Wine Review: Meerlust Pinot Noir, 2009

Meerlust Pinot Noir, 2009

Wine Statistics: 

Name: Meerlust Pinot Noir

Country: South Africa

Region: Stellenbosch

Year: 2009

Grapes: 100% Pinot noir

Producer: Meerlust Estates

Tasting: 

Look: Very light red

Nose: Very light scents of grass, oak, blackcurrant

Taste: Blackcurrant, hints of oak, strong slightly salty mineral finish

Goes great with: Fish, especially meaty white fish like Monkfish. Also good with chicken.

Overview: I had this one at a wine tasting a few weeks back and was really impressed by it. At the tasting it was served at room temperature, but the great thing about pinot noir is that it can also be slightly chilled – not chilled too much and certainly not as much as a glass of white (half an hour in the fridge is enough) – and so when I bought a bottle for drinking at home I chilled it slightly to see what difference it made. Personally I marginally prefer it after half an hour in the fridge. The benefit of this slight cooling is that it tightens up the flavours so each mouthful feels more concentrated. Next time you have a bottle of pinot noir, give it a slight chill and see the difference it can make. It doesn’t always improve the wine and in the end it’s all down to personal preference, but it’s worth giving it a go. And if you don’t like it then just leave your glass of it for a few minutes to warm back up to room temperature. Anyway, onto the Meerlust.

Pinot Noirs are light wines, both visually and in flavour. The Meerlust is a little less delicate than French pinots, but that plays to its advantage, with a blackcurrant flavour that tickles the tongue and then a light oakiness that adds a touch of body. Most impressive of all is the strong flinty, minerally finish to the wine, imparted by the high mineral content soil of the Stellenbosch area. This brings an almost Campari-like bitterness to each mouthful that I found really pleasant.

If you’re new to pinot noir this is a perfect place to start. Great for drinking now, though you could leave it for a year or two longer of you have the patience.

Score: 9/10

Image from winenthingshk.com

Terminology: Malolactic Fermentation

Yesterday I reviewed the Calera, a white wine which had undergone malolactic fermentation. 

What is it?: Malolactic fermentation is a second stage of fermentation (the first one being alcoholic fermentation, which turns ordinary grape juice into lovely alcoholic wine). The wine is heated slightly and lactic bacteria is sometimes added, turning the harsh malic (vinegary/appley) acids into smoother lactic (yep lactic like lactose), milky acids.

What does it do?: Malolactic fermentation decreases the acidity in a wine, so the flavours are a lot less harsh and the overall body of the wine is smoother and rounder. The process means that young red wine, especially Bordeauxs, can be drunk young rather than having to leave them on a rack or in barrel to age and mature. Malolactic fermentation is a popular tool in the creation of red wines but is also used form time to time in white wines. My Idiot’s Guide to Wine (2nd Ed.) says that malolactic fermentation is ‘usually undesirable in white wines’ but such a statement is misleading as it’s not an undesirable process, just one that is to be used at the winemaker’s discretion. For example, the process is used in a good deal of Chardonnays so that they may be drunk young. White wines that have not undergone malolactic fermentation are higher in malic acid and therefore crisper and fresher, whereas whites which have undergone the process are less sharp and voluptuous in flavour. Neither is better or worse than the other – it’s all about the winemaker getting the best out of their harvest of grapes.

 

Wine Review: Calera Viognier, 2009

Calera Viognier, 2009

Wine Statistics: 

Name: Calera Central Coast Viognier

Country: USA, California

Region: San Benito

Year: 2009

Grapes: 100% Viognier, but Viognier from two separate vineyards – 57% from Guerra vineyard, 43% from Gimelli vineyard

Producer: Calera Wine Co.

Available from: Waitrose

Tasting:

Look: Pale golden

Nose: Grapefruit, biscuits.

Taste: Apricots, grapefruit, honey tones. Slight spiciness.

Goes great with: Would be especially good with Chinese food.

Overview: I don’t drink enough Californian wines, not because I don’t like them (love ‘em), but but because the the state is woefully represented on supermarket shelves in the UK that it’s difficult to wander into a shop and buy a satisfying bottle. Californian wines on sale in the UK are usually the mechanised, mass-produced juice in the ‘Gallo’ vein, and it’s usually only by seeking out independent merchants that you find something special. That’s a shame, because California has so much good stuff to offer and the average Brit on the street deserves to know that. Fortunately Waitrose (plentiful down South but scarce up North) has a few good ones on their shelves, and their Calera does not disappoint.

