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[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. ]
Monday 29th November 2004
What's
on my tasting counter? One of the worktops in my kitchen serves as an
unofficial tasting counter, and tends to get cluttered with bottles,
both full and spent. I took a picture of it as it was yesterday
evening. No bottles added or taken away or added. It's a real mix.
-
1.
Part empty. A 2003 Côte de Brouilly, Ch Thivin. A sample from
Nick Dobson Wines. Nice, fresh, sappy and light with good balance.
-
2.
Empty. Scarzhofberger Kabinett 1999 from Egon Müller. Purchased
from Haynes, Hanson & Clark a few weeks back. It was pretty
nice.
-
3.
Full. Nouvelle Vague No 7 Grand Cuvee 2002 from Alois Kracher. A
gift from a visit to Illmitz last month. It's a fantastic wine.
-
4.
Empty. Salia 2001 - the second wine from Spanish journalist Victor
de La Serna's Finca Sandoval. Purchased from Haynes, Hanson &
Clark for about £11. Was a bit hard and dried out. Heat damaged?
-
5.
Part full. Olive oil from Domenic Torzi in the Barossa. Fantastic.
(Or is this the unidentified bottle behind number 7? Can't tell.)
-
6.
Empty. Matassa Blanc 2003 from Sam Harrop and Tom Lubbe in the
Roussillon. This was a sample received by another wine writer
which I tried with them, and they gave me the rest of the bottle
to drink at home. A stunning, minerally white.
-
7.
Empty. Ch Doisy Daene 1995 - a wonderful rich, sweet Barsac with
good definition to the abundant fruit. Bought a couple of years
ago from La Vigneronne and drunk on my birthday last week, along
with a lovely Vouvray from Huet.
-
8.
Empty. Lingenfelder's Fish Gewurztraminer. An Oddbins sample.
Boldly flavoured and tasty, and worth trying if you are a fan of
this grape.
-
9.
Full. Côte Rôtie 1999 from Niero. Jeroboams, £17. Looking
forward to it.
-
10.
Part empty. Olive oil from CARM in the Douro. Nice.
-
11.
Part empty. Quinta do Noval LBV 1998. Very impressive for an LBV -
it's unfiltered. A bargain at £9.99 from Oddbins.
-
12.
Full. Another Oddbins sample: this time it's a blend of Touriga
Nacional and Pinot Noir from Casa Santos Lima in the Ribatejo.
-
13.
Full. This is a Penfolds St Henri from 1989 which I was given last
week at a Penfolds recorking clinic. Journalists get given a
mystery bottle which they then take through the recorking process,
and they then get to keep. I was with Wine International's Richard
Ross; he got an 85 Grange! Fortunately both were OK, so they got a
top up from the current release and a new cork and capsule. Too
bad if your bottle isn't up to scratch. They won't top it up and
you'll have to drink it that evening!
There
are a couple of unannotated bottles in the shot: one is an empty
bottle from Domaine Harlaftis (a very good Greek red wine), and the
other is a Gavi from Araldica (full).
Had
a nice weekend, spent with my brother and his family in Plymouth. On
Saturday it was beach time with the kids (it's amazing how much fun
you can have on a beach in England at the end of November), and later
we managed to catch the City game live at a local pub (a solid 2-0
victory; we're sad, aren't we). Then, on Sunday we hit Dartmoor, which
was spectacularly rugged.
Friday 26th November
On my way home after my debut appearance on live national television.
It was a fun experience. Richard & Judy is filmed at the studios
of Cactus TV,
and everyone I met at Cactus impressed me with their professionalism
and calmness in the face of getting a one-hour live program out on
air. I guess this is the thing with TV – because so many people want
to do it, if you’re an idiot or crap, you don’t get very far,
which just leaves the good ones. I got picked up by car (quite a
swanky one, a Mercedes) and when I arrived I was shown to my dressing
room. It even had my name on the door. A good start. My fellow wine
expert for the night was Jean-Marc Saboua, a winemaker with Direct
Wines – he’d been on before, so he knew what to expect. Catherine
Mann, who is the Cactus person developing the wine club had a chat
about the sort of topics we might cover, and then it was in to makeup.
The makeup people are fantastic. They took 10 years off me in two
minutes. Couldn’t do much with my hair though. Wardrobe checked what
we were wearing and advised Jean-Marc to wear a jacket to cover up his
flowery shirt. Good idea. Then we went to see the set – a rather
grand square wooden table, surrounded by oversize glasses containing
liquids in varying shades of pink. On the table were raspberries and
strawberries (covered by big ‘do not eat’ signs), and boiled
sweets and roses as taste cues. We had to be quiet as on the other
side of the studio Richard and Judy (R&J) were doing a run
through. Then it was time for the program. Preceding us was Harry
Hill, and he entertained enough that R&J were in a rather jovial
mood by the time it came to wine club slot. We’d been miked up and
had our make-up touched up, and then the cameras turned to us. I was
slightly nervous for the first minute or so, but the relaxed mood was
contagious and it all went by very quickly. I think we managed to make
some good points and I hope it was entertaining – it’s very hard
to judge your own performance in this sort of setting. At the very
least, I hope I didn’t embarrass all my family and friends who
thought it was a big deal that I was on national television. I was
fascinated by the mechanics of getting a show out: the turnaround
during commercial breaks, the cameras, the autocue, and all the people
standing around. After the show, quick call home to see what they all
thought, then a few glasses of wine and some nibbles before departing
homeward bound. I feel priveliged to be involved in a small way with a
professionally run TV show that communicates to a couple of million
people – let’s face it, when wine magazines have circulations of
just a few tens of thousands and newspaper wine columns are getting
shorter, this is a program that is getting wine on TV – to lots of
normal consumers. As such it is terribly important. Supermarkets
haven’t found a way of promoting wine in any other way than by price
reductions, but here is a show that gives normal (i.e. non-wine geeks)
people a chance to explore wine in a way that is accessible to them.
