Chenet's Beaujolais Nouveau

The Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived some time ago. Yet when I saw this on the supermarket shelves the other day, it still somewhat took me by surprise. That supermarket chain has been stocking many different varieties of wines from JP Chenet, but most of them seem to come from Languedoc of that area, so it was unsettling to see that they had foraged into Burgundy. Besides, most of the Beaujolais one sees in Hong Kong are from George Duboeuf or Burgundy producers. In any case Duboeuf owns some 10% of Beaujolais vineyards. Looking up Chenet's website, I see that they have been selling Beaujolais Nouveau for some years now. As for me, I am not a big fan of Beaujolais Nouveau, but should I want to get a bottle, I'll stick to the traditional vendors, rather than a merchant that I associate with South West France.

Late night drinking with friends

We went for late supper the other day with friends and this was the wine line-up that night. I had already blogged about the Ma Maison Pinot Noir before, and its appearance in the line-up was purely for the novelty value of its Hong Kong connection. Then again, it is not a bad New Zealand Pinot Noir and is fine to go with Chinese food generally.

The Gruaud-Larose second wine was next for drinking and it was nice with a flowery fruity nose and a pruney acid palate spiced with a touch of wood. I suppose the Leeuwin Estate Art Series Cabernet would have shown better if it went before the claret. As it was, although there was fruit, acid and wood ere evident in both nose and palate in a fairly balanced structure, it failed to shine after the Sarget, which was a pity for a Langton classified wine.

Wines from exotic grapes at M&S

I am in London at present and went to one of the big M&S stores in London a few days ago and had a walk around the wine section. Just as I expected there were some very interesting wines on the shelves. I saw some Georgian wines which had not made it to their Hong Kong branches, and I also saw these. I had no recall if I had either of these before (at the wine fair which I will again miss this year as I will be out of town then). The two bottles on the left (of consecutive vintages) are from Crete and are made from the local grape called Dafni. The other one is a Croatian wine made from a grape called Grasevina. I bought a bottle of each. I suppose I will find the opportunity to drink them whilst here, otherwise, they can always be tasted back home.

Chasselas the table grape

I had blogged about wines made from the Chasselas grape before, both Swiss and German ones, yet even though I know that it is a table grape in some parts of Europe, I had never met it in this guise before. I saw this walking around the fruit section of a large department store in London and so I took a snap of it. The price being a tad expensive, we did not buy any to try, apart from the fact that we were just going round the store and nowhere near going home at the time. It looked delicious though, maybe another time.

Interesting wines on supermarket shelves

Whilst many people tend to think of supermarket wines as cheap and nasty, this is not particularly true. The biggest two supermarkets have high end operations and one of them has a chain of wine stores at which you can buy some of the most expensive wines here in Hong Kong. I have a special spot for Marks and Spencer, from which I had bought many interesting wines that have broaden my horizons. I just discovered another smaller chain, which sells products from the Tesco group in the UK. They too have some very interesting wines. Pignoletto is an obscure Italian grape which I remember meeting at the Wine Fair, but I cannot remember if I had tasted it in a sparkling wine there. Here it is on the shelves in Hong Kong. There is also this white wine which contains Carmenere in its cepage! Now that's a real novelty.

Casa Magrez de Uruguay 2013

We had this Uruguayan wine from the Magrez stables at the doctors' annual wine dinner the other day. I had blogged about Bernard Magrez before, as well as some of his many and varied vinous forays outside Bordeaux such as Japan and even a joint venture with Gerard Depardieu in Morocco. This offering from Uruguay is Tannat based with 16% each of Cabernet France and Merlot making up the remainder of the blend. The wine is matured in a mix of new and one year old barrels.

This 2013 Casa Magrez was a dark ruby, with vanilla wood, fruit and a hint of spice on the nose. The palate was acid and tannic with a touch of fruit well supported by a tannic acid backbone.

South American wines from French grapes

We had the annual doctors association wine dinner yesterday and the theme I picked for this year is wines of South America. Now New World wines are often made with "International varieties" such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, the Pinot family, Cabernets etc, but sometimes certain lesser known grapes from the Old World fins a new lease of life in the new settings, often paradoxically leading to a renaissance of these wines from their place of origin.

This is the case with this set of South American reds presented on the day; the special grapes for which these countries are known turned out to be French in origin. We have a couple each of Argentinian Malbecs (originally from Cahors in France and a permitted red grape for Bordeaux), Chilean Carmenere (originally from Bordeaux and related to the Cabernets) and Uruguayan Tannat (from Madiran near the border with Spain).