Bordeaux
A Video Interview with Edouard Moueix
Posted by: | CommentsLast week we were visited by Edouard Moueix from Bordeaux négociant house, J.P. Moueix. As well as owning some of the most illustrious properties on Bordeaux’s right bank – including Châteaux Petrus, Trotanoy and Magdelaine – the family-owned company produces numerous own-label blends and distributes wines from various Bordeaux châteaux. The Society has had the pleasure of working with Edouard and J.P. Moueix for a number of years.
Edouard is one of the most enthusiastic and engaging figures in Bordeaux wine, and so I enlisted the help of our trusty video camera to ask him about the company, the dramatic renovations at their recently acquired Saint-Emilion property, Château Belair Monange, and his interests outside wine.
I hope you enjoy the results, and should you wish to try some of his excellent wines, you can browse a selection at various price points below.
A selection of highlights from J.P. Moueix currently available from The Wine Society:
Christian Moueix, 2005, Bordeaux (£7.95 per bottle)
Moueix Côtes de Castillon, 2008 (£7.95 per bottle)
The Society’s St-Emilion, 2008 (£10.95 per bottle)
Château de la Commanderie, 2008, Lalande-de-Pomerol (£12.50 per bottle)
Château Certan Marzelle, 2005, Pomerol (£46 per bottle)
Château Hosanna, 2004, Pomerol (£60 per bottle)
A Good Week
Posted by: | CommentsI particularly enjoyed two member tastings in London last week.
First we displayed Pierre Mansour’s new range from New Zealand to a full house in RIBA. Particular highlights for me were the ranges from Hunter’s, Kumeu River and Prophet’s Rock.
I love Hunter’s food-friendly dry riesling, and our own Exhibition Marlborough Sauvignon which Jane Hunter supplies for is tasting particularly delicious. Pierre has done well to persuade the Brajkovich family of Kumeu River, chardonnay experts, to produce our own-label chardonnay too. Prophet’s Rock have made a pinot gris with real depth and flavour – the secret simply low yields, maturation on lees and later bottling. Their pinot noir is outstanding.
Steve Farrow being presented with the WSET's 'Gruppo Italiano Vini' Scholarship by Hugh Dupre and Jancis Robinson
The growers went on to a tasting in Harrogate. I went on to watch Steve Farrow, well known to members who visit The Cellar Showroom, receive his scholarship prize for passing his Wine & Spirits Education Trust Diploma with flying colours – a surprise for him, but not for us.
Later in the week, 100 members and guests were lucky enough to taste 10 vintages from 10 different châteaux from the commune of Margaux. As Charles Metcalfe pointed out, Margaux is a very diverse commune spread over quite a wide area with different soil types, and several of the classed growths have altered their vineyards since 1855. The château is just the brand name. It proved to be a vivid example, the diverse qualities, different years and properties. My notes are as follows:
Château Angludet, 2007:
Excellent healthy fruit and subtle palate. Good now.
Château du Tertre, 2006:
Particularly fragrant and delicious now, the property next to Château Angludet has a higher percentage of cabernet franc than other classed growths.
Château Durfort-Vivens, 2005:
A cabernet-based wine from a keeping vintage showing the bright vivid fruit, great perfume and length of flavour of the vintage, but still very young.
Château Kirwan, 2004:
Modern-style late-picked Margaux: generous flavour and enjoyable but less fine.
Château Rauzan-Segla, 2003:
A great vineyard in an exceptionally hot year, which burnt off some of the finesse. Spicy, rich, ready.
Château Giscours, 2002:
A vintage that needed time but the true Margaux fragrance grows in the glass. Lean, more old-fashioned Claret, but distinguished.
Château Prieuré-Lichine, 2001:
Full and generous and spicy. Excellent to drink now.
Château Ferrière, 2000:
A tiny vineyard but a superb, full, fine Claret. Delicious now but with a future too.
Château Palmer, 1996:
Not as rich and full as some recent Palmer vintages, but exuding class and quality.
Château Margaux, 1989:
Still a giant of real first-growth quality and many years ahead of it.
What a treat.
Sebastian Payne MW
Chief Buyer
Two of the very best: an inspirational day
Posted by: | CommentsTwo of the world’s great winemakers came to The Wine Society this week. Chief wine buyer Sebastian Payne MW reports on one very special day.
Paul Draper, CEO and winemaker at Ridge
Paul Draper came to Stevenage to talk to 60 eager members of Wine Society staff about Ridge, the remarkable Californian winery, high up on the San Andreas fault at Santa Cruz, whose reputation he has established over 40 years.