I’d love to get the chance to do it again, but even if I don’t,
it’s been fun.
Thursday 25th Novmber
Tomorrow is the day: I'm going to be a wine 'expert' on Richard
& Judy. If, along with 2 million other viewers, you'd like to
watch me crash and burn, the wine slot is in the second half of the
program, which runs from 5 pm- 6 pm on Channel 4. If you'd like to
taste along, you'll need to arm yourself with Chivite's 2003 Gran
Feudo Rosé, which I'm relieved to report is quite nice. I'm looking
forward to it. I think it will be a fun experience.
Monday 22nd November
Some weekend wines. First up, a Quinta
do Crasto Touriga Nacional 1996, which I’d cellared for a
few years since a purchase from Oddbins Fine Wine, for around £15. It
was better than I expected, with dense, savoury, spicy fruit. In those
days the wines were made by David Baverstock and this saw only French
oak. Next, two Beaujolais Nouveau samples which reminded me that I
don’t really like Beaujolais Nouveau. Light and confected. If you
want a bright, fruity, fun wine then you’re better off with the next
one, the Forrester’s Petit Pinotage 2004 from
South Africa
. Pinotage often sucks, but this one I like, with its juicy, vibrant
plumy fruit with a nice savoury tang. Brilliant value at under a fiver
from Tesco, and the pink label suits the wine well. Slightly
disappointing was the Errazuriz Shiraz 2003: this had bags of
sweet, spicy fruit but there was a green herbal streak (some
unripeness?) that was very Chilean, and the 14.5% alcohol made its
presence felt. High alcohol is a real problem, not so much for its
physiological effects, but more for its impact on sensory properties
of wines so affected. Entering the home strait we have the Chivite
Gran Feudo rosé 2003 from Navarra. I like this, which is a good
job because it’s the wine I’ll be discussing on the Richard and
Judy wine club this Friday. Nice strawberry and raspberry fruit with a
lovely savouriness. Two more to come: a Zenato Valpolicella
Superiore 2001 entertained at an Italian restaurant on Saturday
night with its dense, earthy, spicy fruit (at £13.50 not too bad a
value), and the Grahams 1997 LBV is all you could ask of an LBV
that’s selling for less than £8 at Tesco: tasty enough without
being profound. And City
won 3-1 away to Portsmouth.
Wednesday 17th November
Three wines tonight, all white, all 2003 vintage, all from the
same part of France – the Roussillon – all hovering around the £20
mark, and all fantastic. They were Sam Harrop and Tom Lubbe’s Matassa
(whose red I've already raved about), and two from Gauby – the
La Soula and the Vieilles Vignes. The common thread was a defined
streak of minerality to the rich, distinctive fruit flavours. These
were very fine wines, although I didn’t take detailed notes.
However, the wines weren’t the focus of the evening: I was meeting
with Jancis Robinson and her assistant Julia Harding (herself an MW,
achieved in record time) to discuss any contributions I might be able
to make to the 3rd edition of the Oxford Companion to Wine, round at
Jancis’ very elegant house in Belsize Park. I’m utterly flattered
to be involved in a small way with this fantastic, iconic publication,
and if I play my cards right there may even be one or two entries with
the initials ‘JAG’ (JG is already taken) after them. I’m sure
Jancis doesn’t need any more accolades, but my suspicion that she
really is one of the nicest and most friendly people in the wine trade
has been confirmed.
Tomorrow night I’m out again, this time my first
visit to Gordon Ramsay’s Michelin three-starred joint at Claridges.
Fortunately, I’m not picking up the tab – it’s another winemaker
dinner. I’ll report back, but you can’t do a proper restaurant
review when you are going to an organized dinner as someone’s guest.
If you could, I’d be able to put a rather swanky restaurant reviews
section on this site, because I’ve been lucky enough to be
entertained at some nice gaffs over the last couple of years (Richard
Corrigan’s Lindsay House, Roussillon, Sketch, Alaisdair Little, The
Capital Hotel, Moro, Smith’s at Smithfield, The Sugar Club to name
some names). My only problem is with these wine dinners is that being
the geek I am I tend to focus on the wines, and in doing them justice
I sometimes neglect the food a bit. This was the case at the Dirk
Niepoort dinner a few months ago held at The Capital, just a
two-star joint (the ‘just’ is meant as a joke, by the way). The
food was fantastic, but I was distracted by the remarkable wines,
which is why I was invited in the first place.
Thursday 11th November
A week and a bit on with the new laptop, and I’m beginning to
grow fond of it. The wireless network connection is great – I’m on
a train now and could connect to the internet if I wanted, although
the signal will fade in a few seconds as we leave the station.
Technology rocks. But I’m not an early adopter – I wait for the
price to drop a bit and the flaws to be ironed out. It takes a while
to get used to new devices like laptops and digital cameras, but
usually the shift brings with it added utility.
Two tastings this week have been noteworthy. The New
Douro tasting was fantastic, with a superb turnout and some
brilliant wines. It was nice to see so many familiar faces - people
I’ve met in the Douro before, now coming over to
London
. As Danny Cameron of Raymond Reynolds pointed out, if the tasting had
been held three years ago no one would have come, apart from wierdos
like me. The fact that it was so well attended shows that the region
is beginning to come of age as a source of some top table wines. It
will be a while before we really see the best from the
Douro
, though. It’s an exciting prospect.
