Picpoul de Pinet

This is Picpoul de Pinet, a cru in the Languedoc appellation for varietal wines made from Piquepoul Blanc in Pinet and nearby communes. Piquepoul Blanc is a white grape from the Rhone and LAnguedoc regions and is one of the grapes included in the famous thirteen of the permitted grape in Chateauneuf du Papes (actually that is the same as for Cotes du Rhone). The grape also exist in noir and gris version and these are also included amongst the Chateauneuf grapes (noir in the original 13and gris separately mentioned since 2009). Unfortunately its susceptinility to oidium and other diseases together with low yields causes it to lose popularity. The Lirac I blogged about earlier had a smattering of Piquepoul Blanc in it.

I tasted the above wine in last year's Wine Fair. Pale straw with a slightly closed nose with lemony notes, it was off-dry and a bit crispy on the palate with vague hints of fruit. An acid backbone holds everything together.

Breathing Coulee de Serrant

Nicholas Joly, the vigneron who produces Coulee de Serrant, advises that the wine should be opened well before hand and decanted if possible. The latter piece of advice is printed on the back label, together with a warning about possibility of throwing a small deposit. The vendor actually suggests opening one day before drinking and let it sit breathing in the fridge. Unfortunately the glass that I tasted at the vendor's was freshly opened, as they had finished the bottle that was opened the day before! However, the freshly opened bottle was still good, with a golden brass colour and a sweet acid fruity nose with notes of stone fruits and a touch of astringency. The palate was dry-ish on entry with acid and a slight fruitiness that was marred by a bit of alcoholic heat, which followed the acid backbone to the finish. I presume the alcoholic heat would soften with breathing and perhaps some more interesting notes would develop on both nose and palate.

Trousseau

This is a varietal wine made from Trousseau from the Jura. I have actually also blogged about another varietal made from this grape, but that was a fortified wine from the Barossa Valley in Australia and the grape was called Bastardo (using its Portuguese name - apt considering that the resultant wine is a Port-like creation). This wine however is dry and a limpid red in colour. The nose was sweet with red fruits, whilst the palate was off-dry followed by acidic, accompanied by some fruity notes. The acidity formed a good supporting backbone for the wine accompanied by a touch of astringent tannins.

Beaujolais Blanc

This is a Bourgogne Blanc from Beaujolais, although the vendor calls it a Beaujolais Blanc; whether the wine can also be labeled a Beaujolais Blanc is another matter. Beaujolais Blanc can be made from Chardonnay and Aligote; the wine above is a pure Chardonnay. White Beaujolais is rare because many vineyards overlap into the Maconnais region and these wine command better prices. There are also restrictions on the amount of vineyard area in which white grapes can be grown. As for this wine, it was a pale gold with a sweet slightly pruney acid nose. The palate was slightly sweet with notes of apricot, and the whole was well supported by a lemony acid backbone.

A nice aromatic Lirac Blanc

I tasted this Lirac Blanc the other day: it turned out to be a nice aromatic wine good for an aperitif. Lirac is a cru of Cotes du Rhone and produces white red and rose wines. Across the river from Chateauneuf, the wines of Lirac can be traced back to Roman times and was drunk by royalty as well as the papal community during the time of the Avignon Popes. Rose Liracs are similar to Tavel only 5 km away, whilst the ordinary reds are like a soft Cote du Rhone Villages. Some ambitious reds are like Chateaneuf. Whites are usually made from Clairette, Grenache Blanc and Bourboulenc, but the example above dropped Bourboulenc in favour of Viognier and Picpoul. The result was a wine with a nice golden straw colour and a sweet fruity nose. The palate was sweet acid with fruitiness in abundance, with an acid minerally backbone for support.

Are Super-Rhones coming?

Some people reckon that there is a movement towards Super-Rhones (in the way that Super-Tuscans changed the local wine-making scene all those years ago). I wonder. Certainly there have been wines emerging which take lowly legal status because they are dissatisfied with AOC regulations which they view as tying their hands. Certainly, the Heluicum pictured above and its sister Sotanum from the Seyssuel vineyards cartainly have VdP designations which belie their quality (which in the case of Sotanum gives quite a few Cote-Rotie across the river a run for their money, so the critics say). There is also the Chene Bleu estate of which I had previously blogged. Are these just individual cases, or do they signify the beginnings of a wider movement? Only time will tell.

Mouton 1996

The label for the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1996 was painted by the Chinese calligraphic artist Gu Gan (古干), the first Chinese artist to be so commissioned. (The second Chinese artist is Xu Lei - 徐累, who was selected to design the 2008 label). Born in Changsha and having studied in the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Gu Gan is a pioneer of the Modernist Movement of Calligraphy in China, combining traditional calligraphy with abstract painting, often using the form of the writing as part of the design. In this 1996 Mouton label painting titled Hearts Linked Together (心連心) depicts a design linking two heart characters.

