Vintage sweet champagne

Sweet vintage champagnes are not easy to find and a good example is the one from Veuve Clicquot. Having the confidence to put out a vintage wine also meant that their standard NV offering was quite a reliable choice. It was in a Veuve Clicquot wine dinner at the club many moons ago that I tasted the above wine. The representative from the champagne house got us to think about the differences between the Rich and the standard Brut vintage, which as he reminded us, was actually the same wine until disgorgement. Made from a base of 58% Pinot Noir, 33% Chardonnay and 9% Meunier sourced from Premier and Grand Cru vineyards, the only difference between the two was in the dosage, leading to a sugar level of around 10g/L in the Brut and 28-30g/L in the Rich Reserve.

Apart from sweetness, there are other differences on tasting the two wines. The Rich Reserve had a more pronounced nose with grapy notes whereas the fruit on the Brut was more towards apple, which persisted through to the palate. Obviously acidity is more pronounced with a lower dosage. There were also differences in the bubbles too, but one wonders if that has more to do with disgorgement than dosage.

A special Japanese sparkler for Xiaolongbao

This is a special Japanese sparkling wine slelected by Japanese Sommeliers to go with the Chinese dim sum Xiaolongbao. The label says Ancestral Sparkling wine with second fermentation in bottle, but whether it is truly methode ancestral as opposed to methode classico (just like how champagne is made) is open to debate. Two versions of methode ancestrale exist, one where the onlty fermentation occurs in bottle and the other where the must is first partially fermented in tank and then bottled. The fermentation continues in bottle and uses up the rest of the grape sugars. So much for fermentation.

The wine has a very interesting cepage too. It is made from equal proportions of Ryugan (a Chinese rose skinned vinifera grape) and Campbell Early, an interspecific hybrid bred by GW Campbell in the USA in 1890. Campbell Early is used in a number of Japanese wines one can buy in Hong Kong. The wine was a limpid purple pink with few bubbles. The nose was reminiscent of Kyoho grapes with some spicy notes. The palate was sweet and grapey with a slight spritz. Foxy Kyoho notes were evident from the nose through the palate into the acidic fruity finish. Somehow, my wife and I doubted that this is the best wine to go with Xiaolongbao.

 

Brazilian Pinot Grigio

This is a bottle of Brazilian Pinot Grigio I tasted at the Vinopolis in London in the summer of 2010. Part of the Miolo Group which goes back to 1897, the Seival Estates was purchased in 2000 and planted with both Portuguese and International varieties. Their flag ship line is Quinta do Seival , whilst this is their basic line of wines.

Although Brazil has a large area under vines, much of that is for table grapes rather than wine. Besides, most of Brazil is too close to the equator for wine growing and hence wine production is concentrated in the mountainous Serra Gaucha in the south of the country.

As for this wine, it was very pale straw in colour with a crisp fruity nose, The crisp fruit continues through the palate punctuated by lemony notes, which continue into the finish as a lemony acidity.

 

Sweet Zinfandel

The Californian grape Zinfandel has now been identified as being the same as the Italian Primitivo. However sweet and powerful the wines are, they are nominally "dry" or at least made in the style of dry red wines. This however is a sweet wine made from Zinfandel. I must confess that this is the only sweet Zinfandel I have come across so far, and even this wine was not encountered in Hong Kong. It must have been the November 2003 visit to Tokyo during which I spotted it in a wine shop in Shinjuku. I had spotted the shop a couple of times previously and had already bought some items back, including some very special Tequilas. This was just too precious a wine to pass over.

What of the wine? A nice ruby red, it was sweet and raisiny on the nose with some nice acidity balancing it. Sweetness and raisin notes dominate the palate, giving a sense of lusciousness normally found with botrytised wines. Acidity appeared late in the palate, and persisted right to the finish, though the sweetness and the luscious raisin notes still managed to get the upper hand, making the wine a bit cloying.

19th Century Madeira

This is a bottle of 19th century wine, a Bual Madeira from 1863. It was bought in Hong Kong a few years ago and it cost around the same as what the current vintage of first growth was selling at the time, a few thousand dollars (HK). This seemed most eminently reasonable for such a rare antique. The lower label stated that it was matured in cask for over 50 years, before being transferred to large glass containers, being finally bottled in 1978, at a princely age of 115 years!

Will I drink it? I think so, but that should be a very worthy occasion. Would it be good? Why not? After all, madeiras are wines made to last, and with their warm aging process, virtually indestructible. After all, even if you cannot finish it in one go, how much more can you throw at a wine which has undergone at least 50 years oxidative aging?

Truttiker Essentia

This is a sweet wine from Switzerland made from the Muller-Thurgau grape. Although called Riesling-Sylvaner in Switzerland, it is now thought that Riesling was crossed with Madeleine Royale rather than Sylvaner to give this grape. Although productive, Muller-Thurgau needs careful site selection and yield restriction to give good results. That has led Jancis Robinson to describe it as "decidedly mediocre but gruesomely popular", the latter especially in the replanting of vineyards after WWII. A good example of a fine Muller-Thurgau is made by Pojer and Sandri from northern Italy.

I found that I had encountered this wine (2001) a number of times, because the KCC Wine Society had a case or two and we had it for several occasions in 2004 and 2005. A golden tea colour, dried apricot, peach, raisins and prunes variously figured in the descriptions of its nose. Sweet in varying degrees (due I suspect to what we were tasting before) from sweet to nearly cloyingly so, apricot and raisin notes were found on the palate, with dried apricot or prune notes accompanying the acidity to its finish.

Two Century Wine Dinner

This was the line-up for the Two Century Wine Dinner that took place in December 2006. The dinner was so named because the sum of the age of the wines added up to 200. The champagne missed the photo, it was a Dom Perignon 1996. Three other wines were from that vintage including Smith-Haut-Lafitte Blanc, La Conseillante and Troplong-Mondot. Two came from the 1986 vintage: Palmer and Latour. Bringing up the rear was a trio from 1966 - Margaux, Haut-Brion and a Krohn Colheita 1966 Port.

No one would imagine that a short blog could do justice to these wines, hence the notable individuals would be dealt with separately in other tidbits. To say that this was a very special evening would definitely be a euphemism. With 3 first growths, 3 good vintages and three 40 year old wines, what more can you ask, ...... except perhaps for someone else to pay for you!

A Japanese Pinot Blanc

We tried this Pinot Blanc from Kyoto at a wine dinner in December 2009. I had seen these bottles at a Japanese Department Store here in Hong Kong and I thought I'd give it a try. The Tamba winery was founded in 1979 and grows some 30+ varieties of grapes in order to make a wine specifically to complement Kyoto cuisine. The winery became the first to receive the Croisade Award, after which their flagship series of wine (from which the above bottle was derived) was named. What of this wine? A limpid lemon yellow, it had a slightly sweet fruity nose, which extends to the palate, ending in an acid sweet finish. The wine was presented in a PWC dinner and my fellow diners were quite taken with it.

