Champagne, Day 2: From P&O to a palace. Part 2 (Esprit du Siecle)

What came next was a very rare treat. Not to put too fine a point on it, a once in a lifetime treat. In 1999, Moet & Chandon decided to create a wine that had never been done before. The Esprit du Siecle was a blend of eleven different champagnes from the best years of the 20th century. The combined vintage champagnes from the years 1900, 1914, 1921, 1934, 1943, 1952, 1962, 1976, 1983, 1985 and 1995, and then fermented them for a third time in bottle to give the wine bubbles.

The end product was 323 magnums of a unique champagne that very few people have tried. Some were released to charities, others sold to collectors, but the remaining stock was put, behind a big barred gate, in the cellars in Epernay, to sleep until the house’s 300th anniversary in 2043.

Occasionally though, a magnum is opened so the wine can be assessed to see how it is developing, and I was fortunate to be present when a magnum was opened. In a damp cellar, a selection of very experienced wine buffs became as giddy as schoolgirls as the cork was pulled, and we all were astounded.

The Esprit du Siecle is more than a wine, it is a celebration of Moet & Chandon’s history. Although you couldn’t put an accurate figure on it, over a thousand employees will have contributed to this wine being made, with many of them now long gone. It is therefore very difficult to figure out what this wine actually is, as no company has ever done this exercise before, but was summed up perfectly by someone in the group; this wine was the ultimate expression of non vintage.

Trying to describe a wine that was showing elements of a mid nineties champagne, whilst at the same time showing traits of a 109 year old bottle was tricky. No sooner that you picked up on one element, then another would come and go before you had a chance to write it. Having tried the vintages before, it made this job easier as I could recognise certain characters within the Esprit du Siecle, and compare this one wine with the vertical tasting we had just had. It is an unbelievably complex wine, but supremely balanced and utterly delicious, with flavours of lime marmalade, chocolate, hints of aniseed, earth, fresh lemon juice, oyster shell… they all came thick and fast with not one part dominating.

Everyone I have told about the Esprit du Siecle has asked the same question, “how much would it cost and is it worth the money?”. I could reply to the first half easily, it was sold for $25,000 per magnum, but the second part poses a problem. Is any wine worth twenty five grand? If the answer is no, you then have to ask, “but what about a piece of history from one of the great champagne houses, is that worth so much?”

I’ve been thinking about this for a week now and I have finally made up my mind. I certainly couldn’t afford such a wine if Moet & Chandon chose to sell it now, but I’d certainly want one! This is the finest champagne I have ever tried and certainly the most interesting, and in thirty four years time I will be doing everything within my power to reacquaint myself with this wine on it’s forty third birthday, but as a wine, it is not worth $2,084 per glass. As a piece of history though, this is worth every penny. Not as an object to put in a cellar and look at once in a while, but because when you drink the Esprit du Siecle, you experience something you will have never experienced with any wine before, and it is the only tasting note I can write confidently about this outstanding drink, and possibly the only tasting note anyone could ever need.

In the Esprit du Siecle, you can taste the passing of time.

Champagne, Day 2: From P&O to a palace. Part 1

Starting the day in a small four berth cabin on board a ferry with two other sleeping companions was not how I finished the 18th of May. Upon departing Zebrugge, which was just as big a hole as Hull is, except for the fact that they have windmills to generate their power rather than huge coal fired stations, we hit the road south towards Epernay.

The Belgian border was a bit of a let down. I wasn’t expecting men with machine guns ready to blast anyone who tried to get through without their say so, but I was expecting a civil servant with a clipboard. We didn’t even get that. A couple of booths, that were falling down, marked the line of divide between these two nations and whilst it is great that as a subject of Her Majesty, I can travel anywhere within the EU without being strip searched at international crossings, I feel that the spirit of travelling has died somewhat as there is no sense of entering a new country.

We arrived in Epernay and had a wander up the Avenue de Champagne, looking all tourist-y with our cameras, before entering the huge building that is Moet & Chandon’s head office. This imposing, but remarkably tasteful, building dwarfs every other champagne house on this street. And this is what I thought the problem with Moet & Chandon was.

It is huge. The company, part of the LVMH group, is one of the biggest producers of Champagne, they have over 1000 hectares of land under vine and, at a million euros per hectare, that is a massive amount of money. So you would assume that such a big company would produce mass produced wine and not take much care in quality, but this is so far from the truth. Moet may be a huge producer of non vintage wines, but their care and attention, and willingness to experiment, is what is now making their vintage wines excel.

