Jamie's
Blog...older entries
Sunday 2nd December
A brief one today. Since Thursday I've been offline. In
hospital, to be precise, undergoing some fairly major surgery.
Fortunately, it all went pretty well, and I'm now recovering from
home, but I'll be out of proper action for another week at least.
Tonight I'm back on the wine -- natural pain relief -- and it's a
tasty, meaty, savoury red from the South of France: Château Pech
Redon 1998 Sélection Coteaux du Languedoc La Clape. Delicious
stuff with just a twist of bitterness to make it a very good food
wine. After three days of hospital food and broken sleep patterns
(I was on an old-fashioned 18 bed ward), it's nice to resume a
semblance of normality. As an aside, while the standard of care in
our ward was pretty good, my suggestion is that patients should be
given half a bottle of plonk with their dinner each night…
Wednesday 21st November
Yesterday evening: a tasting of 22 wines from the south of
France at La Vigneronne. This was a rather condensed version of
their hugely successful October wine fair, held for the benefit
for those like me who were unable to make it. It was a strong line
up, with some fairly serious, personality-filled wines. It was
also nice to bump into Robert Helms and Robert Asher, two regular
offline dining companions with far more tasting experience than
me, and absolutely huge cellars. But working my way through this
line-up made me think about what a poor deal a lot of wines get.
Imagine you achieved the dream of many geeks and had your own wine
domain. You go to every effort to make the very best wines your
precious terroir can yield. Yet the crucial reviews by influential
critics that can make or break your venture in many cases are
based on a quick sniff, a slurp and a hastily jotted note. At this
tasting, most of the wines deserved to be taken home and drunk at
leisure, preferably over the course of a meal, with sufficient
time for contemplation. Imagine attending a job interview and
being given just three minutes to sell yourself. You'd feel
(rightly?) aggrieved -- unless of course you landed the job. It's
from this perspective that I try to approach every tasting. I want
to give the wine a chance to impress me; I want to look below the
surface. Every now and again I try to make a point of purchasing
wines that I've sampled in a large-scale tasting, taking them home
and drinking them, and then comparing my notes. It's a necessary
check. I know this sounds slightly pompous and melodramatic, but
it's a great responsibility to publish opinions that you know will
be read by a lot of people, and it's one I take seriously. Why?
Well, I'm kind of old fashioned, and I want the good guys (the
ones doing the best work) to finish first. Don't you? And while it
would be nice to never have to say anything negative, unless
critics are prepared to chastise the poor along with praising the
good, then lazy, incompetent, greedy or highly-media-savvy
producers will continue to hitch a ride on the backs of those
doing genuinely good work.
Saturday 17th November
It's Saturday evening. Just on my way home from the Decanter
Fine Wine Encounter. I'm worn out, my teeth and fingers are
stained red, but it's been a worthwhile day's work. Tasting in
earnest from 10am when the doors opened until closing time
(without a break), I managed to cover 25 producers in detail out
of 99. I could have done with a couple more days to get round
everything. It's an extravagant event. As well as the posh
surroundings (the Landmark is a lovely hotel) and the big Riedel
glasses, there's an almost wasteful abundance of decent wine being
poured and spat. Of course, not all of it is spat: unlike trade
tastings where almost everyone spits (except the odd lush here and
there), at consumer events like these there's a sizeable minority
who swallow. They must be completely crazy. Indeed, by late
afternoon there were several dozen people wandering around visibly
inebriated. Example: I was standing at the Royal Tokaji company
table, working my way through some thick, sweet, unusual wines
when a large, horridly drunk young chap asked for a pour. He got a
generous sized slosh, which he then proceeded to knock back like a
shot of vodka. The pourer and I watched amazed as his eyes glazed
over, his face drained of colour and his lips started trembling. I
was convinced that he was about to throw up, but fortunately on
this occasion he managed to compose himself. No doubt he chucked
up shortly afterwards over someone else's table. As an aside, I'm
impressed by the patience and generosity of the mixture of
winemakers, PR people, agents and retailers who staff the stands,
pour endless samples and answer the same questions again and
again. It must be frustrating for them when people aren't prepared
to try through the range but just want a quick sniff and slurp of
the top wine. If you are attending a tasting like this in the
future, I'd urge you to remember the tasting etiquette of not
standing rooted to the spot blocking access to the spittoons or
the tables themselves: get your pour, and then stand back. And
when there is a crowd behind you waiting for their next sample,
it's not a good time to tell the person pouring all about your
last holiday in Tuscany. Sermon over.
