Happy Christmas and a great 2016 to all plus a review of my year

Wow another Christmas is upon us and I have barely achieved a fraction of the things that I wanted to this year.

However, it was a great year for me for learning about amazing wines and visiting beautiful wine regions, so I can’t really complain. Here a few of my highlights of the year, I hope you enjoy them.

Naples fishing harbour with Capri in the background.

Back in March I visited Campania for the first time, seeing Naples and Pompeii as well as the wine regions of Taurasi, Greco di Tufo, Sannio and many more. It was a great experience full of wonderful wines and interesting stories. You can read all about it by clicking here.

One of my favourite photographs of Slovenian vineyards.

Italy was very much the theme of the year for me as I visited four times in all. The first one was actually an amazing trip to study the wines produced in the north east edge of Italy and over the frontier in neighbouring Slovenia – the tour was called Wine Without Borders. That whole part of the world is very beautiful and produces some stunning wines too and you can read all about it by clicking here.

Typical transport in the Romanian countryside.

One of my most exciting trips of 2015 was to Romania. I had never been to the country at all before and had no idea what to expect from the wines. It turned out to be a beautiful country full of lovely people and some astonishing wines. I did not taste a single terrible wines and was very excited about the quality of most of them. You can read all about it by clicking here.

I toured the vineyards of Chablis by 2CV!

In June I was thrilled to go on my first dedicated trip to Chablis and I learned ever such a lot about what makes these wines quite so important. Ever since I have enjoyed talking about Chablis to all my students, but have yet to write about the visit – watch this space.

The beautiful vineyards of Lavaux on Lake Geneva’s north shore.

In the same month I was honoured to be invited to be a judge at the Mondial du Chasselas wine competition in Switzerland. Chasselas is a real speciality grape in Switzerland, but comes close to being unloved almost anywhere else. Well I think the breadth of wines that I tasted and the sheer quality of most them proves the Swiss are right to love the grape and I loved the trip, as well as the big trip I made to Switzerland’s wine regions in late 2014. You can read all about my Swiss adventures by clicking here.

The beautiful Neckar Valley is like a mini-Mosel.

New discoveries and experiences continued with a terrific trip to Germany in September. Excitingly I visited Württemberg and the Neckar Valley as well as the amazing Stuttgart Wine Festival. This part of Germany is slightly off the beaten track wine-wise, certainly when compared to the Mosel or Rheingau, but it is well worth seeing as the landscape is very beautiful and some of the wines are stunning. Weingut Wöhrwag‘s 2013 Pinot Noir Untertürkheimer Herzogenberg Großes Gewächs was certainly the best Pinot I tasted in 2015 and one of the very best red wines that I drank all year. I aim to write all about it soon.

Piazza Duomo in Trento, the beautiful capital of Trentino.

My Italian adventures continued in October with an enjoyable trip to Trentino in the north of the country. It is a fascinating and beautiful region that has only been part of Italy since 199, so is steeped in history. The wines were pretty good too, but then so was the beer – you can real all about it by clicking here.

Verona’s amazing Roman Arena.

One added bonus of this trip was that I managed to stay an extra night in Verona and so saw that wonderful little city and was able to experience the delights of Lugana, a white wine from the southern shore of Lake Garda – it might well be my favourite Italian white right now and this delicious example is my Christmas white wine.

As well as overseas visits I have tasted some amazing wines over here too. I was particularly thrilled to meet the charming David Mazza who farms a tiny estate in Western Australia, but makes an amazing range of wines from Spanish and Portuguese grape varieties – you can read about him by clicking here.

The new discoveries kept coming too, new grapes like Tibouren from Provence and Cserszegi Fűszeres from Hungary, exciting old vine blends from Chile, a light red or a deep rosé from Tuscany, made from Tempranillo at that! Try as I might I simply could not leave Spain alone, I kept finding amazing Spanish wines that moved and excited me and that offered great value for money too – have a look here, here, here and here.

Along the way too I tasted a superb Albariño from California and another from New Zealand – Albariño is on the march it seems and you can read about them by clicking here.

Just the other day I presented my favourite sparkling wine of the year and I would urge you to try it if you can. It’s rather modestly called Apogee Deluxe Brut and is handmade by the great Andrew Pirie from fruit grown on a  2 hectare vineyard in northern Tasmania. I have long admired what Andrew does and if there is a better Australian fizz than this – indeed any non-Champagne fizz, although it had stiff opposition from Gramona’s amazing 2006 111 Lustros Gran Reserva Brut Nature Cava – then I have yet to try it. It is certainly a rich style of sparkling wine, but it never gets too serious, the fruit, freshness and frivolity dominate the palate and made me just want to drink more.

Vineyards in Stellenbosch.

