Wine of the Week – a Happy Affordable Red

El Lloar in Western Priorat – photo courtesy of Turisme Priorat.

We all love a bargain, I know that I do. What’s more sometimes you just want a nice, drinkable bottle of wine that makes you happy. Well I have just tried a bottle that does exactly that. The fact that it comes from one of the world’s greatest wine regions is just an added bonus. What’s more it is utterly delicious and delivers outstanding value for money.

The wine comes from Priorat, that wild, rugged mountain region of Catalunya in north east Spain. Priorat is a little inland from Tarragona and is one of jut two wine regions in Spain to be awarded the highest quality status of Denominación de Origen Calificada (DOCa), or more correctly the Catalan Denominació d’Origen Qualificada (DOQ) – Rioja is the other DOCa.

Wine map of Spain, Priorat is the tiny yellow speck near Barcelona – click for a larger view

Priorat and neighbouring Montsant in a little more detail – map courtesy of Turisme Priorat.

Priorat wines are mainly red, although some wonderful whites are made there, and are often eye-wateringly expensive as production is small and there is huge demand. Generally speaking I would urge people to try the neighbouring wines of Montsant – this small region is equally rugged and surrounds Priorat like a doughnut, or nearby Terra Alta. However, unusually this Priorat is an absolute bargain. What’s more it is delicious, so I have made it my Wine of the Week.

The wonderful landscape of Priorat – photo courtesy of the Consell Regulador.

2014 Vinya Carles Crianza
Bodegas Reserva de la Tierra
DOCa / DOQ / PDO Priorat
Catalunya
Spain

As so often the case with supermarket wines that are not established brands, it is difficult to get much information about this wine. The name Vinya would suggest that this is a single vineyard wine, however in truth I know almost nothing about it. I do not even know what grapes are in it. Priorat is normally a blend based on Garnacha / Grenache and often has some Carignan and perhaps some Syrah or Cabernet too, but I have no idea what this is – except that it tastes good.

I do know that it’s a Crianza though, so it has spent some months in oak.

Ok, so it is a bright, purple tinged garnet showing both its youth and that touch of barrel. The nose is crushed red and black fruit, fragrant vanilla and sweet baking spice, while the palate is smooth and velvety. The tannins, such as they are, are so soft and ripe and sweet that you do not notice them. The fruit is generous and upfront like a summer pudding, while a little structure is given by the spices, the vanilla oak and a touch of black pepper.

The rugged terrain and bush vines of Priorat – photo courtesy of Turisme Priorat.

I have to warn you, this wine just slips down and bottles empty willy-nilly. It is in the end a pretty simple wine, but very, very drinkable and delivers a great deal of enjoyment for not much outlay. It’s very versatile and soft enough to drink on its own or with easygoing dishes like sausage and mash, pies, pizza or pasta. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s the best sub £6 red wine around right now and what’s more it gets better if let open overnight too – 87/100 points. I have marked it up a bit because it delivers such pleasure and deliciousness at a low price.

Perhaps it doesn’t exactly show you very much about Priorat, but it is a very nice glass – or 3 – of wine.

Available in the UK from Lidl for £5.99 per bottle.

If you are after trying Priorat’s more ambitious wines then a good starting point could be the rather lovely Salmos made by Torres at their relatively new, dedicated Priorat winey. It is a legal requirement that Priorat wine must be made and aged within the boundaries of the DOQ / DOCa. This wine on a completely different scale and is a terrific example of what the region does really well.

Wine of the Week – a delicious & great value Priorat

Beautiful vineyards in priorat.

The other week I was wandering around the Three Wine Men event in London and I found myself trying the wines on the Lidl stand.

Many of you will know that I have a lot of time for Lidl. They offer very interesting products and, like Aldi, they seem to be able to put some excellent wines on the market at very good prices. Whether or not these great prices survive our leaving the EU remains to be seen, but right now they offer some staggering value.

The beautiful Priorat landscape. Photo courtesy of Oficina de Turisme del Priorat.

All the Lidl wines I tried that day were pretty good, but the star was something that absolutely astonished me. It was a red wine from Priorat, one of the very best wine regions in Spain, which normally produces some of Spain’s most expensive wines, but this one is an absolute bargain.

