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?