A Magnificent Monster

I adore elegance and sophistication in a wine.  Many wines are light, but others are big.  Being big doesn’t mean that they are necessarily great.  Size does make a statement, but that can be a bit boorish.  However, sometimes a statement is truly that.  You stop in your tracks, soak in as much of the awe as possible, and enjoy the dimensions for what they are.  You realise that some wines are seldom matched, and that’s because of sheer size.  You may not be able to take in too much, otherwise you’ll be overwhelmed.  But at the end of the day you know you’ve experienced something really special.

Such is the 2015 Thorn-Clarke ‘Ron Thorn’ Barossa Shiraz.  A tribute to Cheryl Thorn’s father.  This is a no-holds-barred all-out statement.  Impenetrable black-red colour, with a touch of garnet.  Then a voluminous bouquet packed full of ripe plums with spices, liquorice black-earth and a huge whack of spicy, cedary, pencilly oak.  Its’ an out-there wine, but strangely it works well.  It’s fulsome and pushy, but it still draws you in.  On palate just packed with dense flavours of plums, blackberries, liquorice, and that layering of exotic oak.  The mouth is weighed down with extract and richness, but there’s grip too.  The wine doesn’t leave your mouth.  It just stays and stays.  Then there’s the length.  You can’t drink a glass of this quickly.  You sip it and see how it fills all the places in your mouth other wines haven’t been to before.  It’s a magnificent monster.  Totally lovable, but you can only take so much.    

Country Fare

We can’t drink first growth claret or grand cru burgundy all the time, and even if would had the means, a diet of the very best will soon lead you having a palate that can only appreciate a tiy segment of the market.  We need to taste more ordinary wines to let us know how good the top wines really are.  However things do get a little blurred when the ordinary wines perform way above their country status.  It’s the reality of the modern world of wine nowadays where quality, even at levels of modest aspiration can indeed be very, very good.

Such is the case with a trio of wines from Calmel & Joseph, two winemakers who operate as Languedoc-Roussillon negociants.  However, they are not your typical negociant, because they take an active and personal interest in the wines they produce from the very start – at the vine and vineyard level.  They have a great deal to say on how the vines are treated throughout the growing season, and decide on picking.  But also at vinification level, and then at the elevage level.  The results are that their ordinary wines have become nearly extraordinary.

SWMBO and I has the chance to try three of the latest arrivals into the country.  The 2015 Calmel & Joseph ‘Les Terroirs’ Saint Chinian, a Syrah-based blend was deliciously plump and fleshy.  Super-ripe fruit, you could almost say a little porty, but packed with plush flavours and soft structure.  For those who live in a cooler-climate country, this has warmth and generosity.  Then a 2015 Calmel & Joseph ‘Les Terroirs’ Cotes du Roussillon Villages.  This has ripeness, defined fruit clarity, with poise, perfumes and finesse.  They stylishness of this wine made it a winner.  Then a more interesting Calmel & Joseph ‘Les Terroirs’ Cote du Brian Vieux Carignan.  Made from vines over 120 years old, the concentration, depth of flavour and rich texture gave credence to the benefits of vine age.  The flavours initially unusual, with dark red fruit and a streak of herbs.  With aeration, these became melded together and more harmonious.  I rated them all pretty well with one wine at 5-stars.  What’s so remarkable is that they retail at around $18.00 per bottle.  These were indeed fantastic quality country fare.

Making Noise

It is interesting how people and wines develop similarly in the ways they express themselves.  In youth, people make noise to be heard and noticed.  Eventually, as they find their place, they are happy to speak at a civil level to interact well.  As one matures, a person can be beautifully poetic and even musical in how they come across.  One well known Rhone wine-man said that whe he started, he made noise, but now he makes music.  And sure enough, what were ‘statement’ wines are now subtle and complex, and even better.

Many, many winemakers throughout the world go through this path.  At dinner with The Prince, he pulled out two wines from his cellar, served them blind, and just asked us to say what we thought they were and what we thought of them.  No easy task, really!

I will name the wines as I describe my thought processes. The 2005 Peregrine ‘Pinnacle’ Central Otago Pinot Noir was black as black and nearly impenetrable.  There was no purple as such, so it had some age.  Taut and tightly bound, but with great intensity of black cherry fruit, with considerable earthiness.  This had density, substance and presence of fruit.  Black herbs, black earth and minerals.  Yet the tannins showed some resolution, without giving up structure and body.  Just no real grip and furriness of texture.  Then the savouries emerged.  They were black and concentrated, and all enlivened by crisp acidity.  I said Pinot Noir, the wine from New Zealand, the black fruit and freshness saying North Island.  But what?  It was a monster in the past.

 

On revealing, the identity, it all made sense.  This was Peregrine’s first edition of their super-cuvee to retail over $100.00.  It was a low yield year too.  The berries were small and the skins relatively thick.  My experience of such wines is that with age, they show a cooler herbal and stalky note, especially if not fully ripened.  This had none of that.  It was bold and glorious wine on release and promised with its potential.  It was a loud wine.  It was still loud, but now in an unsophisticated way.

