Peter Lehmann RIP
28 June 2013
The word ‘legend’ is bandied about with such tiring frequency these days that it is easy to lose sight of its true meaning. But not that easy. Those in the wine world keen to reacquaint themselves with what it really means only have to look at the life of Peter Lehmann, who passed away this week. Read More...
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Brilliant Reputation - Woeful Image
17 May 2013
You may have noticed that World Sherry 'Day' lasts for a week (20th to 26th May). I believe they got that idea from us here in Ireland where St Patrick's Day can last for 10 and, when the Celtic Tiger was roaring loudest, Christmas Day stretched towards three weeks on occasion. Read More...
The Road to Burgundy
14 May 2013
I first met Ray Walker at Domaine Dujac in Morey-Saint-Denis during harvest 2010, Tuesday 28th September to be precise. I was talking to Jacques Seysses, patriarch of the domaine, and Walker was standing off to one side. Read More...
ANZAC Dinner
25 April 2013
What better way to celebrate ANZAC Day than by organising a themed wine dinner with wines from Australia and New Zealand, and the food giving at least a nod to the Antipodes? That’s precisely what I did last weekend. Read More...
Barbeito Madeira
23 April 2013
For thrilling intensity of flavour there is nothing to beat Madeira. Nothing. So there was no way I was going to miss the Barbeito tasting, hosted in Pearl Brasserie, Dublin yesterday by Ricardo Diogo V Freitas and organised by Ally Alpine of Wines on the Green. Read More...
Bordeaux En Primeur
05 April 2013
The Bordeaux ‘en primeur’ circus is about to swing into action. Here’s my take on it, written earlier this year for publication in the April issue of Food & Wine Magazine:
It might not have made headlines on Sky or CNN but within the cosy little world of fine wine the news last year that Château Latour, one of the superstar names of Bordeaux, was withdrawing from the annual en primeur jamboree set tongues wagging and the twittersphere humming. Read More...
Wine Fraud!
05 March 2013
Fake: a thing that is not genuine; a forgery or sham.
Counterfeit: a fraudulent imitation of something else.
Call them what you will but the bottles of Domaine Ponsot wines consigned for sale at an Acker, Merrall & Condit auction in New York on 25th April 2008 were definitely not genuine. Most definitely not. Read More...
Screwcap - Cork's Saviour?
31 January 2013
The cork industry should welcome the Stelvin screwcap closure as a saviour, not a villain. A bold statement, yes, but picture this: when Food & Wine came on the scene 15 years ago cork ruled the roost; never was a screwcap seen in any of our tastings. But it was a despotic rule Read More...
Oz Shiraz
18 December 2012
The winemaker looked at me: “You don’t want to taste my wine, do you?” “No,” I muttered weakly, wondering what was coming next. “But you’d kill for a cold beer?” “Yes,” I hollered. Read More...
Go West
06 December 2012
When the dark days of January finally show some signs of brightening into spring, and a month of prayer and fasting draws to a close, it is time to go west for some much needed indulgence… Read More...
Show Stoppers
04 December 2012
Last weekend’s Food & Wine Magazine Christmas Show at the RDS attracted great crowds and from my point of view it was certainly the most successful to date. Never before have I had such a wide range of wines from which to choose my matches for the dishes being cooked by a host of Ireland’s leading chefs on the Chefs’ Stage. Read More...
The Douro Valley
28 November 2012
As befits the world’s oldest demarcated wine region, the Douro Valley makes mincemeat of any descriptive superlative hurled at it, no matter how poetic it might be. Established only by dint of soul-destroying toil in torrid summers and bitter winters, it can safely be asserted that if it was still virgin territory today nobody in their right mind would think of planting vines there. Read More...
Oh No - Nouveau!
15 November 2012
It is upon us again, one of the greatest marketing scourges ever visited on the wine drinking public, though I believe it has backfired on the producers in a way they would never care to admit. I speak of Beaujolais Nouveau. Read More...
Burgundy 2012
14 September 2012
I called to see Michel Lafarge in Volnay on 26th July last, with only one question that I really wanted to ask: Had he ever seen a year like this before? He didn’t have to consider long before answering no. And this from a man who started work at the family domaine in 1946. Read More...
