#371 Friuli Part 2, Specogna

In 1963, after a time in Switzerland, Leonardo Specogna returned to Friuli and bought some land in Corno di Rosazzo.  Initially producing wine for their own consumption, as well as being grain and dairy farmers, they began to focus more and more on winemaking.  Leonardo's son, Graziano, with his wife and brother invested time and money in promoting Friulian wines throughout the world.  The third generation of the Specogna family, Cristian and Michele, are now a major part of the company, and it was Cristian that conducted the tasting.

The winery is set overlooking a lovely valley of vines, only three kilometres from the Slovenian border.  The vines are now approaching 50 years old and these older vines are giving the company the raw materials they need to produce outstanding wines.  They produce 130,000 bottles every year across all varieties (remember, that is less than Lafite produce every year) with half of that going outside of Italy to over fifteen countries. 

When I arrived at Specogna, I knew I was going to like it there.  There is professionalism in their operation, no disputing that, but it feels friendly and inviting.  We had just been to Vie di Romans with their perfectly manicured vineyard and their ordered, sterile cellar, I felt there was little soul in the place.  Specogna was full of soul.  Rustic dining facilities with lots of old wooden furniture, green harvested cuttings strewn between the vines, wild flowers growing around the vineyards, a cellar packed with barrels of wine and no room to move - you got the feeling that they focus on the product rather than aesthetics and that they are passionate about their wines.  Even if you didn't get that impression from the place, you certainly got it from the family welcome that you received.  You could argue that you were being schmoozed, people trying to sell their wines and therefore putting on a show, but with this place you could feel that it was genuine. 

We tried a lot of their wines.  Here are my thoughts.

Specogna Ribolla Giala Sparkling
A bright and fresh aroma with a little bit of light citrus fruit and nice acidity. The mousse is like Champagne, pin prick and gentle, with a grapefruit and pear flavour.  This is a good Italian fizz. 89pts Not available in UK

2010 Specogna Ribolla Giala
A bright aroma, some little elements of peach skin mixed with a touch of mineral.  The palate is bright, a little acid coming off the start, and then some fresh pithy flavours coming off.  There is a touch of sweeter fruit on the end, and then a very clean and very long finish.  91pts £18

2010 Specogna Friulano
A rounder aroma with some pithy fruit, lots of clean fresh lemon and also some pan fried lemon too.  The palate is light, some fresh lemon and a little apple too.  Good clean wine with some really nice zingy fruit.  It has depth, some diluted lemon juice coming out too with pepper on the back end.   I like this a lot. 90pts £17

2010 Specogna Sauvignon
Bright and grassy, light elderflower with a little green pepper coming through too. A touch of alcohol on the palate, but it is controled, tasty and light.  Definitely a food Sauvignon, needing lighter herbal food to match well. 86pts Not available in UK

2009 Blanc de Cuar
A blend of Friulano, Ribolla Giala and Malvasia selected from the 22 wineries in the town.  This  is a joint effort by these wineries to produce a wine that embodies what Corno di Rosazzo makes.  This is the only wine of its kind in Italy.  A lot of complexity.  There is the usual citrus and then some herbal aromas coming off.  The palate has pineapple skin and some spice coming through.  There is a little under ripe pear, some lighter fleshy fruit and some delicate, almost under ripe strawberry! Very interesting.  89pts Not available in UK

2010 Specogna Pinot Grigio Ramato
This wine is a ramato, a copper coloured wine made by leaving the juice from Pinot Grigio in contact with its violet coloured skins.  It had bright, light red berry armoas with some raspberry leaf and pink grapefruit pith.   The palate is clean with some lovely creamy texture coming off.  There is a touch of tannin, some fresh cranberry notes too, cut with yellow grapefruit pith.  Tasty.  89pts £18

2009 Specogna Chardonnay
A light oak coming through with a light mango and pineapple.  Very clean with subtle freshness, a touch of ginger skin and a little mango dusted with white pepper. It is a nice wine, but I wouldn't bother that much with it.  84pts Not available in UK

We were then shown an experimental red Pinot Grigio made by Christian and his brother Michele.  As Pinot Grigio has red skins, the brothers have decided to see what happens when you try to make a red wine from Pinot Grigio.  Made from vines harvested in 2007, they have 30 days maceration on the skins and then lies in barrel.  It is an interesting wine, and I think they should bottle this as it would be a wonderful curiosity for wine buffs, in the way that Dirk Niepoort's or Adi Badenhorst's unfortified sherry style wines are.

There were aromas of cranberries with a little spicy' menthol aroma and some oxidised, almost sherry notes.  Some warm aniseed spice too.  The palate has cherry stone flavour and some dried spicy woody aromas.  There is a very spicy finish with a warming dried cherry flavour. A unique wine, very interesting.  92pts Not available anywhere!

2009 Specogna Merlot
Some sweet cherry and a bit of veggie coming through with a little menthol and, strangely, some concentrated watermelon.  The palate has nice restrained fruit, a bit of leather and a touch of spice. Alcohol comes through a bit on the finish. 86pts Not available in UK

2007 Specogna Oltre Merlot
Bigger sweet fruit than the other Merlot, a little bit of aniseed coming off. The palate is concentrated. A bit of dark fruit and leathery. A bit of booze creeps in and lingers, but it is nearly balanced with the power of the fruit and leather. A decent wine, just not my thing. 85pts Not available in UK

2007 Specogna Pignolo
The low yielding grape, Pignolo, is the most important red variety in Friuli.  It was cultivated in the 10th century when they built the rosazzo abbey but at the end of the 19th century it was almost extinct due to the need for high yielding vines.  It was thought to be extinct until four plants were discovered in the 1960s.  Specogna's wine has big, sweet cherries with a lot of spice, menthol and a little bit of clove coming through on the nose.  There is high tannin, very dark flavours with lots of sour cherry, leathery with a bundle of cocoa and tobacco on the finish.  Very interesting, some pretty gutsy fruit with a date like richness coming through.  I like it a lot.  93pts £29

