
Unico Zelo’s wines
COVID-superstar
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Brendan in Decanter for his “Wine for the People” show |
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Brendan in Decanter for his “Wine for the People” show |
I started with the Bacchus. Bacchus is a Germanic grape that many people feel that the climatic conditions in England could lead to this becoming the preeminent grape for still white wines. It tends to display gooseberry and elderflower notes; with a very high, rapier-like, acidity which gives it bite and freshness. In their gin Chapel Down distilled the base spirit with botanicals of coriander, elderflower, lavender and orange peel (amongst others). Neat in the glass, I could tell that this was a very aromatic gin - on the nose I got a little hint of that coriander spice, along with the more expected citrus notes.
I made this into a gin and tonic with an 100ml serving of Schweppes Signature Collection tonic water and added a garnish of lemon peel. This made for a very fresh and clean GnT, which really picked out those lemon / citrus notes. I also thought that I got a bit of those elderflower notes that I was expecting from the Bacchus influence and the botanicals.
70ml Chapel Down Bacchus Gin
20ml vermouth (I used Sacred English Dry Vermouth)
Stirred not shaken*
Garnish - twist of lemon
I am not one of those people who only puts a hint of vermouth in their martinis, or who just uses it “to coat the ice”; I like to taste the influence of the vermouth in the martini - and when you have an award-winning, highly-crafted product from someone who know what they are doing, why wouldn’t you want to taste it?! This was an excellent Gin Martini, I really think that the aromatic flavours from the gin came through nicely and complemented the twist of lemon.
* because James Bond is an idiot and doesn’t know how to make cocktails.
I probably don’t need to introduce Pinot Noir too much, but worth noting that it is one of the four grapes that goes into Chapel Down’s Sparkling Brut - in fact it currently makes up 42% of the blend (some of you may be thinking “four grapes? What’s the fourth grape?” Good question - there is 5% Pinot Blanc in the Brut). The gin is infused with botanicals of coriander, dried red berries, Angelica root, citrus fruits, rosehip and rosebuds. The first thing that you notice about the gin is that it does have a slightly rose colour to it in the bottle. On smelling it you really do notice a different flavour profile - this is more floral, it as a kind of prettiness that reminded me of a rose blooming away happily in June. I thought I detected some red fruit notes of strawberries and red cherries, but I wondered if I was looking for that because I knew of the PN influence and the botanicals.
I made this into a Gin and Tonic using the same measure of tonic as in the Bacchus, but I added a different garnish, this time frozen strawberrries, in order to bring out those aromatics. This drink really gives you a lovely, lush and fruity GnT - but those floral notes are still there too. I really enjoyed this. Whereas the Bacchus was a classic, summery GnT; this felt a little more autumnal - which is quite appropriate right about now!
To play with this gin, I went in a different direction and to my other gin-cocktail-favourite: the Negroni! I figured that the red berry notes would make for a good accompaniment to those bitter Campari flavours. Negronis are really simple to make, I used the following:
30ml Chapel Down Pinot Noir Gin
30ml Campari
30ml Asterley Brothers Dispense Amaro
This made for a really rather excellent negroni, I was very pleased with my hunch that this would go well.
So there you have it, two really excellent and interesting gins that would make the perfect gift for the wine lover in your life, or a nice addition to your own selection. Both bottles can be bought from the Chapel Down shop for £35/bottle, but they are doing an offer on two as a pack for £60.
For those of you who've been following this blog for a while, you may remember reading a post that I wrote last year about the launch of a new distillery in Scotland called Nc'nean (I wrote about this experience and where their unusual name came from, so I won't cover that again in this piece). They launched with the release of a set of unique "botanical spirits", which were designed to act as a precursor the whisky that they were hoping to release this year (you can still buy a bottle of their botanical spirit on Master of Malt for £24.95). Well, fast-forward a year (and the less said about that year the better...) and it is time for Nc'nean to unveil their whisky to the world. It seemed somehow appropriate that whereas the botanical spirit was launched at a glitzy event in 2019 at a private members' club, the whisky was launched in 2020 in a virtual tasting over Zoom!
If that were not impressive enough, Nc'Nean has continued its voyage of sustainability - which is a concept at the very centre of its brand. Annabel told us with great pride that they had been successful in working with a supplier to bottle their whisky in 100% recycled, clear glass which requires no virgin sand in its production and reduces its carbon footprint by 40%. Furthermore, Annabel said that Nc'nean are considering a programme whereby people can return their used bottles to the distillery for refilling. Very impressive stuff! In addition, Nc'nean have made great progress on their aims for zero waste to landfill (in 2019 they achieved 99.9% waste being recycled) and efforts to solely power their distillery from sustainable energy sources. You can read more about their sustainability initiatives here.
