Australia’s wine dark sea

Go into any supermarket or wine shop and browse the shelves of New World wines and you could be forgiven for thinking that there are only about 6 different grape varieties in existence.

The French role model for wine is so embedded that it is the classic grapes from that country that are most widely used and the styles of France that are emulated around the world.

It therefore comes as quite a shock to learn that most of the wine regions in countries outside Europe have climates very different from those in the classic regions of France, be it Bordeaux or Burgundy.

The harvest at d’Arenberg in the McLaren Vale, perhaps the most Mediterranean-like region of Australia.

Time after time the climates of the wine making zones in Chile, South Africa, California and Australia are described as Mediterranean, and yet most producers in these places grow Chardonnay, Cabernet sauvignon and Merlot. Traditionally only the mavericks and the odd obsessive seem to have actually grown grape varieties that originate in the Mediterranean.

Actually I am nor sure that is entirely true. Very often viticulture in these places began with a wide range of grape varieties, but in modern times the focus has been on the famous ones – which usually turns out to be the French grapes – rather than grape varieties that are associated with less well known and less admired wine types from Europe. Very often all sorts of grapes are grown, often in the most unlikely places, but they do not catch on for all sorts of reasons, be they fashion or snobbery.

Well, I detect a change.

I have experienced that change in Chile  – see here and here – as well as South Africa – see here, California and even New Zealand, but I found the change most marked in my recent trip to Australia.

I took this photograph at Tyrrell’s in the Hunter Valley. All the wines were superb here and I was thrilled to take this photo, but had to wait ages for her to look up so that I could see the joey in the pouch.

Time after time in wine shops, restaurants and wineries I found Australian wines made from an exciting array of grape varieties, quite unlike the relatively narrow range that fills the shelves of the Australian section in wine shops and supermarkets in the UK. There was a huge variety just presented as normal over there and most of the more intriguing grape varieties originated in Mediterranean countries.

As a consequence of the exciting wines that I found in Australia I have recently put on a few very well received tastings of these wines – in the main you have to seek them out, but the work is worth it.

Map of South Eastern Australia – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement.

White Wines

I am always saddened that so few consumers – even in the countries make them –  have caught on to the delights of the white wines from Mediterranean countries. To my mind some of the most exciting white wines around come  from Italy, Spain, Portugal and even Greece – or are made from the grapes that hail from those places. It shouldn’t surprise us really as the cuisine of the Mediterranean tends to go much better with white wine than red. However historically it was much more difficult to make good white wines in hot places until well into the twentieth century, so the white wines of that part of the world were pretty much written off as no good and that reputation has become embedded in our memory.

The Eden Valley, the cool part of Barossa.

2014 Peter Lehman H&V Verdejo
Peter Lehman
Barossa Valley
South Australia

I have long been a fan of Verdejo (Ver-deh-ho) it is a lovely grape that is native to Castilla y León and to my mind makes Spain’s most reliable white wines in the little wine region of Rueda. The grape has travelled a little bit, I have had good Verdejo from Virginia – click here –  for instance, but I was thrilled to find it producing excellent whites in Australia too. Normally Verdejo makes wines that are very much in the mould of a Sauvignon Blanc, but the vine can cope with much hotter conditions that Sauvignon, so it could be a big part of the future of white wine in Australia.

Sadly I rather get the impression that this is the only vintage ever made of this wine. If that is so, they really should rethink as I have shown this at 2 tastings now and people have absolutely loved it.

Interestingly it is quite different from a Spanish Verdejo. It is much lighter, fresher – even at 3 years old – and more zingy. The colour is very pale, while the nose gives lime and tangerine with just a touch of something salty.

The beautiful southern end of the Eden and Barossa Valleys.

The palate is pure, mineral and and light – it is 11.5% abv – with a tiny touch of petillance, clean citrus and light stone fruit. It is very refreshing and quite delicious. The style leans more towards a fine Vinho Verde or Txakoli than Rueda and while it is not like nothing else produced in Australia – except some of the fabulously taut and lean Eden Valley Rieslings – it is a real triumph in my opinion. If you can find any, try it with some garlic prawns, grilled fish or barbecued sardines – 89/100 points.

I can no longer find any stockists for this lovely wine, so contact Peter Lehman wines for information.

Many times on the trip I enjoyed some simply cooked prawns, Moreton Bay Bugs or clams with garlic and oil and lemon together with a glass of white wine made from a suitably Mediterranean grape variety – my favourite place for such delights was Sydney Fish Market or Claypots Evening Star in South Melbourne Market and my favourite grape to accompany them was Fiano which seems to be becoming very popular down under.

The busy but tiny kitchen at Clay Pots Evening Star, a great place for seafood and wine.

2016 Hancock & Hancock Home Vineyard Fiano
Hancock & Hancock
McLaren Vale
South Australia

I like Fiano. It is a fabulous white grape from Campania in southern Italy. Campania is a great region, centred on Naples it produces some of Italy’s most exciting wines, using a palate of high quality indigenous grapes including Fiano. The best examples are widely considered to be those from vineyards on the volcanic slopes around the town of Avellino. Fiano di Avellino is a DOCg and is a prestigious, fine and mineral dry white, while other examples from Campania, grown on non-volcanic soils, tend to be softer and easier to drink.

Fiano is an ancient variety that is believed to have been used to make the famous Apianum wine in Roman times. Back then the grape was known as Vitis Apiana beacuse it apparently attracted bees (apis). Of all Campania’s whites I find the best Fiano to be the most refined and most balanced in terms of fruit and acidity.

Fiano is also found in other parts of Campania, including the Sorrento peninsula, and Puglia – the heel of Italy. I was vaguely aware that a few people grew the grape else where. Jenny Dobson makes one at Bush Hawk Vineyards in New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay, but it seems that Australia has really taken this, slightly exotic grape, to its heart and around 70 producers have now started making examples of Fiano – which is hardly surprising as Italian food and Mediterranean style is big down under, so Fiano would be a perfect accompaniment.

Chris Hancock.

Chris and his brother John Hancock have owned their Home Vineyard in McLaren Vale for over 10 years now. They farm some 80 year old Grenache and Shiraz, together with Cabernet and Touriga, as well as having a 2 hectare plot of Fiano that was head grafted, in situ, onto Chardonnay in 2012. Chris Hancock, who is an honourary Master of Wine, worked with Robert Oatley for many years and Chris is still involved with the Robert Oatley company which distributes his Hancock & Hancock wines.

Hancock & Hancock Home Vineyard – photo courtesy of the winery.

A part of this was fermented in neutral, old, oak barrels to give roundness and volume rather than flavour, but most was fermented in stainless steel at low temperatures.

To look at the wine has a crystalline purity about it, then on the nose it has nectarine and white peach together with some lemon zest, dry honey and herbs. On the palate there lots of fruit giving a juiciness which is then balanced by freshness and a little taut minerality in the background. The texture is succulent, ever so slightly creamy even which together with the lemon, stone fruit and touch of herbs makes it delicious and very drinkable.

It is light and crisp enough to be refreshing, yet juicy enough and succulent enough to feel interesting and more complex. In a kind of way it shows the ripeness of the place it is from and some the beguiling minerality of the grape, which gives it an inbuilt tension. Lovely with fish, chicken, Mediterranean food, or just to drink on its own – 91/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £14 per bottle from:
The Oxford Wine Company, Farnham Wine Cellar, Flagship Wines, The Wine Reserve, Drinkfinder, Amazon.co.uk, Eynsham Cellars, Luvians Bottleshop, Ann et Vin, Warren Wines & Amp Fine Wines. More stockist information is available from Hatch Mansfield, the distributor.

2016 Jim Barry Assyrtiko
Jim Barry Wines
Clare Valley
South Australia

The wonderful Assyrtiko grape is the main grape variety used on the island of Santorini in Greece. This amazing grape is responsible for producing some of the very finest dry white wines – and great dessert wines too – of the entire Mediterranean world. At their best these wines are bright, mineral and refreshing and there is nothing better with a bit of fish or some calamares. If you like crisp, dry, taut white wines, along the lines of Sancerre or Chablis, then you would certainly like a dry white Santorini.

Sue and Peter Barry in the Lodge Hill Vineyard August 2012.

Peter Barry certainly does. He is the third generation winemaker at his family’s Jim Barry winery in South Australia’s Clare Valley. In 2006 he and his wife Sue were on holiday on Santorini and they were astonished by the quality of the local wines. Their bracing acidity reminded them of the Rieslings that they made back home, but they had something extra too. That something extra was probably minerality, which is what the combination of the Assytiko grape and the volcanic soils delivers.

Peter had got the bug and returned to the island in 2008 in order to collect some cuttings of Assyrtiko from the always excellent Ktima Aryros, Argyros Estate. After a period of quarantine the vines were eventually planted at their beautiful Lodge Hill Vineyard. Peter was convinced that although the soils were very different, the other conditions would really suit Assyrtiko.

Lodge Hill Vineyard.

There is nothing fancy about the winemaking here, just perfectly ripe grapes cold fermented at low temperatures in order to retain all the freshness and delicate flavours of the grape.

The nose is lovely, floral, citric and lifted with some richer notes of apricot and pear and even a hint of sage. The palate is gorgeous, bright, fresh, pure and pristine with a lovely little touch of silky succulence balancing the high acidity. There are lime, orange, pear, apricot and nectarine flavours together with a little chalky minerality. It balances purity and freshness with fruit and texture beautifully. It’s quite a beguiling wine, but in the end delivers a wonderfully vibrant wine with crisp acidity, pure minerality and delicious fruit. It is a tad richer and softer than a Santorini, but that just adds to the sensation of trying something totally new. This is a fine white wine – 93/100 points.

This is a perfect wine to serve with some clams in white wine and garlic, seared scallops, grilled prawns, moreton bay bugs, some sea bass, sea bream, swordfish or tuna, or try it with spaghetti all vongole. 

By the way, they only made around 3,000 bottles, so grab it while you can!

Available in the UK for around £20 per bottle from:
Corking Wines, Noel Young Wines, The Solent Cellar, D Vine Cellars, Eagle’s Wines,Vagabond and House of Townend.

Red Wines

The reds are just as exciting and more prolific too. Everywhere I went there were delicious Mediterranean grapes on offer, even places that didn’t release one often had them to taste. The wonderful restaurant at Innocent Bystander in the Yarra Valley offered litres of Sangiovese straight from the barrel, but did not sell it to take away. It went superbly with their fabulous pizzas and local meats.