A German red from the Neipperg family

This is a red wine from the Neipperg's family estate in Wurttemberg. If the Neipperg name and crest looks familiar, it is because of a member of the family, Comte Stefan, owning the prestigious Bordeaux chateaux of Canon-la-Gaffaliere, Clos de l'Oratoire and La Mondotte. There is a Bulgarian venture too. This dry red is made from 60% Lemberger (Blaufrankisch), 20% Pinot Noir, 10% Pinot Meunier and 10% Samtrot (a Pinot Meunier mutation) and aged in barriques. I tasted it at a Wine Now dinner to showcase some JJ Prum wines in 2005. Ruby red with a nose of berries, citric acidity and slight tannins, the palate was medium dry (although it is trocken) with red fruit and vanilla wood, with acid and tannins leading to a predominantly acidic finish.

The secrets of youth!!!

No, I have not found the way to immortality nor any anti-aging drug. It was merely how I worked out the story behind the above bottle, which was amazing youthful when I tasted it at this year's wine fair. The secret to the 21 year old wine tasting rather like a vintage younger than say 10 years old could actually be seen on the label. The A.P.Nr. gave it away. The series of number all mean something specific and the last double digit was the year of testing (to be assigned an APNr) and it was 2005. So how come a 1990 Riesling Spatlese was tested (which is usually done at bottling) in 2005, when it was 15 years old? The two most likely explanation was either that the owner wanted to keep some wine for aging, or that someone forgot about the wine. The latter was what happened here. So this wine was only bottled in 2005. It only had 6 years of bottle age, so that's why it had little signs of bottle age.

BTW, I had met a similar situation before, with a wine from JJ Prum at the wine dinner in 2001 that I had already blogged about. However I was not able to find out why a wine of the 1980s was tested much later that time.

Chateau de Fargues

Chateau de Fargues is a property belonging to Comte Alexandre de Lur-Saluces, the previous owner of Chateau d'Yquem prior to its takeover by Bernard Arnault of LVMH in 1998. The property was first built by de Fargues as a fortress beginning in 1309, passing to Pierre de Lur in the mid 15th century and establishing the Lur-Saluces family a century later. Later the Lur-Saluces married de Sauvage d'Yquem, acquiring that prestigious estate in 1785. Now that the latter is no longer in his control, many are looking to de Fargues as the wine to follow for fans of the Lur-Saluces reputation.

In a December 2001 tasting, the above wine showed well. Golden yellow with exotic and dried fruit aromas on the nose, the palate was sweet and luscious with dried apricot and vine fruit notes. Acidity appeared mid palate and merged with the fruit into a long acid predominant integrated dried fruit sweet acid finish. It was wonderful matching with foie gras, and accentuated the crispy meatiness of the magret the canard. The remaining wine was refrigerated and revisited the next day. The nose was more clearly defined with pineapple, dried prunes and dried apricot notes. The dried fruits dominated to palate before yielding to a clean sweet acid finish. Interesting!

A top Rheingau estate

This is an Auslese from the Kiedrich Grafenberg vineyard, made by Robert Weil. Founded in 1875, the estate has become one of the most prestigious in the Rheingau. with Its 1999 TBA Goldkapsul from the above vineyard set the world record for a white wine in 2000 by selling for DM5000 at auction. This is of course a lesser wine, but it nevertheless is a very fine Rhinegau Riesling indeed.

I tasted this wine in a dinner hosted by Ficofi in April 2002. It was a very pale yellow, with sweet luscious fruit and a hint of honey on the nose. The sweet fruity lusciousness continued into the palate, with a strong backbone of acidity to support it, finishing on honeyed acid notes. We tried it with foie gras and found the match excellent, being better with the cold preparation containing truffles (with which it also went). It was also good with Roquefort, but the combination was quite different to what we remembered with Sauternes. It was also fine with a gratinated passion fruit sabayon with raspberries, but not brilliant.

Mexican Merlot

For curiosity value, wines from Central America are rather hard to beat. It would be fun to have a mini series on wines from unexpected places. We already had a whole series on English wines. So to start this series off, there is this Merlot from Mexico. I encountered this wine at the Club some time ago, when I think they were doing a promotion. It is not very clear from this picture, but the label does say "Established 1597", and yes, Casa Madero is the oldest winery in the Americas.

Founded by Lorenzo Garcia in the town of Santa Maria de las Parras, the surrounding area soon become a major wine-growing with exports to other parts of the Americas. Mexican wine was so successful that it hurt the export of Spanish wine to the American colonies and so production was soon banned in a fit of protectionism, except for wine made for religious ceremonies by the missionaries. The ban stayed in place until Mexican Independence in 1810.

What of this wine? Garnet with a dark core, the nose was fruity with wood and slight acidity. It was slightly sweet and fruity on the palate with a tannic woody finish.

Lambrusco galore

This is the picture of a series of Lambrusco sparkling wines from Chiarli at their stall in the wine fair this year. As you can see, these represent the 3 major DOCs from Lambrusco and each of these is a varietal using the subvariety of Lambrusco after which the DOC is named.I had previously blogged about Concerto from Ermite Medici, which is a top example of a dry Lambrusco. Here two out of the three are amabile, ie sweet. The Grasparossa is widely available in Hong Kong and I had tried a Sorbara which I bought in Chiang Mai in 2003, so the Salamino is the only DOC of the three I have not tried. There are other Lambrusco sub-varieties too; a Regglanno Rosso I got from Marks and Spencer also lists Uve Marani, which is basically Lambrusco Marani. There's plenty of interesting exploration available for anyone wanting to find out more about Lambrusco.

Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1982

We will end this mini-series on trophy wines with a bottle of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1982, the first RP100 wine I bought and the third I tasted. At that time I had neither bought, owned nor tasted a first growth claret and it seemed a good occasion to start. I must confess that I cannot remember if I knew that it was awarded 100 points by Parker. This bottle had been sent back to the Chateau for re-corking as a label on the back recounts. This particular bottle was drunk at the most expensive PWC dinner I organized, back in 2007.

How was it? Did it live up to expectations? The colour was a good ruby with hints of brick red at the rim. The nose was sweet with layers of fruit interacting in a complex manner, but ending with a sour plum like acidity. It was the same sweet complex fruitiness on the palate, with notes or white pepper coming through, followed by that same sour plum mouthwatering acidity which extended into a long delicate finish. But that was not all. After the glass was emptied, there came meaty notes from the little wine remaining in the glass, notes suggestive of chargrilled chops or steaks. As for the tiny amount left in the decanter, there wafted some flowery notes, variously described as peony and narcissus by those present. Exquisite!

Grosses Gewachs

Have you noticed the GG designation after the Einzellage name on the label? (Also that the village names were not on the labels - Hofberg is in Dhron and Pechstein in Forst). GG stands for Grosses Gewachs (literally Great Growths) a designation for the members of VDP, the Association of German Pradikat Wine Estates, for their top dry wines from top sites. Although widely used, it is not a legal designation (VDP membership is optional and some top estates are not members). The Rheingau, on the other hand, has another designation - Erstes Gewachs, for their corresponding wines, but this one is defined by Law. There is also another symbol designating GG, that is the one behind Hofberg on the label on the left, the numeral 1 with an elongated baseline (hence looking like capital L) with a cluster of grapes. Apparently this will be the official symbol for GGs some time in the near future.