After Stanford he became a sort of undercover roving ambassador for Jack and Bobby Kennedy in South America. With his fluent Spanish he kept open lines with the USA by listening and talking to leaders of rival parties in several volatile countries. (It would be encouraging to feel the USA had a similar policy today in the Middle East.) At one stage, because of his beard, he was even mistaken for Che Guevara and nearly blown up. He then moved to Chile working for a foundation that was developing various agricultural projects including wine making.
The Ridge story began when he was invited by three brilliant Stanford friends who had bought the vineyard to help them by making the wine. He was convinced because he had seen the potential of old vintages of cabernet and chardonnay made in the 1930s pre-Prohibition.
Ridge’s international reputation was made when its Montebello vineyard wine outshone top Bordeaux wines in Steven Spurrier’s Judgment of Paris tasting in 1973. Paul’s philosophy is that wine is made in the vineyard and should express its origin above all, not to be created to a formula in the cellar. “If you haven’t tasted great wine, how can you make it?” Good bottles were his mentors. The enemy is ‘consensus’ wine-making.
Though his zinfandel-based wines are usually 14º, the level at which the grape becomes fully ripe, he abhors the high alcohol levels so commonly found in Californian wines and Montebello cabernets have similar levels to Bordeaux. The proof is in the wines which have been consistently the most complex and delicious to be made in the USA over the last 40 years.
Candour, integrity and passion
Jean-Philippe Delmas’ story is quite different. He was practically born in a vat of Haut-Brion, where his grandfather made the wine for the family till 1961, when his father Jean-Bernard took over. Jean-Philippe worked for ten years alongside his father until 2004, the first vintage for which he was solely responsible.
The quality of the 2004, set beside such great vintages as 2005, 2000, 1998 and 1990 was a revelation, making one realise that Château Haut-Brion, the most senior of Bordeaux’s first growths, is also possibly the greatest and most complex of all. Jean-Philippe modestly says that his grandfather and father had to contend not only with many cooler vintages but also much leaner resources. The fact that Haut-Brion made no money between 1935 and 1975 shows a long-term commitment from its owner, Clarence Dillon and his family, unusual in a banker! His challenge is that he has no excuse. All of us 240 members and guests privileged to be at Merchant Taylor’s Hall were, I believe, convinced by Jean-Philippe’s candour, integrity, passion and deep understanding of this great vineyard which was reflected in magnificent wine.
Oz Clarke recommends …
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Every year the inimitable Oz Clarke takes time out from his hectic schedule of projects, media appearances, wine region trips and tastings to work his way personally through thousands of wines sent to him by UK wine merchants. As ever, we are delighted to have several Society wines mentioned in the 2012 edition of Oz Clarke’s 250 Best Wines. Here are eight of our wines that found their way on to his palate and into his heart.
2010 Bordeaux Blanc, Château Bel Air Perponcher (Vignobles Despagne), Bordeaux, France, 12.5% abv The Wine Society, £8.50. At this price level, Bordeaux makes better whites than reds. In fact, it makes much better whites, especially in the hands of an expert like M. Despagne. This has a come-hither green apple and greengage flavour, just streaked with passionfruit and grapefruit, but the texture remains gentle while the flavours are unashamedly green.
2010 Garnacha, Calatayud, Cruz de Piedra (Bodega Virgen de la Sierra co-op), Aragón, Spain, 14% abv The Wine Society, £5.50 If anyone asks where to find the juiciest, chunkiest, most rip-roaring red wine mouthful in Europe, I tell them to look out for Garnacha from eastern Spain. This is a gorgeous drink, bubbling with red cherry and bright raspberry and strawberry fruit, scratched affectionately with wild herbs, rubbed solicitously with smooth, warm, hillside stones. Top glugging stuff.
2009 Shiraz-Viognier, Douglas Green, Western Cape, South Africa, 14% abv The Wine Society, £5.50 (NB we’re now on the 2010) I’m continually puzzled as to why we don’t see more examples of ripe, enjoyable, affordable reds from South Africa, so well done the Wine Society for sourcing this one, with its ripe blackberry and black plum fruit, its dab of exotic peach flesh, its trail of smoke and intriguing suggestion of orange scent.
