Etude Heirloom Carneros Pinot Noir 2006

Another shockingly bad bottle photo can mean only one thing, another wine from the Enomatic.  A great way to taste wine, but a horrible way to photograph bottles.  The next time I do such a tasting, I’ll really need to hunt down a bottle that isn’t already in the machine so as to take a slightly better photo.  But as always, this isn’t about the pictures, it’s about the wines, and sometimes the words.  With that I give you the Etude Heirloom Carneros Pinot Noir 2006.

Having written about Pinot Noirs from Australia, France, South Africa and New Zealand, it’s time to turn our attention to the U.S.A. and California in particular.  Los Carneros AVA, or Carneros as it is also known, is a region within northern California that is something of a curiosity within the legal geography of American Viticultural Areas.  I wrote a bit about AVAs when I covered the Bogle Petite Sirah, and again when I wrote about Stags’ Leap.  AVAs typically fall within a single county, in the way that a county is a part of a single state. Carneros is somewhat odd in that it covers an area that is largely within Sonoma county, but partially within Napa county.  Strictly speaking, it is not a sub-appellation of either, but producers are also entitled to use the Sonoma Valley AVA or Napa Valley AVA depending on which part of Carneros they are in.  Just as the Stags Leap AVA is defined by the unique geography within Napa, the Carneros AVA is defined by its unique climate, the first California AVA to be so defined in 1983.

That climate is moderately cool and windy, but cooler and windier than any of the surrounding area.  It is on the lowest hills of the Mayacamas range as they descend toward the San Pablo Bay, the body of water just to the north of the San Francisco Bay.  Unlike much of the rest of Napa and Sonoma, there is little to shield it from the influences of the bays, and fog is a near certainty each morning.  The soils are shallow clay with poor fertility and drainage, though the wind does prevent vineyards from becoming swamps.  Vines struggle under such conditions, which limits yields.  It also demands long ripening times, though that can increase flavour concentration within the grapes.

The region has been something of a rising star with regard to cool climate grapes over the last 30 years, but grapes were initially planted in the 1870s.  Phylloxera essentially shut down grape production in the area a decade or two later until a regeneration effort got underway in 1942 with some success.  However, this was eclipsed by the most recent increase in plantings which began in the 1970s.  Production of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay suited to the cool climate put Carneros on the map with both varietal still and blended sparkling wine.  Today, many other varieties are grown, most notably Syrah and Merlot.

It’s probably worth a paragraph to write about Pinot Noir in California.  It is a relative newcomer, as Oregon to the north staked its claim to be the Burgundy of America early on, and it wasn’t until Cabernet Sauvignon had been firmly established in northern California that some producers sought to make use of the cooler regions.  While California is geographically closer to the equator and generally warmer, it does not lack for regions with significant maritime influences.  The cooler areas of Napa and Sonoma counties, as well as areas of Mendocino county to the north and the Central Coast to the south all proved able to produce good examples, for use both as sparkling and still wine.

Etude is a modern producer, established in the 1980s by Tony Soter.  He works with winemaker Jon Priest and viticulturalist Franci Ashton to produce wines of both the Carneros and Napa Valley AVAs.  In the vineyard, blocks are based on the underlying soil rather than on efficient grids.  (That said, looking at the satellite pictures, I see lots of straight lines dividing blocks.)  Unlike most of the surrounding area, the soils themselves are of volcanic origin, and well drained.  Their vineyards are mainly Pinot Noir plantings, which encompass almost twenty different clones, including ten less popular and lower yielding heirloom varieties.  They source Cabernet Sauvignon and other varieties from local growers.  In addition to a range of Pinot Noirs (including a rosé) and Cebernet Sauvignons, they have a Pinot Gris, a Pinot Blanc, a Chardonnay and a Malbec.  Their winemaking practices are non-interventionist, so as to highlight their terroir and vineyard practices.

I had not tried a wine from or even heard of Etude before this wine, but from looking through their website they strike me as quirky.  To support such a claim, I put forth two pieces of evidence.  First, they make a brandy from Pinot Noir.  Of course, you may ask,  brandy is made from wine, and what better to use to make a fine brandy than a fine wine?  Except it doesn’t work like that.  Fine brandy, such as Cognac and Armagnac, are made from grapes such as Ugni Blanc and Colombard.  While those grapes can be made into table wine, they are easy to grow, they give generous yields, and are not typically thought of as noble.  Pinot Noir is the opposite on all counts.  You get more value from an Ugni Blanc wine that has been distilled into a brandy than you do from the wine required.  With Pinot Noir, the opposite is true.  So really, making brandy from Pinot Noir is just quirky.  I want to say it’s just wrong, but I’m sure they justify it by saying that they only use the grapes not fit for their wines to make brandy.

Second, they employ a falconer.  A quick tangent to South Africa is required.  I had the pleasure of visiting Constantia, the home of Vin de Constance, one of the most famous sweet wines in the world.  On a tour of the vineyards, our host pointed out what looked to be telephone poles planted amongst the vines.  He then told us that they put them up to attract Steppe Buzzards, a raptor that winters in South Africa and is useful in eating pests that might otherwise eat grapes or vines.  Etude does not leave such things to the whims of migratory flying predators.  Instead they employ a falconer and his/her trained falcons to attack starlings that might want to eat their grapes as they ripen.  Being a carnivore myself, I have no problem with animals eating other animals, but it’s a quirkly middle ground between using bird scarers and a shotgun.

So that’s the region, the grape and the producer, leaving only what’s in the glass.  It’s clear and bright with a medium minus ruby colour and quick legs.  On the nose it’s savoury, green funk and pizza spice – oregano and other dried herbs.  There are also some fresh strawberries.  It show development but isn’t fully developed, and has medium plus intensity.  On the palate I get the berries first – strawberries and sweet red cherries, but also some ash and a bit of pencil lead.  It’s dry, with medium plus acidity, medium plus intensity, medium body, medium fine tannins, and medium plus alcohol.  It’s slightly short with a medium minus length.

