Red Blend from Bordeaux - Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classe

Reminding Emilio that non-Spanish wines do exist...

We dined at the old Merchant's Guild House (Schlüsselzunft) in the centre of Basel a couple of weeks ago. The streets were still and we just couldn't stop ourselves from comparing the unnerving Saturday night scene to Sao Paulo, or Zaragoza, or Hong Kong or in fact any other city we've been to where we detected a greater sign of life! At the restaurant, we ordered a bottle of red Bordeaux – a Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classe - Chateau de Ferrand, 2007, but only after I reminded my 'Saint Emilio' of the need to deviate away from his usual choices. 

Bordeaux, situated in the southwest of France, is naturally separated into two areas by the Gironde estuary and carries 57 appellations (AOCs or Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée). The "right bank" (west) of the estuary produces mostly Merlot blend while the warmer "left bank" (east) is extremely well known for their Cabernet Savignon. Saint-Émilion sub-region, located about 40km away from the centre of Bordeaux, is on the "right bank". 

Saint-Émilion has been producing wine since the Roman era and consists of the historic and picturesque village of Saint-Émilion (a UNESCO world heritage site) as well as 8 other nearby villages. Wines from this area are typically made from Merlot and Cabernet Franc grapes, grown from soil with varying mixtures of limestone, clay, sandy plains with alluvium and gravels. There are a number of appellations within this sub-region and in addition to this, a separate classification at work that labels the finer wines as "Grand Cru Classé" and the even higher quality wines as "Premier Grand Cru Classé A" and "Premier Grand Cru Classé B". There seem to be a lot of debate and drama going on regarding the classification system which is reviewed every 10 years and I am glad to see that I'm not the only one who finds it confusing. 

Anyhow, here you can find an interactive wine map of France and here, an appealingly colourful map of Bordeaux.   

A blend of Merlot (76%) 
 Cabernet Sauvignon (13%) 
Cabernet Franc (11%)

The wine we drank - Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classe by Chateau de Ferrand, 2007 (priced at CHF89/Euro73 at the restaurant) smelled of red berries. This translated to the taste, accompanied by a combine flavour of minerals, wood and smoke. We also discerned high tannin and  acidity which was followed by a decent finish. Chateau de Ferrand goes back to the 17^th century and is owned and managed by the family of Bich (founder of the Bic biro company) and Chandon Moet (Champagne house). The vineyards are planted with mostly Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Interestingly, the website for this Chateau is not only in French and English, but also Mandarin. 

Impromptu celebration with an Amarone and a Barolo

I could not argue with Emilio's rationale

Emilio decided that we needed to bring home a Barolo and an Amarone when we made a pit stop for some bread and lactose free milk at the neighborhood Coop a few weeks ago. He suddenly felt like celebrating our Saturday lunch;  his parents had arrived a few days before from Spain and we hadn't seen them for some time (c. 3 long weeks). I like both wines enormously and had no problem with this.

Amarone or its proper and longer name, Amarone della Valpolicella (DOCG), originates from the Valpolicella wine region located in Veneto in north Italy. It is made from older and riper grapes that have been especially dried in airing chambers and for this reason provides a higher concentration of sugar, alcohol and flavour. Similar to other types of Valpolicella wines, Amarone is typically made from a blend of local grapes which includes Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara. It takes twice as much grapes to make a given amount of Amarone so it  typically sells at a premium. Wine Folly in this cool note offers a description of Amarone within the context of Valpolicella wines and highlights that the "Valpolicella Ripasso" ("baby Amarone") could be a less expensive substitute as it is essentially "Valpolicella Classico" mixed with left over grape skins from making Amarone and thus provides additional body and flavour. Interesting! 

