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!