Wine Diploma
13 September 2012
It has been some time in the pipeline but I am delighted to announce that this day four weeks the Diploma in Wine and Wine Culture at Independent College, Dublin kicks off for a 12-week ‘run’. Quoting from the College’s website: Read More...
Natural Wine
12 September 2012
The wine world always needs a fiery debate to sink its teeth into; under-garments were once tied in knots when the use, or overuse, of new oak was discussed; then came the cork v screwcap debate, which now simmers on a back burner, allowing for rational rather than hot-headed debate. Step forward ‘natural’ wine Read More...
Neil Armstrong RIP
10 September 2012
News of Neil Armstrong’s recent death brought the memories flooding back, not just from that historic day in 1969 when he became the first man to walk on the moon, but also of a splendid bottle of Burgundy drunk to celebrate the 40th anniversary of that historic moment on 20th July 2009. Read More...
Burgundy Blues
21 June 2012
“When sorrows come…” Poor old Burgundy! As if the battering endured for the last decade – thanks to the scandal of premature oxidation – wasn’t enough, she now finds herself in the headlines again for all the wrong reasons. Read More...
Burgundy - UNESCO
21 May 2012
Readers familiar with John B Keane’s play The Field have an advantage when it comes to understanding the wine region that can easily claim to be the world’s most fabled: Burgundy. Burgundy is a state of mind as much as a name on a map and its citizens are characterised by a visceral attachment to the land; you could be forgiven for thinking that if some of them stood still for long enough they would put down roots. Read More...
Tasting at La Mission
14 May 2012
Last Friday was gloriously sunny in Bordeaux, perfect for a stroll through the vineyards at Château La Mission Haut-Brion where the recent renovations are now complete. Meanwhile, across the road at sister property Château Haut-Brion, a major restoration programme is underway, meaning that it is closed to visitors and the wines of both châteaux are tasted at La Mission. Read More...
Wine Investing
02 May 2012
During Ireland’s property boom it was said that to be a successful developer you needed a spine of steel, with another part of your anatomy cast in iron. Or was it the other way around? It hardly matters, for investing in a turbulent, overheated market requires nerve and verve. It is not for the faint hearted. Wine is no different, except in one critical respect: if the bottom falls out of the market you can always drink the wine; eating share certificates or dining on bricks and mortar is not such an enticing prospect. Read More...
Wine Sale Prices???
02 March 2012
Two days ago I received a press release announcing details of a fine wine sale running simultaneously in some of Dublin’s best wine shops such as Redmond’s in Ranelagh, Thomas’s in Foxrock, 64 Wine in Glasthule, Gibney’s in Malahide and McHugh’s of Kilbarrack Rd and Malahide Rd. My eye was immediately caught by the De Bortoli Shiraz Viognier 2007 from Australia’s Yarra Valley. Over the years this wine, and its predecessors from a number of vintages, has done remarkably well in Food & Wine Magazine tastings. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it has consistently been the highest scorer in the magazine’s 15-year history. Read More...
Auction Time
13 December 2011
Included in tomorrow’s ‘Wish List’ auction at Adam’s, St Stephen’s Green are a couple of dozen lots of wine, after the jewellery and the fur coats. I cannot speak with any authority on the quality of the gems or the minks but anyone seeking a fine wine bargain would need to tread carefully. There’s some good stuff here, no doubt, but there are some right clunkers too. Read More...
What Price Half Price?
12 December 2011
They’re all at it now. First it was Tesco, now O’Briens have jumped on the Taittinger “half price” bandwagon, offering the champagne at €29.99, down from a notional €59.99. Let’s get one thing straight: nobody has EVER paid €59.99 for a bottle of Taittinger Brut Réserve champagne in an Irish off licence. It was Tesco who first started telling porky pies about the full price and, while I find it perfectly understandable that O’Briens would want to match them on price in the lead-in to Christmas, I don’t understand why they feel it necessary to try and fool their customers into believing that Taittinger once cost €59.99. Just sell it for €29.99 and leave it at that. Read More...