Chinon Blanc

This is a bottle of Chinon Blanc from Domaine Couly-Dutheil, made from Chenin Blanc grapes. Chinon is not a very well known appellation from the Loire here in Hong Kong and most people will only know of its reds and perhaps roses. So the white is rather unknown; add to the fact that it is made from Chenin Blanc (which is close in pronunciation to the wine) and you have all the recipes for grand confusion. I tasted this wine last week - a golden yellow with a slightly closed yet crisp fruity acid nose, it was sweet on entry with a fruity palate, hinting ever so slightly of bananas. A lemony acidity provided sterling structure.

Cutting stems to boost sugars

This wine achieves its sweetness by the cordon cut method. Some other wineries calls it Cane Cut, and basically this involves partly cutting the vine stems which bear fruit in order to cut the supply of nutrients, but more importantly water to the already ripened fruit. This leaves the grapes still supported by the vines, but at the same time to dry out in situ. This is sometimes called passilerage, although the term seems also to be used for drying after harvesting, like recioto or vin de paille. Another variant is to twist the stems say a full turn, this also cuts off the flow of water and nutrients to the fruit.

Chateau Palmer

This is Chateau Palmer, a Third Growth estate in Margaux whose wines can rival many Second Growths (and occasionally is considered the equal of certain First Growths). Prior to its acquisition by the Englishman General Charles Palmer (after whom the estate is named), the vineyards can be traced back to the ancient d'Issan estate, which may date from as far back as the 12th century. Between Palmer and today, the Perriere brothers had made huge improvements to the estate before it was sold to the current owners, initially a syndicate of four Bordeaux families, but now just comprising Sichel and Mahler-Besse. Although there was previously a second wine, the current second label, Alter Ego de Palmer, is a different selection from the same vineyards, but of different winemaking and assemblage to produce a wine designed for early consumption.

A sweet raisined Gamay

Gamay is not a grape one often associates with sweet wines, but here is a sweet wine made with raisined Gamay grapes from Domaine du Grangeon. This wine was specially created to celebrate the vigneron's wedding. He chose to make a vin de paille from Gamay because his wife preferred fruity wines (with some sweetness) with little discernible tannins. I tasted this wine just the other day. Deep ruby in colour, it has a sweet red berry nose with just a hint of cloves. The sweet fruitiness carries onto the palate accompanied by some acidity. The structure was provided by that acidity together with a light smattering of tannins.

Macvin de Jura

This is Macvin de Jura, a "wine" made by mixing grape juice and Marc de Jura. This is the same way as Pineau de Charentes and Ratafias de Champagne is made (see earlier blogs). The spirit for the Macvin must be distilled from the marc of wine of the region and by the same winery which produces the grape juice for the fortification. I tried this wine recently. The vendor wrote that there are notes of various Chinese pickles on the nose. Tasting it, I could certainly smell pickled flowering cabbage (梅菜) and pickled swede (蔥菜) emanating from this golden yellow wine. The sweetness was more evident on the palate than the nose and the pickle notes defocused into something generally vegetal, on top of a fruity nutty palate. The nutty notes teamed up with acidity to produce good support.

Amigne

I tried this varietal Amigne wine at last year's Wine and Dine Festival. An ancient grape of the Valais, thought by some to have been brought there by the Romans, it is planted mainly in Vetroz. Viitis aminea which was mentioned in the third volume of De Re Rustica by Columella, was thought to refer to this grape. Amigne produces rich, full bodied wines, right through the spectrum of sweetness from dry tio sweet (dried grape wines known as fletri). Citrus, almond or apricot notes are evident on the nose and the wines show good acidity and a touch of tannin in the finish. DNA studies show that Amigne is related to Petit Meslier. AS for the above wine, it was a pale straw, with a crisp slightly fruity nose. The palate was off-dry with some fruity notes with a good acid backbone for support.

Coulee de Serrant

This is Clos de la Coulee de Serrant, one of the best known Loire whites. It is a single 7 ha vineyard around Savennieres, a monopole of Nicholas Joly, and carries its own appellation (see picture above), and is considered by many to be one of the top white wines of the world. The vineyard dates back to 1130, when it was first planted by the Cistercian monks. Curnonsky, the celebrated Prince of Gastronomy, once ranked it together with Chateau d'Yquem, Le Montrachet, Chateau-Grillet and Chateau-Chalon as the top five white wines of the world. Other famous historical figures that enjoyed this wine included King Louis and Alexandre Dumas.

Schlossbockelheimer Felsenberg

The name on bottle is the vineyard name, but the vineyard is not really a traditional Ortsteil, but an Erste Lage vineyard in the village of Schlossbockelheim, situated on the north bank of the river Nahe, west of Niederhausen (it seems that GG wines only show vineyard names in the front). There is another Erste Lage vineyard in the village, Kupfergrube, which lies immediately to its east. The south facing aspect together with the easily warmed volcanic soils means long maturation times for the grapes, which in the case of the above wine come from old vines. This results in nervous racy wines with good minerality and a profound depth of character.

