Kratosija

This is a Macedonian wine made from the indigenous grape Kratosija, that I had tasted in last year's Wine and Dine Festival. Wikipedia has a stub, asserting that it is a red wine grape grown in the Tikves region of Macedonia. Its wines are supposed to be intensely ruby coloured with berry scents. When I looked up VIVC, it was then that confusion descended in earnest. Three cultivars were found, all of which originate from the same patch of Eastern Europe. Kratosija Seedless comes from Macedonia, but there it is not linked with a prime name. The one from Montenegro has the Prime Name of Vranac, whilst the one from Croatia has the Prime Name of Primitivo and list Zinfandel as its synonym!

Well, the above wine was a deep purple with plenty of red fruits on the nose. The sweet fruity berry notes continued onto the palate, well supported by an acid backbone laced with hints of tannins.

Felsenberg GG 2007

Someone brought this bottle of GG Riesling to a dinner last week. As with my previous experience, it seems that Felsenberg is the name of the vineyard; the name of the village was on the "back label", which is the label that matters in Law as it contained the legally required information. The village in this case is a famous one, Schlossbockelheim. Although I had not encountered either the grower or the site, I had great hopes because it is a GG Riesling, and my expectations were well satisfied. An old gold colour, the wine had a sweet peachy honeyed nose. Technically a dry wine (with little residual sugar) but with such fruitiness that it seemed slightly sweet on entry, displaying prune and honey notes on the palate well supported by a plummy pruney acidity as backbone. Very nice!!

Purple Angel

This is Purple Angel, the top Carmenere from Montes, first launched in 2005. I had this wine in the tasting of Bordeaux Grapes in South America in March last year. I hadn't realized that it was one of Montes "Icon" wines, until I was looking up Montes Folly to blog about that. This is their top Carmenere wine (to which a soupcon of Petit Verdot has been added), 50% sourced from the sunny Apalta vineyards for elegance and 50% from the cooler coastal Marchigue Estate for strength and concentration. The wine undergoes 18 months aging in new French oak barrels. Showing a deep purple rim with a dark core, the 2009 vintage (above) had a rich berry nose, with sweet oaky fruit and acid abundant on the palate, all well supported by a sweet acid backbone.

Chene Bleu Rose 2009

This is Chene Bleu Rose, a nice rose wine which I tasted at a celebration dinner last week, having been brought to the dinner by one of the participants. Made from a blend of Syrah (25 year old vines) and Grenache(40 year old vines), the rose is not made by the typical saignee method, but by a multi-step process limiting skin contact to a short maceration. The wine had a brief sojourn in fine French oak and closed with a screwcap (atypically for the French) to preserve freshness and fruit. Rose pink in colour, the nose was closed (probably from over-cooling) with some fruity hints. Dry but fruity on the palate, it was nicely supported by a nice acid backbone.

Montes Folly

This is Montes Folly, a premium Syrah from the Montes winery and one of their three "Icon" wines. (I had not realized I had already tasted another in their Icon series, Purple Angel (but that's another tidbit). The occasion was this year's AGM for the KCC Wine Society (or rather the brunch that traditionally follows it). Montes Folly was their second foray into the super premium wine category, after the success of Montes Alpha "M" which was launched in 1996. This super Syrah was launched in 2000 to critical acclaim. Sourced from low yielding vines of the high slopes of the Finca de Apalta vineyards, the juice is further concentrated by 20% bleeding once in the tank. After wild yeast fermentation, the wine is aged for 18 months in 100% new French aok. It also seems that there is a different art label for each year. As for this wine, it was a deep ruby, with a vanilla wood berry nose. Sweet fruit was abundant on the palate, well supported by an acid tannic backbone.

Chateau Siran 1998

This is a magnum of Chateau Siran 1998, which I tasted at the joint KCCWS-Hong Kong Wine Society Xmas party last year. I had previously blogged that Chateau Siran, like Mouton, had been having art labels on its bottle, but also that its previously owner, the Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, had another art connection in the form of his descendant Henri (de Toulouse-Lautrec), a well known painter of the French Impressionist era. The painting for the 1998 label is from Raymond Moretti and celebrates the World Cup that year, which was hosted in France and with France being the champions as well. Ruby, with an acid but slightly cardboardy nose, the above wine had a sweet acid palate with notes of fruit, well supported by an acid slightly tannic backbone.

