Earth's End

Some of you will have noticed that the Rugby World Cup is currently underway and that yesterday England managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by converting a seven point lead, with not many more minutes left to play than the points difference, into a three point loss. A feat all the more remarkable considering that their Welsh opponents had lost three of their best to injury during the game. The result now means Australia need to be competently restrained next week to avoid the host nation becoming the first in the history of the competition not to make it through to the knock out stages. The other way to look at it is that they have already made it to the knock out stage, and earlier than other teams in their pool, too.

Even if England do beat Australia it simply increases the chances of them meeting the All Blacks in a later round. Now, there's a lot of things I like about New Zealand, even if I have never been there, but losing to them at rugby is not one of them. However, part of the enjoyment of watching the egg-chasers is the sense of respect and fair play that sets the game apart the allegedly 'beautiful game' (an expression which would be better reserved for venison, in my opinion).

I was drawn to this week's selection by the label. If you can't see it, then let me explain that it shows a series of little cartoon All Blacks doing their 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' thing that they do to welcome and / or intimidate their opponents.

Week E (2015) Earth's End Pinot Noir. Central Otago. 2013. M&S £16

Not exclusively by the label, but also by the fact that it was attached to a Pinot Noir from Central Otago. We had one of these in red week O (2013) which I remember liking, and another for red week W (2015) which was less interesting, but what puts this style of wine up front and centre for me at present is that earlier this week I spent an evening with a couple of friends at a WSET School tasting event where Nigel Greening, the owner of Felton Road which is a highly regarded Otago producer, led us through a four year, two wine vertical exploration of the effects of vintage variation on the wines from two of his vineyards. A fabulous event.

That's enough blather about why I chose it, was I pleased?

Yes. I has a nice combination of flavours and I would call cherry if I had to, plus some floral, almost herbal, tones together with slightly separated oak. I suspect the maker intends this to be drunk fairly soon after bottling, but it is only two and half year's since its southern hemisphere harvest and so the oak may well 'integrate' later as we wine bores are prone to saying.

Sixteen of your earth pounds is a fair demand in return for this drink. Of the two previous Otago Pinot Noirs, the first mentioned above cost AUD 28.99, which at the time was about £17.35 but today would be £13.87, and the second was £9, but dull. The Felton Road is about £38 a bottle and the 2011's were easily good enough to justify the difference, sadly, 'cos that's a bit steep for me. On the bright side the Felton Roads are sufficiently hard to find that it is unlikely to be much a recurring problem.

Lastly, but far from leastly, if that is a permissible word, today is my son's 28th birthday, I hope he has a great day and knows how much I love him.

Dark Horse

I am rather happy to have allowed myself to relax my selection rules. It makes this game of exploration so much easier and less of an albatross. The One thinks I can be stubborn and, if she was right, that would mean I would spend too long each week tracking down and selecting wines according to criteria that only I care about. Oh, hang on.....


Week D (2015) Dark Horse Chardonnay, California. 2013. Tesco £9 

I have commented before on the misguided souls who, for inexplicable reasons, like to say that they enjoy anything but Chardonnay when drinking white wine.

White wine comes in a huge variety of styles, from sharp, acidic wines, though aromatic and floral, to fat and creamy. Almost all of them can be made from Chardonnay depending on where it is grown and the prevailing climate.

This one comes from the warm west coast of America where the fruit has plenty of sunshine to allow it to ripen fully and develop soft stone fruit and tropical flavours. There's plenty of sugar in those ripe grapes and so the alcohol reaches  13.5% before, but not at the expense of reduced acidity that would render the result 'flabby'.

The back label describes the wine as tasting of baked apples and pears and being layered with toasted oak notes of caramel and brown spice. I sometimes think the writers of tasting notes have indulged in a game of bullshit bingo, simply picking plausible words, and less plausible word combinations, from a brown paper bag and having a good laugh at the output. On this occasion I think they have actually tasted the contents of the bottle, although I may have added peaches and pineapple, as I claimed earlier.

I really liked this one and at the price think it is worth a small bulk purchase. It is smooth, easy to enjoy, but still has a little spice in the long finish that makes it much, much more appealing than many of the identikit 'anything but Chardonnay' wines that those more interested in a sound bite than open-minded exploration might choose.

