Esne ebrius iterum?

New wine for old

2007-12-27T02:40:00.000-08:00

This blog has since moved here.

J is for Japan (2)

2005-04-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

One of the surprises on my recent trip to Japan (and there were many) was to have a copy of the Financial Times shoved under the door of my hotel room in Tokyo on a Saturday morning. As far as I could remember, I didn't ask for the FT nor do I recall having been given the choice. I have never been offered the FT in any hotel in Japan. It was always the Japan Times or the Yoimuri or more likely, the Nihon Kezai Shimbun in Japanese. So, a pleasant surprise.

The best bit about getting the FT on a Saturday anywhere in the world, let alone Japan, is of course Jancis Robinson's weekly wine column. JR is probably one of my favourite writers on wine - for an MW, she manages to maintain an engaging tone and she does not shove her opinions down anyone's wine glass - although she did call one particular vintage "execrable". In the column that week, an update on non-vintage champagne.

First the bad news, prices have gone up in the UK. I did my own check on this - just surfing the websites of the places where I used to buy my stock from last week and it is true that prices have gone up by a whopping 25-30% for the cheaper NV stuff like Canard-Duchene and Heidseck. Where one used to be able to buy these in bulk at about £10.99, they are now £14.99 or more. The big commercial brands which used to cost just north of £20 have also raised their prices by about 20%. London must be one of the most expensive places in the world to drink champagne - that's why I've decided not to live in London.

Next the no news - JR reckons that it is cheaper and better to buy NV champagne from small makers dotted around Rheims, Epernay and especially Ay. I could have told you that as well except most of us are highly unlikely to be triapsing down the M20 then onto the Chunnel rail link every other weekend in search of cheap fizz. Or are we? I don't speak French and I would not trust myself on these winding French roads.

Finally the good news, JR does a sidebar in which she lists her favourite cheap NV fizzies. It is very reassuring to know that she prefers the more rounded style of champagne preferred by the English. The French like their fizz a little livelier and slightly on the raw side. So the usual Anglicised suspects are all there including my favourites like Billecart Salmon, Louis Roederer, Laurent Perrier and Pol Roger. Remarkable absentees include Veuve Cliquot, Taittanger and Moet et Chandon. Rightly so. There were also a load of stuff which frankly I would not have a clue about or where to buy them from. Oh well, so much fizz and so little time.

One of the little surpises was also that she rated the Ruinart NV above the Billecart Salmon which I am very surprised at - I have only had the NV of the Ruinart once and didn't think much of it so this goes straight to my "to do" list. The only other bit of good news to report this week is that Carrefour in Singapore is selling the Laurent Perrier Rose for $88 (that's less than £30) so I'll throw out some files in my office and clear some space for my next purchase.

In the midst of all this, you must be wondering how low and how quickly we have sunk - extolling the virtues of NV fizz when scarcely a year ago, we were debating the relative merits of the 1995 vintage as compared with the 1996 vintage. None of which can raise a candle to the 1990, of course. Truth is that it is quite difficult to find good fizz in Singapore even if one were prepared to pay the premium and certainly storage conditions are highly suspect although fizz probably fares better then say a delicate Burgundy. So if you are flying out to see me, please stop by the BBR concession in Heathrow Terminal 3, say hello to my friend Gavin and bring me a bottle of Billecart 96.

It's life, Captain, but not as we know it.

J is for Japan

2005-03-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

The omens did not bode well for the trip to Kyoto and Tokyo last week - for although the drinks menu on the plane promised my much beloved Frescobaldi Nippozano 2000, they did not carry it and I had to make do with a glass of Charles Heidseck 1995 (or was it three?). The steward was rather embarrassed and gave us a bottle of some forgettable St. Estephe Cru Bourgeois to take off the plane (could have been the Chateau Segur de Cabanac 2002 but I forget) - as it turned out, it was the last alcohol I was to have for the next five days.

I was so parched by the time I got to Tokyo I was accepting beer, unknown Chilean white wine as well as 10 year old Macallan single malt in the course of the evening - don't ask.

That was Thursday and by Friday, things had taken a turn for the better. The evening began at the swish new faux Wall Street business district in Marunouchi and as chance would have it, the first two bars we walked into were full and we were compelled to take refuge at the newly opened Les Caves Taillevent. I chose a bottle of Jean Pabiot Pouilly Fume 2002 to start with while my new friend Mark G (not to be confused with my old friend Mark H) chose to start with a Jean Durup Chablis 2002.

I have long been a fan of Jean P's daughter Dominique who produces a very classic Loire Pouilly Fume from her own 20 hectares but the father certainly does not come off worse in comparison with a complex, fairly acidic, well-structured white (and I don't drink much white which is not sparkling) which manages to coax a sweetness from the lingering finish. Think mango, papaya and sweet pineapple floating on a mouthful of lemon and lime. Sublime, even. And yes - to the ladies who enquired, it was a Sauvignon Blanc. I think we succeeded in clearing the entire stock of JP's Pouilly Fume in Taillevent by the time we left that night.

Saturday night and I was persuaded to cook in Cara and Mark H's kitchen (see other blog) - but first a trip to Mark H's favourite Yamaya Wine Store in Akasaka where we left with among other things, a bottle each of Chateau Phelan Segur 1999 and Chateau Lefaurie Peyraguey 1996.

The Phelan Segur turned out not to be quite ready to drink and is unlikely to be for at least another two years by which time it should be an interesting proposition. Like a feisty young woman, it was a little too thin, a little too wild and a little unripe but should calm down and mellow if left pretty much alone for some time. So think not about what it is but rather what it could become. Well worth waiting for.

On the other hand, the Chateau Lefaurie Peyraguey 1996 was at the height of its powers - golden, honeyed with a touch of slight bitter woodiness which I think is the mark of a great Sauternes. It is such a shame that it is not considered to be in the same league as the Y'quem, Suideraut or the Rieussec but I have had the 1996 of the last two and I honestly do not think it any less than either of those. So at roughly 20 per cent. cheaper, this is excellent value.

And so the week ended pretty much as it had begun - with a couple of glasses of Charles Heidseck 1995 on the plane and still no sign of of the Frescobaldi Nippozano.

I is for Interlude(2)

2005-03-04T21:46:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year is not normally associated with drinking in the same way as perhaps Christmas might be - although that never stopped the local law enforcement agencies from turning out in the hope of snaring a drink driver or two. Well, quotas to upkeep and miles to patrol before the boys in blue can sleep.

