Paul Jaboulet Aine & Chinese proverbs

There is a Chinese proverb, “do not be over self-confident with your first impressions of people.” As the Chinese have been imparting wisdom on the world for several millennia, I figure that we should listen to them. I also wish that I’d heard that proverb before I went to the Liberty wines tasting in March and tried Paul Jaboulet Aine’s (PJA) wines. My main criticism was that the ’06 wines were far too young, and you could buy alternative Cotes du Rhone from older vintages for the same money. My other issue, which may be considered a trivial one, was that the new labels sucked. Jaboulet, by their own admission, have had dubious quality in recent vintages and since their acquisition in early 2006 by the Frey family (of Chateau La Lagune), the cobwebs have been dusted off and new life has been injected into this famous producer.

I was invited to a dinner, showing the full range of wines, in Edinburgh last week, and my opinions have been altered a bit. Firstly, I still don’t like the new blue labels. I understand why they have changed from red to blue, it draws a clear line in the sand and says “everything with a blue label is from the reinvigorated Jaboulet”, but it also gets a big blue marker and scribbles all over the history of this house. Redesign and uncomplicated the old labels by all means, but keep a style similar to the older bottles. Having said that, the new Parallele 45 lables are pretty good… if only it wasn’t for the blue…

But beauty is only skin deep, and tasting the wines would test if, to quote Billy Connolly, “ugly went right to the core”. The one thing that is blatantly apparent is that the 2006 vintage is good. The Freys have improved quality significantly, and the wines that needed time are settling down and becoming drinkable. The older wines however from before the buyout, whilst not being bad by any stretch of the imagination, are not up to the same standard.

When VW bought out Skoda (bear with me, you’ll see where I’m going with this), the majority of people in the car trade thought that the German company were one spanner short in the toolbox. I thought the same about Jaboulet punting out the Le Petit Jaboulet wines. Why bother? Skodas don’t cost that much less than an equivalent VW, Le Petit wines don’t cost that much less than a basic PJA. Both cars offer similar performance, as do the wines, and both parent companies run the risk of people preferring the ‘lesser’ product. Fortunately, for VW & PJA, that hasn’t happened. People still prefer a Polo to a Fabia and more people will prefer the Parallele 45 to to the Le Petit wines.

2007 Le Petit Jaboulet Viognier
Peachy, with a significant aroma of soap. Dry leaves and under ripe peach come off the palate, which is a bit harsh and a bit boozy. With food, it will be fine. 7/10

2007 Le Petit Jaboulet Grenache Rose
Strawberry fromage frais and that’s it. Freeze dried raspberries on the palate, and it is ok, if a bit pricy. It’s a good wine for sitting in a beer garden in a pub with your pals with a packet of peanuts. 7/10

2006 Le Petit Jaboulet Syrah
Stinky. A little confected fruit and a farmyardy dirtyness, but it cleans itself up very well, with dark spicy fruit on the palate. A little thinner than I’d like but a nice wine. 7/10

These are restaurant wines, pure and simple. Certainly they offer nice wines, which are designed to go with food, but they are too expensive for what they are, and at a retail level, you can get better for the same money. In a restaurant however, charging £15 to £20 for these is acceptable and they would offer far ‘house’ wines than a lot of restaurants offer.

The Volkswagen wines are split into two, Pre Frey and Post Frey. The Post Frey wines are all showing much better balance and are simply better made while those made before January 2006 are, on the whole, flabby, jammy or just too unbalanced.

2006 PJA Parallele 45 Blanc
Light lychee aroma, on a very gentle nose. A soft touch of talcum powder too. The palate has a bit of booze and spice, but good soft fruit helps it balance out. 7.5/10

2006 PJA Condrieu Les Cassines
All soap on the nose. Then a touch of apricots. Palate is nice at the start, very gentle fruit and a bit of spice. Then a vineleaf aroma comes across. A touch warm but nice. 8/10

2006 PJA Crozes Hermitage Mule Blanche
Wood, nutmeg and spice. Palate is chunky and woody. Very ripe mango comes off the palate. A bit crude but a nice food wine. 7.5/10

2006 PJA Parallele 45 Rose
Strawberries and a bit of Turkish delight covered in icing sugar. Palate is clean with good fruit, a little veggie element to it and a nice clean finish. 8/10