The 2003 is a perfect example. 2003 was a ‘challenging’ vintage for Champagne. An early spring caused early budburst on the vines and once everything was going swimmingly, there was four nights of frost! This wrecked a majority of the Chardonnay vines, and lost the company a third of their potential crop. After that frost everything continued as normal, and then along came hail which took out more vines. By the summer, there was a low yield, and then, to make things worse, came the famous heat wave, resulting in over ripe grapes. And this is where things got interesting.

If you take a house like Bollinger, they realised there was no chance of making their Grande Annee vintage wine from the 2003 harvest, so they opted to make a stand alone wine, reflecting the year but distancing it from the Grande Annee brand. This was a weak, flabby, low acid wine that, if we are honest, nobody liked. I applaud them for giving it a go, but this wine had very little structure and replaced Mumm 1995 as my least favourite vintage champagne and, in my view, shouldn’t have been released.

Moet did things a bit differently. As they were suffering from a heat wave, they treated the vines as hot climate producers do, and didn’t try to protect the wines. The result is apparent. Like the Bollinger, the 2003 Moet & Chandon doesn’t have much acid. Along with the 1976, this has the least acid (5g/litre) of any vintage Moet, but by not protecting the grapes, the 2003 has wonderfully mature fruit. A lovely smoky element is right up front on the nose, then bitter lemon pith aromas come through. Dirty potato skin is next, yet everything is wonderfully balanced, with a solid bitter backbone. This comes through on the palate too, a dose of spice, then apple cores and more smoke, all latching on to the pithy structure, and then lots of mature fruit to finish it off. What Moet have managed to do with this wine is provide structure where there really shouldn’t be some, and you really have to applaud their winemaking team for that, as they have produced, to my palate at least, a better wine for drinking now than the great 2000 vintage was.

We then had a sneak preview of the 2002 vintage. It was felt that this wine needed an extra year to mature, and due to the experimentation of the subsequent vintage being a success, the immediately (in relative terms) 2003 vintage allowed them to postpone the release of the ’02. The 2002 Moet & Chandon is a totally different beast to the ’03. A lot more fruit dominant, some sherbet lemon, with dust and toast too. The palate has a lot of acid, the dominant chardonnay coming to the fore, yet still with some red berries around the lemon and lime citrus fruit flavours. Fresh bread comes through, and a sublime clean finish. This is a very good wine.

Moet & Chandon keep masses of old vintages of wine, and the next wine we tried was the 1978 vintage. A severe, long winter, followed by bad weather throughout the summer was showing all the hallmarks of being a terrible year. For four weeks, starting in mid August, there was good, dry weather, which saved this year, and the 1978 vintage Moet was a stunning wine. Smoky tobacco, lots of honey, toast and earthy potatoes, mixed with loads of herbs, started this wine off, and then the palate was lovely and soft with gentle spice notes, candied fruit peel and a lime marmalade finish that was so, so good. This is a brilliant wine, a feeling echoed by everyone in the room, and what makes it extra special is that it is the first wine from my birth year that I have tried that was excellent!

A freshly disgorged 1961 magnum came next with, initially, loads of dried mushrooms, over ripe apple and earth on the nose. Very dry, after all there was no sugar added, with lots more mushrooms, tea and toffee apple on the palate. A creamy texture, great acidity, and flavours that evolved into more citrus, rather than richer over ripe fruit – it was just stunning. It was so good, it became my favourite champagne ever, beating the 1966 Dom Perignon.

When a champagne gets really old, it is increasingly hard to judge it as a wine as it isn’t how the creator intended it to be drunk, and this was certainly the case with the freshly disgorged 1937 magnum that we tried next. A lot of honey and toffee apple, then round, mushroomy and new potato skin, baked fruit and a musky element was on the nose. The mousse had pretty much gone, but the flavour was lovely, lemon marmalade, candied fruit and very dry, superbly balanced and elegant. Trying this aged wine, despite having nearly no mousse, was a very valuable experience, one which I will remember, as it made what came next a lot easier to understand.

Champagne, Day 1: Three crappy vending machines and a great little claret

Three crappy vending machines and a Sega House of the Dead shoot-em-up video game that was switched off. That is what was the “ferry terminal” in the docks at Hull contained. Hard to believe that in twenty four hours I’d be at Chateau Saran, drinking many vintages of Moet & Chandon and eating a fabulous meal.

This dreary, soul sucking terminal, filled with bus tours from Doncaster and old ladies in plum coloured jump suits hardly screamed ‘You’re going on holiday – woohoo’ and more said “welcome to Northern England. It sucks”.

I’d never been to Hull before, and, unless I make a similar trip to Europe, I doubt I will ever again. There are just vast tracts of flat land, with rusting boats, sugar depots and depressed looking people all over the place. But this was our way out of the UK to Belgium, and then France, so I was convincing myself that Hull was a golden gate of hope and opportunity!

