Les Clos Perdu Rose 2012

Although I had first met Corbieres way back in 1981, when it was only VDQS, all the Corbieres I ever met was red. I met my first Corbieres Rose the other day during this tasting at the neighbourhood organic wine shop. Looking it up, I found there are regulations also for white Corbieres too!

This example from Les Clos Perdu is made from 95% Mouvedre and 5% Cinsault, a cepage more often associated with Bandol Rose. The fruit is pressed on arrival to winery and cooled to 5 degC for settling and stabilisation. Fermentation is at 18 degC with a small proportion taking place in new oak, where it remains for 3 months for added complexity. Regular lees stirring is also done for this purpose. As for the wine, it was a pale rose in colour, with an off dry fruity nose. The palate was similarly off dry and fruity with with significant body, well supported by an acid backbone, Nice!

Champagne Besnard Chevalier et Filles 2005

A French doctor was going to a Manila conference via Hong Kong (a conference that I also attended) and our group arranged a dinner to meet up with some local doctors at dinner. This bottle is what he brought to dinner, a champagne from a small grower which he tasted and liked, and kept buying for his own consumption. Now that can only be something special. In fact I could not find anything on the Internet about the grower, except listings on the websites for buyers.

I understand from Dr Blin that it is a champagne made with the ordinary cepage. The wine was a nice golden yellow with good streams of fine bubbles. There was a fruity slightly pruney nose with hints of bamboo shoot. There was a good acid prickle on entry, dying down to a nice mousse, revealing sweet slight acid palate with fruity and nutty notes, well supported by a acid backbone.

Les Clos Perdus

This is a organic (tending towards biodynamic) gem of a winery in Corbieres which is the neighbourhood organic wine shop sells. Its website shows favourable reviews from Jancis Robinson, Decanter and Parker (no less) and having tasted a number of wines which I thought lifted my impressions of the Corbieres appellation, I thought it is time to explore this winery.

The name Les Clos Perdus means the lost (enclosed parcels of ) vineyards, and refers to the small parcels of old vines scattered on the hillsides around the locality. They are low yielding hence able to produce high quality fruit, but tend to be remote, unamenable to mechanization and thus unattractive to larger producer. This winery based in the village of Peyriac de Mer in the Languedoc, producing red whites and roses of the appellations Corbieres (3 red, 1 rose) and Vin de Pay de Cotes Catalan (2 whites and 2 reds).

Ch Pouget 2009

I tasted this wine at this year's Food Expo. It was one of, if not, the first first encounters with this Fourth Growth Margaux estate, of which I had recently blogged. It seems that the cepage has changed from the info on the website as this wine has a smattering of Petit Verdot added in. It was generally well received, with Wine Spectator rating of 93-96 and a Decanter rating of 17/20.

The wine was a lovely purple ruby in colour with a fruity nose (I was a bit impaired with the remnants of a cold that day). The sweet fruitiness continued onto the palate, which was then amply supported by an acid tannic backbone.

Vigne de l'Enfant Jesus

I had this wine at a dinner last night. The wine comes from a vineyard solely held by Bouchard Pere et Fils who acquired it in 1791 and has held it since. The name of the vineyard comes from an old story about the founder of the Carmelite monastery which owned the plot until the French Revolution. This nun predicted that although the then Queen of France was regarded as sterile, she would have a baby son, the future Louis XIV, the "Roy Soleil". At his birth, the Domestiques de la Famille du Saint Enfant Jesus which owned the vineyard renamed it Vigne de l'Enfant Jesus. The plot is a 9.9 acre section of the Beaune 1er Cru Greves climat and is one of those flagship 1er Crus of Beaune (having no Grands Crus) together with Drouhin’s Clos des Mouches and Jadot’s Clos des Ursules.

Kanaan Winery Riesling 2013

I mentioned this wine in a previous entry on a Riesling tasting in the organic wine shop. This Riesling is from a winery in Ningxia, which is apparently an up and coming region in China, but this will need another blog entry to explore. As for the Riesling I had tried, it was a pale lemon colour, with a slightly peachy nose with lots of lime notes. It was dry and citrussy on the palate with a sterling acid backbone. The nose suggested a dry Riesling of the Australian or New Zealand mould, though that did not translate to the palate. With a young winery (only 4 years) and young vines, this is a very good start and Kanaan's Riesling is certainly something to keep a close eye on (even though this is not a style of Riesling I prefer).

