A Stunning Lunch in the Cotswolds - 5 North Street, Winchcombe - Sunday 6th May 2012
I have been a little lapse in my updates recently, can’t hardly blink and nearly five months have shot by and I have had many gentle nudges from the followers to get on with my recommendations again!
So to ease myself back into this I thought I would go back with the theme of my last entry, which is enjoying some wine with friends at a restaurant. This time a slightly different angle; the occasion was my father’s seventieth and I thought it would be nice to take him somewhere he wouldn’t normally go; a few seconds googling and I found a restaurant with a Michelin star in Winchcombe, southern part of the Cotswolds, not all the far from Cheltenham.
It was Friday lunchtime, the sun was shining and I was returning to the area where I was brought up, always a treat to go back and what a little treasure is Winchcombe. The restaurant 5 North Street is run by husband and wife Gus and Kate, Gus is food and Kate is all things front of house. What a fabulous duo; we were well set up for a party, my assistant was driving me home and we were dropping off quite a few others on the way! | | We kicked off with a 2002 Dom Perignon which as ever is superb, just opening up, but such seductive fruit that year, one bottle was devoured within minutes! Gus started sending through what seemed like a steady flow of appetizers, I remember some excellent welsh rarebit and an amuse-bouche of peas and bacon that even went ok with the DP!
I ordered some St Aubin, sorry I have forgotten the producer, it surprised me, excellent fruit and acidity, so spot on another was soon opened and went superbly with the seafood medley of scallop, Scottish salmon and crab. I love lamb and choose a locally farmed leg fillet which was sublime, so tender and tasty, perfect with the Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel. Far too much was consumed that lunch we started at 12:30 and left the restaurant at 17:00, I fully took advantage of having a driver!
Kate offered me a few ports for the cheese, was three different Ramos Pintos ports I knew from when I worked for Louis Roederer, so I just asked did she have any unopened bottles. | | She popped off down the cellar and came back saying she had some Warre 1983, so I asked the price and before long I was pulling the cork and decanting it myself! It was splendid, I hadn’t drunk this for a few years and it was pretty near perfect vintage port which Kate let me buy for a very reasonable price.
So Puddings, Port, Cheeses, Coffee later I decided a refreshing palate cleanser was needed and what better than a Albarino Rias Baixas 2010, was a stunning end, full of very zesty lemon fresh flavours, so good we had a second. Luckily they pushed us out at that point as the evening service was starting! Highly recommend, great hosting by Kate and Gus knocked up some pretty sensational flavours! The food was a steel six of us for £156, our wine bill was slightly more sensational, four drinkers knocked up £539, not a bad 70th Father, that ratio of wine to food suggests a good time was had! |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Villa Maria Sauvignon at £6.64 at Tesco always buy at this price >
This Vinho Verde at £5.50 drinking really well from Waitrose >
Casa Carmela Joven Monastrell 2010 real fruity red >
Codorniu Vintage Cava from Tesco at £7.00 good everyday sparkler >
Taittinger is harder to buy at £25 these days this offer at Tesco >
I love Jadot's Fleurie at £10 its ok price on offer at Tesco >
Tags: 5 north street dom perignon 2002 ridge vineyards zinfandel 2009 sonoma country california champagne
An Interesting Situation at The Ivy Restaurant Inspired this Update – Spotting Cork Taint “corked wine” - Wednesday 21st December 2011
I had dinner just the other night with 5 friends at The Ivy, some where I eat and entertain quite a lot because it has a great atmosphere and the service is always tip top. Though as my scribblings are about to highlight when it comes to how restaurants deal with a corked wine it can still be a nightmare regardless of where you send wine back, as The Ivy tried to tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about!
For people in the wine trade and others that are confidently able to identify “corked wine” this is one of those issues you experience quite often; you are out for food, you order a bottle of wine and you come across “corked wine” relatively frequently, so you send it back to have a replacement. Most places tend not to quibble for the very good reason cork taint is still hard for many people to recognise and because any wine merchant will refund the bottles that are sent back as “corked” so the restaurant won’t loose financially.
So knowing you should always send a faulty wine back without feeling guilty is one thing, but how can you be sure it is faulty? Well let me first go off on a slight tangent and then come back and get into some tips about identifying a corked wine.
First though I should define corked wine. Technically a corked wine is one affected by a compound called Trichloroanisole “TCA” a naturally occurring compound thought to have become more common in the last fifty years because of the use of synthetic chemicals in pretty much everything we do including in controlling weeds and pests in the cork growing areas. So this nasty little thing called TCA gets into cork (which is just a bark from the cork oak tree; about 50% of corks come from Portugal) and occasionally it can be attributed to a few scenarios in wineries where it gets into the production system, so it is not always cork derived. Anyway that is another hot topic, so lets just say that TCA is a very unwelcome guest in wine regardless of how it got there!
So identifying it is not always easy, but follow a few careful rules and you will probably soon nail it, just remember a wine can be slightly or significantly affected by TCA so smell the wine and always taste it as well, unless you have one of those more rare “screamers” on your hands! | |
1. The most obvious characteristic is a smell of damp and mouldy cardboard, that slightly musty smell you get in damp unventilated areas.
2. Then when you taste the wine, if it is heavily affected by cork taint it will taste like it smells and the other most obvious taste characteristic is TCA kills the wines fruit. So if the wine you know has a certain level of fruit but the bottle you have is very lean and has a slight metallic/dry taste in your mouth you almost certainly have a corked wine on your hands.
