Domaine Schlumberger riesling 2003

I popped into The Secret Cellar yesterday to congratulate them on their recent awards and came home with a Domaine Schlumberger Les Princes Abbes riesling 2003.

A very typical - and excellent - riesling. Aromas of tropical fruits with something citrussy like grapefruit also on the palate, both overlaid with the usual riesling petrol. Fresh also with great length and a wonderful food drink.

More please!

Tasting at The Sampler

I went to The Sampler in Islington, London the other day. What a great place it is. It's no wonder they won Innovator of the Year at the recent International Wine Challenge dinner.

You use a tasting card in their sampling machines to dispense samples of a range of wines from Chilean Chardonnay all the way through to Icons of the world such as Petrus. Each costs a differing amount to sample so it's up to you to put on the tasting card what you want in the way of credit. As they say you can "literally drink your way around the world for less than a tenner".

I've come away with around £10 of credit still on my card so I'll be back to use it as it's a great way to taste, for example, Sauvignons or Chardonnays from across the world and compare them without having to buy all the bottles. Ideal for tasting practice for my WSET Diploma.

WSET Diploma progress update

I've just completed over 90 hours of studying on some of the light wines of Europe and it's time to move on to the next piece of work for the Diploma. I've chosen to do an essay on co-operatives due for completion mid November.

The idea is that I am to investigate if the poor name that wine co-operatives have had in the past within the wine trade and with the consumer is justified. I'm to do this through researching how co-ops came about, what their strengths and weaknesses are, describe their roles and effectiveness and state my case for what I think the future holds in store for them. This will need research across co-ops in all the continents where they exist.

Already I'm learning. I didn't realise there was a co-operative movement in Australia for example but I came across this web site yesterday. France and Italy and also South Africa and Germany easily spring to mind but of course they also exist in Spain and Portugal. I have to do detailed research on one co-op of my choice and get hold of quite a lot of information. It would be too easy to pick one of the big French ones such as Val d'Orbieu but I think I may go for Germany or South Africa as I think I'll learn more.

The studying for the next part of the light wines of the world starts again in April 2008 with the exam in January 2009. I'm going to find recalling all the wines I have just completed studying (Bordeaux, Burgundy, SW France, Loire, Alsace, Germany and the UK) in 15 months time really hard. And in between I have to learn about sparkling and spirits. It's just as well I enjoy this course!

Cantina Valpantena Falasco valpolicella ripasso

What a great combination - a full flavoured Italian red and a home made spaghetti bolognese.

Aromas of cherries with a touch of something mineral in the background and a lovely hit of full rich fruit on the palate with good length and not too much tannin. The ripasso technique can be likened to a second fermentation using the dried grapes from making Amarone. The only problem with this, so I read, is that all that is remaining of the grape skins from making the Amarone is the tannins which can then leach out out during the making of this wine. Not in this case, I am pleased to say.

And the "spag bol" was up to my wife's usual high standard.

It's available (the wine that is, not the food) for £10.95 from here.

Wines from Argentina

Yesterday's Wines of Argentina event was well supported both by producers and the trade. In addition to the usual tasting tables there was a selection of just released 2007 wines, a food and wine matching event and 2 seminars. My focus was on tasting malbec, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and torrontes as a means of enhancing my tasting skills for my Diploma. I really grew to like the malbec grape with its tones of violets when young and its rich fruitiness. It strikes me as a different but reliable alternative to merlot but a wine that goes really well with red meats. I also really enjoyed the aromatics and freshness of the torrontes.

I attended the afternoon seminar on the "Ageability of Malbec" having missed the morning seminar on "Argentina and terroir". It was run by Alta Vista vineyards and although quite technical in covering grape aromatics, anthocynanins and tannins, was very well presented. We tasted malbecs from 2004, 2000 and 1995 to show the evolution of the wines over time. I enjoyed the 2000 best of all as it was a wine with lots of fruit on the nose with just a hint of cigar box aromas with great length, concentration and balance.

Drinking outside the box blog

I've just come across an excellent post on another wine related blog here in the UK. It translates the PR language used by producers when they are trying to dress something up. So they say "it's an early drinking light wine" when what they mean is "it's got no flavour and won't last the year". Or they say "we've stopped using lead capsules in order to promote green values" when they mean " plastic capsules are cheaper".

To list any more of the quotes would be to steal Simon's hard work so I'd encourage you to visit the blog and tell him how good the writing is. It will brighten up your day.

