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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49195880630253038682015-09-16T23:52:34.775-07:00Rot. by Adam LechmereAdam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-85799828070059027222015-07-03T02:59:00.000-07:002015-07-07T01:50:03.944-07:00"Are we making money on Bulgaria? Probably not": the ever-optimistic Simon Berry of Berry Bros & Rudd
This article first appeared in Meininger's Wine Business International

It's fitting that Simon Berry, the chairman of this august company, should have sent his staff on a training course in communication at RADA, the equally-august Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts, where Berry sits on the board. There is a strong sense of theatre in many British wine companies, and Berry Bros and Rudd is no exception.
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No 3, St James's St (note the Widow Bourne's coffee scales)...

The shop at No 3 St James's St, Piccadilly, which Berry's has occupied since 1698, has a Dickensian charm that would not be out of place on a film set. Entering the headquarters is pleasantly disorienting. The highly-polished floor, worn and burnished with the feet of three and a half centuries, creaks like old ship timbers, and a warm smell wafts up from the cellars. The wine world loves Berry's, because of its history, because of its quintessential Englishness, and because in its upstairs rooms it throws excellent dinners with fabulous wines. When Steven Spurrier ran a 30th-anniversary edition of the Paris Tasting, Berry's naturally hosted it. <o:p></o:p>

St James's St is the shop front, as it were. The real business goes on in Basingstoke, 50 miles away, in an unlovely warehouse in a utilitarian business park. This is where Simon Berry, 7th-generation chairman, works from a featureless office looking out onto a car park. It's almost indecently modest. But such is the potency of this extraordinary company, even in Basingstoke history seeps through the plasterwork. It's helped by the lithographs of the BBR founding fathers on the walls; in conversation Berry constantly refers to them.<o:p></o:p>

But great age, in a company, is no guarantee of longevity. BBR would not be where it is today were it not run by businessmen. It would not be the consistent winner of prestigious awards, and it certainly wouldn't be turning over £150m a year. There's little fusty or old fashioned about BBR. It was the first wine merchant into Heathrow, running four shops in four terminals before axing them all in 2006. It launched its first website (under the auspices of Martin Brown, who went on to start Wine Searcher) in 1994, before BBC Online and Amazon. BBR was an early adopter of the online trading platform model, and BBX, launched in 2010, has sold £60m of wine in 75,000 transactions. Its education division ran 370 events last year, while the wholesale division grew nine percent. Berry was responsible for many of these developments, particularly the ground-breaking website, and all took place on his watch: he has been with the company in various directorial roles for 30 years, the last ten as chairman.<o:p></o:p>

...and Basingstoke

BBR are also publishers, selling 10,000 copies of Jasper Morris's Burgundy (they came out with an i-pad version while many publishers were still working out what to do with the new technology). And they are brewers, owning 40 per cent of Anchor Brewing in San Francisco. There have been confident and far-sighted acquisitions. In 2003 they snapped up the importer FieldsMorris and Verdin (netting Vega Sicilia, Au Bon Climat and Ridge at the same time); four years later came Mistral Wines (Château de Beaucastel, Perrin et Fils…); in 2012 they bought Bordeaux importer and negociant Richards Walford. There are two royal warrants; Edward VII was a loyal customer – the liquor The King's Ginger was mixed especially for him in 1903. There are offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. Berry Bros and Rudd would seem to be as solid as a rock.<o:p></o:p>

Which made the rash of headlines that surfaced two years ago all the more shocking. "Berry Bros posts £7.3m loss" said the Daily Telegraph in October 2103. Then, a year later, the Grocer reported BBR was 'upbeat' despite its second pre-tax loss, this time of £5.5m. Then there was local difficulty in China that has resulted in an ongoing lawsuit. BBR is not commenting on any of the court cases it is or has been involved in, but the reports in the Hong Kong press make lurid reading. The Apple Daily (Hong's Kong's biggest-selling newspaper, akin to the UK's Daily Mail), for example, reported that St James's street had been mortgaged – a rumour Berry dismisses with a wave of his hand. Then there are rumours of arrests and misappropriation of databases. The claustrophobic Hong Kong wine world likes to gossip and the idea that Berry's was "in trouble" took hold. <o:p></o:p>

"People I knew who were BBR clients were coming to me and asking me if it was true, were their wines safe?" one Hong Kong merchant told Meininger's. BBR stores millions of pounds of wine for its customers. Its enormous warehouses (capacity 9m bottles) are stacked floor to ceiling with palettes of the finest wines of the last 200 years, from Haut-Brion to Screaming Eagle. Two-thirds of BBR clients keep reserve stock here. To doubt such a company is almost an offence against the natural order.<o:p></o:p>

The basic facts of the case are that BBR is involved in litigation with its Chinese collaborator of 14 years, ChinaPlus Wines, owned by the businessman KK Mui. ChinaPlus ran the Hong Kong division of BBR under a 'marketing and distribution agreement', with veteran Bordeaux buyer Simon Staples in charge and KK Mui as chairman. The dispute, about the exact nature of the agreement, is dragging on and could last another few years yet, Berry says. "The Chinese are good at prolonging these things."<o:p></o:p>

But the headlines and the fog of rumour in Hong Kong can't have been helpful. "What went wrong was that there were some fundamental differences in attitude and expectation. They were cultural differences on both sides," is all the diplomatic Berry will say.<o:p></o:p>

All this is happening at the end of a five-year development plan that has shaken things up across the BBR empire. The programme includes an extensive re-shuffle of senior staff both in London and Asia, notably with Hugh Sturges leaving after 12 years as managing director and Staples moving from Hong Kong to Japan. A new warehouse was built in 2012 in Basingstoke, St James's St is being extended. Then there's Anchor Brewing, the company being brought for its distribution channels, to sell BBR's "core boutique spirits" like No3 Gin and Pink Pigeon rum, as well as to tap into the vibrant craft beer market.<o:p></o:p>

Simon Berry, 7th generation chairman

The plan was kicked off in 2010 with the selling of Cutty Sark whisky to the Edrington Group, swapping it for Edrington's Glenrothes whisky brand. On the surface it looked like an odd deal: Cutty Sark sales in 2010 were £60m, generating profit of £5m, while Glenrothes sales were £3m. The rationale behind the sale, Berry says, was that Cutty Sark was up against brands such as Pernod Ricard's Ballantine's and Diageo's J&B, and Berry didn't want to compete in that arena. "Glenrothes gave us the ability to do something pretty good and niche and have a head start."<o:p></o:p>

Since the purchase of Glenrothes, its sales have tripled to £9m a year. But just as Cutty Sark was sold, the bottom dropped out of the Bordeaux market. BBR sold £60m of Bordeaux 2010 en primeur, but the 2011, and all subsequent vintages brought in a fraction of that. It must have been quite a hit. How are they filling the hole?<o:p></o:p>

"Good question. It only leaves a hole if you don't think of en primeur as being a windfall," Berry explains. BBR never relied on en primeur. The huge sales of 2009 and 2010 were "the icing on the cake," he says.

In the warehouse at Basingstoke

But, he also admits, "we didn't think there would be three years when en primeur would be non-existent." This has pushed back forecasts: the company now expects to hit profitability in 2017. "We are feeling very optimistic because we are very aware of the brand. And getting more focussed on who we want to be."<o:p></o:p>

Berry points to one of his ancestors on the wall. "That man there, Charles Walter Berry, said the job of the wine merchant is to be the closest link between the people who make the wine and the people who drink it. We still believe that our job is to go out and find wine."<o:p></o:p>

There are 4,000 lines in the wine division. Bordeaux, Rhone, Burgundy and Italy are deeply and widely represented, and there are the expected offerings from Lebanon (Musar), California (Dominus, Colgin, Ridge and their peers). The Spanish list is excitingly dense; there are wines from Jura, China, Bulgaria, Moldova.<o:p></o:p>

Basingstoke

BBR keeps eight Masters of Wine on the staff, including Martin Hudson, apparently known as "our Captain Kirk", whose brief is to boldly explore the final frontier of wine – his are the Eastern European offerings. This again is quite in keeping: BBR was the first to permanently stock a mainland Chinese wine, the 2008 Chateau Changyu Moser XV from Ningxia. They nurture talent: Alvaro Palacios, Benjamin Leroux, Giovanni Rosso among others, have all been championed by the firm. <o:p></o:p>

"Tracking the wine regions of the future is a minor but crucial part of increasing customer choice," Berry says. But aren't they spreading themselves thin already – Bulgarian wines can't bring in much? "Are we making money on Bulgaria? Probably not, but that's the advantage of being a family company. We don't have shareholders to answer to and we don't have to go about saying the only thing we have to do is make money."<o:p></o:p>

But there is tacit acknowledgement that a new focus has to be found. When asked what that might be, Berry lists the strengths of the company: "Education is incredibly strong; gifting – the same bottle of wine looks very different in a Tesco's bag than a BBR bag; wine and spirits; wholesale and retail, the website, brokerage."<o:p></o:p>

The longer the list, the more difficult it is to pin down the USP. Perhaps it's Berry himself, whose relentless optimism and old-fashioned charm inform the company. He likes to take the long view, which you can do if you're not answerable to shareholders. The Japan office, for example: "There are people who say you can't make money in Japan, but it's an incredibly sophisticated market. It sells more Burgundy than Bordeaux for example. As a family business we have the luxury of saying, 'this is a market that takes a long time. How much do we have to change to make it work?' There is a fit there somewhere."<o:p></o:p>

He could well go by the motto, "We shall find the key." BBR can seem over-ambitious – building four outposts in Heathrow for example – but it's dynamic and interesting, full of surprises. And drama of course. Behind that elegant shop front there's some pretty serious activity going on. The world would be a poorer place without Berry Bros and Rudd.<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-52436965216837435322015-07-01T08:12:00.003-07:002015-07-01T08:17:13.577-07:00Bordeaux 2005 Ten Years OnRobert Parker has just published his "10 years on" scores for Bordeaux 2005. Having loved it at en primeur, his in-bottle scores in 2008 were disappointing and - according to Miles Davis of Wine Asset Managers - caused "bewilderment" in the wine trade for his "continued belief that the wines from the Medoc in 2005 are not in any way special."

You can read Davis' full report here and below, my report from the Bordeaux Index Ten Years On tasting in February this year.

Highly lauded 2005 Bordeaux stands the test of time

(This article was first published on Zesterdaily.com)

The 2005 vintage in Bordeaux was superlative in so many ways. The weather was a winemaker's dream: a benign spring gave way to a hot — but not too hot — summer, with hardly any rain. What fell, fell at the right time. That led into an autumn so deliciously mellow that vignerons could amble into the vineyards and pick perfectly ripe grapes whenever they chose. The grapes were small, intensely flavored and with thick skins.

Last month, a decade past that dream season, the 2005s shone at the "Ten Years On" tasting at the London wine merchant Bordeaux Index.

From the first tastings in spring 2006, everyone loved it. Consider what they said then:

Robert Parker, the formidable founder of The Wine Advocate and its influential 100-point wine rating system, thought it "brilliant … one of the most singular years of the past five decades." The British heavyweights – wine critic and journalist Jancis Robinson, MW, and Decanter magazine consultant editor Steven Spurrier – were bowled over. Simon Staples, the epicurean Bordeaux director for London-based wine merchant Berry Bros and Rudd, said he was "speechless."

"It was a truly extraordinary year," veteran Bordeaux wine merchant Bill Blatch said in the reporthe publishes after every vintage. "Easy to manage, without complications, and the almost permanently fine weather ended up by providing a wine of most unusual concentration."
Now, as then, 2005 was a very good year

In January, at the Ten Years On tasting, I found that the 2005s were simply delightful, with succulent, rich, seductive fruit, and acidity that dances on your tongue. The wines are pure, but complex. A cornucopia of blackberry, cassis and red fruit is tempered with minerality and spiciness, then high notes of parma violet and florality.

There are some clumsy wines — the Merlot in Saint-Émilion was very ripe, with high alcohol and big tannins — and some wines have developed an oaky dryness that won't sweeten. But they are few and far between.It's as much a pleasure to describe them as taste them. Every wine of note is underpinned by powerful tannins that give it a structure that will ensure long aging — in some cases, for decades.

Unless you're very unlucky, if you pick a 2005 off the shelf, you're unlikely to be disappointed.
A pricey caveat

The only fly in the ointment is price. Bordeaux knew it had something good, and the first generation of Asian millionaires were beginning to get a taste for fine wine, very expensive fine wine. The 2005 was the first Bordeaux vintage that launched its wines into the stratosphere of luxury goods. The top wines are very expensive. At the very top, Petrus is more than $4,000 a bottle, and the dozen top properties — Lafite, Mouton and their fellow first growths, then Cheval Blanc, Ausone and a few others — are never less than $1,500.

But that needn't concern us. The joy of a really wonderful vintage is its consistency.

There's an old saying: "In a great vintage, search out the lesser estates, and in a lesser vintage go for the great estates." It's never been truer than in 2005. You don't need to spend three months' wages on the great chateaux. At every level, from $30 Cru Bourgeois to the humbler Medoc fifth growths, there are some beautiful wines to be found.

If I had to choose one region in a vintage studded with gems, I'd say the wines of the little Médoc commune of Saint-Julien are most consistently lovely. Below are my top picks from 2005, for the priciest and for the best value from Bordeaux:
Two top-10 lists from Bordeaux 2005

Prices are the average per bottle, excluding tax. All wines are available widely at retail.

Top 10, Money No Object

1. Château Petrus, Pomerol, $4,986

Château Petrus 2005 is only for the deep of pocket at nearly $5,000 a bottle. Credit: Adam Lechmere

Discreet smoky nose leading to powerful blackberry, black cherry and minty, spicy tar on the palate. Dry length releasing fresh gouts of juice. Drink 2020-2040+

2. Château Lafite Rothschild, 1st Growth, Pauillac, $1,461

The bright, lifted blackcurrant and blackberry fruit is sweet and fresh, the tannins ripe, the acidity mouthwatering, the whole complex, charming, assured. A triumph. Drink 2020 to 2040+

3. Petit Mouton, Pauillac $233

Plum skin aroma, then palate has multiple strands of juiciness through the tannins, intense and vibrant sour mash plum. Minerality and power. Drink 2018 to 2030+

4. Château Pontet Canet, 5th Growth, Pauillac, $188

Sweet and savory, bacon with plum skins, very fresh and open, discreet powerful tannins. Linear, classic, confident. Drink 2018 to 2040+

5. Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste, 5th Growth, Pauillac, $135

Savory nose with minerality, pencil lead, very linear and precise, very fresh, essence of blackberry and damson, fine sophisticated length. Drink 2018 to 2035+

6. Château Léoville Las Cases, 2nd Growth, Saint-Julien, $397

Fresh, savory, bacony nose, tannins holding blackberry, cassis and coffee flavors in an iron grip; restrained, fruit releases juice, fills the palate. Very fine. Drink 2018 to 2040+

7. Château Palmer, 3rd Growth, Margaux, $383

Very dark in hue and viscous. Discreet perfumed violet nose, incredibly subtle but exotic, lovely weight, constant interplay of dryness, juice, tannins and acidity. Drink 2017 to 2040+

8. Château La Lagune, 3rd Growth, Ludon, $102

Lovely complex savory nose, bramble and truffle, crushed coffee beans, superb opulent sweetness. Palate fresh and perfumed with secondary flavors of dusty rose petals and elegant decay. Tannins dry and dissolving to juice. Drink 2017 to 2035+

9. Château-Figeac, Saint-Émilion 1er Grand Cru Classé, $172

Restrained sour black fruit, fresh-picked plum and hints of sloe. Closed, brooding and tannic. A keeper. Drink 2020 to 2040+

10. Château Calon-Segur, 3rd Growth, Saint-Estèphe, $123

Nose very restrained, closed, palate with (at first) dry, austere tannins. Then classic briar fruit, tannins become silky. Very pure, arrow-straight acidity shows how this will mature. Masterful finesse. Drink 2018 to 2040+

Top 10 best value

1. Château Poujeaux, Cru Bourgeois, Moulis, $53

Violet perfume and sweet briar. On the palate damson and cedar, sour plum with cloves. Mouthwatering acidity, soft length. Drink 2015 to 2025+

2. Château du Tertre, 5th Growth, Margaux, $79

Sweet sugared damson and plum with perfume on nose. Palate very open and fresh with lovely tobacco and truffle, tannins releasing great gouts of juice. Drink 2015 to 2025+

3. Les Pagodes de Cos, Saint-Estèphe, $62

Château Cos d'Estournel. Credit: Credit: Cos d'Estournel

Cos d'Estournel's second wine is often more restrained than its big brother. Lovely meaty peppery nose, hint of violet perfume on palate with herb, restrained. Drink 2018 to 2040+

4. Château Gloria, Cru Bourgeois, Saint-Julien, $70

Bacon savory nose with hint of old velvet tapestry. Confident, juicy uncomplicated weight, plum and damson fruit , very nice length, good balance. Drink 2015 to 2025+

5. Château Talbot, 4th Growth, Saint-Julien, $79

Rich mineral, savory nose with great charm. Defined blackberry and coffee, discreet, old-fashioned like the chateau itself, tannins dry but dissolving to sweetness. Drink 2015 to 2030

6. Château Les-Ormes-de-Pez, Cru Bourgeois, Saint-Estèphe, $59

Fresh peppery notes on nose – very fine open juicy acid on palate, fresh, uncomplicated. Drink 2015 to 2025+

7. Château Malartic-Lagravière, Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan, $82

Very savory beef-stock nose with ripe plum. Tannins release juice and sour-sweet plum and damson flavors. Fresh, defined, not opulent, but fine. Drink 2015 to 2025+

8. Château Langoa-Barton, 3rd Growth, Saint-Julien, $85

Fresh sugared blackberry, savory mineral undertones, open and fresh with such suave tannins and juice on the finish. Very fine length. Drink 2015 to 2025+

9. Château Potensac, Cru Bourgeois Médoc, $47

Perfumed briar and tobacco nose. Fine, fresh, mouth-watering acidity and bright cassis. Grainy grip to tannins, juicy and opulent. Drink 2015 to 2020+

10. Domaine de Chevalier, Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan, $105

Rich creamy nose, blackberry compote, truffle, licorice. Palate develops fine damson, violet perfume and fresh acidity. Delicate tannins with dry grip. Incredible quality for the price. Drink 2017 to 2030+

Zesterdaily.com
Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-29053451104674228552015-06-23T13:46:00.001-07:002015-06-23T14:01:46.382-07:00"Only Ribolla can express the soul of this terroir..." Josko Gravner of Collio
Many winemakers claim they make wine only to please themselves. It implies their craft is an art, unsullied by the grubby realities of the market; quite often, they are speaking nonsense. When Josko Gravner says it, you understand exactly what he means.

Josko Gravner and his daughter Mateja Gravner

Gravner has a formidable reputation both locally and internationally. He took over his father's winery in the Collio region of Friuli, high on the Italian-Slovenian border, some 30 years ago. By his account, he started work in the vineyards when he was 14, and was put in charge of the winery when he was 18. His father's watchword was "Quality
not quantity … but I was young, and I told him that I was going to find quality and quantity. I can still see him looking at me and saying: 'Try it, and see if you succeed.'"

Read the full article on Wine Searcher

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-69958071736943186272015-05-29T04:21:00.000-07:002015-05-29T04:45:26.683-07:00The Valley of the Rhône is a rockin' and a rollin'This article, with different images, appears in the current issue of Meininger's Wine Business International

Jumpin' Jack Flash... but does Jagger
drink Condrieu?

"I was BORN in crossfire hurriCANE," Yves Gangloff of Condrieu howled into the microphone as his band kicked off one of the after-parties of the peripatetic wine fair that is Découvertes en Vallée de Rhône. Music is a key part of this extraordinary few days, an odyssey of tastings, discussions, dinners, seminars, masterclasses and "vigneron-rocker" evenings, all in the 250km vinous playground that is the Rhône valley.

Every wine region in entertainment mode has its peculiar character. In the Medoc they go for elaborate marquees and black tie dinners, in Burgundy, confrerie singing and heart-stopping gastronomic marathons for 600 guests. In the Rhône, there's music, whether rock, rockabilly, or a local brass ensemble parping away in the background. Meininger's even caught a particularly good jazz combo in a dive bar in Avignon. Gangloff's band, The Grapeful Dead, consists of Paul Ansellem of Côte-Rôtie's Dme Georges Vernay, Pierre-Jean Villaof the eponymous northern Rhône domaine, and Gangloff himself on vocals. They played in Ampuis, to a merry crowd quaffing the finest northern Rhônes from magnum. <o:p></o:p>

The Découvertes en Vallée de Rhône started in 2001, inspired by the Grands Jours de Bourgogne tasting that covers that interesting stretch of land from Chablis to Macon. Now in its eighth edition, it takes in the 70,000ha of Rhône valley vineyards and some 5,500 wine companies, from producers to negociants. This year there 620 exhibitors, and nine separate trade fairs, with 2,175 visitors from 31 countries.<o:p></o:p>

The Palais des Papes: dramatic but draughty

The organisational power behind the four days of the event is Inter Rhône, which must – in this particular journalist's view – be one of the most proactive and efficient trade organisations in France. Apart from the knowledgeable and helpful staff, in every centre, from Ampuis to Avignon, there was a cache of useful literature. One particular booklet, the Encyclopedia of Rhône Valley Wines, gives a comprehensive overview of the entire AOC and its 171 communes. It is needed: there is nothing more complicated than the hierarchy of a French AOC and its sub-appellations. With an influx of emerging wine-buying regions like mainland China, absolute clarity is vitally important, especially as the Chinese are looking beyond the top, icon crus to more affordable wines. A newly-fledged junior sommelier from Guangzhou may need all the help he or she can get when trying to explain the difference between Vallée du Rhône, Village and Cru.<o:p></o:p>

That said, however, Découvertes is still essentially a parochial event. Seventy-two per cent of visitors are French, with a smattering of Americans (4 per cent) and Asians (about 1 per cent). There are no signs that this demographic is changing, despite the fact that the Rhône's Chinese market is growing. Overall exports for Rhône Valley wines fell by some five per cent in 2014, but in China there was notable growth for appellations such as Costières de Nîmes and Gigondas. "Rhône is very important for us," Xi Chen of Bordeaux-based wine merchant Maison Bordelaise told Meininger's, adding that he had come to Découvertes with a groups of Chinese sommeliers "for enjoyment, not work."<o:p></o:p>

In his introduction to the Découvertes, Michel Chapoutier, the president of Inter Rhône, says one of its major purposes is to "profoundly experience the Rhône Valley." It achieves this in two ways. First, and most obvious, is the fact that there is no better way of understanding a wine region than to stand in its vineyards. Delegates, therefore, were taken to the top of Hermitage hill, and given a 360° explanation of the wine region shimmering in bright spring sunshine around them.

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Shimmering in the sun...on Hermitage hill

Second, and most important, the tastings themselves. From town sports centres to the magnificent (and draughty) Palais des Papes in Avignon, every available public space was taken over for tastings. One important aspect of these events was their democratic organisation: every producer, whether Jaboulet, Chapoutier or the smallest vigneron-récoltant, was allotted the same space in which to show their wines. "It's my socialist disposition," Chapoutier told Meininger's. "We're not here to say who is the biggest, but to show the range and quality of all producers." This distinguishes the Découvertes from the massive trade fairs that have come to dominate the wine landscape – this year, in the space of a few weeks, producers have to decide between Prowein, VinItaly and Vinexpo – which are profoundly undemocratic in the sense that the biggest companies can afford the most elaborate stands, while the smallest may get overlooked.<o:p></o:p>

"This is much easier than Vinexpo," vigneron Lionel Faury of St Joseph said, "because it's specialised. Vinexpo is the market for big volumes and big business, but here you can talk about terroir – it's for people who are interested in the Rhône." At a cost of €500 a day for a stand, it's not that much cheaper than an international fair, but the rewards are potentially greater.<o:p></o:p>

Hermitage terraces...Jaboulet?

