Phil

December 16th December 2011

AWRI: The Wines of France Tutorial: An Embarrassment of Riches

Last week the AWRI, under the auspices of Con Simos, ran two, one day tasting workshops on the wines of France. Over the course of a packed but highly enjoyable day 80 wines were tasted covering pretty much the full gamut of what France has to offer.

From Champagne and a solitary sparkler at 8.30am (always a great way to tickle the taste buds awake) via Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhone and the Loire along with sundry other regions, we concluded eleven hours later with eight dessert wines including three great Sauternes. Most of the wines had been imported specifically for the tasting and their great provenance showed particularly in the older vintages, all of which were tasting very well and showed a high level of consistency over the two days.

The tasting was conducted blind, the wines scored out of 20 using the standard wine show system and after each bracket the wines were discussed by the group with David Le Mire MW and me acting as moderators

There were some obvious highlights, the Mouton 1983 and the La Chapelle 1980 amongst them, and yes, those two really do deserve their reputation and price, but there were also many wines which are worthy of highlighting.

My picks are:

Gossett Grand Rosé, NV: A superbly textured and savoury Champagne.

Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut NV. We tasted many a grower Champagne but the class of this stood out for its complexity and layers of flavour: surely what good Champagne is all about.

Chablis Grand Cru 2007 Valmur. Domaine Christian Moreau. Chablis’ reputation is all too often ahead of the quality of the wine in bottle. Not so in this case: a wine with a pure, direct line and focus. Good drinking now but will develop for at least another five years.

Hautes-Côtes de Nuits 2009 Domaine Hudelot Baillet. Not a fashionable appellation this but the wine speaks for itself and was an easy Gold medal for me and David Le Mire (which just goes to show that two MWs can agree on a Burgundy after all.)

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Sec 2007 Chateau Montus. It goes without saying that this is a blend of Petit Courbu and Petit Manseng. What is less well known is that this is a spectacular wine cut through with a vein of acid and balanced by some wonderful floral and green apple fruit. Brilliant.

Crozes-Hermitage “quinoxe” 2010 Maxime Graillot. Some wines you just have to give a Gold; anything less is denial of natural justice. This is one such wine which from its exuberant, almost surreal purple colour to its exotic, ethereal and seamless fruit is joyful. But don’t let the playfulness of this wine deceive you into thinking it isn’t a serious wine; it most certainly is.

For sheer weirdness that works, albeit on a knife-edge, Domaine Benoît Badoz, Vin de Paille, Jura. Savagnin like we’ve never seen it before.....confronting but brilliant.

David Le Mire’s picks (with my comments in italics) are below:

Gosset Grand Rosé NV

Bonneau du Martray 2008 Corton Charlemagne. Hard to argue with this one. Minerality, intensity and grace. Very classy indeed.

Ch d'Issan 2008. Plenty of oak in this classy Margaux but the depth of fruit to balance it.

And a special mention for the Picpoul de Pinet.

November 28th 2011

In late August I blogged about the Sommeliers Australia Madeira Madness tasting which I co-hosted with James Godfrey. I’ve subsequently discovered a much fuller write up of the tasting on the Eating Adelaide blog. Well worth a read both for the Madeira tasting commentary and for the latest on eating out in Adelaide.

http://eatingadelaide.com/madeira-madness/

I’ve just returned from a three week adventure travelling around South America. Firstly in Argentina presenting a couple of seminars on Carbon Neutral and the Wine Market and then to Chile with fifteen fellow Masters of Wine on a trip hosted by Wines of Chile. I finished my visit to Chile visiting a dozen or so wineries with GreenSolutions Chile to discuss the low carbon future and of course taste a few more wines.

Over the course of the ten day Masters of Wine trip we visited almost twenty wineries spread across nine regions and tasted the best part of four hundred wines (which when you think about it is a pretty relaxed pace but did give a strong representation of the state-of-the-wine-nation). I lost track of how many kilometres we drove up and down the Pan Americano but safe to say it was in the thousands.

Here’s the first in a series of blogs reflecting on what I saw, tasted and concluded about the Chilean wine industry.

Chilean wineries are off and running in the race to plant vineyards in ever cooler sites, sites at higher altitude, sites closer to the sea, sites which are windier than any other, sites with more calcium carbonate in the soil (long story), sites on limestone and though they know it not, to flood the market with “terroir-driven” Sauvignon Blanc from coastal valleys.

It started when Casablanca got full and the water ran out, next came Leyda and then Limari and now Aconcagua Costa, lest we forget Colchagua Costa. Water is always a limiting factor near to the coast, rainfall is sparse and the Andean snow melt flowing down the rivers has to be pumped some distance and in many instances quite some height too to keep the vineyards flourishing.

These coastal valleys are making some wonderful wines, Pinot Noir as well as Sauvignon Blanc, but I question just how much Sauvignon Blanc the world will pay for. We’ve seen deflation in the price of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and the prices quoted for many of these coastal wines appears to be modest while volumes sold, in many instances, are equally modest. Something doesn’t stack up. Chile wants to raise its average price but maybe the Lemming-like pursuit of Marlborough to become the world’s supplier of bargain basement cool-climate Sauvignon Blanc isn’t the way to go. Maybe all that water west of the coastal range could be used for things other than grapes; environmental flow perhaps?

So how to raise the average price? Let’s first face some facts: the world is under-supplied with wine drinkers and by developing an ever increasing number of wine regions are we helping the consumer or confusing them? My bottle of Leyda Sauvignon Blanc says we’re confusing consumers and as we all know confused consumers don’t buy; they stick with their Pisco Sours and their Bacardi Breezers®. A slowdown in sales creates an oversupply and before you know it the world’s wine drinkers are enjoying even more terrific prices.

