I’ve been browsing a few old books online, and came across a couple of nice quotes on Port and Portuguese wines from a late 19th Century text:
‘The mode of making port wine is extremely unclean, and the proceedings are very crude and elementary; nevertheless, so good a product is obtained that its faults are, as it were, drowned in its good qualities. The great object of the wine makers must be to produce good and durable wine with only so much alcohol as shall not be injurious to the wine drinker. This cannot be said to be the case with the ordinary thick, heavy, so-called loaded ports of 40 to 42 of proof spirit, and for this reason whole classes of society in Britain have ceased to drink any port wine whatever. Yet good port wine is one of the most wonderful productions of the earth ; and I am sure, when vinification in all its branches and variations shall be once fully understood on the Alto Douro, it will produce such excellent red wines as hitherto have not been exported from the Peninsula.’
‘Portugal in itself, poor, yet climatically highly endowed, is capable of producing a variety of the most beautiful grapes, and a variety of wines, which, if properly made, would not be surpassed by those of any other country. The people are good-natured, industrious, and hard-working, and they have what is very agreeable to a person who comes from this country, a great regard for an Englishman. If these good people would continue to plant their vineyards with particular sorts of grapes, such as have been proved in the great Alto Douro districts, in Bucellas, or Collares, to be so excellent;if they were to abandon that horrid practice of making sweet and cooked wines; if they were to study the conditions by means of which they might avoid the natural climatic difficulties which produce fungi and acidity; if they introduced more cleanliness into their sheds, and if they were to have their cellars underground; if they were to avoid large tonels and adopt small casks, I have no doubt Portugal, one of the most essential English vineyards, would produce other wines besides port, which would be of the greatest use hygienically and socially to this country. We have a great trade with Portugal in other respects, taking there our manufactures, and bringing away in return large quantities of produce, cattle, grapes, figs, apples, and a variety of other articles too numerous to mention; and an improved quality of wine would find in this country a very ready and grateful market.’
From: A TREATISE ON WINES: THEIR ORIGIN NATURE AND VARIETIES WITH PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR VITICULTURE AND VINIFICATION
By J. L. W. Thudichum
London, George Bell & Sons 1893
I have some Vintage Port from 2008 open at the moment. First up, two with a sort of family resemblance (Christian Seely is involved in both). Quinta do Noval has, over recent vintages, established itself as one of the top Douro properties. Romaneira is one to watch: a fantastically situated Quinta only recently renovated and now turning out first-rate table wines and Ports.
Quinta da Romaneira Vintage Port 2008 Very deep colour. Fresh, vivid sweet blackberry and plum nose is pure and intense. The palate shows lovely fresh, pure fruit: concentrated raspberries and blackberries with nice tannic structure and sweetness. An elegant, almost Burgundian Vintage Port with good structure. Try again in 10 years. 94/100
Quinta do Noval Vintage Port 2008 Intensely aromatic with floral, olive, meat and dark fruit characters. There are blackberries, blackcurrants and plums. The palate is concentrated and boldly fruity with real depth and some nice, spicy structure. Expressive and quite serious. Delicious now, but with potential for real development, with firm but fine tannins. 96/100
It has been a sport-filled day. This afternoon I played for the wine trade against Hampton Wick. They were a strong side; we were a little weak on the bowling front. On a gorgeous but windy afternoon I bowled a spell of nine overs. That’s quite long for me. I was getting it in the right places, and against two good batsmen who both went on to score centuries, on a dead pitch, my figures were 9-1-35-0. I was pleased.
They scored a lot of runs. We didn’t. We were also a player short. They declared setting us a target of 246 of about 40 overs. In response, our batting line-up crumbled. Charles Tavener’s 50 was the only highlight, but even he wasn’t his normal fluent self. I was last in and we had to bat for 11 overs to save the game. I saw off five balls, getting confident bat to each. Then my partner got out and the game was over.
Still, it was great fun, and Royal Hampton Wick is a lovely place to play cricket. We followed up with a couple of pints of London Pride, and a slug of Puligny Montrachet that Phil Tuck had brought along from a Decanter tasting.
Then it was down the road to Teddington for Wednesday night football. Short numbers (4 v 5) on a big pitch made for lots of running. It was a good work out. We headed back to Twickenham for ale at the Prince Blucher, where another couple of pints of Pride went down very nicely. Now I am home with a glass of rather good fizz in hand (Philipponnat ‘1522′ 2000, continuing my exploration of Philipponnat, which is so far going very well).
Brilliant tasting today at the South African High Commission in Trafalgar Square. It was titled ‘taste the earth’, and the idea was to show wines where there was link between the terroir and the flavour.
160 wines were shown, which is, of course, too many to taste all of them and make sensible, serious judgements. But this isn’t a problem, because I can happily attend a tasting like this and taste a bit selectively, and still come out with lots of useful information.
