From 2012 there will be a new system of classification of French Wines. Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP)will be replacing VDQS and from 2014 Appellation d'Origine Protégée (AOP) will be replacing AOC.
The rules for AOP will remain almost the same as for the old AOC so the grape varieties will still need to be approved for the region. There will now be quality and tasting tests applied to the wines as they are sold in the shops. The new rules for AOP should ensure the regional character of the wines which have this appellation. The wine maker is already allowed to put the variety of grape on the label- this has been allowed since 2009.
Wines which are denominated as IGP are already appearing in the shops and the new rules for this classification allow greater flexibility for the varieties of grapes used by the winemaker and flexibility for where the the grapes come from; so up to 15% of the grapes may come from another delimited region.
There will also be another category called Vins de France or Vignobles de France which will allow grapes from anywhere in France to be used but the wine will be allowed to show the vintage on the bottle. Vignobles de france wines will be allowed additives such as oak chips, tannin, sorbic acid and concentrated grape must for sweetening. This will be good reason to avoid these branded wines completely.
These changes to the wine laws are sponsored by the EU and apply to all wine producing countries, thus for example one might now see DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) on bottles of Italian wine rather than DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) or DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata).
Italian wines which were designated IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) will be replaced by IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta).
These wine rule changes are designed to enable European winemakers to compete with their counterparts from the New World who have not been restricted by bureaucracy. It is claimed that it will improve the quality of wine in general. I shall reserve my opinion about this. We have seen the increasing industrialisation of wine making techniques so much so that it is often the case that you cannot tell where a wine comes from and many wines all taste the same. How often have you been treated to an Australian Merlot which you cannot distinguish from a Chilean Merlot or an Italian or French one. Varietal labelling encourages the approach of making homogenised wines which all taste the same because they are made from the same additives in the same proportions and with the same yeast clones. These are not essentially poor quality wines but they are boring and nowadays they can cost seven or eight pounds a bottle: we all deserve something better than this industrialised ennui. I am of the opinion that the new rules will lead to the further industrialsation of European wines at the IGP and lesser levels.
The other day I was served a bottle of the new IGP Italian Cabernet Sauvignon in a South London pub which will remain nameless. It tasted like dishwater and was fit only to be thrown away. The waitress had no idea what types of wine were on the menu all she could offer was "Cabernet Sauvignon" or "Merlot" etc. She had no idea about wine. I should have known better for the beer that I tried previously , Westerham Bitter, was stale and tasted of wet grass. The publicans and their staff obviously knew nothing about their trade. For once I had found a pub where the food was better, but not much, than the the drinks. To complain would have been pointless. So, anyone who thinks that the food and drink in pubs and restaurants, in general, is now better in the UK than in Italy, France or Spain is fooling themselves. It only matches our continental cousins when you pay astronomical prices.
Hopefully, we shall not have to pay astronomical prices for good everyday drinking wine that has some individuality. This will be the test of the new wine laws.
Friday 20 May 2011
Four Red Wines
Recently I have tasted some great red wines which are very good value for money.
Anciano Tempranillo 2003 Gran Reserva, Valdepeñas from La Mancha, Spain. This is an exceptionally fruity wine which has been aged for two years in oak which lends a vanilla flavour. The tannins are beginning to soften nicely and the wine has all the spicy complexity and long length which characterises a good wine. This full bodied wine will keep longer and still improve in the bottle. A bargain at about 6 pounds a bottle from Waitrose Supermarket; no wonder it is now sold out on their website. We drank this with roast lamb, what else could it go best with?
Domaine de la Charité,Côtes du Rhône, Charité, 2009 I bought this wine from Wine Discoveries and it is very good value for money at about nine pounds a bottle. This wine is made from Grenach, Carignan and Syrah black grapes which are all suited to the soil and climate of the region. It has concentrated tastes of strawberries and blackberrie, it is a full bodied wine which is well balanced for tannin and acidity. This wine will keep much longer and improve in the bottle and like all the wines listed here should be consummed with food. I thought this wine went particulary well with french cheeses.
Whilst browsing in Laithwaites the other day I found this wine Le Prieuré de Vinsobres 2009. Vinsobres used to be classified as Côtes du Rhône Villages but within the last few years it has been awarded its own apellation. This wine is Grenach and Syrah based and once again has a concentrated and complex taste of red fruits and spices. This full bodied wine has the tannic structure which will enable it to improve in the bottle for five to ten years. At ten pounds it is exceptional value for money and it compares favourably in quality to good wines from anywhere in the world. It could certainly be saved for a special occasion and I would not be disappointed had I paid thirty pounds for a bottle. Laithwaites have found a winner here. Also, try Domaine Constant-Duquesnoy which is formerly Domaine les Aussellon if you can find it. I once stayed in a farm right next door to the Domaine Aussellon and what a wonderful location it was too.