Back to raising prices. It turns out that Chile has a fair bit of old vine Carignan planted in Maule, a region previously regarded as a viticultural backwater. This old vine Carignan turns out to be not only dry grown but damned good too. Just the sort of thing to make wine drinkers sit up and think that there’s something special , interesting and indeed worth paying a bit more than £4.35 for (Chile’s current average price in the UK market). And it’s not only Carignan, there’s Cinsault and Cabernet Franc too. In Elqui, Pedro Ximenez previously used to make Pisco (a noble use I have to agree) is being used by Falernia to make table wine for the international market. I’d suggest that these wines open up whole new market segments to Chile, segments that aren’t too fussed by Sauvignon Blanc from no matter where but who certainly are interested in unique wines with a great back story.

Why do I love these wines? There are a number of reasons: firstly Chile’s precious water in the coastal strip is not used in the making of these wines; by and large they are dry grown. Secondly there’s a huge social benefit if the spoils of the victory can be shared reasonably equally between grower and winemaker. It looks as though this is happening, growers in Maule who used to receive 20c per kilo for these grapes now get a $1 a kilo. Fairtrade, with due respect, eat your heart out.

MOVI( Movimiento de Viñateros Independientes) is a collection of Chile’s non-corporate wine producers and it’s these fringe winemakers, plus a small number of corporates (De Martino, Valdivieso, Odfjell and O. Fournier) who are discovering the old vineyards and realising their potential......think what Messrs Ringland, Binder and Powell did for the Barossa’s reputation. Could this be Maule’s future? Why not? MOVI might have to move on from their knit your own chaos thinking and embrace just a modicum of organisation but that’s relatively straightforward and quick to achieve....it’s growing 100 year old Cabernet Franc vines that takes time.

Discussing this line of thought with a producer I picked up that the Miguel Torres winery has made a breakthrough with Pais; they’d made a decent drink from it. In fact, as it turned out, a stunning sparkling wine. Santa Digna Estralado Rosé is a bottle fermented rosé with a light hint of muscat perfume. Refreshing and crisp with berry fruit and citrus flavours. It is a great drink. Production is set to expand dramatically and with plenty, and I mean plenty, of dry grown, old vine Pais already in the ground Torres won’t be running out of grapes anytime soon.

Leonard Cohen sang “I’ve have seen the future brother: it is murder”. Well, I’ve seen the future and it is Pais. And Cinsault. And Carignan. And PX. And Cabernet Franc.

October 7^th 2011

I had the great pleasure of being the keynote speaker at this year’s Wine Press Club of SA Royal Adelaide Wine Show Awards Luncheon. I chose to speak about the opportunities to export Australian wine to the UK market and how we might re-invent the past to capture the future.

Here’s the speech I delivered

My theme for today is that exporting wine has never been easy, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we think it has been; today’s travails are different to yesterday’s but the net result is much the same, you work hard, you make great wine, you find a way to overcome the obstacles and you sell it.

In 1987, I told my then employer that I was going to Australia to learn about wine. He bluntly stated: “Why? Australia won’t ever amount to anything as a wine producer.”

A few months later I arrived in the Barossa and it seemed that much of the valley believed what my erstwhile-boss had told me.

Yet just months later Australian wine was in the UK High Street and, thanks in part to the fallout from the Austrian, di-ethylene glycol scandal, Jacobs Creek had at last, and I stress “at last” found a distributor in the UK

Within a decade of my Barossa vintage everything had changed; Australia was full of self-belief, vineyards were being planted at breakneck speed to cope with growing demand and wine was on allocation. A decade further on and things had changed again; we’d overshot on vineyard plantings and there was wine in surplus but we still knew that she’d be right..... “It’s only a temporary over-supply.”

The difficulties persisted; droughts and over-allocated water-rights stressed both the vines and the industry. Yet amongst all this the stirrings of great things to come were to be found; desperate grape growers in the Riverland stopped bemoaning the hand they’d been dealt and went out and researched which of the newly imported “Mediterranean” varieties might suit a hotter, drier climate of the not too distant future. And now we’re seeing the fruits of their gamble in the bottles of some of our biggest companies

So how did it all happen? How did it all come about that Australia, from way out of left field become the overnight success and number one supplier to the UK market?

Well of course, the overnight success that we all think about actually took ten or more years to achieve. And a lot of hard work by a lot of people.

Think about Hazel Murphy at The Australian Wine Bureau and all the occasions when she politely sat through a buyer’s rendition of Monty Python’s Australian wine sketch. And it wasn’t just the buyers who knew two things about Australian wine in those days: wine drinkers also knew Monty Python and Chateau Rod Laver. So spare a thought for Hazel and her team at mass consumer events such as The Ideal Home Show and assorted golf tournaments around the country.

But spare a thought too for the wine producers of Europe who didn’t see this slow build as anything much to worry about.

In 1992 I began my MW studies and by then the only wines I was selling were Australian. It’s fair to say that amongst my fellow students Australian wine was a curiosity at best and a feeble joke at worst. Yes, they too had studied Monty Python.

A couple of my Budding Master of Wine friends didn’t take Monty Python too seriously though, and lo and behold the wine buyer for Fortnum and Mason, the Piccadilly Grocer to the Queen, and the buyer for Bibendum Restaurant were at least prepared to taste the wines I was importing. If either of them had realised at that stage that their interest in the wines of St Hallett would result in regular visits from Bob McLean they might have thought twice; though Bob probably wouldn’t have been deterred. It was hard work to get the sales moving to a broad audience although by that stage most of the wine writers were on board with Australia and some were visiting Coonawarra almost as often as they visited the Bordeaux. We got a lot of great press.

