Dog Point: serious NZ wines

Two wines from Dog Point, a premium New Zealand winery formed by ex-Cloudy Bay viticulturalist and winemaker team Ivan Sutherland and James Healy. These wines are better than Cloudy Bay! Especially the remarkable Pinot Noir, which I really enjoyed.

Dog Point Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Marlborough, New Zealand
Lively aromatic nose with a nice combination of intense, grassy herby notes with restrained passion fruit character. It falls on the side of freshness rather than richness. The palate is concentrated, rich, vibrant and intense with lovely rich fruity characters combining with grassy, minerally freshness. Fantastic grown-up Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc of real interest. 91/100 (£12.95 Berry Bros & Rudd)

Dog Point Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006 Marlborough, New Zealand
This is just fantastic. One of the very best New Zealand Pinot Noirs: complex, balanced, and every so slightly funky. The nose has a lovely subtly meaty, spicy, warm, herb tinged cherry fruit character, as well as some floral, almost northern Rhône-like notes. The palate is textured and elegant with beautifully balanced savoury spiciness, just a touch of herbiness, and sweet berry fruits with just enough structure to keep things savoury. Beautifully poised and very easy to drink, this has seriousness, elegance and charm. 94/100 (13.5% alcohol, cork sealed) (£20.50 Berry Bros & Rudd)

Video content: Pyramid Valley Vineyards, a remarkable wine venture in New Zealand's Canterbury region

This is a short film I shot while I was visiting Pyramid Valley Vineyards with owner Mike Weersing. Located in the Canterbury Hills of New Zealand's South Island, this is a remarkable project with Burgundian-style close-planted vineyards that are farmed biodynamically. The full write-up of the visit went live on the main site today - you can see it here. Even if you don't normally watch video content on the web, you really should see this! It's an incredible place.

Blind River: another great New Zealand Pinot

Very keen on New Zealand Pinot Noir at the moment. Helps feed my Pinot addiction. Let's face it, while the best red Burgundies are peerless, the average quality in Burgundy is low disappointing, and there's not much to like about almost all affordable red Burgundy. But New Zealand delivers in the £10-20 range and seldom really disappoints.

Blind River Pinot Noir 2007 Marlborough, New Zealand
Lovely vibrant, fresh, sweet cherry fruit nose with some spiciness. The palate shows complex cherry and plum fruit with a subtle greenness as well as rich spicy character. It's fresh and fruity but there's more to it than just fruit: there's richness and depth, too. A brilliant effort: it's still quite primary but likely will develop well over the next five years. 92/100 (£17.99 Oddbins)

Find this wine with wine-searcher.com

Koru Sauvignon Blanc: remarkable stuff!

Here's a really fantastic Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough. It's made by Jasper and Sarah Raats (which is the name of Jasper's family's vineyard in South Africa), who I've just found out are involved with one of my other favourite Marlborough Sauvignon producers Clos Henri. Their own wines come from a 1 hectare vineyard in the upper Wairau valley with stony loam and silt soil (Sauvignon), and a 1.1 hectare vineyard at the foot of the Wither hills on clay soil (Pinot).

You can read more about Koru on their website. Interestingly, they state:

'We also believe that the fresh herbaceous, capsicum, grassy flavours in Sauvignon Blanc, that many people love, is not the only flavour spectrum possible in NZ Sauvignon Blanc. It actually has a very complex flavour profile that develops with more time out on the vine and ripening in the sun. The flavours we are after also includes flavours of lime, lemon, grapefruit, ripe gooseberry, passion fruit, very ripe kiwifruit and, if we are lucky, some gunflint and mineral tones.'

They've certainly achieved this here:

Koru Sauvignon Blanc 2007 South Island, New Zealand
Sealed with natural cork. Made from a 1 hectare single vineyard by Jasper and Sarah Raats, this is an intense, concentrated Sauvignon Blanc with rich peach, pear and passion fruit character, together with a bit of grapefruit freshness. It's really intense and well balanced with ripeness and richness to the fore. It isn't grassy like so many Sauvignons, but tends to the more tropical end of the flavour spectrum, while still retaining freshness. This is certainly quite expensive, but it is one of the very best Kiwi Sauvignons out there. 93/100 (£22 Hellion Wines)

Find this wine with wine-searcher.com

Striking Kiwi Sauvignon

A distinctive New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc - not from Marlborough, the region normally associated with Kiwi Sauvignon, but from nearby Nelson. This shows perfectly the passion fruit character that is often part of the aroma of Sauvignon, which comes from a chemical that belongs to a group known as 'thiols'. Thiols are sulfur-containing compounds that are quite important in wine flavour chemistry - wine science geeks will know that as well as being positive, in some contexts they can contribute to the fault known commonly as 'reduction'.

Brightwater Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Nelson, New Zealand
Remarkably forward, aromatic passion fruit nose that's quite tropical, and slightly 'sweaty'. The palate is broad and quite rich with tropical fruit and a grassy minerally freshness. A really intense, striking sort of Sauvignon that teeters on the edge of being unbalanced, but which I quite like. 90/100 (£10.79 Laithwaites)

Superb Waipara Sauvignon

New Zealand Sauvignon is no secret, but it's usually Marlborough that's the region in question. Here's a stunning example of this variety from the Waipara region, near Christchurch.

Waipara Springs Sauvignon Blanc 2008 Waipara, New Zealand
Part from ungrafted 20 year old vines; part from a new block of selected clones. Limestone-rich soils. This is a cracking Sauvignon with some Loire-like minerality and well as focused grassy, fruity, blackcurrant bud aromatics. The palate is concentrated with lovely bright grassy, herby fruit and lovely textural richness, finishing quite minerally with high acidity. Lively, intense and well balanced. 92/100 (£9.99 Hellion Wines, http://www.hellionwines.co.uk/ - this is the new vintage, just available, with the equally good 2007 vintage still available in a whole range of independent wine merchants, such as Stone Vine & Sun and Noel Young)

Two Pinots from the Winegrowers of Ara

Two Pinot Noirs from Winegrowers of Ara. I've also posted a long article on the main site about the concept behind this project here, which I think is interesting. But then I'm a bit of a geek. Anyway, here are the notes.

