Wine of the Week – a beautiful summer white wine

At this time of year I love to drink delicious white wines, perhaps with some fish or chicken or even on their own. I recently presented a very well received tasting of Australian wines that I thought were suitable for summer and although they are all really good, one in particular stood out.

Lodge Hill Vineyard complete with Kangaroo.

It was a white wine made from a very unusual grape variety. Indeed it is the only example of that grape in Australia and together with the wonderful Rieslings (also click here) and the delicious Hancock & Hancock Fiano – that I wrote about recently – is clear proof that Australia is really good at bright, fresh white wines.

The wine in question is made from the wonderful Assyrtiko grape. This is the main grape variety used in Santorini where it is responsible for producing some of the very finest dry white wines – and great dessert wines too – of the entire Mediterranean. 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.

Lodge Hill Vineyard.

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.

There has only been one vintage released to date, the 2016, and I would say that it bears him out. I loved it, as did the other tasters. In fact I loved it so much it is my Wine of the Week.

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

Lodge Hill Vineyard from the air.

2016 Jim Barry Assyrtiko
Jim Barry Wines
Clare valley
South Australia

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.

Wine of the Week 67 – lovely Lugana

I was in Italy last week, visiting the beautiful region of Trentino. I loved the place and found much that was exciting – not least the wonderfully vibrant beer culture in the area. However I flew in via Verona and treated myself to an extra day to explore this delightful city.

Apparently it has been a splendid Summer there, but decided to rain for the day and a half that I was there. And when I say rain, I mean rain, real rain, stair rods even.

However, nothing can take away from the beauty and charm of this famous little city, it remains a wonderful place in any weather. My only quibble is that the locals seem to be completely unaware that Romeo and Juliet are fictional. They mention them all the time and they claim that you can visit Juliet’s house and even her tomb. When I was there most of the tourist groups seemed to be going to the Disney Shop, which seemed just as strange.

Finding myself sitting in a lovely little Osteria just near Verona’s Piazza Brà – which is where you will find the amazing Roman arena, an incredible amphitheatre that is still in use for operas and concerts – I was excited to find a wine that I had long wanted to try on their list, so I ordered a glass.

Verona Arena.

The inside of Verona Arena.

The region around Verona is famous for the white wines of Soave and the reds of Valpolicella, but there are three other less famous wine made nearby. The reds of Bardolino are very similar to Valpoicella, the whites of Bianco di Custoza are very similar to Soave, but nearby Lugana produces white wines that are a little bit different and it was a specific Lugana that I had wanted to try.

Map showing the wine regions of Northern Italy. Lugana is just West of Verona on the shore of Lake Garda.

Lake Garda.

Lugana is right on the southern shore of Lake Garda and because of this location it enjoys a Mediterranean climate – everything else around has a continental climate. The vineyards are mainly in Lombardy with a small part in Veneto. I was always taught that Lugana is made from Trebbiano di Lugana, locally known as Turbiana and so had it down as a Trebbiano wine. Recently, however, it has been discovered that this grape is not the same as the nearby Trebbiano di Soave or any of the other Trebbianos that are found all over the country, but strangely is actually the same grape as Verdicchio. Verdicchio is most usually associated with the Marche region where it is most famously used to make Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi and Verdicchio di Matelica, but it is grown in Umbria and Latium as well.

Of these white wines, Soave remains widely available, at all quality levels from acceptable to very fine indeed – try an example from Inama or Prà – and while Bianco di Custoza suddenly seems to be available everywhere in the UK, Lugana remains something that needs to be sought out. Well, I now know why. It is because so much of it is drunk locally as it is highly prized in the region.

There are several quality levels and different types of Lugana, the more straightforward wines are called Lugana DOC, but these can be very fine indeed as is my Wine of the Week. Lugana Superiore requires 1 year maturation (not necessarily in oak, although some are) and lower yields.
Lugana Reserva is aged for a minimum of 24 months, with 6 months in bottle – not necessarily oak maturation.
Lugana Vendemmia Tardiva is a rarely produced late harvested, lightly sweet style and I have yet to try one.
Lugana Spumante is the sparkling version, but again I have yet to try one.

My spaghetti with clams – the red powder is Botargo, which is cured fish roe, tuna in this instance.

I ordered a glass of  Lugana from Cá Lojera to go with my spaghetti and clams. The waiter brought over the bottle and  poured me my glass. I tasted it and that was enough for me to know it was very good, so I asked him to leave the bottle on the table – and I liked it so much I have made it my Wine of the Week.

2014 Lugana Cá Lojera
DOC Lugana
Azienda Agricola Cá Lojera
Sirmione, Lombardia, Italy

Ambra and Franco Tiraboschi bought this estate in 1992 and by 2008 and they were crafting some of the finest wines in the region and were instrumental – together with others such as Cà dei Frati – in making Lugana a sought after wine rather than just a local drink. They farm 14 hectares and only use their own estate grown fruit and make their whites from 100% Trebbiano di Lugana / Turbiana. There is no oak used on this wine, which is the entry level of the range and is the freshest, simplest wine they make.

The wine is bright and lustrous to look at with a pale straw colour. The aromas excited me straight away with fresh apples, a touch of ripe melon, floral notes and a little cream. The palate has just a kiss of weight and texture and there is a lot going on with ripe fruit, apples and melon and a hint of something tropical, together with a salty mineral thing and a seam of fresh, citrus acidity. This is a beautiful wine that cheers the soul and is is very, very drinkable – 91/100 points.

