On Wines of a Certain Age‏

Wines age a little like people - many are interesting enough in their youth but then go on simply to become older versions of themselves.

A rare few continue to develop for many years and, whilst losing their youthful exuberance, gain in sophistication and complexity whilst still retaining the spark that made them fascinating earlier on.

If it is true that life begins at 40, then a way to represent this pictorially would be to think of a linear development for the first four decades followed by a rounding out.

Having celebrated my own 40th birthday some years ago, I'm still less than half way to the end of my own life expectancy - and I would like to think that it is not all downhill from here; hopefully, there's more than just a lingering decline into muddle-headed incontinence.

At the weekend, I invited a group of friends to try some wines of various ages and qualities. We topped and tailed with whites to be reviewed elsewhere, but the core of the tasting was a trio of Bordeaux of varying ages.

Chateau La Tour St Bonnet 1971

From the vintage of my birth year, the vines budded before I was born meaning that this wine technically pre-dates my entry into the world.

Pale in the glass, it has an complex and evolved nose of undergrowth and leather. There is a little fruit left, but it is rosehips rather than fresh red berries.

The acidity is still good and the tannins are fully resolved; mellow harmoniousness.

It is a revelation to try a wine this old - even if it is not stellar.

The jokey metaphors pointed facetiously at me abounded - it's past its best, it was once good but is now fading - and I take it all in good humour.

We drink it up quickly and move on.

Reserve de la Comtesse 1994 Magnum

I had opened this earlier in the day to check on its progress. I was pleasantly surprised to find it showing well straight out of the bottle so decided not to decant.

Still purple in the glass but with a paleness, there is good ripe fruit, balanced acidity and harmonious tannins.

I find it very pleasant indeed, elegant with no rough edges, but I had expected a little more .... what ? Detail, perhaps ?

I mentally compare it to a magnum of 1998 Troplong-Mondot I drank a while ago; this is a different time, a different vintage and a different part of Bordeaux.

1998, it seems, was an 8/10 in St Emilion whilst 1994 was a 5/10. Davy, a wine buyer for Downing college, tells me "In a good year you buy the second wine, in a bad year you buy the first wine".

This is a second wine in a distinctly average year. But with classed growths now costing 100s of pounds a bottle, it was a relative bargain.

It is elegant, well made and classy - drinking very nicely. Born into a bad year, its only real fault is a lack of tannic detail.

Chateau de La Dauphine, Fronsac, 2003

It is not a run-of the mill tasting where an almost decade-old wine is the youngest to be tasted.

Compared to the others, this middle-of-the road chateau wine was rather workmanlike. No faults to speak of - a typical and nicely-aged wine, it was mellow but still cut through with good, fresh acidity.

Tasted after a wine in its 5th decade and a second-growth second wine, however, it simply did not leave much of an impression - rather like a well-behaved accountant at a dinner party.

Conclusions

Of the three wines, the Comtesse was for me much the best - even if it did not have the wow-factor I had hoped for; good fruit, well-balanced and no rough edges, on one level it was faultless.

Like an entry-level BMW, it did everything well, even if it did nothing spectacularly. It was just somehow a bit better, more likeable, more accomplished than the other wines.

We kept a little of the wines back; the following day, the Comtesse had lost most of its fruit and was showing aromas of rosehips, soy and green capsicum. It still had balance and freshness, but we'd seen the best of it the night before.

The Dauphine was as pleasant and unassuming as ever - in less Grand Company, it would have seemed rather good but against the Comtesse it could only ever have been an also-ran.

However, all three wines gained something specific from the effects of age - complexity, secondary and tertiary aromas of old leather and forest floor as well as a gentle mellowness; these are qualities that only aging can bring and it was an honour to try so many aged wines in a single evening.

Other related articles
More aged Bordeaux:
- Troplong Mondot 1998 Magnum
- Lynch-Moussas 2004

I bought the Reserve de la Comtesse from Cambridge Wine Merchants for £70.

The other two wines here were provided by the "Other Cambridge Wine Blogger" - whose palate and technical knowledge is far superior to mine - @vinoremus.

We were joined by friends @cambridgelass and @pavitts_pies, the latter providing a selection of her lovely pies to match with the wines.

