Viniq

 

These are the three variations of Viniq - a blend of vodka, Moscato and natural fruit flavours together with some shimmering food additive that is used to decorate cakes. The purple is original, with the red and yellow being red berries and peach respectively. I became aware of this concoction in the past few months and witnessed long queues at the booths which were showcasing the drink at Wine and Dine as well as at the Wine Fair this year, but somehow I was not enthusiastic enough to taste it though I had tried obscure wines from obscure grapes at those two events. I suppose the description already identifies itself as more a party animal that a wine for serious consideration, but although the swirling simmering effect is attractive, I am not particularly keen on drinking this cake decoration in my wine.

An unexpected vinous windfall

A large local branch of one of the big two supermarkets was closing and re-opening as a small branch elsewhere in the same shopping complex. Unbeknownst to me, what had once started off as one of the largest shops on Hong Kong Island, became in the various previous downsizing exercising, a hub for processing various Internet orders, and so had a large stock of different merchandises which we actually do not regularly see on the shelves. that was the reason why some of the soon to  expire food items on special for clearance never seemed to have graced the shelves in their heyday.

As part of the closing down exercise, a number of bottles from their Internet order "bin end" stock appeared on special offer on increasing depleted shelves. These included bottles of Chateau Camensac, La Fleur de Bouard as well as the second wine of La Tour Carnet, none of which I had seen on sale ever in that shop. Of course, I got a few bottles.

Getting acquainted with Penfolds RWT

Penfolds RWT has always been a wine we liked ever since we encountered a bottle at a KCCWS wine dinner well over ten years ago, at which the theme was Winpac medalists. This was the one wine which stood out the whole evening and we went back to the bottle again and again, and we also noted down its name. That was actually the first vintage of 1997, and it was being introduced to Hong Kong at the time. Then I found out that there was a steep price to match its quality. Unlike its flagship Grange (which is a blend across different regions), the fruit for this wine all comes from the Barossa Valley and then the wine is aged in French oak. We had the above bottled recently over the Christmas holidays, but that is for another blog.

BTW, RWT stood for Red Winemaking Trials, an operational designation during the development of this wine.

Chateau Siran 1986

 

This double magnum of Chateau Siran 1986 was on display in the Wine and Dine Festival, though the wine (from smaller bottles) was not offered for tasting at the time.I had already blogged about the chateau and its arts connection before, and it is obvious from the image that this label celebrated the perihelion of Halley's comet that year. The comet's passage was not easily visible from earth as it occurred on the opposite side of the Sun to us. Just as the conditions for seeing the comet were far from ideal, so too the growing season for grapes in Bordeaux, which was beset by heat and drought. Despite this the crop was huge, and was initially favoured by the critics. A typical stern, old school Bordeaux vintage, the wines have not aged well and were best drunk some time ago.

Chateau Mosse Rivesaultes 1934

I had previously blogged about these Southern France fortified wines and how they represented a good opportunity to taste some really aged wines at a very reasonable cost. As I wrote in the previous entry, I tasted this wine at the Wine Fair a little while after I had bought a bottle. The tasting confirmed that I was not mistaken about my purchase. This 81 year old wine was brown with pink tints, with a slightly smoky vine fruit nutty nose. The palate was sweet nutty with vine fruit notes, well supported by an acid backbone. Delicious and worth every cent of what I had paid for this ancient wonder!

Another cost effective Spanish red

 

Since someone remarked to me in early March about some interesting Spanish reds having high Parker scores at a competitive price, I have watched out for such wines both for everyday drinking and for the occasions when I have been asked to choose wines on a limited budget. The wine we drank on that occasion was the Bodegas Castano Solanera VV 2012, though I have also discovered the Flor de Englora some time previously.

This Acustic Celler Brao VV 2012 was made from the fruit of Carignan and Grenache vines over 60 years old, and aged for 13 months in French barrels. Sporting a purple ruby rim with a dark core, the nose of the wine was sweet with berry and wood notes. The palate was sweet fruity with a touch of savoury yielding to acidity and tannins, going on to an acid and savoury backbone.

Winemaker's cuvees from Hokkaido

 

I saw this couple of wines on the shelves of a chain retailer last month. They had been stocking various wines form the Hokkaido Winery and I had tried the Zweigelt  with the white label before. What was interesting was that we have two Zweigelt wines from the same winery from the same winery but from two different winemakers, whose name appears on the label.

Now I remembered that when I visited their booth in the Wine Fair last year, they had also a range of different wines label under the winemaker's name. I didn't notice that there were any two wines with the same grapes by two different winemakers, so did not ask the obvious question as to what they were aiming for in the different cuvees. Unfortunately although there was a booth showing off their products in the Wine Fair this year, there was no one from the company, so the answer of this question remains elusive.

Affordable aged wines - VDNs from Southern France

This was a display I saw at the Wine Fair this year. These are all well aged wines 41 to 81 years old, yet with prices between $500 and $700! Why such undervalued gems? Perhaps it is because they are sweet to start off with; also they are from relatively obscure appellations from the South West of France; and they are also fortified. Aside from that, many would ask if an 81 year old wine at such a bargain price could actually be drinkable (questions of provenance and at that), but they are frankly unaware of the rancio style of deliberately oxidized wine, which are virtually "indestructible". If they aren't familiar with Madeira, there is no reason they'll know these beauties. But for the people who know, or folks who are simply adventurous, they represent an affordable opportunity to try really well-aged wines. Of course I got a bottle of the 1934. Then I found it was actually available for tasting - but that is for another entry.

Avignonesi Occhio di Pernice Vin Santo di Montepulciano 2000

I tasted this wine at this year's Wine Fair. It was a wine they hid under the counter and only presented it when it was asked for, although it was listed as a product they were presenting in the exhibitor's catalogue. Vin Santo di Montepulciano Occhio di Pernice is made from at least 50% Sangiovese, and is aged in small caratelli of 75L for a minimum of eight years according to the Law. This precious example was aged 10 years in barrel and made from fruit of 26 year old vines. In keeping with the record of this wine receiving scores of high 90s from Parker and Wine Spectator, this wine was awarded 98 points.

As for the wine itself, it was a very viscous mahogany brown, with a sweet raisiny fruity nose. There were sweet coffee smoky pruney notes on the palate, well supported by a sweet acid backbone with notes of prunes.

