Priorat schist in the hands of Alvaro Palacios

France and Spain each have an appellation based on schist that produces some extraordinary, bold, yet fine-textured red wines, with suppleness and surprising fragrance to the fruit for warm regions.

They are not the only appellations with schist (Alsace, Beaujolais, Loire valley, northern Rhône, for example), but both Faugères in southern France’s Languedoc and Priorat in north-east Spain, about two hours’ drive south west of Barcelona, are based almost entirely on surface-rocky schist ground.

Schist is crystalline, layered rock similar to slate that has been metamorphosed by intense pressure. It is rich in mica and similar minerals.

Such rocky schist which glistens with quartzite crystals provides one of the defining characters for Priorat terroir. Álvaro Palacios, of his eponymous property, described his terroir, saying it is ancient “metamorphic rock, formed 5 to 50 kilometres under the earth’s crust where two horizons of limestone had compacted a layer of clay.” Subsequent tectonic movement have brought it to the surface. Palacios added “it has three times more metals and minerals than sedimentary rock” that has not undergone metamorphosis.

Palacios, along with René Barbier, is arguably the most famous Priorat vintner. Both were part of the 1990s revolution that turned Priorat from a forgotten and disintegrating backwater to a vinous temple. While Barbier makes Clos Mogador, Palacios makes Finca Dofi and L’Ermita. Barbier said his “wines are built on the basis of terroir, so the minerality and the tannins are interwined.”

Faugères

Faugères is little different. Paul Gordon of Domaine la Sarabande said schist “is a boney soil, and once the vines are established, roots can go six metres down.” And the schist, he said, gives the wine minerality. This is a point picked up by consultant winemaker Hélène Rosello, who said “Faugeres is special because of the schist, giving wines with minerality, and with fruits and tannins that are soft and sweet in the mouth.”

It was this schist that drew Aussie Jem Harris to the region. He said “the poor soil forces roots deep into the ground, so you get a notion of terroir. It imparts a certain amount of mineral focus, of graphite,” adding the schist “holds the heat of the day and releases it back during the night.”

Indeed the warmth during both day and night is important for both Priorat and Faugères. The grape varieties need warmth to ripen successfully.  It’s one of the reasons tempranillo doesn’t do so well in Priorat – it’s just too hot in most spots. In Faugères, Brigitte Chevalier of Domaine de Cébène went as far as to say “mourvèdre on schist is the best pairing you can find. Schist softens the impetuousness of mourvèdre when it’s young. It gives ripe, spicy notes, specific fruits to mourvèdre, and it will age for years.”

Possibly unsurprisingly, both appellations are based on a broadly similar blend of black grape varieties including carignan and grenache as major components in both, plus cinsault, mourvèdre and syrah in Faugeres, and international cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah in Priorat. Both appellations are also, coincidentally around the same size at 2,000 hectares.

Both regions can be pretty dry too in summer, Priorat has less than 400mm of annual rainfall, but a characteristic of schist are the fine clays held between the layers of rock. These retain moisture for vine roots to search out and use over the growing season.

Where the regions differ hugely is in the fashion stakes. Priorat wines have reached the repute of much-sought-after, and many have the prices to match. In 2000 it became only Spain’s second DOCa, alongside Rioja, the highest level of appellation possible. On the other hand, Faugères fundamentally lacks the trend status of Priorat. However, given that Priorat’s fortunes reversed just a generation ago, perhaps it won’t be that long before the wines of Faugères are equally famed.

Corbières, pretty in rare snow (Jan 2010)

I thought it about time I try to get to grips a little with the difference between these two adjacent Languedoc appellations. For too long I’ve not accorded them their individual identities.

Minervois lies to the immediate north and east of Carcassonne, in front of the Montagne de Noire, Corbières to the south and east, stretching to the foothills of the Pyrenees. The river Aude and the Canal du Midi broadly separate the two appellations on its west-east trajectory to the Mediterranean Sea.

Corbières is a big region of 13,500 hectares, with significant topographical diversity. Christine Behey-Molines, export manager for trade and promotion organisation Languedoc Wines explained “there are west to east differences, and lower to higher altitude differences”, and, she added “Corbières is wilder than Minervois. The scenery is rockier and more rustic on the old massif of Corbières.” Soils are also necessarily diverse over such a large area, with sandstones, schists and limestones in different parts, and garrigue an overriding feature.  Soils are equally diverse in smaller Minervois, with limestone, red shales, schist and clay marls all featuring.

Both appellations are focused on red wine production, both predicated on the same group of grape varieties, though in slightly differing proportions: predominantly syrah, grenache, lladoner pelut, mourvèdre, carignan and cinsault.

Carignan, especially old carignan, is particularly important in Corbières, much more so than in Minervois, forming part of Corbières’ personality. Here, carignan must comprise 30-50% of the blend; syrah no more than 30%; with grenache, mourvèdre lledoner pelut and cinsault at least 20%.

Minerve, Minervois

From the 5,000 hectares of Minervois carignan and cinsault are limited to a maximum of 40%. Syrah, mourvèdre, grenache and lledoner pelut must be at least 60%, with the duo of syrah and mourvèdre alone accounting for at least 20% of the blend.

The large size of Corbières means there are many zones, from the Alaric mountains in the north west to the coastal areas of the Mediterranean sea. Generalisations are challenging, at the very least, though Vincent Charleux, winemaker at Abbotts and Delaunay gave it a shot, saying “there are shallow soils in Corbières, and the Alaric mountains of Corbières are a drier climate than the Montagne de Noire” of Minervois.

On wine style, he said “Minervois tends to have more fruit purity, more volume, less tannin, and are easier to drink. The Corbières may become stressed [because they’re drier], giving more tannin and less fruit.” One might imply from this that Minervois can be a little softer and suppler than Corbières.

Frantz Venes, of Château Massamier La Mignarde highlighted this blend differential, adding in that of climate too, saying “Minervois has more syrah and grenache than Corbières, which has more carignan, and a more Mediterranean climate”. Syrah, he added “is more fruity in Minervois, more spicy in Corbières”.  He went on to explain “Minervois gets fresh air from the Black Mountain, making it cooler than Corbieres”, added to which there’s more water in Minervois. The west of the appellation gets some mild, moist Atlantic influence too, useful in the summer, while the east adapts to the drier Mediterranean aspect.

Both appellations have a cru segment. Minervois was first off the mark in all of Languedoc with its cru, enshrined in law in 1998. Corbières’ cru Boutenac took until 2005 to hit the statute books.

Of Minervois’ cru La Livinière – 2,600 ha mainly on the slopes of the limestone-based Petit Causses – Venes said “La Livinière is at the north of Minervois, at the edge of the mountain, with very poor soil. It’s impossible to produce big quantities here.” The minimum amount of syrah and mourvèdre is twice that of straight Minervois – at least 40% – and with grenache this trio needs to reach a minimum of 60%. Any remainder may come from lledoner pelut, carignan and cinsault.

Corbières’ cru, Boutenac, only has around 300 of its potential 1,400ha planted. It is rocky terrain around 80 to 100m altitude, with water-retaining deep clay-limestone soils, which is just as well as it’s one of the driest and warmest areas in Corbières. Strong, brooding, sometimes meaty, drought-resistant Carignan remains a key driver of wine style.

Luis Felipe Edwards

Promo prices:
April 30, to July 22, 2013: £6.39
July 23 to Sept 2, 2013: £5.99

For £6 and just over, on promo, this was my best value for flavour wine of the Majestic press tasting.

This has a smooth, silky texture, with violet perfume and charcoal-roasted plums amid soft, sweet tannins. This is an attractively straightforward wine. Its primary fruits have good volume in the mouth, it’s nicely balanced and the alcohol is cleanly integrated. The wine is succulent, immediate and juicy. Great for uncomplicated, everyday drinking.

Luis Felipe Edwards was established only in 1976, and is named after its founding father. The producer has quickly emerged onto the export wine scene. They have vineyard holdings in the respected Colchagua and Leyda valleys, though the fruit for this competitively priced wine (when on promo) comes from the Central valley.

Water is one of our most precious resources, and irrigation is vital to much vineyard growth around the world, but how are growers reducing its use?

Much of the typically unirrigated old world, gets off lightly here, because deliberately turning on a tap is a highly visible and measurable thing, and strictly controlled by local and/or national authorities. In Chile, for example, said Patricio Parra, sustainability consultant to Wines of Chile, whether water is from groundwater or the Andes it is “nationally regulated, and privately administered” with water rights issued to growers. Flow meters keep a tally of the amount of water being used. In South Africa, dams must be registered or licensed, and all water extraction from rivers or groundwater is registered.

But it is Australia that arguably leads the innovation field of water-reduction strategies. The country spent much of the first decade of the new millennium in prolonged drought; necessity has forced the rate of change, such that Peter Clingeleffer, a senior research scientist at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) said “viticulture in Australia is highly water efficient, producing a greater dollar value per unit of water consumed than almost any other irrigated crop, far greater than irrigated annual crops. However, viticulture in Australia is almost entirely reliant on irrigation with 85% of vineyards being irrigated, not just those in the warmer climate regions. Supplementary irrigation is essential even in cool climate regions.”