Then, today, I went to a Wines of South Africa tasting
focusing on Sauvignon Blanc and Rhône varieties. As I walked in,
Peter May came over to me and offered to pour me a glass of the
Fairview Pegleg Carignan 2003, which I’ve been critical of in the
past. It was nice to catch up with him – Peter is turning into an
unofficial ambassador of South African wines and in particular his
beloved Pinotage. The Sauvignon Blancs were very impressive, overall,
with a few real standouts, including wines from Cape Point, Steenberg,
Thelema and Klein
Constantia.
South Africa
does Sauvignon very well indeed. I also tried all the Syrahs, and
found a slightly more mixed bag. Standouts included the Columella
from Eben Sadie, Tom Lubbe’s Observatory, Fairview’s Solitude and The Foundry. There were some that were a
bit jammy and sweet, though, and a couple with a strong herbal streak.
The signs are that Syrah is on a bit of a roll in South Africa, although prices seem to be creeping up (Columella is £38!). Two of
the reds had low level taint, and I think the organizers thought I was
being a bit fussy pointing it out. But I guess that's because all the
bottles are tasted before being put out - both times though, the fresh
bottle opened was better than the first, and the winemaker present
agreed that there was some low level taint present. TCA is a bugger:
my philosophy is if I have the slightest doubt, then it is best to ask
for another bottle. Inevitably taint reveals itself in
comparison. It does surprise me though, when dozens of
professionals have already tasted the wines, that no one spots the
taint. Is this a threshold issue, or just that people aren't
concentrating or haven't trained their palates to pick it
out.
Tuesday 9th November
The wine trade calendar has quietened down a bit. Well,
a lot actually. Tastings tend to come in batches: organizers suspect
that if they bunch them all together in blocks, then they’ll be able
to entice more people, as many out-of-towners will stay in London
for the week when there’s enough going on. This means that during
busy weeks, there are often two or more important tastings per day,
with Tuesday to Thursday favoured over Monday and Friday. However, the
tactic of putting on a tasting during a quiet week can also work well;
today’s New Douro tasting is an example of an important event made
all the more inviting a proposition for catching journos at a quiet
time, when it won’t be just another event in an overloaded schedule.
Certainly, for me this is a must-attend event, given my love of the
Douro.
Popped into Jeroboams last night, on Elizabeth Street. It’s in a relatively swanky part of town –
Belgravia
, the nice bit near Victoria Station – so it carries a nice array of
ready-to-drink classed growth clarets. I like the Jeroboams range:
it’s a little different to some of the other independents, whose
ranges can sometimes have a rather off-the-peg feel to them. I bought
just a solitary bottle: Billaud Simon’s Tête d’Or Chablis,
vintage forgotten. They’re one of my favourite Chablis producers,
along with DE Defaix and the usual suspects of Fevre, JM Brocard,
Raveneau and Dauvissat.
I can’t allow the subject of Sunday’s Manchester
derby to pass without comment. Non-football fans, please forgive me.
City were fantastic, putting on a superb defensive display. United had
a dozen or more good chances, but couldn’t get through. On another
occasion it could have been a 5–0 drubbing, but City seem to be
growing up as a side, and it’s about time they had the luck. A 0–0
scoreline suggests a dull stalemate, but it was anything but.
Champions league, here we come. UTD for a relegation dogfight!
That’s too much to hope for.
Monday 1st November
November already? I'm shocked. Saturday was a nice winey day. I
was fortunate to be able to combine the wine bits nicely with some
family time. On a glorious sunny Autumn day we all headed into town,
and while the nippers went off to visit HMS Belfast, I popped into the
Lay & Wheeler festival of wine at nearby Vinpolis. A well-run
event let down only by the staggeringly ungenerous micropours (a
couple of times I couldn’t take notes because I didn’t have enough
wine in my glass to assess properly).  There
were some interesting wines on show. It was surprising, but I guess
reassuring, that the busiest table was the one shared by Maximin
Grunhaus and Fritz Haag, two of the finest producers of German
Riesling. After a couple of hours slurping and spittings, I met up
with the family for a nice lunch at Café Rouge (washed down with a
glass of Alain Brumont’s sturdy Tannat Merlot), and we then took the
Jubilee Line down to South Kensington. While the nippers headed off to
the playground at Kensington Gardens, I made merry at the Grand Cru
Wines Southern French Wine Fair at Jury’s Hotel. There was a superb
line-up of wines from across the various southern appellations, and
producer Robert Creus (right) was there pouring his wonderfully
individual Terre Iconnue wines. I had a good chat with him. There’s
a nice story here: last week I’d been discussing the Languedoc
versus France’s Best tasting on one of the wine
boards, and then it turns out he's going to be at the Grand Cru wine
event I'm attending
the next weekend. It's nice merging the online world with real life
like this.
Friday 29th October
Forgot to mention last Saturday's wine
dinner. It was a fantastic event held by wine lover and friend of Dirk
Niepoort, John Crook. I first met him in Porto last March, and he
kindly invited me to his gaff for what I suspected would be an evening
of fine wine and very smart food, and I wasn't wrong. The list of
wines was as follows:
-
Munsterer
Dautenpflanzer, Riesling, Auslese, 1976, Staatliche
-
Redoma
Branco, 1996, Niepoort
-
Batard-Montrachet,
1986, Blain-Gagnard
-
Batard-Montrachet,
1983, Blain-Gagnard
-
Vosne-Romanee
Suchots, 1983, Mongeard-Mugneret
-
Grands-Echezeaux,
1983, Mongeard-Mugneret
-
Clos
de Vougeot, 1983, Mongeard-Mugneret
-
Tokaji,
5 Putts, 1993, Royal Tokaji Wine Company
-
Malvazia,
1901, Adegas Torreao
All
were served blind, which led to some heroic guessing. The Riesling was
lovely with good balance and weight. Dirk's Redoma Branco 1996 had me
guessing at a very smart, high-end white Burgundy, and I preferred it
to the two Batard Montrachets, of which the 1986 wasn't showing as
well as the fantastic 1983. The three MMs were all very high quality
red Burgundies drinking at what I suspect is close to peak. The Tokaji
was a tiny bit disappointing, but the 103 year old Madeira was
fantastic. Breathtaking complexity and balance, a sensational wine.
