or so choices last night). You then consult the menu to decide which way you’d like it coooked/served, from a selection of four options.

After a cheeky little aperitif of Ganevat’s rare, and delicious, Crémant du Jura before we got in the taxi, we arrived to an amuse bouche of radishes in mackerel pâté and “edible soil”, served in a small flower pot. A witty touch but also showing an attention to detail followed up throughout the meal.

Assorted starters (lobster for me) were accompanied (we were able to take our own wines by special arrangement so I’m not sure what their corkage policy is) with what is almost certainly the best bottle of Champagne we’ve drunk this year, Raphael Bereche’s Reflet d’Antan (disgorged September 2011 from 2/3 2007 base with 1/3 from the perpetual cuvée and bottled with a 6g/l dosage). It combined richness with freshness, a rare trick and a rare treat. Although I’m unashamedly biased when it comes to Bereche, my high opinion was shared, and this did seem an unimpeachably splendid bottle.

Two of us chose turbot and two chose halibut, and I think my turbot was cooked to perfection, the best piece of fish I’ve had for a long time, anywhere. It went well with Raveneau’s Chablis 1er Cru “Les Butteaux” 2005. I’ve never had this wine before. The usual Raveneau class with genuine depth, evolving complexity and a lightness too. Another heavenly wine.

The main courses at Verveine are a hard act to follow, but the desserts are inventive too. That said I was concentrating too much on my Tesch Laubenheimer-St Remiguisberg 2002 BA which was concentrated and exquisite. This, the first bottle of Tesch to pass my lips, lived up to expectations for one of the Nahe’s new breed, though it seemed about ready to drink now without the need to wait a lot longer.

The final touch with coffee and teas was a selection of petit fours, including fudge in edible “plastic” wrappers and small meringues flavoured (gently) with fisherman’s friend lozenges and served in a “ff” paper bag.

Verveine bakes its own bread twice daily, and much of the vegetables and herbs used in the cooking are grown in the restaurant garden – you can see the raised beds through the glass doors.

Service is good too. The senior member of the waiting staff, Agnes, hails from Hungary. She combines serving the food with professionally dealing with the wine. She wasn’t the slightest bit fazed, indeed she almost seemed pleased, when we asked to drink the Bereche from wine glasses.

No qualifications required, this is fine dining standard food at Verveine. The restaurant is only about the size of a decent living room seating around thirty-plus covers, and it’s not cheap – we paid £50/head for three courses plus coffee, without buying any wine. But it was worth it and very good value for the quality. Despite the urgent need to try Lime Wood, Angela Hartnett’s place near Lyndhurst, I’m equally keen to head back to Verveine as soon as possible.

Verveine Restaurant, 98 High Street, Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire SO41 0QE

Tel: 01590 642176 web site: http//www.verveine.co.uk email: info@verveine.co.uk

Posted in Dining | 3 Comments

Not With a Bang but a “Wimps” Lunch

Posted on 29/08/2015 by dccrossley

This is the way the world ends, or at least I hope so. Wimps lunches are so called because they are for people who only like one bottle each for lunch (although they actually allow for ten bottles between each table of eight). They take place every month at La Trompette and are organised through the http://www.wine-pages.com wine forum. This month was the turn of Austria/Germany.

As usual, the event is as much about the food and company as it is about the wine, but we didn’t do badly on that front. We actually managed twelve wines, one being a replacement for the TCA affected 1976 Grünhauser in the list below.

1. 2007 Wittmann Westhofener Morstein Riesling GG, Rheinhessen

2. 2005 JJ Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese, Mosel

3. 2001 JJ Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese, Mosel

4. 1994 JJ Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese, Mosel

5. 1989 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Spätlese, Mosel

6. 1976 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Auslese 46

7. 1913 Walter Siegel Forster Kirchenstück Auslese, Pfalz

8. 1989 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Auslese 133

9. 1996 Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Auslese 55

10. 2008 Muhr-Van der Niepoort Spitzerberg Blaufränkisch, Carnuntum

11. 2003 Ruster Eiswein Weingutshof Landauer, Burgenland

12. 2002 Kracher Welschriesling TBA #8 Zwischen den Seen, Burgenland

Most of the wines shone to some degree. Other than the corked (if not irredeemably) 1976 (wine 6 above), the red Niepoort was quite disappointing. It was lovely six months ago yet this bottle tasted a bit dilute and lighter. The only other red on the day (on another table) tasted much better – an unusually big, especially for its age, 2004 Zweigelt from Johann Schwarz with some input from Manfred Krankel.

For me, the wine of the day was the first to pass my lips, the Wittmann Morstein. Refined in the extreme, it started quite rich but the minerally tone took over. Claude Kolm attributed the very special terroir characteristics to the limestone soils of the Wonnegau. As others have said, it’s one of the most exciting areas in Germany right now and this beautiful wine shows why. I wish I had a few bottles.

The Prüm Auslesen were fascinating to compare. The 2005 seemed quite a bit too young for me, but at the other end of the age scale the 1994 was classy. The only problem here was the food pairing, the scallop starter (with bonito cream, pickled cucumber and wasabi). It had, ironically, been perfectly matched with the Riverby GV last week, but the wines today overpowered it, and the acidity of the dish grated. Lovely dish, lovely wines, but no meeting of souls.

The next five wines ended up as a quartet of Von Schuberts surrounding a museum piece 1913 from the Pfalz. Aside from the corked 1976, these were marvellous wines, with the Grünhausers an embarrassment of riches, each with something distinct to offer.

The Kirchenstück was in many ways a miracle, deserving of a paragraph of its own. That it was drinkable would have been enough but it was more than that. It’s sugars, which had undoubtedly sustained it on it’s journey were now, by-and-large, all gone in terms of sweetness. Madeira brown in colour, the nose was complex, both powerful and haunting at once (though a couple of people broke the spell exclaiming “cornflakes”). The slightly caramel-honey palate lingered and lingered. It’s not often I get to try a really old German wine, but it was a privilege. To think, the kind person who brought this is also absailing for charity at the Olympic Park on Monday. What a guy!

I mentioned the Blaufränkisch as the only disappointment of the day. A shame as it was our solitary red and it was paired with the dish of the day, veal rack with späetzle, sweetcorn and ceps, with fine aromas and flavours compensating for the wine. Yet it’s a red that has won praise from critics, so a duff bottle…maybe.

With a dessert of crème fraiche tarte with passionfruit the two dessert wines provided a real contrast. The western side of the lake gave us a fresh Ruster Eiswein, with a lightness contrasting its sweet richness, and good acidity. The Kracher, from the eastern side of the Neusiedler See, was typical of this wine/grape at this sort of age. The acidity has diminished but not the sweetness and you are left with a sweet honey richness. Although La Trompette’s wine team thought it the best of the Krachers on show, I actually loved a taste of a Kracher Chardonnay on another table, younger and fresher.

As usual, a wonderfully congenial time was had by all who made it yesterday. If indeed the world were to end after such a wonderful array of these wines, I’d be pushed to complain.

Posted in Austrian Wine, Dining, Fine Wine, German Wine, Wine, Wine Tastings | Tagged 1913 Riesling, Austrian Wine, German Wine, JJ Prüm, Kracher, La Trompette, Maximin Grunhaus, Von Schubert, Wimps lunches, Wittmann | 3 Comments

The Rudest Word in Wine

Posted on 24/08/2015 by dccrossley

“MINERALITY”

For some it’s not even a word. It’s not in my dictionary. Yet few concepts in wine, not even terroir, excite the angry to expletives more than this harmless word can!