Links

Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - http://www.pichon-lalande.com/index-uk.htm
Cambridge Wine Merchants - http://www.cambridgewine.com/

Ried Loibenberg Loibner Riesling 2003 Smaragd, Knoll - Wachau, Austria‏

Many years ago I travelled regularly on business to Austria and spent most of my per diem allowances on building an Austrian wine collection.

I say collection, but actually most of it was consumed fairly swiftly.

However, I did keep a couple of the better wines back to see how they would age - this was my last one and I was curious to see how it would be at a decade under the stairs.

Tested straight out of the bottle, there was still the ripe citrussy fruit that is characteristic of Austrian Riesling.

Opened again a couple of hours later in the evening, it showed the same citrus fruit with complexity and interest, but had not lost the streak of purity and linearity that had made it precise in its youth.

Weighty on the palate, it felt rounded out with complex tertiary aromas of damp cellar, antique leather and sherry-esque tang.

It was a Joanna Lumley of a wine - grown more beautiful and sophisticated with the years, but still voluptuous, poised and classy.

Very lovely indeed - rather like Joanna here.

I bought this Knoll from Wein & Co in Vienna for around €25 - I've no idea of the price now, either for this vintage or current release, but currency movements and duty alone will have added almost 50% to the price.

Other related articles
Other aged Wachau Rieslings:
- Knoll 2003 Federspiel
- Rudi Pichler 2003 Federspiel
More on Knoll
- Austrian Tasting 2012
- Austrian Tasting 2011
More on Austria generally

Wine of the Month - December

Christmas has its origins as a midwinter festival - a time of communal celebration and feasting to mark the half-way point in the winter calendar.

It's surely no coincidence that both the Gregorian calendar and the Christian church follow pagan customs in marking out mid-winter as a notable time.

In these days of central heating, street lights and global supply chains, the purpose of Christmas has changed beyond all recognition, but it remains a time to be marked with family and food.

If the occasion is special, so should the food be - and the wine, too.

Clos Saint Michel, Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc 2009 - Joseph Barnes Wines (£25)

Chateauneuf du Pape in the Rhone is best known for its spicy southern reds, made from up to 13 grape varieties.

However, it also produces small amounts of white wines from local varieties with demand outstripping supply. This one is a blend of 30% Grenache Blanc, 30% Clairette, 20% Roussanne and 20% Bourboulenc.

Aged in old oak, this Clos St Michel  is a sandy yellow in the glass and needs quite a bit of air to come into its own so don't be afraid to decant at least an hour before the meal.

Once opened up, the nose shows hints of acacia, mint, honey and beeswax - the palate is waxy and fat, yet cut through with ripe melon fruit acidity.

This is something of an Old School wine - balanced and composed rather than showy, the interest here is in the texture, acidity and finish when matched with the right food.

Match with plain roast white meats, especially turkey.

Ballochdale Estate Pinot Noir, 2010, Marlborough, New Zealand - Noel Young Wines (£17.50)

New Zealand is fast becoming a second home for Pinot and a more reliable, if no less cheap, source than Burgundy.

From the Awatere Valley in Marlborough, this Ballochdale Estate Pinot Noir from 2010, sealed under screwcap, is quite dark in the glass for a Pinot and on first opening shows plenty of raspberry and black cherry fruit. It's thoroughly pleasant, albeit not particularly Burgundian.

With a bit of air, however, the ripe primary fruit fades away and it becomes a whole lot more interesting. The nose becomes more vegetal with toasty spice. On the palate, there is ripe sour cherry fruit, pepperiness and a beautifully soft texture; the finish is grippy, spicy and pleasantly rasping.

Match with a Christmas turkey with all the trimmings or, on another occasion, with slow-roast garlic-and-rosemary lamb.

Clos de Los Siete 2009 Mendoza, Argentina - Cambridge Wine Merchants (£13.99)

This Argentinian wine is  made by a partnership of seven producers under the auspices of Bordelais oenologist Michel Rolland.

The winery is based at Vistaflores, an estate covering 847 hectares of vineyards, in the commune of Tunuyan, a desert plain rapidly gaining international acclaim, located 80km south of the city of Mendoza.

Like many Argentinian wines, the grapes are grown at much higher altitudes than is possible in Europe (around 1,000m here), extending the growing season and giving more colour in the wine, greater development of aromas and higher acidity levels - New World ripeness without the blowsiness.

Made from a blend of Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah, it is typically dark in the glass, with aromas of dark fruit, game and herbs; the palate shows sweet black fruit with good acidity and a dense, smooth texture of perfectly ripe, mouthfilling tannins.

