Two Yealands Whites

Two single vineyard whites from New Zealand's Yealands

After making a short video on the topic of Yealands, inspired by five of their wines, Yealands sent me a few more bottles to try.

From the entry-level to the very top, all the wines are characterised by a freshness, purity and balance that makes them sophisticated and adept, yet all-too-easy to enjoy.

Yealands Estate Single Vineyard Pinot Gris 2016 aromatic and complex nose with ripe tropical fruits, sweet spices and a rich fatness. Waxy and full, yet fresh and mineral.

Good.

Match the richness with Alsatian food, such as tarte flambée or paté.

Yealands Estate Single Vineyard P.G.R 2016 a blend of Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Riesling; dieselly nose, white stone fruits and ripe pineapple; sweet spices and limey freshness. Well made and easy-drinking.

Match the zippy freshness with soused fish or caesar salad.

Ribera Del Duero Tasting

Ribera Del Duero Trade Tasting in London

I have long known of Ribera Del Duero as a new Classic region, but have actually tasted few of the wines - nothwithstanding one very special evening with the outstanding Vega Sicilia.

The 100+ wines at this trade tasting were enough to give a sense of what Ribera Del Duero is all about and why it is held in such esteem - the raw materials here were quite amazing; freshness, intensity and concentration.

The difference between the most compelling wines and those that merely had potential was down to winemaking skill. The impression was of a prodigiously talented youth who has not quite got to grips with her natural ability; there was on occasion a rawness to the talent that needs time, experience and maturity to find its place.

Here are the wines I enjoyed best:

Bodegas Resalte de Penafiel, Resalte Crianza 2012 (£21.99 Champagne & Chateaux) spicy, meaty, vegetal with dark fruits. Concentrated with fine, firm tannins. Elegant, fresh and still young.

Very Good.

Lopez Cristobal, Reserva 2012 (Raeburn Fine Wines) dark fruits, meaty and vegetal. Long, fresh and firm with fine tannins. Well-structured and still young.

Very Good.

Aster Crianza 2013 (Armit) vegetal, fresh and juicy. Very harmonious.

Very Good.

Bodegas Cair 2011 (Alliance Wine, £44.50) fresh, berry fruited and spicy; vibrant, concentrated and harmonious. Juicy, long and supple.

Very Good.

Bodegas Fuentenarro, Reserva 2011 (£23.99, Les Caves de Pyrene) complex, farmyardy and mature with fresh berry fruit; vibrant, supple, concentrated and very harmonious.

Very Good.

Bodegas Fuentenarro, Gran Reserva 2010 (£34.50, Les Caves de Pyrene) fresh, red berry fruit and spices. Supple, harmonious and balanced with excellent old vine underpinnings.

Very Good.

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Not the main event, but there were also some interesting rosés.

Cillar de Silos, Rosado de Silos 2016 (£14.25, FMV) crisp, fresh and linear; aromatic and spicy with good old vine underpinnings.

Good.

Bodegas Arzuaga Navarro, Rosado 2016 (Loeb) supple, with delicate red fruits.

Dominio del Aguila, Picaro del Aguila Clarete 2015 (£26, Indigo Wines) more complex and rounded with old vine concentration.

Good.

Pays d'Oc Collection 2017

Three wines from the Pays d'Oc Collection 2017

I have long been a fan of the ripe-yet-serious wines of Languedoc - a broad, diverse region, it has multiple variations and nuances. But the key thing you need to know is the wines are, generally, substantial, well-crafted and complex.

Here are three lovely wines from the 2017 Collection; an alluring warm-climate Chardonnay, a substantial and convincing varietal Petit Verdot and a gently-made red blend.

Calmel & Joseph Villa Blanche Chardonnay 2016 ripe tropical fruits and toasty-oaky nose; pure, substantial and leesy with well-balanced freshness and a mineral backbone. Fault-free with no rough edges.

Good.

Match with meaty fish and roast white meat.

Domaine De Valensac "Entre Nous selon Valensac" 2015 liquorice and dark berries with spice and mocha. Substantial, supple with juicy fruits, freshness and very fine tannins. Very long and mineral.

Needs aeration and will improve with age.

Very Good.

Match with darker game, such as venison or duck.