So, the first bottle to be consumed in the new Chinese year was a 2002 Planeta Burdese. I am a big fan of this family-run winery from Sicily - their whites are extremely good and their basic red, the La Segreta Rosso, is probably one of the best wines you could buy for less than £8 in London. The Burdese is one of their higher-end wines based on a Bordeaux blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Cabernet Franc.

Frankly, it doesn't work. Too much leather and spice masking the fruit. Tannins a little too rough. Perhaps it needs a little more cellaring - after all, this has emerged from the oak less than two years ago. Perhaps the new French oak barrels were a little too raw or perhaps, the Sicilian summers were a little too hot for two cooler climate varietals. It might even be, perhaps, that I served it at a higher than optimum temperature.

The question which remains is why we should pay between two to three times more than their very good La Segreta Rosso for what is, let's admit this, yet another failed IGT experiment. Now there is hope for the Burdese as the plantings acclimatise to the hot summers and in the best case scenario could end up like the Mas de Daumas Gassac in the Languedoc which produces great wine probably two out of ten years from their Bordeaux blends although I suspect the summers in the South of France are still a touch cooler than the Sicilian ones.

Bottom line? I would stick with the local grape, in this case the Nero d'Avola, which is probably more resiliant and therefore more reliable. Not to mention better value for money.

Now for the good news. Which comes from a rather unexpected source. I don't drink white wine very often and I write about it even more infrequently. I don't like Cloudy Bay - I think it overpriced and oversold. However, when one stumbles across a Sauvignon Blanc from up the road in Marlborough which espouses all of the cardinal virtues (cheap cheap, good good, plenty plenty), it's worth a couple of paragraphs in a blog.

For years, my sole comment on Cloudy Bay has been - buy the Villa Maria Reserve Sauvignon Blanc at about a quarter of the price. It's from just up the road and more than half as good. Now I have something else to say - the Gravitas Sauvignon Blanc (not to be confused with the Australian Veritas) is probably even better than the Villa Maria and in Singapore at least even cheaper.

On the nose, it has more of a floral bouquet - the Villa Maria can be a little flat. It combines more citrus tones on the palate against, a little improbably, lower acidity and expresses a little more in the minerals department. Pricewise - in London, it costs about £15 against £10 for the Villa Maria Reserve but in Singapore, at case prices - it's $20 against $28.

Moral of the story this Chinese New Year? I fully agree with the sentiment that if you are going to destroy your liver, do it with good wine rather than cheap beer or nasty spirits. The only thing I would add is that price is not always a reliable indicator of quality. Chin chin!

I is for Interlude

2005-02-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

Now, I am not a slavish acolyte of Robert Parker (unlike most of the wine merchants in Singapore) nor am I in the habit the extolling the virtues of the highest rated (by Parker) bottle of wine in my wine fridge (which would be vulgar).

What I am though is a complete idiot when it comes to a bargain and I would only shop twice a year in London (Christmas and summer sales - there are friends of mine in London whom I see only at Selfridges during the sales), cut coupons from newspapers if I had the time and drive 10 miles to save 20 cents. You know what I mean.

What I like even more than a bargain is to buy something at what I thought was the normal price and then come home to find I’d bought a complete bargain. A few months ago, I went over to Enoch’s (see my earlier blog) and we had an excellent bottle of Kilikanoon Oracle Shiraz 2001 which I enjoyed and which was rated 95 points by Parker.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go in to work on a public holiday and bumped into a similarly unfortunate colleague. He told me one of the wine shops in the mall downstairs was having a relocation sale and while he had no space in his fridge, he thought I should go have a look. I did and bought a few bottles of Mclaren Vale cabernet sauvignon (as well as something else which I will mention later) at a small discount but spotted a single bottle of Kilikanoon Oracle Shiraz 2002 left on a shelf.

Now as you well know I am not a big fan of Australian Shiraz and if you believe James Halliday, 2002 in general was not as good a year for Australian wines compared with the previous year. Still the bottle was going at a 15% discount and you know me and bargain. Off the shelf it went and out came the credit card.

I was surfing the Net yesterday to have a quick look at something else I bought at the sale (a cheap Australian Shiraz from Brokenwood, not the Graveyard but the 2001 South Australian varietal blend - I know, I know, I don’t like Australian Shiraz but it was a sale and I was being stupid) before taking it with me to dinner.

Imagine when I read this about my other purchase:

“Equally profound is the 2001 Shiraz Oracle (95 points), one of the flagship wines of Kilikanoon. From low yielding 40-year-old vines, produced in open top fermenters, and aged 24 months in 50% new French oak casks, there are 1000 cases of this spectacular Shiraz. A dense purple color is accompanied by a sumptuous perfume of crème de cassis, blackberry liqueur, scorched earth, smoke, graphite, and espresso. There is tremendous density, remarkable full-bodied power, good underlying acidity, and a big, fleshy full-throttle finish with fine acidity as well as sweet tannin. While still young, it should age for 10-15 years. Amazingly, the 2002 Shiraz Oracle (96 points) is slightly better. Boasting extraordinary intensity to its graceful, blackberry, coffee and roasted meat characteristics, this unctuously-textured, seamlessly built, massive Shiraz possesses terrific purity, a multi-layered texture, and a long, heady finish. The alcohol, level must be between 14-15%. The tannin is covered by considerable glycerin, so this wine can be drunk now, and will keep for 12-16+ years.”

How do I feel about having 96 point wine in my fridge? Certainly it is a bit of a jump - I think I have a couple of 90 pointers which are the next highest rated wines in there, including a single bottle of Antinori Tignanello 2000. And I am quite sure the Oracle 2002 will not be the bottle of wine that I would most look forward to drinking - I can think of at least half a dozen bottles in there I would probably classify as “more eagerly awaited”.

Like the Michele Chiarlo Barbaresco 1997, the Masi Recioloto 1998, the Bricco dell’Ucellone 2002, the aforementioned Tignanello or even the half a dozen bottles of La Mora Barolo 1998 which I bought cheap and intend to age for a long time before drinking.

Still Parker is Parker and a 96 pointer is a 96 point wine, after all. At 15% discount, which works out at S$55 (about £18), I would buy a wine like that again and again. And again. Every day.

I is for Italy

2005-02-05T21:58:00.000-08:00

I have always been fascinated by the literal in Islamic art, architecture and design. The Koran says you cannot have an image of a living thing so you plaster the insides of your gilded domes with birds and beasts which do not exist in nature. In the same way, the Koran says there are four rivers flowing out of Paradise, one each of water, wine, milk and honey. So Islamic garden designers endow their gardens with four fountains to express this idea.

I know which fountain I want to drink out of.