Schramsberg Mirabelle

Although I have encountered the Californian sparkling wines of Schramsberg many years ago, I have not thought about blogging on them till I revisited them in the form of the above wine last month. Schramsberg was founded when Jacob Schram bought a mountainside in Napa Valley to plant vines in 1862. Initially it produced still wines, but when the Davies bought the property in 1965, they started another direction for the estate, to produce top American sparkling wines. Now Schramsberg is a top name for Californian sparkling wine, with the Mirabelle brut (above) garnering 90 points from both Wine Spectator and Robert Parker in October 2012. A nice straw gold with many streams of fine bubbles, there was a nice crisp nose with acid and some fruity notes. The acid prickle on entry gives way to a slightly fruity acid palate, maintaining a good acid backbone all the way through to the finish.

Marzemino

Of the grapes that make up this wine, only Marzemino has been mentioned in opera. In the final scene of Don Giovanni, the Don asked his servant Leporello to pour out the wine - an excellent Marzemino (Versa il vino! Eccellente marzimino!). That was well before the plea for repentance from Donna Elvira and the appearance of the Commendatore's statue to take him down to Hell.

Marzemino is an indigenous Italian grape from Isera, south of Trentino. DNA studies showed it to be a cross of Refosco del Pedunculo Rosso and Teroldego. It requires a long growing season and ripens late. It is susceptible to many fungal diseases and is prone to high yields and over-cropping. Widely used as a blending grape, it produces wines with a dark tint and plumy flavour. It can also yield light wines with a lively (even spritzig) acidity. Marzemino can be dried and made into sweet wines blended with other grapes.

Poor Beaujolais!

As I previously blogged, the Beaujolais cru of St Amour has its particular attraction at St Valentine's Day. So I was not surprised to see it as part of a display with heart-shaped steaks (butterflied from rib-eye) in the supermarket of a recently opened Japanese style department store opposite where I work. I had unfortunately overlooked the wooden crates filled with one of the examples of this cru from Georges Duboeuf, set slightly apart from the display. I went instead to the wine department to look for it, but to no avail. Nothing like a cru Beaujolais was in sight, let alone a St Amour. Then I asked the young saleslady which had come to my aid. She quietly told me (in a soft aside to spare my embarrassment) that it was past the time to drink Beaujolais! She obviously only knows about Beaujolais Nouveau and nothing else! Pity the Beaujolais-Villages and the the crus. When will you find the wider audience?

Maury from 1969

Bottles from the 1960s are rarities which because of their age can be a dodgy buy, but certain wines especially the oxidised styles make it less of a gamble. Maury is one of those southern French appellations for fortified dessert wines which allow oxidative aging. In that part of France, it can be done by aging the new wine in transparent glass demijohns which have been left with a small air space at the top, and which are then left in the open for say a year or so, come rain, shine or snow. Subsequent aging can be done in barrels in the cellars. I encountered the above wine in London in the summer of 2010, and of course could not resist getting a bottle. I shall look forward to tasting this 40-something treasure!

Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses

This is a bottle of Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru les Amoureuses. I first found out about this vineyard having read about it in Jancis Robinson's Tasting Pleasure, her memoirs about her life as a wine critic. She recounted how one Valentine's Day whilst she was at university, she was taken out by a young man to dinner and they had a bottle of this romantic sounding wine. The name of the vineyard is the subject of debate, but it seems that it is not as romantic as it sounds. There does not seem to be any pair of lovers after whom the place is named. According to Frederic Mugnier, a top grower of les Amoureuses as well as in Burgundy, the vineyard is named after the soil which clings to the boot indicating a higher clay content. In Burgundy as in Touraine, such a soil is called amoureux (loving).

Krohn Colheita Ports

This is a bottle of Krohn Colheita 1961; a 1966 Colheita from the same Port House featured in the Two Century Wine Dinner in 2006, but I had not blogged about it or Krohn until now. Krohn (originally Wiese and Krohn) is a Port House originally founded in 1865 by two Norwegians, but after some years, Wiese sold his portion to Krohn who carried on (with Wiese under his employ) expanding the business of the firm. In the late 1930s, Edmundo Falcao Caneiro bought out the company for which he had been working since 1910, and it still remains in his family today. Although the firm produces the full range of ports (except 40 year old wood ports), it is the colheitas for which Krohn is most appreciated.

Pierre Gaillard Condrieu Fleurs d'automne

I had previously blogged about a botrytised Viognier from Australia. Now here is a sweet Condrieu made from botrytised Viognier from Pierre Gaillard. I had previously blogged about Gaillard in my entry on St-Joseph. The botrytised grapes are hand-picked in a number of harvests and fermented in barrels between 15 to 18 degC. The wine then undergoes 6 months aging in Allier and Nevers oak barrels, of which 5% are new. Regular lees stirring help accentuate the fleshy and unctuous character of the wine. I found this on promotion in a wine list sent to me by a friend, telling me about the Domaine Touchais sweet wines. I bought a bottle of this with some of the Touchais sweeties.