John's cooking is superb and complemented the wines well - a fine
evening.
I
don't make a habit of blogging on all my mealtimes, but I should
mention that I had lunch on Wednesday with Neal
Martin, the Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones of the wine world. Neal
is an emerging wine website star, and it was nice to catch up with
him, made a doubly enjoyable occasion by the fantastic Sashimi we had,
washed down with a few glasses of green tea (we youngsters - a
relative term - haven't got the constitution of the older members of
the wine trade who'd clearly have polished off a couple of bottles of
wine on such an occasion).
Wednesday 27th October
 Don’t
dismiss synthetic corks altogether. They’ve had a bad press: in the
AWRI closure trial several synthetics were tested, and most did pretty
badly. Their oxygen transmission characteristics meant that within a
year or two the wines were oxidised quite badly. The problem has been
that it’s difficult to replicate the natural performance of cork. If
the seal is provided by synthetics is good enough, it’s impossible
to get them out. But this conclusion is too simplistic. Not all
synthetic corks are equal, and there are three on the market which
seem to have superior properties, Nukorc, Nomacorc and Neocork. These
three closures don’t just have similar sounding names, they also
look similar. They have an extruded core (which looks like a fine
honeycomb) and a smooth sleeve. In the case of the Nomacorc and
Neocork, the sleeve is separate from the extruded core and wraps round
it during the manufacturing process. The Nukorc a one piece design,
with the outside becoming smooth and denser during manufacture. All
three seem to have better oxygen transmission characteristics and
aren’t going to let the wine oxidise within a couple of years. While
it’s true that screwcaps are a good option for most wine styles,
there are plenty of wines for which a synthetic could be a good
closure choice, and the advantage is that smaller producers don’t
have to change their bottling line in order to adopt them. I’m led
to point this out because last night I had a St Joseph 1999 from
Pierre Gaillard and it was singing: I bought a case of this wine a
couple of years ago and was surprised to find it sealed with a
synthetic cork – in this case a Neocork. I’d followed the
discussion on alternative closures closely and didn’t hold out much
hope for the longevity of this wine because of the synthetic closure.
So when I pulled out the last couple of bottles a few days ago I was
expecting them to be showing badly. Not so: this is a five year old
red sealed with a synthetic that’s currently drinking superbly, with
no sign of oxidation. Of course, a single data point isn’t much used
to anyone. A negative data point – the wine being off – wouldn’t
have told me much. But the fact that it was drinking well reveals a
whole lot more: it means that certain synthetics can provide a
reliable seal for rather chunky red wines for a number of years, and
certainly long enough for most ‘commercial’ wines.
There is, however, one small cloud that still hangs over
synthetics. Flavour scalping. This is when aromatic compounds are
absorbed by the closure (or, in the case of food, the packaging). The conclusion of a recent study was that synthetic
corks are responsible for considerable flavour scalping, and even
natural corks are capable of absorbing certain wine aroma components
in limited amounts. In contrast, screwcaps don’t absorb anything.
It’s a factor winemakers need to bear in mind when choosing
closures.
Sunday 24th October
 Wine
out of a beaker. What next? Famous glass-maker Riedel have launched a
range of new stemless wine glasses for 'informal' dining. I picked up
a couple of the Syrah glasses (pictured) from the Riedel shop in
Vienna airport, and I'm thinking of using them as my regular wine
tasting glasses. Why not? Stemless glasses work just as well as
traditional ones, and they are more practical than glasses with bits
sticking out of the bottom that are liable to get broken. The only
argument against them I can think of is that some people object to
fingermarks on the bowls of their glasses (they should lighten up a
bit...) and they could argue that if you hold the bowl in your clammy
mit it might change the temperature of the wine. The major hurdle is a
psychological one - it takes a while to get used to drinking top wines
out of beakers.
The
wine pictured is a Weninger Blaufrankisch 2003, recently listed by
Oddbins for £6.95. It's a good example of Blaufrankisch with good
acidity and smoky, slightly roasted dark cherry fruit. Full and fresh
- a wine that's best matched with food. Priced just right.
Friday 22nd October
Imbecile watch
A while back I claimed that anyone who liked the Fairview Peg Leg
Carignan 2003 was a bit of an imbecile. A slightly exaggerated
statement, but I got the point across: this is a wine that looked so
promising yet was ruined by the jamminess of the fruit and the
excessive sweet coconut and vanilla sheen of too much oak. An
imbecilic wine. I found out shortly after that the 2003 Goat Roti is
another imbecile’s wine – again, it’s the jamminess of the fruit
and rather obvious oak that’s the main problem. Have I got a problem
with Fairview? No. Last week I purchased a bottle of the Goats du Roam
in Villages red, and it was fantastic. Less oak (although still a fair
whack) and a lovely definition to the spicy, slightly rustic fruit.
But it works together very well, and this wine is packed with flavour.
I enjoyed it a good deal and will recommend it.
