[For the
uninitiated, a 'blog' (or weblog)
is a web journal with links. This gives me a chance to add short, 'off the record' style items that
wouldn't merit a separate article. I try my best to keep entries informal,
frequent, brief and (hopefully) interesting. For more information
about Jamie Goode, see the about the author
section. ]
Friday 7th May 2004
We have a pond and a green outside our house. Don’t get the wrong
idea, though - it’s not the rural idyll of some country village, but
rather a small oasis in the built-up suburbs of west London. Anyway,
leaving the house in the morning I walk past the pond and enjoy seeing
our resident wildfowl generally busying themselves. The resident
population includes a dozen or so ducks and a Canada goose with a
broken wing. This is joined daily by an influx of visitors, most
commonly more geese, the odd moorhen and swans. Today, however, there
was a cormorant and a heron. Just two birds, but they gave me great
pleasure. Why do I mention this? It’s just that in nature, as in
many other walks of life, diversity enriches our lives. Wine is no
exception. This is partly why many people are so upset by the growing
‘internationalization’ of wines (dare I mention PAVIE). Unless
diversity is nurtured, cherished and ultimately enshrined in
legislation, then it will be obliterated by the steamroller of modern
retailing. The French AOC rules have largely failed to ensure quality,
but they have been spectacularly successful in ensuring the survival
of myriad regional styles.
The shape of modern retailing is such that there are two
conduits left to market – that is, wine retailing is consolidating
into two models: on the one hand wine as FMCGs (fast-moving consumer
goods), which encompasses large volume branded wines sold by
supermarkets and convenience stores, and on the other fine wines sold
by specialist independents. The middle ground is being eroded, and
with it, the access to market for relatively small-volume, mid-priced
wines that reflect regional diversity has all but dried up. At the
fine wine end, the reliance of consumers on points - and the facts
that points are both a blunt tool for discriminating among different
styles and that the most influential point scorers have a predilection
for very ripe, concentrated wines – has meant that regional
diversity is threatened there also. The answer? Consumers need to vote
with their feet. Resist the lure of the rather boring international
styled wines. Eschew the volume brands. Work hard to spend your wine
budget with independent retailers who do good work and on wines made
by producers who care, and who make wines expressing their origin. And
for us hacks, we need to keep banging on about how important diversity
is to wine. Just as the perception of Riesling by the public has
changed in the last few years, largely driven by repeated press
crusading, perhaps the way people think about wine diversity will also
change.
Monday 3rd May
Tadpole
update: now the critters have legs. They’ll soon be froglets and on
their way. Metamorphosis. Back to wine: last night I had a nice
surprise. It was the D’Arenberg Coppermine Road Cabernet
Sauvignon 2001 I mentioned a few days ago. I was half expecting
this to be overblown, showy and a bit soupy, lacking balance. But it
wasn’t - although it is a really big wine in a classical Australian
mould, it’s a balanced monster. By this I mean that the sweet,
concentrated fruit flavours are backed up by firm tannins, spicy oak
(in this case French, and not the more usual American) and good
acidity. Rather than the individual flavours sticking out, it works
together as one unit. And while the Dead Arm from d'Arenberg gets all
the attention, in some ways this is a more serious effort that will no
doubt improve with some time in the cellar. I like it, although with
an extreme wine like this drunk in its youth you have to be in the
mood for it. I wonder what this will metamorphose into with a decade's
cellar time?
Thursday 29nd April
Just on my way back from a tasting put on by four
independent merchants at Vinopolis. Believe it or not, this was my
first visit to the ‘city of wine’, which is located just a short
walk from London Bridge station. My impressions, from a brief walk
through the galleries, is that they’ve done a very good job. It’s
designed to reach a broad audience, so hard-bitten wine nuts would
probably leave a little unsatisfied, but the average person –
someone with mild interest in wine rather than a pathological
obsession – would probably be quite entertained.
Majestic
have an outlet at Vinopolis, and this is (to my knowledge) the only
place where you can buy their wines by the bottle rather than in
quantities of at least a case. As well as the Majestic range this
outlet stocks other wines that are on tasting at Vinopolis, including
oddities from Greece, Romania, Armenia, China and Thailand. Curious
wine nuts would no doubt be tempted by a Chinese red and white in Feng
shui inspired specially shaped bottles. I bought a little more
conservatively – a Blandys Single Harvest 1996 Malmsey
Madeira and the 1997 Musar. These will go in my drinking
queue, which was bolstered by a recent Berry Bros purchase and some
Oddbins samples. I’m looking forward to trying the 2001 La Rosine
Syrah from Ogier, Heidler Grüner Veltliner Spiegel 2002,
Gilles Barges St Joseph Les Martinets 2001 (the two so far from
my case have been delicious), a Pinot Blanc from Albert Mann
and D’Arenberg’s 2001 Coppermine Road Cabernet Sauvignon.