I know I go on about the wine trade’s obsession with tasting over drinking, but there is a place for big tastings like this. There were lots of serious high-end wines here today that I just wouldn’t normally have access to. And I have flagged lots of wines that I’d like to return to and get to know better at some stage.
Aside from the ‘taste the earth’ aspect (it proved to hard to get to the issue of terroir when stylistic choices on the part of the winegrowers seemed to be the key determinant in wine flavour), there were some really interesting wines on show. Many of South Africa’s top producers were represented; I got the chance to taste many wines I’d heard about, but which I hadn’t tasted before.
I seems a bit mean to pick out just a few wines, but I will. Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2009 showed impeccable balance; Reynecke Sauvignon Blacn 2009 was equally good, if a little more pungent and intense. Steenberg Magna Carta 2007 was unusual but complex, blending together Sauvignon and Semillon.
Of the Chenins, SAAM Middleburg 2009 and Badenhorst Secateurs 2009 were both brilliant and affordable. More serious were the Radford Dale Land of Hope 2008, Raats Family 2008 and Ken Forrester FMC 2008 (much more refined and pure this year).
White blends impressed. Vonderling Babiana 2007, Lammershoek Roulette 2008, Naude White 2008 and Tokara Directors Reserve 2008 were all very good.
I’ve never thought much of South African Pinot Noir, but four were really good: Chamonix 2009, Radford Dale Freedom 2009, Meerlust 2008, and Paul Cluver Seven Flags 2006.
Of the Bordeaux-styled reds, there were some serious efforts. Rust en Vrede Cabernet 2006 and Rustenberg Peter Barlow 2006 were great. De Toren Fusion V 2007 had lovely freshness and concentration. Tokara Director’s Reserve Red 2006, Kaapzicht Steytler Vision 2006, Rust en Vrede Estate 2006, Jordan Cobbler’s Hill 2006, Waterford The Jem 2006, Ernie Els Stellenbosch 2005 and Reynecke Cornerstone 2008 were all pretty serious.
The best Pinotages? Flagstone Writer’s Block 2007 and Kaapzicht Steytler 2007 both impressed.
Syrahs were strong. Glenelly Estate 2009 got my value vote, with lovely purity. Rudi Schultz 2007, Waterford Kevin Arnold 2007 and Fairview The Beacon 2006 were very nice.
I made quite a few new discoveries, and came away impressed. The South African wine scene is moving fast. Blink, and you’ll miss it. There’s real progress here.
I’m a big fan of Philipponnat. The Grand Blanc is a blend of Grand and Premier Cru Chardonnay, part fermented in wood. It’s a serious wine indeed, and here I tried two vintages, the 2000 and 2004. [Technically, I actually drank both vintages. They were fantastic and this isn't a wine for spitting.]
Champagne Philipponnat 2000 Grand Blanc 12% alcohol; 5.2 g/l dosage; disgorged September 2007. Fresh, aromatic, toasty nose with lovely citrus freshness and subtle herby notes. The palate is savoury and taut with nice citrus freshness. Lovely precision and fruitiness. Concentrated and quite complex with lovely finesse and low dosage precision. Quite vinous. 93/100 (£49.99 Oddbins, but £39.99 each if you buy two – UK agent Les Caves de Pyrene)
Champagne Philipponnat Grand Blanc 2004 12% alcohol; 5 g/l dosage; disgorged July 2009. Fresh, aromatic, pure nose with lovely citrus intensity and taut herby, toasty notes. The palate has a nice lemony quality and some citrus peel bitterness. Precision, concentration and good acidity. Bold flavours; strongly savoury. A brilliant effort. 94/100
I’m going to be brutally honest. Tasting notes on great wines are mostly stupid. There’s this notion that tasting notes by ‘professional’ tasters are a valuable commodity. Something that punters will pay for.
This goes hand in hand with the idea that once tasters reach some baseline level of competence, their note will be an accurate account of a particular wine, and thus team notes where at least one person from a team covers a particular wine and then writes it up anonymously are of some value.
These ideas are all mistaken.
Of course, I am interested in hearing your take on a particular wine, whether you are professional or not. But I don’t want a traditional ‘tasting note’. [Yes, I publish tasting notes, but that's only as a last resort, because this is the only way I can communicate my impressions of a wine. And then I think that the most important thing is not to list descriptors, but to give an overall impression, to compare, and to say how much I liked it.]
This is because for a great wine, its greatness is a property of the whole of the wine. Tasting notes are by their very nature reductionist, breaking the wine down to its component aromas and flavours. You know a great wine when you see one, but attempts to put it into words invariably fail to capture the wine.
Greatness is an emergent property of all the different elements of a wine, and we often focus in our notes solely on those aspects of flavour where we have good descriptive terms. We have an impoverished vocabulary for the sorts of things that really matter in a wine, making it great as opposed to merely very good.
