Categories
Travel Wine

Nectar from the gods

I don’t have a single all-time favourite wine. It depends on the season, with whom I’m sharing it and what’s on the plate in front of me. Normally at this time of the year it would be a Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay or Riesling. But right now it’s a Cabernet Franc from New Zealand, an extraordinary Cabernet Franc that beats anything I have drunk from the Loire, Clos Rougeard included. I might even prefer it in a taste-off with Chateau Cheval Blanc, although this Premier Grand Cru Classe “A” has Merlot in the blend. So let’s just say it is the best single varietal Cabernet Franc I’ve ever drunk.

Pyramid Valley Cabernet Franc

It’s from a small biodynamic producer, Pyramid Valley Vineyards, from north Canterbury in NZ’s South Island.. The grapes are sourced from a tiny vineyard of less than a hectare in Hawkes Bay a region better known for its Cabernet Sauvignons and Syrah. Winemaker Mike Weersing has coaxed amazing flavours from the handpicked grapes. Much fuller, richer and silkier than the Loire’s Cabernet Francs, it has a lovely mouth feel and long but soothing finish. Simply brilliant. I have managed to get hold of 100 bottles of this nectar and am debating whether to share with my clients or put it all away in the cellar. So twist my arm if you want to taste a truly amazing Cabernet Franc.

John Borrell

Categories
Tasting Travel

Raise your glass

Normally I get to drink Champagne two or three times a year, raising a glass at someone’s birthday or as the fireworks herald the start of a New Year. But on a trip to Champagne with friends this autumn, I drank almost nothing else but Champagne. And quite a lot of it too. At one memorable dinner in a Michelin 2-star restaurant in Reims we got through several magnums of Besserat de Bellefon Champagne during the seven course meal. We started with a rose, moved on to the Cuvee des Moines Brut and finished with an extra-dry Blanc de Blancs. I was surprised at just how well it matched almost all the dishes (we ordered an excellent Syrah from the Rhone vineyards of Michel and Stephane Ogier to go with the Corsican steak) and how clear all our heads were the following morning.

Besserat de Bellefon

The next day after visiting the Besserat de Bellefon Champagne house in Epernay we lunched at a fine restaurant near the Cathedral. The first course was a salmon mousse and the main course duck and yes, they both went very well with Champagne. It’s a good job Besserat de Bellfon has 15 km of tunnels on five levels and 22-million bottles ageing quietly in them. I could become a regular Champagne drinker.

Categories
Travel Wine

Pinot Noir – finesse in a bottle

Pinot Noir is not a grape that Poles fall in love with immediately. In fact many people’s first impressions are that it is too light, insipid even. Bigger, fruitier wines are preferred, whether they are from the New World or from southern Europe where hot summers enable grapes like Primitivo and Monastrell to ripen fully and be turned into heavy, fruity, high-alcohol wines.

I found myself explaining this last week to Mark Weldon and Sarah Eliott who own Terra Sancta, a winery on Felton Road in Central Otago, probably New Zealand’s top address when it comes to Pinot Noir. They are keen to sell in Poland and my explanation of Polish tastes was a preface to saying yes, I will sell your wines in Poland because I think they are great – but don’t expect huge sales.

We have some wonderful Pinot Noirs in our portfolio including Peter Finlayson’s Tete de Cuvee from Hermanus in South Africa, one of the best Pinots I have ever tasted, and Duckhorn’s Goldeneye from the Anderson Valley in California. It was good enough to be served at President Obama’s inauguration lunch. They sell slowly and to the small number of people who prefer finesse to muscularity.

I think that Pinot Noir is a grape you develop a taste for as you get older. Big, fruity wines are less appealing as the years tick away, especially when they are accompanied by high levels of alcohol as many now are. You are also often better able to afford them.

So I told Mark and Sarah not to worry too much about sales here. If others didn’t snap up Terra Sancta’s wonderful Pinot Noirs, I would drink them. I am just the right age to be a Pinot Noir drinker, especially if it’s as good as Terra Sancta’s Mysterious Diggins, Peter Finlayson’s Tete de Cuvee or Duckhorn’s Goldeneye.

John Borrell

Categories
Kania Lodge Travel Wine

Summer blushes

If you like rosé wine there’s no better place to be than in Provence which produces more than 100-million bottles of it a year – well over half France’s total production of rosé . That’s where I am now, sitting beneath a plane tree that shades the terrace of a restaurant in Aix-en-Provence. Rosé is made for outdoor terraces like this, especially when the weather is warm and sunny as it tends to be in Provence at this time of the year. I have chosen a rose from Bandol to go with a salade niçoise, a perfect match in my opinion.