Gold Star Wines
07 December 2011
The National Off Licence Association (NoffLA) runs a tasting every year to select its ‘Gold Star’ wines, which are then heavily promoted in all the members’ stores. The wines are divided into categories such as: ‘New World Red under €8’, ‘Old World White under €14’ and so forth. The resulting selection, which runs to 15 wines this year, can be a bit hit and miss because a selection such as this is only as strong as the best of the wines submitted by suppliers for consideration by the judges. So if there is a weak field in a particular category then the ‘winner’ will be weak also. That said, there can be some real treats as well. Read More...
Shackleton's Whisky
06 December 2011
As a youngster I had a big “Explorers’ Map of the World” on my bedroom wall, with the routes taken by the great explorers traced out in different colours across land and sea. It was also bordered by small pictures of Peary, Scott, Amundsen… and one that caught the eye ahead of all the others: Ernest Shackleton. Square-jawed, purposeful, authoritative. Even the name had a solid, reassuring ring to it and I have always been happy to claim that this native Irishman was the greatest Antarctic explorer of them all. Read More...
Man o' War
05 December 2011
Kiwi fruit, sheep, teak-tough rugby players, great runners… but wine? It is hardly 30 years since that would have been the reaction had you suggested that New Zealand might be capable of producing world-class wine. And then Sauvignon Blanc came along and changed everything. There has been no looking back since then, though I for one have long tired of strident Sauvignons with electric-shock flavours and little else. Not that they are needed any more, for the Kiwi standard is now carried by Pinot Noir and Syrah and it is my prediction that this pair will take the reputation of New Zealand wine to places that no Sauvignon ever could. Read More...
Bonneau du Martray
02 December 2011
The hill of Corton sits, serene and squat, above the villages of Pernand-Vergelesses, Aloxe-Corton and Ladoix-Serrigny in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or. Topped by forest and swaddled by vineyards it rises to a height of 350 metres and is the most distinctive natural feature for miles around. It lends its name to one of Burgundy’s most fabled white wines, Corton-Charlemagne, and also a red, Corton, whose reputation is less assured. The emperor Charlemagne is said to have owned vineyards here but today the most famed proprietor is the Domaine Bonneau du Martray whose holding extends to 11 hectares. Read More...
Adolfo Hurtado: Pinot Master
30 November 2011
I first met Adolfo Hurtado about 10 years ago and the passage of a decade since then has done nothing to curb the boyish, infectious enthusiasm he brings to his job as chief winemaker at Cono Sur in Chile. More recently we cycled through the vineyards as he explained his meticulous viticultural practices, which see flocks of geese marching imperiously around the vineyard and a dazzling blanket of cover crops planted between the rows of vines. Read More...
Graham's Port
15 November 2011
Cussed colonels fulminating from the safe depths of overstuffed leather armchairs may have given port a bad image, with the result that young wine drinkers probably regard a glass with as much suspicion as they would one of hemlock. If so, they are missing out on one of the most glorious transmutations ever achieved with the juice of the grape. A great glass possesses glowing depths of flavour allied to a satin texture and memorable length on the finish. A poor one, like poor wine anywhere, is thin and forgettable. Read More...
Beaujolais Noveau
14 November 2011
In all of recorded history has there ever been invented a more effective two-edged sword than Beaujolais Nouveau? Beaujolais’ image was plumped up into the stratosphere while its reputation had the legs cuts from under it. The result was that, yes, the whole wide world got to know of a wine called Beaujolais – while also learning that it was cheerful quaffing plonk and no more. And sometimes not that cheerful either. Read More...
Natural Wines II
28 October 2011
Here follow my tasting notes from last week’s Le Caveau tasting of a selection of ‘natural’ wines, the weakest part of which was the use of the term ‘natural’. Someone is going to have to come up with a better descriptor than this. ‘Real’ isn’t great but I think it is better than ‘natural’, with all its touchy, feely baggage. But it is the wine in the bottle that counts most and these were gloriously characterful expressions of the winemaker’s art, about as far removed as they could be from the endless parade of Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Grigios and their ilk that the world is swamped with at present. If they had one thing in common it was a fresh texture allied to a commendable lack of ‘weight’ or density of flavour and, in the case of the reds, a generally lighter colour than the inky purple-black that seems to be all the rage these days. Read More...