From north to south, producers volunteered the same opinions: Découvertes is valuable because it's localised and specialised, and it's an excellent way of doing business. "My goal was to find a Danish importer," said Stephane Montez of Dme du Monteillet in Condrieu, "and the first guy to come by this morning was from Denmark. I have a Swedish importer, so now I just need Finland and Norway."<o:p></o:p>

Another advantage of the localised format was the opportunity to concentrate on a vintage. The Rhône – in general – escaped the terrible growing conditions the rest of France endured in 2013. Thousands of hectares of Grenache were lost to coullure in the south, but in the north a combination of a cold and wet spring and summer and fine September and October produced wines that are lighter and fresher than usual. But for many consumers and buyers, 2013 in France is a vintage to be treated with caution, so producers welcomed the chance to allow the vintage to show itself. "The most important is 2013," Joël Durand of Domaine Eric & Joël Durand told Meininger's. "It's a very particular vintage, there was bad weather, we harvested two weeks late – it was different. It's useful to get people to taste it, especially in St Joseph which is suffering from the reputation of the rest of France."

Découvertes is not all business, though: the many halls and tasting rooms buzzed with conversation and gossip. Many producers told Meininger's they were there simply to meet existing customers and generally catch up on news. One salient reason for this is the extremely low 2013 harvest. "Our only problem is that we have no wine to sell," Alain Graillot of Crozes-Hermitage said. "We're just here to meet a few customers that we know, but not develop new business."<o:p></o:p>

The 2000-plus journalists, wine merchants and other wine professionals that attend the tastings have the same attitude. Helen Savage, a UK wine writer and educator and Rhône expert, told Meininger's she has come several times because "it is so valuable for keeping up to date with what's going on". Wine merchants were much in evidence: Georges Barbier of the eponymous London merchant has been coming since the beginning and finds the present set up a great improvement, he said. "All the tastings used to be in cellars and there were long queues." The Barbier family's prime reason to be there was to "find something new", his daughter Victoria said, "and we've discovered Dme Monteillet already. It's a great event. We're here for three days and we've found two new wines. It's got my seal of approval."<o:p></o:p>

Alongside the tastings was a comprehensive programme of masterclasses and seminars. If the tastings were an unqualified success, the academic side of Découvertes was less so. It's a criticism frequently directed at such events – it sometimes seems as if masterclasses and seminars are tacked on in order to give the event gravitas and to attract celebrity commentators. While certain events were well organised and stimulating, others had the feeling of being hastily-prepared. This may have been a result of the sheer comprehensivity of the programme – the tiny underground cabaret club Rouge Gorge in Avignon, for example, had been divided in two in order to host 16 different masterclasses over two days, one every hour from 9am to 6pm. It was too much, and several delegates told Meininger's they found them chaotic.<o:p></o:p>

Other masterclasses were well-prepared and fascinating, particularly the introduction by oenologist Fabien Ozanne on the terroirs of the Côte Rôtie in Ampuis (where there was less pressure, and fewer delegates, than further south). A panel discussion, with Andrew Jefford, Bernard Burtschyand the prolific consultant Philippe Cambie on Trends in Wine, produced some thought-provoking arguments, such as on the origins of the rosé boom, the dangers of following fashions in wine, and the natural wine movement. On the latter, Jefford provoked laughter with his analogy between the use of sulphites and underarm deodorant: "If everyone stopped using deodorant then we would all smell of sweat," he said. "But that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing."

Moins sexy... Inter-Rhone ads not as sure-footed

The Découvertes is, in the end, an exercise in publicity, something Inter Rhône has always been good at. Leaving aside the fatuous ad campaigns ("Plus sexy de CameRhône Diaz" was a low point), the Valley's trade association is sure-footed. Its campaigns in China have been imaginative, offering prizes for the best way of expressing the colour red through different artistic media, whether painting, fashion or theatre. Their latest wheeze is to get people to make short films and publish them. In all this it consciously tries to attract a younger audience.<o:p></o:p>

Chapoutier sees attracting the young as essential, and he has announced plans for Rhône Valley winemakers and their American Rhone Ranger counterparts to sponsor the children of smaller wine producers on visits to American and Australian wine schools.<o:p></o:p>

Perhaps not the effect one wants from a foie gras

"We have to make winemaking attractive to a new generation," he said. The children who saw their parents suffering through the global financial crisis need to be shown "how winemaking can be a successful business." The Découvertes is an example: anyone visiting could not help but be impressed by the upbeat atmosphere of every hall. Whether teenagers will be as impressed by Yves Gangloff's version of Jumpin' Jack Flashis another story.<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-56613882032810915762015-04-14T08:27:00.002-07:002015-05-08T08:24:55.939-07:00Oslo Syndrome: pimping up Calon-Segur, restraining Cos, and whatever you do, don't mention Michel Rolland at Figeac
It's fascinating to see the way two St Estephe properties, both wonderful in their own way, have taken different directions.

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I tasted Cos d'Estournel and Calon Segur 2014 during en primeur last month and was mystified by one and delighted by the other.<o:p></o:p>

I have always loved getting up into the St Estephe badlands and seeing the warm yellow stone of Calon Segur. There was always something otherworldly about it – the great draughty orangery with its stone fireplace was empty of all furniture apart from an oak table, with the courteous winemaker Vincent Millet standing behind it.<o:p></o:p>

The chateau and the outbuildings were always deserted (I never seemed to go there but at dusk), the whole place in a state of elegant decay.<o:p></o:p>

And the wine. There is a reason Calon is held in such esteem by the British trade. It has always been luscious and opulent but also was the most classic, restrained, delicate and fresh of the St Estephes. It made Phelan Segur down the road look brash and rustic, Cos positively meretricious (but more of that later).<o:p></o:p>

Calon was bought two years ago by an insurance company, Suravenir(for €200m, my friend Jane Anson reported on Decanter.com). It's lost no time in sprucing up the property.<o:p></o:p>

Calon-Segur - the new tasting room...

This was my first time at there since the sale. The first thing you notice is that the grounds look rather more svelte. Did they always have those sculpted bushes? And isn't the gravel rather deeper and more groomed than before?<o:p></o:p>

There's central heating – tropical – and bits of artiness, bottles sitting atop perspex plinths, and a large oil (a shiny copy) of the founder, the Marquis of Segur, looking as if he too thinks things have taken a turn for the worse.

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A new tasting room has been carved out of the great reception room. There are fiddly lamps festooned with fake-industrial wiring, lots of steel and glass furniture, pointless louvres on the windows and other bits of tat. It all looks very expensive and busy and has all the character and tastefulness of a big city Sheraton.

...and the old

All that of course could be forgiven. This is Bordeaux after all, where sublime wines come from the most pretentious and overblown surroundings. But the wine has been polished and primped along with the rest of the place. Calon 2014 is an example of what I've dubbed "Oslo Syndrome". It's the sort of wine that a tableful of businessmen at an upmarket restaurant in Oslo, or any major city of the world, would expect to be pleased with. Oslo Syndrome wines are polished, with dense and present tannins, well-presented fruit, just the right amount of acidity. Above they have to taste like a 100-point wine, or what people imagine a 100-point wine should be.<o:p></o:p>

Calon 2014's got all this. It's powerful and ripe and modern, meaty and juicy, with fine fresh juice to the mid palate. But it contains 19% merlot in year when merlot is bursting with fruit, and that gives it its international, ripe red fruit sheen. Just like the chateau, all the character's been sucked out of the wine.<o:p></o:p>

Vincent Millet's explanation: We had to put it in, he said, because it was excellent and low in alcohol, so it wouldn't dominate. He said he and their consultant Eric Boissenot "had a feeling that this was going to be a great year for Calon."<o:p></o:p>

Lots of people agree. James Lawther MW liked it and reminded me you have to be careful with primeurs. The way a wine tastes depends on the time of day you go, on your mood, and the dynamic of the group you're with. "And nowadays you can tweet your opinion of a wine and it's gone around the world in ten minutes."<o:p></o:p>

How much input would the company have had? One of my fellow tasters has worked with producers who have been taken over by big finance corporations and he said there's normally a good deal of interference. "They love to come down and do some tasting, have a bit of input into the blend, feel as if they're making a difference. It's like owning a football team or newspaper." They are also – of course – very keen on profitability. Mme Gasqueton, the redoubtable former owner, may have had very different ideas as to what constituted a healthy bottom line.<o:p></o:p>

Cos goes the other way

...right to blow its own trumpet: Cos d'Estournel
(pic Panos Kakaviatos)

So it looks as if Calon is going one way, while Cos is going the other. For the last two vintages, since Aymeric de Gironde took over fromJean-Guillaume Prats*, the wine's transformed. You no longer turn with relief to Pagodes and Goulée (the second third wines) as a relief from the exorbitance of the first wine. de Gironde has a light touch which is exactly in keeping with the current taste for restraint. Cos 2014 is intense, classic, with a central core of concentrated blackcurrant fruit, lean and fresh and delicious and absolutely of its place. We felt a similar change in the style last year, but put that down to the impossible vintage 2012, which demanded a lean style. Now it's clear that de Gironde is set on bringing Cos back to its St Estephe roots.

(* JGP is working for LVMH and getting very excited about an extraordinary project on the China-Tibet border - see my article on Wine-Searcher, and Jane Anson's very complete blog on Decanter.com. She went there - I didn't)
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"Calon's always behind the curve," one of my companions said. "Now it's gone all international and fruity when everyone else is looking for restraint. And Cos is going the other way."<o:p></o:p>

And if you mention Michel Rolland just once more, I'll scream and scream until I'm sick

Sad, isn't it? It reminds me of poor old Figeac and the way they hired Michel Rolland just as Robert Parker retires. You'll remember that Eric d'Aramon disliked Parker so much that he set the dogs on him whenever he turned up for a tasting. Then Mme Manoncourt, after sacking her son-in-law (want a tip? Never marry the boss's daughter), was on the phone to Rolland before you could say "microxygenation", because as everybody knows he and Parker are thick as thieves, and a few 98-pointers would be a certain path to Grand Cru Classe 'A' status. But as soon as the consultant's signed up at €5000-plus a day, Parker hands over to Neal Martin and Mme Manoncourt looks pretty damn silly.
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Anyway I asked the energetic winemaker there, Frederic Faye, a casual question about Rolland and his input (he's quoted prominently in the 2014 blurb, and Faye isn't). "Let's get this straight," he said, "I'm the winemaker. Michel is just a consultant." "So how often does he come?" "Hardly at all, once or twice a month, maybe less, I don't know, it's not important." "But he helps with the blend?" "No, he doesn't 'help' with anything. I do the blend. He just advises."

It was all very painful. I just couldn't bear to ask my next question, which was, if Rolland is so unimportant to Figeac, why put his name all over the brochure? Indeed, why employ him at all? After all, there are many properities which manage without him.<o:p></o:p>

See also:
What's going to happen at Calon Segur
The ousting of Eric d'Aramon

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-34923599252822667162015-03-20T10:01:00.001-07:002015-03-20T10:06:18.357-07:00Heady days: Moon Mountain District AVA

This article appears in the current (March 2015) issue of The World of Fine Wine

I spend a heady few days with the wonderfully diverse but close-knit group of entrepreneurs, growers and investors harnessing the terroirs of Sonoma's "newest oldest" AVA

Read the full article hereAdam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-58249918904073217352015-03-05T09:50:00.001-08:002015-03-05T09:58:14.591-08:00Shining a pencil-thin beam into the machine: Philippe Dhalluin at Chateau Mouton-Rothschild
(this article first appeared on Wine Searcher)

Philippe Dhalluin is in a very good mood this rainy January morning.

He has just been blending the 2014 vintage at Château Clerc Milon, sister property to Mouton-Rothschild, and he is describing it with that mixture of pride and caution that Bordeaux uses when it has a good vintage on its hands and wants to prime the critics without being accused of hyping it up. "It's good. We're confident about the quality," is as far as he will go.

He started his winemaking career in Peru, at the Tacama estate. It was expedient, he says. There were four posts advertised when he graduated from Bordeaux's Faculty of Enology in 1982: "Two in California, one in Australia and one in Peru. Of course, everyone else wanted to go to California or Australia." There's another thing: in France, "C'est le Perou" means "It's fabulous", a nod at the fabled city of El Dorado.He is the managing director of Mouton-Rothschild, its sister estates Château Clerc Milon and Château d'Armailhac. He is also managing director of the other Baron Philippe de Rothschild properties: Opus One in Napa, Almaviva in Chile and Baron'Arques in the Languedoc.

As we know, Dhalluin found his El Dorado. He came back to Bordeaux, to the cru bourgeois Château Beaumont in 1985, and from there joined Patrick Maroteaux at Château Branaire-Ducru, his last job before being recruited by the Rothschilds in 2003.

Was running a first growth his ambition from the start? "It's the dream of every Bordeaux winemaker to run a first growth. They have such exceptional terroir, and we all know it's impossible to find a better expression of quality and character. To have the opportunity to vinify these grapes is an outcome for a winemaker."

It is indeed an outcome, and it's a typically low-key statement from the ever-courteous Dhalluin. There's something about him that sets him apart from his fellows, the elite group of first growth managing directors who bestride the wine world. He doesn't have the suave urbanity of Paul Pontallier at Margaux, for example, or the ferocious reputation of Latour's Frédéric Engerer; nor does he have the lineage of Jean-Philippe Delmas of Haut-Brion, scion of a winemaking dynasty. Pink-faced, suited and smiling, he looks more like a respectable family solicitor than the boss of one of the five greatest wine estates in world.

© Baron Philippe de Rothschild S.A.; Deepix (C&R) | Dhalluin's resumé reads like a winemaker's wishlist: Almaviva, Mouton, Opus One.

But beneath the understated demeanor is a pioneering talent. Maroteaux, who praises his "huge motivation", recalls how Dhalluin arrived at Branaire and immediately set about persuading him to embark on a €6-million ($6.8m) renovation. "We were the first to install different-sized tanks and the first to have a gravity-fed vat house. That was his idea."

Since joining Mouton 12 years ago, he has overseen a radical and comprehensive overhaul of the Rothschild portfolio. Indeed, his feet were hardly under the desk before he was presenting his plans to Philippine de Rothschild. Some €40m ($45m) later, ("and 66 meetings", he adds), and the rebuildings and replantings are still going on. There's the new vat room at Clerc Milon (completed 2011), and the transformation of Mouton including a vast gravity-fed vinification cellar, many new fermentation tanks (the smallest of which holds no more than 50 hectoliters), and an experimental vineyard that, when I visit, is still a gravelly wasteland.

"This is the future," he says, surveying the perfect rows of tank lids protruding from the oaken deck of the new building. "More and more precision."

Smaller tanks mean they can find "micro-zones" within parcels, vinify them separately, and become forensically exact as to which vines to favor. Attention to detail informs Dhalluin's every move. For instance, he has enough optic sorting machines, which work by taking high-speed photographs of grapes shooting by on a conveyor belt, to process the entire harvest of the 75-hectare (185-acre) property. But he often returns to manual sorting. "It allows more integrity in the grapes," he says.

If he's excited about designing his own winery, the experimental vineyard is also going to be interesting. There's about half a hectare to be planted – "not to Cabernet Sauvignon; maybe Merlot or Cabernet Franc?" – with a view to eventually working out how to "limit the use of pesticides and fertilizer – and put forward a new form of viticulture".

The idea is to be "experimental but not revolutionary". An estate like Mouton, Dhalluin suggests, is not the sort of machine you want to tinker with. So he welcomes experiments with organic viticulture at Opus One, where there is significantly less danger of rot, and at Clerc Milon, 70 percent of which is organic, but at Mouton things progress with circumspection. "If, as a result of [going organic], you lose 25 percent of the crop, well, you have to take full responsibility for that."

So the watchword now is caution. Dhalluin tells me he's reading Roger Dion's magisterial Histoire de la Vigne et du Vin en France des Origines au XIXe Siècle (the History of the Vine and Wine in France from its Origins to the 19th Century). It demonstrates the need for a cool head, he says.

© Deepix | The Mouton cellar is completely gravity-fed.

"People then didn't have the same means we have. They had the time to observe, and cultivate. It shows you have to take a certain time if you want to do something. That's why I've delayed a year with the new vineyard – because when we plant, we plant for 80 years. You have to get it right."

This doesn't mean Mouton is standing still. Dhalluin sees progress as the gathering of knowledge; he wants to shine a bright, pencil-thin beam into the innermost workings of the machine. He's not interested in debating the merits of concrete versus oak – "vats are simply tools" – but in microbiology.

"The evolution of enology is not winemaking. The great evolution is the power of analysis." We now have the equipment, he says, "to analyse compounds that 10 years ago we barely knew existed, and if we knew of them, we had no idea how they worked". He cites the rogue yeast brettanomyces as an example; it was only recently discovered that it can live in vineyards as well as wineries. "The more we understand these things the better we are equipped to express our terroir."

It sounds as if he likes nothing better than to fossick around in the lab with petri dish and test tube but, of course, that's not the case. He's abroad a lot of the time.

"You're lucky to catch me," he said, when we spoke. "I was in Paris yesterday and tomorrow I go to Hong Kong."

He visits Opus One ("more or less as a consultant") four times a year, and gives nearly equal attention to Chile and Languedoc. Then there's the ambassadorial role – travelling to Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong (and wherever else the ultra-high-net-worth individuals who constitute Mouton's market hang out) with or without his bosses, Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild and Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, the heirs of the late Baroness Philippine, who died last year. It sounds like a lot of administration and glad-handing. Isn't it galling – as you rise in your chosen profession, that you find yourself doing less of what you love, and more of the boring stuff?

Dhalluin laughs and murmurs about the importance of meeting the people and finding out how the wines are perceived.

"I have to do these things. To run the company is my job; making wine is my hobby."
Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-53766781008596788542014-12-15T07:37:00.004-08:002014-12-19T01:50:22.471-08:00A watermelon salute to celebrate Yvonne May's life
'You've now got a good two hours hard drinking ahead of you,' Matthew Jukes said, winding up a series of addresses, and occasionally hilarious video tributes, in memory of Yvonne May, the late head of Wine Australia in London, who died of cancer earlier this year.<o:p></o:p>

There's something moving about laughter at a memorial service, a spontaneous often surprised burst of shared feeling. 'We can't give you a 21-gun salute,' Wirra Wirra boss Andrew Kay, by video from McLaren Vale, announced to the packed hall at Aussie House in the Strand. 'So we're going to do a one-watermelon salute instead.' He was standing in a field, and behind him could be discerned a sort of Roman catapult, a huge spring-loaded wooden contraption, with various busy blokes pulling ropes. The thing worked, sending the fat melon in a high curving arc, and there was a cheer.

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Yvonne would have loved that affectionate slapstick. I didn't know her that well but had enjoyed her company at some boozy dinners – one particularly festive bash in Dublin with the McGuigans – and some lunches. I was at the Savour conference in Adelaide last year, where she efficiently and with a nice sense of humour handled the multiple hassles of a big affair like that

She was a calm, friendly and generous individual, and good at her job. After the doldrum years of the mid-decade when Wine Australia here suffered under a hiatus of leadership and, rudderless, alienated some sections of the wine press, she was a reassuring presence. When she was appointed in 2010 I rang her up for a comment – I think it was just before Christmas – and she was happy to chat, had a few plans up her sleeve, and gave some well-turned and diplomatic comments. In six months she'd transformed the trade's relationship with Australia House.<o:p></o:p>

'The group was her thinktank,' Simon Thorpe (of Negociants UK) said, suggesting someone inclusive and democratic, but with a clear sense of who was in charge. It worked. The clever young people she recruited loved her, and were devastated when she became ill.<o:p></o:p>

And not just the staff – the wider trade as well. Thorpe went on, 'She was someone who thought business should be honest, collaborative, professional and fun.' That pretty much sums up a type of Australian attitude to work. She was made for the country, knew it backwards, and between her and the wine community there was healthy respect and affection.<o:p></o:p>

The video tributes were straightforward and cumulatively very touching: a series of winemakers (in elastic-sided boots) saluting someone they liked, respected and will miss. One by one, from Andrew Wigan to Neil McGuigan, they expressed their condolences. Some chose to sit in front of a barrel and raise a glass, others to chuck a watermelon two hundred yards – the sentiment was the same.<o:p></o:p>

'I expected serried ranks of chairs, a sit-down service,' Charles Metcalfe said (before taking to the stage for a rendition of You're the Cream in my Coffee with Oz Clarke, whose baritone made the glasses hum). 'But what's this? It's a party.'<o:p></o:p>

A party it was, with copious amounts of fizz (Jansz Premium Cuvée), fine canapés, and a dozen good reds and whites to try. The 300-strong crowd was a distillation of the London wine trade, sprinkled with friends and colleagues like Angela Slade, Wine Australia's US chief, who had flown over from Washington DC. David Lindsay, Yvonne's husband, was his usual upright self, if slightly drawn. He was one of the first people I met when I joined Decanter in 1999, and he's always been as generous with his time as she was.
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Jukes was an efficient MC who knew his audience (he later told me it was the most difficult thing he'd ever done). Halfway through the tributes – from Thorpe, Neil Hadley (of Wakefield Wines) by video, and the Clarke-Metcalfe duet – he announced there'd be a break 'to top up glasses'. Then, just in case we were slacking, he gave us that reminder about getting down to some hard drinking. We didn't need much prompting. Yvonne would have expected no less.<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-61778460581447393652014-12-01T08:44:00.001-08:002014-12-03T03:08:23.757-08:00'Nothing modest?': The Wine Society
This article first appeared in Meininger's Wine Business International

At the Wine Society's Stevenage headquarters there's a nondescript storeroom which houses the archives of the 140-year-old cooperative. Here are shelves of leather-bound ledgers with membership details going back to the 1870s. Another handsome tome records the minutes of the first-ever meeting, on 4 August 1974, in which Major-General Henry Scott proposed 'a co-operative company' to buy good quality wines on a regular basis to sell to members.

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pic: societygrapevine.com

That such evocative artefacts are kept in a cupboard more suited to mops and buckets is a testament to the ethos of the organisation. Where other companies might display their history in glass cases, the Wine Society is more low-key.

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The International Exhibition Co-operative Wine Society, to give it its full name, came into being in the latter half of 1874, during the last of the Great Exhibitions that captivated the Victorian public (the first was the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851). Quantities of wine had been sent by exhibiting nations, and a series of lunches was held to publicise them. Many of the guests showed an interest in buying the wines, and so the idea of a mutual society, to source wines for members, came about.<o:p></o:p>

And that is more or less what the Society has done for the last century and a half. Since then some 372,000 members have come and gone. There are currently 125,000 'active' members, increasing at an annual rate of about five per cent. Each member buys a lifetime share in the Society for £40 (€50), and has access to wines from some 25 regions, sourced by a team of buyers of impeccable pedigree. There are other services: under the 'Members' Reserves' plan, customers can store their wines in one of the Society's vast warehouses, or the company will compile a cellar on their behalf, laying down red wines and white Burgundy, suggesting drinking windows and so on. The Society also keeps its own reserves, releasing them when the buyers decide they are ready for drinking. It has a retail outlet in Stevenage, where popular wine dinners are laid on in a somewhat soulless new dining room, and another in Montreuil-sur-Mer in France, but the company's core business is mail order.<o:p></o:p>

Of the 1500 wines the Society lists, about a third are own-label – the 'Society' range and the more upmarket, vintage-specific 'Exhibition' range. The main part of the list is a mix of the classic regions – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Italy, Australia – and the new. A characteristic of members, chief executive Robin McMillan says, is that they are 'keen on exploration. We see this as important.' The Society was one of the first champions of Sicilian wines, and was an 'early supporter of Eastern Europe.' The list is rich in interest. In Spain, for example, 'Other Spanish Wines' runs to over 50 entries, some from the smallest and least-known DOs. There are 45 Sherries, there are wines from Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria and Morocco. There are a few holes, notably in the uninspired North American offering, and it's essentially a conservative list (the top-selling countries are France, Portugal, Italy, South Africa and Chile), but there's also enough of the unusual and the hard-to-find to satisfy any wine lover.<o:p></o:p>

Warehouse 1, Stevenage

The Society does not pursue growth, so is happy with the modest year-on-year increase in its membership. 'There is no growth agenda for growth's sake. We have no outrageous ambition,' McMillan says. 'Of course we have to grow to be sustainable but our focus is on servicing the membership.' It does not advertise, so new members tend to hear about it by word of mouth, or they inherit a share from a parent. 'Modest' is the word McMillan likes to use. 'The Wine Society is really a well-kept secret. We're here for our members, and not interested in any other agenda.'<o:p></o:p>

Low-key its aims may be, but in reality there is nothing modest about the Wine Society. It turned over £93m last year, and is embarking on an ambitious plan to increase its considerable storage space with two vast new warehouses on the drawing board. When it moved out of London in 1965 it bought the huge industrial expanse it now occupies – the board, chaired by the legendary Edmund Penning-Rowsell, foresaw the need to expand in the coming decades. Currently it has space for around 500,000 cases, of which 230,000 are members' reserves.<o:p></o:p>

Serious wine merchants regard warehousing as key. As Adam Brett-Smith of Corney and Barrow told me recently, logistics will be the key development in the decades to come. Companies that can store large amounts of wine in optimum conditions can buy direct from producers and keep it for as long as necessary. In Bordeaux this is particularly important as chateaux – starting with Latour – may begin to opt out of the En Primeur system and sell to end consumers directly. Big Bordeaux negociant houses are maximising their acreage. Maison Joanne has temperature- and climate-controlled space for six million bottles. For the Wine Society, En Primeur isn't a big part of the business, but it's increasing, and with its vast square footage the Society seems positioned to exploit future developments in fine wine distribution.