Wine map of Spain, see Priorat in the north east – click for a larger view

The beautifully rugged Priorat landscape.

2011 Vinya Carles Crianza
Bodegas Reserva de la Tierra
DOCa / DOQ / PDO Priorat
Catalunya, Spain

Priorat – Priorato in Castellano, or proper Spanish – is one of Spain’s great regions and it produces many of Spain’s most famous, most expensive and sought after wines. Indeed Priorat is one of only two Spanish regions – the other being Rioja – that is labelled with the prestigious PDO status of Denominación de Origen Calificada / DOCa – Denominació d’Origen Qualificada or DOQ in Catalan. This is a rank above most other Spanish wine regions, which are labelled as Denominación de Origen or DO, and the regulations are more stringent.

It is a wonderful place, beautifully rugged and mountainous with an amazing backdrop of the Montsant Mountains. It is most famous for the fine, spicy reds made from blends of Garnacha and Cariñena, often together with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, although some fascinating, rich and herbal white wines are made too.

I am afraid that I know nothing about the wine, not definitely anyway, as the technical sheet I was sent says that it is a 50/50 blend of Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon, while the back label on the bottle says it is a Grenache, Carignan / Garnacha, Cariñena blend. I think I believe the back label, as it doesn’t feel as though there is any Cabernet or Tempranillo here.

The colour is a deep, opaque, vibrant purple. The aromas are of warming, spicy, herbs and rich berry fruit; blueberry, mulberry and cooked strawberry together with rich pear and wafts of sweet liquorice and sweet coconut and vanilla from the oak – presumably American oak.

The palate is very juicy and supple, with plump fruit, smooth, ripe tannins and a twist of spice. It is nicely concentrated, richly fruity and very enjoyable indeed. It isn’t very complex, but it is delicious and pretty full-bodied. I cannot imagine anyone failing to be seduced by its charms. This wine over delivers for anything like the money, it was terrific just tasting on its own, but with a venison burger and a salad it gave me a huge amount of pleasure – 87/100 points, I originally gave it 85, but as the bottle went on, I marked it up for the pleasure it gave me.

Available in the UK from Lidl for £5.99 per bottle.

Wine of the Week 70 – the perfect party fizz

Sometimes, particularly during the party season, you find yourself needing lots and lots of fizz – I know that I do. If you are as impecunious as me then this can give you a slight problem, as sparkling wines can be very expensive. The bill soon mounts up if you want to drink lots of it yourself let alone letting your guests hoover up vast quantities of the stuff.

The problem becomes tricker still if like me you are not drawn to Prosecco. Much of the time I find Prosecco dull, overly floral and somewhat sweet, certainly sweeter than it ought to be, so with a few notable and sadly expensive exceptions – Bisol (especially their Bisol Jeio, Adami and Nino Franco for instance – then Prosecco is hardly ever something I want to drink. I prefer the cut of bracing acidity that leaves sparklers made by the traditional method so cleansing and refreshing. Of course the best examples of traditional method sparkling wines can be wonderfully complex and fine with that brioche, biscuity and nutty character, but that tends to come with the more expensive wines.

There is help at hand though, there are some excellent and incredibly good value sparkling wines available and one of the best, it’s positively cheap in fact, is a Cava and I think it is so very good for the price that I have made it my Wine of the Week.

Cava vineyards – photo courtesy the Cava Regulatory Board.

Arestel Cava Brut
Cavas Arestel
Sant Sadurní d’Anoia
Catalunya
Spain

I think Cava gets a bad rap with people focussing on the lower end of the price spectrum – although that is exactly what I doing here. There is actually plenty of very fine Cava out there, but there is also no use denying that the cheaper versions can provide some of the best value sparkling wines in the world. This example is made by Vid Vica and is a blend of the three classic Cava grapes Macabeu, Parellada and Xarel·lo aged on the lees in bottle for 9 months. Surprisingly it is actually a proper Cava house and not just an own label.
This seems really very good for anything like the asking price, it’s certainly a cut above most cheap Cava and perfect when you just want to keep drinking fizz in quantity, like at a party. It is soft, dry and apply in flavour with a touch of pear about it too, it also has a nice mouthfeel with none of that soapy quality cheap fizz can have. It is also clean, fresh and fruity with none of the earthy flavours some Cava can have and there is nice acidity keeping it refreshing without being tart – 84/100 points, this scores especially well for value, but really it is very well made and very drinkable.