A couple of other points worth mentioning:
a) Many wines that have been in bottle for say approx eight or more years, may on opening smell musty for a short time, so always go ahead and taste the wine as what you smell initially and think is cork taint may not be confirmed when you taste the wine.
b) I know writing this someone will pick me up on it; but some wines especially from Bordeaux have a characteristic in them that is pretty similar to the smell you get in cork taint, so just be cautious when smelling Bordeaux reds and always taste them as well just to make sure you don’t jump to conclusions.
I know from experience that it really helps to know a wines style to be really sure about wines that are slightly corked, because as I mentioned earlier in this scribble, cork taint can affect a wine quite mildly and many people wouldn’t notice. Though the downside of this of course is you think you don’t like that particular wine when all that was wrong was it was corked.
I for one and for at least 15 years have been a strong advocate of the screw-cap as it seems to be the best solution for the vast majority, by that I mean about 96% of the wines we drink today, since most of these are drunk so young and never given a chance to age!
It is thought about 4-5% of wines sealed with cork have some degree of TCA, my experiences at home show a slightly higher average of 7% but then when you get to know certain wines you spot even the relatively mildly TCA effected ones. | |
So back to my inspiration for writing this; I was surprised at The Ivy Restaurant that the person designated the wine expert that evening decided to tell me the wine I sent back was not corked. Though when I challenged him to explain what was wrong with it and why was it so different to the first bottle we were drinking, his only explanation was “it hadn’t been decanted and there is often bottle variation and since we had been drinking we were not good judges compared to him!”
Anyway his attitude can only be described as appalling and it just shows you that supposed “wine experts” can’t even diagnose cork taint correctly, so watch out if you are in The Ivy and you send a bottle or corked wine back when Philippe is on duty; expect a confrontation when he challenges your knowledge!
It is one of those issues I would not back down on and since with me at the table that evening was also a well known member of the wine trade, she confirmed my diagnosis within a few seconds of a sniff and taste. Though I still feel amazed they made such an appalling customer relations disaster out of the whole issue.
We did drink some nice wines that night, the photo below is testament to a couple of them, the Bordeaux I sent back was a bottle of Chateau Durfort-Vivens 2004, we had one bottle which was as expected, youthful fruity and alluring like good Margaux, the second bottle we ordered started all the fuss, then the bottle you see in the photo was the third bottle we had of that wine, which was also perfect like the first bottle! At £108 per bottle you only want to drink good ones!
I hope this has been helpful in explaining about cork taint.
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas.
Nick Baker |
 |
The Birds & the Bees - An Organic Recommendation from Northern California Bonterra Vineyards - Monday 5th December 2011
Here is a recommendation on a pairing of wines that would make a great accompaniment for Christmas lunch and general festive period entertaining, of course if you are like me, they also make perfect wines for many another night through the year! These two wines from Bonterra Vineyards in Northern California are from part of a larger winery Fetzer Vineyards and I worked for them from 1995 to 2000. That is sounding scary as its more than 11 years ago, but the important thing here was when I started with them about 1995 the whole “organic movement” was becoming quite significant.
At the time I went to many a meeting and events to help get the Bonterra brand established with all the right people; we gained Soil Association accreditation and during this process we were introduced to HRH The Prince of Wales who then favoured the brand serving it on many occasions.
I guess one useful snippet is to clarify the term “organic wine” since most of the wines you see in the UK are wines made from organically grown grapes. Technically this is not organic wine, since sulphites are used in wines at bottling to stop them oxidising and to act as a preserver. Apart from that in winemaking there is not really a non organic wine making process, so it is all about the grapes.
So today I am getting my educational moment in early as understanding about growing grapes organically is worthy of a few paragraphs since these wines that come from the Bonterra Vineyards taste great and prove you can make great wine using sustainable farming practices. | |
Growing the grapes is all about doing it without the need to use synthetic chemicals and fertilizers so it just leads to a different way of farming and is one of those practices that takes quite a few years to get to work well in a vineyard since you cant rely on quick fixes like blitzing aphids with a spray or sprinkling fertilizer granules.
The health of the soil, is what Vineyard Managers tell you is critical to a successful organic vineyard; this is because you not only need healthy vines that are strong enough to tolerate a certain level of pests and diseases but also the soil needs to support and grow cover crops and companion plants that provide a home for beneficial insects like ladybirds and lacewing wasps which both devour greenfly.
To manage for example without artificial fertiliser you will have to plant things like crimson clovers and winter peas and cover crops; clovers add nitrogen and cover crops like mustard can be mown back into the soil to add humus “organic mass” to help soil structure. Using Daikon Radish, which has a large tap root for example helps open up the soil and shoves up a big flower that many beneficial insects like.
So there are lots of ways to help the natural balance of a vineyard and if you are lucky enough to visit these types of vineyards they can often look beautiful, especially in spring time when they can resemble a flower farm.
So here we are in Mendocino County, some ninety minutes drive north of San Francisco, straight up Route 101 you enter this beautiful area of valleys and hills. The Bonterra Chardonnay is from a handful of vineyards near the winery, where summer is hot days and quite cool nights, that day to night shift in temperature is important in flavour development.
Bob Blue the winemaker decided to ferment 70 percent of the wine in barrels, where it picks up flavours of toasty smoke, some ageing on its lees adds further flavour and completing malolactic fermentation brings out some buttery like flavours. | | Blend this with the 30 percent of the wine that is fermented in stainless steel which has that natural appley like acidity and you have a wine with lots of flavours and complexity and that freshness, leaving you with a glass full of wine with great fruit and freshness so much so you cant resist another one.
The red partner to the Chardonnay is the Bonterra Zinfandel, a native of California and a grape that you see in all sorts of forms from the sweet white zinfandels to the massively alcoholic chunky reds. Well the Bonterra Zinfandel is neither of those this wine with its brambly and blueberry fruits with hints of toasty oak and vanilla flavours of plum and hints of spice; not too heavy and tannins that are soft on the mouth. The winemaker Bob also adds a little wine from the petite sirah grape which adds some deep colour and dark fruit flavours.
