#285 The Botanist Gin

Whisky takes a load of time to make.  OK, so the actual liquid doesn't take much time to make, but the fact that you have to put the liquid away for at least 3, and usually 10 years, means that you have a long term financial commitment to your product.  To combat this, a lot of distilleries are releasing the base spirit of whisky to make some cash quickly, and inevitably, it tastes ok at best!

So Bruichladdich, never one to not jump with both feet straight into an idea, have created a gin called The Botanist, a limited edition gin (15,000 bottles).  It makes sense really, as the base spirit is the same, you just chuck a load of botanicals in it and ta-daa, you have a gin.  It contains 31 different botanicals, 22 of which, including Juniper, are native to Islay.

It is a clean, creamy aroma with light prickles of pepper on the nose.  A sweet juniper aroma too with hints of sea salt.  The palate is bone dry, lots of bitter elements, lots of pepper and yet a great creamy texture.  Very clean on the finish with spice, lemon zest and a pear element.  Really tasty.

With tonic (Fever Tree!) it becomes a stunning, slightly sweet gin and tonic.  The tonic brings out all the sweeter elements of the gin, mutes the pepper a bit but reveals a lovely apple and herbal element. 

This is a good gin - ok, at £25 it isn't cheap, but it is a much better and interesting gin than the likes of Tanqueray Ten and the omnipresent "we-need-a-point-of-difference-on-our-bars-gantry-so-we-will-have-the-same-point-of-difference-gin-as-every-other-bar-in-town-and-stock-Hendricks".  There are many other great gins on the market so you don't need to hunt this down, but if you see it, try it.  It is a good gin.

By Peter Wood with 2 comments

#284 Housekeeping

A few notes for you of some interesting wines over the past month or so that

2002 Dom Perignon
Light minerally with a little bit of sweet spice, citrus galore and so much oyster water on the nose.  The palate is unctuous with lots of pencil lead, some lemon pith with a coating of honey and oranges too.  A lovely musky element with lots of baked goods!  A stunning wine that is so young.  8/10 (10/10)

1988 Krug
A lot of rich honey and mushroominess, with some citrus peel coming through.  A pencil lead element comes through with lots of old marmalade and digestive biscuits.  A lot of dry sherry like aromas with a little clementine and some fresh baked bread.  A bit thin and sinewy - a little oxidised I think, but still a lovely old wine.  7/10

2006 Sean Thackery Andromeda Pinot Noir
Gorgeous herbal cherry and plum and a bundles of sweet juicy aromas.  Some lovely floral elements with a menthol element.  The palate is big but gently delivered, lots of stone fruit, a lot of fresh mint and fresh honey glazed meat.  A gorgeous texture, light tannin - a fantastic Pinot Noir.  8.5/10

Sean Thackery Pleiades XVIII
Marionberry salt water taffy on the nose!  I grant you, that is going to mean bugger all to anyone outside of Oregon, but it tastes like that!  Toffee and lots of light raspberry aromas and just simply fun!  This has a spicy - cloves and aniseed - and leathery taste followed by liquorice and berries, cigars and Mars Bars - with a lovely malty taste.  It is a wine that simply makes you smile as you keep discovering it and enjoying it, and like only a couple of wines I've tried before (and most of them have been Champagne or Port) this manages to taste both old and young at the same time.  Super.  10/10

1994 Warre's Vintage Port
A rich, lush nose with lots of cassis, bramble and toffee.  You are enticed into the glass, warm and cosy with lots of herbs, spices and coffee mingling with the primary aromas.  No alcohol burn is coming off the nose, it is all soft and juicy.  The palate too is cuddly.  It has gorgeous stewed fruit with leather, cocoa powder and notes of chilli flake.  Menthol and a little old honey comes through a long drying, woody palate that has sweet nudges and sea salt dark chocolate flavours.  Lovely.  8.5/10

  

By Peter Wood with No comments

#283 Top of the plonks - my top 5 wines of 2010

Two thousand and ten will remain with me forever for one simple reason, it was the year I got married.  But my wine choices for this year have been hard to decide.  Unlike 2009, where I ventured to France twice, including an incredible trip to Champagne, I've not left the country on any wine trip and I've not had the opportunity to try any funky ancient wines.  So I was initially thinking that I was about to struggle with my wines of the year.

But then I looked back at my notes and realised that I have had some staggeringly good wines this year, they have just been a bit younger!  Here are my top five.

FIVE: 2006 Jones Family Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
This was the first wine that made me really realise that America could produce world  class wines.  A wine that tasted like a hotter vintage Bordeaux, despite being from the USA!  Beautiful leather aromas with hints of mint, some cherry and cranberry too, with brambles, spice and white pepper on the palate.  I wrote "simply, a great wine", and it really was.