Wine from Barolo DOCG (like Babaresco DOCG - which I wrote about last month here), originates from the Piedmont region in the north west of Italy and is also made from the Nebbiolo grape which is difficult to cultivate. The Barolo wine region is 3x larger than that of Babaresco and consist of 11 municipalities in addition to Barolo (Castiglione Falletto, Cherasco, Diano d'Alba, Grinzane Cavour, La Morra, Monforte d'Alba, Novello, Roddi, Serralunga d'Alba and Verduno). The soils in these municipalities contain calcareous clay (made of calcium carbonate and high in chalk/limestone and fossilised shells) and sandstone but their age and combination vary, resulting in 2 overall grouped areas producing wine with distinct characteristics and strength. When compared to Babaresco however, Barolo taken broadly tends to be higher in tannin and heavier in weight because of the difference in maceration period (longer for Barolo), soil and climate (despite being only a few miles away - causing the grapes in Barolo to ripe later) and laws that require Barolo wine to be aged 3 years (vs. Babaresco's 2 years). 

Back home: we tasted the Amarone 2011 VigneAlte from Zeni (29.95 CHF c.25 Euro) and Barolo 2009 Sori Paradiso by Tenuta Cappallotto (32 CHF c.26 Euro) over a magnificent late and long (Spanish) lunch of roasted lamb - my mother in law's signature dish which everyone in the family loves. 

From the Amarone (the colour of pomegranate), we discerned dried fruits and a touch of butter. It was full bodied and provided a sweet long finish. The constituent grapes were Corvina (70%), Rodinella (20%) and Molinara (10%) and the wine was aged in old oak casks likely for 2 years. I'm just reading the fact sheet from the Zeni website and see that that the range is best enjoyed 5 years from when it was bottled. Haah..we drank it too early and should really know better by now! Even so, we all found the wine to be lip smackingly good.  Zeni winery has a long family history going back to the 1800s and is situated on the hill slopes along the eastern shore of Lake Garda. 

From the Barolo (light ruby in colour) we savoured red fruits, leather, licorice, spices and tobacco. As expected, it was full bodied* and possessed pronounced tannin. Tenuta Cappalloto is situated in the  Serralunga d'Alba and the soil from this area (like Castiglione Falletto and Monforte) contains sandstone clay. Wine produced from this area tend to be stronger, more intense and less fruity than those from the communes of Barolo (or Verduno, La Mora and Novello). The winery is owned by the Lanzavecchia family. 

After lunch (before Emilio and his padre had a chance to commence on their post lunch coma siesta), I conducted a survey of the Amarone vs. the Barolo. The former won with a score of 3:1.


* to me; Emilio claimed it to be medium-bodied

A really good red blend from Priorat DOCa

Sometimes, you just have to run away

No, I'm not entirely done with unpacking yet but life has to go on… 



Today, I’m going to talk about another Spanish wine that we repeatedly enjoyed with my in laws. It is called Mas d'en Compte 2009 (c.21 Euros) and hails from Priorat DOCa (Denominacion de Origen Calificada). 

Priorat (Priorato in Spanish and Priory in English) is a region in Catalonia, located in the north east of Spain (you can see a map of the wine regions in Spain here). Wine production started in the 12^th century by the monks and similar to the situation in France, became disrupted in the 19^th century when insects native to North American (phylloxera) travelled across the Atlantic and killed most of the grape vines. Widespread replanting started in 1950 and took off in the late 1970s/ 1980s and today, the region sits along Rioja and Ribera Del Duero as being a top quality wine appellation (reflected by its DOCa status which is the highest wine classification in Spain).  

Mountains surround Priorat and its ground is rocky: a mixture of black and red slates and quartz also known locally as “llicorella” (I found this write up useful when trying to imagine llicorella). The presence of the llicorella schist is an important factor for this region because it allows the vine to penetrate deep below the surface and retains water during the dry summer. Grenache and carignan/cariñena are the typical grapes planted in this region, usually blended with small quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

The bottles of Mas d'en Compte 2009 we tried really opened up after an hour and provided a complex flavour of black fruits, jam, oak and minerals. Deep ruby in colour, it was full bodied, high in tannin and provided a sweet long finish. The wine had been aged in French and American barrels for 14 months - a blend of grenache (50%), cariñena (45%) and cabernet sauvignon (5%) - of which, the cariñena were derived from a 60 year old vineyard.