2006 PJA Parallele 45 Rouge
Dark, concentrated cherry and bramble. Spicy with nice dry tannin and a bit of dark liquorice and chocolate. 8/10

2006 PJA Cotes du Ventoux Rouge les Traverses
Floral – parma violets and a long lingering raspberry. It’s dry yet with a nice, light dusty fruit to it. A bit hot on the finish with a kick of spice on the finish. Not bad. 7.5/10

2006 PJA Croze Hermitage les Jalets
Dark, slight stewed fruit and a lot of bramble and strawberry jam. Dark fruit on the palate with paprika and a bit of blackcurrent. 7.5/10

2005 PJA St Joseph Le Grand Pompee
A lot of dark, sweaty fruit. It’s got more fresh fruit on the palate, but an overwhelming sweetness. Again, dry spice and a dark, leathery aniseedy finish. 6.5/10

2005 PJA Cornas Domaine de Saint Pierre
Light raspberries, a good spice and a nice, slightly sweet fresh fruit to it. Dry, with light fruit and a gentle spice. A bit of crushed pepper and tobacco and star anise to finish it off. I like this, and look forward to ‘Frey’ versions of this wine. 9/10

2005 PJA Crozes Hermitage Domaine de Thalabert
Rich bramble and raspberry. Wild berries and a long minty element on the nose. Stewed meat comes in though and buggers it all up. The palate is dark, leather and with spice, pepper and dried leaves, all rolled up around a Bolivar cigar. A bit of heat to finish it off. 7/10

2004 PJA Hermitage la Petit Chapelle
Herbs. Mint, rosemary and coriander, then juicy berries. A little bonfire toffee and cherry. Brambles on the palate and a long spicy, oregano flavour. Nice, just too stewed. 8.5/10

2005 PJA Hermitage La Chapelle
Very rich and opulent and sweet. Full on bramble jam, peppers and raspberries. A bit of toffee, a wet stone minerality and then dark, concentrated, firm, tannic palate with lots of liquorice, leather, pepper and tobacco. A good wine, just pornographicly crude. 8.5/10

2006 PJA Muscat des Beaumes de Venise
Lemon honeysuckle and lime. Palate is sweet, starts off nice but you get a harsh, boozy, under ripe apple element. The weakest of all the wines. 6.5/10

I’m going to look forward to the next few years from this producer. Good work is being done with PJA and I will look forward to ’06 vintages of the Hermitage reds that I hope to follow on from the work done on the lower end wines and produce some fantastic wines. Now handled by Liberty wines, Jaboulet can get nationally distributed and if things continue, we could see the renaissance of this Rhone producer. The Chinese proverb may be right and my initial reaction to Jaboulet was an unfair one. I’m not writing the pre takeover wines off, but you would be wasting your money a bit buying the Hermitage wines. The others offer decent enough wines, but if you want to spend some money on Jaboulet, buy the ’06 wines. Good wines, which, with time and effort, have the potential to be great. I might even get used to the labels one day…

By Peter Wood with No comments

Wine Web Watch - Ardbeg 1965 Advert

If you are selling a £2000 bottle of whisky, is this advert how you want to do it?



I have actually tried this whisky. This is what I thought.

Ardbeg 1965 42.1%
Not so smoky, lean fruit, and more burnt toast than in a greasy spoon cafe. Throw a lot of Branston pickle onto it and a bit of ‘just peeled elastoplast’! Lots of bitter, dry fruit and burnt orange. It is an overoaked whisky but it certainly isn’t want two grand a bottle. 6.5/10

By Peter Wood with 3 comments

Alfred Gratien Champagne

Founded in 1864, this Eperney based champagne house is owned by a Sekt company, Henkell & Trocken, yet is still one of the most traditional producers in Champagne. Acclaimed by 'Bubble Gurus' Tom Stevenson and Richard Juhlin, I tasted two of this Champagne house's vintages recently.

Firstly, the 1983 which was surprisingly light, despite being Pinot Noir dominant. It was almost like a newly released early millennium champagne, that is how youthful the nose was. A touch of lemon pith started things off with a little mashed potato coming through. Nicely dry with a lovely bitter pencil lead coming through and lime on the finish. Awarding it 8/10, I thought that this, very youthful, style was the house norm. Then I tried the 1989.

