Jean-Claude Credoz, Jura

A wine from Jura's Jean-Claude Credoz, based in Chateau-Chalon

Staying at Relais des Abbesses in Chateau-Chalon, we were advised to visit Jean-Claude Credoz's handsome, ivy-covered house and try his wines.

We weren't disappointed; this is one of the wines we bought.

Cotes du Jura Savagnin, 2013 (€12.90) Golden Sandy yellow with a musky, pungent, bramley apple nose. Sharp, cidery, bramley apple fruit, a pungent tang and an oaky-leesy complexity. Very Good.

Photos

 

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Grand Cercle 2014 Primeurs‏

2014 Grand Cercle Primeurs

 

That 2014 was a better vintage in Bordeaux than the annus horribilis of 2013 can be filed under No sh*t Sherlock. But was it actually any good?

The Grand Cercle press release characterises it as a early developer turned bad pupil who aced the resits - a magnificent vintage miraculously saved.

It depends where you look - if the soil or terroir defines character and provides the underlying potential, vintage dials up or down the intensity and the winemaker brings balance.

 

If a good year leaves little for the winemaker to do, a bad year is where the real work starts. So a good test of a vintage is the consistency of quality across chateaux and winemakers.

 

Tasting the 2014 Primeurs, I was looking primarily for balance; other qualities may develop over time, but if balance is lacking at the beginning, it will never come later.

 

Based on what I tasted at the Grand Cercle, 2014 looks to be a perfectly respectable sort of year with a few wines showing a sensuously plump opulence and freshness with good underpinnings, but not the across-the-board generosity of 2009-2010.

 

The stand out regions from this tasting were:

 

- St Emilion Grand Cru Classe and Pomerol on the right bank

- Pauillac, Graves, Pessac-Leognan and St Estephe on the left

 

There were also a couple of wines that punched above their weight with an impressive showing from Fronsac and Lalande de Pomerol.

 

The few whites were all good. Stand-out reds are listed below:

 

Graves

Saint-Robert Cuvee "Poncet Deville" pure and fresh with rip cherry fruit, balanced

 

Pauillac

Fonbadet pure, focused, precise; mineral and fresh

 

Pessac-Leognan

Haut Lagrange plump, soft, velvety - lovely

 

Pomerol

Clos Vieux Taillefer ripe, fresh, plump, focused

Vray Croix de Gay fresh, precise, long and focused

 

St Emilion Grand Cru Classe

Fleur Cardinale ripe, soft, velvety and plump; lovely texture

La Marzelle ripe, fresh, plump and balanced; Good structure and underpinnings

Ch de Pressac sweet, ripe, plump fruit, well-balanced

 

St Estephe

Serilhan sweet ripe fruit, leathery gaminess, drinking very nicely now

 

There were also a number of outliers that merit a special mention:

 

Ch Dalem, Fronsac 2014 dark fruit, cool mint, excellent structure, really well made. A revelation.

 

Ch Siaurac, Lalande de Pomerol 2014 smooth, ripe, full and balanced

 

Ch Croix Cardinale, St Emilion Grand Cru, 2014 a "little cousin" of the Fleur Cardinale, pure, fresh, precise cherry fruit

 

Haut-Bacalan, Pessac-Leognan, 2009 the 2014 samples had gone missing in transit, so he found some 2009s to show; pure, fresh, mineral, concentrated and focused

 

Tour Seran, Haut Medoc 2011 Cru Bourgeois, blended by the best sommelier in the world, apparently; lots of crowd-pleasing flavour going on with good structure and underpinnings

Four Yealands Wines

Four Yealands Wines

 

Established on 08/08/08, Yealands is an ambitious go-ahead New Zealand winery with an overt sustainability agenda based in the southern Awatere Valley of Marlborough. Peter Yealands' mantra is: think boldly, tread lightly and never say it can't be done.

 

I've been impressed with their wines previously; they sent me four to review, so I decided to match each to a different course.

Mostly current vintage and bottled under screwcap, the Sauvignon and Pinot Noir benefit especially from extended aeration.