2015 La La Land Tempranillo
Wingara Wines
Murray Darling
Victoria

Tempranillo is of course famous as the main grape of Rioja. In Rioja the style of wine is as much about the ageing in wooden barrels as anything else, so the fruit is not always the most important character of the wine. Elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula you get Rioja look alikes as well as wines with brighter fruit and less obvious oak ageing. Very often in Iberia Tempranillo goes by other local names such as; Ull de Llebre (Catalunya), Cencibel (La Mancha), Tinto Fino, Tinto del Pais, Tinto del Toro (Castilla y León), Aragonez (southern Portugal) and Tinta Roriz (northern Portugal, especially the Douro).

Although there are some plantings of Tempranillo in Argentina, Chile, California, New Zealand and South Africa I have always been surprised that the grape has not yet really broken through to be a proper mainstream international grape variety. Well, there was a lot of it in the wine shops in Australia, so perhaps its time has come?

Wingara are a big company who make huge volumes of wine, they also own the Deakin Estate and the Katnook Estate in Coonawarra, and this wine comes from their vineyards in the Murray Darling Sunraysia region, which straddles the border between New South Wales and Victoria near the border with South Australia. The vineyards are in Mildura, right on the border with New South Wales. This is a huge region that is irrigated and geared up for volume. However Australia often shows that volume and quality often go hand in hand and this is a terrific wine that is aged for some 8 months in used American oak.

You have to put Rioja out of your mind with this wine. It gives aromas of plums, rich, jammy strawberries, vanilla and sweet spice. The palate soft, juicy and fleshy with sweet red fruit and sweet, ripe tannins, a twist of something darker, vanilla and a light dusting of spice.

This is unashamedly a crowd pleaser of a wine and it certainly pleased my crowds and I know from experience that it goes with almost anything, even chilled at a barbecue – 88/100 points.

Available in the UK for £9.99 per bottle from:
Majestic Wine Warehouse.

2016 The Bullet Dodger Montepulciano
Delinquente Wine Company
Riverland
South Australia

Not a grape you often see in Australia, but the the guys at Delinquente – pronounced ‘dellin-qwentay’, it’s Italian for delinquent – seem to like being different. The driving force is the wonderfully named Con-Greg Grigoriou. They use Italian grapes and one of their team, Jason Ankles, draws their striking, if somewhat disturbing labels.

Riverland is not a glamorous wine region. It is one of the big irrigated regions of Australia that traditionally produces work horse wines rather than boutique wines, Berri Estates, Banrock Station and Angove’s are all nearby. However, Con-Greg loves the place. He grew up here by the Murray River and is utterly convinced that it can makes wines as good as anywhere else in the country – on this showing I would have to agree.

Con-Greg Grigoriou amongst his Riverland vines.

Montepulciano is widely grown in Italy, in fact it can be used in over 40 different DOCs or DOCgs. The most famous wine it makes though is Montepulciano d’Abruzzo on the Adriatic coast of Italy. These are usually attractively fruity, inexpensive, easy drinking wines with soft tannins, but there are more ambitious versions produced as well as some impressive examples from the Conero DOCg in the Marche region near Ancona.

The fruit is all from a single vineyard, owned by Bassham Wines in Barmera. It was originally planted with Chardonnay, but was top grafted- i.e. in situ – in 2009 with more adventurous grape varieties and it is farmed organically. It is fermented in stainless steel and sees no wood at all. The aim appears to be to capture the pure, vivid, ripe fruit and he succeeds in that. The palate is succulent, juicy, creamy and generous like a smoothie of rich plum, black cherry and blackberry together with a little spice. The tannins are very soft, so the wine has no astringency and I defy anyone not to enjoy it. This is utterly delicious and comforting in a richly hedonistic way – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK from £14 per bottle from:
The Good Wine Shop, Forest Wines, Kwoff, Unwined in Tooting. More Information is available from Indigo Wines, the UK distributor.

I’m not very good at drinking red wine without food, but this could do the trick. It would also be perfect with a barbecue, or almost any meaty or rich food actually, but I enjoyed my bottle with a curry, it was a great match.

2014 Robert Oatley Signature GSM
Robert Oatley Wines
McLaren Vale
South Australia

Perhaps this is not as unusual or surprising as the other wines in the line up, but it’s really good and fits the theme perfectly. Australian GSM blends – Grenache-Shiraz-Mourvèdre have been with us for quite a while and are gaining popularity. Who knows they may well have kick started the whole Mediterranean grape wave in Australia.  Mourvèdre by the way is the same grape as  Mataro and Monastrell. Of course the blend is a nod towards the style of Côtes-du-Rhône and Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

The late Robert Oatley.

Bob Oatley was one of the great characters of Australian wine who founded the famous Rosemount Estate nearly 50 years ago. Rosemount was immensely successful and it grew from a tiny boutique estate into a giant winery and Robert eventually sold it in 2001. However by this time he had also bought the venerable Craigmoor Winery in Mudgee in New South Wales and set up Oatley Vineyards there. This slowly became the hub of an enterprise that makes wine right across the premium vineyard sites of Australia and has cellar doors and restaurants in the Mudgee and Margaret River regions. In the 1990’s Robert Oatley was the first person to make a wine as a ‘GSM’.

This wine is a blend of 50% Grenache, 45% Shiraz and 5% Mourvèdre from southern McLaren Vale, which has a distinctly Mediterranean climate and a gentle maritime influence. The blend is matured in French oak barrels for 9 months.

It’s a wine that always goes down well, with warm aromas of mixed red fruit, rich strawberry and cherry, spices and a touch of leather. The palate is juicy, mouth-coating and sumptuous with concentrated red fruit, liquorice, sweet spice and savoury, gamey, earthy notes and all the while it has that hallmark South Australian softness. All in all a delicious and very, very drinkable wine – 90/100 points.

Serve it with slow cooked lamb, venison, kangaroo, lamb kebabs cooked on rosemary twigs, shepherd’s pie or just about anything hearty.

Available in the UK for around £15.00 per bottle from:
The Oxford Wine Company, The Halifax Wine Company, Just in Cases, Fareham Wine Cellar, Winedrop & the Clifton Cellars. More stockist information is available from Hatch Mansfield, the distributor.

2012 Alpha Box & Dice Xola Aglianico
Alpha Box & Dice / Viottolo Vineyards
McLaren Vale
South Australia

Aglianico (Ali-ani-coe) is yet another great Italian grape variety. Like Fiano it comes from Campania in the south where it makes all sorts of red wines, and the odd rosé, but is most famous for producing Taurasi GOCg in central Campania and Aglianico del Vulture in the wild landscape of Basilicata.

I love Taurasi. At its best it can be one of the very best red wines of Italy, but the grape is very tannic and very acidic – it’s often called the Barolo of the south, although it is much more full-bodied – so it is best to drink it from a producer who really knows what they are doing. Some of the best examples that I have ever tasted are made by the wonderful Raffaele Guastaferro of Cantine Guastaferro – he uses 200 year old vines! – the wonderful Feudo di San Gregorio and the lovely Milena Pepe who makes a huge range of fabulous wines at Tenuta Cavalier Pepe.

Because it can be such a hard grape, I was very excited to find Aglianico in Australia and hoped that the longer growing season and more sun would tame the grape’s wild nature. I was not disappointed.

Alpha Box & Dice cellar door.

Alpha Box & Dice is a little like Delinquente in that they present themselves to the world in a very modern way rather like craft beer producers do. Indeed much like craft beer you will struggle to find any actual information on their labels, just striking artwork and strange mottos for life. The place is quite extraordinary with a very relaxed feel and lots of mismatched furniture at the cellar door, but the wines are breathtaking.

The farming here is all biodynamic and while the labels seem cool and amusing you get the feel that the winemaking is taken very seriously indeed – I think you have to with a grape like Aglianico.

The grape is a very late ripener and even in Australia it is not picked until the very end of the season in late April. Once the grapes have been de-stemmed, to help reduce tannin, and the fermentation has taken place the wine is aged in used oak barrels for 36 months. This allows the air to trickle in and soften the tannins in the wine.

Oh my I loved this, it looks quite earthy and garnet with an amazing nose of flowers, balsamic, umami, liquorice, dried fruit and spice with some coffee thrown in. The palate is a shock, even here in Australia it is very acidic – in a good way – with rich cherry, some blackberry, plum, dry, peppery spice, leather, coffee, meat and lovely supple, ripe tannins that just nibble at your gums. A heady wine indeed that needs chargrilled meat or some really good beef – 93/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £20 per bottle from:
All About Wine, Vincognito, Drinkmonger and WoodWinters. More stockist information is available from Boutinot, the distributor.

2010 D’Arenberg The Cenosilicaphobic Cat Sagrantino-Cinsault
D’Arenberg
McLaren Vale
South Australia

Sagrantino is an amazing grape variety that is nowhere near as well known as it ought to be. It comes from Umbria in Italy where it is used to make the Sagrantino di Montefalco DOCg wines and the Montefalco DOC wines that blend it with at least 70% Sangiovese to soften the tannins.

I love D’Arenberg, they are quirky and inventive and never afraid to put themselves out there. The Osborn family have owned it since 1912 and d’Arenberg Osborn – d’Arry – and his son Chester have achieved great things over the last 50 years or so. They actually released the first successful table wine in South Australia as recently as 1955. This was d’Arry’s Original, then called a Red Burgundy, now labelled as Shiraz-Grenache! Their range is large and idiosyncratic, but never disappoints.

Chester & d’Arry Osborn.

This particular wine was new to me this year and I am thrilled by it. 85% Sagrantino is tamed by 15% of light, spicy Cinsault and the South Australian sun. Some of the wine is trodden by foot, it is basket pressed and aged for 2 years in old French and American oak barrels, just to let the air soften those hard ‘gritty’ tannins. Cenosilicaphobic by the way means the fear of an empty glass!

Foot treading the Sagrantino at d’Arenberg.