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And there's also the issue of provenance. The Society buys only direct from domaines or from agents – 'never from brokers', McMillan says – so provenance is guaranteed, which is of vital importance as fraud becomes widespread. McMillan says he has even heard the phrase 'ex-Stevenage' used as a guarantor of a wine's credentials. Again, they are ahead of the curve.<o:p></o:p>

But however far-sighted it is, the Society has to strike a balance between tradition and modernity. The average age of members is a conservative 50, concentrated in London and the south-east, although with decent representation in the rest of the country. McMillan says it's natural the customer base is more mature. 'It isn't for everyone. You have to be at a certain point in your wine journey. You're choosing from literature, it requires investment and a certain level of confidence.' Service is paramount: there's no automated switchboard ('over my dead body,' McMillan says), and great store is set by the fact the printed list is available to those who want it. Apparently membership surveys suggest it's the most digitally-aware members who insist on getting the quarterly booklet.<o:p></o:p>

In terms of its digital presence the Wine Society is not cutting any corners. The majority of wines are ordered online, and spend on digital is doubling this year. This is not to create an achingly modern website, but to 'enhance the service', that is to make sure the 'mobile, tablet and website experience is seamless.' They're big on social media a well (marketing chief Ewan Murray is a prolific tweeter himself, and looks after an account with 39k followers).

So thewinesociety.com is up-to-date, but with its discreet burgundy- and-grey livery and old-fashioned nameplate logo there's nothing remotely edgy about it. The one concession to modernity is that the 'IECWS' acronym in the logo has been dropped, although it still says '1874'.<o:p></o:p>

It could be called staid, but McMillan comes back to a favoured word: 'modest'. 'We have an open, transparent dialogue with our members, there's no hard sell. The tone of voice is critically important' – but agrees that online is key to attracting new and younger members. To this end there are more features such as 'Buyers' Top Tens' and 'New wines'. The average age of new members is creeping down to a youthful mid-40s, the Society's marketing chief Ewan Murray says.<o:p></o:p>

The balance between the modern and the traditional is never more important than in the list itself. Buyers must service members' taste for the traditional as well as introduce them to the unusual and the new. Pierre Mansour, responsible for Spain, Champagne, Sherry and Lebanon, says that on any buying trip he will spend about a third of his time searching out new talent, and the rest of the time dealing with existing producers. A good example is a recent trip to Rioja, in which he was 'taken in the back door of Contino' to make a special blend of the renowned producer's 2010 Reserva. This will be 'our own take' on the 2010. 'We have to put ourselves in the members' shoes, and we know they like the more traditional style of Rioja.'<o:p></o:p>

At the same time, he sourced a wine from a new producer who is experimenting with ancient Rioja varietals, indigenous grapes such as Maturana Tinta, Montastell (sic), Tempranillo Blanco, and a local strain of Torrontes. 'I'll take the wine if it can tell a story,' he says. 'If we can give our members the confidence to try something new.'<o:p></o:p>

The fact that the Wine Society doesn't pursue growth, with no shareholders demanding profits and dividends, means that buyers have more flexibility to take wines that might not be ready for some years. 'We don't have that pressure to push through stock to convert it into cash,' Mansour says, citing the example of Toro producer San Roman. The Society is listing its 2010 at the moment, but the wine is produced in such tiny quantities that if they had to wait until it was all sold before they changed vintages, the 2011 would be gone. 'The 2011 is a baby but I've been able to snap it up, and keep it until it's ready for release.' <o:p></o:p>

It's difficult to find a flaw in the company's modus operandi. It has won numerous awards, including Decanter's Retailer of the Yearthree years running, as well as Wine Merchant of the Year and Wine Club of theYear at the International Wine Challenge. 'What else could we do?' the Decanter judges asked in 2013, going on to laud the fact that prices held steady on 1,100 of the 1500 lines, while '400 lines actually saw their prices reduced.' The Society is praised by Oz Clarke ('The quality of their Sherries alone would be an excellent reason to join') and by Jancis Robinson MW ('great value').<o:p></o:p>

There have been criticisms. The UK journalist Simon Woolf, who also writes on Tim Atkin MW's website, recently took the Society to task for 'massively undercutting all other retailers'. He cited various examples, such as the Domaine du Cros Lo Sang del Pais from Marcillac which is £8.50 on the Society list but hardly even less than £10 from other independents. This is undercutting, or deep discounting, he suggested.<o:p></o:p>

'I would change the language,' McMillan counters. 'Our intent is not to undercut; our model is to run a business that sources wines and offers best possible value. We don't want surplus profits, and the mutual model demands we keep prices as low as we possibly can. People are cynical because it sounds too good to be true.'<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-6073062473575958672014-10-29T05:38:00.000-07:002014-10-29T07:36:18.532-07:00Supermarket own-label wines – who holds the cards?
This article is in Issue 5 of Meininger's Wine Business International, October 2014

Own-label wines have been much in the news lately. Wines from UK supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Morrisons have been awarded the highest accolades at the Decanter World Wine Awards and the International WineChallenge. Marks & Spencer won 280 medals this year, a haul matched by many of its competitors.

<o:p></o:p>

'Another stunning victory for the UK high street via this great-value supermarket wine,' Decanter declared in July, as it handed an International Trophy to Morrisons for its 2012 Valpolicella Ripasso from the 'M Signature' range. The wine retails for £8.99, and is made by Cantina do Soave, a Verona cooperative with more than 6,000ha of vineyards.<o:p></o:p>

Decanter also gave an International Trophy (the top level of the Decanter World Wine Awards) to Marks & Spencer for its Eclipse Bio Bio Riesling from Chile, while over at the International Wine Challenge, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Asda were garlanded with awards, including the IWC Own Label Range of the Year for Tesco Finest*. <o:p></o:p>

Eclipse: Trophy

Own-label wines – and chocolate, coffee, tea, ice-cream, school shirts, soft toys and baked beans, for that matter – have been with us since the 1970s. Traditionally, own-label was seen as the cheaper alternative to the 'real thing': you knew that Sainsbury's beans would somehow be inferior to Heinz. It's only relatively recently, due in part to the rise of premium ranges such as Tesco Finest* and Sainsbury's Taste the Difference (both launched in 2000) that supermarket brands have been accorded the same respect as proprietary brands.

'It's a great way to get customers on board and trying new things,' Barry Dick, formerly Sainsbury's winemaker and now at Accolade wines says. 'They will trust an own-brand wine sooner than an unknown label. It's a question of comfort and reassurance.' A customer who might otherwise fight shy of Valpolicella can be introduced to the style via Morrison's M Signature, for example.<o:p></o:p>

Then there is the advantage of consistency, a concept dear to supermarkets' hearts. 'With own-brand you can deliver a cohesive brand of wine across world markets. It's very compelling,' Dick says. He adds that exclusivity is another great attraction of own-label. Anyone can sell a Casillero del Diablo Chardonnay, but only Sainsbury's can sell Taste the Difference Chilean Chardonnay. In many cases it will be made by the same person. The higher-end ranges promote their collaborations with renowned producers. Domaine André Figeat appears on the front label of the Taste the Difference Pouilly Fumé, and when Denbies Wine Estate in southern England was signed up for the Taste the Difference English Sparkling, Sainsbury's announced it with a fanfare. 'It's a great privilege to be selected,' Denbies said.<o:p></o:p>

It can also be a double-edged sword. Martin Krajewski, who owns the premium rosé producer Chateau de Sours in Entre-deux-Mers, Bordeaux, has had a 20-year relationship with UK supermarkets. He currently supplies a wine called La Fleur d'Amelie to Marks & Spencer, and Tesco stocks his Domaine de Sours rosé. Both are in the UK on an exclusive basis.<o:p></o:p>

Krajewski does not supply own-label wines but he recognises the advantages: 'For some producers having 50,000 bottles in a supermarket is brilliant,' even though that may compromise any chance of getting the wine under their own name in the same retailer. There's no reason why they shouldn't, he says, but then 'you'd be competing against yourself'.<o:p></o:p>

A privilege to be selected: Denbies for Sainsburys

But he also explains that supermarkets hold most of the cards. 'They don't give contracts and things can simply change: they can drop you for any reason.'

The price supermarkets pay for own-label wines varies widely. Krajewski notes that he is perfectly satisfied with his arrangements at with M&S and Tesco, with whom he has strong long-term and trusted relationships, but adds 'some supermarkets are quite capable of trying to squeeze you for less money' when they are negotiating the next year's deal.<o:p></o:p>

No supermarket would comment on the relative prices it pays producers for own-label compared to branded wines, but one producer who wished to remain anonymous told Meininger's that of all supermarkets, the resolutely upmarket Waitrose drove the hardest bargain, generally offering 'ten per cent less than other supermarkets and selling at 25% more. They are the sharpest at this game.' A Waitrose spokesman said, 'We don't believe this is the case, we provide our customers with excellent value and quality wines selected from around the world.'<o:p></o:p>

On average, across all supermarkets and other wine retailers, more than a third of wines sold are own-label (some market watchers put the figure at 50%). It makes up some 300 of Tesco's 800-strong in-store range, and almost the entire M&S offering. Sainsbury's own-label wines are one-third of its range; the Wine Society, the 140-year-old mail-order cooperative, similarly bottles about one-third of its wines under its own banner.<o:p></o:p>

There are many ways to make an own-label wine – it can be simply a matter of buying several tanks of Chardonnay from a cooperative and sticking a label on it. Or there are what one owner, Gavin Quinney at Chateau Bauduc in Bordeaux, memorably described as 'tender blenders. You put it out to tender, get the samples, get to work with your test tubes, and make your blend according to a formula. It's not winemaking, it's a chemistry set.'<o:p></o:p>

That's the lower end of the spectrum, producing wines that are unlikely to win awards. At the other end, the supermarket is involved at every stage of the process, from drawing board to label design. Quantities also vary hugely. Marks & Spencer made 500 cases of the northern Spanish white Txakoli; a premium Taste the Difference wine at Sainsbury's would be perhaps 2000 cases, and a mass-selling style like Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 100,000 cases.<o:p></o:p>

Getting a listing is not a matter simply of waiting for the supermarket to come calling. 'You need to know the buyers at the supermarkets and be in close contact with them,' Krajewski says. 'Know what they are looking for each year, which are the growth markets or categories, produce products that can fill those niches or gaps, do it early and be prepared to wait one, two or even three years to get a listing. You also need to be pitching at the right price points and be flexible on volumes. '<o:p></o:p>

What surprises some people is the degree of expertise the supermarkets have in-house. Marks & Spencer for example employs three full-time winemakers, two of whom are graduates of Roseworthy Agricultural College at the University of Adelaide, while the most experienced member of the department, Sue Daniels, is a veteran of 32 years in the wine business. <o:p></o:p>

'It's the untold story,' Daniels says. 'Most people think there's a man tending grapes, and that's it.'<o:p></o:p>

Getting an own-label wine on the shelf is a long and involved process. In M&S's case, the initial impetus might come from the food category. 'We look at things working well in the rest of the business,' Daniels says. 'For example, there has been a big push on Spanish foods.' They knew the north of Spain, the Atlantic coast from Santander to San Sebastian, is renowned for its food, so they hit on the local wine of the region, Txakoli, as an addition to the range. Once two possible suppliers had been identified they were visited – 'we make clear this is going to be a partnership' – tank samples tasted and a bespoke blend is put together. M&S buyers are involved at an early stage in order to make financial decisions as to quantity and bottle price. 'Then we go back later to put the final blend together.'<o:p></o:p>

Supermarkets are often criticised by producers for high-handedness. It is not unusual to hear complaints that buyers drive down prices and demand producers pay promotional and other costs. One artisan winemaker in the South of France told Meininger's his doors would in future be closed to one particular supermarket – he was offended by the buyer's demands that he increase the residual sugar in his rosé.<o:p></o:p>

The supermarkets Meininger's has interviewed energetically reject the notion that local winemakers are sidelined. 'It's a very collaborative process,' Tesco product development manager Graham Nash says. 'I have never encountered hostility from a winemaker. We encourage them to have their views, but often they don't want to give views, as they understand we know our customers better than they do.'<o:p></o:p>

Of course, there are opportunities for conflict, Barry Dick concedes. 'But the clever ones let you get on with it. We will have benchmarked other supermarkets and will know what style works. If they are sensible they have all the numbers in front of them and will see the advantages – they don't have the knowledge of the UK market that we have.'<o:p></o:p>

Thierry Coulon, managing director of the huge Beaujolais negociant Paul Sapin, has worked with Marks and Spencer for 18 years and provides it with a range of wines from a dozen different countries, from France to the US. He is impressed by the level of commitment the buyers and winemakers show. 'They know exactly what they want and they take hours and hours to achieve it. Sometimes we are in the tasting room all day. And it's never a question of them arriving and leaving on the same day – they always want to see the vineyards, to know the region, to go deep into the process.'<o:p></o:p>

Coulon also stressed that buyers and winemakers take the same pains whether the wine they are blending is a high-end New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, or an entry-level wine. 'There's no way of selecting a cheap wine quickly – they are just as exigeant.'<o:p></o:p>

The degree of involvement of the retailer's winemaker can vary, however. If quantities are very small, or if the wine in question is little-known, the retailer might defer entirely to the producer. When M&S wanted to try out the Japanese Koshu grape, Daniels said, 'it would have been arrogant of us to think we would be able to blend better Koshu.'

Own-label has burgeoned in the UK for many reasons – the growing power of the supermarkets, the success of premium ranges, and the nature of the average consumer's relationship with European wine regions, which will lead them to trust an own-brand wine much sooner than one from an unknown Chateau, Domaine or Schloss.<o:p></o:p>

In the US the scene is very different: statistics are hazy but some commentators reckon own-brand accounts for only 5% of the wine market. The main reason for this, according to John Bradbury, brand manager for Codorníu-owned Aveníu Brands, is the three-tier system, under which production, distribution and retail of wines must be handled by different companies. This means a supermarket can't create its own wine as it can in the UK, but has to employ a third party. "It's a structure thing, not a consumer thing," Bradbury says. But, he adds, supermarkets are cottoning on to the value of own-label. Costco has its well-established Kirkland brand, which covers everything from underwear to cookies to wine. "Its reputation for good prices and good quality is evolving," Bradbury says, and other retailers are likely to follow suit. The branding company Winery Exchange produces the boutique H&G brand for Whole Foods Market and supplies a dozen retailers with own-branded wines. "The private label business is small in the United States," Winery Exchange's Sandrine Perry told Meininger's, "but it will get bigger."

Back in the UK, most big retailers consider their own-label offering is stable. The Wine Society CEO Robin McMillan says they are "happy where they are" with their range and are unlikely to increase it, and Nash says Tesco will stay close to its 300 branded wines.

The publicity given own-label wines by this year's awards ceremonies means more and more producers will be keen to work with UK supermarkets, which will have wider choice and more bargaining power to produce exactly what their research tells them the consumer wants. Once again, the supermarkets hold all the cards.<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-55041386411632384482014-10-23T13:43:00.003-07:002014-11-15T12:51:00.683-08:00Tickets, still out of time and still as popular
Just how preposterous is Tickets? It's been open three years now and it still takes some serious string-pulling to get a table. From the bell-boy uniforms (the door-girl wears a ringmaster's topper), to the three-language menus, our waitress's opaque patter, and the carefully-created air of controlled mayhem, the place has the feel of a chaotic pantomime in a provincial theatre.

<o:p>

Delicious cool draft on the palate: Tickets edible cocktail

</o:p>
The décor is a jaunty post-retro hotchpotch of big top and music-hall: brickwork, a 1960s bare-bulb cinema marquee above the bar, 19th-century playbill menu graphics – all cheekily ironic. There's even a hint of send-up in the wait staff's greeting,'Hi, I'm Beatriz and I'm here to look after you this evening'.

So there you sit, trying to make sense of it all, getting nowhere with the menu and its daft divisions – so what is the difference between tapa and finger-food, and how big is this dish, and what the hell is an airbag baguette anyway? And there's a guy in the middle of the room dressed like a flunkey doing something with dry ice (and dry ice is as dated as Gordon Ramsay's swearing). After five minutes of Alice-in-Wonderland back and forth with Beatriz– she's explaining spherification and thinks we're being wilfully dim – she says, 'why don't we start with the olives?' and we snap our menus shut and settle back to enjoy the Cava.<o:p></o:p>

Jaunty post-retro hotchpotch: Tickets

Tickets, the brainchild of the Adrià brothers – Ferran (of El Bulli Foundation and whose late restaurant was just up the coast in Rosas), and Albert, who have said the time for high-concept fine dining is past – opened in 2011 and is still the hottest molecular bar in Barcelona. It's supplanted the achingly avant-garde Tapas 24, now seen as very año pasado. 'A tourist trap,' one of my local colleagues sniffed. Tickets has a four-month waiting list. It's also got a list of sponsors as long as your arm, from Estrella Damm and Riedel to Coca-Cola, Sharp, Lavazza and half a dozen media companies.<o:p></o:p>

From the moment you arrive and see the dismembered penny-farthing in the window, you know you're in for a performance. Indeed, the menu tells us the whole affair is an 'Adrià Entertainment' presented by the 'Tickets Theatre Company'. It all seems rather over-produced, and we're just beginning to be dismayed by the paucity of the wine list (short and unimaginative), when something wonderful happens. The food arrives.<o:p></o:p>

Just what the hell is an air baguette?

First, the spherified olives. Spherification is the first trick you learn at molecular cookery school. Invented by Ferran Adria 10 years ago, it's an alchemical process by which a solid is liquified then re-formed into a sphere when suspended in a calcium bath.<o:p></o:p>

When done to an olive it produces a thing looking very much like an olive but whose greenness is somehow greener, as if we're suddenly in Technicolor, whose texture (they explode on your tongue) is like cooled, molten salted honey, and with a flavour of such delicate salinity and umami meatiness that it's like eating the first olive ever. <o:p></o:p>

Then we're entranced by the 'Edible cocktail' a slice of Granny Smith marinaded in beetroot juice and fennel, an appley crunch releasing a delicious cool draft on the palate. Then cod crackers, crisp saltiness and a slow-developing, intense flavour of fish. <o:p></o:p>

The oysters have a lovely smokiness and concentrated taste of the sea, and the 'pearl' – spherified wakame seaweed – detonates deliciously. Then there are the air baguettes, little wands of hollowed-out loaf wrapped in pata negra ham, and mini-air-baguettes filled with foamed manchego, and anchovies on toast with tomato and fake scales of edible silver. Then cumin-marinaded 6-hour pork which is so melting it has to be scooped up in your fingers.<o:p></o:p>

A mild disappointment was lobster with pimento sauce, fine and picante but lacking in the surprise factor that had everyone flocking to Rosas in the first place. This is the law of diminishing returns: you approach every dish expecting fireworks. There's no place for the merely delicious.<o:p></o:p>

Pipette: passé

The puddings are fun, delicious, slightly dated (any dish with a self-basting plastic pipette...), but still the flavours have us guessing – was that verbena with the coconut ice cream?<o:p></o:p>

Tickets is a mini-Bulli, a kids' version of the molecular Mecca, cheaper, faster, slightly easier to get a table, with a wine list that is frankly unchallenging. What I loved about it was the exuberance and the lack of cynicism. Everything's done with a knowing wink, but it's an inclusive joke (pace the sponsors). I get the feeling it could only work in Barcelona – that knowing London scene would regard it with ennui and a raised eyebrow. The crowd's interesting, definitely not the ultra-aware hipster bunch it would attract in Shoreditch or Clapton, rather more office workers and hen-parties. The room erupts into Happy Birthday at one stage. Very uncool, and rather sweet. As one of my party said, 'you can only do this sort of thing if your second name's Adrià'.<o:p></o:p>

The bill for four with two bottles of wine, and four glasses of liquoreux, came to just shy of €300.<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-17062249398010240832014-10-13T10:07:00.003-07:002015-05-12T08:01:01.395-07:00Rite of passage: Vérité takes its place alongside the world's first growths
There's a she-bear stealing grapes from one of Jackson Family Wines' Sonoma properties and I thought – for a moment - I'd use it as an intro for the Decanter feature I'm writing on JFW's CEO, Barbara Banke. Something along the lines of, 'Banke gives it a wide berth, and I'm sure the feeling's mutual – it would take a brave bear to tangle with the formidable etc etc.' A bit glib, of course...<o:p></o:p>

Banke may be modest (the family/corporate pic on the website has her diminutive and smiling in the second row; if you didn't know her you might take her for a loyal and valued senior staffer) but formidable she certainly is. Since her husband Jess Jackson died in April 2011 she has increased JFW's holdings to the tune of 14 new estates (from Oregon to McLaren Vale), spending some US$100m a year for the past three years. If JFW was a force in California three years ago, it is now well on the way to international First Growth cachet.<o:p></o:p>

This is a deliberate and planned policy, as evidenced by the latest tasting of the company's flagship wines, Lokoya, Cardinale and – at the very top of the pyramid – Vérité.<o:p></o:p>

Banke, often accompanied by one of her daughters, both of whom are deeply involved in the family company, has been coming over to London every autumn for the past few years to show the latest vintage of these wines, which are made in small quantities from the premium vineyards of Napa and Sonoma. Lokoya is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, made by Chris Carpenter from the four great high-altitude appellations of Napa: Mount Veeder, Spring Mountain, Diamond Mountain and Howell Mountain. Cardinale, also by Carpenter, is a Cabernet-Merlot from Oakville.<o:p></o:p>

Vérité was born in 1998 when Jess Jackson suggested to the French winemaker Pierre Seillan (originally from the Loire but with a Bordeaux pedigree) that he could make a wine from Sonoma 'as good as Petrus'. Ninety-eight was cool and 'Bordeaux-like,' Banke says. 'It rained all the time' and the wine (which I haven't tasted) is 'ageing very well'.

Standing, left to right: Jennifer Jackson Hartford, Don Hartford, Laura Jackson Giron, Rick Giron, Barbara Banke, Christopher Jackson, MacLean Hartford. Seated, left to right: Katherine Jackson, Julia Jackson, Hailey Hartford.

There are now three Vérité wines based on some or all of the five Bordeaux grapes, sourced from the Sonoma appellations Alexander Valley, Bennett Valley, Knights Valley and Chalk Hill. According to Jackson's – and Seillan's – vision, each wine aims to evoke a different Bordeaux terroir. The Merlot-based La Muse is inspired by Pomerol; Le Desir, Cabernet Franc, is St Emilion (Cheval Blanc is frequently mentioned at tastings), while the Cabernet Sauvignon-based La Joie takes Pauillac as its benchmark.<o:p></o:p>

They don't slavishly ape Bordeaux (I always think American winemakers must get sick of the constant referencing). 'Of course not. These are California wines,' Banke says. <o:p></o:p>

This year's tasting marked a coming-of-age for the wines. In a low-key fashion, without much noise, Banke and her right-hand man Nick Bevan put together a splendid line up of international icons, including Lafite 2001, Tenuta dell'Ornellaia 2004 and Mouton 2004, for a comparative tasting. <o:p></o:p>

Pitting your wine, blind or otherwise, against the established greats is something of a rite of passage for new world wineries aspiring to first growth status. Eduardo Chadwick does it to great effect with his well-known Berlin Tasting series, and every year there's any number of Judgment of Paris lookalikes.