Thursday 14th November
Two tastings yesterday evening. First, a good show put on by Bibendum
who were pouring about 50 of their wines at their usual tasting
venue of Home House. Getting there just after 5pm meant it wasn't
too crowded, and I managed to work my way through in just over an
hour. Some interesting stuff. The 1998 D'Arenberg Dead Arm has
been much talked about since receiving 96 Parker
points, and was showing well: underneath the lush, spicy fruit
there was a fair whack of tannin. Lots going on here: it will be
interesting to see how it develops. For current drinking, the 1997
Katnook Odyssey Cabernet was remarkably lush, exotic and open.
Completely over the top in style, but very tasty in small doses.
From the old world four cask samples from the successful 2000
vintage caught my attention: Poujeaux (Moulis), La Clotte (St
Emilion), Beauregard (Pomerol) and Clos Fourtet (St Emilion).
They're all deep, concentrated, inky wines at present, but the
right bank trio in particular showing good potential. However,
it's a perilous task assessing the potential of wines such as
these at such an early stage. Full notes on all wines to follow of
course. A couple of tube journeys later, I was at the La
Vigneronne 1999 Jaboulet tasting. A solid enough line-up here,
with a very nice Hermitage Blanc (Chevalier de Stérimberg), an
authentic Côte-Rôtie (Les Jumelles), but a poor showing from the
1999 Hermitage La Chapelle, which was disappointingly light. It'd
be a brave person who'd shell out £50 for this in the hope of it
metamorphosing into something complex and interesting with 15
years in bottle. To finish with, I was quite taken with the Réserve
Personelle Muscat de Baumes-de-Venise, which was delightfully
perfumed and not at all cloying. Final thought: life is good. I
only had to wait 1 minute for a Richmond train from South
Kensington. A personal record.
Tuesday 13th November
Another winey week. Last night was another of the infamous
Handford blind tastings, put on by Greg Sherwood. Greg's cute
little trick is to give dodgy clues, while we're all thrashing
around in the dark. One wine that foxed us was a bizarre white Châteaueuf
du Pape from Domaine de Val Frais. This was a weird, rustic little
thing with a palate just like a fino sherry (honest!). From the
evident faulty winemaking and waxy, high-acid finish I guessed a
Savennières -- at least I was in the right country. Greg hinted
that this might be good with Tapas, which prompted me to question
my call at least half the gathered tasters to plump for Spain.
Mean trick. Another difficult wine was the rather unusual Pazo de
Senorans 2000 Albarino. It wasn't particularly aromatic: a subtle,
delicate, slightly neutral effort I thought. My guess was Alsace
Pinot Blanc, but Greg fooled us by suggesting it might be a warm
climate wine. Galicia? Warm climate? Hmmm. We all did better with
the 2001 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, and I was glad I spotted the
rather austere Chamonix Cabernet Sauvignon as South African. Apart
from this, though, it was another humbling experience. This
evening I'm trying to combine two tastings (A&B Vintners and
La Vigneronne's Cahors), and then tomorrow evening it's off to
Bibendum followed by another La Vig event (Jaboulet's 1999s).
