Wine and Dine 2013

Just visited the Wine and Dine Festival at the new Central Harbourfront site tonight. It obviously has a different feel to the previous West Kowloon site, but more obvio9us is the fact that one pays more, like the admission charge, which had been included in the various glass and voucher sets of previous years. The Grand Tasting Room is reserved for American Express VIPs so I cannot comment on that.

How interesting you find these events depends a lot on what you want to get out of it. I want to maintain friendships, taste unusual wines and make new friends. In the brief visit today, I have been able to do just that and even get to try a new Hungarian and a new Greek grape. Thus so far, even if it has not been greatly impressive, I look set to achieve some of my objectives for this year's Wine and Dine Festival;

Cremant and Cramant

The term cremant is applied to Franch semi-sparkling wines made by the Methode Traditionelle - like how it is done in champagne with a second fermentation in bottle and subsequent riddling and disgorgement. Although the term was once also used in Champagne, that does not now happen. Of these, I have blogged about Cremant de Die (from the Rhone valley) and mentioned Cremant de Limoux (I think) when blogging about Blanquette de Limoux and the Mauzac grape. I have also tasted Cremants from Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Jura. The only Cremant AC which I do not not seemed to have tried is Cremant de Loire, but I wonder if some of the Loire sparklers I did taste are of this designation.

As for Cramant, it is a commune in the Cotes de Blancs subregion of Champagne and is designated Grand Cru (100%). Probably the most easily encountered example of a champagne from there would be Mumm de Cramant.

Filsell Old Vine Shiraz

I tasted this wine at a promotion recently. The wine, the younger brother of the flagship Meshach Shiraz, comes from the same Filsell vineyard, which was planted in 1920. One of the finest vineyards of the Barossa, it produces fruit of great intensity and concentration. The fruit is crushed and fermented separately in temperature controlled tanks with pumping over for about a week or so, before a final fermentation in oak. The final assemblage is matured in a mix of new and 2 year old American oak barrels (with a small amount in French oak hogshead) for 20 months before bottling.

As for this wine, it was a deep purple ruby with a woody berr nose. The palate was sweet and rich with berry and woody notes and a slight salty tang. A good acid tannic backbone give good support.

A strategy for going to wine fairs

The Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival is happening at the end of the week and the wine fair a week later. There are many ways of enjoying yourself in these events, but if you want to make the best out of them, it is imperative to do your homework. This invariably means swotting up on the exhibitors' info on the event website. By going through the sections you are interested, you can select a number of stalls you "must visit" and enter them into a list (with their stall numbers). As you wander along the venue going from one "destination" to another, you will be distracted by things you have not noted (or which they have not listed in the blurb on the website) and be pleasantly surprised at the unexpected windfall.

That was how I found out about the Vino della Pace last year. But the unexpected windfall came as I rushed towards the Riedel Pavillion (at Wine and Dine), stopping after seeing Cyrillic alphabet and discovering the Massandra stall!

Describing what you smell and taste

During wine tasting, one looks at the wine, smell and then taste it in that order. Generally speaking, there are standardized descriptions which, though it might be unfamiliar to some, have become a sort of common language amongst the afficionados. Now standardization is all very well, but they are based on Western experiences.I have already blogged about the problems unfamiliarity with gooseberry brings (and how in this part of the world it is assumed to be the Cape gooseberry (or Physalis)). Others like wampi and the various preserved plums (such as chanpimui etc) are very must in the realm of gustatory experience of Guangdung and related cultures.

All these are inhibitory to the spontaneity of telling people what really comes to mind when you first tasted the wine. Sometimes, it is a certain meatiness with fishy overtones, which often brings to mind canned tuna (especially when it is accompanied by a metallic tang). Recently the wine completely surprised me with a smell of that peculiarly local soft drink, cream soda. It is not just vanilla from barrels, it smelt of cream soda and that even extended onto the palate. It certainly will stick in my memory for a long time.