On first taste you’ll notice that it’s sweeter than you’d expect a viognier to be, with an almost aromatic gerwurztraminer quality amid the flavours of apricot, honey and grapefruit. This is because the wine has undergone malolactic fermentation. There’ll be a Terminology post about malolactic fermentation tomorrow, but all you need to know here it that it’s a second fermentation process which converts hard malic acid into softer lactic acid, thereby imparting a less acidic character to the wine and making it smoother. This results in the Calera’s fruit flavours being pleasantly sweet and rounded, accentuated by a lack of acidity. A pleasant spiciness on the tip of the tongue finishes off the mouthful. It all adds up to a wine of medium-body that’ll pair really well with a spicy Thai or Chinese meal, but which is rich enough in flavour and body to be enjoyed solo. And if you’re stuck indoors during a rainy British summer it’s like drinking some of that hot California sun.

Score: 8.5/10

Picture from wine.com

Wine Review: Estancia Ancon Gran Reserva, 2001 (Limited Edition)

Estancia Ancon Gran Reserva, 2001

Wine Statistics:

Name: Estancia Ancon

Country: Argentina

Region: Mendoza: Tupungato Valley, just at the foot of the Andes

Year: 2001

Grapes: 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Malbec, 15% Pinot Noir.

Producer: Estancia Ancon

Price: £22:99

Tasting: 

Look: Deep purple, turning ruby red round edges.

Nose: Liquorice, oak, leather, blackcurrant.

Taste: What you smell is what you taste with this one: Liquorice, oak, leather, blackcurrant, cherry.

Goes great with: Any red meat, but you really want to do this one justice and give it your full attention without food.

Overview: I’m a regular drinker of the Estancia Ancon’s wines; their 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon is truly excellent and their 2006 Malbec has a permanent spot reserved on my wine rack, so it was a real treat to get to try their 2001 Gran Reserva. I’d heard great things about it and I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed. For a shade over £20 you certainly get your money’s worth with an extremely full-bodied wine that displays tons of flavour but does so with a managed structure and finely layered complexity. This is a wine that, as my old dad says, ‘you can stand a spoon in’.

The blend of Cab Sav, Malbec and the light but fruity Pinot Noir brings bombastic fruit flavours of cherry, raisins and blackcurrant that give the wine an almost port-like taste and richness on the palette. Underpinning that there’s the welcome bitter kick of liquorice and oak, and a savoury leather flavour (brought by the Malbec) all of which accentuate the sweet fruit sensation. The balance between the rich fruit and the savouriness is just right. This is a ten year old wine so the tannins have had plenty of time to mature, becoming soft and rounded and giving the wine a sturdy body without distracting from what is going on. It all leads to a filling mouthful that demands to be paid attention to. And it’s so good you won’t want to ignore it.

Score: 10/10

Wine Review: Chateau de Lussac, 2002

Chateau de Lussac, 2002

Wine Statistics: 

Name: Chateau de Lussac

Country: France

Region: St. Emilion, Bordeaux

Year: 2002

Grapes: 80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon

Producer: Jean Philippe Fort

Price: £11:99 from Tesco

Tasting: 

Look: Ruby red

Nose: Plummy, oak, smoky tobacco, sharp blackcurrant scent, nuttiness.

Taste: Nutty flavour, very okay, smoky tobacco, blackcurrant, cranberry. Very tannic.

Goes great with: Lamb, stews, or steak (especially cooked rare)

Overview: The 2002 Bordeauxs are good for drinking between now and 2018 and I was thirsty, so I took it as a good excuse to open the 2002 Chateau de Lussac (you”ll be better rewarded if you don’t drink them just yet though and wait a couple of years). If you do buy the ’02 Lussac be sure to give it a decanting as there was a fair bit of sediment in the bottle. This is a 9 year old wine, so it’s to be expected.