Schilfwein

Schilfwein (Schilf = reed) or Strohwein (Stroh = straw) is one of those Pradikats which exist in Austria but no in Germany (cf Ausbruch). The two terms are sort of interchangeable and refer to the Pradikat for wine made from grapes dried on straw, ie the Austrian version of "vin de paille". The grapes are dried for at least 3 months, to reach the sugar level for Beerenauslese, though the grapes can be pressed if the sugar level of Trockenbeerenauslese is reached after two months.

Austrian Schilfwein is not readily available in Hong Kong until recently. I had seen one advertised in a catalogue but had not got around to getting one when I saw them at this year's wine fair. This wine was available for tasting and I also ended up buying a bottle of Zweigelt Schilfwein. A golden yellow colour, this Muskat Ottonel Schilfwein had a sweet nose which surprising contained notes reminiscent of botrytis. The sweet fruity palate was nicely balanced by a long acid finish. The Zweigelt needs another tidbit when I have tried it.

Caro

To round off this series on joint venutres, we take a look at another Rothschild (Lafite) collaboration, this time with Catena in Argentina. With the name derived from an amalgamation of CAtena and ROthschild, the idea of the collaboration was first mooted in 1998, to produce a wine that would combine the two cultures as well as the two signature grapes of the two producers, Cabernet Sauvginon and Malbec (though if the truth be said, Malbec is actually also a Bordeaux grape (cf Gruaud-Larose)). The first vintage was produced in 2000, Another wine with a fruity style derived from a higher proportion of Malbec was launched in 2003 - Amancaya. Finally the collaboration produced a Malbec varietal, Aruma last year.

Ex Ex 8 - Marselan from Emporda

This is Ex Ex 8, a varietal Marselan from Emporda. Marselan is a Cabernet Suavignon x Grenache cross bred in France in 1961. It is allowed in small amounts into Rhone and Languedoc/Roussillon blends. This however is a varietal from DO Emporda. It is still only an experimental wine as far as DO Emporda is concerned, but if the results from Castillo Perelada and other wineries are promising, then it can be allowed into the normal wines of the DO.

This experimental wine is from the Ex Ex series made by Castillo Perelada (Ex Ex stands for Exceptional Experiences). For some years they have been making small quantities of unique experimental wines, which they will not repeat. As you can see from the edge of the label, they only made 1347 bottles of this wine, so I was most surprised to be able to taste it at this year's wine fair. Deep purple at the rim with a dark core typical of young wines, it had a sweet fruity nose with wood much in evidence. The palate was sweet woody and fruity, but with some alcoholic heat and the finish was mildly acid but tannic.

Sassicaia

This is the famous Sassicaia, one of the first Supertuscans wines. The wine was first produced by Maio Incisa della Roche in 1948 using Cabernet Sauvignon (reputedly sourced from Lafite) for family consumption. Small quantities were released commercially in the 1970s after international consultants had been engaged to improve production. Initially only a Vino di Tavola because it did not conform to the wine laws of the time, it was then promoted to IGT before becoming the first estate to receive its own DOC (Bolgheri). Although it has now been somewhat overshadowed by Ornellaia and Solaia, incidentally produced by his cousins, Sassicaia remains an important Supertuscan, especially as it was one of the first to win international recognition, with the 1972 vintage coming first in a 1978 Decanter blind tasting of 33 "great clarets' from 11 countries.

What of this bottle? Acid and fruity on the nose, it was soft with less pronounced fruit (compared with the nose) on the palate. Acidity was abundant and of the type that makes the mouth water, appearing late in the palate but continuing to a nice long finish. Nice!

Louis Michel Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos

The Michel family have been growing grapes in Chablis since 1850, in vineyards which have been cultivated since the 11th Century. Emphasizing the terroir of these ancient vineyards and with a philosophy of bringing out the best Nature has to offer, they have switched to fermenting in stainless steel around 40 years ago to help ensure purity of fruit. Their Grand Cru holdings include the climats of Vaudesir, Les Clos and Grenouilles, whose wines are matured over fine lees for 18 months. Their Website suggests aging these wine for 10 years to show the wines at their best. A Taiwanese book suggest minimum of 10-20 years, with the capacity to age for up to 40 years!

The label above came from one of a half dozen 1991s, which I bought at the Club some 10-12 years ago. I opened a bottle not long after I bought them and the wine was not that impressive. I gave a bottle to my sister and forgot about them. The second of the bottles I opened was when the wine was 10+ years old and I then found it quite nice. A later bottle was even better. Now I've only got one bottle left. Should I open it now that it has reached twenty, or shall I keep it a little longer? The 10 years suggested on the website should perhaps be an indication of minimum length of aging for particularly impatient souls.

A Georgian white wine made in clay amphorae

Georgia is one of, if not, the oldest wine region in the world, having been growing wine for around 8000 vintages. In the old days, wines were fermented in amphorae (cf Greece, but also China - see blog on Lou Lan) and this has continued to this day in Georgia, for the wine in the picture is made in this way. I met this wine at the Georgian Pavilion at this year's wine fair. Made from the Mtsvane grape, it was not only fermented in clay but spent some time aging in clay amphorae. That winery used to be a Monastery, hence the name Monastery wine. Golden yellow in colour, clay pot notes were evident on the nose together with the wine's orangey fruity bouquet. These clay pot notes were also there on the palate complementing the off-dry orangey fruity wine, which has an acidic finish. Interesting!

Wine Century Club

Last Saturday, my wife and I were inducted into the Wine Century Club at one of their tastings. To join as a member, one must at least have tasted at least one hundred different wine grapes, whether as varietals or in a blend. However, it is not as easy as it sound. Many grapes have local synonyms, so that for example, the nearly ubiquitous Trebbiano of Italy is actually known as St Emilion in Cognac (to be distilled into the famous brandy), but Ugni Blanc in the rest of France. Trebbiano also illustrated another problem: many grapes are known by the same name - the one I mentioned goes by the prime name of Trebbiano Toscana.

I went one better - I got doppel membership, which means that I crossed the threshold into the over 200 category! In fact when I complies my wife's application, I found that she was very near to the doppel mark. I am sure she will get her doppel membership next time.

But seriously, wine is about having fun as much as anything else. Sticking to the top brands in Bordeaux might ensure maximum enjoyment if money is no problem, but who knows what delights can await the adventurous, who find time to taste the unusual.

Eroica - Germano-American Riesling

This is a joint venture between Chateau Ste Michelle of Washington State and Weingut Dr Loosen of Bernkastel in Mosel. The former first planted Riesling in Washington State some 40 years ago, and came into prominence when its 1972 Johannisberg Riesling won the Riesling blind tasting sponsored by the LA Times in 1974. The latter has been producing fine Riesling from top Mosel sites for the last two centuries. The collaboration was first proposed by Ernst Loosen after he discovered Chateau Ste Michelle's Cold Creek Riesling.

