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Posts Tagged ‘Champagne’

2003 – the season

Everyone knows that 2003 was an exceptionally hot year in Europe.  Janet and I spent a small part of that summer working in the large garden of friends and found ourselves having to adopt habits more typical of Mediterranean countries – get up early and work outside until late morning, have a long lunch break, and resume the campaign in the early evening.  In the wine world, after the great success of the much more typical 2002 vintage in Champagne and elsewhere in France, the question was could great wine be made in the hot year of 2003?  Nine years on at the launch of the 2003 Dom Pérignon, chef de cave Richard Geoffrey, was, unsurprisingly, upbeat: yes, we did make the 2003, and we always thought we would – it is like 1947, 1959 and 1976 … Unfortunately he did not bring along a bottle of any of these vintages to prove his point!

But it was not just the heat that made 2003 a very demanding year.  The season started with severe spring frosts which led to a loss of viable fruit buds so that in parts of the Côte des Blancs eventual yields were down by up to 75% at 20 hectolitres per hectare.  As a result of this and the summer heat, there was a very small, fast ripening crop.  In line with their usual practice the ripeness of the fruit was carefully monitored in the final weeks of the year. As the thermometer reading soared above 40°, the vines shut down, so no further sugars were made, but the phenolic ripening of the skins and seeds continued.   As the the wine maker told his story he got limited sympathy for having to interrupt his holiday in San Tropez in order to return to the Champagne area for a harvest which started on 25 August, at the time only the second ever August harvest since 1822.  There were many technical challenges for wineries more used to dealing with the harvest of a cool and damp climate – the temperature of the grapes, the choice of when to pick, issues to do with skin contact and then clarification – but they were by no means insurmountable.  It was fine if you were open-minded enough, says Geoffrey with a knowing smile.  The challenge in wine making was to turn strength into intensity.

2003 – the wine

The 2003 wine is remarkable if unusual.  It starts with a fine floral note but this quickly gives way to a range of components – ripe if muted exotic fruit, honey, currently noticeable oak, some herbiness, an intriguing bitterness and a notable minerality.  The palate is currently moderately intense and the acidity, not surprisingly given the heat of the summer, very low by Champagne standards.  If the mark of outstanding wine is its complexity, then this stands out – even if it is right up one end of the spectrum for cool climate wine.  Richard Geoffrey is adamant that there is no basis for the commonplace that wine needs elevated acidity to age well. It is the flavour intensity that matters.  He is sure that the 2003 will age for decades … ending the debate by his assertion that Dom Pérignon 1976 is a now a monument! 

2003 – the colours

So much for the season and the wine, how do Dom Pérignon wish to present the wine?  After the introduction and simple tasting we were treated to an interactive, almost theatrical experience.  In darkened rooms – DP believes in the eternal chicness of black – we are assigned a sommelier and a tasting bar, and led (very willingly) through the colours of white, gold, hibiscus red and blue-black … four colours, four micro dishes with exquisite tasting combinations.  Let’s do the photo blog first:

You can’t accuse of Dom Pérignon or their chefs of not trying!  This was a spectacular line-up of colour, the non-colour of black and flavours.  If the idea was to broaden our concept of ‘what goes’ with vintage Champagne, it certainly worked.  For me the most remarkable combination with the wine was the very first – a cream and egg yolk ‘egg’ with cinnamon, a coarse black salt and just a touch of the luxuriant sweetness of maple syrup.  In a ‘like with like’ match, the indulgently rich texture of the dish brought out the richness of the wine, cream meets cream, while in a cross current, the cinnamon brought out the fruit and the whole was livened up with the hit of salt.  This was more than a taste, it was a unfolding series of rich textures punctuated by hits of cinnamon, salt and sweetness.  Remarkable.

