Bouquets and Brickbats for 2009
Best and worst of 2009:
Grape of the year. Chenin. Wine writers drool over Riesling and Gruner Veltliner, but rarely do I read any panegyrics on this versatile grape that makes the complete set from interesting sparkling wines, amazing mineral whites, intriguing off-dry styles and mind-blowing nectars. Sylvain Martinez’s Goutte d’O, made in thimblefuls and tasted in beesips, was outstanding; I also loved the mature, beeswaxy style of Damien Laureau’s Savennières and an Anjou from Domaine Mosse that displayed both richness and tension in spades.
“Beaded bubbles winking at the brim”… You might be surprised to hear me say this but, yea verily, in ‘09 my beaker foamed with Prosecco. Sales of this sparkling wine have bubbled over in the past couple of years for us and our traditional gems from Costadila and Casa Coste Piane are the effervescent cats’ whiskers. Made without dosage on the lees these cloudy sparklers are purity incarnate and the trendy go-to aperitif. Anything is welcome that gnaws the amour-propre of Les Champenois and good quality natural wines, such as these, restore some price sanity in the fizzical world. Camillo Donati’s funky Lambrusco and Catherine & Pierre Breton’s brilliant Vouvray Pet Nat also merit honourable mentions in despatches.
Region with the mostest: Piedmont is my region of the year with regal Nebbiolos, artisan Barberas - and, praise be, I even found a loveable Dolcetto to drink with extreme prejudice - not to mention dinky Freisa, floral Brachetto, groovy Grignolino and delectable, musky Moscato d’Asti. Luca Roagna’s Barbarescos get citations for their sublime finesse and beautiful tannic structure.
Country you can’t help loving – New Zealand’s small country mentality can’t disguise a big heart. With its concentration of mostly modest, usually interesting and intensely personable winemakers and emphasis on quality and regional expression rather than quantity and homogeneity, New Zealand emerges from 2009 with another excellent report card.
Best value generic wine – My sherry-amour. With the tapas/grazing culture upon us one can more easily appreciate the versatile qualities of cool, salty manzanilla and fino, nutty, complex Amontillado and aromatic Oloroso. On the other hand…
Overpriced, overoaked and over here Spain generally continues to disappoint. You can witness over and over again juice of beautiful quality destroyed by poor quality wine making.
Country with overcooked chip on its shoulder – Australia. Endless debating strategies from the department of Omphalology at the University of Wallamalloo have soured the worldwide reputation of Ozjuice. Australia’s problem is that it is too big a country to have a unified voice (it has doubtful whether this is even desirable) yet its marketing bodies insist on projecting a single coherent image rather than embracing and encouraging diversity.
Most shudder-worthy single line-up of wines: A range of thirty or so Pinots at Wines of Chile tasting, chosen to highlight this country’s take on the world’s trickiest variety. Averaging 14.5%, ferociously oaked, almost black with a charred Shiraz flavour and presented in the most tendon-rippingly bulky bottles imaginable these were not wines but molten tongue-stoners. And whilst we are on Chile con carnage…
Mighty eggcup award for yes-we-implicitly-believe-that!– goes to the Decanter Fine Wine Awards which bestowed their 2009 trophies for Best Riesling, Best Sauvignon Blanc, Best Pinot Noir and Best Bordeaux blend to various Chilean wines.
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than for illumination” award: Thanks to Nielsen for providing an unquenchable fountain of figures enabling every press release from every count to unpick silver linings.
Daft quote amongst many: “A winemaker has a duty of care to the consumer”. Presumably the artist has a duty of care to the viewer, the writer to his/her readers, the musician to… you get the point. Bring on the dancing android winemakers.
Dubious practice award: Restaurateurs who refusing to lower their own margins in the year of recession, squeezed and squeezed their long suffering suppliers, and then jettisoned them when a cheaper offer came along.
Predictable prediction of the year: And so it came to pass that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The unbearable cheapness of supermarket offers persisted – it was the year of the 3 for 10 and the quest for the eternally cheap wine in the face of a historically fragile currency. It was the year when supermarkets declared a perennial price war on reality and fought to win market share at all costs. Blah, humbug.
The scare tactic award: Neo-prohibitionism became the new political correctness. Following an epidemic of hysterical surveys about the epidemic of alcoholism (along with the drugs epidemic, the obesity epidemic, the flu epidemic etc.) the government’s solution was to tax furiously (in lieu of education), thereby penalising responsible drinkers and the hospitality industry. A classic case of treating the symptoms and not the problem.