I think the addiction to formalized tasting notes in wine education programs prevents some students of wine from making the transition to being tasters who can actually spot great wines from merely very good commercial wines.
Vinho Verde comes from the north of Portugal, and most of you will probably have tried one or two white examples. What most people don’t tend to encounter is Vinho Verde in its red incarnation. It’s an unusual wine. Made chiefly from the Vinhão grape (known elsewhere in Portugal as Sousão), it’s very deep in colour (this is a red-fleshed variety) and incredibly fruity, with a wonderful combination of high acidity, freshness and tannic bite. In the Minho region (where it originates) you’d be likely to be served it in a carafe in a restaurant as the house wine. It makes a wonderful food companion. But it rarely travels outside the region, which I think is a shame.
Here are two rather different but lovely examples of red Vinho Verde. Both are varietal Vinhãos. This style of wine benefits from a little chilling before serving. It’s somewhat of an acquired taste, but I love it.
Tapada dos Monges Vinhão 2009 Vinho Verde, Portugal 12% alcohol. Very deep, vibrant red purple colour. Lovely nose of sweet summer pudding (raspberries, blackberries). Youthful, intensely fruity with some sweetness. The palate has a hint of spritz and a bit of grippy tannin, with fresh acidity and lovely primary fruit. There’s a bit of sweet jamminess here. Pure and immediate, like a cask sample. 90/100
Afros Vinhão 2009 Vinho Verde, Portugal 12.5% alcohol. Very deep coloured red/purple. Intensely aromatic with vivid blackberry, plum and raspberry fruit as well as a slightly savoury, meaty twist. The palate is richly fruited with dark cherry and raspberry notes, high acidity and quite a bit of tannin. Dry, intensely fruity and really vivid. Quite delicious with some refinement. 91/100
Nebbiolo is a perplexing but wonderful grape variety. Naturally low in colour and high in tannin, it isn’t very consumer friendly. But it is capable of greatness, as the top examples of Barbaresco and Barolo demonstrate on a regular basis.
Like many Italian red varieties, it doesn’t travel well and attempts to make new world Nebbiolo have mostly met with disaster. But here are two Australian examples that are quite serious. Neither is cheap, but they are both along the right lines, offering complexity, definition and the potential for further development. I followed both bottles over a few days; they didn’t change much. I think they could both do with a decade in the corner of a cold, dark cellar.
SC Pannell Nebbiolo 2007 Adelaide Hills, Australia 14.5% alcohol. Fermented for 20 days and aged for 24 months in French oak; five different clones of Nebbiolo used. Cherry red colour with a bricking rim. Lovely aromas of sweet cherry fruit with an almost stern, spicy, subtly earthy edge. The palate is complex and savoury with firm, grippy tannins and complex earthiness. There’s some drying character and fresh cherry fruit. Structured with high acidity, this needs food right now to overcome the tannins, but it is a convincing attempt with Nebbiolo that I reckon has a long future ahead of it. 92/100
Arrivo Nebbiolo Lunga Macerazione 2006 Adelaide Hills, Australia
Arrivo is the label of Peter Godden from the Australian Wine Research Institute. He’s a perfectionist, and has focused solely on this variety, from which he makes two red wines and a rose. This is the top wine, left on the skins for a remarkable 72 days. Eight clones of Nebbiolo are used. 14.5% alcohol. Cherry red colour with hints of brick red on the rim. Highly aromatic, complex nose with sweet fruit and exotic spices. Quite beautiful. There’s a complex spicy edge to the seductive cherry fruit. The palate combines pure, sweet, liqueur-like cherry fruit with complex savoury, spicy notes. Tannins are present, but cloaked in the rich texture and sweet fruit. Although this wine has a long future ahead of it, there’s a harmony to it already. 94/100
The SC Pannell is available in the UK through agent Liberty Wines. Harrods stock it for around £40. Arrivo isn’t yet in the UK. Find these wines with wine-searcher.com
It has been an amazing summer here in the UK. The best I can remember, with perhaps the exception of 2003. Lots of sun, consistently warm temperatures, and almost daily opportunities to eat outside in the evening. Over the last few years such occasions have been rare.
The vines are loving it. It has been an ideal growing season, starting a little late, but with beautiful weather through flowering and very low disease pressure. The drought has kept the vigour of the vines in check. I haven’t sprayed in ages. But I will be using some sulphur tomorrow on the vines, because today the weather broke.
We had a lot of rain today. Several torrential downpours. The forecast for the next few days is good, with temperatures remaining high, but perhaps a little less sunshine than of late. Pictured above is our back garden this evening, with an attractive rainbow in between the showers. You can see the row of vines in the foreground.
This is the blog of wine journalist Jamie Goode, online since 2001. Feel free to nose around; your comments are welcomed.