The two middle dishes, were very good, but tasting-wine combination were not on the same level.  In the gold dish, the La Mancha saffron was certainly warm and powerful and the Livorno  risotto rice, called Acquarello, holds its marked firmness while being cooked.  The dish was finished off with the intense bite of four year old Parmesan. Despite being a classic combination, I felt the dish stood side by side with the wine.  Similarly with the red number: all the fireworks were from the low salt farmed caviar from Aquitaine on its bed of hibiscus reduction, rather than its interplay with the wine.   However, the textural pyrotechnics returned with the final ‘black’ dish, foie gras and a 40-ingredient mole sauce, including the key contributions of chocolate and mild chilli.  Whatever the colour, richness is the key to 2003 Dom Pérignon. 

Asking the owner of an independent wine shop to choose just six wines to show off his wines is definitely mission impossible.  If the shop is a creation of one person, he or she has spent hundreds of hours and selfless tasted probably thousands of wines to pick the stock … and then they have to be whittled down to just six!  But it makes for a good game and the wines should be excellent. And the selection  should tell you a great deal about the owner’s preferences. 

Tim Pearce of Grape Expectations, Andover, was the man on a mission. I had made one stipulation – we must taste his very best Champagne!  And then there were a number of bonus wines too. 

	Pale lemon, fine citrus notes, some melon fruit, sharp acidity and, at least in Tim’s view, some creaminess. We tasted these wines blind – because we like to have a bit of suffering with our pleasure – but this was just too obscure for that game!  This was a north Italian white: Castelfeder, Kerner ‘Lahn’ 2009 which comes from Südtirol or Alto Adige if you prefer, and is made from the Kerner grape, itself a cross between Riesling and Trollinger.  That attractive sharp acidity comes from the 15 degrees of temperature difference between night and day in the area.
Wine number two was straw in colour, quite aromatic – flowers, sherbet and lemon, with moderately high acidity, medium bodied, persistent with a very dry finish.  ‘Fragrant, cool, good length’ was one comment; and ‘great value at £8’.  This is an excellent bottle from an unlikely source: Catarina 2010, Bacalhôa, Setubal Peninsula, Portugal, 13.5% alcohol but very well balanced.  60% Fernão Pires, 30% Chardonnay, 10% Arinto, with just the Chardonnay being fermented in oak.
	Now here is a wine to divide opinion!  The fact that we struggled to identify it told its own story.  It isn’t made from an unusual German cross or Portuguese grape varieties … in fact it could not be more more main stream.  After some initially mustiness had lifted (natural wine making), toffee apple and vanilla on the nose with rich apple fruit, good acidity, no signs of oak on the palate: 100% Chardonnay from southern Burgundy, clearly given the big oak treatment:  ‘Aragonite’, Clos des vignes du Maynes, AC Macon-Cruzille, 2009.  Classic Burgundy isn’t, but it is a wine of real character.
Some wines do deserve three pictures.  A superb vintage Champagne, from Henriot, from the good 1998 vintage: still lively mousse, medium pronounced biscuity nose, full bodied rich fruit, wonderful balance combining ageing notes and remaining freshness, great depth of flavour. As one learned commentator wrote: ‘Yum’!
	Back to the unknown.  Some initial ‘bubblegum’ on the nose led us down the wrong path, then ripe cherries, even cherry icecream.  A north Italian grape variety apparently … we eventually got to Lagrein,  in this wine which I had tasted a few weeks ago.  A red from Castelfeder again: Lagrein 2008. The picture is getting clear: this buyer doesn’t worry about whether the wine is well known or not, he buys what he likes …
And he likes pairs of wines from the same estate: here is the red from Clos des Vignes du Maynes, AC Macon Cruzille 2010. And is there a twist … you bet there is!  Good raspberry fruit, high acidity, medium tannins, some old oak. So what is the one thing you don’t do with the Gamay grape – oak it of course!  Another super low intervention wine, no added SO2, but then 11 months on the lees in oak barrels.
	OK, we did spot this one: Pinot Noir in some form or other, raspberry and strawberry fruit, some attractive farmyardy notes, quite structured with lots of fairly linear fruit on the palate, plenty of alcohol, good drinking.  Tim teased me that I had been to this estate … but as I have not ventured out of Europe recently, this seemed unlikely. Clos Henri, Marlborough, New Zealand 2008. But it is indeed from Henri Bourgeois, who I did indeed visit in cool Sancerre just over a year ago.
On to the bonus wines.  Here is a wine you definitely can’t buy at Grape Expectations, or probably any where else: Borges & Irmão, Vintage Port 1963.  A case of six made £139  in a Christie’s auction of 2001 … a precious bottle from Tim’s own cellar, a minor house in a great vintage.  Pale, spirity, sweet fruit still with us …
	Two final bonus wines: a big, bold South African ‘port’ in all but name first: Axe Hill, Mossops, 2002, South Africa.  And then another sweet red wine, but this just 14.5% alcohol, a great Italian classic, Recioto della Valpolicella 2004 from the outstanding Corte Sant’Alda. Clearly some one knows my tastes!  Dense cherry fruit, nice wood notes, super balance of rich red fruit on the palate with mild tannins and a dry finish.  Marinella Camerani’s wines do not disappoint!