Ara Composite Pinot Noir 2006 Marlborough, New Zealand
Quite light in colour for a new world Pinot, this has notes of red cherry, cranberry, rhubarb and sweet herbs. The palate is fresh and a bit sappy, with grassy, green herbal notes under the fresh cherry fruit. It’s quite tangy, with good acidity, and a bit of spiciness. There’s a persistence here, and some nice textural elements, although there’s a bit of herby bitterness to the finish that clamps down on the fruit. It’s a really attractive, supple, savoury style of new world Pinot that will likely evolve interestingly over the next five years. 13% alcohol. 89/100 (£10.95 Berry Bros & Rudd, Majestic)

Ara Resolute Pinot Noir 2006 Marlborough, New Zealand
Quite light in colour, this has a charming, beguiling nose of sweet red cherries with integrated warm spicy notes adding an appealing warmth. Still fresh, though. The palate has spicy complexity sitting nicely under the smooth sweet cherry fruit, with textural richness and a bit of tannic grip keeping things savoury. There’s a hint of chocolate here, too, presumably from the oak (which is unobtrusive). Pretty serious stuff, with a distinctly European sheen. A complex, understated, elegant new world interpretation of Pinot Noir with the potential to develop well over the next few years. 13% alcohol. 91/100 (£19.99 Majestic, available from early November)

Read more...

A great lunch with Chave 83

Lunch at the Ledbury today, with a rather special bottle: Chave Hermitage 1983. The reason? I was meeting with Keith Prothero and Lionel Nierop, who are starting a new online wine auction system (which I'll write about when it is ready to go, in about a month), and Keith is a generous guy who enjoys sharing his wines.

The day started with the Corney & Barrow press tasting, held at a swanky location in Grosvenor Place. But for some bizarre reason I got Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch tube stations muddled up in my head and ended up at the latter rather than the former. So I decided to walk through Hyde Park to get to Hyde Park Corner, which is a lovely stroll on a day like today, but took longer than I thought it would.

London is well supplied with nice parks. I love Regent's Park, and Kensington Gardens is lovely. Green Park is small but pleasant, and Hyde Park is big and quite pretty. Battersea Park is worth a detour; I haven't yet made it to Victoria Park in east London. Further out west, Richmond Park is absolutely enormous.

After just an hour of tasting, I had to leave the Corney & Barrow event to get to my lunch appointment on time. The Ledbury is spectacular – one of London's very best restaurants. And lunch is a steal here, with the set menu a few pence under £20. For that, you get astonishingly good food and excellent service, in a very nice environment. We had a really enjoyable couple of hours, with a great combination of food, wine and company.

Neudorf Moutere Chardonnay 1998 Nelson, New Zealand
Yellow gold in colour, this is rich and intense with a lovely toasty depth to the herby, slightly citrussy fruit. It's pungent and dense on the palate with complex herb-tinged fruit complemented by sweet nutty, spicy oak and hints of oiliness. There's citrussy freshness on the finish. A delicious, bold Chardonnay that's evolving well. 92/100

Chave Hermitage 1983 Northern Rhone, France
A fantastic wine. Beautifully aromatic, with a fresh, spicy personality and a complexity that’s hard to put into words. I was getting notes of tar, earth, herbs, blood and meat. It’s sweet but savoury at the same time. The palate showed spicy red fruits with a subtle medicinal character, as well as tangy citrus notes on the finish. A complex, multifaceted wine with nice definition. 95/100

Then it was off to the M&S press tasting, held at their headquarters round the back of Paddington Station. It’s actually surprisingly close to the Ledbury (in Notting Hill) – it turned out to be a brisk 15 minute walk. There were 160 wines on show; I tried just over half, and then slept on the train on the way home.

Montana Sauvignon Blanc: new release of an affordable iconic wine

The first release of Montana Sauvignon Blanc was in 1979, which puts it at the dawn of history in this, the largest and most well known of New Zealand’s wine regions. Considering the impact that Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc has had on the wine world, it’s amazing to consider that this region didn’t really take off until the mid-1980s.

New Zealand has a history of wine dating back to 1819, when the first grape vines were planted by a missionary named Samuel Marsden in the north of North Island (although there’s no record of him making wine – you have to wait another 16 years for this). But until the 1970s, the wine industry didn’t develop much. Indeed, an early edition of Hugh Johnson’s famous World Atlas of Wine dating from 1970 doesn’t even mention New Zealand.

Some growth occurred in the 1970s, but then there was a problem of over-production that resulted in a vine pull. The problem was that Kiwis generally preferred beer to wine.

It was in 1973 that Montana planted the first commercial vines of the modern era in Marlborough. Montana founder Frank Yukich decided read more...

carboNZero Riesling: what does it mean?

One of the bottles opened last night was a Grove Mill Riesling 2007 Marlborough, New Zealand. A very attractive, intense, piercing Riesling full of racy lime and grapefruit, with the high acid nicely countered by some residual sugar. A good buy at £8.99 from Threhser.

Prominently displayed on the label was the carboNZero logo, advertising that this wine was carbon neutral. But what exactly, in practical terms does this mean? And are we going to be seeing increasing numbers of wines sold on a green marketing ticket?

Grove Mill's website gives some more information. 'carboNZero' is managed by Landcare Research New Zealand. Grove Mill itself is a brand owned by the New Zealand Wine Company (NZWC), and they took three steps to achieve this certification. First they measured their carbon footprint. Then they tried to reduce it as much as possible. And the balance they offset. 'For NZWC we were able to purchase credits from a local carbon farmer, Ron Marriott, in the Marlborough Sounds', says the website. A 'carbon farmer'? I guess, if enough people are wanting to offset their emissions, then there's money to be made by planting trees on land you own.

When you see a wine company making a fuss on their label about their environmental credentials, it's easy to feel a bit cynical about their motivations. But the NZWC are doing this properly, and it's good to see that there's some substance behing the marketing talk.