The foundations of Australia’s success had been built and the heavy lifting was beginning to get some structure in place. No longer was Australian wine available only in Oddbins, Ostlers and The Drunken Mouse (there’s three names to conjure with) but the supermarkets had taken notice of their Nielsen data and the requests which kept coming from in-store Customer Service departments from customers asking why they couldn’t buy that Australian wine they’d tried at the British Open Golf tournament or the Ideal Home Exhibition.

The Australian presence at the London Wine Trade Fair began to grow and the trade was taking notice. But Australia’s stroke of genius was in creating the consumer demand by providing countless opportunities for wine drinkers to taste the wines. Get the consumer on board: retailers listen to them.

And how did Australia engage with the consumer? By going to the UK en-masse. Those mid ‘90s Malaysian Airlines flights from Adelaide to London in mid May make Booney’s in-flight drinking escapades look tame. It wasn’t always pretty meeting the flight at Heathrow but you knew you’d got an interesting couple of weeks ahead of you.

Ask wine drinkers in England if they’ve met a winemaker and the chances are that they have. Odds-on says that the winemaker they met is an Australian. One year it was the Barossa that descended on London, the next it was Coonawarra. Margaret River requisitioned Selfridges on Oxford Street. It was like a revolving door: no sooner had you put one winemaker on the plane at Heathrow you were back collecting the next. But boy, didn’t it work!

No importer could afford to have a list without an Australian agency, even the most conservative retailers weren’t brave enough to resist stocking at least a modest range of Australian wines and a very few forward thinking restaurants were adding Australia to the curio page at the back of their wine lists.

But it was damned hard work; it wasn’t simply a case of putting the wine into a list, sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the Qantas in-flight entertainment: no, it was a lot of slog. Around about 1996 Bob McLean’s tornado arrived in London on a selling mission. One day went like this:

7am: Collect Bob from hotel and get to GLR radio studio in Marylebone High Street

9.30am: training session for the front of house team at Conran Group’s Zinc restaurant

11.00: Fortnum and Mason, meeting with buyer to finalise volumes of Old Block Shiraz for the F&M Christmas hamper

And between all of those meeting, each time we saw a Threshers store or a Winerack store Bob insisted on going in to talk with the staff and to impress upon them the importance of them selling lots of St Hallett wines.

And that was just one day, and not a particularly exceptional one. And it wasn’t just Bob, it was a whole host of larger than life characters out there, building their brands and the brand Australia. I have an enduring memory of the late Patricia Brown, who must by then have been in her seventies, standing all day long behind the Brown Brothers stand, pouring her wines, engaging with wine drinkers and winning their hearts and minds. An adjacent, non-Australian wine stand staffed by twenty-something marketing folk had three changes of staff during the day and a rota of coffee breaks.

Australian wine became a firm fixture thanks to all that shoe leather, flesh pressing and the annual migration of winemakers to England.

By the early 2000s we’d had a decade or more of constant good press the inevitable happened and as brands got bigger and more visible on shelf the media lost interest or worse stopped being so nice to us. We started to see words like “homogeneous” and “bland” replacing “reliable” and “fruit-laden”.

With respect to any media who might be here today, journalists writing stories is one thing, but most people don’t read the wine column of a newspaper, let alone buy Decanter Magazine and against all the better advice consumers continued to like our wines. Retailers continued to offer them and wineries were only too happy to supply. Australia even had the audacity to become the biggest supplier in the market. How dare we? How did we.......with what competitor nations referred to as “industrial” wines which lacked any trace of “terroir”.....oh yes, that’s right; the consumers loved them.

But we, as an industry, seemed to waiver in our faith, the doubts crept in, we didn’t visit London quite so often, we rationalised that the market didn’t justify it; it was established, it was a mature market, Maryland and Parkerville were much shinier ball bawls and they really needed our time. Fair enough, on the last point, but they need our time “as well” rather than “instead of”.

Here we are, 2 dozen years on from the start of the current export boom and Australia is still the number one category in the UK market. Our closest competitor has only 2/3 our market share. We must be doing something right. During my nine years of working for Tesco I bought wine from other countries besides Australia and keen as I might have been to put them on gondola end the truth is that nothing worked quite like Australia. Consumers like our wines and you need to believe that.

So here’s the call to arms: on the 25^th anniversary of the re-birth of Australian wine in the UK market let’s get out there again.

Let’s re-engage with the wine drinkers of the UK. Let’s re-energise the market.

Book one extra flight to London, get out there and make it count. Because you can, there is space in the market. Yes, exchange rates don’t make it easy but hey, you won’t encounter a single reference to Monty Python. There’s strong consumer demand already developed so you’re preaching to the converted and you’ve got new and exciting wines just waiting to be discovered by an eager audience. You’ve got new stories to tell, new varieties to explain; get out there and tell people about your sustainable vineyard practices, your environmentally responsible approach to winemaking and the hundred and one other stories which give richness to Australian wine.

The media has given us a hard time in recent years but I sense the tide is turning and the re-invasion of the UK should include a few drinks with journalists as well as wine drinkers and the trade

The UK is more than the supermarkets, vital to us that they are. Consider other channels: restaurants are increasingly open to Australian wines, pubs increasingly serving Australian wines by the bottle and by the glass and there are a host of independent merchants who can help you if you can help them. I’ve recently helped place a premium wine agency with a UK importer and in the next few weeks the winemaker is hosting a dinner at a Michelin-starred London restaurant for paying guests.