This vintage was totally different. This was a Chardonnay based wine, yet has a richness that I'd normally associate with a wine of the '83's makeup (40%Pinot Noir, 20% Pinot Meunier and 40% Chardonnay). This champagne (10%PN 30%PM & 60%CH) appeared a lot older, more complex and altogether more appealing for someone who wants a champagne that is 19 years old. Rich, very rich, with a lot of honey, pistachio and digestive biscuits. Lemon skin comes across on the palate with a nice mouse, great acidity that strips your mouth and leaves you salivating. Brilliant stuff, and worthy of 8.5/10.

That is not to say that the '83 is not a brilliant wine. I just think it is too young. It should last ages, and maybe one day in a decade or so it will be offering the aged taste and smell that a wine of it's years should.

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Five things we learned this week

1. Robert Parker likes cheap wine as much as we all do. According to Decanter's website, the American critic said "The real marketplace is in Beaujolais Nouveau". So that would be for two or three weeks every year? Also, he said this on the day before he drank 1990 Petrus, 1948 Doisy Daene and 2000 Cheval Blanc.
2. The Goverment is doing nothing to help alcoholism. If the average price of a bottle is £4.01, and a billion bottles are sold in the UK each year, a duty rate of £1.45 per bottle, plus the vat, means the government makes £2,050,000,000 per year from wine alone! And according to a report on the BBC website this week, the NHS spends £217,000,000 on alcohol treatment and a further £6,000,000 on a campaign to inform people how much they are drinking. Where has the other billion and a half gone?
3. England is no longer a green and pleasant land. It is a land under vine and has won 22 medals at the International Wine Challenge including 1 gold. Will more follow as the world heats up?
4. Young French people don't like wine.
5. Michael Broadbent is getting miffed with a new book called Billionaire's Vinegar

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NEWS FLASH: Tasting Book

It has been found - hoorah! Obviously liking the Seafood Restaurant's food, my tasting notebook chose to stay behind at the restaurant. It will be returned to me today...

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Like missing a limb

I met a German with one leg yesterday. He was a very pleasant chap, didn't appear to like sweet German wines, and was rather agile on his crutches. While I am not saying I am in a comparable position to him, I feel as though a little bit of me is missing.

I think I have lost my tasting notebook. Not the one that I have all my iconic wines in, but it is my current notebook. Nearly every wine I have tried since January this year is in it, and it is lurking somewhere in North East Fife between the brilliant Seafood Restaurant in St Monans, my work in Cupar and St Andrews. I should relax, realise that it will turn up and not worry, but it is bothering me. I think I might go to work to see if it is there.....

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A steak and a bucket of wine please....

Steak and chips and a glass of Rhone red. Possibly one of my favourite meals. So I am wanting to draw your attention to this 'open letter' that the Top Gear website wrote regarding Chilli the huge bullock, and the damage such a beast is doing to the environment. They calculate that the amount of carbon dioxide that this bovine colossus produces is about the same as a four wheel drive vehicle, and as 4x4 vehicles are killing the planet, we have to group poor Chilli into the realm of the Land Rover, and dispatch him. I'd like wine suggestions for the biggest sirloin on earth please...

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Australian fined for not belting his child

Proving the drunken Aussie stereotype accurate, a man in the Northern Territory has been fined for allowing his child to remain unrestrained in his car, whist he strapped his case of beer in with a seatbelt. He was fined A$750, and didn't understand why he was being pulled over. Constable Wayne Burnett said he "just looked at me blankly...he just didn't get it"!

You can read the article on BBC News website

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Cook Wines - A Brit abroad squeezing grapes

I’ve been invited to a wedding in June. A former colleague of mine is getting hitched in the south of France where he is currently living, and, while I am unable to attend, I’d like to wish him and his lovely fiancé a wonderful day when it comes.

The reason I mention this, is because he has just launched his first two wines in the UK, and I’m about to review them so I should make you, dear reader, aware that I may have a bias towards this wine. It should also be noted that aside from Luvians Bottleshop, the shop I work in, the only other place you can get them is the Seafood Restaurants in St Andrews and St Monans, so I want to again, point out that I do have an interest in these wines being a success!