A crazy Pinotage and two from Waitrose

I can't help, when it comes to Pinotage, descending to a level of criticism that I object to when I see it from others, if you know what I mean. I become dogmatic and opinionated.

Normally, I reckon I'm an open-minded sort of guy. I embrace diversity. Live and let live; see the best in everything; every cloud has a silver lining; everyone deserves a second chance.

But Pinotage is vile. In fact, I've thought of both a new competition, and also a new way to assess wine show judges based on this variety. The new competition is for the World's Least Vile Pinotage, and perhaps I should brand this with my name to make it an excercise in ugly self-promotion (as some other, nameless, writers do with top 100s and the like). And the new way to assess wine show judges is to give them a glass of Pinotage. If they say it's OK, they're sacked. If they dislike it, they are in. If they take a sip, cuss loudly and expel the contents from their mouths rapidly, then they are senior judges.

Anyway, I think I have found a potential winner for my competition. It's the Diemersfontein Pinotage 2007 Wellington, South Africa. The back label reads:

'This is the one! The original coffee/chocolate Pinotage now in its seventh great vintage. It befriends - it converts - it seduces'

You know, Diemersfontein have sussed Pinotage. The way to make it work is to mask the flavours of the grape. This wine really does smell of coffee and chocolate, and it is seductive. There's a hint of roast bacon here, as well. The fruit is sweet, and it's actually quite delicious, in a rather strange, slightly weird way. This is available in the UK from Asda, and it's probably my favourite expression of Pinotage.

Also tasted tonight, with a barbecue after watching elder son play cricket (golden duck this time, alas, and after we'd spent ages in the nets trying to work on some sort of defensive strategy), a couple from Waitrose which go well with this balmy summer's evening. They're from the Waitrose own-label range, which are sort of hybrid 'in partnership with' wines.

The first is a beautifully balanced, rich Sauvignon from Villa Maria (Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2007) that's really delicious. The second is a Barossa Shiraz 2006 Reserve from St Hallett, which is smooth and pure with nice texture and a hint of vanilla and chocolate. It's suave and stylish, if a little primary.

Golf at the Belfry

Just back from a tremendous weekend at the Belfry, where I got to play on the Brabazon course. The golf day was organized by New Zealand winery Craggy Range, and Fiona and the kids came too, which was a nice touch.

I was in a fourball with Chris Losh (editor of Imbibe), Warren Adamson (who runs NZ winegrowers in the UK) and TJ Peabody (joint MD of Craggy). Warren and Chris are very good golfers with single-figure handicaps. TJ and I aren't. But we had a fabulous time, and the course was magnificent (although the greens were slower and the rough longer than we were expecting, probably because of the time of year).

I hit one remarkable shot that was heading for a creek, hit the corner of the wooden banking on the other side of the creek and bounced back over the creek onto the fairway. I also hit a big drive into the trees only to see it bounce back onto the fairway. Luck was with me. But I still lost half-a-dozen balls.

It was really hot though, and so by the end we were all knackered. In the evening there was a dinner in the Ryder room, with some very nice Craggy wines. I felt a bit guilty because Fiona was left with the kids, dining on room service and watching TV. But the room did have a spectacular balcony looking over the 10th and 18th.

Pictured is the view looking back down from the 18th green. It's a real treat for someone of my golfing ability (low) to get to play a serious course.

Two stunning kiwis, and a note on the power of terroir

To my mind, New Zealand is the new world country that is coming closest to making high-end wines with some of the complexity and interest of the best from the old world. [Maybe this is a bit unfair on California.] I'm hesitant to say this lest it be misinterpreted; I don't want people to think I'm an old fogey who thinks that Bordeaux and Burgundy have a monopoly on fine wine. But if you're honest, and you've tasted serious high-end wines from around the world, then you'll doubtless share my view that the new world can't yet compete at the very top end.

Anyway, New Zealand continues to make strides, and here are two wines that I reckon are pretty serious. The first is the latest release of Clos St Henri, the 2006 of which I tried a couple of weeks ago in Tate Britain. The second is a delicious Merlot (don't say that often...) from the Gimblett Gravels, a fantastic terroir in New Zealand's Hawkes Bay region. I'd say this wine shows as much Gimblett character as it does Merlot character; I reckon a Gimblett Syrah is closer to this wine than a Merlot from somewhere else, if you see what I mean.

Clos Henri Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Marlborough, New Zealand
Amazing stuff, this Sauvignon made by Henri Bourgeois of Sancerre. It's beautifully textured with good balance between the sweet, ripe pear and peach notes and the green grassy herby, gooseberry character. Real intensity and complexity here, with lovely focus and just the right amount of greenness to confer savoury freshness. I love the packaging, too - this is one of the few (5%?) of New Zealand wines that is still cork sealed. 93/100 (UK agent Les Caves de Pyrene)

Villa Maria Reserve Merlot 2005 Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
This tastes so much of the Gimblett Gravels - it reminds me of the Syrahs that I've had from here, even though it's a Merlot? Is that terroir? I still think Syrah is the best variety for this patch of ground, but there's no doubting that this is a lovely Merlot. Deep coloured, it has a lovely fresh, bright peppery, gravelly edge to the well defined blackberry and raspberry fruit. The palate has lovely definition with lovely freshness, concentration and ripeness. There's some nice tannic structure. Pretty serious, especially for a Merlot. 93/100 (£15.99 Waitrose, http://www.nzhouseofwine.co.uk/)

A Kabinett/Spatlese from Kiwi land

Really impressed with this off-dry, delicate Riesling from New Zealand.