While I don’t have a great breadth of Californian Pinot Noir experience against which to compare it, I am confident in classifying this a very good wine.  It has a good balance between fresh fruit and more savoury developed characters.  The acidity is holding up nicely while the tannins are fine and undoubtedly have softed over the years this has spend in bottle.

Corte Normanna Falanghina Sannio DOC 2007

With a pair of Australian reds back to back, it’s time to go a bit further afield.  While you can expect tastings of whited to lessen in frequency as the chill sets in, and rosé wines may not be seen for months, it would be unreasonable to exclusively drink reds until spring arrives.  (Yes, I’m in the Southern Hemisphere.)  So today it’s a wine from somewhere that’s fairly warm already, the south of Italy, with this Corte Normanna Falanghina Sannio DOC 2007.

As I’ve said before, I find Italy both fascinating and confounding for the sheer variety of regions and varieties.  I will never more than scratch the surface of its vast complexity, but with each wine and region I know a little more than I did, so it keeps me coming back.

Speaking of which, we’re back in Campania, which is in the southern half of the country, and we’re about midway between Rome and the instep of the boot.  We were last here with a Greco di Tufo, but this time we’re in Sannio DOC which is a geographically much bigger area just to the north of Greco di Tufo.  This masterful level of geographic information is straight off the De Long’s Wine Map of Italy, available from Vinodiversity.

The climate of Sannio is similar, if not identical, to Tufo, classic Mediterranean with plenty of sunshine.  (I have seen central parts of the region described as more continental, but in this part of Italy it’s difficult to be more than 70km from the Mediterranean or the Adriatic so I’m not convinced.)  The geography is hilly, and the DOC specification gives some particularly detailed descriptions of the geology, with dolomite and limestone rock sediments on the surface in some areas and clay and sandstone sediments in others, with soft rock underneath.

Falanghina is a local white grape, believed to be the grape of the Falerian wine which was all the rage in ancient Rome.  It’s name is thought to be taken from falangae, the Latin term for stakes in the vineyard for holding up vines.  It is little known outside of Italy, and even as an exported wine it is typically overshadowed by the two big Campanian white grapes, Greco Blanc and Fiano.  However, with modern winemaking enabling better preservation of its fresh aromas, there has been increased interest in it.  That said, I can’t find anyone who has planted it outside of Italy, so it hasn’t quite hit the big time.

As a grape, it is found in compact clusters of round berries which are typically covered in bloom.  The skins are thick, and of a yellow-gray colour.  It ripens from September through October.  The vines are vigourous with average yields.  It makes wines with a light body and moderate to high acidity.

Corte Normanna is a family owned producer based just south of the town of Guardia Sanframondi in the Sannio region and run by the brothers Gaetano and Alfredo Falluto.  Founded in 1927 by a previous Gaetano Falluto, the company left the local cooperative winery in 1984 to set up their own production, with their first exports in 1997.  The name is a nod to normal lords, the Sanframondos, who ruled the area from 1138 until 1460.  They produce a range of products from locally grown grapes and olives.  Their red wines are primarily Aglianico, with two varietal bottlings and two blends.  They produce dry Fiano, Greco Blanc, and three styles of Falanghinas –  a sweet passito dessert wine, and a charmant method sparkler in addition to this dry, still wine.  They also distill grappas and press olive oils.

In the glass this wine is clear and bright, with a medium straw colour, and a thin, quick film (as opposed to legs).  On the nose, it’s clean, with a medium intensity (very closed initially) and aromas of yellow flower, honeycomb, lemon, and initially a slight nuttiness, though less later.  It shows some development, but not fully developed.  On the palate it’s dry, with medium plus intensity, medium minus acidity, medium plus alcohol, medium plus body, and medium length.  It has nutty notes, lemon preserves, and a bit of zest and minerality.  It had a clean finish.

I’ve said before it’s difficult to judge quality with a wine variety and region that are unfamiliar, so it’s best to fall back to the formula of balance, concentration, complexity, length.  (Typicity is part of the formula, but alas, not useful in this case.)  It’s reasonably well balanced, though lacking acidity relative to its other qualities.  It isn’t short on concentration with good intensity and alcohol.  It has good complexity with both fruit and developed characters coming through, and the length was fine.  I’m going to put this in the good category, though I would have liked more freshness either from a younger vintage or more acidity.

In terms of personal enjoyment, I really did like this wine.  It’s a new variety for me, from an unfamiliar region, and as something of an unknown it did not disappoint.  Well matched with fish or chicken, it carried the meal with which I paired it, and I’d be happy to have another bottle.

Coriole Vineyards Vita Reserve Sangiovese 2007

I just had a quick look to count how many Sangioveses I’ve tried recently, and was surprised to find none listed.  I have mentioned the variety a few times, and I know I’ve tasted it within the last five months, but clearly have been slacking in terms of writing about it.  For some reason I always clump it together with Tempranillo, another grape I enjoy but rarely pursue because there are so many lesser known varieties in both Italy and Spain that I have yet to explore.  Fortunately, I have the opportunity today to put that right, and to talk a bit about a winery I like with this Coriole Vineyards Vita Reserve Sangiovese 2007.

Sangiovese is a cornerstone grape of fine wines of Tuscany, and indeed the most widely planted red grape throughout the entire country.  While the literal translation is “Blood of Jove” the origins of the grape are now thought to be much more modern, perhaps as recent as the 18th century.  Despite what could be a recent genesis, it has managed to build up an impressive collection of pseudonyms across Italy.  One familiar name is Brunello, which as a varietal is made into Brunello di Montalcino, though it is more commonly part of a blend as it is used in Chianti.  It also is typically a part of Supertuscans, which are a class of wines made in Tuscany but outside the DOC/G guidelines and often including international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon.  Further south in Italy, it is prized often more for its ability to deliver quantity rather than quality.

