Bordeaux Tasting

Hey Everyone!

Long while since I posted to this or any blog but I'm happy to be doing so again! Today I'm writing about a wee tasting I put on for a few friends of mine as they prepare for a high profile tasting competition at the Residence de France in London a fortnight from now. The theme of the evening is Left Bank Bordeaux, including Médoc, Graves, Sauternes and Barsac. I took part in this tasting last year and despite doing somewhat poorly (then having my spirits lifted by a stunning meal and lovely wine) I feel that the exercise of analysing Bordeaux from a blind tasting perspective was very enlightening.

When training for blind tasting, you always look at the general styles of grapes and regions in the following manner: Syrah tastes of violets, but is fruiter in Australia and more briny in the Rhône and so on. Basically you paint a region with a broad brush and Bordeaux is the same. There is a character to Bordeaux that makes it unique from wine anywhere else in the world. I am fairly confident I could pick out a Pomerol in a line up of Merlots from the rest of the world, but when it comes to picking apart the differences between the various cabernet-based communes of the Left Bank things get a bit tricky. So today's tasting was aimed at four appellations and three vintages.

1. Chateau Le Pey 2010 Médoc- The nose was creamy, sweet salted caramel and milk chocolate followed by cherry and crème de cassis. The colour was youthfully red; no traces of ageing yet lighter than some of the older wines showing the wine to be less concentrated. The palate agreed with lighter tannins, less intense flavours and acidity. A pleasant wine, but not the product of great grapes.

2. Chateau de Cardaillan 2007 Graves- Deeper colour but with some brickish hues showing the affects of ageing. 2007 is an early drinking vintage so it follows that maturity was reached quickly in comparison with the older Fourcas-Dupré. The nose was marred by a slight cork-taint but the character showed through in a perfumed fruit nose

3. Chateau Fourcas-Dupré 2004 Listrac-Médoc- This one was difficult to describe. There was not a whole lot to distinguish it from general Bordeaux wine. It lacked the cocoa powder of St-Estephe, the perfume of Margaux or the woody cedar of Saint-Julien. It was a good wine, but there really wasn't a whole lot to tell us what exactly a Listrac-Médoc was like. That said, it was a lovely bottle of wine!

4. Chateau Martinens 2007 Margaux- Classic to Margaux, the nose showed plenty of floral aromatics, perfume (almost like Campari smelled from a distance) and something along the lines of kirsch liquer. The palate showed fine grained tannins and an elegant finish. A really great wine and amongst this line up, I think it showed as an amazing wine.

Overall, I find the concept of blind tasting a highly invigorating experience, especially when put into such a singular context as Left Bank Bordeaux. It also shows what a versatile region Bordeaux is for wine production. It's not a tired region only good for putting out overrated and expensive wines. Rather it does offer some good value and quality across the board. Especially in an age where so many new world wineries boast of their high altitude or extreme conditions, Bordeaux is temperate by comparison and never more than a few metres above sea level.

For whatever reason, wine from Bordeaux is often overlooked by the casual drinker, but it should not be. It offers good quality, easy drinking and food friendly wine at a reasonable price point. These four bottles showed particularly well, but there are countless others like them.

Much Love,

George

 

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Fighting Vines- Raats Family Wines

Hey Everybody,

Today I visited two wineries and though my first of the day, an abrupt, very business-like encounter at Kanonkop was less than thrilling, my second visit was far more to my liking. My journey took me a different direction out of Stellenbosch than my previous adventures and I found myself along the much more rural and remote Vlaeberg Road, a big difference from the R44 between Stellenbosch and Somerset West. On the approach to Raats I noticed the soils between the vines was much paler than in the Blaauwklippen area.

When I arrived at the winery, I already knew a bit about the Raats wines. I knew that they specialised in two varieties; Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc and had a small range of wines at differing price points, from everyday quaffers and braai-wines to serious bottlings built to whether the test of time and drink in a decade or so. What I did not know was their reasoning for choosing this sight in particular, and that I had seen a valuable clue on the drive in. For owner Bruwer Raats, it's all about the soil. After years working around the world including stints in Italy, France and Spain and some time spent at the famous Cakebread Cellars in Napa Valley he knows a thing or two about dirt.

The plots he has chosen include two distinct and inconic soils. The first, decomposed dolomite granite created in the same period of volcanic volatility that created both the jagged peaks of the Helderbeg and the rolling hills that surround Raats, gives a bright minerality to the Chenin Blanc and Cabernet that I can hardly compare to anywhere else in the world. Not even Chablis regularly offers so much of a minerally profile. The second soil, found more commonly in the Western cape is Table Mountain Sandstone, so named because it is the building block of one of the world's most recogniseable mountains. Breaking apart one of these sand stones, you can see that under the dry, sandy exterior there is a moist core even on a sunny hot day. This soil retains moisture beautifully allowing the winery to forego irrigation entirely.

Another thing that struck me was the vine training. They stood vertically, not horizontally; a method I know to be used in places where acreage is so limited that this allows vintners to maximise their use of the available land. Chris, the publicity manager for Raats told me that these were in essence bush vines that had been encouraged to grow up a wooden post, but in fact the grapes were just as glose to the ground as any other bush vine and that the training method is meant to encourage competition amongst the vines. It was remarkable to imagine it; the vines planted so closely together would have roots going down several meters, fighting for precious ground water.

Here I could see the personality of the vines. Though the competition was fierce, the Chenin Blanc seemed to be making the effort to look polite and gentlemanly above ground even as their roots tore each other apart under the ground. The Cabernet Franc, however, made no such pretenses. Unkind and fickle to winemakers, it is even more savage among it's own kind with branches reaching over each other, strangling smaller vines with some big, bushy tyrants clearly dominating their own neigbourhoods like gangsters.

All this competition however, had it's justification in a darwinist approach to winemaking. The strongest vines produce the most fragrant, phenolic grapes and the best wines. I tried five wines from the Raats portfolio and found no fault with any of them, from their basic Chenin and Cabernet, through to their two serious bordeaux blends. I thought the Old-Vine Chenin was minerally and massively acidic, inviting a good five years of aging, while the Dolomite Cabernet Franc exhibited great minerality for such and affordable red wine.

The two premium red, the Red Jasper and the Family Cabernet Franc were stunning wines. Big and full bodied with plenty of chunky tannins and great complexity, whilst still showing Cabernet Franc's great touch of elegance and class. I look forward to seeing them in the UK along with 'de Compostella'; the collaboration wine between Bruwer Raats and Mzokhona Mvemve.

I liked all the Raats wines and would drink them all happily and greedily and I was loathe to leave and return to my car, but I think Chris was bound to enjoy the left overs later and that can come as consolation to an extent. Further comfort can be found it the hope that in the not too distant future the Raats wines will decorate the wine list in St. Andrews!

Much Love,

George

 

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