#296 New Zealand Syrah: The One to Watch?

 

You might have noticed that I'm a bit of a Formula One fan, so forgive me a minute whilst I go back to 1997.  There was a 22 year old Columbian driver called Juan Pablo Montoya racing in the feeder series to Formula 1.  He was touted as "The One to Watch" and got signed to the Championship winning Williams team with the intention of allowing him to ply his trade in lower formulae and then move to the team as a driver once he had served his apprenticeship.

The next year, a 12 year old Karter called Lewis Hamilton was signed by the 1998 championship winning team, McLaren, on a similar deal, where he would be funded through the lower series and eventually, if he was good enough, he would join the Formula 1 team in years to come.  He too was "The One to Watch".

That is really where these two drivers careers stopped being similar.  Montoya won the F3000 title in '98 and then went to the USA and won the Indycar championship in 1999,  and then won the biggest race in the world, the Indianapolis 500, the year later.  Hamilton spent the next three years winning kart championships and learning his skill.  In 2001, Montoya moved to F1 with Williams, and Hamilton started in cars.  For the next four years Montoya struggled at Williams, albeit winning some races, but for 2005 he moved to McLaren where for the next two years he struggled again.  "The One to Watch" was a massive disappointment and left the team, and the sport, half way through 2006.  On 30th September that year Hamilton signed for the team and became the 2008 Formula 1 World Champion.  The other "One to Watch" had triumphed at the height of his sport.

Which is why I was hesitant to be expecting too much from "The One to Watch" at the recent New Zealand Wine Growers tasting in Edinburgh.  Kiwi Syrah is apparently the next big thing to be coming out of this Sauvignon Blanc growing nation, and it had a table devoted to it at the tasting.  I was worried as Pinot Noir is such a mixed bag from New Zealand.  For every great Pinot from this nation there are a dozen that are overstewed unbalanced messes pretending to be Pinot Noir.  I expected the same from Syrah, some great wines but the majority would be a disappointing mess.  I suspected Syrah to be a Montoya, a few solid performances but on the whole a lot of poor showings.  I was pleasantly surprised...

2009 Mission Estate Reserve Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £15
Off balance, a bit confected and pretty soft with not a lot of syrah characters.  It is nice enough on the palate, balanced with hints of pepper but not inspiring.  5/10

2009 Te Mata Estate Bullnose Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £23
Good round fruit with hints of spice coming through.  The palate is fresh, clean with decent fruit structure.  The finish is all about parma violets.  It is a very pretty wine, and, although a touch pricy, is worth the money.  8.5/10

2008 Villa Maria Cellar Selection Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £13
A very commercial aroma - showing everything a syrah should be in a very punter friendly way.  The palate is a bit vibrant, some ok fruit coming through - plums and cherris - but it is a bit too commercial and confected.  Then on the finish, the spice attacks you a bit as if to remind you that it is a syrah.  Having said that, it is better than the Mission Estate.  6/10

2008 Passage Rock Syrah (Waiheke Island) £TBC
Meaty - like peppered beef jerky on the nose.  The palate is not bad, a bit of pepper and some violets and raspberries.  A smoky element on the back end with a long, very pleasant finish.  This is a pretty good Syrah, showing restraint, depth and with a gorgeous texture.  9/10

2008 Bilancia Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £22
A pit pongy on the nose.  In fact it stinks.  The palate starts off well but then becomes a tannic, peppery mess.  4/10

2008 Man O'War Dreadnought Syrah (Waiheke Island) £26.00
Smoky and meaty on the nose - almost like smoked wine!  It is very sweet up front, but with lovely, full on fruit balanced by firm tannins, bundles of spice and a lot of darker savoury flavours.  It beats you up a bit, but with a huge steak, this is the wine you want.  8/10

2008 Craggy Range Syrah (Gimblett Gravels) £20
Sweet up front on the nose, followed by aromatic smoke notes.  Then the tannins are there but not firm... basically, this is a diet version of the Man O'War but its flaws are more visible.  7/10