As a grape, it ripens slowly and only comes to full ripeness very late in the season.  It is thin-skinned and susceptible to rot under cold, wet conditions which can sometimes coincide with the end of the growing season.  When fully ripe with controlled yields, the wines can produce structure which will allow for extended ageing, but without sufficient heat the acidity and tannins can make the wine nigh undrinkable.  The many names for the grape throughout Italy represent not just local nomenclature but also different clones, and modern research has been focused on matching them with terroir, viticulture, and winemaking techniques to make the most of this highly variable grape.

Outside of Italy, it’s something of an emerging variety in parts of the New World.  It has a following within California, and plantings have expanded rapidly over the last twenty years, driven in part by an interest in the Supertuscans.  Within Australia it has had similar success with plantings from the early 1990s now mature and use of the grape fairly widespread across more than 200 producers and most major regions..  However, much of the Sangiovese planting was done without the benefit of the more recent research, particularly to do with clonal selection, so there is almost certainly room for improvement.

Coriole Vineyards, owned and run by the Lloyd family, has been working with Sangiovese since 1985, possibly the first in Australia to do so.  While the structures on their property date to the 1860s and the original vines were first planted nearly a hundred years ago, Coriole released their first wine, a Shiraz, in 1970.   While Shiraz remains the majority of their plantings, they have expanded conventionally into Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay (Adelaide Hills), Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.  However, Coriole Vineyards are at least as well known for the range of Italian varieties, including Barbera, Nebbiolo (Adelaide Hills), Sagrantino, Fiano, and this Sangiovese, which are largely used for varietals.  However, when I think of Coriole my first thought is always of their Chenin Blanc.  I took an interest in the variety after visiting South Africa, and was pleased to find that Coriole produces not just a standard varietal, but also an excellent reserve wine they call The Optimist.  Unless otherwise noted, all the wines I mentioned are from McLaren Vale, but they also produce a Fiano from an Adelaide Hills vineyard (in addition to the one they produce in McLaren Vale).

I have written about McLaren Vale in terms of climate and soil, and the Italian influence, so I hope I can be forgiven for having nothing much to add to it at this time.  However, a few words about this wine in particular are in order.  Coriole has a few reserve wines, two Shirazes, a Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot blend, the Optimist Chenin Blanc.  Most of them are made fairly regularly, but this wine, the Vita, has only been released once prior to this year back in 1998.  There’s not a great deal of technical information available about how this specific wine was made, but Coriole generally uses open fermenters of either stainless steel or wax lined concrete.  They hand plunge, and for Sangiovese they use older oak for maturation.  This wine was in barrel or tank for roughly two years after vintage, followed by another three in bottle before I almost immediately took it right out.

In the glass, this wine is clear and bright with a dark brick red colour, lightening to garnet at the rim.  It has quick legs of a pale garnet colour.  On the nose it’s clean and developing, with medium intensity and notes of Mexican hot chocolate, some strawberries and cherries, and some iodine.  The palate is dry, with medium plus fine tannins, medium plus acidity, medium minus body, medium alcohol, and medium plus flavour intensity.  The palate delivers what the nose promised in terms of chocolate and sweet spice, though the fruit is more tart – more cranberries and pomegranate than strawberries or cherries.  There’s some earthiness, particularly on the finish, though more chocolate mud pie earthiness than actual dirt.

This is a very good wine, and what I believe to be a fine example of a varietal Sangiovese, though I admit to not being as well versed with the grape as I would like.  It certainly has a great deal going on as far as flavours, and I like how the acidity changes the fruit I perceived on the nose to what I tasted on the palate.  I was prepared for this to be very austere as I took my first sip of a bottle that had been decanted an hour earlier, and it was that, but as I sit here writing my notes four hours after, the wine has really opened up and is much more giving on the palate.  As with yesterday’s Moss Wood, I am probably drinking this wine far too young, and it will potentially be a much more rewarding experience in another decade.  However, I’m not regretting my choice for this evening, provided I can find another bottle to stick in the cellar.

Moss Wood Vineyards Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

I had a call from Moss Wood Vineyards last week.  I thought they might be asking me to review some wines from Western Australia, as I’ve been woefully negligent, but it turns out they were looking to sell me a case or two of a recent vintage.  I wanted to buy some, but I need to sort out my cellar before I buy anything in six or twelve bottle quantities, so I had to say thank you but no.  However, I greatly enjoy their wines and have a magnum of their wine that I’m sure will be the high point of a party at some point soon.  So a day later, I ended up buying this bottle, the Moss Wood Vineyards Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2008, and I hope in some small way it will make up for not buying a case of the 2009 over the phone.

It’s past due that I write about something from Western Australia.  There’s no shortage of good wines, and in fact WA (as we tend to call it here) punches significantly above its weight in terms of international awards relative to the other states.  I think it’s largely down to my quest for interesting new varietals hasn’t really taken me to WA as the alternative grape wines there are don’t seem to make it to South Australia.  But rather than focus on why I haven’t been writing about WA, how about I start writing.

Western Australia is the biggest state in terms of landmass and fourth in population, but it has less than 5% of the grape crush.  Despite that, it grabbed almost 15% of the awards for Australia at the 2011 Decanter World Wine Awards.  So while as with all of Australia, there’s a range of quality levels across producers, WA is certainly doing well in quality.

Western Australia at present has nine wine regions, the best known of which is the home of our wine today, Margaret River.  It’s roughly 250km south of Perth just in from the coast in the southwestern corner of Australia.  It’s a temperate Mediterranean climate with maritime influences from the Indian and Southern Oceans.  Winters are wet but mild, summers warm and dry. The geography is gently hilly, and the soils are generally decomposed granite gravel loams with little organic matter.  Grapes were first planted in any quantity in 1967, and while the region is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, Semillon is more widely planted than either.  There are also significant areas of Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz and Merlot vines.