Named after Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, Eroica combines Washington State terroir with the German know how of raising and making great Rieslings. The above wine was bought in Hong Kong some years ago and tasted then, but this was only one of three products in the range. I cannot locate the wine notes at present, but the lasting impression was of something more akin to German rather than say Australian Riesling (my experience of American Riesling is very limited to non-existent). The other two products are a Single Berry Select (similar to TBA) and an Ice Wine. I seem to have chanced across a Web Page suggesting that these are available in Hong Kong. I must redouble my effort to obtain and taste them.

A Non-Vintage Trophy Wine

Non-vintage (NV) wines tend to be regarded as somewhat "inferior" by connoisseurs as people spend a lot of time debating vintages, especially when it comes to highly regarded wines, the so-called trophy wines. Let me start off this mini-series on trophy wines with a NV wine, but still so highly regarded that it fulfills all the criteria of a trophy wine. This is a bottle of the Vega Sicilia Unico Reserva Especial (2009 blend) which is made by blending Unico wines of 1990, 1994 and 1996 vintages, producing 15,586 bottles of this product. It was awarded a score of RP98.

By blending the wines from the vintages that are drinking well that year, this NV blend tries to present the best and most representative wine of the estate in and across the recent years. In this way, it is not unlike the Champenois making NV blends with reserve wines to achieve a house character and to ensure that this does not change from year to year, whatever the weather and harvest.

HKIWSF 2011

The Hong Kong International Spirit and Wine Fair opened yesterday and over these three days, I intend to visit the fair and expand my vinous horizon. I had already done some homework and had a quick scan of the exhibitor list. One of my targets is to try a few of the grapes and countries (+/- regions) I have never met. Yet the first people I met was from Hong Kong. They had a winery in Tsuen Wan, where (unlike the Aberdeen operation which ships in juice) they actually air-freight in grapes at3 deg C and press and ferment on site!! My interest got me an invite to visit them.

I also spent a lot of time at the Georgian Pavillion. Although I had tasted wines made from Rkitaseli and Saperavi, the other 500+ indigenous grapes are entirely unknown to me. OK, I managed something like a dozen new grapes there, which was all they were exhibiting, but that a very fruitful start. I had tasted around 50 wines, including my first Kosher wine (made from Concord) as well as some honey wines. I'm sure I'll learn quite a bit from this year's fair.

Tre Bicchieri Tasting

I went to this tasting on the eve of the Hong Kong International Wine and Spirit Fair. Organized by Gambero Rosso to launch the Chinese edition of their Italian Wine Guide, the tasting focused on wines which have been awarded tre bicchieri (3 glasses, their highest rating) in their guide. It was an interesting event, although not all the wines were to everyone's approval. I tasted some 20+ wines. Some were old friends, like Caprai's Sagrantino di Montefalco. Others, like Banfi, I had had some other wines in their range (and in the case of Banfi, not only wines but also their Grappa di Brunello). They showcased their single vineyard Poggio all'Oro, of which I have a bottle of their 1997 still awaiting enjoyment. My greatest delight was being able to taste the Tenuta Greppo from Biondi-Santi. Now that is something special.

Muscadine wine

The grapes from which this wine is made are simply like no others that wine drinkers commonly encounter. Firstly, all the various grapes we commonly encounter are members of the Vitis genus, even the American vine Vitis labrusca. This however belongs to a separate subgenus (of Vitis) - Muscadinia, which is a grapevine native to what is now south-eastern United States.

I met this grape and its wines at last year's Wine Fair. There was a booth and we tasted a number of these wines. All have a special aroma, which seems to characterise the muscadine grapes. It's a little bit strange, but I dare say it could become an acquired taste. On the other hand, the barnyardy odour of Burgundy can also be thought of as an acquired taste. All the wines tasted are semi-sweet. An interesting experience overall, though some friends are less complimentary.

The greater the expectation ....

Sometimes expectations can influence assessment such that the greater the expectation, the greater the eventual disappointment. Chateau d'Yquem is the one of, if not, the most famous sweet wine of France. This is also witnessed by the fact that the Sauternes Classification sets it apart by giving it a separate class of its own, Premier Cru Superieur.

This vintage was a difficult one and the harvest was done in 5 tries, with only the first 4 making it into the final assemblage. 40% of the harvest was done in the 3rd trie from October 27-31. The finished product was definitely a good Sauternes, but without the flair that one would expect from every bottle of such a legend. If it were Suduiraut, I would have applauded it. However being Yquem, the extraordinary flair I had come to expect was nowhere in evidence in this 1984 wine, leaving me with a sense of disappointment.

Ruster Ausbruch

Although this is specially bottled for the famous London department store, Fortnum and Mason, this is a half bottle of the equally famous Ruster Ausbruch made by Feiler-Artinger. Rust is a town bordering Neusiedlersee which I had mentioned in the blog entry on Austrian eisweins, together with Feiler-Artinger. Ausbruch is one of those Pradikats which the Austrians have but the Germans do not. Originally designating the method by which grapes severely affected by Botrytis are mixed with less concentrated must to speed up fermentation (in the manner of Tokaji Azsu wines), Ausbruch has now come to denote a Pradikat level between Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese.

The town of Rust has been famous for its Ausbruch wine since the 16th century and became a Royal Free Town in 1681 for supplying 500 buckets of sweet wine to the Emperor Leopold I. The traditional cepage is a blend of Furmint and Muskateller, but Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Neuburger, Traminer and Welschriesling are used as well. These wines are incredibly long-lived, maybe up to half a century or more. Showing well for the initial 2 years, the wines closed down in the 3rd year for a year or so, opening up after that with more fruit and complexity and being more rounded and integrated, remaining in this wonderful balance for some 15 years or so. That means I can drink the above bottle any time now till around 2027. Jolly good!

Terrantez Madeira

This is a bottle of 1977 vintage Madeira, made from Terrantez, which I bought in England. The grape known as Terrantez in Madeira is more widely known as Folgasao and is a low yielding but high quality grape. Although the grape is fast disappearing from Madeira, it is fondly remembered for the quality of its wines. Talking to Cristiano van Zeller, he told me his favourite Madeira was Terrantez. The 1795 was one of those great historical vintages which produced a lot of long-lived Terrantez wines, many still surviving to this day. They number amongst some of the oldest surviving wines on earth.

A raisined Riesling dessert wine from New Zealand

This is a dessert wine made from raisined Riesling grapes and it comes from New Zealand. It is an unconventional introduction, but although I have blogged about Vin santo and PX wines, there is hardly mention of the fact the grapes are dried before vinification. There are many different types of raisined grape wines, most of which are sweet. The exception to the rule is Amarone which needs another tidbit.
This is quite a nice wine and it's been well appreciated by the judges at the Decanted Awards as the stickers show. The wine was a golden tea colour with a sweet luscious nose. What was a little surprising was that there were notes normally associated with botrytis infection, which should not be present in raisined wines. It was sweet and luscious on the palate, with notes of dried apricot and its acidity appearing just before swallowing, and which linger onto a long balanced finished. Nice!