Ripe and fruit-forward but not overblown, this is a grown-up crowd-pleaser, a lovely, sophisticated blend of New World ripeness and European restraint; it will match best with the sweetness of slow roast chicken with parsnips and pigs-in-blankets or lamb.

Bodegas Borsao, Tinto 2011, Campo de Borja, Spain - Bacchanalia (£5.99)

Spain's Garnacha (aka France's Grenache) typically makes easy-drinking spicy, juicy wines with lots of crowd-pleasing aromas.

The vineyards for this Garnacha from Bodegas Borsao are located on the northern slopes of the Moncayo mountain range and are cooled by the Cierzo breezes.

A translucent purple in the glass, straight out of the screw-capped bottle there are expressive aromas of morello cherries, plummy fruit, liquorice, leather, vanilla and spice.

The palate is juicy and mouthfilling, with a lovely sour-cherry acidity, more plummy and dark berry fruit with sweet vanilla, spice and roughed-up herbs.

The texture is soft and smooth, with some gentle grip developing on the finish.

This is a really expressive wine with bags of crowd-pleasing character - match with darker game, such as pheasant stuffed with apricots, or spicy sausages.

Recommended Wine

There is no overall winner this month - just some great wines for Christmas drinking; the choice here depends simply on what you are eating and your budget.

Wine of the Month will be de-toxing in January, but returns in February with a Valentine's theme.

Other related articles
Christmas Wine of The Month 2011
More on:
- Bacchanalia
- Cambridge Wine Merchants
- Joseph Barnes Wines
- Noel Young Wines

Links

Bacchanalia - http://www.winegod.co.uk/
Cambridge Wine Merchants - http://www.cambridgewine.co.uk/
Joseph Barnes Wines - http://www.josephbarneswines.com/
Noel Young Wines - http://www.nywines.co.uk/

Main image credit: http://lindentea.tumblr.com/post/1559685191/pagan-depot-mean-geimhridh-celtic-midwinter

Croatia: A Bit of Geo-Political History

Last week, I went to a Croatian Wine Dinner with Pacta Connect at Hotel du Vin. I had planned to write a brief introduction to the country to set the scene, but it turned into the full-length piece below.

So if you just want to read about the dinner - the Croatian wines and matching dishes - click here.

If on the other hand, a shallow dive through the socio-political, ethnic and economic history of this former-Yugoslav EU aspirant grabs your attention - or if, having read about the dinner, you want to dig a little into the background of Croatia, read on.

It often seems to me that Slavic nations are shaped and defined as much by their neighbours as by themselves - Russia is more than half Asian and culturally looks back to centuries of domination under the Mongol empire for its heritage, Ukraine is a borderland passed over and through and occupied by bigger and more powerful neighbours.

Croatia, by contrast, was a teen-bride forced into an unhappy marriage of states jointly renamed Yugoslavia that never really had any shared identity - as became all too obvious in the 1990s.

If the Slovenians to the north are Little Austrians and the Serbians eastward-looking in their Orthodoxy, Croatians are urbane and proudly Catholic with a mixture of central European and Mediterranean influences.

In Balkan Ghosts, Robert Kaplan explains that Croatia has long been a battleground for East vs West struggles: Capitalism against Communism, Catholicism against Orthodoxy, Rome against Constantinople, Habsburg Austria-Hungary against Ottoman Turkey.

He sees the country as lying on a fault line of the great divisions of history, a crucible for centuries of ethnic, religious and cultural tensions which decades of Communism held barely below the surface: "there were reckonings aplenty here".

In the late 90s, I worked in Croatia for a few months on summer, driving down from my home in Vienna every week through southern Austria and Slovenia.

It was not an easy or particularly pleasant time - the countryside of northern Croatia seemed deserted whilst temperatures in central Zagreb were in the high 30s with rubbish uncollected on the streets and packs of stray dogs; most of the local restaurants were scruffy and basic, in the old school communist style.

There were buildings in the grand, Central European style, but they seemed rather sad and neglected - a sign not so much of faded glamour but of faded aspiration.

The wave of optimism at the collapse of communism throughout eastern Europe had first dissipated and then turned into a tide of despair as the aftershocks of the Asian currency crisis swept through the region with as much force as the political changes of half a decade earlier.

