Those of you who have followed my wine adventures for a little while
will know that every so often (and not nearly often enough, may I say…) I
organise a wine tasting session for the somewhat grandly titled Camden Symphony
Orchestra Wine Society. I say "grandly titled", as the name is a deliberate
subterfuge designed to give an element of credibility and refinement to a
rag-tag bunch of wastrels who agree with Primal Scream that “we just wanna get loaded; and we wanna have a good time”.
Once more for this tasting we found ourselves at my favourite wine
shop, Theatre of Wine in Tufnell Park. We were fortunate to be reunited
with Jason for this tasting as he knows how to deal with situations such as one
member of the group turning up with a bottle of Jameson, which he was sipping
on in between wine flights – not something you’d see recommended in the WSET
handbook for optimal wine tasting. In his defence, it was St Patrick’s Day on
the day of the tasting, I’m sure he doesn’t always drink whiskey in between his
glasses of wine...
The brief for the evening I had set for Jason was to do a tasting that
contrasted Old World traditions versus New World upstarts; which he delivered
in the imaginatively titled tasting session: “Paradigms and Parvenus”. Whilst
we reacquainted ourselves with the surroundings (and I dealt with the fact that
I had completely cocked up the number of people who were attending…) we started
with a 2015 Paolini Lance Grillo
(Italy). On the nose this was a pleasant wine, if a little one-dimensional;
it featured notes of lemon and had a slightly waxy-characteristic. On tasting
it had bright flavours of lemon, tinged with side notes of green apple, pink
grapefruit and a smattering of pineapple on the mid-palate. A decent wine
(7.0/10.0) and a bargain at £10.90/bottle.
From then on we were tasting wines in pairs, matching up the Old World
wine against the New World wine. In this way we were able to compare and
contrast the wines against each other and look for the variation between them.
Chardonnays
Our New World Chardonnay came from Chile and was a 2014 Clos des Fous "Locura I" (Alto Cachapoal, Chile). It
featured no oak on it at all and came from a vineyard with particularly high
altitude. On the nose it had a rather unpleasant (for me) eggy, sulphuric note to
it with little fruit evident. However, on the mouth it was surprisingly bright
and fresh with a light pear flavour that was very enjoyable. Once you got past
the nose, it was an enjoyable wine (7.0/10.0); £14.50/bottle.
We contrasted this against a 2009 Guillaume Collection (Franche-Comte, France). This wine had
certainly seen oak and was a fair bit older; on the nose it was rich and exotic
with beautiful butterscotch notes. On tasting it was full of buttery
deliciousness that reminded me of brioche, which was followed by mango fruit
later on. I thoroughly enjoyed this wine (8.0/10.0); £29.00/bottle. This was as much, however, of a reminder a how
variable and flexible the Chardonnay grape is, as much as it was a contrast
between Old and New World wines.
Roses
For the roses, Jason played with the brief a little. Rather than going
Old World vs New World, he focussed on showing the difference between
winemakers who make rose in a “white wine” style, as opposed to those who make
it in a “red wine” style (as you can see from the photograph to the right ->). For the white wine style of rose, we were presented
with a 2015 Rimauresq (Provence, France) which
was light and delicate on the nose (ie: didn’t smell of anything in particular)
and when tasted had grapefruit notes, which I found a trifle dull
(6.5/10.0); £12.80/bottle.
On the
red wine style we had a 2014 Oikonomoy
Liatiko (Crete, Greece) which had a bizarre nose which was well described
by one of the group as having “the funk of an old red wine that had gone bad”.
On tasting, however, I really enjoyed this; it had more tannic presence and, as
a result, had more structure. The dominant flavours that came through were
redcurrant and red cherries. I also felt that there was almost a sherry-like
oxidative profile to the wine – probably due to the unfiltered nature of the
wine. I certainly preferred this wine to the previous, although I think you
will be able to have guessed that! (7.5/10.0); £17.90/bottle.
Rhone-style blends
For the first of our two reds we started off by looking at Rhone-style
blends. Our first in this duo was a wine from one of my favourite producers, a 2014 Liberator “The Francophile”
(Stellenbosch, South Africa). On the nose this had very pleasing aromas of
blueberry, blackcurrant and a sprig of hawthorn. On tasting it had a lovely
blackcurrant juiciness to it, with just a wisp of smokiness too. This was a
fantastically enjoyable wine (7.5/10.0) and a steal at the price, £9.80/bottle.
To contrast we had a 2015 Betton Espiegle (Crozes-Hermitage, Rhone; France),
which had a somewhat quiet nose featuring classy notes of red cherry and a bit
of plum. On tasting it featured noticeably more body than the previous wine,
whilst still having considerable acidity to balance it all out. There was an
extra complexity to this wine of a slightly gamey taste (reminded me a little
bit of smokey bacon). This was a good wine (8.0/10.0), but more expensive at £16.90/bottle – making the parvenu a
much better value wine in my book.
Aromatic reds
The last of our pairs focussed on the holy grail of wine making, those light, ethereal, almost spiritual, aromatic red wines. We started with an offering from another of my favourite producers, a 2013 Au Bon Climat Santa Maria Pinot Noir (Sonoma County, USA). Interestingly this wine has been made specifically to recreate the Burgundian-style of Pinot – hence the name. The nose had characteristic sour cherry presence, with touches of eucalyptus and truffle underlining its elegance. The taste was delightful and sensuous, light and energetic, with bags of red fruit flavours, predominantly strawberry. A lovely wine (8.5/10.0); I think good value at £25.90/bottle.
This was contrasted with a 2015 Brezza Langhe Nebbiolo (Piedmont, Italy). Jason described this as being typically Italian in that it represented a “slightly sterner approach to wine”. On the nose it was a little quieter, but the taste was something very interesting – the presence of tannins was very noticeable, it also featured some very powerful black cherry notes. This, like a lot of Italian wines, is really a food wine and needs something to match against it. A classical wine, if not as enjoyable as the last wine from a hedonistic perspective (8.0/10.0); £19.90/bottle.
Conclusion
As ever with the Theatre of Wine, this was an interesting and thought-provoking tasting. I feel that we all learnt something about the breadth and complexity of the wine world, and (hopefully) found some new passions as well as rekindling some old flames.
Thanks to Jason and the team for hosting us. We will be back soon!
Note: all prices quoted above are based on list prices from Theatre of Wine.