Which is a rather tortured way of getting to the four “founts” of Italian winemaking. Piemonte in the North, Tuscany in the centre, Veneto in the East and well, bits of the South in, er, the South. But first, as they say in the Eucharistic Mass, a summary of the law.

Italian wine laws, like all Italian laws, do not make sense. The average European country has about 15,00 laws to carry the average European citizen from cradle to grave. Italy has 150,000 laws - because they don’t repeal any laws. Go figure.

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Italians thought it would be a good idea to copy the French wine laws. So they created the Denominazione di Origine Controllata or DOC classification which, surprise surprise, was based on the French AOC or Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée system. What the Italians did not realise was that the AOC system was designed to further protect the status and therefore the prices of the well-established system of viticulture in the walled chateaux of Bordeaux and the cloistered clos of Burgundy.

By way of historical comparison, when Colonel Palmer (as he then was) bought the Chateau d’Gasq in 1814, Italian winemaking was a bunch of peasants running around stomping on grapes. In 1855, when the canny growers in the Medoc pressed and succeeded in getting their wines classified into crus or growths, Italian winemaking was a bunch of peasants running around stomping on grapes. In 1930, when the French introduced their AOC system, you know the drill by now. Suffice it to say, that between 1930 and the late 1950’s when the Italians brought out their DOC, things had not changed very much.

The DOC system, like the AOC, is based on geography. In Italy, this had two profound consequences, if you mixed your grapes from outside your area, your wines could not be DOC. Perversely, wines from single small holdings were, by definition, DOC regardless of quality. The Italians quickly tried to address the latter problem by introducing an upper tier called the Denominazione di Origine Controllata et Garantita or DOCG which supposedly came with some guarantee of a certain degree of quality.

This still failed to address the first and somewhat more serious problem. By not complying with the DOC or DOCG rules, some of Italy’s best wines were relegated to Vina da Tavola or VDT status. So at the beginning of the 1970’s, in keeping with spirit of reconciliation evidenced by the Second Vatican Council, the Italians drew on their tax laws and came up with a fudge. They invented a new qualification called the Indicazione Geografica Tipica or IGT which roughly translates into “wine indicative of a typical region” and which roughly corresponds to France's Vin de Pays category. Fudge, fudge.

Finally, in 1992, the DOC and DOCG classifications were relaxed in an attempt to bring the Super Tuscans (see my earlier blog) which contained non-indigenous grape varieties (horrors) such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot within the fold of the upper tier. This has not been a resounding success. Just remember this simple axiom - DOCG is not a guarantee of quality.

Well, so much for the law (nay, but we uphold the law). I noticed I have not mentioned a single indigenous grape variety, nor a single producer much less a single vintage or the time I was bouncing off each of the fountains on the Via delle Quattro Fontana (but that’s another story).

Tough, you’ll just have to wait for the next update.

H is for Haut Brion

2005-01-22T01:26:00.000-08:00

On 10th April, 1663, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "to the Royal Oak Taverne...And here drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan, tha hath a good and most perticular taste that I never met with."

Now I have a somewhat tenuous association with Samuel Pepys and his diary. We were at the same college albeit at very different times. I think I might have thrown up outside the door to the Pepys Library but worst of all, I could have ruined the original diaries (a national treasure no less) by flooding the bathroom above the library had I not remembered in the nick of time and gone back to turn off the shower.

The wine which Pepys was referring to is of course the first growth Chateau Haut Brion and while one could only guess if the 1661 or 1662 vintage which Pepys had was any good, Haut Brion has a special place in my heart and my liver. You might find it hard to believe it was the first first growth I’ve ever tasted and it was less than five years ago. You never forget your first time.

This was sometime in early 2000. Not far from the site of the Royal Oak Taverne which was located in Lombard Street and served Londoners as a tavern until 1780, my least favourite American lawyer from my favourite American law firm invited me to dinner. I think the occasion was some partner or other visiting London. He ordered the most expensive wine on the list. I swirled, inhaled and gargled.

“1995”, I said as I swallowed. Jaws fell and cutlery clattered onto the table.

“You read the label!” my host declared.

I shook my head and it was true. I said no more on the subject. Everyone was dead impressed and I was not going to give myself away. I could do this for a living I thought and the rest, as they say, is history.

What I had not told anybody at that table was that I had the same wine at the same restaurant the day before with some recruitment agents who were trying to get some work from us. What the lawyers don’t know can’t hurt them and I will say this just one more time. You never forget your first time.

So I had two bottles of the ‘95 in consecutive days and too much of a good thing is wonderful. Parker gave it 96 points but what I like about it is the understated elegance of the wine. If that wine could speak, it would have been eloquent, well-spoken, seductive even. I had not gotten into the habit of wine notes in those days so you’ll just have to make do with Parker who says:

“This wine has been brilliant on every occasion I have tasted it. More accessible and forward than the 1996, it possesses a saturated ruby/purple color, as well as a beautiful, knock-out set of aromatics, consisting of black fruits, vanillin, spice, and wood-fire smoke. Multidimensional and rich, with layers of ripe fruit, and beautifully integrated tannin and acidity, this medium to full-bodied wine is a graceful, seamless, exceptional Haut-Brion that should drink surprisingly well young.”

I’ll just add one comment - has been known to be better than sex.

G is for Gnashing of Teeth

2005-01-20T06:18:00.000-08:00

It’s a well known fact that the mark up on wines in restaurants is, at the very least, stratospheric. When it gets a little higher than that, it usually leaves me a little short of breath. Not least from the expending of oxygen required for the fuming that accompanies the expense. I mean, how difficult can it be to open a bottle of wine and to pour it into a couple of glasses at the table?

A fortnight ago, we were at Cantina which does a very good pizza and I thought it would be nice to pick a bottle of wine to go with the food. So I popped into the cellar and chose a modest bottle of Sicilian red. I think it was a Abbazia Santa Anastasia Nero d’Avola 2002 but it could well have been a Azienda Agricola something or other of the same varietal and of the same vintage.

It is an intriguing wine that starts off opening into red fruits and spices before curling up again into smoky acidity. It must have been at least a good twenty minutes before opening up again into plummy sweetness and kept right on going up the saccharine scale at what seemed to be an alarming rate before finally flattening out.

Imagine my surprise and (I must admit) dismay when I discovered the same wine was retailing (yes, that’s right - retail) for Eur 5 in Italy and the rest of Europe (except the UK where it was going for £7). Don’t get me wrong - I really enjoyed the wine and I would probably drink more of it in the months and years to come. I just think my enjoyment was somewhat marred by the fact I paid S$65 for it.