Chateau Beychevelle

The name Beychevelle was the corruption of "Baisse-Voile" meaning lowering of sails, a custom from the time of Henri III when ships would lower their sails as a sign of allegiance on passing the Chateau. The Chateau was built in the 17th century and reconstructed and extended in the 18th and 19th century respectively. Now owned by Grands Millismes de France (Castel and Suntory groups), the estate produces a Grand Vin, Amiral de Beychevelle and a separate wine, les Brulieres de Beychevelle, which come from a few plots of wines in Haut-Medoc bordering St Julien and carries the Haut-Medoc appellation.

BTW, the website has a simplified Chinese section as well as a Japanese section, testifying to the rise of interest in fine Bordeaux wine in the Far East.

La Clape

I tasted this wine at a supermarket wine fair recently. It is from La Clape a sub-region of Coteaux de Languedoc. I had met the Cru of La Clape before, when I present one of its wines many years ago at one of the PWC dinners. La Clape goes back a long way, to when the rocky outcrop now known as the Massif de La Clape was offered by Julius Caesar to some of his trusted legionaries. They started growing vines and making wines here, giving the place over 2000 years of wine growing history. The reds are made from Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre. Tha example tasted was a deep purple ruby, with a nice berry nose. It was slightly sweet with a berry fruit palate, giving way to a tannic acid backbone.

Pinotage

Pinotage is a distinctly South African grape which was bred there in 1925 by crossing Pinot Noir and Cinsault (which used to be called Hermitage, hence the name). Despite being a cross of a Burgundy and Rhone grapes, the flavour profile of Pinotage is nothing like French wine and more like New World wines. A vigorous vine like it parent Cinsault, Pinotage is easy to grow, ripening early with good sugar levels. Grown mainly in South Africa, varietal Pintoage tends to give deep red wines with smoky bramble and earthy flavours and occasionally notes of tropical fruits as well as bananas. Apart from varietal wines, Pintoage is also blended as well as being made into a fortified wine.

Richer than 3 puttonyos

I was at a wine fair organized by a premium supermarket when I was offered a taste of the Henye Tokay Aszu 3 puttonyos 2006. Now although the number of puttonyos will determine the sweetness of the resultant wine, the residual sugar is now designated by the number of puttonyos, with 3 corresponding to 60g/L. Yet this wine tastes much richer than 3 puttonyos, more like 5! Now I wonder if there are other criteria used in determining the puttonyos level. Look at German Pradikat wines todat. They exceed minimal Oeschle levels by a great margin, in fact sometimes by a couple of categories, eg a Kabinett wines has a ripeness level above the minimum for Auslese. This is in part the result of global warming. With higher Pradikats, some vignerons will declassify to a lower designation for their own reasons.

Back to this wine, it was a nice golden orange colour with a sweet acid orangey apricot (fresh) nose. The palate was sweet with a dried apricot acidity, which followed through with slight prune notes to the finish forming a nice backbone to the wine. Nice!

Choosing wines for a Chinese Banquet

Although there have been posts about which wines go with which dish in a banquet, the difficulty of choosing say a red and a white wine for the whole meal is another matter. Johnson favours something light and aromatic with a touch of sweetness for the white, and recommend a Mosel Riesling (say a Kabinett). That is also my reserve position, especially if there are people who drink wine infrequently attending the meal. Yet if one is serious about seafood in the meal, something like a Chablis (1er Cru) should go down nicely. I would try either a fresh cru Beaujolais or a lively Pinot Noir (including some young fruity Burgundies we now find) for the red. However, this is not something that local drinkers are used to, especially since both would be rather light in body. Most banquets (especially wedding ones) end up with a Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon from say Australia or South America. Now I wonder what I should get for the gathering on Tuesday?

Alternative Wines Blog

When I moved this blog from yahoo, I also started a Chinese blog on alternative wines. This blog was inspired by the Fringe Wine website which published on obscure grapes, familiar grapes in unfamiliar styles or places etc. Now this blog has entries on all of these types of wines and grapes, so this new blog covers some ground that I've covered before, but offers an opportunity to sharpen my pen in Chinese. It is actually ironic that the first ever article of mine carried by a magazine which one buys here in Hong Kong is actually in Chinese (in the Wine Now magazine).

One impetus for me to improve my Chinese writing is when I saw some of the wine books in the shops today. They seem to contain much the same material as the sort that I've been putting in this blog, so the obvious question is: could I be writing a Chines wine book then? One can only prepare for it, hence this Chinese blog.