This was an eccentric exercise in a way – we tasted Grange 2007 and Pingus 2007 against Cardinale 2007 – that is, a Shiraz and a Tempranillo and a Cabernet. It wasn't done blind: 'The idea wasn't to do a Judgement of Paris,' Bevan said. 'But to show that our wines can genuinely hold their own alongside the first growths of the world.' <o:p></o:p>

And hold their own they did. However great the company (the Lafite 01 was effortlessly poised) they were never eclipsed, and in some cases they sang – I was particularly impressed by how the Cardinale showed against Grange and the overoaked Pingus.<o:p></o:p>

For what it's worth, Robert Parker, and latterly Antonio Galloni, love these wines. Parker has handed out seven 100-point scores to Vérité since 1998.

I love tasting the 2011s, a famously cool and difficult vintage. I was in Oakville, at Opus One, and Screaming Eagle, in October of that year. Those winemakers who celebrate restraint were pleased with the quality (if not the quantity) – Michael Silacci at Opus was particularly excited. But it was an incredibly difficult year, with producers losing row after row to botrytis; no one was complacent about it.<o:p></o:p>

2011 Tasting

The Dorchester Hotel, London, 7 October 2014

Vérité La Muse <o:p></o:p>2011, Sonoma County

14.3%<o:p></o:p>
89% Merlot, 7% Malbec, 4% Cabernet Franc

Very elegant restrained nose with hints of briar fruit and damson and ripe plum, sweet cherry, tobacco leaf with undertow of fresh nettle. Sour plum and damson on palate, snapped stalk greenness, not dense but feeling of lightness and open freshness. Length elegant, the tannins tactile and chewy and never taking over but delivering welcome fresh juice like tiny darts in the mouth.<o:p></o:p>

Vérité La Joie <o:p></o:p>2011, Sonoma County
74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 7% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot, 3% Malbec

13.8%<o:p></o:p>

Lovely fresh nose, savoury, mint and marmite, some medicinal and saline notes. Structure and precision – tannins tightly-wound, dense dark damson fruit in high register, ending in tannins with dry grip releasing back-palate juice. Savoury, saline length<o:p></o:p>

Vérité Le Desir <o:p></o:p>2011, Sonoma County
14%
54% Cabernet Franc, 36% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Malbec

Opulent nose with dark chocolate and coffee – roast fresh coffee – with ripe briar fruit. Palate perfumed, ripe dark fruit at first then redcurrant, coffee and chocolate, mouthwatering freshness from the acidity. Dry, arrow-sharp tannins dissolving to juice. A tour de force.<o:p></o:p>

Cardinale 2011, Oakville

14.5%<o:p></o:p>
Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot

Intensely lush and opulent medicinal nose with great concentration. Palate elegant and powerful with dense dark fruit and brisk acidity, lovely juiciness setting off elegant dry tannins. Full length, continues for more than a minute and then subsides slowly. Delicious<o:p></o:p>

Lokoya Spring Mountain <o:p></o:p>2011

14.5%<o:p></o:p>
Cabernet Sauvignon

Almost raisined nose leading to fresh and bright open palate, graphite, stony minerality, open and juicy, fresh, with wonderful cedary brightness. Elegant<o:p></o:p>

Lokoya Diamond Mountain <o:p></o:p>2011

14.5%
<o:p></o:p>Cabernet Sauvignon

Tight ungiving nose. Refreshing acidity, very approachable, juicy, mouthwatering cherry and damson fruit. Rugged, dense with juicy acidic finish<o:p></o:p>

Lokoya Howell Mountain <o:p></o:p>2011
15%
Cabernet Sauvignon

<o:p></o:p>

Massive, tarry, sweet fallen black stone fruit, lovely tactile grainy tannins. Wonderful freshness borne out of intense acid and tannin. Length very fine<o:p></o:p>

Lokoya Mt Veeder <o:p></o:p>2011

14.5%<o:p></o:p>
Cabernet Sauvignon

Carpenter calls Mount Veeder 'the beast'. Quite undemonstrative nose, tarry, then on palate really powerful tannic edge, intensely dry, powerful with concentrated dark fruit slowly gathering itself to push through the tannin. This will evolve, the tannins will calm, the fruit will sweeten. Good length<o:p></o:p>

Comparative tasting<o:p></o:p>

2004

Vérité  La Muse <o:p></o:p>2004, Sonoma County

Lovely dense sweet nose with ripe plum and damson, then on restrained coffee and mocha, sour plum, saline/mineral texture, very open and fresh, sense of juice and freshness<o:p></o:p>

Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Masseto <o:p></o:p>2004

Tar on nose, powerful, intense tarry chewy tannins, ripe macerated black fruit. Powerful and rather brash<o:p></o:p>

Chateau Mouton-Rothschild <o:p></o:p>2004

Wonderful evocative perfumed nose, lots of elegant earthy notes, tannins in a lower key, there's perfume and grip but the juice is restrained, holding back now, leading to dryness at finish, charming but lacking in punch<o:p></o:p>

2007

Cardinale, Oakville <o:p></o:p>2007

Damson bright fruit, dusty dry tannins, tannins dominant and strong, very powerful, very strong, still incredibly young and powerful<o:p></o:p>

Grange <o:p></o:p>2007

Tarry intense medicinal nose. Opulent palate, very new world with sweet raspberry fruit, dark chocolate – almost jammy! – tannins intense and precise to the end with very good length, length intense, concentrated, massive.

Dominio de Pingus <o:p></o:p>2007, Ribera del Duero

Slightly closed nose. Sinewy, chewy tannins almost swamping sweet blackberry fruit, which comes through with graphite, and smoky damson. I find the oak – 23 months new French - drying and over-powerful and I fear the tannins are not going to get any sweeter.
<o:p></o:p>

2001<o:p></o:p>

Lokoya Mt Veeder <o:p></o:p>2001

Deep spicy nose – brooding – then very juicy, the tannins giving out juice from dark fruit, ripe plum and damson, even hints of sloe. Full-bodied and concentrated, with extraordinary structure and fine length
<o:p></o:p>

Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia <o:p></o:p>2001

Struck match and coffee nose, dense knitted dry tannins, full savoury even meaty nose. Perfumed palate, concentrated dark fruit, very fresh acidity with dry tannins dissolving to juice. Fine length<o:p></o:p>

Chateau Lafite-<o:p></o:p>Rothschild 2001

Sweet and wonderfully juicy from the beginning – poised and precise, fine-grained tannins, acidity and oak beautifully integrated, dark plummy fruit concentrated and intense. Effortless finesse, standing out even in this company as quite masterful.

In addition, the following wines were tasting at AWC, London, 6 October 2014

Vérité 2011 - see above

Vérité 2007

Vérité La Joie <o:p></o:p>2007, Sonoma County
Gorgeous cedar (old armoire) nose, velvety almost porty raisined grape aromas, pot pourri. Still very young, a bit closed now, tightly-wound tannins holding out promise of juice to come, overall fresh and brimful of potential.

Vérité La Muse 2007, Sonoma County
Toasted oak on nose, meaty and savoury notes hint of very ripe redcurrant, even tending to jam. Palate with powerful tannins, ripe, fresh acidity carries through to finish, though there seems a slight disjoing in the integration of acidity, tannin and oak. Lovely length, and as wine opens in glass any angularity softens.

Vérité Le Desir 2007, Sonoma County
Wonderfully savoury, tarry nose, then bright, fresh tannin and acidity on palate. Fresh and dense, opening out to juice and sweetness of blackberry and blackcurrant fruit, integrated oak and acidity and leading into a pure, concentrated finish. magnificent

Vérité 2004

Vérité La Joie <o:p></o:p>2004, Sonoma County
Tarry perfumed nose with sweet ripe black cherry and damson. Fruit carries through satisfyingly to palate with saline notes and brisk minerality, very intense chewy tannins, hints of camphor. The tannins are there, young and vibrant to the end, dry but releasing spurts of juice. Lovely

Vérité La Muse 2004, Sonoma County
See above

Vérité Le Desir 2004, Sonoma County
Nose has a wonderful freshness - fresh cigar, even a note of hay - getting some age now, sweet ripe fallen damson and pot pourri, lovely earth and dark, spiced chocolate, camphor. Velvety tannins enriched with black cherry, the whole freshened by racy acidity. Delicious

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-12969621954573187082014-09-22T04:52:00.001-07:002014-09-22T06:05:53.696-07:00Heroic viticulture: Ribeira Sacra and Rias Baixas
'The vines drink stone,' Fernando Gonzalez says, surveying his vertiginous vineyards. The Mencia here in Ribeira Sacra grows on terraces built into 85% slopes –roots forge their way through slabs of slate and schist that look as if they wouldn't sustain lichen, let alone vines. Hence the hyperbole. The topography of Ribeira Sacra is not the least remarkable thing about this isolated, mountainous DO in the centre of Galicia. Its history too is extraordinary. While there have been vines here for centuries (the Romans made wine here, as they did over much of Spain), and Gonzalez' terraces look as if they have stood for many decades, the present vineyards in fact are no more than a generation old. Once covered in terraces, over the last 80 years the hillsides were abandoned; the Civil War and increasing rural poverty were to blame, Gonzalez says. All the skills of the previous generations were almost lost – 'between me and my grandfather there is no inheritance'.

<o:p></o:p>

Adega Algueira: 85% slopes

But 30 years ago he gave up his job in banking and mobilised his family, clearing the forest and revealing the crumbling terraces, which they rebuilt by hand, stone by stone. That was on the south side of the River Sil – the northern bank is untouched. 'Thirty-three years ago, this side of the river looked like the opposite bank,' Gonzalez says. He's pointing to a densely-wooded hillside; looking closely it's possible to see the remains of terraces amongst the dense green foliage. Gonzalez found vines gone wild, winding round scrubby oaks in symbiotic harmony. He took cuttings, identified them, and if they were viable, used them as the base for his replantings. He had to be careful though – previous generations had favoured vigorous but uninteresting varieties like Palomino, and he wanted only the native grapes: Mencia, Trousseau (called Merenzao here), Brancellao, Treixadura, Godello and Albariño, amongst others.<o:p></o:p>

Gonzalez' property, Adega Algueira, is one of the most renowned in Ribeira Sacra. The wines are fresh, structured and light, their profile exactly suited to the wine-drinking public's taste for restraint. The major UK importer Bibendum, which lists half a dozen of Gonzalez' wines, finds them 'truly stunning'. Ferran Centelles, formerly of El Bulli and now working with the restaurant's founder Ferran Adria on his new educational foundation, called the Cortezada 2011, a blend of Godello, Albarino and Treixadura, 'singular and extraordinary'.<o:p></o:p>

Centelles is a Catalan sommelier of wide experience, but he professed himself 'incredulous' at the 'heroic viticulture' of Ribeira Sacra. It is a landscape which demands much of its winemakers. Gonzalez himself, a charming man, with the slightly wild demeanour of the zealot, has devoted his life to the cause while retaining his sense of humour. 'It's cheap to work the land here,' he says, 'because you've got no alternative but to do it yourself.'<o:p></o:p>

A few miles east along the Rio Sil, in a region where the export of slate was the prime industry, lies A Coroa, another property that is at once ancient and modern. The first winery here dates from 1750, but was abandoned some 100 years later. The present owners bought the land in 1999, and re-established the winery in 2002.

Slate at A Coroa

<o:p></o:p>

A Coroa produces four highly-regarded Godellos under different vinification regimes – the Godello Lias for example spends four to five months on lees – on slate and schist soils. Godello has been reclaimed in Galicia, by dint of the hard work of producers like A Coroa, Algueira and – further east still in Valdeorras – Rafael Palacios. The younger brother of Alvaro Palacios of Penedes, Rafael makes wines under the cultish As Sortes label, and is convinced of their ageworthiness. Jancis Robinson MW agrees – she recently tasted Palacios' superbly concentrated 2011 and recommended keeping it 'at least until the end of the decade.'<o:p></o:p>

Winemakers are opinionated, and the debate about the ageing properties of the two great white grapes of Galicia, Albariño and Godello, will live on long after the wines themselves have turned thin and brown. Fernando Gonzalez, for example, reckons acidity is key. The stony slate and gneiss soil of Ribeira Sacra, he says, is ideal for supplying the freshness and acidity that will ensure endurance, whereas the richer soils of Valdeorras can create 'a problem with acidity.' Palacios would disagree.<o:p></o:p>

Acidity is much more of an issue in the coastal Rias Baixas DO. Galician topography is very varied, as evidenced by the radical differences between the central DOs – Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras – and the widely-spread Rias Baixas. The western coastline of Galicia, where the four sub-regions of Rias Baixas lie, is made up of a series of deep, funnel-shaped inlets which thrust inland from the Atlantic. The land is low-lying, ocean-influenced, more humid and cooler than the central regions.<o:p></o:p>

Rias Baixas was created a DO in 1988, but the production of wine here has changed little over the centuries. To combat the damp atmosphere vines are trellised on the pergola system, stout granite posts a metre and a half high, holding up a roof of shoots. Production is fragmented amongst thousands of tiny vineyards: there are 177 producers in Rias Baixas, but 7,000 registered grape growers farming 4,000ha of vineland. 'It's pretty low-tech,' Andrew McCarthy at Bodegas Castro Martin says. 'This part of Galicia is very poor and rural.' <o:p></o:p>

Rodrigo Mendez (with Bibendum's Gareth Goves at right)

The peculiar nature of viticulture here encourages the growth of cooperatives like Condes de Alberei and Martin Codax, which have some 700 members between them and a dynamic export market (Codax partners with Gallo in the US, and is well-known in the UK, selling Albariño under both the Codax and the Burgans label). There is also a good deal of corporate ownership – companies like the Portuguese giant Sogrape, and fishing multinational Pescanova have stakes in the region.

With multitudinous growers, and often scant loyalty between grower and producer, experimentation can flourish. Rodrigo Mendez, a winemaker of exceptional and eccentric talent, sources grapes from a variety of remote vineyards, most within a hundred metres of the sea. His reds, from the indigenous varietals Caiño, Espadeiro and Loureiro are renowned (a Pinot Noir is raised in a handful of barrels in his garage) and his whites are steadily gaining a stellar reputation. He also makes wines with Raul Perez, referred to by Robert Parker as a 'visionary'; their Sketch Albariño is aged in bottle at the bottom of the Aurosa estuary.

<o:p></o:p>

Pergola trellising, Rias Baixas

Mendez' methods are natural – foot-treading, no filtration, no fining, wild yeast fermentation, little temperature control – but his wines are sophisticated, beautifully structured and made with a sharp eye on international markets. They attract the enthusiastic attention of Bibendum and Spanish specialists Carte Blanche, as well as distributors in the US, after glowing reviews by Neal Martin on Robert Parker's website.<o:p></o:p>

While winemakers like Mendez champion a wide range of local varieties – Galicia has 60 indigenous grapes – it is Albariño which dominates. This is partly for its international appeal: the wines are fresh and easy-drinking, absolutely in tune with current style trends. But specialists also point to its complexity and ageworthiness.<o:p></o:p>

One of these is Vicente Cebrian, the owner of Rioja's Marques de Murrieta, whose C16th family estate is Pazo Barrantes in Salnes, the central DO of Rias Baixas. Salnes produces 99% Albariño and Cebrian loves to demonstrate the grape's possibilities. He believes eighty per cent of Albariño in Rias Baixas 'is released too early', and points to his vibrant 2000 Pazo Barrantes as an example of the way it can age with elegance and grace. <o:p></o:p>

Vicente Cebrian and eucalyptus, Pazo Barrantes

Aged Albariño is something the public isn't quite ready for, McCarthy says, but a glance at Bibendum's figures for Castro Martin demonstrates the health of the sector as a whole, with a 39% sales increase over the last four years. As the economic crisis in Spain grinds on, it is exports which keep this bodega and many others alive. McCarthy sends some 70% of his production abroad, with half going to the UK, and the other half to the rest of Europe and elsewhere, including five to 10,000 cases to the US and 12,000 to Australia. 'If we relied on our domestic market then we would be doomed,' McCarthy says.<o:p></o:p>

Galicia is remote, historically isolated from the rest of Spain until the motorways were built a generation ago. Traditionally it has been a region of subsistence farmers – and to an extent it still is. Those pergola trellises may be ideal for keeping vines far enough off the ground to avoid rot, but they also free up the space below to grow hardy vegetables or graze livestock. The crisis is still felt here. 'Those who most relied on the domestic market have felt it hardest,' McCarthy says. The result of falling domestic sales has been a surplus of grapes and a drop in prices – small growers have no compunction about offloading grapes as cheaply as possible.<o:p></o:p>

There have been failures – Rias Baixas' 177 wineries were 200 a few years ago – but there were no 'constructor' wineries (those built on shaky economic foundations with the proceeds of the building boom in the south of Spain) in Galicia, as there were in Rioja and Ribera del Duero, so the fall has been less severe.

<o:p></o:p>

The focus is now on export, to the rest of Europe and the US, and in this, Galicia 'can be counted a real success story', Stuart Grundy, Bibendum's buying director for Europe says. He attributes this to the global interest in Albariño, particularly Rias Baixas, 'but now the lesser-known regions are channelling their energies that way too. Most of the top wineries have strong sales in the US.' <o:p></o:p>

The global movement towards restraint applies to reds as well as whites and Galicia's climate is ideally suited to produce light, fresh and acidic reds. Mencia, which is best-known in neighbouring Bierzo DO, works particularly well in the hills of Ribeira Sacra. As does Trousseau, native to the Jura and loved by artisan winemakers from South Australia to Sonoma. Adega Algueira has a very fine example which sells out in France, Gonzalez says. The critics like it so much 'they refuse to believe it's a Spanish wine'.

Sculpture, Pazo Barrantes

Winemakers in Galicia face many hurdles: the hard-scrabble life of hillside growing, humidity, damp and rot, economic uncertainty. But – despite what the French may say – their uniqueness is their strength. The climate and topography (someone described it as like 'a Mediterranean Wales') is so singular, and so singularly suited to producing wines of finesse, power and longevity, it is very difficult to mistake the best Galician wine for anything else.<o:p></o:p>

(Tasting notes to will be added in due course)
Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-65782289487172018632014-09-17T06:46:00.000-07:002014-09-19T03:00:32.918-07:00Visigoths and Viognier - the relentless Gerard Bertrand
This article first appeared in Meininger's Wine Business International

Winemakers can be restlessly inquisitive, constantly searching for new terroirs to explore. Big wine companies are the same, though for different reasons. A Burgundian, say, will have his eyes on Oregon, or New Zealand, for the challenge those regions present for Pinot Noir; a Bordelais might look to Napa (there are more than a dozen French winemakers working at the highest level there) to grapple with the novel challenge of too much sun. Where wine corporations are concerned, simply change the word 'explore' to 'exploit' and you have their raison d'être.

'My focus is here': Gerard Bertrand

Gérard Bertrand works to a different scale. He is interested solely in his home region, the great swathe of southern France that is Languedoc-Roussillon. 'I was born in the vineyard and my dream was always to reveal the terroir of the south of France,' he says. <o:p></o:p>

Bertrand took over the family property, the 60-hectare Domaine Villemajou in Corbières, on the sudden death of his father Georges Bertrand in 1987. Gérard was 22, and still playing rugby at national level (he continued to play for the next ten years, captaining his team, Stade Français in Paris, from 1992 to 1994). From the start he took his responsibilities seriously, 'assuming the leadership in the region' as he puts it. 'Other companies are global and I have a deep respect for that, but my focus is here.'<o:p></o:p>

He quickly established the Gérard Bertrand brand, and began to acquire properties. In 1992 he bought Domaine Cigalus in Bizanet and ChâteauLaville Bertrou in La Livinière, and ten years later he acquired what has become the company's flagship, Chateau l'Hospitalet in La Clape, a winery and three-star hotel which is the centrepiece of the Bertrand philosophy of 'l'art de vivre' – the art of living. The group now has 10 estates and more than 550ha of vineyard. It produces a bewildering array of wines, from the ten estate cuvées, to the top end Cigalus, La Forge and Tautavel – which retail at around €30 a bottle – the Grand Terroir range, the Art de Vivre range and others. He produces 1.5m cases, generating a turnover of €60m. It would seem he has conquered the Languedoc-Roussillon. Would he ever consider finding new terroirs outside the south of France? 'No. My life and soul is here – I think we are continuing to develop what we have. I want to be the best in the region.'<o:p></o:p>

Chateau l'Hospitalet

In person, Bertrand is a commanding presence, the very type of the broad-shouldered rugby international, though slightly dishevelled, as if he is unused to wearing a suit and tie ('I just wanted to lean over and straighten his collar,' one female public relations executive told me after an interview with him). He works the international circuit, ever-present at trade fairs from Montpellier's Vinisud, to Prowein and the London Wine Trade Fair. He is so used to giving interviews and explaining his mission to promote the south of France that there's a tendency to lapse into inspirational jargon. 'I feel like a missionary,' he says. 'My goal is to share with the consumer the lifestyle of the south of France: wine, gastronomy, culture and art, and then deliver the message in the cross – fraternity, peace, and love.'<o:p></o:p>

'The cross' refers to the distinctive Bertrand logo, the four-armed Visigoth cross, which is beamed three metres high onto the outer wall of the new l'Hospitalet chai, and which according to the company's literature is laden with significance, '…its four elements and its twelve points of the zodiac represent the perfect perpetual cycle of time and nature…'<o:p></o:p>

While that might sound like new-age mumbo-jumbo, the Gérard Bertrand brand is rooted firmly in reality. It dominates the south of France, exporting to 100 markets worldwide and garnering a clutch of international awards. When Bertrand says, 'In many regions and countries we have opened the market and created the south of France category', it is not an empty boast.<o:p></o:p>

One gets the feeling he runs the company with an eye for the smallest detail (there's no doubt he would far rather be in the vineyard or the blending room than at a trade fair). He tastes 'more or less three mornings a week' and is in the vineyard once a month through the year, and several times a week before and during harvest. He gives the same attention to his international markets, concentrating on North America and Asia, but excluding China at least until 2020, he suggests.<o:p></o:p>

'China is important and interesting but not for the next few years. They don't have the knowledge and experience yet – they don't recognise a label until it becomes a brand - and they are full of stock as they produce a lot of wine.<o:p></o:p>

'We can represent the future for them because they like the taste of the south of France, but you have to educate thousands and thousands of people.'<o:p></o:p>

Bertrand returns again and again to the theme of education. Many winemakers are evangelical in their determination to promote their region, and he is no exception – indeed, his entire life is dedicated to demonstrating the potential of his many terroirs. Critics recognise this potential: three Bertrand wines were in the final listing of the UK's Sud de France Top 100 competition, out of over 600 entered, with Château de Villemajou Grand Vin 2011from Domaine Villemajou– Georges Bertrand's original winery – taking a trophy. At the 2014 Decanter World Wine Awards, Bertrand's wines won several gold medals and two coveted Regional Trophies, for the Réserve Spéciale Viognier and a 1974 Rivesaltes which the judges described as 'Wonderful stuff'.<o:p></o:p>

Tim Atkin MW, who chairs the Sud de France Top 100, considers Bertrand 'charismatic, passionate and deeply knowledgeable about his own region' and 'one of the key figures in the renaissance of the Languedoc-Roussillon.'<o:p></o:p>

Chateau La Sauvageonne

Size, scale and reach play a major part in the success of the brand. Bertrand bestrides the Languedoc-Roussillon like a colossus: his estates stretch from the recently-acquired Chateau la Sauvageonne in Montpellier to Laville-Bertrou in La Livinière; there are properties in La Clape and Boutenac, and another recent acquisition, La Soujeole in the Malepère appellation near Carcassonne. The terroirs are wonderfully varied in altitude and topography: Domaine de l'Aigle in Limoux is one of the coolest and highest in the region and produces restrained and elegant Pinot and Chardonnay; Domaine de Cigalus in Boutenac is more Mediterranean and planted to Grenache, Carignan and Caladoc as well as international varieties. There are few grape varieties Bertrand doesn't source.<o:p></o:p>

So there is reach, but the scale of each estate is manageable – production is almost artisan for the smaller estates. There is no irrigation ('the roots go deeper and reveal the terroir'), and 300ha of the portfolio are now biodynamic: 'The philosophy is to be sustainable at least, and then organic, and then biodynamic,' Bertrand says, adding that he follows the biodynamic calendar where possible. This annual calendar – as most famously set out by Maria Thun and her son Matthias - uses lunar and solar cycles and planetary movements to advise which periods, either 'fruit', 'flower', 'leaf' and 'root' days, are best for different operations in the vineyard or winery. 'We respect it for the top wines, and only bottle on a flower or a fruit day. For the others, we use it at the end of the tasting to see what kind of day it is.'<o:p></o:p>

Another facet of Bertrand's philosophy (he uses the word frequently to describe his view of winemaking) is a clear focus on the taste and style of the different terroirs. 'To reveal the terroir you need to feel it. When you suck limestone you get a taste of mineral and salt, from silex you get iron. And of course, to understand the terroir you need to work on it and spend time on it.'<o:p></o:p>

This focus is not only for the higher-end terroir-driven wines. Swirling his basic-level Picpoul de Pinet in his glass – a wine which sells for around €12 – he is still concerned that it should deliver some sort of typicity. 'Why do I like this? It's an easy wine to understand. It's fruit-driven, it has minerality, it's crisp, you salivate and you need another glass. It's not a complex wine but it has the taste of Picpoul – you can feel the taste of the grape.' The same goes for the best-selling rosé Gris Blanc. 'We're looking for the taste of Grenache Gris. It's a modern wine with an old traditional varietal.'<o:p></o:p>

This surely is part of the ethos – to take what is traditional about the south of France and turn it into something modern, approachable and marketable. Revealingly, Bertrand chooses to answer another question. 'Twenty-six years ago we were in three markets, and now we're in 100.'<o:p></o:p>

There is a relentless focus on markets: after all, one man's mission to educate is another man's brilliant salesmanship. At the massive new chai at L'Hospitalet, capacity is increased, but Bertrand says that is not the most important aspect of the building: 'We needed to have a very modern and attractive winery to align with the market' – and to have more storage space for the library of past vintages that he is amassing, in order to demonstrate the ageworthiness of his wines to future generations of consumers. <o:p></o:p>

Bertrand is at his most eloquent and enthusiastic when discussing 'the soul of the appellation', as he puts it, and at the heart of it all is Corbières, where he grew up. Of the Corbières Grenache Syrah Mourvèdre, he says, 'This is my origin, the place where I was born. It is a beautiful place. I love the story of Corbières, it's one of the most exciting places in the world. It's alchemy, to get such juice from such a hard landscape.'