Two nights before that, we went to one of the wine bars at Dempsey after dinner and had a bottle of CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva 1998. In keeping with the history of the place (it used to be an army camp), the owners kept up the barrack exterior and even left the toilet block in use although they did the inside up with wall to wall racks for the wine and comfortable rattan sofas to sit on.

The beauty of the place is that you pay retail prices and they slap on a small surcharge if you drink it there. So it was something like $60 and $10 which is pretty good given the retail price was about the same as London prices and the surcharge was certainly less than in any restaurant anywhere in the world. With the one possible exception of the old Tate Gallery in London.

Anyway, the wine was excellent. Concentrated, complex and surprisingly New World in its outlook with a fair bit of new leather in the nose. Much more fruit than should have been expected given the vintage. Opened nicely into a bit of herb, a bit of spice and a bit of cedar and sandalwood. Felt a little less acidic than what I would expect of the Tempranillo but good structure with plenty of mouth-coating glycerol which should do well with a couple more years of cellaring. Certainly wins my wine of the week award.

Rounding off the week, I took along a bottle of Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba 2000 to a little soiree on Saturday evening and not without some trepidation. The Pope may have declared the millennial year a Jubilee year and made the guys in Rome clean all the buildings and public statues but in the Piedmont, it just rained. So it was a pleasant surprise to find a wine that came with a good floral and strawberry nose, more red fruit in the mouth in what I can only describe as preserved fruit way.

Given the rain, it was no surprise the wine was a little lacking in concentration but while it was thin, it also tasted fairly old. It was pale and thin so if I had been the given the Rioja at the same time, would probably have mistaken this for the older wine. Still it was suave, sophisticated and a bit of a bargain at $34 from the Christmas sales.

Isn't it strange that you never get a sale at a restaurant?

C (still?) is for Comtesse

2005-01-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

After the heroics of Christmas Eve, I’d like to think the week following Christmas (apart from one evening’s lapse) was characterised by uncharacteristic restraint and moderation. Apart from that one evening’s lapse when I had to ask a friend to drive my car but that’s another story.

The reward for all this restraint and moderation was swift in appearing - a superb example of a second wine from a Super Second Growth estate (though the snobs amongst us might still say once a “tutu” always a “tutu”).

Now second wines from Bordeaux estates have had fairly mixed press for a long time and probably rightly so. Second wines, even those from First Growth estates, are made from grapes which for one reason or another cannot be put into the best wines. Often the reasons are fairly benign - if a winemaker is only going to put 30 per cent of the crop of Merlot grapes into the first wine, the rest of the Merlot is hardly going to be thrown away or even sold off.

Which means in the above case, the second wine may have a much higher percentage of a grape which may figure much less significantly in the fist wine. Then again, say a prolonged thunderstorm hits in the middle of the harvest, no prizes for guessing where the sodden fruit is going to end up. So, by and large, it is probably safe to assume that the first wine is not going to be reflective of what the second is like.

Back to the wine under discussion - the Reserve de la Comtesse 1997 is the second wine of Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande (to name it in its full glory). Of all the Second Growth estates, that have aspired to follow the elevation of Mouton Rothschild into the heady heights, Pichon Lalande probably has the best and most valid claim - hence the tag of a Super Second.

Now the bad news. 1997 was not a good year. It rained. In May and June which affected the flowering. It was so bad that Parker neglected to rate some of the classed growth wines that year. In all probability, he thought you should say nothing if you can’t say anything nice.

In spite of all this, I think the Reserve is rather good. It has managed to retain all the positive attributes of a Pichon Lalande - the smoothness and the subtlety which distinguishes it from the other top Paulliacs which I think have harsher tannins and more structural rigidity. It started off a little closed - opening up only after about a quarter of an hour in the decanter and continuing to do so in the glass. A surprising amount of fruit with mainly plum and blackcurrant accents plus a little bit of tobacco. Quite a bit of glycerol in the middle and a medium finish with a slight touch of spice at the end.

There was a rumour going round that when the Reserve was first presented, the experts thought that it was better than the first wine but of course they were not allowed to say that otherwise no one would pay double the price of the second for the first. Then the rumour gets more interesting in that the experts either thought or were told that the 97 Reserve would not last much beyond 2004 - which may be why Bibendum reduced prices to about £13 in London before Christmas and why Carrefour were selling them for just under S$50 in Singapore before the New Year.

I’m just happy ‘cos I still have five bottles.

C is for Christmas (and more Champagne)

2004-12-25T22:17:00.000-08:00

If you’ve ever wondered why people wish one another a “merry” Christmas or say this is the season to be jolly, you need look no further than the nearest empty bottle or wine glass. For the last few years in London, I have rarely been known to be sober between my birthday and Christmas. This year, I had hoped that things would be different and to a large extent, they have been.

Climate, the need to drive, the absence of the usual drinking partners and simply circumstances have cut deep into my drinking time but what I have given up in quantity I seem to have made up for in quality and variety. Having had a total of two beers and a vodka from Monday to Thursday, Christmas Eve dawned with the promise of a day of inebriation. And what a day it turned out to be.

For elevenses in the office, we started with a couple of bottles of Piper Heidseck Rose NV which were distinguished by their darker colour than you would expect in most Roses. Usually, this is a tell tale sign that a slug of Pinot has been added rather than a case of leaving the skins in. In this case (and if this was the case), the addition of whatever it was brought along a wealth of fruit flavours - predominantly raspberries - which would otherwise not have been there. Unexpected but not unwelcome.

We rounded off the traditional office drinks with a bottle of Laurent Perrier NV which was a little more biscuity and less floral than expected. The words “heat damage” spring to mind. Perhaps had something to do with the storage in the shop. Then it was off to a client’s Christmas party at a new boutique hotel in Chinatown (well, the fringes of Chinatown anyway).

I walked in an hour late and was handed flute of something - a sip and I take back all the recent good things I’ve said in a previous blog. It is the Moet, is it not? I said. It is, the waiter smiled. Take it away, I said. Certainly, sir - the waiter grimaced.

A trusty colleague came to my rescue with the first of many glasses of Chateau Palmer 1988. It was good but no cigar. The Palmer and a solitary double Corona (Dom Rep from Cuban seed) was my lunch although I managed a glass of Jean Leon of indeterminate vintage (but very good nonetheless) when the Palmer ran out. One for the road, so to speak.