We boarded the noble(ish) liner, the P&O Pride of York, bound for Zebrugge. Hoping, in vain, for Pirates to come up alongside us, but realising that days of Johnny Depp on a sailing boat were long gone and any Pirates we encountered would result in a long detour to Somalia, we hit the restaurant for dinner. Our first night would be a bit of a blow out, a celebration if you will of our trip, so we ordered a bottle of champagne. At £25, a bottle of Piper Heidsieck NV was not a bad deal. OK, so this champagne doesn’t float my boat on a normal day, but it did the job tonight. Light, very simple with pencil shavings and lemon aromas creeping out of the very closed nose. The palate was simple, lemony with bitter mineral elements and a touch of citrus. I’d score it a 6/10, but after a five hour drive, this wine was exactly what three weary travellers needed!

We ordered our meal and initially my Field Mushrooms with bacon and cheddar starter was a disappointment. At six quid, you would expect to have something a little more than button mushrooms, sliced in the bottom of an ovenware dish, with squares of back bacon on top, and smothered in cheddar, whacked in the oven and melted. The mushrooms were in a sea of cheese and oil, didn’t taste that good either. I wished I’d had the salmon!

Moving on to the twenty quid steak, which was quite tasty. I asked for it rare, which I got, but got slightly undercooked chips. Our wine was a 2005 Chateau Lafitte from Bordeaux, and it was lovely. Costing only £19 (restaurants of the UK, hang your heads in shame when it comes to your twenty quid house plonk) this was a wine I’d be happy to pay £10 for in a shop. Light cinnamon aromas, a lot of raspberry, pepper and some noticeable sweet fruit on the palate, making it an ideal restaurant wine. (8/10)

By the time we’d finished our meal, we still hadn’t made it out of the Humber estuary, so we ventured to the bar, where we had an interesting cocktail – a Bermuda Triangle! Presented with an umbrella and a cherry, straight out of Only Fools and Horses, it was a concoction of Malibu and pineapple juice. It was not good!

So we left the pianist to his geriatric audience and went to bed. Something is not right when three thirty-somethings are hitting the sack before grannies!

Krug before Champagne

The next few articles are going to have a theme running through them, and that theme is Champagne. Not only am I visiting Champagne on Sunday for a few days (a diary of my trip will be coming soon), but this week I got to try a selection of wines from the best producer there is. Krug.

There are so many anecdotes to describe Krug, and they were flowing free throughout the day and throughout the literature on the table. “A champagne quite unlike any other”, “Krug starts where all other champagne stops”, “the expert’s choice”, “if you could taste the sunshine it would be Krug” (ok, so the last one is a friend of mine’s, but I thought it should get an airing!), but I have come up with one of my own. “Krug – it tastes ****ing delicious”.

Krug Grande Cuvee
A lot of honey, citrus and a little brioche. A lot of rich fruit, melon in particulr, with a delightful, rich, aged, round nose. Lime comes in, as does a spicy element – pickled ginger – and wet forest floor nuances. The palate has a pin prick mousse, initially a rounder wine, more like an old champagne, but then citrus comes through, making it light, fresh and youthful. The finish has a little mushroom and lasts such a long time, slowly dissolving in your mouth. A super wine.

Krug Rose
Oh dear, time for an admission! Before today, I’d only drunk Krug Rose once, not entirely sober, out of a pint glass, in the freezing North Sea gales in a garden where I shoudn’t have been as it just started raining. And I wasn’t keen on it then. Nearly four years later, I tried it again in totally different surroundings, and I still didn’t like it. The colour was salmon pink, tinged with copper, with a nose of rhubarb, strawberries and red berries, which then goes on to smell of dried tangerine. Some spice, and then a lot of citrus, has a bit of warmed strawberries, but then some lime pickle elements. I know that it is criminal to say this, but I really don’t like it. I just find it unbalanced and, well, cheap! And I wasn’t the only one at this tasting who thought this.

Krug 1998
For only the second time in Krug’s history, Chardonnay plays a dominant part of their vintage, and it shows. Very open nose, offering up lots of vibrant citrus, a little vegetal element too, then light honey and a little sherbert and lemon zest. The Chardonnay is even more apparent on the palate, with, what was initially a mature champagne flavour transforming to a lively, youthful mouthful. Masses of zingy fruit and a palate that goes on longer than a battery powered bunny. Lemon zest and quite a creamy palate with toast on the finish. Glorious.

Krug Clos d’Ambonnay 1995
Two grand. That is what this bottle costs in a shop and will be nearer three and a half thousand in a restaurant. This is the first vintage of Krug’s Blanc de Noir, and uber rare. The vineyard is less than a hectare, and this wine is entirely Pinot Noir, a sister wine to the Chardonnay only Clos du Mesnil. It has a round aroma, lots of redder fruits, some spice and a little bit of ripe raspberries and forest fruit. The pale has redcurrants at first, but then gets the ‘Krug freshness’ coming through with citrus, which I wasn’t expecting, cloves and a touch of toast and creamed mushrooms. The finish lightens quite a bit. Quite simply, a stunning bottle of wine.