 

Aperitif

 

Peter Yealands Sauvignon Blanc, 2014 (£10 Co-op, Sainsbury's) SB is now officially the UK's favourite wine grape, some ten years after it became the critics' darling in the backlash against monolithically oaky Chardie. It also remains NZ's signature grape and this example is a multi-award winner.

 

Clean, pure, textbook mid-market kiwi SB; modern, expressive and aromatic with zippy, pithy tropical fruit; at 12.5% it is a light-ish quaffer and a perfect aperitif (even if to bearded hipster-types, it screams middle-England, late-majority demographic).

 

Starter - mozzarella, tomatoes and rocket with olive oil.

 

Yealands Gruener Veltliner, 2014 (£12.95, independents) a full-bodied, versatile food wine, Gruener is perfect for matching with strongly flavoured foods.

 

Ripe, precise and mineral with a whiff of pepper on the finish, this is elegant, balanced and substantial - later harvesting and a touch of oak adds some nutty, creamy spicy weight. Good.

 

Fish - plaice fillets, beurre blanc, courgettes

 

Yealands PGR, 2014 (£13.95, Noel Young, other independents) a blend of Alsatian varieties (Pinot Gris, Gewuerztraminer and Riesling - hence the name), this has a ripe Alsatian spicy-richness to it that matches well with the buttery sauce but also cuts through it. Good.

 

Main - duck breast strips with spiced red-wine and cherry reduction

 

Yealands Single Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2013 (£13.95, independents) The gaminess of the duck and the spicy rich fruit of the jus match perfectly with this clean, pure expressive Pinot.

 

Elegant and fresh with red fruit and farmyard, it is a harmonious, no-tears textbook Pinot.

 

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Wine of the Month - Three Supermarket Wines For Easter

Three easter wines from Tesco, Sainsbury's and Majestic

For Easter get-togethers, you want reliable crowd-pleasers that will appeal to a range of guests and match with set-piece meals like a roast dinner.

These wines have garnered various awards and recommendations from critics (albeit sometimes other vintages), so are a sure-fire set of winners.

Marques de Casa Concha Chardonnay 2012 (£11.99, Tesco)

What the producers say: From the Limarí Valley at the edge of the Atacama Desert; a region cooled by its proximity to the Pacific Ocean and significant drops in temperature after sunset.

What I say: Toasty-oaky nose with blossom and sweet spice; sweet ripe tropical fruit. Fresh and precise ; mineral, saline and creamy-nutty with just a touch of hedonism. Harmonious and accomplished. Textbook oaky Chardie.

A versatile wine, match with salmon, creamy pasta or roast chicken.

De Bortoli Reserve Petite Sirah 2011 (£8.50, Sainsbury’s)

What the producers say: One of the best lead ups to harvest on record; this is a truly delicious Australian red. This led to fruit with flavour intensity and acid structure not seen for a few years.

What I say: big, mid-level Aussie red full of chocolate, leather, plums and cherries with a cow-lick of sweetly toasty-oaky vanilla spice. Lots of fruit, sunshine and stuffing in here.

Match with roast red meat - lamb with rosemary and garlic or beef with horseradish sauce.

A Sticky End Noble Sauvignon Blanc 2012 (Majestic, £15.99 or mix & match 2 bottles to save 33%)

What the producers say: Made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes that have been allowed extra hang-time on the vine, giving them extra ripeness and promoting the onset of botrytis. Aged for 14 months in French oak.

What I say: golden, Sandy yellow with an intriguing aroma of rubbed sage, seaweed even, mingling with the guava, figs and gooseberry-lime jam. Sweet and syrupy, yet also refreshing - a sort of tropical sweet-sour spiced gingeriness.

 

Match with fruit-based desserts such as Eton Mess or a fruit tart with Chantilly cream.

 

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Image credit: http://www.primrosevale.com/easter-at-primrose-vale/

Agent Orange: Logan's Run

Two elegant wines from Australia's Logan

Australia made a name for itself as a producer of big, fruit-forward, blockbuster gluggers.

So, we all know it can do ripeness and alcohol, but can it do elegance?

Well, yes it can - as I found out at Wine Australia 2015 earlier this year. These two wines from Logan combine the finesse of Old World classics with a New World purity; two wines, two Burgundian grapes and a Burgundian elegance, matched to a high altitude-freshness and a refined sense of restraint.