Traditional Tuscan wine with Cabernet Sauvignon

One might be forgiven to think that the Supertuscans were the first wines to use Cabernet Sauvignon, but the truth is that the wines of Carmignano were the first to use this grape, probably from as long ago as the 17th century. Carmignano also had the distinction of being one of the first wines to be legally protected (1716) and was in the past a prized wine of Tuscany. However, it was subsumed in 1932 into a subzone of Chianti and was only gicen a separate DOC in 1975, and promoted to DOCG in 1990. A second DOC was granted for the younger wine of the same area and cepage - Barco Reale.

I tasted both Carmignano (also the Riserva) and the Barco Reale in the Wine Fair this year. The plain DOCG 2013 was a deep ruby with a sweet berry fruity nose. The palate was sweet acid and plummy with an acid backbone. As for the rest, it is better to do another post.

Caberlot

I tried this wine at this year's Wine Fair. This IGT wine from Tuscany is made from what the winery believes to be a natural crossing of Cabernet Franc and Merlot in the wild and subsequently planted on their estate. The plants are organoleptically close to Cabernet Franc but ampelographically the vines are like Merlot! It is a pity that the winery have refrained from DNA fingerprinting the vines.

Back to the wines, there was only the Caberlot (only bottled in magnums) first made inn 1988 until the second wine Carniscale (750 ml bottles only) was produced in 2000. The wines have acquired cult status and are very sought after. AS for this wine, it was a nice deep ruby with a green acid fruity nose. The palate was soft and fruity with good acidity, well supported by an acid backbone.

An adventurous house wine

I had this white wine at the reception and lunch at a wedding at the Repulse Bay Hotel over the weekend. (The Champagne (Cattier) and red wine (Santa Cristina) are much more conventional.) The surprise here is that Gros Manseng was featured on the label. The Website says there is only 5% in the cuvee, so technically this could count as a varietal Chardonnay.

Gros Manseng is a grape from the Pyrenee foothills in South West France and is more associated with Jurancon, Bearn, Pacherenc and Cotes de Gascogne wines as well as Floc d'Armagnac. Being also a mutation of Manseng Noir (cf Pinot Noir) like Petit Manseng, it nevertheless makes wines of less elegance and quality than the latter, though it can give well flavoured wines with high acidity. Back to the wine, it was nice lemon yellow, with a slightly sweet and slightly fruity nose. The palate was dry and acidic with hintas of fruit, well supported by an acid backbone.

Clos du Tart

I tasted this at the Wine and Dine Festival this year. A monopole of the Mommessin family, I had read about it some time ago, but had not encountered it till now. The vineyard was sold to the Cistercian nuns of the Tart Abbey in the 12th Century and remained in their possession until the French Revolution when  it was seized by the state. The Momessin family bought it in 1932. It is currently the largest Grand Cru classified property in Burgundy.

The 2009 vintage which I tasted was a ruby colour with a sweet berry nose garnished with a hint of meat. The palate was sweet and fruity and well supported by a nice acid backbone.

Buyers' palate

It would not be unreasonable to assume that people going to the Wine Fair to evaluate wines would have a certain sophistication of palate. However an incident at this year's Wine Fair would certainly make me revisit this assumption. I was at a booth tasting their various offerings when I thought their flagship wine a touch strange, to be truthful perhaps slightly corked. Sometimes there are problems with the glass (though I had tasted other wines from the same producer with the same glass without any problems). I asked to sniff the bottle and then the cork, but nothing definite was confirmed, by which time the exhibitor got ruffled. After some swilling and more sniffing on the part of both of us, we jointly decided that the bottle in question was definitely and slightly corked. He opened a new bottle and everything was fine, but not before he cursed the palates of the previous tasters, none of whom had picked up the problem!!

Nino Negri's 5 Stelle Sfursat

This 5-star wine (5 Stelle literally means 5 stars) gained 3 glasses in the newest Gambero Rosso guide. I was curious to try it out, because the name of the denomination is so special: Sforzato (Sfursat is in the local dialect) is also a musical expression meaning emphasis and is a bit like an accent on the note(s) or chord(s) with which it has been marked. It is similar to the similar sounding Sforzando and some music dictionaries regard them as the same.

Returning to Sforzato the wine, it is a 100% Nebbiolo wine with Valtellina being the only major region outside Piedmont which focuses on this grape. Sforzato is made from dried Nebbiolo, a bit like how Amarone is made. The wine itself was a pale ruby, with a vanilla woody fruity nose. The palate was soft and fruity with a nice acid backbone giving good support.

2015 Wine Fair

I went as usual to the Wine Fair this year. There was some disappointment as I had blogged a few days ago, yet I was able still to taste new grapes as well as find some interesting wines. Although the emphasis (as always) is on the newly released wines, that does not mean that old wines are nowhere to be found. There continue to be new releases of old vintages of VDNs from Southern France and I managed to taste an 80 year old wine.

I also did a survey of Vin Santos from different wineries and different areas, and managed to try the traditional wine with Cabernet Sauvignon (& Franc) in its grape blend. I did wonder about trying out some Japanese Whiskey but that did not happen, though I managed to go through the whole range of Tequilas (from white to Extra Anejo) from the same distiller.

An impromptu Barolo Cru tasting

I mentioned that this was one of the highlights of my Wine and Dine experiences this year. It just occurred to me whilst visitng the booth of one supplier inside the Grand Tasting Pavilion that this would be a nice thing to do, seeing as three wines made by the Marchesi di Barolo from three different sites were presented that day. Although the classification of vineyard sites in Barolo is not yet "official" ( as in defined by law, like say the Grand Cru sites in Burgundy), nevertheless they are wide accepted.

I tasted these three wines from the 2007 vintage from left to right. The Coste di Rose was ruby with a slightly sweet slightly acid slightly flowery and slightly berry nose. The palate was sweet fruity acid and tannic palate with an acid backbone finishing with a touch of tannin. The Sarmassa was similarly ruby in colour, with a sweet fruity vanilla wood nose. The palate was sweet acid a touch of tannin, well supported by an acid tannic backbone. The Cannubi was a deep ruby with a hint of garnet, and the nose was sweet rich and fruity nose. The palate was sweet fruity acid and tannic,  with a tannic acid backbone.

Wine Fair Disappointment

There are different ways in which one could be disappointed at this year's Wine Fair, such as a smaller exhibition (only on 3/F and no 5/F halls), it was the problem with the Exhibitor's list that really annoyed me. As one can see from the picture above, there are pages and pages where the basic company data was the only available, but with no information as to what products they are promoting. I had been in the habit of diligently going through this information to mark out a strategy for visiting the booths that had the products of most interest for me.