Available in the UK from Lidl for the amazing price of £4.79 per bottle.

PS: I have just discovered that Aldi also offer a Cava for £4,79, so will try a bottle of that very soon too.

Happy New Year & 3 Wines of the Week…

Well, here we are at the start of 2015 and still not a jet pack, hover mobile, silver jump suit or meal consisting solely of pills in sight. How wrong all the soothsayers were!

I hope your Christmas and New Years were relaxing, fun and memorable and that you enjoyed plenty of good food and wine. I’m sure you noticed that I took a bit of a break from writing these pages, I hope that you didn’t mind or begrudge me the time off.

Like you I drank a fair amount, mainly good sparkling wines and half decent Champagne if truth be told, but I did indulge with a few select bottles including the 3 that I am about to mention to you. Indeed if I had not taken a break from writing they would have been my Wines of the Week numbers 31, 32 and 33 – so here they are, better late than never eh?

Wine of the Week 31

Christmas seems to be a time for indulgence, when we consume the sorts of things – and the sorts of quantities – that we deny ourselves the rest of the year. Certainly as soon as the grind is over – about halfway through Christmas Eve I find – I do relax more and start drinking at all sorts of odd times of day that I just would not normally. Nothing gets me into a Christmas mood as much as a Panettone and a bottle of a light Moscato for an early Christmas tea – fine Prosecco is also superb with Panettone and I did indeed drink a superb Prosecco just the other day, but you will have to wait a while to hear all about that magnificent wine.

 

Moscato vines growing on Piemonte’s rolling hills.

2013 Elio Perrone Sourgal Moscato d’Asti
Casa Vinicola Elio Perrone
Castiglione Tinella, Piemonte, Italy
D.O.C.G. Moscato d’Asti

Moscato d’Asti is less fizzy than Asti itself, but tastes very similar and is similarly light light in alcohol – 5% in this instance. This very lightness makes it a gentle way into the indulgences of the Festive season as it doesn’t make you too tipsy and you can drink rather a lot of it too. That all misses the point somewhat though, I like this style os wine because when they are well made – as this example is – they are utterly delicious. Sourgal by the way is the name of the vineyard, as this is a single vineyard wine.

The wine is very pale, with just a little lemony, sherbet colour and the CO2 gives a lovely lacy look to the surface of the wine – gently frothy is another way of putting it. It is the aromas of these wines that get me every time, they smell of delicate candied fruit, especially lemon peel, with the merest touch of brioche too – yes they really do smell of panettone, which is why they go so well together. There are other gorgeous aromas too, touches of orange, flourishes of acacia and white peach, all of which makes it scintillating and joyous to sniff. The palate is soft and very light, lightly effervescent and very fruity with flavours of grapes, peach and lemon peel. The sweetness is there, but it is beautifully balanced and just comes along for the ride rather than dominating. All in all this is delicious and so, so drinkable, enjoy it on its own or with something lightly sweet like fruit or that panettone – 88/100 points.

If you are labouring under the impression that Moscato d’Asti is an old fashioned wine, or that you won’t like it, just try it with an open mind. These wines deliver pure, uncomplicated pleasure and joy to the drinker, go on, you know you want to try it.

Available in the UK for £7.50 a bottle from The Wine Society.
Stockist details in the US are available here.

Red Bordeaux

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

Funny thing Christmas. Lots of us are quite happy drinking wines from across the globe throughout the year, but come Christmas we come over all traditional and start thinking thoughts of Claret. I love Claret, red Bordeaux was my second wine love – after Spain – and the wines continue to excite me, or perhaps I should say are exciting me again as I have made a conscious decision to reengage with Bordeaux wines in recent years.

Well over the festive period two rather splendid Clarets came my way, both were from the superb 2009 vintage, so they were probably too young, but that did not stop them from being hugely enjoyable and impressive, so I have made them both Wines of the Week. What’s more I have only ever stayed in 2 Bordeaux Châteaux and it was these two (but with nearly 30 years between each stay) – coincidence?