Andy Cook used to work in the UK retail trade when decided to turn his hand to making wine. He packed up, moved to New Zealand and studied. Coming back to Europe, qualified in the art of grape squeezing, he settled in the South of France with his good lady and his dog, Alfie. 2007 saw very ripe grapes in the region, and therefore high alcohol in the wines, and Cook’s wines are no exception. However, high alcohol doesn’t mean bad wines.

2007 Cook Wines Chardonnay £6.99
Pineapple, pear drops and a little banana on the nose with lemon creeping through. There is good acidity, nice stoney, minerally flavours with a little grapefruit pith and a spicy element. It is very clean on the finish and tropical fruit flavours just slide away gently. When it is cold, the alcohol is a bit prominent, not overpowering, but noticeable. Put it with food and you won’t notice it. However, at room temperature, when a white wine’s flaws should be exaggerated, this wine does the exact opposite! It becomes richer, more round and beautifully balanced. The alcohol becomes integrated and this is dangerously drinkable. 8.5/10

2007 Cook Wines Grenache £6.99
Thyme and cherry bakewell on the nose, very soft with some dried herbs. Palate is nicely spicy, light berry fruit with good acidity. Tobacco and cocoa flavours and a bit of blueberry too. Finish is very clean, with a touch of alcohol and cherry stone on the finish. Remembering that this was bottled a month ago, it was hardly surprising that over the evening, this bottle got better and better as air got to it. I like this. 8.5/10

They are still suffering a little bottle shock as they were only bottled a month ago, but, as I found when they had time to settle and get air on them, they became very good. But it was hardly surprising that I liked the wines was it? I was invited to Andy’s wedding for crying out loud, so I’m hardly going to say that they are rubbish am I? So I let various people try them.

A Burgundy producer said they were “very clean and very good, and with nice balance.” Without knowing what price they were he guessed at around £8 or £9 per bottle. Another person, this time an MW, found, like I did, that they improved with time open. However, Masters of Wine and other producers are unlikely to buy these wines, I showed them to a group of customers and inexperienced staff – the sort of people who these wines are usually bought by, and the general consensus from everyone was that they were very tasty, and most of them liked the spicy, alcoholic element. Really, for any wine producer, the folk you want liking your wines are the public. Doesn’t matter if an MW, a fellow wine maker or a bloke with a blog like them or not, if the public like it, they will buy it. And, if the people I have shown the wines to are anything to go by, the public like Andy Cook’s wines.

Cook Wines Website

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Crap of the Week - Bottle T-Shirt

"Most party invitations will come with the acronym BYOB hidden somewhere. Regardless of your choice of wine, with these novelty bottle covers are sure to make an impression!" The impression that you are a pillock.

Upon seeing this, I realised that there are people in the world with a desperation to make money. I've accepted the fact I'm likely to be skint for the rest of my life, and I'm content with that. Don't get me wrong, if I happened upon pots of cash, I certainly wouldn't say no, but I can be happy and poor for the rest of my life.

But someone, somewhere, had an idea for a T-Shirt for a bottle, and not only thought it was a good idea, but actually went out, got it made and started selling it. Costing £1.99 (down from £2.99), at drinkstuff.com if you feel the need to keep your wine toasty when you are on your way to a party.

By Peter Wood with No comments

Chateau Mini - the portable wine cellar

Drinking and driving don't mix. We all know this. But if you frequent 'Bring your own bottle' restaurants, and are wanting fine wine rather than a cheaper bottle from your local wine shop, you should take a look to the Italian company, Aznom.

They have taken a Mini Clubman (basically a Mini estate) and put in a shock proof wine cellar! Located under the boot floor, there is space for six bottles of wine, each encased in their own leather cocoon. If you want a 'Chateau Mini', you have to be quick.

Only 12 will be made. Only one problem. If your carrying around your 1945 Mouton and Krug Clos D'Ambonnay in the back of your Mini, you are screwed if someone ploughs into the back of you.

Aznom also make other 'luxury products', that it would appear nobody would ever need, including a bag designed specifically to carry a bottle of Bollinger. A wine chiller that is a work of art (what is wrong with your fridge?), and carbon fibre ice buckets.