Waipara Springs Riesling 2006 Waipara, New Zealand
Weighing in at 10.5% alcohol and with 29 g/litre residual sugar, this Riesling is just gorgeous. Very fresh nose with some carbon dioxide spritz. The palate is off-dry and nicely delicate with good acidity, nice fruit and good balance. It's a Kabinett or perhaps even a Spatlese style that really works well. Interestingly, a quarter of the blend saw some partial ageing in old oak barrels to add a bit of complexity. I reckon you could stick this away for a few years and it would develop beautifully. 92/100 (http://www.hellionwines.com/, although this is a new wine not listed on their site yet)

New world Syrah with an old world feel

Sometimes living in England is a bit crap. It's April. Spring should be well underway. But after a lovely day yesterday, today was utterly nasty. I took older son and RTL for a walk along the river Crane while younger son was playing cricket on Twickenham green, and despite wearing my newly acquired, snazzy Terrazas hunting top (over an Achaval Ferrer polo shirt), I was freezing.

This afternoon we went over to Purley for the 40th birthday celebrations of a good friend, Michael, which meant we met up with a whole bunch of chums from when we were first married and living in south London. It was a fantastic event, with sumo wrestling, gladiators and a 'strongest man' competition. This involved various activities such as tossing the caber, welly throwing, and running a course carrying large rocks. The large rocks bit was the toughest test. You had to run to the end of the course and back carrying sequentially heavier rocks. The first and second were quite heavy, but the third was enormous and weighed as much as a small family car. I was in no danger of winning, but I was quite proud to have completed the course - it took about ten minutes to recover afterwards, and I still feel a bit weak now.

So, to the serious business of drinking wine. Two Syrahs tonight. Both from the new world. But both with a bit of old world style and freshness. In these days of £1 = Euro 1.25, it's reassuring that the new world isn't just pumping out big, super-ripe, obvious reds.

Howard Park Leston Shiraz 2005 Margaret River, Australia
Vibrant red/purple colour. The nose is distinctly Australian, with some mint, eucalyptus and tarry spiciness, along with sweet red and black fruits. The palate shows lovely freshness, with tight dark fruit and good acidity, along with well integrated oak. A really fresh, juicy style of Shiraz with real precision – I reckon this will age well. It’s a classically Australian style, but with more freshness and focus than most. I reckon this will be peaking in five years but good for 10 more. 91/100 (£14.50 Bibendum) 04/08

The Aurora Vineyard Syrah 2006 Bendigo, Central Otago, New Zealand
A beautiful cool-climate expression of Syrah. It has a really lovely white pepper and spice definition to the raspberry and dark cherry fruit, with an almost Burgundian elegance and freshness. There’s lovely purity to the fruit here, which is ripe and dark with great natural acidity. Real elegance here: it seems nicely poised between the new and old worlds in style. Not a big, dense, showy sort of wine, but utterly compelling – it reminds me of the best of the Gimblett Gravel Syrahs in style. Bendigo is a warm subdistrict of Central Otago, which explains why they’ve been able to make this wine from somewhere you wouldn’t expect to excel with Syrah. 92/100 (£16.99 http://www.hellionwines.com/) 04/08

Three blind Sauvignons, and off to Argentina

Later on today I depart wintry old London for a quick trip to Argentina. It's my first time to this increasingly interesting wine country. I'll be based in Mendoza, and will be seeing some of the top producers. Forgive my childish enthusiasm, but I find visiting wine regions very exciting still. If ever it becomes a chore, I'll stop writing about wine.

Yesterday, we headed over to brother-in-law Beavingtons for some lunch, but perhaps more importantly a spot of blind tasting. Devoted readers of this blog will remember that last time we did this he served me some of his Justerini & Brooks cellar plan wines, which he'd just removed from bond without being aware of their current market value - so we enjoyed Bruno Clair Corton Charlie and Le Dome.

This time the tasting was in three parts. First some Sauvignons, then a couple of Champagnes I'd brought along, then three reds, finishing up with a couple of dessert wines. I'll start with the Sauvignons. Notes as written, with no tidying up later.

Wine 1 (Jackson Estate Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2006)
Quite refined. A Sauvignon Blanc with some subtlety and minerality. Finishes crisp. It's delicious and could be either a Sancerre or a stylish New World Sauvignon Blanc. Guess the price at £9.99. 88/100

Wine 2 (Montana Brancott Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Marlborough)
Full grassy green nose. Green pepper here: very assertive. Powerful, herby, tangy palate with real weight and freshness. A new world Sauvignon Blanc. 87/100 Guess price at £7.99

Wine 3 (Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Marlborough)
A powerful, intense, fresh Sauvignon Blanc combining rich tropical friut notes with high acidity. Assertive and crisp. Concentrated style with lots of impact. A stylish new world Sauvignon Blanc. There's a bit of tomato leaf, too. Precision and power. 89/100 Guess price at £9.99

Mud House Pinot Noir

One of my favourite ways of relaxing is by doing a bit of work. This sounds nuts: it makes me out to be some crazy sort of workaholic who needs to get his head examined, his priorities sorted out and a course of sessions with a therapist booked, promptly.

So let me qualify that. The sort of work I like to do to relax is to open a few bottles of wine, and drink them. Not all of them; just a little of each. And then to write about them here, in real time, on this blog. Sometimes I'll revisit wines a day after opening to see how they are holding out. I like to look at wines the way someone who's brought a bottle to drink would look at them - I think this perspective, that of a reader, is easily lost in sniff and spit trade tastings.

Perception of wine is a funny old business. We bring to the glass as much as the glass brings to us. If you don't believe that, open a bottle of DRC with a random selection of people you meet on the street. Get the point?

Tonight's wine, which I've had open a day or two, is a really impressive Marlborough Pinot Noir.

Mud House Pinot Noir 2007 Marlborough, New Zealand
Aromatic, bright sweet cherry and berry fruit nose is quite startling in its purity and freshness, and has a herby lift I often find in Marlborough Pinot. The palate is brightly fruited and cherryish, with some sweetness, but also a savoury, spicy twist. Nicely elegant with a delicious, vivid sort of personality. This isn't meant to be Burgundy, but it has a light touch and is only 13.3% alcohol - low by New World standards. 91/100 (c. £12 retail, UK agent MMD)

Gimblett Gravels rock

I worry that sometimes I repeat myself on this blog. One of the themes I might have talked a bit too much about is New Zealand reds, but they're consistently good. I'm especially taken by the reds from the Gimblett Gravels, a unique 'terroir' in the Hawkes Bay region. Detractors say that viticulture in the gravels is essentially hydroponics, but this is the one place in NZ that seems to be able to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon reliably. Tonight's wine is a stylish, fresh, intense Bordeaux-style blend with lovely expressive character from one of the most reliable wineries out there.