Krug Collection 1985
The Krug Collection range are older vintage bottles that have been stored in the Krug cellars and released onto the market, which would give those fortunate to have first release examples of these vintages to compare a perfectly stored bottle of Collection with their own stored vintage. Sadly, I don’t have any ’85 vintage, so I’d just have to try the Collection on it’s own. A rich, honeyfest with lots of grapefruit, brioche, lovely sweet garlic cloves, new potatoes and lots of butter on the nose. A very mature, but still fresh, wine with more potato skin and pencil shavings on the palate. Honey, lots of citrus, nutmeg and pineapple tart. I went back to the nose after a while and got an obscene amount of mushrooms frying in butter with black pepper, tobacco box and a little pepper. A delightful example of an old champagne.

Krug Collection 1982
A lot of rich honey and mango skin, Digestive biscuit sweetness, with loads of spice and mushrooms. Some lime marmalade to and a touch of forest floor. Spent vanilla pod on the palate, with heather honey, lots of vanilla and some new potato and butter on the palate. There is a bit of rosemary stalk and some thyme too. I didn’t write much about this wine, as I was too busy enjoying this lovely wine.

Krug Website

Wine Web Watch... The Magnificent Seven

If you are a computer/cocktail geek, you should love this website!

The Magnificent Seven

A winemaker's diary by Andy Cook

The weather here at the moment is unsettled at best…although I don’t expect any sympathy from Scottish-based readers. It is tricky for the vines though, which are in a very fragile stage of growing at the moment.

Flowering is occurring now, so propagation will take place as the petals fall. Vines are diaceous (having male and female parts) and so generally self-propagating, but heavy rain or strong winds will drastically reduce the percentage of successful fruit. In addition, the new shoots are still thin and easily broken, so we attach the vines to wooden posts or trellising…you can see the difference above. It doesn’t look like much, but this can stop friction and snapping in a young plant and save our fruit crop. With nearly 50,000 vines it is a time consuming process, but one we consider essential.

We have also planted a couple of sections of new vines. This requires preparing the soil with some lime to adjust the acidity, and also some organic fertilizer. Then we measure out the rows with sticks, tape and ropes (nothing worse than a shabby looking vineyard!). We make a hole with a bloody great big crow bar and push the nursery vine well down inside to cover the roots with earth. Then we dig a small well behind the plant to catch water, and we water each and every one once a week (unless there is rain). Already some of them have taken root and are pushing out 4-5 leaves so we are pleased with their progress. By law, we cannot take a crop from them until the 3rd year if we are making Appellation level wine. In New Zealand, I remember many domains taking their Sauvignon crop in the first year!

In the winery we are bottling much of last year’s production this month…we have very little of the 07s left to sell, so we need to get the 08s ready to go….

After a decade flogging wine in Scotland, Andy is now making wine in the south of France and doing a damn good job too. He lives there with his lovely wife, offspring and dog!

Cook Wines Website

A miserable day needs Prosecco

It was miserable yesterday, pelting it down with rain all day. It wasn't even spectacular rain with thunder and lightning and massive winds that makes everyone hunker down and stay indoors. It was grey, with heavy rain, cold and with enough wind to make everyone do the hundred yard dash after their wayward upturned umbrella, but not enough to put people off going out.

Due to this dire weather, I decided I needed to summer things up and thought it was the ideal day then to try four bottles of Prosecco. First up was the Carpene Malvolte Frizzante. Costing around seven pounds it is OK. Theres a lot of light, fresh lemon pith, a touch of pencil shavings and a bit like damp, dry wood! There is a light mousse, but not particularly fine, and there is a pear drop sweetness on the mid palate which isn't particularly nice. But at the price it is not a bad wine. 7/10

The Ruggeri Frizzante was significantly better, and a couple of quid more. There was lots of ripe conference pear sweetness mixed with lemon on the nose. The palate had pear cobbler and lemon sherbert and a super, gentle bubble that dissolved in your mouth like a Quaver! This was very good. 8/10

If bubbles are more your thing, then I moved onto the Spumante. Imagine being belted in the chops with a load of Granny Smith apples with a few Coxes Orange Pippins being included in the mix. That is what the Jeio from Bisol, which is mainly made from the Prosecco grape but includes 6% Pinot Bianco and 4% Verdiso The palate starts off well, with more lovely apple flavours, but then has a hollow midpalate after the initial up front wallop. The finish is long, with pear and a touch of lime, but really lacking interest. It is nice, don't get me wrong, but there just lacks a bit of interest. Having said that, if you want a sparkling for your wedding and don't want to spend over a tenner, you are going to have to hunt for as good a wine. 7.5/10

