Mainente

The clocks went back last night and tomorrow we can sit in the garden and have a glass or two with friends. I have a tee time booked and the forecast is good. Is this a false dawn? I do hope not, but while the sun shines hay shall be made.

As it feels like Spring we are in luck that this week demands a white wine that can be chilled and sipped in the garden after a hard day's toil shovelling soil, compost and bark chips from the front of the house to the back. We were not in so much luck to be doing the shovelling, but it did work up a thirst.

Week M (2021) Vigna Cegnelle, Corte Mainente 2018. ~£10

I can't be sure about the cost of this week's wine as it came to me as one sixth of my reward for answering a few questions about my thoughts on old vine wines. (Previously mentioned, and if you know when please feel free to claim your prize in the comments section below.) All six bottles were from Soave, but from different producers. This is the first I have tried and it was carefully selected because the producer's name begins with the appropriate letter.

It doesn't matter how it was selected to anyone other than me, so let's talk about what the contents of the bottle actually taste like. It is a clear, bright, lemon yellow of medium intensity. On the nose there is more than a hint of ripe pear and some floral tones that give it a nice lift.

It is fruity, tasting of stone fruits such as peach and green plums. There is enough acid to make the mouth water, has a pleasing smoothness and some minerality in the finish.

The grape blend is 90% Garganega with the remaining 10% being Trebbiano di Soave. Trebbiano has many clones which are frequently named for the area in which they grow. Soave is near to Verona in the north-east of the country so is some sense is a stable mate of Valpolicella and all its variants most of which have featured in these notes at some point since September 2013.

Would I buy this again? If I knew where to get it and my price estimate is about right, yes. More importantly it makes me look forward to uncorking the other five Soaves that arrived with it and to see what the other producers can do with the same grapes.

It will be Easter next weekend, so expect something to go with a leg of lamb.

LBW

In life generally, I try to challenge my own innate prejudices and keep as open a mind as I can. I have to admit this is not always as open as it could be but I do try. I am not sure it is particularly healthy but I am one of those probably irritating people who instinctively checks electronically anything I am told, or read, that doesn't sound unshakably correct. This week, having checked that the name on the bottle was indeed referring to the famous cricketer and charity fundraiser, I was amused enough by the opportunity to title a post 'Ian' that I overcame my prejudice against celebrity wines and bought:

Week L (2015) Botham 80 Series Cabernet Sauvignon 2018. Tesco £11.

Sir Ian Botham has had a passion for wine for 40 years, it says on the bottle. Probably true, but I know people who have a passion for cricket but who would be unlikely to match this knight's performance in 1980 after which his 80 series wine is branded (a century with the bat and taking 10 wickets in one match, since you asked). That is to say having a passion for something doesn't necessarily make you any good at it. You should hear me play the banjo if you have any doubts.

Having now tasted the bottle to exhaustion I can confirm that this is a wine made by someone with both passion and skill. How much direct involvement Sir Ian has had I have no idea, but he has stuck his name on a very enjoyable bottle.

It is another of those big, bold fruit-driven wines, with high alcohol and plenty of tannin. It would certainly keep for a few years and quite probably mellow into something less, er 'Beefy'.

Not much more to say, other than it comes from Coonawarra in South Australia, but it does make me want to sample more of the Botham wines. Buy again? Why not.

Oh, incidentally, you may have noticed that above I wrote that I wanted to title this post 'Ian', it being Week I (2021), but in fact went for LBW. This is because whilst out shopping and keeping an eye open for next week's white I realised I had forgotten how the alphabet works and that I had already passed I a little while ago. This is week L (2021).  Ho hum.

Kent

The county of my birth and still home to my progeny and grand-progeny, if such an expression may be used. It was just under a week ago that we made a day trip back to the old county to meet No1 Grandson in person for the first time (socially distanced and in a public place, of course). A lovely day and a cause for celebration. He is a beautiful baby and with his parents is part of a lovely young family. Very proud.

Good things come from Kent, or so I have always believed. I have often referred to Kent as 'God's own Garden', which I consider to be a more appropriate soubriquet than merely 'Garden of England'. In either case it is a splendid garden and it in are grown all manner of excellent fruits. Apples have, of course, always been grown there and the county has long been associated with the production of hops. Are they a fruit? So that's beer and cider taken care of. As the south of England becomes warmer (not getting into the arguments about why that is) and grape growing technology and expertise continues to develop, Kent has also become a noteworthy region for the production of wines grapes.

The soils in the Weald of Kent and especially those of the North and South Downs that border it are similar to those of Northern France. We all know what come from Northern France. Yes, ok, but I wasn't thinking about cheese on this particular occasion. I was thinking about excellent Chardonnay based wines, like Chablis, Champagne and, er.....

Week K (2021) Balfour Chardonnay Ortega, Hush Heath Estate 2019. M&S £13

At least, I think it's 2019. It doesn't actually say so on the bottle as far as I can see, but neither can I find any reference to it being a non-vintage blend.