For some the idea that there’s a mineral quality in some wines, almost akin to those fruit flavours we find in tasting notes from Parker to Pigott, is proposterous. We see very long, learned, articles written by scientists explaining with just a hint of impatience that whilst wines may contain traces of compounds which mirror those in bananas, blackcurrants, linden and lovage, there is absolutely no way that the “soil to glass” transfer metaphor used so evocatively by Rhone expert John Livingstone-Learmonth can be literally true. Minerals exist in wine, but in a range from a few parts per million to parts per billion.

Yet the idea that we can taste something “mineral” in our wine still persists. A wine book written in 2014 contains the following, a description which paints a believable picture of a well tended patch of old vines in the middle of a sunny slope. The wines made from this idyllic plot:

“…tend to have a lovely salty minerality…as the vines are encouraged to cultivate deep roots that engage with the bedrock, processing its minerals through living soils”.

The most cited example of minerality in wine must be that of Chablis. Everyone knows that mouthfeel which makes Chablis so different to almost any other Chardonnay wine. It tastes nothing like a Puligny or a Meursault, or a Chardonnay from Napa or Marlborough. A good Chablis actually tastes as if they’d taken the fossilised sea creatures which make up the region’s soils, ground them into powder, and dissolved some in every vat.

It’s not just Chablis and its chalk. Volcanic soils often give wine a mineral flavour which, at its extreme, can smell like iron filings, or sometimes taste how we’d imagine wet terracotta might taste. Valpolicella, Etna Rosso and Marcillac from the Aveyron in France come into this category.

Then there’s Riesling, from the slate soils of the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer, where slate forms not just the bedrock, but litters the surface of the vineyards. Here, mineral geekery hits new heights as different types of slate are distinguished on the palate by experts. The non-expert is aided by the use of wine names such as Schieferterrasen and Vom Blauen Schiefer by Lower Mosel producer Reinhard Löwenstein (Heymann-Löwenstein). As Stuart Pigott (see below) says about Reinhard, he loves his slate, and is always quoting the Bob Dylan line, “everybody must get stoned”.

And whilst we’re in Germany, anyone who begins to appreciate Spätburgunder starts to identify those from the parts of the Ahr where it grows on slate and those from Baden’s Kaiserstuhl (volcanic), as opposed to the limestone of the Cote d’Or. To suggest that such differences have nothing to do with the soils and bedrock of each region, merely being the product of factors such as climate or winemaking challenge logic.

Some of you will already have noticed a big flaw in the narrative, especially those who read Alex Maltman’s article on wine and geology in World of Fine Wine this summer (WFW 48). Despite the quote above, about vine roots delving deep, it seems that vines may take most of their nutrients from the soil above the bedrock, and these soils often bear little relation to the underlying rock type. As Maltman says:

“By definition the bedrock is pretty much intact, apart from perhaps some fissures that may conserve supplementary water into which deep roots may tap: It is the overlying loose material, the soil, that is largely used for water and nutrition. And almost invariably, the age of the soil will be unrelated and vastly younger than the bedrock” (original itals).

Alex Maltman is Professor of Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University in Wales, and he does get around on this subject. He’s the go-to guy for geology and wine. In a very good article written by Chris Simms in New Scientist (9 May 2015), entitled “Grape Expectations”, he reminds the author that despite minerality becoming a wine buzzword there is no known process by which vines take up minerals from the soil and transfer it to the wine. Furthermore, by and large, excepting sodium chloride, Maltman points out that minerals have no detectable taste.

Barry Smith, who specialises in the multisensory perception of flavour at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study, really puts us in our place in the same article. He tells Simms “The idea you can taste minerals from the soil is absolute rubbish”. How do we come back from that?

Well, I suggest two ways. Imagine first that you are on holiday in Aosta’s Valgrissenche and that you have purchased a bottle of the local white wine, Vin Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle. The co-operative’s Cuvée Rayon will do. You are on a nice walk up to the refuge called Mario Bezzi at the top of the valley. Half way up you stop for lunch, wedging the bottle in the icy stream that flows down from the dwindling glacial ice you will later navigate before reaching your goal. Sitting in the warm alpine sunshine, listening to the warning calls from a family of marmots on the other side of the valley, you uncork the bottle and sniff. It has a purity akin to Evian water with a light infusion of herbs. When you taste it…there’s something unique. To confirm your palate’s signals you take a small rounded stone from the stream and lick it. Exact match, the mouthfeel is identical.

But note, “mouthfeel”. What we have here is not the flavour of the pebble. The geologist will tell us that the pebble has no taste. It’s that feeling on the tongue and around the mouth. Mouthfeel is something we get from all wines. It can be oily in the case of a big Alsace Pinot Gris. It can come from the tannins in a young Pauillac. It can come from the acidity of a Franken Silvaner, or the sweetness and acidity of a Sauternes in a strong botrytis year. But wherever it comes from, the taste of that Blanc de Morgex can be described in no better way than “mineral”.

So if it isn’t actually minerals you are tasting, then what is it? We can look for explanations, but I don’t think there’s a definitive scientific one. In his 2014 book on Riesling, “Best White Wine on Earth”, Stuart Pigott has written a very good section on minerality and mouthfeel (pp 34-39). He talks about potassium, one of the minerals present in wine, working with the wine’s acidity to give a salty minerality. He mentions sulphurous compounds created during or after fermentation, and there are other choices made at the time of fermentation which may come into play, such as yeasts. But at the end of the day, his following quotation sums up my feelings as well:

“A lot of nonsense is talked about the mineral taste of wine, which is a real part of Riesling, but also rather mysterious”.

My own view is that science may provide the answers in the future as to why wines sometimes taste in a way which encourages us, we just can’t help ourselves, to use the term “minerality”. But to be honest, I don’t think it matters one bit. You see, what is minerality but a perfect metaphor for what we are tasting in a Chablis, a Wehlener or an Etna Rosso.

What is the point of a tasting note? It’s not really there to provide a technical analysis of the chemical composition of the wine in the glass. It’s there to paint a picture of a vibrant, living thing which can thrill our senses of smell and taste like few other forms of nourishment. Wine is there to feed the soul as well. It may sound pathetic, but who reading this hasn’t taken one sniff of a wine and found themselves transported to a heaven of sensual pleasure and, if lucky, a profound recollection of their previous encounter with that scent and taste, a true Proustian moment. Wine, in this respect, has the power to be transformational.

All we want from someone else’s description of a wine is a sense of that experience summed up in a few crafted phrases. A picture painted in vivid colours. I think that the term “minerality” on these occasions conveys, as a metaphor, something that we all understand. And for those lucky enough to have climbed the slopes of the Doctor above Bernkastel, or Achleiten on the Danube, to have walked the Grand Crus of Chablis, or to have driven in search of the lost vineyards of Marcillac among the wooded hills south of Conques, it’s a word capable of transporting us back to those places.

To those able to understand a metaphor, minerality conveys the essence of something very real. But it is just that, a metaphor, so let’s remember that when we see it used in a tasting note.

Posted in Minerals and Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Science | Tagged Blanc de Morgex, Chablis and Chalk, Chris Simms, Describing Wine, Minerality as Metaphor, Minerality in Wine, Mouthfeel and Wine, Riesling and Slate, Soils and Wine, Stuart Pigott, Wine Tasting Terms | 8 Comments

Trompetting Riverby

Posted on 20/08/2015 by dccrossley

Those with long memories may remember that I attended a tasting of Riverby Estate’s Marlborough wines at Butler’s in Brighton late last year, here: https://wideworldofwine.co/2014/12/01/riverby-estate-tasting-butlers-brighton/

Yesterday I attended an even larger Riverby Estate tasting at London’s La Trompette restaurant, with estate owner Kevin Courtney. It included, as its centerpiece, a vertical of eleven vintages of Riverby’s Chardonnay, never before attempted by Kevin, among nineteen wines tasted in total.