Ata Rangi, Martinborough Pinot Noir 2007

New Zealand Pinot Noir is one of the great treats of life; never inexpensive but usually good value particularly when compared with Burgundy of equivalent quality. And if you’re comparing this wine with a Burgundy you’re reaching quite high up into the tree: certainly to a Premier Cru, arguably higher.

Drunk over three consecutive nights (I know, I know, such immodest restraint but they were ‘school nights’ and it is interesting to see the wine evolve) the wine really blossomed both aromatically and on the palate. What started off life as a pretty robust, tight, self-contained kind of wine slowly opened to offer an opulent, headily aromatic bouquet with an elegant, fine line of acid off which hangs supple tannins and ripe berry fruits. Without doubt the wine was better on day three than on day one but I reckon if I’d had the wit to buy a magnum and drunk it at the same rate it would have been really hitting its straps around the end of the bottle. Staying power like that; it’s a class act.

Millton Vineyard’s Crazy by Nature Cosmo Red 2010.

Annie and James Millton have been growing grapes organically in Gisborne since 1984. In the early days people thought that they were crazy and you can see why; Gisborne has rather a lot of rain during the growing season. Undeterred by sceptics or the weather the Milltons persisted and are today New Zealand’s leading organic and indeed biodynamic vignerons producing a range of wines which apparently straddles all climatic classification and defies the lores of terroir: a deeply classy Pinot Noir, an elegant Chardonnay, a noteworthy Chenin Blanc, an exotic Viognier and a heady Muscat.

Made from certified organic grapes, Crazy by Nature Cosmo Red combines, oddly yet very effectively, Malbec with Syrah and Viognier to produce a garnet coloured, medium-bodied red (a much neglected style in itself) with a fresh, vibrant aroma of cracked black pepper, florals and leather. The crisp palate has juicy, bitter raspberry fruit melded around a core of mellow tannins and spices.

Great value at NZ$19.95

image courtesy Millton Vineyards

Sommeliers Australia “Madeira Madness” Tasting 22^nd August

Sommeliers Australia invited me to co-host a tasting of Madeiras with renowned fortified winemaker James Godfrey. I was able to source some outstanding vintage and colheita Maderias from the Halifax Wine Company, www.halifaxwinecompany.com in the UK for the tasting.

We tasted the standard four “noble” varieties, of which the Blandy’s Malmsey 1964 and the Barbieto Sercial 1971 were my picks but the wine which really shone for me was the D’Oliveira Colheita Terrantez 1988. To my recollection I’ve never previously tasted a Terrantez, a grape variety which pre-phylloxera was prized on the island but was disease prone and yielded little. In the difficult years following phylloxera little Terrantez was replanted and today it appears that the total plantings on Madeira are in the low single digit hectares.

An old Portuguese verse urges that Terrantez grapes should not be eaten or given away for God made them for wine making. A pity then that He didn’t make the variety a little more resistant to mildew and a little more prolific in its yield.

The 1988 D’Oliveira Colheita Terrantez justifies the variety’s reputation for quality. It is an intense wine with beautiful aromatics; nuts and candied citrus. Off dry with the hallmark line of acidity coursing through it surrounded by dried fruit and dark coffee-like flavours. The finish is pristine with amazing persistence.

Stellar value at £62 (approx A$100)

Refreshing Changes

Innovation in the wine sector is not something we see a lot of; an industry steeped in tradition with long lead times and a deeply conservative mindset. So it’s great to see that one of Australia’s major brands has had the courage to do something beyond changing the label or blend. Rosemount’s Botanicals is real innovation.

John Arlott once said that Beaujolais is the only wine that quenches thirst. John was on to something and it explains why at any given wine industry talk-fest more Coopers Ale than wine is drunk. And while Rosemount Botanicals is technically not “wine” (to reinforce the fact, the empty bottle just like the empty Coopers bottle is worth 10c) it is “Carbonated Wine Product”. Presented like wine, made of wine, looks like wine and you can drink it like wine, except that it is a very refreshing 8.5% abv: move over and make way Beaujolais.

Each of the three wines has added botanical flavourings which complement the varietal characters of the wine; Sauvignon Blanc has Lemon and Elderflower, Pinot Grigio plays up its aromatic credentials to the max with Blood Orange and Rosewater while the Chardonnay, perhaps referencing the popularity of Hendrick’s Gin, combines Green Apple and Cucumber. All are 8.5% alcohol, lightly carbonated and extremely refreshing.

There’s a time and place for such wine drinks in many wine drinker’s repertoires, hopefully it can get new drinkers into the category too, and the entire industry should be rejoicing...either that or wishing that they’d done it first.

A further encouraging innovation in Rosemount Botanicals is in the margin which they appear to give to both producer and retailer. Dan Murphy’s sells the range for $14.99 a bottle. Alongside them on the shelf is Rosemount Semillon Sauvignon Blanc at $8.99; no cash margin for Dan, next to no margin for Rosemount/Treasury. And yes, $14.99 is fair value for the Botanicals.

PS: An early nomination for the drink world’s most annoying website: Hendrick’s Gin. A total triumph of designer whimsy over functionality. It’s going to be a hard one to beat come Oscars Night.

April 2011

Bouchard Père & Fils and Stella Bella On-Line Tasting with Burgundy School of Business

As part of my first ever on-line wine tasting for the Burgundy School of Business in Dijon (see associated links) I tasted four 2008 Premier Cru wines from the domaine vineyards of Bouchard Père & Fils and three from Margaret River’s Stella Bella. Seven exciting, contrasting and fascinating wines

The quartet from Burgundy was made up of a pair of Meursault, a Monthelie and a Volnay. Four wines which revealed the importance of site, slope and aspect in what was a very difficult, but in the case of these wines at least, a very successful vintage. A caveat to that is this; these are wines laden with acidity, a feature by all accounts of vintage. As a self-confessed lover of that fiendishly “crisp” white wine Gros Plant I found these wines pretty challenging and really they all need some time in bottle to fatten up a little before we start enjoying them. That acidity though will help ensure that their lives are long and ultimately rewarding to the drinker.