Melnik

This is a bootle of wine made from one of the new Bulgarian grapes which I have not tasted before. Apparently there are a number of grapes named after the town of Melnik, of which Siroka Melnik is the best known, a name sometimes shortened to just Melnik. Siroka Melnik is parent to a number of other grapes including Melnik 82 (crossed with Valdigue) Melnik Yubileen 1300 (crossed with Saperavi)and Ranna Melnishka (crossed with a mixture of pollen including Valdigue).

Back to Siroka Melnishka (or Broadleafed Melnik), which as a varietal takes to oal aging, producing tobacco notes in a wine which has been compared tio Chateauneuf in power and apice. Apparently, one of those who appreciated its wines was Churchill.

Maderization

Now Madeira is a nice though currently unpopular and unfashionable wine, which has undergone slow oxidation to give it a unique character. Yet apart from Madeira and a few deliberately oxidized wine, maderizarion is a wine fault. Not that maderized wines are always horrible to drink! I first came across a maderized Chablis which was bought in a neighbourhood wine seller. There was a nuttiness that alerted me to the oxidation. I threw i away, although on hindsight, I might have used it like a sherry (or even like the Chinese rice wine) in cooking.

A recent episode had me re-discovering where a missing bottle went, outside the fridge and in a hot place. The bottle was a Sicilian sweet white with a difference, bering made out of a mix of grapes originating from other parts of Italy. When I tasted a little, there was the unmistakable nuttiness, which seemed to complement the basic dried apricot notes in the original wine, making it rather reminiscent of a sweet sherry (maybe a sweetend amontillado). I decided to keep this wine and put it in the fridge. I'll have a proper taste of it later and finish the bottle.;

A 30 year old Burgundy

This 1983 Volnay Premuer Cru Clos de la Bousse d'Or was tasted at the last PWC dinners some months ago. We were taking a number of wines froim years ending in 3, so they were also a whole number of decades old. This one at thirty was the oldest that night. If you had been following my blog from the beginning, you might remember a 19th century Madeira, which is also a whole number of decades old too, actually exactly one and a half century old this year, but that is for another ocassion, another blog.

This 30 year old Burgundy was a garnet colour but with pink hints round the edge. The nose was meaty and earthy with a touch of acid, leading to a sour plum palate, supported by an acid backbone. A nice drink but nothing outstanding to grab you attention.

Pink Port

When I first saw this in Marks and Spencers, I was a bit confused. Port is ruby or tawny, or even white, but never before pink!. It seems that some years previously, Crofts have made a port in which colour and tannin extraction had been carefully controlled and then fortified in a way that did not dominate the resultant product. This gives a wine with fresh fruity flavours, increased vibrancy and less heavy on the palate. Crofts suggests chilling theirs or even serving it over ice. This Marks and Spencers version is by David Guimaraens (of the Fonseca House) - they didn't mention chilling, but suggest nuts or a light fruit pudding as suitable matches.

Muscat de St Jean de Minervois

I have previously blogged about the fortified Muscats from the South of France with most of the discussion concerned with the Rhone appellation, Muscat de Beaumes de Venise. Most of the other appellations of Muscat based vin doux naturale are actually in the region of Languedoc-Rousillon and Muscat de St Jean de Minervois is generally regarded as the best of them all.

This is a small appellation just north of Minervois itself and is basically a small limestone plateau of some 700 or so acres at an elevation of 900ft. It is nearly completely planted with Muscat Blanc a Petit Grains, which is allowed to become super-ripe before harvesting. The grapes are fortified mid fermentation by the addition of grape alcohol to preserve the sugars in the grapes.

Quinta Vale Dona Maria LBV 2006

This was the port presented at the recent doctors' association wine dinner. It was an unfined and unfiltered port and instead of the usual cork stopper, it had a standard cork of normal length, the type you see in ordinary wine bottles. Although the owner had sent me pictures of grape treading in the estate, I had assumed that this was only for their top port. It turns out that in fact the grapes for all their ports undergo foot treading. Another unusual feature is that instead of the usual raisin and dried fruit aromas and flavours, it was more fresh (and slightly stewed) berries in its flavour profile. Yet despite this deviation from the expected, it was an excellent match with the fondant chocolate pudding and was exquisite with the Blue Stilton.