Riccardo Cotarella and Villa Medoro

I finally got around to tasting a wine I had been given whilst helping at the recent tasting in London of Ricardo Cotarella's wines. His was a name I hadn't come across before. With his own entry in the Oxford Companion to Wine he is obviously a significant player in the winemaking world alongside better known names such as Michel Rolland. An Italian, he consults widely although only apparently in Italy where his focus is on smaller producers in previously unknown areas. According to the OCW his wines are "characterised by deep colour, richness, ripe fruit, low acid and tremendous appeal". This pretty much corresponds to the wine I tasted.

The 2004 was a lovely dark plum with purple tinges and had several layers to its aromas - dark red fruit, herbs and some wood. On the palate this was all integrated into a wine with a very smooth, almost rich mouthfeel and great length. The acidity and tannins were just right.

It actually won tre bichierri (3 glasses) in this years Gambero Rosso guide to Italian wines. I have a 2004 edition of the book which gave the Adrano from 1998 2 glasses as an award and described how the the estate although having a long history was undergoing an overhaul in production from its 30 hectares of vineyard.

It's a shame but I can't find this for sale in the UK. It seems to be around £11 to £12 or Euro equivalent elsewhere in Europe which I think is a steal at that kind of money.

IWC awards dinner

I was fortunate to have been a guest at last night's International Wine Challenge Awards dinner in London, having helped out at the Challenge earlier in the year. It was a great evening and there were a number of highlights for me.

The introduction of the Planet Earth awards with trophies for sustainability, organic and biodynamic wines, a welcome initiative to recognise those who are taking care of our planet whilst making this wonderful stuff called wine. Additionally there were merchant awards for The Wine Society, The Secret Cellar, Majestic and Berry Brothers and Rudd, all of whom I have bought wine from so far this year. You can download the full results here.

A great evening was had by everyone and, it goes without saying, the wine was excellent as it was all award winning wine from the competition.

The Secret Cellar

My local wine merchant, The Secret Cellar, has just scooped awards in two recent prestigious competitions. Decanter awarded them Small Independent Wine Merchant of the Year and the International Wine Challenge awarded them the same.

These awards are very well deserved. They have a great range of wines and a good web site, market themselves well and have a lovely shop in the middle of Tunbridge Wells.

Well done, Mike and David!

Wine place and origin petition

At the seminar I attended yesterday I learned about the petition to protect wine place names and locations. I'd encourage any wine lover reading this blog to sign the petition over here.

The Napa Valley Vintners Association in conjunction with a number of other prestigious producer organisations from places such as Chianti Classico, Jerez and Tokaj have joined forces in a campaign to ensure that wine labels accurately reflect the true origin of the wine within the bottle. As their slogan says "When it comes to wine, there is no ingredient more important than location".

Napa Valley Vintners Association

I attended a seminar yesterday run in conjunction with the Institute of Masters Of Wine. It was excellent and very informative and was all about the the terroir in the Napa valley and the effect on the wines made there, illustrated by tastings from Saintsbury and Cain.

The two speakers, although representing the Napa Valley Vintners Association were winemakers in their own right and both General Managers of their respective vineyards. They talked at length about the topography and climates in the valley contrasting for example the Stags Leap AVA, where the climate is affected by the cool breezes coming off the Pacific, with Howell Mountain which is further up the valley, less affected by the cooling winds and therefore warmer. They discussed the orientation of the vineyards in respect of the early morning or late afternoon sun and the effect this has on the wine.

We tasted 5 cabernets to illustrate the effect terroir has on style. We also tasted 5 pinot noirs all from the Saintsbury vineyard, some the same clone but on different rootstocks and other different clones but from the same part of the vineyard. All fascinating stuff. I intend to write a more detailed post when I have time which I'll make one of my 2 regular monthly posts over at Wine Sediments.

A Medoc and a Muscadet

Another couple of wines tasted yesterday as I attempt to keep up my tastings to build up my experience. Both these are from The Wine Society and I have been very pleased with both purchases.

Muscadet I think has a poor image and certainly reading the latest Wine & Spirit magazine where they devoted a whole review section, I'm not the only one who thinks that. I still have memories of trips to France years ago and the experience of very acidic wines which only tasted worse back home in England. This was really, really fresh and in addition to citrus and greengage flavours, you could almost taste the saltiness of the sea. Although there was a fair amount of acidity it was really a very pleasant bottle for £5.95.