Domaine Colinot Irancy, Côte du Moutier 2005 AOC Irancy. This wine is produced from the Pinot Noir grape mixed with a small proportion of the local César. The vineyards are situated on the Kimmeridgian soils typical of the Yonne. If anyone doubts that a wine has a "gout de terroir" then they should try wines from this area. The taste of these wines reflects both the soil and the microclimate of the region. Côte du Moutier is a fine and classic example of the Irancy appellation with a taste of Cherry, Stawberry and red fruits combined with a slight minerality typical of wines from the area. This wine has the tannic structure to convey longevity. The wines are medium bodied and have an elegance which befits the Pinot Noir grape grown in a cool environment.The local César contributes structure to the wine. I have seen Irancy wines on the menu in London restaurants for over 35 pounds a bottle, wines which I have obtained for less than ten euros a bottle form Auxerre, and no-one was complaining. Côte du Moutier is available in Britain for around 17 euros a bottle but I paid a much lower price in the region. This is a great wine which reflects regional character; I recommend that you try a few bottles.
Anciano Tempranillo 2003 Gran Reserva, Valdepeñas from La Mancha, Spain. This is an exceptionally fruity wine which has been aged for two years in oak which lends a vanilla flavour. The tannins are beginning to soften nicely and the wine has all the spicy complexity and long length which characterises a good wine. This full bodied wine will keep longer and still improve in the bottle. A bargain at about 6 pounds a bottle from Waitrose Supermarket; no wonder it is now sold out on their website. We drank this with roast lamb, what else could it go best with?
Domaine de la Charité,Côtes du Rhône, Charité, 2009 I bought this wine from Wine Discoveries and it is very good value for money at about nine pounds a bottle. This wine is made from Grenach, Carignan and Syrah black grapes which are all suited to the soil and climate of the region. It has concentrated tastes of strawberries and blackberrie, it is a full bodied wine which is well balanced for tannin and acidity. This wine will keep much longer and improve in the bottle and like all the wines listed here should be consummed with food. I thought this wine went particulary well with french cheeses.
Whilst browsing in Laithwaites the other day I found this wine Le Prieuré de Vinsobres 2009. Vinsobres used to be classified as Côtes du Rhône Villages but within the last few years it has been awarded its own apellation. This wine is Grenach and Syrah based and once again has a concentrated and complex taste of red fruits and spices. This full bodied wine has the tannic structure which will enable it to improve in the bottle for five to ten years. At ten pounds it is exceptional value for money and it compares favourably in quality to good wines from anywhere in the world. It could certainly be saved for a special occasion and I would not be disappointed had I paid thirty pounds for a bottle. Laithwaites have found a winner here. Also, try Domaine Constant-Duquesnoy which is formerly Domaine les Aussellon if you can find it. I once stayed in a farm right next door to the Domaine Aussellon and what a wonderful location it was too.
Domaine Colinot Irancy, Côte du Moutier 2005 AOC Irancy. This wine is produced from the Pinot Noir grape mixed with a small proportion of the local César. The vineyards are situated on the Kimmeridgian soils typical of the Yonne. If anyone doubts that a wine has a "gout de terroir" then they should try wines from this area. The taste of these wines reflects both the soil and the microclimate of the region. Côte du Moutier is a fine and classic example of the Irancy appellation with a taste of Cherry, Stawberry and red fruits combined with a slight minerality typical of wines from the area. This wine has the tannic structure to convey longevity. The wines are medium bodied and have an elegance which befits the Pinot Noir grape grown in a cool environment.The local César contributes structure to the wine. I have seen Irancy wines on the menu in London restaurants for over 35 pounds a bottle, wines which I have obtained for less than ten euros a bottle form Auxerre, and no-one was complaining. Côte du Moutier is available in Britain for around 17 euros a bottle but I paid a much lower price in the region. This is a great wine which reflects regional character; I recommend that you try a few bottles.
Friday 13 May 2011
Scientific “Blind Tastings” and finding Quality wines
At the Edinburgh Science Festival in April 2011 the University of Hertfordshire invited 578 members of the public to a “Blind Tasting”. What a great idea and I wish I had been there. Each taster was given a range of red and white wines and was asked to judge which were the more expensive. The results were no better than chance. Fifty percent of the participants were unable to distinguish the cheap wines, costing less than £5 a bottle, from more expensive wines costing between £10 and £30 per bottle.
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, who led the research, said: "These are remarkable results. People were unable to tell expensive from inexpensive wines, and so in these times of financial hardship the message is clear – the inexpensive wines we tested tasted the same as their expensive counterparts."
These results do not surprise me one bit. “Cheap” does not necessarily mean poor quality and “Expensive” does not necessarily mean better quality. The general public have also not been trained to identify higher quality wines. By higher quality, I mean wines that taste better, show regional character, complexity and the ability to age. Some wines which are produced to be long lasting may not fully reveal their fruit flavour and complexity until they have aged for a long time. The structure of the wine often masks the fruit flavours which only reveal themselves when the tannins have softened. This is true whether the wine is from a classical region such as Bordeaux or from a New World location such as South Australia. A premier cru Bordeaux wine will take a long time to reveal its qualities and a high quality South Australia wine such as Grange also needs to take a long time in the bottle to show its real class. This is why we pay a premium for such wines. Some expensive wines can also be faulty or of poor quality but I would have thought that the scientists conducting the tests would have weeded out the faulty wines. The general public cannot be expected to know all this but even so they are entitled to higher quality wines when they are paying a much higher price and this is not always the case.