An observation: wine critics have an annoying habit of
trusting the reputations of producers more than their palates. They
look for a name like Fairview, or Torres, and it’s a banker for
them. They just recommend anything successful producers like these
make. With Torres the story is the same as with Fairview: some wines
are wonderful, some less so. As you’d expect. Torres make probably
the best value white on the planet, the 2003 Vina Sol. But expect to
see lots of recommendations for the 2003 Sangre de Toro, its red
sibling, because this is being pushed hard because of Torres’ 50th
anniversary. And while it’s not a completely imbecilic wine, it’s
distinctly average: a bit chunky, hard and forced. It’s not bad,
just not as good as some of the critics maintain. The Gran
Sangredetoro, once a favourite of mine, is moving towards imbecile
territory because of the coconutty American oak they’ve spoiled the
fruit with. The Vina Sol is the star, though. My point: like people,
wineries are capable of acts of beauty and ugliness, even closely
juxtaposed. There’s no simple formula.
So, I would like to start an imbecile watch. Have you seen
someone recommending the 2003 Peg Leg or Goat Roti? Do let me know.
Thursday 21st October
The talk of the trade at the moment is Richard and Judy’s new
wine club. This is the first time wine has had a proper airing on
telly for ages, and many are hoping that it could signal a resurgence
of interest in wine as a television subject. Richard and Judy is one
of Channel 4’s top programmes, with around 2 million tuning in every
evening from 5–6 pm. The publishing world has been amazed at the
success of their book club, and now the wine trade is hoping they’ll
have similar success with wine. The idea is that viewers will buy the
Richard and Judy tasting case (and thousands already have), and then
on Friday evening they’ll be able to taste along at home as the
wines are being poured in the studio with the assistance of the
show’s own wine experts. Wines are supplied by Avery’s, a mail
order specialist that now represents the slightly upmarket arm of the
Direct Wines empire.
Who are the experts? This is where I come in. The MD of
production company Cactus TV met with dozens of potential candidates,
but in the end they chose six of us – the idea is that we’ll be
paired up and each do two of the six programmes. We met on Tuesday
night at the press launch party, with R&J in attendance. The six
experts are Matthew Jukes, Susy Atkins, Joe Wadsack, Penny Boothman,
Jean-Marc Sauboua (French consultant winemaker who works with Avery’s), and myself. The six wine slots are
going to run from November 4th, and I’ll let you know when I have
more details.
Monday 18th October
I'm just back from a three-day trip to Austria.
Friday 15th October
I’ll soon be calling time on my trusty laptop. It’s going to be
replaced with a newer, faster, lighter, flashier model. This will be
my fourth laptop: the first two were IBM Thinkpads; I’ve now moved
on to Dells, not because they are any better – the Thinkpads, with
their Rolls Royce build quality, were fantastic to live with – but
because they are cheaper. Mind you, when I’d added everything I
needed onto the basic spec, the price of this new Dell had crept up
from £800 to a shade under £2000.
It’s a strange relationship we build with our electronic
devices. Initially they’re unfamiliar, yet we grow with them. I find
I develop an affectionate bond with my laptops, no matter how much
they mess me around – and this current model has messed me around a
good deal. It’s been flimsy and flaky, with the mouse in particular
proving very quirky. It also takes an age to boot-up, and is prone to
intermittent pauses where it doesn’t crash, but nor does it do
anything for a minute or two.
But after a few years of loading various bits of software
on, and tweaking it in numerous ways, and spending hours typing away,
I’ve got a lot of affection for it. A laptop is a bit like an
extension of the brain. As I write down my thoughts on my laptop,
I’m able to structure them and develop ideas in a way that just
isn’t possible inside my cluttered and easily distracted mental
space.
What would life be like without a laptop? How did wine
writers work in the pre-computer age? The answer is that the world of
wine writing was much more of a closed system in those days. Editors
had a lot of power. You could only really get established through
possessing good contacts within the wine writing world. The coming of
the internet has opened things up. Everyone can now be a wine writer
if they want to be. All you need is some webspace and you can start
writing away. Failing this, you can express yourself on a wine
bulletin board. Of course, not everyone can make money as a wine
writer, or have a decent readership. That’s a different matter. But
the opening-up of publishing that the internet has facilitated can
only be a good thing in the long run.
Thursday 14th October
Last night’s launch party for Monty Waldin’s new book—on
biodynamic wines, published by Mitchell Beazley—was a fun event. I
have a confession to make: after dozens of invites, this is only the
second book launch I’ve attended. But it was so much fun I think
I’ll go to more. I was, however, under the impression that you got a
copy of the book to take away with you - not so here. Instead, they
were flogging them for £20 a piece. What made last night fun was
firstly, there were lots of interesting people there; secondly, I’m
at the stage now where people actually want to speak to me (do you
detect a few shreds of insecurity there?); thirdly, there were an
assortment of biodynamic wines for people to try, including a lovely
Riesling from Marcel Deiss and a nice fizzy Vouvray from Huet (the
rest were distinctly ordinary – just why are Chapoutier’s wines so
underwhelming, for example?); and fourthy the nibbles were very nice.
Wine journalists generally fall into two camps about biodynamics.
They either love it or hate it. What they fail to do is address the
really obvious (to me) question: some of the claims of biodynamic
practitioners are rather bizarre and, in fact, somewhat antiscience.
Yet biodynamics works in many cases. Why? What is the scientific
explanation for the efficacy of biodynamic treatments? This is what
fascinates me. Can we come up with a version of biodynamics which
strips out the weirder, more bizarre elements and yet still has the
same beneficial effects? This would be tremendously useful to wine
growers. Say that three of the preparations have efficacy. These could
be used by non-believers to great effect, and if this reduced the need
for chemical inputs or had a beneficial effect on wine quality without
increasing chemical inputs, wouldn’t this be a good thing?