Home and a snooze plus a snack later - I was off down the road armed with a bottle of Gallo Barelli Creek 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon for an all Californian tasting. I have always had my doubts about Gallo but to be fair this prejudice stems from my student days when all I could afford was their cheap and awful stuff. This was much better - blackcurrent, light oak, a touch of tar and tabacco but best of all, a hint of vanilla. Well worth rescuing the last couple of bottles from a bin end sale at Selfridges and at £9, only twice as expensive as the cheapest and most awful stuff Gallo could throw at you. We also had a Freemark Abbey 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon the same evening and this was a denser, more concentrated wine with a bit more sun, possibly better structure and a slightly longer finish which could do with a little more cellaring.

Nothing helps you sleep better than a glass of red wine (or eight) so I woke up refreshed on Christmas Day with nothing as much as a hint of a hangover. Three glasses from three different bottles of Laurent Perrier 1995 from the same case and shipment as my birthday bubbly (previously described and somewhat derided in an earlier blog) in the early afternoon - all were good if slightly less sweet than I know they can be but most refreshing. The same could not be said of the bottle of Hugel 2000 Alsace Riesling we opened towards the end of the party (for the road, you understand). Flat, sour and possessing few redeeming qualities - feed it to the Alsatians, I say.

Having promised to ferry my aged parents and relatives around yesterday evening, I was much more circumspect at Christmas dinner, limiting myself to two tiny tasting portions of dessert wine - an Australian Semillion and a ice Riesling from New Zealand. There was no way I was going to put myself through the possible trauma of being stopped at a road block and being breathalysed in front of my relatives. And failing.

F is for Frascati

2004-12-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

I promise I will not make any more bad jokes like these, really. In case you have not worked it out, I don’t really drink Frascati (or Evian for that matter).

About twelve years ago, there were lots of Japanese cartoons which featured cars which turned into robots, people who turned into robots and vice versa. Transformers and DeceptiCons - you get the idea. Well, Frascati is like one of these DeceptiCons of the wine world. A shade slightly darker than straw, it looks like it should taste like one of the oaked Chardonnays from the New World - honeyed, buttery and so on. Or as that weird woman from the BBC’s Food and Wine programme (not Oz Clarke, the other one) calls it “bosomy”.

Magari - if only Frascati were that. No, it taste like a mixture of vinegar, water and cat’s piss (not that I’ve tried the last but if I did, I would not have any problems recognising it - it would be just like Frascati) and nobody other than people who live around Rome ever tries to defend it and the reason for its existence.

My friend Anna who does live in Rome has tried to convince me that it tastes fresh (my milk cartons say that as well) and that served really cold, it makes a passable aperitif. No, apologies but it would take a lot more to convince me on that one - you are still my great friend and if we are to keep up the hitherto accurate claim that we have never shared a dud bottle then we must forgo the Frascati. Ego te absolvo.

I know if you were to think of Italian wines, you would hardly think of whites. It’s not what they serve in Italian restaurants and the Italians themselves seem to prefer to drink red wine with their seafood than risk the whites. However, and you will have to take my word for it - the Italian pinot grigios and chardonnays are by far the best value for money white wines (and surprisingly the most dependable) you could find on the wine list of a pub or wine bar in London unless you happen to like honeyed, buttery and bosomy white wines from the New World.

A word about the Chardonnays from the Veneto region - it is the same stuff that goes into the Prosecco, really and I believe I once heard a story (although I cannot be sure about this) that at Harry’s Bar in Venice, they make the original Bellinis from whizzed up white peach and dry, still Chardonnay which they then top up with the sparkling Prosecco. Be adventurous - go spend £4 (or S$28 in Singapore although there is a sale in a couple of weeks) on a bottle of Ruffino Libaio, a cheap and cheerful Chardonnay - see if you like it. What have you got to lose?

In some ways, it is a bit of a shame that Rome, which has great people, great food and great art, should have lousy wine but I read in Hugh Johnson’s excellent account of viticulture that the Romans (both ancient and modern) were to blame for this (and as you may recall from the excellent Life of Brian - what have the Romans done for us?) . You see, for the longest time, vines were grown, not staked and trained in the ground but up and on top of trees. Like olive trees.

Yep, you heard it right. Up and on - which meant that the vines could not be pruned and therefore improved. Yields were low historically and the quality poor - the winemakers got what juice they could and tried to make wine out of it. It’s not an encouraging story.

What hope I have in the region and its wine industry lies in the fact that not so long ago (say 50 years), Tuscany was in exactly the same situation. Chianti was what you tried to flog off to unsuspecting tourists (there is still some pretty dire wine in Tuscany). Then some money added to desperation as well as a stroke of luck led to the development of the Super Tuscan IGTs and the subsequent dragging up effect on the rest of the Chianti industry.

One can only hope that investment in new techniques and who knows, even new varietals would improve the wine around Rome. After all, I will always maintain my heart lies in Rome and the Eternal City will forever be my spiritual home.

Senatus et Populous Qua Romanus.

E is for Evian

2004-12-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

Just joking. This alphabet is actually dedicated to everyday drinking wines. Not that I drink wine every day any more but if it is not any special occasion but the still pleasant ritual of opening a bottle is called for, these days the bottle of choice would be a Chilean red. So E is also for Errazuriz.

Cheap Chilean wines tend to be dominated by the large agro producers and if you live in London, you will always find something for less than a fiver at your local off licence or in the supermarkets. Concho y Toro, Luis Felipe and other Spanish sounding names which will be a notch above the £2.99 supermarket own brand Cab Sauv and Chardonnays. Avoid them and go for the slightly more expensive (usually a few pence more) supermarket own brand “premium” wines.

For the longest time, the Maglieri vineyard in McLaren Vale used to supply Tesco’s finest South Australian Shiraz. It’s not a big vineyard so it must be the same grapes as the ones which won the Melbourne gold medal three years in a row and at about £4 less. I know they have stopped this for about a year now but a quick glance at the Tesco website (incidentally Tesco now sells wills and conveyancing kits online) shows that BRL (which owns Hardy’s) now does all their Australian wines and Berberana continues to do their Spanish stuff.

In Singapore, the situation tends to be a little different and given that tax on alcohol is by volume rather than ad valorem, the whole cost benefit analysis takes on a slightly unfamiliar complexion. The entry level Errazuriz Cab Sauv or Merlot usually retails for about S$28 dollars and the cheapest I have ever paid for it is about S$23 (about £7). One rung up the Chilean ladder, the cheapest I have ever paid for a bottle of Montes Alpha in Singapore is S$29 (about £9). So at that level, the availability at cost becomes the prime factor in determining what I buy and what I end up drinking. Montes Alpha every time if I can find it at that price.