Maybe I was also unlucky. Time and again the wines that I am interested was not showing, or simply ran out (because they brought only a few bottles) but this time there was wrong data. One entry had a local company dealing mainly with Scotch whiskey showing a Scottish wine (also see previous entry on Scottish wine). When I came to the booth, it turned out that it was a South African wine they had previously sold, which was subsequently mislabeled in this year's catalogue.

Tre Bicchieri 2015 Tasting

I went to the Tre Bicchieri tasting the afternoon before Wine Fair. This was the second time for my wife and I, and the previous time (in 2011) was also on the afternoon before the Wine Fair. I have to be honest and say that I am not really that familiar with Italian wines outside the popular denominations, although I have tried a good number of obscure Italian grapes too. One of the wines I tasted for the first time at this event was Sfursat from Valtellina. Another first was a Bianco di Custoza by Monte del Fra. I had also got to re-acquaint myself with Lugana and Morellino di Scansano, though previous wines I had tasted were far from award winners. There were also some very interesting wines from Elena Walsh, a top grower from Alto-Adige.

RP100 disappointment

I saw this Parker 100-point rated wine being offered for tasting at the Wine and Dine event last month, so I thought I might give it a try. Maybe it is the expectation of a RP100 wine, but although the wine was nice, it did not have the fireworks that I had come to expect of those perfect score wines. I suppose this is rather like the 1984 Yquem, but then the similarly rated Don PX 1946 could also be said to be disappointing as well.

As for the wine itself, it was purple ruby with a sweet acid fruity nose sporting a hint of meat. The palate was slightly sweet with acid and fruit, with an acid backbone giving good support. Nice wine, but really perfection??

Niepoort Colheita 1937

I tasted this 78 year old wine at Wine and Dine this year (in the Grand Tasting Pavilion). It must be the oldest wine offered for tasting in that event, but being a port, not something that attracted a lot of interest (some say more's the pity; but I find it welcoming not needing to fight for tasting a wine I fancy at these types of events). It was entirely what I expected from the wine.

It was a dark mahogany with a smoky savoury sweet raisiny nose. The palate was sweet and raisiny with a good smattering of acid, with the acid carrying over to form a bracing backbone. Delicious!

Abbona Barbaresco 1959

I was at one of the booths in the Grand Tasting Pavilion when I spotted someone opening a bottle of this old Barbaresco. I then learnt that it was going to be tasted in an upcoming session on Old wines, so I enrolled for it.Sure enough, after a informative yet definitely promotional talk, the old wine (a grand total of three bottles) was offered for tasting. Well unlike Barolo, Barbaresco is not a wine designed for extended aging and this 56 year old wine was definitely past its peak, yet aging very gracefully. As such a delicate old wine might well disintegrate on decanting, it was poured straight out of the bottle, resulting in a cloudy brick red liquid with brown tints. It was meaty and acid on the nose, with an acid palate hinting of sweet and with a touch of fruit. It was well supported by an acid backbone finishing acid with a hint of tannins.

Wine and Dine 2015

I went to the Wine and Dine Festival on the opening night and all day yesterday. As usual my emphasis is on the Wine more than the Dine. In the end I found that I had tasted perhaps one new exotic grape, one RP100 claret of the 2009 vintage, did an impromptu of three Barolo Cru wines of the 2007 from the same winery, and had three wines aged 50yrs or above, two of which are ports.

I must also say that I had been a touch disappointed that there was so much "more of the same" especially with regards to French wines in general and Bordeaux in particular. One cannot hope to fins more and more exotic wine regions, or hidden treasures from well-known wine producing countries, but this being only the third time I had been to this event, I do wonder if I should either think of skipping it altogether, or shift my emphasis as to what to get out of this annual jamboree.

Chateau Giscours 1995

My friend opened a bottle of this wine the other day at a wine shop. He had been purchasing some wines and asking my wife and I for some advice, and in the end he opened up some bottles he bought for immediate tasting, including this 20 year old claret. Not being one of the better known stars of the Margaux appellation, this aged Bordeaux was really charming that day.

This wine showed a dark ruby rim encircling dark core, and a sweet fruity acid plummy nose wafted from the bottle. The palate was sweet slightly tannic and fruity palate, going onto a soft acid tannic backbone giving good support. Nice now and still capable of giving much pleasure for some years yet.

YCHDA wine dinner 2015

As I blogged a month ago, I had set the theme for this dinner to be cost effective drinking. The wine list turned out to be exclusively from France and Spain, covering a champagne, a Sancerre, even a red Bordeaux (from Listrac) and a couple of Southern Rhones (a Gigondas and a Chateauneuf du Papes). The Spanish ones include the Bodegas Castano Solanera VV 2012 I blogged about previously, and the Englora of which I had previously blogged about its second wine ( as being more value for money).

Well on the night, the champagne was well received (and familiar to some) and the Sancerre though not typical was pleasing enough, and matched the fish appetizer well. As for the clash between the French and the Spanish reds, quite a few like the Fourcas Borie. Others plumbed for the Englora but more for the Solanera. It wasn't as if the Rhones were not appreciated, but just that those that were previously were considered the wines of the night.

Stumbling upon some serious Sauternes at a local supermarket

I went to one of the bigger branches of one of the top 2 supermarket chains near my home and saw a couple of very interesting half bottles on their shelves. Of course no one there realized what these were, and they have not even got the price labels for the wines. I had to ask someone to take it to the cashier to scan it for the price. Needless to say, having established the price of the wine, they were quite amazed that anyone would be interested in half bottles at that price. I thought the price was nonetheless reasonable and these bottles have found their way to my home.

Grower's Champagne

 
(Image from Decanter Website) 

There was this article about grower's champagne in Decanter recently and suddenly I got a promotion email from a wine merchant about it (although they were actually only promoting one such estate); one could be mistaken into thinking that this is the leading edge of a big trend. Well, I don't know about that but it is always interesting to see Decanter's recommendations. The 10 wines featured contained 3 familiar names, though I had only bought (but need to check notes or storage to see if I had already tasted it) only one of them.

I had known about Tarlant and Vilmart and even saw some of their products in the first of the neighbourhood wines shops I befriended, but I had bought a Pierre Peters NV wine from the Club some time ago. Before that, I had bought some champagne from the Champagne House and they had been selling champagne from the Tarlant and Vilmart, but looking up their website now, they still stock Vilmart wines, but not Tarlant, and they also have Hebrart and David Léclapart too.

