Melon de Bourgogne

Back in the 1980s & 90s I lived in Kent, only 40 minutes from the Channel ports and, later, what we used to call the 'Chunnel'. Happily that moniker has fallen from the vernacular but it still provides a very convenient way of getting to France and beyond. Even post-Brexit.

In those heady days I was a regular participant in the then fashionable 'booze-cruises', returning from either Calais or Boulogne with the back of my Volvo 940 estate loaded with, er, booze.

I always liked the idea of value for money, however, in what I now think was a misguided attempt to maximise the benefits I usually shopped at the lower end of the market. I often bought Muscadet for about ten francs a bottle. Later that became about 1 euro per bottle (2002, I think) which at Today's exchange rate would be around 83p.

That Muscadet was quite sharp and not always pleasing to my friends, but it was cheap!  Hoping for somethings better we have:

Week M (2022) Champteloup Muscadet Sevre et Maine 2020. Waitrose £9.99

Muscadet comes from the far western end of the Loire valley where the river reaches its destination in the Atlantic ocean. It is a classic match for seafood, especially shellfish, and also good as an aperitif as it is very dry, has a hint of salinity and steely apple and melon fruit flavours.

The grape itself is Melon de Bourgogne and it has that name because it first grew in Burgundy, however, it was pushed out of its home by Chardonnay and its lesser cousin, Aligote. Also by decree, in the 18th century, as it was banished by the wine police as being inferior to its usurpers. Early in that century many of the vines around the western end of the Loire were destroyed by a particularly harsh winter and so Melon de Bourgogne found a new welcome and a new home.

This bottle has not disappointed. It is a very dry white wine with the characteristics promised above and it not anything like the harsh, but cheap, plonk I invested in as a bargain hunter.

It could be that the improvement is, in part, due to this wine being 'Sur Lie', which means that after fermentation has finished the wine is allowed to rest on the dead cells of the yeast responsible for converting the fruit sugars into alcohol. These dead cells are known in English as the 'lees' and they are sometimes stirred occasionally as the wine rests to assist with the development of a softer texture in the wine.

The improvement may also be a consequence of this not being a 1 euro wine. 1 eur in 2002 is now worth about 1.4 euro, so even adding the UK's punitive alcohol duty and VAT (tax on a tax) it must cost at least the equivalent of £5 in France. Maybe it is that Muscadet is now improved by a general upgrade in the region's wines, but whatever it is, I liked this one.

Buy again? Yes.

Leyda

In discussions about potential future holidays Chile often is suggested. I hope one day that we do in fact follow up on this suggestion, not just because I appreciated the wines made there but also because like its neighbour on the other side of the Andes it has an interesting geography stretching from the world's driest desert, the Atacama, in the North right down to Tierra del Fuego, which is as close to Antarctica it is possible travel without actually going there. 

This week our wine comes from San Antonio, in Valparaiso, about halfway down:

Week L (2022) Leyda Reserva Pinot Noir 2020. Ocado £9

Halfway down Chile is a cool climate wine region, in general terms, where many of the valleys run down from the Andes towards the coastal plain. The Andes provides irrigation as the snow melts from the mountains into the Maipo river, and the valley floors are made of granitic soil with good drainage.

The Humboldt current that runs up the coast from the south brings a cooling influence, often with sea fogs in the mornings that moderate the increasingly hot afternoon temperatures and together these provide an environment which gives the grapes plenty of time to mature slowly and to develop excellent flavours.

Pinot Noir can be tricky to grow but it is well-suited to the region and, in this case, it has produced a delicate, silky wine with gentle tannin and a blend of strawberry and cherry fruits and some equally gentle spices.

As I may have mentioned before, I am a fan of Pinot Noir and enjoyed this one very much. It does not pretend to be upscale and is not as rich as some examples but pound for pound I think it punches above its weight.

In terms of weight, it is labelled as having 13.5% abv although this is not immediately apparent when I tasted (drank) it.

If my opinion isn't enough for you , and there is no reason why it should be, I offered a glass of it to The One who enjoyed it and, more than that, said so. I find this encouraging as so often I have to explore alone. That's not a complaint, it's just that there is a certain amount of guilt associated with solo drinking. Ok, I'm over it.

