Marly 2009

Sauvignon Blanc wine is made very simply due to the grapes being so delicious on their own. Minimal amount of winemaking is require just squashing and fermenting in large steel tanks and filtering. Due to this, the wine is best drunk as soon after it is made. The freshness in this 2009 vintage is evident and older wines lose interest as they age so drink it up!

Brand new 09 - plate Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.
Marlborough Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2009
Very pale white silvery yellow in colour. Very aromatic fruit on the nose of fresh blackcurrants, gooseberries and nettles. Clean on the palate with fresh passion fruit intensity and a mineral texture. lovely long finish.
reallly enjoyable and really worth the price. look out for the 2009 vintage not the 2008.
4.99 Co-Operative Supermarkets

Donnafugata

A delicious wine from Sicily made from the indigenous grape varieties Nero D'Avolo blended half and half with Syrah to make a mouth watering wine..

2007 Donnafugata Sherazade
Firstly an amazing name on the bottle! and striking label.

Gorgeous dark black purple in colour. Sweet dark fruits and liquorice nose with well balanced fruit, a rich smooth body, spicy, refreshing fruit and a great long finish.
This is a treat of a wine from the Oddbins top shelf in the Italian section. Just what you need these long nights in.
£10.99 Oddbins

Portugese Tour

We visited beachside towns, villages high in the hills , rattled round in trams and frequented great wine bars in the evening. We were also not afraid to risk gout by consuming large quantities of PORT ugal.




Garrafeira Alfaia, Bairro Alto, Lisbon
Tiny wine bar with seating outside. Enormous menu of all Portugese wines and spirits.
My favourite was the Ribera del Duero 2006 Duradero.
Rich purple red in colour with delicous sweet fruit,chocolate like richness with toasty oak, integrated tannins and smooth long finish.

Minutes from our pension in B Alto, the Mirador San Pedro de Alcantara housed a miniature wine bar. It is set up at a kiosk on the lower tier if you have trouble finding it! Here we were helped to the
Alentejo 2008 Fiuza Castas
I drank quite a few Alentejos last week and loved this one here.
It was dark and fruity but with a great refreshing finish. Perfect for an evening at a mirador.



Next stop on our wineological tour was PORTO. I loved exploring the steep neighbourhood of Gaia which is where all the wine lodges are located. All the port rafts are moored on the river which is a very pretty sight.



Croft Port
White Port served before the tour
Lovely reddish gleaming gold in colour.
This had warm fruity notes of anised and tropical fruit with wood and spice! nice. not many people are aware of white port.

Croft 2003 Late Bottled Vintage Port.
Vintage quality grapes bottled after a bit of time in oak.
Dark cherry red coloured with sweet fruit, dried fruit in cake and licourice flavours.

Croft Tawny 10 years old Port
Aged for 10 years in oak barrels.
Light brown tawny red orange colour with dark roast coffee and hazelnut flavours. wooded smoky oak and light fig hint.

Croft 2007 Vintage Port

Constructed from superb quality grapes from the excellent summer of 2007. feet pressed and carefully vinified.
Rich dark purple crimson in colour with perfumed sweet nose of pure blackcurrnt, blueberries with a refreshing touch. Elegant and smooth.

Regionally Accented Merlot

(From Today's Guardian)


"Bewildered by talk of "blackcurrant top notes"? Baffled by "bouquets"? Unsure if "long legs" are a good thing in a glass of wine? Retailer Spar is claiming today that 64% of shoppers are intimidated by the labels on the back of wine bottles.

So what is it doing to help confused consumers get the perfect wine to complement Sunday's roast dinner? Relabelling the bottles with plain English versions? Offering definitions of common terms to buyers? Umm, no. It is slapping on labels written in "local dialects" – and yes they are as bad as they sound.

Fortunately, just one of its wines – a £4.99 Merlot – is getting the treatment. The descriptions have been "translated" into eight different local dialects, including geordie, Brummie and scouse.