Complex issues

There’s enough research out there that shows a certain amount of water stress at certain times during the growing season can actually enhance fruit quality. This would suggest that high quality fruit, which must surely be part of the irrigation question, emerges more reliably and more consistently from regions where water input can be totally controlled, i.e. those very areas that must be irrigated.

Irrigation strategies have moved into the realm of detailed understanding of vine phenology and physiology and how these are affected by soil moisture rates, evapo-transpiration, stress and its effects. Wendy Cameron, head of winemaking at Brown Brothers said “irrigation is all about matching water application to the vines’ requirement.  This will vary depending on the vines growth stage, soil type, variety, rootstocks, climate, weather conditions and the end yield and quality that is being aimed for.” So, she added “water infrastructure is very important – variable speed pumps, lines, emitters and soil moisture monitoring to ensure the minimum amount of water is applied, differentially to different parts of the vineyard and different varieties for the desired result.”

These complex issues are being integrated into the new Chilean wine industry sustainability code. Parra said the basic requirement is to “protect water resources from over-exploitation and pollution” and at this stage is to confirm whether a company “has an inventory of their water sources with water rights, a program for conservation and water efficiency, a record of the annual volume used and a map of the water source locations.”  He added that while “the code is new, the idea is to compare after some years if we really are reducing water use.”

At the opposite end of the industry sustainability code spectrum, New Zealand, which started in 1997, and where about 85% of the industry uses irrigation, mostly drip, water usage data has been collected for the past few years.  Philip Manson, general manager for sustainability at New Zealand Winegrowers, said “irrigation decisions are being based on increasingly detailed incoming data, not just weather and rainfall data, but evapo-transpiration and soil moisture measurement as well as having a good old-fashioned look at the vines.”

Methods and strategies

Different irrigation methods use different amounts of water. Flood and furrow irrigation may remain common in Argentina, but just 3% of the Aussie vineyard still uses these heavy options, and even overhead sprinklers are becoming appropriately unfashionable. At Yalumba, vineyard manager Fred Strachan said “reducing vineyard water use without affecting crop yield/quality is something that Oxford Landing has been working strongly at for over 20 years. This began with the replacement of inefficient overhead irrigation practices to modern drip irrigation systems. This not only saved water but also reduced the variability within our vineyards and increased our yield and quality. The quality results and improvements to water use efficiency, water used per tonne of grapes harvested, were so outstanding – it almost halved – that all our contracted growers chose to do the same.”

All things being equal, drip irrigation evidently uses less water than flood, furrow and overhead sprinkler. But even drip has been subject to tweaking. RDI (reduction deficit irrigation), which restricts water at certain times during the growing season uses less water than conventional drip, and PRD (partial rootzone drying) uses less again.  Both strategies are typically delivered via drip irrigation systems, and both strategies were developed in water-scarce Australia. Strachan said RDI “is just how we grow grapes. We aim to regulate the water use at specific growth stages of the vine to maximise grape quality and maintain commercial yields.”

The newer PRD strategy effectively irrigates one half of the rootzone only, alternating each half, to reduce total water used. It has not yet been widely adopted, even in Australia. Cost is a big thing – it requires two irrigation drip lines for each vine row. Clingeleffer said “PRD can be difficult to implement, with a greater infrastructure cost also. It requires a high evaporative demand environment and freely draining soils to be effective and the timing of ‘switching’ between sections of the root system must be specific to a variety and the weather conditions.” Research suggests that water use can be halved with PRD.

Strachan thinks its time may yet come, saying PRD’s “use has remained small as its infrastructure costs and management creates some small complications in a large scale situation. This technique is well published and is very successful at optimising water used per tonne of grapes. I suspect as water becomes more costly the conversion to PRD systems will be more advantageous.”

It’s not just a question of water volume. Electricity costs to pump the water have to be factored in to the overall sustainability index of a wine producer. The cost of pumping water increases the carbon footprint, creating a double whammy of business reasons not to do it. But water is essential. Manson said “growers recognise the significant cost of applying water. Every time they turn on the irrigation system, they are not only using up water allocation they may have a right to, but they are also consuming electricity to pump that water around. They irrigate to achieve a quality outcome, and hesitate where possible to incur the cost.”

At Yealands Estate, in Marlborough’s Awatere Valley, owner Peter Yealands said “the electricity used to power the pumps and irrigation system is a significant, but necessary investment.” To offset this against other sustainability criteria, Yealands added “one of our methods to practise sustainable irrigation management is to purchase our electricity from power supply companies that only use renewable resources to generate their power.”

The Chilean wine industry’s relatively new sustainability code builds on the need for producers to measure and report water use, as well as introducing the concept of water footprints. Parra said “small farmers may use irrigation less efficiently, but there is a requirement to use it more efficiently, whatever irrigation system they have.” The implication being that once some years of water use data are collected, the industry will be in a better place to target reduction strategies appropriately.

The kiwis are already talking to growers. Manson said SWNZ “have started providing comprehensive individual reports back to all our members so they can compare their water use with others in their region. This is a very strong tool for people to evaluate their water use, and to consider modifications to their water management strategies.”

Reducing evaporation

Given that much irrigation is done in warmer climates, reducing the amount of water that evaporates from the soil surface reduces water usage. To this end, subsurface irrigation has been trialled in Australia, though the challenges of blockage problems, and root interference are more difficult to address than with surface pipe work.

At Banrock Station viticultural manager Stephen Winnall said “we have invested in more than 200km of subsurface drippers, covering about 24% of the vineyard. Sub-surface drippers are leading edge irrigation technology, they deliver water to the root-zone rather than dripping on to the soil surface as conventional drippers do. While they are more expensive to install and manage than conventional drippers they increase water use efficiency as all the water is at the root-zone” and thus not on the surface from where it can evaporate.  He added that they have seen water savings of between 15 and 20%.

Brown Brothers have 116ha of vineyard at Mystic Park with sub-surface irrigation, established in 2005. Cameron said “The suggested water savings seen with subsurface irrigation are about 30% and this is pretty much what we are finding.  There are some challenges with the technology such as ensuring no root growth into the water emitters but overall it is working well.”

However they have also done some work mounding the vineyard rows on conventionally drip irrigated vineyards “so that the applied water stays close to where the vine rows and roots are and doesn’t just flow out into the mid row and evaporate. We are finding the simple mounding technique we have more recently adopted has saved a similar amount of water”, without the infrastructural issues.

Mulching also reduces evaporation. Yealands vineyard stretches along the windy Marlborough coastline and to counter the evaporation this causes Yealands said “we apply compost directly under the vine rows in these more exposed areas. Our compost regime is helping retain moisture as well as promote soil health. It is applied at a rate one tonne per 100 metres, with the compost more than halving the water requirement we would need to supply to the vines via irrigation. “

In South Africa, Waverley Hills recently won a Green Wine Award, for using a shade net effectively as a mulch, or ground cover.

There are other well-known benefits of mulching: it improves soil condition, moisture retention and biological activity, and greater soil organic matter improves water penetration when it does rain.

Moisture monitors the way forward

Even with more efficient irrigation systems, augmented by mulching strategies, having a small army of real-time reporting moisture monitors offers another option to reduce water use.  Winnall has more than 50 in his Banrock vineyard. He said “one of the most significant tools in our water management program is capacitance probes, which are our main method of monitoring soil moisture at Banrock. The system provides very accurate soil moisture levels, feeding back information to computers in the office. We log moisture conditions every half an hour so we know what soil moisture we have available 24/7.” He said they save about 20% on irrigation water by installing the probes.

Yealands is also an advocate, saying we have “moisture monitors placed throughout the vineyard at various depths in the soil. Moisture is measured automatically with the information radioed back to our controller who regulates water inputs to suit the needs of particular areas in the vineyard. It means we only irrigate as required, and can control the flow of water to blocks of the vineyards depending on the soil condition, reducing surplus irrigation and wastage.“

The use of continuous soil moisture measurement loggers linked to computers is also increasingly common practice in South Africa, with BWI producers leading the field. Such real time data gives vineyard managers up to the minute information and enables parcel-specific irrigation.

Vines and rootstocks

Another way to reduce irrigation is to plant cultivars better adapted to the locality. Simple options include trials with existing dry-tolerant vinifera species. The likes of vermentino and tempranillo are gaining a small amount of traction in Australia, for example.

Brown Brothers have long been known for their viticultural innovation, with grapes such as tarrango and cienna now part of the normal varietal landscape. Trials are now at an early stage with drought and heat resistant varieties bred at CSIRO. With temporary names such as C3PO and R2D2 (obviously not even their real temporary names, which await the completion of due legal protocol), these V. vinifera varieties were selected by Brown Brothers according to their “really interesting fruit profiles, good colour, good retention of acidity, sunburn resistance, water and heat hardiness and so on” explained Cameron, as observed in the CSIRO vineyards and micro-vinifications of them. Brown Bros have planted one hectare of each of six varieties, three red and three white, and the first crop is expected with the 2013 harvest.