I find “blind tastings” very interesting from the point of view of both suggestibility and to test an expert’s ability to really identify wine and select “quality” wines from inferior ones. We can also use a “blind tasting” to reflect upon what is a high quality wine, what is an inferior one and what is good value for money.
You can try this test yourself. Put the wine in a decanter and serve it "blind". Sometimes, but not often I judge, that a wine should be decanted to prevent sediment getting into the glasses or to allow it to breathe. Usually, I do this with the more expensive wines that I dish up when we have friends around for dinner. Sometimes, I serve one of Professor Wiseman’s cheaper wines in a decanter and ask my guests to gauge the quality of the wine – the decanter suggests quality and quite often my friends are fooled by this ploy. This test can also be tried on people who consider themselves wine experts and you will get interesting results.
When I was doing my wine exams some of my fellow students got themselves into a panic and at one “blind tasting” test one of my colleagues confused Rutherglen Muscat dessert wine with Port; this would simply not have happened to him when he was “blind tasting” in a more relaxed atmosphere. Being put on the spot had made him lose his senses and judgement, albeit temporarily. We should all be careful, then, when making judgements even at a science fair.
We once went to a wine tasting at Denbies vineyard in Dorking Surrey, I volunteered to drive so I spat out the wines. My wife swallowed all hers and I thought that her wine tasting judgement would be impaired. But at one “blind tasting” she was able to pick out the English “Champagne”, ok sparkling wine, against five other real Champagnes. She did this without consideration or hesitation she simply recognised her favourite tipple and having been being born in Champagne it helped. I confused the English Sparkler with one of the lighter champagnes but only after much consideration and hesitation; there is no shame in that. Perhaps, it is better to not think too much when wine tasting and just let your brain free to recognise the correct solution.
I think that Professor Wiseman’s experiment also exposes our expectations about value for money. Should a very expensive wine be expected to be substantially better in taste and quality and should this expectation be linked to price ratios. Thus should a wine costing three times more than a cheaper one be expected to taste three times better?
There is a certain minimum price at which a bottle of wine can be sold,when you consider fixed costs for production, duty, transport and retailing costs etc. This is around £3.50 a bottle. This price is the same for all table wines. Therefore, if you buy a £4 bottle of wine you are getting “50 pence worth of wine”. If you buy a £10 bottle you are getting “£6.50 worth of wine”. Will the £10 bottle taste 6 six better and will it be six times better quality – of course not and you are only fooling yourself if you think it does. You are hitting the law of diminishing returns. I am a wine lover and I am reluctant to pay more than £10 pounds a bottle. Any wine costing this much really should be something special but unfortunately they are often disappointing.
Why do some people pay more? I am a wine enthusiast and sometimes will pay much more than £10 a bottle to compare the qualities of expensive and cheaper wines. Tasting more expensive wines only confirms my opinion that the law of diminishing returns applies to wine quality much more than it does to the quality of other beverages and food. The best beers rarely cost much more than the worst ones. Perhaps beer drinkers are more down to earth and canny than wine drinkers; and perhaps they are not as easily fooled. The same applies to foods, such as cheese, where the price difference between a high quality cheddar and an every day eating one is not that great.
Another reason why there is such a difference in price between high quality wines and more “inferior” ones is the investment potential. Some of this investment potential stems from the fact that wines can improve in the bottle with age. But most of it comes from the brand name and the renown of a wine and of course its rarity value. Some of the wine producers of Bordeaux and Burgundy have conducted the best marketing campaigns ever to get their wines to fetch astronomical prices in the investment markets. They have kept up a relentless market and public relations effort over decades. Marketing and sales expertise is not the exclusive preserve of the Americans and Australians.
Consider this: I attended a lecture some five or six years ago by an economists turned wine maker who specialised in Burgundy wines. He drank the wines he tasted rather than spat them out but of course he was not an alcoholic. At that time he made the point that no wine costs more than about £6 a bottle to make. So what are you paying for if you buy a bottle of the most highly renowned Bordeaux or Burgundy? You are paying for the brand name and you are paying for the cost of buying the cost of the vineyard or how much the brand name owner or vineyard owner would lose if they sold their assets.
Further, consider this: fifteen years or so ago I found a bottle of 1983 Penfolds Grange in a wine merchant for £25. At that time few people had even heard of Grange so I snapped it up. I kept that bottle until 2009. During the intervening period Grange became a famous name and by the late nineties the price a bottle had risen considerably. By the time I opened the bottle it was worth over two hundred pounds a bottle. It is a great wine but was it worth eight times more than when I paid for it? Bottles of Grange from recent vintages are sold at very high prices. Grange has now become an investment wine so the price is being pushed up to a level where the ordinary wine lover cannot afford to buy it and appreciate it. Are investment wines worth that more when it comes to the actual taste and quality of the wine? Ask yourself the question what are you really paying for?
In the marketing of wine the power of suggestion is very strong and a brand name of an expensive wine may suggest a quality and taste which is not appreciably better than lesser known wines.