I nearly forgot, all right I did forget and had to come back and add this, the most exciting wine that I drank all year. There was lots of competition from the delicious 2011 Chêne Bleu Aliot, the sublime 1978 Ridge Monte Bello Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon from California and the downright amazing 2001 Château La Tour Blanche Sauternes, but my stand out wine was from my own collection and it was a beautifully mature Merlot-Cabernet blend from Stellenbosch.

1989 Rozendal
Rozendal Farm
Stellenbosch
South Africa
I was very nervous about opening this. For South Africa it is very old, Nelson Mandela was still in prison when this was made and I know nothing about it. The estate seems to have disappeared. Frankly the wine seemed older and looked older than it was – even the label seems ancient. the nose was classic mature wine, smoky, cedar, earthy and overwhelmingly savoury with some balsamic notes and a touch of dried fruit too. The palate was extraordinary, still all there with that hallmark savoury fragility of very mature wine. Good acidity kept it fresh and provided the secret of its longevity. the tannins were almost totally faded, but for me the big revelation was a solid core of ripe sweet fruit that made it a joy to drink despite its venerable age.

Tasting this was a great moment and one worth recording as mature wine from anywhere other than the classic regions – I include California here – is pretty rare, especially of this quality. If anyone knows anything about Rozendal please let me know, I tried to contact them, but to no avail.

All in all 2015 went too fast, but it was good fun – despite me turning 50 in January – so let’s hope for even more excitement in 2016.

Have a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year and thank you so much for reading my wine page.

 

Wine of the Week 42 – Campania’s calling card

As regular readers will know, I have recently returned from the wonderful Campania region of Italy. It is an amazing part of the world whose capital is the vibrant and exciting city of Naples and includes the astonishing archeological sites of Pompeii and Herculanium, as well as the dazzling Amalfi coast. Campania also boasts a dramatic and mountainous hinterland that contains several high quality wine regions and is also home to some superb indigenous grape varieties, including Aglianico, Greco and Falanghina.

Naples fishing harbour with Capri in the distance.

While I was there, my colleagues and I often discussed how the Campanian producers could reach a wider audience with their wines and which of their many excellent grapes would provide the calling card for the region. We pretty much all agreed that Aglianico, with its firm tannins and savoury, bitter flavours, was not a wine for beginners or to be drunk without food – although there are exceptions. Most of us also felt that the white Greco grape, while delicious and very fine, produces very taut and mineral wines with a linear structure rather than a rich, friendly, soft character that most wine drinkers – in the UK anyway – favour for their everyday wines.

Much as we loved those structured grapes that produce serious and fine wines, we were pretty much all of the view that Campania wines will become more popular and well known through people trying and enjoying their other white grape, the Falanghina. In truth this process has started, go and have a look in most wine shops and supermarkets nowadays and you will normally find a Falanghina there somewhere. Hopefully this exciting grape is poised to follow Picpoul de Pinet, Grüner Veltliner and Albariño in a successful breach of the stranglehold that Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio seem to have on the market for everyday drinking white wines.

Falanghina, pronounced falang-geena with a hard G sound, is an ancient grape variety that was almost certainly used by the Romans, experts think it was the base for the famous Falernian wine. I have tasted a good many examples now and think that Falanghina always delivers a good depth of flavour, even at the value end of the price spectrum. The wines are always tangy and drinkable, so could well be the next big thing. They go very well with all manner of lighter foods and are also nice to drink on their own.

The other day I tasted these excellent, good value examples and enjoyed them so much that I have made them my joint Wine of the Week.

2013 Sainsbury’s Winemaker’s Selection Falanghina
IGT Beneventano
Benevento
Campania, Italy

Attractive nose of grapefruit, herbs, a little pineapple and a twist of orange zest.
The palate has nice succulence with lovely fruit, orange and peach, which makes for a very soft dry white wine that is easy to drink, but not boring at all. There is even a nice touch of tropical, pineapple, fruit on the palate, balanced by a touch of fresh acidity and a bit of minerality. This is a very attractive easy drinking wine, simple, but very nice to drink – 85/100 points

Available in the UK from Sainsbury’s for £6.50 per bottle.

Vineyards in Benevento.

2013 Marks & Spencers Falanghina
IGT Beneventano
La Guardiense
Benevento
Campania, Italy

This example is made by my friends at the La Guardiense cooperative and is actually a tad finer, with greater concentration and richer fruit. It is still soft and easy to drink though and has a gorgeous touch of tangerine fruit to the palate and the nose – 87/100 points

Available in the UK from Marks and Spencer for £7.00 per bottle.

Both of these are very nicely made attractive examples of Falanghina, richer more concentrated and finer versions are available too and I will mention some of those soon.

Go on, give Falanghina a try, you never know, you might even start a trend.