Bottle variation at the top

I have mixed feelings about this Mouton 1994. This is basically generated by the immense bottle variation in a group of bottles I take to be a couple of cases of this wine that I tasted over the course of some 6 to 8 years. My first encounter with the wine was at a blind tasting that the KCC Wine Society hosted in early 2001. Neither my wife nor I recognised its excellence and it did not come in the top half of the dozen bottles we tasted. The experience was repeated with the rest of the group and it did not come in at the top three. The top was Ch Haut-Marbuzet, the surprise winner in a whole host of cru classes! We were so "impressed" by the Mouton 94 that we bought a couple more cases of Ch La Conseillante 1996, which we liked and was on offer at the time.

Over the next few years, we've had the same wine around half a dozen times. Sometimes it would be quite nice, but it never reached the dizzy heights of perfection. At other times, it was rather uninspiring, better than ordinary but not confidently so. As these bottles all came from the same reliable source, I can only conclude that whatever causes bottle variation in top wines, there was a massive overdose of it within these two dozen or so Mouton 1994s.

100 point perfection in Austro-American collaboration

This is the second RP100 sticky that I've bought and this time it is straw wine made from dried Semillon. This is a collaborative project between the Austrian dessert wine guru Alois Kracher and Manfred and Elaine Krankl of the Californian cult winery Sine Qua Non. The results of this joint venture are market as "Mr K" after the initial of their surnames, but due to the untimely passing of Kracher (losing the battle with pancreatic cancer) at the end of 2007, the 2006 vintage was the last.

It is really amazing but this is also the second cheapest RP100 wine I've bought, the cheapest one being the Cuvee Madame from Chateau Tirecule la Graviere (which I had already blogged about). This Californian wine was around the same price as the Monbazillac, but then the latter was 500mls, whilst this one is 375mls. Of course, the French wine was bought with high wine taxes, whilst this one is not taxed.

When you think about it, any RP100 wine is the pinnacle of perfection. So why is a red or dry white wine with that score much more expensive than a similar dessert wine? Could fashion and speculation be the culprit? Well, that's my bet!

Mavrodaphne of Patras

This is a bottle of Mavrodaphne of Patras, a port-like sweet wine from Northern Peleponese in Greece. The wine is made from the eponymous grape blended with Korinthiaki and has its fermentation stopped using spirit distilled from wines of the previous vintages. It is then aged in oak via a solera type system. However, it is vinified in large vats exposed to the sun and becomes a little oxidized in style, somewhat like Madeira.

The second grape in this blend is the grape that is dried to give currants (Zante currants in American usage). The dried vine fruit is often referred to as raisins de Corinthe, which became corrupted as currants. The dried fruit is totally unrelated to the Ribes fruits, red- and black- currants. The grape itself was one of the oldest recorded varieties being described by Pliny the Elder in 75AD.

Old White Rioja

This 1990 White Tondonia Reserva was tasted at a dinner I organized for the Hong Kong Public Hospital Cardiologists Association. a 21 year old wine is not what anyone drinks on a daily basis, and for a white wine, it is very unusual. Most white wines are appreciated for their fresh fruitiness and although a number such as revered white Burgundies as well as grand Rieslings improve with age.

The traditional style for Rioja is well oaked (both red and white) and old white Rioja is an acquired taste much appreciated by some. As for this wine, some of those present prefer more fruit and less oak. My notes said "golden yellow, with woody vanilla nose. It was slightly sweet with some fruit and wood notes on the palate with acid becoming prominent in mid palate, persisting to finish." Fairly good for a 21 year old!

Treading grapes for Port

Many thanks to Cristiano van Zeller who sent me various photos of grape treading in Quinta Vale de Dona Maria. I chose this picture from the 2008 vintage for this entry. In the bottom left hand corner, you can see a lagar filled with grapes and the one on the right is full of people treading grapes. You can see from their legs that the lagar is quite deep, the level of grape and juice is above everybody's knees!

Why tread grapes? Red grapes, like white ones, are normally white fleshed, so the juice is basically colourless. It is only by macerating the skins for some time in the juice that the colour is extracted, which is what happens in the fermentation of normal red wines. But Port is fortified and the fermentation is cut short by the addition of alcohol to preserve the grape sugars in the finished product. The short fermentation and maceration may not be sufficient to extract all the colour and interesting matter from the skins. By having people to tread them, the agitation caused by the treading helps extract the colour etc from the skins. They have only been in the lagar for hours, not days and their thighs are already deep red with the grape juice. There is supposed to be a recommended number of people per tonne (or whatever unit weight) of grapes. I once read that Dirk Niepoort is obsessive enough with extraction to have twice as many people in the lagar. Cristiano van Zeller tells me that this is unlikely to be the case, but like everyone in the Duoro, if you have nothing better to do, you go into the lagar.

What are the alternatives to treading? There are robot treaders, and I think some just pump the juice from the bottom of the tank and release the juices over the pressed grapes. Yet all the best Ports are trodden - just a matter of tradition, or the superiority of the human feet?

100 point perfection in Mobazillac

Excuse the mildewed label, but this super cuvee from Chateau Tirecule la Graviere was the second RP100 wine I bought (Lafite 1982 was bought in 1998). It is from Monbazillac, geographically an eastward extension of the Bordelais vineyards. It was also the second RP100 wine I tasted, and the first one (tasted in the same occasion) was not even from France (it was a Brunello). Lafite 1982 was much later. That occasion with two 100 Parker point wines was a farewell dinner for an ex-President of the Club, who was also a Wine Society member.

This wine is gorgeous; an orange gold colour, unctious with orangey notes, balanced with a long sweet acid finish. It outshone the Brunello, being the more appreciated RP100 wine that night. I think I also brought along a bottle of Vin de Constance, which we tasted before this. There were many great wines that night including Grange and Lafite 1983 (which could have been a spoilt bottle). Whatever happened to the Lafite, there were ample stars in the dessert wines department.

Vinos de Pagos

Can you see the difference on this label of a Spanish wine? Under the name of the property Dehesa del Carrizal is the DO designation, meaning that the DO applies to this single property. This is a new legal category of wines, called vinos de pagos, in which distinguished vineyards are given DO status. There are at present 10 such estates, 7 in the area of Castilla la Mancha and 3 in Navarra. Apart from a proven track record of consistent high quality, the wines have to be grown and vinified in a winery on the estate. This estate was first planted with 8 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon back in 1987. Other grapes were planted in the surrounding area, expanding the estate to 28 acres. It was granted DO de Pago status in 2006.
However, there is some controversy over this new category, as some great wine estates satisfying those requirements have not been elevated to this exalted status. Hugh Johnson (for example) argues that the likes of L'Ermita, Pingus, Calvario (Finca Allende) Vina de Olivio and various Torres properties highlight this anomaly.