Villa Maria Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2005 Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Fresh blackcurrant and plum fruit dominates here, with a savoury, gravelly, spicy tannic structure providing a nice foil. It shows high acidity, and there's an almost floral perfumed character to nose. I don't think you'd mistake this for Bordeaux (and I don't think this was the intention of the winemaker), but there's a freshness and precision to this wine that is often missing in new world reds. Quite primary now; I reckon this will develop well over the next decade, although I'm slightly concerned that the high acidity might stick out a bit if the fruit recedes. 91/100 (£15.99 Hailsham Cellars, D Byrne, Peake Wine, nzhouseofwine.co.uk)

Lunch at Bentleys with Craggy's Steve Smith

I'm slightly worried that readers will get the impression that most of my days consist of a long lunch, with some wine. That's quite unfair, although, of late, this may have been more common than it used to be.

Anyway, today I lunched at Bentley's (see http://www.bentleys.org/) with Steve Smith MW of Craggy Range, along with a handful of other journalists. It was a low key, rather jolly affair.

The food was fantastic. I had stuffed squid and then pheasant with foie gras, both of which were perfectly executed. The wines were Craggy's Te Muna Sauvignon Blanc 2006 and 2005 Block 14 Syrah. They're both lovely wines. Te Muna is all about texture - a rich but still-fresh Sauvignon that's a great food wine, and Block 14 is dark and peppery, with restrained richness.

We had some discussion of naturalness in wine. Steve mentioned how NZ studies showed the efficacy of using a white cloth under the vines to reflect sunlight back onto the bunches of developing grapes. 'But I don't like laying down left-over petroleum product in vineyards', he added. So instead he's been using osyter shells which reflect light and also add some calcium to the soils. It's a more natural solution.

We talked about wine additions. He doesn't see too much of a problem with chaptalization. 'But I have a huge issue with adding tannin', he mentioned, 'which changes the structure of the wine. There's also a big debate about reverse osmosis. 'I would have no issue with using it on juice to remove water after rains', says Steve, 'but I would have a big issue with altering the wine after fermentation, or using it to reduce alcohol'.

We could have discussed these issues all afternoon, stretching into the evening. But unfortunately Steve had to leave for a photoshoot. In a florist's. The man's a rock star!

I love NZ Pinot Noir!

Most wine nuts have a Pinot Noir epiphany. They start off wondering why peope make such a fuss about this variety - it's not a grape that makes big, heavy, intense wines (remember, size tends to impess newbies). Then, some way into their journey of exploration they suddenly 'get' Pinot Noir, and fall in love with it. But even then Pinot Noir is a bit like an unreliable lover - you suffer a lot of pain along the way, although the occasional highs make you persevere through the trouble.

The first Pinot Noir that really got me hooked on this variety was a New Zealand Pinot - I think it was from Palliser Estate. Since then, I've found New Zealand to be the most reliable source of delicious, elegant, complex Pinot Noir. Burgundy, of course, makes the greatest expressions of this grape, but it's just all to easy to spend £30 on a red Burgundy that just tastes simple, or square, or ungenerous, or inelegant.

For the last couple of days I've been drinking a fantastic Kiwi Pinot. Now I'm getting to the stage where I'm starting to get regionality in NZ Pinot Noir. Marlborough, Martinborough, Waipara and Central Otago all have distinctive regional characters to their Pinots, which are hard to explain, but which I might have a chance of getting right tasting the wines blind (or maybe not...). This Pinot is from Marlborough, and has that vibrant, slightly sappy berryish character that Marlborough Pinots share. It's a really great wine - not cheap at £17, but good value nonetheless.

Blind River Pinot Noir 2006 Marlborough, New Zealand
Hand harvested from the Awatare Valley, small batch processing with indigenous yeasts and maturation in French oak. This has a lovely perfume: aromatic cherry/berry/raspberry fruit with some dark spiciness and a bit of sappiness. There's a liqueur-like purity here. The palate is sweetly fruited with lovely purity and smoothness. A bit of plummy bitterness adds contrast. An impressive Pinot Noir of real poise. 92/100 (£17.99 Oddbins)

NZ Sauvignon Blanc: Sacred Hill on form

It's easy to take NZ Sauvignon Blanc for granted. But we shouldn't forget that 25 years ago Marlborough didn't really exist - we also shouldn't forget the revolution in the world of wine that NZ Sauvignon has caused. Its impact has been huge.

Tonight I'm drinking a good-un - it's from Sacred Hill, one of the Hawkes Bay wineries I visited in November. This Sauvignon is actually from Marlborough, though, and it treads the ripeness/greenness tightrope well. Tony Bish, the chief winemaker (pictured), has forged a wine that balances riper tropical fruit notes with fresher, grassier ones, to make an intense, full-flavoured, fresh white wine with real appeal. Good value for £7.99 from both Morrisons and Tesco.

As an aside, it has been another glorious, spring-like day in London. We headed out to the Surrey Hills to do a circular route taking in Holmbury Hill, stopping at a pub for a pint of London Pride and picnicking in the woods on soup and bread. It's one of my favourite walks, and on a day like today, it's hard to beat.

NZ (7) Waipara: a nice surprise

It turns out that the last segment of my short trip, added as a bit of an afterthought, turned out to be one of the most interesting and inspiring. What a country New Zealand is!

Let me explain the 'afterthought' comment. Just before I left the UK, I was playing around trying to get my internal flights matching up with my flight home. Nothing seemed to work, and I ended up with a flight into Christchurch at noon, and a flight out to Singapore at the same time the following day.

This gave me a chance to take a quick peek at Waipara, a region that's emerging as one of NZ's stars, with a particular reputation for Riesling and Pinot Noir. It's less than an hour's drive from Christchurch.