Wine of the Week 32 – right bank revelry

Saint-Émilion is a delightful town.

In my mind I have always really been more of a left bank, Médoc kind of guy than a lover of right bank wines. Something about the firm tannic structure of the Cabernet Sauvignon dominated Médoc style appeals to me. Or so I used to think, but don’t people always say that we move to the right as we get older? Well I was most agreeably surprised on 2 recent trips to Bordeaux to find myself falling for the fruity charms of the Saint-Émilion style, as well as the place. Saint-Émilion is an utterly gorgeous town to visit, as long as there are not too many tourists and I was with a group that were put up in a charming and very old Château called Cantin. Most of the properties in Bordeaux are nineteenth century confections rather than genuinely fortified residences, so – much as I like the Second Empire architectural style – the seventeenth century Château Cantin was a bit of a delight. Sadly I did not take many photographs of the Château itself, but if you look at the bottle below, see the label? In the picture the Château has a single turret with a window. Well that was my bedroom and I did take some pictures of the view from it.

Château Cantin – the view from the window in the turret that you can see on the label – that was my bedroom.

2009 Château Cantin 
Saint-Émilion Grand Cru
St. Christophe des Bardes, Saint-Émilion, Bordeaux

Although the building is old, Cantin was in the doldrums for a long time and did not really start making any reputation for itself until the Group Les Grands Chais de France took over the management of it and started investing heavily in the vineyard and winery. 2007 was the first vintage of this new regime and the results have been extraordinary. I watched the harvest come in in 2013 and they seem to take the utmost care with everything. It’s all done by hand with 3 selections to make sure only the good grapes get in. The fermentation takes place in a mix of stainless steel and concrete vats and the wine is aged for 12 months in barrel. The blend is something like 80% Merlot with 10% each of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The property was originally built by Benedictine monks as a summer residence for the Canon of Saint-Émilion and the name comes from the Latin word cantio, which means song, perhaps after all the evensong that was sung here?

It strikes me that this is a very modern Claret, the colour is an intense, opaque purply, plum black.
The nose is scented with spice, cinnamon and coffee, with rich plum, blackberry and cooked strawberry notes together with dried cranberry and blueberry too.
The palate is medium to full bodied, dense and velvety with loads of ripe, sweet red to black fruit and supple tannins. It really is wonderfully rich and concentrated while being deliciously drinkable, it’s let down just a tad by the alcoholic heat on the finish – it is 14.5%, but the fruit is so lovely you can forgive it. A terrific wine though with rich savoury development characters just beginning to emerge through the puppy fat of its ripe fruit, more complexity will emerge if you age it for another 4 years or so – 90/100 points.

Available in the UK for £24.99 per bottle from Waitrose & Waitrose Cellar.

Wine of the Week 33 – left bank lusciousness

My other Christmas Claret came from Bordeaux’s left bank and more specifically the famous commune / village of Saint-Julien.

The Haut-Médoc’s gravel soils and the Gironde estuary in the far distance.

2009 Château Lagrange
Troisièmes Grand Cru Classé
Saint-Julien, Haut-Médoc, Bordeaux

I stayed at this beautiful, and more classic Second Empire style Château on my first ever trip to Bordeaux back in 1986. In those days I stayed in the grape pickers dorms, whereas nowadays I get a proper bedroom, so some things are looking up! The winery was extensively modernised from the 1980s onwards – when the Japanese Suntory Group purchased it – and this has resulted in the wines becoming brighter, bolder and better in my opinion – I have been fortunate to taste vintages back to 1970.

The blend is 73% Cabernet Sauvignon with 27% Merlot, fermented in stainless steel tanks and then aged for 20 months in oak barrels, 60% of which are new.

I was very impressed by this wine, the colour was deep, crimson-black and opaque. The nose had lifted sweetly ripe cassis, blackberry, black cherry and blueberry as well as smoke, cedar and espresso notes. There was even a fresh floral quality to it which lightened the load somewhat and gave balance. The palate is concentrated sure, but medium-bodied. The fruit however is very concentrated and would easily satisfy those seeking full on full-bodied wines. Clearly there is plenty of oak – the oaky / espresso quality follows through on to the palate – but there is so much ripe fruit – blackcurrant, blackberry, black cherry – that they balance each other beautifully, neither dominates the other. The tannins too are very ripe and seductive, so they do not seem astringent, but they are there, so the wine will age. There is a little of acidity and minerality too, which also show that it will age if you want to keep it and which freshen up the palate and stop it cloying. Right now though it that richness and softness and sweetly ripe rich fruit that the wine is all about and it delivers almost sensual pleasure and delight. A terrific Bordeaux that is joyous now or will repay cellaring for a good number of years – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK for £39.99 from Lidl.
US stockist information is available here.