2005 Specogna Pignolo
A lot more sweetness on this older wine with a sweet chocolate some rich date characters and lots of concentrated cherry.  The palate has had its tannins softened, some sweeter tobacco, a lovely dried berry flavour. Soft, silky and with really lovely balanced fruit, spice and justa touch of Bolivar cigar on the finish.  95pts

2010 Specogna Verduzzo
Aromas of peach cobbler and some rich, almost vanilla, custardy elements.  The palate is rich, some sweetness and very approachable.  There is a lovely lemony flavour, some bright citrus fruit, red oranges mixed with some mo vanilla and lemon. Bright and tasty with some pepper o the finish.  Very good, just a touch of sweet mixed with a dry, clean palate.  90pts £17

Toblar Ramandolo
Rich wlth sweet citrus and tropical fruit on the nose. Honey and lemon on the palate with a light sweet bright peach flavour, and a finish of lemon and grapefruit. Great acidity, and a very well made wine. 89pts Not available in UK

I'm prepared to admit that Specogna won me over.  Their hospitality, excellent lunch and lovely surroundings made me fall in love with eastern Italy, but their wines are delightful as well.  Sure, some of the wines may be a little on the pricier side, but I'm happy to pay a bit extra for a pack of bacon that I know has been bred and made with care, so why shouldn't I do the same for wine?  What you are buying with these wines is a piece of Italy that isn't on the tourist route.  A suggestion for a sunny summer day is find some Friulian recipes, invite some friends round and buy some Specogna wines.  It is the nearest you are going to get to Friuli without going there!
Specogna Website

By Peter Wood with No comments

#370 Friuli Part 1, Livio Felluga

I'd never been to Friuli before, but I am now in love with the place, the wine and the food.  It has a blood soaked history, and has been a territory fought over for centuries.  Raids from the Turkish, wars with Austria, and in the First World War was an area hit horrifically by fighting.  Despite its history, or perhaps because of it, I got the impression that people there are Friulian first and Italian second, making sure that their local culture, tradition, food and wine stays at the forefront of everyday life.

And their wine is certainly something they should be proud of.  Predominantly white wines, Friuli makes wine that show an elegance that is alien to other parts of Italy. The Friulano grape is the one that they tend to be most proud of, but the region is good for numerous others including the Ribolla Gialla and the more easy-to-sell Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.  Red grows here too, including the local Pignolo, that was so near to extinction there were only four plants remaining.

My visit to Friuli started at the Abbazia di Rosazzo, in the Coli Orientali of Friuli.  This abbey surrounds a 1000 year old church, dedicated to St Peter the Apostle.  Finding yourself in a building a millennium old is one thing, but then being shown to a 700 year old wine cellar is a special moment!  There is evidence that shows that as far back as 1341 this abbey was cultivating vines and actively encouraging others to.  In a document dated 20th January, 1341it tells how "The Patriacrch Bertrando has threatened the excommunication of several people, who after having occupied a wood belonging to the Abbey of Rosazzo, did not want to plant vines".  Being kicked out a church for not planting vines is certainly encouragement to grow grapes!

This cellar is the oldest in Friuli, and is the home to a wine, named after the Abbey.  Made from a blend of Friulano, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Bianco, Malvasia and Ribolla Gialla, this wine is made by Livio Felluga, the abbey's  vineyards were restored in 1979.  Under a blackberry tree next to the cellar door - the cellar is still without electricity and has a very distinct odour of old wood, damp earth and urine - I tried the wine.

The 2009 Abbazia di Rosazzo Bianco was bright and citrussy with fresh grapefruit and a lovely mineral aroma.  There is some white peach stone, a pip and pithy flavour coming through too with lovely sandstone like nuances.  It was quite a full wine, a little nutty and just a hint of lighter herbs, but very complex and tightly layered.  It was a lovely wine, but I do have reservations about the price.  At £60, it is a touch high, but even factoring this in, it was still a lovely wine.  90pts

Our next stop was at Livio Felluga itself.  This producer, now in its fifty fith year, was first introduced to me at Vinitaly in 2008.  I remember their whole range being lovely, but with the odd exception, a little overpriced.  In the following years, my view has changed a bit and I actually think that, although not cheap, are much more in line with their competitors from Italy and beyond.

Buying his first bit of land at Rosazzo in the 1950's, Livio Felluga had to work hard in the hillsides before he could focus on his vines as the rural areas were in decline.  Workers were moving to the towns to work in new factories, the vineyards were in a horrific state and Felluga fought against all this to establish high quality vineyards in the Friulian hills.  I tried his wines in the cellar in Brazzano.

2010 Livio Felluga Sharis
Lovely freshness, some melon on the nose with a little fresh apple coming through. The is a bit of mango as well.  The palate has a lovely freshness, some lemon, a touch of grapefruit and some creamy texturejust coming through.  Very well balanced, a little bit of spice and some wax on the back end.  91pts £20

2010 Livio Felluga Friulano
A little rose water on the nose, some oriental spice and a little bit of soap coming off.  The is lots of spice, a lovely white pepper and cumin with some nutty flavours.  Almond does come through, then some salt and a little bit of grapefruit on the finish.  The spice builds on the finish.  89pts £22

2010 Livio Felluga Sauvignon
Very soft and subtle gooseberry coming through.  There is a grassy green pepper note, and it is very simple and elegant.  The palate is bright, light with fresh fruit and just a little bit of under ripe apple coming through.  There is a floral stalk element, with some floral elements on th finish and just a small alcohol spike, but that is cleaned up wonderfully.  88pts Not available in the UK

2009 Livio Felluga Vertigo
A blend of Merlot and Cabernet, this is very approachable, some bright fresh fruit, a lightness to it with a lot of cherry and strawberry.  A little bit of aniseed coming off as well.  The palate is very drinkable, simple and attractive.  There is a little cherry fruit with some bright fresh berries and a little bit of sweet vegetal flavours.  A good, drying, slightly leathery finish but with a lightness too.  91pts £20

Felluga is not only a wine producer, but also has a restaurant two minutes walk from the wine cellar.  Terra & Vini has been the villages 'osteria' (an eating place that focuses on regional food and aims to get regulars rather than visitors) since the 19th century.  Dishes that included a dish that was like risotto but made with barley instead of rice, Zucchini Souffle and Veal with the most gorgeously sweet braised peas I have ever tasted were served alongside a further range of Livio Felluga's wines.  This is where it became apparent that the wines and the food of this region are intrinsically linked.

