Three different 1er Cru Chablis from Brocard

I tasted the whole flight of different Chablis that JM Brocard had to offer at the frustrating importer tasting that I blogged about at the beginning of the week. Framed by a 2012 village Chablis and a 2010 GC Les Clos, there were 3 premier Cru wines on show (though unfortunately not all of the same year). Two, Vau de Vey and Montee de Tonnere, were from 2011, whilst the Butteaux was from 2012. The latter was a touch less minerally and assertive in its acidity and this may have to do with the riper vintage of 2012 compared with the 2011. Of the two 2011 1er Crus, Vau de Vey had a slight note of tuna on the nose, whereas the Montee de Tonnere was much more lemony and this characteristic followed onto the palate as well. The backbone for both wines contained a good dose of minerality and acidity.

Pol Roger's Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill 2000

There were a couple of top champagnes to be tried at that frustrating importers tasting the other weekend. The Salon (I forgot which vintage) was only available at certain times and I was not at the booth at those times, whilst the Pol Roger Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill was pouring right the way through (as far as I can tell. I had tasted the 1996 before (at the Lafite 1982 dinner) and subsequently blogged about here. This time it is the 2000 vintage on show. A golden yellow wine with few streams of fine bubbles, the nose was crisp fruity with notes of bamboo shoot. An initial acid prickle gives way to a delicate mousse accompanied by bamboo shoot and fruity notes on the palate, all held together with an acid backbone still oozing bamboo shoot vegetal notes.

Niersteiner Pettenthal wines from Weingut Rappenhof

From time to time, there are some interesting gems one can taste at the Wine Fair, and a pair of botrytised sweet Rieslings from the Niersteiner Pettenthal vineyard definitely qualifies as hidden gems of this year's Wine Fair. Now I am not familiar with Weingut Rappenhof, but anyone offering a pair of wines from such a famous site merits a visit.

Nierstein is a treacherous name for lovers of German wines, with the Grosslage Gutes Domtal being a red warning light. However, a few Einzellages are really capable of delivering the best the village has to offer, and this includes the Pettenthal vineyard, which surely must be an Erste Lage. I have had wine which incorporated fruit from this vineyard, but it was a blend across village borders and was thus marketed as a branded wine. Well, they had a 2004 Auslese **** as well as a 1999 Beerenauslese on show - all I can say is - Bravo Weingut Rappenhof!

(The detailed tasting notes will need another entry to avoid an excessively long essay this time.)

The post conference wine tasting

It has now been an established tradition for there to be a wine tasting immediately following the closing ceremony of the annual Anaesthetic conference for some years now. I had been a loyal attendee of these conferences, missing only one whole conference (1997) since its inception in 1996. I had not gone to every wine tasting as I had may not be able to attend every conference in full (because I needed to work on one day or other). I had however been involved in organizing two myself, in 2007 and 2008.

This year's offering was organized by a wine importer, one that I know of. It consisted of 5 pairs of wine (one sparkling, two whites and two reds), with one of the pair from the Old World and the other from from New World. It was an interesting tasting, and I will take some of the pairs for further blog entries later.

Peeling off to a wine tasting during a conference

The conference talks were not that interesting or that relevant in the afternoon, so a number of us peeled off to explore a number of the other happenings in the Convention Centre. A little excursion to the Christie's Pre-auction Exhibition showed only Contemporary Asian Art which were not really to our tastes, then I went off to the annual wine tasting of a certain wine importer.

The arrangements were problematic this year (I had not attended before); an unreasonable delay for registration caused frustration for attendees. It also meant I had nearly half an hour less for tasting. In the end, I tasted some Chablis, some Franciacortia sparklers, some Sauternes etc, though I need a proper evaluation before I can determine if I will go again.

An organic sweet Airen

Now Airen has had a bit of a bad press, but I have been lucky in meeting reasonably good examples over the years, which I had blogged about earlier (here and here). I tasted another interesting wine made from Airen at the Wine Fair a couple of weeks ago, an organic sweet example. I did not have time to go through their product range but they had another sweet Granacha which I tried as well.

This sweet Airen was a nice orange tea colour, with a sweet orangey citrussy nose. Somewhere in the midst of all that was ginger, which was immediately picked up by my wife. The palate was sweet orangey (also gingery), going onto a backbone that was initially more sweet than sour, but finishing with a more prominent dose of acidity.

