Super Semillon
31 May 2012
I had the great pleasure of leading an Australian Semillon masterclass at the recent Wine Australia tasting day in Dublin. It was no hardship, none at all. Ever since visiting the Hunter Valley in 1997 I have been an avid fan of the unique, chalky-dry-in-youth, toasty-in-age Semillons that are produced there. The net was thrown a little wider for this masterclass and, included in the half-dozen wines, were two from the Barossa, three from the Hunter and one sweet number from Riverina. Read More...
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Montebello Marvels
15 May 2012
At a wine dinner recently, amidst a host of other treasures, I was lucky to taste a trio of Ridge Montebello, one of California’s best and, shout it from the rooftops, most elegant wines. I have long tired of many of the sunshine state’s most lauded wines, finding their massive concentration and density of flavour too, well, massive. Many of them are like athletes who have been on steroids. Not Ridge. 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...
World Gourmet Summit - Singapore
09 December 2011
The double-decker Airbus A380 really is a big plane and you only realise how big as you wait in the departure lounge ready to board, along with hundreds of other passengers who, you tell yourself, must obviously be destined to board three or four separate flights. Not a bit of it. The plane easily swallows up a crowd that looks as if it could go a long way towards filling the Aviva Stadium. Apart from that it is pretty ordinary, much like any other plane, unless, that is, you are sequestered in luxury up front, a treat that will have to wait for the day I win the Lotto. 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...
Grüner Veltliner
27 June 2011
After a troubled childhood and adolescence, marked by temper tantrums and some impressively deep sulks, it can be reliably reported that Grüner Veltliner has now come of age. Only a fading echo remains of the querulous individual upon whom graciousness had to be forced and now we can rejoice in a well-rounded personality, which includes a welcome ‘edge’ where once it was completely dominated by it. A host of winemakers can take credit for the transformation but none more so than Laurenz Maria Moser, on whose shoulders the title ‘Grüner King’ would sit easily. Read More...
Value Bordeaux
22 June 2011
If the term ‘Value Bordeaux’ does not sound like an oxymoron in the current climate then I don’t know what does. The usual mad whirlwind of the en primeur campaign is in full, if slightly faltering, swing and, as ever, the prices set (demanded?) for the top wines are causing outrage and angst amongst the commentators. But it is easy to be dazzled by the fireworks and to lose sight of the big picture. Bordeaux is a vast wine-producing region and the châteaux that garner all the attention account for a minuscule percentage of the total output. There is still plenty of value to be had from Bordeaux, as I discovered at a recent tasting in Dublin. Read More...
Torres in Chile
16 June 2011
To Dunne & Crescenzi in Sandymount last Monday to meet Fernando Olmeda Ollé, Technical Director of the Torres winery in Chile. Founded in 1979, which is prehistoric in terms of the modern Chilean wine industry, Torres is of course linked to the ‘mother ship’ in Spain and their other outpost in California. I think it was 1998 when I first visited the Chilean operation and I was back again about 10 years later. This time around the mountain came to Mohamed (ahem) and, as ever, I found the Cordillera to be head and shoulders above the other wines. Read More...
M is for Malbec
13 June 2011
Malbec has had an unfair, or at least a one-dimensional, press in recent years and I have been as much to blame for that as any other wine scribe. The common, and understandable, perception is that in its adopted home of Argentina it makes rugged wines that rely on strength and structure to make an impression, hewn as it were from the same block as some of her more robust rugby forwards. That is the stereotype and like all stereotypes it has only a passing acquaintance with the truth. Read More...
Best Bubbles
08 June 2011
Confusing ‘good value’ with ‘cheap’ is a common error that we all fall prey to, with wines as much as any other consumer good. A bottle of wine at €27.99, even if it is sparkling wine, could certainly not be classed as cheap, but in the case of the Ridgeview Cavendish 2008 from England, now stocked by O’Briens, it represents superbly good value. What makes it so is the cast iron quality, the gorgeous rush of citrus flavours and the absence of any acidic harshness on the finish. Made from the classic champagne trio of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier this sparkler is a stable mate of the sparkling rosé served recently at Buckingham Place when the queen was entertaining Barack Obama. Read More...
Recession Busting Wines
07 June 2011
The frantic rush of trade wine tastings, many of them ‘satellite’ events held to coincide with the London Wine Trade Fair, continued right to the end of last month with Dunnes Stores holding a slickly organised affair on Tuesday 31st. The theme was Mediterranean and featured wines from the ‘big three’ of the wine world: France, Italy and Spain. There was some stunning value to be had – indeed the paradox was that as the prices increased the ‘better’ wines struggled to justify their (relatively) heftier price tags. 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...
Waterkloof at Thornton's
17 May 2011
There was a time, just a few years ago, when I had completely given up on South African Sauvignon Blanc, not because it had turned into a grassy green caricature of itself, like some of its Kiwi cousins, no, it had gone in the other direction. In the process it became a lumbering flabby monster, drenched with alcohol and possessing not one whit of the freshness one wants from this grape. Then last week at a wine dinner in Thornton’s Restaurant, Dublin I tasted the Waterkloof ‘Circumstance’ Sauvignon Blanc 2010 and my healthy, well fed prejudice had to be thrown out the window. Read More...
Whisky Live - Dublin
15 May 2011
From the ashes of a chaotic opening hour at yesterday’s Whisky Live event in Dublin I managed to pluck a few Phoenixes in the shape of some wonderful Irish whiskeys. I started at the Mitchell’s stand where the ever-genial Peter Dunne was pouring Green Spot from the new, slightly dumpy, bottle. The label has changed too, and I am not sure if it is for the better, but the whiskey remains delightful, honeyed and spicy, clean and comforting. 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...