Monthelie Clos Les Champs Fulliot, Premier Cru 2008 and Volnay Caillerets Premier Cru 2008

Monthelie, the oft overlooked village sandwiched between the two superstar villages of Volnay and Meursault produces some very attractive and modestly-priced reds for which I’ve long had an affection; Domaine Parent produce one which in the mists of time I used to sell and drink with enthusiasm.

The Clos Les Champs Fulliot 2008, of which Bouchard Père & Fils own just under a hectare, is currently showing pristine strawberry fruit bolstered by the bracing acidity of the vintage and fine but rather firm tannins. The wine is balanced but I’d rather it had a couple more years in the cellar before drinking it. Bouchard has chosen to close this wine with a DIAM cork to preserve its integrity.

Lower down the slope, across a small road and into the village of Volnay lies the Premier Cru Caillerets vineyard. Contiguous with Clos Les Champs Fulliot, Volnay Caillerets it has a slightly more south easterly aspect which helps to explain the extra degree of fruit ripeness which was apparent in this wine. The colour is deeper than in the Monthelie and the aroma much more layered and complex with briar, spice and berry fruits. Medium-bodied with fine tannins and a touch of evident oak. The riper style of this wine means that it could be drunk immediately but in reality it would improve greatly over the next two years and would certainly benefit from between five and ten years in the cellar.

Meursault Genevriéres, Premier Cru 2008 and Meursault Perrières, Premier Cru 2008

Two renowned vineyards with the Perrières being considered the better of the two by many authorities who suggest that it is of Grand Cru standing and therefore Meursault’s finest site.

The Genevriéres walks the tight-rope of acidity and fruit with great success; it is a wine to keep for several more years before starting to drink it but the spine of acidity is complemented and balanced by flinty and nutty citrus fruit characters. The wine is very tight and closed but cellar time will allow it to open. Drink 2014 to 2020.

The Grand cru pretender Perrières is a step up in fineness and depth from the already excellent Genevriéres. Piercing acidity is backed up by a deep minerality, a rich creaminess and an umami character. The oak is already completely subsumed by the wine giving a seamless wine with a persistence on the finish which is astonishing. Drink from 2014 to 2024.

A postscript to these four wines is that even after being opened for four days (and decanted before the tasting to open them up a bit ) they all still drank wonderfully. Acidity has its benefits.

Stella Bella’s trio of wines demonstrated that Margaret River justifies its reputation for world class Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. It also suggested that Sangiovese deserves to be taken seriously in this part of the world. Burgundy has had, give or take, two millennia to sort this kind of thing out, fast track Margaret River is yet to finish its fifth decade.

Stella Bella Chardonnay 2009

Like the Meursault Perrières, Stella Bella’s Chardonnay 2009 is a seamless wine; it seems to effortlessly balance structural acidity with fruit. Figs, nashi pear and a creamy MLF character meld with subdued and classy French oak and lead to a graceful, long finish. I decanted this wine prior to the tasting and that certainly helped open it up but it is a very youthful wine with a long future ahead of it for those with the will power to resist. Drink now (and yes, white though it be, decant it and see how it blossoms) or stash away for five to eight years.

Stella Bella Sangiovese Cabernet 2008

What really impresses about this wine is that the Sangiovese drives the blend and hasn’t lost its varietal signature into an amorphous dry red; something that can easily happen with this sort of blend. Cabernet plays a seriously junior role while the Sangiovese sets about giving structure, in both acid and tannin, and hallmark bitter cherry fruit; Cabernet slides into towards the finish to offer some juicy fruit notes. The finish is classically Sangiovese; really fine tannins giving an inviting savoury end to the wine. Drink now to 2020 but decant if drinking now to get those seductive aromas opened up.

Stella Bella Serie Luminosa Cabernet Sauvignon 2008

This wine is yet to be released, so thank you Stella Bella for supplying samples pre-release. The good news is that from July we’ll all be able to get our hands on this magnificent Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot blend. The bad news, such as it is, is that the wine really deserves to be kept for at least another three years before drinking. When I tasted the wine I hadn’t read the technical spec so didn’t realise that there was a significant slug of Merlot in the blend. Even now, knowing that there’s Merlot in there it is hard to spot such is the intensity of the Cabernet Sauvignon typicity. From the deep, brooding purple colour, through the intense cassis and tobacco leaf aromas to the cassis, leather and tomato leaf laden palate this wine sings out Cabernet. Firm, rich tannins brace the richness of fruit and there’s bolstering French oak in there too. Sensational. And every other bottle will be too because Stella Bella has used a screwcap to close this wine.

My thanks to Bouchard Père & Fils and Stella Bella for generously providing the wines for this tasting, to Dr Damien Wilson at Burgundy School of Business Dijon for hosting the event and to his students for their participation in the tasting as a part of their MSc in Wine Business course.

Oddbins - Decline and fall

The impending demise of Oddbins is without doubt a sad day, most importantly of course for the 400 or so staff that face redundancy. Oddbins has been an institution in British retailing for three decades and in its early years was a sort of cult-underground retailer which slaughtered the holy cows of the wine world. A training ground for much of the winetrade and a place where many a wine aficionado’s hobby took off; early Oddbins was as close as wine retailing ever got to Biba. But fearless and democratic as it was, popular as it was with industry commentators, Oddbins’ financial success has always been moot.

