Pinot Noir masterclass with Sarah Ahmed

GRINGOTT'S BANK (no goblins though only Aussies)

I visited Australia many moons ago on Tim Wildman's inaugural James Busby tour and properly fell for the place. I was there just after a period of extended drought, a bunch of hot vintages that ended while I was there. Which means I've got memories of flooded fields in Victoria and a Koorong that was unusually very full of water..

However I digress, the good folk at wine Australia had put on a Pinot Noir masterclass at Australia house to be hosted by Sarah Ahmed, one last minute email and I was there.

On show were two Yarra Pinots, one from Giant Steps, one from De Bortoli, and three from Mornington, respectively Paringa, 10X and Crittenden. Now I've visited De Bortoli and Giant Steps and I know 10X pretty well but Paringa and Crittenden were somewhat unknown.

First up a brilliant comparison of Northern Yarra (Dixon's Creek) all MV4/5 and no whole bunch against Apple Jack vineyard from Giant Steps in Gladystone in the steeper South Eastern part of the region. Filigree dark fruits, delectable acidity and tannin balnace with silken dark/raspberry fruit and delicate perfume was the order of the day for the Apple Jack fruit versus chunkier dried red berries and exotic fruit with some forceful tannin from the Dixon's Creek bottles.
Things I noticed; 11 and 12 were noticeably leaner with more silken tannins and better balanced alcohols, guess this is symptomatic of the vintages following the cessation of drought.

As for the Mornington wines, the Paringa samples were lovely but lacked the focus of the Yarra single vineyard ones, though the 11 (coolest year) was a very appealing shy prettiness. The 10X seemed to exemplify the cooler up the hill sites perfectly, especially the 12 and 11. The 12 in particular showing a beautiful aromatic herbaceousness. The Crittenden wines, from a Northern down the hill site were noticeably more muscular, much more whole bunch and a lot darker in colour. Oddly I loved the 09, from the vintage with all the bush fires in the Yarra (hot as hell) it showed a shameless opulence of soft fruit and perfume, not the best of the selection but hard not to love.

Finally we got a little sample of the Crittenden cri de coeur 2013, 100% whole bunch. Filthy tasty, all stalky green edges along with dark ripe fruit. Over the top, but in such an appealing way, it reminded me of the way that some natural wines flirt with shittiness just to the point where it's great and complex and earthy but just stopping before it becomes an issue. Not for everyone, but damn it I loved it.

A superb way to spend an afternoon reminding myself of why I'm partial to Australian Pinot.

Post tasting quick and dirty hummus recipe.

Take a jar of chick peas, wash throughly and pop in the food processor, add 3 large cloves of garlic and about a large table spoon of tahini (you've got a jar sitting in the fridge right?), a generous pinch (about a teaspoon's worth in my house) and blitz. Drizzle in quite a lot of olive oil until it looks nice and creamy. Drizzle with more olive oil then chop some coriander onto it, sprinkle with paprika and eat with torn bits of the flat bread you bought at the shop after you got off the bus. Should take about 3 minutes to sort out and will leave you with plenty for lunch/breakfast etc the net day.

Oh and I thoroughly amused myself on the bus back by listening to L7 Bricks are heavy.

Oh and I was a bit surprised at how evolved a lot of the wines were colour wise.

Very bad wine

Of an evening at my parents, a bottle of Tesco’s on offer Chablis, Maison Fort du Roi. A brand name made by Paul SapinSA, of which more later.

It was (well still is as the bottle is unfinished) insipid, bland with a soapy sort of taste that just about alludes to it’s provenance as a Northern French chardonnay. I like Chablis, a lot, and as such I’m taking this as a personal insult, it’s really, really bad. A bit like discovering that your favourite aunt was actually Boris Johnson hiding behind a prosthetic mask, the shock and revulsion of what lay behind the label was actually physically revolting.

So back to Paul Sapin, they appear to be a large winemaker looking to cash in on the growth in the market for smaller bottle sizes and PET plastic bottles. Quite why Tesco chose them for this product line I’ve no idea, though, if you asked me whether I wanted to list a Chablis at this price I’d probably point at something in the direction of the window shout out in mock horror then run for the door whilst everyone was distracted.