Against a background of ethnic tensions, politically and economically the country was on its knees and making good wine seemed the lowest of its priorities.

Around the same time, I also took a holiday in Istria in the "armpit" of Croatia just around the coast from Italy and still very heavily Italian-influenced. If there's a certain "Italian shabbiness", Istria took it a step further with Italian-feel "communist shabbiness".

Further south, the Dalmatian coast is rocky, bare and almost lunar in places but hosts a number of ancient Roman cities including the port of Split where tennis champion Goran Ivanisevic landed after winning Wimbledon in 2001.

Moving forwards, a country that seemed like a doomed basket-case is now sitting in the waiting room of EU accession, rather like the more northern states of Czech, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia were a good decade ago.

Like any country re-inventing itself, there is a new wave of people who are prepared to take risks as they have only reputations to gain and not to lose.

The communist approach to wine-making - indeed to all agriculture - was to treat it like an industrial process, focusing on volume and standardisation, not individuality.

Freed from such socio-political constraints and forced collectivisation, Croatian wine-makers are now able to get back to ideas of wine-making as an artisan activity, an expression of local terroir.

This also means they are free to choose their approach, methods and styles; often the average age of the vines is greater than that of the wine-maker.

The way I think of this new breed of Istrian wine-makers is as having a Mediterranean, Italianate love of food and wine combined with the energy levels and ambition of a new eastern European democracy.

As to the future, Trevor sees some seismic shifts for Croatia's wine industry - joining the EU will open up export markets, but will also bring a flood of cheap imports that will challenge producers of basic wines.

In the longer term, however, the best wines will gain the recognition they deserve and prices will increase accordingly.

Other related articles
Croatian Wine Dinner
Geo-politics
A Croatian wine from M&S

Recommended reading

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

Tour de Belfort's New Range‏

I've been following the developments of the organic, almost natural wines of Tour de Belfort from South West France ever since I met Muriel Lismonde in her adoptive home of Cheshire earlier this year.

One evening last week, I got an early train home from work and stopped by The Gonville Hotel overlooking Parker's Piece to catch up with Muriel and meet her parents, Eugene and Sylvie, who were showing their latest vintages.

Having struggled to get distribution in the UK, they decided to broaden their range and now have a shop offering wine and food courses with local chef Jason Palin.

To the basic red, white and rose blends, they have  added two colours of fizz and two oak-aged, single varietal Grands Vins.

Fizz

I started with a Crémant de Bordeaux; this unusual wine is made from Bordelais grapes using the Champagne method. The family who make it originally came to Bordeaux from Champagne bringing their wine-making approach with them.

The current release does not use Tour de Belfort grapes, but simply has their name on the label - the first of the genuine Tour de Belfort Crémant de Bordeaux will be available from next year using this year's harvest.

The white fizz was light, crisp and fresh - similar to a good Prosecco.

The pink fizz was rather more interesting with good aromatics and some spice.

Unoaked Blends 2011

This year, the white blend features a higher proportion of Chardonnay. It feels as clean and pure as the 2010 with ripe melon and tropical citrus on the palate.

The red blend features more Cabernet Franc and is perfumed with good savoury depth.

The rosé, made from young-vine Syrah and Malbec, is the most well-defined of the three with crisp, linear acidity and aromatic spice.

Grands Vins

The varietal Malbec is aged in 100% new oak and this shows through in the extra complexity and spice. An accomplished and sophisticated wine.

The oak-aged Chardonnay has ripe, pure tropical fruit and lovely oaking with sweet vanilla spice. It's expertly made but stylistically more New World - and specifically Californian - than European; I'd prefer to see a streak of linear acidity and a hint of pungent yeastiness to balance out the ripe sweetness.

The Tour de Belfort range is available from the website. However readers of this blog can get a discount on the list price by contacting Muriel directly and mentioning the blog.

The wines are also available in Cambridge exclusively at The Gonville Hotel.

Recommended Wines
For me, the most interesting wines were the rosé for its linearity and precision and the oaked Malbec for its complexity.

Other related articles
Tour de Belfort - The History,The Reds,The White, The Rosé

Links
Tour de Belfort - website, Facebook
Muriel Lismonde - twitter
The Gonville Hotel - website, twitter

Only Pacta Connect - Croatian Wine Dinner at Hotel du Vin‏

Trevor and Judith Long of Pacta Connect Wines are a lively and entertaining couple; I met them at Cambridge Hotel du Vin at a Croatian Wine Dinner where they were showing some of their wines matched to food by Chef Jonathan Dean.