As a general rule, I tend not to spend the extra $15 to get the Max Reserva range of the Errazuriz wines as I’ve usually found the money rarely guarantees anything other than increased oak. It’s a bit like putting Winnie the Pooh in a tiger suit and pretending he is really Tigger. If you look beyond the stripes and bounce in the American oak, there’s still a fat, lazy and slightly mournful wine with traces of hunny around the edges. I would much rather appreciate a budget Chilean wine for what it is - fruity, New World and cheap.

Italian wine making follows slightly different lines. There is a well-established even entrenched pecking order run along regional and varietal considerations which is not entirely bad. So in the Piedmont, the noble Nebbiolo grape is reserved for the Barolos and for everyday drinking, the Barberas from Asti and Alba are thought to be good enough - although given a chance, I would still think a top notch Bricco dell’Ucellone would knock the socks off a cheap Barolo.

In the same way, the best Sangiovese grapes go into the Brunellos while the Chianti wines are made from the poorer cousins. The best value wines from Tuscany are the so-called “failed Super Tuscan experiments” like the Frescobaldi Cabernet clones which get bulked up by surplus Sangiovese and turned into a generic wine marketed as Col di Sasso (vintage not important) and rather good value at $25-$29 in Singapore.

Up in the Veneto region, the everyday wine is the Valpolicella and I must admit I am not a big fan. Dried in racks though, the raisins produce the powerful and sublime Amarones and Recioltos for those special occasions and I find these wines travel a lot better as well. Not cheap nor easy to find in Singapore.

Carrefour is not my favourite place by any means but they do sell cheap wines by Singapore standards. The cheapest Penfolds, a Rawsons Retreat Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz - vintage not really relevant again, could go for as little as $18. Up one notch, the cheaper “bin numbers” such as 2, 389 and 18 have been offered at about $28 in recent months and are arguably more interesting than the Chileans at about the same price.

Other than the rest of the Australians at about the same price, Carrefour also sells mass market reds and whites from New Zealand, America and South Africa for slightly more and slightly less money. I have yet to find anything of value or of interest in these categories as yet.

The real value in Carrefour lies with the lesser known French wines which they vacuum up in bulk and send all over the world. Especially the poorer vintages. I have previously written about the Les Gondats du Marquis de Terme 2001 at $33 at a recent sale. In the same vein, you can get the Chateau de Mallaret 1999 at $35 which is about the same as in Paris and slightly less than in London. There are countless more cru bourgeois at these prices.

So be adventurous and drink lots of different wines at these prices. They're cheap. You'll only have a hangover to contend with - no hole in the pocket. Be brave but behave - and don't make any jokes about turning water into wine. I've done that in another blog already. So there.

D is for daffodils

2004-12-10T21:29:00.000-08:00

Words don’t have meanings, people have meanings and ascribe words to them. Chomsky was probably not trying to write an early version of the Wine Buyer’s Guide but the eternal problem of describing a taste has always been with us, stays with us and will be for ever more.

Not only do different people find and taste different things in the same wine - everyone will have different words to describe even similar tastes. I said damson, dandelions and daffodils to a colleague the other day and she stared at me as if I was writing a drop intro for a wine column in Swahili for the local paper in Botswana.

Not that it really matters as long as you enjoy the wine. The wine week started off on Wednesday with a small surprise. Rory, who was in town for a brief work visit, invited me to mini college reunion and while we were waiting for Ken to arrive from the airport, we decided to polish off the best part of a bottle of (what else) champagne. We decided to take our chances and asked with some trembling for “house”. As I might have feared, a bottle of Moet NV was produced - my fears, however, were unfounded. Slightly less brut than might have been expected (even a touch honeyed, perchance), it was perfectly chilled and went down very well. Merci, Rory.

On Thursday, the “discovery” of the evening was a relatively young Chilean red - a Casa Lapostelle 1999. A good scent of violets on the nose (I got another blank stare - if you say so, they said) and hints of cassis and red cherry on the palate. Best of all, it was pleasantly under-oaked. Now there’s a surprise given the current trend in that part of South America to add oak by any means and at any cost to the integrity of the wine.

Friday was my first Christmas party in the new job and my first as Chief Entertainment Officer. With Enoch as my deputy, expectation on the wines to be served were high but more so with my harebrained scheme to put a substantial chunk of the budget into the lucky draw. Still the Maxwell Chardonnay 1999 and Mount Riley Merlot 2001 were nothing if not good value, even if I say so myself. The greater bit of fun was actually buying wines for our personal account (while we there, we might as well save ourselves another trip).

While Enoch splurged, I had to content myself with some real bargains - Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba 2000, Pio Cesare Dolcetto d’Alba 2002 and Michele Chiarlo Barbaresco 1997 all at about S$40. That’s cheaper than London, Rome or New York. Anyway back to Friday, for the Nijikai (literally, second course in Japanese) I brought along a Chateau Prieurie Lichine 1997 which Enoch followed with a Majella Shiraz 1999 and to finish with, a Cos d’Estournel 1994.

The 97 Prieurie Lichine was always going to be a bit of a gamble given that it is the only one from 1994-2000 that Parker did not review and for good reason. Flat and frankly, listless - I’ve got a few more to get rid off. Any takers? The Cos d’Estournel 1994 was pretty much on the mark at its price - smooth and sophisticated but pricey. My personal favourite from the evening was the Majella even though I am not always partial to Shiraz in most forms. Strong fruit, round tannins and a medium finish - good value as well.

I could even have sworn there were daffodils in the nose.

C is for Champagne (naturally)

2004-12-04T23:17:00.000-08:00

There are lots of detractors out there who say that champagne without the fizz is just a poor white wine. Sour grapes, I say. Is curry without the spice boiled meat? Is a blue box without a white ribbon Tiffany's? Where is the comparison? It’s not even a case of apples and oranges (not that either fruit gets involved in any event) and leave Hattori Hanzo out of it. Completely.

The point about champagne is that it makes you slightly dizzy very quickly and you can drink quite a lot of it without falling over. My record still stands at 22 glasses or 4 bottles plus 2 glasses set at last year’s Linklaters annual party at Claridges. November 2003. I’m in no mood to break that record any time soon.

My first bottle of champagne was a vintage Dom Perignon from the mid-1980’s - I cannot remember the year but our favourite chef (then still at cooking school) had a barbecue by the beach and I was instructed to grab a bottle (any bottle) from her fridge. By the time we realised my mistake, the fizz had been poured into paper cups. C’est la eau de vie.

My next bottle was in some ways more memorable. I was writing freelance for a lifestyle magazine and was asked to preview a caviar festival. The chef asked me if I thought the oscetra would go with Krug and I had to say I’d never had the two together (actually, I’d not had either but I didn’t want to sound like the spotted youth that I was). He demanded a bottle be brought up for me immediately and I have been in love with that particular amber nectar ever since.

