Solevari Reserve Feteasca Neagra 2017 - Virgin Wines

A crowd-pleasing red from Romania, via Virgin Wines

For many years, I used to travel to Romania on business; I never fell in love with Bucharest, but the wines were something else. Fresh, clean, well-made and elegant, they were everything the Romanian capital is not.

Feteasca Neagra is Romania's signature red grape; it is ripe, full, dark-fruited and spicy, something of an Eastern European Syrah. It goes well with steak, which is also something Romania excels at.

This wine is made by Cramele Recas, an award-winning Romanian winery with UK and Aussie connections. And rather like Transylvania's most famous undead count, it is dark, sleek and crowd-pleasingly charismatic.

Solevari Reserve Feteasca Neagra 2017 (£12.99, Virgin Wines) expressively ripe, plump and spicy with dark fruits and plenty of toasty, vanilla-coconut oak. Fresh, vibrant and juicy with good underpinnings and very fine tannins, this is a sophisticated crowd-pleaser.

Thoroughly enjoyable and drinking nicely now straight out of the (screw-top) bottle with some evolution.

Match with steak.

Twelfth Night Wines for Christmas from Virgin

Three subversive wines for Christmas wines from Virgin - and two superior standards

My general rule-of-thumb at Christmas is not to try anything too different - keep to stuff you like and maybe spend a bit more on a slightly better version; Bordeaux from a smarter appellation and a superior vintage, say, or Grand Cru Chablis rather than Petit Chablis.

But what's the point of Christmas if you can't break a few rule and have some fun? So here are three wines from Virgin that, like Twelfth Night when everything gets turned upside down and all the rules are reversed, will both subvert your expectations and entertain in equal measure

Chiarli Medaglie Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro DOC 2018 (£11.99) get the party started with some red fizz. Lambrusco has a bit of historic baggage in this country, but done properly this light sparkling red from Emilia Romagna matches brilliantly with local parma ham, parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar. Or just serve it lightly chilled as a pick-me-up.

Schnaitmann Simonroth Lemberger 2016 (£24.99) Lemberger, aka Blaufraenkisch, is the great black grape of central Europe and shows great versatility. In milder climates, it is cherry-fruited and elegant, a lighter, fresher yet serious red that rivals Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo. As with this wine from southern Germany, warmer temperatures bring something more akin to Bordeaux with deeper colour, plumper fruit and more tannins.

Solevari Reserve Feteasca Neagra 2017 (£12.99) Romania makes wonderful wines from international varieties, but Feteasca Neagra is its signature red variety - plump, supple and spicily dark-fruited, it matches brilliantly with steak or rare roast beef. Serve as an alternative to a Rhone or a northern Italian red.

And if you want to keep it straightforward and conventional, here are two superior classic wines:

De Martino Niebla Casablanca Sauvignon Blanc 2019 (£13.99) De Martino is one of the pioneering wineries of Chile, making subtle, nuanced wines in an elegant food-friendly European style. This is a single vineyard Sauvignon from the cool, foggy Casablanca Valley. Drink this with smoked salmon on Boxing Day.

Heranca Late Bottled Vintage Port 2012 (£14.99) with figgy, raisiny flavours and a warming sweetness, port is synonymous with Christmas. Best served with mince pies, a crackling fire and the Queen's Speech, LBV is a vintage port that is aged in barrel for several years and is ready to drink without further aging. If you manage not to finish it off all at once, drink it on Boxing day with a plate of cheeses or a chocolate-and-cherry torte.

Blue of The Danube - Wines to Buy

A selection of wines from Wines of Hungary's Blue of The Danube Tasting

Many of the wines shown at the Blue of The Danube are not yet commercially available in the UK. Here are the ones that are.

Varietal: Hungary

Szent Donat Magma Kekfrankos 2018 (£17.99, Novel) fresh and elegant. Good.

Szent Donat Single Vineyard Kekfrankos 2017 (£25.50, Novel) very adept cherries-and-pepper, concentrated and muscular, supple and harmonious. Very Good.

Gilvessy Kekfrankos (£18.95, Davy's) earthiness and cherry fruit, supple and soft with fine tannins. Fresh and vibrant. Good.

