Three '06 North Island Chardys

It seems very appropriate that my first real post from the deep dark south features three North Island wines (yes, I am being sarcastic). Chardonnay in this country is coming along in leaps and bounds and our top wines are moving (stylistically and qualitatively) toward the Burgundian model; nevertheless they are still able to retain bright new-world fruit characteristics along sides the trademarks of great white burgundy: intelligent oak us, good acidity which means wines that will develop with age and moderate alcohol levels. All three of these wines achieve this and also express their regional and vineyard characteristics as well. So, from north to south – here goes.

Kumeu River ‘Estate’ Chardonnay 2006
Kumeu, Auckland
This wine is truly elegant, amazingly drinkable now but packs enough crunchy acidity to go the long hall – five years easy and possibly even ten in perfect conditions. It has a creamy rich palate with notes of hazelnut praline, ripe lemons and a hint of white peach fruit with fine minerality showing itself after being open a few days. Clean and precise – it would be excellent with super fresh seafood (I believe it would complement the richness of scallops extremely well) and has the acidity to cut through a cream sauce but the texture to complement it.
E

Craggy Range ‘Gimblett Gravels’ Chardonnay 2006
Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay
This wine is super rich and wide and luscious across the palate without being flabby. Driven by notes of coffee, chocolate, fennel seed and oak (without being overly oaky) it is earthy and intense and shows the iron rich soils of the Gimblett Gravels very well as well as nice ripe stone fruit notes and punchy acidity – especially toward the finish. This is a wine that could handle some heavier protein – lean pork, lamb or even beef; but I would avoid too much richness – pork belly or a cream or butter driven sauce may be lost.
E

Escarpment Chardonnay 2006
Martinborough
This is Escarpments first Chardonnay (previously the Chardonnay was being blended with Pinot Blanc) and this has all the hallmarks of Larry McKenna. It is earthy and dirty and intense with oak that performs the ‘coat hanger affect’ perfectly. It frames the rest of the wine and turns it into a truly memorable experience – while all three wines are excellent, this is far and away my favorite. It is warm and nutty and after a while develops nice caramel notes. Texturally it is truly seamless and complete with each element in the wine hitting the right note. It is exciting stuff and I hope I get to try its big brother – the new 2006 Kupe Chardonnay.
E

Back online...

Well, partially. Am updating from Riverstone Kitchen - my new workplace and temporarily my new home. The restaurant is lovely and the food is amazing - almost everything comes off the garden right next to the farm and almost everything else (aside from the obvious - salt, spices...) come off farms in the immediate area. It is so exciting to be down here and everyone is so lovely - the customers are much, much nicer than in the city and my bosses and co-workers are amazing. Do stop in if you are careening down State Highway 1 just before Oamaru, you won't be disappointed - I certainly haven't. It is also very close to a new winegrowing area, the Waitaki Valley - and the wines I have tried have certainly been something. I tried an 06 Ostler Pinot Gris last night from the area - spicy, rich pears and lovely luscious textre.

I have also been featured in an article on Wine Blogging in New Zealand in the Herald - its a good article and I suggest you read it. It's just a shame they didn’t include my web address so unfortunately it hasn't got more people reading the blog. Oh, well.

Megan is coming down again tomorrow night and I really can't wait to see her and Remy again. Will update again soon, hopefully with some more wines and things.

Attack of the Carmenere...

A couple of weeks ago I got sent four bottles of Carmenere from Gold Medal Wines, a distributer here in New Zealand who specializes in Chilean wine and thus Carmenere. While I had tried a couple before in isolation it was an extremely rewarding experience to taste them more or less together - I did taste the wines in isolation but tasted all four over the course of about a week - as I believe it gave me a much better knowledge of the grape. Rather than try to write a generic tasting note (as I just tried to) of what to expect from the grape please read through the four reviews as I think they all give a good feeling of what to expect from the grape.

I have reviewed them in the order I tasted them and have tried to avoid cross referencing for the most part. All four were very good wines and all represented excellent value for money. I was very impressed with the first and last wine (both cheapest and most expensive respectively) for different reasons but found the middle two a little over-made and ambitious with a lot of oak treatment and with tannin and fruit to match but without the finesse and 'breed' (as Coates would call it) to make them fine wines in the true sense and capable of playing at the top level (and also to be seriously age worthy). I will stress the point though that they are intensely pleasurable consumer wines and are wonderful value.