But who to visit? Where to stay? I had made a loose arrangment to pop in to Daniel Schuster Wines, at Omihi, and left the rest open. Then, on Monday, a couple of phonecalls from James Millton secured visits to Pyramid Valley Vineyards and Bell Hill, two estates I'd not come across before in the hills west of Waipara.

You know how it is at the end of trips. I was quite tired, I'd been all over the place, and I was thinking about home. My energy was in the wrong place. Yet this 'afterthought' day in Waipara were really inspiring, and provided a fitting finale to my trip.

I met with winemaker Nicholas Brown at Daniel Schuster Wines (http://www.danielschusterwines.com/). Immediately, just from looking at this vineyard (pictured above) I could tell that these guys were up to something different. Low-trained Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, closely spaced, on gentle slopes. The wines were full of old-world complexity, poise and interest. Biodynamics is being implemented here, in part.

I then headed off to Pyramid Valley (http://www.pyramidvalley.co.nz/), not knowing what to expect, other than hearing a few rave reviews and that they were biodynamic. But I had an incredible time with Mike and Claudia Weersing. Immediately, they offered dinner and a bed for the night, an incredibly generous offer. When I'm on the road I so much prefer staying in people's homes rather than in hotels. This gave us some time to spare. Mike took me to see the vineyards and gave me the most lucid, plausible explanation of terroir that I've yet heard, relating characteristics of specific sites to the wines they are making.

Mike is an American who trained in Burgundy, has worked making wine in the USA, France and New Zealand, and who had a very specific idea of what he was looking for in terms of a vineyard site: limestone over clay, on which he could fashion Burgundian-style Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The vineyards he has established look fantastic, and the first wines from them - a pair of Pinot Noirs which are not yet released - are spellbinding.

My experience at Pyramid Valley was an incredible one, including a lovely dinner where we drank a 1990 Jadot Mazis-Chambertin that gained aromatic poise and weight in the glass, a 2006 Knoll Loibner GV Smaragd that was fresh, pure and peppery, and a 2006 Hirtzberger Weissburgunder that was quite beautiful. As well as Mike and Claudia's wines, of course.

This morning I had my rearranged appointment at Bell Hill (http://www.bellhill.co.nz/, pictured above), with Marcel Giesen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen. Like Mike and Claudia, they have a small hillside vineyard with perhaps a bit more lime and a bit less clay. It's run along a rather Burgundian model (Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the focus, although there are a few Riesling vines on stakes on terraces).

We tasted the Bell Hill 2007s from barrel: deeply impressive, mineralic Chardonnay and structured but elegant Pinot Noir that is top-rank, and distinctly Burgundian. Beautiful wines, and a great way to finish my trip.

[I'm writing this from Changi Airport, where I have 5.5 hours to recover before the next leg. Free broadband internet access this time: I'm up on floor 3 near the business class lounges, which I think is the explanation. The contrast of the relaxed ease and warmth of Changi with the clamour and busyness of Heathrow is stark.]

NZ (6) Gisborne and Hawkes Bay

Wellington Airport has free wifi access. How cool is that? I've been unable to blog for the last few days because I haven't had any internet access, but aside from that, I've hardly had a spare moment. So while I've got time (approximately 20 minutes until the next flight) and internet access, I'll try to give a brief update.

Leaving Marlborough on a gloriously sunny morning, I got on a tiny, tiny plane for a quick hop across to Wellington (the smaller the plane, the more fun flying is, I reckon) over the Cook Strait. I then flew to Napier, where I picked my hire car up, before heading off to Gisborne to see James Millton.

James had warned me that the 200 km journey was a tricky one, with winding roads, tight bends and lots of ups and downs. The 2.5 hour drive required a lot of concentration, but it was worth it, because the short time I spent at Millton was one of the best vineyard visits I've ever made. James runs his 28 hectares biodynamically, but this shouldn't be allowed to overshadow the fact that the wines he makes are quite brilliant, with a distinctive old world elegance and character.

We tasted, visited some vineyards, dug up some cows' horns, and I even got up at 0545 to see BD501 being mixed and sprayed. James and Annie were very hospitable, and I even had a chance to hit some golf balls and dip my toes in the Pacific (although not at the same time). James is pictured above with his special preparation stirring device.

Then it was back along the perilous highway 2 to Napier, the heart of the Hawkes Bay wine region. I arrived at the Craggy Range winery on the Gimblett Gravels (they also have a Cellar Door overlooked by the Te Mata Peak, where I was staying for a couple of nights in the vineyard cottage, which is a beautiful place to stay).

I tasted through the astonishingly good range of 06 reds, soon to be released Pinots, mind-blowing Syrahs and delightfully poised Rieslings. Craggy is on fire. That evening I crashed dinner with the board of Pinot Noir 2010, who were meeting at Craggy that day. Yesterday began with breakfast with Steve Smith, followed by a full day of appointments: Esk Valley, Sacred Hill, CJ Pask, Stonecroft and Trinity Hill. After the last appointment we had a beer and a glass of wine, before Warren Gibson invited me over to his beautiful rural home for dinner. The drive home proved a bit of a hit or miss affair (a combination of an inaccurate map, a tricky journey, darkness, and the fact that Hawkes Bay is a really easy region to get lost in), but I made it intact.

Today I'm off to Waipara, before heading off home from Christchurch tomorrow. This potted summary is a woefully inadequate, on the fly account, for which I apologise: as usual, the report in full will appear on the main site.

NZ (5) the Marlborough wine region

I've mentioned before how I think that visiting wine regions is important: you can taste as much as you like and read as much as you like, but it is only when you see where the wine comes from that it really clicks.

Over the last couple of days in Marlborough, this has certainly happened for me. There's so much to say, I don't really know where to start, but here's a woefully brief account.

Flying into Blenheim, you land right in the middle of the vineyards of the Wairau Valley plain: this is the heart of the wine region, and it's flat, with a sea of vines in all directions and not a lot else.