In wine, as in life, it is a good idea to let people with talent express themselves … thanks to Tim and other generous guests for a great evening. 

Veuve Clicquot launched their two 2004 vintages wines – white and rosé – with an interesting comparison. What is the effect of bottling these wines in a normal bottle size, a magnum and a jeroboam?
Apart from making a very pretty picture, the answer in a wine of this quality is that there is a marked difference. The smaller the bottle the more you notice the yeast and mushroom aromas of bottle ageing. By contrast, the large bottle preserves the fruit flavours. Either way, these are subtle, highly drinkable and pleasurable wines.

We have been enjoying a number of parties to launch our new garden/tasting room at home.  It replaces a plastic conservatory and is proving a real joy – opening up the entire ground floor of the house, giving lovely views into the garden and creating lots of space.  And of course we have an excuse for a number of wine-themed celebrations.   Here is the splendid magnum of rosé from Domaine Cazes, Roussillon, from the family lunch, a very attractive colour indeed!

You can seat 10-12 in one end of the room for a tasting or meal, and lots more if you go in the other direction.  Here is the ‘before’ scene; the ‘after’ we will leave to your imagination, though there is a picture below.  

One of the parties was for the tasting group, the BBC (Bring a Bottle Club), which sometimes is a complete free choice for its participating members (BBC 1) or on a theme (BBC 2).  This fell somewhere in between as we wanted to taste some bottles of old Sangiovese.  Others offered to bring a course to eat with matching wines which was a very generous offer. So here goes: 