Logan is based in Orange, one of the highest and coolest wine regions in Australia.

Logan Chardonnay 2011, Orange, NSW, £16.90 (Spirited Wines & Corks Out) Fresh, pure and clean, the grapes are grown at over 950m giving a classy, refined, high-altitude Chardonnay; low alcohol (just 12.5%) and a deft hand in the cellar keep the leesy, oaky richness in an elegant balance with the natural freshness. Adept and assured; Good.

Weemala Pinot Noir 2013, Orange, NSW, £13.52 (Spirited Wines) Dark translucent red; bright, long and fresh with red fruits and minerality, some spice on the finish. Balanced, harmonious and gently assertive. Will age. Very elegant, very enjoyable. Very Good.

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Maximum Bob - A 37-Year Retrospective From Robert Parker

"God is an American"

- I'm Afraid of Americans, David Bowie

 

The big news at the Wine Advocate press conference was the announcement of Neal Martin taking over Bordeaux En Primeur from Robert Parker.

 

But we also got a key trends retrospective of his 37 years in the business from the man who invented the Parker Points system.

 

To summarise it all in a single sentence, the globalisation of interest in wine has led to improvements in quality, expansion of production and ever higher prices at the top end, with all that that brings.

 

#1 quality: quality and reliability have improved across the board, including at the very top, due to the globalised marketplace and increased competition. The industrial approach of old has been replaced by an increased interest in organic and biodynamic practices.

 

#2 investment: related to #1, wineries have invested to focus on quality and make their wines a true representation of the Terroir, soil and region.

 

#3 New regions and diversity of styles: the emergence of Spain, Portugal, southern France, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America.

 

#3 wine investment: the top classics are no longer affordable and this is not going away.

 

#4 wine as a profession: the rise of sommeliers and wine writers is a good thing

 

#5 social media: more wineries are on Twitter and reaching out to people, it is less elitist but people are still intimidated despite everything

 

#6 shipping and handling; these have improved, especially in the US with better temperature control in hotter areas

 

#7 fraud: the "ugliest side" of increased interest in wine, don't buy older vintages as you simply can't prove provenance.

 

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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate Press Conference

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate Press Conference

A Panel Discussion from Team Wine Advocate

 

The Robert Parker circus rumbles into town - below a veneer of good ol' boy humility, it is slick and well-choreographed. Since Robert Parker sold a majority stake in The Wine Advocate to Asian investors a couple of years ago, the pressure to broaden their offering and pay for that stake can only have increased.

 

And so we get an all-American, all-you-can-eat snackathon.

 

First the team introduce themselves and their areas of expertise - the message here is that Team Wine Advocate is more than just Bob.

 

Next, Robert Parker gives us a retrospective of the key trends of his 37 years in the business - it is easily-enough done, but insightful nonetheless.

 

Then we hand over to Lisa Perrotti-Brown to talk about the future; a generation younger than Parker, she seems to have been assigned the task of brand-stretching, so we get lifestyle magazines, tastings and so on.

 

Finally we get The Announcement, the real news - Neal Martin is taking over as Bordeaux En Primeur reviewer, marking a further step back by Robert Parker from the day to day assessments of wines.

 

We wrap up with some key but non-core messages; Bob is a great boss, they own the IP in their scores, the importance of scores has been blown out of proportion - by others.

 

Robert gives us a bit more of his charm, telling us he doesn't really enjoy the limelight, he just loves doing his job, the rest of the panel smiling benignly as he holds forth, centre stage.

 

A brief Q and A and we're done; the goody bag containing nothing more potent than a bottle of fizzy water from the sponsors.

 

Robert Parker has never been a hero of mine - too un-English for my tastes, he doesn't quite work here in Europe, and it seems to show.

 

For all his talk of demystifying wine, the American view of wine is as a status symbol, backed by a touching stateside belief that the more something costs the better it must be.

 

But I emerge with a more nuanced view of the man who is known best for his eponymous points system and a palate that likes more of everything - and then some.

 

He is sharp, astute and a deft performer; we see Bob the boss, the businessman and the CEO. I admire him. But, unlike the classy English fizz on arrival, he is still rather too American for me.

 

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