After originally working in the music business, they made the decision to change careers and become wine importers. With a commercial background, they bring a pragmatic, businesslike approach to the task of making and selling wine whilst likening the task of getting the best out of a winemaker to that of keeping a performing artist happy and focused - both being creative, gifted, egotistical and rather precious types.

Trevor is an engaging rough diamond of a Brummie who would not seem out of place as a bassist-cum-roadie-cum-manager of a pub rock band (he actually tour managed Duran Duran, The Fall, The Stranglers, Haircut 100 and Then Jerico); when he says "kipper tie", he is referring not to a garment but a hot drink.

By contrast, Judith - who was previously PA to a record label Chairman - is rather proper in a well-spoken, slightly plummy sort of way, albeit one suspects she has a darker, more wayward, somewhat punkier sort of side.

They remind me a little of Tim Pearson, a Midlander who made his money in contract cleaning before setting up 7Springs winery.

So I had three questions in my head - why Croatia, whence the palate and how do they spot winemaking talent ?

Over dinner, they explained that Judith had connections in next-door Slovenia but that, popping across the border to Croatia, they had found the wines to be much better there.

The palate is apparently Trevor's - clearly a result of the rock and roll high life.

As to spotting talent, as Trevor puts it, he has had to kiss a lot of oenological frogs before finding the 70-odd wines that now make up their range and which he considers his "children".

"You've clearly been busy" I remarked dryly to which both he and Judith erupted into peals of laughter.

Canapes

We started in the library of the Hotel where Judith and Trevor - who often talk over each other in their enthusiasm to tell stories - introduced the first wine of the evening - Misal Millennium, a Champagne-method fizz produced by 25 year old winemaker Ana at her grandfather's vineyards.

A blend of 80% Istrian Malvazija, 10% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay, it is fermented in stainless steel and marked NV but all from 2009-harvest grapes. It is an elegant sparkler that developed some savouriness and a food friendly rasp with some air and was served with canapes of smoked salmon paté on toast and a warm beetroot gazpacho.

An oak-aged fizz with more toastiness and complexity would have stood up better to the salmon, and although both were lovely, it did not quite work as a match.

Overall, I thought all the food and wines were good-to-excellent, but the best match was with the red wine, whilst the white matches were "almost, but not quite".

All the wines are from Istria which despite being on the Mediterranean results lower alcohol levels due to sea breezes and the cooling Bora winds.

Trevor and Judith in Pula, Istria

Starters

Our first course was a creamy risotto with peas, seared squid rings and truffle oil - appropriately Mediterranean it was light, creamy and delicious.

The accompanying wine was a Piquentum Malvazija 2011. It is a natural wine, for which there is no set definition but which generally means all-natural processes with wild-yeast fermentation, no added substances and low winemaker intervention.

A straw yellow colour in the glass, it was bright and clear with a nose of mossy clay, salinity and seashells.

On the palate, there is good freshness and acidity (it is fermented in stainless steel) and minerality, with a complex, developed character that feels older than current vintage.

It also had something else slightly elusive about it that I find in many natural wines - a depth of flavour and texture.

Our next starter was baked bream with red pepper stuffed cabbage and a Coronica Gran Malvazija from 2008.

100% Istrian malvzija with 10 months' ageing on the lees in stainless steel and a further 10 months in French oak, it was weighty, complex and evolved beyond its years.

Its leesy complexity, muskiness and a fullness on the palate gave it an aged character beyond its mere four years of age - Old School and geeky, it was Very Good Indeed.

The fish was perfectly cooked and the little parcel of typically eastern European stuffed cabbage was very well done, but the food did not match and demanded something fresher, crisper and more modern in style.

Main

Over the main course of lamb paprikash with chateau potatoes, Judith explained that they supply wines to a number of Michelin-starred restaurants and here I could see why - the Roxanich SuperIstrian 2007, again a natural wine, was Rhonesque and complex with vanilla spice, bramble and black cherry fruit and tobacco; the texture is ripe, soft, full and peppery.

A blend of 40% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Istrian Borgonja, this was a really lovely wine -  accomplished, vibrant and exciting with a strong, outgoing personality that will match easily with the sort of characterful food one hopes for at a good restaurant.