Wither Hills

Someone introduced us to Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc when everyone was raving about Cloudy Bay's offering. We were  impressed and went on to follow this estate's Sauvignon Blanc wines for some years. The exotic tropical fruit nose and crisp acidity made it a useful food pairing wine especially for people like us who like to eat a lot of fish and seafood (though it does not always prove a good match).

Founded in 1994 by Brent Marris, a former winemaker at Delegat's and sold to the Lion Nathan group in 2002, the winery was known for making good Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. There was a scandal over a Sauvignon Blanc competition entry at which Marris was also judging resulting in the disqualification of the winery's entry.

The challenge of finding cost-effective wines (Old World)

Having tasted a few Spanish wines which are competitively priced, yet garnering RP90 or over has led me to set the theme of this year's Doctors' Association wine dinner as cost-effective imbibing.I thought it would be fun to set the price at below $300 a bottle (or $400 of the special offer price at which the bottle is bought was <$300).

One would quite automatically think of a number of New World countries where such value can be obtained, but I wondered if we can find the same in established Old World countries. It turned out to be possible, and one can even find a claret or maybe two! Sweet wines are a challenge from the Old World, but then we tend to open half bottles rather than full 750ml bottles. So the price restriction the applies to the smaller bottles (375 or 500 ml bottles) which are normally opened at the end of the meal, even when full bottles are drunk in the main meal. Watch this space for further updates.

Interesting Piedmont Whites

(Image from Decanter Website)

There was this recent article introducing 2014 Piedmont white wines in Decanter. Although I had only tasted one of the recommended wines from another vintage, I had actually sampled all the interesting indigenous grape varieties these wines were made from. Actually, I was unsure about the Morasso from Cascina Montagnola, but that turned out to be made from Timorasso, which I had tasted before. Gavi (from Cortese) and Roero Arneis are probebly not unfamiliar to many, but Timorasso, Favorita and Erbaluce are probably rather unknown.

Two grapes were featured three times each Arneis and Erbaluce, and it was one of the latter that I had tried - the Orsolani La Rustia Erbaluce di Caluso (though of the 2010 vintage). You can look up the Decanter article for their notes of the 2014 vintage, but as for the wine I tasted in the 2012 Wine Fair, it was a straw yellow with a crisp nose hinting of citrus notes. These notes carried through to the palate, evolving into a lemony acid backbone. The article suggested their selection are all food friendly wines, and I can think of many a fish dish which would go with the wine I had tasted some 3 years ago.

Chateau Pontet St Emilion

I saw this wine in the shops the other day, and thought it might be interesting to find out about this other Pontet.It turns out that there are a number of estates other than the Pauillac 5th Growth Pontet-Canet with the word Pontet in its name. At least two are in St Emilion, Ch Grand Pontet and Ch Cadet Pontet, the latter of which produces the wine above. It seesm that the Vignoble Merias originally owns Chateau Cadet Pontet a St Emilion Grand Cru and they then bought another St Emilion Grand Cru, Ch Cadet-Peychezin 2010. The above wine is I suppose the second wine of the original estate. Although the grand vin of the original estate includes the two Cabernets in its cepage, both Cadet-Peychezin and the above wine are 100% Merlot.

Chateau Coufran

I must admit that I am not familiar with this Cru Bourgeois Superieur estate, but this is one of the estates belonging to the Miailhe family, one of whom now owns Ch Siran. What is less well known is that May Eliane de Lencquesaing lately of Pichon Lalande is also related, so this family has some serious vineyard owning and wine growing experience over the years in Bordeaux.

The estate has been in the family since 1924 but to improve the marketability of the wine, the family changed the cepage from predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon to 85% Merlot, leading one journalist to call it the Pomerol du Medoc. The 2005 was a deep purple ruby, with an acid fruity nose. The palate was slightly sweet and acid with a soupcon of fruity, leading to an acid backbone providing support.

White Bordeaux vs white Burgundy for seafood

Although the two are not entirely comparable, both white Bordeaux and white Burgundies are often drunk when having different kinds of seafood. I remember organizing a dinner with this theme for KCC Wine society and having a grumble to this effect. However, for this dinner with family friend, I got the Bordeaux Blanc for abalone and the Meursault for other seafood. i have blogged before about how I found the Blanc de Lynch Bages a good accompaniment to Abalone, but this time it was not available, a the Malartic-Lagraviere has to stand in its place.

As for the wines, the 2004 white from Graves was a golden yellow with a crisp lemony nose and wood notes. The palate was slightly sweet on entry with wood and fruit followed by acid, leading to an acid backbone. The Meusault-Blagny was a similar (but lighter) golden yellow, with a slightly crisp grapefruit nose with a touch of wood. The palate was also slightly sweet on entry, with grapefruit notes going on to an acid bone and a finish with hints of butteriness.

Scottish Wine

(Image from Decanter Website)

There was this recent article in Decanter about attempts at making wine in Scotland. Some 200 vines were planted over the last 5 years, consisting of German crosses Rondo, Solaris and Siegerrebe. Unfortunately the grapes were harvested too late and were not chilled quickly enough after harvesting, leaving the resultant wine very oxidized and basically unpalatable. The grower initially aimed to prove that grapes could ripen in Scotland (and I suppose the way the climate is warming up, Scotland may prove to be a great place for grapes in 100 years' time!), but now he has set his aim on making a drinkable wine. Well this is certainly a story that can be interesting to follow!

Three rascals (en Meritage)

Now things can turn out to be a big coincidence, but the above three wines (all Meritage blends) match the names (although all in different spellings) of my three children. If one was to confine the selection to Bordeaux and map Rafael onto Chateau Angelus (St Raphael being one of the Archangels), they are all St Emilion Grands Crus, with Angelus being Premier Grand Cru Classe (A) (in the most recent classification) and Magdelaine Premier Grand Cru Classe (B) (till 2012) and la Dominique being classified Grand Cru Classe.

Though a wine lover, I did not name my children after wines (unlike Hemmingway, who named a daughter Margaux after the first growth), but things somehow turned that way. As already mentioned above, one took an angel's name, another the founder of an important monastic order. Some would ask me why the name of a woman sinner was chosen (others would identify the name with a reformed prostitute) for a child, it should be remembered that the lady from Magdala was the first person Jesus revealed himself to on the morning of the resurrection!