Another Japanese Kerner sweet wine

In my blog about Kerner, I mentioned about a botrytised Kerner from Hokkaido, which unfortunately have neither tasted nor blogged about. This is not that wine, but still a sweet Kerner from Hokkaido, this time from Grace Wine. I saw this wine in a branch of a Japanese wine retailer, at the same time as I spotted this Burgundian sweet wine, and I got a couple of bottles when I bought that wine for the doctors' association wine dinner. Looking up the wine on the winery's website, it seems that the overripe fruit for this medium sweet wine comes from Yoichi in Hokkaido, having been selected for concentration and minerality. It is then fermented and aged in stainless steel. I will certainly look forwards to tasting it.

A sweet wine from raisined Ruche

I tasted this wine at the tasting where a number of wines made by Lucas Ferraris from the Ruche grape a couple of weeks ago. Apart from two dry wines, this sweet example made from dried grapes was also shown. They were also matching it with mooncakes, but I did not try this combination.

Selected cluster of super ripe grapes were dried in wooden containers for several months in temperature and humidity controlled room, and then fermented with a light pressing at the end before undergoing several months of barrique aging. The wine was deep garnet in colour, with a sweet pruney acid nose. This sweet pruney character carried on into the palate, well supported by a sweet acid backbone.

L'Effronte Vin Moelleux 2009

I opened a bottle of this over the Mid Autumn festival holiday and tried matching it with mooncakes. Now there are so many different types of mooncakes, both traditional and modern (not to mention the ice-cream type), so that one wine cannot be expected to match everything. There was also the Chilean sweet Viognier Sauvignon for company. This wine was obviously more acidic than the Chilean one. It matched well with the custard filled mooncakes, but could not stand up to those traditional lotus paste ones.

AS fopr the wine itself, it was a nice golden yellow, with a sweet acid fruity nose (with a tiny hint of mango). The palate was sweet acid and apricoty, with dried apricot acidity as a nice supportive backbone. I think it will go with my intended flamuss aux pommes at my Burgundy dinner.

A Chilean Sweet Viognier Sauvignon

I was surprised to see this Luis Felipe Edwards dessert wine at a 24 hour convenience store. That they mislabeled the price on the promotion poster to below $100 made me have a second look. Even at a little over $100, it looked an interesting enough wine for a try, and so naturally I bought it. There are not many sweet wines made with Viognier and it is not certain (even after looking up their website) whether any of it is nobly rotten. Botrytised character is evident on both nose and palate but that could be from affected Sauvignon Blanc. (In any case this is an unusual combination).

I had it with mooncakes, but the match depends as much upon the sweetness of the mooncakes more than the wine. As for the wine, it was a golden orange tea in colour, with a sweet luscious dried apricot nose. Those characters continued onto the palate with a less apricot dried fruit acidity forming a good backbone giving sterling support. Nice wine and at a good price.

A Riesling tasting at the neighbourhood wine shop

Just dropped by the neighbourhood wine shop (specializing in organic wines) whilst they were having a tasting over the weekend, this time they had a lineup of Rieslings and a special organic Corbieres. They showed an interesting wine which someone had given them, a Chinese Riesling in the New World mould. That's for another blog entry. Then (disregarding the red wine prior to the Auslese sweetie) followed a series of three Rieslings from three different makers, but all from the MSR region. First an Ayler Kupp Qualitatswein from the Saar, then back to Mittelmosel with a Trittenheimer Apotheke Spatlese, and (after the red) a Brauneberg Juffer Sonnenuhr Auslese from Fritz Haag. That progression showed off the German Rieslings nicely, and illustrated why although New World dry Rieslings have their own charm, German Rieslings have a very special place in my heart.