Domaine du Grand Chemin "Clos Rogé" 2014 S/CS/PV blend; dark berries and bramble fruits with spice, cocoa and a leathery gaminess; light-ish, juicy and supple with fine tannins.

Good.

Match with lighter game, such as guinea fowl or tuna.

Three Bordeaux Wines

Three Bordeaux from 2015's good vintage - available nationally from Waitrose, M&S and Laithwaites

After some difficult vintages, Bordeaux has been on a roll recently with good years in 2014, 15 and 16; some chateaux say that each year has been better than the one before.

These three wines from 2015 - all at different price points - are generally well made and very pleasant.

The freshness of the first two makes them rather more typically Burgundian than Bordelais; you might almost think they had come from a cooler year. The last delivers more substance, but trades this for the deftness and elegance of the others.

Les Chartrons, 2014, Bordeaux (£7.99 Waitrose) Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc; light, fresh and well-made with  a good backbone of acidity and gentle, fine tannins. Elegant with delicate red and blueberry fruit with some peppery spice. Improves with air as the fruit emerges.

Light enough to match with salmon, fresh enough for hard cheese or keep it traditional with roast meat.

Grand Plessis Grand Réserve, 2015, Médoc (£10.00, M&S) Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Carmenère; expressively toasty-oaky nose with juicy red and black fruits, liquorice, a firm grip and plenty of spice. Good backbone of acidity and fine tannins.

Match with butcher's sausages or roast red meat.

Vieux Château Guibeau, 2015, Puisseguin Saint Émilion (Laithwaites £14.99) Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon; typical Bordeaux cassis and pencil shaving aromas with tobacco leaf and tar; substantial and supple with cooked bramble fruit, violets, mint and spicy vanilla. Grippy and slightly alcoholic.

Match the ripe fruit and firm tannins with garlic-and-rosemary roast lamb.

Wines for Curry Week

Two wines for Curry Week - Cune and Robert Oatley

October 9th - 15th is Curry Week - if you didn't already know. According to research, the most popular curry is a korma, traditionally a sweetish, slightly bland coconut-based dish.

Indian curries are not always a natural match for wine, being rather heavy and rich and needing a pint (or two) of beer; if, however, you like the more delicate and nuanced flavours of a Thai coconut curry, here are two that will match.

Cune Barrel Fermented Blanco 2016 (£10.15, Waitrose, The Co-op) orchard fuits and pineapple, with oaky, leesy minerality and good underpinnings. Clean, pure and harmonious.

Good.

Robert Oatley Signature Riesling 2015 (£13.15, Cambridge Wine Merchants and other independents) classic flintsmoke-dieselly nose with ripe, zippy lemon-lime, pineapple and a fresh, pebbly mineral backbone.

Good.

Top Selection Portfolio Tasting

The Autumn portfolio tasting from Top Selection

Top Selection is an award-winning boutique wine and spirits merchant that has been running since 2000.

This autumn portfolio tasting featured over 80 wines - in general, they were all well-made and fault free, reasonably typical and fair value for money.

Some were more interesting than others, so here are the ones I liked best:

Fizz
Andre Jacquart Le Mesnil Grand Cru NV, Champagne complex, leesy and adept. Good.

Whites
Angel Sequeiros Albarino "Foudre" 2010, Rias Baxas complex, oaky, mineral and very long. Incredibly youthful, will age and age. Good.

Laurent Boussey Meursault "Clos du Pre" 2015 citrussy, deft and complex with layers of sophisticated oak; still young. Good.

Reds
David Duband Chambolle Musigny 2013 mushrooms, truffles, red berry fruit and spice; complex, long and supple. Good.

Alves de Sousa Caldas Reserve Touriga Nacional 2012, Douro minty eucalyptus, ripe dark fruit, gaminess and pappery spice; supple and fresh with fine tannins. Good.

Kracher Blend 2 2013, Burgenland vibrant with fresh, ripe, juicy blueberries, coffee grounds and spice. Good.

Ceretto Barolo 2013 fresh and elegant with a firm grip; cherry fruit and long. Good.

Dessert wines
Kracher Beerenauslese 2015, Burgenland roasted peaches in caramel with good freshness. Good.

Clos le Comte Cuvee Emilie 2015, Sauternes sweet spices, buttery roasted stone fruits and caramel. Good.

Szepsy Aszu 2000, Tokaji cognac coloured and complex, with roasted peaches and sweet spice. Long and mellow with aged complexity. Very Good.