Finally, for those of you who don't subscribe to Wine magazine,
I'd urge you to rush out and buy a copy of the December issue (or
at least leaf through one on the news stands). That's all I'm
going to say ;)
Friday 2nd November
A recent news
item on Decanter.com gives an intriguing glimpse of how the
modern media machine works. It concerns the loss of the grapes
from ‘an entire experimental vineyard’ in China, owned by
Spanish producer Miguel Torres. These vines were apparently
stripped clean by ‘birds and inquisitive locals’. Sounds
newsworthy? Read a little deeper. Before you conjure up mental
images of hordes of Chinese laying waste to many hectares, look at
the size of the vineyard concerned. Just 50 kilograms of grapes
were lost. We’re talking about 20-30 vines, here folks: that’s
fewer than I’ve got on my allotment. And this would make a
paltry seven or eight gallons of wine. This is a complete
non-story. No wonder Torres is ‘phlegmatic about the loss’. In
fact, he’s probably quite pleased, because it’s bought him
much sought after coverage in the wine media. No doubt his PR
people, working hard to keep the Torres name in the news, will be
delighted. Adam Lechmere, Decanter.com’s editor who penned the
piece almost certainly realizes this is a total non-story, but is
happy to run it because it looks interesting, and is just the sort
of slightly unusual fluff piece that editors love. All in all, a
fascinating example of how the modern media works: clever PR
people create press releases out of quirky non-news (and sometimes
deliberately staged) events, that are then turned into fluff
pieces by savvy news editors whose primary job is to entertain
their readers: a win–win situation for both. The only loser is
the intelligent reader, and the producers who don’t get coverage
because they refuse to join in the media hype game.
Monday 29th October
With the spectacular rise and (equally spectacular) fall of
Internet entrepreneurs, it’s easy to forget what made the
Internet so popular in the first place: it remain a wonderful
communication medium. Of course, it’s not as trivial as it once
seemed to make pots of money out of it, but it can be brilliantly
successful in fostering discussion and debate. An example: this
afternoon I read a thoughtful piece in the Financial Times on
university funding. On the FT’s
website the journalist’s e-mail address was provided, so I
made a quick response. Within an hour, he had replied to my
message, answering in detail a couple of the points I raised.
Voila! Interactivity.
One of the best uses of the Internet is to bring like-minded
enthusiasts together, free to discuss their passion. And as far as
wine is concerned, there are discussion boards aplenty, to suit
just about every palate and level of discussion. Wine information
is no longer the preserve of the professional writers and
publishers; it’s in the hands of the masses. Everyone is now a
critic. But there’s a fascinating twist to this: there is the
possibility that what geeks say on these public fora will be read
by the winemakers, journalists or critics being discussed. And
when they respond to the criticisms of their public, it can make
for gripping reading. Two examples from recent days. First, a
post was made to the Wine Lovers Discussion Group about
British journalist Tim Atkin’s article in the Observer
newspaper. This piece was critical of the direction Australian
wine has taken, and spawned a lively (but still-civil) debate. A
quick e-mail message later, Tim sportingly showed up to join in
the discussion. Second, a far more
fractious exchange on Mark Squires’ bulletin board. One of
the participants began knocking the assessments of Robert Parker
and his assistant Pierre Rovani of the 1993, 1994 and 1997
vintages in Burgundy. Several others join in. Lo and behold, who
should pop up to answer the critics but Pierre A. Rovani himself
(he covers Burgundy on Parker’s behalf). As participant Don
Rockwell alludes to, what normally happens in these threads where
a wine celeb under discussion shows up is that people backtrack,
retract or tone down their criticisms, and start sucking-up. But
here they don’t, and it makes for some great reading.
Saturday 27th October
Browsing the shelves of Threshers wine
shops is rapidly becoming a depressing experience for wine geeks.
I popped into my local branch for the first time in a while and
came away pretty much appalled at the range on offer. I'm not just
being a snob here: a few years ago there was usually enough
interesting wine to make choosing a bottle there an interesting
dilemma. Since then, however, the range has contracted and many
interesting wines have made way for dull, industrial replacements.
Now, the shelves are dominated by the big brands and standardized
pap. And it's not as if they're cheap: for most wines in the shop
I could think of a more interesting alternative for the same (or
less) money. Does the average consumer realise this? Probably not.
In the end I bought a bottle of the richly-textured, aromatic
Rueda from Marques du Riscal, for £5.99. A nice wine, but cheaper
elsewhere. Not that I'm drinking wine at the moment: for the last
week or so I've had a bad cold that has just about wiped out my
sense of smell. Very frustrating, especially because it means I've
had to pass on the excellent La Vigneronne wine fair, which I
should be slurping and sniffing my way through as I write. Let's
hope my critical faculties are back in action again in time for
next week's Majestic press tasting.