Below ground, Clingeleffer and his colleagues are researching rootstocks, He said “there is certainly a lot of promise from adoption of rootstocks to assist industry to address these abiotic stress issues. Of the suite of standard commercial rootstocks 140 Ruggeri appears to have outstanding [drought] tolerance.”

The Yalumba nursery has also been working with CSIRO, SARDI and South Australia universities on drought-tolerant rootstocks. Strachan said of one trial “the work related to Ramsey rootstock actually reduced yield, but the quality improvements obtained were well worth the trade off and we were able to obtain good commercial yields at improved grape quality.”

Industry continues to innovate from several angles on reducing water use for irrigation, but the sustainability issue remains complex. Manson summarised “water has always been a precious material. The issue is about minimising water use and making sure that the water that you use is justified and not having a negative impact on the environment. A successful water management strategy fits hand in glove with broader sustainability aims.”

For £6, this was my best value for flavour wine of the M&S press tasting. It’s new to the M&S range and will be available in shops from the beginning of June.

It’s a straightforward wine that’s fresh and refreshing with good apple, pear and citrus fruit density. Its uncomplicated nature makes it effortlessly easy to drink (in moderation, obviously). It’ll make a great al fresco party wine over the wonderful summer we undoubtedly all hope we’re going to have.

It’s a blend of nearly two-thirds vermentino, nearly a third chardonnay, with the balance coming from sauvignon blanc. The freshness will be coming from the vermentino with much of the floral and citrus flavours from chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. All the fruit comes from Tuscany, which is much more famous for Chianti and Chianti Classico.

It’s made at the Val delle Rose and Villa Cerna wineries which are both owned by the Cecchi family.

It’s red ‘pair’ is also decent and also good value.
Toscana Rosso 2012, £5.99.
Made from mostly sangiovese, with the balance from merlot and cabernet sauvignon.

A new Chianti Classico DOCG hierarchy is expected to be approved later this year.

A new, top tier – Gran Selezione – is to be added above Chianti Classico Riserva and Chianti Classico ‘straight’.

Gran Selezione has a tougher production code:

• Fruit must come entirely from the estate, so no bought-in fruit or wine is allowed for this category.
• Dry extract is a minimum of 26g/l.
• Minimum alcohol is 13% (12.5% for riserva; 12% for ‘straight’).
• Minimum ageing of 30 months, including 3 months’ bottle age (Riserva 24 months; ‘straight’ 12 months).
• The tasting panel is tasked with judging according to stricter rules.
• The grower is supposed to declare in advance (how far in advance was not detailed in the press conference) whether the wine is destined for Gran Selezione, Riserva or ‘straight’ Chianti Classico.  Previously the declaration for riserva could be done at a later stage. The riserva declaration is being brought forward to an earlier stage in the maturation process.

Ministerial approval will mean that wines from the 2010 vintage may be classed according to the new three-tier hierarchy.

The independence of the tasting panel has been outsourced to a third party – Valoritalia.

It is expected that Gran Selezione may account for 6-8% of production. It seems obvious a price premium will evolve for the category.  Currently Riserva accounts for 22% of the volume (37% value), with ‘straight’ Chianti Classico accounting for 78% of the volume (63% of the value) of sales.

Average annual production of total Chianti Classico is around 35 million bottles, on the 7,200 hectares of vineyards of the DOCG. This is not far beyond the 32 million bottles of Bordeaux’s Cru Bourgeois.

Chianti Classico has as its mascot and trademark the black rooster. It was mandatory that the black rooster symbol is on the DOCG strip that goes on the neck of the bottle. It may now also appear on the back label.

Château le Grand Vostock

Château le Grand Vostock was established in 2003 by a Franco-Russian team. It is in Russia’s Krasnodar region, some 18km, as the crow flies, inland from the Black Sea. Or 45km by roads to the resort of Anapa.

The winery is located on the far western fringes of the Caucasus mountains, in the village of Sadovy, which had been built in the 1960s as a collective farm, growing grapes and table grapes. When the property was privatised, said chief of the board Elena Denisova “there were 500ha of vineyards, but not of suitable quality” for winemaking. “Over the last 8 years, 300ha have been uprooted,” leaving them with 206ha of vineyards including chardonnay, krasnostop, cabernet sauvignon and indigenous hybrid variety golubok. Other varieties have also been planted to give a balance of 60% red and 40% white cultivars.

Their highest vineyard is at 265m, planted to cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, carmenere, merlot and syrah.

The general manager Laurent Dubreuil showed us a vineyard of spindly merlot and sauvignon blanc vines at a more modest 160m altitude on a spur of land which, he said “is exposed to the winds and which can be damaged by winter frosts” as with the strong frosts in 2012, where they had three days at -35°C, which lost them 40% of their pinot noir and syrah crop.

The reason for working in this region, Dubreuil explained, is because “the climate maps suggested we’re close the Bordeaux style here”, added to which, he said “there is lots of limestone here,” especially in the highest vineyard. But it’s not that simple.  They have less rainfall than Bordeaux, at around 450mm, though the summer pattern is not dissimilar. And, Dubreuil said “the growth cycle is very short, a month shorter than in Bordeaux. Budburst is in May, harvest around September.” The heat of summer can cause the vines to shut down.

The aim for the property is to be producing around 1.5 million bottles of quality wine by around five years time. Dubreuil explained they have a programme of new planting and re-planting in place to help them achieve this.

As well as everyday wines, Vostock produces three levels of premium wine, which Dubreuil said, aim to show “the expression of the winemaker, to show the best of the varieties in barrel.” Top of the range is Chene Royal, which typically spends 16 to 18 months in French oak, though only about 20% new. Below this come Cuvée Karsov then Karsov, with lighter oak regimes.

Tasting, in situ, November 2012

Château le Grand Vostock, Cuvée Karsov 2010 ~€10
Sauvignon blanc, with 5% chardonnay, oak aged
Pink grapefruit nose, lovely freshness with hints of citrus. Nothing toasty, just a hint of roundness to texture, but not roundness to acidity. Fresh balance, linear, big of yellow fig. Fresh clean finish. Vg.

Château le Grand Vostock, Le Chene Royal, 2010 ~€18
Chardonnay 80%, sauvignon blanc 20%
Hints of lemon honeyed toast on nose, then overt toastiness on the palate attack, will tastes like it will mellow in. Plenty of intensity of citrus and peachy fruit, with nicely balanced fruit on mid palate.

Château le Grand Vostock, Cuvée Karsov 2010 ~€10
Merlot 25%, cabernet franc 35% cabernet sauvignon 40%
Quite soft and plummy palate attack. Palate texture appears confused between a not very attractive slipperiness followed by a hefty grip of tannin. This is less well balanced.

Château le Grand Vostock, Le Chene Royal 2010
65% krasnostop, 35% cabernet franc
Smoky graphite and red fruits on nose. Smooth palate attack, very smooth texture all through the palate, medium weighted with plenty of intensity. Has dark red fruits with bits of dark chocolate in the middle.  Young texture and profile, needs time to settle in. Nice fresh balance, with silky redcurrant and raspberry fruits on the core. Really elegant with smooth core. Vg.

My visit to Russia was sponsored by the Union of the Oenologists and Winemakers of Russia.

Neudorf, Nelson

A shorter version of this first appeared in Hampshire View, April 2013.

The kiwis have created a category of white wines they call the aromatics. All of them too niche to garner much attention on their own, but together they are gathering a bit of a following. Well maybe soon.

Generally the wines are, indeed, aromatic, or semi-aromatic, meaning they are focused on fruits, flowers, freshness and refreshingness, if that’s a word (it is now), and bright, youthful, primary aromas and flavours. This also means most likely an absence of overt spicy, toasty, vanilla oak influence.

The types of grape varieties included in the category are riesling, gewürztraminer and pinot gris, plus the even more niche 160 hectares of viognier, the 31 hectares of gruner veltliner and the 13 hectares of albarino (in the entire country). One might even include the 19 hectares of chenin blanc. Of the ‘big three’, at least there are more than 300 hectares of gewürztraminer, 700 of riesling and nearly 2,400 ha of pinot gris. To put all this in perspective, New Zealand has 20,000 hectares of sauvignon blanc. Even so, collectively the aromatics account for no more than 10% of New Zealand’s total vineyard area.  No wonder they need to club together.

However the region of Nelson stands out as making a play for the aromatics. More than 20% of Nelson’s vineyard area is devoted to these aromatic varieties. Marlborough has the biggest concentration of plantings of many of these varieties, but they account for only 6% of Marlborough’s vineyard area. Central Otago and Hawke’s Bay also have decent concentration of plantings of these varieties.