Plastic wine glasses

I bought these plastic wine glasses on a previous trip to Tokyo and brought them with us on this recent trip.The alternative would be to bring a couple of glass ISO glasses, but that seems to be more breakable. However I had seen some full size plastic wine glasses on sale, looking rather like Riedel glasses in shape and size and even with a proper rim (not a rolled one). Of course I haven't thrown it around to test its breakability (or lack thereof) but it seems that it could be answer to picnics and even moveable feasts. The problem with bring these on one's travel is luggage space, so they may not be the answer to not being able to drink from "proper" glasses whilst on vacation.

Wine encounters in a recent family trip

As I mentioned in the last post, we just came back from a family trip to Tokyo and Shanghai. There was not much as far as vinous encounters in Shanghai, but we did consume some bottles which we brought over for various dinners - Torres Salmos 2012 and Gaja Ca'marcanda Promis also 2012, both bought in Tokyo and which went down a treat.

We had some sake as well as various wines for the various meals, including a Chablis 1er Cru (which did not go with the oysters, at least not as much as the sake we were having), a Steinberger Kabinett (which matched the smoked salmon a little less than the sake again (another one)) and the Il Chiusa from Castello di Ama. My problem was that having faithfully taken tasting notes and pictures of bottles on my smartphone,I proceeded to lose it on the last night, so now I am left with no record of them after all!!

Visiting a winery in Yamanashi Prefecture

I had recently returned from a trip to Tokyo with the family and we went on a day trip to Mount Fuji. Part of the trip included visiting a peach farm where we had lunch and picked peaches, followed by a cherry farm where we ate cherries we picked off the tree. Included as a last stop was a winery which only started up 30 years ago. I wonder whether those who set wineries in this region thought that as Yamanashi is a good place to grow fruit, it should also be good for growing grapes to make wine.

We were given a few wines to taste and they were very much for the local Japanese market, and far from the "specifications" which one has come to expect in the sort of wines we but from wine shops. Grape varieties tend to be various hybrids, though the normal varieties are also seen. They did not however seem to make wine from Koshu, a local grape much used in Japanese wine-making. There were wines made from Delaware, which I did not seem to have encountered before as well as more examples of wines made from their favourite table grape Kyoho. I have blogged about previous encounters with an Australian and a Japanese  Kyoho wine as well as a Korean blend including it.

Il Chiuso

I got this wine at a wine shop in Tokyo and we had it with some Wagyu beef. An IGT from Castello di Ama, which debuted in 2009, this wine is a blend of Pinot Noir and Sangiovese, whose proportion varies from year to year according to growing conditions. The Pinot Noir came from a 4ha site in the San Lorenzo Valley whilst the Sangiovese fruit was from young plantings in the various estate vineyards. We had the 2012 vintage, which was a 50:50 mix of the two grapes. Although this is an unconventional mix, it seemed to work well, and proved a good match with the well marbled Wagyu beef.

Savignin Blanc

I mentioned this grape in the entry about a wine named Savarro, but I had also blogged about Chateau-Chalon a long time previously. Savignin Blanc is an ancient Swiss grape, which is for two reasons - together with Gouais Blanc and the Pinot family, they represent the three parent grape families from which most of the modern varieties are descended. Chardonnay is for example a cross between Gouais Blanc and Savignin, whilst Savignin (also named Tramin and Traminer) is also part of the big family of Traminer grapes. However, the grape is rather genetically unstable, so there are many mutations which has been reconized as separate varieties (cf Pinot Noir, Gris, Blanc and Meunier)

Apart from vin jaune and cremant de jura, savignin is also used in the vin de paille in that region. I have tasted a wine (purported a Vin de Glacier) called a Heida Getscherwein some time ago as well, though a true Vin de Glacier is not supposed to be made from Heida.

Chateau Haut-Bages-Liberal

With the previous label of the second wine of fellow 5th Growth Ch Lynch-Bages being the similar Haut Bages Averous, there is always room for confusion, and perhaps it may contribute to the relative obscurity of this estate. The estate consists of three plots of vineyards, the largest adjacent to Ch Latour, another next to Ch Pichon Lalande and another adjacent to Ch Grand Puy Lacoste. The name comes from its position on top of the Bages plateau in Pauillac with the Liberal being the family that owned it during the 18th and the first part of the 19th Century.

I tasted the 2004 vintage last week. With a purple ruby rim surrounding a dark core, the nose of the wine was sweet with cassis and wood. Sweet berry and wood dominated the palate with hints of tannins appearing mid palate to introduce an acid backbone giving sterling support.

Soumah Single Vineyard Savarro

This was served as the welcome drink in that special wine dinner the other weekend, and I wondered about the name of this grape, from which the wine was made. The back label gave it as a synonym to the Savignin Blanc, Heida, Bon Blanc ... but not Savarro. I was later told that this was not even a synonym used in the Yarra Valley, but one that Brett had conjured up, because he did not fancy to his varietal wine by the ones that were available. Now it waits to be seen if the name would be incorporated into any of the databases on grape varieties; we could well be seeing the birth of a synonym. (Further details on Savignin Blanc merits another entry.)

As for this wine (we had the 2013), it was a pale lemon, with a fresh citrussy acid nose. the palate was soft with an off-dry entry turning acid later, blending into an acid backbone with a hint of astringency. Good as a welcome drink to get the saliva going for the meal, and it matched the pan-fried prawns very well indeed.

A very special wine dinner

I went to a wine dinner organized by the KCCWS last night. The extra special twist was that the owner who presented the wines has been well known as one of us - a fellow member of the KCCWS. I recognized the name straight away, and when I saw him last night, I thought, no wonder I haven't seen him recently. But then I had been attending these dinners lately about once a year, so I am not in a position to notice.

Apparently he had owned the winery together with his brother (it says Butcher Brothers on the label) for some 10 years now and the wine goes under the name of Soumah. Some twelve months or so ago, he quit his job as a high-flying CEO here in Hong Kong and returned to the Yarra Valley to farm his grapes. His wines have started to earn medals and the dedication and passion of someone who is willing to go from Hong Kong CEO to Yarra Valley vigneron is undoubtedly going to boost its fortunes. All the best, my friend.

Leonardo on the label

I was at this Castello Banfi tasting going through their wide range of wines, when I recognized the "artwork" on this Chianti Superiore of these. At the time I could not immediately recall its name but I did remember it was a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Now I have blogged extensively about art labels, not only of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, but also of the (Cru Bourgeoise Exceptionelle) Chateau Siran in the past. I even noted the connection between the latter and a famous French Post-Impressist painter, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, but I have so far not come across an Old Master on a wine label. The Lady with an Ermine was painted by da Vinci around 1489-1490, with the subject being the mistress of his employer, the Duke of Milan. The painting is now in Wawel Royal Castle whilst renovations are carried out at its home, the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow.