I’ve managed to taste eight wines made from Cabernet Sauvignon, three of them straight varietals, without saying much meaningful about the grape, even to cover the basics, so I’ll do that now, though I feel a bit silly doing so given that it’s the most famous grape in the world.  It is a dark, thick-skinned grape with an extremely high pip to pulp ratio.  It ripens late, and can give high yields if not carefully managed.  The thick skin provides good resistance to most diseases, though it is still vulnerable to powdery mildew.  Its home is generally considered to be the Left Bank in Bordeaux, though as my tasting history shows, it can be found throughout the world.  It is thought to prefer gravel-based soils, which can both provide additional heat required for full ripeness and can help to limit yields.  It can produce wines of great concentration, which can stand up to both oak and in some cases decades of ageing.  In Bordeaux, as well as many places making wine in that style, it’s often blended with some combination of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

I had the pleasure of visiting Moss Wood on a trip to Margaret River a few years ago.  They have no cellar door, but my wife was invited there on business and I got to tag along.  (Yet another reason it’s better I maintain my secret identity.)  It was not a large operation, though like many Margaret River producers, their small volume is offset by their high quality.  I was reading through their history and for some reason it sounded extremely familiar, and as it turns out, for good reason.  It was founded by Bill and Sandra Pannell in the late 1960s as the second winery in Margaret River.  The Pannell name is familiar because one of their sons, Stephen Pannell, led a tasting I attended back in April.

Moss Wood operates two vineyards, Moss Wood and Ribbon Vale, just over 18HA in total, and from which they produce different labels.  They’re both unirrigated, hand pruned and hand picked, as are the handful of other local vineyards from whom Moss Wood source fruit.  Plantings include Cabernet Sauvignon, Semillon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Merlot, with tiny amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.  In addition to the Moss Wood and Ribbon Vale labels, they also produce a line called Amy’s Wines and a Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir that they travel to Victoria to make.  And while this wine says Cabernet Sauvignon on the front label, it also contains Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

In the glass, this wine is clear and bright, with an opaque core, ruby rim, and quick, thin legs.  The nose is clean, with medium plus intensity, a developing character, and perfumed, with lots of red berries, but not so much the cassis one might expect.  It’s more soft skinned fruit, some toasty oak, and sweet spice (cinnamon and cloves).  It’s much more a Cabernet Sauvignon on the palate, with rich chocolate, cranberry, black currant, pencil shavings, and a hint of ash.  It’s dry with medium plus acidity, medium body, medium plus alcohol, medium soft tannins, medium plus flavour intensity, and a long length with pencil shavings and chocolate finish.

This is a very good wine – full of flavour and complexity, and very fresh at four years old.  The tannins area already softening, so it’s fine to drink it now, but the acidity is strong enough that I’m sure it will reward those with the patience to wait a decade.

Chateau Bouscassé Jardins 2008

One of the better wine merchants in my area has a section near their checkout register where they put wines that are moving especially slowly.  I think they may have had a buyer who liked the esoteric, but perhaps their customers didn’t share his tastes.  I, on the other hand, love getting to try something rare and unusual, even if it means I have no idea what to expect.  At least three past posts, the German Silvaner, the Swiss Chasselas and the Burgundian Sauvignon Blanc, all came from that area, and I’m adding another to that list with this Château Bouscassé Jardins 2008.

The front label has the name of the producer, wine and vintage, but it’s otherwise opaque to those without prior knowledge.  Some quick research revealed this to be a varietal Petit Courbu from Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Sec.  That clears up everything, right?  Actually it does, though looking back at my study guide from the WSET Diploma, we are officially beyond the syllabus, but not by much.

First, the nearly familiar.  Yesterday was a Tannat from Uruguay, and I mentioned that it is associated with the southwest of France, in particular Madiran.  Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Sec is the AOC in the Madiran region for white wines.  (Without the Sec it is another AOC for sweet white wines.)  It has the same geographic footprint as Madiran, so why it isn’t just Madiran Blanc is a mystery to me.

As I said, Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh / Madiran is the southwest of France, about 60km from the border with Spain and 120km from the Atlantic, or about twice that if you head in the opposite direction toward the Mediterranean.  The geography is dominated by hills with clay and limestone being the major soil types.  The climate is generally considered continental, though the Atlantic does provide a moderating, if distant, influence.  Hot days and cool nights are the norm in the summer, autumns are dry, and winters are cold and dry.  While Tannat and partners to blend with it dominate the area, the whites that make up  Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh are predominantly Corbu and Petit Manseng, with Gros Manseng, Sauvignon Blanc, Arrufiac being permitted in smaller quantities.

Courbu is slightly less than familiar, but it’s a family of grapes of the southwest of France.  The AOC documentation I found just lists Courbu as a grape without being more specific, but I believe within Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Petit Courbu is the grape in question.  Courbu Blanc is a separate grape, though generally found closer to and within Spain.  There’s also a Courbu Noir though it is thought to be nearly extinct.

Petit Courbu is light skinned and its name translates to “little curved one” which could refer to the small bunches or the grapes themselves.  It can give high yields, but is susceptible to grey rot.  It’s used in the region to make both sweet and dry wines, but is not well travelled beyond that.

The region surrounding the French / Spanish is rich in local varieties, but in terms of grapes I’m finding it something of a difficult area to understand.  We encountered this when I wrote about the Getariako Txakolina where the white grape of that wine can be called Hondarribi Zuri, Hondarrabi Zuri, or Ondarrabi Zuri depending on where you are on a particularly stretch of road, and not a long road at that.  It doesn’t get any better when you take the border crossing into account, as Petit Corbu is sometimes known as Hondarrabi Zuri Zerratie in Spain, which is not the same as Hondarrabi Zuri Zalla, also known as Courbu Blanc in France.  To further complicate things, there may have been a variety of Hondarrabi Zuri which was actually a North American hybrid grape called Noah.  There are conflicting accounts online as to which grape is which, all the more confused by the fact that you can say Courbu or Hondarrabi Zuri and mean several different grapes for each.  Jancis Robinson should have a big book of grape varieties published sometime in the next year, and I’m really hoping that it clear up some of this.