It’s not the likely closure of the once almost 300 strong chain’s remaining branches and the loss of these vibrant if slightly manic store fronts from the High street that concerns me most in this entire debacle; what really worries me is the bizarre attitude taken by the winetrade itself, the suppliers who face huge loses as the receiver moves in.

The relationship between suppliers and multiple retailers in the UK wine market is often a tense one: each recognises that they need the other but neither party is particularly happy about the arrangement. With so few channels through which to sell volume, where else is there to sell your brands? Oddbins presented an alternative, not as big as the supermarkets but big enough to matter and principals liked a listing at Oddbins almost as much as a restaurant listing. But it comes as a surprise to me that so many of the suppliers/creditors, facing write-offs of hundreds of thousands in some cases, are apparently so keen to see Oddbins continue. Truly the sort of Finance Directors who embody the sentiment that to make a small fortune in the wine trade, start with a large one. Did they learn no lessons from First Quench? Did these Finance Directors continue to extend credit to an ailing business because, but for Oddbins, the supermarkets (and Majestic) would have market domination? It’s a fair enough conclusion to draw from the figures given the calibre of many of the businesses involved and their evident desire to see the CVA approved. You might conclude that their collective loss, now rapidly crystallising to the tune of many millions, was an investment to allow them to have an alternative channel of distribution to the supermarkets and Majestic. I suspect that this isn’t the case but it leaves me at a loss to understand how Oddbins persuaded suppliers to extend so much credit.

A healthy High Street wine trade is something that I am keen to see; one where knowledgeable staff can pilot customers through the maze that is wine. I began my wine career in such businesses but I do recognise that the consumer has moved on and social changes have moved against High Street retailing. The Guardian newspaper reported that it was the supermarkets that had done Oddbins in: I beg to differ, it was a combination of cultural and social changes and corporate self-harm.

Oddbins has been a troubled business before now; in its early days it teetered and was rescued by Seagram who used the business very successfully as a slotting channel for their numerous brands. With a team of charismatic and brilliant buyers the chain was winning IWC High Street Specialist Wine Merchant of the Year Award year after year. Coupling all that with some outstanding marketing using Ralph Steadman cartoons ensured a steady flow of customers; but even then Oddbins was hardly a cash cow. The well-trained, enthusiastic store staff certainly built customer loyalty but they were no match for a High Street in long-term decline, spiralling rents and rates and perhaps worst of all; the Red Routes and customers with out of kilter work-life balances who chose to keep life simple and buy wine as part of their supermarket shop. Red Routes, the “don’t even think about parking here” restrictions were designed to ease traffic flow along congested arterial roads; the collateral effect was to ensure that the park and dash in for a bottle or two became a thing of the past. Customer numbers had to suffer. It is telling that Majestic has said that they might be interested in the one or two Oddbins’ sites which have parking on site. We live in the age of the motor car and a business which doesn’t provide parking for its customers soon finds that it’s a business without customers.

Corporate self harm comes into the picture when you consider Oddbins’ late entry into the on-line wine market and the tortuous array of products they stocked. How could a business of this size hold so much inventory when so much of it had to be slow moving? Wine retail using this model is capital intensive (as the £8 million owed to HM Revenue and Customs shows) and, a slow Christmas or not, a range so large is hard, if not impossible, to manage when duty and VAT has already been paid on the stock lingering on your shelves. With so many suppliers, I counted over one hundred wine suppliers by the time I was half way through the alphabet on the Deloitte’s list of creditors, how could the buyers really get to grips with the supply base and negotiate better deals on what were mostly relatively small volumes? A business of this scale simply cannot manage such a complex array of suppliers; to do so would need a back office bigger than the store staff. Management it seems failed to recognise the inherent problems in the business and failed to initiate changes which could have eased their cash flow issues. Red Routes have been in place since the early 1990s, why did Oddbins not react to this, evidently permanent, change by selecting more sites which had on-site parking?

There is a future for High Street wine retailing but it cannot be the current Oddbins model. Rather, I see it as one which recognises that it is there to service distress purchases rather than as a Saturday morning playground for serious wine purchases. The range will be edited, bought well and sold well; no more jumble-sale like stores stocked to the gunnels with something but not the something anyone wants. Holland’s Grapedistrict presents as good a vision of High Street wine retailing as I’ve seen for a long time and a similar model could well work in the UK. Oddbins has been a romance but romance doesn’t pay its bills.

January 2011

Major Award for Sydney airport duty free World of Wine

For the past year I’ve been working with The Nuance Group on their landmark store at Sydney airport; it’s been a great experience, we’ve developed some outstanding customer communication to help inform customers about the top of the range Australian wines on offer.

Duty-Free News International has awarded Nuance’s Sydney airport store its Best New Store award in its 2010 awards.