2007 Vidal Estate Reserve Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £17
Some floral elements, with subtle smoky aromas.  The palate has an up front sweet cherry flavour, with not a lot of black pepper and some delightful pink peppercorns.  I like the smoky elements on the finish, almost like a bit of sweet smoked bacon.  8/10

2006 Bridge Pa Louis Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £22
Holy sweet fruit Batman!  Loads of sweet fruit, Parma Violets and bundles more sweet elements.  The palate has a cedar and smoke flavour, with more sweet berries , black peppercorn and a velvety finish.  But despite all of these big flavours, it is so superbly balanced and elegant.  Really good.  8.5/10

2006 Forrest Estate John Forrest Collection Syrah (Gimblett Gravels) £19
Sweet and gentle with nice peppery hits and a super soft palate.  A light tannin comes in with floral, fruity, spicy tones.  8/10

2007 Trinity Hill Homage Syrah (Hawkes Bay) £70
A subtle, ripe fruit aroma of crushed lavender and a tiny hint of orange.  The palate is dark, with velvety tannins and sweeter fruit.  It is noticeable as a New World wine, and is very good, but horrifically expensive.  It is just too polished and I think that the half of the other wines are more interesting wines at a fraction of the price.  6/10

Syrah does have a future in New Zealand, and there are some great wines coming out of the country.  It will never approach the great Syrah producing nations of France or Australia in terms of volume, but that isn't a bad thing.  Like Oregon Chardonnay, Australian Cabernet or Bulgarian Pinot Noir (seriously, you should try it!) it can be a wine lovers wine, unknown, untouched and uncommercialised.  I'd be happy about that.  

By Peter Wood with No comments

#295 I know what I like...

There is no qualification for a shop assistant in a wine shop.  There never has been, and it is thanks to that single fact that I have been in the wine trade for nearly a decade and am writing these words that you are reading.  I came to the trade after running a newsagents for a couple of years and wanted to do something a little more interesting than getting up at 5am to sell papers to other people who also wished they weren't up at that ridiculous hour. 

So off I trotted around every shop in St Andrews asking if they were recruiting.  My current place of employ told me 'no' so I went into Oddbins.  Consider the fact that I was twenty three at that point, and had only been drinking alcohol for two years, so I had not a clue about wine in any way, shape or form.  I managed to get an interview, and during that interview I was asked the following question:

"What do you know about wine"

Knowing that any lie I told would be immediately found out the second I started, I told the truth with the sentence: "I know what I like".

I was convinced I was done for.  What does that mean anyway?  Of course I know what I like.  Everyone else does knows what they like too, but that doesn't help if you are trying to sell a bottle of Australian Cabernet to someone who wants a wine to go with beef stew.  And the fact was, I didn't have a clue what I liked, because all I knew about wine was that it came in three colours and that Jilly Goolden and Oz Clarke said it tasted of 'galavanting gooseberries through a nettle patch' or some other strange description that nobody could decipher.  I had paid about as much attention to the wines that I had drunk in my life as a teenage mother had during the contraceptives lesson at school.  So the honest answer should have been "I'm afraid I know absolutely nothing about wine and simply need a job"

Having said that, Oddbins were obviously desperate and gave me the job, so I learned about wine quickly.  VERY quickly.  And now I am in a position to employ people and I ask prospective candidates the same question that I got asked on the 1st May 2001, "what do you know about wine?" I delight every time they utter the same words I did, and most of them do.

So you would think that a decade on, I wouldn't utter those words about an alcoholic beverage anymore, but you would be wrong.  When it comes to beer, I do know what I like, but I know precious little about it.  I know I like a pint of Guinness, and I know that I like Luckie Ales 68 shilling.  I know I like a bottle of Corona on a hot summers day, and that Pilsner Urquell reminds me of similarly hot days playing Frisbee on the beach.  I also know that it gets me drunk very quickly, and so I tend to shy away from it.  However, ask me anything about the brewers, the hops, the barley, the history or the styles of beer and I know nothing.  I know what I like.  Nothing more.