A similar principle applies to the marketing of other products such as audio equipment and cosmetics. I once had a work colleague who got himself into serious debt by spending tens of thousands of pounds on HIFI equipment. He was an “audiophile” who spent huge amounts of time studying the subject and even designed his living room around the listening experience. He was convinced that a record deck produced a far higher quality of sound than a CD player. My wife and I spent one evening listening to his music and of course the equipment produced a superior sound. But I was not convinced that his £30,000 set up was 30 times better than my set up which cost under £1,000 pounds, in fact it was not even twice as good. He could not convince my wife and I and his wife that the record player was better than the CD. It seemed to me that the record deck gave a perfect rendition of both the music and the snap crackle and pop that goes along with vinyl discs. The static ruined the music for me. He could not convince his wife that he was getting true value for money by buying more expensive equipment. We agreed with his wife that he was falling for marketing hyperbole. The same principle applies to cosmetics the more you pay the better the product must be.
So where does this leave us with the wine? For me it is horses for courses. If you are going to a party or barbecue a cheaper wine may be just as enjoyable as a much more expensive one and if you buy it from a supermarket it will be of perfect quality and it will fit its purpose exactly. At home, I usually drink everyday quality French wine with my meal. I drink this because I visit France so often that I can find bargains there. Some times I try wines from all over the world which I buy from my local wine merchants and supermarket. Usually I pay around six or seven pounds a bottle. For special occasions or once a week with a special meal at home alone with my wife or with friends I like to drink a higher quality wine which has regional character. This wine is usually from France but I like to try wines from all over the world as well. I do not expect to have to pay more than ten pounds to find a really good bottle. On the odd occasion I will splash out and buy a really good bottle of exceptional wine such as Qupe from California or Chateau Larose Perganson from Bordeaux. These wines are expensive but not excessively so and they are superb with good food. You can buy the latter for about 18 pounds a bottle and it tastes just as good as much more expensive wines from the region and it also has the potential to age well. The Qupe is more expensive still but it has rarity value in England; it is full of spicy Syrah flavour.
When buying wine we should also take into consideration the circumstances of its consumption. Is it at a party, is it in a pub or wine bar, or is it at dinner party or grand occasion? Some wines might taste better on their own whilst others taste better with food and this will affect our judgement about the taste and quality of the wine selected. Wine retailers could do more to inform the public about value for money and quality versus price considerations.
The secret of wine tasting is to allow you to find wines which are of superb quality and reflect value for money in their price range; wines which suit their purpose and which live up to their brand name. I urge all wine lovers to find out more about the wines they are buying and where possible to taste before buying.
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, who led the research, said: "These are remarkable results. People were unable to tell expensive from inexpensive wines, and so in these times of financial hardship the message is clear – the inexpensive wines we tested tasted the same as their expensive counterparts."
These results do not surprise me one bit. “Cheap” does not necessarily mean poor quality and “Expensive” does not necessarily mean better quality. The general public have also not been trained to identify higher quality wines. By higher quality, I mean wines that taste better, show regional character, complexity and the ability to age. Some wines which are produced to be long lasting may not fully reveal their fruit flavour and complexity until they have aged for a long time. The structure of the wine often masks the fruit flavours which only reveal themselves when the tannins have softened. This is true whether the wine is from a classical region such as Bordeaux or from a New World location such as South Australia. A premier cru Bordeaux wine will take a long time to reveal its qualities and a high quality South Australia wine such as Grange also needs to take a long time in the bottle to show its real class. This is why we pay a premium for such wines. Some expensive wines can also be faulty or of poor quality but I would have thought that the scientists conducting the tests would have weeded out the faulty wines. The general public cannot be expected to know all this but even so they are entitled to higher quality wines when they are paying a much higher price and this is not always the case.
I find “blind tastings” very interesting from the point of view of both suggestibility and to test an expert’s ability to really identify wine and select “quality” wines from inferior ones. We can also use a “blind tasting” to reflect upon what is a high quality wine, what is an inferior one and what is good value for money.
You can try this test yourself. Put the wine in a decanter and serve it "blind". Sometimes, but not often I judge, that a wine should be decanted to prevent sediment getting into the glasses or to allow it to breathe. Usually, I do this with the more expensive wines that I dish up when we have friends around for dinner. Sometimes, I serve one of Professor Wiseman’s cheaper wines in a decanter and ask my guests to gauge the quality of the wine – the decanter suggests quality and quite often my friends are fooled by this ploy. This test can also be tried on people who consider themselves wine experts and you will get interesting results.
When I was doing my wine exams some of my fellow students got themselves into a panic and at one “blind tasting” test one of my colleagues confused Rutherglen Muscat dessert wine with Port; this would simply not have happened to him when he was “blind tasting” in a more relaxed atmosphere. Being put on the spot had made him lose his senses and judgement, albeit temporarily. We should all be careful, then, when making judgements even at a science fair.
We once went to a wine tasting at Denbies vineyard in Dorking Surrey, I volunteered to drive so I spat out the wines. My wife swallowed all hers and I thought that her wine tasting judgement would be impaired. But at one “blind tasting” she was able to pick out the English “Champagne”, ok sparkling wine, against five other real Champagnes. She did this without consideration or hesitation she simply recognised her favourite tipple and having been being born in Champagne it helped. I confused the English Sparkler with one of the lighter champagnes but only after much consideration and hesitation; there is no shame in that. Perhaps, it is better to not think too much when wine tasting and just let your brain free to recognise the correct solution.