Villemajou: 'the soul of the appellation'

<o:p></o:p>

When one considers how long wine has been made in this region, Bertrand's mission is in its infancy. He has 39 vintages under his belt and is not yet 50 – 'I have a good level of energy and I resist stress' – does he feel there is a lot more work to do?<o:p></o:p>

'My goal is to see Languedoc-Roussillon recognised as a Grand Cru, to be on a level with the best in the world. I'm very happy with what we have done in the last 20 years, and there are a lot of things to do in the next 20. But we're not in a rush.'<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-26817763907609639372014-07-31T04:55:00.000-07:002014-08-06T03:05:40.591-07:00Oaked Sauvignon Blanc - balance, complexity and a welcome respite from cat's pee
[This is a digested version, though with more recommendations, of a longer article on the US website zesterdaily.com]

Was there ever a danger of Sauvignon Blanc going the same way as Chardonnay – of an 'Anything but Sauvignon' movement to match the ABC craze? <o:p></o:p>

Here's the former Slate columnist Michael Steinberger, for example, mocking the grape's "chirpy little wines wholly devoid of complexity and depth … a limp, lemony liquid that grows progressively more boring with each sip." Articles with titles like '10 Alternatives to Sauvignon' are more and more common; I've heard independent merchants talking about increasing requests for a crisp white, 'but not Sauvignon'.<o:p></o:p>

But there's no evidence to suggest Sauvignon is in danger of even the smallest blip in sales. Bibendum, the Wine Society and many other retailers reports sales as strong as ever.<o:p></o:p>

A tasting (in July at London Cru, the capital's first urban winery) comprised 32 oaked wines from Australia, New Zealand, California, Chile, Loire, Bordeaux, South Africa and Turkey. <o:p></o:p>
All the wines had oak treatment of some kind. Some were barrel-fermented, some spent 10 months in new French oak barriques, others far less time, 50% second-use barrels, others eight month medium toast, others 15 months in old oak. … With oak, the variables are infinite.<o:p></o:p>

Looking down the list, a common factor was restraint. I didn't expect such freshness and restraint in the American wines, for example, although the New Zealanders showed their classic colours -- gooseberry, robust sweaty aromas, nettle and grass. Surprising also was the complexity on show: judicious use of oak tempers the green pepper or asparagus flavours that people can find offensive, and bring more of what UK critic Sarah Ahmed calls "the Bordeaux style, more lemon oil notes -- it's a striking feature."<o:p></o:p>

"Limp and lemony … devoid of complexity"? Not at all. The best of these wines have bracing acidity and fine complex fruit. I noted the following flavours: apple, pear, sour apple, sugared pear skin, honey, apple custard, fresh hay, salinity, river mud, lemon, lemongrass, apricot, sweat, earth.<o:p></o:p>

I used the descriptor "gooseberry" three times, "cat's pee" not at all.

Top 10 oaked Sauvignon Blancs<o:p></o:p>

Prices are approximate; oaking regimes as supplied by winery <o:p></o:p>

Larry Cherubino 'Cherubino' 2013, Pemberton, Western Australia<o:p></o:p>

100% Sauvignon Blanc<o:p></o:p>

100% new, 3 mths ageing<o:p></o:p>

Delicate gooseberry and hint of oak on the nose. Sour apple and pearskin palate leading to tropical notes – sweet stone fruit. Long and elegant, very fine<o:p></o:p>

Alc 12.5% £25.99 UK: Inverarity Morton, Drinkmonger ; US n/a<o:p></o:p>

www.larrycherubino.com.au

Château Talbot Caillou Blanc 2012, Bordeaux blanc, France<o:p></o:p>

74% Sauvignon 26% Semillon<o:p></o:p>

35% new oak barriques, 35% 1yr old, 30% 3rd fill for 8 mths<o:p></o:p>

Unexpressive nose but quickly a lovely interesting palate with honey freshness salinity, good ripe acidity, mouthwatering sweet pear and peach and fine, sophisticated weight<o:p></o:p>

Alc 14% £15/$27-30 UK: Fine & Rare; US: Millesima, MacArthur Beverages<o:p></o:p>

chateau-talbot.com

Château Brown 2012, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux, France<o:p></o:p>

64% Sauvignon 36% Semillon<o:p></o:p>

8 mths in medium toast barriques, 50% new, 50% 2nd fill.<o:p></o:p>

Really fresh impression of intense chalky acidity, fine pear and apple (Granny Smith) with an almost tannic heft. The mid-palate is dry with promise of a dissolve to juice. Lovely, mouthwatering wine<o:p></o:p>

Alc 13.5% £25/$36 UK: Soho Wines, Ellis of Richmond, Tesco; US: Owen's Liquors, Kessler Wines and Spirits <o:p></o:p>

www.chateau-brown.com

Huia Sauvignon Blanc 2013, Wairau, Marlborough, New Zealand<o:p></o:p>

100% Sauvignon Blanc<o:p></o:p>

A portion was fermented in neutral French oak barrels.<o:p></o:p>

Elegant refined nose with nettle and hint of green mown grass. The palate unmistakeably New Zealand, with gooseberry, lime and more nettley, hedgrerow flavours. Fine fresh acidity, fine weight<o:p></o:p>

Alc 14% £13/$15-20 UK: Winedirect, Quintessentially Wine; US: Astor Wines, Lincoln Fine Wines<o:p></o:p>

http://huia.net.nz/

Yealands Winemakers Reserve 2013, Awatere, Marlborough, New Zealand<o:p></o:p>

100% Sauvignon Blanc<o:p></o:p>

30% fermented and aged in French oak barrels, 5% new<o:p></o:p>

Classic sweaty nose with gooseberry, intense and powerful palate with dancing acidity. Lovely fresh, fearlessly classic Marlborough Sauvignon<o:p></o:p>

Alc 13.5% £14.95 UK: Great Western Wine; US: n/a<o:p></o:p>

www.yealands.co.nz

Valdivieso Wild Fermented Single Vineyard 2012, Leyda, Chile<o:p></o:p>

100% Sauvignon Blanc<o:p></o:p>

Aged for 6mths in 500l French oak barrels<o:p></o:p>

Powerful aroma of struck match at first, hint of reduction, earthy smell of river mud, not overwhelming, then on the palate lime and lemon, vanilla, robust acidity, very open and refreshing, good length, complex and very fine<o:p></o:p>

Alc 13% £13.95 UK: Winedirect; US: n/a<o:p></o:p>

www.valdiviesovineyard.com

Chimney Rock, Elevage Blanc 2010, Napa Valley, USA<o:p></o:p>

47% Sauvignon 43% Sauvignon Gris<o:p></o:p>

Two thirds Fermented + aged for 6mths in Fr oak, 1/3 new, 1/3 old<o:p></o:p>

Fresh with honey and creamy notes on the nose, repeated on the palate with grainy, dense acidity, passion fruit, kiwi, excellent weight and mouthfeel, good zippy acid length<o:p></o:p>

Alc 14.5% £24.99/$22-25 UK: Cellarvie, Matthew Clark; US: Grapeswine.com, Saratoga Wine Exchange, M&D Fine Wines and Spirits, widely available<o:p></o:p>

www.chimneyrock.com

Duckhorn Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2102, Napa Valley, USA<o:p></o:p>

83% Sauvignon 17% Semillon<o:p></o:p>

15% barrel-fermented in new oak, 5mths sur lie<o:p></o:p>

There's noticeable oak on the nose and early palate serving to enhance the pear and spiced apple flavours. Good weight and length. Fine<o:p></o:p>

Alc 13.5% £28 UK: thewinetreasury.com; US: Gramercy, Wally's Wine and Spirits, widely available<o:p></o:p>

www.duckhorn.com

Mondavi Fumé Blanc, Napa Valley, USA<o:p></o:p>

87% Sauvignon 13% Semillon<o:p></o:p>

Barrel fermented<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and creamy, tropical, creamy notes of apple and custard, then spice (sandalwood), giving an exotic character. Very well-made, nice racy acidity at end<o:p></o:p>

Alc 13.5% £16/$9-12 UK: Templar Wines, Matthew Clark; US: widely available<o:p></o:p>

www.robertmondaviwinery.com

Lis Neris, Picol, Friuli Isonzo, Italy<o:p></o:p>

100% Sauvignon Blanc<o:p></o:p>

Some of wine aged for 11mths in 500l Fr oak<o:p></o:p>

Classic grassy aromas, hay (fresh hay), savoury denseness to palate, good weight, citrus character rounded out by ripe apple, excellent zesty length with good acid balance<o:p></o:p>

Alc 14% £24 UK: Fields Morris and Verdin; US: Mister Wright Fine Wines and Spirits, Wine Ranger Cellars<o:p></o:p>

www.lisneris.it

[For a fuller version of this article see zesterdaily.com]

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-56387703675782679642014-07-25T03:53:00.001-07:002014-08-04T00:43:15.156-07:00Smart wines: Ten Years of Vilafonté
A tasting of Vilafonté Series C from 2003-2012, with Zelma Long, Phil Freese and Mike Ratcliffe. London 16 July 2014

(see also my interview with Zelma Long on wine-searcher.com)

Zelma Long says she's reading a book by furniture maker Peter Korn, called Why We Make Things And Why It Matters. 'He talks about his craft and how he uses his heart, his intellect and his hands and how this fulfills a basic human need to exercise the emotional, the physical and the intellectual.' She finds winemaking the perfect route to this rather practical karma.

The heart? Zelma Long

The head, the heart and the hands. It's tempting to stretch the analogy (possibly to breaking point) to see which of these roles is filled by the trio that founded Vilafonté. Long and her husband Phillip Freese met Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick Estate in Stellenbosch in the 1990s, and some time after that they decided they should make wine from the ancient soils of the northern flank of the Simonsberg Mountain. They bought 40ha in 1997, and planted to four Bordeaux varietals, leaving out Petit Verdot. 'We knew the site would produce rich enough wines,' Freese says.

<o:p></o:p>

They share out the jobs: Long is the winemaker, Freese in the vineyard, and Ratcliffe on marketing. They're very good at what they do. Ratcliffe for one is a tireless ambassador for the winery, for Warwick and for South African wine in general. The fact he's a born marketeer is evidenced by the tasting mat in front of me, where each wine is labelled with a two-word plug, 'seamless and firm' for the 2010, 'balanced and expressive' for the 09 and so on. I'd say he's the head, in our (stretched) analogy.

<o:p></o:p>

Mike Ratcliffe, Zelma Long and Phil Freese

Freese was Mondavi's vineyard guru for 13 years, designed and planted Opus One's vineyards next door, and likes his technological aids. He pioneered a ground-penetrating radar system called EM38 which detects variations in soil, they use the Leaf Water Potential measuring system, as well as deploying the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a system developed by NASA, which uses satellite imaging to measure relative vigour of the vines. He has that rare gift of combining vast knowledge with an avuncular manner and an ability to explain complex subjects simply. Vine stress, he says, is a matter of 'subjecting the vines a near-death experience without them actually dying. They're psyched-out by that.'<o:p></o:p>

Long herself is measured of speech and quick to laugh. Her career started in the late 60s with UC Davis, an internship with Mike Ggrich at Mondavi, an offer of a job, a decade there as chief winemaker, subsequently CEO of Simi in Sonoma, founded Long Vineyards with Bob Long, a host of international consultancies, together with Vilafonté. She's now embarked on a PhD in performance art at Davis, because, she says, 'If you're a confident individual with an active mental capacity you need new challenges through your life.'<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté is a 42ha vineyard planted on 'vilafonté' soil, which according to Ratcliffe is one of the oldest soil types in the world, between 750,000 and 1.5m years old. 'It has been stripped of much of its inherent capacity, with a low production potential.'<o:p></o:p>

They make two wines, the Merlot-dominant Series M and the Cabernet Sauvignon-based Series C.<o:p></o:p>

'Psyched-out vines': Vilafonté

The vineyards are the highest-density in South Africa. Vines are stressed, berries are small and intensely-flavoured. 'Smart wines,' Robert Joseph said as we tasted. You have the feeling you're in good hands. There was not a single disappointment in the ten-year line up. 'We look for clarity and purity,' Long says, and uses the rather lovely image of the ringing of a bell: 'You get that brilliantly clear clear sound.' And as with a bell, you know instinctively if there's the tiniest flaw in the metal – a false note introduced in the clarity. There are none of those. Take the 2007, and early-ripening, low-sugar year, 74% Cabernet Sauvignon. At first you wonder where you're going as your palate deals with the structure – the insistent tannins and bold acidity – then you catch glimpses of fruit, and you realise where you are, and can see the life ahead for the wine.<o:p></o:p>

Structure, elegance and purity of fruit characterise the wines. There is considerable vintage variation both in fruit character and tannic and acidic levels, as well as grape proportions. Cabernet Sauvignon is always the majority of the blend, but it can be as low as 51% (11) and as high as 75% (10). <o:p></o:p>

These are smart, modern (in terms of their structure), beautifully-made, serious wines, and they are astonishingly cheap, at less than £35 for later vintages. Wines of this quality, of this pedigree, from Bordeaux, or Napa, or, increasingly, Sonoma, or Tuscany, would be twice, three or four times the price.<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté is a work in progress. The vineyards are getting older and are becoming 'more balanced', Long says, 'and we have become more expert. We have learnt how to work with the tannins, to refine the structure. We feel we are beginning to master this site.'<o:p></o:p>

The wines<o:p></o:p>

Available from Fells, Coe Vintners, theDrinkShop.com, Sawinesonline.co.uk and extensively in the United States. From £35 bottle<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2003

<o:p></o:p>

82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, 2% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Rich savoury nose, exotic spice and perfume, cassis. Lovely sour damson and sloe palate – rich acidity and soft tannins. Very juicy length, elegant, goes on and on stimulating the palate. Sensational finish – 5 minutes and after that still flashbacks. 'This exemplifies the potential and future of the vineyard' (Long)<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2004<o:p></o:p>

52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc, 4% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Deeper, rounder nose with the same rich spice as 03, and some delicate hay notes. Sour damson and sloe, also some very high notes of balsamic raspberry. Very fine tannin, less concentration at end than 03 but soft and very charming<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2005<o:p></o:p>

66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Dense, tannins grip on the attack rather than develop in mid-palate. Structure very evident here – not a hint of roundness but precision, austerity, sour salted dried plum flavours. Tightly-wound and rigid, powerful sour length giving little juice. Bordeaux-like, St Estephe or Pauillac at their most ascetic<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2006<o:p></o:p>

54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc<o:p></o:p>

Delicate 'old armoire' nose. Very pure, cassis, damson, sour plum, sloe. Grainy, very textured, tactile tannins giving great gouts of oak-infused tobacco-flavoured juice. Intense and young. 'It has its own kind of grace' (Long)<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2007<o:p></o:p>

74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc, 6% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Tannins hit instantly and form a scaffold through which glimpses of austere fruit can be seen. Intense, wild, giving little away, juice at end. Very concentrated, leave for at least three years for tannins to work some suppleness. Great concentrated juicy length with hints of sweetness to come. Classy<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2008<o:p></o:p>

66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 6% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Lovely savoury edge to nose that's been missing in the last few vintages. Even the aromas have length and memory. Tannins after 15% of palate come in fighting, delicate juicy heft, powerful. Dark fruit, stewed damson, bitter lick of sloe. Length gentle but still insistent – much more feminine wine at the end<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2009<o:p></o:p>

54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc, 8% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Round, more of an international approachable bent, sauve tannins which nevertheless grip tight, but the fruit takes equal billing here – fine sandalwood box, violet, plum skin marinaded, continuous juice from mid-palate<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2010<o:p></o:p>

75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, 5% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Hint of chlorine and salt on nose, tannins have robust sour edge, more lick of sloe and salted plum, then hay-juice and tobacco juice, leaving impression of soft old wood at end. 'When I made the blend for this I thought it would be the finest Bordeaux blend I had ever made. I don't think it's there yet. It's very tight and compact and unevolved.' (Long) <o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2011<o:p></o:p>

51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc, 9% Malbec<o:p></o:p>

Rich, rich nose, redolent of tar and muscovado sugar and marinaded dark fruit. Intense concentration, more tar but tannins, smoke and nettley green leaf and juice kick in at same time, leading to a comprehensive symphony of taste. An eager puppy. Will be magnificent as tannins and juice find their place<o:p></o:p>

Vilafonté series C 2012 (not yet released)<o:p></o:p>

52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 22% Cabernet Franc, 7% Malbec

Wonderful complexity to the nose, salt and smoke, hints of balsamic, crushed raspberry leaf. Tannins soft at first then getting grip but never overwhelming. Juice released in sweet and sour spurts, tannins gripping and insistent to end. <o:p></o:p>

(see also my interview with Zelma Long on wine-searcher.com)

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-84304760453715893192014-07-08T09:42:00.002-07:002014-09-22T03:23:04.654-07:00Impeccably turned out: Corney & Barrow company profile
This article first appeared in Meininger's Wine Business International

In 1992 Corney & Barrow did something that earned it the opprobrium of its peers. 'Bastards, renegades and traitors was what our noble friends in London called us,' Adam Brett-Smith, the wine merchant's managing director recalls.What Corneys had done to provoke such fury was to break ranks and set up one of the first wine broking businesses in the UK. In those days broking – buying and selling on behalf of clients – was a cosy and lucrative business. As Brett-Smith puts it, 'you bought from anywhere and sold to anywhere.' No attention was paid to provenance, an issue of such all-consuming importance in today's fraud-ridden fine wine world that it's incredible to think it was once seen as a mere detail. In setting up Corney & Barrow Broking Services, the merchant turned that on its head.

<o:p></o:p>

'We tried to redefine the way the broking business operated. We set up standards on broking with absolute emphasis on provenance. We would never buy from auction, never buy from America and never buy from Asia. They were very expensive rules, and it cost us a lot of money, but it was the right thing to do.'<o:p></o:p>

English renegade: Adam Brett-Smith

This of course put the comfortable practices of Corneys' competitors into unwelcome focus – hence the string of pejoratives. In conversation with Brett-Smith, who joined the company in 1981 as a junior salesman and was made managing director before the decade was out, such epithets are the last thing which come to mind. A man for whom the word 'urbane' could have been invented, impeccably turned out, almost cartoonishly tall, he is the very picture of an Englishman. Does he – and the company – trade on that Englishness?<o:p></o:p>

'I don't think any of us feel we need to drape ourselves in the Union Jack but there is a subconscious push. One of the legacies of history is that on the whole the Brits are quite well liked. No one's quite sure why they like us but there are indefinable virtues that still exist.'<o:p></o:p>

He defines those virtues as 'trust, knowledge and the trading culture', the British 'trading instinct, the desire to go elsewhere and build businesses in other areas. It's not odd to deal with a British wine merchant in Hong Kong, for example.'<o:p></o:p>

Corney & Barrow is the third in the triumvirate of great and long-established British wine merchants. Established in 1780, it is about a hundred years younger than Berry Bros and Justerini & Brooks. It has offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Edinburgh, Yorkshire and East Anglia, and – under the Corney & Barrow Group umbrella, a thriving wine bar business. Turnover last year was £49.7m, with the eleven wine bars, all concentrated around the City of London financial district, adding £16.3m to the bottom line. <o:p></o:p>

Like its peers (between them they have just short of 800 years' experience selling wine) Corneys appears both old-fashioned and resolutely modern. The first to set up a provenance-based broking service, it was also the first to recognise the importance of sole agency, a concept that was 'much derided at the time', Brett-Smith says. <o:p></o:p>

'The pursuit of exclusive representation was something the traditional British wine merchant didn't do.'<o:p></o:p>

It started with Petrus in 1978 or 80, and taking on the Pomerol icon was something even they didn't quite understand – 'it was the exception that proved the rule'. A decade later Corneys wooed Aubert de Villaine, proprietor of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and set the mould for a strategy that is now the company's unique selling proposition. Of the 600-plus wines on the list, there are 50 agencies, chosen using the simple criterion, 'wherever good and great wine is grown', and taking producers of 10,000 cases or less.<o:p></o:p>

If the list is impressive – DRC and Petrus, Comte Georges de Vogüé in Chambolle-Musigny, Domaine Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet, Champagne Salon and Delamotte, Conterno in Piedmont, Dominio de Pingus in Ribera del Duero, Achaval Ferrer in Mendoza, Hyde de Villaine in Carneros, and dozens of other resonant names – there's also something slightly claustrophobic about it.

<o:p></o:p>

There's barely a claret, for example, that doesn't come from the J-P Moueix stable (Christian Moueix and Brett-Smith have known each other for years), and you're hard-pressed to find anything from California that isn't either Hyde de Villaine (a partnership between Carneros mastermind Larry Hyde and Aubert de Villaine of DRC) or bona-fide blue-chip like Colgin or Harlan, or indeed Moueix's Dominus.<o:p></o:p>

In the words of one well-placed London professional, 'part of me thinks it's brilliant, and the other half thinks it's absurd. I love Champagne Delamotte, but do I want to drink that to the exclusion of all others? No.' <o:p></o:p>

Brett-Smith makes no apologies. 'We don't want to be an enormous basket of every fine wine in the world. Our goal is simple: to supply to the end consumer wines that are exclusive to Corney & Barrow in all the markets in which we operate. We want to be an inch wide and five miles deep, rather than five miles wide and an inch deep.'<o:p></o:p>

It's the very definition of 'specialist', but what about nurturing new talent? 'We love taking something that is derided, or no one knows anything about, and believing in it and communicating it,' he says, remembering how Pingus was once unknown, 'a domaine in Spain'. The bodega's founder Peter Sisseck salutes Brett-Smith's vision: 'They had a lot of courage. I couldn't have done it without them.' <o:p></o:p>

Sisseck is anything but an iconoclast now – his latest vintage is on the list at not much less than £300 a bottle – and some may raise an eyebrow at the thought of Corneys as a champion of the derided and misbelieved.<o:p></o:p>

But it's well to remember that the company's business model has held good for some decades. One of the reasons for this is the care it takes with the clientele, which Brett-Smith puts in the 35-55 age group. As people get older, he says, they buy less fine wine that requires ageing, so the list of private customers (there are about 550 active on the DRC list) is self-regulating. At the same time, he has an active policy of employing younger people, on the basis that 'the age of a client is closely linked to the age of the salesforce – usually about eight or twelve years older.'<o:p></o:p>

Keeping your clientele young is vital for survival in any business, as is looking to the future. Brett-Smith predicts that in generations to come ('When I'm long gone') his successors will be faced with two developments. The first is logistics. It's quite possible that, as is happening in Bordeaux with Latour and others opting out of the negociant system, 'domaines will access the end consumer without any intermediaries,' and merchants must build storage facilities against that eventuality, just as the big negociants in Bordeaux are doing. 'We have a shed in Scotland,' he says. <o:p></o:p>

The second development is that merchants may become growers and producers themselves. Is this something he's considered? 'It remains an option. We've looked at a shareholding in production.'<o:p></o:p>

Brett-Smith will say no more, but he seems to have been right on a number of counts already, and there's no reason to suppose he's lost his touch.