Chateau Kefraya from Lebanon

I cannot remember when I first tasted a Lebanese wine, however, I know that it was at a Chateau Musar tasting. For many years, the only Lebanese wines I know were different vintages of Musar. I had seen Chateau Kefraya and bought a couple of bottles, but I had not got round to tasting them. Then all of a sudden, I found that I tasted the next two most famous wineries within 8 weeks of each other at the end of 2009. I had met Chateau Ksara at the wine fair in early November, then in mid December, at the KCC Wine Society Xmas Party, I came across this Chateau Kefraya. Ruby red, with a jammy berry nose, it was slightly sweet on the attack, leading to fruit on the palate, giving way to mouth-watering acidity on swallowing, finishing with acid and tannins as well as a slightly bitter note.

Wagyu Steak

Wagyu steak does not necessarily behave like any other beef steak at the table. This is because of the high degree of marbling which occurs in the finest specimens. When it is that well and truly marbled, it is better to think of it not as red meat, but rather as a "pink" meat - more pork than beef! After all, those specimens are much more marbled with fat than the one in the picture above.

I came to this conclusion after a meal in November 2000. We went to visit Osaka and took the train to Kyoto as well as Kobe. We did drop by the Kobe Winery and if I can dig out a photo, that will be another good tidbit. We planned to have a steak dinner at Kobe, and not knowing what wines might be available, decided to bring along a bottle of Petit Cheval to accompany the meal. That proved to be a good move. We tried the most expensive steak there. It was the well and truly marbled type and it really did behave like pork. The Petit Cheval was really threatening to overwhelm it. Another steak at the grade below, was more beefy and matched the claret really well. So what would I try the next time with the top specimens? A nice Burgundy, I think!

Nyetimber sparkling wine from Sussex

This is the top sparkling wine from England and is what put English wines on the international map. Although it is the avant-garde for the English wine industry, the founders were strangely a pair of American Anglophiles, who had actually tried to see if they can find a place to produce a sparkling wine to rival champagne outside France. So good was their result that in a blind tasting, it was alleged that although the tasters could tell it was not champagne, they could not decide which region of France this superior bubbly came from. Red faces for all when it was found to be from that little corner of England called Sussex!! It then went on to win many awards including Champion of worldwide Sparkling Wines at the Bollicine del Mondo 2009 for the 2003 Classic Cuvee.

Nyetimber has basically started with two products, a Classic Cuvee, from the normal champagne cepage and a Blanc de Blanc from Chardonnay. Here in Hong Kong, Watsons had stocked it at around $400+ and not surprisingly that venture proved short lived. Now with the elimination of the hefty wine tax, it is still selling at around $300+ at Berry's and it would be a difficult sell for non-British to buy, given that some cheap NV champagnes can be had for quite a few dollars less. However, it is a fine wine and is aged longer than most ordinary NV and basic vintage champagnes at 5 years. It has just released a rose, but whether that can topple other English wineries who have already established themselves in this sector remains to be seen.

First Growths 1997

This was a special wine dinner organized by Peter's Wine Circle in 2004. We tasted this set of Bordeaux first growths that evening, so as to make a comparison between them. This was occasioned by the great fortune of being able to obtaining the above set at a reasonable price. After a thorough reading of various books so as to arrange the wines in ascending order of enjoyment, it was decided to taste the two Rothschilds first - Lafite, followed by Mouton, followed by Margaux. It was undecided whether we should have Latour or Haut-Brion next. After having a sniff at the corks and the bottles, the order became Latour with Haut-Brion bringing up the rearguard (ie right to left in the photo). Needless to say, that evening was immensely enjoyable. Dessert was accompanied by a Guiraud of the same vintage.

My limited experience of first growth clarets would also rank them fairly similarly. The Rothschilds are the most variable. Lafite can be sublime in certain years, but really disappointing in others. I had bad experiences with immense bottle variation within two cases of the same Mouton 1994. Margaux is generally quite nice. Latour and Haut-Brion are fairly consistent in their excellence, with one disappointment each in my limited experience. The 1997 Latour (ie this one) was not at good as I expected, but still 4 out of 5. The 1966 Haut-Brion (tasted at the Two Centuries Dinner, the subject of a future blog) was initially very fine and beat the Margaux 1966 hands down. However, it failed to develop much after this. The Margaux probably suffered from some bottle stink, which marred first impressions. It then blossomed in the glass and overtook Haut-Brion, turning into a most memorable wine.

Salon

This is Salon, one of those few champagnes that goes completely against the grain of what everyone else does in that region. Champagne is a blended wine par excellence, across different villages, with a mix of the three grapes, and usually sold as a non-vintage wine, across the years. Salon, on the other hand, is single grape (Chardonnay), single village (Le Mesnil sur Oger) and only available as vintage wines. Salon grew famous in the 1920s and 1930s as the house champagne of the famous Paris restaurant Maxim's. Sure, it's not the only champagne that's so. The others include Bollinger Vieille Vigne Francais, and the two single vineyard wines from Krug - Clos de Mesnil and Clos d'Ambonnay. It's in fine company indeed.

Germany - home of grape crossings?

I took this picture at the duty free shop at Bali International Airport. These three offerings from Louis Guntrum are all Pradikatswein made from German grape crossings of the early 20th century. On the left we have a Huxelrebe Spatlese, a Bacchus Kabinett in the middle and an Ortega Auslese on the right. I just noticed that the Ortega is from a Doktor vineyard, in Dexheim rather than Bernkastel. It is not visible at the resolution of the blog, but that Doktor wine is also different in that it is a 2009 wine bearing an APNr with 09 as its last 2 digits. That means it was officially tested in 2009, quite a feat for an auslese of the 2009 vintage!

Back to the grapes! Huxelrebe was created by Dr Scheu in 1927 and is a high yeilding early ripening grape. It can reach Auslese levels easily and with controlled yields can high quality sweet wines with muscat-like aromas. Bacchus is a Sylvaner x Riesling cross interbred with Muller-Thurgau created in 1933. It is an early ripening grape with high must weights, but tends to low acidity. The wines have exuberant flavours if allowed to ripen fully, but become more like Sauvignon Blanc in style in England where the cooler climate results in lower yeilds with higher acidity. Ortega was created in 1948 from crossing Muller-Thurgau and Siegerrebe and is also used as a table grape. It ripens early with higher must weights and can give wines with peach and Muscat aromas. All three are also grown in England.

Brokenwood Graveyard Shiraz

I thought I took a picture of the Graveyard vineyard when I visited the Hunter Valley in 2005, but I can't seem to locate it, so the picture of a bottle of the product will have to do in its stead. This is the top Hunter Valley Shiraz, being promoted from Outstanding to Exceptional (top tier) in the latest Langton's classification.

First planted in 1968, the vineyard got its name from the plans of the town of Pokolbin of 1882 as the plot was earmarked as the Cemetery Block. That never came to pass and the plot was bought by Brokenwood initially to plant Cabernet Sauvignon (some old bottles are around) but the vineyard really achieved its full potential and international fame as the exponent of Hunter Valley Shiraz.