This is another full on wine with aromas of dried cherry, chocolate, plums, earth, mocha and something wild and floral about it – possibly from the Cinsault. The palate is full and rich with a nice combination of soft, voluptuous richness and hard edged richness. There’re rich fruit, liquorice, balsamic, spices, coffee, chocolate and while there are plenty of tannins they are not aggressive and they have been tamed. A wonderful wine to enjoy with stews and pies – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK for around £20 per bottle from:
Quality Wines, ND John, Auswinesonline.co.uk, Drink Finder. More stockist information is available from Enotria & Coe, the distributor.

I would also add that the Wine Society has a wonderful range of own label Australian wines called Blind Spot and that too includes some wines made from some less well known grape varieties. As you can probably guess some of these excellent wines are made from grapes from the Mediterranean world. These include Garganega – a white Italian grape variety famously used to make Soave – and a Barbera – a black grape more normally associated with Piemonte, both from King Valley in north east Victoria near the border with New South Wales. Then there is a delicious Old Vine Mataro – also known as Mourvèdre and Monastrell – from McLaren Vale in South Australia. In my opinion everyone in the UK who is interested in wine should be a member of the Wine Society, as their range is superb and beautifully put together.

So you see there is a great deal of variety available from Australia, even though they might not be in every supermarket. Australia can do so much more than Cabernet, Shiraz and Chardonnay and can bring its own style to a whole raft of grape varieties more normally associated with the Mediterranean world. What’s more all these wines are absolutely delicious and really food friendly too.

Wine of the Week – A Bit of Australian Hedonism

South Australia vineyards.

Australia is a great and exciting wine producing country and I discovered lots of amazing things on my tour there last year. One of the refreshing things going on down under is groups of independent, young, fearless winemakers making boutique wines in rented winery space in unlikely corners of Australia’s vineyards. In many ways they resemble the bands of hip craft brewers that seem to roam east London, New Zealand and the US.

These are often made in unusual styles and from grape varieties not normally associated with Australian wine. I tasted a good few of that sort of thing, for instance there is quite a fashion nowadays for Spanish and Italian grape varieties from Australia. I have tried some excellent Tempranillo and Garnacha from the Barossa Valley, Fiano from the McLaren Vale, Vermentino from all sorts of places and most recently a delicious Montepulciano from Riverland in South Australia.

In fact it was so delicious that I made it my Wine of the Week.

Map of South Eastern Australia, this wine comes from eastern Riverland, near the state border – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement.

2016 The Bullet Dodger Montepulciano
Delinquente Wine Company
Riverland
South Australia

Not a grape you often see in Australia, but the the guys at Delinquente – pronounced ‘dellin-qwentay’, it’s Italian for delinquent – seem to like being different. The driving force is the wonderfully named Con-Greg Grigoriou. They use Italian grapes and one of their team, Jason Ankles, draws their striking, if somewhat disturbing labels.

Riverland is not a glamorous wine region. It is one of the big irrigated regions of Australia that traditionally produces work horse wines rather than the boutique wines, Berri Estates, Banrock Station and Angove’s are all nearby. However, Con-Greg loves the place. He grew up here by the Murray River and is utterly convinced that it can makes wines as good as anywhere else in the country – on this showing I would have to agree.

Con-Greg Grigoriou amongst his Riverland vines.

Montepulciano is widely grown in Italy, in fact it can be used in over 40 different DOCs or DOCgs. The most famous wine it makes though is Montepulciano d’Abruzzo on the Adriatic coast of Italy. These are usually attractively fruity, inexpensive, easy drinking wines with soft tannins, but there are more ambitious versions produced as well as some impressive Montepulciano and Sangiovese blends from the Conero DOCg in the Marche region near Ancona.

The fruit is all from a single vineyard, owned by Bassham Wines in Barmera. It was originally planted with Chardonnay, but was top grafted- i.e. in situ – in 2009 with more adventurous grape varieties and it is farmed organically. It is fermented in stainless steel and sees no wood at all. The aim appears to be to capture the pure, vivid, ripe fruit and he succeeds in that. The palate is succulent, juicy, creamy and generous like a smoothie of rich plum, black cherry and blackberry together with a little spice. The tannins are very soft, so the wine has no astringency and I defy anyone not to enjoy it. This is utterly delicious and comforting in a richly hedonistic way – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK from £14 per bottle from: The Good Wine Shop, Forest Wines, Kwoff, Unwined in Tooting. More Information is available from Indigo Wines, the UK distributor.

I’m not very good at drinking red wine without food, but this could do the trick. It would also be perfect with a barbecue, or almost any meaty or rich food actually, but I enjoyed my bottle with a curry, it was a great match.

Normally with my Wine of the Week, I talk about a specific wine, but use it to inform my readers about that region and style, so that they can try other wines from that place or grape regardless of whether they can find the specific wine. With this it is bit more tricky and I suppose the real message here is to drink widely and to experiment.

Australian Luxury

Like lots of us in wine I have tried a great many Australian wines in my time.  Many of the wines that excited me in my youth came from down under, but I have rather foolishly ignored what Australia can offer for far too long. However, a few experiences recently have made me realise that I should rekindle that dormant passion and renew acquaintance with some of the amazing wines that Australia makes.

Some recent Australian highlights have been a range of wines from Grant Burge – whose sensational Barossa Valley wines should be more widely celebrated – and unearthing a bottle of 1992 Lindemans Limestone Ridge Coonawarra Shiraz-Cabernet. This had been sleeping in my wine rack and had developed more complexity than I would ever have imagined. Interstingly the current vintage, 2008, has 14.5% alcohol – whereas my 1992 came in at just 12.5%.

So this new found desire to study Australia more together with my ongoing mission to discover great wines that do not require a mortgage for me to buy them, took me to this years Wolf Blass Luxury Release tasting.

Empire Sate of Wine – New York’s Finger Lakes Region

Sunrise over Keuka Lake – photo courtesy of Dr Frank.

Understandably most UK wine drinkers think that American wine is pretty much all from California. Certainly California is the most important of the wine producing states, but there are some superb wines made elsewhere in the US too.

Some consumers are aware of wines from Oregon and possibly Washington State, but usually my students are astonished when I tell them about wines from Virginia, Texas, Utah or New York state.

Wine is actually made from freshly gathered grapes in all 50 states – yes even Hawaii and Alaska.

The United States is currently the fourth largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, France and Spain, and California accounts for around 85% of it. Washington State, in the Pacific North West, is next at just over 5%, while New York comes in third by making about 3.5% of American wine.

And it is the wines of New York that are the subject of my article this month. In particular a region called the Finger Lakes.

Lake Erie has around 20,000 acres of vineyard is by far the biggest producing wine region in New York, but about 95% of that is Concord grapes destined for use in Welch’s Purple Grape Juice.

So the Finger Lakes, with around 10,000 acres (4,500 hectares) and some 120 wineries – Lake Erie can boast a mere 19 producers, is actually the most important wine region in New York state.

The Finger Lakes is a beautiful part of the world and I was totally captivated by it when I visited. I think what makes it especially magical is that we all have a mental picture of New York in our heads and this area is picturesque and very rural, so completely different. 

Wine has been made here since the early nineteenth century, but in the past it was almost solely vitis labrusca, the indigenous type of North American vine, rather than vitis vinfera, the European strain of vine used for wine.

Wine map of New York State – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement.

Dr Konstantin Frank

It was not until 1958 that Dr Konstantin Frank showed that vitis vinfera grapes could successfully be grown here as long as a hardy American root stock was used. Frank was a Ukranian immigrant with a PhD in viticulture and had a great deal of experience growing grapes in his cold homeland.

Dr Konstantin Frank – photo courtesy of Dr Frank.

Ever since Europeans arrived in North America they had been trying to grow European vitis vinfera vines. This is because the abundant indigenous grapes produce wines with a distinctive ‘foxy’ smell that can be musky and off-putting. From my limited experience of wines made from these grapes – especially Concord – the only way round this is to make the wines sweet enough to mask the foxy qualities. However, phylloxera lives on the Eastern seaboard of North America and these aphids feast on the leaves and roots of grape vines and ultimately destroy the plant, so settlers in America found it impossible to grow European vines. American vines are hardier and immune to the ravages of phyloxerra.

Vitis Vinifera left, American grape variety right – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Even after the solution of grafting the vitis vinfera vine onto an American vine root was discovered, no one had found a way to make it work in upstate New York. Most growers were convinced that it was the extreme cold of the winters killing the vines, but Dr Franc was convinced that it was because they were not using suitable rootstocks for the particular vines. Initially he worked at the Cornell University’s Experiment Station in Geneva, at the top of Seneca Lake, before finding an ally in Charles Fournier. Charles ran Gold Seal Vineyards making sparkling wine from French-American hybrid grapes – which are crossings of vitis vinfera and American grape varieties. However, he was anxious to find a way of growing vitis vinfera as he knew that would improve the quality of his wines. Dr Frank worked here throughout the 1950s and the breakthrough came when he imported Native American Rootstock from Quebec, which proved both phylloxera resistant and capable of surviving the harsh Finger Lake winters. Dr Frank set up the first modern winery in the region, Dr Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Cellars, in 1962.

Dr Frank’s vineyards – photo courtesy of Dr Frank.

The Finger Lakes AVA

Cayuga Lake Aerial View – photo courtesy of New York Wines.

Today the Finger Lakes is a fully fledged AVA or American Viticultural Area, which is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States. The AVA rules guarantee where the grapes are grown, they do not stipulate or restrict grape variety, yield or wine making techniques and so are more akin to PGI (Vin de Pays) regulations than European PDOs (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlé).

As you might imagine from their name, the Finger Lakes are long and narrow. Cayuga is the biggest at 40 miles long and just 3.5 miles wide. Seneca is 38 miles long and 3 miles wide, Canandaigua 16 miles long and 1.5 miles wide.

Traditionally grape growing and wine making in the Finger Lakes is centred around the four main lakes of Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga. The last two lakes, Seneca and Cayuga, are especially deep which creates different climatic conditions, allowing for a longer growing season, so these lakes have their own AVAs.

Keuka Lake Aerial View – photo courtesy of New York Wines.

There are actually eleven lakes in total, some very small, and all of them, except Hemlock, have Native American names. 

Canandaigua means ‘The Chosen Spot’, Keuka ‘Canoe Landing’, Seneca ‘Place of the Stone’ and Cayuga ‘Boat Landing’.

In effect it is the presence of the lakes that makes viticulture possible here. The region actually sits just above 42˚ latitude, the same as Rias Baixas in Galicia, but upstate New York enjoys a climate of extremes with hot summers and very cold snowy winters – so much so that nearby Lake Placid has twice hosted the Winter Olympics.

