Ukraine – a promising future

The other week I had a fascinating experience that was a real eye opener. Some of you will know that I love tasting new things and experiencing wines from unusual places and never pass up the opportunity to taste emerging or obscure wines.

It has long been a mystery to me why the old Eastern Block wines have so completely vanished. Twenty odd years ago Bulgaria was a big supplier to the UK and the USSR appeared near the top of the list of nations that made the most wine. Then suddenly they were no more, you will have a difficult search for Bulgarian wine in the UK today and struggle to find the USSR’s successor nations in the list of most important wine producers.

As a consequence my experience of wines from this part of the world is very slight, but I have found decent Romanian wines in the past as well as fascinating stuff from Moldova – fine as well as more work-a-day – and most wonderously of all tasted some very old, fine dessert wine from the Massandra Winery in the Crimea.

Recently I was fortunate to get a chance to taste wines from two of the leading Ukrainian wine producers and it was a great experience.

Bessarabia - click for a larger view

What made the tasting even more exciting was that the wineries are both in Bessarabia, not far from Odessa, which is a region that straddles the Romanian-Moldovan-Ukranian border and is a place that I have only come across before when mentioned in books about the nineteenth century and in histories of the First World War – it sounds wonderfully Ruritanian and like it ought to be stuffed full of Arch Dukes and Princes galore. Other regions of Ukraine, especially Crimea, produce wine, but this tasting focussed on Bessarabia – which at 45˚ north is on the same latitude as Bordeaux.

The region is steeped in history, much of it bloody. The Romans knew this part of the world as Dacia and it was their last major conquest. If the ancient history is very lively, the more recent stuff is even more so. Early in the nineteenth century the Russian Empire seized the area from the Ottomans and invited people to work this new buffer zone between the two enemies. Bulgarians, French, Swiss and Bulgarians came, happy to settle in a place that offered them free land and freedom from taxes in return for working that land. At a time when Russia still had serfs, to be free land owners was quite something – it must have been like the early days of European settlement in the Americas.

Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy Winery

Now there is a determined effort to rekindle the wine producing traditions of the region and to go further and produce world class wines that will be sought out and enjoyed. To that end the Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy Winery, the region’s most famous producer from the nineteenth century and Soviet era has received some substantial investment and it seems to be turning out some decent stuff, but I think it will be a while before they find their feet and in my opinion need to get around the sulphur rules. Ukranian law only permits very low levels of SO2 to be added, this makes the wines seem a bit ‘funky’ and liable to alter markedly in the bottle and the only alternative – keeping the wines for a long time on the lees, adds body and weight while lowering the feel of the acidity. This makes the whites a little unbalanced and flabby – even a high acid grape like Aligoté. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that it is forbidden to add acid.

As a consequence of this I think their white wines were best when young, so I prefered the  2011s and 2010s over the 2009s or 2008s. If you get a chance to try their 2011 Pearl of the Steppe – Aligoté aged in oak – do, it is an attractive wine, clean and fresh when young, not great but perfectly nice dry wine.

Their 2011 Chardonnay was quite attractive too, with a little more richness and weight, while the 2011 Rieslings lacked acid punch for my taste.

Their 2010 Merlot struck me as altogether a better bet. It was very soft with easy tannins, lovely fresh blue-black fruit and no obvious oak and the tannins kept away until the bitter end, all of which makes it a perfectly decent wine to drink with any manner of foods.

Kolonist Winery

Ivan Plachkov amongst his vines on the shores of Lake Yalpukh

This brand new estate is in Krynychene near Bolgrad (see map above) in the furthest South Western point of Ukraine, near the Danube Delta and on the shores of Lake Yalpukh, the largest body of freshwater in the country. Kolonist is named for those Bulgarians who came to Bolgrad in the nineteenth century and made it their home. It was the brainchild of Ivan Plachkov who is well known in Ukranian political circles and I was really impressed by the ambition and ‘can do attitude’ that pervaded all they do. They seem very aware of what a difficult thing they are trying to achieve and so have brought in the colourful Olivier Dauga from Bordeaux as their consultant – I think his influence showed.

Looking at the photograph above got me thinking, it looks so like New York’s Finger Lakes that if I did not know it was taken in Ukraine then I would assume it was the shores of Keuka Lake. Intriguingly the man who perfected the growing of Vitis Vinfera grapes in the Finger Lakes was Dr. Konstantin Frank and he was from…Ukraine. So perhaps Dr Frank chose his site, at least in part, because it reminded him of home?

I was intrigued by some of the whites, especially:

2009 Suholymans’kyi bilyi 
This is a dry white from a local grape made by crossing Plavay and Chardonnay, but I know nothing else about it at all. I liked this because it had more acidity and structure than most of the other whites, it seemed hardy and less wild and funky, but a tad old fashioned – lacking fruit in English.

2009 Aligoté
Slightly odd and ‘funky’ with ‘natural wine’ aromas as a consequence of the low sulphur, but not unattractive. Soft creamy palate, cheese notes buzz around giving some interest as well as studs of dried fruit, like peach. The finish is a little strange though, sour like cottage cheese or yoghurt with some old varnishy oak.

Both of these were subsequently served with lovely nibbles of blue cheese profiteroles and lovely creamy arancini. They went really well and made the wine better balanced and enjoyable.

Olivier is from Bordeaux though and his work really showed on some of the red wines:

2010 Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot (50% & 50%)
Good nose with some rich plummy notes and earthiness too. The palate was quite fat with  some good balancing acidity, soft tannins and freshness. Sugar plums and succulence, cherry too, touch of black fruit. Pretty good, honest stuff, most lively yet – 87/100 points.

2009 Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot (50% & 50%)
Lovely intensity, deep colour, good fruit, delicate smoky, balanced tannins, sweet tannins and fruit, dusting of smoky, savoury, coffee-like oak. Very good wine, needs time to really show its form, but very good and promising. Silky in the mouth with good acidity and nice long, but delicate length. Very nicely made indeed, European in style and form – 89/100 points.

I was pretty impressed by Kolonist, the wines had an honesty about them, which is often lacking in emerging areas that can be over ambitious. I think this will be a winery to watch, for their reds in particular and I look forward to seeing how they develop.

It is very hard sometimes to judge wines from places that lack clear wine traditions. Sometimes their ambition is greater than the actuality and it will either be a long time or never before the two are in synch. I didn’t get that impression with these, it is early days and they were not all good by any means, but there was enough good stuff to make me think that in the not too distant future we could be drinking Ukranian wines regularly and that in the meantime the wines seem generally good enough to make a holiday to Ukraine an even more fascinating and enjoyable prospect.

My Favourite Wines, Top Discoveries and Experiences of 2011

I feel like a respite from all the self indulgence that the Christmas holidays force upon me and feel my thoughts turning back to wine. As the New Year is coming up fast I thought that I would attempt to tell you about my wine highlights for the year.