Several lessons were learnt by a knowledgeable group of wine lovers. First, New Zealand Chardonnay can age, and really well. Second, that we are not yet familiar in the UK with every class producer in the country. Actually, Riverby are direct neighbours of Cloudy Bay, and their vineyards are among the earliest planted, and best sited, in Marlborough. We also learned the importance of clonal selection. And finally, we learned not to judge wines purely by price. These are award winning wines in New Zealand and elsewhere (including some top Decanter WWA medals), yet they rarely cost more than £20 retail per bottle.

List of wines and food matches

With canapés – 2012 and 2014 Eliza Riesling, 2014 Sauvignon Blanc, 2013 Sauvignon/Semillon

With raw Orkney scallops, bonito cream, pickled cucumber and English wasabi – 2014 Gruner Veltliner

With crayfish and buttermilk chicken wings, späetzle, girolles and sweetcorn – 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Estate Chardonnay

With john dory, peas, samphire, lardo di colonatta, butter lettuce and lovage oil – 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Estate Chardonnay

With suckling pig shoulder, white polenta, cavalo nero, turnips and muscat grapes – 2012, 2013 and 2014 Estate Chardonnay

With St Felicien, Reblochon and Swiss Challerhocker – 2013 Estate Pinot Noir and 2013 Reserve Pinot Noir

With petits fours – 2012 Noble Riesling

It would be tiresome to post a tasting note for each wine. All wines performed well with the exception of the 2010 Chardonnay which was reductive and didn’t improve in the glass, no doubt a phase. Some wines were slightly tight to begin with, a facet of age and screwcap, but everything blossomed, changing in the glass for the better. There was no wine here I wouldn’t buy myself and the standard is incredibly high over the whole range.

My highlights began with the Gruner Veltliner. I’ve only tasted this a couple of times but I do recall telling Kevin last winter it had massive potential. The vines are young but it impressed everyone with its poise and focus.

Of the Chardonnays, my favourites included the 2004, yes, an eleven year old NZ Chardie. It tasted fresh, not fading at all. A remarkable contrast to many an expensive bottle of premoxed Burgundy we’ve all experienced. I also loved the 2008, not that it was as good as some of the wines around it on the day, but because it seemed to have everything in place to become better and better, a wine with such potential. I think it focussed everyone on Marlborough Chardonnay, its forgotten variety after Sauvignon’s domination of the region in the eyes of consumers.

Of the younger wines the 2013 and 2014 really impressed. The estate style is one of restraint, and the wines are never overtly tropical or oaky. To a degree, the 2013 breaks that rule. It’s a bigger wine, but it’s still balanced. The 2014 was only bottled in March and it’s lovely now. Not remotely near its full potential, yet fine and elegant on the day.

Of the two Pinots, the Reserve bottling is clearly the more impressive (on the right below), and impressive it is with its already integrating oak and smooth texture. It put the basic estate Pinot under its shadow, yet I know from experience that the cheaper wine is a lovely fresh glugger, full of gentle fruit. One to drink whilst allowing the Reserve to blossom into something even better.

We ended with the 2012 Noble Riesling. Riverby first became famous back in New Zealand for their stickies, with best dessert wine in show at the Air New Zealand Awards for several vintages. The 2012 is one of the lighter Noble Rieslings they’ve produced, with just 128g/l of residual sugar (the norm is around 200g/l) and clocking in with 9.5% alcohol. The sweetness is gentle, not cloying, and is balanced with a pure backbone of acidity. I’d have gone for a third pour if it hadn’t all been snaffled, and its taste lingered throughout my journey back to Victoria Station.

As ever, La Trompette provided food of a level above its single Michelin Star. The suckling pig was well up to the usual standard. One attendee who knows his food reckoned the scallop dish was his best starter of the year.

Riverby Estate’s Marlborough wines are imported into the UK by Black Dog Wine Agencies, Cheshire. They are currently available through Butler’s Wine Cellar in Brighton and Loki in Birmingham. La Trompette is available to anyone who can find Turnham Green on the District Line. Those who can are in for a treat from one of the less well-known restaurants of this excellent stable, which includes The Ledbury, The Square and Chez Bruce.

Many thanks to Charles Taylor for organising the event, and to Kevin Courtney for generously supplying all the wines.

Riverby owner, Kevin Courtney. Catch him at the Oxford Wine Festival this weekend (21-22 August, Oxford Union).

Posted in Dining, Fine Wine, New Zealand Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Tastings | Tagged Gruner Veltliner, Kevin Courtney, La Trompette Restaurant, Marlborough Wine, New Zealand Chardonnay, New Zealand Gruner Veltliner, New Zealand Pinot Noir, New Zealand Sweet Wines, New Zealand Wine, Riverby Estate, Wine and Food | 3 Comments

All’s Gut in Oggau

Posted on 17/08/2015 by dccrossley

Many wine lovers will have heard of Rust, a lovely old town on Austria’s Neusiedlersee, southeast of Vienna and bordering Hungary. If they don’t know it for its famous storks which swoop majestically over the town and breed on its chimneys, they will have heard of Ruster Ausbruch, its golden dessert wine made from nobly rotten grapes on the slopes above the shallow lake’s extensive reed beds. The next village to the north, they probably will not have heard of…that’s Oggau.

Rust is the kind of chocolate box town (or technically a free city, but if size matters let’s stick to town) which people love or hate, a bit like Bernkastel on the Mosel. Personally I love it. You can imagine Haydn or Mozart swaggering out of one of its inns after a few jugs, not so fanciful as Haydn spent around forty years working for the Esterházy family up the road in Eisenstadt.

Rust is a great place for a few days holiday from Vienna. Great restaurants, some superb wine producers, boat and bike hire, with ferries over to Ilmitz, and other winey destinations, which will carry your bike too. But you probably know that if you read my blog regularly…so back to Oggau.

Gut Oggau is the producer in Oggau making some of Austria’s most exciting wines, so one has to ask why they get little mention in the Austrian wine guides? One reason is probably because they make natural wines (shock!). Low intervention winemaking isn’t new in Austria, far from it. It’s a country well ahead of some in this respect. But one gets the impression that the establishment, as with all things it seems in this country with its Habsburg past, is torn between liberalism and innovation on the one hand and an innate conservatism on the other. It’s not so far removed from the way some established anglophone wine writers ignore these type of wines, despite the avid interest from consumers and the proliferation of small independent wine merchants in London (and Paris, New York, San Francisco et al) selling them.

Gut Oggau’s wines are biodynamic (certified by Demeter), and they are also released not under an Austrian DAC, but as Österreichischer Landwein, like the difference between AOC and Vin de Table, or more accurately, the new Vin de France moniker which a lot of innovative winemakers have turned to there. But these are not the most interesting things about the wines.

The concept for the varied list of wines created by Eduard Tscheppe and Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck is that of a family. Each wine is named after a family member from one of three generations, and so each wine/person fits into a family tree. The theme is given life by the highly distinctive labels created by German design agency Jung von Matt. I’ve counted nine family members, though there might be more lurking. As each family member ages, so do the line portraits on the label. This mirrors the wines because they all come from designated single vineyards, so as the vines mature so do their avatars…genius.

