Doug’s Top Ten Wines of the Year

This was not a vintage year for wine revelations, possibly to do with the fact that, with age, my palate has grown sere and tedious (yeah, right), but more probably because I haven’t been a terribly social animal. The most enjoyable wine experiences have always involved intellectual engagement and laughter as well as good food – the wine in question is then given a pleasurable social context in which to express itself. The first four wines in this list were drunk at the same birthday dinner, a mixture of luck and judgement, the others were supped variously at home or in restaurants.

1982 Chateau Sociando-Mallet, Haut-Médoc
I carafed this for half an hour before serving. It still maintained a lovely deep ruby colour and carried fabulous aromas of black olives, lead-pencil shavings and mineral edged black fruits with a cassis edge, as well as a tarry, cigar-box, smoky elegance. This rich display continued on the palate, which had sweet and spicy fruit, with full weight and meaty texture, cut through by a healthy presence of ripe tannins. The 1982 Sociando had reached that rare perfect equilibrium wherein the plummy presence of the Merlot had enriched the more structural Cabernet Sauvignon and created a luscious harmony. These legs will run and run.

1996 Pommard 1er cru Pezerolles, Hubert de Montille
At the very beginning of last year I broached a bottle of Montille’s Volnay puckish pucker from the 95 vintage. This pale Pommard was initially even more elusive, revealing the shiest citrus fruit rubbed over dry stone with taut nervous acidity. The reddest of red cherries and redcurrants eventually emerge from the wine’s hermetic shell, thread-needled on bootlaces of silken acidity. Montille was one of the true traditionalist codgers who made authentic vins de gardes, by which he meant unremittingly chiselled wines that would be approachable when they damn well felt like it and not at your convenience, sir. Many people don’t enjoy this style – it is the vinous equivalent of a slithery elver with acidity like bolts of electricity. (An electric elver?). And yet the last glass was so alluring that the final drops of wine rung out of the bottle seemed like regretful tears for the loss of an old friend.

2000 Arbois Savagnin Ouillé, Emmanuel Houillon
This was the aperitif at the aforementioned dinner. Decanted and brought up to cool temperature this ullaged Savagnin displayed an entrancingly salty amontillado nose with some fine dry spices such as cumin and fenugreek and an underlay of yeast, country butter and old wood. The acidity was beautifully consistent and the delicate nuttiness means that this was a wine that you could drink as well as admire. It topped the dinner but could have tailed it with any number of the runny Neal’s Yard cheeses that we supped through straws later on.

2006 Massa Vecchia Bianco IGT Maremma
I have tried this ample amber wine four times and it has always delivered a pornucopia of sensual delights.  I love the colour: imagine the promise held by the glistening inside of a ripe peach.  It smells of peaches too (and sweet apricots) and one instantly receives an impression of firm skin and supple flesh at the same time, a tincture of rosewater and a hint of really good Turkish delight. The palate is exotic and pulpy and there’s a further palpable lift from the sweet and savoury tones of chestnut wood.

2006 Cotes du Rhone, Sierra du Sud, Domaine Gramenon
I ordered a bottle of this wine at Corrigan’s Mayfair the day after it opened (the restaurant, that is); this is what well-bred Syrah is all about: black olives marinated in herbes de Provence. I love the essence of gentle dark fruits (blackberry jamble), the balsamic notes of creosote and marmite, delicate meatiness and the moreish smoky finish with suavity and finesse. This was particularly good with venison and a saddle of hare which came with a “game wellington”.

2005 Moulin des Dames Anthologia, Luc de Conti, Bergerac
Drunk at Helen Darroze at the Connaught with Emily O’Hare and Yves Desmaris with a first course of deconstructed grouse.
I have written effusively of the magical moments inspired by drinking the 2001 vintage of this white Bergerac…

“The Anthologia Blanc from Luc de Conti is for me one such. Allow me to wax lyrical. I poured a glass: its colour was striking, a definitive old gold that seemed to trap the light in its embrace. This peach-hued song of sunset with resonant nose-honeying warmth was truly the “yeast of Eden”.  If the colour drew me in, then the nose conjured a riot of sensuous (and sensual) images. One breathes in tropical aromas of candied apple, coconut, plump peach and honeydew vying with exotic Indian spice – there’s cumin, fenugreek and dried ginger … and as the wine warms and develops after each swirl in the glass the leesy butteriness which reined in the rampant fruit dissolves and one is left with sweet balm tempered by the most wonderful natural fresh fruit acidity. Experiencing the Anthologia for the first time was an epiphany for me, like the beauty of a sunset “…the time between the lights when colours undergo their intensification and purples and gold burn in the window panes like the beat of an excitable heart… when the beauty of the world which is soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish”. Or like summer arriving after a harsh spring, when the clouds fold back, like the ravelling up of a screen, as Adam Nicholson put it. This was not Vin Blanc but Vin d’Or. Certainly not Piat d’Or. Everyone has their special wine moment and their own private language to describe it.”

In its infancy this golden-white can seem to be coddled by oak, a sort of puppy fat that masks it best-in-breed. Not on this occasion. The wine was there for the tasting, if not for the taking, majestically ripe and sweet (without being unctuous) with exacting pineapple freshness that allowed the flavours to course and eddy across the taste buds. Imagine the most beautiful fruit cored, topped and tailed, and left with the sweetest flesh remaining…

While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apples, quince and plum and gourd…
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.

... you bite into the feast of flesh and the sweet juices dribble down your cheek.

This is not just a wine etc. etc.