Monday 21st October
News on the grapevine is that Majestic are expanding into
France. Keen to cash in on the cross-channel booze traffic, last
week they bought out Les Celliers De Calais S.A. (who trade as The
Wine and Beer Company) for £7.25 million. This will give Majestic
four new wine warehouses in striking distance of channel ports:
two in Calais, one in Cherbourg and another in Le Havre. But if
you are travelling soon, don't expect to see the Majestic flag
flying: these outlets will continue trading as the Wine and Beer
Company until Christmas, when the Majestic rebranding will start.
From the Wine and Beer Company's rather garish website,
you can take a look at what the current range is like. Compared
with Majestic's, it looks extremely predictable, with big brands
and generic wines predominating, although these have sold pretty
well by all accounts. When Majestic do their make-over in the new
year, they plan to double the size of the main store in Calais to
14000 square feet. This will certainly increase the options for
cross-channel shoppers, who now have a range of UK retailers to
choose from, including Sainsbury, Tescos and Oddbins. It's a while
since I last crossed the channel for wine (my tip is to avoid the
dreadful Cité de Europe), but there are now quite a few web
resources to help planning this sort of trip. One such site, www.day-tripper.net,
is a comprehensive guide to cross-channel shopping: a good idea,
let down by a nasty, cluttered web design. Perardel
is one Calais-based wine retailer that I've heard mentioned
positively; again, their website isn't too hot. However, no
discussion of booze cruises would be complete without mention of
Eastenders. This extremely successful pile-em-high outfit is owned
by the now rather famous Dave West, who cut rather an incongruous
figure when I spotted him at the London Wine Trade Fair in May.
Their website is
brilliantly naff, and I particularly like the reference to the
wines of 'E & J Gallow'. Ironic?
Tuesday 16th October
I'm still working my way through a bunch of Pic St Loup (a commune
in the Coteaux du Languedoc) wines that I bought a couple of years
ago. At the weekend I opened another bottle of the Vieilles Vignes
1997 from Château Lancyre, one of several purchased from Tesco
(they used to stock this and the excellent Grande Cuvée). A blend
of old vine Syrah and Grenache, it's a medium-bodied wine with a
lovely meaty, cheesy, earthy character that's quite typical of
wines from this region. Other favourite producers of mine from
this region include the wines from Domaine de l'Hortus, Mas Brugière,
Château de Cazeneuve, Chateau L'Euzière and Mas des Costes. Pic
St Loup has a cooler climate than most Languedoc regions, and the
wines from this region seem to show greater definition and
distinctly meaty, earthy flavours that remind me of the Northern
Rhône, with a touch of herbal 'garrigue' character often thrown
in for good measure. The Fullers chain used to carry a splendid
range of these wines, but since their take over by Unwins, just a
few of these remain (including Chateau L'Euzière 'Les
Escarboucles' and a couple from Cazeneuve), and Tescos have
dropped the Lancyre range. Now Pic St Loup is almost exclusively
the preserve of specialist wine merchants. Handford and Lea and
Sandeman stock the two Domaine de l'Hortus wines, Ballantynes have
the Ch. Cazeneuve, Noel Young used to have the Mas Brugière (not
sure whether they still do) and A&B Vintners also offer Pic St
Loup wines from time to time. Prices are still reasonable, and
they are worth seeking out.
Wednesday 11th October
It's the dream of many wine-lovers to one day own their own
vineyard. I confess, I've often thought about how nice it would be
to spend my days ambling among my vines, tending them with care
under a more benign climate than that we experience in England.
Then, at harvest time, I'd gather a trusty band of pickers and
we'd pluck the healthy, fully ripe grapes, vinify them and a new
cult wine would be born. People would queue up outside the cellar
door desperate to purchase even a few bottles, and I'd have to
allocate the wine carefully to those I felt would appreciate it
most (thus satisfying my sense of justice). Of course, this
romantic idea of life as a vigneron is all bollocks, but it’s a
nice fantasy. But as long as you've got a small patch of land to
cultivate, there's nothing to stop you growing your own vines. It
was partly so I could catch a glimpse of the wine producer's
perspective that I've been busily planting vines in my garden and,
latterly, in my allotment in Twickenham. Forget the winemaking;
the first couple of years have given me some idea that even
producing healthy grapes is no trivial feat. Last week, the few
bunches of non-rotten grapes on my Pinot Noir vine were devoured
in their entirety by some hungry squirrels. I've heard of losing
grapes to birds, and even baboons (this is apparently a problem at
Klein Constantia, whose wines I
reviewed earlier this week), but I didn't think squirrels were a
threat. The good news is that the squirrels have yet to discover
the delights of Bacchus, Huxelrebe and Madeleine Angevine grapes,
so these are safe for the time being.