	Anyone who is kind enough to bring a magnum of vintage Champagne is excused any other contribution!  Champagne Vilmart, Grand Cellier D’or 2000, Premier Cru – pale to mid gold, rich on the nose (70% Chardonnay, the rest Pinot Noir), nutty, refined yeastiness, pronounced palate, subtle and substantial at the same time.
Domaine Cheveau’s wines have made quite an impression at Caviste and this Pouilly-Fuissé 2009 Les Trois Terroirs was no exception.  Full of lively apricot fruit, most plumped for white Burgundy, with a small (and wrong) faction for Viognier. I was in the latter group but a warm year in southerly Burgundy was a fair meeting point.
	Twins from  Ridge California Chardonnay accompanied a delicious smoked salmon parcel dish which I failed to photograph but certainly enjoyed eating.  We all agreed on Chardonnay; some thought one from the new world and one from the old, but in fact Santa Cruz Mountains is made with grapes from the young vines, while Monte Bello is the older sibling.  In both new oak is still quite prominent (2007), fruit sweetness and varying levels of toffee and golden syrup notes …
Triplets from Tuscany followed, with my version of Wild Boar and Olives … People may have rememberedk the Sangiovese hint, but the view was that the 2007 and the 2003 were related wines and that 1999 was ‘different’. In fact this was three vintages of Castello del Trebbio, Lastricato, Chianti Rufina riserva – with the oldest wines outshining the youngsters.  A fuller comment on this mini-vertical can be found here.
	Warning: we are entering unusual wine territory!  A bonus bottle from a tiny production Spanish producer which we couldn’t easily place.  Delicious, full of character, ripe fruit, lots of substance … Spanish … we still had no idea. In fact Rioja but made solely with Graciano and Garnacha, and no hint of Tempranillo. Tiera Fidel, Rioja 2007.  Interesting but quite expensive (£30).
Even further off the beaten track:  very rich, red-berried fruit, ripeness, some sweetness, dense and … it turns out to be a wine made from three passes through the vineyard for Groppello and Marzemino grapes, the grapes allowed to dry out for three weeks (semi-passito), then six months in barriques:  there are less than 1,000 bottles of Simut from Leali di Monteacuto, 2004 on the western side of Lake Garda, Italy.
	There is nothing particularly obscure about vintage port but nobody guessed the identity of this sweet red wine … 10th wine of the evening?  thrown off balance by rare Italians? A trial first bottle of a case: sweet, red, young, with high acidity and many, many years ahead of it.  Quinta do Crasto 2003 takes its first bow and accompanied a magnificent cheese board.
We entered the last lap: a quintet of sweet(ish) whites, including a trio of wines made from Chenin Blanc, of which in turn two were twins from one producer – though of course no one knew about this whole set of relationships at the time.
	The first of the five was off-dry to the slight surprise of the person who brought it.  A pale amber in colour, floral, old apples and cheese on the nose, mild woody notes, yeast – a complex and typically interesting wine from Huet: Le Haut-Lieu, Vouvray 1989.  Chenin Blanc of this quality and initial level of acidity can age for decades.  For further vintages, click here
Château Doisy-Vétrines, Grand Cru, Sauternes, 1996, a beautiful, structured and elegant wine, sweet with honey notes, biscuit and marmalade flavours from the effect of botrytis, toffee apples, good refreshing finish.  Guesses of the vintage neatly spanned the actual date.
	A final trio of wines, which in fact were French twins and an Italian non-relative.  Some of us did detect Loire Chenin Blanc in the twins, this time in a sweet style.  The first was lighter, moderately sweet, rich in fruit, good acidity.  In the mouth it was luscious and with a hint of marmalade richness.  The second was massively sweet, richer, massively marmaladely…perhaps a bit ‘obvious’.
They turned out to be a pair from Domaine de Montgilet (Victor e Vincent Breton) and the appellation is Coteaux de L’Aubance in Anjou.  The first was the more expensive  Clos des Huttieres 1999, while the second, which people preferred as it was more expressive, was Les Trois Schistes, 2002.
	Finally, people really loved the Italian non-relative, burnt sugar and toffee apples wine, with its marked toffee, old wood and oxidative notes.  The best guess was for Madeira, but in fact it was a Tuscan Vin Santo from a domestic sized production by Lucia D’Antillio Bacci: Fattoria Santa Maria, Montescudaio, 2000 is excellent: rich, sweet and nutty and an amazing bargain at €12.50. You can see pictures of the estate here.

Thank you to members of the BBC for launching our garden/tasting room in such style – may your choices of wine be ever more rewarding/adventurous (delete as required!) 

Champagne is normally made from a blend of three grapes, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay.  Michael Edwards in The Finest Wines of Champagne, (Aurum, London 2009) tells us that the proportions planted are 38, 33 and 29 per cent respectively, which means that one third of the total area of the Champagne vineyard is planted to the otherwise unknown Pinot Meunier.  As the name hints, it is probably a mutation of Pinot Noir. The best sites, where the prized belemnite chalk forms South facing slopes which catch the sun, are given over to the well known pair of grapes. But the unsung Meunier has its moment as a hardier, late ripening variety, better suited to the cold, clay soils of the Marne Valley, where the other two grapes would struggle in this cool northern region.

Meunier is normally used as a part of the blend of standard Champagnes, with many better crus and vintage wines being made wholly of the two ‘noble’ varieties.  It contributes ‘palate-filling volume’ (Edwards) and attractive fruit in the short term.  But the variety has its supporters.  Edwards argues that it can be fine and structured.  If it is indeed a mutation of Pinot Noir, that should be no surprise.  I had the rare chance to test this at the annual major Champagne tasting where, amid the 70 producers, there were a handful who showed wines made wholly of Pinot Meunier.  The producers are supposed to bring only three wines each to the tasting, stacking the odds against such rarities appearing, but would you expect the independent minded Champenois to abide by this rule?  Of course not.

