Sneak Attack

 

My Champagne nemesis is Pol Roger.  This house is universally regarded as one of the greats, but its wines are the ones I tend to miss seeing and understanding in tastings.  I regularly see the beauty and finesse of Taittinger, and the richness of Louis Roederer.  The slowing changing nature of Veuve Clicquot doesn’t stop me from picking up on its complexity.  And Bollinger is a stand out for its aldehydes .  But Pol Roger just doesn’t register in blind tastings, and I usually miss the point, while everyone else remarks on its beauty, depth and elegance.

The Master was in town and we hadn’t met up for “many moons” as SWMBO would say.  We received an invitation we couldn’t refuse and packed up a nice bottle of German Riesling as a gift.  But upon arriving, The Master and Maid Marion already had a nice bottle chilled and ready to go.  A 2004 Pol Roger Champagne Blanc de Blanc.  Top off and into the glass, it was redolent of soft apple juice.  A nice but unremarkable fizz, I thought at first.  Easy and unchallenging.  Exactly how Pol Roger behaves for me.  Then the sneak attack.  Nuances of flowers, citrus and stonefruit growing in richness, building in depth, concentration and core.  Bread, yeast, nuts all chiming in.  Wonderfully refined textures.  Yet lightness on its feet.  My glass disappeared quickly.  The Master just as quick to top it up.  Soon the bottle was gone, as we righted the world…

Coming Up for Air

Another quiet night with the Ally Pally Helly couple still meant plenty of vinous noise.  The conversation was mellow but the wine and food tastes were a little more out there.  It’s the perfect was to spend an evening, with humour, civility and plenty of interesting things covered.

The final red produced was the 1990 Robert Sirugue Vosne Romanee, a bottle with a bit of bottle age.  This was obtained on a trip 20+ years ago.  A label we don’t see here, but a bit of digging shows a 11 ha domaine and Jayer family ties.  A wine of good provenance.  And it was a wine that needed the time both since bottling, and after being poured in the glass.  Still dark with black-red and garnet hues, this was fulsome and voluminous on nose and weighty and rich on the palate.  A bigger wine for Vosne Romanee, especially for village level and for a wine with a quarter of a century under its belt.  It must have been a big, structured and grunty wine in its time.  Now into its secondary and tertiary phase with savoury, earthy and dried herb flavours, and that seasoned oak resinous, not quite dank expression.  But holding it all together was lovely rich and sweet fruit.  The tannins and acid all in magical balance, and as it saw more air, it cleaned up, become more harmonious.  The more we looked at what it was like when young, the more we were pleased to be drinking it now.

Black Blue Green Red

 

We met up with the Ally Pally Helly couple for a weekend away.  They arrived first, and upon our arrival, the starters and white wine were ready and waiting.  Such service!  After a good catch up, we headed off to one of our favourite eateries for some carbohydrate, before heading back for another vino to accompany some laughs and to see off the night.

 

It was our turn to provide, and it was a 2010 Prieler ‘Leithaberg’ Burgenland Blaufrankisch.  This isn’t quite the top wine for Prieler from the Burgenland in Austria, but the fruit is from the ‘Goldberg’ site which is schist and limestone, and the wine sees 20 months in wood.  Black red in colour, the wine is a fruit-focussed one without the earthy dusty ‘Old World’ feel, and very modern in expression.  It is said Blaufrankisch is the Cabernet Sauvignon of Austria, and that’s maybe where SWMBO and I could see green curranty flavours, this not being unripe in any way though.  Clean and green, and supple and sweet, fruity and only a suggestion of savoury, funky interest, this was a delish Blue Frank red.  A rainbow!   

Different Vinous Beasts

In little New Zealand, we see very few wines from North America.  Yet there is a strong tie between this country and the state of Oregon in the north-west, particularly when it comes to Pinot Noir.  Many critics would say outside Burgundy, New Zealand and Oregon make the best Pinot Noirs.  And there is considerable cross-pollination of ideas and approaches, with winemaker exchanges and the never-ending Pinot Noir conferences and celebrations.  One conclusion in comparing the wines is that the Oregonian wines are ripe and more structured, whereas the Kiwi wines are fruitier and more aromatic.  Essentially different vinous beasts, though related.

A chance to look at the other animals came in the form of the 2014 Elk Cove Willamette Valley Pinot Gris and 2012 Elk Cove Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.  These two varieties are the most important in the region.  The Pinot Gris very light in colour and fruit expression, and more stonefruity with a suggestion of nuts and minerals, rather than floral, honied and unctuous.  So we’d see it as a Pinot Grigio style, but with more richness.  Onto the Pinot Noir, and certainly noy as varietally clean and pure, but with a savoury herbal nose and flavour.  More importantly was the structure, with grainier if not a suggestion of more blocky tannins.  But the balance works, with grip and fruit depth in good measure.   

