Sunday 31 August 2008

5 eccentric winemakers you need to know


So, you thought the wine industry was stuffy and full of pretensious tossers who like to say Claret instead of red Bordeaux? Well, you may have something there, but not everybody fits this depressing stereotype.

Especially, the artists behind the wine: the wine makers.

There's not much pretense with the wine makers I have chosen to feature everyday over the next week. No pretense to tradition, no pretense to politeness and definitely no pretense to slavishly follow the market.

Initially lambasted, against the odds, these wines have become benchmarks in their own right.

I hope you can join me.

Starts Monday 1 September, 2008.

Friday 29 August 2008

Pomegranate Noir, by Jo Malone (2005)

scene from Metropolis

"The inspiration for Pomegranate Noir came to Jo Malone after she saw one of her friends dressed up in a red silk dress at a middle eastern hookah party all the while stuffing dollar bills in her cleavage." – reviewer, Base Notes

If you have been invited to an eccentric 81-year-old billionaire's party in Convent Garden as a thank you for helping him hide in your cellar from his ex-wife's (famous you-know-who) lawyer serving him notices for over £50 million, then wear Pomegranate Noir.

The invitation says the party is to "commiserate a dissolute, wasted, wanton life. But fun. No flowers - come if you can."

No flowers - come if you can. An apt description of Pomegranate Noir; debauched fruit, almost bruised, and dark frankincense mixed with the eternal smells of decadence: musk and patchouli.

More noir than pomegranate fruit, it almost scars the memory with it's wickedness. In a fun way, of course.


Link: Base Notes

Wednesday 27 August 2008

Fate is great: flirtations with pink champagne

"Fate is Great"


As fate would have it, the man who told me the story about the Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigars (previous post) was from Verona.

As we stood beside a display of Champagne, I asked him which was his favourite Champagne.

"Billecart-Salmon".

"Me too! (FATE!) I love the Billecart-Salmon Rosé."

"You must drink a lot of pink champagne..."

Why (insecurely checking my lipstick)??

And he moved very close and said, "Because your lips are so pink."

Ah!

And how does this star-crossed tale end?

Let's just say, as they do in Romeo and Juliet, that I was the very pink of courtesy.

Of course.

Link: Billecart-Salmon House site

Sunday 24 August 2008

Romeo y Julieta (and other great Cuban cigar names)


True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.


Take a deep inhale from a Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigar box in saint-seducing gold.

The smell is pure old-world romance. Even "cigar-box" as a note in fine Cabernet Sauvignon; I absolutely adore it.

And the names of Cuban cigars are romantic. Romeo y Julieta, Montecristo...

Where did the names come from? A clue is the lector (reader) stood on the factory floor and read from a novel to the the torcedores (cigar rollers) in the factory.

Apparently the names of the cigars are named after the torcedores' favourite stories. I believe it, but then I believe in romance to lift us from the humdrum everyday.


El Carretero - Buena Vista Social Club

Link: official site of Habanos cigars

Monday 18 August 2008

For sensualists: Vosne-Romanée, Burgundy


Domaine Jean Tardy et Fils "Les Chaumes" 2000,
Vosne-Romanée premier cru, rouge (Burgundy, France) £40

"But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest: and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection." – Marcel Proust, from Remembrance of Things Past
All pleasures I have known: it all came back in the first taste of this excellent wine - whenever there has been a good meal with good friends, excellent conversation and a beautiful bottle of Burgundy. It all came back: friends I see, friends I no longer have the chance to see and friends who are no longer.

After the first shock of recognition, what I admired next was its "refreshing" quality, not heavy, my spirit is lightened for a while afterwards.

This wine is still very young at 8 years old, with mostly fruit - yet it developed in the glass before my mouth so that every taste was different, evolved, multi-faceted.

If you are uptight, yes, you could decant. But just enjoy it. Burgundy is not a commodity, it's made for absolute delight and pleasure. I was lucky enough to enjoy this wine with someone who had navigated the difficult Bourgogne labels and vineyards; vineyards that change hands and proprietors from decade to decade, wife to wife.


Link: more wines from the commune of Vosne-Romanée


Sunday 17 August 2008

breakfast of champions


"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne."
– from Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday, Kurt Vonnegut

Monday 11 August 2008

10 things I wish I'd known 10 years ago


1. Three martinis are enough, really
2. Always leave parties before saying goodbye
3. Dawn is always going to happen again
4. Boring people are boring even if they speak a foreign language
5. Don't waste liver space on average wines
6. Memory is important, look after it
7. Cosmopolitans are sad-girl drinks
8. Champagne is excellent with food
9. Experience only creates deeper and better experiences...
10. No regrets - ever!

