Author Archives: Tom Lewis

The Languedoc, according Charles Hardcastle of Joseph Barnes Wines, is a rustic, peasanty land with an ancient and bloody history – a land of impenetrable dialects, heresy and repression.

The strange, earthy character of the region is also reflected in the wines, which tend towards an expressively rustic, spicy charm.

Add to this Charles’ natural showmanship and charisma, a touch of biodynamic mysticism, some meteors and space dust and it was a highly entertaining evening at the Cambridge Food and Wine Society.

The Languedoc was historically the source of Europe’s wine lake – gallons of cheap, unpleasant plonk dumped on the market. But quality has been improving for as long as I can remember and it is now a source characterful, well-made rough-and-tumble wines that can be rather serious indeed.

Chateau Le Roc Fronton, NV £30 magnum

This natural wine is in simple terms a pink fizz; more precisely, it is a petillant blend of Negrette and Mauzac made by a single fermentation in bottle according the euphemistically-named Methode Rurale, with no added sulphur and fined only by racking.

A cloudy pink in the glass, there are pear drops and red berries on the nose. The palate shows good acidity and primary fruit aromas of apple and galia melon. Good depth of flavour, but not especially complex and just 9% alcohol.

A very popular seller at Charles’ shop, it was well-received on the evening.

Domaine des Foulards Rouges, La Soif du Mal Blanc 2011, £14

This white blend is a mix of Grenache Blanc, Muscat and Macabeu; a pale yellow in the glass, there are Muscaty aromas of honeysuckled and blossom on the nose.

The palate shows a good leesy depth, with sweet acacia blossom, rounded, lemon-and-lime acidity, more Muscaty florality and a mineral edge.

Suggested food matches were sea bass with fennel or chili and ginger.

Domaine de l’Hortus, Bergerie de l’Hortus Blanc 2011, £12.95

This white is a blend of Chardonnay, Grenache Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Roussane.

The nose shows pear and orchard fruit, spice, stone fruit, lemon and pineapple and a leesiness. Long on the palate, there is more orchard and tropical fruits, a soft peachy texture, good leesy depth and a persistent finish.

Chateaux Ollieux Romanis, Corbieres Rose 2011, £9.25

Mainly Carignan, but with some Syrah and Grenache, and a pale salmon pink colour, this is made by carbonic maceration which gives something of a bubblegum aroma.

With a savoury, spicy nose, there is watermelon on the palate, prominent rounded acidity, a touch of mint and pepper, minerality and a toasty-yeastiness with a good, leesy finish.

Domaine du Meteore, Faugeres, Les Leonides, 2008, £9.20

A GSM + Carignan blend, this has a rustic charm, with an earthy, funky nose of barnyardy wet hay, plus some spice, coffee and a mix of red, black and sour cherries.

On the palate, there is sour cherry fruit, garrigue herbs and tarriness.

The finish is savoury and this would match well with robust meat dishes.

The name of the domaine is a reference to a crater in the vineyard caused by a meteorite, so there may just be traces of cosmic space dust in the wine.

Ch Ollieux Romanis, Alicante-Bouschet, VdP Aude, 2011, £15.99

This is made from 100 year-old vines from the obscure Alicante-Bouschet grape – the last 2 hectares in France, apparently.

In the glass, it is dark and impenetrably inky – which apparently made it popular in prohibition-era America as it could be significantly watered down and still retain some colour.

With dark berry fruit and mocha on the nose, the palate shows elderberry fruit, peppy spice and mintiness.

It is concentrated and long, with a custardy texture and a lively, juicy acidity.

The finish is grippy, savoury and meaty and it would match well with spicy meat dishes such as tagine.

Chateau de Jau, Banyuls Rimage, Les Clos de Paulilles, 2008, £11.99 (50cl)

The final wine of the night was a Banyuls – Languedoc’s answer to tawny port.

Made from 100% Grenache, but naturally sweet due to fortification up to 16.5% alcohol with grape spirit, it had aromas of raisins and garrigue herbs and a sweetness cut through with good acidity.

Utterly delicious on its own, it was a perfect match with good quality dark, bitter chocolate, and proved very popular on the evening.

Recommended Wine

If you are looking for a reason to visit an independent wine merchant, Joseph Barnes Wines is it; characterful, rounded and quirky – and that’s just Charles Hardcastle.

What struck me was the quality of all the wines – mostly organic, often biodynamic and / or natural, they feel incredibly well-made, both technically and stylistically.

They are also unashamedly crowd-pleasing with lots of personality.

Given all this, it’s hard to pick a best overall wine of the evening but the Domaine du Meteore was especially notable for being both excellent and under a tenner.

Links

Cambridge Food and Wine Society – http://www.cambridgefoodandwinesociety.org.uk/

Joseph Barnes Wines – http://josephbarnes.webdev.perceptive-office.com/home.aspx

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

The other week, I met Muriel Lismonde who, with her family, runs Tour de Belfort, a start-up winery in Cahors.

The Background

The project started when Muriel’s father sold the his Paris-based business and used the proceeds to buy a ruin and some land in the village of Quercy.

I get the sense this must have felt like “another of Dad’s projects” for the family, but with the funds from the sale of a successful business, it turned out to be on a much grander scale than the usual tinkering in his garden shed.

And with the family roped in to help with everything from the restoration of the buildings and the creation of a brand new vineyard and winery, to the selling of the wine directly, there is something of the cult of the amateur about it all.

Part Grand Designs, part The Good Life, the project seems to have gained a life of its own, moved along by the force of Dad’s vision and drive.

Someone I met at a networking lunch the other week told me that he and his wife approached decision-making according to Harry Secombe’s philosophy – I decide all the important stuff like should be in Europe, what our exchange rate policy should be or should we go to war with Russia, whilst she sorts out the minor details like what shirt I’ll wear and what to have for dinner.

I rather fancy that Lismonde P̬re is a little like this Рdeciding on what vines to plant, designing the labels and determining whether the wine should be bio-dynamic, organic or natural and leaving minor matters, such as the actual selling of the finished product, to family members.