Then came the 2002 Craggy Range ‘Le Sol’ Gimblett Gravels Hawke’s Bay Syrah.  (Apparently this was a bottle given by me to The Prince, which had to be opened in my presence.  It was in remembrance of the late Doug Wisor, young winemaker at Craggy Range, tragically killed.)  Another wine that was black as black, but this time with a touch of garnet/brick age on the rim.  Tight and quite compressed on bouquet, with ripe black fruits, hints of spice, black-earth, game and savouriness on the nose.  Certainly secondary, and dare I think Old World – France?  No, I was wrong.  I had Rhone Valley on my mind, but couldn’t decide between Syrah (north) or Grenache (south).  This was clearly a ‘super-cuvee’ of sorts, and such things as variety can get blurred.  A range of flavours emerge, but all the while, that tight heart was there, the residual of what was great concentration.  And amazingly resolved tannins, without giving up shape or structure.  A softer acidity, too.

On finding out what this was, my Rhone area of thinking was endorsed.  The similarity with the previous wine was striking.  Both were made as ‘statement’ wines with ripe, but not over-ripe black fruit, plenty of extraction, quite fine-grained of course, and a decent whack of oak.  This 2002 eas the second ‘Le Sol’ made.  Both were still very fine in quality and strong and concentrated.  The black fruits quite monolithic.  There was no beauty as in wines made now, to music.      

Iberian Finesse

The Spanish next-best-thing to classed growth claret is top-end Ribera del Duero.  Vega Sicilia is Spain’s most venerable fine wine and its class and high pricing makes it renowned around the world.  Its relative scarcity explains the price.  It is really unattainable for most wine drinkers.  But don’t despair, there’s always another way to experience Vega Sicilia, and that’s through ‘Alion’ the property of Vega Sicilia planted exclusively to Tinto Fino, a.k.a. Tempranillo.  It’s not a take on the traditional, fully-structured, needing-time blend which has Bordeaux varieties at the core.  But instead it’s a modern expression, showcasing the finesse, detail and complexity of Ribera del Duero, with the family Vega Sicilia traits.  Don’t get me wrong, it too can be hugely structured, needing time, but in comparison with the senior sibling, it’s an approachable wine.

Our friends Netty and Mo brought a bottle of 2001 Bodegas Vega Sicilia ‘Alion’ Ribera del Duero from overseas as a gift.  As you can tell, they are dear friends.  SWMBO and I didn’t have the opportunity of sharing it with them, but we had it at a special dinner with the Prince, the A-Prentice and the Fun Bun Girls.  It was a special night, so having the wine was perfect.  At just under two decades of bottle age, it was time.  Still dark-red, it was indeed truly refined.  Some vestiges of red fruits and sweetness remained.  There was a claret-like proportion to it, but also a burgundian sweetness.  And also no real intrusion from savoury secondary and tertiary development.  In the glass, plenty of intricate detail, but integrated into a lovely harmonious presentation.  Certainly not a showy wine, but one that quietly slipped down, whetting the palate and enhancing the roasted lamb.  Looking back, it was delicious with its finesse, and we think everyone thought so too.  But there was no need to shout about it.       

Expressing Terroir

I’m not a philosophical person at all, and consider myself really quite ordinary in thinking.  But the philosophical debate of terroir expression touches me.  Let me say from the start I believe in it.  There are all manner of detailed and thoughtful descriptions that tell us what makes terroir what it is.  Some people are very specific, from soils, geology, geography, microclimate, climate, regionality, the role of wild micro-organisms, and the hand and culture of man and society.  These may be the factors to weigh up in arguing for or against its existence.  I have a much more basic instinctual feel about it.  Wines show their provenance, and all the above factors play their part.  This is terroir, and it’s consistent.  Well in the best defined sites, the best wines, and to me, anyway.

One point is whether terroir will exist in all situations, or is it hidden, lost or obliterated by outside influences, especially the hand of man, or winemaker signature?  Many believe terroir is indeed delicate and fragile, and easily lost.  I’m not quite so sure.  I see wines from the same physical provenance shine through, regardless of vintage, different style interpretations and even a heavy winemaking hand.  Sometimes, it requires patience, but eventually terroir comes through and can be identified.  I must remind myself, that as a notable winemaker said “not all terroirs are worthy of capturing and expressing”.  How true is that, and we tend to focus on terroir, especially with the wines of Burgundy, and the best Pinot Noir growing regions, and the like of the Langhe for Nebbiolo in Barolo and Barbaresco.  Of course, claret shows terroir too...

Anyway, enough of this stuff, before I get beyond my comfort zone.  There is a set of New Zealand Pinot Noirs that demonstrate terroir to me.  From Martinborough, from well-established and well-defined and delineated sites, all made by the same hand.  They are of course, Larry McKenna’s Escarpment Vineyard ‘Insight’ Pinot Noirs.  Year-in and year-out from 1996, the wines behave remarkably consistently.  The latest releases, the 2016s are more approachable than other years, but each label remains the same in expression.