Very bad wine. Sorry. 

dinner - the chancery

Alcohol Reductase

hot

The road is undulating and winding like a rollercoaster track, on either side of us the meseta stretches off into the sun baked distance, vines alternate with wheat and isolated copses of ragged trees draw the eye.

Talk turns to wine critics who’ve obviously never made wine and the way that they make what they think are clever knowledgeable comments on how the wines could have been improved. Dropping suggestions of spinning cones and reverse osmosis alcohol reduction like bon mots at a fashionable salon lunch.

‘Can we push through another 60 litres of Alcohol Reductase’

J’s telling it like it is, detailing the common high tech method for lowering alcohol in hot country wineries across the world. Whack in a shed load of water, it’s just like a nice controlled application of late growing season rain, you know the sort that winemakers always say arrived just at the right time.

The alley way smells faintly of piss and there seems to be at least three different music sources battling for our attention, it’s pushing 3am and the streets are rammed. This is fiesta in Santiago de Compostela. T and I are perched at a table with a couple of glasses of Ribeira Sacra. They’re just a little bit too warm. I give up, and nip inside to get a glass of ice cubes. I doesn’t take long, maybe a minute before I’m picking them out with my fingers. The deep purplish liquid slipping all chilled of my fingers. I suck what remains off and we both agree that the wine is just that much better. The alcohol tamed, the texture all of a sudden much more satin like, the perfume somehow a little bit more suave, like the difference between how you feel fresh out of the shower, all energized and ready to pulling yourself out of a car after a long hot drive.

The taxi is pulling up outside my friends house in Peckham, all the proper shops have long shut but there’s a definite hankering for a couple of last glasses of something. Casillo del Diablero Pinot Noir seems to be the least unpleasant of bottles on the shelf. On opening though it’s just unpleasantly soupy, that special mouthfeel that can only be achieved with very careful tannin management and some clever highish pH winemaking. I’m getting all wistful thinking about careening acidity and those ever so slightly acerbic and herbaceous tannins that rustic French Pinot often gives me. Then it hits me, a couple of ice cubes later and the Pinot is behaving that much better in the glass. And yes, the bottle did get finished.

I should probably clarify that I’m not advocating a wholesale adoption of an over ice red wine policy, just that with a large portion of the everyday wines that end up coming my way, especially the slightly more worked commercial new world ones, that little bit of slick watery chilling just seems to make a huge difference. Think of it a bit like the way that slight dilution in a martini changes the structure of the drink.

Oh and feel free to chuck shit at me and call me a heathen, I’m big enough and definitely ugly enough….

-names have been changed to protect the reputations of those involved-

In favor of calling shit out…

The wine trade is a very nice place, often people give me lovely things, they send me bottles, they take me to nice places, they buy me lovely meals. This happens to virtually everyone that writes about wine. I’m not complaining. Well actually I am, a little.

We’re all too nice, underpinning everything is a sense that if we don’t say nice things, or at the very least not say bad things, it’ll all grind to a halt.

The most influential wine commentator of the last 30 years, Robert Parker, made his name by, amongst other things calling bad wines bad. Why don’t we see more of this? Are all modern wines so good? Is the market so well regulated that the default quality of the average bottle so good that we can stop worrying any more and merely focus on the fabulous?

No.

In fact, there is still a lot of very bad wine on the market. This ranges from the stultifyingly dull supermarket propositions, produced to a budget that wont make anyone any money. The growers are nailed down as tight as they can go, hell even the supermarkets have probably accepted that most of the time their wine ranges are loss leaders.

Mid range we see a huge number of wines seemingly made to a recipe. How to make New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc 1.01? I guess that this might not be such a bad thing if people are looking for consistency in what they buy, after all Diet Coke wouldn’t sell anywhere near as many cans if there was a significant variation between each can (though if it got you pissed it might). But lets pretend we’re not always looking for consistency, after all it can get a bit boring after a while. Oh and don’t get me started on wineries that trumpet terroir while delivering a very cleverly produced cellar cuvee.