I currently have three of Eduard and Stephanie’s wines. Theodora is a fresh Gruner Veltliner/Welschriesling blend, tending to a soupçon of spritz in her first summer. I plan to drink the 2014 soon, before that’s lost. The Joschuari I have is the 2011. This is a silky Blaufränkisch made for food. Obscurely, my favourite family member right now is Winifred. Described as a rosé, but some might think a pale red, there’s fresh red fruits, spice, and that characteristic crunch (a blend of Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt). If the much hyped Provençal pinks of the moment leave you cold, this is pretty much verging on the profound. It’s a nice wine with which to begin a light lunch outdoors and then sink into a deckchair to savour the last glass as the shadows approach.

So, appetite whetted, where can you buy them? Sadly it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. You can, of course, go to Oggau. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Though finding the right bus from Vienna’s central bus station took a little ingenuity, it’s only a couple of hours down to Rust, via Eisenstadt. I’d recommend staying and hiring bikes in Rust as it’s only a few kilometers up the road from Oggau, and there’s more to do. But if you visit Gut Oggau in summer you can eat at their Heuriger.

In the UK you can purchase Gut Oggau from Dynamic Vines, for which see my last post. If you can’t get to their shop on a Saturday give them a call. If they’ve sold out (fewer than 20,000 bottles of the whole family are produced every year and this is now pretty much a cult domaine worldwide), check out the list of restaurants they supply. I have bought Winifred in Winemakers Club on Farringdon Street, in the arches under Holborn Viaduct . I’m not sure they have any right now, but if you annoy John enough he may wangle some more. One or two others list some on Wine-Searcher, including Wine Bear. I’ve not seen Richard for a while but he’s a very helpful guy and well worth contacting as well.

Gut Oggau are at Hauptstraße 31, A-7063 Oggau. For visits and tastings call +43 (0)664/2069298. Email is: office@gutoggau.com but I generally find that with a busy wine domaine you are far more likely to elicit a positive response from a friendly phone call than an email. An appointment is required.

The Heuriger (tavern) is open (2015 info) Thursday to Sunday, 12.00-22.00 until 30 August, and then from 4 September to 27 September from 16.00-22.00 on Fridays and 12.00-22.00 Saturday and Sunday (details on Gut Oggau web site – http://www.gutoggau.com/ but please check re opening/booking before arriving).

Note on “Natural Wines” and “biodynamics”:- There’s no legal definition of what is a natural wine. Indeed, many producers who intervene in vineyard and winery with chemical pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, synthetic fertilisers and wine additives/processes strongly dislike the implied insult to them which such a term might suggest. But winemakers thus described will have a philosophy of low intervention, both in the field and the vat room. They believe in transferring the flavour of their vines into your glass by manipulating the wine as little as possible. This means many things, but there are a couple of important things which go beyond certified organic viticulture and winemaking.

The natural winemaker will want to use the ambient yeasts found on the grapes in the vineyard and in the winery to start and complete the fermentation if possible. They believe that these yeasts are part of their terroir and so will best express the land they work. They will therefore try to avoid a yeast supplied by another company, which may be designed to affect the wine in a certain way; and
The natural winemaker will be wary of adding a lot of sulfites (please don’t argue over sulfites/sulphur dear reader). Sulfites are wine’s disinfectant. They can stop bacterial spoilage and are often added during winemaking and/or at bottling to keep the product, inter alia, stable in the bottle. Some producers use no sulfites at all, others use as little as they can. All of the Gut Oggau wines I currently own contain, I believe, between the low and higher 30s in terms of g/l of sulfites (expressed as total SO2). Some critics consider natural wines to suffer from an uncommonly high level of spoilage, implicitly due to their sulfite regime. This was probably once true, but my experience shows spoilage has decreased dramatically, even when wine is stored above the recommended 14 degrees for wine with zero added sulfites. A hint of apple freshness may be detected quite often, but I see this as a matter of taste as to whether you like it or not.

Biodynamics is a very large subject, but in (very) brief terms it is an extension of organic agriculture, whereby the producer follows the philosophy of Rudolph Steiner, and applies the nine biodynamic preparations he prescribes as an alternative to chemical vineyard applications. In addition, work in the vineyard and cellar is carried out according to a biodynamic lunar calendar (created by Maria Thun a little over fifty years ago and perpetuated by her son, Matthias). The Demeter Association is an internationally recognised certifying body for biodynamic viticulture, and Gut Oggau is a member.

Posted in Wine, Wine Labels, Natural Wine, Wine Merchants, Austrian Wine, Austria, Wine Travel | Tagged biodynamic wine, Dynamic Vines, Eduard Tscheppe, Gut Oggau, Jung von Matt, natural wines, Neusiedlersee, Oggau, Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck, Wine Bear, Winemakers Club | 3 Comments

Out and About…Spa Treat…

Posted on 15/08/2015 by dccrossley

Very few of the thousands of tourists who pack Borough Market on a Saturday know about what also lies to the south, still within the shadow of The Shard. But those who venture past Bermondsey Street and hit Druid Street will see another market settled beneath the railway arches which flow into the shiny new concourse of London Bridge Station. There are some familiar names, like O’Shea’s Butchers, St John Bakery and Neal’s Yard Dairy, among the micro breweries, and Jensen’s Bermondsey Gin distillery, all packed with eager weekend imbibers.

If they were to wear out a bit more shoe leather they’d find themselves in the strung out warren of arches which stretch from Spa Road to Dockley Road and Lucey Way, and form the southern bit of Spa Terminus. This is the collective name for the location of around twenty businesses, some of which will be known to Borough habitués (Mons Cheesemongers, Monmouth Coffee) and others equally worth exploring (The London Honey Company, The Ham & Cheese Company, and the wonderful Kernel Brewery are here). Some of the arches are for distribution only, and some of these businesses can be found on nearby Maltby Street as well.

Almost the last business, situated on a path behind a metal gate along Lucey Way, is the near mythical Dynamic Vines, the object of my trek. Near mythical because this wine importer allows itself face-to-face direct contact with the public only through it’s Spa Terminus arch shop for four hours on a Saturday (10am to 2pm). That’s not easy for someone who, living outside London, is only rarely in town on the weekend. And today I had an event near King’s Cross which was due to end at 1pm (and you guessed, it over ran).

I made it at about twelve minutes to two o’clock, but it was well worth it. The object of my pilgrimage, the wines of Austrian cult producer Gut Oggau (the subject of a blog article next week) were sitting on the shelf amid other cult wines from people like Luca Roagna and Emidio Pepe. I could really have done with half an hour to browse, but I did get a good pour of a lovely rosé.

Poured blind, I had this as a Poulsard. The colour was just right with that slightly orange tinge to the pink, and it even had a nose which reminded me of Hughes-Beguet’s Macvin without the added spirit. No way was it a Bordeaux Rosé from Chateau Le Puy (based in Saint-Cibard, northeast of St-Emilion and Castillon)! A quite extraordinary wine, undoubtedly (quite) good value, even at £40, though not really recommended for the Bordeaux classicist.

Dynamic’s list is pretty amazing if you like to seek out the kind of new, “natural”, and, er, dynamic wines taking over all points north, south and east of London. If you are one of London’s exciting new wine shops, bars or restaurants, you probably know that. If you are able to get down to Spa Terminus on a Saturday morning, do. You’ll find plenty of other places to explore at the Terminus, and on nearby Druid Street and Maltby Street (which has already gained a reputation as a sanctuary for Borough Market emigrés). Hopefully you’ll have more time than I did today and, with a bit more leisure, will end up far less knackered.