Both of these Clarets were a real treat and put a smile on the face of everyone who tasted them, so if you need something a little special, Bordeaux can deliver the goods at prices that are not too outrageous – leave a little space for the Moscato though…

Happy New Year to you all and let’s hope that 2015 is a good one with peace breaking out everywhere and a modicum of sanity returning to the world.

 

 

 

 

Wine of the Week 29 – my bargain red of the year?

Whilst struggling with what to serve the thirsty masses at Christmas I have been considering all sorts of wines at prices varying from the highish to the high, when I was given this wine to try. It strikes me as excellent red that a lot of people would enjoy and yet it hardly breaks the bank, so will enable me to to relax if I have to open yet another bottle.

Wine map of Spain, Toro is North West of Madrid on the Duero River – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement

It come from Toro, which is an excellent region in Castilla y León which makes big, tannic wines from the local Tinta do Toro grape. This is actually Tempranillo, but it has evolved separately over time to produce wines that generally have a less savoury character, more red fruit and less earthiness than their Rioja cousins. However, they often have somewhat rustic tannins, that I think hold the region back from becoming one of Spain’s really great source’s of wines. The patches of brilliance here are from people who manage the tannins well to produce supple and concentrated wines. Well this wine does and what’s more does it at a very low price, so I have made it my Wine of the Week:

The bodega in 1997, I loved the lettering going over the roller door! This building is now a museum.

2011 Tulga Crianza
D.O. Toro
Bodegas Pagos del Rey
Morales de Toro
Castilla y León, Spain
Nowadays this bodega is part of the dynamic multi-regional producer Felix Solis / Pagos del Rey, but I visited it nearly twenty years ago when it was the local cooperative cellars of Morales de Toro, a small town outside Toro itself. They made – and continue to make – the splendid Bajoz wines and their cheaper Moralinos de Toro was for a long time the house red of Winetrack, my wine company.

It was an amazing place to visit, slightly grubby and messy in a way that just would not happen today – that old winery is now a wine museum in fact. They shared a forecourt with a café too, but the wines they produced – and continue to produce – were astonishing for the money. They have got even better over the years and deserve to be more popular than they are, as does Toro as a region.

Toro’s Roman Bridge from the town.

Toro town is a very attractive place on a cliff overlooking the Duero River. The town is dominated by the Collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor and one of the famous features is the Roman Bridge across the river. I was thrilled when I was last there to look out of my hotel window, which was quite high up and to see a stork flying along below me.

This wine is a Crianza, which means it has been aged in oak either a barrel – 225/228 litres or something bigger – for at least 6 months. This wine claims to have been aged in new American and French oak barrels and the garnet colour shows the oak influence, as does the vanilla and spice aroma. The nose is slightly funky too with rich, brambly fruit for sure, but also a wild, earthy, mushroomy character, this is certainly because of brett, which normally I don’t like at all, but in this instance the sweaty, animal character sort of suits it, like it does with Château Musar or a lot of Châteuneuf-du-Pape.
The palate is rich, rounded and even a little creamy, with spices and chocolate as well as, ripe juicy plum, black cherry and blackberry fruit. The tannins are very well managed, being smooth and supple and there’s some freshness too, making the wine very drinkable indeed. What’s more, there is nothing bland about it, it might not be the most complex wine in the world, but it is full of character – 86/100 points – I have awarded it high marks for value.

Available in the UK from Lidl  £5.49 per bottle – possibly the bargain of the year!

With quality like this coming through at such a good price, we are going to have to get used to wines from Lidl being taken a bit more seriously than they were in the past, just like we are with Aldi who also offer some excellent wines at great prices.