Natural Wines
25 October 2011
My faith in wine has been restored. For weeks now, since the start of the tasting ‘season’ in September I have attended tasting after tasting, approaching them with dread and leaving them with boredom. Why do so many wines have to be so safe, so bland, so boring and so technically ‘perfect’ that they hardly warrant a single-word tasting note? There are some that could have their note written in advance and would need no more than a five per cent adjustment after tasting. I wrote of one recently: “Featureless wine, no character.” Is this what wine has come to? Read More...
What Price Taittinger?
13 October 2011
I recently attended a ‘Family of Five’ press tasting hosted by Tesco in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Dublin, showcasing wines from five producers across the globe. The members of the quintet are all well known: Taittinger, Louis Jadot, CUNE, Errazuriz & Villa Maria. Most of the wines were pleasant enough but this is not intended as a report on the tasting, replete with tasting notes and so forth. Rather, it is intended to highlight a pricing anomaly that defies comprehension. Read More...
Big but Balanced
13 October 2011
With regard to high alcohol wines the ‘big but balanced’ argument is one that I have never bought. So what if it is balanced? That only makes things worse, for there is no hot prickle of alcohol on the finish to warn you that this one’s a monster – you will have to wait until the following morning to discover that. Masses of fruit, masses of tannin, masses of alcohol, masses of oak, masses of mass. Sure, it is balanced, but only in the sense that an Olympic super-heavyweight weightlifter is balanced. What about a bit of elegance? Read More...
Buenos Aires Dining
02 October 2011
“We will be interested to hear what changes you notice.” I arrived back in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1999 just two days ago and I have already lost count of the number of people who have said that to me. The first and most obvious change is the dining scene. My memory of 12 years ago is of an avalanche of doorstop steaks and little else. Today, an avalanche of new restaurants sees steak still on the menu but it has been joined now by a host of other delectable dishes. Read More...
Burgundy Harvest Fare
14 September 2011
The harvesters’ dinner at Aubert and Pamela de Villaine’s eponymous Bouzeron domaine takes place at 7.30pm each evening and is announced by a hand-held and enthusiastically rung bell – of the sort that used to do service in schoolyards across the world. Unlike the pupils’ reluctant retreat from the schoolyard, however, the bell here summons an immediate response and soon a veritable United Nations of harvesters descends on the long table. They come from Poland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Canada, Italy, Spain and France and on the evening I visited they sat down to a meal of white bean soup, girolles tart, cold roast pork, salad, cheese, ice cream and chocolate sauce. Read More...
Chassagne Cycle
13 September 2011
“Écouter moi!” barked the vineyard supervisor as a dozy grape carrier failed to respond quickly enough to instructions about precisely which group of pickers he should be collecting grapes from. The shout had the dual effect of emboldening the hapless worker and shattering the rose-tinted spectacles through which I had been viewing proceedings up until then. Picking grapes is hard, grinding work, only imbued by dewy-eyed onlookers with some sort of bucolic romance, not by the pickers themselves. It was late afternoon on a baking day in Burgundy, with the mercury touching 30ºC and I could partly empathise with the pickers, as I had rashly decided to explore the village and vineyards of Chassagne-Montrachet by bicycle. Read More...
Conkers and Richebourg
12 September 2011
The wind was whipping the conkers from the chestnut trees at Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair in Vosne-Romanée last Wednesday morning as I walked past, prompting a wimpish dash to the other side of the road to escape them. (You might have done the same if you had seen them bursting apart as they hit the road.) My destination was just a few yards further along rue du Château, where perhaps the most diligent sorting team in the world was hard at work, picking out anything that was sub-standard amongst the bunches of grapes that today are now well on their way to making Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s Richebourg 2011. Read More...
Boisset Harvest
07 September 2011
“This year the sorting table will be the key.” So said Gregory Patriat, wine maker at JC Boisset, when I called to see him last Friday morning in Nuits-St-Georges, just a few hours before he was due to commence the 2011 harvest, starting in Beaune Grèves. With him having only 15 minutes to spare I managed a few rapid-fire questions before he dashed away again to see that was all was in order prior to the off. In terms of the amount of sorting that will be required Patriat reckons that 2011 is similar to 2004. Continuing, he expressed bewilderment that some people had already finished harvesting: “They must be magicians.” He could have started the previous Monday but was glad that he had waited a few extra, sunny, days – necessary to dry the grapes after the 30mm downpour a week earlier. Read More...
