Health claims about drinking too much

Once again the debate about drinking one glass of wine a day is making the rounds of the press with the Times saying that a glass of wine a day is good for your health. I always find these claims amusing. There is no solid evidence that proves that drinking wine is good for your physical health. One thing is certain, is that to consume too much alcohol is damaging to your health. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glass-of-wine-dinner-health-study-lancet-jmqskxvd8

Another certainty, is that despite how much wine you drink you are going to die and reducing the consumption of wine and cigarettes and other substances will not stop you from dying. You are going to die whether you like it or not. I am also amused by statistical studies which "prove" that if you drink one glass of wine over the arbitrary limits set by health care professionals then you will reduce your life span by an hour or half an hour or whatever.

Presumably, you could counteract the detrimental effects of wine over-consumption by not eating red meat, and to live longer by following a nutritionist's healthy diet. Life is too complicated to base your decisions on what you should eat or drink based on statistical analyses. 

I fear that this controversy will go on and on until the health professionals finally achieve their aim of no-one drinking wine or whiskey or whatever.  What about coca-cola? Why has no-one done research into the dangers of drinking more than a glass-full a day, or lemon juice or carrot juice? It is up to the individual to decide how much wine they drink. My advice is not to drink too much so that it affects your physical or mental health.

Of course drinking too much wine is dangerous , that is obvious and most of us do not need to be reminded of it. I shall continue to drink a glass of wine with a good meal or with friends because it makes me feel better,  and I am cheered up by the conviviality. I am not going to feel guilty if, occasionally, I go over the top. At my advanced years I know that I can't consume several glasses a day, so I give wine and beer a rest for two or three days a week. I am fully aware of what is going to happen but I am not ready for my last sip just yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/12/one-extra-glass-of-wine-will-shorten-your-life-by-30-minutes 

https://www.eatthis.com/drink-wine-every-night/

Yippee the supermarket shelves are filling up with wine

 I went to our local supermarket this morning to find that some of the empty shelves were being filled up with wine. Overseas readers may not now that there is a shortage of heavy lorries drivers owing to Brexit. Thousands of lorry drivers from the EU have left the UK because of the C19 pandemic and Brexit, and they are not coming back either because they feel un-welcome or they need a visa to come to Britain now to work. They are considered to be unskilled workers so not many visas are being handed out.

This is one of the victories of Brexit, and perhaps the only one, with supermarkets over-flowing with wine - it's a pity about the prices.

The supermarkets must have enormous stocks of wine if they are able to replace the empty food shelves with wine.   However, the price of wine is now so high that I doubt if it is shifting quickly, but luckily it has a long shelf life. Brexit resulted in the cost of imported wine shooting through the roof because the pound fell so heavily against the Dollar and the Euro.

I don't buy wine now unless it is discounted, but this morning I bought a bottle of one of my favourite wines, "Château Pey La Tour 2019 red", from Dourthe: this wine is typical of a good AOP  Bordeaux. It was GBP 7.99 instead of GBP10.69. This is not a bargain though compared to the prices in France.

I noticed in the aisles that the cost of a discounted Crémant de Bourgogne sparkling wine was  GBP13.99; this is as costly as a bottle of good quality Champagne that I can by directly from the suppliers in France.

https://www.waitrosecellar.com/red-wine-offers/chateau-pey-la-tour-885888

Bad harvest

2021 will have been a terrible year for wine producers in France. It is calculated that the harvest will be the worst sine 1977, with annual production down by between 24 and 30 %. Frost in the spring and mildew later on have caused havoc for growers. Some analysts have put the problems down to climate change which is creating serious damage to weather patterns, with frosts being followed by excessive rainfall. This could be the shape of things to come. We need to do more than "just limit" global warming to 1.5 centigrade we need to get back to what was normal 50 years ago. We really need to redouble our efforts. There is more than just wine production at stake the whole of agriculture could be devastated across the world. Just buying an electric car will not solve the problem. It is now time for all humans to rethink how their activities are affecting the the planet.

There is still time left, but what would the world be like without our daily glass of wine and our daily bread? 

https://www.rayon-boissons.com/vins-et-champagnes/vers-une-vendange-2021-historiquement-faible

The horse in the vineyard

 More and more wine producers are using horses rather than tractors in the vineyard. Horses perform better on difficult and steep terrain. They are more gentle on the soil and the vines. They improve the aeration of the soil and they compact the soil less. Soils tilled by horse drawn vineyard machinery are less likely to support vine pests. Horses provide manure to fertilise the soil and they hardly produce any air pollution or noise to disturb vineyard workers. The workers can stroke the horse in their wine and food breaks and feel all the better for it.