Most of my top wines have been written up here on my Wine Page, but some have slipped through the net and are new today. Please always remember that this is an entirely personal list, but I hope you enjoy it and that it gives some food for thought.

Sparkling Wines

I was really spoiled for fizz this year, 2 Champagne tastings stand out in particular:

Champagne:

Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut Non Vintage based on the 1953 vintage
This whole tasting was extraordinary and provided a wonderful insight into a type of Champagne that it is all too easy to take for granted – read about it here.

1995 Perrier Jouët Belle Époque
In February I was lucky enough to taste four different vintages of Belle Epoque out of jeroboams, the 1995 was the standout wine for me, but they were all superb – read about it here.

Other Sparkling Wine

2004 Domaine Carneros Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs Brut
Carneros Napa Valley, California, USA
I was really thrilled to try this wine again this year. I have known the winery a long time and visited it not long ago, but this is the best sparkling wine of theirs that I have ever tasted and to my mind it showed much better than the Bollinger Champagne I tried at the same time.
Domaine Carneros is a terrific estate that is linked to Champagne Taittinger and aims to produce elegant sparkling wines in a very Champagne-like manner, albeit from riper, softer Napa Valley fruit. This is their top cuvée and is a blend of 98% Chardonnay with a little Pinot Blanc and was aged on the lees in the bottle for 6 years. This has allowed some lovely complexity to develop leading to brioche and flaky pastry notes that combine perfectly with the peach and pear characters and are all balanced by the crisp apples, fresh citrus and richer lemon-curd acidity. I think this is a great sparkling wine – 93/100 points.
£35.99 a bottle from Simply Wines Direct.

2008 Reina Maria Cristina Blanc de Noirs Brut
D.O. Cava, Spain
I really like Cava, it is almost always enjoyable and just occasionally can be really, really good too – like this. 
This superb wine is 87% Pinot Noir with a little Chardonnay, but it is the dried raspberry-like red fruit character of the Pinot that dominates, the Chardonnay just adds to the creaminess and the freshness that keeps it balanced. If Cava has passed you by, give this try – it is superb value for money – 90/100 points.
£9.99-£14.99 a bottle from Majestic.

White Wines

2008 Louis Jadot Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru
Burgundy, France
I was thrilled to try this wine a few times over the last few weeks and it shows precisely why White Burgundies are often thought to be the greatest white wines in the world and Chardonnay the best white grape. By modern standards this is not a particularly big wine – in fact it delivers less sheer oomph than many cheaper examples. What it does though is give more complexity, sophistication, elegance, balance and thrilling minerality than I had any right to expect and then raps it all up in some lovely creamy ripe orchard fruit and buttery, toasty creamy oak notes too. This has developed nicely, nuts and cream are really beginning to come through, but right now the minerality and acidity is keeping that all in check, which makes the wine sublime, you can feel the tension in the glass – and the finish is as long as a Bollywood film, but a lot more subtle – 93/100 points.
Around £29 a bottle from The Wine Reserve and Wine Rack.

Louis Jadot’s 2007 Meursault is no slouch either and very nearly made it into the list – oh and it has!

2007 Cakebread Cellars Chardonay Reserve
Carneros Napa Valley, California, USA
I have to own up to really admiring Cakebread wines very much and to liking Bruce Cakebread very much too. I first tasted this wine in December 2010 and gave it a glowing review here. If anything I would rate it even higher today as it had developed wonderful complexity, whilst retaining freshness and delicacy.
£43.99 a bottle from Corney & Barrow.

2009 Chateau LaFayette Reneau Semi-Dry Riesling
Seneca Lake, Finger Lakes Region, New York, USA
Strange thing wine tasting, like bees, you never can tell. When I visited this winery it was towards the end of a full on day and I must have been flagging, because I remember our charming hosts, the wonderful view and the adorable cat, but their wines passed me by. Which is a great, great shame as on this showing they are very good. Many of you know that I love the Riesling grape and have tried a great many examples from all over the world this year, but this really stood out.
It offered a lovely citrus fruit zing as well as softer apple-like notes and a touch of orange-blossom. The palate was fresh, lively, zesty and dominated by a lime-like freshness as well as softer tangerine notes and fleshier orchard fruit of peach and pear and a lovely underlying minerality. On the long, clean and vibrant finish the sweetness was perfectly balanced by the acidity and vice-versa. I wish I had more, but it is only available from the winery – 93/100 points

2010 Viña Alicia Tiara
D.O. Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
I thought all the Viña Alicia wines were great, but this fascinating white stole the show – read my description here.

2010 Albariño Abadía da Cova
D.O. Ribeira Sacra, Galicia, Spain
Personally I think Spanish white wines are terribly underrated and this is the wine that could prove my point. 
It is from a beautiful, tiny region of inland Galicia and made from a blend of 85% Albariño for freshness with 15% Godello adding more weight and complexity and ensuring that it does not suffer from the disappointing dilution that spoils so many Albariños.

It is intense and concentrated with rich pear and peach notes supported by some floral and citrus as well as a touch of white pepper and minerality.
The palate is succulent and textured with creamy ripeness running right through it. Flavours are Asian pear, delicate spice, white pepper, even a touch of cinnamon and peach. The finish is clean and fresh with a cut of grapefruit-like acidity while the finish is very long and succulent.
There is nothing dilute or disappointing here, it is really delicious, vibrant and wonderfully drinkable – 92/100 points.
£17.20 a bottle from Taste of Galicia.

By the way, on the subject of Albariño:

2010 Pazo de Barrantes Albariño
D.O. Rías Baixas, Galicia, Spain
This is yet another stunning white wine from Galicia, in keeping with my appreciation of fine Spanish white wines. Again this is wonderfully concentrated and textured without giving up on acidity and balance – just the thing with a piece of fish or garlicy chicken – 91/100 points.
£13.95 a bottle from N.D.John.

Red Wines

2006 Scala Dei Cartoixa
D.O.Q. Priorat, Catalunya, Spain
As many of you know, I have a passion for Spanish wines and it continues to amaze me how few Spanish wine regions most UK consumers know. If it isn’t Rioja they seldom seek it out, which is a great shame as Priorat is one of Europe’s great regions. This tiny mountainous area is home to a great many boutique producers of hugely expensive wine, well luckily Scala Dei – the original winery of the region, founded by Carthusian monks in the 12th Century and now owned by Codorníu – is more realistic about the prices it charges for its superb red wines. This is their Reserva and if you like chunky, but elegant, dry and gently spicy red wines then this is a winner – 94/100 points.

Around £28 a bottle from Tesco Wine by the Case.

2009 Château Clauzet
Cru Bourgeois, A.C. St Estèphe and

2009 Château de Côme
Cru Bourgeois, A.C. St Estèphe
These were both very youthful wines, but they really impressed me and showed the modern, seductive side of Bordeaux. If you despair of ever being able to afford good Claret again, then these might restore your faith. I look forward to seeing how they develop – read about them here.