<o:p></o:p>
Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-76235054642292202642014-07-04T04:22:00.003-07:002014-07-04T04:22:46.241-07:00For all my friends and colleagues turning 50...

From Four Quartets (Little Gidding)

Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
First, the cold fricton of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
At human folly, and the laceration
Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer. Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-46392870820802435262014-07-03T04:15:00.002-07:002014-07-03T04:45:42.117-07:00Regional profile: Navarra

Navarra: Garnacha to the fore?

This diverse region struggles to compete against Spain's most powerful brand, Rioja. Is it time to forgo the emphasis on 'serious' red blends and international whites so that its native varieties can come to the fore?

Read the full article here

This article appears in the August 2014 issue of Decanter magazine

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-75109989546584274192014-06-29T00:24:00.000-07:002014-07-26T08:58:45.473-07:00'All of a sudden it connected': Stags Leap District celebrates its quarter century
This is a longer version of the article which appears in the current issue of The World of Fine Wine

Stags Leap District was established as an American Viticultural Area (AVA) in 1989, and its annual Vineyard to Vintner event, when the region's 20-odd wineries throw open their doors to their loyal public, was chosen to mark its quarter-century. Over the course of a blazing weekend at the end of April, gleaming black limos and minibuses (many with gold hubcaps) swept up and down the three-mile stretch of the Silverado trail that neatly bisects the AVA, carrying Stags Leap enthusiasts from a dozen different states. Texas plates were much in evidence.

The weekend celebrations were kicked off by a seminar on the lawn at Shafer, compered by AVA lawyer Richard Mendelson, and Kelli White, the chief sommelier at Press in St Helena. On the panel, Michael Beaulac of Pine Ridge, Elizabeth Vianna of Chimney Rock, John Shafer, Dick Steltzner, John Conover of Plumpjack (the owners of Odette, the latest additon to the district), and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars vineyard manager Kirk Grace talked us through a vertical of vintages, starting with the 1977 Cask 23 (notes below). Mendelson teased out Shafer's and Steltzner's reasons for alighting in the district in the late 60s. For Shafer it was slope: 'I'd researched and my goal was to find hillside,' he said, 'Bacchus loves the hills.' Steltzner: 'I didn't know it was Cabernet land but I knew it was good drained land. I knew it was good for grapes.' He'd been drinking Inglenook Cabernet with duck he'd hunted, he added, so he knew its possibilities in the valley.

Three miles long and a mile wide, Stags Leap is the smallest sub-district in Napa. It's not the first – Howell Mountain was established in 1983, and the one-winery Wild Horse Valley in the far south in 1988 – but it is one of the most renowned. This is due in part to the status conferred upon the as-yet-unofficial region when Warren Winiarski's 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon eclipsed a clutch of Bordeaux first growths at the 1976 Paris Tasting.

While the district's bigger properties are gradually being taken over by corporations – Chateau Ste Michelle and Antinori paid US$187m for Stag's Leap Wine Cellars a few years ago, Stags Leap Winery is owned by TreasuryWine Estates; Mondavi, which has substantial holdings of Sauvignon Blanc in the south-west quarter, is owned by Constellation, Chimney Rock by Terlato WineGroup, Pine Ridge by the Crimson Wine Group – Stags Leap District is still dotted with smaller family operations.

There are rich enthusiasts like Greg Lindstrom, who produces 500 cases from a tiny hillside property, or Susie and Tom Jinks' Robinson Vineyards where the couple's three daughters are very much in evidence, taking orders or handing out pizza on Vineyard to Vintner day, or the Ilsleys, who farm 23 acres (9.3ha) next door to Shafer, where David Ilsley is vineyard manager. Then there is Baldacci Family, and Regusci Winery, formidable family companies both. Even Silverado Vineyards is family-owned, albeit by the powerful Miller clan, descendents of Walt Disney.<o:p></o:p>

Old labels at Robinson: LOL

Taylor Family Vineyards is typical of the smaller property, what could be called a 'mom and pop' set-up if it wasn't for the fact they are sitting on tens of millions of dollars of land. Growers since 1976, they started producing their own Cabernet and Chardonnay from their nine acres next door to Silverado Vineyards in 2002. 'It's been an adventure,' Sandy Taylor, the current president says. You get a sense of pioneering can-do from these families. Tom Jinks at Robinson dug their pocket-sized cellar 'by hand' he says with some pride, and indeed he looks the kind of person who can wield a pickaxe. It's a far cry from the multimillion dollar makeover at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, less than a mile away.

<o:p></o:p>

Towards the Silverado Trail from Lindstrom's knoll

One of the first people to identify Stags Leap in the late 1950s (for the purposes of clarity the apostrophe-less post-AVA spelling will be used throughout, irrespective of dates referred to) was Nathan Fay, the grower from whom Winiarski purchased one of his most iconic vineyards. Fay sold grapes but made a few barrels for himself, and his 1968 homemade Cabernet seems to have gained mythic status. He gave it to John Shafer, who remembers it as 'stunning…rich and delicious with lush dark fruit,' as his son Doug described it in his book A Vineyard in Napa. <o:p></o:p>

'That's what started the Cabernet movement,' Dick Steltzner – who planted his Cabernet vineyards in the early 70s and together with Shafer was one of the architects of the AVA – told me over lunch. 'They [Shafer, Winiarski, and Joe Heitz as well] tried Nate's homemade wine and all of a sudden it connected.'

Winiarski was so taken by the wine he bought a 36-acre prune orchard (prunes were big business in the region - at one time they were fetching higher prices per ton than grapes) 'as close to Fay's vineyard as I could get it' he told me. That was in 1970. He planted a portion to Cabernet Sauvignon and called the vineyard SLV, sending one of the first vintages, the '73, to Paris in 1976, and straight into the history books.

At the same time, John Goelet, a descendent of the Bordeaux negociant family Guestier, was looking around for prime Cabernet land and with the help of Bernard Portet also bought plots next to Fay, producing the first Clos du Val vintage in 1972.<o:p></o:p>

Any discussion of what makes Stags Leap different comes back to land. 'It was founded solely in the soil and the geography,' Allison Steltzner, sales director of the family winery said. The Palisades, the craggy range that marks the eastern boundary, have a peculiar inward curve, Steltzner says, that circulates cooling winds from San Pablo Bay in the south.<o:p></o:p>

This creates different growing conditions from the rest of the valley, Dick Steltzner puts in. 'Because of our air movement we have smaller leaves, so we have more sunlight on the fruit.' Earth, wind and sun come together in the perfect combination. The volcanic alluvial soils of the lower hills – what they call the benchland – are light, and give more stress to the vines, the grapes are more exposed to the sun, but cooled by the wind. Stags Leap District winemakers reckon they have more hangtime than the rest of the valley, giving the grapes more phenolic ripeness, which coupled with cool nights allows acid retention. 'You get that velvety texture to the wines.'<o:p></o:p>

Every vintner in the world makes claims for the uniqueness of his or her region, of course, but – at their most elegant – the wines of Stags Leap do have characteristics that set them apart from, say, those of neighbouring Rutherford or Oakville. 'There is a common thread that runs through them,' Vianna reckons. 'It's in the nature of the fruit profile. There's a backbone of black fruit, and there's more structure.' For others it's acidity. 'It gives tension and vibrancy, and wonderful ageworthiness' to the wines, Remi Cohen, the winemaker at Cliff Lede Vineyards, says. Winiarski himself talks of the 'mystical unity' of terroir and winemaker.<o:p></o:p>

Stags' Leap Winery's motto - 'Yield to no misfortune'. Apt,

given the many tragedies that have afflicted successive

owners

By the time Shafer and Steltzner got together in the mid-80s to discuss their AVA proposal, it was obvious that Stags Leap District was Cabernet territory, but they had no plan to restrict plantings. 'It was a marketing ploy,' John Shafer said. The only boundaries to the AVA were horizontal and vertical, with an upper limit of 400ft (122m). Newcomers like Lindstrom (2005), Cliff Lede (2002) and Odette (owned by the Plumpjack group) are testament to the openness of the appellation. Doug Shafer: 'When [new owners] came in, people asked me if I was worried, and I said, "No, it's great, bring it on. They're our neighbours, they've got Stags Leap on the label and they're making really good wine". This is America and you can plant anything you want.'<o:p></o:p>

The creation of the AVA wasn't all Californian laissez-faire. 'It was controversial,' Richard Mendelson, the lawyer who worked closely with Shafer and Steltzner on the proposal told me. 'There were issues about the name, a long litigation process.' Both Warren Winiarski and Carl Doumani, then owner of Stags' Leap Winery (he sold it to Beringer in 1997 and started Quixote) had had their own battle over the name, a case which was settled in 1986 by apostrophe – Stag's Leap Wine Cellars but Stags' Leap Winery). Winiarski, a keen supporter of the idea of an AVA was nevertheless against calling it Stags Leap, thinking it would be confusing for consumers to have two wineries and an appellation with the same name.<o:p></o:p>

There were other issues, particularly about the land which lies to the west of the Silverado trail. 'The boundary was the most controversial,' Mendelson said. Steltzner and Shafer wanted the Silverado Trail to be the western boundary on the basis that the heavier soils nearer the Napa River, to the west of the Trail, were not suitable for Cabernet. Silverado Vineyards – founded by Diane and Ron Miller in 1978, and one of the first to plant Cabernet – contested that decision and managed to get the size of the district doubled, to inlcude Silverado and also the 400 acre Wappo vineyard owned by Mondavi, mainly planted to Sauvignon Blanc. How much of a controversy was it at the time? Not that much, Silverado's general manager Russ Weis told me, 'ours was a foundational vineyard in establishing the reputation of Cabernet Sauvignon in the district. The original decision was just an oversight.'

The chai at Cliff Lede Vineyards

Although the only legal limits are geographical, in reality the appellation is self-regulating. Ninety per cent of the district's 1300 acres (526ha) of vineyard are planted to Bordeaux varietals, of which 80% is Cabernet Sauvignon. Stags' Leap Winery, with its extensive Petite Sirah plantings, is an anomaly that would never happen today. At Odette, a strip of fallow land marks where a parcel of Pinotage was recently grubbed up, to be replaced by Cabernet. 'It would make no financial sense to plant anything else,' marketing director Christian Ogenfuss says. <o:p></o:p>

Indeed. We don't know what Jean Phillips, formerly of Screaming Eagle, paid for the 114-acre (46.1ha) vineyard next door to Odette which she bought in 2012. She would have bargained, as the vendors, Pillar Rock winery, had had trouble with taint, but top Stags Leap land can go for up to US$1m per acre (US$2.47m/ha), and is seldom less than half that. As for Cabernet grapes, if you can find them you'll be paying US$7,500 a ton, way above the Napa average of US$5,500. But it's academic, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars president Steve Spadarotto says, as there are hardly ever any Stags Leap District grapes on the market – the wineries use up everything they own, and any growers are tied in to long-term contracts.<o:p></o:p>

Rising land and grape prices mean rising wine prices. 'There is such a limited supply of Stags Leap fruit,' Spadarotto says, 'the economics are screamingly obvious.' US$120-150 wines are now the norm. In the 25 years of its existence Stags Leap District has become, in Ogenfuss's words, 'the financial appellation.'<o:p></o:p>

Stags Leap District tasting notes<o:p></o:p>

This is a highly selective list of wine tasted during three days in Stags Leap in April 2014.

**tasted at the Shafter seminar

Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23 1977**

<o:p></o:p>

Earthy fresh bright lifted nose with cherry fruit and savoury, saline, even beefy notes. Such beguiling sweet fruit with spice cinnamon and clove, forest floor, old book leather and red apple skin. Soft tannins and lovely gentle length.<o:p></o:p>

Steltzner Cabernet Sauvignon 1980**<o:p></o:p>

Aroma of ozone on the nose, mossy wood sunk in river mud, pencil lead. Bright acidity on the palate, fruit falling off but present and full of charm, light dry tannic length and some juice to the finish with great grip on the end tannins, though losing their elasticity and juiciness. On the downward curve, the ghost of bright youth remaining<o:p></o:p>

Shafer Hillside Select 1988**<o:p></o:p>

Light perfumed nose, violet and very old cigar box. Lovely bright tannins, the fruit moving to autumnal flavours – dark cherry, ripe plum, raisins, port, a hint of ripasso. A beautiful old wine heading into elegant old age<o:p></o:p>

Doug and John Shafer, inscrutable, and Hillside Select 91

Shafer Hillside Select 1991**<o:p></o:p>

One of the finest Napa Cabernets I have had, and that is with some competition. Gorgeous perfumed sandalwood nose, fine earthy aromas, fine minerality, soft tannins with lingering grip, lovely perfumed juice on the middle palate alongside bright fruit, perfect weight and balance. The whole fresh, long, and very much alive. Delicious<o:p></o:p>

Pine Ridge Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon 1999**

Bright cassis on the nose, cherry wood and sun-warmed earth with hints of chocolate. Blackberry and blackcurrant with higher notes of raspberry on the palate, secondary flavours coming in – hints of raisined fruit, some sweet porty notes - tannins dry and dissolving into juice. Bright finish<o:p></o:p>

Chimney Rock 2002**<o:p></o:p>

Cherry and mentholyptus, some herb and mown grass, salinity, ozone, hint of sea-mud, then hay on the palate, dry tannins with juice on the mid-palate, very structured with lovely juicy length which persists. Secondary flavours underpinned by still-young tannins and brisk acidity<o:p></o:p>

The elegant curved roof of the new Odette winery

Odette Cabernet Sauvignon 2012**<o:p></o:p>

The district's newest addition, created in 2012 when Plumpjack bought 46 acres of Dick Steltzner's vineyard on the eastern edge of the Silverado Trail. 'I don't know how much you paid for it in 1965, but it was certainly a hell of a lot less than we did,' John Conover of Plumpjack joked.<o:p></o:p>

Bright lifted nose with cherry, chocolate notes. Instant tannic grip on the palate, very sweet dark cherry and sandalwood , dry dissolved tannins leading to juice and freshness, very fine perfumed length, food friendly, persistent for a good minute. Young and vibrant<o:p></o:p>

1. Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon 2010<o:p></o:p>

Very discreet, earthy dark fruit nose with hints of tobacco. The palate has sour plum, coffee, high notes of tobacco, very fine cigar leaf. The tannins are fine-grained releasing juice in a long, elegant finish. Complex and structured<o:p></o:p>

Cliff Lede Vineyards Stags' Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2011<o:p></o:p>

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot<o:p></o:p>

Formidable 55acre operation founded by Cliff Lede in 2001, with David Abreu in the vineyard and Remi Cohen in the winery. Also buys fruit from Andy Beckstoffer's To Kalon. Every vineyard named after a classic rock anthem, Stairway to Heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody, Born to be Wild and so on. Music blasts between the tanks at tastings.<o:p></o:p>

Intense earthiness on the nose and then a juicy centre. Powerful concentration of fruit and big, bold tannins but with a nervy precision. Huge and unusual (given Lede's rock 'n' roll style), not jammy, almost a hint of rusticity.<o:p></o:p>

Cliff Lede Vineyards Moondance Dream 2011<o:p></o:p>

Cabernet Sauvignon with small proportion Petit Verdot<o:p></o:p>

Amidst the cassis and chocolate and tar on the nose is a waft of fresh green mown grass which lifts the aromas. On the palate, black olives and nettle-green, suave tannins (unexpected again – there's something almost camp about these wines – brash but oddly feminine)<o:p></o:p>

Lindstrom Wines Cabernet Sauvignon 2011<o:p></o:p>

Celia Welch (of Rutherford cult Scarecrow fame) is winemaker at this 500-case family operation, established in 2005 on a high rocky knoll in the middle of the district<o:p></o:p>

Fresh green on the nose – hay and blackcurrant. Really splendid juice on the palate, lovely weight and mouthfeel, precise, intense ripe blackcurrant and damson, chalky tannins carrying through to a fine finish<o:p></o:p>

On the lawn at Robinson Vineyards

Robinson Vineyards 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon<o:p></o:p>

Another homespun (if you can use such a word in Napa) small producer, growing since the 70s but making the first vintage in '98. Tom Jinks dug the pocket-sized cellar 'by hand', he told me <o:p></o:p>

Red fruit getting darker on a complex nose, then blueberry on the palate, and tight, close-knit tannins. A big, tannic wine with grip, but freshness of acidity persists throughout saving it from jamminess<o:p></o:p>

Ilsley Vineyards Malbec 2011<o:p></o:p>

Just down the hill from Shafer in the northern district. David Ilsley is vineyard manager at Shafter<o:p></o:p>

Very fine dark ruby hue, bright cherry and sweet damson on the nose, grainy fine tannins with more cherry, damson and plum. Good concentration, bold, open palate with wonderful juiciness and perfume<o:p></o:p>

Baldacci Family Vineyards Brenda's Vineyard Cabernet 2010<o:p></o:p>

Established 1997, growers supplying Mondavi and others, until first own vintage in 2000. Also have 20acres in Carneros<o:p></o:p>

Tar and chocolate, spiced damson, intense dry, tight tannic grip, powerful but fine acidity giving freshness and lift. At the finish the tannins explode into juice, literally mouthwatering wine<o:p></o:p>

Malk Family Vineyards Cabernet 2010<o:p></o:p>

South African born Brian Malk bought a tiny 2-acre plot on the eastern slopes of the district in 1998. His first vintage was 2003, made by winemaker Robbie Meyer<o:p></o:p>

Fresh berry and chocolate on the nose, ripe and spicy with soft, easy tannins and good length. Classic but unadventurous, the tannins too soft to add much-needed grip<o:p></o:p>

Regusci Winery Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2011<o:p></o:p>

Jim Regusci (whose resemblance to the late, great James Gandolfini – or Tony Soprano - is so marked that he is frequently stopped in the street for photographs) makes a range of bold, classic wines in one of Stags Leap's most historic properties, the handsome 19th century stone Grigbsy-Occidental Winery bought by his grandfather in 1932. <o:p></o:p>

As so often the case, the top-end cuvées were rather hot and extracted for my taste, but this lower-level Estate 2011, with 4% Merlot, had much more restraint. Bright nose with some leather and attractive damson fruit. The palate is surprisingly exotic, with a perfumed nettley greenness at the end, along with classic juicy tannins.<o:p></o:p>

Hartwell Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2011<o:p></o:p>

A high-end, sophisticated operation owned by septuagenarian millionaire Bob Hartwell, the winery counts Heidi Barrett and Celia Welch among its winemakers. Also a Sauvignon Blanc from Carneros. Bob told me when he was looking for Cabernet land in Napa, he was advised, 'get as close as possible to San Francisco Bay, but not as far south as Carneros, which is too cold for Cab,'<o:p></o:p>

The estate Cabernet has 15% Petit Verdot. Bright woody nose, lovely juice on mid-palate with ripe plum, black cherry, powerful spice and violet perfume. Fine finish. <o:p></o:p>

Stags' Leap Winery Twelve Falls Estate Red 2010<o:p></o:p>

Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Merlot<o:p></o:p>

Lovely elegant decay on the nose, powerful acidity, tart blackcurrant very dense and concentrated, green pepper notes, chalky tannins, juicy warm length and dense tannins<o:p></o:p>

The superlative Ne Cede Malis 2010

Stags' Leap Winery Ne Cede Malis 2010<o:p></o:p>

Petite Sirah, field blend inc Tannat, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat<o:p></o:p>

Lovely sweet cooked raspberry nose with balsamic strawberry, medicinal and fragrant. The body is tight and structured with intense dense tannic heft. Very juicy, with leather and minerality. Intense, concentrated, precise, an anomaly in the district that would be unlikely in today's Cabernet hegemony<o:p></o:p>

Taylor Family Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignon 2011<o:p></o:p>

24 acres, 10 in vine. The Taylors bought their plot next to Silverado Vineyards in 1976, and started their Cabernet vineyards in 1991. Also make a Yountville Sauvignon Blanc<o:p></o:p>

High dark fruit tones on the nose – blackcurrant and wild blackberry predominant. Dense grippy grainy tannins, dark fruit notes move to high-toned raspberry leaf on palate. Very fine length<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-82142519797038805252014-06-06T01:38:00.002-07:002014-06-06T01:41:58.596-07:00Rathfinny: a supply-side boost for English sparkling wineThe evolution of English sparkling wine over the last decade has been remarkable. Ten years ago few outside what was a dynamic but very domestic cottage industry took it seriously. But with investment, huge improvements in technology and vineyard management, and — most important — a clutch of major awards, the best English sparkling is internationally recognized ...Read more on Zesterdaily.comAdam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-85587936940729410752014-05-28T06:09:00.000-07:002014-05-29T03:37:32.804-07:00"La mayonnaise prend": Bertrand Girard and the remoulding of Val d'OrbieuThis article first appeared in Meininger's Wine Business International

Val d'Orbieu is one of those companies that everyone has heard of but no one can quite put a finger on what they do or who they are. Many wine professionals, even those who know the Languedoc well, are hard put to name a Val d'Orbieu wine, apart from the Cuvée Mythique, a blend of vineyards from across the Languedoc which 20 years ago became the first wine from the region to be given more than 90 points by Robert Parker.

It is surprising that a company of the size of Val d'Orbieu is not better known. It is the biggest cooperative in France, with 2,500 producers on its books producing 1m hectolitres of wine annually in the South of France, and as a negociant it sells 3m hl. It also owns 17,000ha of vineyards (equivalent to about half the total vineland of New Zealand).<o:p></o:p>

It supplies myriad own-label wines to big operators across France. In the UK, Tesco lists several of its wines, and considers Val d'Orbieu 'a lovely company to work with'. The reason it is slightly 'under the radar' compared to its major competitor Les Grands Chais de France, a spokesman told Meininger's, is that 'they don't have any strong brands but are more of an own-label specialist'.<o:p></o:p>

'Benevolent presence': Bertrand Girard

Even the company's strongest brand – the Cuvée Mythique - is looking a bit dusty. UK Languedoc expert Rosemary George MW makes the point that the Cuvée was brand new in the 1990s when multi-regional blends were less common. 'But it doesn't seem so exciting now.'<o:p></o:p>

But recognised or not, Val d'Orbieu has tremendous assets. 'We don't pretend to be the biggest in France. We are the biggest,' Bertrand Girard, the company's managing director says. They are pioneers, he says, in just about everything. What makes them unique is the possession of such swathes of vineland. As Girard says, their smaller competitors own vineyards but not on such a scale, and their bigger competitors like Castel or Les Grands Chais de France own little or no vineland. GCF, for example, actually owns some 1,500ha.<o:p></o:p>

Their holdings, Girard says, allow them control over their product: 'We are totally vertically integrated from vineyard to bottling to distribution.'<o:p></o:p>

Val d'Orbieu owns vineyards from Coteaux du Languedoc in the north to Cotes du Roussillon in the south, taking in Faugeres, St Chinian, Minervois, Corbieres and Fitou along the way. The 2,500 growers include 11 cooperatives and 60 estates and chateaux. Members can call on central marketing resources in order to sell their wines, and there are various wines – notably Cuvée Mythique – which are made centrally.<o:p></o:p>

Founded more than 40 years ago, the company went through a period of retrenchment at the beginning of this century. In the 1990s it looked very different, Girard says. 'We were the rising star, just behind Castel.' As well as the holdings in the south, it also owned 12 grands cru in Bordeaux.<o:p></o:p>

But by 2000, labouring under enormous debts, faced with falling prices for wine, and losing market share to Australia and Chile, 'there was a big panic and they had only two things in mind: paying the bills and getting some cash, so the assets were sold off, including the chateaux in Bordeaux, for €100m.' When Girard joined the company in 2010 he was told the debts were still formidable, and a new strategy was needed. 'We needed to rebound, to re-invent our future.'<o:p></o:p>

Girard seems diffident and is softly-spoken. The simplicity of his sentences belies the complexity of the task they describe. 'We have two aims – first to make sure our growers get a decent revenue, which was not the case before, and second, to make customers happy.' Later on, a third aim is put on the table: to move the company into icon territory.