The Bordeaux lookalike featuring a Japanese hybrid

At the same location (though probably presented by a different trading company) to the Kyoho wine was this Lumiere Histoire 2008, looking for all the world like a Japanese attempt at a Bordeaux style wine. The cepage though was a bit different though, with Cabernet Franc (used in Bordeaux) and the special Japanese secret ingredient Black Queen. Now Black Queen is a special Japanese interspecific hybrid, resulting from crossing Bailey with Golden Queen. Both parents are interspecific hybrids with vinifera and labrusca pegrees, but Bailey is also descended from a third species, V lincecumii Buckley, a variety of V aestivalis, which is native to eastern North America. Vitis aestivali is the official grape of Missouri.

As for the wine, it was ruby with a sweet plummy acid nose spiced with a hint of wood. The palate was sweet acid and slightly fruity, with a sweet acid backbone.

Another Kyoho wine - a Japanese one finally

I have tasted a number of wines made from this iconic Japanese grape, one varietal example from Australia and another a Korean blend. Finally in this year's Wine Fair, I was able to try a Japanese wine made from the grape. According to the booklet of the Japanese Pavilion, there should be two on show, but I only ended up tasting this sweet one. {The other was not called sweet in the booklet, and may have been semi-sweet).

The wine was a pale lemon yellow, with a slightly sweet tropical fruit nose. The palate was much sweet with a hint of the typical labrusca foxiness as well as a good dose of acidity, which persisted to provide support and structure.

A Regent Beerenauslese

I blogged about the grape Regent and a red wine made from it a couple of years ago; that example was a Spatlese. I have now encountered a Beerenauslese made from this grape, at this year's Wine Fair. This 2011 Regent BA was ruby with a very sweet fruity nose. The palate was sweet with berry notes with a leafy sweet backbone for support. Although there was no specific mention of acidity in the tasting notes, it could not be that deficient in it, as there must be some to prevent an impression of cloying sweetness on tasting. Although Regent is supposed to have a tendency to high tannins, it was neither obvious in the last wine nor this (that said, the "leafy" quality could be a manifestation of green tannins).

The Napa Valley Reserve 2006

I had this wine at a family dinner in Los Angeles, whilst stopping for a lightning visit to my aunt and cousins after the Mexico conference last week. I have not met this wine before, but as my cousin Ray is also a wine enthusiast, I have no doubt that this is some interesting Californian offering. This it turned out to be. When I looked it up on the Web, it transpired that the Napa Valley Reserve is a private wine club, offering wine and more to its members. It seemed that its wines are made by a team including a winemaker from the cult Harlan Estate. As for the wine, it was a nice deep ruby, with a sweet berry fruity nose. This sweet berry fruit continued onto the palate accompanied by savoury and woody notes, well supported by an acid tannic backbone.

Champagne de Sousa and Champagne Zoemie de Sousa

I had known of Champagne de Sousa for a while and tasted some of its products at a previous Wine Fair. What I am not familiar with is the Zoemie de Sousa brand. That is a brand they created in 2004, for a range of champagne emphasizing freshness and for early consumption rather than aging.

But back to the original Sousa house, which began when a Portuguese soldier returned to settle in the region where he fought in the First World War and settled in Avize. His son married a grape grower in the region and the da Sousa house was born. Going organic in 1989 and biodynamic 10 years later, the estate owns much old vine in top villages in the vicinity of Avize. Other characteristics of the house include late ripening, extensive lees aging, full malolactic fermentation and aging of reserve wines in oak.

A Japanese wine made from Adirondac

I tasted a Japanese wine made from a grape variety I have not tried before - Adirondac. Having copied the name wrong, I was at a loss to find out what it was, until I discovered that I actually have the catalogue of the Japanese exhibitors at the Fair. Adirondac is an American table grape (according to VIVC) obtained by crossing Isabella with another unspecified grape, and Isabella is itself a labrusca vinifera hybrid. This Adiron 2014 was a pale ruby with a sweet jammy berry nose. The palate was sweet with berry fruit and just a slight hint of labrusca foxiness. A sweet acid backbone provided support.

Muscadine grapes again

I had blogged about wines made from muscadine grapes tasted at the 2010 Wine Fair before. As I related in the post last week, I had got to learn more about them in this year's Wine Fair. Muscadine is a large family of grapes, with 126 cultivars listed in the VIVC database. Scuppernong, which I'm sure I had tasted in 2010, was only one of those 126.

This year I tasted another 2 white and one red cultivars; the white ones being Carlos and Magnolia and the red one being Noble. To be sure, they all had their characteristic foxy, musky notes, and being rather unfamiliar with the special nuances of this species, one finds that they are very much similar. Nonetheless (grape collecting apart) it remained an interesting and instructive experience.

Hokkaido Winery

I found out that this winery was exhibiting at this year's Wind Fair, so I made a note to pay them a visit there. My first encounter with their wines was this botrytised Kerner,which I don't seem to have blogged about yet! I bought that bottle some 10 years ago, and still am waiting for an occasion to taste it.

