South West France Lunch at Maha 30th July 2012

One of the occasional perks of this job is a long lunch. Sometimes you get the added bonus is great company and wines that you find compelling. I definitely hit the jackpot at this event!

I'm a huge fan of the wines of Bordeaux but often find them just above my comfortable spending level for all but special occassions and those I can afford generally still need a year or 5 in the cellar to show their best. This event allowed me to cast my eyes further South and taste some interesting wines from Cahors and Madiran.




The main regions of the South West of France.



South West France is used as a cover all descriptor for the fragmented regions between Bordeaux and Languedoc. Depending on the laws of each region the wines might be red, white, rose or even sweet. They may be made from the noble varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah or from 'lesser' varieties like Malbec (aka Cot aka Auxerrois), to the downright unsual Tannat, Petit or Gros Manseng or Petit Courbu. For more information on the area and its wines and producers check out TWD's South West France Offer or better still why not book into our Introduction to South West France tasting? Email for more details or see TWD's website.

Quality is as fragmented as the regions laws and location. But today we had some stunning wines from two producers, local anti-hero Alain Brumont who Andrew Jefford describes the South West's very own Citizen Kane who has built up quite an empire of beautifully run estates including Montus and Bouscasse. We also tasted the much more amiable wines from the Verhaeghe family's du Cedre.

Maha put on a shared feast of delightful food and we were off.

Alain Brumont Gros Manseng & Sauvignon Blanc 2011 A great introduction to the tasting! Fleshy and exotically fruited with a lovely textural palate. Blending the familiar flavours of Sauvignon with the decidedly unknown quantity that is Gros Manseg. Overall a very enjoyable quaffing style white.

Chateau Bouscasse Pacherenc Sec 2008 100% Petit Courbu (first time I have knowingly tasted Courbu big or small!). I loved this wine's ripe and flavoursome outlook. Peaches and apricot kernel. Quite full and silky finish. Quite complex and very enjoyable.
 
Chateau du Cedre Cahors 'Heritage' 2009 90% Malbec, 10% Merlot. This wine showed dark fruits, while being light, fresh and a hint herbal. Some grippy fruit tannins were evident with some spice and cardomom notes. A great entry level to the reds of the region for drinking now.



Du Cedre Cahors.

Chateau du Cedre Cahors 'Chateau' 2008 More brooding, dark, with hints of red fruits, smoke and mineral and blood oranges. Dry and lovely but packs a fair whack of tannic power. 90% Malbec, Merlot and Tannat 5% each. Drink now or leave for a few years.

Chateau Bouscasse Madiran 2009 Jumping now to Madiran where Tannat rules the roost. 65% Tannat, 25% Cab Sauv, 15% Cab Franc. Dark, minerally, hint of oak - somewhat reminiscent of Hunter Valley Shiraz. Nutty, smokey/flinty, nice acidity, silky and dense. Great wine! I love it now but it will improve with another 5 + years laying down.

Chateau Montus Madiran 2009 Dark, dense, smoke, hint red, hint floral, ash, complex, plummy and prunes. The palate was sweetly fruited, hint of aniseed, dense and silky with nice balance and savoury elements. 80% Tannat 20% Cab Sauv.


A wine that was set to stun. Delicious.

Chateau Montus Madiran 'La Tyre' 2009 Only made in the best years, this was seriously impressive. Minerals, red fruits, smokey oak, spice, fruit tannins and very elegant. Dark, great balance and a hint bitter. This is just a baby but is a must try wine if you want to see the potential of the region.

Chateau du Cedre Cahors 'Le Cedre' 2007 100% Malbec. Toasty, Bordeaux like, earthy, dry stems, flesh, silk, vibrant, long and nicely balanced. Like the Le Cedre this is seriously impressive and shows off Cahors' best suit. Lovely drinking.