2010 Livio Felluga Pinot Grigio
Very fresh and clean with bright grapefruit and lime aromas.  There is a softness on the palate, lots of pear and and small nudges of citrus coming through a spiced, minerally finish, but this is still too overpriced.  That doesn't matter though as the Friulano and the Sharis are the wines you want to buy. 86pts £24

2009 Livio Felluga Terre Alte
A little ginger comes up front with very nice oaky notes coming through the mango and a little smoky meat fat aroma. The palate is lovely with super fresh tropical fruit a little bit of spice and a bitter pith flavour towards the end.  A superb wine. 95pts £55

2009 Livio Felluga Illivio
Big, rich and oaky with lovely pithy full aroma. Very approachable and lush with a gorgeous oaky note mixed with Ginger, a lovely tropical fruit. Full but so well balanced on the palate with delightful mango flavours and a touch of pepper on the finish.  A super wine and if you prefer an oakier style, you will prefer this over the Terre Alte. 94pts £32

2007 Livio Felluga Sosso
Beautifully balanced with lovely cherry and damson aromas.  There is a little cocoa and leather as well.  The palate has very nice dried fruit, a dark complexity with really velvety leather flavours.  Some spice on the finish seasons the dried fruit and dark chocolate flavours.  91pts £53

2007 Livio Felluga Picolit
Bright, fresh, light floral aromas with some lemon and a bit of sweet and orange. Rosewater with a lovely brightness and then a sweet light oily texture. Very delicate with super balance with a finish of a little honey and grapefruit. 95pts £95

These wines from Livio Felliga are super, and I'm pleased that my view has changed and the majority of the wines are now worth what you are paying for them.  The economy going wrong and other producers increasing their prices more has brought these products into the correct price range.  Obviously there are exceptions, I think the Pinot Grigio is overpriced and fantastic as the Picolit is, paying nearly a hundred pounds for a 50cl bottle of sweet wine is too much for this wine.  I'd suggest you seek out the Sharis, Friulano and Vertigo - three wines for around the £20 price that offer super, ready to drink wines.


Links
Livio Felluga
Abbazia di Rosazzo
Terre & Vini

By Peter Wood with No comments

#369 Trying to beat the Cote de Nuits - The wines of Franz Haas

There is a man in the Alto Adige who wants to make a better Pinot Noir than
Burgundy.  I don't know if he will ever be successful in doing so, but it isn't stopping Franz Haas from trying.  Surrounded by beautiful mountains, his winery and vineyards are a picture postcard scene.  Nestled in the hillside, overlooking a magnificent vista, his property was where I learned what he is trying to do.

Franz is in love with Pinot Noir.  His passion for the grape is obvious by the fact that you can see the tension in his face when he isn't happy with one of his own wines.  He has a major enemy to his quest to out-Pinot the Burgundians, and that is climate change, as his established vineyards are getting too hot.  

At an elevation of 300 metres, his older vineyards, that once produced higher quality Pinot Noir, are being harvested six weeks earlier than they were three decades ago.  This results in fatter, lower quality wines, and Franz isn't satisfied with the results.  He has therefore bought land higher up the mountains, at 900 metres, and is producing much better wine there.  Still, Franz isn't happy as there is a limited amount of space at these higher altitudes, so he is experimenting lower down.  Taking the same 300 metre vineyard, he has been experimenting with different ways of making his wine, and the results are impressive.  He managed to make a wine that is leagues better than another, with much more complexity and finesse.  It was almost as good as the 900 metre wine that I tried, despite coming from a vineyard that harvested over a month earlier.

This excites Franz as his next goal is to take what he has learned from the lower vineyards and transfer it to the higher altitudes.  Then, as he put it, people may begin to say "Burgundy...who?"

In the meantime he is continuing to experiment with other grape varieties in the Alto Adige.  A nice Sauvignon Blanc that reminded me of a German example of this grape, a super Petit Manseng and a Lagrein that he semi dries the grapes, not to get concentration, but to lose the green vegetal flavours that the grape in it's youth.  But Pinot Noir is the man's passion and I  get the impression that even if he achieves his goal of making a wine that beats the best of Burgundy, he won't stop experimenting and playing with new varieties in the Alto Adige.

2010 Franz Haas Pinot Noir Rose 
Light fresh strawberries, a lot of brightness coming off the wine.  Good bright raspberries and a little bit of fresh acidity.  Some strawberry on the back end too.  85pts

2010 Franz Haas Pinot Grigio
Bright, lots of lemon and grapefruit pith.  A bright chalky element too. The palate has a bit of body, some grapefruit with a sprinkling of white pepper.  Light and fresh. 85pts

2009 Franz Haas Manna 
A sweet floral note on the nose, some bright citrus too. The palate is dry, with slight pear and peach flavours, mixing with an oily palate. Some lovely zingy notes mixing with a fuller tropical palate.  92pts

2010 Franz Haas Gewurztraminer
A lot of mineral aromas, some chalky aromas mixed with a little oriental spice.  The palate is dry, very very dry with lots of grapefruit pith, a little jasmine and a bit of orange skin on the finish.  88pts

2009 Franz Haas Pinot Nero
A lot of lit fresh cranberry and a brit raspberry mixed with some leafy notes. Some fresh fruit, light, fresh and with lovely balance.  A bright wine, very drinkable with a good herbal element coming through.  A very tasty wine, perfect summer drinking with a good fruit all the way to the end.  91pts

2009 Franz Haas Moscato Rosa
Some light strawberry with a little bit of bright raspberry coming off.  The palate is rich, some strawberry mixed with bramble and a little bit of compote too.   Very well balanced, super clean with a vewry gentle sweetness.  87pts

By Peter Wood with No comments

#368 Co-op Nero d'Avola

Each wine making region in the world has 'their' own grape variety.  Some are indigenous and others are imported and in South Africa's case they created it themselves!  So we go to Sicily's own grape variety, Nero d'Avola.