Blended: Croatia

Danjanic, Clemente, 2013 (£25, Croatian Fine Wines - M, CS, Teran, Borgonja) dark and inky with black fruits, beetroot, sweet spices and florality; grippy with very fine tannins. Very Good.

Varietal: Romania

Nachbil Blaufrankisch 2017 (£21, Boutinot) aged 2m in amphora, fresh, supple and elegant; textured and grippy with very fine tannins. Somewhat curious - in a good way. Good.

Balla Geza Blaufrankisch Stonewine 2017 (£18.90, Novel) woodsy-earthy nose, fresh, lifted cherry fruit, very fine tannins. Good.

Varietal: Austria

R+G Triebaumer Blaufraenkisch Reserve 2016 (£34.26, Alpine Wines) oaky and concentrated with dark cherry fruit; assertive and grippy with a muscular core. Very Good.

Dragon Hills Pinot Grigio - Virgin Wines

A crisp and expressive Romanian Pinot Grigio from Virgin Wines - a perfect rack white for Christmas

Dragon. *Dragon*, not lizard. I don't do that tongue thing.
- Mushu (Mulan, 1998)

I have never really fallen for Romania as a country, but I have always loved its wines - clean, well made, precise and orderly, they seem to be everything that the country is not.

This award-winning Pinot Grigio is a perfect wine to have on standby over Christmas - smart enough to impress, but under £10 so you can afford to be generous when unexpected guests arrive.

Dragon Hills Pinot Grigio 2017 (£8.99) aromatic white flowers and white pepper, ripe apples-and-pears fruit, freshness, minerality and thick-skinned substance.

A versatile wine for fish or cheese starters, canapes or creamy pasta dishes. It will also stand up to roast pork and cold cuts.

Laithwaites - Wines from Eastern Europe‏

After tasting a new range of Laithwaites wines from India, Greece, Turkey and Georgia selected by buyer Cat Lomax, we were also invited to try a few of their current Eastern European wines.

Campanula Pinot Grigio 2011, Hungary, £6.99
Aromatic on the nose, this shows pear and green apple fruit. There is some mid-palate sweetness and a creamy texture.

A good, solid quaffer.

Albastrele Pinot Grigio Cahul, 2010, Moldova, £7.79

Moldova is something of a forgotten corner of Europe - historically and linguistically linked with  Romania, it was annexed into a separate republic by the Soviet Union in 1945.

Although a poor, rural backwater, it is talked of as having viticultural potential and this Pinot Grigio was one of the best whites on show - pale golden yellow, it feels weighty, honeyed and full on the palate but also crisp and bone dry.

There is also ripe pear and melon fruit with white blossom aromas.

Scurta Vineyard Viognier Tamaiosa 2010, Romania, £7.49

Although Bucharest is a dirty, smelly, chaotic city, Romania's wines generally feel surprisingly clean and pure.

This wine shows peach and apricot fruit and has a pleasant rounded, peachy feel on the palate.

Solidly OK, but nothing special; the price seems quite ambitious for this.

Albastrele Sauvignon Blanc Cahul 2010, Moldova, £7.79

With good citrus fruit and ripe, tropical passion fruit, this shows typical Sauvignon gooseberry aromas; weighty and full on the palate.

It has an unspecified gold medal from somewhere.

Colina Piatra Alba Pinot Noir 2009, Romania, £7.29

With aromas of sweaty, damp animal and sawdust, this is hardly a "typically Burgundian" Pinot - though to be fair, it is hardly priced as one either.

There is some fresh red berry fruit, but I would rather look to Chile for entry-level Pinot than more of this.

Coline d'Enira Merlot 2008, Bulgaria, £9.79

Bulgaria in the late '70s and early '80s was a source of cheap, rustic but effusive reds before the New World took over that particular role and these days, I'm not really sure what Bulgaria stands for.

The role as a regional Finance Director that took me regularly to Austria, Hungary and Romania, amongst other places, only ever afforded me a single visit to our Bulgarian office (pretty much to close it down), so I have never really got to know Bulgaria's wines.