2006 Torres Grans Muralles
D.O. Conca de Barberà, Catalunya, Spain
I was extremely fortunate to spend a week at Bodegas Torres earlier this year. Not only was I able to meet the great man, but I got to try pretty much all their wines and everything was good, at the very least, but some wines really stood out as being quite exceptional. Both his Priorat wines were excellent and great value for money, some of his Chilean wines were very fine while the Marrimar Torres wines from Sonoma, California were quite exceptional.
Of the Torres offerings from Catalunya in Spain, I think the outstanding wine was the stunning Grans Murralles – read about it here.

1974 Villa di Capezzano
D.O.C. – now D.O.C.g – Carmignano, 
Tenuta di Capezzana, Tuscany, Italy
This winery was the high point of my wonderful trip to Tuscany earlier in the year, until that day this little wine region was just a word on a map. I now know it produces world class wines that deserve to be better known and not to be overshadowed by their more famous neighbours in Chianti Classico and Brunello. The 1974 was the wine of the day, but they were all good, the 2007 or 2001could easily have been included here – as could the extraordinarily youthful 1931! Read all about it here.

1998 Wolf Blass Platinum Label Barossa Shiraz
Barossa Valley, South Australia
I just do not drink enough Australian wine, which is a great shame and entirely self inflicted, anyway I was very excited to be invited along to this years Wolf Blass Luxury Release tasting. I tasted a load of wines that were superbly made and astonishingly elegant and refined, this won me over in particular, but there was not a dud among them – read all about it here.

2007 Errazuriz Don Maximiano Founder’s Reserve
Viña Errazuriz, Don Maximiano Estate, Aconcagua Valley, Chile
I have been a fan of this wine since it grew out of the original Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva with the 1993 vintage. It has consistently shown itself to be an excellent wine and a real standard bearer of quality for Chile and while the price has crept up over the years, it remains a relatively affordable fine wine. The blend changes every year in order to allow the wine to reflect the vintage, the 2007 is 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot, 6% Cabernet Franc and 6% Syrah all aged in new French oak casks for 20 months. 2007 is widely regarded as the best red wine vintage in Chile’s history, the slightly cooler conditions allowed for a gentle build up of sugars in the grapes, this creates full ripeness together with great balance. I am sure this is the best Don max I have tasted and most critics seem to agree. It is not a wine for the faint hearted, it is big, bold, rich and powerfully fruity, but the tannins are wonderfully supple and there is lovely complexity there too – 93/100 points.

There are so many other lovely wines that I could include here, pretty much anything from Craggy Range springs to mind – if you haven’t tried some of their New Zealand red wines, then you really must – read about them here.

Sweet Wines

Solera 1885 Scholtz Hermanos Málaga
It was bittersweet moment when I tasted my last bottle of this stunning wine recently. The winery no longer exists, so unless I am very lucky I will never taste this extraordinary wine again – read about it here.

Vin Santo ageing at Tenuta di Capezzana

2005 Capezzana Vin Santo di Carmignano Riserva
Tenuta di Capezzana, Tuscany, Italy
I first tried this at the end of a wonderful lunch at the Tenuta di Capezzana winery near Florence and was hugely impressed. I have tried a good few Vin Santos over the years, but have never been particularly wowed by any before (except oddly an 1897 example made by Boutari on the Greek island of Santorini), but this is a great desert wine by any measure.

Made from the usually unimportant Trebbiano grape (they make a very good dry example too) together with a little of the obscure San Colombano. The grapes are dried over the winter and fermented in casks made of chestnut and cherry wood. The finished wine is then aged for 5 years in small casks of various sizes – rather wonderfully they resemble the barrels in a Bruegel painting or the Bayeux Tapestry.

The wine is wonderfully complex and fine with little touches of toffee and caramel, mingling with the merest hints of nuts all adding to the richness of poached peach and some dried fig, some fresh coffee and spice, even maple syrup, while the ripeness of the grapes gives a creamy richness and a silky texture that makes it heavenly, vibrant and long – 93/100 points.

Around £35 a half bottle from The Fine Wine Company.

Fortified Wines

I was so lucky this year to attend superb tastings on both Port and Madeira where I was able to taste some wines of outstanding quality, that were perfectly mature and that I will remember all my life. 

1965 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos 
Single Quinta Vintage Port
The only great thing to come out of my birth year – except me – this was an experience to cherish – read about it here.

1920 Blandy’s Vintage Bual Madeira
This was an amazing experience, I have never awarded 99/100 before – something to do with being British and uptight I expect. Read about it here.

Top Wine Trip Lunch

I was very fortunate this year to enjoy many wonderful meals while experiencing wine, but this Tuscan lunch was a real stand out experience.

So there we are, my highlights of 2011, but I had better stop now as the moreI think about the more I wonder if this wine shouldn’t be in there too? Or what about that one? Or…

Anyway I hope you enjoy reading about some of these highlights of 2011 and I look forward to your company in 2012. 

Happy Christmas

Where on earth has 2011 gone? It feels like it has only just begun, but here we are staring another Christmas in the face.

I just want to thank you all for reading my Wine Page in 2011 and hope that with your support my blog will continue to go from strength to strength in 2012. Have a great Christmas and a happy New Year drink some good wines and enjoy yourselves. I have had lots of exciting wine experiences recently and I will tell you all about them soon. In the meantime here is a Christmas card for you all to enjoy:

How I love You Chardonnay*

Frequent visitors and the observant amongst you will notice that recently I have been writing less frequently than normal. This is simply because of the hectic pace of my work during the build up to Christmas – bah, humbug!

However I have had a good many wine experiences of late and will be writing about some of them as soon as I can.

In the meantime I thought that would share a thought and a few wines with you.

Reappraising Chardonnay:

It saddens me that so many UK wine consumers limit what they drink to such a narrow range and what I mean is illustrated by a common reaction to Chardonnay. If I had £1 for every time someone told me that they used to enjoy Chardonnay, but now drink Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio, then I could easily afford a new car! Some people start shaking their head at the mere mention of Chardonnay, as though to even consider it will make them liable to arrest by the taste-police.

Why can some people not enjoy new grapes and yet still sometimes drink the old? Wine does not have to be one or the other. A true appreciation of wine is about broadening your horizons, not simply looking somewhere else.

Chardonnay is without a doubt one of the great grape varieties and it is capable of producing delicious wines at all price levels and in the widest array of styles. It produces very different results when grown somewhere cold from somewhere warm, yet thrives in both. Amongst many other places Chardonnay is equally at home in the cool of Chablis, Champagne and New York’s Finger Lakes, the moderate climate of Burgundy, coastal Chile, South Africa and New Zealand, as well as the full range of climates in Australia – one of the finest Chardonnays that I have tasted recently was the magnificently complex and elegant Cakebread Reserve Chardonnay from California’s warm Napa Valley. Stylistically Chardonnay produces everything from wonderfully crisp and zesty wines that are all about the cut of acidity, to softer, easy drinking fruit-forward styles as well as great complex wines with nuance and sophistication. I think that many UK consumers assume that Chardonnay only produces oaky, overly ripe, almost sweet, gloopy and fruity wines – this is certainly not the case.