Alves de Sousa Quinta da Gaivosa LBV, 2012 fruited, fresh and delicious, typical LBV. Good.

Spirits
La Gabare is one of the last independent cognac houses - founded in 1992 they select, age and sell rare old cognacs.

La Gabare Petite Champagne 1970 complex, vibrant and fiery (60% strength!), spicy and expressive. Very Good Indeed.

La Gabare Petite Champagne 1982 complex, with mixed fruit and sweet spice. Mellow and harmonious. Very Good.

Two Wines from Dievole Estate

A Chianti from Dievole Estate - and a Bolgheri from Tenuta Le Colonne

A classic-yet-modern Chianti and a Bordeaux-blend Super Tuscan.

Dievole
With a history dating back almost 1,000 years and an offering that includes wine, olive oil, tours, restaurants and accommodation, Dievole is in every sense a blend of the old and the new.

Based just outisde Siena, it was acquired in 2013 by an Argentinean with Italian roots; the focus is now on classic wines with a back-to-nature approach.

Dievole Chianti Classico 2015 very fresh, cherry fruited and floral with spice; structured, mineral and concentrated with fine tannins and a firm, muscular core. Fine and precise, it is still very young; it needs extensive aeration now and will improve with several years' cellaring.

Good.

Match with steak or gamey stews.

Tenuta La Colonne
The current Bolgheri DOC classification dates back only to 1994 - wines made from Bordeaux blends prior to that were typically sold as mere Vini da tavola.

Tenuta Le Colonne, owned by Dievole, sits right on the coast, overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea; the wine is a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Tenuta Le Colonne Bolgheri DOC 2015 floral and perfumed with raspberry leaf, black fruits and vanilla spice; intense, mineral, concentrated and muscular with very fine tannins. Fresh, very long and elegant. Benefits from aeration and will only improve with age.

Good.

Match with roasted red meats.

Frieze and Mazzei Gran Selezione 2013

A Chianti Classico parcel tasting of the Gran Selezione master blend with the Mazzei family

I have long held a working assumption that Great Wine is like Great Art - beyond merely being superficially pleasant, it is, at a deeper level, somehow compelling; it evokes in us some kind of emotional response.

Good wine is enjoyable wallpaper; Great Wine speaks to us.

Greatness is, then, ultimately subjective, a purely personal opinion. What moves me may leave you cold. However, a consensus may arise as to whether something is great or not; you may not personally "get" Picasso, Warhol or Mapplethorpe, but there are plenty of people who do.

Walking through Frieze 2017 - a vast, wide-ranging and rather corporate exhibition of contemporary art - it was impossible, as a mere amateur, to discern nuances or themes; too much sensory overload.

The only way to make sense of the breadth and volume was simply to walk briskly and see what catches the eye.

Of course what attracts us to something - be it art, wine or a potential spouse - is not what binds us over time; yet there needs to be an initial spark of attraction that then develops into something deeper and more sustained.

The wines of Giovanni Mazzei, 25th generation of a Tuscan winemaking family dating back to 1435, Marchesi Mazzei, possess this quality; attractive, compelling and intriguing they are also sophisticated, elegant and complex.

Over lunch at a pop-up café from Petersham Nurseries, we tasted Giovanni's award-winning Castello Fonterutoli Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2013 alongside five of the single Cru wines that go into the master blend.

For those not in the know, Petersham Nurseries Café follows the Slow Food philosophy with seasonal, Italian inspired food.

On arrival
Villa Marcello Prosecco DOC with Pinot Blanc in the blend, a fresh, crisp, structured and mineral aperitif that also works with the canapes

With sharing starters

Vineyard: Siepi, Parcel: I Sodi from the lowest altitude vineyard, fresh and structured with cherry fruit, mushroomy gaminess and oaky spice. Elegant, supple, long and harmonious.

Vineyard: Caggio, Parcel: Orto darker, denser, more spiced and aromatic.

Vineyard: Belvedere, Parcel: Piano darker, more brooding and intense, a Heathcliffe of a wine

With sharing main course

Vineyard: Fonterutoli, Parcel: St Antonio fresh and more elegant with lifted fruit and freshness; very complex and balanced


Vineyard: Le Ripe, Parcel:Trebbio sweet, ripe dark fruit and spices; fresh yet plump and supple with ripe tannins. Concentrated and long with a peppery finish.