However the lakes temper the extreme continental climate and keep it mild compared to the surrounding conditions. The Lakes are deep, Seneca just shy of 200 metres, Cayuga over 130 metres, Canandaigua 80 metres and Keuka just under 60 metres. These deep bodies of water keep the air that little bit warmer during the winter, so preventing frost, and cooler during the summer, so lengthening the ripening season. The lakes also give better sun exposure, as the vineyards are mainly south facing and slope down towards the lakes.

The Cauyga Effect

I visited Sheldrake Point Vineyard early on in my trip to the region and it taught me a great deal about the Finger Lakes. 

Sheldrake Point Vineyards, Cayuga Lake – photo courtesy of Sheldrake Point.

Sheldrake Point is a relatively new winery, founded in 1997 by Chuck Tauck. Like the region’s pioneers, Dr Frank and Hermann Wiemer, he chose a sheltered site on the western shore of one of the Finger Lakes – Cayuga Lake in this instance.

Cayuga vies with Senaca for being the largest of the Finger Lakes, both are around 40 miles long. Although Cayuga is not as deep as Seneca, it is still a large body of water that helps to temper the climate and keep the conditions that little bit warmer than the surrounding countryside, so allowing the delicate vitis vinfera grapes to survive the harsh winter conditions.

Sheldrake Point comprises a single block of vines that slopes down to the lake and they have only ever wanted to grow vinifera grapes and they stick to that – that is one reason they chose this site.

Sheldrake Point Vineyards, Cayuga Lake – photo courtesy of Sheldrake Point.

Time and time again in the Finger Lakes region I was told that if vitis vinfera are to survive, let alone thrive, then they must be grown within sight of the water. Sheldrake Point is an actual point or peninsula sticking out into the lake which puts the shore of the estate – and so its vines – right at the lake’s deepest spot. That means that this mass of water, which cools and heats more slowly than the land, protects the vines over winter and gives a longer growing season in the summer as well. In addition the east facing site gives them a little bit more sunshine each day in the spring than their colleagues on the eastern shore of the lakes – this helps to prevent frost and diseases, which are both serious problems in the region.

The slope is not dramatic – the top is 176 metres above sea level with the bottom at 140 metres above sea level, which is 6 metres above the level of Cayuga Lake – but it is vital, allowing excellent air drainage. 

The cold air flows down to the lake where it displaces hotter air that then flows up – this gives them a degree or so higher temperatures than inland. It’s not much but in a marginal climate like this it can make a big difference to ripeness, complexity and the grape varieties that you can grow. The warmest conditions are at the shoreline, so that is where the more demanding vines are grown, those that need more sun and ripeness, in particular Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. They call all this the Cauyga Effect, but there is a similar lake effect for every vineyard in the region.

Jetty on Cayuga Lake at Sheldrake Point Vineyards – photo courtesy of Sheldrake Point.

Making wine in a region like this is not easy. It is a marginal climate with vintage variation and sometimes very unkind weather, so estates often grow a wide range of grape varieties just to ensure that they actually get a crop despite the weather. Before the vitis vinfera revolution vitis labrusca and hybrids were grown successfully. If you ever travel around the Finger Lakes, do try the local red wines made from Concord grapes and some of the intriguing blends such as Lakewood Vineyard’s Long Stem Red which is made from 40% De Chaunac, 25% Vincent 13% Frontenac, 12% Leon Millot and 10% Baco Noir!

It is undeniable that vitis vinfera varieties seem to the best and most complex results in the Finger Lakes, especially Riesling for the whites.  Gewürztraminer, Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris can all do well here too though, as can Rkatsiteli, which is originally from Georgia (Joseph Stalin Georgia, not Jimmy Carter Georgia). Chardonnay can produce good results on particular sites as well.

As for black grapes, Pinot Noir is the great success story here, but you also find lovely examples of Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Blaufrankisch – often called Lemberger around here – as well as some Cabernet, Merlot and blends of them in especially favoured sites. Georgia’s Saperavi also seems to be doing some good things. 

Recommended wineries:

Dr Konstantin Frank, Keuka Lake

Fred Frank Demonstrating the Traditional Method – photo by Quentin Sadler.

The original Finger Lakes estate that focussed solely on vitis vinifera and very much the big producer here. That being said they are still family owned and being run by third generation Fred Frank and his daughter Meaghan. Because they have been growing vinifera grapes here longer than anyone else, with some parcels dating back to 1958, they have some of the oldest vines in the Eastern United States.

They also lead the way in hand riddled and very fine traditional method sparkling wines, which are not exported. Their Old Vine Pinot Noir is not exported to the UK either, which is a shame as it is excellent and one of the best value American Pinots there is.

Try: Dr Konstantin Frank Dry Riesling, a very fresh style with lime acidity, green apple crispness and a softness from five months lees ageing – a great introduction to the region and what they do.

Also try: Dr Konstantin Frank Cabernet Franc, a light red for sure but with lovely violet notes, juicy plums and crunchy red fruit as well as a little savoury earthiness and spice from gentle ageing in French oak.

Dr Konstantin Frank’s wines are distributed in the UK by Matthew Clark.

Hermann J Wiemer, Seneca Lake

Hermann J Wiemer Vineyards and Winery in Winter – photo courtesy of Hermann J Wiemer.

Hermann Wiemer was from Germany’s Mosel region. His father was in charge of the Agricultural Experiment Station in Bernkastel where he was responsible for restoring vineyards after World War II and it was this connection that led him to work at the research station at Cornell University and so to New York’s Finger Lakes. Here he soon realised that he had stumbled across a region capable of producing great cool climate wines.

Wiemer was drawn to Seneca lake and in 1973 he purchased 140 acres on the lake’s west shore. Unusually for the region in the 1970s Hermann decided only to grow vinifera grapes. He planted many different grape varieties but Riesling was and remains the focus of the winery.

Fred Merwarth and Oskar Bynke – photo by Quentin Sadler.

The estate is now owned and run by winemaker Fred Merwarth and agronomist Oskar Bynke, both of whom trained and worked with Hermann before he retired. They farm sustainably and are moving towards biodynamic status. The wines all have a lovely texture because of spontaneous fermentations and long lees ageing.

I find it strange that these wines are not available in the UK as when I went to the region and every time I attend a Finger Lakes tasting, Wiemer really shines out – come on someone bring these wines in, please.

Try: Hermann J Wiemer HJW Vineyard Riesling, a selection from the oldest blocks that Wiemer planted in the mid 1970s. It is a very complex and delicious style that shows a purity and minerality on the finish.

Also try: Hermann J Wiemer Riesling, as great as the HJW Riesling is, this wine is their calling card and is much cheaper, but still very fine.

They recently also bought Standing Stone Vineyards, which was originally planted by Charles Fournier in the 1970s. Standing Stone makes a gorgeously suave and juicy Saperavi.

Hermann J Wiemer’s wines are not currently exported to the UK.

Forge Cellars, Seneca Lake 

Forge Cellars, Seneca Lake – photo courtesy of Forge Cellars.

A new artisan cellar created by three friends  – Frenchman Louis Barruol (whose family have owned Château de Saint Cosme in Gigondas for generations), Rick Rainey and Justin Boyette – who all love terroir wines, share a passion for the Finger Lakes and believe it to be a world class wine region.   

They farm their vineyards sustainably and practice biodiversity, with plants, fruit trees and farm animals around the vines. They also help other grape growers, whose grapes they use, to manage their vineyards to achieve the very best results that they can – such professional help is very useful and beneficial to the region as a whole, given that many local grape growers are not as experienced.

As is normal in the Finger Lakes, the aim here is purity, to express the terroir of the place rather than a winemaking footprint.

Vineyards on Seneca Lake – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Try: Forge Cellar Classique Riesling, an extraordinary wine, bright and pure with pithy lime and dense, stony minerality. The silky texture is backed up by a kiss of oak.

Also try: Forge Cellar Classique Pinot Noir, one of my favourite Finger Lakes Pinots, it is scented and has palate has vivid red fruit and delicate, smoky, savoury, herbal flavours and a suave, refined texture.

Forge Cellars’s wines are distributed in the UK by Bibendum.

Nathan K, Seneca Lake 

Nathan Kendall – photo courtesy of Nathan K.

I was fortunate enough to bump into Nathan Kendall at an event, just before lockdown. He was charming and fascinating. He comes from upstate New York and always wanted to make wine in Seneca Lake, but he chose to travel the world and make wine in other regions first, including Sonoma, Oregon, New Zealand, Australia and, perhaps most tellingly, the Mosel. All these places specialise in cool climate varieties, because the plan was always to go back to Seneca. He eventually returned home and now focuses just on Riesling, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as well as some sparkling wine.

Like the other wineries here he is excited by low interventionist winemaking, minerality and texture as well as the purity that a cool climate can produce in these grapes. Long spontaneous fermentations, used French oak and long lees ageing helps to give complexity and mouthfeel, even to his Rieslings.

Seneca Lake panorama – photo courtesy of Red Newt.

Try: Nathan K Dry Riesling, a pure, vivd, lime-drenched and mandarin-scented wine that leaps out of the glass at you.

Also try: Nathan K Pinot Noir, a pale Pinot with plenty of flavour. Fruit forward with enticing raspberry and cherry notes and savoury complexity from oak ageing.

Nathan K wines are distributed in the UK by Top Selection.

Red Newt Cellars, Seneca Lake

By Finger Lake standards Red Newt was a pioneer as it was set up in 1998 as the brainchild and passion of David and Debra Whiting. The region is in their blood with David having been the winemaker at Chateau Lafayette Reneau (who make superb Riesling), Swedish Hill Vineyards (who make the best Concord I have ever tasted, and Standing Stone Vineyards, now owned by Wiemer. 

Glacier Ridge Vineyard, Seneca Lake – photo courtesy of Red Newt.

David’s wife, Debra, was a fine chef and opened the Red Newt Bistro at the winery in 1999. I was fortunate enough to meet her and to eat a memorable meal with her not that long before her untimely death. Her influence in this region that has very few restaurants cannot be denied. More wineries now have restaurants and that is in no small way because of her.

David has now taken over the restaurant and passed on the winemaking to Kelby Russell who is utterly charming, knows the region inside out and is another winemaker who has worked around the world in cool climate regions.