I have not found out why they put this painting on the label, but as for the wine, it was ruby with a berry nose with a hint of meatiness. There was a sweet berry palate, with and acid backbone turning a touch astringent towards the tail. 

Chateau le Sartre 2010

I don't know this wine from Pessac-Leognan, but then although I actually quite like both whites and reds from Graves, I have not tried that many different estates; I tend to stick with those well known ones which have given me much pleasure over the years. I came across this half bottle in a display of half bottles in the wine section of a Japanese department Store food hall close to the hospital and bought it for accompanying dinner a deux when one wants wine but not  much.

Established and well known in the 19th century, the flagging fortunes of the estate were turned around when it was rediscovered by the Perrins of Chateau Carbonnieux in the 1970s. Making both red and white wines of quality from good terroir between Fieuzal and Domaine de Chevalier, the wines garner good reviews from the press. I had the 2010 red the other day with steak and it went down a treat, with good fruity nose and palate well supported by and acid backbone spice with a sprinkle of tannins.

La Lus Albarossa

This was a wine I met at the Castello Banfi tasting earlier this month. I thought I had tasted it, but I might have mixed it up with Albarolla, which is of course different. Albarossa is a cross between Barbera and Nebbiolo, but it seems that this Nebbiolo is not the grape we are familiar with. The grape goes into Barbaresco and Barolo is an Italian grape that may sometimes be called Nebbiolo di Dronero, but the Nebbiolo di Dronero that is the parent of Albarossa is actually a French grape called Chatus!

As for the wine, it was a deep ruby with a sweet acid berry nose. The sweet berry acid elements continued onto the palate joined by wood notes, which joined with acidity to form a sterling backbone for the wine.

Orange Wines

There was this article in Decanter about orange wines a couple of weeks ago. In the tradition of this blog, I've already covered some aspects of this topic at different times before, with the latest entry a couple of months ago about a French Chardonnay fermented in clay vessels. It seems that the Mtsvane (probably) and the Kisi (definitely) wines fermented in qveri are also orange wines. However, I have not "defined" orange wines as yet. Orange wines are wines made from traditional white wine grapes, given extended fruit and skins maceration (can be thought of as white wines made like reds). This method has a long history but the pursuit of fresh fruity whites meant the style had fallen out of favour, only to have a recent renaissance. The Decanter article also makes suggestions about producers to try, otherwise try and search out the ones I have blogged here.

Chateau Fourcas Borie

Now I have come across wines from Listrac with Fourcas in their name, notably Chateau Fourcas-Hosten. One of my first posts about that estate was in an interesting match we had with its millenial vintage with crayfish bisque. I had heard of (but probably not tasted) Fourcas Dupre, but this latter Fourcas Borie was certainly new to me. I had just bought a bottle to try with some short ribs of beef last weekend. Now it is often the case the chateaux sharing part of their name, originally form a larger estate which was subsequently divided and then maybe the derivative etstate then undergoing further change.

This is not always the case as we can see with Cos d'Estournel and Cos Labory. This seems also to be the case with the Fourcas estates in Listrac, although it was only mentioned in the Website of Fourcas Dupre. There was an area in the Medoc caloled the Fourcas plateau in the late 18th century and various people grew wine there, of which the Fourcas Hosten and Fourcas Dupre estates were well known as top wines from Listrac by 1876. As for Fourcas Borie (which was previously known as Fourcas-Dumont), it was formed by combining the Clos du Fourcas and the Moulin de Bourg (the second wine goes under this name or Hautegrave-tris) estates. Now part of the portfolio of Bruno Borie of Ducru-Beaucaillou, the wine is garnering good response from the wine press.

Vin Aigre

I was at a celebration dinner the other day at one of those private kitchens with a large group of people and we were offered a newly uncorked bottle of the house red, which was some Vin de Pays or equivalent from Pay d'Oc. No one was offered any wine to try (to see if there were any faults) and I presume their nose was not particularly keen. When I started tasting my wine, I thought there was a whiff of vinegary acidity there and I wonder if my proximity to the kitchen and the salad bowl was somewhat interfering with my nasal evaluation of the wine. Or perhaps there was something wrong with the glass (which occasionally happens). The vinegary whiff persisted despite changing glass. I asked for the neighbour's glass and took a sniff. Still something suspicious!

To find out the truth, I hesitantly* took a sip, which confirmed that the wine had indeed oxidised somewhat and became vinegar. They opened another bottle and poured some (far too much for purpose) into a third new glass. That was alright and the spoilt glasses were changed.


NB. Vinegar comes form the French Vin Aigre (as in the title), ie sour wine


*I hesitated in allowing the presumed faulty wine to touch my palate because although that would confirm the fault, it could also ruin the palate for the day.

The 2010 Brunellos from Banfi

The "poster" on the Web for the Castello Banfi tasting championed the 2010 Brunellos, so I was surprised to see a whole gamut of wines from Tuscany, Piedmont and beyond the other day. However, I was able to taste two stars from that privileged vintage, both single vineyard offerings - Poggio alle Mura and Poggio all'Oro. I think I have a bottle of the 1997 vitage of the former somewhere in my collection, bought from Macau if my memory serves me right. I am sure I had tasted the latter at the Tre Bicchieri tasting in 2011. (Maybe my bottle was the latter and not the former, according to the Tre Bicchieri entry)

Back to the star Brunellos, the Poggio Alle Mura was a nice ruby colour with vanilla wood notes giving way to a mildly fruity nose. Sweet fruit was followed by acid and tannins on the palate, leaving an acid tannic backbone. The Poggio all'Oro was lighter in colour, a plaer ruby, with a berry meaty nose accompnaied by acid.The palate was sweet and fruity, and like the other wine had good support from an acid tannic backbone.

Ceretto's Barbera Piana

We went to a hotel restaurant for our anniversary dinner and took the tasting menu. We did not take the wine package as that was the same as what they had offered on a previous visit. Looking through the wine list and referencing it to the menu, I picked this wine for the evening.

