A Stunning New Zealand Pinot Noir

I was looking for a bottle of wine to go with dinner the other night and I came across a little gem that I’d forgotten all about. The wine in question was bought for me as a present a couple of years ago and was a bottle of Villa Maria Marlborough Reserve Pinot Noir 2002. As you’ve probably realised from previous posts I’m a big fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but I’ve never really tried many of their reds, so now seemed as good an opportunity as ever!

The guys down at Villa Maria have spared no expense in producing this wine; firstly the fruit is all hand harvested, destemmed and crushed in open-top fermenters. While undergoing fermentation it is hand plunged, then after being allowed to go through Malolactic fermentation, it is moved to French Oak barrels to mature for 14 months before being bottled.

On pouring the wine there was quite a bit of anticipation as to what we were going to be drinking, and what we got, had definately been well worth the wait. The colour was a beautifully deep ruby colour, even though it was eight years old, I’d been expecting it to be more tawny than ruby.

On the nose there were these wonderfully pronounced aromas of plums, dark cherries and a touch a spice, predominantly clove. To taste you got all these flavours come through layer after layer with a touch of cocoa to finish it off. Their was a good level of acidity combining with fine silky tannins, creating a beautifully balanced wine with fantastic flavours of fruit and spice.

Is this a wine that I’d recommend, how can I put this, YES. I’ve only seen 2006 and 2007 in the shops lately, but if they’re as good as the 2002, then they are definitely worth buying and cellaring for a couple of years.

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.

The King of Zin Does it Again

At the 2008 London International Wine Fair, I got the chance to meet Joel Petterson who’s more affectionately known as the “King of Zin”, and is the wine maker behind the great wines from the Ravenswood winery in California. Unfortunately and I’m not quite sure why, I didn’t taste any of his wines that day, so I’d been looking for an excuse too, not that I ever need one!

I opened a bottle of Ravenswood Lodi Old Vines Zinfandel 2006 (Adegga) the other day, for myself and friend to enjoy as she’s a huge fan of Californian Zinfandel. Now despite saying Zinfandel on the label it is actually a blend of Zinfandel (76%) and Petite Syrah (24%) which just helps to give it a greater depth and complexity of flavour.

It had an opaque purple colour with pronounced aromas of Plums, Blueberries and a touch of spice from the oak ageing in the background. You got all these aromas coming through on the palate, where the spicy notes revealed themselves as Vanilla and Liquorice, you also got a touch of cocoa just to add to the mix. All these flavours, with the good levels of acidity and juicy tannins went on to produce a fantastic and beautifully balanced wine which is definitely worth more than the £8 price tag it has at the moment.

If you like your red to have plenty of flavour and body then you can’t go wrong with this wine, which can be enjoyed equally on its own or with food. It definitely goes into my top ten 10!