Giovanni had encouraged us to keep a little of each wine in our glasses and make a pop-up blend of our favourite parcels; this would have been like grabbing a piece of each favourable artwork in the exhibition and hoping to assemble them into a masterpiece and served only to demonstrate how much skill there is in the blending process.

My favourite parcels were 3, 4 and 5 - with 3 and 5 having the darkest, most expressive character and 4 being the most nuanced.

Castello Fonterutoli Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2013 the master blend, assembled from 47 of the estate's 120 parcels of vines; spices and pepper with red and black fruits, dried berries and plums along with a musky leatheriness. Balanced and fresh.

A comparison of Giovanni's favourite individual parcel, the Fonterutoli, with the master blend was like comparing two very beautiful women - the Fonterutoli had a sophisticated and individual beauty that was not perfection, yet needed no addition. The blend, by contrast, was no less attractive but, plumped and preened down at the salon, had lost something of its individuality in the process.

Christmas in September - With Louis Latour And Friends

A Christmas-themed tasting of top wines from Louis Latour and others at The Bleeding Heart

Some people love Christmas - my children, for example; at its best, it is a time that brings people and families together, a time of shared experience and togetherness.

Food and drink play a part, and if quality is important to you, then you want to put something superior on your table.

Louis Latour helpfully laid on a four-course Christmas lunch at The Bleeding Heart and provided a selction of wines with each course.

Food, wine and company - very Christmassy, and what's not to like?

All the wines were good in their own way; choices really come down to personal preference and budget.

On arrival

Gosset Grande Reserve Brut NV (£45 - £49) deft, elegant and substantial Champage. An excellent start. Very Good.

Starter - marinated salmon and crab
Simonnet-Febvre Chablis Premier Cru Vaillons 2015 (£26.99) deft and complex, with orchard fruit, honeysuckle and minerality. Long and still very young. Very elegant. Very Good.

Seresin Estate Sauvignon 2015 (£14.99) a biodynamic blend of the New World and the Old with a dash of Semillon in the blend and barrel aging; Marlborough character with European texture, restraint and fruit ripeness. Long with good underpinnings. Good.

McHenry Hohnen Amigos White 2012 (£15.99) a blend of Chardonnay, Marsanne and Roussane from Western Australia; toasty oak, fresh and citrussy with a broad waxiness. Incredibly vibrant and youthful. Good.

Main - Norfolk turkey with trimmings

Louis Latour Aloxe-Corton Les Chaillots 2011 (£39.99) elegant and long with good underpinnings; cherry fruited Burgundy in a traditional style with very fine tannins. Wine-making of a very high standard. Good.

Viu Manent ViBo Vinedo Centenario 2013 (£16.99) minty, blackcurranty Chilean Cab with a dash of Malbec; a mix of power and subtlety plus old-vine concentration.

Vidal-Fleury Cairanne 2012 (£13.50) meaty, spicy, substantial Rhone red with red fruits and florality. Long, with good underpinnings. Very Good Value. Good.

Cheeses
Louis Latour Pouilly-Vinzelles 2015 (£19.99) fresh and honeyed with orchard fruits and citrus. Sophisticated and versatile. Still young. Good.

Henry Fessy Brouilly 2015 (£12.99) ripe, elegant, pure and fresh with raspberry fruit and pencil shavings. Very Good Value. Very Good.


Wakefield  Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 (£12.99) rich and textured yet fresh Cab from Clare Valley with minty blackcurrant.

Dessert - Christmas pudding with brandy creme anglaise
Barbadillo La Cilla PX (£24.00) aged for 25 years, complex dried fruits and figs, roasted nuts and Christmas spices; mellow, with the savouriness of age. Rich and sticky. Good.

Blandy's 15yo Bual (£25.00) rich fruitcake and freshness with spice and mellowness. Lovely. Good.

Pellegrino Passito DOC Pantellaria 2016 (£11.50) dried Moscato d'Alexandria grapes; spicy sandalwood, tangerine zest, floral and fresh. Very distinctive. Good.

Digestif
Fontpinot XO (£105) rich mixed fruit, sweet vanilla spice, warmth and roasted spices. Long and complex - balances softness and delicacy with a powerful concentration. Very Good.