Wall of Fruit

Bass, how low can you go? Death Row? What a brother know, once again, back it's the incredible, rhyme animal........

Bring the noise.....

Dense, layered samples, sirens, heavy bass and drum beats. The Bomb squad knew how to make an impact. Pop music really didn't know what had hit it.

I was too old to really feel the impact of Public Enemy, by the time I got around to listening to 'It takes a nation of millions', or 'Fear of a black planet' they were already canonical, thoroughly institutionalised into music history, academic texts had been written about their social commentary, and it many ways the world had changed, and it would be an extremely churlish person to deny them some measure of influence in that change.

Similarly in the world of wine, the late 80's seem like more than just the last millenium, fashion has shifted so far away from the wines that lit up the skies like flares. Their siren call like purity of fruit character no longer able to shock like it did - and yes - once again I kind of missed the revolution. I started drinking wine when Chilean wines were by no means a novelty, however, the journey that I've taken, towards the niche and avant garde of European wines meant that I was lining myself up for a shock.

It's all very well taking great pains to only drink biodynamic, zero sulphured, long skin maceration, ever so slightly oxidative 'terroir' wines, but good got it comes as a shock when you put your nose to a glass of serious Chilean Cabernet.

Calicantom 08 D.O Maipo - The bomb squad would have been proud - a wall of fruit, black currants, cassis, violets, crushed raspberries, some hints of herbs, mint and other fresh green notes - but what intensity. A real wake up call. On the palette the same electric restlessness, a menace of new oak in the back ground, but all attention focused on the fruit in the fore. Visceral and enervating.

Just the thing when you've been musing on the merits of mild oxidative characters in your wines.