Dynamic Vines are at Arch 4 Discovery South, entrance on Lucey Way. There’s a useful map of the arch locations on the Spa Terminus web page http://www.spa-terminus.co.uk. As I said above, current retail opening is just 10.00 to 14.00 on Saturdays. Dynamic’s web site has a list of the wide and varied restaurants they distribute to, which range from some conservative classics to those at the cutting edge of gastronomy.

Here are a few photos of the businesses around Spa Terminus and Druid Street…

…and a rather large, upside down, stylus (vinyl is back).

Posted in Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged Bermondsey, Chateau Le Puy, Dynamic Vines, Gut Oggau, London Markets, Spa Terminus | Leave a comment

Bags, Kegs and other Prejudices

Posted on 10/08/2015 by dccrossley

When I were a lad…the wine box was synonymous with pretty cheap wine. There was a name which sounded made up, what looked like cheap packaging, and a liquid not always likely to convert a young beer and whisky drinker to wine. It was the same if you went down under. The Australians were certainly putting something a little better in their bladder packs, but it was never meant to appeal to anyone lapping up Grosset Riesling or Henschke Shiraz.

In the 1990s my prejudices were challenged when a small Piemontese producer gave me a bag-in-box version of their Barbera, which proved not only delicious but also a very convenient way to enjoy the wine on the second leg of that holiday. But I wasn’t converted.

The prejudice against alternative packaging hasn’t really gone away among people who’d call themselves serious wine lovers. This has never been helped by the dross we’ve probably come across at a family bbq or party. We’ve seen everything from wine in cartons, cans, small plastic bottles on aircraft, and even a plastic glass with a plastic film over the top. For me these wines are usually only marginally better (perhaps I’m being a little unfair) than the original alternatives – the plastic bottle in the French supermarket and the plastic container filled from a petrol pump at a French co-operative that some of us may remember.

Recently I’ve come across two new packaging ideas which I think have a lot more going for them; the #Bagnum (a 1.5l wine bag of red, white or rosé from wider Burgundy) being marketed under Andrew and Emma Nielsen’s du Grappin label, and Prosecco in a keg, marketed by The Wine Keg Company.

What do these packaging ideas have going for them? Naturally, the “Eco” angle is really important, especially in terms of cutting down on the weight of glass and therefore on the carbon footprint of the transportation stage of delivery. Equally, the ease of serving for large events, where a lot of by-the-glass pouring is required, and they are perfect for events where glass can’t be used or is banned for whatever reason.

What most people who scorn such packaging might not know is that so much of the cheap wine they buy in a supermarket actually arrives in the UK in a tank, either by road or sea. This cuts down transport costs, but why then do they bottle it on some decidedly unromantic industrial estate for it only to be consumed within twenty-four hours of it being plucked off a supermarket shelf, by someone who’s been sold the dream of the artisan vigneron instead of a virtually industrial process?

Also, how many people are aware that far less of the glass we put out for recycling actually gets turned into recycled glass than we might imagine? It’s amazing how hard it is to penetrate the world of recycling to get hold of good, up-to-date statistics, but we appear to import so much more glass than we can ever use again, and a lot of it is even re-shipped abroad, not the most eco-friendly way to get rid of our empties. We really could do with waking up to the alternatives for wines destined for swift post-purchase consumption.

If you couple this with the idea that the wine in such alternative packaging can be improved, and can actually be pretty good stuff, then it’s surely only a matter of time before we start to take some forms of alternative (to glass) packaging more seriously. If the wine is good, then there’s no reason to be embarrassed drinking from a bag or a keg.

Du Grappin‘s selection is a real shock to those expecting cheap, over sulphured, plonk in a bag, if the red I tried last week is anything to go by. It’s Gamay, largely from plots around the Cote d’Or, near Morey-St-Denis (where David Clark sourced Gamay for his Passetoutgrain), and south at Paris L’Hopital (a village west of Santenay/Dezize-les-Maranges). It’s fresh, fruity, excellent slightly chilled, not lacking in colour. Delicious, in fact. The du Grappin rosé is made from 40-year-old Gamay from near Fleurie in the Beaujolais (as well as Andrew’s wonderful Cote de Beaune wines, he makes a very good Fleurie as well, available bottled). The white is 25-year-old Chardonnay from the Macon village of Péronne (half way between Lugny and Clessé). There’s also a range of du Grappin wines in refillable bottles (with a Grolsch-style flip-top closure) and larger formats for the trade.

The catalyst for this article was getting in touch with Louise Oliver, after hearing about her company at a local business event. Louise runs The Wine Keg Company from Brighton, where I’m based, but she also studied for a Wine Business Degree at nearby Plumpton College. As part of that degree she wrote a dissertation on alternative packaging. I know I’m a sad wine obsessive, but it’s an excellent analysis of the subject and I truly enjoyed reading it. Naturally, Louise looked at kegs in some detail.

Louise has clearly realised that there’s a whole new world of consumers out there who would love to drink wine, but do not necessarily share the kind of stuffy, awe inspired approach that so often comes with worshipping the bottle as the cork pops. She’s not the first to recognise this, but in the past alternative packaging has always looked at margins and therefore the wine has not been able to appeal to the more discerning drinker. Being a popular wine, but also a quality DOC wine, Prosecco bridges the gap.

Lighter wines can be just the thing for summer festivals and other events, and Prosecco fits the bill perfectly. It’s a fun wine, refreshing too. The keg system delivers a glass of Prosecco in exactly the same way as it delivers a pint of beer, allowing large numbers of people to consume Prosecco by-the -glass (or indeed Prosecco cocktails, or any still wine) without creating a pile of empties, corks and foil for someone to cart away at the end of the day. A 20 litre keg will give 160x125ml glasses from a tap with remote cooling, and it will keep it’s pressure for six weeks.

Although it’s probably not the way to deliver a DOCG Prosecco wine from the Cartizze hill (where the formality of the bottle and cork is perhaps more appropriate, and the prestige producers would wish to retain a certain image), you are getting a DOC wine from the keg, 100% from the region’s Glera grape variety, where before you might have been served an industrial plonk, made from the old “pompe bicyclette” method, with its large bubbles which dissipated within a minute or two. Prosecco at heart is a fun wine and I see nothing wrong with, and a lot to be said for, drinking it from a keg, so long as it’s fresh and fizzy. And there’s no reason why this method of delivery shouldn’t make for a more affordable glass. Prosecco isn’t a bottle-fermented wine like Champagne, but it still comes to market in the same heavy bottle made to keep in all that pressure. To save all the energy used to make the bottles and transport them is admirable, at least for a proportion of the product.

So, this particular wine obsessive has no problem buying a few bagnums to drink at home, or take to the beach, on a picnic or a long walk. And no worries grabbing a glass of Prosecco from the bar when I next require my thirst quenching at a festival or concert. It’s all about looking at the packaging with open eyes and realising how the wine within is better than it once may have been. I mean, we resisted screw caps on wine for long enough, and now, even if we retain a little reticence for that closure on wines we want to cellar for a decade or more, do we really need a heavy glass bottle for wine which will effectively have a shelf life measured in weeks or months rather than years? It would be good to see us starting to accept what people like the Nielsens, and Louise Oliver, are doing, so long as the quality of the wine matches our expectations. We can only judge that by trying it.

Thanks especially to Louise Oliver for letting me read her dissertation, and also to Andrew and Emma Nielsen for supplying more information about their alternative packaging and the philosophy behind it…and for making sure I got to try a Bagnum before I could make it to the market to buy some.