I'm sure some of you are thinking, "this is all well and good, but what about the whisky? What was that like?!".
Well, to launch their whisky, Annabel was joined on the call by Dave Broom - a noted whisky expert who writes at The Whisky Manual, and took us through the tasting. We started off by sampling the whisky - which sits a pretty gold in the glass - neat. On the nose it is quite heady with some spicy notes at first that are gradually replaced with softer fruity notes. There are some slightly sweet vanilla flavours there too. On the palate the first thing I wrote down was "beautiful!"; it was really open and warm, with slightly sweet and fruity with stone fruit notes (peach and apricot) which is then subsumed with a bit of warmth and spice. The really impressive thing with this whisky was just how complex and developed it was for a whisky only three years old.
You can buy Nc'nean's whisky from £47.95 (without the option of buying a cardboard container - which they offer to reduce packaging) from their website. Their first batches sold out very quickly, but they are currently taking orders for their October bottling - I'm certainly going to be placing an order!
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Photo taken from the Nc'nean website |
The result is a nice and refreshing drink, which is complemented by the mint. The aim of the drink isn't to mask or hide the whisky, but to enhance it. Annabel spoke about wanting to showcase her whisky in this way in order to make sure that a wide and diverse group can appreciate the drink. This is another area that is at the heart of the Nc'nean project, embracing gender diversity - Annabel leads a team of 10, seven of whom are female; something which is not typical of your average whisky distillery!
I would like to thank Annabel and the team at Full Fat for inviting me to attend this virtual launch - it was a great experience! I shall be following carefully Nc'nean's development over the next few years. To my mind anything that promotes a more sustainable and more inclusive world can only be a good thing - if that thing is also a whisky then even better!
Disclaimer: I was sent the whisky as a sample. The opinions contained in this article are nevertheless my own.
One of the unexpected developments during 2020 has been the wide-spread adoption of video conferencing across the world. This has given rise to all kinds of innovation and creativity within the wine trade. I have experienced this in the form of virtual wine tastings and wine seminars that have helped to fill some of the void of those events and wine travels that we would normally go to, but are unable to due to the “current climate” (no more needs to be said here!).
I have been lucky to have been included in an awesome initiative that has been started by Aussie wine legend Brett Jones who is a big deal on social media under the handle @AustWineTasting and UK-based wine merchant Oliver (Ollie) Farquharson, who specialises in distributing Aussie wines from his business Helver Wines. Brett and Ollie hit on the genius idea of promoting the wine of people who they know and respect through hosting Zoom calls with these producers and a group of UK-based wine lovers, myself included. The aim of these sessions is to allow us to get to know the people behind these wines, to ask them questions and to chat generally about matters ranging from the impacts of COVID-19 on the wine trade to our collective hatred of the “clean wine” movement. We all buy at least a bottle of the producers’ wines, from a local indie wine merchant - also doing our bit to keep the wine trade going. Over the last few months we have had memorable sessions with Dowie Doole (who do an amazing sparkling Shiraz) and Santolin (whose Chardonnay is next level good!). However, for our last session with Corrina Wright from McLaren Vale’s Oliver’s Taranga, I hit on the idea to gather a few of us on the call together to hold a socially-distanced wine tasting session for the call. That way we could taste a greater selection of the wines. It was with great joy that I welcomed Lee, James, Peter and Carrie to my house and we got set up for the call (plus Serena who joined us from Cyprus as you do!).
So, onto the wines - what did we try…?
Next up we had the 2017 Tempranillo (better known as the grape that is used to make Rioja). This was a really pleasing wine, with lots of quite pretty flowery notes to it, to match. There are some fruity flavours in this wine, more on the dark side, but there is also quite a nice savoury element to this making it a decent wine to have with some food. Obviously given the Spanish connection, I’m thinking some nice tapas (chorizo and padron peppers - yum!!). Available for £18.99/bottle (2018 vintage now)
After this we had a couple of Shirazes, young and old which allowed us to do some comparisons.
We compared this against a 2004 Shiraz (which was under cork), which we did decant. As expected with a wine of increased years on it, this had got some tertiary development on the wine with more smoky, savoury, meaty flavours coming through. That’s not to say that all the fruit was gone however, with those characteristic dark fruits (black cherries, blackberries) coming through. The 2004 is ridiculous value for a wine of this quality, but we were also really impressed with the 2017. I think I may be purchasing a few more of these in order to see how it develops over the next couple of years. Available for £23/bottle.