The latter will be interesting: there’s been a lot of controversy
surrounding the 2001 Dead Arm, with some loving it and others being
unconvinced. Are these high-end D’Arenberg wines simply showy and
flash, with no real staying power or substance? Or are they the real
deal? Too many wines and too little time.
Thursday 22nd April
Yesterday was the Portuguese
annual trade tasting at the Royal Horticultural Halls. The problem
that comes from getting to know people in the wine trade is that it
gets harder to concentrate on tasting wine when there are so many
people to chat with. Still, a nice problem to have. I do pity the key
buyers though: at most tastings there are just a handful of them and
they are relentlessly pursued by producers anxious to get them to
taste their wines. Many of Portugal’s best wines were missing today,
but still there were a number of stand-outs. I’ve written at length
about Dirk Niepoort’s wines before: the 2001 Batuta and Redoma
are both very impressive, serious wines destined for some prolonged
cellar time. What a contrast with the other celebrity Douro wine in
Raymond Reynolds’ portfolio, the 2001 Quinta do Vale Meão.
This shows wonderfully alluring, sweet aromatic fruit already. It’s
a showy, opulent wine that is delicious now, in quite a different
style to Batuta. Each will have their fans. Five more Douro wines
deserve a mention. New out is Lagar de Macedos 2000, a brother
(sister?) wine to Macedos 2000: remarkably forward and sweet again,
with an opulent, almost liqueur-like quality to the fruit. Then
there’s the understated elegance of Dão Sul’s Quinta das
Tecedeiras, which shows lovely expressive fruit. Also quite
elegant is the Duas Quintas Reserva 2000, which has wonderfully
pure fruit and shows great balance. Finally, Quinta de la Rosa
and Churchill have made elegant, food friendly wines in the
tricky 2002 vintage, the former with a new winemaker (Jorge Moreira)
and the latter for the first time (they made an experimental table
wine in Portugal but this is the first proper release of Churchill
Estates red wine, made by João Brito e Cunha of Lavradores
de Feitoria fame).
Moving away from the Douro, it
was a pleasure to retaste the 2002s from Quinta do Ameal, which
are both stunning, expressive, aromatic whites, rating in the 90s. I
was also struck by the FP wines of Filpa Pato. She’s the
daughter of Bairrada’s Luis, and is making her own wines from Dão
and Bairrada vineyards. The top wine, a 2003 varietal Baga, is
stunning. Fully ripe with amazing structure and complexity.
Wednesday 21st April
It’s been a good week for wine anorak. Last week I found out that
I’d been shortlisted for the Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the Year
award, along with heavyweights Clive Coates and Tim Atkin. As if that
wasn’t enough, the shortlist for the Prix du Champagne Lanson, the
other big drinks awards, have just been released, and I was stunned to
find that wineanorak.com is in the running for the Ivory Label Award
(the category for media including websites, radio, TV and
photography). The results for both will be announced at the respective
award ceremonies next month. To be shortlisted for two awards is great
– to actually win one would be fantastic. Think of all the free
Champagne and whisky! It'd be party on, at my place, and you're all
invited.
Monday 19th April
Just got back from a short family break to Cornwall. It’s a story of
two hotels. We’d intended to go for a luxury family ho–tel that
had plenty to offer for the kids, and would also allow us a chance to
relax in nice surroundings. We booked a hotel that seemed to fit the
bill nicely, in Watergate Bay, between Newquay and Padstow. As soon as
we got there, we realised we’d made a duff choice. The hotel looked
great on the website, but despite its setting on a spectacular bay, it
was just not right for us. The rooms were poky, smelly and badly
finished, the decor of the hotel owed more to the council leisure
centre than a luxury hotel, and the indoor pool was a token effort.
The food was good enough, albeit served in a large brightly lit dining
room freshly decorated in the style of a rather naff suburban semi,
but by this stage we’d already decided to leave. The one plus point
was the staff – they were mostly surf dudes looking to finance their
surf habit, but they were very polite and helpful. I felt bad
explaining to them that we couldn’t stay any longer, but it had to
be done.