Du Grappin wines can be found at Brockley and Herne Hill markets (except 29 Aug – 20 Sept) and at a host of other venues in London, where you’ll also find refillable bottles (filled from 20litre kegs). See their Facebook page. A number of shops sell the Bagnums, including Prohibition Wines, Hop Burns and Black, and Market Row Wines. A number of restaurants have their 5litre bag-in-box.

For The Wine Keg Company see http://www.winekegco.com (where you’ll find their address and opening times in Brighton), or call Louise on 01273 602687.

Posted in Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged #Bagnums, Alternative Packaging, Andrew Nielsen, Du Grappin, Eco-Friendly Wine Packaging, Louise Oliver, Prosecco in Kegs, The Wine Keg Company, Wine Bags, Wine Packaging | Leave a comment

Seventh Heaven (Oddities #7)

Posted on 08/08/2015 by dccrossley

We reached our seventh bi-monthly Oddities lunch at Rochelle Canteen yesterday, and I think for many of the regulars it was possibly the best yet. Of course, the food was exceptional (hake fritters followed by rabbit for me), and it’s somehow hard to beat the venue when the throw open the long glass doors in warm weather (and London was perfect yesterday). But the wines were also on top form and the jovial banter of blind tasting made all seem well with the world.

As every wine deserves a comment I’ll avoid any more small talk, but I must say that the thought which people put into selecting their wines is appreciated.

Scholium Project “Blowout” 2014, California – Verdelho and Gruner, vinified and then carbonated (yes!) in tank, yet it was refined, refreshing, with a very fine bead and brisk acidity. One of my wines of the day. My blind guess was Savoie!

Le Clos des Cyprès Vin d’une Pluie 2012, Ctx Languedoc-La Clape Blanc – A refreshing blend of Clairette, Roussanne, Marsanne and Picpoul, picked (by an attendee) during a thunder storm. It seemed to have the precision and electricity of the lightening conveyed into the bottle.

Crama Girboiu “Epicentrum” 2014, Romania – Smelt strongly of Muscat on the nose with acidity and backbone supplied by Aligoté. Fruity but also a little hefty, decent, possibly fresher in winter?

Forjas del Salnes “Cos Pès” 2013, Vinos Atlanticos (Galicia) – 100% Albarino, but not typically so. In fact I thought it had a bouquet remarkably like vanilla fudge, but it was stunning on the palate. A skin contact white (sic) that didn’t look like one. Only 12.5%, another clear contender for my wine of the day. Impossible to find, yet it retail for less than £12, which is amazing value.

Channing Daughters “Clones” 2014, Long Island – A real blend here consisting Chardonnay, PG, Gewurz, Tocai Friulano and Muscat. Although the Chardonnay component is 60%, the Gewurztraminer, for me, is the grape you notice first. One of those blends which doesn’t necessarily make a better whole, but I’m sure everyone enjoyed trying this. You don’t see it on the shelf every day.

Szaraz Szamorodni “Hetszolo” 2006, Tokaji Region, Hungary – Marker pen on the nose was the first shout, then, for me, burnt apple and a hint of mushroom. A dry wine which you expected to be sweet or off-dry. Very good indeed, and if we thought the Galician was a bargain, this (and the 2006 seems still available on Winesearcher) will cost you about £5. There’s no hurry to drink up. 50cl.

Bodegas Puiggros “Sentits Blancs” 2013, Catalunya – A white Grenache (Garnatxa) with a heft of alcohol (14%) and rich fruit. Quite complex as it evolves and warms. I had this as a Viognier-Chardonnay blend from somewhere like Israel, which only goes to show how little I know…or remember (I do really like Mediterranean whites, though on a hot day 14% can be a bit much).

Kalleske Plenarius 2012, Barossa – Kalleske have been growing grapes in the Barossa since 1838, but Troy Kalleske has been making real waves, especially with Shiraz. This newer wine is a single vineyard Viognier, about a week’s skin contact, low (12.5% but tasting rather more like 6%) alcohol, almost like an oddly orange-tinged apricot fruit juice, somewhat cloudy. Obviously I took this, and it is certainly an odd and even provocative wine. Lines were drawn between the noises of appreciation and those who just said “no”. If Solent Cellar ever get any more I’ll certainly grab one, though not a case (they did have their Clarry’s GSM last time I looked). As an aside to those who asked, I think retail this was probably closer to £20/btl.

Radford Dale “Thirst” 2015, Western Cape (S Africa) – A wine that pretty much does what it says on the label, in that it quenches it. Light cherry, no real guesses what the grape is. 11.5%. Simple but really tasty. And that label’s well designed too. Chill it.

Passionate Wine “Via Revolucionaria Bonarda Pura 2013, Argentina – This was impossible to guess. We had Mondeuse, Nerellos, Marzemino and Refosco. The last was nearly right. Bonarda Pura is an apt description. Only 10% alcohol, Mendoza fruit. For me it’s one of the new wave of wines giving Argentina the edge over Chile (without forcing us to drink jammy Malbec).

Forjas del Salnes “Goliardo Loreiro” tinto, Rias Baixas – Another of those wines you’re never going to identify unless you’ve drunk it. And even when you have, you will be pushed to identify it again. But that said, it’s a lovely wine. The vines are about 100 years old, the variety rare. Crunchy red berries and (cough) minerals from Rodrigo Mendes, the only known grower of the grape.

Cavas Weinert “Gran Vino” 1989 – Another from Argentina but quite special due to its age. A smooth old wine, holding up remakably well. Claims to be 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, though cellartracker has it as a “Bordeaux blend”, which on taste seems right. You don’t need to be a lover of classical Bordeaux to appreciate it. In sedate maturity.

Lungarotti “Rubesco” Rosso di Torgiano Vigna Monticchio 1977, Umbria – Not one or two of us shed a tear of recognition and memory when this was revealed, so many having bought it from places like Majestic in the early days of our wine journey. Mostly Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon, with a bit of local colour thrown in, so in some ways one of the original “Super Tuscans” (well, Umbria’s close enough). Still good today.

Domaine de Ravanès “Le Prime Verd” 1999, Murviel (Languedoc) – Despite it being sixteen years old this was pretty oaky and hard to penetrate, but it’s obviously very good with a rich and dark purple hue and great concentration. Of course, as a 100% Petit Verdot the colour and a slightly peppery hint made it hard to guess (Marcillac was one shout).

Maydie Tannat Vin de Liqueur 2009, Pierre Laplace, Madiran – Effectively a sweet, fortified, Madiran. I called it “darkness on the edge of town”. Concentrated but great balance giving it an unexpected freshness.

Muscatel Madeira, est 1840-1850 – Good provenance, pre-phylloxera Moscatel which, like every old Madeira I’ve ever tried tastes so much younger, vital and full of life (if also sediment and cork, but I’m not complaining. A stunning end to the lineup, and my third contender for wine of the day – although one couldn’t fail to give the crown to this wine and its generous provider.

After a quick palate cleansing beer around half of us repaired to Winemakers Club (Farringdon Street), where we sank back in the cool of the arches under Holborn Viaduct to savour four more bottles as diverse as a Colli Orientale del Friuli Merlot, a Calabrian “Mantonicoz” with skin contact, a Sesti Rosso di Montalcino, and for the last men standing (see the state of that photo below), a Marco de Bartoli Zibibbo from Sicily. The last was a great palate cleanser, but I’ll admit, perhaps a bottle too far (not sure how I avoided having a hangover this morning).

Hope to be there again in October so watch the Winepages Offline Planner for details soon.