Chateau Bouscasse Pacherenc doux 'Les Larmes Celestes' 2010 100% Petit Manseng which has been late harvested but not affected by botrytis. This has a similar flavour profile to the Pacherenc sec (not surprisingly!) but is medium sweet and quite lush. Brilliant drinking with lovely refreshing acid to keep it clean and tidy.



Les Larmes Celestes - Lovely sweeter wine for those that enjoy finesse!  

Chateau du Cedre Vin de Liqueur 2010 100% Malbec. This is like a mini Port. There is less alcohol and sugar which makes it perfect for ending a meal and there is just enough spirit and structure to tackle cheese or savoury dishes but enough sweetness and vibrancy to match with chocolatey desserts.

Loujan Bas Armagnac Normally I avoid spirits as they are my Krytonite. This was lovely though. Nice perfume, quite elegant and really well balanced. Great way to warm up before heading out into the chilly Melbourne afternoon.

How To Drink A Birth Year Magnum

First published on Tuesday, 30 December 2008 on www.ieatidrinkiwork.com.au


What a handsome fellow he is.

After the initial buzz of being given a magnum of Lanson 1982 died away, I realised the person who had given me the present had also created quite a serious problem. What do I do with 1500ml of vintage champagne? Obviously, I will drink it, but putting to one side my wife’s idea that the two of us should just crack it now, I need to work out who I should share it with. How many people? What sort of food? And most importantly, how might I console myself in the case that it has passed its best or is faulty?

I have to drink the wine soon as it is quite old, but the generally held view that champagne is ready to drink when released doesn't always hold true. Vintage champagne can age gracefully and evolve into a very different (but equally appealing) drink. Even some non-vintage blends improve with time. It just depends on how much you love the fresh, racy, zesty flavours of youth compared to the more savoury richness and fullness of age. My magnum also has the advantage of being "recently disgorged", which means it has been on lees for most of its 26 years and was only disgorged in the past few years. The lees -- the dead yeast cells from the secondary fermentation in the bottle -- have a preservative effect on the wine which slows down its evolution, but also adds more complexity and richness as those cells break down and become part of the wine.


I have kept the bottle. It survived the great cull of 2011.

Conventional wisdom says you get five to six decent glasses out of a standard bottle (750ml), so if I limit myself to six people it means everyone gets two glasses from the magnum. Trying to choose who to share the Lanson with is proving more stressful than choosing wedding guests. I find I now spend my spare moments looking at people, thinking "I like you, but are you Lanson worthy?"

The issue of food is less stressful. Given the champagne will have big flavours and a fair bit of weight I would choose something flavoursome, rich and savoury. Crayfish, white meats or pâté are all classic choices.

I guess the simplest thing to do is to take the magnum, two back up bottles of champagne and five friends to my favourite restaurant. Out of interest, I emailed Lanson to ask what they suggested I do. They failed to comment on whether the wine would still be drinking well, which is understandable because after 26 years in the bottle there is no guarantee (especially when sealed with cork!). The winemaker did, however, have a helpful suggestion: the wine would be "the ideal choice for a romantic evening". Maybe my wife is on to something!

Lanson is one of the oldest champagne houses, founded in 1760. They source fruit from 800 acres (approx 323.2 hectares) of vineyards in Champagne. They make a great range of wines and the vintage is always lovely and great value.

Additional information to the story. Added 24/03/2012.



Yep, I was excited. (And hairy).

As it would turn out, the perfect way to drink my birth year magnum was on a glorious day in November '09 at Bress Winery in Harcourt. Adam Marks and his wife Lynne put on a lovely lunch for myself, my wife Kristina and S.A. friends Matt & Tel.

The wine was in great shape, developed of course, but in no way over the hill and in fact remarkably bubbly in both senses of the word. Strong savoury, brioche, caramel and nutty notes were interwoven with floral, citrus and spice. The palate was rich and full. Still going strong but definitely developed.

The magnum was a catalyst for a very long day, thankfully Matt doesn't drink so we could get home.

Interestingly the day ended when  Lynne, quite sensibly suggested Adam needed to go inside and we should head home. But lets never mention that again. And just remember the good times.