Link to Geordie Audio


So instead of a straightforward plain English description of what you might find when you pour yourself a glass, if you are in Somerset you get this: "Alright my luvver, eers one helluva Merlot. Be stinkin hummin a sivvies thar be bleddy ansome wi yaw croust or oggy. Purfect ta share wi yaw pardy as i' aiin ta eavy. Mygar be a purdy wine! Churs!"

While in Liverpool you are promised: "A totally boss bottle of Merlot which smells o' blackberry, choccie, a brew and toffees. Juicy and complex like, this bevey is top wi most scran 'specially me ma's scouse. Tellin ye, this is deffo a bevey that will leave youz and youz mates made up over yez Sayers pastie."

As well as being borderline unintelligible, the descriptions also include what might be considered baffling wine-speak, albeit with a regional accent. In Newcastle consumers are told the wine has "legs leik a thoroughbred", while in Scotland the label describes "a youngane's colour wi cherries an black fruit on the nose" – if you can't understand that in English, is it really any clearer now?

A spokeswoman for Spar denies the labels are patronising. "Local shopkeepers and suppliers came up with the dialect – it's not come from central office or from a computer," she insists. "We know that people don't really talk like this – we just wanted to make wine buying accessible and fun." She says the wine is genuinely on sale at 50 stores and could be rolled out if the reaction is favourable.

Spar's wine controller, Laura Jewell, adds: "Ultimately our wines will speak for themselves, but in the meantime it's time to speak people's language." Let's hope they don't have too many bottles in the cellar. 

This is not the first time a company has tried to harness local accents to attract attention – earlier this year, ATM provider Bank Machine launched cockney cash machines.  Fingers crossed it's the last."

Can anyone please get me a bottle of this hilarious vino?


Mark D.

Chateau Bas/Chateau Dodder

Needs must!  With no money for new fancy bottles of vino we staged a smash-and-grab ram-raid on our own well-protected wine cellar that was almost looking respectable for a minute there.  With no money for fancy meats and fishes and the like we were prepared a vegetarian feast by Tom 'Dodder' Dodd, who is very modest about his cooking skills but whose slowly roasted veg tray got crazy love from a panel of particular palettes.


Tom's professional cheffery is now on the backburner, but his military-style organisation and finickety attention to detail can be viewed in the guise of an artist management agency herrre.


After the course of rabbit munch came the wine and cheese double act.  A wine I'd copped in Lavinia, Château Bas Saint Césaire 2008, from d´Aix-en-Provence.  I'd bought it thinking I was in for another type of juice, I think the Lavinia folk weren't too specific, they rarely are if you're paying less than €20 for a bottle and only getting one once a month.  


The web told me that it was grenache blanc (which I love) and sauvignon blanc (which I don't get).  We poured that out and saw the golden colour of a well-tended young French white.  Not too expressive at first, but warm and inviting to smell, we tried that and were getting caramel, honeysuckle, and sour apples; one taster washeard to remark that it tasted exactly like Murray mints, without the mint, which I thought was bang-on.  The texture was fine, the taste not too long, especially with stronger cheese, and a late citrix inclusion sealed the deal.


This wine didn't bring the house down but went well with lighter cheese, pears and the like, and reminded us of the difference a few miles can make in the production of wine.  Catalan garnatxa can leap out of the glass, but with the French, it seems, you've to really get in there and explore.


Mark D.

The New Wine

This is a tenuous link, but I stumbled upon this great indie/disco band from Norway by the name of The New Wine.


I know not how they make such joyful music in the land of such darkness!


Their Myspace.


Mark D.

Pansa Blanca

I don't know quite why the photo won't rotate.


Pansa Blanca is the Alella name for Xarel-lo, one of the three grapes that commonly make up Cava.  Alella is the nearest D.O. to Barcelona, It's about half an hour up the coast.  I copped this bottle the last time I visited and we popped it last night.  It's from the Marfil line produced by Alella Vinícola from 2008.


It is palid in colour, quite floral to whiff, and opens up significantly upon agitation.  It has a smooth attack, a slight touch of pleasant acidity, and an over-riding grapefruit boost which doesn't hang around for a particularly long time.