Hush Heath Estate lies near Staplehurst, famous for being the third stop beyond Tonbridge on the mainline to Dover which can be inconveniently visited after a night out in London during one's professional youth, and also one stop short of Headcorn where in 1981 I established a dinner table claim for having taken off in an aeroplane six times in my life, but having only landed in one twice. 

The estate itself sits just north of the High Weald AONB on the clay soils lying between the abovementioned Downs and has been producing wine for two decades, collecting quite a few awards along the way. Much of it is sparkling, using the classic Champagne grapes, but this week's selection is a still wine. It is a blend of Chardonnay and Ortega, a grape I have not previously encountered. Ortega is a crossing of German origin between Muller-Thurgau and Siegerrebe, both themselves crossings of other varieties including Riesling and Gewurtztraminer so it should perhaps offer some aromatic possibilities. 

On first tasting I was impressed by the intensity of flavour and by the ripeness of the fruit. It had a full body and a slightly spicy finish. I liked it. When I went back for a second glass the sweetness seemed to have increased and I was less sure about the balance, however, I manfully pressed on and decided that there was something akin to the flavours of Muscat that I rather liked. Leaving it alone for twenty-four hours or more I found on my return that it went down rather nicely with an episode or two of The Disappearance, a troubling French whodunnit which kept us guessing (correctly) until the final few minutes. The One tasted it and reacted as if she had just had an unexpected sherbet lemon, which surprised me as I hadn't noticed particularly high acidity.

All in, I think this is an interesting wine and a good example of the full-flavoured whites that are now capable of being produced in the South of England. Would I buy again? Probably.

Jip Jip Rocks

Branding is a funny thing. Or should I say, my mind is a strange place? After seven and a half years I find that I still need to follow some form of rules to help me select a wine of the week. I doubt anyone has read much of this blog and indeed being read was never its primary purpose. Its primary purpose was to be written in order to give me an incentive to keep trying and considering different wines, from as many places and producers as is reasonable. I know from experience, and as evidenced by the sometimes very lengthy gaps between posts, that if I let this discipline slide and I get out of routine then I lose touch with why I started in the first place. 

Week J (2021) Jip Jip Rocks Shirzaz. Padthaway 2019. Waitrose £11.99

What is the significance of this selection, given this week's opening paragraph, I hear no-one other than me ask? It is because that I went out expecting to buy a bottle of Julienas (I did once know how to insert the acute accent), the Beajoulais Cru made from Gamay, but couldn't find any. I like to rely on a formal appellation name on those occasions when I can't find a wine made from a grape whose name begins with the week's letter. It was as I scanned the www (that's Waitrose Wine Wall, not the other thing) feeling slightly disappointed that mentally I caught sight of myself in my internal mirror. What a strange man, I thought. 

If J can be for Julienas, why not Jip Jip Rocks? Julieans is after all just a French village and Jip Jip Rocks, according to the back label on the bottle, are 'a striking outcrop of 350 million year old pink-red granite, which are sacred in Aboriginal beliefs', which feels rather more worthy. In any case (despite Waitrose offering 25% discount on purchases of six or more bottles costing more than £5, I didn't buy a case), whatever tenuous connection there may be between the letter of the week and the wine of the week it is not important. The final selection of the bottle is of less significance than the search for it, and it is that is the purpose I set myself. Village names are brands, based on location amongst other things, and this wine is branded with a location. One that I suspect has little to do with the wine itself, but it has helped me choose a wine from Padthaway and I have not done that before. So well done me.

Having got all of that nonsense of my chest, let's find out what this wine is actually like. There are several regions in South Australia that have a reputation for producing great wines based on particular grapes: Clare Valley Riesling, Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, Barossa Shiraz, all being famous examples. Padthaway is a reasonably close neighbour to Coonawarra, in the Limestone Coast region which is further south of Adelaide than many of the well-known vineyards, and like it's neighbour has a reputation for both reds from Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz and also great whites from Chardonnay. More than half of the vineyards in Padthaway are given over to red grapes and there is about 50% more Shiraz than Cabernet, making it about a third of all the fruit grown.

I don't claim to have particularly strong blind tasting skills, but if you had asked me to taste this and then told me it was a Shiraz from South Australia I would not have fallen off my chair in surprise. It is intensely flavoured with black fruits and peppery spices, has enough acidity to stop the fruit being jammy, smooth but noticeable tannin and well-integrated alcohol even at 14.5%.  It is packaged in a big heavy bottle, which is something of questionable merit in these more eco-sensitive days, that gives the impression that the wine could reasonably spend a few years allowing the fruit, alcohol, tannin and acid to work some magic. I'll never know if that is a correct assumption as half of it has already gone and the other half would be well advised to get its affairs in order.

Would I buy again? Yes, because this gives the impression that the winemaker knows exactly how it will end up and if the occasion calls for a big well-priced Shiraz I would trust that's what I would get.