You can buy the Bonterra Chardonnay at Waitrose for £7.59 and also at Majestic for £8.99 and read winemakers notes here.
The Bonterra Zinfandel at Waitrose for £11.86 and on offer at Majestic for £9.99 and read winemakers notes here.
Enjoy a taste of the California Sun and if you are ever in San Francisco area, it really is worth a visit to the North Coast, those three counties of Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma that have so much to see and so many great wines to go and taste. You just leave San Francisco by the most majestic route, over the Golden Gate Bridge, turn right for Napa and Sonoma and straight ahead to Bonterra in Mendocino County! |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc - A Bargain at Tesco £13.50 >
Villa Maria Sauvigono Blanc - At £4.83 in Tesco I would order quick! >
Oyster Bay Chardonnay at £5.55 in Tesco - Another one at a Great Discount >
Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon at Tesco for £4.12 - Great Offer Price on this every day drinker >
Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier at £9.00 from Tesco - Lush Apricots and Honeysuckle! >
At £4.12 buy quick Casillero Del Diablo Sauvignon is a Great Offer!!! >
Tags: california bonterra vineyards bob blue chardonnay zinfandel mendocino county organically grown grapes
Wine from my Weekend and a Montes Alpha Recommendation - Chile for Christmas - Monday 28th November 2011
I thought I’d mention a few other wines that I think are going to make great additions to your drinking list, both for drinking on their own and also with food. I am just back from a few days away with friends who live in a rather windy part of Yorkshire; one day of rain, one day of sunshine and an awful lot of very strong wind, so I am glad to be back in the relative shelter of London! So to help us deal with the cold weather we didn’t venture outside for more than a few quick dog walking sessions and so instead stayed mostly indoors and did some serious research for my blog!
Anyway I arrived Friday evening, knowing we were celebrating my friends birthday I had taken a cooler box with a bottle of Taittinger Prelude you can buy at Majestic for £35 which I had aged for about 4 years in my cellar, so I was hoping it would taste great! Anyway, three seconds after I handed the lady of the house a glass, we will call her Mrs Peacock, who was the birthday girl, commented, “oh this is rather nice compared to what I am normally served” and how right Mrs Peacock was in cracking this one so quick!
The wine had some wonderful fruit and toasty yeast character to smell and when sipped you got that characteristic gentle fizz of this Champagne and lots of flavours, all seemed beautifully balanced, gentle fizz, nice fruit and just enough of that bread yeast like character that is so typical in these types of Champagnes. I have to say this is one of my favourite drinking Champagne’s nothing heavy, and very moorish, perfect for lunchtime! So I had created a bit of an expectation in the house that Prelude might become their house bubbles, so I hope Mrs Peacock’s husband, we will call him Colonel Mustard, is reading this subtle hint!
So while on the subject of bubbles, I tasted the Codorniu Vintage Cava, which is Colonel Mustard’s house bubbles; I hadn’t tasted this for a couple of years and I’ll now recommend it since if your budget is tight I think this would be one of the best sparklers around at this price; Tesco are currently promoting Codorniu Vintage at £6.64 offering great value at this price. As ever it is worth waiting for these types of wines to come on promotion and then buy plenty, avoiding the every day retail price which is in my opinion over inflated.
Anyway, after I had built everyone’s tastes buds up with the Champagne we went on and had some of the wines I have previous talked about like the Ridge Geyserville Zinfandel and the Petaluma Tiers Chardonnay which both went superbly with the Chicken Pie!
Two of the other wines we had over the weekend are old favourites of mine and since they are both on a good promotion offer at present it is a good a time to mention them; they make a good pair to have at Christmas, maybe order them early and just make sure you like them! | |
The Montes Alpha Chardonnay from Chile, when on a deal to bring it below £10 is a good buy and currently it is on offer at Tesco for £9.49 or at Majestic for £9.99. You can read winemaker tasting notes here. This is one of those powerful Chardonnay wines, lots of fruit and a good wack of oak, though still lovely and balanced, so you have that vanilla toasty edge, but it is still quite refreshing; you might find it too big by itself, but for me it is great without food, though we had it with Chicken Pie and it went beautifully; though I quickly changed to the red as Mrs Peacock preferred the Chardonnay!
If you’d prefer a red you can also buy the Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon, again like the Chardonnay when these wines are below £10 it enters the “great buy” category and at Tesco its currently on offer at £9.49. You can read more winemaker tasting notes here.
I like the way they make both the Montes Alpha wines, they have delicious fruit and oak balance and a subtlety that is ultimately why I am always recommending these two wines to my friends. The Cabernet Sauvignon has lots of those red and black type of fruit characters, that nice dollup of oak from its time in French Oak Barrels and another one of these wines that really reflects its origin. It is a single vineyard in the Colchague Valley, one of the best areas for Cab in Chile.
For those who like a little educational moment I think this is as good a time as any to go off on one and take you on a short fact finding exercise because to me you can always put your finger on some of the things that make a wine great; many of those I touch on when I go on about region and soils and cool and long growing seasons and today let me go into Chardonnay and barrel fermentation and try to keep this quite tight as this should really be the subject of a thesis!
Anyway here we go: Firstly I need to make a generalisation and say I am likely to be talking about Chardonnay wine that retails above about £8.50. The wines you see below this price are more likely to have been fermented in stainless steel and are unlikely, because of cost, to have been made in oak barrels. Though as ever there are exceptions!