The Challenge

And yet, having tried the wines, I have been very impressed; the result of completely organic approach and a strict attention to detail is an extremely well-made and balanced output with great depth of flavour. Not only is the vineyard free of pesticides and herbicides, the winery is almost clinically clean reducing the need for any additives in the wine – just some neutral, organic cultured yeasts and very limited quantities of sulphites to preserve the wine in bottle.

The wines are also low in alcohol, making them very food friendly, but have enough southern warmth to be welcoming and approachable.

As Muriel explained to me the problems in getting UK distribution, it struck me that there is something of a Catch-22 at play here; what would secure distribution is a definite interest, but there cannot be any interest if the wine is not widely available.

The family decided to sell directly via their website, but desperately need to raise their profile generally – and there are only so many hours in the day for everything.

The Offer

After meeting Muriel and hearing her story, I felt that I wanted to do more than just try the wines and write-up the usual tasting note and resolved to get involved in helping bring this wine to the broader audience I think it deserves.

Having agreed a deal with Muriel to cover my time, I negotiated a discount for readers of my blog: look on the Tour de Belfort website and you’ll see the following prices:

– Red (09), White and Rosé: £60 for 6 (delivery extra) / £120 for 12 (delivery included)

– Red 2010: £63 for 6 (delivery extra) / £126 for 12 (delivery included)

However, Muriel is prepared to sell her wines at £60 for a case of 6 (delivery included) or £110 for a case of 12 (delivery included), to anyone who contacts her directly and mentions my blog – the Cambridge Wine Blogger.

Now, I realise I have staked my reputation with two sets of people – firstly with Muriel, since no-one may actually take up this offer and secondly with anyone who does buy the wine, and could potentially be disappointed at my recommendation.

If I’m honest, my greatest fear is that no-one will take up the offer – I’m sufficiently confident in the quality of these wines to believe that people are unlikely to be disappointed by them.

I also think that they are priced more than fairly and that it would easily be possible to spend more money on something less good. (For more detailed reviews of the wines, see here for the red, white and rosé).

So the real issue then is will the thousands of people who visit my blog every week – those in the UK at least – actually do more than just read my wafflings and actually take my advice to buy this well-made, organic, almost natural wine at a tenner a bottle.

I can’t give any satisfaction guarantees or money-back promises like the big internet players do; I won’t be adding in a free bottle of something “sumptuous” that “should sell for twice the price”, or even one of those rabbit corkscrews if you order right now.

However, I am staking my reputation on this. And remember this wine is made by a family outfit with low overheads and no marketing budget, so you are essentially buying it at the producer’s direct cost plus with no middle man – and then with a discount.

And if you need more than just my recommendation, then here’s what a few other wine people have to say:

Isabelle Legeron MW – @MurielLismonde is one of the loveliest people I know

Three Wine Men – We’re real fans of @MurielLismonde‘s wines

So, all that remains then is for you to try the wine and let me know what you think of it. And tell all your friends about it, too. And your family, long-lost relatives, dinner party guests, people on the bus, random strangers … what are you waiting for ?

To contact Muriel, call her on 01625 449 031 or 07881 453 100 or email her on muriel@tour-de-belfort.com – just mention CambridgeWineBlogger to get the discount.

Copyright Tom Lewis, 2012

This Wirra Wirra The 12th Man Chardonnay hails from the Adelaide Hills in Australia and is aged in French oak.

Australia was the first country to give us big, ripe, buttery Chardonnay – a style that spread across the (New) World only to be usurped in a backlash against oak first by pungent kiwi Sauvignon and more latterly by the ubiquitous Pinot Grigio. It also led to a backlash in the style of Australian whites themselves.

This wine reminds me of what was great about Aussie chardie before it seemed to lose its way becoming either too sweet or too monolithic- or even nowadays, distinctly cool-climate.

Golden in the glass, it has a toasty-yeasty-oaky, slightly pungent nose with vanilla spice.

On the palate, there is ripe tropical pineapple fruit and layers of sweet, toasty, buttery, oatmealy oak cut through with crisp acidity and good leesy depth with added complexity from the wild yeasts used.

Whether you like this wine probably depends on whether you like lots of sweet toasty, buttery oak; personally, I do – especially given that it is somewhat out of fashion at present.

Something of a blockbuster personality, it needs big food to match and would pair well with an autumnal dish of roast chicken or pork with roasted parsnips, butternut squash and mashed swede.

£16.99 from Ocado; provided for review.

Links

Wirra Wirra – http://www.wirrawirra.com/

Ocado – http://www.ocado.com/

This wine at Ocado – http://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Wirra-Wirra-12th-Man-Chardonnay-2011/65990011

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

If New Zealand’s Villa Maria is the John Lewis of wine, always dependable and well-made in a middle-class, slightly expensive sort of way, and Pinot Noir is the Alfa Romeo of grapes, capable of greatness and disappointment in equal measure, what then to make of a pair of Villa Maria Pinots ?

For some, good, reliable Pinot is not only a contradiction in terms, but almost an abomination, as there is an unwritten rule that good Pinot should be hedonistic and elusive.

Perhaps I have been insufficiently bitten by the infamous “Pinot bug”, but I find the search for great Pinot a bit too much like hard work.

Either way, anyone unsure and wanting to know what all the fuss is about with Pinot could do a lot worse than check out these two.

For my regular after-work Wine Club, I had two different wines which I put into decanters and encouraged people to try blind and decide which they preferred.

As it turned out, everyone preferred the more expensive example, even if they were less capable of correctly identifying them.

Villa Maria Marlborough Pinot Noir Private Bin 2011, £11.99 from Budgens

Pale in the glass, it has a typically varietal nose with cherry fruit, mushroomy aromas and a touch of spice.

The palate shows red and black cherry fruit, juicy acidity, some spice, good savoury depth and balance.

Good, well-made example of an entry-level Pinot.

Villa Maria Marlborough Pinot Noir Reserve 2009, £18.99 from Tesco

With a half degree more alcohol and noticeably darker in the glass, there are some brick red hints of age.

The nose is again varietally typical with cherry fruit and undergrowth, with some vanilla spice, but more complex and intense than the previous wine.