I’m currently in a state of general excitement. Tomorrow
morning, at the crack of dawn, I’m off to Austria to visit some of
the leading producers, including Weninger,
Stadt Krems, Kracher, Jurtschitsch and Schloss
Gobelsburg. I’m looking forward to it a great deal and I’ll
tell you all about it on my return.
Monday 11th October
Fairview’s Peg Leg and a St Chinian: satisfaction and
disappointment. Two wines that both promised much, but only one
delivered. Both looked good bets, and persuaded me they’d be worth
the money (both were a shade under £7, the Peg Leg from Majestic, the
St Chinian from Waitrose). First, Fairview’s Peg Leg Carignan
2003 from South Africa’s Paarl region. Nice label design,
usually reliable producer. The fact that it’s a Carignan is
promising: it’s an unfashionable grape popular in the South of
France where it can yield heroically. That anyone should be making a
varietal Carignan suggests they’ve got guts, at the very least. If
Syrah is Manchester United, Carignan is Manchester City. And you know
who I follow. I open it and pour a glass. Dark coloured. Looks good.
But I take a sniff and recoil back. They’ve killed this wine with
too much oak: all I’m getting is a blast of sweet fruit heavily
masked by sweet vanilla and coconut aromas. Yuk. On the palate, again,
there’s more ripe, almost jammy fruit and a whack of oak. It’s a
huge disappointment: a tarted-up wine lacking real savoury substance
and oaked within an inch of its life. It sucks. You'd have to be an
imbecile to like this wine. So I open another bottle, the Laurent
Miquel St Chinin Cuvée des Fees 2003. I’d chosen this from
Waitrose because I’d enjoyed the 2001 from this Languedoc producer,
and this was the first time I’d seen the 2003 on the shelves.
That’s better. A wonderfully perfumed nose of garrigue-like herbs
together with some sweet spicy fruit. It’s not a blockbuster on the
palate but it is wonderfully balanced, with lots of that lovely
garrigue quality and a nice savoury spiciness. I really want to drink
this wine, unlike the Fairview. The St Chinian is an intelligent,
thoughtful wine - it's Shakespeare while the Fairview is East Enders.
But I have a nagging feeling that the critics will be touting the
tarty Fairview in preference to the Languedoc wines because its
superficial appeal is an immediate one.
Wednesday
6th October
Tonight I’m drinking something
uncomplicated, cheap and very tasty. It’s the Peter Lehmann
Grenache 2002 from the Barossa, yours for a fiver from Tesco, or
just £4 in their current promotion. Grenache is undervalued and
misunderstood. These days, we seem to want our red wines as dark as
possible, but Grenache is a bit like a southern version of Pinot Noir:
lighter coloured Grenache wines are often more profound than the
darker ones. Grenache is capable of making wines with a beguiling
combination of heady sweet fruit aromas together with a lovely spicy,
minerally structure. It’s subtle, complex and more-ish when it is
done well. A distinctive feature of Grenache is that high alcohol
isn’t usually a problem: it doesn’t have a negative effect on the
personality of the wine, even at levels that would be unpleasant with
Shiraz or Cabernet, for example. In fact, one of the keys to success
with this variety is not picking by sugar ripeness, but letting the
grapes reach physiological ripeness without being scared by the
potential alcohol levels. The great thing about Grenache is that
because of its comparative unpopularity, it’s often pretty
affordable. Grenache rocks.
Sunday
3rd October
Just a brief update from the road. I’m in Trieste for four days,
staying in a pleasant hotel with a view of the Adriatic. It’s a nice
place, and the proximity to the Friuli wine
region means
that there’s plenty of good drinking to be had. This is the land of
Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia, Tocai Friuliano, Riesling and the two white
Pinots, plus some fresh, juicy reds. I like the wines a great deal,
and quality is generally pretty good. The night before last we had a
delicious Refosco and a nice Ribolla Gialla, and then last night it
was time for a Lagrein (not from this region, but a mountain red from
nearby Alto Adige) and a Tocai.
Lots of tastings to report on in the coming weeks. One of
the most interesting was Wednesday’s Languedoc versus France’s
best blind tasting put on by Mike and Liz Berry’s Grand Cru Wines. A
fascinating chance to taste Petrus 99, Chave Hermitage 01 and Leoville
Barton 01 blind in the company of some serious Languedoc wines.
Wednesday
29th September
Bugger. I’ve learnt my lesson. Completed my tax return for year
ending April 2004 last night. Should have done it earlier. The good
news? I earned approximately three times more than I expected from my
wine work last year – indeed, if I wasn’t living in London this
would be an OK full-time salary on its own. The bad news? I am living
in London, and we’ve spent the lot, so in January we’ll be looking
at an uncomfortably large tax bill, which we currently don’t have
the funds to settle. Don’t get the wrong idea – we haven’t been
living the high life. It’s just that we’ve gone way over-budget
renovating our house. I was curious how much we’d been able to do
without racking up the mortgage too far. Now I know why, and it’s a
case of lesson learned. I’ll just have to go out and earn some more.
Last night was Riesling night Chez Goode. In the red
corner, Tim Adams Clare Valley Riesling 2004. In the blue corner, Egon
Müller’s Schazhofberger Kabinett 1999 from the Mosel Saar Ruwer in
Germany. Both nice, but in completely different styles. For
interest’s sake I made a blend, half of each, in a glass. The mixing
process was fascinating – clearly the Egon Müller, with its high
residual sugar, was much more dense, and there was a swirly pattern as
the two encountered each other. The wines didn’t synergize at all
though, and both the nose and palate of the blend was dominated by the
savoury liminess of the Aussie. It wasn’t a nice drink and I don’t
think I’ll try this sort of experiment again.