It makes sense that stylistic differences will emerge from these regions. Viognier probably needs a bit more warmth than parts of the South Island can offer. Indeed North Island’s Hawke’s Bay has nearly half of the country’s viognier plantings. On the other hand riesling probably prefers the cooler South Island to better express its aromatics. The evolution of pinot gris will be interesting given that it produces markedly different styles in warmer versus cooler locations – think rich, redolent Alsace versus skin-and-bones northern Italy.

Given the recency of attention focused on this group, the trend is to express the primacy and purity and pungency of varietal character, all of which can be beautifully achieved. As well as an absence of oak flavour, generally these are wines for not for bottle ageing. Drink youngish to maximise the intensity of their youthful flavours.

Hawke's Bay

The downside of these wines is that rarely is there anything on the label to indicate a level of sweetness. As with a new trend, there’s a huge amount of experimentation going on with these wines, a lot of which involves any of the varieties being made dry, medium dry, medium sweet all the way to fully sweet. Annoyingly this is largely done without communicating this to the consumer.  So any time you see ‘dry’ on the label, such as the Felton Road riesling below, rejoice that you have some information and can make an informed purchasing decision.  There isn’t even enough consistency or agreement in the industry to say that as a rule of thumb if it doesn’t say dry on the label, then it isn’t.  It might be dry. All you can do is ask detailed questions about style before purchasing.

Again, given the youth of the trend, plantings of these varieties are not yet showing any regional concentration. It really is a case of individual producers experimenting with a few vines here and there. Matching variety and site is really something that takes decades or even centuries to associate. That Marlborough achieved it with sauvignon blanc almost from the moment the first sauvignon blanc was planted in 1973 is stupendously serendipitous. Learning curves are usually significantly longer.

Try any of these knowing they are all dry. Well, the Elephant Hill wine is a blend of 75% viognier, 20% pinot gris and 5% gewürztraminer, it has a tiny bit of balancing sugar and is perceptibly dry, and it’s really tasty (as of course are all the others).
Yealands Estate, Awatere valley Pinot Gris 2011 £11.95, Slurp
Hunter’s, Gewürztraminer 2011, Marlborough £13.99, Laithwaite’s
Elephant Hill, Le Phant Blanc 2011 £19.40, Handford
Felton Road, Dry Riesling 2012, Bannockburn, Central Otago £22.00, Roberson

Jenkyn Place, Hampshire

The UK is more recognised than ever before for the quality of its sparkling wines.  More fruit is now channelled to sparkling production than still wine, but with new plantings continuing, is the UK at risk of making more sparkling wine than it can sell? Is the country heading for an inevitable bust?

The Institute of Masters of Wine (IMW) recently brought together luminaries of the UK wine industry to debate the country’s future.  Consultant winemaker David Cowderoy, Ridgeview owner Mike Roberts and UK-specialist Stephen Skelton MW were joined by Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, at the time global wine director for Direct Wines (Laithwaites et al), in a session moderated by Nancy Gilchrist MW.

Skelton set the scene for the rise and rise of sparkling production, saying in the last generation “there have been a few days over 30°C, in Kent, but what’s happening is we now have warmer nights. It’s 1°C warmer at night than in the previous 30 years.” In such a cool climate, that is a significant evolution. Cowderoy added that UK vineyard areas “have more sunshine hours than Champagne, [though] the rainfall pattern is significantly different, and even the chalk is not the same.”

A further generational shift has been the balance of plantings swinging dramatically to classic Champagne varieties chardonnay and pinot noir. This has pushed down the rankings the ‘traditional’ Germanic varieties including Müller-Thurgau, seyval blanc, reichensteiner and schönburger.  Just bacchus, vinified into the country’s top still white wine has increased plantings in the last generation.

Cowderoy explained the UK’s Germanic heritage, saying “there was a strong German influence when vines were first planted in England. A lot of plantations were set up on German lines”. But, he said “the climate is more similar to Epernay [in the Champagne region] than the Mosel”.  He dated the start of the sparkling wine ‘movement’ to the beginning of the 1990s, adding that “if we were not producing English sparkling wine, English wine would be no more than a curiosity produced by eccentrics”.  The growing professionalism of producers has been a notable trend.

But with the explosion of new producers, which are beginning to come on the market now, Cowderoy warned they “face the biggest challenges. It’s difficult to find a point of difference” he said, adding “routes to market are difficult. There are a growing number of producers and a finite number of distributors.  And retailers are reducing the number of suppliers” with whom they work. It’s not a rosy picture.

Roberts painted a more upbeat picture for the industry, reminding the audience that “England is an area that can produce world-beating sparkling wine.” His recommendation is “to find a market where [the product’s] English origins will be viewed as elite” adding, for many UK producers “we have family production which is treated as a benefit of the product.”

Family heritage counts for a lot with prestige production. Roberts’ property, Ridgeview, he said, already “exports to ten countries including Australia, USA, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland.” And, he added “we export 20% of our volume and I would have no problem exporting all my volume”, which is a position many would envy.

Howard-Sneyd said Laithwaites “last year became tenants of the royal family, planting vineyards in Windsor Great Park.” For him there is no question that English sparkling wine “rivals Champagne for quality”, to which he added “if consumers didn’t believe English sparkling wine is as good as Champagne they wouldn’t spend £20 to £30 on a bottle.” Fair point, but when do patriotic gestures in the face of royal weddings, golden jubilees and Olympic Games become a solid foundation of repeat purchases?

Such warning bells were sounded. Skelton forecast sparkling wine production of 8.4m bottles by 2025. This is more than a four-fold increase on current levels. Export may mop up some, but there are enough examples of other countries (on different scales) planting vines on the crest of a wave only to reach a tipping point of no return. A saving grace is that given the maturation lead-time for high quality sparkling wine, the industry has a year or two to create and implement a strategic plan.

From the terroir wines, a blind tasting selection is being made each year to pick out what they describe as the ‘crème de la crème’ of the appellation. Producers choose whether to enter their wines, and the tasting selection is made by oenologists, restaurateurs and journalists.

In the selection of 28 wines (from 68) made in November 2012 these are my top dozen reds, plus a couple of whites.

Of course, by definition, all these are pretty big wines, made to impress. In general I preferred the more medium-bodied wines, and admired the heft of some of the bigger-boned bodies, though occasionally struggled to imagine when I might drink the latter.

Consistent among the ones I rate is a core freshness around perfumed fruits, with savoury characters present or not.

Tasting, in situ, March 2013

Château La Dournie, Elise 2009, Saint-Chinian
80% syrah, 20% grenache, 14% alc. Terra vitis.
Aromatic smoke, spiced red berry fruits, sweet juicy red berry fruit attack, some nice freshness and lift to the core and violet aromatics, wholesome and attractive, decent length and integrity. Fresh, fruity and with concentrated fruits, nice. Good.

Château de Prieure des Mourgues, Grande Reserve 2009, Saint-Chinian
14.5%. 70% syrah, 20% grenache, 10% mourvèdre. Hugely heavy bottle. Aromatic smoky, baked raspberry tart on nose, smooth palate attack with some creamy, perfumed texture, soft-baked red forest berries on the core. Nice balance with freshness and soft, plentiful tannins. Pretty strong, but balanced in fruit context and depth of fruit. Good.

Château La Dournie, Etienne 2009. Saint-Chinian
Syrah, grenache, carignan, 13.5% alc. Terra vitis.
Smoke, clove, liquorice stick nose, dark brambly fruit attack, all black fruits and brooding overcast sky (in a good way), thick textured in sweet-glycerol sort of way. Big wine, with chalky freshness to mid palate. Some violet and cherry blossom perfume coming through mid palate.  Big wine but not muscle-bound. Good.

Domaine La Linquiere, La Sentenelle 2010, Saint-Chinian
14.5%. 65% syrah, 35% mourvèdre. Hint of mint on this first nose, dark brambly fruit, some freshness coming through here. Plentiful supple tannins, rich, round, big oven-dried fruits. Savoury core wrapped in dark choc, liquorice confection, and rich concentration of dark berry fruits. Big wine, alcohol present but everything else is bigger, and well balanced with it. Not sure I’d choose to drink this, but it is a very good big wine style.

Borie la Vitarele, Midi Rouge 2010, Saint-Chinian
14.5%. Syrah, carignan, mourvèdre. Fruits to fore on the nose, mulberry, strawberry, redcurrant, sweet palate attack, very smooth texture, all gloss and shine and silkiness. Plush, round, still strong and full bodied, and with concentration of those berry fruits in sweet frame. Plush and lush. Vg.

Clos Bagatelle, La Terre de Mon Père, 2010, Saint-Chinian
14.5%. 40% mourvèdre, 30% grenache, 30% syrah. huge shouldered, heavy bottle. Bitter chocolate and mocha nose, big, sweet attack of brooding dark berry fruits, rich and  plush, fleshy and with freshness to core that belies the sweet, dry-baked fruits. Vg.

Comtes de Lorgeril, Les Pins 2010, Saint-Chinian
14.5%, syrah, grenache. Dark, smoky spicy nose, smoothish attack, bramble fruits, rich and fleshy, supple full body, alcohol integrated, modern in all-fruit orientated fashion, without savoury characters, plenty of supple soft tannins. Good.