On the palate, it feels bigger and fuller, with ripe cherry fruit, undergrowth, vanilla and roasted dark spice.

It is more rounded and bigger, with a soft mouthfilling texture, savoury depth and a long palate.

Overall, it is balanced, harmonious and integrated with a good finish.

—xxx—

Well-made, typical and reliably enjoyable, these are certainly both good Pinots. But are they great ? I’m not entirely sure.

And there’s the rub – reliability and greatness rarely go hand-in-hand; especially in the case of Pinot.

Then again, I’ve had more expensive Pinots that I’ve been less impressed with, but that probably says more about Pinot as a grape than it does about these particular wines.

And I can’t help wondering if searching for great Pinot is rather like owning an Alfa Romeo – a potential source of great kudos and dinner-party stories, but actually rather tedious in practice.

If you are new-ish to wine, want to try out a Pinot and don’t mind spending £10 – £20 on a bottle, this could be just what you are looking for, but it leads me to wonder whether reliable Pinot can be seen as A Good Thing or not ?

For it is in Pinot’s nature to be unreliable – sometimes great, more often disappointing – and a reliable Pinot is perhaps like an Alfa Romeo that starts every time you put the keys in. If I wanted that, I’d buy a BMW instead – it would be reliable, it would be good, but it wouldn’t be an Alfa.

Unable to resolve this inherent contradiction, I put the question to perhaps the one person I know placed to answer authoritatively as she is both a Marketing Director and a WSET Diploma student; she mulled for a few moments and then said “Villa Maria is not a large winery, New Zealand does not make much wine, so to produce reliable Pinot is no mean feat – yes, it’s A Good Thing”.

For the more pragmatically minded, here are some Pinot quick facts:

– spiritual home is Burgundy, also grown in other cool-climate areas such as NZ, Chile, parts of California and increasingly Australia

– prone to mutation, fussy and low-yielding, it is never cheap to buy and £10 gets you an entry-level New World example

– key characteristics are light, pale colour, soft silky texture and aromas of mushrooms, game, truffles and cherry fruit

– matches typically with game

Both wines provided for review.

Links

Villa Maria – http://www.villamaria.co.nz/

Image credits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GraduateDuetto.jpg

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

April showers bring forth May flowers

English proverb

The weather so far in May has been mixed to say the least with the wettest drought any of us can remember and any occasional sunny days being distinctly chilly.

So, this month’s recommended wines from our local independents are an appropriately varied mixture.

La Fornace Gavi 2010 – Joseph Barnes Wines, £10.00

From a small estate Italy’s Piedmont, this Gavi is an example of a well-made modern Italian white with a traditionally fashionable-but-overpriced label. Made from the Cortese grape, it initially seems straightforward and lemony with orchard fruit on the palate, but with a bit of time and air, it really opens up and shows a great leesy depth of flavour and balanced acidity with some grapeskin yeastiness.

It’s the kind of Italian white that makes me think of wild mushrooms in a creamy sauce with freshly-made yellow egg pasta as an accompaniment; it has the body and depth to stand up to rich, hearty peasant food, but also the acidity to cut through heavy, indulgent sauces.

Lovely, really well-made and balanced.

Orion Wines ‘E Solo’ Montepulciano D’Abruzzo 2010 – Noel Young Wines, £7.99

Staying in Italy, this ‘E Solo’ from Noel Young proved incredibly popular a few weeks ago at an in-store tasting. Sealed under screwcap, on first opening it seems full of simple ripe, up-front berry fruit.

With just a bit of air, though, it becomes more complex and interesting, with typically Italian cherry fruit, but also chocolate and some smokiness and oak.

The palate remains ripe, rounded and balanced and over the course of a few days, the nose develops an interesting Pinot-esque mix of vegetal and sour cherry aromas.

Match with tomato-based meaty pasta dishes.

Weingut Werner Mueller Trabener Wuerzgarten Riesling Hochgewaechs 1997, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer – Cambridge Wine Merchants, £12.25

It’s said that life’s too short for a German wine label, but to the initiated, they do really tell you everything you need to know about the wine’s provenance.

This Riesling from Werner Mueller is from the beautiful Mosel valley – the vineyard is wuerzgarten (“spice garden”) in the village of Traben

Starting with the basics, it is a classic Mosel Riesling, with a developed, petrolly nose, pure lemon-lime fruit, and a sweet-sour palate; it is distinctly off-dry, but this is balanced by the high acidity.

Focused, pure and fresh, yet also rounded, balanced and gentle, it is an elegant and superbly well-made wine to fall quietly in love with.

It is light enough to be a garden sipper or match the sweetness and acidity to seafood such as smoked salmon, prawns or sushi. Avoid heavy sauces and don’t overchill the wine – an hour in the fridge is plenty.

It is worth noting that this is technically the best wine here; if you are already a wine geek, you won’t need me to tell you how good aged Mosel Rieslings are, but if you are new to this sort of thing and wondering what all the fuss is about, this is as good a place as any to start.

If off-dry German wines were not so generally unfashionable, this wine would probably cost at least twice what it actually does.

Diez Siglos 2011 Rueda Verdejo – Bacchanalia, £6.99

Unlike Germany, Spain is super-cool in wine making terms right now and just keeps getting better. Yet its lesser-known regions and grapes still remain a great source of well-made, good value wines.

The Verdejo grape originated in North Africa and was brought to Spain around 1,000 years ago; by contrast Diez Siglos, a group of around 70 small-to-medium producers, was formed in 2010.

Aromatic and minerally on the nose, there are aromas of cut grass with hints of fennel; on the palate, the acidity is poised, rounded and balanced by a touch of ripe sweetness of fleshy stone fruit.

The finish is long, minerally and aromatic – a lovely, well-made wine that is great value. Versatile and food friendly, it will match especially well with goat’s cheese or pasta with pesto.

Recommended Wine

Given the uncertainty of the weather this month, it’s very hard to know what to recommend for May drinking, but based on what we have had so far, I suggest some rich, comforting autumnal food matched with a bottle of the wonderful Gavi from Joseph Barnes

Image credit: http://www.ilankelman.org/floodphotos.html

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

At the Annual Tasting of Austrian Wines in London last month, I caught up with Noel Young and tasted my way through the wines he had on show from various producers.