FOUR: 1987 Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva Blanco
The first wine I tried from this producer, and a staggering revelation to someone who actually understands how to use oak.  This 23 year old wine is their current release, and has spent a decade in barrel, gently oxidising to produce a nutty, dried fruit aroma and yet a stunning, youthful, clean and fresh palate that mingles with old honey and tropical fruit pith.  This will remain with me for a long time.

THREE: Sean Thackery Pleiades XVIII
A wine from a hippy without a winery, making wines under the Californian skies.  The nose reminded me of my trip to Oregon five years ago, when I experienced Marionberry Salt Water Taffy, and then the palate was full of spice, cigars, berries and Mars Bars.  The most fun wine I have tried all year and surely being fun is what wine should be about.

TWO: 1988 Krug from magnum
I've tried this wine on numerous occasions, but this was the best it has ever tasted.  Brought to my stag do by my long time drinking buddy Pete Crawford, it was sublime and was another experience of this stunning wine that has appeared throughout my wine tasting life.

ONE: 1992 Musigny Blanc Domaine Comte Georges de Vogue
I decided not to pick more than one wine from this epic tasting from this legendary producer, because it could have quite easily filled this top five wines of the year.  This white Musigny was simply perfect - drunk at the right time, at the right age, and despite trying other stunning wines last night from this producer of supreme red burgundy, it was this white wine that remained with you.  A fruity, savoury mouthfull with bags of youth, yet subtle reminders that it is an old wine.  Bliss!

By Peter Wood with No comments

#282 Vintage Ports 2007

My last blog post, on Tondonia Rioja, praised them for having beautiful wines of low alcohol content, but I realised that my point was wrong.  Sure, lower alcohol may result in slightly less horrific hangovers, and but the real talent of Tondonia was that they integrated the alcohol into the wine so you didn't notice it.  And, this is nothing new, as port producers have been doing it for years.

I have, for the past three years, been excited about trying the 2007 Vintage Ports.  In what could be one last hurrah for the old port buying nations (before the far eastern market diverts their attentions to these fortified wines), this vintage has the potential to be one of the greatest ever.  Sure, all port producers say that, but this really could be the once in a lifetime vintage - up there with 1927 or 1945.

I gathered together nine different vintages, all cask samples, and pulled the corks.  It was one of those days that I love my job!

By Peter Wood with No comments

#281 Global warming and old Rioja

Global warming has two main schools of thought.  Firstly, the hole in the ozone layer is going to heat up the world, the seas will rise, everywhere sould of Watford will flood and we will all get skin cancer from the suns harsh rays.

The second school of thought is that the hole in the ozone layer will heat up the world, the seas will rise and the gulf stream, that keeps us warm in winter, will go elsewhere and we will all freeze in the winter.

Well, it is December and currently minus 8 at the moment, so I'm opting for the latter at the moment, so to cheer me up (warming me up just isn't an option!) we opened up a couple of old Riojas from Vina Tondonia.  I grant you, white wine in the winter isn't exactly the first thing you would lean to if you wanted a tipple whilst watching the snow fall, but this is no ordinary white wine.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#280 Very Old Rare Sherries from Lustau

I love sherry.  I love port more, but I do love sherry, and top sherries really are fine wines that are exceptional value for money.  So when I got news that Lustau were releasing four sherries that were over 30 years old and limited to 1000 bottles of each, I got excited.  Retailing at sixty pounds for a 50cl I was hoping that these sherries would be the greatest fortified wine from Spain that I'd ever put in my mouth.  They weren't.

Lustau VORS 30 Year Amontillado
Delicate, slight raisin and malt elements with a touch of honey and cinnamon with polished wood aromas.  This is a very easy and very woody palate with a bundle of sea salt, cashews and zingy citrus.  A very dry salty finish which totally cleans up and leaves you with a very fresh mouth.  8.5/10

Lustau VORS 30 Year Palo Cortado
Ripe apricots with spiced apple and smoky oak fires mixed with dried orange peel.  Then there is a smoked sea salt aroma.  The palate is gutsy, with alcohol kicking things off and lots of salty stone flavours, followed by almonds and dried leather.  The finish tastes like Twiglets!  8/10

Lustau VORS 30 Year Oloroso
Very subtle, some polished wood and a lot of vanilla toffee on the nose - fudgey!  The palate is so soft, you get sweet cashews, salt and a little chilli mixed in with toffee.  Very pretty with great acidity cleaning your mouth with a finish that tastes of sweet tobacco and fresh leather.  9/10

Lustau VORS 30 Year Pedro Ximenez
Figs, prunes and a lot of dark chocolate and liquorice.  There is coffee galore on the nose.  The palate is dark, with sticky toffee pudding and parkin flavours.  A bundle of coffee with prunes and treacle.  A really good PX but £60?  8/10

These are stunning wines, and given half a chance, any fortified fan should give these a shot as goodness only knows when Lustau will release any old sherry again.  But are they worth £60?  Definitely not.
 