This 14.5% beast shows ripe sour-cherry and vegetal aromas on the nose; on the palate, there is more ripe plum and prune fruit, vanilla and sour-cherry acidity with ripe tannins and a grippy, perfumey finish - it feels rich, concentrated and surprisingly youthful even with four years' age.

Attention-grabbing more than classy and ambitiously priced.

Recommended wine

This was a bit of a hit-and-miss affair - much as you might expect of a range of Eastern European wines from Laithwaites.

The surprise for me was how well the Moldovan wines showed and how middling the others were.

Hungary and Romania can produce some really good wines but they don't appear to be on the Laithwaites stock list.

By contrast both Moldovan wines from Albastrele - the Pinot Grigio and the Sauvignon Blanc - felt very well-made with real depth on the palate and at just under £8, they are also priced sensibly for the quality on offer, even if an £8 Moldovan wine is something of a challenging sell.

Links

Laithwaites - http://www.laithwaites.co.uk/

Prince Stirbey at Boutique Wineries Tasting

A while ago, I reviewed a clutch of Prince Stirbey's wines having met owner Baronness Ileana Kripp at London International Wine Fair.

Ileana's husband Jakob got in touch recently to let me know that they would be exhibiting at the Boutique Wineries Tasting as part of the Romanian Winegrowers group in London and invited me along.

I started with their white Feteasca Regala Genius Loci from 2007 - it shows some exotic, floral notes on the nose along with vanilla from aging in large, new oak barrels.

The palate is fresh with rounded acidity, buttery oatmeal and a touch of pleasant and complex sweetness and the finish is long.

The red Novac, an indigenous grape, is light with prominent berry fruit, hints of vanilla and liquorice as well as a touch of spice and grip on the finish.

The Negru de Dragasani, also indigenous, is a darker purple colour and feels more rounded on the palate with blueberry and elderberry fruit and a medium body.

Revisiting these wines, what strikes me about them is the pureness of the fruit which is somewhat New World in style, contrasted with an old world level of restraint and focus; they feel technically very well made and approachable, yet focused and precise.

Jakob explained that his aim is precisely to avoid the overly alcoholic, blowsy New World-style of wines which could be easily done in a country as southerly and hot as Romania.

Rather, he opts for picking grapes at the optimal moment of ripeness and ferments in stainless steel for freshness.

For a Romanian winery, the management is very international - Jakob himself is from Innsbruck in Austria and can trace his family back several hundred years, whilst his wine-making team includes an Austrian and a German.

In style the red wines have the purity, focus and low tannins of Austrian reds but also the prominent acidity and food friendliness of Italian wines - a country with which Romania has significant historic links.

Recommended wine

I have reviewed the reds previously - see here.

Definitely worthy of recommendation on this occasion is the Feteasca Regala (£13.00) for its lovely oaking balanced nicely with varietal expression.

The Novac also gets a mention in this recent article by Jancis Robinson: http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/a201109172.html

Links

Prince Stirbey - http://www.stirbey.com/

Main UK Distributor:

Matt Cole
The Little Wine Company
62 Linzee Road
London N8
Tel +44 208 347 8886
Fax +44 208 340 7589
matt@grapevinedirect.com

UK Distributor (Novac only) - Bowes wines: http://www.boweswine.co.uk/

Boutique Wineries Tasting - http://www.boutique-wineries.co.uk/

Romanian Winegrowers - http://www.romanian-winegrowers.com/

Romania's Prince Stirbey‏ at London International Wine Fair

When I used to travel on business to Romania, I got to know its wines a little and those of Prince Stirbey were a regular order at dinner.

At the recent London International Wine Fair, I got to meet one of the people behind Prince Stirbey and learnt that the aristocratic name of the winery is no mere affectation.

As Baroness Ileana Kripp-Costinescu, granddaughter of Princess Maria Stirbey, explained, the winery, based in Drăgăşani in the south-west of the country, dates back to the 18th century, but is currently undergoing a renaissance through good practices and the creation of wines with character, individuality and a sense of terroir.