Friday 5th October
Just a brief plug today, for a superb bookshop. If you are
turned-off by the Borders/Waterstones-style megabookstores, you
might find the wonderful Daunt Books (Marylebone High
Street, central London) a refreshing experience. Old-fashioned
retailing at its best. It's beautifully laid out and the books are
imaginatively displayed. There's a small but interesting selection
of wine books, and further wine titles are hidden among the main
displays in each of the nationally arranged sections. Nearest
tube: Marylebone (Bakerloo line), although it's walkable from
Oxford Circus and Bond Street tubes.
Monday 1st October
In the Times
today, we read about the latest internet tycoon to fall on hard
times. Craig McCaw is selling off many of his possessions, now
that his personal fortune has plummeted from US$9 billion to
(just) $2 billion. I mention this because included in the sale is
his ‘vintage wine collection’, worth $200 000. Nothing odd
about a billionaire having a wine collection, I hear you say. But
in this case there is: Craig is apparently a teetotaller. And in a
quick trip over to the Guardian
I find that Malcolm Gluck is at it again: one of his familiar
tactics is to take a highly lauded and expensive wine, and then
suggest that an inexpensive supermarket offering is its equal (or
even, its better). This time it’s Californian cult wine
Screaming Eagle, and the wine Malc thinks matches it is a Fitou
from Asda. There may still be some left if you rush…
Sunday 30th
September
This last week has seen some unseasonally fine weather in
London, ruined only by heavy rain on Saturday. It's a time of the
year when the wine world has a particular interest in weather
reports (in the northern hemisphere, at least), as for the next
month or so vignerons will begin harvesting grapes for the 2001
vintage. Expect press releases from the key French regions
(Bordeaux in paticular) to be willingly disseminated by a largely
uncritical—and compliant?— wine press. Forgive my scepticism,
but you could write most of them without going within 100 miles of
any vineyard region. They start off by mentioning frost scares,
dwell a little on some minor climatic difficulty (this is to make
them sound plausible), and then talk about how things all came
right in the end and the grapes arriving at the winery in a
beautifully healthy condition. By the time you've finished
reading, you breathe a huge sigh of relief and start planning your
2001 en primeur purchases. A subtle twist on this theme is
to discuss some weather problem that resulted in a smaller but
higher-quality crop, or—in cases of disastrous deluges at
harvest—to explain how the better (unnamed) producers succeeded
by picking 'between the rains'. Keen readers of this blog will by
now be asking about conditions at the Twickenham vineyard, my
motley collection of some 40 vines planted on an allotment in west
London. Well, because I haven't got any wine to sell, I can tell
you the truth. The vines, aged between one and two years old,
aren't 'in production' yet. But this year—a year when the vines
in my back garden have been decimated by oidium, despite regular
spraying with Bordeaux mixture—have produced three bunches of
delicious Bacchus grapes (the other varieties are Huxelrebe,
Madeleine Angevine and Pinot Noir). These have a lovely honeyed
flavour. Interestingly, there's quite a difference in how one
bunch at the top of the plot tastes compared with a bunch from the
middle: is this 'terroir' in action? I suspect I'll have enough
grapes next year to vinify. The first English 'cult' wine? Watch
this space.
Wednesday September 26th
GUEST BLOG:
from Arthur Goode, my brother (he's the one on the right
in the picture here).