It is a shame that a grape capable of  such variety has become something of a guilty pleasure. Here are some very different examples that have impressed me recently:

2010 Lourensford Chardonnay
Stellenbosch, South Africa

The nose gave off delicate peach and cream notes together with some herbs, you could really smell the ripeness and know this was a soft and fruity wine.

The palate was soft and rounded with juicy fruit and a touch of toasty, spicy oak just fattening it out and giving some complexity and stopping it being simple, juicy and easy drinking. It was balanced further by some lovely apricot-like acidity which made it clean, fresh and lively.

A delicious wine that could easily win many people back to the simple and pure delights of well made ripe and fruity Chardonnay – 88/100 points.

Rather usefully the wine seems to go with almost anything. Lourensford recommend it be served with sea bass roasted with rosemary and lemon, I cobbled together a sort of rough and ready version using talapia in place of sea bass and it works very well – if you want the recipe, just ask – however the wine is also very good with soft and semi-hard cheeses like Brie, Port-Salut and EmmentaI, a ploughman’s lunch and Pringles.

The Lourensford Estate - looking towards Somerset West and False Bay

I have visited the beautiful Lourensford Estate and have to say on recent showing they are just getting better and better – a producer to watch I think.

£8.49 a bottle – stockist details available from Hatch Mansfield Agencies.

My second Chardonnay took a quite different approach:

2010 Craggy Range Kidnappers Vineyard Chardonnay
Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand

This too offered some stone fruit aromas, but greater complexity and nuance crept in here – a Burgundy drinker might well enjoy this wine. The vineyard is right by the sea in this otherwise pretty warm bit of North Island. That coastal influence slows down the growing season, which results in more freshness and acidity – giving a citrus note – in the wine than, minerality too and even a touch of ozone. Its freshness made it clear that it was from somewhere cool.

The palate was wonderfully elegant, yes there was fruit – nectarine giving texture and succulence, but really this was about structure and tension. Tension between the ripeness and the fresh acidity, tension between the careful use of oak and the minerality, this made the wine feel very alive and complex – just the way I like it. The oak was superbly integrated and not dominating in any way, just 5 months and very little new wood at that.

This is a very Burgundian style, bone dry and crisp, with oak and lees ageing just adding nuance rather than dominating.

A glorious and fine Chardonnay that shows the delicate side of this wonderful grape – 91/100 points.

Again I would say this wine could partner a wide array of foods, even your Christmas dinner, but its delicate nature would make it perfect with light dishes and cheeses at the softer end of the spectrum.

I have yet to visit Craggy Range, but they are a hugely impressive estate. To me they seem to produce wines that balance beautifully ripe fruit with a delicacy and lightness of touch that takes their wines to a high level of sophistication and elegance – do try them if you can.

£15.95 a bottle from Formula Wine. Further stockist details are available from their UK agent: Louis Latour.

And Now Chardonnay the Remix:

We are used to Chardonnay being blended with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier for Champagne and sparkling wines, but for still wines many consumers look askance at blending Chardonnay with anything. True it is almost always on its own when used in its home turf of Burgundy, but even that is not quite as clear-cut as many think. Some Pinot Blanc hangs on in even some of the famous villages of Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune. Elsewhere, of course, Australia has success with Chardonnay-Sémillon, South Africa, Chile and even some areas of Southern France have been known to blend Chardonnay with Sauvignon – often very successfully in my opinion – but the most intrigueing Chardonnay blend I have ever tasted is most certainly:

2010 Raimat Abadia Blanc de Blancs 
D.O. Costers del Segre, Catalunya, Spain

A Chardonnay-Albariño blend that is surprisingly good. Albariño is one of Spain’s star white grapes whose home ground is cool, green and wet Galicia on the Atlantic coast. Raimat is in Catalunya and often produces wines that have a touch of the New World about them – if you want to know what that means to me, the focus is fruit, softness and drinkability, there are no hard edges. Albariño is often quite a light wine, but here it is grown in sunnier Eastern Spain, so the fruit is richer and the Chardonnay component gives it some extra fat on its bones, indeed the ripe fruit gives the impression that it isn’t quite bone dry – although it is. The result is a lovely, soft, succulent wine with peachy, nectarine fruit, an intense ripeness and juicy quality all kept in focus by a seam of fresh balancing acidity. In many ways it reminds me of wines made from Galicia’s other star white grape, Godello.

A deliciously approachable and interesting take on Chardonnay that slips down effortlessly, if my bottle is anything to go by – 87/100 points.

£7.49 a bottle from Hercules Wine Warehouse & Wine Rack. Further stockist details are available from their UK agent: Codorníu UK.

These three wines are all delicious, if very different and show what a wonderful and multi-talented grape Chardonnay can be. From fun, easy drinking and fruit forward wines, to softly stylish through to delicate, sophisticated and complex examples like the Craggy Range – Chardonnay can do it all. No one interested in wine, at any level, should totally ignore Chardonnay.

* My title is taken from the Cerys Matthews song ‘Chardonnay‘

Taste Award Winning Wines in London

some of the judges hard at work at the West London Wine School

Forgive the plug, but I thought this may be of some interest if you live near London.

A month or so back I was a judge at the West London Wine School Wines of the Year Awards 2011.

We tasted all the best wines the School had tried throughout the year and rated those that are available to buy in the UK. We tasted some fabulous wines from across the globe and  in a wide array of styles.

It seemed a pity to waste all that hard work and so 2 walkaround tastings are being hosted at the West London Wine School in Fulham. They are on 14 and 15 December, so come along and try some wonderful wines, new things, old favourites and unexpected treasures.

You can book tickets by clicking here - they represent great value for a lot of fun – see you there…

This Might Be the Last Time…

Catavino, the Iberian wine web site is closing its doors for the last time at the end of the month and coincidentally the other day I drank my last bottle of something that I might never see again. Not just because of vintage changes or time moving on, but because it is from a winery that no longer exists, which is a terrible shame as it it one of the most fascinating sweet wines that I have tasted and the very best example of its type that I have come across – so I thought that I would tell you all about it here…

This will be my last piece for Catavino and, unless I stumble across an ancient stash of bottles somewhere, almost certainly my last bottle of Scholtz Hermanos Solera 1885.

A Taste of New York in London

The beautiful Finger Lakes

Regular reader will know that I loved touring  New York’s Finger Lake region last year. It is a very beautiful place and extremely interesting from a wine point of view. It produces some superb wines too and I was thrilled by the wines that I found there. It is very easy to write these more unusual places off as makers of novelty wines, but what they make in the Finger Lakes is often very good indeed and shows that it is a wine region of real quality that can hold its head up in the wine world and be taken on its own merits.