I think that Professor Wiseman’s experiment also exposes our expectations about value for money. Should a very expensive wine be expected to be substantially better in taste and quality and should this expectation be linked to price ratios. Thus should a wine costing three times more than a cheaper one be expected to taste three times better?
There is a certain minimum price at which a bottle of wine can be sold,when you consider fixed costs for production, duty, transport and retailing costs etc. This is around £3.50 a bottle. This price is the same for all table wines. Therefore, if you buy a £4 bottle of wine you are getting “50 pence worth of wine”. If you buy a £10 bottle you are getting “£6.50 worth of wine”. Will the £10 bottle taste 6 six better and will it be six times better quality – of course not and you are only fooling yourself if you think it does. You are hitting the law of diminishing returns. I am a wine lover and I am reluctant to pay more than £10 pounds a bottle. Any wine costing this much really should be something special but unfortunately they are often disappointing.
Why do some people pay more? I am a wine enthusiast and sometimes will pay much more than £10 a bottle to compare the qualities of expensive and cheaper wines. Tasting more expensive wines only confirms my opinion that the law of diminishing returns applies to wine quality much more than it does to the quality of other beverages and food. The best beers rarely cost much more than the worst ones. Perhaps beer drinkers are more down to earth and canny than wine drinkers; and perhaps they are not as easily fooled. The same applies to foods, such as cheese, where the price difference between a high quality cheddar and an every day eating one is not that great.
Another reason why there is such a difference in price between high quality wines and more “inferior” ones is the investment potential. Some of this investment potential stems from the fact that wines can improve in the bottle with age. But most of it comes from the brand name and the renown of a wine and of course its rarity value. Some of the wine producers of Bordeaux and Burgundy have conducted the best marketing campaigns ever to get their wines to fetch astronomical prices in the investment markets. They have kept up a relentless market and public relations effort over decades. Marketing and sales expertise is not the exclusive preserve of the Americans and Australians.
Consider this: I attended a lecture some five or six years ago by an economists turned wine maker who specialised in Burgundy wines. He drank the wines he tasted rather than spat them out but of course he was not an alcoholic. At that time he made the point that no wine costs more than about £6 a bottle to make. So what are you paying for if you buy a bottle of the most highly renowned Bordeaux or Burgundy? You are paying for the brand name and you are paying for the cost of buying the cost of the vineyard or how much the brand name owner or vineyard owner would lose if they sold their assets.
Further, consider this: fifteen years or so ago I found a bottle of 1983 Penfolds Grange in a wine merchant for £25. At that time few people had even heard of Grange so I snapped it up. I kept that bottle until 2009. During the intervening period Grange became a famous name and by the late nineties the price a bottle had risen considerably. By the time I opened the bottle it was worth over two hundred pounds a bottle. It is a great wine but was it worth eight times more than when I paid for it? Bottles of Grange from recent vintages are sold at very high prices. Grange has now become an investment wine so the price is being pushed up to a level where the ordinary wine lover cannot afford to buy it and appreciate it. Are investment wines worth that more when it comes to the actual taste and quality of the wine? Ask yourself the question what are you really paying for?
In the marketing of wine the power of suggestion is very strong and a brand name of an expensive wine may suggest a quality and taste which is not appreciably better than lesser known wines.
A similar principle applies to the marketing of other products such as audio equipment and cosmetics. I once had a work colleague who got himself into serious debt by spending tens of thousands of pounds on HIFI equipment. He was an “audiophile” who spent huge amounts of time studying the subject and even designed his living room around the listening experience. He was convinced that a record deck produced a far higher quality of sound than a CD player. My wife and I spent one evening listening to his music and of course the equipment produced a superior sound. But I was not convinced that his £30,000 set up was 30 times better than my set up which cost under £1,000 pounds, in fact it was not even twice as good. He could not convince my wife and I and his wife that the record player was better than the CD. It seemed to me that the record deck gave a perfect rendition of both the music and the snap crackle and pop that goes along with vinyl discs. The static ruined the music for me. He could not convince his wife that he was getting true value for money by buying more expensive equipment. We agreed with his wife that he was falling for marketing hyperbole. The same principle applies to cosmetics the more you pay the better the product must be.
So where does this leave us with the wine? For me it is horses for courses. If you are going to a party or barbecue a cheaper wine may be just as enjoyable as a much more expensive one and if you buy it from a supermarket it will be of perfect quality and it will fit its purpose exactly. At home, I usually drink everyday quality French wine with my meal. I drink this because I visit France so often that I can find bargains there. Some times I try wines from all over the world which I buy from my local wine merchants and supermarket. Usually I pay around six or seven pounds a bottle. For special occasions or once a week with a special meal at home alone with my wife or with friends I like to drink a higher quality wine which has regional character. This wine is usually from France but I like to try wines from all over the world as well. I do not expect to have to pay more than ten pounds to find a really good bottle. On the odd occasion I will splash out and buy a really good bottle of exceptional wine such as Qupe from California or Chateau Larose Perganson from Bordeaux. These wines are expensive but not excessively so and they are superb with good food. You can buy the latter for about 18 pounds a bottle and it tastes just as good as much more expensive wines from the region and it also has the potential to age well. The Qupe is more expensive still but it has rarity value in England; it is full of spicy Syrah flavour.
