Birthday drinks
2008 Vin de Table Petillant Pink Boules, Jean Maupertuis 8.5
It is a cute Pet Bul made au natural (natch) with wild yeasts and (second) fermentation finishing in the bottle with manual disgorgement with no malolactic, no filtering, no fining and no sulphur. Dare we say that this wine has vulcanicity? We daren’t.
Juicy Gamay strawberriness – jamberry, jazzberry jamming in berryland.
Beautiful translucent pink with a watery rim, neat, sweet piquant attack then natural freshness and purity with a gentle minerality easing the wine across the palate.
Drunk with potted crab on toast
2001 Moulin des Dames Anthologia, Bergerac 9
Luc de Conti has made three vintages of this remarkable wine: 1996, 2001 and 2005.
He harvests grape by grape selecting the most raisined specimens. The yields are a measly 17hl/ha. In the winery there is a maceration pelliculaire for 48 hours and fermentation is in barrels made from Allier oak (50% new), the rest used before. Batonnage of the lees for 10-12 months with micro-oxygenation. No filtration or fining.
The result is an intense buttery, verging-on-the-unctuous-white redolent of warm spiced apricots, waxy peaches and quinces infused with roast vanilla pod. This is fruit burnished to the point of gentle caramelisation, a liquid tarte tatin, a vivid wine of high concentration and well-defined minerality.
Drunk with gnudi stuffed with ricotta and served with sage and herb butter
2005 Riesling Grand Cru Vourbourg, Pierre Frick 9
The antidote to those who think Frick’s wines are a roll in the hay with an open bottle of fermenting cider. Vorbourg is located on south eastern facing slopes and as it names indicates is situated just in front of Le Château (Isenbourg) de Rouffach. This incredibly youthful Riesling has a delicate lemon colour, a restrained nose of praline and vanilla with touches of citrus and minerality, then with aeration notes of yellow fruits billow forth– it is both ample and fresh in the mouth – with a flavour of pineapple and lemon zest – completed by its fresh length, with both salty and chalky nuances.
Drunk with pot roast pheasant with celery, sage and vermouth accompanied by roast potatoes, red cabbage cooked in orange juice with chestnuts, sautéed mushrooms with garlic and spinach with lemon butter.
1985 Arbois Trousseau, Camille Loye 8.5-9
This wine is the colour of cranberry juice, shiny and clear, as if glazed with acidity. The nose is equally appealing, an impression of rain on stone as well as delineated fruit flavours of morello cherries, bilberries and pippy raspberries. The wine fills the mouth without ever being fat: one can begin to detect secondary aromas of musk, leather and sous-bois, and, as it opens up further, some moss, wet earth and mushroom. There is something rather wonderful about a wine that doesn’t need to be profound to be beautiful.
1997 Domaine des Granges des Peres, Vin de Pays de l’Herault 9
Undoubtedly one of the star producers of the Languedoc region, having planted vines on the stony south facing slopes of the vale of Gassac, near Aniane, next to Mas de Daumas Gassac, an area now much sought after and regarded as one of the finest terroirs in the Languedoc. Laurent Vaille trained with, among others Gérard Chave, Eloi Durrbach and François Coche-Dury and his superlative wine craftsmanship is beyond doubt.
Smoky, leathery/gravy browning nose lifted with spice, tarragon and thyme notes. The palate has good density, a delicious garrigue-scented herbiness and leathery, tea-like notes. It’s not a blockbuster style, but is savoury and quite complex.
Drunk with Wigmore cheese served with figs
1998 Chante Coucou, Elian da Ros, Marmande 9
Elian worked with Olivier Humbrecht in Alsace before starting his own domaine in south west France in the 1990s. He works his 16 ha with fanatical dedication, replanting rootstocks, working without chemicals (8 hectares are in biodynamie). Harvest is always manual, grapes are destemmed. He vinifies parcel by parcel. Vinification is in open tank with pigeage à la bourguigononne, that is to say according to observation rather than by predetermined method. The bare minimum of sulphur is used in the winemaking process.
Chante Coucou is a mix of south western French grape varieties, sixty per cent Merlot with equal parts of Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon and is absolutely classic, rigorous, deep-coloured, appetisingly dry red wine designed to age and to be drunk with food. “If it were a Médoc it would be classed growth status – by which I mean it should not for a moment be confused with common or garden AC Bordeaux – but it has a little extra spice. This is serious stuff whose chief distinguishing characteristic is freshness – really lively fruit without a dead grape in that vat but with quite sandy tannins still in evidence. (Jancis Robinson)”.
What a youthful wine still! It merrily flaunts its purple robe and gives forth an expressive nose of cherries, wild sloes, violets and liquorice. Herb and olive notes add some southern complexity. The juicy palate has dense, firm tannins, ripe fruit and good acidity.
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