A not-so-successful wine dinner

The doctors' association at my hospital had a Spring Dinner last week and we held it at the Central premises of the Hong Kong Medical Association. I had tried to match a few dishes with wines and also brought a couple more as general all-purpose wines for the banquet style meal. With local cuisine, when we eat at home or informally at restaurants, the dishes are all brought to the table to be eaten concurrently with each other. In a banquet style meal, the dishes are served one after another. This contrast is much like the service a la francaise (exemplified by an overloaded table with wonderful set pieces of the time of Louis XIV) as opposed to service a la russe (a series of dishes served in succession, like Western meals nowadays).

That night, despite a reasonable experience with wine service one week previous, the waiters were not very good at ensuring the right bottles were opened in good time. The kitchen was worse, with a cluster of dishes arriving on the table in quick succession, before the previous dishes were consumed so that up to four separate courses were present at the same time. That of course meant that people had no time to try pairing the wines with the dishes. The lesson learnt is, not only have you got to instruct the waiters with the order of the wines; you also have to communicate with the kitchen to make sure that the next dish would not be ready before the last dish had been consumed.

Apremont de Savoie

This is Apremont de Savoie, a cru of Vin de Savoie, which I tasted at last year's Wine and Dine Festival. Made mainly from the local Jacquere grape, the balance can be made from a number of other varieties including Aligote, Altesse, Chardonnay and Marsanne. This example was a pale straw, with a crisp appley nose. The entry of the palate was off dry with a continuation of the crisp appley notes. An acid backbone gives ample support.

As for Jacquere, it is a high yielding grape from Savoie, giving acid wines with herbaceous aromas and notes of green apples and pears. Apart from Apremont, it is also found in some Bugey wines.

Chene Bleu

Chene Bleu is a range of wines produced by Domaine de La Verriere in Southern Rhone. The property dates back to the ninth century when there was a priory on the site, and the name of the estate changed to La Verriere, when Aliot de Montvin established a glass-blowing workshop there in 1427. Due to inheritance disputes, the property was abandoned and the house became derelict when it was purchased by the present owners in the mid 1990s. The house was rebuilt and the vineyards were also subjected to careful restoration.

The new owners set about making the best wine they could from the vines and the vineyards. Tended by biodynamic principles and building a state of the art winery, the estate produced their first vintage in 2006. Although the property was at the confluence of a 4 appellations just outside Gigondas, the estate felt the AOC system would place unacceptable restrictions on their pursuit of producing the best wine possible, so they opted to produce Vin de Pays de Vaucluse. As for Chene Bleu, it was named after a magnificent oak that used to tower over the vineyard and priory buildings. It suffered in the drought of 2005 and a tree sculptor painted it with the blue Bordeaux mixture.

Meeting Chateau Haut-Marbuzet

My first encounter with this wine was an auspicious one (for the wine) - it was voted the best wine of the night in an early KCCWS wine dinner at the Regal Kowloon Hotel, in which we had a blind tasting of a whole range of 1994 clarets. One of the wines it beat was the Mouton-Rothschild which I later found showed such a wide bottle variation that I previously thought impossible in first growths. That 1994 Haut-Marbuzet was quite tannic at the time (and would benefit from a few more years of waiting) but the fruit, acid and other elements were evident enough despite the tannins to win our hearts.

Humagne Blanche

This is a bottle of varietal Humagne Blanche from Valais in Switzerland. Despite the similarity in name, it is not related to Humagne Rouge (Prime Name - Cornalin d'Aoste). A Swiss wine grape predominantly grown in the Valais, it is an old variety thought to be brought to Switzerland by the Romans. Its wine is full bodied with an appealing minerality. It was reputed to be health giving (earning the name of Krankenwein - wine for patients) and its fortifying properties also recommended itself to women after childhood (hence Kinderbettenwein - cradle wine, but intended for the mother rather than for baby). As for the above example which I tasted at last year's Wine and Dine Festival, it was a pale straw with a crisp slightly fruity nose. The slightly sweet fruitiness continues on the palate supported by an acid backbone.

Mouton 2008

The label for the 2008 vintage of Chateau Mouton Rothschild was painted by Xu Lei ( 徐累), the second ever Chinese artist to be given the Mouton label commission (the first being Gu Gan (古干) in 1996). Born in Nantung and graduating from the Nanjing's Art University, Xu Lei is the artistic director of Beijing's Today Art Museum and a fellow of the Art Academy of China. Keeping to his habit of a subdued blue palette with animals, the 2008 Mouton label features a ram (mouton means sheep) astride coral reef between two halves of a globe with hanging grapes.