Literally meaning "black of Avola", this grape was used by winemakers in the southern Sicilian town of Avola a couple of hundred years ago, and is now one of Italy's most important grapes.  It managed to take the fight to Australian Shiraz with its sweet tannins and its peppery notes.

I tried two inexpensive wines from two co-operatives, both wines retailing around the eight pounds price point, and they couldn't have been more different. 

2010 Baccaria Nero d'Avola
Dark, rich berries, some semi dried cherries and a bundle of herbs and perfumed summer flowers.  The palate is weighty, some really tasty sour cherry, dark leathery notes, a bit of leather coming off too with some lovely dark, tobacco notes.  It is a tasty wine, with earthy flavours on the back end and a nice tannic grip.  88pts

2010 Villa Cardini Nero d'Avola
Sweet up front fruit with a little confected cherry on the nose and a little bit of wet clay.  Pretty closed otherwise.  There is a boring, slightly dark and tannic palate, some over extracted fruit coming through with a bit of green pepper and a half arsed attempt at dried fruit.  SO boring and really not showing what grape or region it is from.  There is a baked fruit note on the back end, but this is dull.  72pts

I can see why the Villa Cardini would sell.  It offers big extraction, sugary sweetness and is drinkable, sitting at home with a pizza liquid and is an alternative to an Aussie red,  but the Baccaria is so much better.  It has complexity, it has depth and, most importantly, tastes not just Italian, but tastes like it is from the baking hot Sicilian Island, and it is the wine I'd want to drink.

For the next week, I will be in Northern Italy visiting a bundle of producers in the Veneto and Friuli.  I'm hoping to be able to post some articles when I'm there, but if not, expect some when I get back.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#367 Off par Champagne

High end champagne.  Excellent wine worthy of kings or overrated fizz that is overpriced?  Like everything wine related, there is no firm rule.  I conducted a tasting of three champagnes from three reputable producers that I know can produce outstanding wines.  Their 2000 offerings were not really up to par though...

2000 Taittinger Comte de Champagne
Light, fresh and with a slight underripe brie element on the nose and a little bit of struck match. Some salt too, a bit of fresh lemon, very clean and zippy fruit.  Very clean finish, all citrus and a bit of watery lemon on the finish. 88pts

2000 Dom Perignon
Light and fresh with a bit of pencil lead  and a lot of lemon pith and lime skin. Very soft, a little redcurrant comes through with some pith, grapefruit and a lot of pencil lead.  Good balanced round palate with lovely pithy flavours on the back end.  89pts

2000 Bollinger Grande Annee
Very fresh and clean but with a rounder funkier element thrown into the mix. There is some lemon cake, a bit of mango coming through and with some honey notes as well.  The palate is full, some darker biscuity and yeasty flavour, a bit of spice on the back end as well. Very nice but just a bit fat on the back end. 88pts

By Peter Wood with No comments

#366 Older Vintage Port

The problem when you are trying new release vintage ports is that sometimes you need a reference point to see how these wines are going to age over the next few decades.  So, most port companies put on a selection of older wines that show how the wines are going to evolve in the future, and the 2009 Fladgate release tasting was no different, with a range of wines going back to the mid 1980's.

Before I get to the wines, a little story!

I've spoken in the previous post how the 2009 vintage was about a third smaller than the average of 14,000 cases.  Well in 1985 Taylor's made 25,000 cases of vintage port.  It wasn't only a high yielding vintage, but the '85 had wines from properties outside of Taylor's ownership.  After the '85 vintage, Taylor's and Fonseca stopped using juice from other properties, as they want their vintage ports to be entirely foot trodden, and the properties they bought juice from went to automated pressing.  It might seem a pretty daft thing to be so fussy about, but foot treading is still the best way to extract everything from the skins quickly without getting bitterness from squashing the pips in the grapes.  There is no point in spending man hours in the vineyards, making sure that you have the best grapes possible, and then to screw them up with squashing the seeds and making the wine bitter.  The attention to detail that the Fladgate Partnership put into their wines is very obvious when you taste the Croft wines.

Anyway, back to the two leading wines, from the high volume, and high quality 1985 vintage - Taylor's and Fonseca.  The 1985 Fonseca had a dark, menthol aroma with some full juicy fruit notes.  There was a meaty element, some dark cocoa and some very bramble coming off too.  The palate had a lot of big, juicy fruit, bundles of spice, leather and very rich, blueberry and cherry fruit.  It is a very big and juicy wine, voluptuous is a good word, but there is a bit of tobacco and spice on the back end that gives it a bit of testosterone!  Very tasty.  95pts

The sister wine, 1985 Taylor's was very gentle with fresher berries with some light raspberries, strawberries and a bundle of blueberries.  There is a dark sweetness, some lovey spiced berries with a touch of menthol on the nose.  The palate is a dark, leafy, twiggy flavour, mixed with some very rich but fresher fruit, tobacco and some mint.  A little savoury, woody element.  Very tasty, a very elegant wine that is showing more age than the Fonseca, and refinement.  A beauty of a wine, but this bottle was maybe a bit older than it should have been. 94pts