When buying wine we should also take into consideration the circumstances of its consumption. Is it at a party, is it in a pub or wine bar, or is it at dinner party or grand occasion? Some wines might taste better on their own whilst others taste better with food and this will affect our judgement about the taste and quality of the wine selected. Wine retailers could do more to inform the public about value for money and quality versus price considerations.
The secret of wine tasting is to allow you to find wines which are of superb quality and reflect value for money in their price range; wines which suit their purpose and which live up to their brand name. I urge all wine lovers to find out more about the wines they are buying and where possible to taste before buying.
Tuesday 10 May 2011
Sicilian Wines
We recently made a trip to Sicily and tasted some excellent wines and food to go with it. The wines were so good and I tucked into the wine and food so enthusiastically that I forgot to take notes; so now I am operating from memory.
But why are Sicilian wines so good? It is the usual story - soil, sunshine, rain at the right times and agricultural and techniques. Culture, history and tradition should also be added into the equation. All of this is reflected in the wine.
Wine making was brought to the island over 2,000 years ago with the Greeks the culture of wine making progressed with the Romans up until modern times. This combined with the Sicilians love of good has lead to a tradition for making wines which matches the local cuisine. The wines therefore show regional and local character. One of Sicily's most famous dessert wines, Marsala, is one of the ingredients of my favourite desserts - Zabaglione. I did not get round to tasting the wine directly on this trip but never mind.
We stayed in Ortigia a small island off the mainland at Syracuse and from our apartment window we could see the the bay where Archimedes was supposed to have helped with the defeat of the Atheian navy. Ortigia and Syracuse are famous for their Greek and Roman ruins and both towns exude history.
Upon our arrival what better place to go with our Australian friends than Solaria or the "Anarchists" wine bar right in the centre of Ortigia. This wine bar has a huge range of Italian and Sicilian wines for sale including some of the top names at top prices - Tenuta San Guido - Sassicaia, Antinori etc. But who needs to drink the top names for the local red wine was great for starters with "tapas" or "cichetti"? I could have stayed all night in this bar and spent a lot of money - they even had some of my favourite burgundies but why go to Italy to drink french wine , I get enough of that at home. Next down to a seafood restaurant and some great seafood pasta and a carafe of the local white, this was quite an introduction to the local food and wine.
No Easter Sunday can be complete without going out for lunch which our friends arranged at the at Hotel des Etrangers et Miramare which overlooks the marina: we sat on the roof garden. The Hotel offered a great menu of food complete with specially selected wines from the locality and at Eur 50 per head all included was excellent value for money:
Raw Artichokes with baked ricotta, cream and thyme en croûte.
Mezze maniche pasta with cauliflower and pancetta on a Piacentino
Ennese cheese fondue.
Loin of Lamb encrusted in pistachio past with cherry tomato jam.
Easter Cassata.
Piacentino Ennese is ewes milk cheese infused with saffron and black peppercorns but it is not spicy tasting but it is excellent. This was a finely designed menu and suited the occasion admirably and what better than to sample the local wines with it. For starters we drank Fania Isolia Fiano dry white wine which had floral overtones and it was excellent with the first two courses. With the main course we drank Fanus Syrah –Nero D’Avola red wine which had a concentrated flavour of red fruits and plums and had the tannin structure to go well with the rich flavoured lamb course. For dessert we drank we drank Jaraya Il Passito a honeyed flavoured rich sweet wine which complimented the dessert perfectly and which was my favourite wine. All of these wines were produced locally by Cantine Gulino. The soil in the region is based on both limestone and volcanic rocks and I feel that it produce wines which are less rich than the more fertile soils of the Etna region. These wines were an excellent introduction to Sicilian wine tasting and they are available in the rest of Europe at reasonable prices. The Nero d’Avola grape may be better known to drinkers of Corvo wine.
The menu was perfectly designed to go with the wines but my wife claimed that more vegetables were needed whilst averring that in France vegetables were always served with lamb. Our French waiter diplomatically declined to ask the kitchen to prepare us some vegetables to supplement the perfect menu. This is one solecism that a “Brit” abroad would never commit; imagine the embarrassment of asking for meat and two vegetables.
The market in Ortigia is a delight even if it would be shut down in London on hygiene grounds –whatever next the merchants were smoking over their stalls. There was a fantastic range of live snails and shell fish. The Sicilian cheeses were marvellous and the fish and poultry were fresh. What better way to have a light lunch than to eat some local ham and cheese supplemented by a tomato salad and fresh bread with an olive oil and lemon juice seasoning all washed down with a bottle of 2008 Etna Rosso red wine from Firriato. This wine was Eur 10 from a local shop and was one step up in quality from the local wines it is made from Nerello Mascalese-Nerello Cappuccio grapes. This wine tasted of red fruits with a hint of spice this wine has a well integrated and tannic structure which indicates that it will keep well for a long time and improve in the bottle. At this price it was exceptional value for money but I don’t doubt that you will have to pay much more outside of Italy. It held its own well with tomato salad and the strong cheeses.