So, if Spanish wine to you is only Rioja, then do try this. The country has so much more to offer than most people realise, as the whole country is covered in fascinating wine regions that deserve wider appreciation.

Wine of the Week 21 – blast from my past

Saint-Émilion with vineyards in the background.

Long ago when I was just a boy I was a trainee wine shop manager. Not knowing as much about wine as my miss-spent youth had led me to expect – I well remember asking what claret was! – I set out trying all the wines in the shop that I could afford.

It was 1984 and Bordeaux was big. The 1982 vintage was being talked about with reverence and it had a huge positive effect on the Bordeaux trade. My shop was awash with impressive looking clarets in wooden boxes. Not all of them were silly money either, we had the 1982 Sarget de Gruaud-Larose and 1982 Connétable Talbot for sale at £4.99.

Eager to try this famous vintage I splashed out on a swanky looking bottle of Saint-Émilion Grand Cru called Château du Cauze. It was £3.99 and I was very proud of it. It seemed such a lot of money for a bottle of wine,  my father and brother thought I was mad, although I seem to remember they both helped me drink it! Sadly I did not write tasting notes in those days, merely kept labels, so I do not know what it tasted like, but I do remember that I loved it. It was a life changing moment as I felt that I had tasted good claret. The cases it came in were even those posh wooden ones and I still have a wooden 1982 Château du Cauze box that I use for tools all these years later.

Saint=Émilion really is a beautiful town and well worth visiting.

As the song says, I have often stopped and thought about Château du Cauze, but have never actually seen it for sale since. Until the other day, when I thought I should really get down to Lidl and check out their much vaunted new range of wines French wines. The range focuses on Bordeaux in some detail, but also includes wines from the Loire, Champagne, Alsace, Burgundy, the Rhône, Provence, Languedoc-Roussillon and the South-West. The idea, it seems, is to wean the wine buying middle classes away from Waitrose and get them coming to Lidl and certainly the range looks interesting and we are promised more to come this month too.

Well, blow me if one of the wines wasn’t Château du Cauze, 2011 this time though, not 1982. ’82 was, of course a great vintage of legendary high quality, whereas 2011 is much more mixed, but I just couldn’t resist buying a bottle just for old times’ sake. What’s more, I liked it so much I made it my Wine of the Week.

Saint-Émilion vineyards.

2011 Château du Cauze
Saint-Émilion Grand Cru
Bordeaux, France
A proper Château graces the label and it actually looks like that in real life too. It is built on the sight of a medieval bastide that was destroyed during the Hundred Years War – Saint Émilion was right on the border between English Aquitaine and France. Just down the road is Castillon, which makes its Côtes de Castillon wines in a similar style to St-Émilion. The capital is fittingly called Castillon-la-Bataille as it was the site of the last battle of the Hundred Years War. That was in 1453, the English were defeated and their commander, John Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury was killed.
Château du Cauze belongs to the Laporte family who also own another château in Montagne-Saint Émilion. The wine is a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and around half of it gets aged in barrel for 12 months.
The colour is pretty deep, opaque, ruby with touches of purple and garnet.
There’s lots of fruit on the nose, plums, blackberry and blackcurrant together with a whiff of pencil lead and cedar. There is rich elderflower too, caramel and a touch of dried fruit.
The palate is soft, with supple tannins just adding touch of structure, while a little acidity cleans it up and makes it fresher than the colour suggests. Nice weight of fruit and concentration, fresh acidity and layers of flavour make it seem quite complex for the price.

While I wasn’t as bowled over by it as I seem to remember I was by the 1982, I still think it is a good wine – I am a great deal more experienced and knowledgeable than I was then, so am probably assessing it more accurately. Perfectly nice to drink now, I think this could age nicely for 4 years or so too. I am sure it is plusher and more fruity than the 1982 and at 14.5% it’s certainly more alcoholic, but it carries this very well thanks to the freshness and balance – 88/100 points.

Available in the UK from Lidl @ £11.99 per bottle.

I was very pleased to discover that this is still a good wine, what’s more it is sensibly and honestly priced. It seems to me that this wine has a lot more to it than all those £12 bottles which are artificially discounted down to £8 or £6. If you fancy a bottle of claret at a good price then this fits the bill perfectly and is lovely with a slow cooked shoulder of lamb.