As I said earlier, this company puts an emphasis on quality and this is shown in the Croft house.  Fladgate bought Croft in 2001, and they tipped all the Croft 1985 into a Tawny because it wasn't any good. As we couldn't try that wine alongside the other two '85's, so a bottle of the 1991 Croft was brought to sample.  This wine, made before the Fladgate takeover, shows how Croft used to be in the dark days, and it is leagues different from the newer house style.  Instead of being a fruit forward wine, it was quite sweet, quite ballsy with some up front bramble fruit.  There is some semi-dried fruit on the nose as well, with herbs backing it up with some coffee.  Very balanced, but with some savoury, cocoa and chocolate with a herbal flavour coming up and then a bit of alcohol hits on the finish.  It is tasty, but just a bit too gutsy and crude.  86pts

The Quinta de Roeda is the main property of Croft, although it actually started being owned by Taylor's until the 1890's.  The 1997 Croft Quinta de Roeda had a very sweet and jammy aroma with lots of bramble, coffee and very juicy fruit.  The palate is very sweet, dark chocolate and with a lot of alcohol and spice coming out.  Big and gutsy with a dark, woody element.  It is very drinkable, but again, just a bit powerful and crude compared to its new house style.  87pts

I much prefer the newer, fruit forward style of Croft port.  It has a purity of fruit, is very clean and much more 'simple' and that is a good thing.  Older Croft appears to be trying too hard, trying to tick a lot of flavour boxes and not having an identity of it's own, whereas the new vintage has a clear house style that is delicious.  This old port house's new owner has done a very good job.

Single Quinta wines offer younger drinking, cheaper styles of vintage port.  Most port producers have at least one single Quinta wine as they will have one property that shines above the others, but larger producers will have different properties with different styles and will release these separately in non vintage declaration years. 

We tried the 1998 Fonseca Quinta do Panascal, which is the lead property for the company.  It was bought in 1978 and has been organic since the mid 1980s.  There is some very big, gutsy, fleshy fruit, a sweeter savoury aroma with a bit of honey, a lot of raspberries mixed in with the darker berries. Bacon the hits you!  The palate has a dark, jarring palate, lots of savoury notes, with a lot of earthy fruit. Ok, but it is not showing well. 82pts

The 1996 Fonseca Guimeraens is not a single Quinta port, but occupies the same sort of level.  It is a blend from the company's properties, and released in non classic years - essentially, it is the vintage port from non vintage years!  There is an aroma of sweet tobacco, sweet herbs and sweet fruit! This is a lovely sweet elegant aroma with juicy, full on berries.  Lush fruit, some woody elements with a lot of tobacco, good brambles, a bit of higher alcohol and spice, but with a dried fruit finish.  Quite dry and spicy, bit of alcohol, but with plumskin and leath on the finish.  Very clean and great value.  87pts

Finally, two single quinta wines from Taylors, showing the terroir differences of the two properties.  The 1999 Taylor's Quinta de Terra Feita has a little wet earth aroma and some Ribena!  Some alcohol comes off immediately with some herbal - rosemary and mint - emerging too.  The palate is a bit meaty, quite sweet, but with lots of earthy elements and a gutsy, spicy, leather flavour.  It is rich, with gutsy tannin, but is very nice with a savoury finish.  86pts  This is in contrast to the 2001 Taylor's Vargellas, which is all pretty with light, fresh fruit.  Quite floral with a brightness to it.  There is some dark, powerful spicy flavours, quite dark and chunky, and with a chocolate, bramble and spice note to it.  It is tight and dark but with loads of potential.  92pts

I love old vintage port, but Single Quinta is the way to go if you want to go out, buy a bottle of aged port and drink it.  These wines are all around the £20 to £25 price and are good value for money.  The exception being the Taylors Vargellas, this is a wine that will need some time to age, and is exceedingly good value for money.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#365 2009 Vintage Port

Usually port producers declare three full vintages every decade, but tend not to declare sequential years.  They can do this because they will always have two years worth of wine in barrel at any time and can compare, for example, the 2009 and 2010 vintages at the same time and if they are both good quality, can make a pretty safe call on which to release.  The last years when the big boys differed in declaration was 1991 and '92 when the Symington group (Graham, Warre etc) declared the earlier year and Fladgate Partnership (Taylor, Fonseca) declared the latter.

And 2009 is a vintage that Symington decided not to release, but the Fladgate Partnership did what the man from Del Monte did and said 'Yes'.  What makes this different is that this is the fourth vintage declaration in a decade for this group, but they consider the wines good enough to justify it.  The vintage was hot, which is the main reason given as to why some houses haven't declared, but as Adrian Bridge, who hosted the tasting, informed us, that isn't so much of a problem for Taylors and Fonseca.  These houses have a large number of old vines, which in turn have deep root structures that have found their own deep water source, they don't need surface water to survive.  Of course, older vines have lower yields, so both Taylor's and Fonseca 2009 are smaller declarations than normal with a third less wine than the 2007 vintage.

We started with the groups 2009 Skeffington Vintage port.  This is a brand created to use the grapes left over from both Taylor and Fonseca.  This blend is also used by some universities as their 'own label' vintage port and has about 1500 cases made.  It had a bundle of very sweet bramble fruit with some alcohol coming off, but with basil, leather and cocoa.  There is a menthol element coming off as well with some mint and a bit of toffee.  The palate is dark, but with powerful soft tannin, lots of sweet brambles, some coffee, a bit of earthy, fresh fruit with leathery notes.  Very long finish, a bundle of spice, but it is delivered very well.  Big, concentrated, but drinkable. 87pts

The Fladgate Partnership bought Croft in 2001, and changed the property entirely, and making the wines foot trodden.  After a couple of decades without investment, the house had lost its way.  The ports were mediocre, and despite inheriting a lot of the 1985 vintage when they bought the company, it was all tipped into a tawny port because it wasn't of good enough quality.  The 2009 Croft vintage had savoury aromas with a raspberry, earthy note up front.  A little chilli chocolate and some blueberry as well.  Very bright and herbal.   The palate is gentle with some softer fruit, light berries, very clean and all about the purity of fruit.  Lovely clean cassis, just hanging on through the finish and not leaving your palate,  the tobacco and cocoa are just acting as seasoning rather than more fruit flavours. Very well made and I really like the changes they have done to Croft.  90pts

The next two wines, the 2009 Fonseca and Taylor's, stood me apart from everyone else at the tasting, as I preferred the elegance and balance of the Taylor's, whereas everyone else liked the big, fruit dominant Fonseca that closed right up on the finish.  I stick by my view that the Taylor's is better, and critics like Jancis Robinson, Neal Martin, and Jamie Goode agree with me, so if I am proved wrong, they are too! 

