Unfashionable, complicated, misunderstood. Why would anyone drink sherry in this day and age?

Currently, the Sherry producing area of Jerez in Spain is suffering. Strikes and falling sales along with its traditional customer base literally dying out and not being replaced, mean times are tough.

Sherries heyday was in the 1950’s when the bulk production styles such as pale cream and commercial Amontillados were all the rage. But it has been a victim of its own success with over-production and reliance on budget styles. When people think of Sherry, they think of Grannies, silly little ‘copita’ glassware and the colour beige.

The good news is that there has been a mini resurgence in partnership with the popularity of Spanish food. London is cited as the centre of this trend, but obviously Spain has played its part.

Producers like Lustau, for example, are working hard to educate and change the perception of Sherry in order to introduce it to a new generation of wine drinkers. Introducing new styles and, in particular, bottling wines from small, quality bodegas, is stoking interest. These Almencenista wines are keeping these small producers alive and offering the public something new and exciting.

I’ve attended a few Sherry tastings in my time and they are generally boring. To get the most out of Sherry, it does require some learning and can be complex. But when presented in a more light-hearted way, the wine shows itself to be one of the most fascinating styles on the planet. If you want complexity, balance, length, richness, compatibility with food and value for money, Sherry has it all.

Here are three things you need to know before you start:

·         Sherry is not a ‘terroir’ driven wine, the buzz word of the NZ industry. Though climate and soil is key, its character derives from the time spent in barrel and exposure to air (or yeast, in the case of Fino).

·         Most decent Sherry is dry, and I mean dry. To a New Zealand palate, which is used to vivid fruit flavours, Sherrie’s dryness can be uncomfortable. Drinking it with food - dried figs, walnuts, olives, smoked fish, feta cheese with rosemary and Spanish ham especially - can reveal a whole new side.

·         Sherry is a fortified wine, from between 15.5%-19%, and so can be quite intoxicating. One single course matched with a Sherry can be a great addition to a meal. A whole dinner with Sherry is bad news (this is from experience).

Two Sherries to look out for are Lustau Los Arcos Dry Amontillado, salty, nutty with fine acidity, at $22, and Lustau Palo Cortado Vides (from the Almacenista range mentioned above) which is a very fine wine with elegance and finesse and amazing length.  Both are sold in 375ml bottles.

Watch this space for part 2 on the main Sherry styles.

(Source: http)

An early morning tasting with Grant Taylor of Valli Vineyards is always a great way to start the day and tops y list of favourite breakfasts, just above a bacon sarnie.

Grant is off this week to Auckland and Melbourne to host a tasting for writers and reviewers of 7 vintages of Valli. 2003 to 2010 (not including 2004 which wasn’t made) all from his Gibbston vineyard.

So to test the wines he selected a few of local wine geeks, including a couple of viticulturalists, three winemakers, a chef, a sommelier (me), his new sales and marketing manager and a pair of wine buyers.

It was our job to taste the wine blind and give our opinion on its condition, quality and overall character. The results were great, with outstanding consistency, a distinct ‘site’ character and some clear vintage variations. We were asked to put the wines in order of preference and this revealed a varied range of results. We were really picking the eyes out of 7 very good wines.

Here are the notes:

2003 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Pale garnet colour, developing. Forest floor, berries, earth spice and bitter chocolate. Stalky and leafy with ripe, smooth tannins.

2005 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Fully developed with dried fruit, earth, and stalky characters. Slightly oxidised but I really enjoyed the palate - very light and lifted.

2006 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Lots of strawberry jam, raspberry and floral, herbal notes. Full and rounded with chalky tannins. It’s firm and structured with tightness that was holding it back.

2007 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Big, warm and friendly with a plush softness, black fruits and a charry, leathery character. This is a bigger style, a crowd pleaser but not for ‘pinotphiles’! I love it though.

