News and Views

The Loire Valley wine Fair 2007

2007-02-22T13:51:00.000Z

Once again that time of the year has come around when I start making visits to various wine fairs.
First up was the annual fair for the Loire Valley wines, held as usual in Angers on the 5th, 6th & 7th February.
This year I took a friend along for the ride who happens to be a rather good chef. The reason for doing this was to improve my understanding of what good chefs are looking for when they select wines for their menus.
Small wine merchants like me tend to have certain styles of wines which we stock, it's much easier to sell wines that we admire!
Anyway after two days of strenuous tasting we both came to the conclusion that the 2005 white wines had really benefited from the year in the bottle, still showing lots of fruit, good acidity and sufficient alcohol giving some lovely well balanced wines.
The 2006 whites we tasted, were mostly tank samples, the wines not being bottled until April or May. I do believe that 2006 will prove to be one of the best vintages in a very long time.
There was wonderful fruit maturity and ripeness, great acidity and because of the lovely long hot summer, with rain at just the right moments and more sunshine during the harvest, the alcohol levels were a little higher than in other years. Perfect!!
As for the red wines, the 2005 vintage is really showing well now and I know that there will be some new wines of this year on my list, which ones, I will keep you all in suspense until they arrive. I can truly say that if I were going to buy wines to lay down then I would seriously consider 2006 for both red and white. The 2003 vintage was the best year for the red wines in a long time but dire for the whites, where as I think that the 2006 vintage will be stunning for both.
My friend was equally impressed and was looking forward to seeing some of the wines that we tasted on his list.

The Zone of Indifference.

2006-07-20T16:43:00.000+01:00

Further inspired by Hugh Macleod's idea of selling by "market disruption" (see gapingvoid.com for his words of wisdom and wonderful pithy cartoons) the following will be published this weekend in the Guernsey Press as a further provocative, hopefully thought-provoking ad for Cavalier Wines.
This really is one of my pet hates. The phrase was originally coined by a very good friend of mine who has worked in the wine trade for longer than he cares to remember. What is it and where is to be found? It is alive and well at your local restaurant or hotel, the one you go to occasionally where they have not changed the winelist since your first visit...
Mind you, it is not entirely their fault. The so-called wine merchant is also to blame. The Wine List has become a sacred tablet, wrapped up in a fake leather wallet and filled with too many wines, half of which they haven't got. When it has the supplier's name emblazoned on it, it's a good bet they haven't changed it since the flood.
I have only ever been to a handful of restaurants in my long working life that proudly change the wine list on a regular basis because they are as interested in wine as they are in food. Don?t let's forget that most restaurants make more money on the wine than they do on the food.
I know so many restaurants where The List is a meaningless bunch of names and vintages that should have gone out with ark. How much better a list of 12 well chosen wines with a simple description and the actual vintages they have in stock! Oh, by the way any Ros� more than 18 months old shouldn't be there in the first place.

Life's too short to drink lousy wine.

2006-07-20T16:25:00.000+01:00

I am sure this is a sentiment that we can all agree on. My main concern at the moment is that we are being given less and less choice because of the power of the supermarkets and their use of large branded wines, especially those from the southern hemisphere.
OK, these winesare safe and won't make a fool of you, but to me they all taste much the same. They have good fruit, soft and easy tannins and not much else, except a very attractive price.
I think drinking wine should be an inviting experience, whereby the drinker feels that to try something different is fun and rewarding.
There are so many really exciting and wonderful wines that are made from obscure and long abused grapes just waiting to be discovered. Every year I go to France ,Italy and Spain and I am constantly amazed at the variety and extraordinary quality of these wines. Yes they will cost a little more, but oh what joy. Anyway, is not the spice of life it's untold variety?
Published in the Guernsey Press 8th July 2006.

New Euro wine plan misses the mark again.

2006-07-20T15:55:00.000+01:00

In the face of a new plan to reduce the glut in the European wine market, the EU is about to embark on a new round of subsidies to encourage farmers to uproot vineyards. Once again they're missing the mark.
There's agolden rule nobody wants to pay too much attention to: if you produce too many grapes on your vines, you're going to make at best, forgettable wines. A vine can only concentrate so much flavour into its fruit: spread that amongst 5 kilos of grapes and you can make wine with no obvious defects, but not much going for it. Make enough of it and sell it cheap enough and in the UK market you've probably got a winner. But what happens if you concentrate that same flavour into just one kilo
of grapes.
Unfortunately for wine legislation the world over, no region is prepared to bite the bullet and limit per acre production to a level that would do any good. Only a few small producers have got the message. Often they're in areas that you've never heard of, or thought just made plonk.
I've spent most of the last ten years seeking these small producers out. The wines usually cost a little more, but that's hardly surprising since they're probably only producing a fifth of the grapes their mass market competitors are. With wine, just like anything else, you get what you pay for.
I published this in the Guernsey Press on 1st July 2006.

What is 'over production'?