So when we decided to conduct a blind IPA tasting, I decided I would taste the beers seen so I my more learned friends could test their senses.  We gathered together seven beers, ranging from the omnipresent Deuchars IPA (that I had a T-shirt of during my student days because I drank 6 pints of it in one night) through to Scottish micro brewer Stuart McLuckie's Luckie Ales IPA following a recipe from 1868 that is only available in one shop... mine!

This is what I found out....

Odell Brewing Co IPA (7%) 60 International Bittering Units (USA)
Sweet honey elements with a herbal flavour - lots and lots of basil.  A dry fluffy element on the palate, pretty thin.  It is dry and hoppy with a very gentle flavour.  A bit light and commercial for me - a bit of a session beer if it wasn't for the alcohol.  5/10

Stone Brewery Ruination IPA (7.7%) 100+ IBUs (USA)
Very sweet on the nose, yet very fresh.  A lovely toffee element follows up a malt and dried fruit aroma.  The palate matches the nose initially, then the freshness goes and it is a lovely, dry, bitter flavour with hints of sultanas and jacobs Cream Crackers!  I like this. 7/10

Luckie Ales East India Pale Ale (7.3%) 223 IBUs (Scotland)
Sweet sherbet with lemonade and a fresh citrus element, all mixed up with some spicy pepper.  A lovely floral element on the palate with some gorgeous hop elements and a creamy texture.  Very very clean and balanced.  8.5/10

Urthel Hop It (9.5%) 80 IBUs (Belgium)
Quite vibrant, lots of sweet power and herbs again, not so much basil but rosemary.  The palate is very sweet, full on alcohol attack and far too much unbalanced hops.  Quite savour too.  6/10

Brew Dog Hardcore IPA (9.2%) 150 IBUs (Scotland)
Basil toffee and quite floral on the nose.  There is a hoppy bitter element to it, with more basil on the palate, but it is very soft, well integrated alcohol and with a lovely bitter finish.  A good beer.  8/10

Caledonian Brewery Deuchars IPA (4.4%) Approx 30IBUs (Scotland)
Light aroma but with a burnt element.  Quite soapy and thin.  The palate is weak, yet flabby at the same time and with no redeeming feature whatsoever.  2/10

Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA (6%) 60 IBUs (USA)
Soft and floral, quite hoppy on the nose and very malty.  The palate is very creamy, with subtle basil and a rather fruity flavour.  A really tasty beer that reminds me of cut grass for some reason.  7/10

Net result of this tasting?  I know what I like, and I like India Pale Ales

By Peter Wood with 1 comment

#294 Oyster Ebay

Getting married has had a profound effect on me, in that I realized that I have an unbelievable amount of crap to get rid of.  Items that, in my bachelor life, were trinkets of my past have all of a sudden become worthless tat that need to find a new home as soon as possible.

So rather than chuck all this old stuff out, I am selling it on ebay.  So far, two model Formula One cars have found new homes and five ethnic drums from various African nations have increased the bank balance a touch.  A signed Scotland Rugby shirt is going on soon and a few other pieces of what I now consider rubbish are hopefully going to be offloaded onto some unsuspecting soul.  And this got me thinking that one man’s junk is another mans treasure.  Sure, I may think that these things are a load of rubbish, but one day in the past I didn’t, and one day in the future someone may treasure these things.

So at the New Zealand Winegrowers tasting in Edinburgh last week, I looked at the list and was thoroughly unimpressed.  There were some producers of interest, but there was a lot of mass produced wine that I would never want to try.  The one table I really didn’t want to try was Oyster Bay, the brand seen in every supermarket as the upmarket Kiwi wine range.  But then I thought that I should give them a shot, if for no other reason that I could say that they were rubbish and when a customer comes into my shop and asks for it, I can suggest something that is better, with the authority of having actually tried the wine.  After all, I may think they are rubbish, but someone, possibly the same person that bought the bongos, will actually like them.  This is what I found out:

Oyster Bay Sparkling Cuvee Brut NV

Strange.  A yeasty, bready aroma with some elderflower on the palate and some hints towards more Chardonnay like fruit.  It actually tastes ok, but the structure is all wrong.  Far too aggressive bubbles and an acid kick that starts to dissolve your tongue.  For flavour, 7/10, as a sparkling wine 4/10 £12.99