Finally, and possibly most controversially, natural wines. Now I’m a big fan of natural wines, and have on many occasions written in their favour and defense. However I accept that there is a greater chance of things going wrong, indeed one of the thrilling things about natural wines is that they are that much harder to get right, the grapes have to have been grown in the right place, the wine making has to be very careful in its non-intervention. However it does sometimes go wrong. There are bad natural wines out there, some are crippled with Brett (way beyond where it stops being an acceptable bit of complexity), some are properly oxidized, and not in a good, intentional way. What concerns me is that in an already quite stressful market place for the consumer, we’re busy pulling the rug of certainty away from already slightly worried buyers. So I think it behooves us advocates of natural wines to ensure we know our faults, and to be doubly vigilant whilst buying and proposing natural wines. And yes calling out and naming the wines that really fall foul of the quality line. After all, how else are we going to get the detractors to stop labeling the whole category with the reputation of its worst examples?

Like a cross between a toilet and the tardis

Zero Dosage Redux

A new concept? A marketing driven idea to appeal to drinkers who prefer dryer wines? Or a the only sensible response to the climatic changes that have taken place over the last century?

Champagne is a cool climate region. The sparkling wine that we know and love arose in part as a response to the fact that the growers couldn’t get their grapes ripe enough to make successful dry wines. A secondary fermentation boosted the alcohol content and gave the wines the bubbles they needed to succeed.

Champagne has traditionally always been given a liquor de dosage after the disgorgement. This tailored the flavour profile for which ever market was being delivered to.

That was a long time ago.

Markets have changed, the world has changed, for a start it’s got warmer.

To quote the CIVC:

The harvest begins 14 day earlier

The potential  degree of alcohol of grapes is 0.8 % vol higher

The total acidity of grapes is 2 gH²SO4/l lower

So obviously the Champagnes being made are going to be slightly different, or at the very least the process is going to change in order to keep their flavour profle the same?

Average dates of flower set and harvest since 1951 in Champagne

Now breaking those figures down a little bit we can look at the change in both average % abv and g/l total acidity of Champagnes still wines for the three main grape varieties over the last 40 years. Figures from www.maisons-champagne.com.

Average Chardonnay vin clair % abc and g/l Total Acidity 

Average Pinot Noir vin clair % abc and g/l Total Acidity 

Average Pinot Meunier vin clair % abc and g/l Total Acidity

What we see here is a very clear trend towards riper grapes with a lower acidity.

Maturity Index for Champagne grapes (sugar/acidity)

Further more, this isn’t the only change that’s occurred in the region in the last 30 years. Better understanding of wine microbiology has meant that winemakers are better able to deal with malolactic fermentation.

Below a pH of about 3, a wine is unlikely to undergo malolactic fermentation without a sizeable degree of help, be that inoculation with a malolactic ferment starter culture or heating of the barrel.

One should note that far and away the worst situation is for malo to occur in bottle, a sure fire way for a winemaker to lose their job. So it’s safer to put all the wines through malo, thus further reducing acidities.

Benoit Tarlant of Champagne Tarlant estimates that about 90% of wines in the region are now put through malo, this as opposed to the about 40% that was the case 40 years ago. Clearly we have a significant change in style.

This is where zero dosage comes in. Riper vin clair wines, better phenolic ripeness, more intensity of fruit, there ceases to be any need for dosage. The wines are quite capable of being balanced on their own.

Yes growers will need to age the wines sur lees for a bit longer (usually about a year), yes more reserve wines will be needed. Yes it requires a bit more effort, but Champagne is a premium product for a reason.

A clarification

On the use and abuse of terminology.

There has been some very ill tempered commentating going on in the last week relating to the use of the term ‘natural’ to describe wines.

While I agree with those who feel that it unfairly stigmatized those wines deemed not ‘natural’ I feel that it’s almost certainly too late to do anything about it. Like it or not the horse has bolted, there’s no use shutting the stable door now.

However, I also feel that we’re doing the consumer a slight disservice and underestimating their ability to deal with things. Most general consumers are unlikely to come into contact with minimal intervention wines unless they happen to be in a wine bar or specialist shop that deals with them. The likelihood is that there will therefor be someone who can explain the distinctions to them.

Moreover, I think that people who attack the category miss the essential broadening of the category that has taken place. The natural church seems to me a very broad one. Where the essential feature is a belief in offering as honest a representation of the growers terroir as possible. It is in this sense that winemaking additions and manipulations are frowned upon as it is viewed as altering or touching up the picture.