Buy again? Yes.

Koonunga Hill

You probably know that whereas most 'quality' wines are labeled with the date of the vintage (i.e. the year in which the grapes were picked) the majority of Champagne is not. It is a non-vintage wine. This is because some proportion of what ends up in the bottle has been held back from prior years in order to enable the blender the opportunity to produce a product that is consistent, year-on-year.

There are other ways of achieving a similar result, one of which has been adopted by the makers of:

Week K (2022) Penfolds Koonunga Hill Chardonnay 2021. Tesco £9

Penfolds have been making wine in Australia since 1844 and have an extensive range on offer. At the top end there is the famous 'Grange' which will set you back a four-figure sum (in Sterling) for a bottle and it is only by chance that I was once able to sample some. It was very good, but as I have questioned before, was it that good? I'm not sure, but it was good.

What we have here is not Grange and I only mention the expensive offering to demonstrate that this Koonunga Hill Chardonnay has been made in a specific way because that is was the producer believes at least one section of the market requires.

Consistency is the name of the game. Unlike my golf where the only thing that remains consistent are my inconsistent performances. This consistency is achieved by Penfold's 'multi-region, multi-vineyard' blending policy which means they will draw on resources from a wide variety of sites in order to find fruit that will, in the hands of a skilled blender, produce something almost exactly the same in every bottle, in every vintage.

There is definitely a market for consistency. For many products consistency, by which I mean the purchaser knows exactly what they expect and then they get it, is seen as an essential quality. I have no argument with this, but it does take away some of the enjoyment of exploration.

The wine itself is pleasant. It has plenty of warm, stone fruit flavour and a strong hint of oak. I can't be certain in the reason for my assessment, as I had read about the intended consistency before I tasted it, but although pleasant it feels a little as if it has been assembled in kit form: this much fruit, this much acidity and this much oak. 

Having said that I would buy it again, perhaps for a party where I wanted to be sure what I was serving my guests.

St Julien

We had a family gathering this weekend and much fun it was, too. We gathered to celebrate the youngest adult's 30th birthday and also, but less significantly, the oldest adult's 62nd. The start of the show was, of course, the only grandchild on whom I am extremely proud. Of the seven adults present two are tee-total, one prefers a G&T to wine, two had just spent a week skiing and 'apres-skiing' and so had limited appetites which left two. One of these two isn't a fan of red wine, so I enjoyed:

Week J (2022) Chateau Moulin de la Bridane, St Julien, 2017. Tesco £20

I bought this as it was a special occasion and so I felt justified in heading towards the top end of my usual budget. (I think there may have been a Tesco Clubcard discount, but life is too short to take notice of such things; they either are applied at the annoying self-scan terminals or they are not.)

Saint Julien is an area in the Medoc sub-region of Bordeaux and can be found on the left bank of the Gironde estuary. The Medoc is where most of the famous Clarets are produced, including some of the very biggest names such as Lafite & Margaux, although they cost more than a car to buy and, therefore, I have never tasted any of them. Saint Julien has no 'first growths' (the very top of the tree, according to the 1855 classification of Bordeaux) but does have five second growths. This is not one.

That doesn't really tell us anything about the wine, just shows how once decisions made more than 160 years ago still have power, even if technology, climate and consumer tastes may have changed in the interim. 

Moulin de Briande is made from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot, three of the classic Bordeaux varieties, by a family that has been producing wine for approaching 300 years.

Tesco recommend drinking this alongside charcuterie, red meats and cheese. I am never sure whether Gammon is considered to be a red meat, especially one that has been marinated in full-fat Coca-Cola, but to my taste it worked well. It was smooth, flavoursome with blackcurrant, blackberry and stewed red plums leading the way and backed up with a hint of cedar and tobacco.

It was good enough that I was pleased no-one else wanted to drink it, which makes me sound either mean or greedy, perhaps both, but only because I like to share some wines with others who might enjoy them. On this occasion, not in one sitting, I did that. I shared it with me.

Buy again? yes.