Oyster Bay Sparkling Cuvee Rose NV

A blend of 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir, and this has a light melon and lemon palate with some creamy fuller red berry flavours coming through.  It has a slight hint at strawberries and cranberries, and like the Brut, the flavour is ok, but the acid and bubbles just spoil the wine from being a decent commercial fizz.  6.5/10 for flavour and 4/10 because of the flaws.  £12.99

2010 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc

A chalky element on the nose with gooseberry flavours, but showing a bit of complexity.  The palate is quite commercial however, a lot of elderflower and some sour elements kicking in towards the steely finish.  It isn’t bad, it isn’t good.  It is a commercial Kiwi Sauvignon.  The problem is that youcan get a cheaper commercial Kiwi Sauvignon for the same or less money from any independent.  5/10 £9.99

2010 Oyster Bay Chardonnay

It doesn’t actually smell of anything!  The palate tastes of oak.  That is it.  Having said that, it doesn’t actually taste bad.  It just doesn’t taste of Chardonnay. 4/10 for not being horrible, 0/10 for tasting like a Chardonnay.

2009 Oyster Bay Pinot Noir

Clay on the nose, in fact that is being generous.  Mud on the nose.  It is a complete shambles of a Pinot Noir.  The palate is too juicy, confected with a mass of acid and sugar, yet it still manages to have a bitter finish.  2/10

2009 Oyster Bay Merlot

The only still wine from outside Marlborough, this Merlot is from Hawkes Bay and it should have stayed there.  Like the Chardonnay, no nose, and a pretty weak palate.  Dirty fruit, which then cleans up and you think this might redeem itself until the sugar kicks in.  A long finish that has horrible bitter elements.  4/10

Oyster Bay Website 

By Peter Wood with 1 comment

#293 So you wanna be a rockstar? Greywacke Wines

Rock stars - When you are part of a group that makes it big you become a rock star, it is often very difficult to go it alone, but that doesn't stop you trying.  Paul McCartney starts off in the Beatles and then ends up a successful solo artist, and Ringo... well... didn't.  For every Robbie Williams - worldwide acclaim and a ten year solo career -  there is a Gary Barlow who tries it solo, fails and then goes back to the group that made him.

And so the names Kevin Judd and Cloudy Bay are entwined together in the annals of wine history.  Since their split, after 25 years together, Judd has gone on to form his own company, Greywacke.  So is Kevin Judd a McCartney or is he going to end up narrating Thomas the Tank Engine like Ringo?

Named after the rounded greywacke river stones found in the soils of the vineyards in Rapaura, Greywacke was registered as a wine brand in 1993 with the idea that one day Judd may make his own wine.  A few days ago, I met with Kevin Judd and tasted his wines and he is firmly in the McCartney camp.

2010 Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc
A very noticable gooseberry aroma, with hints of elderflower and tomato.  Tropical fruit on the palate, with a creamy texture from the small percentage that is barrel fermented.  A little heat on the finish of this wine, but still, it is classic Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  8/10 £14.99

2009 Greywacke Wild Sauvignon
I've never liked TeKoko from Cloudy Bay, and I wasn't overly keen on this.  It is just the style of oak fermented Kiwi Sauvignon that just doesn't float my boat and nothing against this wine in particular.  You get a creamy tropical fruit spice up front, with a sherbet element too.  It is a nice oaked Sauvignon with hints of ginger coming on the back of the palate.  A very clean finish and for £22.99, if you like this sort of wine, it is excellent.  It is definitely a food wine and if  7/10 for me, 9/10 for everyone else!