So here we have some lovely full flavoured Chardonnay grapes, they are pressed to extract juice and gently enough so as not to crack pips or over squeeze the skins. This rather sweet Chardonnay juice then gets chucked into small oak barrels (I think types of oak used is better for a subject another day) and usually it is encouraged to start fermenting by adding a yeast of the winemakers choice (The type of yeast being another variable that can influence flavour). | |
So the fermentation will begin, the winemaker is likely to try and keep the barrels cooled at this stage so fermentation is kept controlled to help flavour development and then once the sugars of the grape juice have converted to alcohol another decision has to be made.
How long do you leave it in the barrel and a second fermentation can also be encouraged or stopped. Many great Chardonnay wines are left in barrel on the “lees” or sediment for several months, this Montes Alpha wine spends a hole year in barrel after fermentation and during this time the wine is stirred up to encourage further flavours from the lees to influence the wine. The wine at this stage is quite high in acidity which is primarily malic acid (like granny smith apples) another fermentation (or better described as a conversion process) can start to happen where malic acid starts to convert to lactic acid which is a softer “dairy like acid.”
During this conversion process a bi product, a compound called diacetyl is produced which in summary is the same flavour element you get in butter that gives you the “butteriness” and the winemaker can again choose to enhance the conversion process of acids or stop it at any point. Many wines like Chablis for example and many great burgundies will have little or no Malolactic fermentation, where as some big Californian Chardonnay’s might go a bit mad and go all the way and produce what are known as “butter bombs!”
Anyway the reason for going off on this fact finder is with Chardonnay the malolactic or second fermentation can have a massive influence on the final flavour of the wine along with length of time the wine spends on the lees. I think knowing why a wine tastes quite buttery is a fundamental with Chardonnay and is part of the reason no two chardonnay wines will taste the same!
I think you are best not to tell this story at the dinner party as I think you will loose most your guests, lets just say it is a useful to know fact, but be careful when and who you share it with!
So this Montes Alpha Chardonnay has 12 months ageing in French oak barrels and they allow 40% of the wine to complete the malolactic fermentation. So expect a full flavoured wine with hints of butteriness and vanilla toast from the barrels.
So I hope that was helpful, it is really a major factor best known about if you want to get underneath and into the Chardonnay grape.
Enjoy tasting.
Nick |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Casillero Del Diablo Sauvignon - Still £5.50 at Tesco - get some bought! >
Codorniu at Tesco - Cava of this quality at £6.64 a bargain >
Bonterra Merlot at Waitrose Great Deal at £8.82 - the best Bonterra wine! >
Wither Hills New Zealand Sauvignon - A Bargain at Majestic for £5.99 >
Wither Hills Pinot Noir £9.25 from Waitrose Great Value Pinot at this price >
Penfolds Bin 28 Shiraz - a real half price wine at Tesco £6.66 - great buy >
Tags: taittinger prelude montes alpha chardonnay cabernet sauvignon casablanca colchagua chile champagne cava codorniu
A trip to Malbec Country – High in Foothills of Argentina’s Andes Mountains Lets Meet Catena - Monday 21st November 2011
So what makes the Malbec from Catena Winery taste so good? Well I going to try and take you on an adventure to Argentina to try and help tell the story.
I developed a bit of a soft spot for the wines from the Catena Winery; something that dates back to 1999 and 2000 when the company I was working for at the time, Kendall-Jackson, were building their own winery in Agrelo, a short journey south from Mendoza city. I visited the winery and vineyards quite a few times and on one trip we visited our vineyards up in Tupungato. I had tasted the wines from both Merlot and Malbec that came from our vineyards in Tupungato and they had a beautiful finesse and concentration that saw them stand out from the same wines from other vineyards so I was keen to get out and see the place where the grapes were growing.
Now my scene setting will all become apparent so just hold on for the ride, because that is how it felt to me when visiting this part of Argentina. One of the main growing areas for Malbec is around Agrelo, which is already at quite an altitude around 3100ft yet about an hours drive further south then head up even closer into the Andes and you reach this beautiful location around the small town of Tupungato. It sticks in my mind because you really are in the Andes foothills here, you have climbed up rough roads and we are now at 5000ft right there are the massive Andes towering over you making you feel very small! | |
I remember our vineyards being very gravely and lean soils and indeed one of the challenges for us was getting enough water as there was so little rainfall. Though once established the wines did really well in this climate, long cool growing season meant grapes with exceptional flavours. The other reason for visiting Tupungato that day was we had been invited to meet our neighbours and so at the end of a long day we arrived at Catena’s winery! I was told it was a quick informal meet with their winemaker and glass of wine, though it turned out to be much more; we were hosted by the owner Nicolas Catena, who had built a stunning winery in a stunning location and he was fascinated in knowing about Kendall-Jackson!
What a neighbour and what a location! I took a lot away from that meeting, tasting and tour and today one of the reasons I am writing this and recommending the wines is because Catena not only stood out 12 years ago as one of the top Malbec producers but the Catena family’s passion and without compromise approach means they have stayed at the top of their game and easily maintain their position as one of the finest Malbec producers in Argentina, quality for reasonable prices.
Today I regularly drink two of their wines both should be on your “to drink list.” The first is Catena Malbec 2009 is reasonably widely available and when ever you see it around £9 or less you should snap up loads. This wine is 50% from their vineyards in Tupungato, so taste some of that high altitude Malbec for yourself, it has tremendous fruit character, that slight hint of violets and burst of red and black fruits are blended perfectly with just the right amount of oak flavours. | | You can buy Catena Malbec £11.99 at Majestic or
£11.39 at Waitrose The winemaker tasting notes for this wine are here
The big brother is currently, as I write this, what I have in my glass, Catena Alta Malbec 2007, harder to find and usually around £27, but it is worth saving up for. It has bundles of red and black fruits and what seduces me is that beautifully toasted smokey vanilla character you get from its 18 months in the best french oak barrels! If you can keep your hands off this for a while it would get even more delicious though when young it is vibrant and another one of these wines that has me rather addicted to it!