We know producers in Champagne  who have been using horses for years are part of biodynamic grape production and their wines taste exceptionally good.

I have written before about the use of "drones" or automatons in the vineyard and, possibly some future wise guy will deploy robots to tend the stables and attach the horses to the farm machinery. Their automatons will feed the horses and brush them and clean out the stables. The horses will be guided in their work  by drones with computerised voices. They will be given their injections by automated vets. The will be shod by android blacksmiths. All this will be done to provide economies in the vineyard.  This is a rather a dire prospect for the poor old horse who might never get to be in contact with another mammal let alone another horse and, it is unromantic image.

Maybe, things should be left alone and the horse should be looked after and guided by human beings. Horses and humans have been working in harmony for thousands of years and their wines will continue to be all the better for it for years to come.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/28/draught-wines-french-vineyards-rediscover-the-power-of-horses

Drinking while pregnant

Once again there is a controversy about having a drink. This time it's about drinking a glass of wine or having a beer when you are pregnant. Luckily, I don't need to worry about this. For balance , I thought I would link to  two different points of view.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/style/drinking-while-pregnant.html

https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/drinking-pregnancy-safe-harmful/

My own point of view is that it is up to a woman to decide whether she want's a glass of wine during pregnancy. However, she might want to consider all of the facts or simply hold the view that a couple of small glasses of wine a week won't damage her or her baby's health even though there is no absolute proof that drinking any quantity of wine, beer or whiskey is safe.

We are faced with risks all our lives and there is only one certainty and that is death. Women are bombarded with advice about what and what not to do when they are pregnant. Let each woman decide what is best for her own health and that of the unborn child. 

One thing is certain, there is a point where alcohol consumption will damage the health of the unborn child, but there is very little research to show where this point is, either for the individual or for the population in general. It is probably best for women who are pregnant to err on the side of caution about the amount of alcohol that they consume, and this advice is salient for us all. This does not mean that we have to be the abstinent killjoys that some medical doctors profess, even if we are pregnant.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30008-6/fulltext

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/pregnancy-drinking-units-allowed-health-baby-harm-a7941316.html

Stellenbosch Zalze Shiraz/Mourvèdre/ Viognier 2019 red

 It bought this red wine from the local supermarket with a sense of excitement as it had been award prizes in South Africa.. However, I did not know what to make of it. It had all the hallmarks of a good quality wine even though it had a strong flavour of malo-lactic conversion which made the wine smell a bit buttery. Malo-lactic conversion is used to convert the malic acid in the wine to lactic acid which is softer on the palate.

The wine was young and lively with fruit and spice taste and seemed to be well integrated. We drank half a bottle with roast duck and the wine went well with it, however at the end of our meal I still had half a glass left over. Usually, when this happens I sip the glass before tea or coffee to finish it. This time I couldn't finish the glass the wine did not taste right and I could n't put my finger on what was wrong. Maybe, we were drinking it too soon and it should have left the bottle to mature for another year or so, but these days wines such as this are designed to be drunk young. Maybe it was to blend of grapes or the strong smell of malo-lactic conversion or maybe it had not been stored correctly. perhaps the style wasn't to our liking.

 We saved the remaining half of the bottle until the next day to drink with our roast pork. I thought that a little bit of oxidation, overnight, would improve matters but it didn't:  we were a little bit disappointed but finished the half bottle all the same as it went down quite well with the food. To finish things off I opened a bottle of Burgundy red from our favourite producer; a couple of glasses of that alleviated our disappointment.

Others, may find that this wine is perfectly satisfactory and that they enjoy it very well , so I am not going to mark it down in anyway. In the future, I might buy another bottle and we will then really enjoy it - who knows?  But, then again we could have been spoilt by drinking too much Burgundy red.

https://www.waitrosecellar.com/zalze-shiraz-mourvedre-viognier

Late Frost Bad News for the Wine Harvest

 This year's late frosts have done severe damage to the vines in France. The damage is so severe that government assistance will be required. One severe weather event cannot be attributed to climate change and global warming, but climate scientists have been warning us for years that global warming not only affects rainfall with increasing temperatures, but it also causes unexpected fluctuations to the weather. It is quite possible that winters could become colder and wetter and summers could become warmer and drier. All sorts of unexpected variations are possible within the range of average global temperatures going up. What happens now, if this year the wine growers of France and other European areas experience severe heat and drought in summer? They could have a disaster on their hands, and a run of 4 or 5 bad growing seasons could ruin the wine industry. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/09/french-winemakers-frost-government-freezing-temperatures-crops-vines

It is not just France that has been affected, as many UK vineyards have been badly damaged too. Can UK growers expect generous government subsidies too? I shall leave you to answer that one.

