James and Oz big wine adventure

One advantage of my new working hours is that I get to actually watch many of the programs that customers used to talk to me about. One such program is the new series of James & Oz's wine adventures, this time set in the sunny climes of California. I only got to see one episode of the first series, set in France, but I quite liked what I saw. I also enjoyed last nights episode and will be sure to watch the whole series.

Wine Blog Wednesday 37 pt 2 - Verdad Ibarra-Young Vineyard Albarino, Santa Ynez, California

This was a sample obtained from Morris and Verdin earlier in the year. I was intrigued when I learnt that someone in California was growing and producing Albarino. Ive known for a few years that Randall Grahm, of Bonny Doon, was growing it but as yet no-one had actually made the wines available. As we sell quite a bit of the Spanish Albarino I thought it would be really cool to have a new world alternative for those folks that feel a bit more adventurous.

The wine is made by Louisa Sawyer Lindquist, wife of Bob Lindquist of Qupe Wines. Between them they planted two small parcels of Albarino in the Ibarra-Young Vineyard in Californias Santa Ynez Valley. Its farmed along Biodynamic principles. The grapes are harvested in parcels and then vinified, 75% undergoes a long cold fermentation in steel tanks, allowing the fruit and aromatic aromas to really develop and create a richly perfumed wine. The remaining 25% is fermented in neutral wood to add some depth to the flavours.

So whats it like? I must say if I was given this blind I would probably come to the conclusion it was Viognier, the nose has really dominant peachy flavours with white flowers and an aroma that I can only describe as tarte aux abricots - custard tarte with apricots and almonds/frangipane. Im expecting it to be sweeter than it turns out. On the palate it more closely resembles the Spanish Albarino, there is no salty tang on the finish, but again the almond/marzipane flavour follows on from the stone fruit - peaches and apricots. There is a slight spicy savouryness too. I LOVE this wine - so much awsum

So Much Awsum!!

Higher or Lower? Its Alcoholic play your cards right!

The debate over alcohol levels in wine rages on, with a slightly surprising new voice on the lower alcohol camp. Randy Dunn, legendary winemaker of Dunn Vineyards, and the guy that put Howell Mountain on the winemaking map, has spoken out against high alcohol levels. Apparently the move has been prompted by his current vintage which for the first time has broken the 14% mark (14.11%ABV to be precise!). Its interesting to read his arguement (http://wine.appellationamerica.com/wine-review/447/Winemaker-Randy-Dunn.html). One of his bones of contention is that by leaving the fruit on the vines for longer is actually removing the terrior from winemaking. By producing over-ripe, over-extracted wines, we have removed the individual character of the region it was grown in. Now most Californian cabs have a hot, raisined character that just gets blasted by alcohol. Back in the golden days of the California wine industry (the early 70's to 80's), each appellation had its own style, it was possible to distinguish between a Howell Mountain cab, or a Stags Leap or a Rutherford Bench Cab becuase the conditions the fruit was grown under created the character of the fruit.

Its an interesting arguement over the evolution of viticulture and vinification. Whilst browsing the Opus One website a while ago I noticed how the whole regime of how the wines were made evolved over the two decades that we listed. The early vintages had no more than 10 days of skin contact, rising to 20+ days in the early eighties, growing to 30+ in the late eighties and into the nineties, upto as much as 44 days! Conversely the amount of aging in barrel seems to have dropped from nearly two years to an average of 18 months. And if you think that Opus, being a collaberation between the old world and the new, underwent a change, what kind of changes did the Californian "old Guard" go through - Chateau Montellana, Stags Leap Cellars, Heitz Vineyards, etc. There is no denying alcohol levels have grown steadily over the years. It is not uncommon now to find wines in the 15's and even approaching the 16% level (In the UK anything over 15% is classed as a Liqueur Wine and is subject to a higher rate of taxation - £2.37 per litre compared to £1.77 per litre). Is this too high? In my personal opinion yes it is. Will I stop selling them, or refuse to list any that have high alcohol? Truthfully I dont know. At the moment we have a few wines that could be called high alcohol. Mainly Aussie but a few Cali cabs too. In most cases I think the alcohol is in overall balance with the wine, and they dont "burn", so I will probably continue to sell them, but ultimately if the public starts asking for lower alcohol wines then we will have to review the situation. So far that hasnt really happened, but then the majority of our list of old world, and lets face it, they often struggle to get the alcohol levels above 12% without chaptalising!

Regions to be cheerful.

We have quite a classically organised list here. After all the Arkle is supposed to be a classical french style menu, with a modern english twist. But with over 600 bins it makes more sense to have then organised by origin. I like it like that because at the moment a lot of people seem to make their choices by country of origin more than anything else. South America and South Africa are quite popular at the moment, and if I get my way they will expand considerably on our list.

