Irpinia

We started this exercise with a red wine from Campania made from Aglianico on Week A (2013) and now, due to the difficulty in sourcing wines made with red grapes whose names start with an I, we have returned.

This week's selection qualifies as it comes from Irpinia, an Italian region within Campania around the town of Avellino, where amongst other things, Aglianico is grown and wine made from it.


Week I (2014) Terredora Aglianico, Irpinia, IGT, 2011. Uncorked £12.95.

The Aglianico we had last year was half the price of this one and the difference really shows.

Rather than being produced in a co-op, and there's nothing wrong with that, this one is produced in Terredora's winery in Montefusco, opened in 1994, where they process only grapes from there own vineyards.

There is a balance of wood and stainless steel used for ageing and the wine does have a corresponding balance of fruity freshness and the softer and more interesting complexity that is the intention behind the use of oak.

Although this is easy to drink it is moderately full-bodied, has soft tannins, 13% abv. and fills a very enjoyable glass. Or two.

It is a deep ruby colour with a hint of purple, has good aromas of fragrant red fruit, and a finish that includes some spicy warmth.

The back label suggests that it might be enjoyed with some sliced beff. Try as I might, I could not find any beff, so settled for a traditional Sunday roast with pork, parsnips, potatoes and few other things that irritatingly refuse to alliterate.

As I write this I am raising a glass to my oldest friend who has just entered his seventh decade on Earth. Cheers, my friend, keep it up.

Huxelrebe

This week there is, unusually, some evidence of order in my universe and I sense Dionysus at my shoulder. Earlier this week I watched Professor Brian Cox waxing lyrical on how all of creation is explicable by maths and how absolutely everything is inevitable. Well, perhaps, Brian, but I'm not convinced. In fact, I think there is something a little sinister about a softly spoken Manchunian pop star turned professional star gazer morphing into a philosopher on our TV screens and implying that there's no room, or need, in all that exists for anything but his god; physics (with a bit of chemistry thrown in).

It could be that my 1976 Chemistry (with Physics) GCE knowledge was, at that time, a little under-developed and is now a little out of date, especially when considered in the context of the unclassified grading that I achieved (one of three, now who's the academic?), but I can't see how science explains this. One year ago, on Week H (2013), I selected a white grape variety used to make a delicious sweet wine. On that same weekend I played my only 18 hole round of golf of the year. Well this year, without any intent on my part, both of those things have happened again. Maths? Physics? I don't think so, Brian. No, I think the spirit of Dionysus, god of wine and winemaking, fertility, theatre, religious ecstasy and, the clincher, ritual madness has carefully orchestrated events to lead me here. Although just like Brian, I can't say why.

Week H (2014) Darting Estate, Huxelrebe Beerenauslese, 2011. M&S £19 for 50cl.

This is a luscious, sweet dessert wine that is very high in residual sugar and low in alcohol. The bottle seems to be a little confused over exactly how low, as the front label claims 8% whereas the back is more modest at 7.5%

The flavours of this bright lemony-golden wine are intense and range from honeyed raisins to deep citrus orange oil and peaches. There is sufficient acidity to cut through the slightly syrupy feel and this is helped by gentle chilling.

The finish is long and reminds me of a tarte tatin, if that's not too pretentious.

This is the second time I have selected a wine from the Darting Estate. The first was a light dry Riesling (Week D (2013)) and very different from this. Both wines are rated under the German quality system as 'Qualitatswein mit Pradikat' (QmP) where the P gives an indication of the level of ripeness the grapes have achieved prior to harvest. The pradikat in this case is the word 'beerenauslese', which to be understood can be broken down into two parts. The second part (we'll come back to the first) 'auslese' is on its own a pradikat, or category, and means 'selected'. The auslese category of wines are those that have been picked later in the season and have reached a greater ripeness, have a higher sugar content and have been selected rather than picked along with the rest. These wines will usually be sweet.  The first part 'beeren' means 'berries' or individual grapes and this time bunches or even individual berries  have been selected very late in the season, usually because they have been affected by botryitis cinera or, as us non-Latin speakers know it, noble rot. This helps to explain why any beerenauslese is unlikley to be cheap.

The pradikats are applied to levels of grape ripeness across a number of varieties. This wine is made from the variety Huxelrebe and the fruit was grown in the Forster Schnepfenflug vineyard in the region of Pfalz.
The grape's name is another opportunity to deconstruct the German language. Sticking to a successful formula we will look at the second part of the name first. 'Rebe' translates to 'vine'. Simples. Huxel, on the other hand doesn't really translate to anything as it is the name of the man after whom this grape has been named.

Huxelrebe is a grape variety created in 1927 by Dr Georg Scheu, the director of grape breeding (no. really) at Alzey. This begs the question why is this new rebe (vine) not known as Scheurebe? There is an obvious answer. Any director of grape breeding worthy of the title will probably have bred successfully more that once. Georg already had an eponymous grape, so the honour this time was bestowed upon the man responsible for this new variety's cultivation and popularistaion, Fritz Huxel. The crossing itself was between Chasselas, popular in Switzerland, and Courtiller Musque, itself a crossing developed in the Loire valley near Saumur.

This particular bottle was shared with a Swiss friend, who knew the correct way to pronounce some of those long German words on the bottle, The One, who asked if we could buy some more for Christmas, and her mother who gave the final verdict: 'delicious'.

Oh, and the golf? Kind of you to ask. I'm still rubbish, but I scored very nearly four times as many points as last year and didn't have to buy more new clubs.