Summers are much shorter in Poland than here, but a glass of rose on the terrace is just as wonderful when the sun is shining. We have several rosé s on the Wine Express list, including a new one from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. It arrived this week and we’ll be serving it with Lebanese food on the terrace at Kania Lodge this coming weekend. Because of its lusciousness and hints of strawberry and grapefruit, roses like this go well with slightly spicy food. But it’s also a pleasure on its own. All you need to enjoy it to the full is a terrace, some sun and a cooler to keep the rose in.

John Borrell

Categories
Travel Wine

New Portuguese wines – Pausa

Pausa Branco, 2011, Ilex Vinhos
wino portugalskie
Pausa Letra, 2009, Ilex Vinhos
Categories
Travel Wine

Awaiting the wines from Domaine des Tourelles

Domaine des Tourelles

Article from Decanter Magazine.

Categories
Travel Wine

The judgement of Paris

Californian wine came of age in 1976 at a blind tasting in Paris which pitted the top Chateau from Bordeaux against some largely unknown wines from the Napa Valley. To everyone surprise and the French wine industry’s mortification, previously unsung Californian producers like Stag’s Leap and Montelana bested Bordeaux icons like Chateaux Mouton-Rothschild and Haut-Brion. California has never looked back. Top wines from the Napa Valley fetch hundreds of dollars a bottle, and there are long waiting lists for the tiniest of allocations of the now great Californian names.

But in the last decade or so, something interesting has happened. Californian wines have become a bit more like those from Bordeaux. And Bordeaux has become a bit more Californian-like. That is to say that the top Californian wines have become a little less voluptuously fruity and oaked, and top Bordeaux reds a little fruiter and more rounder. Warmer weather in Bordeaux has played a part in this, but winemakers on both sides of the Atlantic have consciously incorporated some their rivals’ best features into their own winemaking. The winners are neither California nor Bordeaux, but us, the consumer.

John Borrell

Categories
Travel Wine

Wine, not war

It’s nearly 30 years since I was last in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. There was a civil war going on then and I was Time Magazine’s correspondent in Beirut. Now the civil war is across the border in Syria and I have swapped writing for wine, a sensible thing to do at my age.

This time I was in the Bekaa to meet Fauozi Issa, owner and winemaker at Domaine des Tourelles. It is one of Lebanon’s oldest wineries and Faouzi is producing some interesting wines; Decanter Magazine recently rated his Marquis des Beys, a blend of Cabernet and Syrah, at 93 points.

I was keen to taste the wine and to meet Faouzi and his family. At Wine Express we like working with family-owned wineries and enthusiastic young winemakers. Neither disappointed.

Fauozi, who studied oenology in France and worked at Chateau Margaux, bubbles with enthusiasm. The 2009 Marquis des Beys was as good as an expression of the Bekaa’s terroir as any Lebanese wines I have tried. I’ll share my tasting notes later.

There is also a seductive white made mostly from Viognier (apples an pineapples) and an everyday red made from Syrah and Cabernet which was soft on the palate and full of fruit.

It was a great tasting and we’ll shortly be bringing Faouzi’s full range o Poland.

Categories
Travel Wine

Murcia, the new Puglia?

Few people have heard of the Spanish grape Monastrell. They are much more likely to have heard of Mouverdre from France or Mataro from Australia, both of them clones of the original Spanish Monastrell. The reason for the grape’s obscurity is that until recently it was grown primarily to produce bulk wine which was shipped off, often abroad, to add colour and body to more anaemic wines with better name recognition.

But just as Primitivo from Puglia in Italy has in recent years shrugged off its bulk wine image and become a sought-after single varietal, so too is Monastrell from Murcia in Spain rapidly becoming much more than just a tanker or blending wine. In fact, a recent visit to Murcia in the south of Spain has left me wondering whether Murcia might not be the new Puglia and Monastrell the new Primitivo, an increasingly popular grape in Poland.

There are many similarities. Both regions are in the hot, dry south of their respective countries. Both grape varieties tend to produce full, fruity and sometimes tannic wines. Both Primitivo and Monastrell are often great value for money, especially when compared to wines from better known regions in their own countries. Chianti in Italy and Rioja in Spain spring immediately to mind.

On my visit to wineries in both the Jumilla and Yecla denominations in Murcia, I tasted single varietal Monastrell with 93 Parker points and met winemakers who believed they will soon achieve scores in the high 90’s. I also tasted Monastrell with Parker scores in the high 80’s which could be retailed in Poland for less than 30 zl a bottle.

In fact they will be within a month or two. Check our website for Monastrell from Murcia early in the New Year.

John Borrell