Now Ceretto is a producer that I had already met, though I am unsure how many wines I had tried of theirs. Their flagship wines are well known and so I decided for this Barbera to accompany us for the meal. Made with fruit from vines planted in 1965, this Barbera d'Alba was fermented and aged in steel (for 6 months). As for this 2011 wine, it was ruby red, with a berry slightly sweet then acid nose. The sweet acid combination carried through to the palate with a lessening of the fruit in the mouth, well supported by an acid backbone.

A Castello Banfi tasting

I went to a tasting of wines from Castello Banfi yesterday. Initially I thought it was a tasting of the 2010 reds (which I of course tasted) but the tasting covered many more wines in the Banfi range than that. Four sparklers (of which two are sweet), some half a dozen whites and maybe a dozen reds (including 2 single vineyard Brunellos from 2010) were presented.I was more used to thinking of Banfi as a Tuscan concern, but know that they have vineyards in Piedmont, A Venezia Pinot Grigio showed that they have diversified further afield. The one wine I did not expect to see, amongst the Chiantis, Brunellos, Super-Tuscans was a varietal Albarossa. I am sure I had tasted this before, but definitely not as a varietal. This needs another entry to present.

Matching Osso Buco

We had osso buco (cooked my way, which de-emphasizes the gremolata) over the weekend, and I thought long and hard about wine pairing. One route to go down is to look at the wines of the locality from which the dish came, but Oltrepo Pavese and other wines from Milan and its environs are not the easiest to come by. I ended up getting a Chianti and it was alright on the night.

But what might the experts recommend? Hugh Johnson (2013) did not ask readers to search out Milanese wines; he thought Dolcetto and Pinot Noir from Northern Italy might work well, or try for Soave and Lugana. Matthew Jukes went for Australian, New Zealand and Oregon Pinot Noirs and full bodied Chardonnays. The Wine Spectator forum said Amarone was the classic (but not from the locality of the dish) and other suggestions include Chateauneuf as well as Cote-Rotie.

Revisiting the Don PX 1962

I had tasted and blogged about this wine before. Indeed I showed them the entry at the tasting. However this wine gave a completely different impression. The colour was the same dark mahogany, but instead of the smoky nose with plenty of dried vine fruits, there was less smoke but a prominent soya sauce savoury element on the nose. This savoury soya sauce note carried over to the palate as well, accompanied by a sweetness which though initially a touch muted increases with an increasing acidity from entry to swallowing. The pruney notes from the last tasting was nowhere in evidence. The backbone was acid with a touch of astringency, whereas the last time there were more raisin notes.

A red Grolleau from Leflaive

Grolleau is a grape I had blogged about before, in the context of being a part of the cepage of Rose d'Anjou. The fact that an obscure wine like this can be found on the shelves of one of the big two supermarket chains here in Hong Kong says as much about the wine buyers as the local wine drinking populace. This time it is a proper red wine made from this obscure Loire grape that has caught my attention as much as its maker (Anne Claude Leflaive, who had passed away recently). Anne Claude Leflaive has been better known for being at the helm of Domaine Leflaive, but she had acquired Clau de Nell in the Loire in May 2008 (together with Christian Jacques). There are 2 ha of Grolleau vines of between 60-90 years of age, grown biodynamically for this wine (full Demeter certification). A respectful handling of the fruit and the subsequent wine in the cellars made me want to buy and try a bottle.

Old vs New World again

I saw this article in the Wine Times HK about Old and New World wines. It is a topic which has got many wine lovers into passionate argument, but in fact this is not as interesting way of looking at thinks as international vs indigenous grapes.I had certainly had a post on this latter topic before (in the Italian context).

Back to Old and New world wines; the problem is this - if this is an Old World country which is not known for making grape wines, what would you classify it as? If one takes India, then wine making is a recent enterprise and the style is certainly more New World than established, so why not New World? On the other hand, China has been making wine certainly for a long time and the more important point is that the people appreciated it and wrote poetry praising it. So the bit about producing drinkable wine in the aforesaid article was rather condescending. At least the author recognized South Africa for its great wines of the past (I blogged about Constantia in the third month of this blog). Finally I must disagree with the sentiments of the last paragraph. Of course there is no reason to accept faulty wines (which is what I see as being labelled "old world"), but the Parkerisation of wines and chase of fruit alcohol bombs threaten to wipe the character or typicity of wines from different places off the face of the earth - that's not a good thing anytime. That's why I find typicity, indigenous grapes and terroir much more interesting.

A medium sweet Georgian wine in pottery vessel

We got given a bottle of this wine by a friend the other day, a bottle of Georgian wine in clay vessel. This is similar to the sort of wines I blogged about earlier. This turns out to be a semisweet red wine made from four different indigenous grapes - Saperavi, Aleksandrouli, Mujuretuli and Ojaleshi. I am sure I had tasted the first two and probably the third, but the last seem rather foreign to me. VIVC tells me there are 3 black grapes with Ojaleshi in its name, and some other source on the Internet tells me that Ojaleshi is also a place. Now untangling that is going to be fun! The wine is supposed to have 30-50 g/l residual sugar, which places it in the medium sweet category. I suppose I will find out about the rest when I open the bottle and taste it.

Older wines 2

To continue from the other blog on older wines, the real question becomes; how old is old? One can always say that a half century wine is definitely old, and no one can argue. But how many people will have the chance to taste such a wine, and how many wines of that age are actually drinkable? If you take the advice from Hugh Johnson's 2005 Pocket Wine Book, then anything over half that age (25yrs) is definitely speculative. (He actually said that wines older than 1982 are speculative in 2006). The gentle demise of a 65 yr old wine rather confirms his assertion.

Well, I also suppose you have to take into account the colour as well. Whites are generally not supposed to last as long, especially dry whites, so maybe even a 20 year old white is old. (Of course some whites are designed to age (even dry ones) and those aged examples (such as this and this) are very much eye openers. Reds fare better and although the 1966 Haut-Brion was disappointing compared to the Margaux (at the Two Century Dinner), it actually was still a respectable drink. As for fortified wines, that's another story altogether.

Don PX 1946

This was the wine mentioned in the entry about the Don PX 1962, which I felt was out of my budget. I finally got to try this 69 year old wine at a recent tasting. One has certain expectations of a 100-point Parker rated wine, but the initial impression on nosing quite threw me off balance. The problem was a dominating note of fresh lemongrass, which rather obscured the raisiny notes underneath. It was very smooth, rich and viscous on entry, followed by the self same lemongrass notes accompanied by acid. The rich viscosity carried through to a slightly acid backbone with a slight hint of grape skin astringency. I might have bought a half bottle if that was available, but it certainly expanded the limits of my knowledge of what a Parker 100-point wine can be.