By Peter Wood with No comments

Wine Web Watch - The Weakest Link

I'm not that keen on Olly Smith, I really hate The Weakest Link, but the two together have produced this quite funny moment where the wine critic cannot stop himself from taking Anne Robinson up on her offer to feel her breasts, despite trying to!

By Peter Wood with No comments

Boris Bans Booze

Why do I get a feeling that Boris Johnson might appear on this blog a bit in the future? Britain's most interesting politician announced that as of June 1st, it will be illegal to carry an open drinks container on any form of public transport. He said “I firmly believe that if we drive out so called minor crime then we will be able to get a firm grip on more serious crime. That's why from June 1st the drinking of alcohol will be banned from the tube, tram, bus, and Docklands Light Railway."

Makes sense really. There will be no grotty, drunk old men leaning on your new suit when you are going to work, no cider-ed up fourteen year olds swearing and shouting at each other on the tube. Thing is, how are they going to police it? Suppose a tracksuit wearing 'yoof' boards a bus with an open bottle of vodka in his bag and then proceeds to consume his supermarket own label booze. Is the bus driver going to apprehend them? Unlikely as most drivers are now behind assault proof perspex shielding. Are they going to have a button in the cab which makes a swat team board the bus at the next stop? Budget constraints would probably stop that happening, and we should never promote vigilantism, so how do we stop them?
My proposal to London Transport would be to see is the return of the Routemaster bus, with it's rear platform for getting on and off. Instead of a conductor, London transport could hire club doormen to man the bus, uttering "you ain't getting on mate" to everyone carrying a six pack of Tennents. Should such a drunk manage to get past the bouncer, then he can then quite easily throw them off the bus, regardless of whether the bus is stationary or not, as the good old London Bus doesn't have a door!

By Peter Wood with No comments

Wine Web Watch: What the hell is going on?

We know that Sean Connery betrayed his homeland and advertised Japanese whisky, and this shows Duran Duran doing the same thing. The question we really have to ask though is what the hell is going on here?

By Peter Wood with No comments

2005 Soave La Rocca Pieropan

I've drunk... sorry, tasted this wine from various vintages recently. Going from the 1993 through to the most recent 2006 whilst in Italy, I thought I should look back at it in the cold light of day at my flat. Instead of being sat around a table in a wonderful Italian building, with a group of fellow wine enthusiasts, I was sat at home, washing drying in my living room, with a chicken salad watching the ten o'clock news....

The 2005 Soave Pieropan La Rocca from Pieropan is brilliant. Period. Buttercups, a little sherbert lemon and a smidgen of butter from the nose. This oaked wine then has a nice, minerally stoney palate with a bit of whisky to it and a little lychee, but without the sweetness. A hint of ginger comes through on the finish. It is a brilliant wine. 8.5/10

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Distillery to reopen

Annandale Distillery, formerly owned by Johnnie Walker and closed by them in 1919, will start producing whisky again in 2010. Professor David Thomson, who has bought the distillery, has been given a £150,000 grant by the Scottish Government and £350,000 towards the restoration of the buildings.

Apparently the distillery, built in 1830, produced a peaty whisky, and Thomson aims to make a whisky that echoes it's past. The distillery, near Gretna, will create eighteen jobs and cost it's new owner a lot of money. Hope it works for him, it isn't going to be easy. He'd spend less money just setting fire to his wallet!

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Cocking up a Port tasting

Boris Johnson has just become mayor of London, and you cannot escape the fact that he can appear as a bit of a bumbler! The man that Arnold “the Governator” Schwarzenegger said was “fumbling all over the place” during a speech, is no doubt an intelligent man and someone who has the ability to run a city. But Boris is prone to cocking his speeches up and making factual errors, which is why people love him.

I conducted a port tasting last week and had a ‘Boris Day’. It should also be known that I'm a port buff, and I think that when it comes to tasting port, possibly over every other wine region, I am particularly good at it. I can, 99% of the time, recall facts at the drop of a hat and am often deferred to by my colleagues, and boss, for port knowledge.