Monday
27th
September
 Some
surprisingly good wines with Sunday lunch yesterday, round at my
brother-in-law’s with my parents. Old wines are a gamble, and so I
wasn’t expecting too much from the 1967 La Lagune we started
with. But it was all there: a classic aged claret and a joy to drink.
1967 isn’t a good Bordeaux vintage – the guidebooks would say all
the wines are now past it – but this was still alive. And it’s my
birth year, too. You can pick 67s up very cheaply from brokers’
lists. We then moved on to the 1970 Lafaurie Peyraguey, a
venerable old Sauternes that was very evolved, but still fun to drink.
To finish with, the 1997 Suduiraut was a little closed, but
very high quality. Suduiraut never fails to impress, it seems. Not bad
drinking for Sunday lunch. A thought: if you are prepared to take a
few risks, you could make an interesting drinking career out of buying
old and unfashionable wines from brokers and at auction. It is much,
much cheaper than ageing it yourself.
Château La Lagune 1967 Haut Medoc, Bordeaux
Quite fruity, very refined and still very much alive. Smooth
complex nose of earthy gravely fruit, with a subtle herby,
undergrowthy edge. The palate is perfectly balanced with savoury
earthy fruit. It’s the balance here that is the key. Drinking
perfectly. Very good/excellent 91/100
 Château
Lafaurie Peyraguey 1970 Sauternes, Bordeaux
A deep yellow brown colour. Rather muted nose. The palate is rich
and quite savoury with evolved butterscotch, caramel and nut
character. Quite a thick texture. Impressive in an evolved style. Herb
and tea notes, too. Very good+ 89/100
Château Suduiraut 1997 Sauternes, Bordeaux
Slightly closed nose. Very taut, complex palate with rich apricot,
caramel and lemon notes. Viscous, concentrated, sweet and smooth.
Rounded and delicious. Very good/excellent 92/100
Friday
24th September
I met Bibendum’s Willie Lebus for the first time today.
He had some fairly outspoken things to say about the current state of
wine writing (in the national press he thinks it is currently at an
all time low, largely because writers haven’t been able to stand up
to their editors), and the relevance of wine writing to normal people
drinking wine at home. He was also critical of large tastings and
competitions. Whenever I’m tasting at a press event, I’m always
trying to think how a wine would
perform in a more normal context, in a restaurant or at home, with
dinner or in front of the TV. It’s a continual challenge, and
regular double-checking of notes by drinking one of the wines at home
and seeing how my opinions correlate is helpful. I’d say I’m still
in the learning phase: I hate being described as a wine expert. I’m
just a guy who drinks a lot of wine and is lucky and privileged to
have some good contacts and a journalist’s access to the wine trade.
That’s all.
It’s currently the middle of the Autumn tasting season.
If you fancy it, you could spend a fortnight full-time attending
tastings. I’m rationing myself – I did Corney & Barrow, Tesco,
Vintage Roots and Bibendum this week, and next week will be M&S, a
Grand Cru wines event and Sainsbury. Shortly after, Majestic and Berry
Bros will, I think, complete my appearances. Tasting is important, but
you can overdo it. Most importantly, if you taste too many red wines
in a single session, your sense of touch in your mouth (which is how
we perceive tannic structure, or mouthfeel) is incapacitated.
Mouthfeel is very important for red wines: the interaction of the wine
tannins with salivary proteins is thought to be critical to tannin
perception, and if you taste too much, this may well be impaired
towards the end of a session.
Tuesday
21st September
More-or-less back into the
swing of things now. Still a few little bits and pieces to finish
regarding the book, and two outstanding commissions to finish, but
life seems a little less crazy: I don't feel as if every minute of my
existence has to be accounted for. It's important to get the balance
right; hard work must be coupled with down time and fun, and plenty of
the latter is needed.
Wandered past Haynes,
Hanson & Clark last night, a wine shop on Ecclestone Street at
the back of Victoria Station. I'd heard of them, but never been in, so
I made up for this oversight. A fine range: a bit of dull stuff (rant:
many independents tend to repeat themselves - stocking a rather
uniform range of wines - this is lazy, and inexcusable given the fact
that they all seem to be operating on a 40% profit margin. They should
show some imagination in their buying), but more than a handful of
wines you can't find easily elsewhere. I walked out with Victor de la
Serna's Finca Sandoval 2002 (which I recently enjoyed with Luis
Gutierrez) and also the second wine from this estate, Salia 2002.
Lots of other bottles tempted me, but they will have to wait.
Friday 10th September
Back in the UK. Got in yesterday morning at 6 am, and had a lovely
relaxed day, taking the kids to school and then nipping off for lunch
and a walk through Bushy Park. The restaurant we went to was the
Wharf, in Teddington, on the river front. It's a swanky place, popular
with LWL (ladies who lunch), of which there were a fair few present. I
marvel at the their love for designer sunglasses and the inanity of
their conversation. As for the Wharf, it serves decent quality bistro
fare and prices it at Michelin star levels (a common business model in
west London, and it seems to work), but we had a nice time and a
decent-ish South African Chenin to wash it down.
Last
night I was feeling pretty tired and decided to open something
uncomplicated. A Chilean Shiraz was in the queue - Castellero del
Diablo Shiraz 2003, a £5 wine, but one that tastes a bit more
expensive. It's got wonderful quality of fruit, bolstered with spicy,
tarry, slightly resiny new American oak. A headbanger of a wine. I'm normally not a fan of
American oak, but in this case it does work quite well, although
there's little finesse on show. The alcohol is disclosed as 14.5%, and
it comes through on the palate as a slight hotness and bitterness.
Perhaps a case where alcohol reduction by reverse osmosis might work?
