A Pinot Noir from the Loire

After visiting the southern hemisphere, I thought I should venture back up to the northern hemisphere and pay a visit to the Loire Valley.

The Loire is renowned for it's white wines, especially those from Sancerre, Pouilly Fume and the slightly lesser known Menetou-Salon, all produced from the Sauvignon Blanc grape, but they also grow a small amount of Pinot Noir. They use the Pinot Noir to make their rose, but also they produce a small amount of red Sancerre. While Sancerre blanc gained it's AC qualification in 1936, it was not until 1959 that the AC qualification was extended to cover both the red and rose produced from Pinot Noir.

The 2012 Jean Colin Sancerre rouge is produced from vineyards situated around Thauvenay, on the hills southeast of sancerre. The soil here is made up two thirds Clay/Limestone and one third Flint which all add to the flavour and complexity you get in the wines from this region. They also practice Bio-Dynamic farming methods, although they are not certified, using natural pests, cover crops and the lunar cycle.

The harvesting is all done by hand and the grapes are packed into small crates to prevent them from being damaged, after going through a pre-fermentation cold soak maceration, it then goes through a two to four week fermentation, with regular cap punch downs to aid extraction. Once the fermentation process has been completed, the wine then goes into new oak barrels, from the local forests for a further 10 months maturation, where it will also go through Malolactic fermentation to give it a much more rounded and softer character.

In the glass it had a pale ruby colour, with lovely red berry fruit, raspberry, cherry and red currant you also got pear drops and a touch of spice coming through from the background. On the palate these all came through with a small amount of fine tannin and a lovely acidity which all balanced out beautifully.

I have to say I was rather impressed with this wine, it had a nice depth of flavour and was well balanced, it didn't bowl me over but I would happily drink a glass or two. On a hot day you could chill it down slightly and would be perfect for a lunch time drink, especially as it's only 13%.

A Legend Lives On

Earlier in the year I was invited to join in on a world wide toast to celebrate the birthday of the late, great Robert Mondavi, to help me celebrate I’d been sent a bottle of their 2006 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, lucky me.

One of the great American wine making pioneers, Robert Mondavi built his first winery in 1966, which was the first major winery in the Napa valley since prohibition had ended. He was a pioneer of putting the Varietal on the label, not naming them generically, he also turned the around the fortunes of the unpopular varietal, Sauvignon Blanc in the US by naming it Fume Blanc. Another one of his many accolades is that of creating one of America’s greatest wines, Opus One, a joint collaboration with Baron Phillipe de Rothschild which had begun as a chat, on Mondavi’s visit to his vineyards in Bordeaux during 1978.

Although it says it’s a Cabernet Sauvignon on the label, it is actually a blend consisting of 95% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc, according to the tasting notes, the website says it is a much more eclectic mix of varietals. The wine is fermented in a combination of oak and stainless steel tanks, spending a maturation period of 14 months in oak, of which 20% are new oak.

In the glass you got an opaque inky purple colour, with very pronounced aromas of dark fruits, blackcurrant, plums and cherries with a tiny bit of sweet spice coming through from the background. On the palate you got all the aromas coming through in waves at you, combine this with a good amount of acidity and masses of fine silky tannins, and you got a pretty amazing wine, but that’s what you’d expect when you pay these sorts of prices.

This is a full bodied wine, that at this young stage drinks nicely now but can age for a good few years yet, but really, to get the best from it now, you should really drink it with food. This is a wine that’s definitely worth giving a go if you’re looking to spend a bit a more on nice bottle, but remember it will benefit greatly by being opened a good couple of hours before drinking, and if possible even decanting.

A Great Range of Wines From Turning Leaf

If you’re looking for a range of wines that has something to cater for everyone’s taste, then you should look no further than those produced by the Turning Leaf vineyard. They’re priced at around the £7.50 mark and are available from the major supermarkets and most good off licenses.

I had the pleasure of spending the evening with Stephanie Edge their winemaker, just before Christmas, going through their current range and pairing them with food. Stephanie’s philosophy for the wine is that when it goes into the bottle it’s ready to drink, which to me, sounds like a good place to start!

The first wine we tasted was their Pinot Grigio, I’m not the biggest fan of these as they tend to be very non-descript and uninteresting. This one though, showed good fruit flavours of Pears and Apples, with a good level of acidity and a reasonable length of flavours on the palate. They produced a well balanced and enjoyable drink, which I thought was an excellent example of what can be done with Pinot Grigio, given a little care and attention.