The cru bourgeois was a bit of a surprise. I'm always a bit way wary of Bordeaux below £10. To achieve that kind of price corners have usually been cut in the vineyard or cellar and, as this was a 2001, I had wondered how it had been matured. However it turned out to have lovely fruity aromas of blackcurrant with a hint of pencil shavings and in the mouth it was nice and soft, the blueberry and blackcurrant filling the mouth for a nice long time. Great balance too with the acidity.

The wines were Chateau Haut Barrail Medoc cru bourgeois 2001 and Chateau l'Oiseliniere de la Ramee Muscadet Sevre et Maine sur lie 2005.

I'm relishing next week for the number of wines I'll be exposed to. Firstly there is the Napa seminar on Monday, the trade French tasting on Wednesday then the International Wine Challenge Awards dinner in the evening to which I've been invited. These will all help my palate.

Meopham Valley vineyard

Meopham Valley vineyard had a stand at the farmer's market I was at on Saturday in Penshurst, Kent. They only sell at farmers markets or via the shop at the vineyard given their production levels and costs.

I bought a bottle of their 2004 Pinot Gris which won a bronze medal in the 2006 English and Welsh wine competition. Pale yellow with aromas of pineapple and minerals, it was very enjoyable on the palate - quite zesty in a citrus lemon way with a bit of length to it. I was initially put off by an aroma which I can only describe as wet wool but under it, it was a very pleasant wine to drink on a warm sunny day. And there were no food miles to speak of as Meopham can only be around 20 miles away.

This year has been hard for them so far. They grow a number of different grape varieties such as pinot noir, reichensteiner, chardonnay and madeleine angevine and some of the grapes haven't even gone through veraison I was told. I feel for them. It's been a wet summer here in Kent and we will needs lot of sunshine for the grapes to ripen fully if they are to have a decent harvest.

Another 2 rieslings

Spurred on by learning all about Germany as part of Unit 3 of the WSET Diploma, I've been working through my case of German wines bought from The Wine Society. The latest 2 wines have been rieslings from the Nahe and Mosel regions. I did a previous post about 2 rieslings, one from the Mosel and the other from the Pfalz.

According to my notes Mosel rieslings are refreshing, undervalued wines whereas Nahe are described as more substantial wines with a mineral edge.

The Mosel which was a Piesporter Kabinett 2005 from Reinhold Haart was a lovely brilliantly clear yellow with aromas of lemon and lime and the same on the palate with just the right touch of acidity to make the wine refreshing especially on a summers day. The Nahe was a Donnhoff Oberhauser Leistenberg Riesling Kabinett from 2004. This was pale yellow by contrast with a peachy aroma with a hint of flowers and nicely velvety in the mouth with just a hint of spice. Again just the right amount of acidity to make it fresh and fruity. I didn't get the minerality I expected from the Nahe although that could just be my palate. I was also put off a little during my tasting as the cork was really soft and I ended up losing some of the cork in the bottle and having to strain the wine.

Again, another German tasting that has confirmed my growing love of and respect for the riesling grape in Germany.

34 out of 100

That's the result I got from my recent distance learning test for my Diploma. I had to write about the effect terroir has on wines of my choice from Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire. The wines I chose were a Pauillac/Pomerol, Chablis/Beaujolais and Muscadet/Sancerre.

My problem, and the resulting low mark, was because I wrote too much about the terroir and the style of the wines and pretty much ignored the connections between the two. For example I could have explained how the cool, northern continental climate of Chablis affects the ripening of the grapes producing wines of high acidity, moderate sugar levels and a "green" fruit character. But I didn't.

I've often struggled with the connection between the two and this result - 34% is pretty unsatisfactory - well illustrates my problem. I'm booked on an MW event next Monday at which two producers, Saintsbury and Cain Vineyards from Napa, are going to talk about the impact terroir has on their wines, illustrated by tastings of their wines. This is perfect timing given this result.

A different kind of blush drink

I’ve heard of California blush wines but had never come across a blush cider before. Aspall’s Perronelle was on the menu when I had lunch in The Plough, a very pleasant pub in Eynsford, Kent the other day. It is simply a dry cider made from organic apples with the addition of blackcurrant juice. It has a lovely blackcurrant colour to it and although a dry cider, I can detect a slight sweet edge to it. It comes in a lovely shaped bottle which Aspall have trademarked.

Not wine or spirits I know which is what this blog is supposed to feature but, to me, it’s a drink that fits in to the “too good to miss” category.

I think you can get it in Asda. I’ll definitely have it again.