The only downside is that all the wineries are tiny boutique places really, so there is precious little made and what they do have is mainly sold at the winery door. Finger Lake wines hardly ever leaves the state before it is sold, let alone the country. I thought that was a shame and decided to try and make them available to a wider audience, albeit in a small way. So I managed to ship a small amount of the  most exciting Finger Lake wines over to the UK.

The result is that I am leading a tasting of the best of the Finger Lakes in London on 7 March 2012. It will be at the West London Wine School in Fulham, places are limited and will sell out fast, so book early - who knows, it might be your only chance to try them.

We will try some superb sparkling wine, a Meritage blend, an amazing and unusual Chardonnay, some world-class Riesling, great Pinot Noir, whacky but exciting local blends and more. So join me there for some lovely wines and a rare experience.

Winning you round to Riesling

In keeping with many of us in the wine business, I love the Riesling grape. In many ways, for me, it is the grape. The one I love before all others. If a Riesling is on offer, it always calls to me and it pains me that so many people seem indifferent to its charms.

It follows from this that I like to present Riesling to consumers and hope that my love of the grape variety will rub off on to them. To that end I am always trying to win people round to Riesling. It has to be admitted that my success has been patchy, many people who enjoy other wines seem unable to find the pleasure in a fine Riesling that I do, but I have had some converts recently and it was two particular Rieslings that did it, so I thought that I would share them with you. They are both very different in style, but both are hugely enjoyable as well as being affordable.

If the delights of Riesling have passed you by, will you do me a favour – give it one last try. Today may be the day that you see the Riesling light and these may be the examples that win you round.

Neither of them come from traditional Riesling areas, so the problem that many people seem to have with Germanwines – memories of cheap non-Riesling versions from the 1970s – should not feature here. Remember too, if these seem a little exotic for you, Alsace Riesling from France is always dry and mineral – I recently tries the superb  2010 Andre Scherer Riesling Réserve Particulière (around £11 a bottle from Les Caves de Pyrène and Le Parc) and it was a joy, bone dry but rich. Much the same could be said for the wonderful, and more mineral 2008 Riesling Federspiel Weissenkirchen from Domäne Wachau, Austria (£10 a bottle from Majestic)

Classic Riesling territory in New York's Finger Lake Region

2008 Thornbury Riesling
Waipara, New Zealand

The Waipara (pronounced why-pra) is between Marlborough and Christchurch on the East coast of South Island and is doing great things with a range of different grapes, but especially Riesling. In the Summer it is warmer and drier than Marlborough and Christchurch during the day, so the fruit is very ripe, but the much cooler nights retain the Riesling’s naturally fresh, lively acidity.

This is from 2008, so there is some mineral development on the nose – this makes it just a little bit petrol-like, but the exotic floral perfume is the more dominant. The palate is quite rich with a nectarine / peachy succulence and texture together with flourishes of minerality and fresh, bracing lime and apricot acidity which is balanced by just enough sweetness to tame the acidity and make it an off-dry wine.

This is a terrific wine, nice and rich, but still refreshing and balanced, it would be a lovely aperitif or perfect with a wide array of light dishes and spicy, asian foods – 89/100 points.

£10.44 per bottle from Tesco Wine by the case.

2010 Cono Sur Visión Quiltrmán Vineyard Riesling
Bío Bío Valley, Chile

I find this Riesling captivating and not at all what I expected from Riesling in Chile, this is fresh, zesty and lime drenched on the nose with a clean purity that comes from the cool wet conditions of the Bío Bío Valley and suits the grape perfectly. On the palate it was dry and crisp with racy of acidity and clean minerality making your mouth water, but there was loads of fresh grass and exotic, zesty lime and mandarin citrus fruit too with just a touch of more succulent nectarine lurking in the background. Amazingly it carries its 13.5% alcohol perfectly and you simply do not notice it. A lovely dry Riesling – 90/100 points.

£7.60 per bottle from Slurp.co.uk – which seems ridiculously cheap to me.

So there you are, two superb Rieslings to try, both from unlikely places, both easily available in the UK and both offering great value for money. New Zealand has been having a huge amount of success with Riesling in recent years and the Thornbury wine is a lovely example and is a pretty traditional Riesling style, beautifully off-dry. It is not dry, but not sweet as such – the touch of fresh sweetness just fleshes the wine out and balances the high acidity to make it a lovely wine to drink without food or with rich spicy foods.

Chile on the other hand is pretty new to Riesling, but on this showing they could do great things with the grape. The Cono Sur Riesling is crisp and dry and very modern with ripe, tropical and exotic fruit notes throughout. That crisp quality and touch of the exotic makes it a great match with Asian and Pacific Rim cuisine.

Give them a go, they might just be the ones to win you round to Rielsing. If they don’t, well cook with the remainder or send it to me!

I will be leading some tastings of New York Finger Lake wines very soon, so more Rieslings to come…

Catalan élan

The wines of Codorníu

Recently I presented a tasting of some wonderful wines from Spain. I know that I bang on about Spain and Spanish wines, but really I do believe that country makes wonderful, wonderful wines and can boast one of the most vibrant and exciting European cultures as well.

Regular readers will be aware that earlier in the year I spent a week with Miguel Torres, a giant of Spanish and Catalan wine whose importance to the development of wine in Spain cannot be underestimated. However he is not alone in being a leading producer of good wine in Catalunya. All my adult life I have been a fan of Codorníu which is famous as the leading brand of Cava – Spanish quality sparkling wine made by the Champagne method/Traditional method. However Codorníu is much more than a Cava producer, they have been growing grapes since 1551 and making Cava since 1872 – indeed they created it – but over the last 100 years they have expanded their portfolio and production to include most of the important wine regions of Spain – and beyond. Unlike Torres though they leave each winery as a stand alone brand and you will look in vain for the name of Codorníu on the labels.

Instead they have either created new estates from scratch or bought leading producers and the results are startlingly good. I presented some of these wines in a tasting recently and everyone was hugely impressed by the quality, variety and value for money that the wines represented. Catalans see themselves as the dynamic Spaniards, the busy creative Spaniards with modern ideas, a sense of chic and no manaña mentality, so perhaps Codorníu have brought that drive and sense of élan to their outposts in other regions?

Map of the wine regions of Spain - click for a larger view. High-res non-watermarked versions of my maps are available by agreement.

My tasting was of Spain without Rioja, so we had no examples from Bodegas Bilbainas, the long established producer that Codorníu purchased some 10 years ago and whose Viña Pomal wines get better and better – try the 2005 Viña Pomal Reserva, it is very elegant with rich fruit with a wonderful savoury elegance, smooth tannins and a bite of fresh acidity giving structure, it is great value for money and very food friendly.