Finally, the bigger brother of the Jeio, the 2007 Bisol Crede. This was herby, with lots of lemon pith and a touch of pepper. Some under ripe pear, and quite a bit of grapefruit pith. The palate is lovely lemon sherbert and Golden Delicious apples, some tinned pear sweetness, and a lovely mousse. Some biscuit too, and just a very balanced wine. The only problem is that the finish is a bit Ronnie Corbett. 8/10

Prosecco, to me, is like Pinot Grigio. Pretty damn boring, but easily drinkable particularly when it has been chilled right down. Occasionally you get an very good example of the breed, and the Ruggeri and the vintage Bisol Crede are such wines, but the other two, tasty as they may have been, are simply wines for drinking in the summer, or, as was the case yesterday, when it is tipping it down. And there is nothing wrong with that!

Death of a Newspaper Wine Critic?

I wish I was aesthetically pleasing, or that I had a better voice, and could be entertaining when being filmed. Doing a lot of this blog would be a hell of a lot easier if I could video myself having a rant or tasting wine and post the video. Then I wouldn’t have to type everything and be forever playing catch up when it comes to typing up my tasting notes. I’d simply tape myself on my mobile phone or digital camera, or even invest a few hundred quid in a video camera and cut down on the amount of time it takes.

Problem is, I am not much to look at, my voice, apparently, sounds like a woman’s on the phone so God only knows what people would think I sound like on film and I am not very charismatic. To be honest, I look a bit of a cock on film! My friends appear to like me, and they tell me I can be quite entertaining, but I know that whilst I’d like to be like Gary Vaynerchuk, I’m never going to be, so I continue writing.

Before I go any further, I’m not saying I’m a great writer. My grammar and spelling is terrible, I tend to wander off on tangents and my vocabulary is very limited. However, and this is according to people a lot more educated in English than I, if you write articles and your acquaintances can hear you speak when they read your words, you are onto a good thing, and my friends tell me they can hear me speak when they read this blog so I must be doing something right. I’m also told that my writing is entertaining and not full of pretentious waffle, so again, I must be ticking a few boxes with my readers.

So I persevere, trying to write articles, not knowing who, if anyone, is reading them and, if they are reading them, few folk actually comment. Generally the only people that do comment are those who I have angered in some way by ripping into fruit wines or by saying that everyone who drinks an obscure cream liqueur from Bangladesh should be rounded up and shot.

But, according to Decanter, magazine and newspaper wine writing may be heading the way of the Dodo. The increase in online blogs and professional news sites, means that the traditional newspaper wine hack is becoming surplus to requirements. If this is true, it means that written internet articles, like mine, could be next.

But I’m not sure about the demise of the wine columnist. The reason that a lot of critics are becoming surplus to requirements is that they are so monumentally boring and don't attract the majority of the newspapers readership to their column and it's surrounding advertising. They tread the safe road, never upsetting anyone and always recommending average wines for people with average lives. What the British press lacks is a wine writer who runs the risk of being sued, and makes it known when a wine being peddled by a big retailer is rubbish. Newspaper wine writers make no effort to open this wonderful world of booze to the general populous and make the reader enjoy the article, it is always the same dull template of 'introduce the region/grape/style of wine you are tasting and then produce some boring tasting notes, and put a price, that is inevitably wrong, and a list of retailers which then results in the aforementioned average people phoning up or visiting the establishment and arguing with the sales staff that it was advertised a pound cheaper in the paper.'

They also never mention fine wine, which really annoys me. I’m not saying they should do it every week, but occasionally throw in an article about Latour or a series of tasting notes about DRC. I’m off to Champagne in a fortnight and you can be damned sure I’m going to write about visiting Moet, Veuve, Krug and Ruinart! There is nothing wrong with writing about wines that people have to dream about, but newspaper columnists shy away from doing so. Maybe their editor won’t let them, fearing fine wine would put people off reading about wines they cannot afford in these credit crunching times.

Decanter sights various literary publications merging their wine section in with food, or have them entirely going on line. It also quotes Jane MacQuitty saying “Sadly wine continues to be perceived as a luxury and as a drink for toffs. In a recession, newspaper editors tend to hang onto their gardening colums, cookery writers and the like but wine somehow is always the first to be axed”. Well I’m sorry, but have you ever read her wine articles in the Times? It is hardly writing that is going to entertain you over your bacon and eggs. As the majority of wine writers follow her style of formulaic writing, they are all hardly enticing new readers to the newspapers they write for and they certainly aren’t doing anything to stop the myth that wine is for “toffs”.