Good Grapes
06 September 2011
“À table!” hollered Mark Haisma in French yesterday morning at 11.49, prompting his sorting team to move from the makeshift table they had been using back to the more conventional mechanical one, now repaired having ground to a halt earlier. With the noise from the ghetto blaster at conversation-drowning volume it’s a wonder anybody heard him. That, together with the Coopers Original Pale Ale in the fridge, might leave you thinking you had stepped into an Australian winery, and not one on the outskirts of Gevrey-Chambertin. Don’t be fooled. Haisma knows his stuff and his wines are far removed from the brash palate-thumpers you might expect. Read More...
Fire at Château de France
23 July 2011
I am currently visiting the Graves region of Bordeaux, arriving last Tuesday, just after a serious fire at Château de France near the village of Léognan. Though not as well known as the heavyweight names of the region, such as Haut-Brion, de France is an immediately recognisable property because of the distinctive, yellow-painted château that catches the eye as you drive south from Léognan on the D651. Read More...
Wine Australia Tasting
27 May 2011
In order to ‘prepare’ as fully as possible for last Monday’s mammoth annual Australian tasting I opened our penultimate bottle of Peter Lehmann Stonewell Shiraz 1993 and drank it with lunch the day before. In the days when you still could carry wine in your hand luggage my wife had brought home a couple of bottles, after playing at the Barossa Valley Music Festival about 15 years ago. Stonewell sits at the top of the Lehmann portfolio but a big vertical tasting conducted in Dublin last year by winemaker Andrew Wigan left some doubts as to how well it ages. Read More...
Pure Penfolds
13 May 2011
Tasting Penfolds wines in the company of chief winemaker Peter Gago is always a treat and I still have wonderful memories of a wine dinner he presented in Dublin at my invitation two years ago. On that occasion he arranged for a splendid quintet of reds to be shipped direct from the company’s cellars in Australia and the 100 or so wine lovers in attendance that night still talk fondly of the event. But we can’t always be so spoiled and yesterday morning, along with some colleagues, I had the enjoyable task of participating in a live webcast tasting, featuring Peter and colleagues in Adelaide, and beamed around the world to Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, Sweden, China, Thailand, Singapore… Read More...
Riesling & Foie Gras
11 May 2011
On the page it read like a train crash, on the plate it looked more appealing and on the palate it sang like a nightingale, especially when matched with a glass of JJ Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 2008, introduced by the lady herself, Katharina Prüm. I speak of a dish described as: “Scallops in a foie gras and spaghetti shell,” served at dinner last week in the Brasserie les Saveurs at the St Regis Hotel in Singapore. In short, it was the best dish I enjoyed over the course of five days spent at the Far East’s gastro-fest, the World Gourmet Summit. Read More...
Anthony Worrall Thompson at WGS
30 April 2011
It is the throwaway remarks rather than the masterclass itself that makes an hour or two spent in Anthony Worrall Thompson’s company memorable, and the audience earlier today, here at the World Gourmet Summit in Singapore, weren’t complaining. Time and again the cookery demonstration took a back seat as he gave his opinion on all matters culinary, by way of anecdote, tale and joke. Somehow at the end of it all he managed to produce cauliflower and courgette fritters, fish fingers, stuffed aubergine and, quirky to the end, ‘prawn lollipops’. Read More...
World Gourmet Summit - Singapore
29 April 2011
I have just landed in Singapore where I will be spending five days, most of it reporting on the World Gourmet Summit, which is now in its 15th year. The summit is an ambitious, two-week-long, event that brings together a legion of celebrated chefs and winemakers from across the globe. It is the brainchild of Peter Knipp who hails originally from Germany. Read More...
Richter Riesling at l'Ecrivain
28 April 2011
The Riesling grape reaches its apogee in Germany’s Mosel Valley where, when handled skilfully, it produces wines of unparalleled excellence. Their signature is a thrilling electric charge of acidity that keeps even the sweetest nectars free of saccharine cloy, and bestows on all styles the ability to age and develop for decades. A noted master of the Mosel is Dirk Richter of Weingut Max Ferd Richter and he will be presenting a selection of his wines, matched to appropriate dishes from the able hand of Derry Clarke, at l’Ecrivain Restaurant, Dublin on Tuesday, 10th May. Read More...