Dagueneau's Jurancon

This is a bottle of Jurancon from Didier Dagueneau, les Jardins de Babylone. Didier Dagueneau was Pouilly-Fume's "enfant terrible" (as Hugh Johnson put it), whose iconoclastic yet perfectionist attitude caused friction with his fellow vignerons in the Loire whilst at the same time redeeming the reputation of Pouilly-Fume by improving quality. Dagueneau wanted to make top dessert wines, but was not able to create a top dessert wine with AC status at his base in Pouilly. He eventually found the ideal vineyard for his ventures in Pau at the Pyrenees foothills. Created out of Petit Manseng, this wine was vinified to reflect the minerality of the terroir and seeks to achieve balance of the acidity, texture and depth of the fruit at each vintage rather than emphasizing the degree of achievable sweetness.

Teroldego Rotaliano

This is Teroldego Rotaliano, a red wine from Trentino-Alto Adige in Northern Italy, made from Teroldego grapes. Teroldego is an indigenous grape of Campo Rotaliano in the north-eastern part of Trentino-Alto Aldige. Its history dates back to the late 15th century and may have been named after the tirelle trellising system used for its cultivation. Ripening in late September and early October, the grapes make generous full-flavoured and moderately tannic reds, although it is also made into fruity roses with low tannins. Deep purple ruby, with a slightly acid nose with some fruity notes, the above wine is fruity and acid on the palate, with an acid backbone for support.

Pignolo

This is a bottle of varietal Pignolo from Vina Anselmi. Pignolo is an indigenous red grape grown in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. With its name meaning fussy because of its tendency to produce low and uneven yields, Pignolo has become a prominent variety in the Colli Orientali del Friuli DOC. It produces rich deep coloured wines with plum and blackberry flavours which take well to oak. Well made examples show good balance between acidity and tannins. This 2009 Pignolo was a deep rose with a sweet dried plum nose. The palate continues with plummy notes with good sweet sour balance, with a good sweet acid backbone in support.

Leeuwin Estate Art Series Riesling

I tasted this wine at a party a few weeks ago. I had earlier blogged about the art labels for their world class Chardonnay, but I had not had the opportunity to taste these Rieslings yet. I must confess the Australian style of crisp dry Rieslings are not my cup of tea, the fruity German ones are more to my liking. Even for the dry styles, German, Alsatian and Austrian ones better suit my preference. The Art Series represents the top wines from Leeuwin Estate, so this is their top Riesling. Pale lemon with a crisp (but not too acid) fruity nose, the above wine was dry and mildly fruity on the palate with a nice acid backbone for support.

Chateau Lamothe-Guignard

Chateau Lamothe Guignard and its sister chateau Lamothe were both classified as Second Growths in the 1855 claaification of Sauternes and Barsac wines. The original Chateau Lamothe was an 8th century fortress on a crop of high land (lamothe means a hilly outcrop), which was basically replaced by the current building shared between Lamothe and Lamothe-Guignard in the 16th century. After the property changed hands a number of times, it was bought by the Baptistes in 1820. It was in their under their ownership that the estate was divided and teh portion that was to become the above estate was bought by Joseph Bergey and renamed Lamothe-Bergey. This was sold in 1981 to the Guignard family, hence the modern name. This wine was a nice golden tea colour with a sweet botrytised nose brimming with dried apricot notes. The palate exhibited the same characteristics, well supported by a sweet acid dried apricot backbone, though the finish is rather short for a classified property.

MR Mountain Wine

This is a bottle of MR Mountain Wine from Telmo Rodrigues. One of three wines from Malaga by that estate, MR is made from bought grapes from growers practising traditional viticulture. The wine (like the others in the range) is made from 100% Moscatel, which are hand picked and then partially dried in the sun before pressing and fermentation in stainless steel tanks. Although Malaga is traditionally thought of as a fortified wine, both the two brand I have found here in Hong Kong (Telmo Rodrigues and Jorge Ordonez) concentrate on the older style of Malaga wines, which had not been fortified.

Domaine Touchais

This is a bottle of Domaine Touchais from Vignobles Touchais. Vignobles Touchais is also the estate responsible for the legendary Moulin Touchais wines. As this wines is also a sweet Coteaux de Layon, the question of the relationship between the Moulin Touchais and Domaine Touchais labels presents itself very naturally. Someone posed this question on the Cellartracker Forum and found the answer from the estate itself. Apparently Moulin Touchais is the normal way the sweet wines of Vignobles Touchais are labelled. For a short period, Joseph Touchais experimented with the idea of using the Domaine Touchais label, but that was quickly discontinued. I have bought a few bottles of 1971 and 1975 for more than a reasonable price recently and the above picture was taken from those wines.