The Catena Alta Malbec 2007 is in some Majestic stores at £27 or you can buy it through Bibendum who are the UK importers - their online retail shop Bibendum at £26.75 when you buy 12 bottles. The Catena 2007 Alta Winemaker notes are here
This really is high altitude farming for vines in Tupungato, but they seem to have adapted really well and apart from this areas rather high occurrence of hail storms damaging the crops it seems to be the dream home of Malbec in Argentina.
Go visit if you are ever near Mendoza in Argentina, it is a fabulous location to go horse riding and of course tasting the odd wine or two!
Enjoy some great Malbec.
Nick |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Lanson Champagne at Tesco - buy quick while at £15.19 a real bargain! >
Bonterra Chardonnay at Waitrose Great Price at £7.59 >
Bonterra Merlot at Waitrose Great Deal at £8.82 - the best Bonterra wine! >
Wither Hills Pinot Noir £9.25 from Waitrose Great Value Pinot at this price >
Good Beaujolais Villages from Jadot at Tesco for just £7.11 >
Casillero Sauvignon on offer at Tesco £5.50 - tasting great and fab price on this offer >
Tags: catena malbec tupungato agrelo catena alta mendoza argentina
My Recent Tasting of Wines Currently On Offer - Wednesday 16th November 2011
With the Christmas period coming up then many wine retailers up the number of offers and over the next 4-6 weeks we should continue to see plenty of new weekly offerings so today I thought I would do a selection. I did my usual round of checks on websites and amazed what a poor selection Tesco currently has on offer; unless you are a fan of their Tesco Finest wines, so count me out!
Since I have been recommending expensive wines for the last few weeks today I am going to be more "Greek Government minded" though is it better to drink half as much of a really good wine or loads of a cheap wine? I guess we could ponder that one all day, I certainly believe it is best to drink half as much of a lush slightly more expensive wine. Though that plan usually goes wrong, since you don’t drink half as much, but it is a very good intention!
I hadn’t tasted the first of my recommendations that recently until last weekend, I was at Majestic and they had the Oxford Landing Chardonnay £4.99 at Majestic open to taste so I took a quick glug and thought for £4.99 it was a bargain. Also at Tesco £4.74 It has always been a reliable wine and when down at this price you cant go wrong for a wine to offer your friends. It has that good mix of lots of chardonnay fruit, not too much oak and leaves your mouth feeling fresh and ready for another sip, often not the case for many £4.99 wines.
The second white is another Chardonnay which is currently on offer at Sainsburys Sainsburys Wither Hills Chardonnay at £6.79 from New Zealand is a good price for this wine. | | It has all that rich fruit of New Zealand Chardonnay combines elegantly with just enough French Oak character, a good balance, easy to sip away by itself or pretty versatile with what you enjoy eating.
The third white also from New Zealand Villa Maria’s Sauvignon at £6.99 from Majestic which is a wine when below £7 I’d always suggest you snap it up because at its full price near £10 it is not such good value but when on offers of £7 or occasionally below it does offer extraordinary good value. This is a favourite summer wine or when you just need some light refreshing drinking!
Now if you are in the market for Champagne the retailers seem to keep trying to out do each with deals this week Taittinger at Sainsburys just £17.49 again a price that offers exceptional value, just get it bought if you drink champagne at Christmas or like me on days when there is a y in them! I notice Sainsbury’s have put a cap on the amount you can buy at just 6 bottles. Tesco offered the same champagne two weeks ago, I ordered quite a lot online and was surprised it all turned up as I was expecting my order to be cut, though I did notice the day after I placed my order they added a max order limit to their website. I guess these retailers try and suck us in with their offers and it is always annoying when they restrict you to a few bottles. I guess like many things in the world the deals are there to draw you in to hopefully buy other stuff!
So if you haven’t snapped anything up yet then here are a couple of reds. | | The first is a Barossa Valley Shiraz £7.11 bottled for Waitrose by St Hallett winery. This wine on offer at £7.11 is great value and is full of dark fruity flavours nicely blended with a good dollop of toasty oak character, not out of place with so much fruit, simply a great wine for a “retailer own label.”
The second red also from Australia is Wakefield Estate Merlot £8.49 from Majestic. The single estate merlot has quite a lof of power, its fruit is from the Clare Valley and has an abundance of plum like and cherry fruits with plenty of soft juicy tannins and nice balanced oak. Only tasted this recently and liked its style.
So there is a quick roundup of what I have tasted recently and what is on offer, I hope you get a chance to taste and enjoy some of these and I will continue to highlight the best of the Christmas offers over the coming weeks.
Enjoy a glass of something new.
Nick |
Tags: oxford landing chardonnay villa maria sauvignon wither hills wakefield estate merlot barossa valley shiraz taittinger new zealand australia champagne
Enjoying a Zinfandel Moment! Ridge Vineyards Lytton Springs and Geyserville 2009 - Sunday 6th November 2011
For many years I have enjoyed the wines made by Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards and if I knew then what I knew now I would have signed up to be their agent and bought as much wine as I could! Bear with me a little today as I am off on a ramble, it may all come round in a perfect circle as this one needs a little understanding!
I was first introduced to these wines in 1996 when the company I worked for, Grants of St James's as Marketing Manager was acquired by what became an enormous business and along the way this new company swept up distribution rights in the UK to many great brands like Ridge Vineyards.
