Wines

Iberian Invasion

- Alex Leave a comment


photos by Alister Robertson

date: Monday 16 April 2012

I’ve been really lucky recently to be involved in a few excellent wine tastings. I don’t always get these written up (posts tend to be long and hard work!) but I’m going to try to get better with that – if only so everyone can feel jealous about some of the lovely stuff I’ve been able to try!

Last Monday Sommeliers Australia organised an Iberian Invasion tasting, hosted by Mark Reginato and Stephen Pannell. We tasted a selection of red and white wines from the Iberian peninsula (that’s Spain and Portugal), as well as a few of Stephen’s wines that have some Spanish influence. It was a great opportunity to try some less well known grape varieties too.

Of the whites, my favourite was the Bodegas Maranones Picarana Albillo 2010 (link only useful if you read Spanish). While it wasn’t massively pronounced on the nose, the palate had a lot more to say. The wine had lovely weight and notes of butter and vanilla from some time spent in new oak. It really reminded me of bread and butter pudding, with a slightly nutty character. Stephen Pannell commented that this wine isn’t a typical Albillo and that they are usually a bit fresher (so a bit more fruit, a bit more acidity), a bit more floral and without the weight or oiliness we saw in this wine. Typical or not, I’d be more than happy to drink this wine and seek out other examples of the grape.

I didn’t take the time to note which of the reds was my favourite but certain wines provoked a bit of discussion. The Bodegas y Vinedos Ponce La Casilla Bobal 2009 proved divisive (I’ve had this wine before and liked it – you can buy it from East End Cellars). There was something slightly green on the nose, along with plenty of dark fruit and on the palate it was all about some lovely juicy black cherries, accompanied by a bit of chocolate. The tannins were certainly there, and grippy to boot, but not mouth puckering and it was all rounded out by good acidity. Personally, I can’t imagine what’s not to like!

The other really interesting wine was one brought along by Mark. The Quinta da Mata Maceda Douro 2003 is a Portuguese blend (from vineyard level upwards – the vines are coplanted and the wine is cofermented) which is fermented in old Port barrels. The wine was really not my cup of tea, at all. It smelled like Port and tasted (to me) like a combination of Port and a red wine that was old and possibly oxidised. You could definitely see the influence of the Port barrels on the finished product and I’m only sorry I can’t find some decent information on the internet to point you towards for further details.

The real highlight of the tasting, for me, was listening to Stephen Pannell. He was a guest panelist when I participated in the Lorenzo Galli Scholarship last year so I knew what I was in for: he speaks incredibly quickly and says what’s on his mind. He calls everything how he sees it. Last Monday he made some great points about marketing, wine making, cork, what sells in Australia, and personal preference.

He made the very salient point that everyone has different taste in music and this is something that is generally embraced. However, within the wine industry, there seems to be a real drive to creating wines that will be universally liked, wines that create consensus rather than discussion.

As usual, it was an excellent afternoon.

Sommeliers Australia‘s SA branch runs a number of tastings throughout the year and many have tickets available to non members. To check out other past events, read Wines of Sicily and Madeira Madness.

Cheeky Drop’s Friday Drinks

- Alex Leave a comment

Red SquirrelRed Squirrel by Sergey Yeliseev

Disclaimer: the nice squirrels at Cheeky Drop are providing Eating Adelaide with some Friday drinks of its own.

You would imagine that Friday drinks are something of an institution but I bet many readers are out there who have never worked anywhere where Friday drinks are on the boss. There’s a massive number of reasons for this: obviously someone in accounts has to open the corporate wallet but bosses also have to be mindful of responsible consumption. Yep – some people still think it’s OK to drink and drive (especially if someone else is paying) and then unfortunately you always get the few people who exploit the boss’s generosity, have too many drinks and then behave like idiots. As with the schoolyard, there’s very often just the one person who spoils it for everyone.

I’ve been very lucky. Quite a few of my employers (including my current one) have laid on drinks on some form or another. One place had very casual team based drinks every Friday (I kid you not) and then on a regular basis had a bigger, catered events for the whole company. Currently, I can enjoy a few free drinks on the first Friday of the month. When I lived in England, free drinks on any kind of regular basis were thin on the ground – but that might have been because everyone was more than happy to go to the pub and pay for their own! But that didn’t stop employers putting on very impressive Christmas dos and putting on things like beer and pizza on Christmas Eve. And when I say “Christmas Eve” I mean 10am.

Personally, I’m in favour of Friday drinks – it’s lovely to socialise with colleagues and I suspect bosses are secretly pleased with the amount of work chat that goes on! I’ve never been to a works drinks where everyone hasn’t been catered for – I enjoy my work functions just as much when holding a glass of water or orange juice as I do when holding a beer.