One other thing I would like cleared up relates perhaps a bit more directly to this wine.  I found the French legal document that lays our the rules for the Vic-Bihl Pacherenc of Sec AOC, and in terms of grapes it specifies that Petit Manseng and Petit Courbu must be at least 60% of the blend, but neither may be more than 80%.  (Note, Google translate replaces Petit Courbu with “curvatures”.)  Then I have the technical sheet for this wine from the Brumont website which says that this wine is 100% Petit Courbu.  Is that why the front label doesn’t really have much to say about the wine?  It could be that it’s not an AOC wine, or it could be that the technical sheet relates to a different vintage, or I might just not understand the AOC rules.

In any case, researching this wine and grape has left me with at least as many questions as answers.  About midway through my Diploma I started to think that the factual part of the course wasn’t all that bad.  Of course, there are many, many things that one is expected to know, but the vast majority of it could just be memorized.  So if you could rattle off the location, climate, soil, grapes grown, types of wine produced and some example producers for 1,000 regions, and then list the colour, when it buds, when it ripens,  how it yields, to what is it susceptible, what type of wine it makes, some example producers, and where it’s made for a couple of hundred grapes, that was that.  Yes, quite a big pile of flashcards, but it was all knowable.  However, while I don’t really have even a small percentage of that information at ready access in my brain, I’m finding that even if I did, that’s not enough.

There are in fact many things that are not known, or at least not well known, within the study of wine.  DNA profiling will continue to show that varieties believed to be unrelated are in fact the same thing.  It will also do the opposite and reveal that what might have been thought to be a uniform variety is actually partially one variety and partially another.  On top of that, things are always changing.  Varieties are being planted in places far from their origins, new techniques are being pioneered in terms of viticulture and winemaking, laws and regulations are constantly being changed, and new ventures are springing up left and right.  It could be a bit depressing if your goal was really to be on top of everything there is to know, but I quite like the fact that it’s a moving target.  In truth, I’ll probably never be able to rattle off details for a thousand regions, but I’ll never get bored trying to keep up.

So to get back on the topic of this wine in particular, just a quick word in an already overly long post.  The producer, Alain Brumont, is worth a full post on his own, but I’ll give you the quick summary.  He’s an extremely innovative producer, and had almost single-handedly returned Madiran to the wine world from obscurity.  Having worked in Bordeaux in the 1970s, he returned to Madiran determined to make fine wine that expressed the unique terroir of the region.  In particular he worked with Tannat which was an unfashionable grape of an unfashionable region.  He has rehabilitated derelict vineyards under organic practices, with high vine density and native varietals.  In addition to Château Bouscassé he also runs Château Montus and a venture in Gascogne.

Finally, I need to talk about this wine itself.  In the glass it’s clear and bright, medium lemon green colour with quick legs.  On the nose it’s clean, with medium plus intensity, a developing character, and lime, lemon curd, yoghurt, capsicum, and sunflower notes.  On the palate it’s dry, with medium plus acidity, medium plus body, full flavour intensity, medium plus length, and medium alcohol.  It has an interesting texture – something fuller than oily, but not sure what that is.  Flavour notes were lime, a hint of salt, green apple, white pepper, and creamy yoghurt.  It had a fair whack of oak, but it’s not that shavings flavour you get from new oak.

This is a very good wine.  It has loads of character, with great intensity and a curious texture.  It’s a very robust white, and I’m sure could handle a few more years in the cellar without any trouble at all.

Atlántico Sur Single Vineyard Tannat 2007

In addition to living in close proximity to a number of them, I’ve had the pleasure of travelling overseas to quite a few beautiful wine regions. I managed an overnight excursion to Uruguay as part of a trip that was otherwise spent in Argentina and Chile, and I’m very glad I did.  We visited three wineries, and while each was lovely, the reception we received at Juanico was particularly nice, even if our host seemed a bit more taken with my wife than perhaps I would have preferred.  Alas, the hazards of being married to someone lovely.  I flirted with a charming woman a few cellar doors later, so everything worked out.  All these memories came back when my wife and I shared this bottle from Establicimiento Juanicó, the Atlántico Sur Single Vineyard Tannat 2007.

Uruguay, the smallest country in South America, is nestled right in between Argentina and Brazil, with its capital Montevideo a short ride across the Rio de La Plate from Buenos Aires by ferry.  Before I arrived, all I knew of it was the tale of the Admiral Graf Spee, and pleasingly I was rewarded by spotting the rangefinder of the same from the taxi between the ferry terminal and the hotel in Montevideo.

You can’t visit a site about the wines of Uruguay without seeing a map that shows how the country is at the same latitude as slightly better known wine producing areas in Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Australia.  (Very few show that this translates to North Africa in the Northern Hemisphere, but never mind.)  The climate is temperate maritime with a significant Atlantic influence as wineries tend to be in the south of the country, in the hills just north of the capital, though there are areas under vine throughout the country.  The soils in the south are clay loam and limestone, becoming more rocky the further north you go.

Uruguay is not what you’d call a huge player on the world wine scene, but they’re certainly managing to carve out a niche.  Producers tend to be small and family owned, and they’re putting an emphasis on quality exports instead of trying to win market share with the lowest prices.  The biggest way in which they’ve made their mark in the trade is with Tannat.

Tannat is a red grape that is generally associated with the Basque region of the southwest of France, and forms the basis of the red wines of Madiran.  I wrote a bit about it when I covered the Pertaringa Tannat, but with regards to Uruguay, the grape arrived in 1870 with Basque settlers and has found a new home.  It can be argued that it prefers the warmer climate to that of France, but more importantly the grape has been appreciated and developed to a much greater extent (though you certainly can find the rare innovator working with Tannat in France, but more on that later in the week).  Tannat is made in a number of styles in Uruguay, from traditional varietals  with oak treatment, through blends with everything from Shiraz to Pinot Noir, and even fortified wines.  It’s seen as softer than classic Madiran Tannat.  It constitutes approximately a third of all vines in Uruguay, and it generally considered the national grape, in much the way that Malbec is now at least as associated with Argentina as it is with Cahors.