This is “what we did on our holidays “ eating and drinking paradise.
Wherever we ate and drank in Ortigia and Syracuse we got excellent value for money even the local cafes far away from tourists served excellent food and local wine.
No trip can be made to Sicily without going up Mount Etna so we hired a car with our Australian friends. The island of Sicily is quite poor and the buildings are mostly run down and shabby and some parts of Syracuse are filthy this unfortunately gives it a third world feeling and I approached driving with a little trepidation. The driving standards on the island are appalling. There seem to be no rules obeyed at roundabouts, you have to look both ways when passing a green light at cross roads and absolute vigilance is required when overtaking on the Autostrada as many motorists are cruising at tens of kpm above the 130 speed limit and no-one seems to slow down for road works. They are probably rushing to get to the restaurant or home for some really good food and wine. After a while you get used to it and as Sicily is such a crowded isle and all of its 5 million citizens are concentrated on the coastal strip the roads are exceptionally crowded so the traffic is going very slow just like in Bombay and the chaos does seem to be quite as dangerous in town as on the dual carriageway.
After a bracing walk on Mount Etna we made our way down to Catania via Albergo Del Bosco on the lower slopes of Etna and there we found the Hotel Emmaus who willingly served us lunch at 2 30 pm just as they were about to shut the restaurant. We had a four course meal with wine for Eur 20 washed down with some house wine from the locality. The local red went exceptionally with the best pasta with wild mushroom sauce that I have ever tasted. The Hotel is a religious retreat but that did not get in the way of them serving excellent food and wine.
We spent our last night in the Ortigia in Solari where we drank the best wine of our trip Etna Rosso 2008 Murgo Semper, this wine is a star similar in style to the Firriato and is produced from the same grapes. It is , however, of much higher quality and complexity and it has the structure to last a very long time.
This was the best way to end a delightful gastromnomic and wine tasting holiday. Sicily, I can thoroughly recommend it; great wine great food and above all lovely people.
But why are Sicilian wines so good? It is the usual story - soil, sunshine, rain at the right times and agricultural and techniques. Culture, history and tradition should also be added into the equation. All of this is reflected in the wine.
Wine making was brought to the island over 2,000 years ago with the Greeks the culture of wine making progressed with the Romans up until modern times. This combined with the Sicilians love of good has lead to a tradition for making wines which matches the local cuisine. The wines therefore show regional and local character. One of Sicily's most famous dessert wines, Marsala, is one of the ingredients of my favourite desserts - Zabaglione. I did not get round to tasting the wine directly on this trip but never mind.
We stayed in Ortigia a small island off the mainland at Syracuse and from our apartment window we could see the the bay where Archimedes was supposed to have helped with the defeat of the Atheian navy. Ortigia and Syracuse are famous for their Greek and Roman ruins and both towns exude history.
Upon our arrival what better place to go with our Australian friends than Solaria or the "Anarchists" wine bar right in the centre of Ortigia. This wine bar has a huge range of Italian and Sicilian wines for sale including some of the top names at top prices - Tenuta San Guido - Sassicaia, Antinori etc. But who needs to drink the top names for the local red wine was great for starters with "tapas" or "cichetti"? I could have stayed all night in this bar and spent a lot of money - they even had some of my favourite burgundies but why go to Italy to drink french wine , I get enough of that at home. Next down to a seafood restaurant and some great seafood pasta and a carafe of the local white, this was quite an introduction to the local food and wine.
No Easter Sunday can be complete without going out for lunch which our friends arranged at the at Hotel des Etrangers et Miramare which overlooks the marina: we sat on the roof garden. The Hotel offered a great menu of food complete with specially selected wines from the locality and at Eur 50 per head all included was excellent value for money:
Raw Artichokes with baked ricotta, cream and thyme en croûte.
Mezze maniche pasta with cauliflower and pancetta on a Piacentino
Ennese cheese fondue.
Loin of Lamb encrusted in pistachio past with cherry tomato jam.
Easter Cassata.
Piacentino Ennese is ewes milk cheese infused with saffron and black peppercorns but it is not spicy tasting but it is excellent. This was a finely designed menu and suited the occasion admirably and what better than to sample the local wines with it. For starters we drank Fania Isolia Fiano dry white wine which had floral overtones and it was excellent with the first two courses. With the main course we drank Fanus Syrah –Nero D’Avola red wine which had a concentrated flavour of red fruits and plums and had the tannin structure to go well with the rich flavoured lamb course. For dessert we drank we drank Jaraya Il Passito a honeyed flavoured rich sweet wine which complimented the dessert perfectly and which was my favourite wine. All of these wines were produced locally by Cantine Gulino. The soil in the region is based on both limestone and volcanic rocks and I feel that it produce wines which are less rich than the more fertile soils of the Etna region. These wines were an excellent introduction to Sicilian wine tasting and they are available in the rest of Europe at reasonable prices. The Nero d’Avola grape may be better known to drinkers of Corvo wine.