The vineyards are set on an idyllic hillside overlooking a lake, at an elevation of around 300 hundred metres which provides much better conditions for viticulture than lower down, as the altitude provides coolness in summer thus lengthening the growing season with milder temperatures in winter and breezes to keep vineyard pests at bay.

The winery is completely family-run and was built by Baroness Ileana's grandfather in an Italian-Tuscan style.

I opted to sample my way through the reds and started with a Novac.

This grape is local to the Drăgăşani area and is a hybrid which includes Saperavi as one of its parents. With dark berries on the nose, the palate shows more dark berry fruit, dark chocolate and pepper with good acidity and tannins.

The Negru de Dragasani is also a local variety and showed good plummy fruit and pepperiness.

Finally, the Cabernet, with 12 months' aging in oak showed good blackcurrant fruit with a rounded structure and pleasant tannins.

Recommended wine

Overall, the most interesting wine here is the Novac, available from  www.thedailydrinker.co.uk  at £12.50.

Links

Prince Stirbey - http://www.stirbey.com/index.php?lang=en

Fringe Wines And A Bit Of Geo-Political History‏

I recently got to know through Twitter a US blogger whose site, Fringe Wine, is dedicated to "unusual grape varietals and/or grown in unfamiliar regions all over the world".

I love this idea and went through my own Fringe Wine phase a while ago in search of something local when my business travels regularly took me to central and Eastern Europe. However, there's only so many ropey Czech wines you can try before you inevitably ask for a beer instead and move back to the classics.

However, my Romantic streak remains and in the spirit of friendly competition, I thought I would try out a few vaguely Fringe Wines at the London International Wine Fair.

I will review these separately in more detail later, but Rob, if you are reading this, here are my top Fringe Wines - they all brought back a few memories of travel to these countries as well:

Slovenia

First was a Šipon ("shipon"), the Slovenian name for Hungary's Furmint from Dveri Pax.

Tiny, rural Slovenia will never be a volume player, but I am increasingly impressed by the wines from this former Yugoslav nation now a member of the EU which look set to become of more than mere niche interest or curiosity value.

Romania

I have to say, I never really liked visiting Romania on business, but I did always enjoy the wines there - well-made and fruit-driven but still balanced and European in style, they seem to have a bright up-front openness which belies the dark, murky, inscrutable superstition that for me characterises Romania.

All the grapes here from Prince Stirbey were pretty obscure with a Negru de Dragasani, Novac and, for me the best, a Fetească neagră.

Hungary

Hungary is hardly a Fringe Wine country these days due not least to the fame of its Tokaji wines; historic Budapest is, for me, the least beautiful of the three great central European capitals (the others being stately Vienna and picture-perfect Prague).

Ryan Opaz, however, disagrees with me and prefers it to Vienna - perhaps as an American, he appreciates more its lively buzz and determination to move forward, compared to Vienna which got there years ago and no longer has anything to prove.

The most obscure (in terms of quantity produced) wine here was the Eszencia; made from the free-run juice of botrytised furmint grapes it is produced in tiny quantities.

With around 5 times the residual sugar of even a top-level 5-puttonyos Tokaji, it was extremely syrupy, yet surprisingly fresh.

Ukraine

Historically - and to this day - fought over by competing Empires, but officially independent since 1991, Ukraine is still the "borderland" that its name suggests between its vast overbearing northerly neighbour and the European Union which ends tantalisingly at its various borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

Perhaps the most obscure here was a red semi-sweet sparkler, Krimart from Artemovsk winery, which included Saperavi along with Cab and Merlot in the blend; however, for quality, the most enjoyable was their dry white fizz Extra Brut.

Links

Dveri Pax - http://www.dveri-pax.com/

Prince Stirbey - www.stirbey.com

Crown Estates Tokaji - www.tokajwinetrade.com

Artemovsk Winery - www.krimart.com

Recommended reading

Borderland: A Journey Through The History of Ukraine by Anna Reid (Paperback - 6 Mar 2003) - see here

Balkan Ghosts by R. Kaplan (Paperback - Mar 1994) - see here

Image credit - http://longgame.org/2009/11/geopolitics-and-realpolitik-a-layman%E2%80%99s-view/

Villa Zorilor, memories of Romanian wine and food

The House of The People, Bucharest

For a while, I was a regular visitor to Romania on business. I can't say it's my favourite place in Eastern Europe but Bucharest was once described as the Paris of the East with tree-lined boulevards and even has its own Arc de Triomphe before the baby-faced megalomaniac dictator Ceausescu swept aside huge swathes of the city to replace them with vast squares and the white elephant that is the House of the People, the world's largest civilian building.