Sherry Shopping in Spain
24 April 2011
The weather in southern Spain last week was appalling, resulting in the swimming togs and shorts remaining in the suitcase while the books and DVDs were pressed into service to pass the time. In addition, more time was spent shopping than would otherwise have been the case – sherry for me, clothes for my wife. We both came across some remarkable value. Read More...
Seeing Red: Chassagne-Montrachet
20 April 2011
What is the most overlooked red wine from Burgundy’s Côte d’Or? That’s a no-brainer in my book; it simply has to be red Chassagne-Montrachet. Mention the name to almost anybody outside the immediate region and they will start licking their chops in anticipation of glorious white wines, with nary a thought of reds. It is the ‘Montrachet’ in the name that does it. Read More...
Wooly Wine Speak
11 April 2011
I had a minor hissy fit while watching the Channel 4 news last Friday night. Apparently researchers have discovered a link between the consumption of alcohol and certain cancers. Once this news was announced various worthies were wheeled in to give us the benefit of their wisdom. More than once the term ‘a glass of wine’ was used, which was the red rag to this bull. Read More...
White Mischief
01 April 2011
You can tell by the colour. Honey-gold when it should be no deeper than full yellow. And the smell. Caramel, marzipan and nuts. In other words heavy, sweet and full, like a cheap perfume, with no ‘brightness’, no fruity tingle. The taste follows on dismally from this sad litany: lacking in life and ‘bounce’, usually low in acidity, plodding rather than fresh, fit only for flinging down the sink, certainly not to be sipped and savoured. I speak of prematurely oxidised white Burgundy. Read More...
Austrian Wine Marketing
31 March 2011
The-scandal-that-dare-not-speak-its-name has mercifully faded from memory and wine drinkers are finally beginning to assess Austrian wine on its manifold merits. Not before time. Much of the credit for this can be laid at the door of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, of whom I wrote recently: “Their methods can hardly be faulted and are sound rather than suave, based on solid facts and figures and not vacuous waffle or vague assertions of quality.” Read More...
Wine Sale at Dunnes
27 March 2011
Running until 12th April is the Spring Wine Festival at Dunnes Stores and included in it is a whole raft of wines at €5 per bottle, with another tranche at €6. Never, however, would the advice to ‘trade up’ be more apt than here, for by spending just another euro some tasty new world wines come onto the radar. Read More...
Pichon '29
27 March 2011
The Wall Street crash was just around the corner when the grapes for this wine were being harvested almost 82 years ago, so it seems fitting that it should be consumed with the world still staggering from the effects of the latest economic crisis. It was superb, so fine in fact, that it could have buoyed up the most troubled of spirits and banished, for a few moments at least, all fiscal woes. Read More...
Mouton Magnums
25 March 2011
“I hope the Mouton Collection is enjoyed by the new owner, who I believe is from Asia.” So said singer Chris de Burgh earlier today when I contacted him about the sale this week of an extremely rare collection, from de Burgh’s cellar, of magnums of Château Mouton-Rothschild spanning every vintage from 1945 to 2005. The price paid was £155,250 (€178,538, $251,660). Read More...
Mount Pleasant Mystery Solved
23 March 2011
Thanks to a swift response from the winery in Australia, delivered through Tesco, so thanks to them also, I am now able to clear up the confusion surrounding the labelling of the Hunter Valley Semillon that remains one of my favourite Australian wines, no matter what they call it. For the record it is now labelled as: McWilliam’s Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2005. The text of the message reads: Read More...
Sale! Sale! Sale!
23 March 2011
Spring has definitely sprung and, to celebrate, Ireland’s wine retailers are falling over themselves to attract custom by means of an enticing array of offers. First out of the traps is Mitchell & Son, Ireland’s oldest wine merchant, where everything is reduced by 20% until the end of this month. Read More...
Double Identity?
21 March 2011
I had a great response to my recommendation of the Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2005 last week, so much so that a number of people contacted me to say that their local Tesco store was sold out of the wine. All I could say by way of consolation was, “So was mine!” But that’s not all.
Read More...A Busy Bordeaux Lady
18 March 2011
Charming, articulate and very capable are just three descriptors that sit easily on the shoulders of Sylvie Cazes-Regimbeau, recently appointed as managing director of all the Louis Roederer properties in Bordeaux. This, in addition to her other role as president of the Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux, will make her a busy lady indeed. Read More...