As we say adieu to the summer, we'll be onto the wooded german whites, but for one of the last warm evenings of the year, it was top.


Mark D.

Old school reds

Two memorable reds recently opened and enjoyed at home.

Burgundy is made from 100% Pinot Noir in the french region of the same name. The wines are light and silky in texture which is very addictive and it has lovely aromatic qualities as well.

I decanted both of these wines which looked great and helped the wine breath which is very important with Burgundy.

2001 Tesco Finest Cotes de Nuits Villages
Quite a bit of age on this wine from my cellar.
Rich brilliant ruby red in colour with orangey fringes.
Light and crisp raspberry and cherry fruit with leather and savoury hint.
£12 Tesco

2006 Morrisons Cote de Beaune Villages

Super super wine!
Red burgundy in colour. Very aromatic lavender and rose nose with refreshing lively cherry fruit and savoury barn flavours.
£9 Morrisons

My First Ever Grape Harvest

This Summer, for the first time, I was given the opportunity to get my hands dirty and take part in a harvest near Porto.  This was thanks to my friend Joey Lima (above, middle right), whose father and uncles own and take care of the vinyard.

The place was fairly small, and by the standards of modern industrial-scale facilities, haphazard and modest in its composition, but as charming a place as I could have found to begin my harvesting career.

Once a year, grapes for producing vinho verde are gathered.  The work is completed in a day, and 1000 litres of wine is the result.  It is not registered with an appellation, but is given to family members or sold to friends.

Very much a family occasion, we got there at around 10.30 and were immediately surrounded by mini-cousins, who all seemed to be girls.  I, as a male, was separated from Joey and my lady friend Natalia (above right), who went to help with the cooking, and before I knew it I was up a ladder with a pair of shears.

I am in no way pretending that I did anything near a day's work.  I probably filled 2-3 20kg buckets, and was constantly called back down my ladder for another drop of last year's juice.

Nor can I say that I was much use as a roving reporter.  I have no idea what type of grapes were picking, nor had the majority of people with whom I was 'working'.  I still am not totally sure how they make vinho verde a little bit fizzy, either.

At around 14.00 we were called to lunch.  We all hopped onto the back of a truck and sat around an elongated table in the garden of the farmhouse.  We were stuffed with great cheese, salad, vegetables and the highlight for me, a cod and potato mash with breadcrumbs.

Mark D.

Value Viognier

Review of another delicious Viognier! There are some excellent Viogniers in the supermarkets at the moment.
Always worth giving one a try!

Delicious full fruity flavour, citrusy grapefruit, almost flowery, also a definite powerful aniseed kick wallop!
Under a fiver from tesco!
Chris Hewitt

Cava Tast '09

From http://www.cavatast.cat/....

Here comes the new CAVATAST edition, the cava and gastronomy fair of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia.

The dates for this years event are 10-12 October 2009 and the fair will contain many interesting activities for all those fond of cava who want to enjoy quality sparkling wine and good traditional local food over the event’s three days.

Consumers will be welcomed to take part in this cava tasting occasion, having the opportunity to sample hundreds of wines from the Penedès region and other wine-growing areas while learning about Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, the Penedès area and the people that produce cava.

More information at:
Tel. 0034 93 891 31 88
Fax 0034 93 891 43 67
E-mail info@cavatast.cat

Italian Blossom

This is actually taken THROUGH a glass of it!!


Normally associated with California, this mega brand has recently branched out into International wines.
This new Montepulciano Abruzzo is fantastic, brilliant. I just keep going back for more yes yes yes. oh ..now its gone!
only cheap as well.

2007 Blossom Hill Montepulciano d'Abruzzo
Italy

Montepulciano is the grape variety here.
Excellent fragrant sweet fruit, toast and a bit of spice on the nose.
Medium bodied on the palate with well balanced texture. smooth but the tannins have a nice bit of grip.

Aromatic fruit and delicious cigar like savoury hints.
Superb example of ripe, tasty and mature Italian wine.

£4.49 Morrisons

Vinho Verde...