Establicimiento Juanicó is run and owned by the Deicas family, with three generations sharing the responsibilities.  The company was founded by Don Francisco Juanico in 1830, though it was reborn under Juan Carlos Deicas in 1979.  After more than a decade of investment and renovation, as well as research into what grapes and winemaking would best suit the terroir, they started producing their first wine for export.  They were the first producer of Uruguay to export in quantity to the UK and have grown to the point that some of their wine even makes it to Australia.  If they’re not the biggest producer in Uruguay, they’re certainly one of the biggest.  They maintain 240HA under vine and have another 150HA under contract with local growers.  They practices the principles of organic farming, though it’s not clear if they’re certified.  Their winemaking approach is very modern, with steel and epoxy-lined concrete tanks for ferments, French and American oak, and modern winery machinery.  They employ micro-oxygenation for some of their reds, with whole bunch pressing and barrel ferments for some of their whites.

The company produces several lines of wines, with Tannat featuring prominently across each.  The major (and some minor) international varieties are represented both in terms of red and white grapes, as well as Marselán, a modern French cross of Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache.  Blends, varietals, single vineyard, and even single barrel wines are produced, as well as a number of sparklers, a botrytisized blend, and a fortified Tannat done in the style of Port.

Unfortunately, I can’t find this wine within their portfolio on their otherwise excellent website.  What I can tell you is that it is part of the Atlántico Sur, or South Atlantic, range of single vineyard wines, of which there are also Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc releases.  One source indicated this wine is from the Paysandú Region though that is all the information I was able to dig up.  Alas, I don’t have the bottle to check the back label, but I can tell you what I found in my glass.

This wine had a dark ruby core, but a bit of brick on the rim.  When swirled it had thick legs with some brick colour to them.  On the nose it was full of luscious red fruit, milk chocolate, and sweet spice with medium plus intensity and a developing character.  On the palate it was dry, with medium plus tannins, medium acidity, medium plus body, full flavour intensity, and medium plus alcohol with notes of cocoa, red cherries, red currants, and some coffee.  It had a long length.

This was a full wine, with big fruit, but also developed notes.  It had lots of flavour – it just keeps giving.  While it wasn’t overly tannic, I think it would do well with more time in the bottle, though with decanting it was fairly approachable.  I would classify this as a good to very good wine, and I look forward to cracking open one of the Juanicó wines I carried back with me from Uruguay at some point in the future.

Barossa Muster M Barossa Valley Mataro 2007

In an ideal world, I’d be happy with each of my posts, with the amount of effort that went into each and the reward I feel when each is finished.  In truth though, I have at times written about wines which didn’t excite me, and which didn’t advance my cause of covering a wealth of different grapes, regions, and producers.  However, today I get to write about a new grape and a producer I like, and so I am approaching this post as though the reward is in the writing, not in the having written.  And the wine for today is the Barossa Muster M Barossa Valley Mataro 2007.

Grape names are a funny thing.  While cultivation of varieties through the use of cuttings rather than seeds has quite ancient origins, the ability to distinguish different varieties, either at the vine or grape level, has only recently (19th century) become a science, Ampelography.  It is only more recently still, around 1985 thanks to DNA profiling, that it has become something of an exact science.  Prior to that many grape varieties made their way around the world, often picking up local names wherever they settled.  I can understand that when varieties change countries, so Pinot Noir of France is Pinot Nero in Italy, but when it went to Germany they dropped the Pinot and called it the late grape from Burgundy, Spätburgunder.  In Austria and Switzerland the emphasis is on the fact that it’s a blue grape, so there it is called Blauburgunder.  Where it gets particularly confusing though is where the same grape goes by a different name from region to region, or town to town.  There are more synonyms for Tempranillo in Spain than you could shake a stick at, and Sangiovese is the same in Italy.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, there is an effort to have the grape Prosecco renamed Glera if it is used in wine from outside of the Prosecco regions, which I think is more than a little silly.

This wine is called M because they couldn’t decide if they should go with Mataro, Mouvèdre or Monastrell, though they did go with Mataro on the back label, hence its place in the title of this post.  Mataro is the name for the grape associated with Australia, so I’ll stick with it throughout this post, but Mouvèdre is generally how it is known in France where it is found in wines in the south, including Provence, the Rhône, Languedoc and Roussillon. Monastrell is its most common name within Spain.

As a grape, it is red with small berries and thick skins.  It needs a great deal of sun and heat to ripen, which it does very late. It has traditionally delivered uneven yields, though clonal selection has helped with that.  It delivers high levels of alcohol, tannins and acidity, and is frequently part of a blend with Grenache, both in France and Spain.

Barossa Muster is a producer I know largely through their parent company, Muster Wine & Spirit Co.  They produce the Barossa Muster wines and a line of Italian styled wines,  but more importantly (to me at least) they distribute a range of wines, most of them brought in from overseas.  So the Bogle, Muga, Furst, and Camino Del Inca wines I’ve written about were all distributed by Muster.  So was my very first post, the Goats Do Roam, though it doesn’t seem to be in their catalogue at the moment.

Unfortunately, while I do really like Muster, there isn’t a huge amount of information available about the wine production side of their business.  They produce five wines under the Barossa Muster label, a Shiraz, a Tempranillo, a fortified Pedro Ximenez, and a fortified tawny, as well as this Mataro.  They also have two Allsorts wines, a red and a white, each a blend of few grape varieties available in the Barossa.  It appears they buy in their fruit from northern Barossa vineyards from low yielding sites, but there’s not much detail as to the operation so I’m guessing it’s contract made for them.