BEST NEW STORE

SYD Airport Tax & Duty Free, Sydney Airport Terminal One,

The Nuance Group

Billed as the “biggest duty-free store in the southern hemisphere”, Nuance’s giant flagship outlet at Sydney International

airport terminal one puts spirits and local wines at the core of its offer. The permanent tasting bar and excellent World of Malt Whisky are

excellent features, but for DFNI the highlight of this new shop from a liquor perspective is the World of Wine area, which features over 100

premium and super-premium Australian wines. Wine expert Phil Reedman was drafted in to help create the selection and provide

travellers with helpful tasting notes.

www.DFNIonline.com

Less is More: grapedistrict, Holland

January 2011

In “It’s All Too Much”, one of Joe Jackson’s lesser known, but arguably finest, songs Joe rails against the proliferation of choice in supermarkets

I hate this supermarket/but I have to say it makes me think/A hundred mineral waters/It’s fun to guess which ones are safe to drink
Two hundred brands of cookies/87 kinds of chocolate chip/They say that choice is freedom/I’m so free it drives me to the brink

And you know why – it’s all too much

Wine in many retailers is just that: simply substitute Chardonnay for chocolate chip cookies. Too many choices. Except they’re not really choices, they’re unexplained variations on a theme. I’ve been developing a theory for some while now that the “choice” available to most wine drinkers is bewildering and the way customers are being asked to shop for wine no longer entirely appropriate. Clearly I’m not alone in this thinking: a chain of stores in Holland called grapedistrict has built a thriving business listing around 130 skus. Joe Jackson would surely approve.

But it’s not just the small range that differentiates grapedistrict from the likes of more traditional Dutch wine retailers such as Gall &Gall, grapedistrict merchandises wine in a different way too. In the none-wine producing countries of Europe the received wisdom is that the customer decision tree for wine buying goes like this: Colour first. Country second, Price third and Variety fourth. Retailers therefore merchandise their wines split into colour, then country within each colour and group varieties together in ascending order of price.

How helpful is this approach for consumers who have only a little knowledge and even less time to wade through several dozen examples of an apparently identical wines differentiated only by price? For the wine enthusiast a wide range is exciting, for the vast majority of the population it is intimidating and a barrier to purchase. grapedistrict merchandises its wines by style, nine in all covering everything from sparkling to dessert wines. With categories such as “Bubbles”, “Easy”, “Smooth”, “Deep” and “Honey” the stores are easy to navigate and when the choice within in a category is restricted to no more than 20 making a decision to purchase is easily made. Store staff are well trained and easy to approach, and for those who don’t wish to seek advice in person shelf-edge labels provide information on each wine.

grapedistrict is a great model, with most wines below €15, they probably don’t appeal to wine hobbyists seeking out a particular vintage of a particular chateau but for the rest of the population they have a well chosen wine for every occasion.

www.grapedistrict.nl

MW Claret Tasting

MW Claret Tasting: The Annual Claret Tasting is quite an event on the MW calendar, coming as it does on the morning of the coronation ceremony for newly passed MWs. This year it was the turn of the 2006 vintage, a vintage described as “variable” in the tasting catalogue, aptly so as I discovered. A number of wines, including the first growths Haut-Brion and Margaux, were clearly overly enthusiastic with their oak budgets that year. Chateaux showing more restraint and consequently rather more enjoyable wines include: Lafite-Rothschild (circa £850 a bottle) and Mouton-Rothschild. Palmer and d’Angludet both very classy. Léoville-Poyferré elegant and understated while Brainaire-Ducru combined richness with great poise.

As to wines which can be reasonably afforded, the Chateau Talbot which Berry Bros have for £391 a case (yes, a case of 12) looks like a good drink to me.

Thursday 23rd September 2010

Classy Cabernet

Margaret River’s Cape Mentelle has carved out quite a reputation for itself as a producer of age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignon to rival anything from Australia. A bottle of the 2001 opened recently justified the reputation: bright plumy red, clearly developed but not fading. The bouquet has developed in bottle into a rush of cassis backed up with leather, tobacco and cedar. Raspberry and cedar along with violets balance some fine, sandy tannins. A wine with great structure and easily another ten years of life in it. If you see some, buy it.

Hahndorf Hill Blaufränkisch 2008

As far as I recall Blaufränkisch (Austria), aka Lemberger (Germany) Gamé (Bulgaria) Kékfrankos (Hungary) Frankovka (Czech Republic) and Franconia (Friuli) [that is, according to Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine] didn’t crop up too many times in my MW studies. Clearly an oversight. This variety which seems to have more synonyms than Madonna has had incarnations, is now alive and thriving in the Adelaide Hills, where, thank goodness, they call it Blaufränkisch. Though even that requires you to go into ‘Symbols’ and find the umlaut...the joys of pedantry.

Hahndorf Hill has produced a stunning, and thus far Australia’s only, Blaufränkisch from the 2008 vintage: it’s a sort of stylistic cross between a sexy Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir, a Gimblett Gravels Syrah and an out-there Moulin-à-Vent. Deep ruby in colour, with tremendous concentration of flavour, some savoury tannins but a line of acid holding the thing together. Odd as this may sound, but go with me anyway, try this with a seared tuna steak.

$35 a bottle from the cellar door which is great value for a wine of such quality and one with so many talking points.

A big week, with a couple of great tastings and one really sad one. First off, a pair of wines from Brown Brother’s Patricia range; a special selection of wines which honours the memory of Patricia Brown, matriarch of the family and a women who, at a tasting event I organised in London in the mid 1990s when she must have been in her 70s, put a roomful of wine sales people half her age to shame by working the stand all day long without a break or complaint. Amazing energy and passion for her family’s wines. What must she have been like in her youth?

