#468 If only the wines were as pert as the breasts - La Vierge Wines

The last thing that you expect to see when you pull a wine out of a cardboard box is a pert nipple on a wine called "The Black Virgin" but see this I did when I received six bottles from South African producer La Vierge.  With labels designed by Sir Michael Adams, La Vierge (The Virgin) is a range of wines made in the Hemel en Aarde valley in South Africa and they occupy the ten to twenty pounds price point for South African wines that I am most excited about.  

Reading through the website I wasn't sure I was reading a classics textbook, an exercise in wine marketing or a Mills & Boon book.  Billed as 'Wines of Desire', sex appears to be a dominant theme throughout this brand.  With wine names like 'Jezebelle', 'The Affair' and 'Nymphomane', naked people adorning most of the bottles, I am not sure whether the theory behind this brand creation was to be titilating or not, but I found it just a bit cheap and tawdry.  It just seems a bit childish and I imagine it was created by a person who, when a schoolboy in the 1970's, looked at National Geographic just to see tribeswomen's boobies.  Here are my thoughts on the wines.

2010 La Vierge The Last Temptation Riesling (£18.99)

Bright lime aromas mixed with a slightly soft petroly aroma.  Orange Opal Fruits (Starbursts for anyone under 30) coming through at the end of the nose.  The palate is tastes like plastic and alcohol  Really really revolting.  Unbalanced, disjointed and messy.  55pts

2010 La Vierge Original Sin Sauvignon Blanc (£11.99)

Bright grassy aromas with some light floral elderflower coming off.  The palate is what you expect - elderflower, gooseberry and grass.  There is too much heat on the finish, with a lot of acid on the finish.  Not great but drinkable and at least it tastes like a South African Sauvignon Blanc.  78pts

2010 La Vierge Jezebelle Chardonnay (£14.99)

Tropical fruit, oak and pineapple.  A big, ballsy aroma with lots of sweeter fruit aromas.  The palate is pleasant enough, lots of oak a pineapple pith comes through and the alcohol is nearly in balance, but there are far more interesting and better quality wines at the price.  75pts

2010 La Vierge Noir Pinot Noir (£18.99)

Sweet cherries and a little raspberry coming out and then a bit of strawberry.  The palate is ok at first alcoholic with some dark, bitter elements coming through.  Again the alcohol comes for another bite later on in the finish.  Terrible.  69pts

2010 La Vierge Satyricon Sangiovese Nebbiolo Barbera (£14.99)

Big rich and stewed with some bright cherry aromas and a little bit of sweet chocolate.  The palate is dark, a bit stewed with some  tobacco and liquorice.  The finish is ok, but a bit rubbery on the back end, but you can drink this and find some enjoyment.  79pts

2010 La Vierge Nymphomane Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec Cabernet Franc (£14.99)

Perfumey with some light strawberry and floral notes on the nose.  A bit like cheap perfume.  The palate is dark, a bit boring with some cherry, plum and wood.  There is a charcoal like flavour emerging, and then a bitterness on the end with some alcohol.  Pretty bad.  74pts

Orgies, innuendo and ancient Greek references aside, I was quite looking forward to trying the wines from this young producer.  Instead of a beautiful harmonious mating of winemaker, grape and terrior, I found that I was presented with an disappointing and awkward messy fumble that wasn't satisfying in the slightest.  

By Peter Wood with No comments

#467 Wines from Wales

After visiting Three Choirs, I decided to cross the border into Wales and visit Wernddu Winery.  Run by husband and wife team Frank and Leigh Strawford, their one and a quarter acre vineyard in the heart of Monmouthshire is densely planted with over 2000 vines and, unusually is entirely organic.  In 2002, they planted two hundred Reichensteiner vines in their sandy clay loam soils.  In the past decade they have put down more disease resistant varieties including Phoenix, Pinot Noir and Seyval Blanc, and are one of only two vineyards in Wales with a winery on site.