I was doing a quick bit of research and “memory jogging” so I just dug out of my archive an old price list that I put together for “Geoffrey Roberts Agencies” (scan of the page below) and it reminded what you see today with these wines from Ridge was very similar back in 1996, namely the wines were already on allocation back then and today probably the hardest thing to explain is these are great wines, but you will have to try quite hard to buy them and when you find them you will have to pay quite a lot! When I look at those prices and then see what has happened in 15 years it is rather scary!
Anyway the reason I am off on this ramble is because I really rate these wines and I think a great wine is worth understanding, especially when I am suggesting you spend £30!
Ridge became famous many years ago for their flagship wine Monte Bello which holds a position on a global level as one of the best Cabernet Sauvignon dominated wines in the world. I think this wine deserves an entry off its own at a later date. Their more every day drinking wines, well they are still around £30 a bottle, are their Zinfandel based wines, namely the Ridge wines from Lytton Springs and Geyserville both from 2009. At this time of year the new vintages of Ridge typically come onto the market so I would usually do what I have done this year, buy both Zin’s, whip out the corks, taste them together and go and buy a load of the one I prefer! | |
Well yesterday I did just that and tasted the new 2009 vintages and thoroughly enjoyed them both, there is something about this wine; I was excited when pulling the corks and am smiling while writing this! Today I tasted them again and of the two I preferred the Geyserville simply because it has more soft forward red fruit that just made it so delicious and rather addictable! I recognise this wine every year because when I smell it I get this strong whiff of concentrated red fruits, loads of flavours, an underlying dried raspberry chocolate character always comes through for me, though you have to find these identifiers yourself. Though taste a dried raspberry and bitter chocolate and you will see what I mean!
The Lytton Springs wine is nearly as lush, slightly more restrained fruits more of those dark blackberry and strawberry fruits, tannins are more pronounced and to drink by itself give me Geyserville, though with food the slightly angular Lytton Springs becomes a much more lush and softer wine.
Both have that wack of American oak that adds a rather creamy vanilla character, but it never seems out of place, I think that is what makes these wines so great, big in every way, lots of stuff happening.
Both are Zinfandel based wines, the Lytton has a wack (23%) of Petite Sirah, just such a concentrated grape it adds black fruit characters and tannin structure and the Geyserville has 19% Carignane which is probably where all its red fruit charm comes from in this wine.
I can enjoy either wine by themselves, probably too big for many people as a drinking wine, but try them with your Christmas fare, its not to be missed. Though if you invite me round for an aperitif I will happily glug it! | |
A little background on the two areas; The Geyserville Vineyard is full of very old vines, grown in the western edge of the Alexander Valley in the north east corner of Sonoma County. This is a stunning area, these vineyards are minimally managed just like the wine making a natural hands off approach, so the wines showcase the mix of grape varieties in the vineyard and express what is best about Alexander Valley wines; big concentrated and capable of many years aging, if unlike me you can leave them alone!
The Lytton Springs Vineyard is just over a ridge from Alexander Valley, we are now in the Dry Creek Valley, has a different climate, more fog influence here, so cooler mornings, hotter afternoons and windy evenings, this enhances flavour development in the grapes with a long slow growing season. The area here is a lot more rolling hills bench land with weathered soils again stamping its own character on the wines.
Now when you want a treat, they are just over £30 a bottle, where do you buy them? I know two local places, a great wine shop in Islington called The Sampler , they do mail order and also Majestic, their fine wine store Majestic St Johns Wood . Call either of them and I am sure they will help you. Otherwise google will find you a local wine merchant, though don’t wait long as I would expect these vintages to be sold out by Christmas.
You can read the winemaker tasting notes on Geyserville Zin here & the Lytton Springs Zin here
So which one am I going to buy... well I will buy them both, though more of the Geyserville this year, it has some sort of spell cast on me! |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Bargain of the week at Tesco is Taittinger Buy Quick at £17 it is a very rare offer! >
Jackson Estate Sauvignon at Tesco for just £6 >
Also Good value Wither Hills Sauvignon at just £6.16 from Waitrose >
Tags: ridge vineyards paul draper zinfandel lytton springs geyserville sonoma county 2009 dry creek valley alexander valley california
A Quiet Night with a Few Merlots - New Zealand Versus a Californian Merlot - Sunday 30th October 2011
Just the other night a couple of friends were round, one runs Angel Flowers he had brought some nice flowers round so I thought I better not be too stingy with the wine, so I poured them all a nice glass of merlot, the other half a bottle I opened last night and they all commented how nice it was. So instead of just opening up another of the same I decided it would be great to open up a couple of the other new merlots I had recently bought and just see what people thought.
We ended up drinking, or should I say tasting, quite a few merlots that night and to me one of the greatest pleasures is finding a bunch of wines you like and being able to drink and taste them along side each other, so these are the edited highlights.
I will confess I have a bit of a soft spot for one of the wines we drank the Bonterra Merlot 2008 from Mendocino County in California; this is from a company I worked for back in the mid 90’s a time when wines from organically grown grapes were first starting to make a big impression.
I used to look after the UK market for Fetzer Vineyards of which Bonterra was the flagship “organic brand” always one of my favourites because of it proved just how dam good wines can be when you follow farming principles that have managed to find a way to just “manage without” rather than needing to rely on synthetic chemicals in farming its grapes. Fetzer, I believe was also the first large scale wine that proved you could make fantastic wines utilizing these methods. | |
The merlot was always the star in the range, the others are great, but trust me the merlot has a slight edge. It is from a handful of vineyards in Mendocino county close to the winery where there are some microclimates that have a real swing from day to night time temperatures, again it is all about the grapes having a long growing season and it is this combined with some of the clonal selection that to me has made this merlot so lush and tasty.