Red Newt panorama – photo courtesy of Red Newt.

Try: Red Newt Cellars The Knoll Lahoma Vineyards Riesling, complex and generous Riesling, with a smoky, leesy quality and an explosion of lime and grapefruit. 

Also try: Red Newt Cellars Glacier Ridge Vineyard Pinot Noir, Fermented with wild yeast and given 10 months ageing in older barriques, then bottled without fining or filtering. A glorious Pinot with bright cherry, savoury earth and refined tannins.

Red Newts’s wines are not currently exported to the UK.

Sheldrake Point Vineyards, Cayuga Lake 

Sheldrake Point Vineyards, Cayuga Lake – photo courtesy of Sheldrake Point.

Sheldrake Point is not a large estate, currently they have around 60 acres of vines – 25 hectares – although they own another 30 that can be brought into production. From this they make some 8,500 cases of wines and in keeping with the general trend of the region over 70% of this is sold on site, through their shop and restaurant – they have a beautiful winery shop and gift shop full of tempting things as well as the Simply Red Lakeside Bistro where I enjoyed one of the best meals of my trip.

Try: Sheldrake Point Gamay, a delicious take on the Beaujolais grape. French oak gives texture and spice, while the fresh, bright red fruit is immediately appealing.

Also try: Sheldrake Point Gewürztraminer, a nicely balanced, aromatic example with plenty of spice and a hint of sweetness, but there is some nice fresh acidity too.

Sheldrake Point’s wines are not currently exported to the UK.

Ravine’s Wine Cellars, Keuka Lake 

Morten and Lisa Hallgren of Ravines Vineyards – photo courtesy of Skurnik Wines.

Ravine’s Wine Cellars is the creation of Morten and Lisa Hallgren. Morton is originally from Copenhagen where he lived right by the Carlsberg Brewery, but at the age of 14 his family moved to the Vars region of France where his parents owned and operated Domaine de Castel Roubine. He trained in winemaking at Montpellier University, worked at Cos d’Estournel with Bruno Pratts and eventually ended up in the Finger Lakes where he worked as the wine maker at Dr Frank’s.

Morton sustainably farms 130 acres of his own vineyards on Seneca and Keuka lakes. In addition he buys fruit from vineyards that he deems to be especially good. When I visited Morton’s wines really stood out and other commentators have confirmed to me that they still are among the very best wines in the Finger Lakes region.

Try: Ravine’s Argetsinger Dry Riesling, made from a single parcel on Keuka Lake, it has purity and energy and remains amongst the best Rieslings that I have ever tasted.

Also try: Ravine’s Maximilien (Bordeaux Blend), for me this is the best Cabernet-Merlot blend – or indeed any red made from grapes other than Pinot Noir – from the Finger Lakes that I have tasted.

Ravine’s wines are not currently exported to the UK.

Wines Worth Discovering

The Finger Lakes has a marginal climate and therefore never produces big blockbuster wines. They tend to be fresher, lighter and lower in alcohol. However the winemakers really understand their land and what it can do. So by concentrating on delicate varieties like Riesling and Pinot Noir, other than in certain special sites, they are producing some really exciting wines that show a very different side to American viticulture. There are plenty of really delicious and interesting wines made here that can offer us something different, exciting and a little challenging.

The region is also well worth a visit as it is very beautiful. More information is available at these websites:

https://www.fingerlakestravelny.com

https://www.visitfingerlakes.com

https://www.fingerlakeswinecountry.com

https://www.fingerlakes.com

https://www.iloveny.com/places-to-go/finger-lakes/

https://www.fingerlakes.org

 

Wine of the Week – a delicious Riesling

A Happy New Year to you all.

My first piece of 2020 is a Wine of the Week. It is also a bin end bargain, so grab it quick!

Clare Valley vineyards in South Australia.

As many of you will know, I – and most people in the wine trade – love Riesling. I think it is the combination of delicate, hinted flavours, purity, minerality and acidity that draws me back to Riesling time after time. It also partners the sort of Asiatic and Mediterranean flavours that I like to eat. If that sounds counterintuitive, try a dry Riesling with Spaghetti Vongoli, it is a great combination.

The other day I tasted a really delicious Riesling that I think may of you would enjoy. I showed it in a tasting class and was very impressed. When I saw the price I was amazed and then I saw that it was reduced even further!

Map of South Eastern Australia, Clare Vally is north of Adelaide in South Australia – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement.

2017 Baily & Baily Folio Riesling
Clare Valley
South Australia

I know very little about Baily & Baily, except their Folio range is a brand that aims to produce a complete portfolio of Australian wines by concentrating on the most important grape variety from each region. To that end they produce a Barossa Valley Shiraz, Margaret River Chardonnay and this Clare Valley Riesling.

Clare is a fascinating place that creates some wonderful wines but is quite hard to get to grips with. Because its most famous speciality is Riesling it is often thought to be a cool place, but then it can also ripen Merlot and even Cabernet Sauvignon, so the truth is more nuanced – like most things.

What I do know is that big diurnal variation – temperature drops at night of almost 40˚C in the growing season are not uncommon – slows down the growing season and preserve acidity in the grapes. Afternoon maritime breezes have a similar effect and are especially good for the Rieslings. 

Clare Valley Vines at Taylors Wine. Photo courtesy of Taylors Wines.

This is a very friendly, happy and accessible wine. It is dry and the acidity is high and refreshing, but it is not astringent. The fruit is ripe giving touches of mango richness that is balanced and kept bright by the powerful lime-like flavours. An easygoing, but delicious Riesling that is just beginning to show that classic oily texture – 90/100 points.

Available in the UK at £6.99 per bottle from Waitrose Cellar – just £5.99 if you get your order in today

Hawke’s Bay – New Zealand’s Diverse Region

Looking North East towards Napier from Te Mata Peak – photo courtesy of Te Mata Winery.

The world seems to love New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, especially from Marlborough on South Island. Wine drinkers appear to have an insatiable appetite for this lively style of wine with its crisp, green characters softened with tropical exuberance.

However the other 30% or so of New Zealand’s wines that are not made from Sauvignon Blanc and do not come from Marlborough are also well worth exploring.

My favourite region must be Hawke’s Bay on North Island. This beautiful place is defined by the great sweep of Hawke Bay itself – confusingly the region is called Hawke’s (or more normally Hawkes on wine labels) Bay, while the body of water is Hawke Bay, named by Captain Cook in honour of Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty. It is a largely rural place and includes some spectacular countryside, but the urban centres offer many charms too. The city of Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 and was totally rebuilt in the, then, current Art Deco style. Nearby Hastings is the other centre and was also largely rebuilt in the Art Deco style. This time capsule of 1930s glamour makes these cities wonderfully evocative places to wander around. The Hastings suburb of Havelock North, very near Te Mata peak, with its relaxing villagey feel is a lovely place to visit too.

Wine map of Hawke’s Bay – click for a larger view.

Although it has been surpassed by Marlborough in recent decades and now only produces around 10% of New Zealand’s wine, Hawke’s Bay is still the second largest wine region in the country and the principal centre for red wine production. 

What I love here is the sense of history, the first winery was established in 1851 – 120 years or so before vines were grown in Marlborough. In fact several of the leading producers here including Mission Estate, Te Mata, Church Road, Vidal Estate and Esk Valley were all well established by the 1930s.

Of course history never flows in a straight line and although there was indeed a brief flowering of dry wine production here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the likes of Te Mata winning awards for their pre World War I “clarets”, the real demand in the days of the British Empire was for Port and Sherry substitutes, fortified wines. It was not until the 1970s that the emphasis moved to dry wines and another twenty years before Hawke’s Bay started to acquire the reputation as a wine region, especially for reds, that it enjoys today.

Being half way up North Island, Hawke’s Bay is one of the warmest areas in New Zealand and enjoys a long growing season. This enables Hawke’s Bay to specialise in grape varieties that simply cannot ripen in the cool maritime conditions further south. That being said, it is still a temperate and moderate climate. This contrasts with almost all other “New World” wine producing countries which have hotter Mediterranean climates. The temperatures in the growing season are a bit warmer than Bordeaux, but cooler than California’s Napa Valley. 

Looking south and east across the Tukituki River – photo by Quentin Sadler

Of course nothing is simple, so where the grapes grow within Hawke’s Bay is an important consideration. The coastal zone is appreciably cooler than the areas further inland. This means that the best quality white grapes tend to be grown nearer the ocean, where most of the black grapes will not ripen, and the best black grapes flourish further inland where the extra heat and shelter helps them to achieve full ripeness. These varied conditions mean that Hawke’s Bay can offer an incredible variety of wine styles.

The inland temperatures are some 7˚C or so more than the coast. This makes it possible for Hawke’s Bay to ripen some grape varieties that defeat almost every other New Zealand region, except Waiheke Island far to the north. Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and even Cabernet Sauvignon all thrive here. Of course New Zealand can almost never produce those big, rich, fruity wines like Australia and California do, there just isn’t enough heat for that. So whether you are drinking a Bordeaux style blend of Merlot and Cabernet, or a Syrah, these reds will usually be more delicate than other new world examples, but fruitier and softer than their European counterparts.

Misty hills beyond the vineyards in the Tukituki Valley – photo by Quentin Sadler.

The dominant grapes being Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah is almost serendipitous as New Zealand is famous for producing lamb. Merlot-Cabernet blends, like red Bordeaux from the same grape varieties, are a fine match with lamb. Syrah is not only great with lamb, but also partners venison really well and New Zealand is a major producer of that meat too.

As for white grapes, the real speciality is Chardonnay as these conditions, create wines with ripeness and texture as well as fine acidity – think White Burgundy with more fruit. As you might expect though, they also produce Sauvignon Blanc and these tend to be riper, more mouth filling and textured than those from Marlborough.

Looking towards Cape Kidnappers from Elephant Hill – photo by Quentin Sadler.

The soils provide little nourishment and are free draining, which helps to produce concentrated and complex wines as the vines have to work hard and dig deep for goodness while any excess water just drains away rather than making the grapes dilute. Much of the terrain has been formed by five ancient rivers – the Wairoa, Mohaka, Tutaekuri, Ngaruroro and Tukituki – moving over centuries to form valleys and terraces and leaving behind over 25 different soil types including clay loam, limestone, sand and gravel.