Wieninger

Based in Vienna, Fritz Wieninger cultivates 33ha of vines on either side of the river Danube – for 2011, conditions were warmer after the cool 2010, with an increase in both quality and quantity.

The Vienna Hills GV 2011 was fresh and light with peppery celery and lentils.

The Herrenholz GV 2011 was fuller, with a creamier texture and a minerally finish.

The Wiener Gemischter Satz Klassik 2011, a field blend of up to 13 grape varieties all grown, picked and fermented together, was fresh, lively and balanced, with prominent GV characteristics (the main grape in the blend).

The Wiener Gemischter Satz Nussberg Alte Reben 2011 was very different from the previous year’s style – now fermented only in stainless steel, it had an aromatic nose, lemon and lime fruit, good depth of flavour and a fresh acidity.

The Vienna Hills Riesling 2011, an unfiltered barrel sample, had a toasty, intense nose, an expressive palate with lemon and lome fruit, a creamy texture combined with a toastiness and a long mineral finish.

The Wiener Trilogie (70% Zweigelt, 15% Cab, 15% Merlot) had a perfumed nose of vanilla, sour cherry fruit and liquorice; the palate shows good bramble fruit and spice with a soft, mouthfilling texture, juicy acidity and some grip on the finish.

Kurt Angerer

Based in Lower Austria’s Kamptal, just outside the Wachau, Kurt Angerer names many of his wines after the soil type they are grown on. Whether any of the differing minerals in the soil actually end up in the finished wine is still the subject of debate, but there are certainly perceptible differences due to the effects of terroir.

Kies GV 2011; grown on mixed soils and not picked until December, this is ripe and rounded.

Spies (“shpeez”) GV 2010; grown on granite, there is lots of classic varietal white pepper, spice, celery and lentils with ripe peach fruit, balanced acidity and good minerality.

Loam GV 2010; flintsmoke, a fleshy feel with some spice, balanced savoury and full, a toasty flintiness develops on the palate.

Eichenstaude GV 2010; complex with ripe peach and nectarine fruit, spice, a mineral buzz and some toastiness, a soft texture.

Zweigelt “Barrique” 2009; sweet cherry and elderberry fruit, pepperiness, rounded moutfeel, intense with tannic grip.

St Laurent 2009 – bright and translucent in the glass, the nose is of berry fruit, coffee and spice. The palate shows ripe cherries, sweet bramble fruit and liquorice, grippy finish. Overall, feels rounded balanced and approachable.

Kracher

Based in Illmitz in Burgenland near the Hungarian border on the Pannonian plain, Kracher is perhaps Austria’s greatest dessert wine maker.

With low hills, warming southerly winds and the shallow Lake Neusidl providing morning fogs, conditions in this region are perfect for reliable botrytis growth almost every year.

The additional warmth also provides suitable conditions for dry reds.

Klassik Illmitz Zweigelt – a perfumey elderberry and cherry nose with liquorice and earthiness; the palate shows sweet-sour cherry fruit, spicy mintiness and a grippy finish. Fleshy and approachable.

Auslese Cuvee 2009 (white blend), light and fresh, with simple fruit sweetness that is initially intense then fades. The savouriness lingers, however.

Beerenauslese Cuvee 2009 (white blend), a real step up, ripe, marmaladey and peachy with balanced fresh acidity and savouriness.

Eiswein Cuvee 2009 (white blend), botrytis on the nose, the palate is sweet-sour, intense and complex with aromas of peaches roasted in butter, more pungent botrytis notes and fresh acidity. Mouthfeel is weighty with glycerol and there is a savouriness on the finish – great depth of flavour and length.

TBA “No 2” Scheurebe 2009, intense aromas of mango and roasted peach skin, weighty glycerol on the palate, long on the palate and finish.

TBA “No 3” Welschriesling 2009, fresher and more fragrant with elderflower aromas, mouthfilling and long on the palate and finish.

Recommended Wines

All the wines here were good-to-superb, but here are my specific recommendations:

Wieninger’s Vienna Hills Riesling for its complexity and depth of flavour.

Angerer’s Eichenstaude GV for its complexity and depth of flavour.

Kracher’s Klassik Illmitz is a great entry-level introduction to Austrian reds, but the main event is the dessert wines, so the Eiswein Cuvee for its complexity and depth of flavour.

Links

Noel Young Wines – www.nywines.co.uk

Weininger – www.wieninger.at

Angerer – www.kurt-angerer.at

Kracher – www.kracher.at

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

Yesterday, I took delivery of a pair of “Oenology” wine glasses, courtesy of Baccarat; one for red wine and one for white.

The Baccarat Oenology collection, launched at Maison et Objet in Paris earlier this month, comes to the UK at the end of February, so this is something of a sneak  preview.

Baccarat claims that the glasses are created “with technical specifications that offer a perfect tasting of any wine or champagne”, so I plan to test them over the coming days and weeks alongside my other glasses to see if they enhance the wine appreciation experience in any way.

I’ll also be assessing what they are like to live with - as well as doing my best not to break them whilst washing up.

My current range of tasting glasses is fairly limited and functional – some Bormioli Roccos, a couple of Riedels, plus some basic flutes for fizz – so these two will certainly be, if nothing else, the smartest glasses in the cupboard.

Prices are £64 for a single glass, £125 for a pair or £360 for six; the range also includes a tumbler and decanter, all pictured above.

Links

Baccarat – http://www.baccarat.com

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

Image reproduced from http://0.tqn.com/d/moving/1/0/D/6/wine_bottles_small.jpg

After the January detox and ritual breaking of New Year’s resolutions, February brings the Romance of Valentine’s Day.

According to Wikipedia, the day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, becoming first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer during the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

However, of far more importance, is how to woo that special person with something appropriately impressive and indulgent, so here are four wines, all suitable for some serious Valentine’s wooing.