We phoned around and managed to book for the next two
nights at Fowey Hall, overlooking the town of Fowey on the
south coast. What a contrast. To use a motoring analogy, while
Watergate was an XR3i, Fowey Hall was an XK8. We had one of
the nicest breaks we’ve had. Fowey Hall is the real deal,
oozing effortless class and luxury. It’s furnished to a very
high standard in a traditional style, and caters for families
brilliantly. The kids had a games room with pool, table tennis
and table football, plus another room with games consoles.
There’s a large, child friendly pool heated to bath
temperature. The setting, overlooking the Fowey estuary, is
unparalleled. Two nights and three days doesn’t sound long,
but now we feel thoroughly refreshed. The food was very good
indeed, without being quite top notch, and service in the
restaurant was quite assured. I would like to see some more
effort made with the wine list. It didn’t match the
surroundings, being entirely sourced from one supplier,
Berkmann. It was therefore rather predictable and opted for
average, larger producers over the small and exciting. |
Fowey Hall |
The view |
I’d just love to put together an exciting wine list for a
hotel like this: I reckon I could source some real gems at the
business £20–35 end of the list, of the sort that were almost
entirely lacking here. BY careful choice, on our two nights we had two
good wines that matched the food well: a Jim Barry Clare Valley
Riesling and a 2002 Chablis from Brocard, but even if I’d
been in the mood to splurge then I really didn’t find anything to
excite me. But this is just a small criticism, and I’d thoroughly
recommend Fowey Hall for a relaxing long weekend for families. Pricey,
but I think we got great value for money.
Thursday 15th April
The shortlist for the Glendiddich Food and Drink Awards 2004 has
just been announced. You can see them here.
Thursday 8th April
I’m drinking another wine tonight that I’ve had on
several occasions. In my enthusiasm for the Glenguin wines after
visiting the Hunter in 2000 I bought 18 bottles of this – a record
for me (but probably not if you count all the bottles of Torres Vina
Sol that have been knocked back in the Goode household). The wine in
question is the Glenguin Orange Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1998, from
a vineyard at 700 m altitude in the New South Wales region of Orange.
It’s another bold, wild wine but completely different to the Jamet
Syrah I described yesterday. For me, this is Aussie wine at its best.
There’s plenty of oak for sure – American, too – but it’s not
at all minty or sweet or coconutty. The overall impression is savoury,
with intense blackcurrant fruit firmly underlain by bold tannins and
high acidity, with spicy, tarry complexity. There’s a lot of
structure and intensity and I suspect this wine will still be going
strong in another five years time. There’s nothing manufactured
about this wine. While it is unsubtle and rather extreme, it’s an
honest interpretation of what this high quality region can produce,
shouting its origins proudly.
Wednesday 7th April
Wasn’t
sure what to drink tonight, so with relatively low expectations I
pulled out a bottle of Syrah Vin de Pays Collines Rhodaniennes 2001
from Jamet (a Syrah from the northern Rhône, pictured right).
I say low expectations not because this is a bad wine, but because
it’s something I’ve probably drunk half a dozen of in the past
year, and I’m someone who gets off on novelty. I tend to get a bit
bored drinking a whole case of the same wine unless it’s something
that I can spin out over a number of years. Six packs are more my
thing, but then I’m partial to singletons and twin bottles too. But
while I was expecting little from this bottle, I’ve now got to
reconsider my expectations because this Jamet is just cracking. It’s
not a wine with broad appeal: in fact, it’s the antithesis of
modern, fruity, easy drinking branded wine that sells so well to
non-geek punters. Yes, the Jamet has plenty of vivid raspberry fruit,
but it’s got a whole lot more besides. It’s savagely savoury, with
cheesy, animally, spicy, sour cherry flavours. The acidity is high. It
would be fascinating to do a chemical analysis on this wine—perhaps
this would reveal some lactobacillus or brettanomyces—but even
though it’s not a flawless creation, I find I can’t help myself
drinking the stuff. Surely, points aside, this is the measure of the
‘quality’ of a wine: whether you can keep yourself from draining
the bottle. A theme I tend to repeat is that a score given to a wine
is not a property of the wine, but instead a response by a taster to a
particular wine in a particular situation. In one context a humble
wine is ‘better’ than a 98-pointer, and I can’t think of many
wines that I’d rather drink right now. With regard to this Jamet VdP,
which was £5.99 in Majestic, I’ve also got some of the 2002 (the
current vintage), which while a little lighter is almost as nice as
this in a similar style.