Ch Larrivet Haut-Brion

This is a Graves estate whose wines (both red and white) I had tasted quite on quite a few occasions. I think the first time was at one of those hotel F&B promotions where you buy a "wine passport" and both red and white were on offer. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of this relatively unknown estate. Looking up in High John's pocket book made us keep an eye out for this estate  - Leognan property with perfectionist standards, now who wouldn't with this sort of recommendation?

Originally Ch La Rivette when it came into being in the 1800s, the owner started calling it Haut-Brion Larrivet in 1874, much to the consternation of Ch Haut-Brion proper. Later the wines were rebranded as Larrivet Haur-Brion after the threat of lawsuit. 61 of its 72 hectares are planted with red grapes - Merlot and the two Cabernets, whilst the remaining 11 heactares are planted with Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. My most recent encounter was the 2005 Blanc at the Century of Fives tasting.

A Century of Fives

We had this PWC dinner over the weekend, Initially the theme was to taste wines from vintages ending in 5 - that would be 2005, 1995, 1985 and maybe 1975. If one was to push the boat out, I can always try and locate that Warre 1955 port I had already blogged about here. In the end, due to the number of participants and from a rather tight budget, we ended up with a champagne, a white Graves and two clarets from 2005 and two clarets and one RP100 Monbazillac from 1995. The surprise came in that the total age of that selection actually came up to 100 years! Of these, I mentioned the Champagne ( in a blog about the Champagne House) before and actually blogged about the dessert wine - Chateau Tirecule la Graviere Cuvee Madame 1995. Going through the rest will make this entry inordinately long, so I will cover them later.

A d'Arenberg Stump Jump dessert wine

This 2010 d'Arenberg Stump Jump Sticky Chardonnay Riesling Semillon Pinot Gris (what a mouthful of a name!) was part of the line-up for the Valentine dinner wine pairing option. Though I had tried a number of d'Arenberg wine, I think it is the first time I have tried their stickies. (On a different note, though I have blogged about their flagship Dead Arm Shiraz, their other wines I have tasted, all of which are reasonable drinks, also have not yet appeared on the blog either.)

The rather long name dealt with cepage and it seems that all those grapes are nobly rotten before they can be eligible to participate in this sticky. A minimalist approach to wine-making kept the fruit vibrant in the glass. An old gold in colour, the wine was sweet with botrytised notes and a touch of fruitiness on the nose. Sweet botrytised dried apricot notes dominated the palate and carried onto the backbone with a good dose of acid. We were also given some Ch Diosy-Daene to taste; unfortunately d'Arenberg was not really a match for the latter's balance and finesse, though truth be said, it would still be very nice with a really assertive dessert.

Older wines 1

It is not easy to get to taste wines with a bit of age. Modern day drinkers are generally more than a touch impatient, and look with suspicion on older bottles. That is not incomprehensible, especially in a place like Hong Kong, because the hot weather will soon spoil any bottle that is improperly stored. Even when properly stored, some wines won't last, and others not that long. The 65 year old bottle of Pichon Baron was certainly not designed to be drunk that old and that showed when the cork was pulled. However, I also tasted a bottle of Madeira from the end of the 18th Century and that tasted absolutely wonderful.

A Toro Albala old and rare PX tasting

We went to a tasting of old and rare PX sweet wines from Toro Albala over the weekend. My first encounter with this winery is with the Don PX 1972 and I had also tasted the 1962 which was also in the line-up the other day. I forgot which are the vintages I had previously tasted in the different HKIWSF over the years, but this time the other vintages are 2010, 1983 and the climax of the tasting the 100-pointed Parker rated 1946. A bottle of 1910 was also there to entice us to buy, but there were no takers.

The 2010 was very young and sweet, threatening and nearly succeeding to cloy. My wife had brought along some Roquefort and that saved the day. The 1983 was much darker, not so sweet but rich a bit smokey and still went well with the cheese. The two older wines will merit separate entries, since the second tasting of the 1962 yielded completely different impressions to the first!

Chateau Haut-Brion Blanc

This is a bottle of the rare white wine from Chateau Haut-Brion, and yes, it is more expensive than the red most if not all of the time. Excuse the pinkish tint of the label, but if I had "corrected" it, then you cannot see the clear contents of the bottle - it is really the white! (Actually the silver print on the label as opposed to the old gold of the red also gives it away). Whilst some 48 ha of the estate are planted with red grapes, only 2.7 ha are planted with white grapes (which actually includes a soupcon of Sauvignon Gris but no Muscadelle), giving an average production of some 450-650 cases of white, as opposed to the ten to twelve thousand cases of red. Before Ch Mouton-Rothschild made its white, the only other First Growth making white wines was Ch Margaux, which was much more widely available.

Another explanation of terroir - bugs this time

Decanter had just published an article on another attempt to solve the mystery of terroir. Whilst traditional wisdom explains it in terms of the soil, the amount of sun, rain and other weather variables, this article quotes a study which looks at the different Merlot vines in New York and in Bordeaux and California, which gives very similar results. This opens up an area of research into how the pattern of different bacteria, which is found in similar patterns in the soil in which these vines are grown, can influence the plants and ultimately the wines made from it by altering the chemical composition of the fruit. Talking about chemical composition, I recall that micro-analysis of trace elements from the finished product (ie the wine) can determine the location where the fruit was grown, and had some use in identifying fake wines. But that is another story altogether.

The wines at Nana's party

In Food with the Famous, Jane Grigson gave the full menu of Nana's dinner party (to celebrate her acting debut) in which Emile Zola uses "every dishes chosen, its success, its serving [to make] some comment on the plot and characters, or gives a hint - not always a subtle one - of what is to come." Zola had already done this in L'Assommoir, in which Nana was first introduced in his Les Rougon-Macquart series. As can be seen in the picture above there are all kinds of rich and complicated dishes (many involving truffles), maybe as a hint to the fact that Nana has only a beautiful body, but basically no talent in acting.

Right at the bottom, the last line indicated that the wines to be served are Meursault, Chambertin and Leoville. Looking at the dishes, one sees that dishes with which white wines and reds are served are all jumbled up, giving sommeliers a headache if one were present. The other question was which Leoville did Nana (or indeed Zola) had in mind. The original grand estate was split off in 1836 to give Leoville-Barton and later in 1840 to give Leoville-Poyferre. All three were classified in 1855 as Duexieme Cru.