2008 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Still quite primary with red fruit, floral and spice notes and drying tannins. It’s got a long finish, its full bodied without being over-blown.

2009 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Typical earth, spice, red fruit and floral notes. It’s medium bodied with black cherry, herbs and leathery tannins.

2010 Valli Gibbston Vineyard Pinot  Noir. Wow, amazing colour, which is a common theme with the 2010’s. Full, rounded and juicy. It needs time but has beautiful powdery tannins, integrated oak. The roundedness and softness will develop - a keeper. 

(Source: winedown.co.nz)

I was invited to a tasting recently held in the cave at Gibbston Valley winery to look at 3 vintages of Pinot Noir. It was a good exercise to compare the wines, three each from the 2008, 2009 and 2010 vintages.

A chance to try the wines side-by-side, discuss them with the winemaker and get a picture of the vintage style. Each line-up included the Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir, China Terrace and School House. The first is a blend of multiple vineyards and the last two are single vineyard Bendigo wines.

The first flight, the 2008’s.

Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir 2008. A pronounced nose with cherry liqueur, earth, wood and cola. Dried herbs emerge with time and on the palate. It’s mid-weight with drying tannins, good texture and balance.

Gibbston Valley China Terrace Pinot Noir 2008. Black cherry, smoked bacon with sweet fruit. Vibrant and lively palate with low acidity and grainy tannins. There’s a lightness of touch, complexity of flavour and silky texture.

Gibbston Valley School House Pinot Noir 2008. This is the more red fruit spectrum with pomegranate and cranberry. Delicately perfumed and fresh. The palate is more subdued and tight but strawberry, wood and earth dominate. Overall a lighter style, elegant and balanced.

The 2009’s.

Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir 2009. This wine has plumy, plump fruit with the typical dried herb characteristics of Central Pinot. The components are no quite all together, with the acid, tannin and fruit not quite integrated but still attractive drinking.

Gibbston Valley China Terrace Pinot Noir 2009. Masses of black cherry and sweet fruit, hints of game and cola. This is muscular, full bodied and ripe. It’s still a little closed and the finishes tough, and needs time.

Gibbston Valley School House Pinot Noir 2009. A pattern emerges with this wine with the terroir offering red fruits and perfume. It’s light, elegant with moderate tannins. This is beautifully balanced and pleasurable drinking now but will age.

The 2010’s are recently bottled and still showing primary characters.

Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir 2010. The best GV Pinot Noir yet? This is the style of wine that will clean up gold medals. Incredible colour, deep ruby/purple. Black cherry and balsamic, super-intense fruit, textural but tightly-knit. Amazing concentration.

Gibbston Valley China Terrace Pinot Noir 2010. Still closed but also showing great potential with the hallmarks of this vineyard - black fruits, silky tannins, and muscular structure. There is more spice than herb to the 10’s.

Gibbston Valley School House Pinot Noir 2010. The typical red fruit and perfume but with an extra floral dimension. Drying, chalky tannins. This wine is still very tight and the most difficult to taste.

Thanks to winemaker Chris Keys and Sales Manager Claudio Heye for the invite

(Source: winedown.co.nz)

All of the major new world wine producing countries have a grape variety that they can either call their own or at least have their own unique expression of. For instance, the US has Zinfandel, Chile has Carmenere and Argentina has Malbec. These grapes have European origins but have thrived in these places and now give those regions their wine identity.

Think of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. We know the French version from Sancerre and Pouilly Fume well but New Zealand has been able to create its own style, which has become its key wine.

The same goes for Australian Shiraz. Well known in Europe, given a new face in Australia. South Africa even managed to make its own hybrid, Pinotage, at Stellenbosch University, a mix of Pinot Noir and Cinsault, designed to thrive in their climate when Pinot Noir couldn’t.

Brazil is not known as a wine producing country, but it produces its fair share, much of it sweet sparkling muscats or feral reds made from non-vitis vines. Brazilian winemakers are looking for their own ‘Shiraz’. So the great thing about tasting wine in Brazil is that you can get your hands on some pretty varied wine styles.