No, I left Rioja for another time and concentrated on three other great Spanish regions and wineries. Firstly the always exciting and reliable Raimat from Costers del Segre on the Catalan Aragon border, about as inland as you can get in Catalunya. If you have ever been near Lerida – Lleida in Catalan – you know where this is and you should visit Lerida as it is home to some wonderful restaurants and tapas bars.

The Raimat Estate is one of the marvels of our time. Yes, there is a castle here and yes wine was made here hundreds of years ago, but when the Raventos family, who own Codorníu, bought it in 1914 it was the sort of parched scrubland you drive through quite often in Spain. However, they had a vision to make really good wine here and set about making this goal a reality. Along the way they imported into Spain and started many elements of modern winemaking that we now take for granted. The first problem was the soil, it was very saline so they had to bring it back to a workable condition. They did this by first planting alfalfa grass and then 35 million pine trees which apparently desalinated the soil, they let the trees mature and then ripped them out and were ready to start producing great wines by around 1974, a mere 60 years after they started! I love this story, it speaks of such dedication or determination in the face of any reality, imagine a company thinking that long term today – still it paid off in the end.

Actually I expect the time lag helped things in the long run as by the time they had finished Codorníu was enjoying a relationship with Davis Wine School at the University of California. Their technical knowhow and experience of grape growing in hot dry conditions was a boon and as a consequence Raimat was one of the very first places outside of California to have state of the art irrigation and selection of rootstocks for their soils and vines. This ‘new world’ approach also led to them planting a wide array of international grapes – as well as Spain’s Tempranillo and some displaced Albariño that they put to very good use. Even the way the grapes were planted was alien to Spain, it was an early example of vines being densely planted on a trellis system, just as you see now all around the world, but still relatively rare in Iberia.

Since 1988 the region has enjoyed Denominación de Origen status and there are other good quality producers here, but Raimat remain the driving force.

I have known the signature wine of the estate, Raimat Abadia, since the 1982 vintage and it is always good and enjoyable and does not seem to have gone up that much in price. It was fun to be able to show couple of Raimat white wines too:

Raimat Gran Brut NV
D.O. Costers del Segre, Catalunya

60% Chardonnay with 40% Pinot Noir made in the traditional method. I really was impressed by this wine, it had a roundness and a creamy weight to it together with some citrus and apricot zing and little flourishes of deeper dried raspberry-like fruit. This is a very fine sparkling and wowed this audience – 89/100 points.

£14.95 per bottle from Grape Expectations in Andover.

2010 Castell de Raimat Xarel·lo-Chardonnay
D.O. Costers del Segre, Catalunya

50% Chardonnay fattens up and rounds out the underrated Xarel·lo (the break and the point in the name by the way mean that you pronounce it with 2 L sounds, otherwise a double L in Spain sounds like a Y), one of the traditional Cava grapes. I enjoyed this wine, it was fresh and lively with supple peach and apricot characters, some minerality and zesty grapefruit and ripe apples together with a beguiling touch of exotic mango fruit too. It is partially barrel-fermented and this shows in just a kiss of smoky, toasty complexity good medium weight dry white wine – 87/100 points.

£9.99 per bottle from Noel Young Wine in Cambridge.

2006 Raimat Abadia Cabernet Sauvignon-Tempranillo
D.O. Costers del Segre, Catalunya
48% Cabernet Sauvignon, 29% Merlot and 23% Tempranillo – 10 months in American oak barrels and 6 months in French
Although Tempranillo is the junior partner here it still tastes very Spanish and is a hugely enjoyable wine that is full of rich plum and touches of dried fruit too. There are spices and coffe notes and a hint of leather showing it is developing nicely – a lot of wine for the money – 87/100 points.

£7.49 per bottle from Winerack stores in the wider London (UK) area.

Castilla y León

As well as Raimat the Codorníu group have a wonderful winery in the Ribera del Duero region of Castilla y León. It is called Legaris and shows why – in my opinion – Ribera del Duero should be the next Spanish region to be promoted and join Rioja and Catalunya’s Priorat as a Denominación de Origen Calificada / DOCa, Denominació d’Origen Qualificada / DOQ in Catalan, rumours abound, but so far it has remained a more lowly D.O.C. – watch this space.

However as Ribera del Duero is a red wine region they look to nearby Rueda to produce a white wine, I love Rueda wines and wish they were more popular as they never let the consumer down, some are better than others, but they are always goo – a handful are superb and among the very best white wines from Spain. Viura is widely used, as is Sauvignon Blanc, but the star is the indigenous Verdejo grape – think of a fleshier weightier Sauvignon Blanc and you get the idea.

2010 Legaris Verdejo
D.O. Rueda, Castilla y León

Everything about this wine screams freshness and zing, which is enhanced by the 7% Sauvignon Blanc, the Stelvin Lux screwcap and the absence of any oak – you can use oak on Verdejo, but like most people I favour the fresher approach. The fruit here is beautifully ripe which gives the merest hint of creaminess to the palate to balance the zesty qualities, there are herb and grassy nuances too leading to a long finish. The body is given more depth and roundness by a touch of skin contact during the winemaking, so leaving the merest trace of tannin across the tongue. This is one of the 3 best Ruedas I have ever tasted, do yourselves a favour and make this your house white over Christmas, or the Summer, or … – 90/100 points.

Generally around £9.99, but £7.99 per bottle from Noel Young Wine in Cambridge and also available from The Market Square in East Grinstead.

2008 Legaris Crianza
D.O. Ribera del Duero, Castilla y León

Ribera del Duero is a red wine region and this shows why. It is 100% Tinto Fino ( a local clone of Tempranillo) aged for 12 months in a mixture of French and American oak and it is a very elegant wine. Rich, yes, fruity, yes, smooth yes, but there are lovely fine grain tannins, cocoa and coffee complexity and a touch of fresh, balancing acidity. Everything about this shows that it will develop beautifully over a few more years – 90/100 points.

£15.50 per bottle from Hercules Wine Warehouses in Sandwich & Faversham, Kent.

I was also able to try the 2005 Legaris Reserva recently and that really is a magnificent wine, concentrated, supple and elegant – if you want to see what makes Ribera del Duero tick, then give it a go – 91/100 points.

Priorat

Priorat - a rugged terrain

If you have not experienced a wine from this tiny, but stunning region, then do grab the chance. Priorat produces Grenache based wines that are unlike the rest of Spain – actually as the grape comes from Spain, so it should be called Garnacha, or even Garnatxa when in Catalunya. Really it is the soils that do the work here, the dry licorella- decayed slate or schist – contains almost no organic matter or anything of goodness to the vine. This forces it to work hard, putting down deep root systems and so producing tiny crops of deeply concentrated fruit. Natural alcohol levels of around 16% are perfectly normal here too – and I have seen higher!

Priorat - the licorella

Scala Dei is the oldest winery here and something of a legend in the wine world, it it was founded in the 12th century along with the Scala Dei monastery – the area is named Priorat after the the Prior who headed up this Carthusian monastery in the village of Scala Dei, which means Ladder to Heaven.