Posted in Wine Agencies | 9 Comments

Beaujolais Just Got Serious

Posted on 04/08/2015 by dccrossley

Well, it’s been that way for a while, but having participated in a very exciting Beaujolais dinner a few weeks ago (see post of 17 July) at The 10 Cases, we felt the need to explore some more of the region’s wonderful wines again. This time, the venue was Farringdon’s Quality Chop House, taking advantage of their “no corkage” deal on a Monday night. As ever there, the food was exemplary, great value, and the welcome was very warm.

We began with the first pair of Beaujolais-Villages, from Laurence & Rémi Dufaitre (Domaine de Botheland) – their cuvees Prémices and L’Air de Rien. These made a wonderful start to the evening. Fun wines brimming with fruit, most preferred the 2014 Prémices, with three out of ten (including me) going for the 2012 L’Air. This domaine has limited UK availability (these bottles were sourced in Paris), but they have been touted as new stars from the region. I have no doubt, on these and previous bottles of other cuvées, that this is true.

The next two wines, both 2012s, were from France Gonzalvez and Yvon Métras. The former was very stinky “Villages” to begin with, barnyard being the most pleasant term used. It did blow off, but the wine didn’t recover 100%. The Métras, a Beaujolais tout court, was singular and masterful. It didn’t concern me that the bottle was cloudy, having been carted around London all day. It had real presence and astonishing “life”.

Next, two flights of Fleurie, the first consisting of two 2014s from Le Grappin (the Beaune micro-negoce of Andrew Nielsen) and Jean-Louis Dutraive (his Le Clos de la Grand Cour Cuvée Vieilles Vignes). The wine from Le Grappin has a great colour, very smooth, obviously showing some of the extra vigour of 2014, but really well made and showing extremely well alongside Dutraive’s wine – new to me, but very classy. Both provided a nice contrast to the natural inclination of the preceding wines, and indeed a hint that 2014 will provide some excellent prospects where the power potential was well handled, as here.

The second pairing of Fleuries were both from the region’s secret star, Julie Balagny. This young woman worked with Yvon Métras and they remain close associates. Her wines are no pale copy of that icon of “natural” winemaking, and she clearly has something new to say. The Carioca 2011 was fresh and delicious, yet someone said it had been through a bad phase not that long ago, perhaps providing further evidence that these wines will both age and evolve. The Fleurie En Rémont “Jean Barrat” was at first hard to interpret. I thought it was too old initially, but I’m now sure it was merely a big 2009 which had a certain monolithic quality. Highly intriguing nevertheless. Another wine which improved in the glass. I believe it was Julie’s first vintage, possibly her first wine, so her fans were very pleased to try it. I’m not wholly sure how I prised the bottle away from its Parisian owner. The 2011 may have won on the night but I’m kind of half regretting giving the empty 2009 bottle away (only joking Oli, unless you forgot it?).

The next pair might have been, just, the least successful pairing overall. The second France Gonzalvez of the night was her Côte de Brouilly 2013, which for me was a bit stiff. We’d paired it with Jean-François Ganevat‘s Cuvée Madelon 2013. This wine wasn’t as popular as I’d thought it would be, even with the confirmed Ganevat fans. Very funky, I probably liked it more than anyone else prepared to voice an opinion, but I do think J-F is always pushing to say something different with all his cuvées. His Pinots and Chardonnays often taste far less weird than people expect, but this cuvée does push the envelope, it’s true. For me, cliché as it is to say it, the guy’s a wine genius, like Métras. Less sure on the label front though.

One cool and amusing touch with Gonzalvez – the label says both “Côte de Brouilly” and “Vin de…France”, a play on her name, which nevertheless half fools people. How does she get away with it?

We finished the official flights off with a couple of Foillards from 2009. The straight Morgon Côte du Py was a contender for Wine of the Night when almost no wine failed to show well. Stunningly good. The Côte du Py 3.14 from the same vintage was not showing quite as well as the straight Morgon, but simply because it’s a fine wine just entering its stride – it should improve over a decade on this showing. It’s altogether a different sort of Gamay to the expected Beaujolais norm, but still clearly of the family.

We ended up drinking a du Grappin red #Bagnum before I left, and it’s amazingly good wine to find in a bag (of which I shall have a lot more to say in due course). It’s made from Gamay entitled to the new Coteaux Bourguignons AOP. Delicious, especially slightly chilled. In fact the evening was pretty humid in London and we did chill most of the wines a little bit, worrying about the heat. But nothing seemed spoiled.

If the tone of this post seems less frivolous than usual it may be in part down to eating and drinking quite a lot and then getting home at 12.30am on a Monday night (ouch!). But it’s also down to recognising that not only is Beaujolais fun to drink, it’s also becoming a serious proposition. The wines are genuinely under priced for the quality but I’m not sure they can remain that way.

Emma Nielsen models the summer’s must have accessory, the wine bag #Bagnum, available at a Saturday market near you (beware of fakes and counterfeits).

A final comment on the food…QCH really do make it difficult to choose what to eat. The Gloucester Old Spot for my main course was really good, although everyone was pretty ecstatic about their dishes, especially the monkfish dishes (starter and main), and the very filling (under statement) mince on toast. The bill, as ever, was totally reasonable. Although the tables are about as wide as a decorator’s plank, I still suggest it’s one hundred per cent worth slogging up Farringdon Road towards Mount Pleasant. At least it’s not hard to hear the person sitting opposite, as can sometimes be the case in the cathedrals of gastronomy (the campaign for a hearing loop in Michelin-starred restaurants starts here!).

Before leaving, to avoid complete disappointment for those expecting something frivolous, a silly photo…

Posted in Beaujolais, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Tastings | Tagged #Bagnum, Andrew & Emma Nielsen, Beaujolais, Beaujolais Dinner, Du Grappin, Foillard, France Gonzalvez, J-F Ganevat, Jean-Louis Dutraive, Julie Balagny, Laurence & Remi Dufaitre, Le Grappin, Métras, Quality Chop House, The New Beaujolais | 2 Comments

In Pursuit of Vikings

Posted on 01/08/2015 by dccrossley

Okay, I admit that very few readers are going to know this reference (it’s a song by Swedish melodic death metallers, Amon Amarth), but the Vikings, aside from the plunder and pillage reputation, were great explorers of the edges of the world, as well as being pretty edgy characters for the time as well. So it’s not a completely specious image for a piece about why we should explore the outer edges of wine, and why there is pleasure to be found in these wines on a level, if different, to the pleasure to be found in the established greats. It’s all down to perfection versus personality. That we might get equal pleasure from cheaper wines considered lower down a quality scale could appear ridiculous to some. To see what I mean let’s look at a few examples.

Grower Champagne has become the darling of some quarters of the wine press (and, I admit, for me too). But it’s amazing the vitriol some defenders of the Grande Marques, from both inside the industry and the press too, have meted out to them. Remember, there are a lot of “growers” and not all of them approach even a hint of greatness. But it’s hard to deny that it’s a growing quality sector, being taken seriously by even the most traditional wine merchants now.

The “grower problem”, as their detractors would have it, is their limited vineyards coupled with their lack of reserve wines. It is suggested that this means they have less material to blend, especially in poorer years, and that every release is a vintage wine tied to the problems of any given single year and plot of ground. In essence, in Champagne “terroir” is a bad thing and quality comes from a certain homogeneity.