We then moved on to their Chardonnay, this wine is fermented in French Oak and racked off Lees for a further nine months, it is also allowed to go through Malolactic fermentation. All of this creates a rich wine with a buttery texture, giving you flavours of tropical fruit, butterscotch, cedar and a touch of spice coming through in the background. The most surprising part of this wine for me was that despite it going through Malolactic, it still had a reasonable level of acidity, which shouldn’t have been there. On discussing with Stephanie it became apparent that this had been quite deliberate, and the Malolactic fermentation had been arrested before completion. With all this going on in the glass, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was never going to work, but strangely it did. Actually it was a very enjoyable drink, that wasn’t over oaked, was refreshing and provided good flavours with a good length on these.

The first red of the evening was their Pinot Noir, which is a grape that tends to prefer cooler climates than that of California, but if you look hard enough, apparently you can find some cool, shaded areas. This wine spends nine months in French, American and Hungarian oak, which all add there own interesting characteristic to the wine. You had a light red colour with good aromas of Red Cherries, Red Currants and a touch of sweet spice in the background. Combine these with low acidity and low levels of tannin; you got a well balanced, easy drinking wine that on a hot day you could chill slightly and enjoy!

Next we moved on to their Zinfandel, which is one of my favourite grapes, again as with the Pinot, this wine see’s some oak ageing before bottling. In the glass this wine had a wonderful deep, almost opaque ruby/purple colour and pronounced aromas of Blueberries, Violets and spice. You got these aromas on the taste but in a more concentrated, jammy way that come at you wave after wave, first the fruit, followed by the floral violet notes, then the spice and finally cocoa. Combining these with a good level of acidity and tannin, and a long length on those fantastic flavours you got a very good wine, with some complexity and for the price you’d struggle to find one as good.

The final wine of the night was the Cabernet Sauvignon, as before this see’s some oak ageing with their eclectic blend of oak. You got a deep ruby/purple colour again with pronounced aromas of Blackcurrant leaves, Cassis and Dark Cherries. You got a good level of acidity and tannin, which produced a well balanced and enjoyable wine, very typical of what you get from warm climate Cabernet’s.

It was a great evening, with some very enjoyable wine and company! The wine of the evening for me had to be the Zinfandel, which showed some fantastic flavours and complexity resulting in a great drinking and thoroughly enjoyable wine.

Picture Courtesy of WCommunications

A Fantastic 2004 Rioja Reserva

Rioja isn’t a wine I tend to drink very often, and I’m not really sure as to why, since they do produce some fantastic wines at very reasonably prices. Rioja is Spain’s leading wine producing region and can be found in the northwest of the country, the name is derived from the river (Rio) Oja, which is tributary to the Ebro which runs right through the heart of the region.

They produce Red, White and Rose wines under the Rioja DOC (Denominación de Origen Calificada), which can be a blend from any of the seven permitted varieties (four red, three white). It is then fermented in large stainless steal tanks and aged in new American or French oak. The time spent maturing in oak will determine how it’s classified, with Crianza and Reserva meaning it must have spent a minimum of twelve months in the barrel, Gran Reserva requiring a minimum of two years. There is another classification which is Joven, meaning the wine is unoaked; these however only apply to the reds.

The most widely planted red varieties are Tempranillo and Garnacha (Grenache), with Mazuelo (Carignon) and Graciano which are planted in much smaller quantities. You can use a blend of any of these or just use a single varietal to produce your wine.

Barón De Barbón 2004 Reserva is produced by Bodegas Muriel, and the first thing you can take from the label is the term Reserva, which means that it has spent a minimum of 12 months maturing in an oak barrel before being bottled. The back label however states that it has spent up to two years in both American and French oak; all the grapes are hand harvested to ensure the highest quality of fruit and most importantly is produced from 100% Tempranillo.

After opening the bottle I gave the cork a quick smell, as you do, and got the strangest of aromas, Smoky Bacon Crisps! In the glass you got a ruby colour at the centre of the glass with the edges starting to become tawnier, a sign of the ageing this wine has received. On the nose you got some really pronounced aromas of red berries, Strawberries, Raspberries and Red Cherries, with Cedar and Vanilla coming through in the background, which again came from the oak. On the palate you got all of these flavours which lingered in your mouth for ages, along with these you got wonderfully smooth and silky tannins and a good level of acidity. Combining all of these together you got a wonderfully balanced and outstanding wine, showing how a good Rioja can taste, which I would highly recommend to anyone.

