Chateau Bernadotte

Although I had seen this wine around a bit, I only got to taste it over the Christmas festivities. Chateau Bernadotte was acquired by Pichon Lalande in 1997 and the latter instituted a programme of extensive investment, renovation and replanting. This has raised the quality of the wines. When Pichon Lalande was acquired by Louis Roederer, Bernadotte followed suit, but it was bought by King Power Group (based here in Hong Kong) at the send of 2012.

As for the wine, it was a deep purple ruby with a sweet acid fruity nose. The sweet acid fruitiness followed through to the palate accompanied by a sprinkling of tannins. It was all supported by an acid mildly tannic backbone.

A Koshu wine from Magrez

I saw these bottles in the Wine section of a Japanese store the other day, a Franco-Japanese joint venture between Bernard Magrez and top Japanese winegrower Yuji Aruga resulting in a uniquely Japanese wine from the Koshu grape. I had previously blogged about the Koshu grape. This wine is from Isehara in Yamanashi, from 18 year old vines according the the Magrez Website. A Decanter piece from April 2008 reported the release of the 2007 vintage (presumably the first) from this venture. Production of this wine is only around 2000 to 2500 bottles a year. The limited production and its special pedigree means that prices for this wine remains relatively high.

Penfolds RWT 2011

I had previously blogged about getting to know this particular label of Penfolds and mentioned that we had a bottled of the above vintage over Christmas. Having has a number of vintages in the past, this one confirms the long held impression of ours that the RWT Shiraz is a dependable premium wine, with often a price to match. A Christmas special was more than I could resist, so I got a few bottles.

As for the wine, it was a deep purple ruby at the rim with a dark nearly opaque core. The nose was sweet and acid with berry notes, leading onto a palate that added wood notes to the fruit and the acid, whilst all being well balanced. This was all held nicely together with a tannic acid backbone.

Champagne Janisson Brut Traditional

I had this champagne over the Christmas holidays at a family dinner. This is a Champagne house with which I am not familiar. Started in the 1920s by the grandfather of the present owner, who had been growing grapes in the Grand Cru village of Verzeney, this house combines the quality of its Grad Cru grapes with the state of the art winery to produce an impressive range of wines, which tends to emphasize the Pinot Noir grapes which grow especially well in the village. This Brut Traditional is 70% Pinot Noir (the rest Chardonnay), with some 22% reserve wines, cellared for 30 months before release.

It was a pale straw with good streams of fine bubbles. The nose was crisp acid with a hint of bamboo shoots. There was a good acid prickle on  entry dissolving into a soft mousse, and a crisp acid palate with some bamboo shoot notes, supported by a clean acid backbone.