The Last Drop
17 March 2011
I have just received a press release about a rarer-than-rare blended Scotch whisky of which only 1,347 bottles have been produced. It is called The Last Drop. In all probability this is a very fine whisky, which leaves me wondering why the people behind the marketing blurb felt the need to swamp the message about the spirit itself in a load of old hokum. Read More...
Gambal Expands
15 March 2011
The latest news from Burgundy’s Côte d’Or is that Alex Gambal, originally from the Washington DC area, but with his own domaine and negociant business in Beaune since 1997, has completed the purchase of some prized parcels of vineyard in the grand cru Bâtard-Montrachet, along with Puligny-Montrachet ‘Les Enseignères’ and Chassagne-Montrachet ‘L’Ormeau’. Read More...
Facelift at Fieuzal
10 March 2011
As you crest the small rise on the D651 coming south out of the village of Léognan the usually tranquil view is broken by a massive crane that towers over the vineyards.
Read More...Classy Bubbles
23 February 2011
“Is champagne wine?” I am asked again and again. Of course it is and the good stuff is the result of one of the most painstaking and labour intensive production processes anywhere in the wine world.
Read More...Domaine Leflaive
21 February 2011
An offer, received today from Corney & Barrow in London, for a mouthwatering array of white burgundies straight from the cellar of Domaine Leflaive prompted an indulgent bout of wishful thinking and brought back some memories too. Read More...
Showing Its Age: Part 2 Landmark Australia
18 February 2011
The 2010 displayed the off-putting cosmetic character that is the hallmark of very young Riesling and which mercifully fades after a year or so, like an adolescent losing puppy fat. If I were a winemaker I would never present a Riesling for tasting at this stage of its development. Read More...
Lazarus Lives!
31 January 2011
The long lunch is back, resurrected from the grave by the good people at Lock’s Brasserie, Sebastien Masi and Kirsten Batt. The simplest ideas are the best and what could be simpler than opening for lunch at 12.30 and remaining open right through until closing at the end of dinner service? (Thursday to Sunday inclusive.) Long lunchers are already beating a path to Lock’s door, the only problem being that they tend to put down roots and have to be gently coaxed from the tables come seven or even eight o’clock. Read More...
Showing Its Age: Part 1 Landmark Australia Tasting
27 January 2011
When new world wines are heavily favoured over their old world counterparts there is always a great default defence ready to hand: “But how will they age?” This is usually wheeled out as an ominous mutter rather than a question, prompting heads to nod wisely in assent. In truth it is the last line of defence against the fruit-driven ‘flavour bombs’ that are storming the mouth-puckering ‘correct’ wines. Clean flavours tend to be favoured over mean ones that “would be better with food” or which “will improve with a decade in the cellar.” This usually happens after some sort of a ‘comparative’ tasting, which would be best labelled ‘competitive’. It is seldom the best way to get a good appreciation of any wine. Read More...
Future Gazing - Wine to 2020
01 March 2010
I tend to bristle when people tell me that studying history is a waste of time: “All those dates and battles that you have to memorise – what’s the use of that?” I try to explain that it is much more than that, pointing out that the proper study of history enables us to see forward by looking back. Read More...
Mosel Magic
31 August 2009
Exactly six years ago I wrote: “…to evince an interest in wine in general while ignoring German Riesling is like claiming to study literature while disregarding poetry.” Those words remain as true today as they were then, yet an alarming number of wine drinkers continue to disregard the poetry. In Germany’s Mosel region (also known as Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) the poetry reaches a peak of perfection that is unmatched by any other wine region in the world. Reaching such heights, however, is no easy task and calls for a high-wire balancing act between sweetness and acidity. Veer in favour of the former and you end up with sugar-water. Over-emphasise the latter and the result is a teeth-jarring concoction utterly devoid of charm. Get it right and every sip of your wine tingles with excitement. Read More...
Herreth???
01 December 2006
“Herreth?” is the usual response when you mention to people in this part of the world that you are going to visit Jerez, the capital of sherry country. Sherry. Was there ever a wine more misunderstood and ill-served by its reputation? Read More...