Take a similarly geeky subject – cars. In the very newspaper MacQuitty writes for, you find Jeremy Clarkson. He too reviews products, and whilst many people would say that a writer like him would “dumb down” the subject of wine, if MacQuitty is right, all wine writers need to dumb down to stop being elitist and attract new readers, who in turn see the adverts surrounding the article, which pays the scribe's wages. People read Clarkson’s articles, regardless of whether they are into cars or not, because he is entertaining and controversial to read. This cannot be said for any wine writer.

Clarkson can also review a £50,000 Lotus without worrying about the fact that his readers are unlikely to be able to afford one. Yet when MacQuitty, a fortnight earlier, didn’t go above £13 when reviewing German wines, which are some of the best wines, and best value fine wines, in the world! She even started her article talking about some of the world's "greatest and aristocratic wines", yet didn't rate above a Kabinett!

For too long, wine writers have sat back, producing the same article week in, week out, which make the reader fall asleep in their cornflakes. If they are worried for their jobs it is about time that they wrote articles that anyone would enjoy reading, not just the “toffs” that MacQuitty refers to.

By the way, I am available for hire…

Jamie Goode's 50 Best Portuguese Wines - My Views

Cabbage soup. One of the dominant memories of my trip to Portugal in 2005 was the omnipresent cabbage soup, presented to us wherever we went for dinner. This could range from a light, Japenese style broth, not unlike Miso soup, right through to what could easily be described as a thin stew. The other dominant memory was falling in love with the country’s food and wine, but since that trip, I’ve not had the opportunity to taste Portuguese wines en masse.

Fortunately though, Vini Portugal made that possible today, holding a tasting of Jamie Goode’s 50 Great Portuguese Wines in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh. Goode was the 2008 Portuguese Journalist of the Year and these fifty wines were chosen by him, not because they were great value for money, but because they showed the best that Portugal can offer and how diverse it can be. Excellent, an afternoon of icon wines!

Vinho Verde
2007 Giro Sol
Made from the Loureiro grape, and made by Quinta do Soalheiro and Dirk Niepoort, this wine had a nice nose of lime, a touch of clay springing out of somethere, but very lightly. There are hints of honey and more citrus on this long, lingering finish. Very nice. 8/10

2007 Soalheiro Primeiras Vinhas Colheita
I have loved the wines from Soalheiro since my trip four years ago and am a big fan of their basic Alvarinho. This, their top wine, is full on honey, lime and a rich pear aroma. There is more pear on the palate and some pencil shavings on the finish. 8.5/10

2007 Alvarinho Anselmo Mendes
A rich, dirty aroma. Nice aromas of cedar and dried tropical fruit, but a touch of heat on the palate, followed up by mango skin and pineapple. Nice but I’d stick with the Soalheiro. 8/10

2006 Reguengo de Melgaco
Another Alvarinho, and you get a funky lime aroma, and I’m not referring to a good, Cool and the gang type of funk. The palate is a bit unbalanced, with slightly over ripe fruit. I got cardboard on the finish too. Not my thing. 6/10

2007 Afros
The Vinhao grape is a red fleshed grape which shows in the wonderful colour. Jamie Goode says “It’s an extreme taste… (and has) rough edges, but so do many interesting people.” Couldn’t agree more as the first aroma I got was warm hoover bag! Quite dusty with cherries and a little bit of blackcurrant. The palate is rich, lots of juicy cherry and raspberries. There is a hint of bubblegum (residual from the last wine?!) with a nice spice on the finish. I like this. 8/10

Minho
2007 Quinta do Ameal Escolha
Again a Loureiro and it reminded me of a Riesling, with lime and some petrol. The palate was full, quite creamy with nice fruit, good balance of peppery cedar. 7.5/10

2005 Covela Escolha
A Touriga Nacional, Cabernet Franc, Merlot blend. Now biodynamic, this wine has a bit of bubblegum on the nose, some cherry and leather and a touch of pepper. It is a bit thin on the palate, which isn’t a bad thing, with a stoney flavour and a long, dry, leathery finish. I think this can improve, but not bad now, if it wasn’t for that bubblegum element that put me off at the start. 7/10

Tras-os-Montes
2005 Valle Pradinhos Reserva
Entirely Cabernet Sauvignon, this has nice, rich, raspberries with some sage coming through. Lean fruit, a good dollop of spice with a leather coated veggie backbone. I’m a big fan. 8/10

Douro
2007 Conceito Bastardo
Weird as hell. With a label that looked like a person taken over by an alien in Doctor Who, the Bastardo grape doesn’t have much colour. It looked like a light rose, but what you got was full on herbaceous raspberries and a hint of orange. The palate was the same, a bit of cherry bubblegum and orange touches again, with hot, spicy flavours. It gets a bit sickly after a few mouthfuls. Commercially, label excepted, it is dead in the water. As an experience it is great if not a brilliant wine! 6/10