I personally have no problem with wines that are made in this way, there is a goal to the winemaking process, and that is to produce a high quality product that will please consumers, it may be to make something that will age wonderfully, and it is here that I should mention that most of my stand out greatest wine drinking experiences have been from wines that were made from non organic vineyards, and probably quite heavily sulphured too. Age ameliorates many things.

So with this in mind what then is the importance of natural, why does it seem to have such a siren call to people? Why has it been so enthusiastically embraced in some of the less well-known corners of the wine world?

Personally I think it’s because it has come as an important corrective movement. For a grower faced with his plot of vines, none of which are proscribed noble varieties, he or she in maybe in a marginal climate and as such isn’t going to be able to make rich luscious, expensively oaked wines. What to do? Accept ones place in the lower order and carry on making unprofitable bulk wine for a dying domestic market? Or celebrate the intricacy of their particular patch of terroir? Homogeneity is never interesting, embracement of diversity only makes the world more interesting.

Yes there are extremists, yes there are wines that are cidery, cloudy, slightly faulty, but to me using these to tar everything under the natural umbrella is akin to knocking everything out of Bordeaux on the strength of a couple of 200% new oak St Emilion garagistes.

The pendulum of fashion is swinging, and the thing I find most exciting about the natural movement is how it will change the middle ground, as that is where most of us actually live and drink.

MON P'TIT PITHON

Quick post on a wine that I wanted to like but ultimately didn't. Olivier Pithon is a great grower who's top wines I've worked with on many an occasion. His magisterial Lais blanc is one such wine.
However his little Pithon, which was suggested to me as a fresh juicy Tuesday evening wine really showed up the problems inherent with white wine making in the south of France, yes it was fruity, but other than that it was lacking acidity and there wasn't enough character to cover up the 12.8% alcohol. Maybe if I'd been drinking it ice cold it would have been ok, but that kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it..

Having said that it did provoke the question as to exactly what 'hung like a horse' would be in French. 'Monté comme un cheval' for those wondering.

Also it has the dubious honour of having one of the more annoying side labels that I've seen in a while.
12.8% Vol - 87.2% d'Eau - 100% Plaisir. One was not amused.

I'll still try the red though....

Muscadelle

October 2010, I’m up in the dusty eves of one of All Saints large tin sheds, it’s pushing the high 20s and it’s still early spring. There’s a mess of differently sized ancient barrels stacked three or four high. Dan Crane is piping viscous deep glowing ochre liquid into our glasses. It’s immensely powerful, aromatic, nutty, figgy, but with a slight earthiness, maybe some black tea like notes, definitely perfumed.

March 2012, I’m in a smart Parisian Chinese restaurant, there are immaculately suited waiters fritting around. Luc de Contiis pouring me a glass of a lightly yellow golden wine, it’s intriguing an almost mandarin flower like note on the nose, floral but a little restrained on the palette it’s minerally with an almost saline like edge, again not flashy but with lovely persistence and a quivering liveliness that sets the palette off.

So why mention the two together? Well each in their different way they’re examples of the pinnacle of Muscadelle. Derided in Bordeaux as a nothing varietal, occasionally added to dry white blends to add a little florality, but allowed no more than a mere sideline presence. Misidentified in the Rutherglen until 1979 when it’s real identity was gleamed from beneath its Tokay moniker.

Luc de Conti from Domaine Tour des Gendres professes to love the variety, so much that he makes his Conti-Ne Perigourdine Bergerac Sec from about 95% Muscadelle, but he says it’s difficult to grow, compared to Sauvignon or Semillon it’s a truculent child in the vineyard, reluctant to show its true charms. In Australia it owes it’s current status to Colin Campbell who pretty much single handedly dragged the reputation of Rutherglens stickies out of the doldrums, but even there it’s less well known than it’s sibling Muscat.

It might be an underdog but that doesn’t stop me liking it.

Bergerac and Montravel

In the light of Parker giving a record 18 perfect 100 point scores to the 2009 Bordeaux wines and the subsequent price hike that has ensued. I thought that it would be a good time to look at Bordeaux’s neighbors.

If you follow the Dordogne river inland you pass directly from Bordeaux into the rolling Bergerac countryside.

http://www.dordognevalley.com/area.html 

As might be expected the wines are stylistically similar with Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle being grown for whites, and the Bordeaux quadrilogy predominant for the reds. Those that like their ampelographic trivia will be pleased to know that merille and perigord can also be found (though to my knowledge I’ve yet to taste them).