Mas de Cynanque, Acutum 2009, Saint-Chinian
14.5% alcohol. 60% syrah, 20% mourvèdre, 20% grenache. Bright, bramble fruit. Smells purple. Graphite and liquorice root on palate attack, with bitter chocolate and mocha to follow before dark, vanilla-toasted fruits come in. Silky smooth texture, very finely put together. And big and strong, along with it; plenty of big tannins alongside smooth texture. Dark and brooding, almost with notes of leather at background. Big, bold, broad shouldered. Vg (and again, not sure I’d choose to drink it).

Domaine du Tabatau, les Titous, 2009, Saint-Chinian
14% alcohol, 60% syrah, 40% grenache. Bright, crunchy red berry fruits, amid fine-grainy young new oak tannins, which are mellowing in well. Medium bodied only, which gets extra marks in my book. Bright, fresh, balanced, good intensity of berry fruits, smooth, rich, ripe, very drinkable indeed. Long finish. Vg.

Mas de Cynanque, Amicytia 2010, Saint-Chinian
Mostly grenache. 15% alcohol. Dry baked strawberries and redcurrants on the nose. Clove and allspice, soft tannins, with focus on savoury herbal red summer berries fruit, as you’d expect from grenache. Big 15% alcohol held very well in balance with intensity of fruit profile. Nice lines to the in-palate profile on this characterful wine. Long finish. Vg.

Château Viranel, V 2010, Saint-Chinian
14% alcohol. 60% syrah, 40% grenache. Bright fruit nose, red spectrum raspberry, loganberry. Bit of green tealeaf on the palate attack even (where did that come from?). Supple, plush, plentiful tannins, all rounded and soft, yet wine has enough freshness and ‘needle’ on the tongue. Big, full bodied, soft, lush. Good.

Mas Champart, Causse du Bousquet 2010, Saint-Chinian
14.5% alcohol. 70% syrah, 17% grenache, 8% mourvèdre, 5% carignan. Soft red berry fruits on nose. Supple, medium weight attack (despite 14.5%), perfumed mid palate. Bright red fruits, nice freshness here. If anything lacks a little grip to the frame. All very supple (despite freshness), super ripe fruit. Smooth texture and perfumed lifted core. Good .

Domaine La Croix Sainte Eulalie, Cuvée Clemence 2011, Saint-Chinian
13.5%. Grenache blanc, roussane, viognier. Perfumed, white-nutty, tropical nose, intense and layered. Fresh attack, all lemon syllabub verve mellowing into pineapple pavlova. Rich, fresh, florally lifted in the mid palate, creamy and lively. Concentrated and elegant at the same time. Really quite delicious. Long finish. Vg.

Clos Bagatelle, le Clos de ma Mère 2012, Saint-Chinian
13.5%. Roussanne, grenache blanc, carignan blanc, viognier, vermentino. Fresh nose, creamed cobnuts, cherry blossom, steely notes with linear definition and clarity. Fresh, concentrated primary fruits with personality and individuality. Plush in-palate volume and then long finish. Vg.

My research visit to Saint Chinian was sponsored by the Syndicat du cru Saint-Chinian.

Not only were they pretty tasty and good value, the importer working with the producer had bottled the same wine under cork and screwcap. That’s always a fun tasting to do. Purely anecdotal, but fun nonetheless.

I found not much difference between the gamays, and I preferred the slightly sweeter (apparently) fruit under the screwcap. On the pinot noirs, I perceived more differences, and I preferred the cork-stoppered version.  For what it’s worth.

I did a blind taste-test of the two pinot noirs on some non-wine trade mates who concluded they tasted the same.

For chapter, verse, point and punctuation on the area and its wines, read this from Richard Kelley MW’s “definitive Loire wine guide”. The company he works for imports these wines.

Tasting, at home, March 2013

Cave Saint Verny, Gamay 2011, Cotes d’Auvergne, £7.50, Wine Society
Cork, 14%
Medium deep ruby with purple hint to the colour. Crunchy black cherry nose with a bit of liquorice spice too.  Same on palate, medium weight with core of sweet fruit tempered by chalky tannin. Quite plush fruit on mid palate – sweet cherry compote. Kick of 14% alcohol is definitely noticeable at the end of the palate.

Cave Saint Verny, Gamay 2011, Cotes d’Auvergne
Screwcap, 14%
Same colour. Crunchy black cherry nose, and a bit of liquorice spice. Maybe the chalkiness of tannin frame is showing less on this wine, though obviously I’m looking for differences. Alcohol kick is similarly noticeable. Maybe it has a bit less grip, which accentuates the core of sweet fruit.

Cave Saint Verny, Pinot Noir 2010,  IGP Puy de Dôme, £7.50, Wine Society
Cork, 13.5%
Medium pale, erring to garnet colour. Immediate nose of lifted, perfumed wild strawberries and blossom, not hugely intense but delicately perfumed and the first, obvious smell. Fresh strawberry and crunchy cranberry attack on the palate. Very good varietal definition here for such a modestly priced pinot noir. Mid palate has lift and perfumed summer berry fruits plus a liquorice stick spiceness of complexity. Upright, fine, dry tannins in the core to add structure.  Really tasty, very good value pinot noir.

Cave Saint Verny, Pinot Noir 2010,  IGP Puy de Dôme
Screwcap, 13.5%
Same colour. I might say more fruity, less perfumed on the nose; more cherries, less ‘elevated’ aromas maybe. Palate seems similarly structured to the gamay under screwcap – less grip, backbone, more gloopy, amorphous (relatively).  Less overt varietal definition, less upright structure.

Conclusion:
I prefer the aroma and “drier” – slightly grippier (relatively), more tannic (relatively) structure of the pinot noir under cork. Under screwcap it felt rounder, fatter, gloopier, with less glaring varietal character than under cork. So I’d rate the cork one highly as having typical varietal definition and with floral aromatics. But the screwcap one had no wow factor for me. It’s all in the right place, but it wasn’t especially aromatic, which is an important component of pinot noir for me.

Simon Bladon talks vine training

The nearly five hectares of Jenkyn Place Vineyard lie at around 100m altitude, on a gentle, chalky, south-facing slope of the North Downs. The vineyard forms part of the family home of Simon and Rebecca Bladon, who moved to the Hampshire property in 1997.

Bladon planted their first vines, of the classic Champagne trio chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, in 2004 on an abandoned hop field. He said “I had the field. What do I do with it? I had no particular yen to plant a vineyard.” And yet he did. The property investor confessed to liking the idea of having a creative project to carry out from his home, and, already having form as a successfully serial hobbyist, he is doing rather well with this particular project.

Further plantings were added in 2007 and 2010 to reach the current size, which is the maximum, Bladon said.

The first vintage was 2006.

With Bladon “growing the grapes and selling the wine”, he said building a winery on site was out of the question, and not least because of the financial investment. With his hobby “that got slightly out of hand”, he doesn’t want to interfere with the feel of the family home. It’s not like the vineyard is on a farm. And, he added, “two out of three isn’t bad.”

Instead, the wines are made by Dermot Sugrue at Wiston Estate Winery, around 40 miles away. After disgorgement the finished bottles return to Jenkyn Place for labelling, packing and distribution. Bladon disgorges as he goes along, so the wines have at least 2 ½ years on the lees, and can have longer.

It’s been a bit of a torrid time recently though, generally for English wine, and Jenkyn Place has been no exception. Along with a few of his compatriots, Bladon made nothing in the challenging, to say the least, and chilly 2012 vintage. But he also made nothing in 2011, so he’s a bit thankful that 2010 was a big vintage, all things being relative, of course.

Despite an absence of new wine, inactivity is clearly not an option. A fresh, modern livery has been introduced with the 2009 vintage release.

It’s not the only thing being overhauled. The website is being revamped, and one of the improvements will be the ability to buy wine directly from the site, which already lists retail stockists.

Tasting, in situ, March 2013

Jenkyn Place, Brut 2009
65% chardonnay, 25% pinot noir, 10% pinot meunier
This kicks off with an attractive lemon curd and brioche nose. The palate attack is firm, fresh and lively, giving way to bright, lime zest, briar and hedgerow characters amid the toasted lemons. A fine, persistent, delicately proportioned mousse gives a filigree texture to this good, and tight, young wine.

Jenkyn Place, Brut 2008
65% chardonnay, 20% pinot noir 15% pinot meunier. This one’s had at least three years on the lees.
This is a bit rounder on the nose, and fuller in the body, more voluptuous, if it is possible to describe an English sparkling wine as such. Still with a tingly core of lemon sherbet acidity, attractive briary freshness, and greengage notes; then with savoury, rounded smoky-toasted complexing notes to the mid palate. A good concentration of these flavours fills out in the mouth, which finishes with a long flourish. Good stuff.

Jenkyn Place, Rosé 2008
The first vintage of rosé. 44% chardonnay, 46% pinot noir, 10% pinot meunier.
This is a serious rosé, with hints of strawberry amid aromatic smokiness and a savoury, toasted core, with a long finish.