2006-07-02T11:50:00.000+01:00

When I started in the wine trade my boss asked me one day to imagine a vine with ten kilos of grapes on it, I replied that it is quite difficult to imagine what that would look like. He replied ok, change kilos for bottles!!!
He then went on to explain that if you reduce the quantity of grapes each vine produces, by judicious pruning and then by carefully managing the leaf growth, a winemaker will produce a more highly concentrated fruit and if he or she is any good they will then be able to produce a half way decent wine.
My point here is that this simple act if carried out on a much, much bigger scale than it is now through out Europe, it would go a long way to solving the problem of over production of diluted and bad wine.
I know that this sounds simplistic, at the moment as the system stands throughout Europe the AOC?s, DOC?s and DO?s etc actually encourage producers to do the opposite, by quantifying the amount that they can produce (maximums). This whole exercise in control is another way to protect the bad producers from going out of business, so very French.
Like many others I believe that the whole system in Europe needs completely freeing up, let the market place decide that which is worth buying!
I also agree with those that say that the label on the front of the bottle should tell one exactly what is in the bottle, I am very happy to know who has made it and where they are in the world but it should not be yet another device for protecting bad wine makers hiding behind stupid labels.
So to sum up, the wine industry in the now ever expanding EU has to go out and buy a whole shed full of pruning implements and then concentrate its efforts on encouraging its producers to go for less but more really good wine.

Alimentaria, Barcelona March 2006

2006-05-22T17:52:00.000+01:00

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Why have I chosen this title for my visit to one of Spain's premier wine fairs?
Lets begin with the Good. Generally speaking most of the wines on offer were of the 2004 and 2005 vintages, younger wines and some early semi crianzas, less time in oak. At the moment my thoughts are that 2005 will win out over 2004, especially in the white wines. I tasted some really outstanding Verdejo from Rueda, glorious white Granache from Priorat and wonderful fruity, fresh Macabeo from Alicante.
Now for the Bad and the Ugly. Most of these were from the 2003 vintage and as you know this was one of the hottest summers on record. A few years ago a very good friend of mine, one of Italy's leading young wine makers said to me
" 95% of what you do in the vineyard will make very good wine and the 5% in the cellar will make great wine". His point was that not enough vineyard owners / growers understand enough about the vines that they are working with especially in times of great "stress".
Well 2003 proved his point, because those that managed the vines' canopy well (the leaves) were ahead of the game. As the grapes ripened so quickly, in most places the harvest was three weeks ahead of time, the flesh was wonderfully ripe but the skins and pips were not. As a consequence you had some wonderful aromas and some really bad and ugly green tannins in the mouth. Now by the time you have done your best as a wine maker in these circumstances you will have either produced a great wine or a shocker and I am sorry to say there were more of the latter. The wine aging process in Spain, that is making Crianza, one year in oak and another in the bottle brings us nicely round to why there were so many 2003's on show.
To conclude, I did find some great wines and I hope you do as well.

The Loire Valley Wine Fair, Angers

2006-03-13T14:53:00.000Z

Better late than never, I am posting some info about my annual visit to the wine fair at Angers.
My first impression having arrived at 2.30pm on the first day was 'hell there is nobody here, perhaps people really are bored with French wine', or maybe it`s only zealous idiots like me that go every year to see if we can find a wine that truly inspires us!!
Anyway my second call afternoon that was truly inspirational and set the bench mark for the rest of the visit.
Jacques Salle who is the master behind 'Silice & Compagnie, is that rare phenomenon in the Loire, who vinifies everything in wood, whether you like it or not. Very very good wood. Oh what a glorious wine is his 'Silice de Quincy 2003' if I should be lucky enough to be able to buy just a small quantity of this wine I wonder if any of you out there will have the nerve to say 'to hell with the expense, I will go for it.' I promise you will not regret the decision. Truly delicious, mouthwatering sauvignon, with ripe fruit concentration all in beautiful balance and harmony with the wood!!!
There were other producers whose white wines were very good, you will find them on the web site, as most of the whites were a decent notch better than the 2004`s. Not so for the reds, the Pinot and Gamay were a little dilute for my taste, no fruit concentration, although I did find a really well made 'Cot' which I will be buying.
So to sum up and shut up, whites better than 2004 more acidity etc, reds, well not enough sunshine and or not good enough wine making skills. Bye for now.

Getting Started

2005-12-06T14:59:00.000Z

Welcome one and all to my new web site, I very much hope that you will contribute to this section in the hopes of providing me with some fun and for you as well.
Please feel free to vent your ire on any subject to do with wine, praise would be good as well and last but not least any good jokes.
I will be updating this section as often as I can with news about vineyard visits and wine fairs etc.
In the meantime may I take this opportunity to wish you all a safe and merry festive season.

First View

2005-12-06T11:45:00.000Z

"Views" of course was intended as opinions... but what better way to start than with the red soils of the Balcona vineyard in southern Spain. The high altitude here in Bullas, some 60 miles inland of Alicante, gives this otherwise hot area very cool nights, making for excellent ripening and keeping the wines fresh.