I would be worried if I was knocking out commercial Aussie Shiraz at
£7.99 because this Chilean effort could easily pass off as something
more expensive.
Singapore
Airlines deserve a mention. If you have to fly economy (as I do on my
trips), theirs is pretty good. The entertainment system on three of
the four flights allowed a choice between 60 movies, which you can
start when you want and pause, forward and rewind as you choose. My
favourites in ranking order from the flight: Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkbahn
(sp?), Stepford Wives, Godsend, The Day After Tomorrow. Food was just
about adequate, wine was palatable.
Tuesday 7th September
Apologies for the radio silence over the last week, but this is
the first time I've had internet access since I hit Australia, partly
caused by a cluttered schedule, partly caused by the fact that my
Barossa digs had no phone line. I had a splendid time in the Barossa,
meeting a range of producers including Spinifex, Massena, Schwarz, Tin
Shed, Torzi Matthews, Teusner, Turkey Flat, Langmeil, Rockford, Veritas and Torbreck -
many
of whom you won't know about - yet. Some stunning wines. Then I hit
the Clare, spending time with Andrew and Jane Mitchell (who put me up,
and put up with me), Jeffrey Grosset and Tony Brady (Wendouree). All
will be written up here. I'm now staying with Richard Gibson, and soon
I'll be off for an appointment at the AWRI, followed by Provisor,
followed by one of Richard's clients, a closure manufacturer. Tomorrow
I fly home. It's been an eye-opening trip, and you'll read all about
it here.
Tuesday 31st August
Singapore day 4, and I’m getting used to the humidity, just about.
Last night I had another wine dinner with Yixin, Hsien Min, and this
time their friend Gavin. Between us we drunk a rather modest (by
offline dinner standards) five wines in a Chinese restaurant near the
Novena underground station. The strike rate was very high, beginning
with the sensational Krug. This works for me, baby. The wines also
matched the various dishes we had pretty well. Here are my notes.
Krug NV Champagne
This is fantastic. Delicate yet intense nose with slightly toasty,
lemony fruit. With time in the glass this becomes progressively more
toasty and rich. The palate has lovely crispness and long, minerally,
subtly toasty fruit. Almost perfect. Excellent 95/100
Schlossgut Diel Dorsheimer Pittermännchen Riesling Spätlese
2001 Nahe, Germany
Forward, sweet melony nose with some fine lemony notes. The palate
is rich and intense but still quite elegant with sweet melony fruit
and good acidity. This needs some time to put on complexity, but
it’s more like an Auslese in weight. Very good/excellent 92/100
Huet Vouvray Moelleux 1997 Loire, France
Hmm, yes – archetypal Vouvray here. Lovely intense straw-like
fruit with some herbiness and also a hint of cheesiness. The palate is
firm and savoury despite a whack of sugar that adds some considerable
weight. Certainly semi-sweet, but with good acidity and savouriness
too. A delicious wine. Very good/excellent 92/100
Alain Graillot Crozes Hermitage 1998 Northern Rhône,
France
Really drinking well now, this shows pungent olive and herb
character to the fairly lean, savoury red fruits. A distinctive style
of wine that I really like. Very good/excellent 91/100
Niepoort Vintage Port 1994
Dense, spicy, tannic and rich with some sweetness. Good complexity
but it’s far to young to be drinking this now. Lots of promise for
the future when it will merit a higher rating. A very good vintage
Port indeed. Very good/excellent 91/100
We
followed this up with more beer and some pool. Fun.
Sunday 30th August
I’m now in Singapore where I’ll be for a few days. Last night I
had an excellent wine dinner with Yixin Ong and some of his friends at
a restaurant called Soul Kitchen. It was a good evening with some
really interesting wines, including a 1996 Cour Cheverny that tasted
of old, flat cider, a remarkable Pouilly Fumé that Hsien Min (a
fellow Man City fan) brought along, a delicious Trimbach CFE 1999 and
a 1996 1er Trie Girardière from Aubuisieres. I took some brief notes,
although I can’t find them and can only deduce that I left them in
the sports bar we went to for some beer afterwards. I’m going out
with them again tomorrow night, which I’m looking forward to.
 On
arriving at my hotel yesterday morning I was appalled to see that it
has a Manchester United shop, restaurant and bar attached to it (right).
It’s sickening. Me, a blue, staying in a hotel that has allied
itself so shamelessly with the reds. I was encouraged to note
yesterday’s premiership results, though: UTD struggled to a draw,
but City hammered Charlton 4–0.
It’s hot here. Only the low 30s, but it feels much, much
hotter than this because of the energy-sapping humidity. I decided to
walk to the restaurant, yesterday – a gentle 40 minute stroll –
but by the time I got there my shirt was covered in large, unsightly
wet patches. Nice.
Friday 28th August
It's 00:08 hrs and I've just finished sending my book to Mitchell
Beazley. I could have done with another month to refine it even
further, but the danger is that it would then inevitably grow in size
as I found something so interesting I just couldn't leave it out. It's
a relief - I feel I might get my life back.
Tomorrow
morning I'm leaving for Singapore, followed by a promising looking
trip to South Australia, to meet some of the most interesting
producers in the Barossa and Clare, together with a meeting at the
AWRI (Australian Wine Research Institute). I'm very much looking
forward to the trip although I could do without the long flights and
ensuing jet-lag, and it means being away from home for quite a
while.
I
have a new digital camera. I've compromised and not gone for the state
of the art; but this is a compromise I'm happy with. The camera I
opted for was the HP
photosmart 945, an ugly-looking but highly capable beast that
offers some serious features for very little money (£230). Results so
far are fantastic.
Now
I've got to go and pack. How dull.
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