 

My problem with Ch Lynch Bages

Chateau Lynch Bages is a fifth growth claret with a popular following. Its current performance is well above the average in the lower two growths and some would gladly consider the wine a second growth. My wife and I have a big problem with it. We enjoy it very much when we know that we're drinking the wine, but when it comes to blind tasting, we consistently put it in the last three places of our preference (usually between 6 to12 wines tasted).

Sometimes blind tasting is not as objective and fair as one might think. When you know the wine, you can open the bottle for it to breathe its optimum time for maximum enjoyment. Yet in blind tasting, all bottles are opened at more or less the same time, so that by the time it is tasted, some wines would have breathed optimally, but there would be others that would be under- or over- breathed.

Recently, I did rate Lynch Bages in my top three; was it that the wine was optimally breathed, or have my tastebuds resolved my differences with this chateau?

The ultimate grape juice!

This is the most expensive grape juice I have ever bought - at around $10 per ml! This is a bottle of Tokaji Eszensia from Stanza, and it is not vintage dated. I bought it in 2004 and at the time, I think there was information on the Internet, which gave the vintage as 1996. In the previous entry about Eszensia, I wrote that these celestial elixirs are very low in alcohol, so low that the winemakers protested they could not consistently exceed a proposed minimum of 5% alcohol. Peter Vinding-Diers, who made this offering, took the low alcohol idea to its ultimate conclusion and released this non-alcoholic version in 100 ml bottles with its own little light blue cardboard carton.

Wine, spa and cosmetics

Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte is owned by a husband and wife pair of French skiers, who met in their country's Olympic team. They bought the Chateau in 1990 after pursuing very successful business careers. The classified estate produces both red and white wines as is quite usual for wineries in Graves, but what sets them apart is what they do with some of the waste materials from wine growing and wine-making. I had already blogged about the distillation of grappa from the pomace, but here the materials used include grape pips as well as other parts of the vine.

First of all there is Les Sources de Caudalie, a luxury hotel situated inside the wine estate with a vinotherapy spa, using the extracts from grape and vine. These extracts were stabilized with some help from the Bordeaux Faculty of Pharmacy to create the Caudalie line of cosmetics and anti-aging products. Although one can only enjoy the delights of vinotherapy spa at their hotel, both the wines as well as the Caudalie cosmetics are readily available here in Hong Kong.

BTW, a caudalie is a measure of the length of time the aftertaste of a wine lingers on after swallowing.

Chateau Musar from the strategic Bekaa Valley

Chateau Musar is the most famous winery of Lebanon and it is situated in the Bekaa Valley where a number of Lebanese wineries are located. Unfortunately it is also of great military strategic importance, since whoever controls it has a straight downhill run to the Lebanese capital Beirut. I first got to hear of the Bekaa Valley on the news when I was studying in London. There was tension and war in the 1980s and I remember reports of tank and artillery bombardment of that valley. So imagine my surprise when I found that wine was made there and almost continuously even during the years of active warfare in the region. The wine is made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Cinsault. There is a second wine, Hochar Pere et Fils. A white wine is made from Obaideh and Merwah.

Wampi aromas from Italian Sauvignon

This is a picture of wampee fruits from a tree at the home of Janine, who took this picture and kindly allowed me to use it. The fruits are indigenous to south China and north Indochine. Clausium lansium belongs to Rutacea (and hence is a distant relative of citrus fruits) and the fruits are of lesser commercial importance than say Lychee or mandarins. It is more a fruit grown for domestic and local use, though one finds it often during its season at markets and stalls here in Hong Kong. The fruit has a yellow ochre hairy skin (wampee literally means yellow skin) and the flesh divides into 5 segments, some or all of which contain a green seed with a brown point.

I remember once tasting an Italian Sauvignon - Sauvignon La Conca 1999, which perplexed me because of its nose. My notes read: "golden yellow, green gooseberry / petrol nose, dry with gooseberry fruit on palate, acid from mid palate persisting to finish." I knew that gooseberry was a good descriptor for Sauvignon Blanc, but although some gooseberry notes were detected, it didn't quite fit the picture. I wracked my brains for the memory of that smell, and finally at the end of that wine dinner so many moons ago, I recognized it - it was wampee.

Wine from China

Contrary to popular belief, growing, making and drinking wines has a long history in China. As with all matters historical in China, this is backed up with written evidence, not necessarily only in form of official records. For eample, there was mention of grape wine in the Tang Poem " A Song of Liangzhou" (王翰的〈涼州詞〉- 葡萄美酒夜光杯 )

Grapes have been grown for wine in Xinjiang since the Tang dynasty (618-907AD), with the wine grape possibly brought over from Europe via the Silk Road. Lou Lan was an ancient Kingdom from before the time of Christ and wine has been made here for a long time. Before the modernisation of the winery here, some wine was still made using the ancient methods. It was said that the sweet wines of Lou Lan were quite well known.

My wife and I were invited to this wine dinner featuring the wines of Lou Lan around 9 years ago. The wine presentd that evening included a semi-dry Chenin Blanc, a dry wine from Baiyu (literally White Jade, the local name for the Georgian grape Rkatsiteli) and two Cabernet Sauvignon wines. This one was aged in barrel, but with high ambient temperatures, accelerated aging had occurred so that it was like a wine over 10 years old, rather than a 3 year old wine.

Roast whole lamb and Cabernet night

This was the main attraction of one Peter's Wine Circle (PWC) dinner when we had a whole lamb roasted for the night. As Cabernet Sauvignon was the match for roast lamb, we only had wines made from that grape. A white Cabernet cannot be found to go with the appetizer, so a rose sample from Australia stood in for duty. We had 8 Cabernet reds to go with the lamb. What about dessert? You must have guessed by now, because I had already blogged about thisbotrytised Cabernet Sauvignon from Murfatlar.

But if it was not a PWC Cabernet night, what would you have matched it with? I used to drink Burgundy with it and I think I had also blogged about a certain Sunday lunch with roast lamb back in 1984, when I discovered the delights of Chateauneuf du Papes.

Tondonia - a Spanish marque for old wines

Vina Tondonia comes from the Rioja firm R Lopez de Heredia, a firm that specializes in long aging of their wine. Another one is Castillo Ygay which is the topic of another tidbit later. There is a tradition of aging Rioja in barrels for a long time. I think this wine was bought in one of my Japan visits between 1999 and when it was drunk at the second Peter's Wine Circle gathering in December 2002. It was overshadowed on the night by a Parker-style new wave Rioja (1994) as well as an older traditional Rioja, a 1970 Ygay which will be the subject of that later tidbit.

Tondonia is now available in Hong Kong (this bottle was bought in Tokyo), and in old vintages too! I recently bought some 1990 white Rioja (21 years old!) and some 2000 Tondonia. Just this last weekend, I saw a new shipment including a Gran Reserva of the same year as above; it sure looked tempting. The other wine from the same firm, Bosconia is also available, and in similarly ancient vintages too!