2009 Greywacke Chardonnay
Kevin Judd is not releasing this until October as he says "the oak isn't integrated enough", and I agree.  It started off beautifully, light spice elements mixed with a little oak and stunning tropical fruit.  Then a lot of cereals came through on the palate, some mango pith too.  But then it had an oak dominant mid palate, fat and a bit disjointed.  But then grapefruit comes in and balances out the oak on the finish.  I likened this to a pretty girl with a spot!  You know that the spot will go and she will be 100% beautiful again, but at the moment there is a small flaw.  Kevin Judd didn't like that!  7/10 £22.99

2009 Greywacke Pinot Noir
Quite savoury, with a meaty element.  Light cherry with a bit of violet coming through.  The palate is gentle, well integrated alcohol with lovely redcurrant and raspberry flavours.  A touch of spice and prickles of alcohol on the palate.  Really really tasty but a touch pricey.  9/10 £29.99

2009 Greywacke Late Harvest Gewurztraminer
Soft and gentle with a lovely oriental spice, peach and rosewater.  There is a peachy element on the palate, some spice and great acidity and balance.  It isn't too sweet which is a really really good thing.  8/10

Greywacke's range is, without exception, a great range of wines that show balance, varietal style and, most importantly, a sense of place.  You can tell these are from New Zealand yet they don't have any of the flaws that many Kiwi wines now have.  Mind you, they should taste like Kiwi wines as it was possibly Kevin Judd who was instrumental in deciding what that style was.

Next post: From rock stars to the wine equivalent of Vanilla Ice - Oyster Bay range tasting!

Greywacke Website

By Peter Wood with No comments

#292 UK Wine Tax Calculator

It isn't a swish, fancy app.  Nor is it one that will give you endless fun, but what the UK Wine Tax Calculator does do, simply and effectively, is tell you how much you are giving the Chancellor of the Exchequer every time you buy a bottle of wine.

Entering the bottle price and alcohol content, you can see that the cheapest wine on Tesco's website, the 2006 Silver Rock Chardonnay at £3.12 per bottle is 85.9% tax and duty!  Just think what rubbish might lie underneath the cork!  This app is a tool, nothing more or less, and it does the job perfectly well.  To add a bit of fun, it could have included other countries or states as an option to compare how much we are horrifically taxed in comparison to our EU neighbours, but that might come later.  In the meantime, it is a handy little tool.

By Peter Wood with 6 comments

#291 6 Questions with... Paul Symington

Symington Family Estates was founded in 1882 when James Symington arrived in Oporto and joined the Graham's port company.  In the 130 years since, the Symington family has grown to include producers such as Graham's, Dow's, Warre's and Martinez, as well as four Madeira producers including Blandy's.

The joint managing director of this family run company is Paul Symington, born into the company, and with Port running through his veins.  We asked him six questions...



Describe yourself in three words
Passionate about Port

Outside of Portuguese wines and ports, what do you like drinking?
Really good Bordeaux, except for its crazy prices.

What is the best wine that you have ever tried, and what is the best Port?
The best Port I have ever drunk is the Dow's 1896.  A Port that my great-grandfather sent from Portugal to my grandfather, Maurice Symington, for him to enjoy on his 21st birthday in the trenches in France in 1916, when the wine was just 20 years old.  Probably the other greatest wine would have to be Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1945 that I was lucky enough to taste once at Mouton courtesy of my family's membership in the PFV, an association of European wine families.  I had one glass.

What is your most prized possession?
My personal 42 acre Douro vineyard near Provesende in the Alto Douro.

What would you do if you hadn't joined the family company in the wine trade?
Become a historian, but I would have to live in the Douro.

Name three people, real or fictional, living or dead, that would be at your dream dinner party and what would you be drinking?
Sir Winston Churchill, The Duke of Wellington and John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough.  We would drink Graham's 1948 and a Dow's 1955 Vintage Port and would discuss their military victories and military history.  With Wellington, we would discuss his battles in Portugal and Spain between 1807 and 1814.

Symington Family Estate 
Photo by Jim Budd

By Peter Wood with No comments

#290 Sabrage - it is nothing new so stop posting videos of you doing it!

All of a sudden, everyone under the sun is teaching everyone else in online videos how to sabrage a bottle.  Why?  Don't get me wrong, I've whacked the top off a champagne bottle or two in my time, but unless you happen to have a large sword, where there is an element of pomp about the whole procedure, what is the point?