Sunday 4th April
Time to highlight some worthwhile material on other
sites. First, Neal Martin who has some sensible things to say about
the Bordeaux
en primeur tastings, which are now upon us. I think
Neal pinpoints some real problems with the current set-up, although
I’m surprised at his final conclusion that these tastings over the
next couple of weeks are going to be very revealing – he’s just
spent the previous paragraphs explaining why they aren’t! Either
they are or they aren’t.
Bill Nanson’s Burgundy report takes my prize for
the world’s best looking wine site. The content is good, also. The
latest Burgundy report carries a good article
on cork taint – Bill has a good angle on this as he’s an
industrial chemist.
Monday
29th March
Robert Parker has spoken for the first time today on
the quality of the 2003
vintage in
Bordeaux.
His view? It ‘has the greatest extremes in quality I have ever seen in my
25 years of experience in
Bordeaux
....substantial
even massive wines from rather indifferent terroirs, and clunkers from
some very famous estates with great terroirs’. The rest of the
trade will be tasting these wines from cask over the next couple of
weeks, so expect to hear more than you could ever have wanted to on
this subject for some time to come. Remember, though, vintage reports
from merchants who are also selling wines from the same vintage are
never to be taken too seriously. Even if the merchant is solid,
sensible, honest and smart, the fact that they are trying to sell wine
will colour their otherwise ‘objective’ judgment. They are not
journalists, but salesmen, and there’s a difference. Should
you buy 2003s? The weather was so weird in Bordeaux last year that I'd
say this is one year where it pays to taste the wine yourself before
buying it, if you can - or else wait until you see it reviewed by a
critic you trust. The usual policy of buying on the basis of an
estate's track record might not hold true for 2003.
Friday
26th March
It’s been a long busy week, with a couple of tight deadlines. Among
other subjects, I’m currently writing a piece on the world’s most
expensive wines for a general interest magazine. In researching this
piece, I came across an article that I thought deserved a wider
audience. It’s on the section of Penfolds’ website that is devoted
to iconic Aussie wine Grange, and the article in question is Max
Schubert’s account of the origins of this wine. It makes
good reading. Two aspects particularly struck me. First, about just
how intrinsic to the style of Grange is the use of new, untreated oak
barrels, something which hadn’t been tried before in Australia.
‘It was almost as if the new wood had acted as a catalyst to release
previously unsuspected flavours and aromas from the Hermitage
grape’, stated Schubert. He made two versions of the first Grange
(1951), one in new oak and one in older oak barrels, and the former
lacked a lot of the character that made Grange special. But perhaps
even more interesting is that the original specification for Grange
was to harvest grapes with 12 degrees potential alcohol. When did you
last see a premium Australian or Californian wine with less than 13.5%
alcohol? And 15% isn’t all that uncommon these days. I quote
Schubert: ‘The
procedure to be employed was first to ensure that the grape material
was sound and that the acid and sugar content was in balance
consistent with the style of wine as specified. Using the Baume scale,
this was to be not less than 11.5 degrees and not more than 12 degrees
with a total acidity of not less than 6.5 and not more than 7 grams
per litre. With strict attention to detail and close surveillance,
this was achieved.’
Saturday
20th March
We
have a new arrival in the Goode household. It’s a wine cabinet – a
Vintec under-worktop unit to be precise (right). It’s
designed to fit into a 600 mm slot in the kitchen, and we’re putting
it into our new one which arrives next month. The capacity, 44
bottles, isn’t as much as I’d have liked, but the great advantage
is that because this is integrated into the kitchen design (and looks
very elegant with its stainless steel and smoked glass finish) it was
much easier to get domestic approval. In this new house we don’t
have any underground storage like we did in the last, so if there’s
a danger of last summer’s temperatures being repeated cabinet
storage for some bottles and off-site storage for the rest will be
essential. Who knows, if I get on with this I might add another,
larger one, but it's difficult to know where to put it. I’m
currently researching global climate change for a Wine International
feature, and the predictions are that there will be a significant and
inevitable rise in temperature over the next few decades, because of greenhouse
gas emissions, and hot summers are likely to be common. After summer
2003 I'm increasingly convinced that passive storage is a huge risk.
What we do now in terms of controlling these emissions will affect
what happens in the second half of this century. Tadpole update: they
have been hatched for a few days and are vigorously swimming around.
No sign of legs yet. We're feeding them with flaked goldfish food, and
topping their water up from the pond infront of our house.
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