Best with food – Angas Brut Rosé NV, £9.50 Cambridge Wine Merchants

This is a classy and elegant pink fizz from Australia, using the two main Champagne grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Like Champagne, it undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle, giving a rich, leesy depth of flavour.

Salmon pink in the glass, it foams with a fine mousse; there are aromas of red berries and a touch of yeastiness on the nose. The palate is extremely elegant and smooth with a hint of red-berry fruit sweetness, a creamy texture and a fresh acidity.

It finishes dry, crisp and savoury, so will work well as an aperitif or just a Romantic indulgence a deux. However, if you are planning to make an evening of it, it will also match with food such as salmon, meaty white fish or even roast chicken.

Best for sipping – Ameztoi Rubentis, £11.99 Joseph Barnes Wines

This month, we welcome a new-comer to Wine of The Month in the shape of Charles Hardcastle, proprietor of Joseph Barnes wines in the pretty and genteel village of Saffron Walden, just a short drive south of Cambridge.

This Ameztoi Rubentis is perhaps the most unusual wine here – made from the Hondarrabi Zuri and Hondarrabi Beltza grapes, it is from Spain’s Basque region.

With a petillant spritz, it is pale pink in the glass with aromas of red berries, watermelon and something aromatic.

On the palate, there is also a touch of minerality and just a hint of something bitter – either grapefruit or perhaps quinine, as FringeWine notes – but overall this is a light, easy quaffer with elegant red berries and fresh acidity balanced with a touch of fruit sweetness.

The delicate fruit here will be overpowered by most foods, so plan on sipping this in the most Romantic of circumstances – but if food is required, salmon or tuna sushi would be a good match for the fresh acidity.

Best with something sweet – Innocent Bystander Pink Moscato, £6.99 (37.5 cl) Noel Young Wines

Another wine from Oz in the European style, this Pink Moscato is a dead ringer for an Italian semi-sweet frizzante.

On the nose there are red berries and watermelon whilst the palate shows fresh strawberry fruit, a hint of red fruit gums, a touch of elderflower and a delightful sweetness and fresh acidity; it is almost a grown-up raspberry elderflower lemonade.

With a gentle mousse and a pleasingly balanced finish, this is an elegant and accomplished antipodean wine – think Nicole Kidman rather than Hugo Weaving in Priscilla.

Although light, this wine has enough weight on the palate to match with fruit-based desserts and rather incongruously (perhaps ironically ?), it’s sealed with a crown-top.

Best for making a statement – Piera Martellozzo Rosé Cuvéé, £9.99 Bacchanalia

The most immediately noticeable thing about this this Italian Spumante is the shocking pink / fuchsia foil and label, set against a blacked-out bottle.

Beneath lies a pink, charmat-method sparkler which foams enthusiastically on pouring – there are aromas of pink grapefruit and hoppiness, whilst the palate shows redcurrant fruit and sweet pears.

 —xxx—

Clearly, with their pink hues, bubbles and even sweetness, none of these wines is intended to be particularly serious – but they all demonstrate that making a romantic and frivolous gesture does not mean having to dumb down on quality; they are all good wines in their own right and make for a gentle return to oenology after the traditional month of abstinence.

And as we are all so loved-up this month, it would be churlish to single out any individual wine as a winner – simply choose the one that best suits your occasion, mood and loved one’s preferences.

And don’t forget to buy her some flowers, as well – just preferably not from a garage forecourt.

Links

Bacchanalia – www.winegod.co.uk

Cambridge Wine Merchants – www.cambridgewine.co.uk

Joseph Barnes Wines – www.josephbarneswines.com

Noel Young Wines – www.nywines.co.uk

Image Credit: The Art of Wooing – http://rosebud-design.blogspot.com/

Copyright Tom Lewis 2012

Recently, I presented a collection of Italian wines at La Dante in Cambridge.

Giulia Portuese-Williams, who runs La Dante, had asked me if I could select and present some wines from different parts of Italy – and with a budget of around £10 per bottle, I decided that “affordable” was the way to go.

Whilst it is generally possible to find wines from the world’s “classic” regions below £10, at this price point, the less-reputed regions can often outperform; and the classic regions of Italy – Chianti, Barolo and so on – are never bargain wines.

However, many parts of Italy, especially the south, are re-inventing themselves as Europe’s New World of well-made, fruit driven wines at under a tenner, so with the help of Cambridge Wine‘s Mill Road branch Manager, Matt Boucher I selected six of the best.

La Dante in Cambridge is part of the international la Società Dante Alighieri, founded in 1889 with 440 offices worldwide – it is a national cultural institute rather like the British Council or the Goethe Institute, but unlike these it is not state-funded and so needs to rely on language lessons for its income.

So my audience that evening was mainly local Italians and Italophile language students plus friends, lending the proceedings a much more sociable and collegiate atmosphere, which suited me fine as it had been a busy weekend in the CWB household and I had not managed to prepare a huge amount to say on each of the wines.

Making a virtue out of necessity then, I simply introduced each wine with a quick overview of region, grape variety and key characteristsics and then started pouring.

La Delfina Special Cuvee Prosecco, £8.99

We began with a wine I have reviewed earlier this year, as I had used it as an ingredient in a jelly recipe by Alex Rushmer, chef at The Hole in The Wall.

Fermented in tank rather than bottle, Prosecco is much cheaper to produce than Champagne and also has more primary fruit than Champagne, which proved very popular on the evening; this La Delfina Special Cuvee Prosecco is light and elegant with ripe pear fruit. It will never challenge a good Champagne for complexity, but it is well-made, very enjoyable and much more cheaply priced.

Alpha Zeta Garganega, £6.55

The first still white, a Garganega from Veneto, was crisp and appley on first opening with ripe pineapple fruit but with some air became richer, weightier and more mouthfilling.

A versatile food wine, it would match with light starters, salmon or white fish in a creamy sauce.

Mandrarossa Fiano, £7.99

We finished the whites with a Fiano from Sicily, increasingly a source of well-made, good vale wines; darker and waxier in the glass, this wine had half a degree more alcohol and felt fuller on the palate, showing tropical fruit and herbal, vegetal aromas.

More weighty than the Garganga, this would stand up to cream-based pasta dishes.

