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Blog de Blogs
The first in a new series from the drinks business rounding up the latest gossip and discussion in the increasingly sprawling world of wine blogging.
There are so many out there that it’s impossible for us to bring you them all every week – but we can let you know what has particularly caught our eye on a weekly basis.
Grape to Glass – the Majestic wine blog
The high street wine warehouse’s blog offers the company’s buyers the chance to document their travels and speak of their past experiences when making their way around the wine world.
Accompanying buyer Chris Hardy around the Languedoc, Vicky Burt, assistant manager of Majestic Nottingham, offers an eloquent take on the way the characteristics of the region’s wines are intrinsically linked to the land on which the vineyards grow.
While taking an off-road tour of the vineyards of Domaine Haut-Lirou just before sunset, Burt noted: “It was easy to see (and smell) why so many wines made around the Languedoc have those characteristic notes of ‘garrigue’. The land was calcareous, dry and stony: soil that obviously challenges the vines, so that they are forced to form deep roots and produce fruit with an amazing concentration of flavours.
“The air was overflowing with aromas of thyme, lavender, sage and rosemary, notes that somehow manifest themselves in the finished wines, making them the ultimate expression of terroir.”
Ahead of BBR’s offer of 2009 Burgundy next month, members of the merchant’s fine wine team visited the region, accompanied by Jasper Morris MW.
Tasting 450 wines in four and a half days could have been tough work for the team, but the quality of the vintage was, they report, so high that they found hardly any duds among them.
“We tasted, as always, some extraordinary premiers and grands crus,” wrote Joss Fowler. “Though this is almost invariably the case year on year.
“What most impressed me in the 2009s reds, though, was the quality of the village wines and even the generic Bourgogne Rouges – this is the level that I will be buying at this year (if there is enough stock…).”
Rob McIntosh, offers a varied selection of textual and multimedia content ranging from restaurant and bar experiences to tastings and reviews.
He recently attended a tasting of Spanish high street wines in an effort to gauge the current performance of the category, based on a tasting of 60 Spanish wines selected by buyers from the UK’s 10 main supermarket and high street retailers.
He notes with interest that of the 60, 23 were from Rioja – almost 40% – while a further 10% came from the small region of Campo de Borja.
Stars included a white wine from Marks & Spencer – the 2009 Val do Salnes Albariño (£10.99) – but overall McIntosh comes across as being somewhat underwhelmed by the offering, without being critical of the category.
The remarkable thing about the Wine Sleuth (real name Denise Medrano), as db can testify, is that she seems to be everywhere! No sooner have you read her latest blog from the US than she is reaching for the same bottle as you at a London tasting.
Naturally, having read her latest post from Uruguay we fully expect her to be tweeting from Vinopolis by the time you read this.
While in the South American country, she met up with Reinaldo DeLucca, winemaker at his eponymous winery. She recounts the “incredulous looks and much shaking of heads” she received in Argentina and the UK when she told people she was visiting Uruguay.
“Needless to say, I was full of trepidation when I boarded the ferry for the short 50 minute ride across the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay from Buenos Aires,” she wrote. “What would I find? Would there even be wineries? Would the wine be drinkable even?"
Tasting DeLucca’s wines in a bizarre-sounding restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Medrano praises his move to grow the marsanne grape, which is not particularly well known outside its French homeland.
After enjoying a drop of DeLucca’s Marsanne/Roussane blend, she notes: “Dry and full bodied with a floral nose and a dried fruit finish, it was a unique wine. Reinaldo believes that you should adapt the vineyard to the grape and he seems to be getting the Uruguayan terroir to work with the Marsanne.
“Reinaldo doesn’t use pesticides or insecticides and allows his vineyards to be overrun by the natural vegetation. The vegetation providing a haven for natural predators as well as giving the vines competition for water so they don’t become too vigorous. He also has his vines trained not in the typical lyre style that is quite prevalent but in the rather a single guyot style. He thinks the lyre trained vines become too vigorous which he wants to avoid.”
Goode’s diary-like entries often involve a fair element of thought and insight, rather than simply saying what he sees.
Recently Goode found himself at Casa del Bosque in Chile’s Casablanca Valley when the discussion turned to the subject of whether New World wineries should specialise.
He takes Casa del Bosque as an example. The winery makes “excellent Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah and good Pinot Noir” he notes, before adding: “But they also make a large range of reds from warmer climate regions, where they buy the grapes in. In comparison with the Sauvignon and Syrah, these are quite ordinary. So why don’t they just specialise on their special talents?
“The answer the export manager and general manager gave was that the all-important export markets want a Chilean producer to provide a full range of varieties. They don’t want two Chilean agencies, but one producer who can meet all their Chilean needs.
“And the reason there aren’t more smaller, specialist high-end wineries is because people expect Chile to deliver value for money, not fine wine. And the Chilean market can’t support small high-end producers.
“Yet without small specialist wineries, Chile will struggle to convince the world it is capable of greatness. It’s frustrating for the growing band of talented, ambitious, informed young winemakers who could do great things.”
Alan Lodge, 03.12.2010