2006 Quinta do Vallado Touriga Nacional
A rich, cherry fest. Lots of fairly sweet chocolate too. The palate is nice, clean with lovely dark, leathery flavours. A bit of spice and pepper but too leathery on the finish. 7/10

2006 Quinta do Vale D. Maria
From an old vineyard, with old vines that have probably been breeding amongst themselves for umpteen decades, this is a rich, sweet wine with nice chocolate and berry flavours. There is a lot of heat on the palate, some firm tannin, but then the finish lets it down by being a bit weak. 6/10

2006 Quinta do Crasto Vinha Maria Teresa
Polished and perfumed, rosemary and a meaty aroma. The palate has sweet elements, lots of tannin and nice earthy elements. Then the sweetness comes back in with an abundance and it put me off. I judged it harshly at 5/10, with hindsight, I’d probably give it 6.5/10

2005 Quinta do Vale Meao
Good, earthy fruit, a lot of cherry and plums. Nice long palate, with firm tannin and outstanding balance, weight and fruit. 9/10

2005 Poeira
Lavender and lots of herbs mixing with a cherry sweetness. Hints of chocolate and leather, nice balance and with coffee on the finish. Very nice. 8.5/10

2005 Quinta da Romaneira
Outstandingly gentle with nice, raspberry and light brambles. There is a good balance of it’s constituent parts, very elegant with cherry stones on the finish. 8.5/10

2005 Quinta de S. Jose
Funky. Lots of dark, stewed and raisin fruit. A lot of dark liquorice and chocolate with cocoa powder on the finish. Nice but it lacks something on the end. 7/10

2005 Quinta de la Rosa Vale do Inferno
A rich, stewed dark aroma. Lots of damson jam. The palate is heavy, tannic, dark with lots of coffee and chocolate. Not bad at all! 8/10

2007 Duorum Colheita
Just dull, uninspiring. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, made well, just doesn’t give me any form of passion, positive or negative. 6/10

2005 Quinta do Noval
Rich, round with dark berries. The palate has a wallop of alcohol, loads of tannin, leather and spices. Then the booze kicks in with fresh mint and leather. Dark and brooding. 8.5/10

2005 Pintas
Minty, herby with lots of rich, sweet fruit. The palate is clean, lots of brambles and chocolate with herbs mixed in. Firm tannin, lots of mint mocha on the finish. Very nice. 9/10

2005 Quinta da Gaivosa Vinha de Lordelo
Good light fruit, raspberries and brambles. The palate is balanced, clean with loads of chocolate and toffee sweetness. A good long leathery finish. Nice. 8.5/10

2005 Duas Quintas Reserva Colheita
Coffee spilled on a suede jacket! Nice and full on, but the palate is a bit weak and needs more fruit to balance that dominant coffee flavour. 7/10

2004 Niepoort Robustus
Big mint aromas and mocha. Then juicy fruit and nice veggies with coffee come leap up your nose. The palate is very well balanced, good, long graceful evolution of flavours, coffee again and a long lasting bramble flavour with blackcurrant. Good. 8.5/10

2000 Casa Fereirinha Barca Velha
Rich, sweet aroma, lots of coffee, chocolate and cherry. There is mint, lots of coffee with mature tannin. A very tasty raspberry flavour with some stalk elements too. 9/10

Dao
2005 Quinta da Pellada
Lots of veggies, cabbage being dominant. Then we got the aroma of a fridge that needs cleaned! It is a bit thin, quite insipid finish. Nope, not keen. 5/10

2005 Pape
A blend of Touriga Nacional and Baga, this is a nice, earthy wine with vegetal aromas. Bramble stalk comes along before a palate of stony, cherry stone and wild raspberry. Very clean with a lovely finish. 8/10

2005 Quinta do Perdigao Touriga Nacional
Herby meat aromas, lots of black cherry and blackcurrant. Smoky barbecued pork sausage on the palate, mixed with chocolate and a hint of balsamic. Very nice. 8.5/10

2005 Quinta da Vegia Reserva
A sweet aroma with blueberries and cherry. Good clean fruit with cocoa and Bolivar cigars. There is too much alcohol though on the palate with a bitter finish. 6/10

2005 Flor das Maias
An initial sweetness, quite like espresso with bundles of brown sugar in, then hints of mocha and a touch of caramelised onion. The palate is nice, hints of leather, a bit too much alcohol and firm tannin. It calms down however and with some food, the alcohol will be masked. Nice. 8.5/10