When you first smell the wine you get this strong fruit character of plums and blackberry and then a wack of vanilla creamy oak along with a bunch of other things! Can’t forget to mention the winemaker, Bob Blue you make great wines! Taste it sometime and let me know what you think.
By contrast we also tasted that night the Craggy Range Merlot 2009 which is a subtly different wine from New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay. | | It is from the Gimblett Gravels Vineyard, a very well known wine area famous for it gravel soils that just help give the vines a warmth boost in an otherwise marginal area for merlot. Though the slightly cooler climate here is only a positive because it allows the grapes to ripen long and slow.
It costs a little more than the Bonterra and is money well spent if you can afford a few extra pounds as it has that lovely lush merlot fruit and a real richness and complexity of flavours. This is the best vintage I have tasted of this wine and also a screw cap so gets another thumbs up. I am well and truly fed up of opening bottles and having that cork taint experience.
You can buy Bonterra Merlot 2008 for £11.86 from Waitrose here & read the winemaker tasting notes Bonterra Merlot
You can buy Craggy Range Merlot 2009 at £15.19 from Waitrose here & read the winemaker tasting notes Craggy Range Merlot |
Tags: bonterra merlot new zealand california craggy range organic bob blue mendocino hawkes bay
Penfolds Bin 09A and Bin 311 Chardonnays – Don’t confuse your numbers like me! Sunday 23rd October 2011
It was Friday evening, a long day and and even longer week were drawing to a close, so come 7pm I wandered down to my wine fridge, well almost running, no doubts in my mind what I was after; I was definitely in the mood for a moderately big chardonnay, chunky but still refreshing and when I opened the fridge door the first one I saw was a bottle of Penfolds Bin 311 Chardonnay 2009, so I dashed upstairs and cracked it open and poured a glass.
No need to worry about this one being corked as it is screw cap; I took a quick sniff though hardly able to wait to get it in my mouth, quick slosh round and boy was I surprised! | | It was not just refreshing but rather bigger and more complex than I remember the last bottle from a few days ago, but still rather lush! I grabbed the bottle and I read Bin 09A, I guess I was in a bit of a daze or just thirstier than I thought and my rush had cost me about £30 extra!
I had forgotten I had some of the 09A in the fridge; it is an exceptional chardonnay and at £45 it should be, a beautiful balance of fruit and oak, really refreshing with a nice toasty oak vanilla finish. A quick techie moment; the grape juice is all barrel fermented in French oak, stays on the lees (sediment) for longer than normal and during this time goes through 100% malolactic fermentation (harder apple like acids covert to softer lactic acids like butter) all this really means is it gets a wack more flavour complexity and butteriness, probably why I enjoyed it so much! | |
By contrast the Bin 311 is a snip at around £16 and the reason my fridge is full of it is because I rate it as a drinking chardonnay, not just Sunday best like 09A! The grapes are from Tumbarumba region, one of these cooler growing areas, so the grapes for this wine and the 09A have this long “hang time” from flowering to harvest which is one of the major factors in concentrating flavours.
You can buy Penfolds Chardonnay 2009 Bin 311 for £16 from Waitrose here Read what the winemaker has to say: winemaker tasting notes Bin 311
You can buy Penfolds Reserve Chardonnay Bin 09A 2009 from Waitrose here at £45 or from Majestic here at £40 Read what the winemaker has to say: winemaker tasting notes Bin 09A |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Casillero del Diablo Reserva Sauvignon Blanc Fill Your Cellar full - at Tesco for just £3.19! >
Villa Maria Chardonnay at Tesco for just £7.11 >
Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc at Waitrose down to £6.16 >
Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc at Tesco bargain at £13.50 >
Taittinger at Tesco great value at £25.64 >
Tags: penfolds chardonnay australia bin 311 bin 09a tumbarumba
Nick's Wine Diary - Wednesday 19th October - New Zealand Pinot Noir
If I have a favourite grape I think it is currently Pinot Noir; now that choice might change, sometimes as frequently as the wind changes direction, but it is almost certainly one I end up drinking a lot and there are many reasons for that!
I quite often drink a few glasses of wine in an evening. Pinot Noir just makes a perfect friend when you are sat at your computer fiddling away and taking the occasional sip. Never too heavy, the right one is never too light, the best ones have that great balance of juicy fruits, hint of oak and if you manage to keep you hands off them for a while they mature and bring some other great flavours!
Though again I will admit I drink most my Pinot Noir’s quite young with all its lovely young fruit the most dominant characteristic.
My last job working for an individual winery was based out in Sonoma County where for three happy years I loved living in a region where some of the worlds best Pinot Noirs are produced. | | Though many never making it outside of California let alone anywhere else in the world.
Today though I am looking at what is great value Pinot Noir of an enjoyable quality and I always end up in New Zealand for my choices. I buy Wither Hills Pinot Noir quite a lot since when it is on deal around £12, then it is exceptional value.
When out eating I usually see a lot of Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir, again if you see it in retail under £20 it is worth buying. As I write this I am drinking Craggy Range Pinot Noir, another great value one with lots of the right fruit and oak, making it hard not to keep topping up your glass.
Now if you want a treat try Dry River Pinot Noir, around £50 and hard to find but an exceptional wine; worth treating your self daily to this one! | | This is one of those wines where its grapes are grown in a unique and stunning location.
Stressed vines in the microclimate that elongates the growing season helps produced grapes of incredible flavour. Wither Hills Pinot at Waitrose and Dry River Pinot at the Sampler.
Wither Hills Pinot Noir Winemake notes here.
Read about the unique points of Dry River on its Website here.