Jenkyn Place, Rosé 2009
About 70% pinot noir, 30% chardonnay.
This has an enticing, bright, translucent, rose petal pink colour. Youthful nose of strawberries and bon bons, with a steely note of intention added in. The palate is fresh with strawberry sherbet, a hint of dry roasted almond skin complexity, with an attractive density, concentration and length of fruit, that’s suggestive of better things to come. Good.

Rybeyrenc vines on schist slopes

Thierry Navarre, of his eponymous Domaine Navarre, in Roquebrun, Saint-Chinian, has made something of a mission of not just preserving ancient Languedoc grape varieties, but making commercial volumes of them.

The two most promising he’s working with are both red and both ripen without too much alcohol in the system. They make up about half the total production from his domaine’s 12 hectares. Neither is so exotic as to fail to make their presence known in über wine grape book “Wine Grapes”. And Thierry Navarre features in entries for both grape varieties as a particular exponent.

Rybeyrenc gains access under a different spelling – ribeyrenc (and with numerous synonyms, although it is apparently better known as aspiran noir). Navarre explained rybeyrenc is a variety that was “traditionally grown between Minervois and Clermont l’Hérault, but it died out with phylloxera.” All was not lost as his grandfather had some vines.  The cultivar is well adapted to the Mediterannean climate, and intriguingly it ripens late – usually a recipe for high alcohol – but, Navarre said “at 11.5 to 12 degrees.” He said it’s always picked last at the end of September, and at 11.5 to 12%.

The wine from his other native Languedoc variety, oeillade, Navarre describes as “having a lighter, fruitier profile without too much alcohol.” There is some distant relationship with cinsault. This is another local variety with the – now trendy – advantage of modest natural alcohol.

Perhaps their modest alcohol, and evident quality in the hands of Navarre, offers them a wider future?

Tasting, in situ, March 2013

Domaine Navarre, Vin d’Oeillades, 2011 Vin de France €7
12%. Medium pale, bright cherry colour, with red cherry and cranberry perfume. Ditto the attack, fresh with light tannins, good density of flavour, plus a bit of liquorice stick. Gentle balance with a big flavour hit, crunchy and fresh. Straight down the line, and with added texture, an imperceptibly felt grip to the core.

Domaine Navarre, Rybeyrenc, 2011, Vin de France €8
11%. This goes into old barrels, for up to 10 months. Medium pale cherry colour. Smoke and tarry nose, with cinnamon-spiced cherries. Medium bodied with fresh and crunchy cherry fruit, smoothly textured, with aromatic spices on the mid palate. Good density and length.

My research visit to Saint Chinian was sponsored by the Syndicat du cru Saint-Chinian.

It’s great to see a book devoted to Sicily and its wines. Sicily is kind of like a whole country, both in its historic diversity at the crossroads of ancient civilisations and their trading routes, and in its wine production. It produces more than some other European nations.

This is a husband and wife writing team from the USA, with Sicilian ancestry between them. Between them they cover the ancient cultural cross-fertilisation of centuries, tracing the origin of wine on the island to the eighth century BC Greek settlers.

This fertile island had become the ‘gastronomic epicentre of the classical Mediterranean world’ by the third century BC, something advanced by 200 years of Muslim control, and all of which is, after a period of gastronomic retrenchment, testament to the wonderfully flavoursome foodstuffs found all over the island today. di Savino makes the cultural journey through Sicily eminently readable, interesting and fair-packed with enlightening information. It all builds a picture of how modern cultural and land-use patterns evolved.

British influence in the late 18^th century saw the creation of Marsala, as a product to undercut Madeira in British markets. But investment also allowed indigenous production to grow. By 1880 there were nearly 322,000 hectares of vineyards in Sicily. That’s about three times bigger than current day South Africa, Chile or Germany.  As elsewhere in Europe phylloxera plundered the vineyards. There are now just over 115,000 hectares.

We’re taken through 20^th century developments of EU agricultural policy, the rise and stumble of the co-operative movement, and the transition from basic quality bulk production to improving quality from the 1980s. Pioneering vinous personalities have their Sicilian stories outlined, including Diego Planeta and Giacomo Tachis.

The reader is brought right up to date, with Sicilia DOC, a further, only partially successful, attempt to harness better quality and identity for Sicilian wine.  It all makes erudite reading, putting into perspective Sicily’s current viticultural position.

The book then moves onto more ‘regular’ wine stuff, starting with geography and vine varieties, including wonderful local ones such as nero d’avola, nerello mascalese and frappato. It’s about now I’m keening for a detailed map of Sicily’s modern viticultural regions. There isn’t one for another 80 pages, and then it’s small and lacking detail, it doesn’t have all the places on it that are mentioned in the text, making it difficult to keep track of the textual journey. I’d had loved for there to be some colour pictures too, to illustrate the landscape, cultural and viticultural. An opportunity was missed by not having images in this otherwise detailed and informative book.

Indeed this is as detailed and informative a book as one might want on Sicilian wine history, wine-making and wine-growing. Some half of the book focuses on three hugely contrasting regions of Sicily: Marsala’s hinterland in the west; Noto in the far south-east; and the north-east bit including the wines of Etna. In each region, we are taken through the places, products and significant people who are shaping a bright place in the 21^st century of Sicilian wine.

It’d be great if this book puts Sicily back on the map. Just a shame the map wasn’t put into the book.

Château Les Carrasses

(aka the jog blog – thanks @thewinebird). Having taken up jogging again in the summer of 2012, I thought it might be fun to share some microclimatic observations.

Saint Chinian, Languedoc, March 2013

At 6am it was pitch dark, pouring with rain and blowing a gale. Dark and raining is not my favourite combination. Blowing a gale too was just too much. There was absolutely no incentive to jog in the vineyards – can’t even see the vines.

However, since I started the jog blog, I have signed up for the London marathon – next month (!) – so if it’s a training day, a-training I must go (blogging the journey at http://purplerunning.wordpress.com/ just for fun). I did a few exercises while I waited for day to break. My internal conversation had gone: if only it were dark and dry, I would run.  If only it were light and raining, I would run). So running I went in the morning light of 7am, drenched 10 seconds out of the door.

We were staying at the luxurious Château Les Carrasses, just outside Capestang, at the southern extremity of the Saint Chinian appellation. Definitely luxurious for the Languedoc. Actually pretty luxurious in any location.

The rather dishy Turkish émigré, Özgür, printed off an excellent route for me. A 3.75 mile, circular route on tarmac road, partly through the vineyards. This was much needed. Knee-high mud (I’m speculating on visual assessment) would have been the other option. Through the vineyards, along a bit of the Canal du Midi, into Capestang then, oof, up a long – it felt very long – incline back to the château. It felt especially long as I was running into a headwind. Uphill into a headwind … what is that about? Hot core, shivery extremities – an early morning speedy bath (I know, contradiction in terms) was my reward.

I’ve never seen so much water in the south of France. Maybe in Bordeaux, but not here. Flooded patches of vineyard. Mini-torrents running in the gutters and across the small country roads. The vines were looking bedraggled and stoic under this stormy onslaught. Most were pruned, smart, uniform, waiting to burst with the spring.  Some were still to be pruned, wearing last season’s seemingly random, ’sticky’ shape.

… the following morning was lovely and sunny, as the picture shows!

Maxim and Valery Troychuk

Valery Troychuk and his son Maxim, who’s studying in the UK, are working with indigenous Russian grapes on their 200 hectares of vineyard, situated in the chilly Rostov region, where vines need to be buried to survive the winter.

Their Vedernikov winery is 160km from the city of Rostov on Don, in one of the world’s most northerly areas of wine production. The Troychuks are proud to say it is on the right bank of the river Don – the original, historic Russian area of the Don Cossacks. The left bank Maxim said “belonged to the Ottoman empire, and winemaking was not popular!”

Troychuk senior took control of the winery, which had been founded in 1970, in 1999, and has been building the vineyard holding since then.  It wasn’t until 2005 that they produced their first vintage of ‘premium’ wine, a concept that appears to distinguish wine in Russia from the cheaper, everyday wine, which, we are told, is often not entirely made of Russian-grown fruit. As if to confirm this, Troychuk junior said “our premium wines are 100% our own fruit.”

Nearly three-quarters of the vines here need to be buried in the winter. The cost to cover and uncover these vines, said Troychuk senior “is 50% more expensive than not covering.” It is only the hybrid varieties, bred to survive the conditions, that can stand through the winter, which gets down to -25 to -28°C.  He suggested that if vines have to suffer to produce good wine, then his should be producing good wine indeed!

Summer is pretty tough too, getting up to 38 to 40°C, so vines need to be hardy at both ends of the temperature spectrum.