The 2009 Fonseca was sweet, elegant with lush berries, a bit of the sweeter pie filling, but with some more delicate fresher juicier fruit aromas. A big, jammy, spicy wine with lots of power lots of leather, lots of full on tannin but again, delivered very softly.  Quite dusty with a lot of cocoa and mint.  Very good, but the is a slight thinness on the finish which concerns me as it tightens up and doesn't deliver the balance I would want.  But that is like picking on the fact that a beautiful lady has an ingrowing toenail, it matters not a jot.  This wine is super, and will develop into a beautiful wine. 92pts

The 2009 Taylor's was, for me, instantly recognisable as Taylor's the second the glass went to my nose.  It has a balance and beauty rarely seen in young vintage port, with juicy fruit, up front baked meat aromas, and a bit of leather, but with all elements beautifully balanced. There is a touch of mint too mixed with oriental spice and some juicy and jerky like aromas.  There is a lot of very polished fruit.  The palate is quite closed, but the fruit is coming through gently, with very nice cassis and cherry flavours, a lot of cocoa and tobacco masking the fruit.  The alcohol comes through near the end with a nice chunky chocolate note coming through with lots of lovely earthy flavours. A stunning wine. 96pts

The Vargellas property, has a lot of old vines in it, and in the mid nineties, some of the oldest vines, planted between 1908 and 1935, were not producing enough fruit to justify keeping them.  They were due to be dug up, but after tasting them, it was realised that the fruit was too good.  Therefore a new wine was created, the Vargellas Vinha Velha, that used these old vines, but aimed at the collector market as they are significantly higher priced than the vintage wines from Taylors.  The vines are of such low yield that it takes four vines to make one bottle of port, and remember that 20% of each bottle is fortifying spirit!

The 2009 Taylors Vargellas Vinha Velha had a lot of forward, bright fruit.  A bit of raspberry with some compote elements, and then there is a sweeter, rounder fruit aroma.  Many layers are coming through, cocoa underneath the soft fruit.  A floral element on the nose.  This has lovely soft fruit, a complex deep wine with lots of cocoa, tobacco and some leather.  Cassis emerges with tobacco and spice, leading to a long finish with some cedar box and lovely violet flavours. 95pts

These ports are super value, and prices have been kept at the 2007 vintage level - unlike certain French regions I will not mention - and long may they stay that way.  When you factor in that Taylors will make in a decade what Lafite does in two years, add in the quality, longevity and drinkability of these wines, and, with the exception of the Vargellas Vinha Velha, that they cost at most £60 per bottle, these are the fine wines that anyone can experience.  I'm placing my order today...

By Peter Wood with No comments

#364 Tom Cannavan's 50 Great Portuguese Wines

For the third year running off I trotted to the Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh for the annual 50 Great Portuguese Wines tasting with the wines selected by Scottish critic Tom Cannavan.  One of the (if not the) wine website pioneer whose website Wine Pages was born out of his profession in computing and his passion of wine.  My first tasting was that of Jamie Goode who showed outstanding wines, and last year was Sarah Ahmed whose selections had a slightly commercial element to them.  Neither better than the other, just different.  Cannavan has straddled these two tastings well, showing a selection of both lower and higher priced wines.  Here are my favourites from his fifty wines.

2009 Valle Pradinhos Branco
A lot of sweet peach and nectarine on the nose.  There is a clean, fresh palate, more dried apricots and a bit of satsuma too. Good with an aromatic spice coming through.  91pts
www.vallepradinhos.pt

2007 Scala Coelli
Some light strawberry mixed with raspberries and a bit of cocoa.  There is a light, dried cocoa covered plumskin flavour, the alcohol builds, but so does the dried fruit making a balanced wine.  Long finish, very clean and tasty. 91pts
www.cartuxa.pt

2007 Marias da Malhadinha
A lot of dried fruit, some sweeter raisin and prune, cocoa too. The palate is good, clean with a tasty dried fruit, a lot of tannin, but they are silky. Nice cherry fruit, some fun secondaries of dusty books. 93pts
www.malhadinhanova.pt

2008 Quinta dos Roques Touriga Nacional
Simply lovely, fresh bright and pretty. Beautiful balance of lighter fruits savoury notes and floral aromas. 94pts
www.quintaroques.pt

2008 Lavradores de Feitoria Meruge
Lovely bright and light with fresh strawberry and berry compote flavour.  Tobacco with lots of dusty fruit, a bit of chocolate and a long, fruit and pepper palate. Strawberries and cream with black pepper on the finish. 91pts
www.lavradoresdefeitoria.pt

2008 Poeira
Dark, brooding with subtle chocolate, brambles and plum.  Sweet tobacco comes through with a green note. The palate is dark, savoury, coated in sweet fruit. A lot of leathery tannin and a dusty savoury note. Big but beautiful. 91pts
www.poeira.pt

2009 Quinta do Portal Touriga Nacional
Really fresh and light, lots of almost beaujolais fruit, tea leaves and rhubarb.  A dark, more tea and simply elegant. A very gentle savoury wine. 92pts
www.quintadoportal.com