You might think things would have gone downhill since but that has certainly not been the case - thanks in large to David and Hallie (as well as their then four-year old daughter), I have learnt a few important lessons when it comes to the fizzy stuff. One, that price is not necessarily a guarantee of quality. Two, small bubbles good, big bubbles bad. Three, the best champagne are the ones that they keep for drinking locally.

In practical terms, this means that if prices are about the same, the lesser known stuff will always be better provided you know what you are buying. So take the Billecart-Salmon or the Pol Roger instead of the Veuve Cliquot and never, ever get Moet et Chandon. Exceptions to the rule (there always are a few) are the Laurent Perrier and I’ve always been partial to a flute of Bollinger (especially the RD).

Grapes. There are three - the Chardonnay, the Pinot Noir and the Pinot Meunier. Basic rule is that Chardonnay gives you flowers like primroses, violets and dandelions in the nose and a light citrus note on the palate. Pinot gives you butter cookies on the nose (remember Kjeldsens’ butter cookies in the blue tins?) and tastes like lightly toasted almond oatcakes with fizz (if you can imagine that). Unless you buy a Blanc de Blanc (in which case it’s pure Chardonnay) or a Blanc de Noir (when it will be pure Pinot), most champagnes will contain all three grapes in varying proportions.

The French have a saying - that there are no good wines or vintages just good bottles of wine from a vintage. This is more true of champagne compared with any other wine. Think of each bottle of champagne as a microbrewery in its own right. Each bottle has to be turned, sugar has to be added and finally, the plug of yeast sediment has to be disgorged. Mechanisation has made the process much more consistent and constant but this still produces greater variation than stuff simply tapped from a cask and bottled.

I’ve often been asked if sparkling wines which cannot be called champagne are any good. A few years ago, I would have said that between a £9 Mumm Cuvee Napa from California and a £14 supermarket own brand, save the £5 and buy some smoked salmon. In fact, I’ve had some Roederer Estate from Napa which smells like Crystal, tastes like Crystal, even feels like Crystal - and I paid $35 in a restaurant for it. Now, prices have bounced all over the place and I have paid as little as £13 for Laurent Perrier - also, the Tesco own brand stuff is very, very good at £12.

At the other end of the market, there simply isn’t anything you can compare with, say the latest of the greatest I have tasted, a Taittanger Comtes des Champagne 1996 (courtesy of the friendly London office of an American law firm). Past triumphs have included gems from Roederer and LP from the very, very, very good 1990 vintage (see earlier blog on birthday wines). You would not want to drink anything else.

B is also for Brunello

2004-12-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

There are two things everyone tell you about Brunello - that it comes from a hilltop town in Tuscany called Montalcino and secondly, that it takes an eternity to open up so let breathe an hour or two before even attempting to drink it.

More of the second later but first, another road trip story. Anth and I were sharing a flat when we first started work and in the summer of 1992, we were both feeling a little out of sorts so we decided to take ourselves to Italy for some sun, salami and signorinas. We flew into Pisa, got a train to Florence and then hired a car to drive around the hills near Siena.

Now I don’t know if you are aware but I used to be the worst driver in Europe and things got so hairy on the Strada Statiale between Siena and San Gimingano that I was ordered out of the driver’s seat at the next hilltop village. We left the Fiat Cinquecento halfway up the hill and set off on foot to the top of the hill to look for an espresso. When we got there, the only place which was open was a sleepy little enoteca - I cannot remember if we bought a bottle of water or were given some but in any event, we felt like we had to buy some wine so we lugged a couple of bottles of something il padrone recommended down the hill. Muttering all the while we had probably been fleeced - who would pay £10 for a bottle of local plonk? Thus we were introduced to the “monster” vintage of the Brunello di Montalcino 1990 (present value between £50 - £80 depending on the vineyard it comes from).

Since that happy accident (did I say accident? For the record, there was barely a scratch on the car and in any event, nobody saw what I’d done to the car except Anth) I’ve had many, many happy hours in the company of a few bottles of Brunello. One of the first drinking expeditions Anna and I undertook in Rome ended with an exquisite bottle of Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino 1997 at the aptly named Cul de Sac wine bar off the Piazza Pasquino. Then there were the three nights before Anth’s wedding when we polished off a bottle of Fattoria Barbi Brunello di Montalcino 1995 each night (in addition to the bottles of Mumm champagne which seemed to appear every evening as soon as the sun set). Happy days.

From a viticultural perspective, the grape which goes into the Brunello is merely a local variant (and not very different) of the sangiovese which goes into your bog standard Chianti. The word sangiovese comes from “sanguis” and “Jovis” which I guess approximates to the blood of Jupiter (the Catholics amongst the readers will not fail to notice the Tran-substantial connotations albeit in a pre-Christian context and to suggest that the blood of a Roman god could exist in bottled form might seem at the very least blasphemous - yum!).

The nose from after about an hour of aeration is not unlike a walk in the woods on a dewy morning - leaves, earth and a whiff of rotting wood. As the morning sun breaks through the mists, tiny flowers open and the scent of berries and fruits ripening on the trees in the orchards (principally apples and pears) are carried by the rising breeze. A first mouthful and here is the first sign if the wine has not had enough air - if it is sour, leave it in the glass for another 20 minutes.

The acidity is also the key to the complexity of the structure and the reason for its longevity in the bottle. Tar, tobacco, cedar and sandal wood are all present in varying quantities and perhaps the merest hint of vanilla - no two bottles ever seems to be the same. There is also fruit aplenty - thick, jammy stuff which will only come through with airing. The finish tends to directly proportional to the development tannins and it is here that perhaps I have always paid the price for taking my bottles out of the cellar (wine fridge actually) too early.

Regrets, sure I’ve had a few - as the Brunellos were something I encountered (relatively) in my youth and hence a wine discovered in poverty, I have always been cautious and bought the massed produced stuff first from financial constraints, then out of insecurity and now out of habit. Perhaps the time has come to revisit Tuscany and experiment. Any takers?

B is for birthdays

2004-12-03T21:36:00.000-08:00

The bad thing about having a birthday at the end of the year is always running a risk that one gets one present for both Christmas and the birthday. But as one gets older, good thing about having a birthday at the end of the year is that one could almost be a full year younger than everyone else. The view from the bottom of a wine glass is, as always, a little different.

I have two uncles who have birthdays very close to mine (one on the same day and the other the day before) and as each of them used to live with us for a time before they got married, we used to celebrate our birthdays together. When times were good, we would go to a cheap steak house and order vulcanised pieces of meat served with tinned peas and frozen chips with ice cream to follow (don’t get me wrong - those were some of my happiest childhood memories).