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/05/uk-vineyards-grapple-with-late-frost/

The Northern vineyards of Italy have also had their frost problems.

https://www.winespectator.com/articles/frost-strikes-vineyards-in-leading-italian-wine-region

Climat change needs to be tackled urgently, wine lovers do not want to taste wine that stems from grapes being grown under cloches or irrigated or artificially heated. Vines need nature; we can nurture the grapes but in the final analysis the vines need an equitable climate. Poorly grown grapes will produce poor wines.

It is ironic that research is being done to see how wines mature in space. What next, will research be done to see how grapes will grow without gravity and without weight to stretch the roots and the vine canes. Are some wine growers foreseeing a future where man leaves the planet Earth to inhabit Mars complete with his agriculture? This is a  pie in the sky future. It might be best to look after our own planet first  and reverse the damage of man made climate change. Let healthy vines produce healthy grapes and healthy wine.

Outer space wine

 Some samples of Bordeaux wine were sent up into space to age  for 14 months in the space station and then returned to earth for sensorial tasting by wine experts. The wine was the super expensive Chateau Petrus.

The wine experts noticed differences in taste between the "outer space aged wine" and the earthling wine. 

https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/petrus-wine-space-research-project-455239/

Of course the wine experts noticed differences but where they able to definitely able to identify the wine which had been aged in space from the earth based wine. How was the tasting organised? Was it a peer reviewed double blind experiment? How many samples of wine were tasted by how many tasters and were the results analysed by a statistician?

The power of suggestion can influence the results of a tasting all too easily it is very much a subjective exercise.

It concerns me that some wine entrepreneurs will see the profit potential from selling wine that has been "aged" in space to wine investors.

One of the tasters believed that the wine aged in space was "two to three years more " evolved. According to time dilation theory, astronauts who have spent months of time orbiting at high speeds in the space station return to earth younger than if they had remained on earth, albeit by milliseconds. Why is wine so different in this aspect?

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/07/65014/how-does-time-dilation-affect-aging-during-high-speed-space-travel/

Brazin Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel 2018 Californian red

 We bought this wine from the local supermarket with a 25% discount £12.25 instead of £15. It was simply superb and one of the best Californian wines I have ever tasted. We drank it with steak as recommended. Usually, we only drink half a bottle of wine with our meal but we savoured this wine over the course of a whole evening.

The wine was full of fruit flavour but so well balanced for tannin, acidity, sweetness and alcohol at 14.5 % not 15%. It was full-bodied and concentrated and the flavour rested on the palette. The wine was distinctive and showed Zinfandel produced wine at its best. At this price it competes with the best in the world. I highly recommend this wine and it is still on offer. Despite the lockdown British wine lovers can go down to Waitrose buy this wine and a steak and find some relief from the wretched virus.

It is not often that I agree with  a supermarket's hype about  a wine. In this case if you take away the hype  you are left with a description of an exceptionally good wine at great value for money. You can probably buy it from their website. American readers can probably find this wine easily  so it is really worth searching out as the value for money will be even greater than in the UK.

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/brazin-old-vine-zinfandel/712311-101235-101236

My wife is a member of the  Wine Society and this is what their wine lovers have got to say about it, and I couldn't agree more.

https://www.thewinesociety.com/shop/productdetail.aspx?section=pd&pl=&pc=&prl=&pd=US9321

Waitrose Own Brand Albariňo 2109

 I don't buy "own-brand" supermarket wines very often, but I fancied a bottle of Albarino to go with the evening's supper: the supermarket, Waitrose, did not have any recognisable domaine produced wine so I settled for  Waitrose Own Brand Albariňo 2109. I was not disappointed this wine had all the flavour and character of a domaine produced wine, it was nutty with apple and citrus fruit flavours. It was dry and well balanced for acidity and sweetness. It goes perfectly with fish such as Sea Bass, Sea Bream, Hake, and of course Sardines. It was concentrated on the palate. It was typical of a Spanish  Albariňo produced in the Rías Baixas region of Galicia on the Spanish border with Portugal. The wine is made of Albariňo grapes so it is varietally labelled - I can forgive the Galicians for this, just like I can forgive the Alsaciennes. Albariňo cannot be made by anyone else or anywhere else and it has its own unique taste. Riesling from Alsace deserves the same accolade.