Five minutes after landed I had picked up my hire car, parked it, and was taken off by Damian Martin of Ara. Ara is an impressive new project: in a subregion of Marlborough some distance inland from Blenheim, Ara have started developing an enormous terrace of 1600 hectares. They've already put 400 hectares or so in, and they are tilting for the top. The vineyards are brilliantly run, with closer spacing than is normal for Marlborough, and a focus on Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. Two wines have so far been released under the brand 'Composite', and more will follow. One to watch.

I spent the afternoon and evening with Damian - he invited me to his home (he has a French wife and three charming bilingual children) where we dined well on green lipped mussels (these are approximately four times larger than normal mussels, and are delicious) and salmon. We drank Ara wines, and finished with a beautiful Te Mata Coleraine 1998.

On Sunday morning I was up early to drive round the Wairau Valley taking pictures, before heading over to Montana's Brancott Winery. The vivid, startlingly intense sunlight was welcome after Saturday's leaden skies and biting wind. Katie Speakman, the Tour and Business Development Manager, drove me round the three main subregions of the district: the Awatare Valley, Wairau Valley and Raupaura. I learned a new word: hoon. Katie is with child, and needs her sleep, yet lives next door to some hoons who kept her awake all Friday night partying. Noise control confiscated their stereo system (again) but they just moved on next door... And I thought Blenheim was a sleepy rural town.

I lunched with Patrick Materman, who is the chief winemaker for Montana and the other brands that are made at the immense Brancott winery. We tried through quite a lot of wines, and had some fun discussions. Did you know that with 3000 tons of Pinot Noir passing through the winery here, this is perhaps the world's largest producer of this noble variety?

I left just before 4 pm, and headed out of town to Picton, some 25 kms away. This is where you catch the ferry to Wellington, and it is at the head of the Marlborough sounds. I took the Queen Charlotte Drive, a winding road through the sounds, with spectacular views all along. It was indescribably beautiful in the late afternoon sun - one of the world's great drives (am I getting carried away?).

After heading back into Blenheim, I wandered into town hoping to find something to eat. I opted for the Whalehaven restaurant, where I dined well, alone. Solitary dining can feel a little lonely, but I had a good book, a glass of Riesling and a couple of glasses of Pinot Noir, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I went to bed feeling immensely grateful.

NZ (4)

After a successful conference on the way that the environment affects genetic vulnerability to disease, I'm now off to Blenheim, via Christchurch, to visit the important wine region of Marlborough.

Last night, Sir Michael Rutter, who is probably the UK's leading child psychiatrist, and who chaired our conference, kindly invited me and a couple of colleagues out to dinner. We went to a new restaurant on the waterfront at the back of the railway station, called Custom House. It was bright, airy and noisy (like many modern restaurants), but the food was excellent.

As often happens in these situations, I was asked to choose the wine - something I enjoy doing - and so I opted for the Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2007 (which is a lovely Sauvignon) and the Rockburn Pinot Noir 2006 from Central Otago. This was really nice: aromatic, ripe, expressive, if perhaps just a little oaky at the moment - both bottles of this went down really well. It was a fun evening, tinged with a hint of sadness because this meeting will have been the last ever Novartis Foundation conference (the organization for which I have worked for the last 15 years, and which Mike is a trustee for; I'm aware this probably needs some more explanation for many people, and I'll do this in another post).

The gratuitous seal picture is from our excursion to the Otago peninsula the other day. Actually, my cetacean taxonomy isn't what it should be. It's possible that is one of the sea lions found on the peninsula, but I'm not able to tell the difference between this and a fur seal, although I'm guessing the former is bigger.

NZ (3)

The time difference here is quite hard to get used to - it's actually 13 hours, which means that as I write this at 0815 on Friday, in the UK where I've recently called home it is 1915 on Thursday.
After a day sitting in a conference, last night we had a symposium dinner at the Vice Chancellor's Lodge, a rather grand residence overlooking the Otago Peninsula. The wines served were, once again, pretty good. I had Valli Pinot Noir 2006 from Bannockburn in Central Otago, which was very polished and quite elegant. I also tried a rich Dog Point Chardonnay, but didn't give it the attention it deserved.

Coincidentally, I had a good chat with one of the researchers who is working with a large population study here in Dunedin, and he has a PhD student working on PROP testing this group. PROP is a bitter tasting compound that some people can't taste, some people find mildly repellent and some people find utterly disgusting - there's a chapter dealing with this and the implications for wine tasting in my Wine Science book.

Anyway, with a bit of luck I should be able to find out my PROP taster status later today. The issue of individual differences in taste and smell perception is a really interesting one - it deserves more than just a blog post.

Also by way of coincidence, the previous evening, at a reception, I met a researcher who has been working with Dr Wendy Parr, a kiwi who has published extensively on sensory perception of wine. I need to go back and revisit her work.

Another day in the conference beckons today, and then tomorrow morning I'm off to Marlborough. I'm quite excited - it's always fun visiting a wine region you've heard a lot about, for the first time.

NZ (2)

Of course, my first impressions of New Zealand were totally wrong. New Zealand totally rocks....man.

After the rather complicated journey to Auckland, by virtue of a couple of neatly connecting internal flights I arrived in Dunedin just an hour later than I should have (and Air NZ charged me just a modest $65 even though I'd missed my non-refundable, inflexible Christchurch to Dunedin flight). I did manage to lose my primary credit card along the way, but fortunately I carry two of them specifically for this reason.

I dumped my stuff and met a couple of colleagues for dinner, which was a jolly affair at a seafood restaurant, where we tried a couple of Central Otago wines - a Bald Hill Riesling (dry, very fruity and nicely intense) and a 2004 Gibbston Pinot Noir (expressive, bright, drinking nicely). On the way back from dinner we were amazed by the number of drunk students we encountered. Dunedin is full of them, it seems.

