The List: Wine
There is an oft touted theory with claret that the right
bank wines from Saint Emilion and Pomerol are softer and
more approachable in their youth than the serious minded,
cabernet sauvingnon-dominated left bank wines of Margaux,
Pauillac, et al. Whilst there might be some truth to this
generalisation, like most sweeping statements it is easily
contradicted... click here for more
Chateauneuf du Pape, with its thirteen permitted grape
varieties (for red wine, at least) may seem like a rather
strange appellation to modern drinkers brought up on more
prescriptive AOCs. After all, how can an appellation that
permits any proportion of grapes, ranging from the familiar
(syrah) to the obscure (terret noir), to be used in its
wines, be of any use in guaranteeing a level of quality and
consistency to the consumer...
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The 1855 classification system casts a long shadow over
Bordeaux. Despite being the subject of much criticism over
the past century or so, the system, and its various ‘grand
cru’ epithets, still maintain a hegemony, of sorts, with the
aristocratic cru classe chateaux lording it over the middle
class cru bourgeois and the plain old working class AOC
wines... click here for more
Saint Estephe would be forgiven for having something of
an inferiority complex; it is only separated from the great
Chateau Lafite Rothchild and Pauillac by a small stream, yet
it does not possess that appellation’s Premier Grand Cru,
having to make do with two mere second growths. And, no
matter how hard it tries, it has never caught the
imagination of the public in the same way as Margaux, or
even the upstart Pomerol...
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Like the duck billed platypus, d’Yquem occupies a
solitary position in a classification system; as the only
Premier Cru Superieur classed wine in the 1855
classification of Sauternes and Barsac, it is peerless in
both a strictly logical sense, and when compared, more
subjectively, to any of the world’s great sweet wines...
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German
wine: a potential minefield of obtuse but very specific
labels, oddly shaped bottles, unfashionable styles and
highly variable quality. Given these factors, one could be
forgiven for wondering why anyone would bother with it;
after all, isn’t it all cheap, thin, sickly - sweet table
wine designed for only the most unsophisticated of
palettes... click here for more
Chateau Margaux, one of the five Premier Grand Cru
clarets, is often cited as the ultimate demonstration of
what the Old World can offer: elegance, refinement,
breeding, and a full expression of the particular terroir of
the vineyard. Yet it has not always been this way; in the
1960s and 1970s, in particular, the estate was trading
heavily on past glories, and it was not until 1977 that a
change in ownership brought about the reversal in fortunes
that has led Margaux back to its exalted position as one of
the world’s greatest red wines...
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If
the study of wine were a core subject taught to secondary
school children, the examination of the region of Burgundy,
and its arcane appellation system, would no doubt illicit
the loudest chorus of groans from average pupils and cries
of delight from the more studious class members...
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The gentile world of fine wine can seem at times to be
far removed from the troubles and turmoil of the world at
large. The grand chateaux of Bordeaux may have survived
innumerable wars and even a revolution, but they have been
tranquil places for over half a century now, as have most,
if not all, of Europe’s wine regions. Spare a thought, then, for the Hochar family, owners of
Chateau Musar in the Lebanon, who have long been producing
unique wines of considerable class and elegance whilst civil
war has raged all around them... click
here for more
New World. Old World. Ostensibly, two diametrically
opposed viewpoints on how wine should taste, be produced and
even how it should be labelled. France, as the Captain of the Old World, emphasises, not
surprisingly, the importance of terroir – the individual
plots of land upon which grapes are grown – and the wine’s
pedigree and its ability to age into something graceful and
complex... click here for more
Sometimes being number one isn’t all that it is cracked
up to be; there is the constant need to defend your position
from others who are vying for the top slot, and eventually
the only way is down. There is little chance of this
happening formally in the world of Bordeaux crus, however,
where the cru classe system was determined in the middle of
the 19th century and has remained, with only a few
exceptions, rigidly adhered to since...
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It is, perhaps, an inevitable feature of modern society
that those who rebel in youth become, with sufficient age,
an integral part of the establishment against which they
once vehemently fought. Take the knighted Mick Jagger, for
example, or the trout fishery owning, sexagenarian, Roger
Daltrey, who once proclaimed ‘hope I die before I grow old.’ And so to Sassicaia,
a wine that, in a similar fashion, once led the Super
Tuscans into battle against Italy’s rigid DOC regulations...
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California, and the Napa Valley in particular, seem to
have become, in recent years, so closely associated with the
pinot noir grape variety that it is easy to forget that the
wine that won best red at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976,
and set in motion a revolution in the perception of US wine,
was actually a varietal Californian cabernet sauvignon. That wine was, of course, Stag’s Leap, and in the process
of winning the tasting, it triumphed over some of Bordeax’s
greatest crus classe... click here
for more
Champagne can have a strange effect on the average
consumer. The mere notion of a fancy label and a few bubbles
seems to be able to part a person from at least four or five
times the amount of cash that they would be willing to spend
on a ‘normal’ bottle of wine. This is, of course, primarily a consequence of the wine’s
longstanding association with luxury; an association which
the Champenois have cleverly cultivated for more than one
and a half centuries... click here
for more
Spain, like most Southern European countries has had its
share of decidedly mediocre wines. No doubt, the influx of
package tourists from the UK and Germany, who quaffed cheap
red wine by the bucket-load from the 1970s onwards, did
little to promote the cause of quality wine production in
the country. But ignore the cheap end of the market (as
we’re sure you already do), ignore the often disappointing
middle market (although, it must be said that there are a
few hidden gems there) and head towards the high ground. And
high ground doesn’t come much higher than Vega Sicilia’s Unico...
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