Invited to put together a
guest blog, and given the expansive brief to write about something
vaguely connected with wine,
I feel compelled to write about my recent trip to Siberia. I spent
eight days in this extraordinary place. The
nearest I came to anything vaguely connected with wine was an
advert on the plane inviting me to let the mood take me to
Bordeaux, and something I was offered in a rustic wine carrier
that tasted absolutely appalling (but might come in handy in a few
weeks time when the temperatures drop to minus 40). As is the
custom we drank, smiled and saluted Russian wine, truly the best,
even though I think it originated in Moldova. I don’t think the
Russians do wine anymore; I’m sure that one of the most serious
considerations that had to be made when granting the Baltic and
Central European states their independence was all that
wine-producing land slipping through their fingers. But something
they do produce -- and pretty well -- is beer.
The problem Russia, and
particularly Siberia, have with alcoholism is well documented. It
is due to a combination of two social factors. One is the Russian
cultural value that if you’re going to do something—even
self-damage—then do it properly. It enabled them to destroy
their own capital city to prevent first Napoleon then Hitler
successfully invading—a tactic called Total Warfare
(incidentally, the British Army tell their recruits three
things—eat whenever you can, you don’t know when your next
meal might be; keep your weapon in good condition and never let it
out of your sight; and don’t march on Moscow). The second
contributing factor is the boredom and harshness of life out
there. It wasn’t exactly Mardi Gras during the Soviet Era, but
things have got a lot harder since then.
With Pepsi and Coca Cola battling
it out for control of the drinks market, their bright adverts and
huge red canopies cropping up everywhere, there doesn’t seem to
be any danger of international competition for the hundreds of
Russian breweries. And if at night they Russian people get
slaughtered on Vodka, it seems to be beer that gets them through
the daylight hours. There is no taboo against drinking in public,
and with the free market well and truly established but the laws
of taxation and trading not quite so, little booths are all found
on every available corner and in all the subways, each lined with
the huge range of bottled beers, priced at about 15 Roubles (25p)
for a litre. Throughout the day I would see people of all types
and dress, picking up a beer from one of these stalls, opening it
on the bottle openers attached to the kiosk, and walking off down
the street swigging it.
Jane MacQuitty’s recent claim
that British beer is the best in the world would find my Russian
hosts up in arms, and with good cause, it turns out. Our Siberian
beer night was an eye-opener for me. We worked our way from very
pale lager types to almost black dark ale from Murmansk (inside
the Arctic Circle). I’m not too keen on the darker beers but was
I was quite taken by the pale ones. All the beers seem to be
strong on flavour, in a rich style. Their ‘light beer’ was
fantastic – a cross between Stella Artois and Summer
Lightning-type ales – a lager/ale hybrid. But perhaps most
impressive was the vast selection of these bottles in kiosks and
supermarkets. Perhaps someone from Siberia might be similarly
struck by the sight of entire shops given over to selling
different types of wine in the UK. There. I mentioned wine.
Wednesday 19th September
It’s been a winey sort of week so far. Monday night I had
beer and a curry with Brian Fletcher, chief winemaker with
Sicilian pace-setters Calatrasi.
Marketing manager Christian was also present, and it was fun to
hear about some of the challenges involved in making premium wines
in Sicily, Puglia and Tunisia. (Aside: did you know that there are
17 000 hectares of vineyards in Tunisia? Nor did I.) Today I’ve
been at a fascinating tasting for Wine magazine,
comparing (blind) 30 organic wines with 30 non-organic
counterparts. Organized by Monty Waldin, a frequent commentator on
organic wine, it will be interesting to see how I rated the
different wines when we get our crib sheets. The full write-up of
the tasting should be published in the November issue. This
evening I’ll be off to my regular haunt La
Vigneronne for a rather posh 1971 first growths tasting.
Report to follow soon. Then on Thursday, back again to La Vig for
a blind tasting of Mourvedre. All good fun.
On the grapevine, I heard that Decanter.com
have made some rather drastic cuts: apparently, six of their nine
staff will be leaving. I don’t know how this will affect the
look of the website. You have to pull in a fair amount of
advertising revenue to pay nine salaries, or else you need a lot
of subscribers to the pay-content you offer (in this case
Decanter’s fine wine tracker, a service I’ve never even been
remotely tempted by).
Previous entries (some gripping
reading!)
Back to top |