There are both sweet wines from Saussignac and the once coveted Monbazillac, and reds, but I was only looking at dry whites and pinks.

In Australia they have coined the delightful neologism that is the Savalanche, the avalanche or tidal wave of cheapish fresh Kiwi Sauvignon, against which their domestic producers cannot compete in the fresh summer drinking market. Well Bergerac can, this (along with the Cote de Duras) is prime fresh summer Sauvignon territory. The wines are nicely priced and personally I’m always a bit surprised that we don’t see more of them in the UK market, given our established predilection for all things Sauvignon.

The standard blend is mostly Sauvignon Blanc with smidgens of Semillon and Muscadelle to add body and aromatics. This works well, the Muscadelle more often than not adding a delicate white flower or mandarin like note to the wines.

Chateau Roque Peyre, a smallish family owned estate seemed to me to demonstrate exactly what Bergerac Blanc was offering, their cuvee Subtilite being 90% Sauvignon with the rest being Semillon and Muscadelle, temperature controlled steel tank fermentation with a preferment skin maceration had delivered a delightfully aromatic nosewith ripe stone and tropical fruits on the palette some vibrant acidity and just a touch of apple skin on the finish. All this for €4.80ish.

Most producers make a rose, though there has been a slight chance in style over the years, with people complaining that domestically people either want something slightly sweet, or the salmon pinkish herbal tinged hues of their Provencale competitors.

Chateau de la Jaubertie approach the issue with two cuvees, a fruity blend, resplendent with strawberry and raspberry like notes that called for mot much more than some friends, sunshine and a corner of a park (I might stoop to glasses too).

Their Mirabelle rose de Chateau de la Jaubertie was somewhat more interesting, 100% Merlot fermented in barrique and spending 6 months on lees. This was closer in colour to a Clairette, and was much more restrained in the fruit department, making up for this with a fuller and more appealing mouth feel and certain seriousness of purpose, herby cold roast lamb with a well dressed salad perhaps, definitely a rose for the table though.

Stepping up in the seriousness stakes brought the more age worthy whites.

Hence Montravel:

The first sub region reached as one ventures inland on the right bank, to put it in a geographic context this abuts the edge of the Cotes de Castillon, a name which should make English wine lovers misty eyed in reverie of what could have been, for it was there in 1451 that John of Talbot lost the final and decisive battle in the hundred years war, casting the Bordelais into the purgatory that was being French (and look how badly they’ve suffered since). However I digress.

Montravel is an appellation for classy whites, legally Semillon must make a minimum of 25% of the blend and it’s for this that producers tend to label their crisp, fruity, aromatic and Sauvignon dominated cuvees as Bergerac Blanc while retaining the Montravel appellation for their more serious barrique aged cuvee. It’s said that there is a more mineral nervosity to the wines of Montravel in comparison to Bergerac, but this was hard to see given the way that most of the Bergerac Blancs I tasted were clearly designed to highlight Sauvignon aromatics, so a comparison would have been slightly unfair.

Chateau du Bloy, Le Bloy, Montravel Sec 09 fitted this mold neatly, a healthy 20% of Semillon (yes I know that legally there needs to be 25%, so either my reference book is out of date, or it’s the common issue in France where no one pays a blind bit of notice to the letters of the law) and barrique ageing. This was all citrus oils and minerals, a slightly salty finish and that wet stone patina of bottle age.

I like Bergerac wines a lot, they fit neatly into a price quality ratio that I’m happy with,  obviously there are outliers in the region, Chateau Tour des Gendres immediately springs to mind, but I’ll cover them in more detail along with the intriguing Chateau Masburels Montravel later.

The Moet

Introducing the Moet:

Unit of production defined as the rough production of the largest producer.

Thus 1 Moet = 26,000,000 bottles.

Examples:

Duval Leroy, 5 million btl production = .192Moet

Bollinger, 2.5 million btl production = .096Moet

Nikolaihof

‘If you drink wine everyday you drink sun energy’ we need life energy.

Christine Saahs.

Say what you like about biodynamics and it’s adherents but there is no doubt in my mind that it is practiced by some of the world’s finest estates.