The three targets obviously go together, and it is the third which is most ambitious. Val d'Orbieu is known – in France at least – 'as reliable supplier of brands to the supermarkets', Girard says. But he sees his job as changing the company from a supplier to a winery. 'We have the resources. We have the wine. A winery can still work with the supermarkets supplying wines and brands but it also has something which is additional in terms of value - it can also have the novelty and the differentiation. We want to be recognised as a reference winery in France.'<o:p></o:p>

Cuvee Mythique: looking dusty?

To do this, Girard intends to 'rewrite the strategy' of the company, concentrating on the shape of the sales pyramid, which 'doesn't look the way I would like it to look. We are strong at the bottom, and we are strong in the centre with the brands. But it you go a bit up I think we are not good enough in terms of style – we are far from what the market needs in terms of marketing and storytelling.'<o:p></o:p>

In short, value has been neglected in favour of volume, and this must change. Val d'Orbieu's most expensive wines at the moment are in the €12-15 range, and Girard wants to change that. To achieve this aim he is exploiting the company's great asset: the vineyards. Within that portfolio, he says, there must be parcels that are capable of producing icon, single-vineyard wines. To this end he is employing a team of consultants to 'look at the incredible asset of the vineyards' and to search out the finest parcels.<o:p></o:p>

The cuvées that will come from this are known as the 'Black Réserve' [sic] range. It is another perfectly simple plan, and one that Bordeaux consultant Olivier Dauga, for his part, is very excited by. 'It's like the Sleeping Beauty,' he told Meininger's. 'There is land all over Languedoc which is not being properly exploited.'<o:p></o:p>

M le Couturier: Olivier Dauga

Dauga – Val d'Orbieu somewhat grandly calls him un couturier du vin - is surveying some 350ha of vineyard in a rolling programme that takes in all the appellations of the region. He visits the property, tests the grapes, then vinifies different parcels in small tanks to pinpoint the highest-quality parcels.<o:p></o:p>

To date he has made seven new wines for Val d'Orbieu and will add three more next year. He cites the ancient Chateau Pouzols – owned by the de Fournas family since 1437 – which is under contract to Val d'Orbieu. 'It's an incredible place, with wonderful terroir and soils.' The first new wine to come out of the programme is the AOC Corbières Château de Jonquières 2012, a grenache-syrah blend which was bottled at the beginning of the year. Jonquières, also an ancient domaine, is wholly-owned by Val d'Orbieu. Chateau Pouzols will be released later this year.

Dauga is also working on a new, dedicated brand to be called Avant Garde, an icon successor to Cuvée Mythique, a blend of terroirs in quantities of some 20,000 bottles. He is looking for the right parcels at the moment.

The Black Réserve wines will retail at around €11-15. It's not quite the dizzy heights Girard is aiming for, but in terms of style and presentation the wines are firmly at the premium end, with matt black labels and gold banding. It is a start of a plan, he says, 'to be iconic, with wines from €30-50, to compete with the Médoc.'

Girard has something else he intends to exploit: there is a wealth of grape varieties in the vineyards of the South of France, at a time of burgeoning global interest in new, unusual and indigenous grapes. He believes in the cyclical nature of fashions in wine, and that the decade-long enthusiasm for single-varietal wines from the New World is waning.<o:p></o:p>

'At the moment the English-speaking countries want Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand or Malbec from Argentina, but that will change. Maybe the next surprise will be a Merlot from the south of France.'<o:p></o:p>

Or, indeed, a Roussanne, Marsanne, or Chenin Blanc. 'We have all of these. There are so many ways we can surprise the customer.'<o:p></o:p>

This is not to say that Girard is losing sight of the mainstay of the company – the mid-range, mid-price wines that make up the vast rump of Val d'Orbieu's products. He's not sentimental about it – 'Wine is a craft product that can be in some areas industrialised', he says – and he loses little time in worrying about the finer points of organic and biodynamic viticulture. About 120ha of the Val d'Orbieu holdings are certified organic. For the rest, 'Everything is measured,' Girard says, 'it is responsible viticulture but it's not organic, which I don't consider is that important, except for in the niche markets in northern Europe and Japan.'<o:p></o:p>

In terms of the mid-market he points to the wine pouch, another of the innovations the company is proud of. The three-litre aluminium bag has been developed by Inno'Vo, a dedicated group set up by Val d'Orbieu, and claims to have all the advantages of a bag-in-a-box, but without the box. Is it working? 'The response is not that big, but innovation is a long process, and you need luck and determination,' Girard says. 'It could be the next big thing.'<o:p></o:p>

The wine pouch aside, Girard's reforms are obviously working: the balance sheet looks healthy. Sales in China have doubled to more than €6m since he arrived, and since 2010, he says, 'We have doubled the export business from €150m to €300m', gaining market share in France and other international markets.<o:p></o:p>

Val d'Orbieu exudes the assurance of a company that knows where it's going. Its clients notice this. The UK distributor Copestick Murray, which supplies Tesco, is impressed by the way it works. 'They have an open, transparent trading relationship which goes down well with customers – it's the complete opposite of the more traditional model of building a wall between customer and producer,' Copestick's commercial director David Peek says.<o:p></o:p>

Working with Val d'Orbieu is 'collaborative', he adds, citing the example of the own-brand Corbieres Tesco has just taken on. 'It wasn't purely a cost exercise. It was a collaborative process at every level, with winemakers involved as well.'<o:p></o:p>

In terms of the more premium products, Peek makes clear that though at present they are just taking supermarket own-brand and private label wines in the £5-8 range, 'we will certainly build to distribution of the more premium wines to put into independents and the on-trade. That's very much part of the partnership.'<o:p></o:p>

While his clients like the way the company works, Girard is a popular, low-key chief. At the company's fairly riotous annual dinner at the Vinisud wine fair in Montpellier, he's a benevolent presence. As his staff down powerful mojitos and swing each other round the dance floor, he smilingly declines invitations to join them.<o:p></o:p>

He obviously understands people, the greatest asset of any company. He recognises that 'the grower is the most important person, and it's not that complicated [to get them behind the new strategy] because they know what we are aiming for. The magic of the strategy is showing people what we want to do and how we want to do it. Then it all comes together. As we say, la mayonnaise prend.'<o:p></o:p>

Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-17128183962372997772014-05-09T15:07:00.004-07:002014-09-19T04:04:49.721-07:00Scaffolding and bare brickwork: Structuralists shine at Roberson's New California tasting
'Looking forward to hearing what's new in the "new" California,' Claudia Schug tweeted just before Roberson's London tasting last month. Of course, there's nothing new about restraint and structure in California – everything in wine is cyclical. Jon Bonné of the San Francisco Chronicle and author of the seminal The New California Wine made that clear at the beginning of the three seminars he chaired at the tasting, referencing the 'first modern revolution' – the coming of Robert Mondavi, Paul Draper, Warren Winiarski, the founding fathers of modern California wine, and the subsequent 'decadent phase' starting in the late 1980s, when big money first started arriving in Napa.<o:p></o:p>

'it doesn't have to be outré'

Bonné had the vision to recognise a shift in the tectonic plates that underpin the vast mass of the California wine industry. There was the moment, as he put it, when 'what were fringe experiments were starting to change the conversation. People [like Steve Matthiasson, Cathy Corison or the philosopher-winemaker Abe Schoener - the latter covered in this blog] were starting to change the conversation'. They'd been plugging away at it for years, and what they all had in common, it seems, was an instinct – nurtured by exposure to fine European wines – that California didn't have to be outré.

<o:p></o:p>

Matthiasson: 'translucent'

 And there's nothing new in that. Stephen Brook, author of another seminal book, 1999's The Wines of California, has been banging the drum of restraint (as it were) for years. I chaired California (particularly Napa) panel tastings at Decanter through the decade of excess from 2000 onwards and lost count of the number of times Brook, faced with yet another ripe glassful said, 'but it doesn't have to be like this.' Indeed, anyone who has tasted old Napa Cabernet (Inglenook 61, Spring Mountain Vineyard 79, Newton 81 to name just three I've had in the last year) knows how the last 15 years can be seen as an aberration.

<o:p></o:p>

Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator are convenient bugbears, but it's not clear-cut, Bonné said. 'I always come back to the industry', the massive injections of 'cash and ambition' in the late 80s and early 90s, coinciding with the last phylloxera epidemic, the 'billion dollar round of replanting' and thousands of acres of young vines producing a flood of exuberant, sweet and fleshy wines for a newly-aware market. This was the beginning of a 'populist connoisseurship', as he put it.<o:p></o:p>

The debate will continue. 'We are starting to see diversity: wines that will show we can have a more detailed conversation about what California can represent,' Bonné said. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p>
</o:p>

<o:p>the conversation's getting louder</o:p>

So in answer to Claudia Schug, daughter of Walter Schug, another Napa pioneer, inaugurator of Phelps Insignia and maker of fine Carneros Pinot Noir, amongst many others, what's new in the new California is the fact the conversation is getting much louder, and has moved out of the barrel cellar and into central London venues like the handsome rooms of the King's Fund in Cavendish Square, where we're sitting.<o:p></o:p>

Tatomer: 'coolest label in the house'

The tasting buzzed with enthusiasm. London journalists, Brook, Jancis Robinson, Neal Martin, Jamie Goode, Steven Spurrier, a big crowd from Decanter, buyers like Greg Sherwood of veteran California specialists Handford Wines, sommeliers: Andrea Briccarello of Galvin, Andres Ituarte of Avenue, Charlie Blightman of Hawksmoor, Claire Pancrazi of MASH and half a dozen others.<o:p></o:p>

doggedly pursuing structure for decades

A fascinating line-up of wines, a range which showed the risk-taking mind-set of Mark Andrew, the crusading Roberson buyer. So alongside established classics like Corison and Hirsch, and those like Arnot-Roberts who are rapidly gaining fame as two of the most fascinating winemakers in Sonoma, or the Spring Mountain men Smith Madrone, doggedly pursuing structure for decades, or the brilliant Steve Matthiasson, are wines from Moobuzz in Monterey, part of the Sebastiani family's The Other Guys project, which lack the confidence of precision of many of their neighbours, and among the only wines in the room I would class as 'experimental' in the sense that they don't quite work. Oddly enough the first word that came to mind was 'old-fashioned' when I tasted the Moobuzz Chardonnay 2012, in that its notes of sweet fruit are instant, and insistent, compared to Smith-Madrone's ethereal Cabernet 2009, say, where the sweetness is a high chord that only becomes apparent when the structure, the delicate girders and light scaffolding of acid and tannin, has been established.<o:p></o:p>

Arnot-Roberts: 'Ghostly hint of strawberry compote'

How to describe these wines? 'This is a classic Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon,' Matthiasson said of his ruby-red, perfumed 2011, adding that he was using the word advisedly, not to refer to the more "classic" classics of the last 15 years. So this is classic as it should be – Cabernet that has herbal notes (these guys don't subscribe to the received wisdom that green equals unripe), precise tannins, elegant visible structure and bracing acidity. And they are lighter in colour than we've been conditioned to expect – many of the reds on show today (Matthiasson's in particular) are translucent.

<o:p></o:p>

There's also exuberant variety. As the wines of the Jura are increasingly popular amongst the metropolitan wine elite, so the region's native grape, Trousseau, seems to be appearing more and more on the tasting tables. Arnot-Roberts' rosé-hued Luchsinger Trousseau is possibly the finest expression of the grape I've ever tasted.

that Shakespeherian rag...

Pace the severe In Pursuit of Balance movement (started by Jasmine Hirsch and Rajat Parr and others), which focusses on Chardonnay and Pinot, I think the wider movement should be called the New Structuralism. The word 'structure' comes up again and again in my notes, describing wines that are the very opposite of 'fruit-forward'. Sure there is fruit, but it takes its rightful place as a component of the whole, not strutting about in the footlights but waiting in the wings, to come on just so. It's like the difference between those old greasepaint and kohl Shakespeherians of the 1930s, and Peter Brook's productions, all scaffolding and bare brickwork. <o:p></o:p>

THE WINES<o:p></o:p>

This is the full line-up. Except Jamie Kutch's superb Pinots which I somehow missed. Kristen Kutch has said she will send them over so I can update...

<o:p></o:p>

Moobuzz Chardonnay 2012, Monterey

<o:p></o:p>

Old-fashioned nose with easy peachy sweetness, very open though and fresh on the palate, interesting hints of lanolin<o:p></o:p>

Moobuzz Pinot Noir 2012, Monterey<o:p></o:p>

Spice and pepper on the nose, good robust fruit palate with damson, not as structured and precise as I'd like<o:p></o:p>

Jolie-Laide Pinot Gris 2012 Sonoma<o:p></o:p>

Fresh dense chalky acidity, grapefruit and saltiness on the palate, even savoury and earthy. The length falls slightly short<o:p></o:p>

Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris 2012 Russian River Valley<o:p></o:p>

Honeyed nose very promising but there's a slight misfire on the mid-palate, with bright stone fruit and honey and sweet spice not quite carrying through.<o:p></o:p>

Lioco 2012 Chardonnay, Sonoma coast<o:p></o:p>

Buttery aroma becomes fresh and grassy with woody perfume. High notes of tropical fruit playing above precise structure, dry acidity and fresh open lightly tannic heft. Tongue-tingling acidity and consistent persistent length<o:p></o:p>

Lioco 2012 Pinot Noir, Sonoma coast<o:p></o:p>

Bright light ruby colour, very open and breathy mouthfeel, lovely delicate red fruit – sour strawberry – structure to the tannins and a juicy, food-friendly finish<o:p></o:p>

Lioco 2012 'Savaria' Pinot Noir, Santa Cruz Mountains<o:p></o:p>

Open, fresh, full of elegance, red fruit set off by peppery notes, balanced, nervy, precise, long.<o:p></o:p>

Arnot-Roberts Watson Ranch Chardonnay 2012, Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

Herb earth and grapefruit on nose, hint of grass, hay lying in field slightly damp. Surprising peach and pineapple on palate –sudden rush of fruit over powerful defined acidic and tannic structure. Fruit overlays structure leading to dry and juicy finish. Very fresh and breathy combination of sweet honeyed fruit and intense nervy acidity. Tightly wound<o:p></o:p>

Arnot-Roberts Syrah 2012, North Coast<o:p></o:p>

Lovely earthy rotted stink to nose – truffles – dry, grainy tannins, minerality, very dark sour black cherry, wonderfully structured wine, very fine<o:p></o:p>

Arnot-Roberts 'Luchsinger' Trousseau 2012, Clear Lake<o:p></o:p>

Incredible bright hue more akin to rosé. Sweetness and dryness with a tropical character at first and then ghostly hint of strawberry compote and essence of raspberry. Acidity and tannin in perfect order, overall impression of controlled intensity finishing in delicate tannic dryness dissolving to juice on the tongue. Superb<o:p></o:p>

Arnot-Roberts 'Bugay' Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Sonoma County<o:p></o:p>

Sweet red fruit on the nose, lovely structure and grip, earthy open palate, ripe damson fruit at first giving place to structured tannin, very elegant and delicate. Another triumphant modern classic<o:p></o:p>

Hirsch Vineyards 2012 Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and open nose, surprising heft of tropical fruit but any hint of fatness moderated by precise acidic structure. Wood is present and correct, finish sharp and elegant. <o:p></o:p>

Hirsch Vineyards 2011 San Andreas Fault Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast<o:p></o:p>

Very ripe red cherry nose with earthy notes – hint of decay – sweetness on palate with cherry, red fruits and an overwhelming impression of mouthwatering juiciness anchored by minerality. Very very good<o:p></o:p>

Hirsch Vineyards 2011 West Ridge Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast<o:p></o:p>

Again ripe cherry on the nose but the palate has alluring savoury, bacon notes. Gouts of juice after a toasted cherry wood attack, earthy, powerful but for all that light and delicate. Robust, fine<o:p></o:p>

Copain Tous Ensemble Syrah 2011 Mendocino County<o:p></o:p>

Bright and dense with a peppery rush on the attack, then ripe damson and cherry fruit. Fine dry tannins, excellent length<o:p></o:p>

Copain Les Voisins Syrah 2011 Yorkville Highlands<o:p></o:p>

Intense white pepper nose, with a palate lighter than you'd expect, some red fruit and darker notes of damson, hints of hay and more white pepper, nice dry tannins, good length. Tight<o:p></o:p>

Copain Halcon Syrah 2009 Yorkville Highlands<o:p></o:p>

100% whole cluster fermentation on this one. Again there's white pepper on the nose but this turns into sage after a beat or two. The tannins are fine-grained and elegant, the length with garrigue, the whole very structured and elegant. Fine.<o:p></o:p>

Matthiasson Linda Vista Chardonnay 2012 Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

Impression of precise acidity and sweet, delicate hint of oak (barrel fermented). The structure is provided by minerality and acidity, on which sit sheer flavours – juicy cut pear, apple, and then high tropical notes. Lovely.<o:p></o:p>

Matthiasson Napa White 2012 Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

Sauvignon Blanc, Ribolla Gialla, Semillon, Tocai Friulano<o:p></o:p>

Deceptively light with excellent body, some fine green flavours, citrus (lime), grapefruit, pineapple, fresh sweetness underpinned by minerality. The component grapes are there to see, but there is no disjoint – more an elegant, revealed structure<o:p></o:p>

Matthiasson Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

20% Merlot<o:p></o:p>

Bright, almost translucent ruby hue, fresh mineral palate with abundant though never insistent fruit – wild blackberries and damsons, some welcome sagey herbal notes, violet perfume, excellent structure, ripe tannins carrying the whole wonderful understated cornucopia of flavours right to the end. Steve Matthiasson happily describes it as 'rustic', which it is, in the best sense, unmanufactured.<o:p></o:p>

Corison Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

Cathy Corison is one of Napa's most eminent and respected winemakers, steadily crafting elegant Cabernets at her handsome green-painted ranch on Highway 29, between Rutherford and St Helena. Antonio Galloni described her Kronos 2010, from her famous vineyard, as one of the most 'hauntingly beautiful' Cabernets he'd ever tasted<o:p></o:p>

The Cabernet here is sourced from Rutherford and St Helena benchland. Herb and even hay on the nose with a creamy undertow – still there are herbs on palate, with definite warmth and structure, very fresh, juicy, exuberant but anchored with dry tannins dissolving into juice, mint-laden freshness at the end. Bonné: 'this could not be anything else than Napa Cabernet'. Serious tannic grip and length. One of my favourite of all her Cabs.<o:p></o:p>

Corison Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

Full, dense, minty blackcurrant palate. Grainy tannins and a depth of acidity. Nearly ten years old and utterly fresh and beguiling, still with primary fruit but with the tannins showing a hint of fuzziness round the edges, a softening to come.<o:p></o:p>

Corison Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Napa Valley<o:p></o:p>

Along with classic black Napa fruit there's sour cherry on this 06 which isn't so noticeable on the others – 06 was a cooler year. The palate is tarry, intense, with precise but serious tannins that are softening (they were pretty tight for a few years, I imagine), and wonderful juiciness. Mouthwatering.<o:p></o:p>

Smith- Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2009<o:p></o:p>

'Bearded pioneer...' Stuart Smith

The Smith Madrone ranch high on Spring Mountain is a piece of Napa history, unchanged since bearded pioneers Charlie and Stuart Smith (on a quiet evening you can hear their guns booming from miles away – the estate is dotted with buckshot-peppered targets) arrived in the 1970s. The tasting room is a comfortable, ramshackle barn with armchairs you sink into. They have an extraordinary list (their Spring Mountain Riesling is renowned, and delicious, though not as original or unusual as their Cabernets). This 09 has a classic nose, blackcurrant and mint vibrating in the glass, then flavours that can only be described as Bordeaux-like, cassis and coffee, but with an additional layer of perfumed fruit that stamps it indelibly as Napa. High vineyards, long hot days and cool nights bring sharp acidity to the structure. Superb.
<o:p></o:p>

Broc Cellars 'Skin Contact' Roussanne 2011 El Dorado<o:p></o:p>

From the Sierra foothills. Sweet and fresh nose, tactile, even grainy acidity, palate of pineapple, melon and apricot. Mouthwatering acidity. Charming<o:p></o:p>

Broc Cellars 'Cuvée 13.1' Syrah 2012 Santa Lucia Highlands<o:p></o:p>

Blended with the Chateauneuf variety Counoise. Palate with high notes of turkish delight, black pepper, spice, dark fruit, elastic though powerful tannins, sweet acidic length<o:p></o:p>

Broc Cellars 'Whole Cluster' Cabernet Franc 2012 Lucia Highlands<o:p></o:p>

Amazingly light, lively hedgerow perfume of nettles, cow parsley (how can a wine made in California taste of England?), white pepper, and then red cherry, lovely freshness, a delight<o:p></o:p>

Broc Cellars Vine Starr Zinfandel 2012 Sonoma Coast<o:p></o:p>

Creamy earthy damson on nose, very full palate with white pepper, spicy plum and damson, vibrant fruit and dry, structured but supple tannins and juice at end. This is not fat but voluptuous and elegant. Dry length ending in juiciness<o:p></o:p>

Viano Hillside White 2012 Contra Costa AVA<o:p></o:p>

Chenin Blanc, Muscat, Colombard<o:p></o:p>

Bright and approachable and packed with good brisk fruit – some citrus and sweet stone fruit - not complex, but with juicy acidity. Rather too much toasted character at end palate<o:p></o:p>

Viano Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 Contra Costa AVA<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and open nose with dark fruit, rustic leathery blackcurrant fruit and grainy tannins, not complex but fresh and very attractive and a very good price<o:p></o:p>

Mount Eden Domaine Eden Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, Santa Cruz Mountains<o:p></o:p>

Lovely grassy nose with hedgerow aromatics, complex palate with black fruit, blackberry, menthol, garrigue (sage, thyme), grainy tannins showing all the way through to a fine, long-lasting finish. Excellent<o:p></o:p>

Mount Eden Mount Eden Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, Santa Cruz Mountains<o:p></o:p>

Intense deep fruity palate with black fruit, more evolved than the 2010 – ripe dark plum rather than blackberry, herbs drier, but lots of juice after dry, tight tannins. Very good<o:p></o:p>

Mount Eden Mount Eden Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir 2008, Santa Cruz Mountains<o:p></o:p>

30% whole bunch fermentation. Very sweet cherry on the nose with red fruit compote and raisin. Unusual raisined palate along with earthy notes and very attractive ripe strawberry; the mid palate slightly hot<o:p></o:p>

Tatomer 'Kick-on Ranch' Riesling 2010, Santa Barbara<o:p></o:p>

Winemaker Graham Tatomer says 'some skin contact' on this one, which gives it its dry grip. Creamy fresh secondary aromas on nose – not petrol but perfumed wool – open breathy palate with lime, grapefruit, saline hint of boiled lobster, full and mouthfilling, dry tannic length with juice at end. Overall dry length. Serious tannic grip<o:p></o:p>

Tatomer 'Kick-on Ranch' Riesling 2011, Santa Barbara<o:p></o:p>

Like its sibling but less evolved – less secondary petrol aromas, more sour lime, cut apple and pear, cooler, lighter, flavours more tail-wagging than quietly welcoming. Still with that attractive dry tannic length. Coolest labels in the house, by the way<o:p></o:p>

Tatomer 'Meeresboden' Grüner Veltliner 2013, Santa Barbara<o:p></o:p>

A lovely example of the dry style. Intense minerality, spicy lime, fresh white flowers (jasmine, hibiscus), structured acidity. Restrained but very expressive. Delicious<o:p></o:p>

Sandhi Wines Chardonnay 2012 Santa Barbara<o:p></o:p>

Some of the finest Chardonnays to come out of California are made by Sashi Moorman and star sommelier Rajat Parr, who also own Domaine de la Côte in the Santa Rita Hills. This has a daub of light cream on the nose, dense, sweet tropical lime, apple and a hint of tropical ripeness. Lovely power and body<o:p></o:p>

Sandhi Wines 'Sanford & Benedict' Chardonnay 2011 Santa Rita Hills<o:p></o:p>

Very, very fine nose with toasted notes (the wine spends 11 months in 500-litre barrels), sweet citrus, spicy cedar, some earth and floral notes. Excellent<o:p></o:p>

'elegant rot': Dme de la Côte

Domaine de la Côte Pinot Noir 2011, Santa Rita Hills

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50% whole bunch ferment. Lovely deep nose with elegant rot - cream and sweet very ripe cherry – utterly beguiling sweet violet perfume, fresh, minerality and some salinity – mouthwatering juice at end after dissolved chalky dry tannins. Endless length<o:p></o:p>

Domaine de la Côte Lompoc Wine Co Pinot Noir 2012, Santa Rita Hills<o:p></o:p>

Fully destemmed. Superb bright fresh cherry and perfumed spice. Exotic. Full warm length, dense and creamy with mineral buzz<o:p></o:p>

Domaine de la Côte 'Bloom's Field' Pinot Noir 2011 Santa Rita Hills<o:p></o:p>

90% whole bunch ferment, unfiltered and unfined. Bright hue, robust grippy tannins, sheer minerality, raspberry and damson and this lovely spicy plum. Delicious<o:p></o:p>

Domaine de la Côte 'La Côte' Pinot Noir 2011, Santa Rita Hills<o:p></o:p>

Whole bunch ferment. Herbal aromatics on the nose, very delicate cushioned juice (bolstered by fruit), supple ripe tannins carrying through to a fine open and generous finish<o:p></o:p>

Piedrasassi Syrah 2010 Central Coast<o:p></o:p>

Made by Sashi Moorman. Powerful stink on the nose, earthy and elegant, reminiscent of the farmyards of my youth (as distinct to the industrial silage stink of a huge modern farm). Wild briar fruits, black pepper, but the whole slightly reduced and not showing its best<o:p></o:p>

Piedrasassi 'Rim Rock' Single Vineyard Syrah 2010, San Luis Obispo County<o:p></o:p>

This is more like it, herbal aromas on the nose, more blackberry and dark forest fruits, exotic spice notes (sandalwood is there), white pepper, powerful knitted tannins exploding juicily at the end. Elegant and muscular<o:p></o:p>

See also:
How Green is my Valley: French Winemakers in Napa
Interview: Ann Colgin
Francis Ford Coppola at Inglenook - from Decanter
A visit to Screaming Eagle - from Decanter
Tim Mondavi - The Decanter Interview
The Historic Vineyard Society of Sonoma
Stag's Leap Wine Cellars - Keeping the Faith - from World of Fine Wine
Napa Mountain vs Valley Floor
'We've got two wine OBEs in the audience today' - A Napa masterclass in London
Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-57449646396887400482014-03-27T14:59:00.000-07:002014-04-10T12:57:22.082-07:00Bordeaux 2004 Ten Years On
Bordeaux 2004 has always been an unassuming vintage. It was swamped by the hoo-hah around 2003: while that year was all excess, 2004 was unremarkable in all but yield. The weather was fine, with decent rainfall and plenty of sunshine, and good conditions for harvest. Some said that the vines remembered the drought and heat of 03 and over-compensated, but whatever the reason, yields were extremely high, and those producers who couldn't put in time in the vineyards in July and August, controlling yield by dropping fruit, ran the risk of dry tannins and green flavours. As Stephane Von Neipperg of Canon La Gaffeliere said at the time, 'Those who did no green harvest produced high yields, and consequently tended to overextract in order to concentrate the middle palate and avoid having dilute wines.' The market was sluggish (the US had splurged on 2003 and wasn't really in a mood to buy, and China was but a twinkle in Gary Boom's eye).<o:p></o:p>

Talking of whom, here we are again at Bordeaux Index, the dynamic wine merchant in London's Hatton Garden of which Boom is the founder. Its neighbours are the jewellers and gem merchants who have traded here for hundreds of years. It's the sort of street where stocky men in tight suits stand in the shop doorways, cracking their knuckles. BI seems very at home.