...is a special young type of wine from a controlled region of Portugal, you can peep the norms here, and what follows is an account of one bottle I came across.

This particular number is 100% Alvarinho, an affordable cousin of the German/French Riesling and with characteristics similar to Gewurztraminer

Deu La Deu is pale to see with your eyes, not as pale as some which appear near clear in their bottles. Tiny bubbles hug the glass, and there is nearly no density or body to speak of, but this is not what we're after when we pull that bottle out of the fridge (or even better, the freezer).

The juice smells floral, herbal even, opening up somewhat with agitation; some pour the wine from some height to aid this process.

The attack is nothing like a cava or champagne might be, you only really notice the carbon in the background, and after you have gulped some down.

There is still plenty of plant to taste after a wee dram, but more fruit to be found, that can go long if you invest a couple more bucks than the average Vinho Verde may set you back. I paid 4.70 for homeslice.

This joint would be perfect with any type of seafood you care to mention, provided you don't mess with it too much; salads, freshish cheese, and the like.

Mark D.

Gevrey

Enjoying a bottle of Burgundy with my Dad.

2005 Horesztyn Gevrey Chambertin
Beautiful ruby pink in colour. Light elegant velvet texture with raspberry fruit, gamey savoury edge and a perfumed nose.
Fantastic.

O Porto!

Hello winos,

Your despondent correspondent writes to you from Porto in Portugal. We get on well, the English and the Portugese, despite our footballing differences: our relations in trade are older than the agreement of any other two countries in the world. This deal was originally centred around wine, so that the English could buy wine from Iberia cheaper than from France.

English logos dominate the left bank of the Douro river that divides Porto from its neighbour Gaia. Signs reading Cockburn’s, Sandeman and Forrester light up at night and look quite charming from the terraces o the banks opposite. In a curious side note, it seems that all Port wine is harvested 100km up the river, and ages in cellars in Gaia, so Porto seems to have no right to put its name to the fortified wine. Correct me if I have equivocated.

Along with the visits to individual cellars, there are two other spots to visit should you ever visit this slightly grubby but elegant city in Northern Portugal. The Museu Do Vinho Do Porto offers a historical overview of the industry, with historical knickknacks, seafaring fare and a wee shop. It’s small and there’s nothing to sample, but at least it’s free at the weekend.

The second port joint that you could visit is the Solar Do Vinho Do Porto. This is quite well signposted but could easily be missed, tucked away in the South-East of the city centre, as it is. Originally a 19^th Century merchant house, it was bought by the council in 1955, and converted into the Solar (Space in English) in 1974, it is a magnificent old manor house with a modern lounge and a garden that has an elevated view of the Douro. The name of the river, I believe, comes from Do Uro, or Of Gold, which it has because of the burning yellow reflection of the sunset, something you will be able to witness if you pick the right time to visit.

The menu of wines is startling. There are eight pages of ports to choose from, in the styles of Tawny, Rosé, Ruby and Reserve, as well as two pages o DOC Douro non-fortified wines. You can also cop glasses and books from there if you like. With a little time on my hands, I went through three beverages, making a few notes along the way.

As it was a balmy afternoon and I had been marching around Porto’s hilly hills all day, I was thirsty and in no mood for the tannic syrup that could be feared in such a circumstance. I saw a port cocktail at the top of the menu, the Portonic: dry white port, tonic, ice and a slice of lemon, which was refreshing and not nearly as tart as its gin-bearing cousin.

Feeling slightly stronger, I then went for a light and young ruby from the Ferreira cellar. It was ruby in colour, strangely enough, with a purple rim. It had an intense fruitful olor, clean and peppered taste, small sips were plenty to savour the flavour long after the sip was sipped.

Finally, I felt up to a Reserve, Sandeman’s Finest to be precise. This glass was a touch thicker, with a deep red colour and browning rim, a smell less fruity and subtler, complex perhaps. It seemed more spiced and was just as long and satisfying as the last.

I expect I’ll be back to this fine establishment before my holiday is over; after all, I’ve still got seven and three quarters pages of options to get through.

Mark D.