2010 Scala Dei Negre
D.O.Q Priorat, Catalunya

Do not be put off by the words Vi Negre on the label, that is merely Catalan for red wine! The baby of the range and completely unoaked, this is a joyous drink. Pure Grenache with lovely floral aromas, smooth tannins and a chunky, sometimes rustic feel that would make it perfect with an array of hearty dishes. There is even a hint of dried and cooked fruit as well as spice, herbs and minerals on a long finish. This was much appreciated by my tasters – 89/100 points.

2007 Scala Dei Prior Crianza
D.O.Q Priorat, Catalunya

If the Negre was good, it was a mere overture ( a great one though) for this. What a wine, aromatic, floral and rich, full-bodied and supple, but not gloopy. Everything is in balance, smooth tannins, dense blue-black fruit, spice and coffee notes as well as a rich earthy feel and an epic of a finish – 92/100 points.

£18.49 per bottle from Winerack stores in the wider London (UK) area.

I was also able to try the 2006 Scala Dei Cartoxia Reserva recently and it was astonishing. I was a judge the other week at the West London Wine School Wine Awards 2011 and this wine won the Iconic Red Wine Award – 94/100 points.

So, there you are a line up of wonderful wines, all very different, so giving something for everyone. Looking at the list above I think I now know what I am going to drink this Christmas.

More information is available from grupocodorniu.co.uk

The Joy of Port

My favourite tasting of the year so far was the Blandys Madeira seminar and I had no expectation that I would go to anything so wonderful again in 2011 – l how wrong I was. Barely a fortnight later I was completely spoilt by another line up of amazing Portuguese fortified wines. This time it was Port and I was totally won over.

Our hosts were the effortlessly charming Johnny and Paul Symington whose family have been Port merchants for the best part of two hundred years and own most of the really great Port brands including Graham’s, Dow’s, Cockburn’s and Warre’s.

Paul Symington in full flow...

Remarkably though they can trace their involvement in the Port industry back through 13 generations to 1652 when Walter Maynard, Oliver Cromwell’s representative in Lisbon, exported 39 pipes of Port wine. Walter later settled in Oporto, married a Portuguese lady and one of their descendants married into the Symington family in 1891, but it seems that a good many others had married into various other Port houses along the way.

In recent years the family’s focus has been in expanding their portfolio of vineyards in the Douro Valley so that they control every aspect of their Port production. As Paul Symington told us, in the past they and all the other famous brands were more like negociants, shippers in Port parlance, than a domaine but that is less and less true today. As Paul told us, they have become farmers rather than merchants.

In fact this tasting was all about vineyards as the subject was their Single Quinta Vintage Ports. A Quinta is a wine farm or vineyard with a house and winery on it and the Symingtons now own 26 of these throughout the prime Port lands of the Alto Douro. By some strange oversight in my career I have never visited the Douro, but from the photographs they showed us it looks a stunningly beautiful place.

I was astonished to hear quite how rugged and inhospitable it is, no other commercial crop can be grown in the region, so without wine it would soon return to scrub. Much of it has almost no rain at all during the growing season and the soils contain virtually no organic matter at all, which makes for tiny yields, massively stressed vines and hugely concentrated grapes – I really must get there soon.

It was fascinating hearing Johnny and Paul talk about their family and history and heritage, but it was when they were telling us about the Quintas and the vineyards that you could really feel their passion and get quite swept up by their enthusiasm. I could tell that the Quintas and their vineyards are, for them, the true essence of Port and I always like that in a wine producer – good wine is made in the vineyard and they were very firm in pointing out that Port is a wine.

Vintage Port per se is made from a blend of different Quinta sites, whereas lesser undeclared years can often still have little patches of brilliance dotted around the region – that is where the Single Quinta Vintage Port comes in. It is a Vintage Port, but from just the farm, or Quinta, whose name appears on the label. They are sometimes said to be lighter and less substantial and not capable of long ageing. Whatever the truth of that – and I think that depends on so many imponderable that I cannot answer it properly – these wines speak of their particular location and so give different snapshots of the terroir in the Douro.

Some of these Quintas are high and cool, some are low and hot, some are right by the river and get the cooling effect of running water. Some get good rain while others suffer from perpetual drought, some are on rugged inhospitable rock, whereas a few have more generous soils – all these things end up in the finished wine and make them different. In a classic Vintage they would be blended together, but in these Single Quinta Vintages the differences are there for us to appreciate.

The line up of Ports that we tasted was quite splendid and showed a good spread of different Quintas and vintages at all stages of their development:

Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos
Wines from this estate form the backbone of the Graham’s declared Vintage Ports, but the best of the undeclared vintages, bottled as Quinta dos Malvedos have also been famous for quite a long time. It faces due south, which gives it superb sun exposure, so ensures wonderful ripeness year after year. It is hot and dry and as a consequence the wines from here are amongst the most opulent and rich and this showed in vintage after vintage.

Graham's Quinta dos Malvedos

The 2006 wines:
2006 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos – released in around 2017
Scented and amazingly delicate nose with sweet fruit and light spice leading to a gloriously rich and sweet palate. What astonished me was how well knit and integrated it was. The overall sensation was of rich, lush primary fruit that masks the tannins beautifully and it all hung together really well, it even carries the alcohol very well. Despite the sweet rich fruit it finishes dry, clean and elegant – 90/100 points.

2006 Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim – released in around 2017
I have always loved the dry, spicy Dow’s style in theory and that was confirmed by this wine. Acidity was much more marked giving it a touch of elegant austerity and a lighter feel. It was also quite a bit drier on the palate with fruit and licorice vying for pole position, because of this the alchol is more obvious on the finish, so is less attractive now, but should age well. 88/100 points.

2006 Warre’s Quinta da Cavadinha – released in around 2017
I have always associated Warre’s with an elegant style and to my delight that really showed here. A beautifully balanced wine which combines luscious sweetness and opulence with some delightful savoury characters and a point of elegant acidity running through it. The overall sensation is of a silky, balanced and harmonious wines – 90/100 points.

Graham’s Quinta do Tua

2006 Graham’s Quinta do Tua – released in around 2017
Just across the Tua River from Malvedos this estate was created by Dona Antonia Adelaide Ferreira in the 1830s, sold to Cockburn’s in the late nineteenth century and passed to the Symingtons when they bought Cockburn’s in 2006.
The estate is low lying and produces less ripe fruit than nearby Malvedos and that showed in this wine. The nose was less intensely fruity than the wines so far, more floral – violets – and herbal. The palate was drier and more mineral with that lack of opulence leaving the spirit somewhat exposed on the finish at this stage in its development. This was very attractive, but perhaps not as fine as the others – 87/100 points.