This is the third wine from the Barossa I’ve covered, so ideally I should have said all there is to say, but looking over my past posts I haven’t really covered the basics.  It’s a warm, Mediterranean climate, with little rain during the growing season and relatively mild but often wet winters.  Irrigation of vines is common.  The area has some of the oldest vines in the world, often over a century and some older still, as South Australia was not hit with phylloxera.  While everyone in Barossa claims their vines are on some hillside or another, the valley as a whole is very flat, though some of the surrounding hills are under vine.  The soil has low fertility, and ranges from clay loam to a variety of sandy soils.  The acidity of the soil increases with depth, which puts a cap on vigor.

While culturally Barossa was settled largely by German immigrants, the grapes and wine styles owe more to the Rhône.  Shiraz and Grenache, along with Mataro, form the wines for which the region is best known.  While the region has a wide range of varieties under vine, the iconic wine of Australia could be said to be Barossa Shiraz.

That was the grape, producer and region, so all that leaves us is what’s in the glass.  It’s clear and bright, with deep ruby colour, purple rim, and thin, pale, purple legs.  On the nose it’s clean, developing, with medium plus intensity, and notes of plum/prune, blackberry, sweet spice, some oak and a bit of chocolate.  On the palate it’s dry, with high acidity, medium plus alcohol, high mouth coating tannins, medium body, and high flavour intensity.  The palate matches the nose with prune, blackberries, and chocolate, as well as some black pepper, and a hint of vanilla on the finish.  It has a medium length.

This is very aggressive wine, but of good quality.  It’s interesting as a varietal, as I more typically only see Mataro as a contributing player in a blend.  I would have guessed Carignan given the attack.  It’s pretty overwhelming on its own, but it worked really well with a full-on beef and pepper stew.  It absolutely needs food, and I don’t say that often.  It’s not a subtle wine.  I’d be curious to see if age will teach it any manners, but I did enjoy it as a five year old.

Pin in the map is for their P. O. Box in Tanunda, as I don’t have any other address.

Domaine Mittnacht Freres Riesling Les Fossiles 2010

As I type this, there is nothing French on the front page, even if you scroll all the way to the bottom, though I’m sure no one has done that ever.  There is another French wine in the queue, but it’s going to be something of a bear to put together, so instead I’m going with the more straightforward option, a wine I recently had by the glass, the Domaine Mittnacht Freres Riesling Les Fossiles 2010.

Or so I thought.  As is common in many wine growing areas, the family name is not such a good unique identifier.  I started out my research looking at Domain Mittnacht-Klack, which may or may not be from the same family tree, but which is certainly not the same producer.

Instead, Mittnacht Frères was formed in 1963 when two brothers, André and Louis Mittnacht combined their vineyards.  The production is now run by two cousins, Christophe and Marc Mittnacht.  If only the vignerons of Burgundy had been able to do the same under the rule of Napoleon we wouldn’t have to remember two dozen different producers for each little clos within the Nuits-Saint-Georges.  Their vineyards are biodynamic, which seems to be a recurring bugbear in this blog.  They don’t appear to have a website, so apologies as to the paucity of details – the back label on their bottle lists an email address instead.

One of the great things about the Where I’m Drinking page is that I can just zoom into a region and look for the pins indicating producers I’ve featured.  I had a look at Alsace and was somewhat surprised that I’ve only written a proper post about a single producer, The Furst Pinot Blanc.  I think I was somewhat traumatized by our tasting practices when our tutor poured us an off-dry Domaine Zind-Humbrecht Pinot Blanc, which seemed to come from another world and completely put me off Alsace.  I think I guessed Vinho Verde based on the light, sweet taste and bubbles in my glass, but they were due to age, not fermentation.

The basics are that it’s a cool region in the east of France near the border with Germany.  In fact, the area has swapped between German and French governance, and culturally it’s somewhere in the middle.  You’ll often find people there with Germanic surnames but French sounding given names.  The area is defined by the slopes of the Vosges mountain range to the west and the Rhine river to the east.  There are vineyards running up the slopes and along the flats.  While the climate is cool continental, the weather arrives from the west, and the mountains provide a rain shadow, making winters more mild than they would be otherwise.  The slopes, as well as those of the foothills, allow vineyards to be planted in a way that maximizes sunlight for ripening.  Geologically, the area is part of the Rhine Graben, of the Rhine River Valley, which is essentially a rift in the crust where what became the Vosges moved away from what is now the Black Forest to the east.  As a result, the geology of the area is highly varied, with everything from granite, quartz, and sandstone on the upper slopes to clay and calcareous marl on the lower slopes and whatever has washed down on the plains.  There’s also volcanic influences dating back 15 million years.  Really it’s better to talk about the geology specific to a vineyard or at least a village, but unfortunately I don’t have that information with respect to this wine.

With regard to wine and winemaking, the region is well known for a number of reasons.  Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris and Auxerrois Blanc top the league charts in overall plantings, with Pinot Noir being the fifth overall and the most widely planted red grape, but none are more than 25% of the total.  Sylvaner and Pinot Blanc round out the top seven, after which the percentages drop off significantly.  Most wine is made as varietal, and unusually for France, grape varieties are usually indicated on the front label.  Bottles are required to be the tall, shoulderless bottles most commonly associated with Riesling.  The region is covered by an AC for still wine, and there is an Alsace Grand Cru AC though as with all such ratings with any fluidity, it is highly controversial, and in Alsace it is not does not seem to be regarded with the level of respect given to the rankings within the Left Bank or Burgundy.  There is no vin de pays for Alsace, so non AC wines are vin de table.  Most wines are dry, though some retain sweetness stylistically, there are late harvest and botritized wines as well, and even ice wine.  In addition, Cremant d’Alsace is also produced, for which Chardonnay may be used, though it is not permitted in still AC wines.