Poggio Del Sasso, Sangiovese, £8.99

The first of the reds, a Sangiovese from Toscana, was a Chianti lookalike on a budget, with typical cherry fruit, prominent linear acidity and good grip, but was also a little more easy-drinking and less challenging than a Chianti.

This is very much a food wine and would match well with beef-based dishes.

Miopasso Nero d’Avola, £8.75

Nero d’Avola is one of Sicily’s “signature” red grapes and produces wines with lots of plum, prune and peppery aromas; this wine is made partially with ripasso grapes (i.e. that have been dried on straw mats int he sun for several months to concentrate flavours). This gives the wine an intense perfume and a mid-palate fruit sweetness that proved very popular on the evening and led many people to say it was their wine of the night.

With so many flavours and aromas, this to me is a less versatile wine, but would match well with a game casserole with the sweetness of root vegetables or braised red cabbage.

Moscato Frizzante Piedmonte Volpi, £9.49

Wanting to finish with a dessert wine, I picked this unusual semi-sparkling, semi-sweet, low alcohol (just 5.5%) Moscato from Volpi which had been my wine match for the jelly I mentioned earlier.

Light and elegant, it shows lots of elderflower aromas and, perhaps because of this, can seem sweeter than it really is (the finish is relatively dry); the acidity is nicely balanced and it is a very easy drinker.

It would make a very pleasant end to a meal, or would match with light, fruit-based desserts – or the layered strawberry jelly if you feel like making it.

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Beyond the social aspect and general interest of presenting the wines, the evening proved instructive in a couple of ways – firstly with a mixed Italian and UK-Italophile audience it gace me the chance to see how these two different nations think about wine.

I have long felt that people who grow up with a “wine culture”, where it is part of everyday life (in places like France, Italy and Spain for example), seem to have a more instinctive understanding of what makes a good wine – unlike Anglo-Saxons for whom wine appreciation is something relatively new, they generally do not have the extensive vocabulary for describing wine, but rather simply seem to know whether a wine is good or not.

By contrast, the Brits have both a greater interest in the stories around the wine and also – in a general audience of so-called average consumers – a greater preference for primary, up-front fruit in a wine, rather than more elusive secondary, or tertiary aromas; this was especially noticeable in the preference for Prosecco over Champagne and also the popularity of the very fruit-driven Nero d’Avola.

Recommended Wine

All the wines here were very good and all proved popular with the audience – however, for me the most interesting was also the most typically Italian was the Poggio Del Sasso Sangiovese.

Links

La Dante, Cambridge – http://ladante-in-cambridge.org/, http://twitter.com/#!/ladantecam

Cambridge Wine Merchants – http://www.cambridgewine.com/

A while ago, I went to see Charles Hardcastle of Joseph Barnes Wines in Saffron Walden and was very impressed with his range of southern French, Basque and Spanish hand-crafted wines.

At the end of our meeting, he gave me a couple of wines to sample in full and I opened them up at home the other weekend for some guests.

Bodegas Ameztoi, Txakoli di Getaria 2010 – £12.25

Very pale yellow in the glass, it smells of brine, seashells and wet stones.

On the palate, it is neutral, clean and fresh with lemony apples-and-pears acidity and gentle minerality.

With little primary fruit, it is all about lovely purity and focus.

It makes a great aperitif or a wine for seafood or tapas.

Lovers of obscure grape varieties will be keen to learn that this is made from Hondarribi Zuri grape (aka Petit Courbu in France).

Cave de Saint-Etienne de Baigorry, Irouleguy Blanc ‘Cuvee ‘Andere d’Ansa’ 2010 – £10.99

Aged in oak and made from a blend of 80% Gros Manseng and 20% Petit Manseng this smells curiously of take-away fish and chips, with a saltiness and aromas of malt vinegar, some oakiness, floral aromas and a touch of sour hay.

On the palate, it feels quite old school with buttery-creamy-sweet oak, nutmeg and cinnamon spice, toastiness and some oxidative character.

There are also floral aromas and long, apricotty, lemony acidity with more of the same on the finish.

This is much weightier than the previous wine and would match well with heavier fish dishes, such as smoked haddock or salmon mornay.

Domaine Du Meteore, Les Leonides, Faugères 2007 – £9.10

On opening, there is an intense nose of dark berries and tarry liquorice with garrigue herbs and hints of roasted dark spices and dark coffee.

Made from a mix of typical southern French varieties, Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Carignan, in the glass it is a dark cherry colour, but now running to a faded brick red with age.

The palate is juicy with more dark berry fruit, some vanilla sweetness and rounded acidity.

With a few years of bottle age, it has now gained a degree of harmonious mellowness and after a couple of hours in the decanter, the nose has faded a little and palate opened up showing more garrigue herbs, coffee and dark spices with lots of elderberry fruit and a smooth custardy texture and some grip on the finish.

To me it is like a young Mick Jagger – a brash, eclectic in-yer-face mix of things, but behind it all, actually quite sophisticated and respectable.

Food pairing is relatively straightforward – anything that matches the bitter, herbaceous herbiness will go well, so think rosemary and sage.

We found it matched superbly with starters of beetroot with rosemary cream cheese as well as asparagus wrapped in pancetta and a main of herby sausages.

Recommended Wine

All three are excellent wines and it’s a bit “you pays your money and you takes your choice”. However, taking price into account, the Domaine Du Meteore represents superb value given its price of under a tenner.

Links

Joseph Barnes Wines – http://www.josephbarneswines.com/home.aspx

My earlier review of Joseph Barnes – http://cambridgewineblogger.blogspot.com/2011/07/joseph-barnes-wines-saffron-walden.html

Copyright Tom Lewis 2011

December means Christmas – and whilst the supermarkets may be vying for your attention and hard-earned pennies with special offers, it’s the independents who really specialise in the wines for special occasions. 

This month, in recognition of the time of year, we have increased the budget slightly and asked Cambridge’s independents to suggest three wines for drinking over the festive season. 