By Peter Wood with No comments

#279 Mount Horrocks & Cullen

Despite trying these wines back in September, what struck me was that they are pretty much all wines that would go with an element of the traditional Christmas dishes that we all guzzle over the next fortnight.  They are all made by two lady winemakers in Australia.

Mount Horrocks in the Clare Valley, is run by owner, and winemaker, Stephanie Toole.  All her grapes come from her own three vineyards, and she restricts the production of her wines to around 4500 cases every year.  She told me that her wines were made to go with food, and although I hear this all the time from winemakers - and a lot of the time it is total twaddle, with hers, I'd tend to agree.

2009 Mount Horrocks Watervale Riesling

A soft, citrus aroma and quite floral and pretty.  Some chalky  mineral elements come through as well.  The palate is very zingy, lots of lemon and lime leaping out at you, with a good dose of sherbet.  A very tight finish of apple core.  8/10 and would go so well with some smoked salmon.

2009 Mount Horrocks Watervale Semillon

Quite herby, with some lime and peach stone aromas mixing with some vanilla.  A nice palate, with fresh lemon and honey coming through a soft, fleshy fruit palate.  The finish is long, with lovely sweeter lemon marmalade flavours.  A really tasy bottle of wine and I was craving a suckling pig with this.  8.5/10

2007 Mount Horrocks Clare Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot

A lot of blackcurrant, some menthol too and then a punnet of raspberries thrown in for good measure.  You get a lot of stalky, leafy elements, with a lot of pepper.  The palate is bright fruit, backed up by a load of liquorice and a little aniseed too.  Very crisp, crunchy red fruit, with red apple skin on the finish.  A great wine for roast venison  8/10

2008 Mount Horrocks Clare Valley Shiraz

Far too much spice on the nose, with some coffee and fresh bramble and preserved black cherry.  There is chocolate on the palate, bundled up with black pepper, and then an acidic fresh berry flavour, that lightens this wine from being a bit of a jam fest.  The fruit is quite warm on the finish, with more berries, but again, just when you think that this is going jammy, it lifts itself up and delivers freshness.  An interesting wine. A perfect wine to go with beef wellington.  8/10

2009 Mount Horrocks Cordon Cut Riesling

This is the wine that Mount Horrocks is best known for.  Their sweet riesling, made from hand picked grapes from their single vineyard in Auburn in the Clare Valley, and the Cordon Cut refers to the process of cutting the canes when the grapes are ripe, allowing the fruit to concentrate and raisin naturally on the vine.  It is a very floral, citrussy wine with lots of vanilla - almost Key lime pie - with some zingier lime pickle from a curry house aroma.  The palate is soft, honeylike with some lime marmalade, rosewater and then beautiful clean acidity.  A superb wine for Christmas pudding, but even better with a big bowl of fruit salad.  9.5/10

Cullen was founded in 1965 by Di and Kevin Cullen, and is now under the leadership of their daughter, Vanya, who has converted the company to using biodynamic viticulture, and becoming Australia's first carbon neutral winery in 2007.  Her wines have been critically acclaimed, and her Chardonnay recently was voted the best Chardonnay in the world by the Decanter World Wine Awards.  So that is as good enough place to start as any...

2007 Cullen 'Kevin John' Margaret River Chardonnay

Roast chicken aroma!  Very herbal with lots of rich tropical fruit and a bundle of mango pith and nectarine.  The palate is rich, with a creamy texture, and a bit of oaky vanilla, but with sweet tobacco coming off the back.  Pineapple, both fresh and dried, on the finish.  This just appears to be a bit of an oak fest for me, and despite its accolade, I am just not swept away by it, despite thinking it is a good wine.  Obviously, this is to go with your turkey. 8/10

2009 Cullen 'Mangan Vineyard' Sauvignon Blanc Semillon

Very fresh with apple and citrus, and some rustic pear too, all coated with a bit of vanilla.  The palate is gooseberry, some really nice softer elements that are then obliterated by Granny Smiths apples and a searing acidity, sandblasting your mouth out.  Then, the finish develops a herbal element for some reason with hints of orange, but that acid just kills you and spoils this wine.  A wine that would be a good aperitif, if you can tolerate the acid!   7/10 

2008 Cullen 'Mangan' Margaret River

This blend of Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec is, in comparison to its stablemates, pretty poor.  Lots of raspberry and floral elements, with some cherry too.  The palate has a leathery element, with some nice black cherry flavours, but with a vegetal imbalance towards the finish.  Just a bit dull, but definitely a wine to consume in front of the fire after you have had one too many sherries!  6/10

2007 Cullen 'Diana Madeline' Margaret River

Another blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc, and this is a total change from the Mangan.  Red fruit galore with lots of raspberries and cherries coming through.  There is some sweet wild strawberry, with chocolate and freshly picked brambles - all covered in bits of leaf and stalk.  The palate has baked berry pie filling, with a spicy kick and although it has noticeable alcohol, this big wine cleans up for the finish very very well.  A stonking good wine, and this would be great with roast beef.  8.5/10

These two ladies produce some great wines, and I am more drawn towards the style of Mount Horrocks rather than Cullen, despite having bought some of Vanya's "greatest Chardonnay in the world", just to see how it ages! They prove that Australia can make good, interesting, terroir driven wines and are a good choice for any Christmas dinner!