Isola dei Nuraghi

I met this wine at the Food Expo in August. Isola dei Naraghi literally means the island of Nuraghi or Sardinia. It is the main IDT for that island and can be white, red or rose, but most are red and based on Carignan, Cannonau (Grenache), Cabernet or Cagnulari (Graciano). I just saw some Agricola Punica reds in a branch of a Japanese wine retailer that is Carignan based but with Cabernet and Merlot mixed in. The estate is also partly owned by Sassicaia.

Back to this example (Nastarre 2013) I met at the Wine Fair, it was a mix of Pascale di Cagliari, Malaga, Monica, Cagnulari (or Graciano) and Nebbiolo. Purple ruby, and soft sweet and fruity on the palate, the wine then became acid and a bit tannic as the backbone revealed itself. (As I had mentioned, I was suffering from a cold and could not smell that clearly.) I must check how many new grapes I have also added from this wine to my collection!

The Vouvray with the unhelpful label

I finally tasted the Vouvray with the unhelpful label, the latter of which I had blogged. Just as they told me that it was a sweet-ish wine, so it turned out to be. However it was more like a heavier form of Mosel Kabinett, where both sweet and acidity were assertive, but in this case in a more robust wine with medium body.

I had it with some halibut sauced with a mushroom, clam, wine cream sauce, in my own variation of the sauce of Sole Normande. The sauce did not turn out as well as I expected, but the wine did go well with the fish. The wine was a pale golden straw with a sweet acid fruity nose that became a bit honeyed with pineapple aromas as well as a hint of metal (tinned pineapple!). The palate was sweet and fruity, adding tropical fruits as it opened up, well supported by an amply acidic backbone. Nice wine, even if one with an unhelpful label.

Vermentino di Galluria

I remember blogging about a Vermentino wine before. It was a French example by Robert Skalli, and the most remarkable thing about it was that it was labeled Vermentino, rather than Rolle. I also remember tasting a Tuscan version from the Bolgheri coast too (from Guado al Tasso, I think). This time, it is Vermentino di Galluria, a DOCG wine from Sardinia, which I encountered together with another Sardinian wine (an Isola dei Nuraghi) at the Food Expo last month. That wine was a pale straw, but due to the tail end of the cold, its aromas did not succeed in penetrating my blocked nose. The palate was off-dry and slightly fruity and enough acid to give support to the wine.

Chateau Pouget

Chateau Pouget is a Fourth Growth estate in the Margaux Appellation. Not to be confused with the Poujeaux a Cru Bourgeois (exceptionelle in the 2003 classification) from Moulis, Ch Pouget was less seen around locally than the Moulis wine. I met this example at this year's Food Expo. The history of the chateau can be traced back to 1748 when Francois-Antoine Pouget inherited the estate. For the next century and a half, it remained in the same family. It is now owned by the Guillemet family.

The vines are on average 30-40 years old, with 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. Although not practising organic viticulture, no chemical fertilizers have been used for some 30 years. The had picked fruit is fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks and undergoes 2-5 week maceration according to the vintage conditions. The wines are matured for 12-18 months in oak casks of which 30-50% are new.The wine is bottled on the estate without filtration.

Tasting Ruche from Lucas Ferraris

I went by the organic wine shop and dropped in on a tasting of wines from Lucas Ferraris the other day. I had already tasted their Viognier but the rest of the line-up was different wines made from Ruche. I had already tried the Ruche DOCG "I Firmata" of another vintage at a previous Wine Fair, but the Opera Prima and the NV Sole dessert wine made from dried grapes are both new to me. The I Firmata was like what I recorded in my notes previously, orangey, fruity and a touch floral.

The Opera Prima is their flagship wine and comes from specially cultivated vines from the Bric d'Bianc vineyard, where the nutrient poor soil restricts yields to produce clusters of small dark berries with concentrated juice.A long slow fermentation in large oak botti was followed by 2 years of maturation in one year old 500L tonneaux and a year in bottle before release. The resultant wine (2012 vintage) was a dark ruby colour with a sweet berry fruity nose. The palate was sweet and savoury in turns with plentiful fruit and touches of vanilla wood. An acid slightly tannic backbone gives support.

AS for the raisined dessert wine, that will have to wait for another entry.