Buried krasnostop

Krasnostop is a high order black Russian variety, but there are two clones, explained Maxim. “Krasnostop zolotovsky is our pride. It’s one of the best grape varieties in the world.  Zolotovsky is near to us, a geographical place. Krasnostop originates from this area.” This is a variety that is high in alcohol, high in acid, high in tannin, high in everything, including flavour.  Troychuk senior described it as “a natural athlete”.  The other clone is Anapsky, from closer to the Black Sea.

Other key indigenous varieties Vedernikov work with include the impressive sibirkovy (white), and tsimlyansky chorni (black). They also have some rkatsiteli that does well.

Tasting, in situ, November 2012

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Donskaya Chasha, Rkatsiteli 2011
Aromatic lime pith. Lemon grass, sauvignon blanc-spectrum of zestiness and citrus fruits. Light attack, grassy, nice fresh intensity of immediate fruit, light-body, in citrus, lime, melon, greengage flavour spectrum, all in a good, straight line. Lots of green flavoured fruits. Good.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Aligote 2011
Lemony nose, less aromatic than rkatsiteli; more neutral and vinous. Fresh, with decent volume, white stone-iness on the core. Palate more interesting in stoney lines rather than fruity lines. Has a bit of substance to mid palate but doesn’t jump out of the glass to greet you. Decent length.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Sibirkovy 2011
All stainless steel. Grass, white flower, lemongrass, fennel leaves. Hint of reductive sweat. Round palate entry, with some perky plushness, good volume of fruit, in zesty, pithy, canteloupe melon,  lemongrass spectrum. Round and balanced with bruised apple on the core. Good intensity and concentration. Good length Interesting and flavoursome, with attractive balance. Vg.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Sibirkovy 2011
With oak, 2^nd fill. 75% in oak, 25% with no oak, for 6 months
Supports the oak pretty well, but mutes fruit aromas. Bit gorse-like and citrus, round and with tannin/phenol element that the fruit doesn’t really support. Oak is done well, but at the expense of the purity of the wine/ fruit. Demerit for oak I’m afraid. Then we are told they have decided not to use oak at all in the 2012 vintage.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Gubernatorskoye Riesling 2011
Lime pith, supple  acidity effect. Plenty of extract to give body and feel. Aromatic green flavours, (not that I see in Germany/Austria/Australia), like tasty stalks of something soft maybe pea shoots, samphire or something. Something young, sweet, soft and barely crunchy. Lovely texture/integrity, with limey finish and good length.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Tsimlyansky Cherny 2011
Cask sample, 100% new oak. Toasty, and grainy notes, quite a raw oakiness, but suggests it will become integrated – huge fruit concentration will absorb the oak. Bright and sweet cherry palate core, with some mid palate floral aromatics, more tannin here, obviously from the oak. Well balanced. Chewy finish tho’ which will soften in.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Pravoberezhnoye 2011
50% cabernet sauvignon, 35% tsimlyansky, 15% krasnostop.
Medium deep cherry colour. Not hugely aromatic, more spicy, with spicy palace attack – clove, liquorice root. Huge spices, sour cherry, firm acidity, and freshness with intensity in its medium bodied weight. Good, with good length.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Krasnostop 2010
All stainless steel.  Bright mulled-spice cherry notes. Smooth attack, sweetly-spiced, with rich mulberry and dark-chocolate, even with dark-choc/bitter orange skin combo. Sweet forest-berry fruited, youthful as anything, succulent with fresh/firm core. Supple plentiful tannins, proportioned and toned. Big with 14.5% integrated. Delicious. Vg.

Vinodelnya Vedernikov, Krasnostop 2010
Fermentation in stainless steel, then 50% in to new oak for one year.
Toasty spices are the first nose, fruit is muted on nose and on the palate attack. Toasted spices and a grip on the side palate which detracts.  Nice enough oak, though chewy to sides and finish. Good but not as exciting for me as the same wine only in stainless steel.

My visit to Russia was sponsored by the Union of the Oenologists and Winemakers of Russia.

Outside the USA: Octopus Books Publication date: 2013 ISBN 978 0 520 27321 4 Pages: 288 Price: US$50 / £40

Though the subtitle addresses the potentially confusing title (to a non-USA person?), this is indeed more accurately entitled “USA Wine” as neither Canadian nor South American wines are covered. This book asserts itself as being “the first comprehensive and authoritative reference to the wines, wineries and winemakers of all fifty states.” As the authors are pretty high profile it all augurs well.  I’m looking forward to being edified, especially as I’m less familiar with USA wines than those from some other countries.

It was only a few years ago that the USA became the nation which consumed the most wine in the world, overtaking France. But this belies the modest per capita consumption in the USA – some 11/12 litres per head versus France’s 50 litres per head. Little wonder the USA is seen as a potential boom destination market for wine from other countries, so perhaps this book is a timely reminder about the home-grown stuff.  Not that there is enough home-grown stuff to meet demand.

The book is organised by state, within five broad regions, which I’m guessing are administrative rather than stylistic. Given that California accounts for some 90% of all USA wine production, it gets less than half the book pages, which has to be encouraging for all the other states.

There are useful bits on prohibition, labelling legislation, sustainability issues, and the evolving labyrinth of more than 200 AVAs. It’s interesting to learn that Prohibition is regarded as having ‘stalled progress’ of the USA wine industry, especially when one considers the first sauvignon blanc vines weren’t planted in New Zealand’s Marlborough region until 1973.  They don’t seem too lacking in progress in NZ. But perhaps that is precisely because they’re not bound by bygones and historic blueprints.

Maps follow the pattern of the World Atlas of Wine which is a reassuring constant, as we’re probably used to seeing them like this by now.  The book is somewhat in the style of the Atlas, a positive attribute, while being strong on pioneering history, pioneers and putting into perspective that labyrinth of AVAs in an industry that reads as though it is still in a rapid state of flux, despite having some of the oldest vines on the planet.

It’s tricky to follow what grape varieties may be finding their best adaptations in which region, though AVA/State snapshots begin to address this conundrum It’s just as well that Robinson summarises emerged or emerging ‘classics’ as the cabernets and Bordeaux blends from California, Washington, Virginia and Long Island; pinot noir from ocean-chilled parts of California and Oregon, Rhône blends from eastern Washington and rieslings from the Finger Lakes of New York (praise indeed from the riesling-maestro JR).

I have been edified. Among so many other things, I didn’t know wine is made in every one of the USA’s 50 states. Both Alaska and Hawaii have wineries. Tropical Hawaii relies on hybrids, while arctic Alaska uses local fruits or grape juice imports.

This is one of those reference books with solid information highlighting soil, cultivar, AVA diversity, with some beautiful photography that brings to life the plethora of viticultural landscape across the USA.

Didier Pierson

Forget big, brand-name Champagne houses investing in the UK to make sparkling wine. Fifth generation Champenois vigneron Didier Pierson has already been growing grapes to make English Sparkling Wine (ESW) on the South Downs since 2004. He was the first, and he thinks, still the only Champenois investing in England. His Meonhill property is in Hampshire’s Meon Valley.

Pierson spent a year rummaging around the south coast of England “looking to find something similar to the Côte de Blancs in Champagne” he said, where his family vineyards are located, at Avize.  He reviewed the English climate and weather, undertook soil analyses in various locatoins, and finally linked up in a joint venture with the non-wine-drinking owner of Little West End Farm, between Winchester and Petersfield. The South Downs Way skirts the farm.

The first plantings were in 2004 and 2005, and now amount to 4 hectares. Pierson’s first harvest was in 2007, but no wine was bottled. He kept it in vats until the 2008 came in.  Pierson’s first ESW was bottled in 2009, a blend of the ’07 and ’08 vintages.

Pierson is well placed to explain the differences between Champagne and England. He said “the big difference is the weather. Summer is cooler in England.  And flowering at the end of June can be cool, especially at night in England” where the temperature drops overnight. He added “in Champagne, flowering is usually in the first half of June, and the temperature is usually quite warm.”  His South Downs field is also extremely flinty, right to the surface.

Such was the cold misery of the English summer in 2012, Pierson didn’t pick any grapes that year. He said “the sugar levels were too low, we didn’t even harvest. It’s the first time I’ve not done a harvest, even in Champagne.”  So much for his inspiration for coming to England because he “wanted to do something different.” Not quite what he had in mind!

Wintry Meonhill Vineyard

The hillside he settled on is an exposed south-facing spur of downland just south of Old Winchester Hill. “Normally” Pierson said, almost grimacing at the memory of the 2012 vintage, “summer on the south-facing slope is warm.  And there is some wind almost all the time, which constantly dries the leaves.” All of which means he has less disease pressure on the South Downs than in Champagne.

Pierson’s four hectares are divided equally between pinot noir and chardonnay. He replicates the 50:50 proportion in his reserve cuvee.

Wines are kept on lees for three years.  (Non-vintage Champagne only requires 15 months).  Pierson said “I’d like to add [even] another year on lees, because the more you keep wine on lees the better the autolysis. You get more complexity.” Less freshness too, but freshness isn’t an issue in England. Pierson said “there’s more freshness in England [than Champagne] – less sugar, more acidity – and this needs to be controlled otherwise the wine will be too crispy.” Keeping the wine on lees for longer is one way to control the freshness – “there are more aromas with more time on lees, and the acidity will lower, slowly” he explained.