2009 bottles (rated 96 Parker points) seem to be sold out everywhere we looked online. However, the 2011s are still available. We have not yet tried them but note that Parker had given it 93 points, suggesting yet another bottle with very good "Euro-Parker points ratio" (to use Emilio Rubio's term). The bodega Celler Cal Pla (website in Catalan only) was founded 200 years ago and has undergone 7 generations of grape growers.

Unpacking and more unpacking

Yikes, where do I start?

The c.20+ foot container housing all the contents from our home in Sao Paulo arrived last week. Things have been especially hectic around here since then. Luckily for me, my parents in law were around to whisk the kids out of potential harm’s way: burly men lifting and assembling heavy furniture, a dazed woman completely overwhelmed by boxes that were packed in haste…

Note worthily, we were allowed to bring into Switzerland 200 bottles of wine which would be free of import tax. Unfortunately, we only found out about it a few days before the packers came and by then, didn’t have sufficient time or energy to stock up. We bundled the 22 or so bottles stacked in the kitchen: A few of our favourite Spanish red that a friend kindly transported for us from Europe (after we saw that they cost about six times more in Sao Paulo!) and a number of decently priced Argentinian Malbecs that we had started enjoying. They include the likes of Rutini, Las Perdices, Nieto Cadus and Las Moras which I wrote about here. 

Hopefully, I will be able to talk about some of them in the posts to come. Also, a few yummy ones we've been sharing with my in laws these past days, that is, assuming that I can get some time to myself.

Red blend from the Franschhoek Valley in South Africa

I’ve spent a number of good holidays in South Africa. This is primarily because I like spending time with my twin sister, G and her husband, T. T is from Zim and has a lot of connections in SA and moreover, his late mother, Monica, whom I had a lot of affection for resided in Knysna, c.491km from Cape Town. A few years ago, Emilio agreed to my suggestion to jet off to Cape Town from Spain (where we celebrated Christmas and New Years) so we could spend some of our holidays with G&T, their kids and Monica. The weather that greeted us was perfect; a much needed respite from the cold bitter winds we experienced in Spain. We had a fantastic time in Cape Town and yonder, including a visit to Franschhoek valley to sample some fine wine and cuisine, supposedly to be the best in SA. 

  

Franschhoek (“French corner”) is a village situated some 80km east from Cape Town. Popular grapes in this region include Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz and Cabernet  Sauvignon. Wine producing started in the 17^th century, when French Protestants refugees (the Hugenots) settled on land provided by the Dutch and cultivated grapes in the surrounding mountain slopes. The scenery of this village is breathtaking and there are many enchanting wine farms offering tasting as well as fine dining. Watch this promotional video if you have 4.55 minutes and want to glimpse the picturesque village.

La Motte Wine Estate beguiled us in on a beautiful summers day. The winery was crowded and busy but we still managed to sample a good number of wines at leisure and browse in the lovely farm shop for wine paraphernalia. Afterwards, we sat relaxed on the loungers on the sunny lawn, discussing (rather tipsily) how beautiful the estate was and our haul: mostly red blends, which we then preferred to the SA's native Pinotage. The estate was bought by a South African industrialist called Dr Anton Rupert in 1970 and subsequently restored. It is now owned by his daughter Hanneli Rupert-Koegelenberg (a mezzo soprano in SA) and managed by her CEO husband.

  

Not surprisingly, La Motte 2008 Millenium is a bottle we opened a few weeks ago with a lot of happy memories. Fruity and spicy, it was medium bodied and provided a lingering finish. The blend of this wine varies depending on the year. For example, the vintage we drank consisted predominantly of Cabernet Franc (44%),  Malbec (11%) mixed with Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2011 bottle on the other hand, has mostly Merlot (60%) and Carbernet Franc (31%) and a residual a mix of Petit Verdot and Malbec. The different components were left to age separately for 15 months in French oak barrels before being blended. At only R84.00/ Euros 5.65, we both found the price:quality ratio more than reasonable. 