In retrospect I think that it is the terrior that separated the Misiones De Rengo 'Cuvee' from the Cono Sur 'Reserva' & the Viu Manent 'Secreto'; while they were very different stylistically I really do think the winemakers were doing what they thought to be the best for the fruit and because the Cono Sur 'Reserva' & the Viu Manent 'Secreto' are so similar this has to be because of geography. I would like to try a few more wines at different price points but the difference between the two from Colchagua Valley and the final wine from the Rapel Valley is undeniable - the Rapel is probably more suited to the production of fine wines.

I tasted the wines over the course of a week with and without food and in each case came back to the wine a day or two later for a second or third taste.

2006 Concha y Toro 'Casillero del Diablo' Reserva (NZ$18)
Chile
Soft and supple and almost merlot-esque but with more spice. Juicy (and relatively sweet - not cloying though) blackcurrant and blackberry fruit dominate with just a hint of bramble and leaf - overlaid onto this were notes of chocolate, subtle licorice spice and savory meaty notes and over time, a hint of green capsicum that really gave the wine lift. Texturally the wine has a velvety, milk chocolate softness but with a bit of tannic structure. The thing I cannot reiterate enough was the soft, supple, smoothness of the wine - it was like exploring the body of a beautifully proportioned Greek goddess. Often the word 'smooth' is synonymous with 'nothingness'. The all too frequent customer request "I want a smooth wine" means, more often than not, 'I want a wine with no flavour or texture so I can just get on with drinking it'. This wine is smooth in a Barry White kinda way - and is probably one of the most infinitely drinkable wines I have come across in a good while. Surprisingly I have just came back to a bottle I had in the cupboard for over a week with less than a glass in it and gave it a go. It is much more ferral and herbaceous but it is no less delicious.
E (Value for Money)

2006 Viu Manent 'Secreto' (NZ$25)
Colchagua Valley, Chile
Crazily enough, this wine smelt of spaghetti bolognese with motes of tomato, meatyness, herbaceousness and a slight parmigiano sharpness mingling all into one. On the palate, it just blasts you away with a one-two of bright, dense black fruit and tannic grip. Oak is present giving the wine weight and a bit of vanilla sweetness without being overpowering; the wine also has a very noticeable green, herbaceous and capsicum note that I found to be a little too much. Texturally it had a bitter-sweet chocolate texture sans the creamy richness of cocoa butter - on the whole the wine gave me the impression that it was simply too young and needed some time to mellow and develop at the moment, to me anyway, it was a bit brash.
VG

2006 Cono Sur 'Reserva' Carmenere (NZ$23)
Colchagua Valley, Chile
To me, this was a very ambitious wine; and if the last one was too big for me this was way too big. Lotsa fruit, lotsa oak and lotsa tannin. Lotsa lotsa. That said, if you like big, bright, knock-your-socks-off wines you will love it - Megan was a big fan. Very much in the Carmenere theme as were the other two with round blackcurrant, blackberry fruit with just a hint of Black Dorris Plum - while intensely structured and firm, the tannins were still smooth and supple and a rich chocolate note was pervasive (rich, dark, sexy chocolate) as was oaky vanilla, clove spice and a refreshing eucalyptus and minty green note. I believe the wine does not have 'bones' as it were to really develop with age but will hold up and soften for a few years to come. VG

2005 Misiones De Rengo 'Cuvee' Carmenere (NZ$35)
Rapel Valley, Chile
Wow! This wine was really in a class of its own. Class being the word. It is probably one of the best value $35 wines I have ever tasted. It had enough forward fruit intensity to be unashamedly new world but this was balanced by good acidity, a balanced but steady oak regime and was no doubt helped along by a fair wack (20%) of Cabernet Sauvignon adding texture, structure and the aforementioned acidity. It was classy. Black currant, blackberry and a hint of red currant dominated the fruit spectrum with notes of savoury game, bittersweet chocolate, coffee and a hint of dry earth were all present but the difference between this and the other wines was astounding - all of the previous three really gave it up and were very forward. This was really quite backward and really forced me to do a lot of the work - this is almost always a very rewarding job and why I love wine. I mean it is immensely drinkable now but will last and develop for at least 5 years if not 10. It is a truly world class wine and one that I will seek out in the future. E

Anyway, as I said in my last post, we are off for the South Island tomorrow and I don't quite know when I will get the chance to blog again (but I promise I will). So please keep checking back and I will be updating twitter as often as possible so there will always be something new to read.