Every year Bordeaux Index shows some 70 wines 10 years on, and this morning the 2004s are lined up. <o:p></o:p>

I've come to the tasting with high expectations. The 04s are much-loved for their restraint. Oz Clarke told me recently he bought more 04s than any other vintage, 'because it tastes like Bordeaux.' The best wines have classic claret profiles – restrained fruit with sharp edgy tannic grip dissolving to a wonderful refreshing juicy finish. <o:p></o:p>

There are a few disappointments – I know Palmer is highly praised by many but I didn't find the perfume that characterises the property. Brane Cantenac was thin (dodgy bottle, we wondered?). The wines that were lacking were not so much over-extracted but simply dull – hollow in the mid palate and finishing on a dying fall. Giscours, for example. You couldn't fault it for 90% of its length but then it was like the last step of a staircase unexpectedly missing. Some have drying tannins which just aren't going to get any sweeter.<o:p></o:p>

But the highs were very high indeed – and remember also the wines are reasonably priced, by and large. You don't need to buy Chateau Palmer at £1,300 a case when you can have Talbot at £420.

These wines are still young, and many are closing off for a long hibernation from which they'll emerge full of charm, but at the moment are tight and surly. I thought the St Juliens very fine, Margaux patchy, Pauillac excellent. I liked the St Emilions and many Pomerols. The first growths are splendid.'<o:p></o:p>

In his introductory notes to the tasting, Michael Schuster says, '"Classic" is a description which is likely to remain with [these wines]. In the traditional sense of the word, meaning whose overall proportions and flavours are restrained and moderate… and in a world increasingly filled with heavyweights, that, in my view, is a virtue.'<o:p></o:p>

Quite. The best wines of this vintage taste classic. Like Bordeaux.<o:p></o:p>

TASTING NOTES<o:p></o:p>

(all prices in bond, case of 12)<o:p></o:p>

ST EMILION Grand Cru Classé, 1er GCC<o:p></o:p>

Grandes Murailles £270<o:p></o:p>

Lovely dense sweet tarry nose with licorice. Bright sweet fruit on palate and soft tannins becoming juicy and with grip. Damson, fresh ripe plum. Tannins dusty and ripe, clove and cinnamon<o:p></o:p>

Pavie Macquin £550<o:p></o:p>

Some rotted notes alongside agreeable dry tannins – slight touch of cabbage and tinned peas on the palate moving to sweeter dark fruit notes. Slightly hot<o:p></o:p>

Larcis Ducasse £395<o:p></o:p>

Tightly-wound at first opening into breathy freshness with sour cherry and plum, open and fresh but perhaps hollow on the mid palate. Finishes on a dying fall<o:p></o:p>

Canon la Gaffeliere £550<o:p></o:p>

Closed discreet nose with nice evolved sweet cassis notes and mown grass and nutmeg. Perfumed. Delicate. Really classic palate full of life and freshness but with this sharp tannic edgy grip leading to juice. Very fine<o:p></o:p>

Magdelaine £395<o:p></o:p>

Interesting dry pot pourri perfume, very classic palate with restrained blackcurrant, damson and dry tannins becoming juicy. Nice finish but falls off slightly.<o:p></o:p>

Troplong Mondot £400<o:p></o:p>

Really lovely opulent nose with violet perfume, mown hay turned over in the field, damp earth. Open, breathy palate, dense sour food-friendly tannins but a drying length<o:p></o:p>

Clos Fourtet £500<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and lean nose with licorice and tobacco. Bright, very lean, very classic, full of interesting meaty damsons and dark fruit. Tannins almost in the back seat but present throughout. Good long juicy length<o:p></o:p>

Canon £450<o:p></o:p>

Marmite and savoury notes first on the nose, then damp earth, then on the palate this sour, earthy, juicy classic profile, tannins still on the way to releasing juice. Puts me in mind of a rack of lamb dripping with juice<o:p></o:p>

Figeac £700<o:p></o:p>

Grass, late summer grass on the nose. Bright, peppery notes on palate, blackcurrant, incredible dry tannins going into juiciness, very soft almost disappearing length. General impression of savouriness and freshness and grip to the tannin<o:p></o:p>

Angelus £2,400<o:p></o:p>

Lovely opulent nose, violet perfume and hints of rot – ripe mulberry lying in the orchard grass, drowsy buzz of wasps. Dry present tannins but releasing juice throughout the palate, dry at end but a gripping pent up dryness that will be released slowly, with a rack of lamb. Powerful<o:p></o:p>

Ausone £4,200<o:p></o:p>

Very bright very fresh tannins following blackcurrant fruit – power (heat) and refreshing, structured acidity and tannins. The whole like a teetering delicate scaffold, robust enough to stay standing but possessed of an airy weightlessness. Very fine.<o:p></o:p>

Cheval Blanc £2,900<o:p></o:p>

Fresh open & interesting – very charming – good tannic heft becoming juicy, still some primary oak characters, earthiness, dark fruit. Full of life and good length <o:p></o:p>

POMEROL<o:p></o:p>

Gazin £450<o:p></o:p>

Savoury nose, damson and hint of clove and herbs on palate, bright, dense young and dry tannins, still juicy, lovely pot pourri and preserved spiced fruit on palate, sweet juicy length<o:p></o:p>

Nenin £450<o:p></o:p>

Savoury sweet nose, very open slightly undistinguished palate with perhaps one dimension too few. Tannnins lacking grip but good finish – just the mid-palate lacking<o:p></o:p>

Clinet £600<o:p></o:p>

Intense nose, mulched blackberry and truffley autumn earth, open and fresh, then palate delicate and charming with the softest most integrated tannins and superb juiciness leading to more grip and a strongly defined end. Fruit is dark, sweet, not brooding but charming - plum, damson, blackberry <o:p></o:p>

Clos L'Eglise £475<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and juicy blackberry palate with fresh tannins and acidity. very nice, agreeable, not complex<o:p></o:p>

La Fleur Petrus £1,250<o:p></o:p>

Really attractive floral nose - violet and mown grass – missing something on the mid palate – some tannic grip?.<o:p></o:p>

La Conseillante £750<o:p></o:p>

Open fresh attractive perfumed nose.as above – where is the mid palate?<o:p></o:p>

Trotanoy £800<o:p></o:p>

Good fresh bright and very juicy at the end – but a slight fall off at the finish – not exciting <o:p></o:p>

Petrus £14,000<o:p></o:p>

Lovely chocolatey dense nose – full of power and fine tannins, earth, chocolate and brisk acidity. The palate is initially dry then tannins detonate to juiciness leaving the palate invigorated. Lovely<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

HAUT MEDOC<o:p></o:p>

Potensac £170<o:p></o:p>

For the first time I have an impression of oak – too much of it, drying under the top lip and dominating. Don't see a great future for this<o:p></o:p>

Poujeaux £250<o:p></o:p>

Fresh with grip. Lean, fresh, dense blackcurrant fruit, falling off at end to a dying fall <o:p></o:p>

PESSAC-LEOGNAN<o:p></o:p>

Malartic Lagraviere £360<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and open, breathy palate. Attractive, full, perfumed (old sandalwood and cedar) all in a very low key<o:p></o:p>

Smith Haut Lafitte £515<o:p></o:p>

Big earthy truffley NW style nose – very fine open beginning to the palate with violet perfumed dark damson-blackberry fruit. Very juicy, very attractive without a complex end palate <o:p></o:p>

Dme de Chevalier £420<o:p></o:p>

Savoury nose. Open palate not intense but full of restrained fruit (can you be full of something and restrained?). Juicy and incredibly charming, offset by good strong dense chalky tannins that carry the whole thing through. Power and finesse.<o:p></o:p>

Haut Bailly £500<o:p></o:p>

Lovely cool elegant nose and the same for the palate – sour plum and sour cherry, hint of salt and savouriness – low key and classic. Lovely strong restrained length. Classic – it tastes like Bordeaux<o:p></o:p>

La Mission Haut Brion £1,150<o:p></o:p>

Power. Bright fruit and superb acidity leading to grippy fresh tannins. Intriguing – length not massive but will go on – delicate <o:p></o:p>

Haut Brion £2,600<o:p></o:p>

Closed – juice and power under the radar – spice and perfume – giving nothing away. I've not had this wine before (not since 2005) and everyone pays tribute to its freshness, perfume and power. This bottle was simply not opening up to me. A great shame<o:p></o:p>

MARGAUX<o:p></o:p>

Du Tertre £300<o:p></o:p>

Very attractive nose and lovely entry, fresh, open and incredibly juicy (almost too much so). Length carries on forever, impression of roundness and fullness, opulence<o:p></o:p>

Giscours £420<o:p></o:p>

Fresh nose, open and delicate palate, lots of juice, lots of attraction, long and sweet but again a slight feeling – is this it? Where is the grip on the mid palate?<o:p></o:p>

Malescot st Exupery £400<o:p></o:p>

Same as Giscours. Nice and open and juicy but slightly closed, not exuberant in any way, prematurely stooped<o:p></o:p>

Brane Cantenac £400<o:p></o:p>

Savoury barbecued beef nose, full dense tannic rush to start and going into – what? – some fruit, some acidity, but the fruit dies quickly. Disappointing dry finish. I would drink this asap. I wonder about the bottle<o:p></o:p>

Lascombes £550<o:p></o:p>

Nice strong savoury nose, disappointingly angular palate.Oak tannins predominate <o:p></o:p>

Rauzan Segla £450<o:p></o:p>

Fine sour palate – classic blackcurrant straight off the bush. Nice freshness, nice finish though short <o:p></o:p>

Pavillon Rouge £990<o:p></o:p>

As Rauzan. Agreeable, fun, but in the end it's not going to make the evening <o:p></o:p>

Palmer £1300<o:p></o:p>

Expecting perfume off this one – none of that – sharp tannic edge, drying length. Closed for the duration. Come back to it<o:p></o:p>

Margaux £3,000<o:p></o:p>

Green, peppery, sweet tannins, lovely end palate, lots of green hay and spice; hot and ripe but balanced and concentrated. Exotic and powerful<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

ST JULIEN<o:p></o:p>

Gloria £275<o:p></o:p>

Savoury, meaty nose, full of life, (more than Palmer) much more vibrant and alive – good strong tannic length that is just getting juicier.<o:p></o:p>

Clos du Marquis £300<o:p></o:p>

Fresh and open, full of life, slightly astringent tarry note to early palate - dense sweet juicy tannins, uncomplicated but very charming. Some oak still needs integrating but tannins will get juicier ** buy<o:p></o:p>

Talbot £420<o:p></o:p>

Really attractive perfumed tarry nose reflecting the decayed grandeur of the chateau itself. Can I detect cigarette smoke amongst the preserved damson and plum? Palate restrained but very precise – lots to like<o:p></o:p>

Beychevelle £780<o:p></o:p>

Fine delicate fruit, lots of juice, fine fruit but it's more compote than fresh – it's a ghostly essence of blackcurrant rather than the full cassis rush. Length short<o:p></o:p>

BranaireDucru £400<o:p></o:p>

Nice fresh nose with sour plum and licorice. Very bright fruit (damson) and good breathy length, it seems, though there's a fall to dryness<o:p></o:p>

Gruaud Larose £400<o:p></o:p>

Full and fresh, ballsy and uncompromising – but surely a wine at 10 years old shouldn't have such teeth-furring dryness? Juice kicks in at the end but still…<o:p></o:p>

Leoville Barton £480<o:p></o:p>

Elegant, restrained, with tannic dryness and juice and leading to sweet blackcurrant and a nice dry length. Drinking beautifully now<o:p></o:p>

Leoville Las Cases £1025<o:p></o:p>

Lovely blackcurrant nose – very bright and hopeful – intense and restrained palate with dryness leading to some sparse wintery juice<o:p></o:p>

PAUILLAC<o:p></o:p>

Pichon Longueville Comtesse £800<o:p></o:p>

Fine tarry nose with blackcurrant fruit – dense – full of character – quite restrained and tarry – dense tannic length but with juice<o:p></o:p>

Pichon Longueville Baron £850<o:p></o:p>

Powerful young feeling to this wine. Overwhelming intensity of fruit and and inky, opulent tannins. Excellent<o:p></o:p>

Mouton £3,050<o:p></o:p>

Dense sweet intense juicy very ripe tannin. Juicy fresh fruit - blackcurrant and blakberry.<o:p></o:p>

Lafite £5,300<o:p></o:p>

Strong fresh but with really powerful overlaying tannins.intense – more power than you'd ever expect with this velvety, soft, perfumed nose. Still green notes on It – attractive<o:p></o:p>

Latour £3,600<o:p></o:p>

An aroma of chocolate, coffee and dense sweet fruit – cassis and briar – gives way to a palate for which the three words which spring to mind are tannin, power and tar, followed by concentrated gouts of more cassis and an earthy violet perfume. Superb

ST ESTEPHE<o:p></o:p>

Cos d'Estournel £800<o:p></o:p>

Beguiling sweet nose with damson and christmas plum… tarrry palate, opulent and full of life <o:p></o:p>

Montrose £530<o:p></o:p>

Very fresh open bright palate – lots of juice early on, lots of charm, full of interest. Nice length, with spice and dense, concentrated fruit power<o:p></o:p>

Top 5 Best Value<o:p></o:p>

Clos du Marquis<o:p></o:p>

Du Tertre<o:p></o:p>

Talbot<o:p></o:p>

Grands Murailles<o:p></o:p>

Malartic Lagraviere<o:p></o:p>

Top 5<o:p></o:p>

La Mission Haut Brion<o:p></o:p>

Cheval Blanc<o:p></o:p>

Montrose<o:p></o:p>

Canon la Gaffeliere<o:p></o:p>

Clinet<o:p></o:p>

See also Bordeaux 2003 Ten Years On: A cabinet of curiosities but few you'd want to own
Adam Lechmerehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4919588063025303868.post-62011033540029833492014-03-26T08:46:00.005-07:002014-03-26T09:53:40.859-07:00Subtle or dilute? Koshu divides opinion
Of all the wine regions of the world, the Yamanashi prefecture of Japan has to be one of the least-known. Cosmopolitan consumers may be on nodding terms with Chinese Cabernet Sauvignon, happily open southern English sparkling, and are familiar with wines from Turkey, Georgia or Moldova, but there aren't that many who have tasted Koshu of Japan.

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Koshu – a large, pink, thick-skinned and fragrant grape – has been grown as a table grape in Japan for a thousand years, but only in the last century has it been vinified. And only since 2010 has it been officially recognised by the EU as wine grape and thus allowed into Europe.

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The efficient trade organisation Koshu of Japan, a grouping of 15 wine producers, was set up in 2009 by Shigekazu Misawa, managing director of Grace Wine, one of the most internationally-recognised producers. Koshu for wine is produced primarily in high vineyards in Yamanashi province, at the foot of the 3000m Mount Fuji. About 300ha is planted, the majority Koshu but a fair amount of international varietals as well. Grace Wine, for example, has four hectares of Koshu and 9ha of Bordeaux varietals and other grapes. It produces a US$100 Chardonnay which sells well in Australia, the winemaker (and owner's daughter), the Bordeaux-educated and internationally-trained Ayana Misawa says.<o:p></o:p>

KOJ's aim is straightforward: to increase awareness of Koshu in international markets – and, according to Misawa, to increase plantings to 3000ha within 10 years. Judging by the latest packed London tasting and standing-room-only seminar, with the eminent Gerard Basset MW MS OBE on the panel, it is succeeding in the first aim. Jancis Robinson MW OBE is a keen supporter, praising the wines' 'delicacy, purity and limpidity'.<o:p></o:p>

Koshu is an intriguing grape, producing wines that are both delicate and aromatic but with a certain food-friendly robustness. At their best the wines' high acidity is contrasted by white flower and lychee aromatics – which can sometimes slip over into Turkish delight and parma violets – and a tart, tannic finish. Some examples are aged sur lie, giving them exotic yeasty notes reminiscent of sake.

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Steve Daniel of distributor Novum Wines lists five wines from Grace and places them both in the restaurant market and in independents, and top outlets like Selfridges. 'They are my kind of wine,' he says. 'Ethereal, esoteric, with that tense minerality that reminds me of Santorini, or Etna – you can taste the volcano.' While most exponents say the finest match is with sushi, some, like Roger Jones at the Michelin-starred UK restaurant the Harrow at Little Bedwyn, insist they go well with British food.<o:p></o:p>

Koshu has many fans. Selfridges wine and spirits buyer Dawn Davies reports healthy sales of two wines from Grace, despite prices of around £20 (€24), and Marks & Spencer's Emma Dawson is taking the Sol Lucet from Kurambon winery, slightly cheaper at £12.99 (€15.60). Sweden's Systembolaget is interested too, its buyer Johan Larsson telling Meininger's he has snapped up 3000 bottles of Grace's Private Reserve. He feels it offers a point of difference - 'Koshu is not your average Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay. It gives personality; it's something to write about' – and also notes that Sweden is the biggest consumer of sushi outside Japan.<o:p></o:p>

Koshu fits nicely with the latest trends in white wine consumption – for lower alcohol (Koshus seldom come in at more than 12%), for aromatics, for freshness – and a general interest in esoteric, unusual wines. There's also a craze for all things Japanese, Davies says, pointing to the popularity of the 20-odd sakes and Japanese whiskies she lists.<o:p></o:p>

Koshu's rise has been swift, and it's not difficult to find sceptics. The Daily Mail's Matthew Jukes, who consults for upmarket London restaurant Bibendum (no relation to the importer of the same name), balks at what he describes succinctly as 'nose-bleed' prices. <o:p></o:p>

On a restaurant wine list, prices would get out of hand, he says. 'Most of the still Koshus will be £85 (€102) on an average list,' he told Meininger's. 'Only white Burgundy and a handful of other world classic white wines are more expensive on my Bibendum list for example. The sparklers will be around the £129 (€155) mark, which is the same price as NV Billecart-Salmon Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs and NV Gosset Grande Réserve for example and more expensive than every other NV Champagne.'<o:p></o:p>

Prices aren't his only problem: he also considers most Koshu 'dilute'. Another respected London-based journalist, Margaret Rand, said, 'They're perfectly pleasant, and they get a bit better year by year, but the world is awash with white wines of far more character. There's a certain amount of hype about Koshu, and it's honestly not justified.'

There are many wines which polarise opinion, but few which give rise to such heated debate. Koshu's fans reckon its detractors confuse subtlety for dilution, its critics say it's a case of the emperor's new clothes. The arguments will continue, but there is no doubt that the wines will continue to intrigue.<o:p></o:p>

Recommendations<o:p></o:p>

Grace

Grace Kayagatake 2013<o:p></o:p>

11.5%<o:p></o:p>

Aromatics, blind, would put you in mind of a very fresh and delicate Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Quite sharp acidity on the tongue, very fresh and almost dense quality to the fruit – lime and ripe kiwi, almost earthy<o:p></o:p>

£17.00 thesampler

Lumiere Hikari Koshu 2011<o:p></o:p>

10.5%

Nice yeasty, leesy, bready aroma. Good mouthfeel, ultra-dry but with nice lemony, lemongrass and cooked pear fruit. Nice weight, tart, dry, almost tannic mouthfeel. Excellent with sushi<o:p></o:p>

£22.60 Amathus Drinks

Suntory Premium Koshu 2013<o:p></o:p>

11.7%<o:p></o:p>

Amazing very light pink tinge almost clear colour, slight aroma of white rose petals and rose water. Very light, sweet pear mango and pineapple, delicate, precise, persistant acidity, very good length. This is the most commercial and outward-looking of the Koshus tasted<o:p></o:p>

http://www.suntory.com/wine/tominooka/lineup/special.html<o:p></o:p>

Soryu

Soryu Koshu 2012
<o:p></o:p>

10.3%<o:p></o:p>

Hay and straw aromas, dense sharp acidity, very full mouthfeel with rather nice breathy juiciness. Very light and dry, good acidity, falls a bit short at the end<o:p></o:p>

Amathus Drinks<o:p></o:p>

Sol Lucet Koshu 2011<o:p></o:p>

11.7%<o:p></o:p>

Notes of brioche on the nose and yeast on the palate. Bone dry on the attack then very gentle waves of fruit – lemongrass and lime – mitigate the dryness. Finish is almost juicy. Again – sushi!<o:p></o:p>

Exel wines; winedirect.co.uk; Hedonism<o:p></o:p>

L'Orient Koshu 2011<o:p></o:p>

10.5%

Bone dry, steely, tightly-wound. Fresh citrus flavours on the palate together with cut Granny Smith. Intense.<o:p></o:p>

Around £15 Tazaki Foods 020 8344 3000<o:p></o:p>

Rubaiyat

Rubaiyat Koshu, Marufuji Winery 2013<o:p></o:p>

11.2%<o:p></o:p>

White flowers, apple flowers and pink blossom with hints of clove and cinnamon – on the palate, Turkish delight and sandalwood. All tank fermented and aged. Spicy.<o:p></o:p>

£17.00 The Drinkshop.com; Hedonism; Christopher Keiller; FieldsMorris and Verdin

Adam Lechmerehttp://email@example.com