They had a whole range of wines on show. I started off with a dry Kerner, and moved through a Gewurztraminer to a Zweigelt. Then I moved to varieties more popular in Japanese wine-making, such as Niagara ending with a rose wine made from Campbell Early. An interesting winery overall.

Doing a Vin Santo del Chianti tasting at the Chianti Pavilion

It was one of those serendipitous opportunities which one can take when it presents itself. Quite a few of the exhibitors at the Chianti Pavilion at this year's Wine Fair presented their Vin Santo and so I was able to get a tasting together of this interesting sweet wine.

Of the six wines tasted, the oldest was from 1997 and the youngest from 2010, with the rest (the largest "cohort") being from 2007. They varied in sweetness from moderately sweet to nearly cloyingly so, and surprisingly the least as well as the most sweet wines tasted were from the 2007 vintage. Little can be said comparing the 2010 and the 1997 wines. What is however evident is that the different estates produced very different wines and perhaps it is best to explore these separately later on in different entries.

Albarin Blanco

I was passing by this booth displaying different wines made from Prieto Picudo, when I remarked that I had tasted all of the grapes they use to make wines. It turned out not to be true, as Albarin (Blanco) is not the same as Albarino. This rare grape from a small area of Spain (there are apparently only 35 acres of this grape on earth, of which this estate has already 11) is easily confused with Albarino, which may be related but are certainly distinct from each other. Albarin comes from Leon and Asturias, and it is lower in acidity than Albarino and tends towards tropical fruit flavours. As for this wine, it was a pale lemon with an aromatic fruity nose. The palate was off dry and slightly fruity, with a slightly bitter (grape pips astringency) acid backbone.

HKIWSF 2014

Just got back from a short afternoon visit to the Wine Fair today. I had not been preparing much for this year's fair, as I had to leave for Mexico on the last day (Saturday, Public Day), and also had to prepare for the Conference which is the reason I am hurrying off to Mexico. My wife spent some time at the Chinese Spirits booths and tried out some really special (and expensive) spirits. My eyes were opened too, but I must say, I really am not a spirits person. I was surprised to find the muscadine growers from North Carolina back after an absence of a few years. Equally surprising was the fact that muscadine was a family, not one variety of grape. I learnt a little more about those grapes today.

Ch Chasse Spleen 2005

Having blogged about Chateau Chasse Spleen finally, I realized that I  still had not commented on how I found their wines on this blog. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the notes for the 2003 CBE tasting for now and so cannot comment on that vintage.

The 2005 Chasse Spleen was a nice deep purple ruby, with a sweet berry nose spiced with a good smattering of wood. The palate was sweet fruity tannic as well as woody. All this was nicely held together with an acid backbone seasoned with a smidgeon of tannins. All very nice and well matched to the Beef Wellington served that evening, except for an odd bottle of two with cork taint (one of which found its way into my wife's glass, unfortunately).

Champagne Zoemie de Souza's Brut Precieuse

This was a generous gift from a friend. A non-vintage Grand Cru champagne, the back label was most illuminating. It was pure Grand Cru Chardonnay (and hence a blanc de blanc). I had previously blogged about the Echelles des Cru de Champagne in the blog entry about a red Coteaux Champenois and so will not repeat what I have already written. There are 17 Grand Cru villages in all; the back label helpfully states that the fruit for this cuvee comes from the villages of Avize, Oger and Cramant, the last of which I had also previously blogged. I also noticed a date of disgorgement: 21st July 2009.

Looking up the Champagne de Souza Website, it states that apart from the villages noted above, le Mesnil sue Oger and Chouilly als provide fruit fro the above wine.

Wine for Hairy Crab

The Shanghai Hairy Crab season is here, and a group of friends got together with us over the weekend to have a tiny feast on the seasonal delicacy. Traditionally various types of  Chinese "yellow wine" (not vin jaune from the Jura, but Chinese rice wine) are drunk with these crabs, but I had got a bottle of Chablis for some seafood we were going to have for the meal, nothing special, just village level Chablis.

Well the restaurant got a little bit muddled over the dishes, with the result that I had needed to open nearly all the bottles whilst we were finishing off the crabs (which we were having first). Although the rice wine was nice and traditional with the crabs, Chablis was a better match with them (well their meat anyway), and better than with the other seafood, which tended to be sweeter in the flesh than the crabs. As for roe, we had a little try of anejo tequila, but I still go for Cognac XO for the really hard crab roe (the roe that is like the yolk of a hard boiled egg).