2008 Quinta do Vale Meao
Beautiful, balanced, a floral note mixed with dark berries and sweet tart raspberries. Very tasty, good mouthfeel, a little dried fruit, some tobacco and a bit of leather coming through. Very tasty. 92pts
www.quintadocalemeao.pt

2008 Quinta de Tecedeiras Reserva
Soft and gentle, very pretty aroma, quite elegant and juicy.  Good dark fruit, a lot of cocoa and a bit of tar coming through. Nice balance of tannin, firm but very friendly. 91pts
www.daosul.com

2007 Quinta do Ameal Special Harvest
Only 650 cases of this wine are made.  And there is one half bottle per case!  Sweet rhubarb and ripe yellow plums. So stunning with a little bit of dark, confit lemon, old honey and a bit of pepper.  Beautifully balanced, old marmalade, some really nice bread and butter pudding with orange zest. Lovely gentle fruit with a marmalade fruit on the never ending finish. 98pts
www.quintadoameal.com

Tom Cannavan's Wine Pages
Wines of Portugal

By Peter Wood with No comments

#363 Scoring young vines

OK folks.... Scoring.

There are three main scoring systems in the world of wine.  There is Parkers 100 point scale, Jancis Robinson's 20 point scale and then there is the Broadbent five star rating system too.  And there is me doing my marks out of ten.  So, I have been debating what to do.  Should I go old school and follow Broadbent - nope as he is pretty much the only one doing it.  Should I follow Jancis? I could as it is simply just doubling the scores that I do and would make the conversion a lot easier.  Or should I just give in and adopt the hundred point scale and then I am in line with everyone from Parker to Cellar Tracker and everyone else.  My question is akin to that in the 1980s of should I go VHS or just stick with my Betamax video player.  I might get better picture with one, but I can get more movies with the other.  With points, I do carve my own niche with marks out of ten or do I go with everyone else and make it easier for my readers?

Oh sod it, scores don't matter anyway so I might as well just adopt Parker's 100 point system and where else to start but with Bordeaux.

When a Chateau has to dig up dead or dying plants they replant with new vines, but there is a problem.  These young vines don't produce the quality of fruit to put into their main wines, so a lot of producers either declassify these grapes into their entry level product or, in Bordeaux, they produce a second wine.  I tried two second wines from well known and respected producers, Chateau Leoville Poyferre from St Julien and Chateau Pavie from St Emilion.  I kept the vintage the same, but was amazed at the difference in quality between these two wines.

Firstly was the 2005 Pavillon de Poyferre.  This has only been the second wine of Leoville Poyferre since the 2004 vintage, and it showed Dusty fruit, lots of cherry fruit and a bundle of cassis.  A lot of up front fruit but delivered with a gentle touch, not a big, powerful blast.  Some dark chocolate comes off and then there is a polish element on the nose.  Some baked fruit pie as well - brambles, raspberries and blueberries.  The palate is dark, a bit concentrated with very noticable tannin.  Lots of vegetal flavours, very dark and cocoa laden with green pepper, some leafy flavours as well.  Having said that, it is still quite elegant, some dusty berry stone and plum skin.  Quite tasty but too young yet. 90pts

The second wine, the 2005 Aromes de Pavie, couldn't have been more different and disappointing.  A Merlot dominant blend, this is the first vintage of the second wine under this label.  But despite the pedigree, this wine had a rather sweet, poopy note on the nose, some dulled chocolate aromas but it is all very muted.  The palate is very vegetal, with a lot of tannin.  Horribly extracted, so so so much tannin with just far too much dry, leathery flavours mixed in with some sour cherry and liquorice.  This is a really bad wine.  It will never balance out as the tannins will just stay there until all the fruit goes.  A really bad wine, and nearly double the price of the Poyferre.  65pts

I know that the Aromes de Pavie has 90pt scores, but today this wine was seriously awful and the bottle I had showed all the signs of no future, but with no bottle flaws.  The main thing, is I have made the leap from Betamax to VHS and am scoring with 100 points.

I feel dirty.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#362 Blind Alsace, same wine, sequential years!

Blind tasting is all well and good.  Trying to determine the difference between an Oregon Pinot Noir and the same grape from Beaune can be tricky.  Barossa Shiraz verses Rhone Syrah is a bit easier, but what about trying to see the vintage differences between the same wine?  If it was ten years apart, I think I'd be able to do it, five years might be easy(ish) too, but what if they were one year apart? Oh dear....

The wine was Trimbach's Cuvee Frederic Emile Riesing, from the 2001 and 2002 vintages.  I was given them blind and here is what I though.

Trimbach Cuvee Frederic Emile Riesling - Wine #1
A fresh, lively, intense confit lemon and lime marmalade aroma, some notes of honey come through as well with a delightful fresh, citrussy note.  Some white pepper too.  The palate has a bitterness up front, which then removes to show lemon, a touch of petrol, some lovely fruit stone flavours.  A very clean, peppery note with soft lemon pith, great balance - just a touch of acid biting at the end, but delicious. 8/10.  I think that this is the lesser vintage of 2001, younger drinking and just a bit more shouty!

Trimbach Cuvee Frederic Emile Riesling - Wine #2

There isn't much difference in flavours, but this wine appears to be more subdued and elegant, a bit more of a mineral note and more fresh lemon.  The aroma is a little more creamy, as is the palate, and there is just a bit more savoury, pithy note.  I actually prefer this wine, as it shows more minerality and is less showy.  I think that this is a more elegant wine but isn't ready yet.  The first wine is just more approachable now.  9/10.  I think that this wine is the 2002 as it is just a better wine, but quite closed at the minute.

The results...
A miracle occurred!  I got it right! Wine 1 was the 2001 and Wine 2 the 2002.