Gamay

It fills me with more than a little horror to note that I have been commuting into the Great Wen in pursuit of an honest wage for more than three decades. Our capital has changed in many ways over the years both physically, as old buildings have been torn down and replaced and in some cases torn down and replaced again, and in habit. In the 1980's, the decade of yuppy excess (I wasn't one), the pubs shut after lunch and compelled those in need of fortification to survive the afternoon either to join a private club or to take a bottle back to the office. The latter was generally frowned upon, so I joined an indoor golf club which benefited my handicap by not one stroke, but did provide a convenient conference facility (bar) for essential post-prandial negotiations. In these more enlightened times this is not necessary as the inns of the city are no longer constrained by first world war legislation. Perversely, the removal of the restrictions also seems to have coincided with a cultural shift away from Bacchus being invited to the business lunch and today mineral water is more often consumed and followed with nothing stronger than a double espresso.

In those earlier more liberal times there was an event to be enjoyed on the third Thursday in November each year known as the Beaujolais Nouveau  Breakfast. This was the day when wine from the most southern outpost of Burgundy and made from recently picked and vinified Gamay grapes, was released for sale and provoked a race to get it to the early morning tables of restaurants and bars around the world. Especially London. It would be wrong to say that this was generally bad wine, but a lot of it was produced with more of an eye on the calendar than on the quality of the product.

I expect it is possible still to wash down a plate of black pudding with a glass of red wine, but I don't where and, even if I did want to, it is a few weeks ahead of this year's release date, now formally set as 15th November each year, so this week we will have a Beaujolais, but not a 'noveau'.

Week G (2014) Louis Jadot, Beaujolais Village, Combe Aux Jacques, 2012. Tesco £10.99.

Gamay is the grape of Beaujolais, as it has been since the late 14th century, and now grows in more than 99% of the region's 54,000+ acres of vineyards. It does grow elsewhere, notably in the Loire valley, but it is here where it has no red competition.

As with the rest of Burgundy, there is a hierarchy of wine quality ratings based on where exactly the grapes are grown. The lowest rating is for wines labelled simply as 'Beaujolais' and this can be made from grapes harvested from any of those 50k acres anywhere in the region. At the other end of the scale there are ten 'cru' villages where the best examples are produced. These wines are labelled not as Beaujolais, but with the name of the village from which the fruit was sourced. Fleurie being a well known example.

In the middle sits the appellation 'Beaujolais Villages', meaning that all of the grapes come form vineyards within the ten cru villages, but not from a single one. That is, the fruit is sourced from more than one cru village.

In the case of this wine, produced by one of the great houses whose output covers all the sub-regions of Burgundy, maison Louis Jadot, most of the fruit is from the village of Regnie.

The wine is a medium ruby red colour, with aromas of red fruits and pear drops. It has moderate acidity, 12.5% abv and is smooth fresh tasting and easy to drink, either with food or alone.

The soft feel of the wine and the characteristic pear-drop aroma come, in part, from a wine-making technique traditionally used in this area with the wonderful sounding name of semi-carbonic maceration. This involves picking whole bunches of grapes and putting them into stainless steel vats, where  the weight of the grapes towards the top cause the berries lower down to burst and release some juice. This begins to ferment on contact with the natural yeasts growing on the skins and produces both alcohol and carbon dioxide. The gas, which is heavier than air, fills the gaps between the bunches and as its volume increases, rises up the tank pushing out any oxygen, such that the fruit at the top begins to ferment inside the unbroken fruit.

The result is a well made and pleasant wine and far better than many drinkers would expect, especially those first introduced to Beaujolais in the late 20th century on a third Thursday in November. 

Falanghina - Fiano

And Greco, but that doesn't begin with F.

There was a wine famous during the days of the Roman empire for being the best available called Falernian. It was much praised by Horace, a poet with a passion for hexameters, iambic verse and presumably a party and also appears in ancient graffiti on the ruined walls of Pompeii. It is not, sadly, available in the current era, however, it is believed that Falernian may have been based on the grape Falanghina, which is.

This week we have a wine made from an equal blend of Falanghina and two other Italian varieties from Campania, in the South-West of the country: Fiano and Greco.

Week F (2104) Triade, Bianco della Campania IGT, 2013. Waitrose £6.69

This is a bright, medium intensity lemon yellow wine with aromas of tropical fruit that reached my nose as soon as I had persuaded the faulty screwcap to relinquish its unnecessarily persistent hold on the bottle. Poor perforations meant that the entire cap and collar closure preferred to swivel around the neck of the bottle rather than agree a separation for my benefit. I was concerned that I would find the seal had been inadequate and that the wine would have been spoiled by oxidation and taken on a cheap sherry taste due to exposure to the air. The immediacy of the fruit aromas settled that fear.

The inviting fresh scent follows through on the palate where the dry wine has a pleasing, easy to drink blend of citrus, peach and pineapple accompanied by a zippy acidity, hints of vanilla and slightly oily feel. It is 12.5% abv.

It has a smoothness not universal among Italian whites and certainly not among Italian whites at this bargain price. It has much more flavour and indeed complexity than your average supermarket Pinot Grigio, even if the supermarket in question is never knowingly undersold (do they still say that?). Makes you wonder how this can be produced at the price point.

I can't explain the economics, but the producers, Orion Wines, work across many regions of Italy with growers and wine-makers to produce around thirty wines adhering to their simple philosophy to 'produce the best and most interesting wines possible at fair prices'. Can't argue with that.

In the case of Tirade Bianco della Camania this means harvesting the grapes late and then each of the three varieties is vinified independently, 80% in steel and 20% in oak,  and then blended to produce the final wine. This doesn't sound like the cheapest production approach so it would appear that their expressed philosophy is more than a marketing slogan.

A definite find and an addition to the regular purchase list.