The idea is to plant a total of 12 hectares over the next five to ten years. Pierson already has his eye on turning out the sheep from the adjacent field.

His Champagne is called Pierson-Whitaker, and that was pretty tasty too, based on the tasting with his English bubblies.

Tasting, in situ, February 2013

Meonhill Reserve NV, ~£22
50% chardonnay, 50% pinot noir. Three years on lees.
Vinous, steely nose, with upright backbone on the palate and steely, briar, hawthorn and hedgerow notes. Very fresh, linear, savoury-mealiness and dry-toast notes in nicely layered flavours. Fine, persistent mousse. Notable weight and body from the pinot noir proportion. Fresh, steely. Good length.

Meonhill Chardonnay NV, ~£23
So ‘blanc de blanc’, but Pierson wants to keep it English (though ‘blanc de blanc’ is mentioned on the back label). Three years on lees.
Citrus creamy nose, with perky palate attack, toasted lemons, and good intensity of rich sweet-lees/brioche thing on the palate. Fine, persistent mousse. Fresh, and with some roundness/plushness on the citrus-led mid palate. Good.

For availability of these wines contact Meonhill directly via the website.

Domaine de l'Arjolle

Family-owned Domaine de l’Arjolle is a producer making a virtue out of flavoursome and interesting, easy-drinking, varietally-labelled IGP wines (the old Vin de Pays category). Their 90 hectares of vineyards all lie within the Côtes de Thongue IGP, around Pouzolles, west of Pézenas in the Languedoc.

Their 90 hectares are spread over the hills and the lower slopes between the Black Mountain and the Cévennes, and the plain, in an area that was, 15 million years ago, covered by sea.  The diverse soils allow them to experiment with planting different grape varieties in different locations. They’ve found that the clays on the top of the slope are good for reds, including syrah and grenache, the sometimes terraced mid-slopes of clay and limestone suit whites such as sauvignon blanc, sauvignon gris, chardonnay and viognier, while merlot and cabernet franc prefer the gravelly bottom of slope.

The domaine’s wines are made to Terra Vitis standards. This is an organisation that operates various measured and certified sustainable protocols.

As part of their sustainability work, the domaine is taking part in a biodiversity pilot study in the Côtes de Thongue, along with 13 other member producers. Together they cover about 20% of the IGP, so expect results to have rigour for the rest of the IGP.  The aim is to analyse the level of biodiversity and put into action a plan to improve it as part of wider sustainability work. So far the group has learnt that they need to plant more hedges to act as wildlife (flora and fauna) refuges and corridors. Some 3,300 metres of hedges are planned.

Tasting, in situ, October 2012

Domaine de l’Arjolle, Sauvignon 2011, IGP Côtes de Thongue, £6.95 at Wine Society
Specifically called ‘Sauvignon’ because it’s 70% sauvignon blanc and 30% sauvignon gris.
It’s had lees stirring for one month to add a bit of texture.  Fresh, grassy and lemon zest, with a noticeable degree of added texture and body.  Not hugely aromatic in the pungent sauvignon blanc style, which for this wine I view as a bonus.

Domaine de l’Arjolle, Delphine de Margon Chardonnay 2011, IGP Côtes de Thongue
Fermented 70% in tank, 30% in 2-3 year old barrels. Matured six months, with lees.
Has kept its freshness nicely, with added bit of nuttiness and vanilla ice-cream, all delicately done. Balanced pithy and nutty finish.

Domaine de l’Arjolle, Cabernet-Merlot 2010, IGP Côtes de Thongue, £7.50 at Wine Society
Fermented 60% in barrel, 40% in tank, with one year in 3-4 year old oak. Soft, supple, plumy red fruits with a hint of green pepper for interest. Easy drinking style, light in tannin and uncomplicated.

Domaine de l’Arjolle, Cabernet 2010,  IGP Côtes de Thongue
Specifically called ‘Cabernet’ because it’s 70% cabernet sauvignon and 30% cabernet franc. Twelve months in barrels of which 30% were new oak, including 5-10% American oak. For a relatively easy drinking style, I found the oak to the fore with accentuated spiciness detracting from the fruit I’d hoped to find.

Domaine de l’Arjolle, Paradoxe 2010, IGP Côtes de Thongue,
Syrah, 40% ; cabernet sauvignon, 25% ; merlot, 25% ; grenache, 10%. Twelve months in barrel, 60% new, 40% 2-year old.
Overt new oak spiciness and toastiness here, but no surprise given this is a wine for bottle ageing. Fresh, attractively medium –bodied, with plentiful red berry fruits for concentration.
A tasting of the 1999 (yes) version of this showed a remarkable wine – gentle, mellow, distinct but not dominant farmyard flavours, really interesting and still balanced.

My visit to the Languedoc was sponsored by a group of half a dozen producers.

Phil Sexton (l) and Martin Spedding

As Australia continues to link signature grape varieties with smaller regions, a January 2013 masterclass in London explored Yarra Valley chardonnay and Mornington Peninsula pinot noir.

The masterclass was led by Phil Sexton from Innocent Bystander/Giant Steps, leading on Yarra Valley chardonnay, and Martin Spedding from Ten Minutes by Tractor, leading on Mornington Peninsula pinot noir.

Australian pinot noir has only recently begun to rise to exponential acclaim. The Aussie’s are just getting their heads around the variety’s unreliability. Spedding said “there is a certain amount of insanity that’s required when growing pinot noir; obsessive compulsive behaviour; a fastidious attention to detail in the vineyards and the winery. And the results aren’t always guaranteed.”

Morninton’s key influence is the water that surrounds it on three sides: Port Phillip Bay to the east, the Bass Strait to the south and Western Port Bay to the east. “There’s a very significant maritime influence, plus cool sea breezes” Spedding said, and “we’re only beginning to understand the importance of those breezes.”

Mornington also has an approximate west-east running ridge some two-thirds of the way down, off which a series of north-south sub-ridges emanate. It is among these ridges that many small-scale vineyards typical of the peninsula are located.

It might take just ten minutes to get from top to bottom, but there’s about four weeks’ difference in the length of growing season.

He selected wines to show the ‘up the hill’ and ‘down the hill’ developing dichotomy, which Spedding outlines as being “redder fruits, more elegant [up], to darker fruit, bigger pinot noir [down]”, but he added “it’s too early to come to conclusions about sub-regional characters.”

A broad difference in style may be emerging, but I reckon individual producers are still playing with style preferences to find the one best suited to their particular locale and personal philosophy. It’ll take a bit longer for sub-regions to assert their character over that of the winemaker.

2010 was a “fantastic vintage, cooler and long-lived” Spedding said, while 2008 “was very different, relatively cool at the end of drought years, and more forward.“ While the last four were from the warmer, more forward 2008, the picture is complicated because the first two 2008s were picked after a few days’ hot spell, and the second two 2008s were picked before the warm spell.

We tasted in order from latest picked wines (up the hill) to earliest picked (down the hill), which varied from the middle of March to the end of January.

Tasting, London, January 2013

Ten Minutes by Tractor, Judd Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Pale cherry colour, richly aromatic, violet and dark cherry, enticing nose and palate. Sweet attack and core. Delicious. Long finish. Precise and focused and moreish.

Paringa Estate, The Paringa Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Crunchy red cherry nose, bigger palate. More full bodied, sweet fruit all through, integrated, warm alc (14.5%) at back palate, more structure and backbone, more substance for ageing.  Strong and good.

Stonier, Windmill Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Not so aromatic, and with warm, open knit texture. Lacks a little generosity of primary fruit, but makes up for it with graphite, savoury notes on the mid-palate adding layering. Well-framed, with spiciness coming through on back palate. Quite intense wine, sort of creeps up on you, but feels a bit like you can see the some of the seams.

Kooyong, Ferrous Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Plush, velvety dark cherry nose, all silky and seductive and come hither. Graphite notes on the mid palate layer with smooth-textured fresh and spiced cherries. Very nice.

Crittenden, The Zumma Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Not so immediately aromatic. Warm with almost rumtopf spiciness. Medium body, showing its ribs, savoury lines.

Yabby Lake, Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Graphite, fine-grained long in-palate length. Big boned and with nice toning nonetheless. Sweet fruit core, with warm earthiness and nicely balanced.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, McCutcheon Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Bit of hessian development on the nose, smooth and plush texture. Sweet fruit core evident. Mellowing into itself, filling out its skin. Lovely. Long and lush.

Eldridge Estate, Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Bright, crunchy red cherries. Quite spiced and feel the alcohol (14%), not obtrusively though; has warm, plush varietal definition. More muscular style. Good.

Dexter, Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Pale colour, showing some development with smooth and savoury, dry finish.

Moorooduc Estate, The Moorooduc Pinot Noir 2008, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Attractive rumtopf-y red cherry development showing. Some roundness of texture, mellowing into itself.