From Brazil I’ve tried Cab Franc, Malbec, Tempranillo, Grenache, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Muscat, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Riesling and Tannat. One of the best was Barbera from a producer called Casa Perrini. Whether this was a fluke I don’t know, but it was light, red fruited, spicy and delicious. Barbera would certainly be different enough to give Brazil a grape to hang its hat on.

Currently I am drinking 2005 Casa Valduga Single Vineyard Arinarnoa, a hybrid of Merlot and Petit Verdot, also, apparently being trialled in Bordeaux. It’s from the very far south of Brazil (from experience the further south the better i.e. Argentina) and is medium weight, with grainy tannins and cherryish flavours but with enough intensity to be interesting.  It also has the slightly feral, cooked liver aroma that unfortunately has given Brazilian wine its identity with me so far.

(Source: http)

A while ago I witnessed the opening of a gate that hadn’t been opened for 20 years and the meeting of two grape growers each with very different opinions. On one side a viticulturalist caring for his vineyard in the conventional way, using sprays issued by helicopter, weed killers and chemicals. On the other side, a vineyard with a more holistic approach, using organic methods and a process called biodynamics, which uses unusual preparations and follows the phases of the moon to determine which work needs to be done and when. 

The resulting throw down between the two proponents of these opposing philosophies (I won’t name names) was heated, informative and gripping.

 Who came out on top? Nobody really, but here are some interesting facts that I picked up:

 95% of the worlds wine grapes are farmed in the conventional way i.e. with chemicals.

Both men were passionate about the same thing – making the best wine they possibly could.

Interest in organics is on the rise but less than 2% of vineyards in NZ are farmed organically.

Some of the treatments used for biodynamics sound like songs by Frank Zappa (for example, ‘yarrow flowers fermented in a deer’s bladder’ or ‘cow manure buried in a cow’s horn’).

Though you won’t be able to taste the difference in an organic and non-organic wine per se, it is a hot topic and one that causes impassioned debate among wine professionals whenever mentioned. Watch this space.

I am doing my bit, are you?  While wine consumption in New Zealand is on the rise it still looks paltry compared to other countries. In 2008 we consumed an average of 20 litres of wine per capita while France and Italy were gulping well over double that. Who drinks the most wine world-wide, per person? The Vatican City - if they can manage 65 litres per year, so can we. Come on, it’s good for you! (In moderation)

(Source: winedown.co.nz)

Wine Down Winemaker Series

Last night we had the Double Bill Masterlcass tasting with Dr John Forrest of Forrest Wines and Gerald Roberts of Cellarworks Wines at Queenstown Resort College to share their knowledge. John presented his range of Rieslings compared with their European counterparts and Gerald presented a tasting of regional Italy with seven wines from across the boot.

John is, in my opinion, one of the countries experts on Riesling. He makes nine, from bone dry to very sweet. He loves to talk about the subject and I thought it was a great chance to show four of his wines with four similar styles from Germany, Austria and France. Here are the wines we tasted:

Forrest Dry Riesling 2009 with - Pfaffl Terrassen Sonnleiten Riesling 2004, Austria

Forrest Brancott Riesling 2009 with Domaine Schlumberger Les Prince Abbes Riesling 2006, Alsace, France

Doctors Riesling 2010 with Prinz Hallgartener Jungfer Kabinett 2003, Rheingau, Germany

Forrest Botrytis Riesling 2009 with Karl Erbes Urziger Wurzgarton Auslese 2003, Mosel, Germany

The first pair were put together to compare dry Rieslings. John sources this from his Wairau vineyard, which is scattered with alluvial soils, giving the wine purity and, in John’s words, a ‘wet stone’ minerality. The wine is made in a very precise and judicious way by picking the grapes at night, only using the free run juice and keeping the crop very low at 5 tonnes per hectare.  He is after cleanness, minerals and a drying finish which is a real feature of the Forrest Rieslings. Even the sweeter wines finish with a mouth-puckering dryness.