But what appeals most about this vineyard is the atmosphere you get when you visit it.  There isn't any fancy winery in a purpose built facility with perfectly manicured vineyards.  This is their home, a farmhouse with a few outbuildings down high banked roads in the hills above Monmouth.  Alpacas stroll around a pasture next to the vineyard with killer geese chasing off any trespassers.  Roger the dog potters around the place while pipe smoking Frank makes his wines in small tanks that fill up the garage when he isn't tinkering with the classic motorbike that he has spent the past twenty years restoring.  The couple do absolutely everything from planting to weeding to making the wine and selling it at farmers markets, it is the sort of place you can't help liking.  

And I couldn't help liking Frank.  Having sold up his business, he learnt how to make wine by 'going on a couple of courses' and then put some vines in the ground, covered them with muck and hoped they would grow.  And grow they did, ending up "fourteen bloody feet tall".  They drank the first harvest, and then started making wine properly after that.  He is the first person to tell you what is not perfect with his vineyards and wines.  The PH of the vineyard is too low, being organic is his biggest problem and you get the impression that his vineyard is too densely planted for his liking, but he has a wonderfully positive energy coming off him it really doesn't matter.  He took me into the garage to try some tank samples. 

Firstly was the 2011 Wernddu White Wine, a blend of Reichensteiner and Phoenix.  It had a bright lemon aroma with some banana coming off that was quite tasty.  Nicely balanced, even though it was from tank, and I'd be happy drinking that any day of the week.  The next tank sample was a 2010 & 2011 Pinot Noir.  Frank had intended on trying to make a red Pinot Noir in 2010 but it got to being a rosé and then stopped extracting colour from the skins.  Undeterred, he made it again in 2011 and the same thing happened, so he tipped all the second year's wine into the first and threw in some oak chips.  Too many oak chips.  So what is he going to do for 2012?  Probably the same, but, assuming he leaves it oak free, he might be able to balance out this tri-vintage pink wine.  The sample I had was actually quite nice.  Sure, there was too much oak, but it had lovely sweet berries, a slight seriousness to it as well that gave it some structure.  I thought it quite pleasant.  

Frank very kindly gave me a couple of bottles to take away with me, a single varietal Regant and firstly, a very old Chardonnay.

The 1994 (yep, that isn't a typo) Wernddu Chardonnay was grown in a now defunct vineyard in Chepstow in south Monmouthshire.  After being sat in a vacuum tank for a decade, Frank tried it and didn't think that much of it.  Then after a small while he tried it again, thought 'actually, that's not bad' and put it into bottle.  It had a musky aroma with some honey and apple coming off the nose and a lemon hint as well.  A simple palate, a touch old for my liking with some pencil lead minerality and a bit of tart sweet citrus mixed with Granny Smiths apple flavour.  Nicely drinkable, needs some food with it though, but considering its age and price (£7.00 per bottle!) it a great wine tasting experience.  82pts

I then tried his 2004 Wernddu Regent.  I'd been told by Three Choirs that they weren't able to make good, bigger bodied reds, but over the border in Wales, Frank and Leigh had done just that.  This wine had oodles of big, juicy dried fruit mingling with very ripe plum, cinnamon and a lot of perfume and clay.  It made me think of a southern Italian wine that has had some of the grapes dried in the sun.  The palate has more of the dried sweet up front fruit, and then settles with a dry, earthy note.  There is then a hole in the mid palate before sweeter berries come back with some tar like flavours and a bit of sweet tobacco.  The only thing that is stopping this wine being great is that hole, that could be fixed by blending it with something else.  Even with that glitch, it is a good, solid wine that they should be proud of.  87pts

I like Frank, I like his vineyard, his experimental philosophy and his tiny winery in Wales.  I liked his wines as well, and I think that his older wines are a solid base on which to make better wines - the tank samples I tried proving this point.  I hope to visit Wernddu again in a couple of years and I know that he will have taken his wines up another level.  In the meantime, I really do suggest you pay him a visit and buy a few of his wines from the cellar, sorry, garage door.

Regent is a dark skinned grape created in 1967 by breeding Silvaner and Müller Thurgau with Chambourcin.  The grape has medium levels of acidity and can be quite tannic and is mainly seen in Germany and the UK.  