The lamb paprikash was rich, tender and full of flavour with the meat falling apart; as a match, it was absolutely spot on.

Dessert

Dessert was a wonderful berry torte with lavender ice cream matched to Cattunar White Muscat 2008; 100% white muscat grape of Momjan (a small village in northern Istria, the only place where this muscat is grown, apparently), the wine had a herbal, aromatic nose of rubbed sage with white flowers - on the palate, there is crisp acidity and floral ripeness but the finish is more off-dry than fully sweet.

This, unfortunately, broke the golden rule of dessert wines: that they must be at least as sweet as the food - and preferably more so.

Although delicious, the dessert overpowered the wine which felt tart on the finish when tasted with the sweetness of the food.
I feel Trevor's suggestion of poached pears would have made for a more successful match - a lighter, sharper, less intensely sweet dish was required here.

---xxx---

Overall, this was a superb and hugely entertaining dinner; Trevor and Judith were excellent hosts, the food and wines were uniformly excellent and there was an interesting mix of guests with a blend of youth and experience.

If the food and wine matches were not always spot on, this was more of a minor niggle than dinner-party carnage.

The wines from Croatia were for me a revelation; not just merely something new and quite interesting, they were seriously impressive and a sign that Croatia is a place to watch - especially with EU accession due next year.

Whether the wines are typical of what is happening in Croatia generally or more a reflection of Trevor's own preferences I do not know.

But as he pointed out at the beginning of his talk, in 2011 Croatia won more Decanter awards than Chile or Argentina; and these things do not happen by accident, of course.

With something of a captive market at present, Croatian wines are not cheap - especially at the bottom end.

By contrast, the value is to be found at the top end, where broader reputations have not yet been made and prices increased accordingly.

Tickets for the dinner cost £55 per head; I attended as a guest of the hotel.

Other related articles
Champagne Dinner at Hotel du Vin
Noval Dinner at Hotel du Vin

Links
Pacta Connect - website, twitter
Hotel du Vin - website, twitter

Monsoon Valley Shiraz and Shiraz Rosé - Thailand

One of the key symptoms of wine geekiness is an insatiable enthusiasm for trying new things - it helps if they are good, too, of course.

These two wines from Thailand's Monsoon Valley scored on both fronts - like most people, I imagine, I associate Thailand more with green curry, dancing and Singha Beer. So it was a revelation to find that the country not only makes wine, but that it is rather good and in a classical, European style.

The PR blurb tells me: Monsoon Valley Wines are award-winning wines made from carefully selected grapes grown at Hua Hin Hills Vineyard in Thailand. The leading new latitude wine is crafted by Siam Winery winemaker

Kathrin Puff and her team, using old world values with new world enthusiasm and state of the art
winemaking equipment.

Monsoon Valley Shiraz 2010

Toasty, spicy nose with vanilla and dark berry fruit - elderberries and black cherries.

Lovely mouthfilling acidity, low in tannins.

Few clues as to its New World origins - it is reminiscent of a Languedoc Syrah.

After a day, the aromas have developed even more - dark fruit, vanilla spice are prominent with a vegetal / slightly sulphurous aroma.

On the palate, it is juicy yet persistent with good length.

It feels light, easy-drinking and elegant - with a soft, smooth texture and very gentle tannins.

What there is here feels very pleasant and technically well made with no rough edges at all. There isn't a lot of tannic structure, but it's just not that type of wine.

Match the dark fruit, juiciness and spice to a slow roast leg of lamb.

Monsoon Valley Shiraz Rosé 2011

Salmon pink in the glass, aromas of red fruits and spice on the nose.

Crisp, precise and linear on the palate with more red berry fruit, hints of spice and good minerality; good aromatics and deftness.

Long palate and persistence on the finish - this is an accomplished food rosé.

Match with European foods such as smoked salmon, summery salads and charcuterie - or maybe with a Thai red curry, too.

Both wines are good and have won awards - personally I slightly prefer the racy style of the rosé.

Both wines available from Fine Wine Sellers priced at £10.99: provided for review.

Other related articles
Wines from Turkey, India, Greece and Georgia
Uruguayan Red Dessert Wine at Cambridge Hotel du Vin
Fringe Wine and a Bit of Geo-Political History

Links
Monsoon Valley - website
Fine Wine Sellers - website