I paired it with the Pfaffl Riesling as I have always enjoyed Riesling from Austria. They are generally dry and tend to be full bodied. It drank well and was a good indication that the style can age well. John often releases the Dry Riesling at 7 years old as a library release, just when it is starting to develop a little honey, kerosene and the palate starts to broaden.

The Forrest Brancott Riesling is a different beast entirely. John was inspired by the wines of Alsace. Rieslings are made in almost in the opposite way to the method that John traditionally uses. As in the Wairau wine, New Zealand Riesling is usually made in a very protective way, making sure only the free run juice is used to retain purity. Alsatian Riesling is often pressed for longer, with the inclusion of ‘phenolics’ or material from the skins, a method we are more familiar with in red wines.

This gives the wine a drying finish and an extra textural freshness that may be perceived as acidity but is in fact phenolics. The wine is broad, with a steely, lime skin dryness even though the wine is actually medium dry.

The Schlumberger Les Abbes wine is made in this style but also aged in large, inert large barrels with some lees aging. Alsace Rieslings tend to be bone dry, full bodied and very steely. This was a pretty good example of the region.

The next wine, Doctors Riesling, is now New Zealand’s top selling Riesling, a marvellous achievement, considering it is quite sweet, very light and low alcohol. It is based on a German Kabinett which is what we matched it with.

Kabinett is a specification given to quality Rieslings in Germany that are picked at between 17-20 bricks. This is the lightest of the six ‘Pradikats’, which get riper up the scale.

Kabinett wines can be made dry to sweet but are often around 7-9% alcohol with residual sugar at between15-30 grams per litre. The Doctors Riesling is 9% with 35 grams of sugar, and there are many of these styles now on the New Zealand market.

The success of Johns is the site, mainly from the Wairua, the alluvial soils gives the wine a minerality that dries the finish off and makes the wine moorish, not sickly.

The German version from Prinz was quite developed so difficult to compare, but had a similar weight. These styles can age quite well, as there is plenty of acidity as well as sugar, two great preservatives.

The final wine was the hardest to match up, but was no less interesting and a good example of the great value of New Zealand dessert wines. Trying to get a Trockenbeerenauslele (a fully botrytised sweet wine) from Germany is difficult and very expensive. So we matched it with an Auslese, two notches up the scale from Kabinett, sweet, but not very sweet and little botrytis.

Forrest Botrytis Riesling 2009 is extremely sweet with lots of botrytis. It is in my mind one of the best he’s made. It’s unctuous, rich but has an underlying acidity which freshens the wine and gives it balance.

Though we are comparing many different things here, it was a good way to illustrate more clearly John’s philosophy behind the Rieslings he makes. We hear many winemakers talking about their wines being ‘Burgundian’ or ‘Chablis-like’ but how often do we actually get to test it?

2009 Forrest WairauDry Riesling – Pure lemon and lime, tight and focused with stoney minerality and a dry, mouth-puckering finish. Great with oysters and will age well for 7-10 years.

2009 Forrest Valleys Brancott Riesling – Off dry with stone fruit and lemon, a steely texture and a very unusual drying finish that really livens up the palate. A very unique style for New Zealand, and it’s absolutely drinkable.

2010 Doctors Riesling – Like biting into an apple, which reflects the ripeness and cool climate it grown in. It’s understandable why this is now in cult status. It really is about the finish, a masterstroke in balance, with the fruit, sugar and acid perfect harmony. I’d like to see it with a little more spritz.

2009 Forrest Botrytised Riesling – Lime marmalade, apricot, and crème brulee with a plenty of noble rot, ash-like aromatics on the nose. Delicacy, lusciousness and freshness in complete harmony. Get some.