If you like wines made from Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Albariño or Godello then you will certainly enjoy this wine. It was a perfect aperitif and great with my Spaghetti alle Vongole and it would work with all manner of fish and poultry dishes too, even veal and pork and would be a good foil to lightly creamy sauces.

Available in the UK for around £17.00 per bottle, from Vinoteca, Buon Vino and Bottle Apostle.
Available in the US for around $17.00 per bottle – for stockist information, click here.

Wine of the Week 9 – a winning Riesling

Columbia Valley / Ancient Lakes, Washington State.

Many of you regular readers will know that I love the Riesling grape. For me Riesling produces some of the very best white wines in the world and, in my opinion even a modest example can deliver a huge amount of pleasure. I am well aware though that many people do not love Riesling as I do and that many wine drinkers who have excellent taste in all other respects often lose all reason when it comes to Riesling.

Some of the people I serve Riesling too tell me it is too sweet, even when I pour them a dry wine. Others just seem to think it is a passé 1970s thing to be locked away in a vault along with the equally dubious and hilarious safari suits, bell bottoms and wing mirrors – when was the last time you saw an old-fashioned wing mirror on a car?

Riesling is frequently damned as being the grape that gave us Liebfraumilch, a wine people loved to drink in the 1970s, but now like to pretend was only ever drunk by others. In actual fact Liebfraumilch and all those other cheap German wines – Niersteiner Gutes Domtal, Piesporter Michelsberg etc. – that have almost, but not quite, disappeared from the supermarket shelves were never made from Riesling, but the lesser quality Müller-Thurgau. By the way it is possible to make good wines from that under appreciated grape too.

The other day I wanted a white wine with some intrinsic purity, minerality and elegance to go with my rather wonderful home made spaghetti alle vongole – special ingredient here & here  and amazingly simple recipe at the bottom of this article here. My thoughts turned initially to those lovely white wines from the slopes of Etna in Sicily. Sadly the branch of Marks and Spencer I was in did not stock their Etna Bianco and so I had to rethink my plan.

At first glance they did not seem to stock many wines that did what I wanted. Last week’s Wine of the Week would have been a great match with my spaghetti and clams too, but they didn’t have that either, so I had to get creative. Focussing on the wine style rather than origin and grape variety I eventually chose a Riesling from Washington State in America’s Pacific North West. In my mind a wine like that would be a more natural partner with Pacific Rim and spicy Asian cuisine, but my spaghetti had a similar purity to it as well as a little kick of red chilli in true Sicilian style – and hey isn’t spaghetti a type of noodle?

Sadly I have never been to that part of the world, but I do know that the climate is much cooler than California, so delicate grapes perform very well there.

2013 The Honourable Riesling
Charles Smith Wines
Washington State, USA

Charles Smith has become a sort of rock star wine maker since his first vintage in 2001. Originally from central California, where wine would have been all around him, he travelled the world managing bands and music tours before catching the bug and settling in Seattle to retail wine. That same year on a trip to Walla Walla, an important wine growing area in Washington, the itch became more serious and he soon settled in the area and started to make wine. His first vintage was the 2001 and he released just 330 cases. Well that small acorn has grown and Charles now commands a loyal following as a committed, passionate and self-taught wine maker and original marketeer of his wines, much like Randall Graham in California. He makes a wide range of wines, but can be regarded as something of a Riesling specialist, one of his most famous wines is Kung Fu Girl Riesling.

Evergreen Vineyard from the air – photo from Milbrandt Vineyards.

This wine is actually a single vineyard wine from the Evergreen Vineyard which is owned by the Milbrandt Brothers, Butch and Jerry, not David and Ed by the way. Also a source of fruit for Kung Fu Girl Riesling, Evergreen is situated in the far north of Washington’s Columbia Valley A.V.A. and since 2012 the area has had it’s own Ancient Lakes A.V.A.. Although Seattle is famously wet, this far inland the area is very dry. What’s more the place is high, cool and windy, which together with plenty of sun delivers ripe flavours at lower sugar levels, which hopefully makes balanced wines. The thin rocky soils ensures the vines have to work hard and produce concentrated grapes with good minerality, which suits Riesling very well.

The man himself, Charles Smith looking suitably rock & roll.

I assumed that I would like this wine, but it is very, very good in a seductively easy drinking style. The nose is aromatic, lifted, richly floral and full of tropical tinged citrus, lime drenched in fact. This limey character goes on to the palate too and while the acidity is refreshingly high and keeps the wine clean and pure, it is not tart at all. In fact the acidity has a soft sweetness to it – the wine though is dry – like lime curd or a rich key lime pie. The flavours pull off a great balancing act between being vibrant and powerful, while the whole thing is actually rather elegant, pure and laced with cleansing acidity and complex mineral characters. The Honourable Riesling delivers a huge amount of pleasure and if you are anything like me you will find it just slips down – 91/100 points. I gave it an extra point for the sheer pleasure it gave!

A lovely wine to drink on its own, with spicy food, Asian food, Pacific Rim cuisine and yes it was perfect with my spaghetti alle vongole, I would like to have it with tapas too.

Available in the UK from Marks & Spencer at £12 per bottle.

If you are one of those people who have failed to find the joy that Riesling can offer, then this might well be the wine – give it a go, I think you will enjoy it.