2009 Tempranillo, Sabina, Navarra, Spain, 13% abv Booths, £5.25, The Wine Society, £4.95 (NB We’re now on the 2010) Navarra makes wines that stretch from the positively light and delicate to big brawny beasts. This is definitely towards the brawny end of the spectrum, but enjoyably so. It is a bit baked, but is balanced with attractive jammy dark fruit and a richness like Gale’s honey dribbled on to buttered toast. Bring on the casserole.
NV The Society’s Champagne Brut, Private Cuvée, Alfred Gratien, France, 12.5% abv The Wine Society, £26 I’m often asked who my favourite Champagne producer is, and if I had to average out the last 20 years, I might well put the small but perfectly formed house of Alfred Gratien at the top. They don’t make much, but they’ve had a long-standing agreement to make a special blend for the Wine Society, and year by year it delivers triumphantly. This is still young – you can age Alfred Gratien non-vintage for 5–10 years – but it has loads of class and character. The wine positively foams and has a warm, full flavour of baked Bramley apples wrapped in a richness of flaky butter croissants, crème fraîche and nut syrup. That may sound sweet, but it isn’t, and it’s all tied tightly together by the acidity of Bramley skins and twisted lemon zest.
Amontillado Maribel, Sánchez Romate, Spain, 19% abv?The Wine Society, £7.95 The quality of their Sherries alone would be an excellent reason to join the Wine Society. They regularly ship tiny amounts of thrilling old Sherries virtually drawn by hand from the barrels by their buying team. Last Christmas I tasted two simply stunning 40-year-old Sherries they had discovered – they only bottled 240 half bottles: such wine had never been sold before, it will never be sold again, but they’ll find something else just as good. This brilliant Amontillado is their regular stuff. It’s as classic an example as you’ll find anywhere – and it’s less than £8 a bottle. A gorgeous ‘childhood memories’ smell of buttered brazil caramels, the scent of old leather, dried-out figs and prunes, the ground dust of hazelnut shells and a strange, brilliant, bitter-edged syrupiness that has had all the sweetness sucked out of it by a Dyson Airblade.
The Society’s Fino, Sánchez Romate, Spain, 15% abv The Wine Society, £5.95 An excellent example of the Wine Society’s sherry – and simply outstanding value for money. Fino sherry is bone dry, but a little fuller than manzanilla, a little fatter, even, but it still has that marvellous tangy dryness which makes it such a good appetizer, that almost slightly sour green apple peel acidity and the strange soft-sourness of yeasty bread dough – rather like a malty mixed grain bread in the making. There’s also a taste of roasted almonds – and roasted almonds would be the perfect accompaniment.
Enjoying 2002 Bordeaux
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A far from carefree harvest; but has 2002 been given the respect it deserves?
As such, I confess I paid little attention to what was going on beyond the confines of the institution. The vineyards of Bordeaux were, by all accounts, not quite so happy places to be. Vignerons winced as their grapes endured some fairly atrocious weather before, as would occur later in 2007, an Indian summer ensured that good wine could be made.
I feel this vintage, particularly on the Left Bank, has had a comparatively bad rap and has been lost among the noise somewhat. Considering the quality of other vintages in the 2000s, not to mention the increasing cacophony of hype surrounding them, this is understandable up to a point. However, if you like your Claret to taste traditional – and I know that many members do – there are some rich pickings.
Now free of the 3 Bs diet and immersed in wine personally as well as professionally, I seem to have hit a purple (or claret) patch of 2002s recently; a combination of tastings, bottles proffered by friends and my own modest stash. Given their comparatively muted repute, they have been, at times, a revelation.
Château Grand Puy-Lacoste
Another pleasing facet of 2002 is that, in a region where price is such a talking point, the wines still represent rather good buys; and the cynical among you who might accuse me of trying to flog wines from a ‘duff’ vintage may be assuaged by the fact the above are, alas, not currently stocked by The Society!
For members who do want to get acquainted however, a half-bottle of Léoville-Barton (a format some readers may recall my fondness for) might be a good place to start. That said, we do recommend you wait until next year at the least before tucking into this bold and backward wine. For something showing off a little more now, the 2002 Château Batailley is approachable after a decant, and very tasty with it. Though these wines may not have the academic rigour of more ‘cerebral’ Claret vintages, baked beans they certainly are not, and I can’t recommend some of them enough. Any tips from readers would also be much appreciated…
Martin Brown
Digital Copywriter
Bordeaux Without Breaking the Bank
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Isn’t it funny that whenever any one mentions Bordeaux we all immediately think of First Growths and Grand Cru Classé wines, which only actually make up three to five percent of what Bordeaux produces?