Carmenere

Following last week's example of a wine that costs about six times the cost of an average bottle sold in the UK, I felt I should prove that I am not a price snob I chose one much closer to the average (albeit after 'discount' by the world's largest wine merchant).


Week C (2015) Tesco Finest Carmenere, Valle de Colchagua, Chile. Tesco £5.99.

Carmenere is Chile's signature red wine grape. Originally from Bordeaux it traveled West like many of it's erstwhile stable mates, but unlike the rest of the Cabernet family not much of it stayed at home, so now Chile is home.

In its early Chilean days it was thought to be Merlot and it was not until 1994 that a French oenologlist identified the reason that Chilean Merlot tasted distinctly different to those from elsewhere. The answer being that the Merlot was indeed Carmenere.

It's name is base on 'carmin', the French word for crimson, but this doesn't refer to the grapes themselves rather than the colour that its leaves turn before the harvest.

The wines produced are usually deep red and richly flavoured of mixed red and black fruits, often with a herbal hint.

This one, which has around 13% alcohol fits the stereotype very nicely. It is fruity, has noticeable and reasonably smooth tanins and slips down very easily. It is not  a big wine, nor does it have particular finesse, but it is very drinkable and, at the price, a good weekday 'I never want to commute again' companion to the increasingly gloomy evening.


Tesco described the wine as having been fermented in stainless steel tanks and having had 'a light French oak treatment'. This, I strongly suspect, does not mean that it has spent any time in expensive French oak barrels, but has had either oak staves added to the tank or possibly a big 'tea bag' of oak chippings dunked in it to give it a hint of sophistication. All fair enough for the price. A new oak barrel costs somewhere around £500-£600 and can hold about 300 bottles of wine so that would be approximately £2 per bottle on the cost. So if you want to be picky, pay more!

Bonnezeaux

Last night I attended the launch of the refreshed WSET Alumni body. This is a group made up of diploma holders, most of whom are 'in the trade' but there was a fair smattering of interlopers, like me, who have stumped up the cash and put in the hours of study for no reason other than we wanted to.

One of the speakers was a lady who had far more impressive qualifications, obtained not only through exams but also through real world experience. She had been a flying winemaker, but didn't demonstrate this ability for our entertainment, and now works with big wine business organisations. A lot of what she told us about was to do with the high volume products that account for a big proportion of sales around the world. Many mentions were made of 'one thousand tons per day' of grapes being processed and the 20,000 litre 'flexi-tanks' in which their wine was moved around.

I know it is the reality, but it lacks some of the charm and romance that attracted a non-trade phoney like me to the subject in the first place.

This week's sample is, therefore, the polar opposite.

Week B (2015) Chateau de Fesles, Bonnezeaux. 2010. Majestic £19.99 50cl

Chateau de Fesles has only 52 hectares of vines, from which they produce wines for two appellations; Anjou and Bonnezeaux. The latter, this wine, is made from Chenin Blanc grapes 90% of which been affected by noble rot and the remainder treated to passerillage, meaning they remain on the vine until the begin to shrivel, thus concentrating the flavours and the sugars.

I don't know the actual volumes concerned, but even if all 52 hectares were given over to Bonnezeaux and the harvest was a much as 50 litres per ha, then that's a maximum of 2,600 litres per year.

This was a huge success with my tasting panel. One of them is a Vouvray fan and therefore, usually keen on any sweet wine made from this variety and the other has a palate honed over more than nine decades and usually pretty reliable.

But don't take our word for it. Mr Robert Parker, the American critic and living legend in his own estimation, proclaimed that this individual wine was good enough to warrant its own appellation. Some other people who immodestly claim to know what's what have dubbed it the 'd'Yquem of the Loire'. This is high praise as that particular producer (Chateau) is Bordeaux's only Premier Cru Superieur, coming from one of the homes of dessert wines: Sauternes.

It's all sweet, honey, beeswax loveliness and some of this is said to come from the year or more it spends in Acacia wood barrels that let in just the right degree of Oxygen to allow the wine to develop beautifully.

The average price paid in the UK for a 75cl bottle of wine is around £5.50. The wines shipped in bulk and bottled in the UK will be below that, so one big difference is that this wine is approaching six times the price. Is it worth it? Oh, yes. And not just because of the romance.