Fortnum and Mason

This afternoon I met with Tim French, wine buyer for upmarket London department store Fortnum and Mason. Tim, who comes across as young, articulate and smart, has been redeveloping Fortnum's house wines. Rather than them occupy the bottom rung in the Fortnum's offering, they are sourced from prestigious producers and then slotted into the upper-middle segment of the range, with the producer's identity made clear on the label.

'I've tried to put myself in the consumers' place', says French. 'When you come to Fortnum and Mason, you want quality and authenticity. Customers are largely buying our reputation and expertise'. When he chooses wines for own-label, French says he is 'looking for the most authentic example of an appellation or terroir'. He adds that, 'we are working with producers that stand out among their peers'.

The reason I was meeting with him is because I'm going to be writing an article on his new Port range, which comes from Dirk Niepoort. 'Port is such an important category for us', says French. 'Of all my own label challenges, one of the most important was to get the Port right'. When deciding on a supplier, he began with the LBV. He had some 40 wines open and tasted through them. Of them all, the Niepoort wine stood out. He's gone on to develop a range of five Ports and one Douro table wine from Niepoort, which we tasted together.

In brief:

1) Dry white Port: quite complex, fresh and moreish, and a bargain at £10.50

2) Douro 2005 table wine: this is the Vertente, and it's really good. French says, 'It's a style of wine that in many ways a Claret drinker would be familiar with, but it has modernity, too. For the traditional drinker it's a new experience in comfortable surroundings'. I agree. £14.50

3) LBV 2001: a mini-Vintage Port. Delicious. £13.50

4) Vintage Port 1997: this is stock left from Passadouro. Concentrated, smooth and intense, with a silky, layered palate. Serious. A bargain. £27.50

5) 10 Year Old Tawny: A brilliant balance between youth and development. Lovely delicacy and aromatics. 'I love the play of savoury and sweetness', says French. Finish is eternal. £22.50

6) Colheita 1991. Profound. Complex, spellbinding, with a lovely elegant soft texture, with subtelty and finesse. 'This whispers to you', says French. 'It's just so interesting'. £35

Footnote: Fortnum's wine bar allows customers to drink anything from the shop with a £10 corkage. From October, they will be open until 11 pm. Anyone fancy some serious drinking, with food?

Bordeaux and Port

Two very nice (but affordable) wines to report on tonight. The first is a well proportioned, balanced Claret; the second, an overperforming LBV Port.

Chateau Senejac 2004 Cru Bourgeois, Haut Medoc, Bordeaux
Lovely nose shows some blackcurrant fruit but it's quite restrained, and not too fruity, with a balanced, complex earthy, gravelly, cigar box sort of character. Very smooth and elegant. The palate is earthy and spicy with good density of fruit. Midweight with some nice tannin and really good balance. A well proportioned sort of wine where nothing sticks out too much, and at this price a real bargain for Bordeaux. This sort of wine is what Bordeaux is all about. Very good+ 89/100 (£9.25 Waitrose)

Niepoort LBV 2001 Douro, Portugal
This is a late-bottled vintage Port that would put some vintage wines to shame. On the nose there's some spicy, herby complexity, with some lifted tar notes and a bit of perfume. The palate has a pronounced spicy tannic structure underpinning the sweet fruit. Finishes drier and more savoury than you'd expect. Plenty of personality here, and a persistent structure. Very good/excellent 90/100 (£13 Butlers Wine Cellar, Cambridge Wine Company, Fareham Wine Cellar, Fortnum & Mason, Bentleys Wine and others)

Ashes and Port

Just watched the last of the Ashes highlights. These have been staple viewing over the last couple of months - I think I've only missed two of them. And how depressing for England cricket fans like me to see such abject capitulation.

Still, let's put it in perspective. We have an averagely good England side up against an awesomely good, ruthlessly professional Australia side - who would hammer any other test side at the moment, the way they are playing. Credit is due to the likes of Warnie, Ponting and McGrath for being so good. And England didn't help themselves with their amateurish preparation for this series.