Yesterday was fun: after getting the preparation for the symposium out of the way by 11 am, I persuaded a colleague with a hire car to take us for a trip to the Otago Peninsula. We visited Taiaroa Head, which has a really important Albatross colony - unfortunately, you can't see them at the moment because they're choosing their new partners, or something like that (they only get to mate every other year), but it was very pretty. Then we went for a delightful hike through the Pyramids to Victory Beach, where we found a colony of seals lounging around on the rocks.

At the reception yesterday evening two very nice wines were served: a St Clair Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough (sorry, can't remember the block number) that was really refined, and a Valli Pinot Noir from Central Otago, which was also refined and quite full bodied.

Aside: One thing I learned yesterday is that a real problem for agriculture in the region is a pest algal species called Didymo. Also known as 'rock snot', this is a diatom that has been invading waterways, and it causes real problems with irrigation equipment. Just thought I'd share this.

Grand cru Burgundy from Central Otago

Slightly provocative title to the post, I know. But there's a hint of seriousness to this trolling title: it used to be the case that Pinot Noir, the world's sexiest red grape variety, only ever really performed in Burgundy.

Increasingly, though, I'm finding myself seduced by non-Burgundian Pinot Noir. As a recent tasting with Josh Jensen confirmed, California can make really great Pinot Noir (as well as some really bad ones), and I've even had very palatable efforts from Australia (from the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula, for example). But New Zealand is my current favourite destination for world-class Pinot Noir that I can afford to buy.

Tomorrow, I'm going to a Central Otago tasting, and in November I'm going to Central Otago itself (a long way...), as well as Marlborough and Hawkes Bay. I've enjoyed some brilliant Central Otago Pinot Noir in recent months, and tomorrow I expect the average quality level will be quite high. In anticipation, tonight I'm trying a pretty good Central Pinot from Lowburn Ferry.

Lowburn Ferry Pinot Noir 2006 Central Otago
Medium colour, which is a good thing with Pinot. You don't want your Pinot to look like Shiraz. Warm cherry and spice nose which is quite aromatic and fresh. The palate has a nice concentration of spicy berry and cherry fruit with good acidity keeping things very fresh, and giving a hint of plummy sourness to the finish. A bright, supple style with a fair bit of complexity and some structure, which makes me think it might age well over the next few years. 90/100 (Hellion Wines)

Procrastination, and wild rock rocks!

One of the features of the broadband internet age is that there are now 1001 ways to procrastinate. Never before has it been so easy to put off doing proper work by hopping over to check the BBC news site, or waste time on facebook or flickr, pick up emails yet again, or just generally arse around on various blogs and internet sites.

At least in the age of dial-up it cost money to stay online, and getting online was a mild hassle so you just collected your messages a few times a day. 'Always on' connections make this sort of discipline difficult. I find that to work effectively, it takes me perhaps five minutes to get in the zone, and maybe another 10 to function really efficiently. So if I'm continually replying to emails, or browsing, then it's much harder to achieve the state of maximum productivity. So I'm going to make a pledge to procrastinate less over the next month. [Heck, now this is beginning to sound like one of those awful 'work more efficiently in the information age' blogs...]

Back to wine. Last night, watching City record their their second successive victory of the new campaign on Match of the Day, I opened a Wild Rock Gravel Pit Red 2005. And Wild Rock rocks! (see the tasting note below)

Wild Rock Gravel Pit Red 2005 Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
From the Craggy Range stable, this is a blend of Merlot and Malbec from the Gimblett Gravels of Hawkes Bay. It's really impressive: a lovely, well balanced red in a Bordeaux mould. Attractive nose of dark fruits - ripe but still fresh, with a minerally, gravelly edge. Dark, almost brooding palate shows a lovely savoury edge to the spicy dark fruits. Some grippy, spicy tannins on the finish, together with just the faintest hint of animal character, complete this satisfying wine, which is not at all sweet or over-ripe. In its focus and depth, it reminds me a bit of some of the leading Margaret River reds from Australia. 90/100 (£9.99 Waitrose, on offer at £7.49 from 3-30th September 2007)

Wine from plastic...how does it taste?

Continuing the PET wine saga, I've posted an article on the main wineanorak site about technical issues to do with wine in PET here. I also tried the two Sainsbury wines in these plastic bottles. The first was the Sauvignon Blanc. For £4.99, this is as cheap as New Zealand Sauvignon gets. It's bulk shipped in tank and then bottled at Corby in Northants.

I poured a glass and alongside the crisp, fresh grassy flavours there was a distinct detergent edge - a bit like when you drink from soapy glasses that haven't been rinsed properly, or when you taste from a glass that's already been drunk from by someone wearing lipstick.

So I got a fresh glass and rinsed it well first. Still the same detergent edge. Another two glasses were tried; each time the wine had an unpleasant detergent edge to it. How mysterious. Is this just a problem unique to my bottle, or is this a problem affecting this wine across the board?

The Australian Shiraz Rose was perfectly OK, though, with nice slightly sweet strawberryish friut. At £3.99 in PET an ideal picnic wine.

Trade fair day one

So I rock up to the London wine fair at about 2 pm. I have a few moments spare, so I taste through the Symington portfolio of Douro table wines (Altano much improved in 2005, as is Chryseia and Post Scriptum) and Ports, before heading up to the seminar rooms where I was chairing the Closures debate.

This year the focus was on retailers and their involvement in closure development, with a star-studded panel made up of Andy Gale (Tesco), Howard Winn (Sainsbury), Jenny Bond (ex-retailer, now a consultant) and Ian Rogerson (consultant who works with Co-op). Before we get going, Sam Harrop pops in to let me know the preliminary findings from the faults clinic at the International Wine Challenge. More on those in a few days.

We kick off. Last Thursday I stayed up to watch Question time to get some tips on how to run a panel debate from the master himself, David Dimbleby. While closures is a hot topic, it's not nearly as contentious as the subject matter Dimbleby deals with, but I got some useful pointers: most significantly, don't let questions hang in the air - always direct them to someone. So I reckon I did a better job this year than last, and the panel were great.

Afterwards it was time for a quick beer with James Gabbani (of Cube, organizers of the debate), Andy Gale and the Oeneo guys, before a quick stop at the