For this set of events we decided that we would concentrate on those Bordeaux wines which we all most commonly drink (that is, on a day-to-day basis), rather than showing those beyond the normal budget of most mere mortals.
Joined by The Society’s wine buyer for Bordeaux, Joanna Locke MW, and Wine Tutor and expert on all things Bordeaux, Laura Clay, we set off on a voyage of Bordelaise discovery to Cardiff, Bristol and Birmingham.
We showed a range of wines, eighteen in total, with three whites, two of which were oaked to varying degrees, thirteen reds, and two sweet whites. Star appearances were made from the Côtes de Blaye and Bourg; Montagne-St.-Emilion; Castillon; Entre-Deux-Mers and Graves, whilst the there were many heated debates over the relative merits of Barsac vs St. Croix du Mont for the production of sweet wines.
Currently the CIVB (Le Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux or Bordeaux Wine Council) is promoting the idea of pairing wines from Bordeaux with food, so when we informed them of our plans for the latest Bordeaux tasting, they mentioned that if we provided some suitable nibbles they would cover part of the costs involved. Thus we found ourselves in The Parc Hotel in Cardiff trying to cube four kilos of cheddar and plate up a Biblical quantity of party nibbles in record time – a feat we quickly realised could not be achieved in any kind of record time. The following day, having learnt from our mistakes, a quick call (or perhaps more aptly a cry for help) was made to the Waitroses in Bristol and Birmingham who very kindly agreed to cut the cheeses up for us in advance. To the poor person working on the dairy counter on those particular days we offer our heartfelt thanks!
Valerie Bassereau from Château de la Grave
As a general rule (although I’m sure if we’d taken a straw-poll there would have been many members who would have vehemently disagreed), the merlot-dominated reds such as the Château Bourjaud 2007 worked really well with the ham and the milder of the two salamis; whilst the cabernet-dominated reds tended to be fabulous with the cheddars and roast beef. In the case of the whites, especially the two which had seen some oak, the goat’s cheese and smoked salmon nibbles went down very well – the Château de la Grave Grains Fins was especially good.
And finally onto the sweet wines – after all, I was always taught to try and save the best till last! The Society’s Exhibition Sauternes 2008 was as good as ever; we tried pairing it with a relatively mild and creamy Stilton and the combination of salt and sweet worked a treat.
To be fair, it was also stunning with the lemon tart, but as one member in Cardiff announced “The Château la Grave 2005 with the tart is a match made in heaven.” I tried it too (on all three nights just to be sure) and I have to say, I think he was absolutely right!
Click here to view all of the wines shown at these tastings.
Emma Howat
Tastings & Events Co-ordinator
Extreme Weather
Posted by: | CommentsThe weather in the mountains is always changeable, sometimes dangerously so. In two weeks in the Haute Savoie this summer we saw the extremes of 32.5C – the hottest we’ve known it – and well under 20C, as well as storms and torrential rain. On June 1st, more snow fell in 24 hours than on any single day last winter (it wasn’t a great season for snow here, and our local resort closed early, with April temperatures up to 28C).
The Loire, carrying only a third of its normal volume of water (photographed on a Society visit in July by Ben Chishick)
In the foothills, local vineyards fared far better, as this was not frost but far more benign snow, in a period of cooler weather which helped to slow down development which had been racing ahead following the unusually warm spring.
On a visit to the Loire in June, the normally majestic River was carrying only a third of its normal volume of water. Vignerons here were predicting harvest up to three weeks earlier than a normal year – though none could immediately remember when they last saw one of those!
Richard Mayson has not seen the prolonged heatwaves that persisted in his ‘cooler’ part of Portugal’s Alentejo last summer, and is expecting to pick around ten days earlier. On our Primeurs tasting trips to Bordeaux in April and May we had never seen such verdant vines, and the early fine weather had meant naturally healthier vineyards, with far fewer vineyard treatments necessary. Personnel were being asked to take their summer holidays earlier than usual, in expectation of an early harvest.
Since then in the Loire and Bordeaux, some welcome rain and cooler weather had slowed things up a bit. Then, on 2nd August, Bordeaux was apparently hit by ‘biblical rainstorms’, according to one of our suppliers, presumably alleviating the reported water stress in the vineyards. We are yet to hear of any negative impact, other than to those early holidaymakers.
It’s been a strange year so far, and, as always, the next few weeks will be critical. I’m off to the Loire again at the end of the month to get first impressions of the 2011 harvest, and to Bordeaux mid September. Fingers crossed for the all-important Indian summer.