Now for all out quality I dont think that you can beat the old world. Especially France and Spain, but also Italy and Germany. Nowhere in the world is there such complexity of flavour and such defined structure in the wines. But with few exceptions they are terrible value for money. Bordeaux prices are verging on the ridiculous, and Burgundy is going the same way. Spain is starting to get more expensive too, but at the moment there is a lot of value for money to be found in the lesser known regions - Ribera del Duero, Priorato, Toro, and many others if you can find them. In the new world you have the two heavyweights of USA (California) and Australia. California represents shockingly bad value for money. With the exchange rate working in our favour at last, the wines ought to be cheaper, but incredibly they are still rising in price. Now this is mostly due to market economics - there is such a strong domestic market for the wines at home, they have no reason or need to export, and consequently they can charge whatever they want. For me Californias big problem in the UK market is the two extremes of wine. At the bottom of the market you have the floods of Gallo, Sutter Home, Blossom Hill and other mass produced "bottom-feeders". At the other end of the market you have blockbusters - cult names like Harlan Estate, Opus One, Screaming Eagle, Peter Micheal, all three figure wines. But like a donut theres nothing in the middle. It might surprise you to know there is much more to the American wine market. Oregon, Washington State, New York, in fact just about every single state (Alaska is, I think, the only state that doesnt produce wine) makes wine. But again, due to small volume production and strong domestic consumption, these wines dont make it over the pond. Canada has a booming wine industry, mostly around two provinces - British Columbia and Ontario. The problem with sourcing them is more to do with State monopoly of supply I think than anything else, but again low volume, high domestic demand will prevent them being exported in any great quantity.



Down under you have Australia and New Zealand. I love their wines, the diversity, the quality, the funky names, the intensity of flavours, whats not to love. But Im getting a little bit bored. Australia has the same situation as California regarding the two polar extremes of wines available, but their position is slightly better than Californias. I must say its getting harder to find the new boutique wines from Aus. The wines that I started out with, used to be boutique, they used to be quite limited and exclusive, but over time their fame has spread, their volumes have increased and now they are a bit more widespread than they used to be. New Zealand conversely is suffering from the reverse. Due to two consecutive low harvests quantities of many wines are seriously depleted and many of the better wines are becoming more limited. This is great, if you are lucky enough to secure an allocation. Although the other side effect of this is making the prices jump up, and lets face it New Zealand was never cheap in the first place.



So where does that leave? Well I reckon it leaves the best till last. South Africa and South America. Starting with South Africa, theres been a huge amount of change over the last five years. For me, looking through merchants wine lists, its great to finally see many of them listing more South African wines. And better wines - not that mass produced co-operative wine that the supermarkets are all knocking out. There is still a long way to go, but as many of the farmer realise that they have more to gain by turning their own fruit into wine than selling it to the co-ops, then we will start to see many more wines appearing. Of course that isnt to say that they will all be blockbusters, but from little acorns mighty oaks grow, and given the right materials, development, marketing and listings, the opportunities are there. There is a huge amount of investment into developing wine regions - and not just financial investment. Old world winemakers are turning their sights to the potential of countries like South Africa, Chile, Argentina, where the resources are available, but they lack the knowledge, skills or equipment to do the job properly. Pichon-Lalande have recently released their new South African venture Glenelly Hills to good reviews from Jancis et all. And the convenient timing of the southern hemisphere harvest allows the winemakers to complete two vintages per year - Nico van Der Merwe from Saxenburg has been doing this for a number of years at Capion in the south of France and Saxenburg, not to mention his own range of wines - Mas Nicholas and Robert Alexander.

For Value for Money, undoubtably the best place to look just now is Chile and Argentina. Two countries with a long viticultural history, it is really the last twenty years that have seen their wine industry explode onto our shelves. (Helped in no small measure, Im sure, by exploiting the weak currency of the region). As they have become better at correctly identifying the grape varieties we are starting to see two grape varieties gaining dominance in the region - Malbec and Carmenere. Malbec has almost been written off in France, relegated to a bulking out grape in Bordeaux and producing the inky black Cahors, otherwise a neglected variety. In Argentina it has found its new glory. Densely packed fruit flavours with a rich floral violet character and an almost feral gameyness about it. You can almost imagine the Gauchos swigging it from the bottle as they grill a huge chunk of blood red meat over an open fire. Carmenere is another neglected Bordeaux variety (odd isnt it that the two now dominant varieties originated in Bordeaux, yet grapes were introduced into South America by the Spanish!!), now flourishing in Chile where it produces a minty cassis flavoured red, tannic but quite elegant. I think we are only just beginning to see what they have to offer us in terms of style and quality, and as long as they continue to offer great value for money, these countries will remain high on our shopping lists.