Sunday 10 August 2008

My heart belongs to Calon-Ségur

"I make my wine at Lafite and Latour, but my heart is in Calon." - Marquis de Seguer
In the late 1940s and early 1950s few Chateaux could match Château Calon-Ségur. After 1953, not another profound wine was made until the famous 1982 vintage.


Link: Château Calon-Ségur - a vertical tasting, Jancis Robinson

Saturday 9 August 2008

Australian wines in London: assessment


Someone is asleep on the watch. And like the Rover Thomas painting (above) of Cyclone Tracy 1974,* the Australian wine industry needs to wake up and hear the warning sirens.

"Who is responsible for the crazy selection of Australian wines on the shelves?" That's the first question I had when surveying the premium Australian wines stocked in wine shops in London.

My cri de coeur led to even more questions:

1. Why are there so many Australian Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noir on the shelf?
It's not something Australia excels in. Australia is not New Zealand. Hello. Yes, we do some good Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir but we also do outstanding wines NO ONE ELSE can:
  • Hunter Semillon
  • Shiraz - cool climate shiraz
  • Eden or Clare Valley Riesling
  • Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon
But they are hardly to be found.

2. Why is there so much Margaret River wine on the shelf?

Margaret River (photo below) have brilliant wines. Part of the reason is Margaret River has very similar growing conditions to Bordeaux, even to the same latitude and longitude (but on the opposite side of the world, like a mirror). The wines are inherently softer than big, bold Barossa or other South Australian wines.


Margaret River

Is it because premium wine drinkers can only understand Bordeaux here? Perhaps, the palate is educated so it can only understand Bordeaux. But I doubt it; I give wine drinkers more credit that that.

3. Why are apples compared to oranges? ie. Why are generic South Australian reds next to premier cru Bodeaux such as Calon Segur or Mouton?

Premier cru wines are unique compared to just about any wine in the world, even other places in Bordeaux itself. There is an perception here, amongst shops and consumers, along the lines: Australia produces great £10 wines, so why pay anymore?

No one is giving an adequate answer to this question from Australia. There is an element of truth in it, because there are no clear examples of what Australia does best on the shelf.

Australian wines are a victim of their own success in the cheap and cheerful market. But I long to see and taste Mount Langi Ghiran Shiraz, Coldstream Hills Riesling or a Mount Pleasant Hunter Semillon. People who should know better don't know these at all. And it's a loss for everyone.
I was even asked, does Australia even have vintages???

I am trying not to take this personally. But I hate ignorance, especially when it is cloaked in authority.

Is this down to the education wine professionals have here? There is only one or two sessions devoted to Australian wines at WSET (the industry qualification everybody must have to work in the industry).

Great wine can't be offered with the depth of knowledge needed for serious wine drinkers. They can't even be in or out of fashion if they are not on the radar.

Or is it not the education, but the wine merchant buyers? Is it the winemakers? Is it that stupid Fosters beer advertising ruining it for everyone?

I not interested in bellicose Australian patriotism - but there's something seriously wrong in the representation of Australian wines in the premium end of the market. It's essentially incorrect.

And quite simply, I miss the taste of eucalypt in my dark dark reds and I think Riesling is a more interesting wine with many exciting stages for ten, twenty years. I am bored of blasting NZ sauvignon blanc (75% of Marlborough is owned by French companies) or their counterparts, Sancerre whites.

Who is in charge here? Is it London wine merchants, the Wine Education Trust, or Australian winemakers?

Cheers.


* Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that wiped out the city of Darwin, (Northern Territory, Australia) during the night of Christmas Eve, 1974.

Sunday 3 August 2008

Best-selling Manga comic about wine: Kami No Shizuki 神の雫


Two brothers on a quest to find the ultimate classic wine.

A wine-critic father challenges his two sons to find 12 legendary wines. The father dies, suddenly; and it becomes a race to succeed, for whomever finds them all first will inherit the father's £9 million cellar...

Kami No Shizuki – The Drops of God – is a 10-volume Manga series so popular in Japan and South Korea sales of the featured wines shoot up 30% after they are mentioned in the series.

"Any individual wine lucky enough to be name-checked can expect to sell an extra 50 cases within 48 hours," reports The Daily Mail.

The wine descriptions are brilliant: 'Just like a classic rock concert!' says one brother after taking a sip of a 2001 Mont-Pérat made by French winemaker Thibault Despagne.

Here is a part of the comic about Rosso Miani from Fruili-Veneto region in Italy. The region is more well-known for their white wines (pinot grigio, ribolla gialla), so this is a very interesting choice, yes, and a very interesting red wine...


Apparently there is a spin-off video game, called Sommelier... let's just hope it's not, erm, too violent.


Link: Kami No Shizuki 神の雫

Friday 1 August 2008

Nina Simone dance




Link: Live at Montreux, 1976 DVD movie