Agreeing to disagree - A Spanish red wine from Bierzo DO

Emilio had pointed to a car which he later told me was a Maserati

It's not often that Emilio and I disagree: On wine that is. For the most part, I tend to like the wines that Emilio favours. He takes it as given thus that I will be delighted with the wine he is extremely partial to and bombards me with lots of 'QUE DICES?!' when I disagree and proclaim something as 'ordinary'. On certain days, this is accompanied with some Spanish expletives. As was the case last Valentine's Day. I really wanted to tell him that I found the wine fantastisch but…

The controversial wine in question was a Paixar 2009 (32 Euros) that incidentally received 92 Parker points. Emilio found it ‘deliciously spicy, nicely tannin with a round body and a long finish’. Also a ‘sophisticated nose and may even be a very good fit to the often difficult to pair Asian food’. I only remember it as providing a nice medium length finish. The wine, made from Mencia grapes in Bierzo DO, had been left to age in oak barrels for 16 months.

Obscure Mencia from remote Bierzo: Bierzo DO is a rustic area in the northwest of Spain, in the corner of Castilla y Leon that is near to Galicia. As for the grape, I didn't come across a lot of remarkable factoids except that firstly, it is native to Iberia (its Portuguese alias is “Jaen”) and secondly, it was only in 2003 that the varietal was determined to be unrelated to the well-travelled Cabernet Franc. It has received a few glowing reviews ("hidden gems" and "quality, potential-laden" for instance). Snooth lists it as typically tasting of 'red and dark berry fruit, occasionally vegetal, can be savory with good acidity and tannin'. Elsewhere on the web, it is also portrayed as having spicy and mineral like features. 

Paixar, the winery: I've also not had much luck in finding a dedicated home page but from here, I see that it started of as a dream which was materialised by four thirty-somethings after discovering small blocks of 80 year old, low yielding vineyards in a tiny village (with only 60 inhabitants) high up in the mountains. The four are Gregory Perez, Alejandro Luna, Eduardo and Alberto Garcia. Stop Press: A stunning discovery! The latter two are sons of the Spanish super star wine maker Mariano Garcia who was/is responsible for creating great tasting Spanish wines like Alion, Aalto, Mauro etc. Alejandro Luna meanwhile owns another Bierzo winery. (Emilio, maybe I need to taste this wine again?) 

Blind tasting - Barbaresco 2008

Surprise blind tasting: Emilio disoriented me the other day, pulling out a bottle from the basement, heavily disguised with kitchen foil, asking me to taste and guess its country of origin, age and type of grape. Que? It's an almost impossible task under normal circumstances, an outright unmanageable feat with a nose and taste bud that had not entirely recovered from the flu. The best I could do was to offer a kind of description. It looked old-ish (the wine was a shade of red closer to amber than dark ruby at the rim), smelled of fruits and flowers (even with a semi-blocked nose) and tasted moderate on many levels: acidity, level of tannin and body. A nice medium length finish. An 'OK' taste which improved after some rest. (edit: I thought it was Spanish). It turned out to be a 6 year old Barbaresco. One of the many bottles that Emilio had ordered online last July to diversify a little bit away from Spain and expand our Italian collection. 

Barbaresco DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, the best classification for Italian wine), is exclusively made from the Nebbiolo grape harvested not only from the village of Barberesco, but also in the neighbouring ones of Treiso, Neive and Alba. Located in the north west of Italy, in the wine region of Piedmont (also home to my favourite Barolo and the sparkling white wines of Astic), it is about 2 hours drive from Milan and an hour and a half from the French border. Nebbiolo grapes, also used to create Barolo, are finicky to grow and very sensitive to frosts and soil. For this reason, they do not thrive outside their hometown. 

The bottle Emilio wrapped up was named "Riserva Ovella 2008". It is produced by Produttori del Barbaresco.  Riservas from Barberesco DOCG are required to age for 4 years, one of which has to be in an oak barrel (Note: a Barolo Riserva has to age for a minimum of 5 years). Barbaresco typically ages well and needs at least 10 years to flourish and showcase its complex flavour, so in all likelihood we had opened the bottle 4 years too soon. Produttori del Barbaresco was founded in 1958 by the priest of the Barbaresco village, who pooled together 19 small growers to survive economically. The first three vintages were made in the church basement. It has grown since then - they have moved out from the basement and there are now 56 Nebbiolo vineyards in the group, accounting for 1/6 of the vineyards in the Barbaresco wine region.