This is a classic Merlot/Cabernet blend, and it works well by playing it safe. There’s a nice smooth nuttiness reminiscent of cashews, and then a strong scent of smoked tobacco leaves thats typical of good, well-aged Merlots. The 20% Cabernet Sauvignon brings a roundedness of lighter blackcurrant and cranberry that acts as a nice counterpoint to the plummy Merlot and adds depth. However the oakiness of the wine comes on rather strong and gives a bitter edge that threatens to ruin the good flavours that have come before it. The tannins are also a little too assertive, adding to this bitterness and poking through the fruit flavours. Strong oakiness and tannins aren’t so much of a problem if you have bold flavours to match them, but the Lussac doesn’t quite. The longer you wait to open the ’02 the more balanced the tannins will become, but chances are if you’re buying this bottle then you’re buying it to drink within a few weeks. In that case you’ll find a perfectly flavoursome Bordeaux but one which – if you’re looking for them – has a couple of noticeable flaws. If you buy one and keep it a couple of years to open in 2015 or later then you’ll get more value for your money. I suspect you might be like me and thirsty now though…

Score: 7/10

‘Eyes Closed, Bottoms Up!’ – Blind Tasting

No Peeking! Blind tasting is a fun way to hone your palette

Next time you fancy a glass of wine, get a friend or loved one to pick one out for you and pour it without showing or telling you what it is. Then have a few mouthfuls of it and say what you like/don’t like about it. If you think you can then try and say what grape it is or the country it’s from. Then get your friend to show you the bottle. Do your opinions match what you see on the label?

This exercise is called ‘blind tasting’ and it’s a great way to not only enjoy wine, but also to learn more about it and tune up your taste buds, because whether you’re new to wine or a veteran expert, it’s a fact that your perception and appreciation of a wine will be altered by what you know about that wine beforehand. This isn’t just a sweeping blog statement, it’s a scientific fact. Double-blind tests have shown that if you take two bottles of the exact same wine, and slap a ‘better’ label on one (ie: a label that says the wine has a better vintage, grower, etc), two out of three times even the experts will say the ‘better’ wine is indeed better than its identical twin. Even though there’s no difference! This is nothing new: taste is as much influenced by our preconceptions of something (look, feel, past experience, inherited knowledge, etc) as it is by the feel of it on your tongue. It’s very easy to fool yourself into thinking that what you’re drinking is excellent just because you’ve been told it’s excellent, or the vintage and grower suggest excellence. And it’s hard to ditch your impartiality if the wine you’re drinking is a favourite bottle that you’ve been drinking for years. Every day we make judgements on things based on our previous expectations and inherited information because it’s an evolutionary trait hardwired into our DNA – it causes us to judge books by covers, businesses by slogans, and our friend’s new boy/girlfriends by their hair – even if we don’t want to admit it.

A blind taste eliminates any preconceived bias and allows you to concentrate on what is in your glass. It’s a pure way of experiencing aromas and flavours and deciding if you like/dislike them, without your knowledge and prejudice interfering. It can really separate those who know wine from those who like to think they know a lot about wine. I’ve seen rabid Merlot haters (ie, people who know nothing about wine but who have seen ‘Sideways’) try wines in a blind tasting and find them delicious, only to uncover the bottle and to their horror find they’ve been chugging back Australian Merlot. It’s the perfect exercise in sensory skill, one which will hone your palette and help you discover which flavours and therefore which wines you prefer. Over time you’ll learn how to tell wines apart by things such as country of growth, grape variety and year, just by drinking them. That’s the fab thing about wine – you get to learn by experience and the only way to experience it is to drink it. Learning never was so fun!

You can also make a game out of it. Grab a few bottles, get some friends round, and see if they can guess what country the wine is from, or what grape(s) it’s made from. It doesn’t have to be serious at all – wine tasting never should be in my opinion – and if you really want to have fun you can wear blindfolds for it instead of covering up the bottles (although make sure someone can see so they can pour the stuff!). The winner can have a bottle of wine as a prize, and even if no one gets anything right you’ll still drink wine and have a great time.

So get someone to pour you out a mystery glass, take that first sip, and enjoy the thrill of the blind taste. Eyes closed, bottoms up!

Wine Review: Charmes de Kirwan Margaux, 2005

 

Chateau de Kirwan

Wine Statistics: 

Name: Charmes de Kirwan

Country: France

Region: Southern Bordeaux, Margaux Appellation

Year: 2005

Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot

Producer: Chateau Kirwan

Price: Between £20 and £30 in England. If you like in the U.S you’ll be able to pick up a bottle for just over $30

Tasting: 

Look: Deep red, good legs

Nose: Red and black fruits, oak

Taste: Red and black fruits again, lots of tannins, oakiness.

Goes great with: I had it with loin of lamb at a birthday dinner and it worked superbly. Venison would also be a really good partner for it.