Gimblett Gravels soils – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Gravel is the most famous soil here with one of the most important sub-regions of Hawke’s Bay actually being called Gimblett Gravels. This warm area was formed by the Ngaruroro (pronounced Na-roo-roe-roe) River changing route after a huge flood in 1867. The deep gravel soils it left behind have almost no organic component, so give low vigour and perfect drainage. This means the area can produce world class red wines with concentration and ripeness together with the elegance and freshness that the relatively cool conditions give, even in this warm part of New Zealand.

Ever since wine growers were first aware of the Gimblett Gravels in 1981 it has been seen as primarily a red wine area. It pretty quickly became known for Bordeaux style blends of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, often with some Cabernet Franc and Malbec too. 

Vines growing in the Gimblett gravels – photo by Quentin Sadler.

In more recent years Syrah has started to challenge that dominance and although the amount of Syrah grown is quite small it has quickly earned a very high reputation for quality. Some other black grapes grow here too, with small plantings of Grenache and Tempranillo showing great promise. White grapes make up about 10% of the plantings with some superb Chardonnays and Viogniers as well as a little Arneis, Gewürztraminer and even Riesling.

The Bridge Pa Triangle is an area just a little further inland from Gimblett Gravels. It has similar gravel soils but under a deep layer of loam topsoil, which often makes the wines softer and more aromatic. 

There are other sub-zones of Hawke’s Bay too, but you are unlikely to see their names appearing on labels anytime soon.

To my mind the wines coming out of Hawke’s Bay make perfect restaurant wines. They can provide an attractive half-way house between new world fruitiness and richness and the dryness of European wines. This makes them very food friendly and versatile with food or without. What’s more they have that clean and bright New Zealand character that can be very appealing. Also like most new world wines, they usually deliver as soon as the bottle is opened, without needing to be left to breathe for a little while to show at their best.

Looking towards the Te Mata Hills from Craggy Range – photo by Quentin Sadler.

The Hawke’s Bay specialities are most certainly Chardonnay, Bordeaux-style blends of Merlot and Cabernet and Syrah, but there is so much more going on too. Reds from Malbec, Tempranillo, Grenache and even some Pinot Noir in the cooler places. As for whites there is also fine Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Sémillon, Viognier, Pinot Gris, Arneis, Gewürztraminer, Riesling and more. So, stylistically it is very hard to pin the region down, but very rewarding to try.

Here is my a brief selection of Hawke’s Bay wines & wineries for you to try – of course the other wines by these producers are very good too:

The Te Mata Winery – photo by Quentin Sadler

Te Mata:

One of the grand old names of Hawke’s Bay, Te Mata has been continuously operating since 1892 and is based in a beautiful Art Deco building right by Te Mata peak. The vineyards and winery were completely renovated in the 1980s and they have never looked back. Today they have extensive vineyard holdings in Woodthorpe and the Bridge Pa Triangle as well as the original nineteenth century vineyards at the foot of Te Mata peak itself. Made under the guidance of Peter Cowley, one of the funniest winemakers I have ever met, the range is wonderfully creative and includes a fine oaked Sauvignon and delicious single vineyard Gamay.

Peter Cowley, the witty, engaging and passionate Technical Director at Te Mata. One of those winemakers that I could listen to for days – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Try: Te Mata Coleraine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Aged for 18 months in barrel it is widely considered one of the very best red wines from New Zealand. I consistently like the restrained, elegant style and the freshness that keeps it irresistibly drinkable.

Available in the UK for £56.99 per bottle from The New Zealand House of Wine.

Trinity Hill:

Warren Gibson, long serving chief winemaker at Trinity Hill – photo courtesy of New Zealand Winegrowers.

This winery only dates back to 1993, but that makes them almost pioneers as far as New Zealand wine is concerned and they have certainly made their mark. Initially it was a joint venture between famed Australian winemaker John Hancock and Robert and Robyn Wilson, owners of London’s The Bleeding Heart restaurant. Chief winemaker Warren Gibson has been there since 1997 and he produces a range of beautiful wines that perfectly illustrate how diverse Hawke’s Bay can be – they even make a rich and aromatic blend of Marsanne and Viognier and a suave Pinot Noir.

Try: Trinity Hills Gimblett Gravels Syrah – this shows perfectly why Hawke’s Bay is good for Syrah. The cooler climate really defines this wine with its lively fruit and floral aromas. The luscious palate has ripe blackberry fruit, soft spices, integrated oak and ripe, sweet tannins. There is always a sense of freshness and purity in good Hawke’s Bay Syrah that sets it apart.

Available in the UK for £20.99 per bottle from The New Zealand House of Wine.

Vidal Estate: 

Vidal Estate Winery – photo courtesy of Vidal Estate.

Spaniard Anthony Vidal opened his eponymous winery in an old racing stable in 1905. Owned by Villa Maria since the 1976 it opened New Zealand’s first, and still very fine, winery restaurant in 1979. Hugh Crichton has been the winemaker for many years now and his deft hand seems to do no wrong. He has a particularly high reputation for his Chardonnays, but the Syrahs and Cabernet blends are mighty fine too.

Hugh Crichton (left) in the cellar – photo courtesy of Vidal Estate.

Try: Vidal Estate Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon is a great introduction to Hawke’s Bay reds. The palate is bold and richly fruity with smooth tannins, smoky oak and a touch of spice – 5% Malbec in the blend helps with the pizzazz.

Available in the UK for £14.00 per bottle from The New Zealand Cellar.

Craggy Range: 

Vineyards at Craggy Range from their fabulous restaurant – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Businessmen Terry Peabody and revered viticulturist / winemaker Steve Smith MW created Craggy Range in the 1990s and quickly established themselves as one of the great names of Hawke’s Bay. Today chief winemaker Matt Stafford crafts a superb range of wines from vineyards in the Gimblett Gravels and the cooler coastal area near Cape Kidnappers.

Matt Stafford, the chief winemaker at Craggy Range – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Try: Craggy Range Kidnappers Vineyard Chardonnay – the cool coastal conditions really define this wine with its freshness and minerality, subtle richness and restrained use of oak – think Chablis 1er Cru with a bit more soft fruit.

Available in the UK for £17.99 per bottle from Waitrose Cellar.

Elephant Hill:

The only elephant at Elephant Hill Winery – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Founded in 2003 this estate is another newcomer that has a built a huge reputation for itself very fast. It is managed by the charming Andreas Weiss whose parents created Elephant Hill after falling in love with the area while on holiday from their native Germany. The winery is surrounded by vines and sits almost on the cliff edge at Te Awanga. This is where they grow their white grapes while the reds and richer whites are grown in their Gimblett Gravels and Bridge Pa Triangle vineyards. The winery boasts incredible views and a great restaurant. As to the name, Andreas told me, “there’s no hill and there’s no elephant, but you certainly remember it”.

Andreas Weiss of Elephant Hill – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Try: Elephant Hill Sauvignon Blanc – a pure and vivacious style, but rounder and more textured than a typical New Zealand Sauvignon. It feels clean, precise and beautifully defined too, with wonderful salty minerality cutting through the ripe citrus fruit.

Available in the UK for £16.50 per bottle from Corney & Barrow.

Esk Valley:

Esk valley’s terraced vineyard, home to the Terraces, one of New Zealand’s finest reds – photo courtesy of Esk Valley.

This famous winery sits right on the coast some 10 km north of Napier and was originally a fortified wine producer that fell into disuse by the 1970s. George Fistonich of Villa Maria bought it in 1986 and it has never looked back. For the last 20 odd years it has been left in the talented hands of winemaker Gordon Russell who has happily put all the old prewar concrete fermentation vats to use for his red wines and who revels in his reputation for being something of a maverick who makes true handmade wines. 

Gordon Russell with his beloved pre-war concrete fermentation vats at Esk Valley – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Gordon crafts one of New Zealand’s most famous reds, Esk Valley The Terraces, from a one hectare block of vines on a terraced vineyard overlooking the ocean right by the winery.

Try: Esk Valley Verdelho – this grape is mainly used to make fortified Madeira,  but this is an unfortified style that has a lovey brightness to it and enticing aromatics. I love the mandarin-like acidity, the rich palate and the little touch of salinity on the fresh, lively finish. It’s wonderful with oriental food.

Available in the UK for £13.75 per bottle from The Oxford Wine Company.

Alpha–Domus:

The Ham Family of Alpha Domus – photo courtesy of the winery.

This estate is a real pioneer of the Bridge Pa Triangle. It was founded in 1990, pretty early for this sub-region, by the Ham family from the Netherlands. The first names of the five family members who founded and run the winery are; Anthonius and Leonarda together with their sons Paulus, Henrikus and Anthonius – Alpha! They produce a fine range of single vineyard, estate wines from the classic Hawke’s Bay grape varieties of Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet and Syrah, as well as Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Cumulus, a Traditional Method sparkling Chardonnay.

Try: Alpha–Domus The Wingwalker Viognier – in France’s northern Rhône,  where Syrah originates, Viognier grows next door, so it makes perfect sense that we are beginning to see more of this exotic, aromatic grape grown in Hawke’s Bay and used either on its own or co-fermented in tiny amounts with Syrah.

This is a rich but fresh example with exotic ripe fruit aromas and a succulent and silky palate with ripe peach, pineapple, coconut cream and a touch of shortbread. The balance is lovely and it makes the wine seem pure, yet powerful. Great with firm fish and white meat dishes.

Available in the UK for £18.50 per bottle from Noble Green.

Villa Maria:

Sir George Fistonich, the great New Zealand wine pioneer, whose Villa Maria group also owns Vidal and Esk – photo by Quentin Sadler

Villa Maria is an extraordinary company. Created singlehandedly in 1961 by a 21 year old New Zealander with Croatian roots. That young man is now Sir George Fistonich, one of the great figures of the wine world and he still has the same drive and passion all these years later. Villa Maria have vineyards and a winery in Marlborough and Auckland as well as Hawke’s Bay including owning one of the largest parcels of the Gimblett Gravels. To my mind they never put a foot wrong and consistently produce elegant wines that people enjoy, at all price points. Their Merlots, Merlot-Cabernet blends and Syrahs are all from their Hawke’s Bay vineyards. They recently launched a super premium Gimblett Gravels Cabernet Sauvignon called Ngakirikiri which means “the gravels” in Maori. It’s a stunning wine with beautiful fruit, incredible richness, but also elegance and poise with gentle, supple tannins.