By Peter Wood with 2 comments

#466 English Wines on St George's Day

Monday was St George's day and I thought it would be appropriate to sing the praises of English wine.  Not content with simply trying some wine, I decided to visit an actual English winery.  As vineyards go, Three Choirs is pretty small with seventy five acres under vine.  The first half acre of wine was planted in 1973 as an experiment in a natural bowl with lower rainfall and warmer temperatures than most parts of England.  Seven years later it became the first vineyard in England to build a purpose built winery and still continues to innovate with several acres set aside for trying out new varieties.

The last vineyard I visited was in Italy, and I remembered standing in the warm sunshine, overlooking the vineyards in Friuli. This April morning however, I was standing overlooking a vineyard in Gloucester with the rain starting and a temperature in single figures.  How can anyone produce wine here, particularly on a commercial basis I asked my guide Jo.  Firstly, their location is key.  Their own microclimate, surrounded and protected by the Malvern hills and Brecon Beacons, results in a couple of degrees warmer weather, which can mean the difference between a vine becoming dormant in winter and one becoming dead.  Secondly their grape selection.  Relying on Germanic varieties is key, particularly those resistant to disease, but the selection at this vineyard is to create a 'Three Choirs style" - something unique to them.  The third factor is their winemaker Martin Fowke who battles against the elements to create the wines, not only for Three Choirs, but for up to 120 other growers and wineries in England, using his skill to produce wine in a challenging climate.

Bottled under screwcap, Three Choirs wines are intended for immediate drinking.  They don't have the ability to produce darker, fuller bodied styles of wine and therefore don't try to.  Another honest answer came when I asked why they weren't producing wines from more well known varieties, such as Riesling.  At the minute, they don't think they can produce Rieslings that can compete with rivals from other countries.  So far, so good, I liked the place, I liked the ambition and I liked the passion.  But would I like the wines?

For only £3.50, you can sample five of the wines from their range of a dozen.  The first up was the 2010 Three Choirs Coleridge Hill.  A blend of Phoenix, Madeleine Angevine and Huxelrebe.  It had a slightly musky aroma with a nice lemon and sweetened honey sneaking through with some brighter lime aromas cutting the sweetness.  The palate was bright, with fresh grapey notes mixed with some elderflower.  A nice, simple, clean wine and, for the money, pretty damn good.  85pts £9.50

Next up was the 2009 Three Choirs Willow Brook - a Schonburger and Siegerrebe blend.  Nettles leaped out at me, with lots of elderflower.  Unlike the first wine that was simple and easy drinking, this off dry wine was more tricky, but in a good way.  There was a seriousness with this wine, still light and gentle, but with structure, pepper, vegetal notes and again, more elderflower.  88pts £9.50

The third wine (and another variety to tick off my 100 Grapes!) was the 2009 Three Choirs Madeleine Angevine.  It had a lovely sweet lemon aroma, with some honey aromas and was quite pretty.  Fuller bodied with some smoky elements and a toasty note comes through the minerally, pineapple and peach flavours.  Soft, but with a bit of acid to clean things up on the finish.  A food wine, not something that would be drunk on its own.  89pts £14

Madeleine Angevine comes from the Loire Valley and is an early ripening grape that makes it perfect for growing in cooler climates such as England.  The product of a crossing of Madeleine Royale and Précoce de Malingre in the mid 19th century.  It was first commercially available in the 1860s and has been used as a parent for numerous new varieties.

Reichensteiner is mainly grown in Germany and England and is a cross of Müller Thurgau and Madeleine Angevine and was first bred just before the Second World War.  Like it's parents, it grows in cooler climates, and is high in sugar making it suitable for both still and sparkling wines, but tends to lack some flavour which means it needs oaked or blended.