Nikolaihof:

The Wachau is on the Northern shore of the Danube river. The Bohemian massif, a large granite feature forces the river to take a winding detour leaving a south facing slope of granite leading down to clay silt closer to the river.

It is believed that the Celts brought viticulture to this part of Europe, with the Romans carrying on the tradition, however it is certain that it has been practiced pretty much constantly for the last couple of millennia, for centuries the Krems monastery was it’s focal point.

Similarly the Nikolaihof estate has a good bit of history, it’s first referenced in the time of Saint Severin and the Romans (around 470AD). I mention this because there is something about the wines that seems somewhat ageless. Or at the very least they seem to age on a different timescale to other wines.

The Saahs family started working biodynamically in 1971, if this seems very early, remember that Maria Thun the major proponent for much of second half of the last century was German and it always had a stronger following across the German speaking parts of Europe.

Intrinsic to their wine making is the natural yeast colonies, which Christine says are unique to each vineyard.

‘Every vineyard has a different yeast’ as such young vines don’t ferment properly for about 6 years or so as they’ve not developed a strong enough vineyard yeast culture. The 1^st vintage is always half dry as the yeasts are not yet strong enough to ferment the wine to dryness.

Christine went on to mention that when samples of different yeasts were taken from around the area, theirs were the strongest and most efficient at consuming sugar. This leads us to one of the other marvels of the Nikolaihof wines, their low alcohols. 11.5% up to 12.5% but with no attendant lack of body or intensity. A couple of weeks later Christine showed me their 1999 Zu Mautern Jungfern Wein (11.5%) and still incredibly vibrant, with floral, mineral notes, a lovely off dry lime edged fruit. A wine that hardly betrayed anything of it’s 12 years of age.

Certainly I was starting to think of the wines ageing on a human scale. With 18-20 years of age being when they start to have something interesting to say. That’s not to imply that there were no precocious youngsters, as they were all fascinating, but it made sense when one looked at the 1993 Gruner Veltliner Vinothek aged for15 years in old oak casks 1500-12500l and 4yrs bottle. A wine they released when it was legal to drink, makes sense no?

Slightly waxy polished edge, salted preserved lemons (almost an herbal vodka like note). A smooth and almost sensual palette, dry, savoury and intriguing. A hint of dried fruit showing on the finish, but all in all very fresh and remarkable free of oxidative notes.

Gruner Veltliner Federspiel 2010 11.5% from the Urgestein – Granit/Gneiss

Vibrant herbaceous, white pepper, austere, mineral with an underlying breadiness, good length and nice purity, a slight herbaceous tang on the finish.

Similarly the 88 Elizabeth cuvee Gemischter Satz (field blend) Riesling, GV, PB, Neuburger, Fruh Rot Veltliner, from a vineyard they planted in 85 to celebrate the estate anniversary. They chose to interplant the varieties in the old style, and commensurately harvest them all at the same time. Not unlike the great Marcel Deiss crus this has the richness, complexity and satisfaction that comes from a blend of varieties all quite at home where they belong.

Ripe apples, some complex old floral type notes, a lovely richness intertwined with the bottle aged characters, a very delicate acetyl note (not enough to be bad) finishing with some tasty ripe apple notes. Some lovely acidity gave it structure (from the slightly early harvest Riesling).

Other wines tasted.

2007 Steiner Hund, Riesling Reserve 12.5%

Complex minerally lime (thai lime?) green apple skin notes, medium bodied but with a creaminess to the acidity. Very assured and intense.

1990 Riesling Smaragd, Zu Mautern/Wachau

Maturing vegetal notes betray some bottle age, cream and a hint of peach. Incredibly mineral palette, medium ripe with stunning length.

1986 Honigfogel GV (Honigfogel predates Smaragd as a category)

Slightly toasty nutty sort of nose, reminds me of old Champagne, some lovely fading fruit over a mineral skeleton, citrus, crushed slate, great acidity and a caramel edge bottle age character.

1983 Gruner Veltliner (1^st great year)

Dusty subtle cellar mould like note, like smelling damp age worn rocks, some ghostly fruit notes and lovely length.

Finally a last word of wisdom, ‘Green matter is always the link between sun energy and animal life’.

The tasting was held at Spring Boutique, 56 Rue de l'Arbre Sec, 75001, Paris.