Peter Lehmann Black Queen Sparkling Shiraz, £17.99 , Noel Young Wines

Red Aussie fizz is miles away from Champagne in every sense, but this Peter Lehmann Sparkling Shiraz is bottle-fermented using the Champagne method.

The fruit, from 2006, spends a year aging in old oak before two more years’ secondary fermentation on the lees in bottle.

Disgorged in 2010, it now has a further year or so’s bottle age.

The mere sight of a purple foaming wine will provoke comment and conversation, whilst the wine itself shows plum and prune fruit with some secondary aromas of dark, bitter chocolate, Christmas spice and liquorice.

There is a touch of mid-palate fruit sweetness, but the finish itself is quite dry with a savoury, leesy richness and depth of flavour.

Serve well-chilled as an unusual aperitif, or better still match the fruit and spiciness to gamey cold starters such as venison terrine or Boxing Day cold cuts with spiced cranberry chutney (an inspired recommendation from Mrs CWB).

Domaine A-F Gros, Pommard, Bourgogne, £18.99 Bacchanalia

Red Burgundy is never cheap and spending upwards of £15 is not even a guarantee that you’ll get something memorable.

This Pommard from A-F Gros, however is one of the best red Burgundies I have had in a while and is a great introduction to the delights of Burgundian Pinot  Noir.

Straight out of the bottle, the nose shows complex aromas of cherry, garrigue herbs, woodsy, mushroomy forest floor and a pronounced gaminess.

On the palate, there is cherry and red-plum fruit, whilst the acidity is bright, lively and juicy with a touch of cool mint and a silky smooth texture.

The finish is balanced and lingers with a touch more herbiness.

Match with game dishes, such as pheasant or even with a Christmas dinner of turkey with all the trimmings.

I would not decant this wine before serving as it impresses straight out of the bottle; the delicate aromas will not benefit from large amounts of aeration and there are no chewy tannins to soften.

It also bears mentioning that 2009 was a particularly good vintage for Burgundy generally, so it’s worth making a note of the year. 

Smith Woodhouse LBV Port, 2000, £21.99 Cambridge Wine Merchants

After too much turkey and “maybe just one more” mince pie, it may be time to kick back in front of a roaring fire and pour a glass of something sweet and warming.

Late Bottle Vintage is port from a vintage year (declared roughly 3-4 times per decade) that is aged for longer in barrel before bottling and therefore does not need as much aging in bottle as Vintage.

Dark purple in the glass, this Smith Woodhouse LBV has a nose of cassis, herbs, eucalyptus and spice. With a few swirls, the cooked fruit aromas of the added spirit emerge.

The palate is initially sweet and warming before a complex blackcurranty fruit with more cool eucalyptus and hints of dark spice develops.

The finish is long and balanced, with the base wine and the spirit well integrated.

I would either sip this on its own or match with a bitter chocolate and cherry dessert – whilst port and stilton is a classic combination, cheese generally matches better with a less fruity aged tawny with a decade or more’s barrel age rather than a more primary and fruit-driven LBV like this.

It also has a Decanter Trophy.

Recommended wine

These three wines are all a little above “everyday drinking” price levels and unlike supermarket wines right now, there are no eye-catching, gimmicky 25% off / BOGOF / Christmas special pricing or artificial discounts offer to be had.

Rather, what you get here are some really sophisticated, complex and well-made wines with individuality and personality that will impress and are worth every extra penny.

If you have been following this column since it started earlier this year and trying the wines (generally priced at £8 – £12), I’m confident you’ll appreciate the step-up in quality of these three Christmas recommendations – the depth of flavour of the fizz, the complexity and texture of the Burgundy, the elegance and harmoniousness of the port.

There is no overall winner this month – just three great wines for festive drinking to enjoy with good food and great company.

Wine of The Month takes a post-Christmas frugality / de-tox break in January, but returns in February with a Valentine’s theme and a new addition to our line-up.

Until then, Happy Christmas !

Links

Noel Young Wines – http://www.nywines.co.uk/

Bacchanalia – http://www.winegod.co.uk/

Cambridge Wine Merchants – http://www.cambridgewine.co.uk/

Main image credit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/dec/25/yulelogtv

Copyright Tom Lewis 2011

With autumn well and truly upon us, it’s time for big, hearty, warming wines with seasonal food to match. For mains, that means seasonal game dishes and stews - but spare a thought for filling, indulgent puddings with some bonfire night smoke, spice and warmth. If you need a wine to match to a sticky toffee pudding, treacle sponge or spotted dick, this unusual but delicious Pedro Ximénez might just might be the thing – I chose it as a match for a sticky toffee cheesecake recipe given to me by local Masterchef Finalist, Alex Rushmer who now runs The Hole in The Wall in Wilbraham (pictured left).

Alvear PX Solera 1927 Montilla , £12.99 (37.5cl) Cambridge Wine Merchants

Dessert wines are some of my favourites and the trick to matching with a pudding is that the wine should be sweeter than the food, otherwise it will taste tart and thin.

Wines from Spain’s Pedro Ximénez (“PX”) grapes are about as sweet as they come and this one will stand up to the autumnal richness a treacle toffee cheesecake.

PX is most commonly used to add sweetness to dry oloroso to produce a sweet sherry but, as here, is occasionally made into a dessert wine in its own right.

It is made from superripe grapes that have then been dried out on straw mats to intensify the flavours; more unusually, it is also made in a solera, like a dry sherry, that in this case dates back to 1927.

It is a dark mahogany, thick and treacly on pouring – you really won’t need much of this – and has aromas of cooked mixed fruit, dried figs, dates and prunes with hints of dark chocolate, molasses and roasted nuts on the nose.

On the palate it is concentrated and mouthfilling with raisiny fruit and enough fresh acidity to match the sweetness.

The long finish adds hints of bitter aromatics and dark spices from aging in oak.

Links

Cambridge Wine Merchants – http://www.cambridgewine.com/

The Hole in the Wall – http://www.holeinthewallcambridge.co.uk/

Copyright Tom Lewis 2011

The clocks have gone back, Halloween is out of the way, and once bonfire night is past, there’s not much to look forward to during this last month of autumn except more damp and cold.