Brown Brothers Patricia Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

The aroma is classic cigar-box and tomato leaf which leads into a rich, full-bodied yet smooth palate. The juicy blackcurrant fruit is counterpointed by savoury tannins and notes of coffee and dark chocolate. The wine finishes with a persistent and pure, ripe fruit character. Ideal with a roast leg of lamb it can be enjoyed now or at any time over the next 5 to 8 years. Circa $60

Brown Brothers Patricia Shiraz 2006

The pick of the vintage and a worthy Shiraz for this label. Vibrant garnet colour, no sign yet of any development. The bouquet is invitingly spicy and peppery and leads into a medium-bodied but extremely concentrated palate filled with plum and bramble fruit flavours which are supported by the most subtle oak. Drink now to 2018 with mature cheese or rare-cooked beef. Decant it if you can to allow it to open up.....or else abstemiously enjoy it over a couple of days. Just a thought. Circa $60

***

Prejudices linger, sad to say. One quite widely held is that Penfolds doesn’t make whites of any great merit. A couple of years ago a wine shop in Adelaide’s East End firmly advised me that the Penfolds whites weren’t worth bothering with. I was searching for a Penfolds Bin 00a Chardonnay which I’d recently tasted in a blind tasting where it had been unanimously voted top wine. Fortunately views are changing and Penfolds’ whites increasingly get the recognition they merit.

I spent a morning at Magill tasting some new releases, three of the highlights were:

2008 Bin 08a Adelaide Hills Chardonnay

A Chardonnay with attitude and one which takes no prisoners: a love it or hate it sort of wine but undeniably good. I love it for it sheer, out-there funkiness which is backed up by layers and layers of exquisite mineral and fruit flavours concluding with a grapefruity refreshing finish which goes on and on. Search high, search low, but get some.

Penfolds Yattarna 2007

At the other end of the scale when it comes to funk, Yattarna is crisp, clean and as sharply focused as you could wish. One taste and it is instantly recognisable as a world class Chardonnay. The crisp, bright colour has green glints betraying youthfulness and the aroma retains a lemon-meringue pie character touched with hazelnut and lemon zest. The palate is taut and focused with grapefruit and a delicate nuttiness. A crisp and persistent finish leaves you wanting another glass.

Penfolds Grange 2005

Power, but power tempered by responsibility sums up Grange for me. The 2005 is a huge wine in all respects yet it has elegance and grace as opposed to sheer brute force. Saturated ruby in colour and with an aroma which is layered with berries, bramble and hints of peppery spice. The palate is a blockbuster but has ripened tannins seamlessly melded around the sumptuous fruit. At five years old this is still an infant and needs a couple of decades to reveal its full depth and complexity of flavours.

The Case of the Mournful Honking of a dead Golden Goose

Cleanskin Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Proving the old adage that when something looks to be too good to be true it usually is, is a 2009 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from Woolworths, priced at $5.55 or if you purchase six bottles at just $5 a bottle. Keep your money in your pocket. The real irony is that on the adjacent shelf a clean skin Australian Semillon Chardonnay was selling for $5.97.

Monday July 26th 2010

Lanson Noble Cuvée 1999

For reasons that only British Airways and Qantas can, but haven’t, explained Australian flights to and from London’s Heathrow are via the dismal T3 rather than the brand-spanking new T5. Hey ho, BA has a rather pleasant lounge at T3 and, maybe as a consolation for having foisted T3 upon us, is good enough to serve Lanson’s Noble Cuvée 1999. Let’s say it eases the pain. There’s a bready/brioche character to the aroma and a still very fresh apple and citrus palate cut with layers of bottle developed flavour. Crisp and refreshing with a savoury, very satisfying finish Noble Cuvée is a class act. If you’re not transiting through Heathrow T3 it’s worth a detour to a bottle shop.

Tuesday 27th April 2010

Noteworthy Marlborough Sauvignon

You can’t argue with drinkers who are buying Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc for $6 a bottle; after all it fulfils their perfectly reasonable need for a glass of dryish, crisp white wine at a decent price and it does carry the high kudos appellation of Marlborough on the label. You might even contend that some of the Marlborough brands have rather taken their customers for granted over the last few years when wine was under-supplied and this is the free market squaring the circle.

But here’s a powerful argument for trading up: Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc 2009. This is not a dryish, crisp white, it is a nuanced, layered wine with intensity and interest. Not a mid-week quaffer this is more a Saturday night special but for around $30 a bottle it is good value.

Wednesday 14th April 2010

Cullen’s Kevin John Chardonnay 2007

I can see a sub-blog emerging along the lines of Characterful Chardonnays or Chardonnays Which do the Variety Proud or some such snappy title. Meanwhile I can strongly suggest that you hunt down a few bottles of the Cullen’s Kevin John Chardonnay 2007.

A little leaner and a shade more polished than the Salo Yarra Valley Chardonnay I’ve been drinking of late, the Kevin John is from Margaret River and surely puts itself into the same bracket as Leeuwin Estate Art Series. Piercing acidity of the most refreshing and structure-giving kind runs like an arrow through this wine allowing the lime and mineral flavours to hang off it giving a wine of distinction and length. It drank beautifully with some Coffin Bay oysters.

Thursday 11th March 2010 - One Planet Wines

I’m delighted to announce that One planet Wines has launched two tetra packed premium wines on the Australian market. An Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc and a McLaren Vale Shiraz are the launch varieties, packed in the environmentally friendly 75cl tetra pack. I’ve been working with One Planet on this project for some time and have endorsed the wines and the packaging. Weighing in at only 780g which compares with 1260g for a lightweight glass bottle they’re friendlier on the arm muscles as well as your carbon footprint.

And let’s face it, if someone invented the glass bottle today it would be a non starter........”sure it’s heavy. Yes it takes masses of energy to make them and recycle them and well, look, over time everyone will get used to handling them with care so as not to smash them”. Apart from being inert and a reasonable sort of pressure vessel if you make them heavy enough, the glass bottle really has few advantages for most wines these days. With bottle aging for most wines being defined as the length of time it takes to get home from the store why put wine into something that theoretically allows the stuff to develop for years when it’s going to be drunk within weeks? www.oneplanetwine.com Check out Phil talking about this exciting new project on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swHH33uXkcA