Another single varietal, the 2009 Three Choirs Reichensteiner, showed melon and peach skin on the nose with some mango finishing with some pear drops.  There is a rounder, ripe fruit flavour, some sweet peach and a bit of toast coming from the wood that this wine has been put in.  Nicely balanced and juicy with the richer flavours and oak cut by a bit of elderflower on the end.  I like this a lot but is it worth the money? 90pts £23.50

A 2010 Three Choirs Rosé came next - a blend of Seyval Blanc and Triomphe.  It was full of aromas of strawberries and cream, a bit confected but with some spice emerging.  The palate has the ever present elderflower (is this the Three Choirs style?!), but with some sweeter elements and crisp cranberry clashing a touch with the creamier elements.  It is nice enough, but not my thing.  84pts £9.50

Finally, and somewhat bravely, I was given the 2010 Three Choirs Pinot Noir.  Despite saying that they don't think they can produce Riesling to compete with other nations' products, the fact that they are making this Burgundian varietal and charging twenty quid for it, is a bold statement.  Can they manage to compete with France's finest or New Zealand's juicier style?  Well the answer is no, they can't, and I don't think they are trying.  This wine is a different beast - it has redcurrants, then some crisp red apple skin, and then some plums bursting forward.  There is an earthier flavour, some smoke and then some red fruit and spice on the back end.  Very gentle, clean and bright and a wine that has the potential, I think, to be an English classic.  88pts £20

I wanted to go to Three Choirs as they are a commercial vineyard in England and, if English wine is to be taken seriously, it does need to move away from the farmdoor reputation it has.  Sure, these tiny producers are fantastic, but it is the bigger companies that have to lead the way when it comes to promoting the nation's wines.  Three Choirs has the products, and the volume - even if it is still relatively tiny - to lead the way.

Three Choirs Wines are available through the cellar door, their website and in select Waitrose stores.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#465 100 Grapes - Fresia

Another grape variety that you might not have heard of is Fresia.  Popular in the latter decades of the 19th century in Piedmont, with it's origins thought to be between Asti and Turin, it has a link to the Nebbiolo grape, it has a similar flavour to this grape with a lot of tannin and acid with a bitter/sweet flavour making both Parker and Hugh Johnson are fans of the grape.

It hasn't really been exported outside of it's Piedmont home so the wine I tried was from this region.

2009 Claudio Marlotto Braghe Da Uve di Fresia

Some cherry, bitter chocolate and cream on the nose with some sweet cigar tobacco coming off.  The palate has a nice, soft red and black berry flavours, some spice with a little bit of dark coffee bean and leather coming through.  Quite nice - a touch of hot alcohol on the finish, but not too much.  90pts £10.49

By Peter Wood with No comments

#464 6 Questions with... Christopher Trotter, a Vigneron in Scotland

Whisky, beer and Irn Bru.  These three are Scotland's famous drinks and it was unlikely to change any time soon.  Certainly wine was never on the forefront of anyone's mind when discussing Scotland's national drinks but chef Christopher Trotter is rethinking this and has laid down some vines in the Kingdom of Fife.

A dozen or so miles south of the home of golf, St Andrews, Trotter planted Siegerrebe, Rondo and Solaris vines - all early ripening - in early 2011 with the hope to plant more this year and, in a few years from now be able to produce a Scottish wine.  He is relying on global warming to get the sunlight needed for ripening the grapes, so the attempts may be a bit fruitless if that doesn't happen, but only time will tell.  I for one am excited by the prospect of Scottish vineyards and hope to pay him a few visits this year to see how he is getting on.  In the meantime, I asked him six questions.

You have planted vines in Scotland - a simple question really, why?

I was in a conversation ten years ago with a farmer friend who said that "in 20 years time you will have the climate of the Loire valley in the East Neuk (of Fife), so plant your Sauvignon Blanc now!"  It took another ten years to persuade another friend to help me do it!

You are a chef, so what is the greatest food and wine pairing that you have ever had?

Too many to remember - Foie gras & Chateau Giraud.  Chateau Musar & Blue Cheese.

What do you like drinking at home?

Anything!

Describe yourself in three words.

Curious, irritable, intollerant.

What is the best wine you have ever tried?

Vega Sicilia, probably because of the occasion.  Cheval Blanc is amazing, and Petrus was disappointing as it was too young.

Name three people, real or fictional, living or dead, that would be guests at your dream dinner party, and what would you be drinking?
Queen Elizabeth the First, Johann Sebastian Bach and my wife, Caroline.  We'd be drinking Nytimber, Meursault and Musar.