2005 Valle Isarco Kuenhof Veltliner, Peter Pliger
Tasted with Fiona Sims and then drunk afterwards at home…
Wax those tongue skis before tackling this wine of amazing minerality and complexity. Pliger’s wines need long ageing before expressing themselves with depth and fascinating luminosity. Peter Pliger, proprietor and winemaker at this tiny property (only about 2,500 cases are produced annually), is considered to be a pace-setter for the Valle Isarco region, which is located in the normally cooler northern portion of Südtirol. His organically cultivated vines exhibit an aromatic profile and stony minerality that differ from those grown just north or south of his property and are expressive of a unique terroir.  Biologically responsible farming is essential, Pliger asserts, if the microflora in the soil are to properly convert the various mineral elements into the soluble form needed by the vines. He grows only Sylvaner, Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Veltliner; the last two in particular are striking wines, perhaps reflecting Pliger’s admiration for Rieslings of the Mosel and Veltliners of the Wachau in Austria (where they are called Grüner Veltliner). Light gold with green glints, elderflower and powdered stone on the nose whilst the palate offers the very essence of freshly cut apple, being sappy and incisive, complemented by layers of citrus and tropical fruits. An undercurrent of chalk and woodsmoke lingers on the tongue, giving this elegant Veltliner an added sense of structure. If ever a wine embodied the glorious tension between stone, sun, soil and water this was it.

2005 Bourgogne Rouge Bedeau, Domaine de Chassorney
Tried on three occasions, each time a point.
This is what natural wine is all about, a probing examination of terroir and the Pinot Noir grape in all its naked beauty. Frederic Cossard is another of those vignerons who work the vines like a sensitive Stakhavonite placing all emphasis on creating a healthy environment for the grapes. The vinification is equally sensitive with nothing added and nothing taken away.  The Bedeau teases as it pleases. The nose is very fine, almost restrained and yet certainly and pertinently Pinot Noir. It is reassuringly pale in colour and aromatically there are suggestions of stonefruit, flint and red berry and secondary notes of seasoned wood. The palate is lively and sapid, the fruit complemented and held in check by the stony elegance of the minerality. Overall the Bedeau exhibits regal poise and drive, this fluid Pinot sliding vibrantly over the tongue rather than spreading its soft, sweet charms to all corners of the mouth.

Natural wines – are they different or are we making an artificial case for qualitative superiority? Tasting Cossard’s Bourgogne Rouge, Hervé Souhaut’s northern Rhone Syrah and the Pineau d’Aunis from Domaine Le Briseau, to name but three, you are aware that all the wines possess energy. They do not suffer “palate drag” whereby excessive fatness, sweetness, extraction, bitterness, alcohol or wood seem to hold back the very essence of the wine or cause our tongues to negotiate superimposed textures and flavours.

2006 Brouilly, Croix des Rameaux, Jean-Claude Lapalu
Tried from magnum at The Real Wine Dinner.
A late convert to Gamay I now bore all and sundry with my assertions that this is the next big thing. Natural Gamay rigorously pruned, grown on poor, crumbly soils is capable of genuine excellence. Croix des Rameaux is an old single vineyard exposed south-east on a steep slope of granitic sand. The grapes are harvested fairly late and the cuvaison lasts for 20 to 25 days (traditional vinification with destemmed grapes). The press wine is added to the rest of the juice for the end of the alcoholic fermentation. The wine is then put in three to five year old barrels where it spends the next nine to ten months. This was astonishingly dense, practically opaque and sat darkly in the glass billowing black fruits, leather, bacon and game, rich and smooth with good tannic structure. The antithesis of the majority of Beau-lolly this Brouilly barks like a top Rhone.

2007 Saint-Joseph, Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet
My favourite new producer of the year was Hervé Souhaut who created Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet in 1993… His holdings on the acidic granite soils of the northern Rhone and the top tip of the Ardèche are a mixture of new and ancient vines—from 50 to100 years old. Hervé Souhaut’s holdings are minuscule, only five hectares and he employs only organic and biodynamic winemaking techniques. At the end of September, the grapes are harvested and then undergo a very long maceration at a low temperature without destemming. The wine is then matured on the lees in second-hand oak casks for six months and then bottled without being filtered. His old vines Gamay combines black fruits with a mineral crunch whilst the young vines Syrah (11.7%) has a texture that demonstrates the coolness of the fruit; its sheer silkiness reminding one of fine primary Pinot. The dark cherry and currant flavours are pronounced with the merest hint of parma violet and a whiff of tar and a seasoning of white pepper completing the savoury palette.

Two Saint-Josephs ratchet up the aromatic intensity and complexity without sacrificing the identity of the terroir. The straight St Jo bursts smilingly on the tongue; it is deliciously nuanced and harmonious in its fruit, acid and tannin balance. The Saint-Epine is from a one hundred year old vineyard. Cool climate Syrah tends to have very dynamic aromatics and this example is seductively forward in its advances whilst maintaining a lingering veil of mystery. Violets, freshly roasted coffee beans, black cherry, wet stone and vanilla bean all interplay nicely as they gradually unfurl off the rim of the glass. The palate employs many of the same flavours the wine contains on the nose; deep black cherry and juicy plum flavours mesh with candied violets and cool strawberry tones dominate. The moderate tannins that gradually crop up on the finish highlight the readily accessible fruity components this stellar Syrah possesses. This wine has the spirit of youth with the gentle certainty of old vine wisdom.  Ideal with pigeon, guinea fowl, roast chicken or pork.

Bubbling under - Domaine L’Anglore -all wines.