The 2016 Escarpment Martinborough Pinot Noir is the ‘district blend’ combining town fruit with that from Te Muna Valley.  It’s probably more winemaker signature, but the wine is always black-fruited and robust in structure.  Surely its fruit origins play a role in its taste?  From 2016, there is no ‘Pahi’ single vineyard wine.  The vineyard so sold.  It was always the lightest, the most fragrant and the prettiest.  A New Worldy sort of wine.  The contrast was the 2016 Escarpment ‘Kiwa’ Martinborough Pinot Noir.  This is consistently more Old Worldy in expression with savoury fruit flavours, some dried herbs, maybe a bit of game and cedary lift.  Funky, but in the nicest way, and no brettanomyces at all.  Then came the explosively rich, succulent and aromatic 2016 Escarpment ‘Te Rehua’ Martinborough Pinot Noir.  The boldest and the fruitiest wine with the size and structure to match.  Always a favourite and always a winner.  Any finally the flagship, the 2016 Escarpment ‘Kupe’ Martinborough Pinot Noir.  Always the blackest in colour and fruit expression.  The most layered and complex.  The one with the most considerable extraction and structure,  The greatest potential to be great and the longest-lived.  The site must be special.  Vines planted in 1999.  Close-planted Abel clone, the wine receiving a high percentage of whole bunch, but you wouldn’t know it.  It must play a part in the style, but then too, the other wines aren’t shy in it.  These wines show terroir.  I feel it, and consistently.   

The Big Daddy

It’s lovely having The Young One and Jo-Bow around.  They are easy people with a constant smile, and life around them is positive.  As the next generation, they are taking to wine, and enjoying learning about what they like.  With SWMBO and I, who are older and the former generation, The Young One and Jo-Bow tend to defer to our preferences in wine, because they think we know best.  But they are realising that it’s about taste and what you feel like yourselves, and as a group, and to try and suit the situation.

It was a cooler evening, and SWMBO had cooked a hearty meat-loaf for dinner.  We had a couple of options for accompanying wine: an elegant, but complex-flavoured Pinot Noir, or else a rather monumental Bordeaux-varietal based red.  In reality, either would have worked, but if one were being objective, the stronger wine was better for the food, and for the weather.  So that’s what they chose.  Well-done!

We opened the 2015 Babich ‘The Patriarch’ Gimblett Gravels Hawke’s Bay.  It’s a blend of 51% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot and 22% Malbec.  It’s named after Josip Babich, who founded Babich Wines with his first vintage of grapes in New Zealand in 1916.  Historically for the family and for the New Zealand wine industry, he is a true patriarch.  The wine was impenetrable black-red colour.  The nose and palate packed densely with masses of ripe black fruits, and hints of spice, nutty, cedary and pencilly oak.  Absolutely gorgeous structure with the extraction to carry the wine for another decade, but fine-grained enough to make it enjoyable now.  Deliciously sumptuous and opulent, but carrying itself with a sense of style.  It didn’t overwhelm the flavoursome meat-loaf, but stood strong to be counted as something special on its own.  It added to the meal in flavour, and completed the evening.  I’m not a big daddy, but the wine was.  

Mineral Magic

The word ‘minerality’ can be divisive among wine enthusiasts.  There are the hard-liner scientifically-based buff who correctly tell us that there is no actual physical mineral up-take by vines that goes into the resultant wines.  Then there are those with easy imaginations who are happy to use the word ‘minerality’ to describe anything in a wine that resembles wet-stones and thirst-quenching sensations.  I admit I veer towards the latter, as most people who are keen on wine understand the sense of using the word to describe their impressions in tasting a wine that has this taste of the earth and its mineral constituents – whether it actually has these minerals in the wine or not!

On a visit to the Bassinet Babes, they brought out a rare bottling that truly spoke of minerality.  The wines of Hiro Kusuda in Martinborough are highly sought after and high proportion of them find their way into his fans’ cellars in Japan.  But specialists stockists get small amounts, and bottles find their way into wine lovers’ cellars, such as the Bassinet Babes.  Without any hesitation, they opened the 2014 Kusuda Martinborough Riesling.  12.0% alc. and 1.1 g/L RS, but an impressive 4,268 bottles made.  Hiro is a Riesling fanatic, having trained in Germany, so it’s not too surprising to see this much made.  I’m sure he’d be better served making more Pinot Noir and Syrah, which he has developed a cult following for, and from which he can earn more money.  But money isn’t everything.

This wine is the quintessential expression of minerality.  Very dry and very tight and taut.  Yet surprisingly rich and deep-fruited without giving any sense of opulence and lusciousness.  This is crisp, refined, firm and thirst-quenching, with the faintest lime and lemonade fruit, but with an over-arching character of minerals.  Wet-stones and chalk, but much more delicate and subtle than those descriptors suggest.  Beautifully smooth textures, great linearity, and precision and purity to burn.  This is great wine that oozes mineral magic and finesse.