However, it is not just Spain that makes "Albariňo" it is made on the other side of the Minho, Miňo -in Spanish, river in Portugal but it is called Alvarhino. The Spanish claim their wine is best and the Portuguese claim theirs is, but I think they are both equally superb. They are both classics of the Iberian peninsula and are very closely related.

 After writing this I am going to Waitrose supermarket to buy some more Albariňo and some Alvarinho if I can find it. The Supermarket has got a 25% discount on six bottles. The wine will go well with tonight's chicken broth.

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-vina-taboexa-albarino-spanish-white-wine/713697-350237-350238

https://vinepair.com/articles/albarino-and-alvarinho-theyre-the-same-thing/

Who said that English Wine cannot be as good as French or Californian Wine - Eglatine North Star

 I was given a bottle of 2014 North Star dessert wine from the Eglatine Vineyard in South Nottinghamshire. This wine is superb and has won prizes. It had been sitting on the wine rack for ages just waiting for the right moment  to be opened; over the Christmas period of 2020. There was little to celebrate except the wine: friends and family could not join us. We drank the wine with one of my favourite desserts: apple tart and vanilla ice cream. Apple tart is one of my wife's specialities. Immediately, upon opening the wine, which had been chilled, I could smell pineapple and exotic tropical fruits. On the nose and palate the taste was extremely complex and concentrated. The sweetness of the wine was balanced to perfection by the acidity. The taste of the wine rested long on the palate. It was one of the best dessert wines I have ever tried and it easily rates favourably with a good   Monbazillac from the Dordogne.

I looked at the back label and the vineyard described the wine as tasting of pineapples and other tropical fruits. It is a rare occasion when my judgement concurs with the wine makers.

The wine was just about starting to turn a golden colour and I guess that it  will keep a good few years longer; provided it is stored well in the dark.

I have no idea how much a half bottle of this wine cost but whatever it was it was worth it. This is one of the best wines I have tasted and it  is from England. I shall be searching out this wine when I am allowed to visit my sister in North Leicestershire, we can then celebrate the end of restrictions with a decent bottle of wine and some good food.

https://www.eglantinevineyard.com/#Flavor

The world's best wine

 So now we a have it; Mouton Rothschild 2018 Bordeaux Premier Cru Red is the best wine in the world. Rare Champagne 2008 is the best Champagne. Penfold's winery is the best in the world. 20,000 wines were tasted by 130,000 professional tasters and amateurs who voted over a 3 month period. One of the wines voted best in the world was a Merlot. But, wait a minute, Merlot is not a wine it is a grape variety; the Merlot had to be identified by the producer who made it. 

http://bwwcompetition.com/

https://redon.maville.com/actu/actudet_-bordeaux-le-titre-de-meilleur-vin-du-monde-attribue-au-chateau-mouton-rothschild-2018_54135-4472074_actu.Htm

It is fun to read about such competitions but I do not take them too seriously as a guide to the best wines in the world. I am looking for quality versus value for money.

I have never tasted the 2018 Mouton Rothschild, and probably never will unless a rich uncle opens a bottle but I am too old to have any rich uncles that are alive.  I have no doubt that I would find the wine to be excellent along with all the other wines that were voted best in the world. However, other wine producers might feel a little aggrieved;  there is no doubt that Château Petrus believes that it produces the best red wine in the world and who is to say that it doesn't. 

All judgements about wine are in the main subjective; you can learn to identify wines which are distinctive but which also represent the style of their area. However, many Champagne Houses blend wines from many different parcelles of vineyard.  Some Champagne houses, in the more renowned north of the region, blend in wine from the less renowned south of the region into their house brands. It's my opinion that the best Champagnes come from small growers who make their own Champagne. These grower-makers hardly get onto to lists for judgement. However, I would never refuse to drink Pol Roger non-vintage Brut.