The gooseberry conundrum

This came from a slide I used to illustrate the gooseberry conundrum when talking about Sancerre and the like. Wines made from Sauvignon Blanc are said to have a gooseberry nose, but most people in Hong Kong encounter the Cape Gooseberry (or Physalis) and take that to be the fruit in question. But it is the fruit on the left (Ribes uva-crispa) that is the one being referred to. It is however not often seen here in Hong Kong, even in international supermarkets, so the confusion is understandable. The gooseberry fruit itself is sweet-sour in flavour and mildly stringent. Commonly cooked and served in desserts such as gooseberry crumble (hot) and gooseberry fool (cold), this peculiarly English fruit is not well-known here in Hong Kong.

I have also included the pictures of two varieties of Kiwifruit in the slide, and for a good reason. Before some marketing executive coined up that name to sell a New Zealand consignment, the fruit was known as Chinese Gooseberries - Chinese because it originated from southern China. Why gooseberry? Maybe the original fruit was a little small and hairy like the gooseberry. I recently saw a variety of small fruits called Kiwiberries. They were little larger than Western gooseberries. Perhaps that's how Chinese Gooseberries got their name.

A taste of an old wine

This is the oldest wine I have tasted so far, though I have in my possession several bottles which predates this one. This was a Pichon Baron 1939, which was tasted on 20 September 2004. That made the wine 65 years old at the time I tasted it. The next oldest bottles would have been from 1966, I had tasted the Sudhuiraut and Pape Clement, but the Margaux and Haut-Brion were still to come.

The picture was taken soon after drawing the cork, so the level of the ullage would be top shoulder. The wine was quite mahogany in colour and not pale nor brick/orange as one might expect. There were wine aromas on the nose as well as a hint of some savoury soy-sauce like notes. These elements carried through to the tongue and palate on tasting. The finish was not at all long. It seemed as if the wine is gently fading away. Sure enough, opening the bottle hastened its demise. Within an hour, one would not enjoy tasting it, though the nose remained pleasant enough for a couple more hours after that.

Holy Wine?

This is a bottle of Vin Santo del Chianti Classico from Isole e Olena. Vin Santo is made from dried grapes (similar to how Recioto is made) and the wine above from the Chianti DOC is made from at least 70% of a blend of Trebbiano and Malvasia with the remaining 30% from local white grapes. The minimum alcohol level is set at 15%. A deep mahogany tea colour accompanied by a sweet luscious nose with sugar cane notes, the wine was medium sweet with smoky and dried fruit notes on the palate, with a dried fruit acidity extending from mid palate to finish.
There are different theories for the name, including its use in religious ceremonies as well as the tradition of starting the fermentation around All Saints (1 Nov) and bottling around Easter. I had posted a previous tidbit about a white wine made from Assyrtiko from the Greek island of Santorini. They also make an Vinsanto in a very similar fashion. Their Vinsanto is made from at least 51% Assyrtiko with the rest being Athiri, Aidani and other local grapes. This wine has historically been adopted as the wine for liturgical use by the Russian Orthodox Church. It now seems that being an important trading hub, the wines of Santorini were labelled Vin Santo (rini) as shorthand since ancient times. Since 2002, the EU has recognized this claim to the name of Vin Santo by Santorini, though the Italians can still use Vin Santo but with a geographic indicator to specify their own special sweet wines made in this way.

When the white is the wine more sought after

Mention a Bordeaux chateau and you naturally think of its red wine. But Bordeaux is not limited to red wines and some of their white wines are equally sought after. Oh, I don't mean the sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac, but the dry white wines. Graves is the area known for its dry white Bordeaux and the inner zone of Pessac-Leognan is even more famous.

Some estates are as well known for their whites as their reds, but for Domaine de Chevalier it is the white which is more sought after (and more expensive). Now we have of course Haut Brion Blanc, but this wine is not widely known. As a first growth of Bordeaux, the red wines of Haut Brion are prestigious enough already. The lesser known white is made in tiny quantities and is greatly sought after, making its price at least double that of the red.

Don PX 1972

I bought this interesting half bottle from the wine section of a Tokyo department stall. This is a vintage PX dessert wine from Montilla-Morilles, made by Bodegas Toro Albala. Of course, I didn't know anything more until I got back and looked up my Hugh Johnson Pocket Wine Book. I was relieved to find that he has an entry - "family firm located in a 1920s power station and aptly making Electrico Finos, Amontillados, and a PX which is among the best in Montilla and Spain."

So I have stumbled upon a great PX dessert wine. I must confess I haven't opened this bottle yet. However I have no doubts as to the wine's greatness. I have had a non-vintage PX Montilla from one of its competitors and it turned out to be an amazing experience. The same goes for my taste of PX sherry. I shall indeed look forward to tasting this wine.

Austrian Eiswein

Apart from German Eisweins, I also like Austrian ones. I think that German and Austrian Eisweins are the best and much more elegant and balanced than the ones from Canada (which we'll explore in other tidbits). This one is made from the Scheurebe grape, which is Austrian is often referred to as Samling 88. The grape was developed by Dr Georg Scheu in 1916 and is planted mainly in Germany in Austria. Scheurebe is found mainly in Burgenland and Neusiedlersee in Austria, where it is often made into sweet wines (like in Germany).

Neusiedlersee is a shallow (maximum depth around 1.8m) steppe lake on the Austro-Hungarian border. Its warmth and autumn mists encourage botrytis growth and some notable sweet wines come from this corner of Austria. The towns of Illmitz and Rust are particularly famous for their sweet wines and notable producers are based here, such as Kracher and Opitz in the former and Feiler-Artiger in the latter town.

A Chateau that's not a Chateau

This is a bottle of vin jaune from Chateau-Chalon, an appelation in the Jura. Made from the Savignin grape, the barrels are not topped up during the mandatory minimum of 6 years and 3 months of aging. A layer of yeast forms on top (similar to the flor in fino sherry) and helps develop the charactersitc flavours of vin jaune. According to local tradition, only 62% of the original volume is left and so it is bottled in 62cl bottles called clavelins.

Chateau-Chalon is a village in the Jura as well as an AOC. Other AOCs producing Vin Jaune in the Jura include L'Etoile and Arbois. Although similar to fino sherry in its flavours, it is not a fortified wine. Apart from nutty notes, it can develop curry-like flavours as it ages due to the presence of sotolon. Best drunk at cellar temperature at least 10 years after bottling (over 16 years after vintage), the wine keeps for a very long time. It has been paired with chicken cooked in vin jaune as well as the local Comte cheese.

This bottle above was bought in Hong Kong and I haven't opened it yet. I have tasted a 2003 vin jaune from Arbois at the last wine fair and can tell you that the golden yellow wine had a acid slightly nutty nose reminiscent of f nice fino sherry, with a dry acid palate with notes of dried fruits and smoke extending to the finish with a slight nuttiness. This was the current vintage, so no curry notes could be expected.

PS. Even discounting Chateuneuf, we still have another chateau AC - Chateau-Grillet in north Rhone, famed for its Viognier.