Christopher Trotter Website

By Peter Wood with No comments

#463 100 Grapes - Pinot Gris from Ostertag

"There is nowt so queer as folk."  This is a saying that I remember hearing in Yorkshire when I was growing up, and it means that 'there is nothing so odd as people'.  As I have aged, I have realised that this is very true, but it is also as true as when it comes to wines.

I tried two vintages of Domaine Ostertag's A360P Pinot Gris and realising that I didn't know anything about the vintage conditions in Alsace in 2001 and 2002, I did a bit of research, and found that there appeared to be some conflicting views.  Lets take 2001 for starters.

Some say that this is a great vintage with complex wines that overshadow the 2002.  Others say that it is a vintage doomed from the start but then saved from the oblivion by an Indian summer.  Then 2002 is viewed as a staggeringly good vintage by some with near immortal wines, and yet others view it as one living in the shadow and not as good as the year before.  So, non the wiser, I decided to let the wines tell me about the vintages.

The Alsatian producer Ostertag is one that I have long had affections for.  The estate was founded in the 1960's and winemaker André Ostertag is known for not folowing rules!  In 1983, when he put his Muenchberg Pinot Gris into oak - something that has been done traditionally in Burgundy for centuries - he was prevented from labelling it as from the region.  Undeterred, he called it after the grid reference of the vineyard - A360P.  He converting the vineyards to biodynamic production in the late nineties, after having been organic from the start, and believes in restricting his yields to achieve wines of superb quality and longevity.

I started with the 2001 Ostertag A360P.  It had very ripe fruit, lots of lemon marmalade and a musky peppery aroma.  Slightly oxidised but still lovely, it had dried peel flavours, some noticeable minerality and a honeyed finish coming out.  A lovely wine, sad that it wasn't up to par, but wonderful that despite being damaged, it still showed well. 88pts

The 2002 of this wine was a totally different experience.  It was stunningly beautiful.  Some pepper with a lemon pith aroma, lots more lively, zippy fruit and a very linear nose and palate going seamlessly from one element to the next.  Purity in a glass, with gentle herbal notes mixed in with citrus and a little peach skin.  An awesome wine.  96pts

Pinot Gris

Assumed to be a mutant clone of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris or Grigio normally has a gray/blue fruit, but normally has the skins removed before any colour has been absorbed into the juice.  Historically seen in Burgundy, this grape has travelled throughout France and the world.  Known as Pinot Grigio in Italy, it is also seen in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Chilli as well as eastern Europe.  It is a major grape in Alsace, where the cooler climate suits the grape, and is one of the noble grapes of Alsace that means it can be used for Alsace Grand Cru AOC and also the sweeter wines from the region.   It is also one of the seven grape varieties permitted to be used in Champagne.

By Peter Wood with No comments

#462 100 Grapes - Chambourcin

Ever hear of Joannes Seyve?  Nope, me neither, but he was a French biochemist who created the Chambourcin Grape that is now grown extensively in the Northeast United States.  He came from a family of grape makers, as his father Bertille and brother, Bertille Jr, created other hybrid varieties as well. 

The Chambourcin grape is high yielding, and grows well in cooler climates, making it ideal for regions such as the Loire, where there are over 9,000 acres* under vine, but where it is probably best know is it's adopted homeland in states such as New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania and is quite resistant to fungal disease.  It has also been used as a parent of the Regant grape that is being grown in Germany and British Columbia.  

The grape is supposed to have, and I quote, "herbaceous aromas, combined with excellent structure, a result of their thick skins, high tannins and good acidity".  The reason I quote this is because the example I tried of this grape was non of those things.  In fact, it was one of the worst wines I have ever had.

Antler Ridge Winery Inc. Chambourcin NV

From Ulster, Pennsylvania, this wine initially smelled like sweet confected cherries and sweat.  There is a little bit of furniture polish as well - Mr Sheen, diet Ribena and plasticine. The palate has a confected sweet element with some terrible, garbage juice flavours with a sugary sweet element on the finish.  So bad I wouldn't even call it wine.  51pts

So, Chambourcin has come up a dud, but if anyone reading this knows of a good one, please do get in touch!

*source Appellation America

By Peter Wood with 1 comment