I’ve written a bit about Riesling when I covered the Pikes Clare Valley Riesling in February, and the only thing I’d like to add is that Alsatian Rieslings are meant to have higher alcohol and than their German counterparts, and more body than Australian versions.  With that, it’s time to look at this Riesling in particular.

In the glass, this wine is clear and bright, pale lemon colour with green highlights. On the nose, it’s clean, developing, with medium intensity.  There are notes of pear, lime, and a little custard.  On the palate it’s dry, with medium plus acidity, medium body, medium minus alcohol, medium plus flavour intensity and notes of lime, almost salty, intense citrus but not an especially specific fruit, maybe grapefruit, with a custard finish and a medium plus length.

This is a good quality wine – neither wanting nor particularly special.  It has good fruit and more body than many Rieslings, but doesn’t lack acidity or intensity.  And as it is one I had by the glass, not an expensive wine, and certainly delivers typicity both as Alsatian and as a Riesling.

Jasper Hill Vineyard Georgia's Paddock Nebbiolo 2008

As I’ve said before, I drink faster than I write, and as such I have a bit of a backlog of tasting notes and photos awaiting the research and writing to bring them together into a post that I’m willing to publish.  If I were clever, I’d just start at the oldest and work my way through them until I was caught up, possibly not drinking anything new until the backlog was clear.  Instead, I keep finding wines that I absolutely must drink, even when I’m not looking for them, and this is one such wine, Jasper Hill Vineyard Georgia’s Paddock Nebbiolo 2008.

I’m going to start with the producer in this post because they’re the reason I had to have this wine.  Jasper Hill Vineyard is a small producer based in Heathcote, Victoria that is responsible for some of the most highly sought after wines in Australia.  They are best known for two wines that appear in the Outstanding category of the Langton’s Classification, their Emily’s Paddock Shiraz / Cabernet Franc and their Georgia’s Paddock Shiraz.  The quantities produced are very small, with the former producing less than 500 cases and the latter less than 2,500 cases, but their reputation is quite significant.  With even smaller quantities of Grenache, Semillon, Riesling, Viognier, and this Nebbiolo, their total production is roughly 3000 cases.

Established in 1975, they planted the two aforementioned vineyards on a pair of hillsides near Heathcote, roughly 110km north of Melbourne.  They planted the vines on their own roots, rather than grafting onto phylloxera-resistant rootstock.  Organic and biodynamic practices are used in the vineyard, and the vines are not irrigated.  Yes, I have been known to rant about the pseudo-science of biodynamic practices, but since there’s no mention of the word “cosmic” on the entire Jasper Hill Vineyard website, I needn’t say anything more on the topic.  In the winery, they have a minimal intervention philosophy to get the best expression of terroir.  In their case, that takes the form of wild yeast fermentation, maturation for 15 months in oak (French and American, 20% new), no racking, natural malolactic fermentation, and only coarse filtration before bottling.  Their website does mention acid adjustment in the context of something they rarely do, and while it’s certainly preferable to be able to bottle without it, I applaud that they are up front about it possibly being required.  Also, to my mind it makes them seem a bit more pragmatic than dogmatic, another thing I appreciate.

Having enjoyed both Emily’s Paddock Shiraz / Cabernet Franc and Georgia’s Paddock Shiraz, I have now been surprised twice by wines that I didn’t know Jasper Hill Vineyard produced.  First was a year or two ago when I came across a bottle of their Semillon, which was also an excellent wine, but only a few barrels are produced.  Most recently I saw this on a shelf and immediately bought it.  Georgia’s Paddock has one hectare of Nebbiolo which was planted in 1993, from which only 90 cases were produced in 2008.

I’m going to cover Nebbiolo in a bit more depth with a wine from Italy in the near future, but it’s worth laying out the basics now.  It is a red wine grape from the northwest of Italy, native to Piemonte.  It is the grape of Barola and Barbaresco, and produces wines capable of considerable maturation.  It is early budding, late ripening, and susceptible to coulure, or poor fruit set.  Rain during the growing season can adversely impact quality, and it prefers calcareous marl soils.  Its grapes have thin, though unusually tough, skins.  It can typically produce wines of light color, often with an orange tint, high acid, and high tannin.  Tar and roses are the classic descriptors, and there’s at least one producer who has given the name “Tar and Roses” to their Nebbiolo.

Heathcote deserves a quick word.  As I mentioned, it’s in Victoria, north of Melbourne, and west of Nagambie Lakes, home of Tahbilk which I was drinking not so long ago.  It had been grouped with Bendigo as far as wine regions, but has emerged as an independent area capable of producing interesting cool climate Shiraz.  Like the rest of central Victoria, the climate is continental, with warm, dry summers and cool winters.  However, the soil is based on something that makes Heathcote fairly special:  Cambrian basalt.  It’s 500 million year old soil, based on volcanic lava which captured limestone as it flowed and cooled.  The resulting basalt and limestone has become decompressed and red-brown over time.  It’s considered unique within Australia, as other examples of soils based on volcanic material are fairly young and acidic, while the Cambrian soils of Heathcote are old enough that they are fairly pH neutral.

In the glass, this wine is clear and bright, medium minus garnet colour, with quick, thick legs.  On the nose it’s clean, with medium plus intensity, and notes of perfume, cherries, and sweet spice.  The palate is dry, with notes of sour cherries, a little iodine, some roses, and pomegranate, but I can’t say I picked up any tar.  It had medium plus acidity, medium minus fine tannins, medium minus body, medium plus length, medium alcohol, medium plus flavour intensity, and a sour plum finish.

I really enjoyed this wine and think it’s of very good quality.  It was extremely elegant and refined.  It was very approachable and was drinking very nicely, but the flavour profile consisted of lots of fruit and not many secondary characteristics.  I think it certainly has the acidity to age, but it wasn’t especially tannic, certainly not compared with Nebbiolos of Piemonte.  I’d be interested to see how it looks in a few years because I may have had this far too young.