Red Wine Triangles and Squares

It’s always fun bringing out and opening something a bit different for visitors to taste and drink.  Most of us have our preferences and favourites, despite trying to keep an open mind.  It’s a pleasant surprise when a new and seldom seen wine hits the spot, as it did with the Folder and the Spoker, then the Pinger.  SWMBO and I had tasted this before, but only in passing at a tasting.

In its homeland of the Burgenland of Austria, the Blaufrankisch is the Cabernet Sauvignon equivalent with its dark colour, black fruit, drive and structure, but a more thoughtful insight that it sits in the middle of the triangle formed by Syrah from the Rhone with its spice, Nebbiolo from Piedmont with its tannin structure and Pinot Noir from Burgundy with its smooth and silken textures.  We see it that way too.

The 2011 Moric ‘Reserve’ Burgenland Blaufrankisch is certainly a big wine.  The black-red colour lets you know something significant is on its way.  Then the nose, intriguing and different, yes, unique.  Black fruits, with ripeness and sweetness, and also a savoury meaty and game hint.  No brettanomyces here though, but if anything a mineral aspect.  With breathing, love aromatic fruit emerges, blackberries and florals.  Wow, this just gets better.  Same on palate with the flavour expression, with black herbs in the mix; the wine is a big one, but not overly so.  There’s structure and extract, but all in balance.  Maybe it should have been a square rather than a triangle with Cabernet Sauvignon at one of the corners?

Warm as Ice

We get together with the WRXers regularly, sharing fine dinners and good wines.  More often than not, they put on the food, and SWMBO and I put up the bottles.  It’s the natural thing to do.  It’s not a matter of building up credits, or paying back, but the WRXers have had a special little sweetie in store, which was a gift from a kindred snow sports spirit.  They’ve had it for a number of years, waiting for the right occasion, and they deemed it right at a dinner with the Westies up the road.  They felt it was a good time to share something to cement the friendships forged. 

 

The wine in question for such a heartfelt and warming time was a 2004 Henry of Pelham Niagra Peninsula Cabernet Franc Ice Wine.  Such things are rather rare in this country, and even though they are the national vinous treasure of Canada, they are relatively rare (and expensive) there too.  And even more so, an ice wine from red grapes.  Bottled in a 200 ml bottle, which was frosted, so it looked cold, even when not.

Our first thoughts were that it was savoury and developed, maybe just a tad too much.  Brown fruits and spices with earth and meat, rather than bright red fruit.  Very sweet and racy, racy acidity to match the lusciousness.  Hardly any tannin grip to speak of, but the red wine skins and presence certainly showing.  Then as the wine warmed up from its icy cold presentation, it begun to show caramel and toffee, not too dissimilar to burnished and bottle-aged botrytised white wines.  The colour, which we thought was more red than white initially, could be interpreted as a white!  This turned out to be a most thought-provoking wine!  Thanks WRXers for making ice so warm.   

Hidden Personality

It can take a while for one’s true personality to emerge.  As the exuberance of youth slowly quietens, the heart and core emerge to take control and define the character.  So it is with many wines.  With a visit by the I-Spy Man, SWMBO and I found something of interest from the cellar.

We’d held onto the 2007 Escarpment ‘Kupe’ Martinborough Pinot Noir for some time.  When it was first released, it was a strong wine, with an impenetrable black-red colour, and powerful and concentrated aromas and flavours.  It had bold dark red and black fruits and layers of earth and dried herb interest in support.  The structure was massive, with fulsome tannins, almost blocky, but balanced by the fruit richness.  This was classic low yield, high skin to juice in the berry ratio wine.  And it had all the signs of aging very well.

Here, the extraction from the skins dominated the wine.  The question was: did the fruit ripen to a sufficient level?  Were the stalks and stems lignified?  Some doubts may have lurked, and now with some time in bottle, that can be answered, as the raw and bold primary fruitiness has begun to give way to developing secondary expression.  With the savoury undergrowth and mushroom interest, as well as the black fruits, an edge of herbaceous has begun to show.  It adds to the interest, and whether it detracts is to some degree subjective. 

 

Maybe the fruit didn’t quite get to the desired level of ripeness.  This may have been a function of young vines, this being the fifth crop.  That herbaceous line was hidden by the power and extract of the black fruit, and it has taken until now to be manifest.  Holistically, this was still a very good wine, with real personality and different facets.  It made a great match with the strong and meaty meal.  And it is part of the growth of this label.