If you can judge a people by how they drive, then there is definitely something eastern, chaotic and idiosyncratic about the denizens of Bucharest. Shortly after one visit there, I went on to Istanbul and found it far more European in feel than Bucharest.

However, my enforced stay in Romania was good for one thing at least - I learnt that Romanian wines are actually rather good indeed.

I was staying at the Athénée Palace (possibly Europe's most notorious den of spies in the years leading up to the Second World War, and only slightly less so during the Cold War) with a group of colleagues and we decided to play safe and eat at the hotel restaurant - we ordered a bottle of something local and found it surprisingly good. So we ordered a few more ...

Over the next few weeks, the quality of the wines in the restaurant as well as the food (especially the steaks) became one of the things I looked forward to about my trips there.

In very simple terms, Romanians are a broadly Latin people, being a mixture of Roman soldiers from the days of the empire and the local Dacian population. Although the local religion is Orthodox Christianity and they are geographically surrounded by Slavs and Hungarians, it helps to think of them in terms of their nearest linguistic neighbours, the French, Italians and Spanish.

Certainly this was true for the wines which were surprisingly well-made, in an approachable, fruit-driven yet still noticeably old-world and food-friendly style - rather like, say, southern France or inland Spain; the Rieslings I particularly remember being well-structured, well-balanced and very drinkable.

Of the reds, my two favourites were both from Villa Zorilor. The first, called Swallowtail, is made from the indigenous Feteasca Negra grape from the Dealu Mare region. It is packed with soft, supple mouthfilling tannins and has rich flavours of dark bramble fruit, black cherries, prunes and hints of tobacco, woodsmoke and coffee. As well as being delicious, it is also a perfect match for steak.

The second, Merlot Prince Matei, had spicy prune and plum fruit, a great depth of flavour, good balance and length.

If you happen to be in Bucharest, both are available from Vinexpert:

On a more recent visit, I found the wines to be just as good, though noticeably more expensive since EU accession, which is a pity since they are somewhat obscure in most people's perception and keen pricing has to be the first step to wider acceptance.

For a more detailed review of Romanian wines, see here - http://www.wine-pages.com/features/romanian-wine.htm#art

Links

Vinexpert - http://www.evinoteca.eu/eng/

Vinexpert wine list - http://www.evinoteca.eu/eng/categories/vinarte.php

La Citadella Pinot Grigio, Romania 2009 - Laithwaites

For me, this Laithwaites Discovery wine was not the novelty it might be as I have been to Romania many times on business and am reasonably familiar with the wines there.

Given how chaotic and grimy Bucharest is as a city, I was pleasantly surprised at how well-made the Romanian wines I had there were - reliable, fruit-driven, food friendly and complex, they are rather like the good, value wines that southern France and inland Spain are now producing.

The first bottle was definitely faulty, or at least sub-standard - overly acidic with little flavour of anything, but Laithwaites replaced it under their guarantee, so I have no complaints about that.

The second tasted as it should and was was a text-book Pinot Grigio - crisp and aromatic, with lemony elderflower, yet balanced with a minerally backbone and good length.

Like many Laithwaites wines, the price is a bit toppy for the quality. If a fiver is the point at which, for most people, quaffing wines become something more serious, then I would like to see this retailing for around £4; at that price it would be a serious value wine.

The Laithwaites website describes this as having elegant blossom aromas with crisp citrus flavours and the irresistibly moreish intensity of top Pinot Grigio. Lovely on its own or with seafood and white meat. That's fair enough, I guess.

£5.99 (plus delivery) from Laithwaite's. It has a Decanter award in the UK

Links

Laithwaite's - http://www.laithwaites.co.uk/