If you google the wines I recommend you may find your local supplier as I will just write about UK suppliers. |
Current Wine Offers Worth Checking Out
Louis Jadot Beaujolais Villages great value at Tesco at £5.33 >
Penfolds Koonunga Hill Riesling at Tesco just £6.40 >
Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc at Waitrose down to £6.16 >
Tags: pinot noir new zealand wither hills dry river craggy range
My Third Wine Diary - Friday 14th October - My Favourite New Zealand Sauvignons
So here we are Thursday evening and we had a little late afternoon sun here in London so I thought what better way to remind ourselves of summer than crack open a bottle of wine that takes you back to a perfect drink for those warm summer evenings.
So enough of that and since my first two wine recommendations were not in the every day price category and more a good excuse for me to open and enjoy such lush wines, then today, back to basics and lets talk about why I enjoy New Zealand Sauvignon, especially when you buy the right brand at the right price!
There are many subjects I can open up for later discussion (one will be about what constitutes a genuine retail wine saving and what is simply a dressed up “half price deal”) but today is all about what New Zealand does best and that is year after year turning out some of the best value Sauvignon Blanc anywhere. | |
I tend to drink a handful of brands, I get to like a particular winery and the fruit characteristics of their Sauvignon’s and I buy these wines when they are on offer around £7 as they are then genuine good deals.
When I see something at the right price I tend to buy lots of it so if you see any of these Sauvignon Blancs at that price, get them bought; Villa Maria Private Bin and Wither Hills are my favourites then if you are happy to pay slightly more Craggy Range and Jackson Estate are pushing £9 on a deal and worth every penny. | |
Right now Waitrose are offering Wither Hills and Villa Maria Sauvignon’s at just over £7 online or in store. Wither Hills at Waitrose and Villa Maria at Waitrose.
Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc Winemaker notes here and Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc Winemaker notes here. |
Tags: sauvignon blanc new zealand wither hills villa maria
Enjoy My Second Wine Diary - Monday 10th October 2011 - Petaluma Tiers Chardonnay 2007
| Ok so Monday evening is here and I thought it was the perfect evening for a big white! You might see some trends over the coming months if I manage to keep up these scribbles, but I do enjoy big wines; they have to be balanced and they can be as big as they like. Tonight I am enjoying a glass of Chardonnay and I would encourage everyone to try out some of these; no one chardonnay is generally like another and you have to find the one you like; expect me to guide you to the “big slap you round the chops” types but don’t be afraid to try them with or without food. Right now I am drinking Petaluma Tiers Chardonnay 2007 and it has that perfect balance of fruit flavour, oak and acidity. | | It is almost certainly aged in French oak (I will return to the influence of oak on wine another day) lets just say the wine aged in French oak from certain forests works perfectly, accentuating the chardonnay fruit and bringing some of that lovely toasty buttery character; I suspect you will either love or hate it, but try it by itself and then with food, probably for me it would be perfect with salmon, just barely cook it on the bbq just as it begins to flake get it off and cool it down quick, once slightly cool try it with this wine! Umm I think I am off to my bbq right now! I am slightly surprised at the prices of this wine, I only bought mine a few months ago but I just checked and they are now out of stock the three main stockist who have the wine are quite pricey! | | I promise to come back down to recommending a few more every day wines soon!
You can buy the 2006 vintage which is cork where as the 2007 is screwcap (umm another subject for another day!) Tesco and M & S and also from the UK importer Bibendum.
If youd like to read more there are Winemakers notes here.
If you google the wines I recommend you may find your local supplier as I will just write about UK suppliers. |
Tags: chardonnay australia petaluma tiers vineyard
Enjoy My First Wine Diary - Saturday 8th October 2011 - Contino, Viña del Olivo 2007
Until around 2002 I used to work full time in wine, generally for individual wineries, much of my career being with Fetzer Vineyards and Kendall Jackson. Since then I no longer have commercial links to any particular brands so it has been great to enjoy drinking what ever I fancy!
For a long time now I have been thinking I should try and get round to scribbling a few notes about each of the wines I drink and think is particularly good value. So today with my new “wine diary” I hope I can introduce a few of you to try some of the wine I enjoy! It started very early today as I met two friends this morning at Browns in Islington.
So we had our first glass of the day, it was still quite warm so we sat outside as my dogs were with us and we ordered a bottle of Cape Mentelle Cabernet-Merlot 2007 which for lunch was great and I even requested it be chilled a little! | | Many big reds I think benefit from not being over warm, many bars store them above the bar for ease of service but this does mean they are often too warm for me when I drink them, so never be afraid to ask for an ice bucket for your red wine! This particular red is also very up front and fruity and is best slightly cool when sitting outside on a hot day!
Lunch over and I am working at my pc tonight, so I decided to open one of the bottles I recently bought and was gagging to try. I am going through a Rioja re-introduction phase and tonight is a bit of a treat as I opened Contino, Viña del Olivo 2007. This is Contino’s flagship wine and must be up there in the top five Rioja wines; you will have to pay around £50 to enjoy this one but it worth every penny, full and rich with some great spicy edges to the fruit and oaky toastiness; in fact I just wrote it down on my to buy more of list!
Rioja to me is best drunk younger than is traditional and this is a real youthful wine, great balance, powerful and is going to develop even more complex. | | I could keep it for 10 years, though it tastes so good now I bet I will just enjoy it when young!
You can buy it from a few places like Waitrose and Berry Brothers and Contino also produce a slightly more affordable Rioja Also from Waitrose. If youd like to read more about the wine Winemaker notes here.
If you google the wines I recommend you may find your local supplier as I will just write about UK suppliers.
Quick additional note on sunday; I had the other half with dinner tonight and have to say it is just stunning this wine full of rich lush flavours; think I will be buying some more! |
Tags: rioja spain contino viña del olivo
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