A Great Full Bodied Classico Chianti

My girlfriend asked me to make a lasagne for her the other week as a friend from work was coming for dinner, being the good boyfriend that I am of course I agreed. While checking what I needed for the lasagne I asked who was coming, as said her name a sense of dread came over me, she’s Italian and I’m cooking lasagne!

I needed to pull out all the stops for this, so I went down the shop and bought all the best quality ingredients I needed and raided my wine rack for what I could find. Fortunately for me I had a bottle of Don Tommaso Chianti Classico 2006, which couldn’t have been any better.

On opening I obviously needed to taste the wine to check that it was ok for what I was cooking. On pouring, it had a beautifully opaque ruby colour, with wonderfully pronounced aromas of blackberries and plums and a touch of smokiness coming through. Now to taste, you got all those flavours of the fruit and the smokiness which had come from the 18 months of oak ageing it had received, but you also still got these very robust tannins which you almost had to chew your way through.

There was a lot to this wine, and you could see the complexity in flavours and what it was going to become, which was its problem, it needed several more years of ageing before it would be really ready to enjoy fully.

Would I recommend this wine, yes I would, but probably worth buying a few bottles and putting them away for several years to enjoy them fully, but if you’d want to drink it now, serve it with something that would be able to stand up to it such as a roast or a steak.

An Oaky Chardonnay from Sonoma California

I was sent a bottle of Sonoma-Cutrer Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2006 the other week to review. According to the press release that came with the wine, it has gained a loyal following with sommeliers and restaurateurs alike in America, and is now available on these shores from Waitrose and Ocado.

The grapes used to make this wine come from all of their sites across the Russian River and Sonoma Valleys in California, this helps to create a more balanced and complex wine. Fermentation takes place in oak barrels and it is allowed to complete Malolactic (MLF) fermentation as well; this is where the tart malic acid is converted into the softer lactic acid, giving it a more rounded and buttery feel. The care and attention given to the wine making process has resulted in it winning a gold medal at the International Wine Challenge in 2009.

On pouring the wine you got a bright, lemony gold colour, while on the nose it had aromas of citrus, green fruit and cedar with a touch of ginger coming through in the background. To taste you got the same flavours as the aromas, classic of Chardonnay, green apple and citrus, you got really pronounced flavours of cedar which comes from the oak ageing. Unfortunately you didn’t get the usual butter feel as I would have expected, as it had gone through the MLF process, the only way you could tell was the very low level of acidity. There was a good length of flavours in your mouth, which all went on to produce a very well balanced wine.

This wine for me was too oaky in flavour for my taste, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that it is a very good wine. The only disappointing fact was that I was expecting a more creamy/buttery feel to the wine due to the MLF, but if you didn’t know it had gone through that process you wouldn’t have been disappointed.

If you like your whites oaky then this is definitely one to go for, if you don’t then stay well away from it.

Peller Estates Ice Wine Oak Aged Vidal 2004

Earlier in the year I got the opportunity to taste the marvels of Canadian Ice Wine, namely those from the Inniskillin winery. This had been the full extent of my knowledge regarding these desert wines. Until now that is, when a friend brought me back a bottle of Peller Estates Ice Wine Oak Aged Vidal 2004.

Vidal Blanc, which is often just referred to as Vidal, is a hybrid. Which means it has been created by pairing two other varieties together, in this case Ugni Blanc and Seibel?

For Ice Wine they wait till the temperature drops to around -8°c before harvesting the grapes, resulting in a very small amount of intensely sweet juice once pressed. Before this wine is bottled it is aged in French Oak for four months, which adds yet another dimension.

The final product had a beautiful amber colour, with developed aromas of jam, tropical fruit, stone fruit, and honey. To taste, the wine did not disappoint, the fruit and spice all worked wonderfully with the sweetness and acidity of the wine, to produce a beautifully balanced wine.

If your looking for a desert wine then go for a Canadian Ice Wine, they are lusciously sweet with wonderfully intense aromas and flavours that can’t be found anywhere else. The only problem with them is the bottles are simply just not big enough!