Try: Villa Maria Cellar Selection Gimblett Gravels Grenache – a surprisingly rich take on this grape that loves heat and sun. It’s richly fruity with black cherry and dried strawberry characters and lots of spice in the form of white pepper, fresh ginger and clove.

Available in the UK for £16.00 per bottle from Noble Green.

Of course this selection barely scratches the surface, there are many more fabulous wines from the producers mentioned here, let alone other wineries in Hawke’s Bay. These are all very good though, are easily available and show the quality and diversity that this exciting wine region can produce.

Wines of the Week – A Pair of Very Different Sparkling Wines

I do like fizz and it doesn’t always have to be Champagne for me. It can come from anywhere at all as long as it’s good.

I couldn’t decide which wine to choose, so I have 2 Wines of the Week for you this time. What unites them, and pleases me, is that although these wines are both very good, neither are made using the Traditional Method. The Traditional method is method by which Champagne, and many other sparkling wines like Cava and Crémant, are made fizzy. It requires a second fermentation in the bottle that traps the CO2 from that fermentation in the wine. The wine is then aged on the yeast sediment, lees, to develop the classic toasty, brioche and biscuit characters that often define Champagne. We call this ageing “yeast autolysis”. Some people maintain that you need this process in order to produce a decent sparkling wine. These two wines show that is not the case at all and that we should be more open minded.

 

Kym Milne MW – photo courtesy of the winery.

2017 Bird in Hand Sparkling Pinot Noir
Adelaide Hills
Bird In Hand Winery
South Australia

My first fizz is made by the wonderful Bird in Hand winery in South Australia’s Adelaide Hills region. I have liked their wines for a long time so am delighted to single out this beauty. The area is covered in nineteenth century gold mines and Bird in Hand was the name of one of them. Nowadays it is a 100 hectare estate renowned for making elegant and refined wines in this cool and beautiful area of South Australia. The chief winemaker is the great Kym Milne MW who has certainly not lost his touch since I first encountered him when he was Villa Maria‘s head winemaker in the 1980s.

Map of South Eastern Australia, the Adelaide Hills are just south of Barossa and east of Adelaide – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement.

The Pinot grapes are picked at night to keep them cool and then fermented at low temperatures in stainless steel to keep it fresh and lively. To add complexity there was short period of lees ageing for some 4-6 weeks. Then the second fermentation, to make it fizzy, took place in a pressurised tank called an autoclave.It is bottled immediately and so does not develop yeasty, biscuity flavours, so remains fresh and fruity.

Whatever mood you are in I defy you not to be cheered by this wine. The colour is gorgeous with a wild strawberry and wild salmon hue.

The nose is lifted and vibrant with ripe strawberry, raspberry, apple, orange and grapefruit, while the palate is nicely textured with the ripe Australian fruit giving more weight than we might normally expect. The mouse is soft and almost creamy, while the acidity is refreshing and the fruitiness makes the wine seem perhaps just a tiny bit not so dry.

All in all it is utterly delicious, beautifully fruity, juicy and refreshing.

I really enjoyed this and it is a perfect all round crowd pleaser for Christmas – 90/100 points

Available in the UK at around £15.00 per bottle from Frontier Fine Wines, Tanners, Amazon, Drink Finder, Waitrose, Waitrose Cellar. Grab it from Waitrose and Waitrose Cellar before 12/12/18 and it is only £10 a bottle!

More information is available from Bird in Hand’s UK distributor, Seckford Agencies.

My second sparkling wine is rather different and comes from the heart of Prosecco country in northern Italy.

The Villa Sandi, from which the company takes its name, is a Palladian mansion dating from 1622.

2016 Villa Sandi Ribolla Gialla Brut
Vino Spumante di Qualità
Villa Sandi
Veneto, Italy

Ribolla Gialla is a grape most commonly found in Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia and neighbouring Slovenia. This example however comes from the Veneto and is made by Villa Sandi, the famous Prosecco producer in Crocetta del Montello near Asolo in the province of Treviso. Surprisingly for such a big name, Villa Sandi is a family run company and I think that shows in the passion they have for what they do together with the care they take in their vineyards and their commitment to looking after the environment.

Villa Sandi are based near Asolo in Treviso, the heartland of Prosecco production.

This is another glorious and very pleasurable sparkling wine that shows that you do not need the Traditional method to achieve complexity. Usually the Charmat / Tank method, or Martinotti method in Italy, is used to make bright, fruity wines, like most Prosecco. Some people however age the wine on the lees in the tank before bottling and this is called the Charmat Lungo or long Charmat. This wine spends 12 months on the lees in the tank / autoclave.

The character of the grape with its savoury qualities really showed on the nose, as did the lees ageing with a nutty, honeyed, cooked apple quality. The palate was brisk and pure with the rich acidity of preserved lemons together with some coconut and wholemeal bread. There is a touch of spice and lovely vibrant apples and green plum fruit. It feels light and fresh but savoury and intriguing.

I loved this and found that it goes with everything and nothing very well, even spicy food and unusually for this part of the world it is a dry sparkling wine – 90/100 points

Available in the UK at around £17.00 per bottle from DolceVita Wines and can be imported from Italy, until Brexit ruins it, via Ur Italian Wines. More information is available from Villa Sandi’s UK distributor, North South Wines.

So you see it is always good to keep an open mind about these things and to taste wines without preconceptions, otherwise you might miss out on a great deal of pleasure.

Wine of the Week – a fabulous Pinot Noir

Résonance Vineyard – photo courtesy of the winery.

Well it has finally happened. I have become so old that I beginning to become obsessed by Pinot Noir. I have noticed that this happens to many of us who love wine, but never expected me to go the same way.

I have always liked Pinot Noir, but it took a long time for me to become utterly beguiled by this amazing grape. At its best Pinot Noir is enchanting and confusing, soothing and puzzling all at the same time. That, for me, is what makes it so potentially exciting – that inbuilt tension. Those characters that seem to contradict each other.

I have tasted a huge array of Pinot Noirs this year and many of them have been utterly delicious but one has stood out for me because of its sheer class and broad appeal.

That wine comes from Oregon in the United States and I like it so much it is my Wine of the Week and a recommendation to have with Christmas Dinner.

A map of Oregon showing all the wine regions and AVAs and an inset map showing where Oregon is. The Willamette Valley is in the north east of the state around Portland and Salem. Yamhill-Carlton AVA and Dundee Hills AVA are sub regions of the Willamette Valley AVA.

2015 Résonance Pinot Noir
Willamette Valley
Louis Jadot Estates
Dundee
Oregon
USA

Forty odd years ago it was widely believed that Pinot Noir could only produce good wine, let alone great wine, in Burgundy. Almost everywhere else was considered to be too hot and this was borne out by the early, clumsy, overripe and jammy examples from California. Well everyone likes a challenge and I have yet to meet a winemaker yet who doesn’t secretly want to produce a great Pinot Noir, so the search was on for somewhere outside Burgundy and Europe that could produce world class examples of this captivating variety.

In the early to mid 1960s a group of winemakers who had experience of making Pinot in California, trekked north to Oregon and they liked what they saw. Over the next couple of decades more and more growers joined them and slowly they put Oregon wines on the map – especially Pinot Noir. The culmination of this was the 1979 Gault-Millau French Wine Olympiades – a sort of Judgement of Paris for Pinot – which saw Eyrie Vineyards‘ 1975 South Block Pinot Noir placed in the top 10 Pinots.

As you might imagine this caused consternation in Burgundy and Robert Drouhin arranged for a rematch. The winner was Joseph Drouhin’s 1959 Chambolle-Musigny Grand Cru but the Eyrie came in a very close second. As a consequence Maison Joseph Drouhin built their own Oregon winery, Domaine Drouhin, in 1988. Oregon had arrived.

Résonance Vineyard – photo courtesy of the winery.

So why does Oregon have this effect? Why does it suit Pinot Noir? The answer of course is the climate. The Willamette Valley – pronounce Will-am-it, to rhyme with damn it! – which is the heart of Oregon’s Pinot country, enjoys a mild maritime climate. Yes it can be very wet, but the rain is almost only in the Winter, not the growing season. Temperatures in the growing season are actually slightly lower than in Burgundy, on average 14.7˚C as opposed to Burgundy’s 15.2˚C. Even that 14.7˚C is tempered by Ocean breezes and significantly cooler nights. The diurnal temperature swing is often between 16˚C and 22˚C difference. This slows down the ripening period and preserves the natural acidity, so builds ripeness and complexity while retaining freshness. All this is helped by long sunny days during the growing season.

Oregon has developed in a certain way, as a land of artisan growers and winemakers who hand craft their wines in boutique wineries in an idiosyncratic way, making the state a sort of new world echo of Burgundy itself. Eventually the pull of Oregon was too strong for the venerable Burgundy house of Louis Jadot to ignore any longer.

In 2013 Louis Jadot, a Burgundy house since 1859 – although the Jadot family have been growers for far longer – purchased the Résonance Vineyard in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA (American Viticultural Area, similar to a PDO in Europe or a Geographical Indicator in Australia). The vineyard is 13 hectares and some of the vines are over 30 years old, planted on their own roots and dry farmed. Interestingly although Phylloxerra is present in Oregon, it is believed that Résonance can stay ungrafted as the surrounding grafted vineyards act as a buffer to protect the vines.

The estate is on a curved south, south east and south west facing hillside and protected from the winds by Coast Range Mountains, making it a very secluded spot that can produce some very concentrated and fine Pinot. Before Jadot bought the estate, the fruit was widely used in wines made by some of the most famous names in the Willamette Valley. Jacques Lardière, who for over 40 years Jacques was the chief winemaker of Louis Jadot in Burgundy and the the keeper of their style, manages the viticulture and makes the wine.

Jacques Lardière (left) with Thibault Gagey the estate manager.

10 miles to the east in the Dundee Hills AVA Jadot also own the 7 hectare hectare Découverte Vineyard which is mainly planted to Pinot Noir but also has a small block of Chardonnay vines.

They make three Pinot Noirs on the estate, the Résonance Vineyard wine itself from the Yamhill-Carlton AVA. The Découverte Vineyard wine from the Dundee Hills AVA, which is not yet exported and this wine which is made from fruit from both of the estate vineyards, together with some fruit from other selected vineyards and so is labelled as Willamette Valley, which is the wider area.