It is also possible to be trained or educated to recognise wines that can be kept for many years or decades to improve in the bottle. The 2018 Mouton  Rothschild will do this and also it is renowned as an investment wine, and some of this wine will never be opened, but will rest in a cold, dark cellar.

One thing is certain, the price of any wine that gets on the Best Wine in the World list, will go up.

Today, we will be celebrating my wife's birthday with a bottle of Champagne from a grower-maker whose prize winning Champagne has not been on anyone's list for popularity, but it will be our Best Wine in the World, and no-one else's opinion will affect our judgement.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bww-2021---best-wines-of-world-have-been-selected--chateau-mouton-rothschild-is-the-winner-301212995.html#:~:text=In%20BWW%20Competition%202021%2C%20the,Rothschild%202018%2C%20Bordeaux%2C%20France.&text=The%20Best%20Winery%20of%20the,awarded%20to%20the%20Penfolds%2C%20Australia.&text=BWW%20warmly%20welcomes%20all%20vineyards,wine%20for%20the%202022%20competition.

Domaine Pountet L'Horloge Côte de Bruhlois 2012 AOP Bruhlois red

We discovered Domaine Pountet at the Lille wine show but we knew the Bruhlois appellation from visits to the Lot and Garonne region to meet the family. The Bruhlois  appellation is situated on the banks of the Garonne river south of the city of Agen which is famous for its prune production. The climate and weather is well suited to the growth of wine grapes as it is under the influence of the Mediterranean. The soil is a mixture of gravel and clay so the forested slopes produce the finest wine grapes.  Domaine Pountet use grapes from selected parcelles of vineyard to make  L'Horloge predominantly from black Malbec grapes.

The Domaine is a member of the Vignerons Indépendant which I have written about before; L'Horloge 2012 red is a prize winning wine and it deserves every accolade that it accrues. The 2012 which we tasted over the Christmas period has an intense dark purple colour, the wine is extremely complex and concentrated on the nose and on the palate, it tastes of dark fruits, liquorice, spice and vanilla and dare I say prunes. The taste lingers long on the palate. The wine is of course full bodied and sumptuous and the tannin is now beginning to soften. You can drink the 2012 year now but it will keep longer.

What makes this such a good wine? It is from the quality of the grapes acquired and from the technical ability and passion of  Guillaume and Amanda Combes - the winemakers. The wine has a distinctive taste of its own but it reflects the character of the appellation and only the best growers and winemakers can achieve this.

This is wine to be savoured and not sloshed down at a party or barbeque we drank it with rare rib of beef; it should always be consumed with good food.

Most people in the UK have never heard of this wine so they are missing a treat. It can hold its own with the best wines from anywhere and I highly recommend that you search it out.

Because of travel restrictions, we were unable to travel to France but the Domaine sent us a case which arrived before the problems surrounding importation because of the Covid 19 epidemic. Probably after Brexit there will be increased duty on  wine if you import it to the UK, but this wine is so good it will not detract from its value for money.  

http://www.pountet.com/domaine-wine-brulhois.asp

https://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-brulhois 

Mastroberardino More Maiorum 2015 Fiano di Avellino (Italy) DOCG Fiano Mastroberardino White

 This is one of the best white wines that I have ever tasted. It is made from Fiano white grapes in the Campania region of Italy near Naple. The Mastroberardino domain apparently helped to develop the future of the grape. The grapes are grown in calcareous soils which add a touch of minerality to the smell and taste of the wine.  It hails from a single vineyard in the hills. Our wine was still developing in the bottle. The wine has a complex taste and for me it tasted of green and citrus fruits, honey and of course the mineral flavour. The wine was very concentrated and its flavour lingered long on the palate after  swallowing. It is not quite bone dry but it is of full body and it is slightly unctuous. Everything about this wine is fully balanced and integrated. It will keep for years longer. It was simply a joy to drink with fish, but it would go down with Parma ham. This is not a wine to be treated lightly and slugged back. It needs to be treated with all the respect that a really good wine deserves by drinking it with a good meal and good friends.

More Maiorum 2015 has its own distinct taste which sets it apart from all other white wines that I have tasted. We  have only sampled it twice but it is quite possible that my wife could recognise it again- blind- as the wine is truly memorable. It is up there with the finest Chablis and dare I say it : Montrachet. It shames bulk wine producers.

