Tuesday, July 15 2008
Wined Up, Up, and Away!
Hard to believe they're all from the same species
It's been a busy week at Chaos Manor, what with gardening season in full swing, berries coming ripe and needing to be made into jam, the annual cardoon harvest, and barbecues and get-togethers with chums. Barely a moment to wind the cat and put out the alarm clock!
But, there's always time for a glass of wine, especially if it's pink, like the Chateau Le Gravette Rosé 2007 on the extreme left. Floral, with a hint of orchid/vanilla running into fresh berries with a deeper hint of cooked strawberries it was crisp, fruity and absolute dynamite with hummus, pita, saganaki, dolmades and all the trimmin's.
The Layer Cake Shiraz 2006 beside it was the inside-out of a Rosé. It's from the Barossa valley, in the same stretch that grapes for the famous Grange Hermitage come from--wine that sells for $300+/bottle! Fortunately this one was a little less dear than that, but it was absolutely packed with flavour. Classic Shiraz blueberry/blackberry fruit, dense as lead tannins that weren't biting or savage, just very muscular and a finish of coffee/cocoa and hints of tobacco. Yet it wasn't clumsy or heavy, just dreamy. I'd buy this one again in a heartbeat, and serve it with a fat juicy steak.
Shoulder to shoulder with it is the 2004 Terra Alta Viños Piñol Portal. From Catalunya in Spain, it's a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Tempranillo. I couldn't find out much about the wine, but my clumsy translation of the back-label provided lots of amusement reading about fruit-bombs and such. We had it with grilled marinated pork and it's a wonderful food wine, with scads of black cherry, licorice, blackberry and a spicy finish. Great value for just over twenty bucks.
Next is the Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio, the first bottle of wine I ever bought on a date. It was at the advice of the restaurateur, who described it as, 'Inna bottle, shape-a like a pretty woman!'. His Chico Marx accent aside, the advice was good and the wine as ever is fresh, crisp and tasty. The nose is slightly floral, but subdued, making it an instant success with a wide range of food. In this case it was shrimp tacos and completely delicious.
Beside it, looking a bit beat-up is a bottle of Viña Tarapaca Merlot Gran Reserva, from Chile's Maipo Valley. You read it right, it's a 1994, a lovely guest-gift from my friend David. The wine was both fascinating and challenging, and not at all what you'd expect from a more modern example of Chilean Merlot, most of which are strongly fruit-driven and very cleanly made, almost sterile and a little one-dimensional. Not so this bottle: it opened up with a bit of funk, and when that blew off it had a decidedly unusual note of sur-maturite, aromas and flavours from extended ageing in contact with sediments. It was meaty, chewy, quite dense and rich and while the tannins were soft as butter, the acidity was quite brazing, giving more structure than expected. It was only just slightly past its prime, but drinking really well, but the strongest impression it gave was of the old-school, wines made with a little funk, a little edge and a devil-may-care attitude to microbiology. Definitely the most interesting wine I've had in a long time.
Next to it is a bottle of Finca Luzon from the Jumilla region in Spain, a blend of Monastrell, Syrah, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Monastrell is also called Mourvedre and Mataro, depending on where it's grown. The mix together was pretty intense with lots of fruit: dark cherry blackberry and Cranberries (it's a Monastrell thing), slightly bulky structure but balanced tannin and a pleasantly fruity finish. Good with confit of duck.
Next up is a bottle of Alsatian Pfaffenheim Riesling. I adore the Alsatian wine philosophy: lashing great fruit flavour, intense floral aromas, dry and minerally structure and tingling crisp finish. Man, what's not to love? Had it with grilled filet of sockeye salmon (in season and fresh!) and it was fabulous.
Finally, a token non-wine contestant. It's a bottle of pressé, a kind of fancy-pants French sodey-pop. Much less sweet than regular soda, it was flavoured with limeflowers and lime juice, and was pleasantly soft and had a creamy carbonation. It was so refreshing I almost forgot to add Gin to it.
Off to the jute-mill again--there's always more good wine to drink, and somebody's got to do it.
| Posted by Tim AT 10:30PM | 0 Comments |  |
Post A Comment |  |
 |