Overview: An often disregarded Chateau, Kirwan has been making a name for itself over the past decade with wines that are worth your attention, though hardly stand-outs among the great wines of Margaux. Their wines from 2000-2010 have been largely excellent, with only the 2007 really letting the side down (however, as I’ve mentioned before, 2007 was a terrible year for the whole of Bordeaux). The 2005 is one of – if not the – best wine they’ve produced in the past decade and is good for drinking right now if you come across a bottle, as I did at a dinner for my Granny’s 90th birthday. If you want to lay it down for a few more years it would improve further, and you’ll find the berry flavours will expand a bit more.

There’s a really good hit of blackcurrant, blackberry and hints of oak, backed up by a strong tannic backbone that’ll leave the wine sticking to your tongue after a mouthful. The flavours are concentrated into a firm mouthful and the whole thing isn’t too acidic. All in all it’s a really nicely balanced wine with a rich depth of flavour.

Score: 9/10

“£135,000? I think I need a drink…”

Proof that we’re clear of a recession, or proof that some people will always be rich and thirsty? BBC News reports today that a six-litre bottle of Chateau Latour ’61 was bought at a Christie’s auction for an eye-watering £135,000. Latour is a Premier Cru Bordeaux wine famed for its high quality, although Latours are not wines to be drunk young. They’re wines that sit and age for decades, so old bottles tend to be worth big money. But is a bottle of it worth such a grand sum? Before you say ‘well, yes’ or ‘hell no!’, here’s a few things that can also be yours for £135,000…

-A House

-Kanye West’s idiotic watch

-A top of the range Aston Martin

-The ability to kinda, sort of, if you squint really hard resemble Britney Spears

-228,814 songs on iTunes

Compared to those things, is a bottle of (admittedly extremely fine wine) worth – as the BBC points out – five year’s wages? If you’re the wealthy and anonymous Chinese buyer of said wine then yes, it probably is. For several years now the Far East had has been cultivating a growing interest in fine European wines. But does this hunger for the Latours, Lafites and Margauxs come from a desire to drink fantastic wine, or the desire to be known among your wealthy friends and rivals to possess fantastic wine? I think it’s the second – using that bottle as a status symbol; ‘something I have and something that you don’t’. Of course I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

You might be wondering why this particular bottle of wine costs so much in the first place. Never mind where they came from, why was anyone willing to pay so much? As with anything for sale, from pizzas to Picassos, it’s all down to the cold hard economics of supply and demand. Rarity of any commodity drives prices up because people are willing to pay more to own it. There are precious few bottles of Latour ’61 around, let alone for sale, so when one comes along a crowd of millionaires and billionaires prick up their ears and open their wallets. Latour is a good wine, ’61 was a good vintage, so demand rises further. Then, naturally, human competition kicks in during the bidding process, egos and wallets clash, and before you know it the auctioneer bangs their hammer down and someone’s just paid £135,000 for a bottle of wine.

Would I pay £135,000 for a bottle of wine? No. At a certain point the price becomes greater than the value of the experience gained and enjoyed from drinking a bottle of wine. However good that wine is, it’s not £135,000 good. But then, it doesn’t have to be. It could be corked or suffering from volatile acidity and people would still pay £135,000 for the risk of it being unspoiled. And even if it was, it probably wouldn’t matter…Why? Because in all likelihood no one will ever drink it.

As with many expensive bottles of wine, that Lafite will probably never be opened. It’ll likely sit in that Chinese tycoon’s cellar as an ornament to be ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘ahh-ed’ at by jealous visitors and wine fans, and then it’ll eventually go to auction again where another billionaire will pay an even more outrageous sum. Old wines like the one sold at auction are valueless once drunk, so they’re kept and sold like antique furniture, and used as status symbols. To drink it would be to ruin an investment – akin to setting fire to a Chippendale. It’s understandable but I find it sad – like paying thousands for a book that’ll never be read, or buying a Van Gogh and then keeping it under a blanket in a dark room. It’s my belief that wine is to be enjoyed, not stared at and envied over, as that Chateau Lafite 1961 will continue to be for a long, long time.

And with that I’m off to open my £20 Malbec.

Wine Review: Chateau Taillefer Pomerol, 2004

Chateau Taillefer Pomerol, 2004

Wine Statistics:

Name: Chateau Taillefer

Country: France

Region: Pomerol

Year: 2004

Grapes: Mostly Merlot, some Cabernet Franc

Producer: Catherine Moueix

Price: Between £12 and £18

Tasting:

Look: Dark purple

Nose: Cherry, blackcurrant, Christmas pudding.