Oz Shiraz at WGS, Singapore
01 May 2011
James Halliday had them chuckling at yesterday’s Australian Shiraz tasting when he announced, shortly after it got underway and the first flight was being scrutinised: “I should say, I heartily disagree with some of my own tasting notes.” (These had been printed in advance on the tasting sheets.) This happens to wine tasters all the time and, far from being seen as a sign of inconsistency, it simply reinforces the fact that a tasting note reflects how a wine tasted at a particular place and time and no more than that. Tasting notes should not be treated as judgements written in stone. Wines change and so do people. Context, as they say, is everything. Read More...
Domaine de Chevalier
30 April 2011
As expected, Olivier Bernard gave rare value for money at yesterday’s tutored tasting here at the World Gourmet Summit in Singapore. Not for him the safe haven of techno-babble, with reams of tinder dry facts, figures and statistics. That sort of winemaking by numbers is for less spirited individuals. His style of presentation relies on pithy comments and memorable anecdotes, but nobody should be fooled: great passion, commitment and expertise lurk just below the surface. Read More...
Domaine Meyer-Fonné
19 April 2011
Up until Wednesday of last week I had never taken Crémant d’Alsace very seriously and if I was going to drink a non-champagne French sparkler it would nearly always be a Crémant de Bourgogne. That was to reckon without the delicious crémant produced by Félix Meyer, of Domaine Meyer-Fonné, who was in Dublin last week to conduct a tasting of his wines. Amongst a baker’s dozen of well-crafted wines it was the star. Read More...
Antinori in Dublin
16 April 2011
When a family has been in the wine business for 26 generations, spanning over 600 years, it is safe to say that they have wine in their veins. Such is the case with the Antinori family of Florence who have even lived in the same house for the last 500 years. Allegra Antinori, daughter of Marchese Piero, together with her sisters Albiera and Alessia, is now running the business with her father and if she feels the weight of this heavy inheritance she certainly wasn’t showing it in Dublin last week when she presented a range of wines for tasting. Read More...
Cognac Quartet
14 April 2011
Mid-morning cognac tasting is not something I do every day but when Maurice-Richard Hennessy is in town to present a selection of Hennessy cognacs I am prepared to abandon my ‘elevenses’ for a drop of eau de vie. He is a direct descendant of Richard Hennessy who departed these shores for France in the 18th century and there must still be a trickle of Irish blood in his veins, for he can talk at impressive length on the subject of cognac, only pausing for the odd sip. Read More...
Mixed Marks & Spencer
06 April 2011
M&S showcased a half-century of wines earlier today in what might have been ideal conditions except for the muggy heat in the tasting room. All the other pieces of the ideal tasting jigsaw were in place: silence, good light, good tasting notes and wines clearly marked (except for one or two!). More’s the pity then that some of the reds tasted soupy and indistinct, where they might have been fresh and juicy. Read More...
Wine at Kelly's
05 April 2011
For many people Kelly’s Hotel in Rosslare is Ireland’s premier resort hotel offering, as it does, a huge range of activities for every member of the family. I take a narrower view and return year after year with just one purpose in mind – to meet the roster of top-notch winemakers that proprietor Bill Kelly (above) brings over from France in the spring and autumn to present a week’s worth of wine tastings. Read More...
Nomad, Tyrrell & Grapecircus
04 April 2011
No, they are not the Curly, Larry & Moe of the Irish wine trade but a trio of Ireland’s small, independent wine merchants who, between them, import a wonderfully diverse range of wines from France, Spain and Italy. Container loads of anonymous plonk are not for them; rather they seek out dedicated, quality conscious producers whose wines fairly hum with character. 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...
Best Value Ever
12 March 2011
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Very probably the best value wine offer I have ever come across lasts for only a few more days at Tesco. Read More...
Bordeaux 2009 Revisited
03 March 2011
It is a chilly morning here in Bordeaux as I prepare for the annual Millesima tasting, where the last vintage but one is always presented, shortly before it is bottled. Thus it is the already legendary 2009 that is under the microscope this year.
Read More...At Liberty
24 February 2011
Discovering a new wine, something never encountered before, is always a bit of fun, especially if it has a good ‘back story’. Such was the case at yesterday’s Liberty Wines tasting in Dublin when Gregory Patriat of JC Boisset poured me a sample of his Mâcon-Igé, Château London 2009. 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...
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...
One Hit Wonder
19 January 2011
About 25 years ago New Zealand wine hit the world with a bang and it is not an exaggeration to say that in the process a new style of Sauvignon Blanc was born. Pungent, grassy and, some said, smelling of cat’s pee, it rapidly garnered legions of fans around the globe. It is still with us today but what was once a characterful wine has now slid into the cul-de-sac of caricature. This was confirmed for me at the recent Kiwi tasting in Dublin where the Sauvignons I tasted boasted eye-watering pungency and little else. But there were other treasures worth lingering over. Read More...
The House of Krug
01 January 2011
Krugist(e): Noun, m/f, a lover of Krug champagne, completely besotted by the richness and depth of the style, regards other prestige cuvées, especially the ‘bling’ ones, with complete disdain, has a tendency to bore when speaking on the subject, recently worried that Krug has become more user friendly, less forbidding and, heaven forfend, more ‘popular’. Takes childish delight in telling friends that it does not rhyme with ‘jug’, it is Krug as in ‘Kroog’.
Fowl Play
01 June 2008
It is Easter Monday in Burgundy and the temperature is hovering around zero. Snow has been falling gently since midnight and now the fields and vineyards are generously blanketed. The bare branches of the trees carry a thick icing of snow too, but the roads have remained clear and traffic is moving easily. Except, that is, for those hardy gastronomes who are driving to La Ferme de la Ruchotte for their lunch. Read More...