2004 Cabriz Escolha
Sweet chocolate and lots of dried fruit steeped in booze! A bit too tannic, and very very big. 7/10

2005 Vinha do Contador
Lots of menthol, lots of cherry – I would say cherry tunes but that does it a disservice. A bundle of fruit and pipe tobacco, very tannic but it is delivered well. Needs time to settle down. 7/10

Beiras
2005 Quinta do Ribeirinho Pe Franco
Very nice, soft, juicy fruit. All raspberries and menthol. The palate is lovely, a bit of spice and heat, but not at all dominating. A good, clean, lighter finish. 8.5/10

2006 Lokal Silex
Rich and funky, lots of lovely sweet fruit, like warm compote. A chunky wine, lots of big flavours but very clean. I like this a lot. 8/10

2005 Quinta de Foz de Arouce
Closed nose, a lot of dark, tannic chocolate and lots of spice. Just too full on. 6.5/10

2004 Quinta do Cardo, Seleccao do Enologo
A dark, rich wine, lots of moist cigar and leather. Needs more fruit. 7/10

2002 Quinta dos Currais Reserva
This is like sticking your head in a humador and then pouring dark chocolate all over you. Until you put it in your mouth. You expect so much dark tobacco and sweetness but all you get is a thin, pretty watery palate. Not good. 5/10

Bairrada
2005 Quinta das Bageiras Garrafeira
Cherry, chocolate and lots of stalky berries. The palate is quite tannic, very dry and tight. You have to search for the fruit a bit, and you find redcurrants dominated with booze and spice. Too young, but will be great. 8/10

Estremadura
2005 Quinta de San’Ana Reserva
A lot of rich coffee, tobacco, sweet fruit and loads of spice. A sweet modern wine. A bit of a hussy! 7/10

2006 Quinta do Rocio
A lot of veggies, a bit of wild raspberries. Good, leathery flavour, well balanced and well made. 8.5/10

Ribatejo
2006 Quinta da Lagoalva de Cima Alfrocheiro
Bubblegum, some strawberries but nothing much else. The palate is ok, but thin. Needs some structure, all up front fresh fruit, but then just dribbles away to nothing. 6/10

Terras do Sado
2005 Adega de Pegoes Cinquentenario
Lots of toffee and chocolate. A sweet aroma with nice spice and a green leafy backbone. Lacks a little, well, oomph! Something to make it stand out and say “I’m brilliant”. 7/10

2004 S de Soberanas
Rich, nutty with lots of green pepper and black cherries and liquorice. Some spice, black pepper and very dark. This is tasty. 9/10

2005 Herdade de Comporta Aragonez/Alicante Bouschet
Good fruit, damson and plum skin. A lot of nice sweet tobacco aromas, a long palate with a good balance of fruit and secondary flavours of leather and tobacco box. 8/10

2005 Palacio da Bacalhoa
All cherry and green pepper, but that is hardly surprising from a Cabernet, Merlot, Petit Verdot blend. More veggies than a vegan dinner, but just not balanced. Needs more oak!!! 7/10

Alentejo
2004 Marias da Malhadinha
Wow! Good aroma, lots of cherry and nice clean bramble aromas. The palate has a lot of tobacco, masses of dark spice, aniseed. Good but needs some more time. 9/10

2006 Antonio Maria
Green pepper up front, lots of sour cherry. A very creamy texture, chocolate and leather and then a dusting of cocoa and mint. I want lamb with this, and I want it now! Very nice. 9.5/10

2005 Dona Maria Reserva
Quite closed, dark tobacco, lots of coffee and coconut husk. Leather, some liquorice on the finish. It just lacks a little in fruit. 7/10

2007 Herdade dos Grous ‘Moon Harvested’
Light and vegetal, a bit of cherry, lots of raspberries, lots of leather. A bit thin, and then an unbalanced finish. 6/10

2002 Mouchao
Perfumy, nice fruit, a lot of cherry and sweet strawberries. Palate has chewy tannin some noticeable alcohol, with a gutsy, dry finish. Hot. 7.5/10

2005 Preta
Blackcurrants, some sweeter fruit too, very leathery with nice tannin. A soft palate, good balance and a chocolate mint (it reminded me of After Eights!) on the finish. Very nice. 8/10

You'll notice that I'm quite harsh on a few of these wines, and I'm glad that I found that I didn't like some the wines that Goode picked as the best, as this is the point of tasting wine; making your own mind up. Portugal though, does produce outstanding wines, with a lot of diversity and interesting styles. Do try their wines, particularly with heartier foods or barbecues as they offer a delightful alternative to the better known countries of Europe. A lot of these wines are not available in the UK or are quite expensive, so try cheaper alternatives. Portugal is so much more than Mateus. And cabbage soup.

Jamie Goode Website
Vini Portugal Website