The wine is aged for 13 months in French oak casks, 20% of which is new wood. This gives a delicate oak influence, but ensures that it isn’t lost.

I really love this wine, the colour is beautiful with that dark red fruit garnet and flashes of something deeper. The nose is lifted with deep red fruit notes, damson, rich cherry, cranberry and flourishes of blackberry and blueberry together with some orange zest. The oak gives a delicate spicy, smoky, mocha note that does not dominate, while a classic Pinot earthy quality balances it all out. All in all the aromas are rich and attractive but restrained and elegant all at the same time.

The palate is mouth filling and supple with luxurious and seductive fruit – ripe cherry, plums and raspberry together with deeper black cherry and damsons. There are some savoury qualities too like sun-dried tomato, some balsamic, some rich, freshly turned earth (mineral), a touch of spice, smoke and mocha. All of this is kept in check by the acidity that gives lovely freshness to the wine. The tannins are very much there, but they are sweet, ripe and graceful – 93/100 points.

This is a beautiful wine that seems to please pretty much everyone who tries it – I have shown it at three tastings recently and it wowed them all. In my opinion it is a perfect wine for Christmas Dinner as it would be delicious with the turkey or goose and all those complex flavours of the trimmings.

Available in the UK at around £35 per bottle from Bin Two, Handford Wines, Christopher Keiller, The Vineyard, Fenwick’s Wine Room, Hailsham Cellars, The Bottleneck, Fountainhall Wines, Frenmart, The Ministry of Drinks and Simply Wines Direct.

 

 

Wine of the Week – a Scintillating Riesling

Some of Pfaffl’s vineyards at Stetten – photo courtesy of the winery.

I love Riesling and while I know that many of you do not, I am just going to on and on about it until you change your mind – well it worked for Bill Cash and Nigel Farage!

Riesling comes in many different guises, the delicate off-dry Mosel style is possibly my favoured option, but then the mineral and slightly bolder Alsace versions also excite me, as do the lime-drenched Australian ones and the vivacious offerings from New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, Washington State and New York. However I also have a new favourite – Austria.

I am always excited by Austrian wines. That feeling of pristine, Alpine purity in the wines speaks to me – indeed I love Swiss, Slovenian, Northern Italian and even Gallician wines for the same reason. Austrian Riesling tends to be more full in style than German examples, dry, yet somehow steelier and more vibrant than those from Alsace – certainly at lower price points anyway.

Well I recently tasted a lovely Austrian Riesling and so with the better weather I thought it would make a great Wine of the Week.

Wine map of Austria – Pfaffl are marked by a red dot a little north of Vienna.

Roman Josef Pfaffl in the Vienna vineyards – see the city in the background – photo courtesy of the winery.

2017 Riesling Neubern
Qualitätswein Trocken/dry
Pfaffl
Niederösterreich/Lower Austria
Austria

I really like Pfaffl. I visited their winery once and they make good wines that to me feel very Austrian. They are precise, they are pure and exciting too. Pfaffl are based in Stetten some 15 km or so north of Vienna. Their vineyards are spread around the village on 10 sites and they also have vineyards in Vienna.

Vienna is the only capital with proper commercial vineyards in it and it even has its own style, the Wiener Gemischter Satz DAC. These are field wines that must contain at least 3 grape varieties grown together, harvested, pressed and fermented together. The permitted grapes Grüner Veltliner, Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc and the wines are traditionally served in the Heurigen, seasonal taverns in Vienna that sell that years wine.

Pfaffl also make a more modern style blend from Vienna, their Pfaffl 1 which has 60% Riesling blended after fermentation with 20% each of Grüner Veltliner and Pinot Blanc. I love Pfaffl 1 but have yet to taste their field blend.

Heidi and Roman Josef Pfaffl are a brother and sister with Roman being the winemaker and Heidi the administrator. Roman crafts a largish range of wines, with many single vineyard Grüners and different Rieslings, as well as beautifully drinkable reds made from Pinot Noir and Zweigelt and a stunning sparkling Grüner Veltliner. Altogether they farm around 110 hectares and craft some superb wines from single vineyard sites as well as some bigger production blended across the estate.

My Wine of the Week is one of their bigger production numbers and it is utterly delightful. The nose is fresh and lively with lemon and lime notes, the richer input of apple and pear and some scintillating floral characters too, jasmine and orange blossom. The palate is light, lithe and refreshing with lots of flavour and a clean ethereal presence on your senses. The citrus and apple is there together with a deeper tang of apricot. All in all the wine is poised and elegant with a light touch to it. I liked it a lot, especially with a Thai meal – 88/100 points.

Available in the UK from Lidl for £8.99 per bottle.

Drink this on a warm Spring day, a Summer picnic, on its own as an aperitif, with a cold collation or with spicy and oriental cuisine.

Wine of the Week – a fine, affordable Zinfandel

Old Zinfandel vines in Lodi.

One of my very early jobs was working for the late Geoffrey Roberts who was an early champion of the wines of California and Australia in the UK. As a consequence I had opportunities to taste some amazing California wine while at a young and impressionable age. As a consequence I have loved California wines pretty much all my working life.

Therefore it pains me that it is so hard to enjoy California wines here in the UK. Yes, there are huge amounts of very everyday stuff that is barely worth drinking – you know the brands, while the fabulous wines that gave California its fame tend to be ludicrously expensive once they arrive in the UK – actually in the US too come to think of it.

So while it is always a struggle to feed my love of California wine, there are some high quality bargains out there. I was fortunate enough to taste one the other day and I enjoyed it so much and it is so delicious – and perfect for the icy weather we are having right now – that I have made it my Wine of the Week.

The wine is a Zinfandel and it is worth me giving you a little background on the grape variety from a piece that I wrote a couple of years ago:

As far as we can tell, the grape that became Zinfandel was taken to the eastern United States from Europe in the 1820’s – long before the annexation of California. Records show that it was taken from the Austrian Imperial nursery in Vienna to Boston and was originally sold as a table grape in New England, but destiny called when cuttings were shipped to California to take advantage of the boom caused by the Gold Rush in 1849. That was all we knew until the 1990s when DNA testing discovered that Zinfandel was identical to the Primitivo that is widely used in Puglia, the heel of Italy.

Further investigation and DNA work then discovered that Primitivo/Zinfandel were one of the parents of the Plavac Mali grape which is used on Croatia’s Dalmation coast. The other parent was Dobričić, an incredibly obscure Croatian grape that only grows on the Dalmatian island of Šolta. This find narrowed the search down and in 2001 a vine that matched Zinfandel’s DNA was discovered in a single vineyard in Kaštel Novi north west of Split on the Croatian coast. The vine was known as Crljenak Kaštelanski, or ‘the red grape of Kaštela’. In 2011 the researchers discovered another match, this time with a grape called Tribidrag which is also used on the Dalmatian coast. Crljenak Kaštelanski and Tribidrag are as alike as different clones of Pinot Noir, or Tempranillo and Tinto Fino, but  Tribidrag is the more common name, although not much of it is left, so it too is obscure. However, records show the name has been used since at least 1518 and what’s more, Primitivo derives from the Latin for early, while Tribidrag derives from the Croatian for early – they are both early ripening grapes.

Wine map of California – Lodi is near Sacramento and due east of San Francisco.

2014 Brazin (B)Old Vine Zinfandel

AVA Lodi

Delicato Family Vineyards

California

USA

I have long been an admirer of what Delicato do. They seem to produce a wide range of really well made, classic California wines with plump, ripe fruit and lots of character – not to mention charm.

 

They have been in California for well over 100 years, since Gaspare Indelicato arrive from Sicily looking for a better life. It seems the family had grown grapes and made wine in the old country, so he and and his three sons established a vineyard and winery in Lodi in California’s Central Valley. Today the third generation of the family run the business and they now have vineyards in Napa Valley and Monterey as well as Clay Station, their 526 hectare estate in Lodi.

100 year old Zinfandel in Soucie Vineyard, Lodi. Credit: Randy Caparoso.

 

Many Italian families, including the Indelicatos, settled in this area which has a Mediterranean climate and sandy soils not unlike those found in many parts of southern Italy. Zinfandel was already grown here and as it has many Italianate characters would have made them feel right at home. Brazin is all about harnessing the rich fruit character of this hot region and producing a rich, plush and powerful wine. Much of the fruit is bought in from small growers with whom the family have had contracts for generations. The vines are all 40 years old at least – often well over 100 – and old vines really suit Zinfandel. Old vines produce smaller crops with smaller berries and more intense flavours. They also reach full ripeness with lower sugar levels than younger vine – a virtuous circle. The vines are un-grafted and dry-farmed, which again ensures a small and concentrated cop, and head trained in the traditional Californian manner, rather than trellis grown. The soils are sandy and silty.

Old head-trained vines in Lodi.

They want the wine to have rich, bold fruit and so cold ferment in stainless steel, but they also want it to be layered and complex, so age it in a mixture of French – for dry spice – and American – for sweet vanilla – barrels for 8 months.

Everything about this wine screams rich and powerful – bold even, hence the joke on the label. It is opaque, like squished blackberries. The nose gives dense black fruit, spice, mocha, a little prune and raisin, pepper, sweet vanilla, red earth and bitter chocolate. The palate is sumptuous, bright, glossy, mouth-filling, mouth-coating and very tasty. There is a sweetness of rich dark plums, blackberries, blueberries, cassis all lightened by a hint of rich raspberry too. There is a little cooked fruit and dried fruit characters too and the whole thing is just a little bit jammy – in a really good way. Along for the ride there are coffee, cinnamon, vanilla, clove, dark chocolate, liquorice and black pepper flavours while there are supple tannins and enough acidity to balance the whole shebang. It is tasty, balanced – it carries its 14.5% alcohol very well, really enjoyable and sinfully easy to drink – 88/100 points.

A lovely big red wine that will partner all manner of foods, burgers, steaks and barbecues for instance, but in the snowy winter conditions that we have right now in the UK I think it would bee great with a steak and kidney pudding, meat pie, beef stew or other hearty, warming dishes. Zinfandel is also really good with crispy aromatic duck!

Available in the UK for £12.50 – £14  per bottle from Waitrose, Waitrose Cellar and The Wine Society.