Thanks to Liberty Wines

Mount Horrocks Website

Cullen Website

By Peter Wood with No comments

#278 Dr Loosen's sweet babies

Everyone loves odd sized bottles.  It doesn't matter if they are half bottles, magnums or melchiors, a different size bottle is a wine lovers secret pleasure.  Baby bottles (18.5cl) are normally filled with cheap muck and sold for a couple of quid in a supermarket, but Dr Loosen has bottled two sweet rieslings in them, to open up what are normally expensive wines to more fiscally challenged people.  Plus, they are great stocking fillers!

2006 Dr Loosen Riesling Beerenauslese

Light, gentle fruit with a bundle of grapefruit, fresh cut flower stems, apricots and dried mango.  Tiny hints of petrol mixed with plasticine.  The palate is of rich, sweet honey cut with lemon juice, grape juice and then the flavour that you bite into a fresh peach.  

A delicate and feminine wine with soft acid cleaning out your mouth, with lovely oriental spice!  Essentially the palate is like an oriental bath & massage - spicy, a touch fruity and you end up clean and wanting more! 9/10

2007 Dr Loosen Riesling Eiswein Blue Slate

A hippo ballet dancing.  Big, musty with spices galore and then zingy lime, mint, peach and lychee.  Then there is a tiny hint of petrol, some crisp apple too.  The palate is thick, creamy texture, and then mouthwatering freshness - lots of ripe peach, clementine, orange and honey galore.  An intense up front fat sweetness at the start of the finish that seamlessly glides through a big gutsy mid palate to a light, delicate finish.  As I said, like a hippo ballet dancing, fat at first but light and graceful! 9/10

Dr Loosen Website

Six Questions with Ernst Loosen

By Peter Wood with 1 comment

#277 6 Questions with... Randall Grahm

I remember first hearing the name Randall Grahm, of Bonny Doon, nearly a decade ago, when a colleague told me of this "crazy man" in California naming his wine after a flying saucer.  Realising that this was the sort of interesting chap that I'd like to try the wines from, I eagerly bought the first bottle of his that I could afford, and was introduced to the first American wine that I actually liked.  Since then, I've tried and loved numerous wines from Bonny Doon so to have Randall Grahm agree to answer six questions, is a big thrill!  

Randall Grahm started Bonny Doon Vineyards in 1983, planting Rhone varietals and being dubbed one of the "Rhone Rangers".  When his vineyards succumbed to Pierce's Disease in the mid nineties, he started buying grapes from other producers, not only in California but Oregon and Europe.  Production volumes exploded to nearly half a million cases, but in recent years, Grahm has sold off most of his bigger brands and focused on producing 'vin de terroir' from his own vineyards.

What is it about the Citroen DS that you love so much?

Note that the Citroën DS- 21 "Pallas" is possibly the coolest car ever made, and I am the envy of all of Santa Cruz, at least in this respect. But, I would say of all the features - the hydraulic suspension, it is perhaps the turning headlights (an aftermarket acquisition, as it turns out), that is its coolest feature.

What is the best, and the worst, wines you have ever made?

Best wine ever made is probably the 1995 Santa Cruz Mt. Syrah "Estate," our last vintage of Syrah before the vineyard (in Bonny Doon) succumbed to Pierce's Disease. The wine is still remarkably alive. There are a number of "worst" wines, as we did quite a bit of experimentation in the day. Possibly the experiment we did on carbonic maceration with Riesling, or alternatively, the Auslese-styled Syrah (though the latter has at least one champion).  

Describe yourself in three words.

Take no prisoners.

You are famous for naming one of your wines after an alien's spacecraft.  What would you say to an alien if you met them?

Is Sarah Palin one of your lot?

Finish this sentence.  "When people drink my wine, I hope that they..."

"...have the wit to decant it, and will drink it slowly, over the space of a few hours, noting the fact that it is always changing and evolving."

Name three people, real or fictional, living or dead, that would be guests at your dream dinner party, and what would you be drinking?

David Foster Wallace, D.T. Suzuki, Carl Jung, an older vintage of Scharzhofberger Auslese.

Thanks to Freya Reinsch

Bonny Doon Vineyards Website

Follow Randall on Twitter

By Peter Wood with 1 comment