Goodbye Wellington...

We have abandoned our house and are camping out at Megan's brothers flat (played with his iPhone - uber cool) and are flying out just after midday. Excited and scared and sad and elated all at once.

"Until we meet again some sunny day!"

Rising food costs and wine...

Basic food costs are rising, and by a significant amount more than inflation. It's happening in New Zealand; it's happening in America; it's happening, more or less, everywhere.

It's changing the way we eat and it's starting to change the way we drink. Why is this happening? Two reasons - demand and increasing costs of production.

When demand for scarce goods increases so do prices - I think one of the main reason prices of items like dairy (particularly butter and chesses) and grain (and thus bread) are expected to fall slightly in the coming months is that less people can afford them (or as much of them) anymore. This is pretty simple. So how does this affect wine? Well it could go one of two ways - the first is that demand for wine could go down altogether, less people with less money to spend on extras like wine could mean sales in wine across the board drop. But I don't think this is the case - why? Well it's the lower and middle classes that are being hit the hardest. The upper -middle and upper classes will still have the money to drink upper-middle and upper class wine.

But what about people at the bottom. With food (and rent) prices increasing the items that can be cut from the weekly budget become fewer and fewer and wine will be the first thing to go. There will be less demand for inexpensive wine precisely because those who buy inexpensive wine now are those that are being hit the hardest by price increases. And as I said earlier as demand goes down, so does the price.

And then there is the cost of production. Cheap wine is getting more expensive to produce - fertilizers, harvesting tools and transport are all getting more expensive because oil is getting more expensive. The price of labour is more or less stable with inflation. So we may reach a point where it becomes uneconomic to produce inexpensive wine - at least the way we currently do. And then you realize that the land that cheaper wines are being made on is also relatively suitable for other crops and as demand for these increases there is more of an incentive to rip low quality, high yield vineyards in favour of other agricultural crops.

And because the price of labour probably wont increase at the same rate as industrial inputs there will come a tipping point where it will become economic to move from machinery and chemical driven production to labour driven production - first to organic and then to biodynamic. Any sane producer will start to make this move now so by the time the financial pressure of the costs of traditional farming are really hitting home they have cut these costs and are able to continue functioning rather than going bust. There is also another incentive - these wines also tend to be higher value products (and this applies to other agricultural goods as well).

This applies to consumers as well - start getting used to not being able to consume as much as you currently consume of certain products - bread, dairy, meat and eventually corn based products (like fast and convenience foods). You will find that when you do cut down on these (especially the fast and convenience foods) you will have more money left over at the end of the week. Here is an idea: buy an organic chicken. This may seem crazy but it really works - break down a whole chicken and you get quite a lot of meat - actually more so than paying the inflated price for white meat from factory farmed franken-chickens. And you get the bones to make a stock to flavour a vegetable soup or risotto and because it tastes better you don't have to eat as much to feel satisfied. Consuming less is such a vicious circle. Cooking from scratch may take more time but it sure costs a hell of a lot less and you will also find that buying organic and locally produced food is often cheaper than buying mass produced produce from a supermarket. And like the chicken - it tastes better. Try a local farmers market or an organic store that sources its produce locally. Rant over, back to the wine!

So, how does all this affect wine?

Well, I truly believe that wines at the lower end of the market will become less economic to produce but will probably not die out entirely as there will always be places where affordable wine can be produced for a number of reasons. But these wines will also be from places that are far away meaning the cost of transport will force the price up significantly. But if you are already producing mid-range wines without heavy dependence on fertilizers et al it may be possible to produce these wines for only a little bit more than what they were previously being produced for.

And it also may affect how wine is made - there will be less of a dependence on oak because of the cost of shipping; or local cooperage industries will grow to meet a demand for affordable barrels. Likewise we may move from bottles to other containers for everything other than wines that are seriously age worthy. This may in turn make some lower end wine more affordable.

If all of the above happens wine, for the majority of us, could no longer be an everyday drink. Which is unfortunate. It will be a beverage of celebration only but I do think we will be drinking better. As less expensive wine becomes more expensive there is more incentive to trade up and get a higher quality product for only a marginal increase in price. It's just a thought.