Before, I was introduced to this wine last year by a friend I had never heard of it. We shared a case of this wine and the price was right. However, I could easily have paid twice as much and still felt that I was getting a high quality wine at a good price. It compares favourably with the best whites from Burgundy, The Loire and Bordeaux and Spain. What more can I say?

https://mastroberardino.com/vino/more-maiorum-fiano-di-avellino-docg-2011/

https://www.vinissimus.com/en/wine/mastroberardino-more-maiorum/

Domaine Alain Mathias Bourgogne Epineuil Tradition red 2018 - Vigneron Independant

It is getting rather tiresome that we cannot travel easily from the UK to France to visit our friends and family and buy wine. Even though we both have French passports and cannot be refused entry, we have to have a Covid 19 test before travelling to France and fill in forms to show where we are going. When we come back we have to go into quarantine and provide a negative test. Travel within England and from England to other countries is now banned. It is pointless to try going away. My wife is pulling her hair out to travel to her original home in Troyes and visit Burgundy where her father came from and where she still has lots of family. 

Luckily, we can still find a taste of France and Burgundy, by ordering our favourite wines directly from the vineyard. We had pre-Brexit worries that our wine ordered in December would not get through. Domaine Alan Mathias delivered a case of Epineuil perfectly packaged in very strong cardboard at a price not much more than visiting the property. They are brilliant and so is their wine.

Epineuil is difficult to find in the UK and most wine drinkers have never heard of it. It is one of our favourite wines from Burgundy. It is produced in the very North of the region where the climate and soil are different from the more famous wines from the Côte de Nuits such as Nuits-Saint-Georges, which every wine lover in the UK has heard of.

Alain Mathias produces Epineuil red wine which reflects the true nature of the area, as the grapes are well matched to the soil, weather and climate. Only the best wines are instantly recognisable by their smell and taste as being from a particular area. Many wines from bulk producers are shipped to the UK and other countries in huge tanks and are bottled locally and marketed with brand names. The wines are usually perfectly acceptable to quaff back in a wine bar, or at a party or barbeque; but at a blind tasting you have no idea which country or even region they hail from. You have got no idea how the grapes were grown; the brand name could be from wines blended from many different vineyards and regions. The varietal brand names are meaningless - Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc - because they all taste the same; even different brands of Baked Beans taste different.

There is so much snobbery and myth attached to wine appreciation that sometimes it makes my heart sink.   It is only possible to tell where a wine comes from if you are completely familiar with that wine and other wines from the region.  Luckily, my wife and I are so familiar with the wines from Tonnerre and Chablis and their surroundings that we can recognise them. We would not be able to pick out Domain Alain Mathias wines from other good quality producers of the same area, at a blind tasting, but we are getting close to it.  This  all we can expect from ourselves or profess to others.

What makes Domaine Alain Mathias wine so special in my view. They are small producers and are members of the Vignerons Indépendant. Members must respect the terroir of the region, grow and make wine from their own grapes on their own property, bottle the wine themselves and respect wine traditions. These are quite stringent conditions to ensure the quality and authenticity of the wine. 

We tasted Alain Mathias Bourgogne Epineuil Tradition 2018 during the Christmas period. The wine tasted and smelt exactly as described on the bottle.It tasted of cherry and plums and of grilled bread and roasted coffee or torréfaction. It is also described as charnu or fleshy. To me it was dry and of  medium to full body with tannin which was only beginning to soften. The wine was concentrated, complex and the taste lingered long on the palate. It was well integrated and balanced for tannin and acidity. It had all the hallmarks of an exceptionally good wine. The wine is matured in the vat and in oak barrels.

This wine should be consumed with food.  We drank it with rib eye steaks but it would go well with pheasant and other game birds or guinea fowl. The wine needs to be cellared for a few years more to reach its peak and we shall be saving the bottles for several years. Alain Mathias wines have all the attributes and qualities of good quality wine which reflect the unique character of the terroir. The soil in this region is based on Kimmeridgian geology and this is reflected in the wine which is produced from  the pinot noir grape - there is no need for varietal labelling and brand names. I highly recommend this wine.

If ever you are in Tonnerre it is worth visiting the cellars which are situated on the Route de Troyes on the left as you pull out of the town towards the ancient city of Troyes.

http://www.domainealainmathias.com/

https://www.vigneron-independant.com/

https://dico-du-vin.com/torrefie-vin-arome-de-torrefaction-degustation/

http://www.winereviewonline.com/Wayne_Belding_on_Kimmeridgian.cfm