And yet, for those of a melancholy bent, those who can see in nature’s riotous panoply of autumnal russet, gold and burnt ochre hues a last hurrah before inevitable decline and decay set in, for those of us in whom the season brings about a sense of introspection and melancholy, late autumn is a stirring, moving, soulful time of the year – a season for Romantic Poets and armchair philosophers alike.

The Romantic or Philosophical amongst us, then, must choose wines and food that feed the melancholy of our souls and speak to our inner wistfulness through their aromas and flavours.

If wine is poetry bottled, then there are few more poetic terroirs than Burgundy whose indulgent, decadent, hedonistic oenology and gastronomy convey a sense of autumnal decay perhaps like no other, and so we start with a white Burgundy.

Macon-Bussieres Dom du Vieux Puits 2008, Domaine Drouin, Maconnais, Burgundy – £12.99 Cambridge Wine Merchants

Made from old vines, the nose is toasty with hints of tropical fruit, white flowers and vanilla.

On the palate, there is ripe pear fruit and rounded acidity; the wine feels full and rich from aging in mainly large, old oak barrels with 25% new oak for a hint of toasty vanilla sweetness, whilst time spent on the lees gives a savouriness to the finish.

Neither a blockbuster New World Chardie nor a tropically fruity unoaked version, this is a classic food wine to match with straightforward dishes like plain roast chicken and lighter game such as partridge and quail.

Alternately, match with pasta and wild mushrooms in a creamy sauce.

Tenuta Monticello ‘Operetta’ Rosso delle Venezie IGT – £8.99 Noel Young Wines

A Ripasso-style wine made from 70% Corvina, 20% Rondinella, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% of the grapes are ‘appassimento’- dried in small crates in a drying room, with the two parts of the wine vinified seperately and then aged 12 months in French and American oak barriques.

The nose is full of blackcurrant and elderberry aromas with a hint of prunes, cherries, spice and a mushroomy woodsiness. On the palate, there is concentrated fruit sweetness, more elderberry fruit, liquorice, vanilla musk and a sour cherry acidity with soft tannins.

Match with either roast lamb or darker game, such as pigeon or pheasant.

Pinna Fidelis, Roble 2009, Ribera del Duero, £7.99 Bacchanalia

From Spain’s prestigious Ribera del Duero region, this one has a big nose of bramble fruit, tarriness, liquorice, loganberries and vanilla spice with a touch of funky, vegetal forest floor.

The palate feels full, soft and sweet with velvety dark berry and prune fruit, mintiness, vanilla and dark spice, whilst there is plenty of lively sour-cherry acidity.

On the finish, there is more mintiness and some gentle grip.

With air, the decaying, vegetal aromas and sour cherry acidity become more pronounced giving this a Pinot-esque feel; match, therefore, with typical Pinot Noir food such as pheasant, duck and other dark game or meaty casseroles with some clove spice.

These are all good wines, but this month’s winner is the Macon-Bussieres from Cambridge Wine Merchants on a number of counts – the most classical, it matches well with the kind of seasonal autumnal food that brings to mind images of rooting for truffles in the mist and half-darkness.

But more than that, should we find a day this month when the sun shines and the temperatures rise to moderately warm, we need a white wine, albeit a Big White, to match with lighter game or creamy pasta with wild mushrooms and truffles and leaven our diet of Hearty, Spicy Reds, bringing a life-affirming touch of levity, the freshness of a morning mist and the golden hue of a turning leaf.

Links

Bacchanalia – http://www.winegod.co.uk/

Cambridge Wine Merchants – http://www.cambridgewine.com/

Noel Young Wines – http://www.nywines.co.uk/

Drouin – http://www.domaine-drouin.com/en/macon-bussieres-vieuxpuits.php

Image credit – http://www.pashley.co.uk/code-inc/view-gallery-img.php?size=large&id=338

Copyright Tom Lewis 2011

October has been something of a mixed month so far with a late Indian summer to kick things off, some distinctly wintry temperatures a few days later, and a bit of mist and mellow fruitfulness in between.

However, one thing remains constant and that is the need for bigger, warming wines to go with some appropriately seasonal food.

All the wines this month come from the warmer parts of classic wine countries and have a greater degree of ripeness and up-front fruit as a result.

In general, we are looking at grape varieties that score highly in terms of personality rather than for classical restraint and good food matches will be something appropriately full of spicy, herby flavours, such as good butcher’s sausages, spiced game, meaty stews and roasted mediterranean vegetables.

Concertino Corbières 2008 £8.99 Cambridge Wine Merchants

 Made from an unoaked blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, there is smokey prune fruit and eucalyptus on the nose.

On the palate, there is juicy, dark berry fruit with some gentle grip on the finish. 

Vedilhan Syrah Viognier Languedoc 2009 £8.49 Bacchanalia

 This mix of northern Rhone gapes shows dense cassis with liquorice and vanilla spice on the nose.

 The palate is soft and full with a touch of peachiness from the Viognier. The acidity feels rounded and mouthfilling with some vanilla sweetness on the mid-palate.

 Masseria Pietrosa Salice Salentino 2010 Noel Young Wines, £9.25

 From the “heel” of Italy and made from the big Negroamaro grape which is native to the region, this is the most crowd-pleasing wine straight out of the bottle.

 The nose is full of ripe elderberry fruit whilst the palate is rich and warming with sweet fruit and hints of cooked Christmas spices, balanced with good acidity and ripe tannins.

 On the finish, there is just enough grip to let you know this a food wine.

 With such unpredictable weather and temperatures this month, it is hard to make a recommendations based on seasonality – on a warmer day the juciness of the Corbières might suit, whilst the warming fruit and spice of the Salice Salentino will keep any wintry damp and chill away.

However, for me, the most enjoyable wine here is the Veldihan Syrah Viognier for its complexity and soft, peachy texture.

 Links

 Bacchanalia – http://www.winegod.co.uk/

Cambridge Wine Merchants – http://www.cambridgewine.com/

Noel Young Wines – http://www.nywines.co.uk/ 

Main image credit – http://www.sjlshots.com/2008/03/18/october-leaves/

Copyright Tom Lewis 2011