And if the Mondeuse in the Savoie turns out as well as the 2010 we enjoyed this year, we may need to squeeze in fewer Wine Society cases on our next trip to the mountains.
Joanna Locke MW
Buyer for Bordeaux, Loire & Portugal
Edit: 25th August
I wanted to share a phrase from recent correspondence with one of our producers in the Loire updating us on the situation: All fun and games here as vineyards duck and weave to avoid the storms.
I shall be visiting Muscadet and Touraine next week so I will soon see for myself!
Forgotten Bottles That Hit The Spot
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Cellaring modestly-priced bottles can reap great rewards...
How best to tackle the tricky subject at home? Lucky for me – and I should know better! – admission of guilt came with unexpectedly delicious glasses of wine.
Unexpectedly because both had been stored, albeit in tip-top conditions, beyond their published drink dates, but also because both were modest wines.
With an excuse found to open a bottle of each within days, it was a relief and a pleasure to find just how good they still are.
The Society’s Exhibition Côtes du Rhône 2001 in magnum is fully mature, but silky and healthy; perhaps not an improvement on its recent past but nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable drink. Moreish and delicious was the conclusion on Château Pey La Tour Reserve 2003. We often refer to this admirable property as a model estate. Their 2003 provides the proof!
A combination of learning to love wine with French friends who drank good but simple, and lack of the sort of cash that allowed me to buy grand names, means I have had great pleasure over the years from cellaring inexpensive bottles. Choose carefully and you start to understand the potential pleasure and satisfaction in laying wines down.
But I would recommend that you follow the Society’s advice on drink dates, and do as I say not as I do!
Joanna Locke MW
How Green Is Wine?
Posted by: | CommentsNo, not those appetising tints in a perfect glass of riesling, but the now commonly used term for all that is environmentally responsible.
The endangered Cuivré des Marais butterfly found at Châteaux Latour and Caronne Sainte Gemme.
It is reassuring to hear, as I did this morning, from André Van Rensburg, winemaker at Vergelegen, that they are moving to lighter glass for their bottles. Often outspoken and always frank, André is one of the most stimulating of wine industry leaders I am lucky enough to meet. Vergelegen has been at the forefront of work steadily to eradicate virus problems from South Africa’s vineyards (the latest on which is that dogs are now being trained in early detection skills. Having met a surprisingly handsome poodle last weekend who represented the training of dogs to detect dangerously low sugar levels in severely diabetic children, I begin to wonder is there anything our canine friends are not capable of?!). But I digress…
On top of all this, the conservation work undertaken at Vergelegen, which has already earned them BWI (Biodiversity in Wine Initiative) Champion status, has not only boosted their ladybird population but returned no less than four adult male Cape Mountain leopard to the property (more on which to follow!).
Closer to home, on our Bordeaux ‘primeurs’ visit to Château Caronne Sainte Gemme, Sebastian Payne and I saw healthy, lush, green vineyards – with vegetation a good three weeks ahead of the norm after an exceptionally warm, dry early spring – and heard from owner François Nony about the “Cuivré des Marais” butterfly, an endangered native of the Médoc currently found only at Châteaux Latour and Caronne Ste Gemme, where the proximity to water and the pollution-free environment provide just the habitat it needs. The vines looked pretty comfortable too, and François’ impressive 2010 features in our Opening offer which is about to arrive through your door, or is available now on our website.
Joanna Locke MW
Bordeaux & South Africa Buyer
2010 Bordeaux: To buy or not to buy?
Posted by: | CommentsThe first of The Society’s two Bordeaux 2010 opening offers is now live on the website, and will be mailed shortly.
We, along with record numbers of the world’s Bordeaux buyers, embarked on this year’s primeur tastings with some trepidation. A second good, potentially great, vintage in a row, with the crop down by as much as 50% in some cases, meant prices might be high again. That has since proved to be the case, with many significantly higher than the earlier fêted 2009.
We were also led to believe that the tastings themselves would be more challenging than usual given reports of record tannin levels. Would the wines have the balance and appeal after such a successful 2009 campaign?
In the event, the best wines have it all. They are ripe and balanced, solidly structured and with all the elements for a long and rewarding future; and they are different in style from 2009. More importantly for us, there are delicious and exciting wines at all price levels.
So, yes, for the Bordeaux drinker, enthusiast, collector, this is a vintage to buy. The Society has, and negotiations have now started at home!
Joanna Locke MW
Bordeaux buyer