To console myself, I cracked open another 2003 Vintage Port. This time it was Cockburn's Quinta da Canais 2003. It's very enjoyable even at this early stage, with dense, spicy dark fruits. There's good structure here, but also a little bit of a green streak, which will no doubt mellow with age, but I reckon will cause this wine to be a solid mid-term drinker rather than a truly serious Vintage Port for the long haul. Score-wise, I reckon perhaps 90/100, which recognizes the admirable density and oomph, but also acknowledges the lack of real class and finesse that would take this wine into the premiership.

Back to the wine...

Feeling great today. After a remission of my vicious gastric disorder on Boxing day (thus no wine, hardly any food), I awoke feeling physically sound for the first time in ages. I actually felt like drinking wine!

It was a good job, because we were off for a family get-together at the Beavingtons (my wine-bibbing brother-in-law's pad), where food and wine were on the menu. It was the first time all four of the Goode children (myself, my twin sister Anne, younger sister Hester and younger brother Arthur) had gathered in the same location for ages and ages. We all brought our kids (12 in all) and a merry time was had. The wines included:

Smith Woodhouse Vintage Port 1966
This old Port wasn’t decanted, and so needs a little air to open up. It has a mellow, soft spicy nose that’s initially a little spirity, but becomes a quite fruity and fudgy. The palate is soft and complex with mellow red fruits, yet still has a bit of spicy bite. Rich, intense and drinking very well now. I reckon there’s no hurry to drink this up, although it’s probably not going to get any better. Very good/excellent 91/100

Château Suduiraut 2001 Sauternes
This is fantastic. Wonderfully intense, full nose with apricot, lemon, spice and vanilla notes. The palate is broad and super-concentrated, showing complex, viscous apricotty, marmaladey fruit bolstered by good acidity and with some honey notes. Even at such an early stage it’s already a first-rate example of Sauternes and is potentially immortal. Excellent 95/100

Francois Mikulski Meursault 2002 Burgundy
Good yellow colour. Rich nose showing some evolution, with nutty, toasty fruit. The palate is quite rich with toasty, spicy notes and some lemony freshness to the fruit. A delicious, modern-styled white Burgundy that’s drinking well now, but which I wouldn’t age too much longer. Very good/excellent 90/100

JP & JL Jamet Côte-Rôtie 1999 Northern Rhône
Another crack at this wine, which I’ve now had several times. At an en primeur tasting many years ago I described this 1999 as possibly the best young wine I’d ever tasted. It’s now approaching a rather savoury phase, now that the puppy fat is shed, and it shows itself as a classically styled Côte-Rôtie. Perfumed nose has spicy, animally, meaty characters alongside the fruit. The palate is savoury and intense with lots of fruit but also a distinctive meaty spiciness. I’ll not be opening my remaining few bottles for a while. Very good/excellent 93/100

winter warmer

Today had a real winter chill to it, which in the days of global warming is sort of reassuring for the UK in late December: it's supposed to be cold in mid-winter! Indeed, I'd just love some sub-zero temperatures, together with a dusting (or more) of snow, for the Christmas holidays.

I went for my usual lunchtime walk today, through Regent's Park. The morning mist had cleared, but the air was still heavy with moisture. It gave the sunlight a rather milky feel, and gave the cold air a penetrating quality that cut straight through my clothing, chilling my skin in an icy blast. In the rose garden the work of winter pruning was well under way, even though some blooms were still evident. Pruning is a strongly metaphorical process, reminding me that this is a convenient time of year to address areas in my own life that could do with cutting back, in order to encourage healthy future growth.