The real trouble always started when the waiter suggested some wine and as it was invariably a special occasion, we would always have a few glasses of the "promotional" wine which, sadly, due to the time of the year, would invariably turn out the be the very nouveau Beaujolais and of which I would be allowed a few sips. Not only has this experience, of half fermented juice mixed with leaves, twigs and trodden upon by the bare feet of French peasants, put me off the Gamay grape for life and for a good few years, I suffered under the inexplicable delusion that I didn’t actually like wine.

The rather more recent tradition of my birthday wines started about four years ago. Rather unexpectedly, I had found myself single again that year - David and Hallie were determined that I should not spend my birthday on my own and kindly took me along to a dinner they had been invited to. It was the night before Ritu sold her interest in our (then) favourite Indian restaurant north of Delhi and a full celebration was in full swing. Apart from the bizarre experience of being seated next to Mrs David Dimbleby and trying to eat tandoori crab without using fingers, a special birthday dessert was concocted for me, especially - one thirds each of kulfi, ras malai and fresh fruit with a sparkler on top. It was brilliant.

My one and only regret from that evening was that as I had to drive home (I was living in Maida Vale then), I had to limit myself to half a glass each of the Masi Amarone 95 (the Vaio Armaron not the cheaper Costasera) and the 91 Crystal. The very next year, I decided to make amends and for my birthday, I took the lovely Fiona to lunch at the same restaurant and afterwards, shared a bottle of the cheaper but most excellent Masi Amarone Costasera 1997 (what a year it was for Italian wines!) and followed that up with bottles of Roederer 90, Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle 90 and Billecart-Salmon 91. Last year, celebrations were split between London and Rome (grazie Anna) and we started with the much honeyed Laurent Perrier 95 in London and followed up with an exquisite Tignanello 99 in Rome.

This year, we started with three bottles of the Laurent Perrier 95 (one of which seemed to have travelled somewhat poorly) and went on to a Les Gondats Marquis du Terme 01, a Masi Amarone Costasera 99 before ending up with a Frescobaldi Nippozano 2000 (previously reviewed in the main blog). The Les Gondats was and remains remarkably good value with more fruit than one should expect from a second wine from a fourth growth Bordeaux estate. Reasonable finish and suppleness also makes this Margaux cheap, cheap, good, good and plenty, plenty value for money in a year which will not go down as a stellar year by any measure. The Amarone was described as “smelling of salted preserved vegetables” and really needs more time in my wine fridge so I’m looking forward to next year.

Next year, well - apart from the Amarone we could all look forward to, I had been given a bottle of Tignanello 2000 as a leaving present this summer and if the alignment of the stars are correct, we shall open that on the day (or evening, even). Only remains to be seen who amongst us all will be there to partake in the wine and I wouldn’t mind some vulcanised pieces of meat served with tinned peas and frozen chips with ice cream to follow either.

A is for Alsace

2004-12-02T06:07:00.000-08:00

You really cannot please all the people all of the time - no sooner had I decided to remove all traces of wine (stains included) from the other blog that I started receiving plaintive pinings for the return of the booze to those pages. No, the wine has not returned, instead it has been moved here in this darkened, cooled and humidity-controlled cellar construct within cyberspace.

As always, a word about the title - I have told this story so many times I cannot remember exactly what happened (the story gets better every time I tell it). On the night before my graduation, I staggered down the road past The Pickerel where I bumped into the incoming Attorney General and he asked after the general state of my well-being with the words “Are you drunk again?” I barely made it to the end of the road whereupon I met the outgoing Attorney General who also greeted me with the question “Are you drunk again?”

At that very moment, I realised two things - first, it was probably pointless to try to qualify as a lawyer in Singapore with the reputation (which, if it had not been entirely correct at the time of asking, has managed to acquire an increasing patina of veracity with each passing year) that I had managed to acquire in the space of two minutes and seconldy, that I was destined to write something - a story, a poem, a song, a blog even with The Question (in Latin) as its title.

So here we are.

Since last weekend, the only wine (note wine as opposed to any alcoholic refreshment) I’ve had was a bottle of Domaine Materne-Haegelin Riesling Bollenberg 2002 last night. Those of you who drink with me will know I rarely drink anything white unless it has bubbles in it but those of you (the few) who drink white wine with me will also know that my preferred whites are Pouilly Fume from the Loire, Pinot Grigio from the Veneto and Gewurztraminer from the Alsace (God, I hate the oaked Chardonnays they serve in London pubs).

In a slightly bizarre coincidence, my introduction to Alsace took place on yet another unscheduled pitstop on a road trip (see my later post on Brunello di Montalcino). I was on the autobahn enroute to the Italian Dolomites with family friends on a skiing holiday when the paterfamilias suddenly asked if they had ordered some wine from the guy in Alsace earlier that autumn - on being assured that they had, he decided to take a six hour detour to pick up the wine (it was four cases of Rolly Gassmann Gewurztraminer 1988) from Pierre himself so we would have enough to drink in our rented farmhouse in Belluno. It remains my preferred accompaniment to a seared slab of foie gras on a bed of caramelised apples flamed with calvados.

After an almost criminal absence of more than twelve years, I was recently (well, quite recently - last year) reacquainted with a Rolly Gassmann Gewurztraminer (1996 this time around) at a dinner at Somerset House - served with, yes you guessed it, the foie gras (pate, oh well).

Taking the region as a whole, my impression has always been a straight comparison between the big cooperatives like Trimbach and Hugel which make the mass produced slightly cheaper stuff versus the smaller but pricier producers like Sylvie Spielman and Rolly Gassman. A notable exception is Zind-Humbrecht which seems to produce volume at high prices. Grape varietals are similar to the German rieslings, muscats and pinot gris although the Alsace equivalents tends to towards the more aromatic and less sweet if a comparison has to be made.

Anyroads, back to the Materne-Haegelin Riesling last night - on the nose, it was easy - almost a breeze of zesty citrus and light spring flowers like daffodils and chrysanthemum (I bet you’ll never find the latter description in any tasting notes - so folks, you read it here first). None of the petrol fumes as my drinking companion feared although there is a reason why most Alsatian wines are known for their aromatics.

The bottle was too warm to begin with but iced for about ten minutes, it hardened perceptibly with the mineral slightly flinty undernotes coming through the disappearing acidity. It was a little light on structure although the citrus notes held well before the air did its job and flattened it just inside an hour and a bit.

Oh and by the way, I never did get round to requalifying as a lawyer in Singapore.