To an extent this is true, some of the region’s true greats are careful blends. But many growers nevertheless seem to overcome such theoretical problems. It’s rare to taste a poor wine from the likes of Vilmart, Peters, Bereche, Agrapart et al. They also provide the wine lover with a production model more Burgundian than Champenois, where it’s not a wine blended to perfection they seek (as with the old time Burgundian negoce, although perfection wasn’t always on the agenda back then), but one which expresses a place. No coincidence that the big boys are increasingly looking to emulate this with highly successful single vineyard Champagnes. Indeed, Philipponnat are about to take things to another level of micro-terroir delineation when later this year they release a wine from the very heart of their single vineyard, Clos des Goisses (Clos des Goisses Les Cintres 2006).

What the growers have done is experiment. Biodynamics, horses, perpetual reserves, wines of greater vinosity and the hot topic, Brut Zero and low dosage wines – how many of these will be controversial in a decade and how many will have been forgotten is a moot point, but I think we should be grateful that these and other avenues have been pursued. Experimentation doesn’t always work, but it usually leads to innovation and progress. After all, it’s a primary argument for private enterprise over state control, which the Grandes Marques I think are finally realising.

Natural Wines are a topic far too big to do more than gloss over here. The drinker of classic wines alone will be sniggering off their seat right now. Bearded hippies making cider is their besuited jibe, yet wines without intervention are wines without dangerous chemical residues and without secret additives and manipulations (mega purple, must concentration and pesticides harmful to insects useful for preserving the vineyard ecosystem) to those who make them. A telling comment I once read came from a farmer in Italy’s Emilia region back in the 1990s – “I stopped using chemicals because I live here, as do my wife and children, and I don’t want them breathing stuff that might harm them or worse”.

Sulphur is the burning issue with this method of viticulture. Do you want a sulphur free wine, pure yet at risk from the time between the producer and consumer when it is transported, stored and stuck on a retailer’s spot-lit shelf? Or do you prefer a little bit as a modicum of insurance? The wines actually tend to be more robust than we think, but not always, and the admonition that the wine “should be kept at under 14 degrees” is not something to ignore blithely.

Yet when they work, natural wines show a freshness, soul, and sheer “life” like few wines made in a more (so-called) traditional manner. When they work they are eye opening and life affirming as few wines are. To ignore them, or to give up after one or two bad bottles, is to miss out on a fundamentally different wine experience. My analogy is with red Burgundy in the 1980s. If I’d given up then following bottle after disappointing bottle of wine from even the highest appellations I’d have missed out on some of the greatest wines I’m pulling out of the cellar today. Yet I know many who dismissed red Burgundy as just too unreliable, which I don’t believe to be the case today.

Trending Regions/Countries are another bane of the old time wine critic – I’m thinking in particular here of Robert Parker’s much quoted comments about trendy young Somms stuffing their equally trendy New York or San Francisco wine lists with wines from “obscure” (sic) places like Savoie, Jura or Beaujolais, pushing off the list a (what’s wrong with a) 15%+ Saint-Emilion of abundant new oak and sweet, pulsating fruit in favour of a weedy 12% worth of lean bone, a pauper’s broth compared to the rich man’s juicy, fat fowl (okay, that’s categorically not what he said, merely my wholly skewed and doubtless flawed interpretation of its gist).

Well, the truth is, and I have years of experience to go on, many of these new age Bordeaux wines taste pretty much the same as each other now. It’s not always the case, and not all wines conform to stereotype. Last year I had a Chateau Fombrauge 2000, a wine many see as an archetype of the lush, modern style, yet it was very good indeed, delicious. But there’s no denying that a certain lushness and polish takes away the rough edges which give a wine its personality, and the very best wines of any type must (and do) have personality.

Take Jura. I’ve loved this region since my first visit in the 1980s, but the wines were never something I thought would gain any real commercial success. Yet how wrong could I be! In fact, if you want personality in a wine Jura seems so obviously the place to go. They have so much personality that, for many a traditionally minded individual, they are just either too weird or obscure in their smells and flavour. Some people don’t get them at all, and that’s fine. Just don’t look for a Latour or a Bonnes-Mares. They’re not dentists, surgeons, or High Court Judges, but artistic craftsmen. They may not always be well groomed and polite but they’ll provide excellent company with real friends and a hastily put together hospitable feast. What they are not are wines you will forget lightly. The best of them will remain, like that ’59 or ’64 Musar, deeply embedded in your memory forever.

Beaujolais, along with Muscadet, must be France’s least reputed senior wine region – no, don’t discuss. These words which might have been broadly true two years ago are just so outdated. It’s possibly the most exciting region in France right now. The best of the old timers are still going strong, but are giving way to a larger raft of offspring and newcomers who have grabbed the land of Nouveau by the scruff of the neck. Their route to success has, ironically, not been all that different to the one taken by their predecessors. They hand sold their wines to the new wine bars of Paris, and the success of these establishments selling wine with snacks and small plats was partly built on wines like Beaujolais, light and quaffable, just as Beaujolais was originally a jug wine in the cafés of that city long before the Nouveau craze took over.

What the Gamay grape has is, in one word, joy. It’s something missing in a lot of serious wine, and that’s why I find myself drinking a lot of it these days. Not just from Beaujolais – from the Loire, Australia (a little) and California too. As for California, I wonder whether Jon Bonné, with his book “The New California Wine” has driven a final nail into the coffin of the so-called Parkerian view of wine as lush, powerful and big. The New California is merely the pendulum swinging back, the new conformity being wines we can enjoy rather than ought to admire. The wines Bonné has written about, and so ably promoted in the UK last year, are not merely pale imitations of the Napa norm. They have also shown that there’s a wider California of wonderful yet unappreciated old vine stock, carefully tended by old timers who knew right from wrong, and discovered by young winemakers with a different vision to the wealthy post-industrialists who have sunk their fortunes into a dream in the Valley.

In truth, I am categorically not knocking the wines we consider traditional greats (and I’m also not knocking Robert Parker who has done so much to encourage quality in wine). That would merely be sour grapes (and these types of wines are surely never sour, even if their current collector-fuelled prices leave a certain bitterness on the back of the palate). They are, I admit, wines I can rarely afford to buy now, even if a few remain in the cellar from better times past. I’m merely advocating a wider view of what’s worthy of our appreciation. That, by way of contrast to the perfection of a top Bordeaux Cru Classé, or a top Montrachet, there are other things to explore for anyone who truly wishes to appreciate wine. Just as the finest dishes are best appreciated in moderation lest our senses get sated, exploring the great breadth of pleasurable wine makes for a greater and more rounded appreciation of everything the world of wine has to offer.

As for what’s going to be trending this year or next – well, we all know that’s Turkey, which incidentally Viking soldiers and traders knew very well during the era of Byzantium, long before the idea of exporting vinifera wines was dreamt up by some export department in Ankara. We’ll have to see whether the Turkish wine industry has both the quality and momentum to really take off, in a lasting way. Unfortunately we saw a failure to inspire lasting loyalty for Greek wine, despite a valiant attempt by Oddbins and others to promote the country some years ago (though see my last post – some signs of a revival showing). Turkey has a lot to offer, something different in her local grape varieties, so I hope they do succeed. After that, surely Muscadet’s time will (deservedly) come. I’m not really sure why it hasn’t already, such is the quality in the region despite the pitiful prices obtained by the top producers. As to the future, well with global warming our children will doubtless be looking to Norway and Sweden, both with nascent wine industries of a sort. It’s those Vikings, you see…;) .

Posted in Fine Wine, Wine | Tagged Grower Champagne, natural wines, What to drink, Wine appreciation, Wine Exploration, Wine Trends, Wine's Outer Fringes | 1 Comment

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