Two interventions...

About to watch Mondovino again which got me to thinking about MOX or Micro-oxygenation which then got me thinking about the use of staves and oak chips because I believe the practices go (or at least should) hand in hand. Why? Read on, but first a disclaimer: Now to be clear, this is completely opinion and if you are a wine maker or simply anyone that has more knowledge than me chip in in the comments section. It is from a consumer point of view and to be clear I think both practices have a place in the industry. Chur to the chur.

But where is their place? Well for me anyway, it is in more affordable wines. Under the NZ$20 mark - wines that are made to drink young and are by and large juicy, rich, new world (or new world styled) and red. While I don't drink a lot of these wines, when I do - usually a a BBQ with friends - I enjoy them. At their best they are delicious, rambunctious, generous wines that are truly a pleasure to drink. At their worst the are a bit too sweet but by and large still pretty drinkable - they are designed this way. They can be good but they will never be great.

Why? Well the difference between fermenting a wine in barrel (for this example a new barrel) and in tank with staves or chips is the barrel. While it adds tannin and flavour like the staves or chips it allows a slow, even exchange of oxygen into the barrel softening the tannin it adds naturally. Without MOX the wine in tank would simply be too coarse - this is very much the case for most chardonnay that is fermented with staves or chips and where, to MOX, might destroy the colour of the wine and hence it is avoided. But if you MOX the wine it becomes softer, juicier and while the flavour of the wood are evident they are no longer coarse. This is perfect for cheaper reds - it enables them to taste rich without the price. It's not dishonest and it gives the consumer what they want at a price that makes drinking wine an everyday, normal thing. Which is a good thing for the industry as a whole because only then will the average Joe take the step up to the next tier of wines.

But it's not suitable for anything more than that. I have talked to numerous winemakers on the subject including Corey Hall who now makes wines under his own Gem label but was formerly head winemaker at Matua Valley. He acknowleges that MOX is a useful tool but stated that it wrecks the structure of a wine. I think this is because the oxygenation is too fast (hence brown chardonnay) and the wines are rarely candidates for aging. This is not so much of a problem for wines you want to drink young but when you are spending a little bit of money on a wine and want it to age - lets face it, lower quality, less expensive wines often taste better young that are more expensive and, put quite frankly, better.

Often a wine of this sort may be excessively oaky to begin with - the last wine I reviewed, the Escarpment Kupe 03, definitely was the last time I tried it but has since really come into its own with more age. Would it ever have done this if it had been MOXed? And it may well have been, I simply don't know. And I believe the case is stronger for Syrah and Bordeaux blends because they are inherently more tannic. Why would a winemaker settle for good when thier wine could be great - one day. Well - unless they already have a serious following 'wines that will be great - one day' are usually pretty hard to sell. Which is a shame.

A catchup...

Haven't blogged in two weeks which is kinda naughty but oh well. Haven't really tasted anything that has screamed out to me which is unfortunate. Only really 12 working days left till we are off which seems pretty crazy to me - if you haven't yet check out the new blog. Now Megan is back she should be updating it as well. As you may also have noticed I have a twitter box on the two blogs. My new addiction is probably another reason why I haven't blogged as much while Megan and Remy have been away.

I have some delicious looking Carmenere from Gold Medal Wines to taste in the next few days. Will be very interesting to try the four wines together - four different producers, at different price points, over several regions and a couple vintages should give me a much, much better understanding of what the Chilean Carmenere tastes like.

In other news Saturday was Megan's Birthday and I tried some Botter Prosecco which was lovely and great value. A friend also brought over a 05 Saint Clair Sauvignon Blanc which was very kooky - super zesty/grassy/herby but with butterey asparagras and green pea notes. I have a bit of a bugbear against show wines at the mo (will post soon) but, and this will probably reveal me for the pretentious wine snob that I am, I HAVE NEVER TASTED A SAINT CLAIR SB BEFORE (I have tasted some of their other wines and been, by and large, impressed) and had largely written them off as uber-commercial show wines (lets just put it this way - they don't not win awards) that wouldn't be my cup of tea. But I was wrong, this was a excellent wine, full of character. I really want to try some of their single vineyard wines now.

Will post properly soon but hope everyone is great!