Anyway, enough about me because this is actually all about you and how you and your colleagues can treat yourselves to Friday drinks. And not just any Friday drinks … but Friday drinks delivered by a squirrel*. The squirrel will turn up with a case of wine and all you have to do is enjoy yourselves.

Of course, you do have to put some effort in here. You need to tell the squirrels why you need the drinks, you need a bit of facebook or twitter action (and while you’re over at facebook don’t forget to like Eating Adelaide). The competition is open now and a winner is going to be drawn every Wednesday (so delivery can be arranged in time for Friday) until 30 May. The first winner is drawn next Wednesday 18 April.

Full details can be found over at Cheeky Drop. Get entering!

* Note that the squirrel is a person in costume, but I have been assured that that is what you will get!

Wines of Sicily

- Alex Leave a comment

photo by Alister Robertson

I’ve been lucky enough to attend two interesting, but very different, wine tastings recently.

The first of these was held at The Manse and organised by Alessandro Ragazzo, The Manse’s sommelier, and Sommeliers Australia.

The session focussed on the wines of Sicily (the island which is the football to Italy’s boot!). Italy is a happy hunting ground if you’re after the weird and the wonderful in terms of wine. Allegedly the country is home to over 1000 different wine producing grape varieties – so I was confident it wasn’t going to be an afternoon of Chardonnay or Shiraz.

Alessandro had put together 3 flights of 4 different wines: the white and red brackets were followed by a dessert wine and Marsala bracket. We also had a comprehensive handout which covered the history of wine in Sicily, with a few maps and plenty of interesting facts. For example, Sicily is about a third the size of Tasmania and yet annually produces 5 million hL of wine. Australia’s entire output is 11 million hL annually.*

Of the whites my favourite was the Benanti Pietramarina DOC Etna 2007 which is made from Carricante. I happen to have Tom Stevenson’s The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia sitting next to me and apparently the Etna DOC is the same wine on which the Cyclops got drunk (thanks to Ulysses). Stevenson is somewhat dismissive of the whites: “… a soft but bland dry white” although the Pietramarina is worthy of individual note. My own notes indicate that while the nose wasn’t massively pronounced there were some herbal notes, anise and fennel, while the palate was less herbal but showed rich, ripe citrus fruit with a good seam of acidity. I was undecided if it was marmalade-y or preserved lemon.

Unfortunately (for me), it looks like this wine retails for around $100 a bottle.

I won’t talk about the reds too much (if you’re interested, you can read about the Duca Enrico Duca di Salaparuta 1996). I was struck by how they all really felt as though they needed food. Of the four, the COS Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG 2009 struck me as being the most approachable with a good balance of acidity and tannins and a spicy, red cherry palate.

The dessert wines and Marsala bracket I found really interesting. Like (I suspect) most people, I don’t drink very much sweet wine and I drink even less fortified wine so I love the opportunity to try something new. We started with a Benanti Passito di Pantelleria. It was a 2005 and the bit of age showed in the glass: the wine was really quite amber in colour. The wine’s aroma was dominated by dried apricots with other dried fruits thrown in for good measure. The palate matched this and was suitably pronounced with pelnty of dried apricot, sultana, fig, honey and almost a note of maple syrup.

The concentrated flavours in Passito come about because the grapes are left to dry out before crushing. Traditionally, they’re left on straw mats in the sun. Pantelleria is a small volcanic island off the south west coast of Sicily. And the wine is made from the Muscat of Alexandria grape. Got that straight?

We wrapped up with two Marsalas from Vito Curatolo – a Superiore Secco and a Superiore Riserva. Marsala is made in a manner similar to Sherry and the mass production of the wine is actually thanks to a late eighteenth century Englishman, John Woodhouse, who thought the wine would be popular in England and began large scale production and export. Marsala has something of a poor reputation – which, on the basis of the two wines we tried, is rather undeserved.

The Superiore (aged for a minimum of 2 years) was very Christmas cakey, with plenty of coffee, coffee and cream and a nutty finish. The Superiore Riserva (aged for a minimum of 4 years) was a lot more savoury, with some Fino Sherry like characteristics and plenty of nuts, but none of the coffee.

I won’t be rushing out and buying up all the stocks of Marsala in Adelaide – for me, it will be an acquired taste. However, I think it’s a shame that it doesn’t have a higher profile and that there isn’t more of an opportunity for consumers to try good quality examples.

This was a great tasting: things moved at a good pace, it was well organised and (most importantly!) the wines were all really interesting. Apparently Alessandro hopes to run some more sessions like this in future – I’m looking forward to them already!

* This is taken from my notes and I haven’t independently verified it so please feel free to correct me!