2006 Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira – released in around 2017
This estate used to be the Symington’s favourite place to spend a relaxing weekend and was dear to their heart. They installed electricity in 1953, but because the Port market was so problematic in the ‘50s they sold it in 1954. However they kept using the grapes in their wines, so maintained the link and Paul is very proud that the family were able to buy the Quinta back in 1998.
The estate is only 40 km from the Spanish border and looks quite stunning. Johnny told us that back in the days before they sold it when the family were going there for the weekend, a cow was sent by train to Vesuvio, opposite Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira, this cow was then swum across the Douro and walked up to the house so that they could have fresh milk in their tea! In those days communications were non-existent so the staff at the house always knew the family were coming when the cow had arrived!

This wine was beautifully balanced with opulence, concentration and freshness all sitting nicely together. There was a wonderful array of black fruits, fresh and cooked, with smoke and spice adding layers of complexity. Despite the richness the finish is surprisingly dry with a real hit of firm tannins. Lovely stuff and one of my favourites, but does need time. 90/100 points.

2006 Quinta do Vesuvio – released in around 2017
This beautiful property was another built by Dona Antonia Adelaide Ferreira and now is a stand alone brand of Port and I could see why. It is opposite the Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira on the south side of the Douro.

The nose was lifted and concentrated and the palate was soft, sweet and luscious with black fruit and raspberry licorice characters before more complex mocha and coffee before sweet plums dominate. Firm tannins and a point of acidity cut through the rich sweetness leaving it luscious, but not cloying at all. 90/100 points.

The 1999 wines:
1999 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos
The primary fruit has faded and evolved somewhat to give a less obviously opulent wine, truffley and salty caramel notes are showing now, but there is still a lovely weight of fruit which is slightly dried, cooked or jammy now – 90/100 points.

1999 Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim
Just like the 2006, the Dow’s style really shines through making a very different wine from the Malvedos. Complex nose of earth, coffee and black treacle leading to a palate of rich red fruit with creamy ripeness and a richness of molasses and black treacle toffee. The gorgeous finish has that dry spicy character and you would swear that you can taste the schist! 91/100 points.

The 1998 wines: these were fabulous and seemed to be younger than the 1999 wines.

Dow's Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira

1998 Dow’s Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira
Yet again this Quinta showed beautiful balance and finesse all backed up by opulence and lusciousness. Rich fruit and fine milk chocolate dominate the palate with just the beginning of an earthy note and it finishes relatively dry. Very fine and enjoyable, one of my favourites with an astonishingly long finish – 93/100 points.

1998 Quinta do Vesuvio
Again this is beginning to be a little earthy with almost terra-cotta notes, white pepper, red fruit and anis. There is intensely sweet fruit on the palate, like delicate, good quality jam, this sweetness dominates the finish as well, but there are some complex savoury flourishes lurking in there too, which will emerge given time – 92/100 points.

The 1979 wines: an amazing flight of wines which really shows how complex and fine these wines can become once aged. It is easy to focus on the sweetness and bright opulence of Port when they are young as they can be so delicious and simply hedonistic. Once aged though they take on all sorts of complex characters.

1979 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos
The age was showing here in that it is paler and no longer opaque. The nose was much more leathery with truffles and buts and caramel as well as gamey and nutty notes. The palate offered dried fruit, nougat and caramel. It was very elegant, but still with a sweet, caramel and dried fruit rather than jam, opulence on the finish. Still very nicely balanced and fine – 91/100 points.

1979 Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim
Bonfim has been consistently less opulent than Malvedos and this was no exception with a pale garnett colour, coffee aromas with leather and a salty savoury note. This was the most delicate to date with a hugely long finish of treacle, nuts, coffee and flashes of spice all kept integrated by dried fruit. I loved this wine, it was beautifully integrated and worked as a whole – 93/100 points.

1979 Warre’s Quinta da Cavadinha
Again the style is consistent with the previous vintage of this wine. The colour is now very pale and the nose very delicate and elegant with stewed fruit and brittle toffee. The palate has a lovely texture, almost creamy with nougat, caramel and toffee together with dried fruit and a herbal quality. It finishes wonderfully elegant and fine – 92/100 points.

The 1965 wines: a vintage dear to my heart as it is my birth year. It was not a great harvest anywhere, indeed it was not a declared year for Port and so I have only ever had two 1965s before; a Krug Mondavi Napa Cabernet and Unico Vega Sicilia, so I was thrilled to be able to double my score. I was slightly troubled however, when our hosts said that these wines were 50 years old and I had to keep correcting them!

1965 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos
This was simply stunning, very pale with a russet tinge. The aromas were prunes, smoke, worn leather, herbs and caramel. The palate delivered buttery toffee, sage, leather and figgy fruit, but it was really about the sensation of elegance, opulence, sweetness, savoury herbal and salty notes, lots of tension and complexity and joyousness. A stunning, stunning wine, dare I say sublime – 97/100 points.

1965 Dow’s Quinta do Bomfim
Again this was true to form with an austere character, less fruit, drier and delicate with a gorgeous rose petal flavour running through it. It feels more brittle and has mocha and savoury characters and shows its age much more than the 1965 Malvedos. Lovely now, but does not have the vitality of the other 1965 – 90/100 points.

The 1950s:
1958 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos
A lovely experience, fine and superbly integrated. This was very pale with a sort of rose petal colour to it. The palate is very delicate and hints at things rather than delivers massive characters, this makes it fragile, but the toffee sweetness does show as well and it has a butterry texture. that hints at the former opulence. The finish is fresh, if delicate – 91/100 points.

1950 Graham’s Quinta dos Malvedos
I was completely carried away by drinking this wine, Truman was in the White House and Attlee in Downing Street when this was made!
This was redder and darker than the ’58 with a dark toffee hue. The nose was pretty vibrant with coffee and molasses notes. The palate gave gorgeous toffee and molasses flavours with a salty twang, a bit like the top of a creme brulée. The gorgeous finish delivered rose petals together with a creamy richness together with lively freshness – 97/100 points.

This tasting really excited me and I did not leave thinking these wines were simply alcoholic and sweet. I was blown away by the balance, the integration, the freshness and the elegance of these Ports at every stage of their development. I was also amazed by how the general characteristics of each Quinta showed quite consistently at all ages – Malvedos showed opulence and richly sweet fruit, Bomfim was markedly drier and more austere while Cavadinha always showed an elegance.

The youthful Ports were bright, utterly delicious and intensely fruity. The mature examples were complex and entirely different and showed that although Port is famous it is sadly underrated as a wine. Once aged they are not just about sweetness, but all the other intriguing and complex characters that tamed the sweetness and left them balanced. I could happily pull the cork on any of these and sit in a garden enjoying these wonderfully complex and fascinating wines.

These were great Vintage Ports, they happen to be Single Quinta Vintage Ports, but to taste them was a great privilege and a wonderful, wonderful experience. Do yourself a favour and grab some of the currently available examples to drink this winter and treat yourself to some of the 2006 when they are released on to the market. For my part I intend to get over there and to study this dramatic wine region at first hand as soon as I can.