Caladoc

When I blogged about the unusual Bulgarian wines with obscure grapes, little did I suspect that one of those little known beasts was bred in France and from well known parents. This is the case with Caladoc, which featured in a blend with the two Cabernets. The grape was bred in 1958 at the INRA by crossing Grenache and Malbec, in the hope of producing a grape suitable for growing in southern France, with reduced susceptibility to coulure. However, it is not permitted in any AOCs and Languedoc growers are trying it out in VdP blends. As a grape it shares many of the fruity and spicy aromas as its parents, and with high phenolic levels tend to produce tannic wines with deep colour. I shall look out for these features when I get to taste this wine.

Partnering Port

We had a 2006 LBV port from Quinta Vale Dona Maria for the wine dinner I mentioned in the last entry. This was the last wine of the evening and I had ordered a chocolate fondant dessert to pair with it. This turned out to be a good match.

I was also quite keen to see if having port would make blue cheese more palatable for those who had not tried it before, so I had also arranged to serve some Blue Stilton at the same time. I had already blogged some time ago that my wife was converted to the merits of the cheese by presented it to her with some port. It turned out that there were many people that night who take Blue Stilton and so corresponding there were less targets for persuasion. However, few of them had tried the combination before and all had found it delicious.

An Iberian Wine Dinner

The annual Doctors' Association wine dinner is upon us. Last year we started off with the Rhone valley and ended up covering the whole river (including its source and upper reaches which is actually in Switzerland). I had thought of trying the Douro with its origin in Spain and ending up going into the sea at the Portuguese coast. However, those wines are gradually pricing theselves out of the budget, so I thought we can have the theme of the whole Iberian Peninsula.

The final line-up started with Innocente sherry as aperitif; followed by a pan-fried fish and salad starter, which was paired with Albillo. The main course and the cheese platter was paired with 3 each of Spanish and Portuguese red wines. A rich chocolate fondant pudding was offered as an experimental match for the LBV port, with a small wedge of Stilton offered for those who like these things.

von Kesselstatt's Chinese website

It is not unusual in Winery Websites nowadays to see a PRC flag for an icon which leads to the Chinese version of the Website. There is usually no indication whether it will be in traditional or simplified Chinese, but having a Chinese website is a good start. But we're talking about now.

von Kesselstatt had a Chinese section quite a few years back (maybe up to 10 years?), and I remembered that I had downloaded something useful from it, namely a list of food pairings of Chinese dishes with their wines. I am glad to see that they have kept the list and updated it. Bravo for this pioneer in Chinese winery website.

Stumbling upon some unusual Bulgarians

I was having a wander around a shopping mall opposite the Tsuen Wan Town Hall in the extended meal break between rehearsal and performance later that Sunday evening when I ran across a branch of the chain which sells many Bulgarian wines. I discovered a number of wines which contain grapes I did not seem to have tasted before. There was a blend with Caladoc, and two varietals, Melnik and Bouquet. A quick check with VIVC confirmed these were really grapes that I had not met, but now that I tried to find out more about them, it seems that there is more confusing information, as the grapes involved may have different synonyms, but in the VIVC, there are also separate listings too. This will need a little more time to sort out. On the other hand, these are three more grapes towards my target of 400!

Welcome!

Welcome to the new Pete's Wine Tidbits! As you all know the Yahoo blog is shutting down and my wine blog has had to move. I have chosen this as the new place for my blog to reside and I am still learning about this site, so things will take a little while to sort out. For one, I have not fouind how to upload pictures to the blog yet, a problem I hope to solve very, very soon. Be reassured that the blog is continuing and I will try and keep to the schedule of 5 posts a week (or one per weekday). I don't know if it will keep the old format or not, but I will try and make sure each blog will be accompanied by a picture. Meanwhile if you have just stumbled upon this blog now and before the transfer of the old material to this blog is complete, please go and visit my old blog before it closes for good on 26 December 2013.