If all you have is a kitchen knife, then you might as well not bother as all you are going to look like is an idiot who wants to show off.... in fact, scrub all that.

Sabraging a bottle, is, without doubt, nothing more than showing off and done only by people who think that novelty socks are hysterical.  The only exception to this rule, is when you are drunk, don't know what you are doing and there is an element of danger to it as you might, inadvertently, stab someone.  Fortunately, the only times I've ever sabraged a bottle is when I have been drunk, so I've never been a show off and, also fortunately, never stabbed anyone either.

The Tasting Note does not condone excessive alcohol consumption, stabbing people with swords or novelty socks

By Peter Wood with 1 comment

#289 Pantomimes, Lesbians & Portuguese beauty

Christmas may have come and gone, but the traditional Christmas Pantomime season is still in full swing.  Twenty five years ago, when I was about seven years old, you could go and see such celebrities as Canon & Ball, Jim Davidson and Christopher Biggins treading the boards in garish costumes.  They were at the height of their fame then, with hit TV shows watched by 15 million people, and they all gave up their Christmas period to go out to the people of the UK in towns like Bradford, Doncaster and Glasgow and dress up in drag.  Imagine that today - Simon Cowell giving up his Christmas in the Bahamas with his fiance and ex girlfriend and donning a frock to have a thousand five year olds scream "He's behind you".  It simply wouldn't happen.  Nope, instead of A/B/C listers in the theatres of Great Britain, we still have Canon & Ball in Lincoln, Jim Davidson in Glasgow and Biggins in Wolverhampton despite none of them having been on television in a decade.

What always confused me about nearly every panto I saw was that the lead male character was played by a pretty woman, and the old chubby female character was always played by a man.  I know that men have been playing women since Shakespearean times, but this high dose of transvestite exposure in a performance directed at school children is radically liberal, even for today.  Add in lesbianism, where the male hero (played by a girl remember) is madly in love with the beautiful princess (again, played by a prettier girl) and every dad in the theatre has a fantasy to go home with.  So really, the only person playing a character of their own gender and sexuality is the leading lady, a true rose amongst thorns.

And this is exactly the best way of describing a wine from Dirk Niepoort.  I tried the 2006 Niepoort Charme recently, and having sampled hundreds of big, chunky, Douro reds in the past, this was a true rose amongst thorns.  That isn't to say that Douro wines are ugly fat men dressed in a frock, but they usually aren't light and delicate!  

This blend of Tinta Roriz and Touriga Franca comes from the old vineyards of Vale de Mendiz in the Pinhao valley which are the key to this wines elegance, with early picking helping to avoid high alcohol.  It is the beautiful princess of the Douro with a light, soft berry aroma with hints of raspberry and cranberry.  Slight savoury notes (Cinderella's tattered clothes perhaps?) but with a delicious sweet chocolate violet aroma.  The palate is gentle, elegant with no noticable tannin and a lovely, berry flavour.  Slight stalky elements with a soft, fresh, juicy finish.  A true beauty of a wine in a country with a lot of masculine sisters.  8/10

By Peter Wood with No comments

#288 Rambling thoughts on tasting

Today reminded me why I love tasting wine with people - you get a load of various opinions to argue about!  Five of us tried one wine - the 2004 Leeuwin Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon - with three people were uncomplimentary and two much more positive.

The three who hated it came up with comments like "alcoholic", "tastes like eating earth but not in a good way", "bitter" and "harsh tannins", and were the three least experienced tasters in the room.  Their fresh palates were taking the wine at face value, not factoring in the hundred and one other factors that wine buffs automatically do when trying a wine that you know what it is.  The two of us who are more experienced saw flaws, it was a bit acidic and a bit thin, but we saw its positive too. 