By Peter Wood with 2 comments

#361 6 Questions with... Anthony Hamilton Russell

Anthony Hamilton Russell had big plans when he took over his father's vineyard in the early 1990's.  He wanted to make South African wines well known, but to have his wines firmly at the head of the surge into the international market.  After focusing on two grape varieties, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, he didn't try to recreate wines from Burgundy and made wines that were truly South African. 

His wines hold up very well in blind tastings, often beating bottles that are several times their price.  I met Anthony for the first time a few weeks ago and he kindly agreed to answer six questions...

Describe yourself in three words
Interested in everything

What, aside from your own wines, do you drink on a regular basis?
Classically styled wines that tell a story of place

Do you have any hidden talents?
Water divining

Finish this sentence; "When people drink my wine I hope that they...."
... get a visceral feeling for the site and soils and experience something of the extraordinary beauty of the place


What is your first memory of drinking wine?
A glass of wonderfully old fashioned, aged, South African red smelling like the sea.  I was 9 years old and used to have a small glass of wine with lunch each day during the Christmas holidays.

Name three people, real or fictional, living or dead, that would be guests at your dream dinner party, and what would you be drinking?
Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway and we would drink aged Grand Cru red Burgundy.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#360 Enjoying wine, bunnies & killing dogs

 "If you love your bluebells kill your dog"

These are the words of Australian feminist Germaine Greer, uttered on the day that another great promotor of (naked) women, Hugh Hefner, arrived in Britain.  Hefner is a product of a bygone era, where it was ok to nip a waitresses bum as she walked past you in a restaurant.  Germaine has campaigned for and liberated women so they are considered equal to men.  Hefner is the past, Greer is the present.  So how come the world seems to love Hef and despise Greer?

The answer is simple, we don't like being lectured to.  Sure, Hefner's Playboy bunnies may not be to everyone's taste, but they are paid £30,000 a year (more than a graduated lawyer will get in his first few years work) and work in a safe environment with security seconds away, which is more than a home help, being paid £13k per year has.  Greer has campaigned for years for equality, and the woman's right to choose, and that is admirable, but she has done it by lecturing, informing people that they are living their life wrong and waggling a lot of fingers in people's faces and getting angry.  Today her cause is the preservation of bluebells at the expense of dogs, next week it will be the abolition of cobbled streets and in a month she will consider street lamps to be a waste of energy and environmentally unfriendly.  Greer wants to fix things and Hefner just gets on and enjoys his life!

Which got me thinking about wine and how I am so obsessed with criticising it.  I, like many critics, am so convinced in my abilities to analyse wine that I feel a need to tell people that this wine is great and that wine is terrible.  I am the Germaine Greer of the wine world and that shocked me as that is the last thing I would ever want to be!  I want to worry less about rating and reviewing wines and care more about drinking them.  I want to embrace the vinous Hefner within and enjoy my wine life more.  So today, rather than reviewing a wine, I'm going to tell you a different story, one of my enjoyment of wine.

It has been the warmest day of the year so far, I was working in my wine shop, doing deliveries and having meetings.  I was shattered, so I sat down to dinner with the boats bobbing about in the harbour outside.  I noticed that there was some wine left over from last night, that I had bunged the cork back into, so I grabbed a tumbler, I couldn't be bothered getting up to get a wine glass, and poured myself some 2009 Beaujolais Villages from Louis Jadot.  It was exactly what I wanted, a simple, easy to drink wine that I didn't have to think about, and I just sat back and enjoyed it after a hot, sticky day at work.

Today this mediocre wine was perfect.

By Peter Wood with 3 comments

#359 1971 vs 1979

I tried two champagnes from two years that bookended a decade that saw the Vietnam War end, Nixon resign, economic unrest, the calculator, disco and Star Wars.  I decided to figure out which was the best year, 1971 or 1979 by looking at wikipedia and comparing the two years in seven categories.

Fashion trend
1971  Platform shoes
1979  Designer Jeans
Win for 1979, unless you are Tom Cruise, nobody likes platform shoes

Toy
1971  The Space Hopper
1979  Trivial Persuit
Win for 1971, I know that the board game has lasted three decades, but a bouncy balloon with an animal face on has to win.

Sport
1971 British Open Champion - Lee Trevino
1979 British Open Champion - Seve Ballesteros
Win for 1979, Seve becomes first golfer from continental Europe to win a major since 1907

Showbiz
1971  The Ed Sullivan Show airs its final episode
1979  Michael Jackson releases his first album, Off The Wall
Win for 1979, Jackson's first solo album - no further information required

New things
1971  Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida
1979  The first nudist beach opens in Brighton, England
Win for 1971, difficult to believe that Mickey Mouse would win over naked people, but click here to see a standard Brighton day

Celebrity births
1971 Ewan McGregor, Tupac Shakur, Tiffany, Snoop Dogg
1979 Jennifer Love Hewitt, Heath Ledger, Norah Jones, Pink
Win for 1971, only one word matters here, and that is "Tiffany".

So we are level pegging, and the wine has to be the deciding factor...

Champagnes
1971 Pol Roger PR Reserve Special
Rich, stewed apples, a lot of honey and brioche coated in sweetened pear.  A lot of old sherry notes, very fresh, but with a curried element mixed with lime.  Some toffee apple toffee and a bit of popcorn coming through  A lot of spice, some toasty, oak like elements, with butter.  Dirty apple skin with a lot of sherry, polished oak and then confit lime.  Lovely.  9.5/10

1979 Salon le Mesnil
Over ripe pear with some crumble coming out too.  A little bit of honey with some soft, mulled wine spice mixed with a lot of honey.  Some new potatoes covered in butter with melon aromas too.  The palate is so youthful - lots of fresh lemon, lime and then toast, some dusty wood.  High acid levels with a pencil leady finish.  Stunning balance, but far too young.  8/10 (with more to come)

It is a win for 1971, although to be fair, that year had me with the Space Hopper and Tiffany!

By Peter Wood with No comments