The menu was perfectly designed to go with the wines but my wife claimed that more vegetables were needed whilst averring that in France vegetables were always served with lamb. Our French waiter diplomatically declined to ask the kitchen to prepare us some vegetables to supplement the perfect menu. This is one solecism that a “Brit” abroad would never commit; imagine the embarrassment of asking for meat and two vegetables.
The market in Ortigia is a delight even if it would be shut down in London on hygiene grounds –whatever next the merchants were smoking over their stalls. There was a fantastic range of live snails and shell fish. The Sicilian cheeses were marvellous and the fish and poultry were fresh. What better way to have a light lunch than to eat some local ham and cheese supplemented by a tomato salad and fresh bread with an olive oil and lemon juice seasoning all washed down with a bottle of 2008 Etna Rosso red wine from Firriato. This wine was Eur 10 from a local shop and was one step up in quality from the local wines it is made from Nerello Mascalese-Nerello Cappuccio grapes. This wine tasted of red fruits with a hint of spice this wine has a well integrated and tannic structure which indicates that it will keep well for a long time and improve in the bottle. At this price it was exceptional value for money but I don’t doubt that you will have to pay much more outside of Italy. It held its own well with tomato salad and the strong cheeses.
This is “what we did on our holidays “ eating and drinking paradise.
Wherever we ate and drank in Ortigia and Syracuse we got excellent value for money even the local cafes far away from tourists served excellent food and local wine.
No trip can be made to Sicily without going up Mount Etna so we hired a car with our Australian friends. The island of Sicily is quite poor and the buildings are mostly run down and shabby and some parts of Syracuse are filthy this unfortunately gives it a third world feeling and I approached driving with a little trepidation. The driving standards on the island are appalling. There seem to be no rules obeyed at roundabouts, you have to look both ways when passing a green light at cross roads and absolute vigilance is required when overtaking on the Autostrada as many motorists are cruising at tens of kpm above the 130 speed limit and no-one seems to slow down for road works. They are probably rushing to get to the restaurant or home for some really good food and wine. After a while you get used to it and as Sicily is such a crowded isle and all of its 5 million citizens are concentrated on the coastal strip the roads are exceptionally crowded so the traffic is going very slow just like in Bombay and the chaos does seem to be quite as dangerous in town as on the dual carriageway.
After a bracing walk on Mount Etna we made our way down to Catania via Albergo Del Bosco on the lower slopes of Etna and there we found the Hotel Emmaus who willingly served us lunch at 2 30 pm just as they were about to shut the restaurant. We had a four course meal with wine for Eur 20 washed down with some house wine from the locality. The local red went exceptionally with the best pasta with wild mushroom sauce that I have ever tasted. The Hotel is a religious retreat but that did not get in the way of them serving excellent food and wine.
We spent our last night in the Ortigia in Solari where we drank the best wine of our trip Etna Rosso 2008 Murgo Semper, this wine is a star similar in style to the Firriato and is produced from the same grapes. It is , however, of much higher quality and complexity and it has the structure to last a very long time.
This was the best way to end a delightful gastromnomic and wine tasting holiday. Sicily, I can thoroughly recommend it; great wine great food and above all lovely people.
Wednesday 4 May 2011
Château Grivière 2001 Cru Bourgeois Medoc
I have just tried a bottle of Château Grivière which was bought from Majestic at a discounted price of about 11 pounds a bottle. It is such good value for money that I felt compelled to make a comment on their web-site.
This wine is still maturing and I think it could be racked for another five years.
It has all the hallmarks of a fine wine:
There is a fine balance between the the acidity, sweetness(dry in this case), tannins and body (medium plus). The tannins are starting to soften.
The wine is capable of being kept for a long time and improves in the bottle.
The wine is complex and concentrated with the typical flavours of a Bordeaux - blackcurrants, plums and spices. Its regional character is easily recognisable. It has long length thus the flavours linger for a long time on the palate.
It is designed to go with good food.
The wine tasters at Majestic have done a fine job in selecting this wine.
For me this wine is much more preferable to a generic varietal labelled wine from the New World or France for that matter. I cannot agree that wines which only offer full fruit flavours are of better quality. But there is no accounting for taste.
We drank this wine with a beef stew and it held its own with strong tasting cheeses later.
Whilst talking of regional character , I recently made a trip to Sicily but more of that later.
This wine is still maturing and I think it could be racked for another five years.
It has all the hallmarks of a fine wine:
There is a fine balance between the the acidity, sweetness(dry in this case), tannins and body (medium plus). The tannins are starting to soften.
The wine is capable of being kept for a long time and improves in the bottle.
The wine is complex and concentrated with the typical flavours of a Bordeaux - blackcurrants, plums and spices. Its regional character is easily recognisable. It has long length thus the flavours linger for a long time on the palate.
It is designed to go with good food.
The wine tasters at Majestic have done a fine job in selecting this wine.
For me this wine is much more preferable to a generic varietal labelled wine from the New World or France for that matter. I cannot agree that wines which only offer full fruit flavours are of better quality. But there is no accounting for taste.
We drank this wine with a beef stew and it held its own with strong tasting cheeses later.
Whilst talking of regional character , I recently made a trip to Sicily but more of that later.
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