I had a structure for the tasting, and I didn't have any doubt in my mind about the wines I was to show. I'd picked examples of wines to show the wonder and balance that port can have, but also how the search for the mighty pound has cheapened port to nothing more than fortified juice. My audience were a group of co-workers, mainly inexperienced tasters, and they were looking to me for information, for leadership. Oh god….

I gave out wrong dates, I forgot grape varieties, mispronounced words, got confused as to which wine came next… you name it, if I could do something wrong, I did it. The wines I showed had a structure to their selection. I showed a white (Niepoort Dry White), a tawny (Warres Otima 10 year), a mass produced and a 'traditional' LBV (Taylors 2002 and Niepoort 1996) and then a vintage (Fonseca '83). I had thought about including Marks & Spencer's Rose port but couldn't bear the thought of confusing matters and I figure I will wait until I try the Croft version instead. Also, it may be a one year fad that nobody follows in which case I will have wasted my breath for nothing!

Starting with a warm bottle of Niepoort Dry White was not a good plan! Nice dry nuts and a smidgen of honey. A bit of pencil too, but it should have been colder. Ideally, I'd have made white port and tonics, but for the lack of tonic water and lemons. Nobody really got overly enthusiastic about it, and they should have because it is brilliant. The only fault was that I didn’t prepare I told you I was unprepared!

Next up was Warres Otima 10 year old. This was the first Tawny port I ever tried, and every time I try it, I feel like someone who is sleeping with the first person they ever had sex with after being apart for many years. First time, all those years ago, it was brilliant. All new and exciting. Now however, it may tick all the boxes but it just isn't that great anymore. You've moved on and want better! Having said that, for some of the people at the tasting, this was them losing their Tawny virginity, and they thought it was ok! Suggestions that it could be used as an aperitif came forward, tasting comments of "Calpol - not the adult stuff, the good stuff for kids" were forthcoming and surprisingly accurate!

Taylors LBV 2002 was next up as an example of an LBV that had been stripped off all complexity and interest. It was nice enough, big, juicy, jammy, like the Warres, it ticked all the boxes that a port should, but nothing more. Comments from the rookies included "forgettable" and "too sweet" and "too much alcohol". You did get quite a spirity element from it. I still think that the best way to describe these wines is as a ruby from one year, it doesn't even warrant the term 'vintage', they are that mediocre.

The looks of amazement started with the Niepoort LBV 1996. To put this in a same category as the Taylors is like saying a Ferrari is the same as a Honda Civic. The Niepoort showed balance, a bit of juicy fruit, lovely chocolate toffees and tobacco flavours. It also showed the aging potential of a good LBV port, made properly. It was mentioned by a seasoned taster that the reason I'd chosen it was to show the aging potential, and that if it was much older it would have started to lose what makes it an LBV. The actual reason I chose it was that I liked it and wanted to show them a good port. Still, my friend's reason sounded better!

One wine I had put some thought into was the Fonseca '83. Showing a young vintage port would have been pointless, showing an older would have probably been a waste on rookie palates. I also wanted to show what a balanced, 'drink now whilst it is at it's best' port could be like and that limited my options of inexpensive post war vintages to '83, '80 and '75 and I didn't have the older two vintages available! Again, we got more looks of amazement. People, under their breath, saying "oooooh" and, not surprisingly, going back for a second mouthful quicker than they had with the Taylors LBV. There was also a lack of spitting of this wine..... maybe they liked it!

The biggest criticism of the whole tasting though had to be me. Hideously unprepared, not articulate by any stretch of the imagination and with fewer facts than a spin doctor covering a politician's affair, I was a shambles.

By Peter Wood with No comments

Five things we learned this week

1. New Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, gave up booze for three months in the run up to the election.
2. The curse of ‘7’ continues in Bordeaux. Every year ending in ‘7’ produces a poorer vintage in Bordeaux, and Parker has mainly given sub 95 point scores.
3. Governments do whatever they like. To get statistics that show raising the drinking age to 21 will cut crime and antisocial behaviour, the Scottish Parliament’s pilot scheme was done in a town where, by the admission of Lothian & Borders Chief Inspector Jim Baird, “…we have been doing other things in the area, which could have affected the results”.
4. Over a billion bottles of whisky were exported from Scotland in 2007.
5. Dan Aykroyd makes good Icewine.

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