Overall, I would definitely say that is how you drink a birth year magnum: Friends and good food. The memory of which will stay with me forever.


Look at that bead. It was full of life.

It has been something of a habit over the years. Here are a few other birth year wines, drunk with less consternation and more... well, Gusto. All are fondly remembered.

Not surviving the cull of 2011 - Birth Year Bottle of Burgundy. Bought in Burgundy.

Also not surviving - Mount Mary Pinot and Leeuwin Estate Art Series Cabernet from '82

Good Old Burgundy

A nice relaxing lunch yesterday at Mr Bianco in Kew was a great excuse to pull out a bottle that had been burning a hole in my cellar.

We started with a bottle of the Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge Riesling 2010 - You've no doubt heard me go on (and on) about it before, but it is stunning. Here are my original notes. Such beautiful perfume, great balance and great flavours.

A graphic depiction of the label. If you see one of these, grab it!

J Confuron Contetidot Nuits-St-Georges 1988 - Re-released a few years ago direct from the Domaine this wine was stunning when it landed and possibly even better yesterday.
The colour had held up beautifully, a light strawberry with just a tinge of orange. But I believe these guys have used a lot of stems in production which could easily account for the orange (rather than it being obvious signs of age).
At first smell it was quite tart and made my heart sink a little. But as it had time in the glass it developed beautiful rose petal, cherry, and raspberry notes. There was plenty of pepper, gravel/ironstone/iodine and savoury notes. Overall though, it was remarkably fresh and vibrant.
The palate was mid-weight, had a good attack of red berries and crunchy acid on the front. As the wine swept back there was a silkiness and flesh that softened me up and then the Nuits-St-Georges tannins kicked in hefty but fine, gritty and long lingering. Luckily the classic Burgundian 'peacocks tail' perfume was also present and made for a beautifully long lasting experience after each sip. This is all the more impressive that it is Village level, not Premier or Grand Cru. Great old Burgundy indeed!

I first tasted this producer in about 2003 when the tasting group I was organising went through a line up of their 2001s to try and understand 'house style' and as a great excuse to taste six awesome Burgs. They own 7 hectare in the Cotes de Nuits. They tend to use cold soaks before fermantation with all the stems (imagine making a tea like infusion out of the crushed grapes and their stems). Stems tend to give the wine a tart, acidic edge which is great if they are ripe but can be mouthpuckeringly sour if they are not. This can mean that the producer sacrifices immediate appeal for long term drinking. The best exponents of the use of stems tend to make the most long lived Burgs in my experience.
Therefore this Domaine is often best enjoyed with some bottle age.

Lunch At RACV Club

Recently I was lucky enough to have lunch at the RACV club and no lunch there would be complete without some amazing wines.

Bass Phillip Rose - Dry, spicy and savoury. Nice elegance and texture. Really freshing and really moreish. The best I have seen this wine in ages taste wise. Not so sure about the new packaging though.  

Crawford River Riesling 2010 - Once again confirming why, this is one of my favourite wines in Australia. Textured, dense, aromatic and compelling. Still very young, but the freshness and structure is worth the price of admission alone.

Durche Gevrey Chambertin 06 - A producer who I did not know before this lunch. Very typical Gevrey; firm structure and dark fruits. A lot of charm and drinkability despite it's youthfulness.

Quinta do Noval Tawny NV - One of the Kings of the port producing sphere, this is a great entry point to Tawny and absolutely, in no way related to the typical Australian take on the style. It is dry, savoury and complex with refreshing acidity and fine but firm tannins. It also has the key to great port - it is extremely well balanced.

Toro Albala Pedro Ximenez 82 - Because more is often more at a lunch like this we indulged in a vintage PX from Montilla, not Jerez so it is not Sherry but made almost identically. Dark, silky, rich and with plenty of character and sweetness. One glass is often enough for me. But the aged PX tends to have a density and savoury edge that allows of a second or third glass to be savoured.