Taste: Cherry and blackcurrant.

Goes great with: Cooking coq au vin? This’ll be a good wine to go with it.

Overview: 2004 was a mixed vintage for Bordeaux wines, so you have to tread carefully when buying them; some will be great, most will be just be rather dull. But if you’ve got a bottle of 2004 Bordeaux on your shelf then this is the year to drink it as it’ll likely be at its best. Heeding that knowledge I popped open the Chateau Taillefer Pomerol. Lying just north of Saint-Emilion, Pomerol is the smallest appellation in the Bordeaux region but is packed full of great and famous chateaux, including Petrus. Pomerol wines differ from every other Bordeaux appellation in that they are mostly made with Merlot rather than Cabernet Sauvignon, as Merlot grows a lot better in Pomerol’s soil. Taillefer ’04 is Merlot backed up with Cabernet Franc, adding an aromatic quality to the typical plummyness of the Merlot.

As with a lot – if not all – Bordeaux wines over five years old it’s prudent to decant it before serving to let the air get to it and let the wine breathe (remember, you don’t have to be fancy with decanting). In my haste to whet my whistle I poured straight from bottle to glass and realised my error on first sip. The wine was tart and lacking in flavour. It did not taste good at all and I was a fool for thinking I could glug it without giving it time. However after giving it a good few swirls to aerate it, and letting it sit untouched in the glass for half an hour, it was ready to drink. And what a difference aeration makes. Mind you, it was only enough of a difference to be able to tell that this was a distinctly average bottle; perfectly enjoyable to drink, just not impressive enough to make you want to go out and buy another bottle of it.

There are some solid fruit flavours here – chiefly the blackcurrant and plum of the Merlot, and then a slight aromatic spiciness from the Cabernet Franc, but that’s all. Beyond that there’s nothing of excitement. I’ve heard criticism that it’s a one-dimensional wine and, much as I didn’t want it to be (after all, it’s not a cheap bottle), I’m inclined to agree. There’s nothing bad at all about what’s present in your glass, but there’s just not enough of it. I blame the year and the not the winemakers for that; after all, you can only work with the grapes the terroir lets you grow. The good news is that the following year was fantastic for wines all across Bordeaux, so if you come across a Chateau Taillefer 2005 you’ll be much more impressed with it.

Score: 7/10

Wine Review: Kanonkop Kadette, 2009

Kanonkop Kadette, 2009

Wine Statistics: 

Name: Kanonkop Kadette

Country: South Africa

Region: Stellenbosch

Year: 2009

Grapes: Blend – 46% Pinotage, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc

Producer: Kanonkop

Price: £10:99 from Sainsburys

Tasting: 

Look: Medium red

Nose: Very smoky, oak (sort of makes for a charcoal scent), bananas, dried red fruits.

Taste: Bananas, cherries, oak, yoghurt, slightly bitter/spicy leather finish

Goes great with: The back of the bottle recommends meat and cheese, and who am I to argue with the back of a bottle? Definitely a good partner for those. I had this bottle with Albondigas (Spanish meatballs) and it worked really well.

Overview: Kanonkop have used an impressively precise blend to create a wine which brings out the best in each grape and also works as a whole mouthful. There’s a number of distinctive flavours at work here: the typical banana flavour of the Pinotage, the plummy qualities of Merlot, the leathery blackberry flavours of Cabernet Sauvignon, and the light aromatic Cabernet Franc, all of which know their place and create a dry wine of medium/full body that is guaranteed to go down well.

14 months of storage in French Oak barrels imparts a strong smoky oak scent and flavour that’ll put you in mind of summer evening barbecues, and beneath that initial hit there comes a soft, rounded flavour of bananas and cherries. Finally there’s a slightly spicy finish and the leathery flavour typical of Cab Sav that linger in the mouth. The tannins aren’t very pronounced so this wine remains comparatively light but rich with flavour. At it’s core it’s a typical South African wine, though not as aggressive as the Boschendal Lanoy (reviewed last week), so ultimately more accessible. If all you’re used to drinking is French Cabernet Sauvignon or Aussie Shiraz then the Kadette ’09 is going to be a pleasant new experience, and a great introduction to South African wines.

Score: 8.5/10