Take, for instance, my note: "Light cherry with liquorice elements on the nose and then fresh raspberries with a little menthol, some herbal elements and lots of sweet fruit.  The palate is soft, a little bit watery, but well matured and a lovely cherry and cinnamon flavour.  At the end it is a bit gnarly, with some gutsier bitter elements and a bit of alcohol heat on the finish, but overall, and with a bit of food, this will be tasty.  7.5/10"

I saw the wine wasn't great, and mentioned it towards the end, but my less experienced colleagues saw the wine's flaws and gave up on it with a dismissive comment.  Now I am known for doing that with some horrific wines, but when an obviously decent enough wine, that has imperfections, is tasted, I think that this is where an experienced taster can get a more rounded opinion of a wine, even though the blunt "its crap" viewpoint is equally valid.

Which brings me onto the wine's major fault that all of us agreed on - the price.  At north of £30, Leeuwin's Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon is horribly expensive.  There are many other Cabernets from Australia that are just as good, or better, than this effort, and if there is any comment that should be simple and damning, it is this!

By Peter Wood with No comments

#287 David beats Goliaths

It was only fitting that when the bottle of 1990 Mouton Rothschild, whose label was designed by Francis Bacon, was opened that it smelled of, amongst other things, off bacon!

Over dinner on Hogmanay we opened up a pair of Bordeaux, a 1990 Mouton and a 2000 Chateau Tour de By.  I grant you, that comparing these two wines, a decade different in age and from different parts of Bordeaux is akin to chalk and cheese, but this wasn't a wine tasting evening, this was two bottles of wine over a pair of pies and that is how I judged them, as bottles of wine to be enjoyed with friends.  The pies were Shepherds and Venison in case you were interested!

The 2000 Chateau Tour de By was  lovely.  Light cherry aromas with a slight aniseed element coming through and a pine aroma as well.  The palate was very well balanced, lovely structure, a cherry and cranberry palate, with light oak, some cocoa aromas and a touch of spice on the finish.  It really was a lovely bottle of wine, drinking so well just now and, knowing that it cost me a tenner when I bought it a few years ago, it really over performed on the night.  8/10

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the 1990 Chateau Mouton Rothschild.  This problem child of a wine, that Parker considers to be in the middle of its drinking window, was really chemically, with that off bacon aroma that I mentioned earlier, and an aroma of struck match and acrylic.  The palate is very muted, there is soft, sweet fruit elements, but it really is a dud of a bottle.  Parker's score is 84/100, I wouldn't even give this 4/10!

There was a third Bordeaux opened at the end of dinner, once the Mouton and the Tour de By had been drunk, that was the ever disappointing Le Dome.  This 2001 vintage from Magnum had some nice rustic aromas, with a stalky element coming off it and then big jammy fruit.  The palate was spicy, with lots of savoury twigs, liquorice and leather delivered with aggression.  I wrote "Bertie Basset in Bondage" 6/10  How this wine can every command the £100 per bottle price it does is beyond me.

I'm glad that the Tour de By beat these two high profile, high priced wines.  It goes to show that a cheap wine, cellared well and drunk at the right time can, when all the stars align, be a giant killer.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#286 Happy New Year with Moet 1961

Firstly, Happy New Year everyone.  At the start of 2010, I didn't have a clue that I would be a married man at the end of it, and so goodness knows what will have happened in 365 days from now.  (nobody mention the word 'baby'!)

What will have happened when I write my January 1st 2012 post is that I will have put another 300 posts onto this blog, as I am planning on having a massive push on my wine tasting and my personal wine education in 2011.

So what a better way to enter the new year than with my wife by my side and a glass of champagne half a century old in my hand. 

1961 Moet & Chandon from magnum
This wine had aromas of gunpowder smoke, leading onto a lovely burnt lemon zest, fresh lemon juice and marmalade aromas, and then some gorgeous nutty and biscuity aromas.  The palate is all about the citrus!  Zest, more juice, some lovely sherbet lemon flavours too, with gorgeous minerality and acidity balancing out this old and stunning wine.

The last time that I had this wine was in the cellars at Moet & Chandon in Epernay, and it was stunning then, and is equally stunning now, but I think that it was better when freshly disgorged.  As a result, it is only 9.5/10, but still, what a stunning way to start the year.

By Peter Wood with 1 comment