Watching the crowds in London, it seems that there's an unusual tiredness/weariness to people. It's something you expect with the season; this year it seems to be exceptional. I guess for many this year has been a difficult one. Next year will have its own peculiar challenges, which are likely to match or exceed what this year has brought. That's the impression I'm getting. Of course, this might be total nonsense. But I'm going to use the next week and a bit to do nothing much. Downtime. However, I'll still be updating the site and blog - for me, this is fun.

The 'winter warmer' of the title of this post is a vintage Port. From Barros, a producer best known for its Colheitas, the 2003 Vintage is showing really beautifully at the moment. I've been drinking a lot of young Vintage Port recently, and I'm enjoying it a good deal. You've got two choices with Vintage Port: catch it young and enjoy it in its first blush, or stick it away for a decade or more, with two or three decades recommended for the top examples.

Barros Vintage Port 2003 Douro, Portugal
Deep coloured, this Vintage Port has a wonderfully perfumed, open nose. There’s an almost floral, herb-tinged dark fruits character, which is supplemented by lifted spicy notes. It’s very seductive and expressive, with a nice sweetness. The palate has lovely sweet fruit with some assertive spiciness and a bit of tannic grip, but it’s not really built for the long haul. Instead, this is a beautifully poised, perfumed Vintage Port which will keep for a decade or two, but which will probably reach its peak earlier rather than later. It’s incredibly enjoyable now, though. Very good/excellent 93/100

Passionate about Port

Normal tasting has resumed. I can smell again. Perhaps not perfectly, but then who smells perfectly all the time? Our physiological apparatus likely changes daily in subtle ways without us realising it. Tonight's tipple is a Single Quinta Vintage Port. It's Cockburn's Quinta dos Canais 1998, which is a good wine from a dodgy year. the Quinta is in the Douro Superior (it's pictured above, from my July visit to the Douro) and although Cockburn's purchased it relatively recently (1989), it forms the heart of their vintage Ports.

I like Port a good deal. It's quite hard to learn to taste Port well (in this respect, it's a bit like Champagne - you need to practice lots, which is no hard task). The key is not to be fooled by the fruit or the sweetness, but to look a little deeper, to the structure (at least when you are evaluating serious wines) .

This one shows good concentration, lots of fruit, and a lovely spicy tannic structure. There's nice definition and freshness to the fruit, with a fair bit of spicy complexity. It's rich and quite tarry, showing some evolution. It descends towards a fudgey, spicy, almost raisiny richness on the finish. I reckon this is a reasonably serious wine, but one that needs to be drunk sooner rather than later. It's quite perfumed, and for this reason I'd recommend it as a wine that will give lots of pleasure, but only if it's drunk relatively soon (in the next three years - my wild prediction is that beyond this it will descend into soft, spicy anonymity). I'd score it 92/100 for current drinking.

In comparison with the Noval Unfiltered LBV 2000, which has been open a few days, this shows more ooomph and richness (by a whisker), but the Noval has a lifted, floral aromatic character and fruit freshness that this wine lacks.

Comfort drinking

Time to turn to something familiar - two wines that in previous vintages I've enjoyed a good deal.

Quinta do Noval's unfiltered LBV has been (for me) the best value Port for a few vintages now. For around £11 you get something that approximates a true Vintage Port (pretty closely). The 2000 is deeply impressive, but then the 1999 and 1998 were too: sealed with a driven cork it offers dense, reasonably complex, tannic, spicy fruit. Brilliant stuff. Around £12, in Oddbins in the UK. This is one to stock up on and my prediction is that it will improve with a year or two in bottle.

St Hallett's Gamekeeper's Reserve 2005 is a really interesting, affordable red. A blend of Shiraz, Grenache and Touriga from the Barossa, it reminds me of Marc Kent's Porcupine Ridge Syrah. It's slightly meaty and olivey, with perfumed pure dark sweet fruit. Perhaps even a little funky. No wine costing just £5.99 (Waitrose, Thresher, Sainsbury, Co-op) ever deserved to be this tasty. Buy, buy, buy.