The last wine we tried was a new grape for me, their 2014 Sagrantino. Sagrantino, as you can probably tell, is an Italian grape that is known for being the most tannic grape varieties in the world. I hadn’t tried it before from Italy but was looking forward to trying this example. The wine had a tremendous power to it, with a lovely brooding nature. It had all the dark aromas that you would want - dark fruit and a chocolate / cocoa profile to the wine, but I also thought it had a nice floral note to it too. On tasting, yes the tannins were there, but they had already softened nicely to my taste. It left the wine with quite a rich and opulent mouth-feel. Definitely a good wine to have with some as expensive a cut of sirloin that you can get. Available for £24.99/bottle.
All wine prices are quoted from Wanderlust wines who stock Oliver’s Taranga wines in the UK.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Corrina for taking the time to talk to us, and to Brett and Ollie for putting all of this together and organising this rag-tag bunch. Wine folk really are the best people!
Being in and around the booze industry, we know sometimes it can be pretty inaccessible unless you’re ‘in the know’.
Just the other day my friend was telling me how she nearly got barred from Scotland for daring to ask for a Rye whiskey in Edinburgh. She didn’t know it wasn’t from Scotland, or that it wasn’t the ‘right’ thing to ask for, and a gentle bit of education would have worked wonders.
Speaking of education, Pour & Sip has just launched. It’s a new whisky subscription service from Master of Malt, focused on community, accessibility and inclusion.
So far so good. We like all those things.
Each month, customers get five different 30ml measures in the post, picked out by expert buyers and writers at Pour & Sip.
If you’re a new customer, you also get two tasting glasses, a ‘how to taste whisky’ card and detailed tasting notes, along with your whisky.
The team will hold twice-monthly online tastings, giving people the chance to explore the whiskies, ask questions, and get involved. On top of that, customers will get bespoke blog content and access to exclusive discounts on full-price bottles on Master of Malt.
The boxes are monthly, but you can pause and resume at any point. Each one will cost £29.95.
Although we haven’t been able to go to our favourite bars for much of this year, we have still been able to get hold of lots of delicious booze to enjoy at home.
It’s certainly been a weird year in many ways, so we’d expect nothing less from That Boutique-y Whisky Company (TBWC), to shake things up a bit. While the independent bottlers would usually release bottles throughout the year (they did more than 300 last year, blimey), as and when it’s available, they’ve now made the switch to releasing at set times.
After the success of the World Whisky Summit hosted by TBWC, the new plan is to give smaller craft distilleries a platform to reach the whisky community globally, which they might struggle with otherwise.
We’ve had our hands on five from the collection: here’s what we thought.
This particular expression is a blend of 5YO whiskies from several fresh bourbon casks. Mackmyra try to be as eco-friendly as possible. All their barley is Swedish and they have a specially designed distillery which operates using gravity. Barley is loaded in on floor seven and spirit flows all the way down to the new spirit store on floor one to be filled into cask.
My tasting notes...
Nose: Gone off bananas, sour fruit, caramelised banana.
Palate: Strong alcohol! Burnt caramel, spiced, heat, mild soapiness? Cherry on the top.
Bit of water adds a starchiness, salt n shake crisps without the salt, vegetable crisps.
Finish: Dark chocolate on the finish. 100% cocoa chocolate, minus the grittiness.
It’s happened. It’s finally happened. It took 30 bloody years… but, I enjoyed a Bloody Mary.
This isn’t the first time I’ve tried. Oh no. I’ve tried hungover, I’ve tried sober, I’ve tried in the morning, middle of the day and the evening. I’ve gone spicy, sweeter, elaborate, simple, but nothing could make me enjoy a Bloody Mary.
Until now.
And all it took was some peat smoke and 12 people up in Scotland.
Tongue in Peat tomato juice has recently launched. It’s infused with peat smoke from Islay, which gives it the most delicious rich, deep, smokiness.
How do they make it taste so good? Well, the farmer selects fresh tomatoes, which are hand chopped by chef, ensuring maximum surface area is exposed to peat fires. The smoker then uses a traditional smokehouse to infuse the tomatoes for 12 hours. The blender purees the tomatoes with spices at a small batch bottling facility, and the bottlers fill less than 5,000 bottles per batch. The labeller then checks each bottle and ships them off around the world.
It was the first time I’d ever tried a smoked tomato juice, let alone a peat smoked tomato juice. Apparently it’s the only one in existence.
Being relatively new to the world of Bloody Marys, I thought I’d keep it simple. Using 50ml of Holy Grass Vodka, I just added salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice, and garnished it with a stick of celery. Very simple and uncomplicated, but it was definitely enough. That peat packs some punch.
Next time I think I’ll be a little braver and get creative... Apparently a bit of pickle juice in there works wonders.
What’s your go-to Bloody Mary recipe?
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Had to place this book next to a bottle of Riesling! |
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This is the spot I have mostly been reading this book from! |
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I’m sure Mr Spurrier would approve of me putting his book next to a nice bottle of Meursault for this photo! |