J. Charpentier, Cuvée Pierre-Henri, 100% Pinot Meunier, shows nice exotic fruit, apples to peach in flavour, an entry level Champagne with medium persistence, good but not particularly complex.  Surrounded by fabulous wines this could appear rather ordinary or indeed confirm the reputation of the grape variety, but drunk on its own it would be a perfectly good option and delicious in its own right.

Arlaux, 100% Pinot Meunier is aged for seven years on the lees producing a lovely exotic richness and giving the lie to the notion that this grape variety can’ t be aged.  It would be an interesting wine to match to food, given its richness but you only have to think of fish or chicken dishes in a rich sauce and it would click perfectly.

More whimsically, one can’t help wondering if John Arlott, would not have enjoyed the wines of the company which nearly shares his surname – well if you pronounce his name as if it were French.  Arlott was an exemplary cricket commentator of another era, who was also well known for fuelling that gravelly Hampshire burr with big name Champagne. In those days there were long periods of Test matches when absolutely nothing happened!
Tarlant, La Vigne d’Or 2002 is again 100% Pinot Meunier.  A single vintage wine, it has been on its lees for the best part of eight years, having been disgorged (ie process of removing the plug of dead yeast cells created by the second fermentation in the bottle) in 2010.  Pronounced aromas and flavours of apples, pineapple and guava, good acidity: overall, the word is exotic.

It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but Pinot Meunier … take a bow.

I suppose it is inevitable that the wine trade will live on hype about certain vintages.  It was 1982 which made Robert Parker’s name when he declared it, early and correctly, to be a great vintage. 2000 was much promoted because it was the millennium and fortunately turned out pretty well  and 2005 was hailed as for being the vintage of the decade, or at least until we are offered  the 2009s next year!  And then very occasionally you will have something to celebrate which coincides with a great vintage such as 1990.   The very first case of wine that Janet and I bought together was a mixed case of 1990 Burgundy reds including two bottles of Santenay-Gravieres, a fairly modest ‘village’ level wine aimed at the private consumer who had the patience to wait for its drinking window of 2000-10.  This formed a centre piece for a 1990 dinner (OK, a 1990ish dinner) with some very fine bottles. 

It helps if you are a bit of a hoarder and have enough in the cellar (under the stairs?) to ‘lose’ a few bottles.  Some wines are stored because they really need time before they are ready to drink, some because they are special enough that they have to wait for an occasion.  This is not just about quality level, as long as it meets your own threshold, it could also be that the bottle was bought on a special occasion or location. 

To start with we tasted the Grand Cru champagne from Roger Brun, a small producer in Ay, his Cuvée des Sires.  It’s not a vintage wine, though according to its maker this particular bottle was a mixture of 1995 and 96, Champagne making use of its permission to keep quality high by mixing across vintages.  This has lasted in the wine store because it is the penultimate bottle of a tiny cache we bought back with us on a memorable trip to Burgundy.  People can be snooty about coach travel but for the wine traveller it has one huge advantage – those cases you can stash away in the luggage compartment which travel back with you.  So this bottle was a memento of a stop off in Champagne on the way home – is there a better way of sweetening the business of having to come back from holiday?  A little bottle age has smoothed all the edges of this wine, with a nose of brioches and apples moderately pronounced. Smooth and sophisticated. 

Well out of keeping with the 1990s theme but otherwise very impressive was a 2003 white Burgundy: Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru ‘Les Folatieres’ (Ch. de Puligny-Montrachet) – it’s there on the table with a yellow neck label!  This is a wine you can admire from afar – the minute you pour it, its golden-yellow colour announces a grander wine on which lots of lovely new oak has been lavished.  Actually, it could have done with a few more years yet.  While it was beautiful, a few more years and that fruit and the oak would be yet more harmonious – a wine for a long term relationship? 

The main event however was a trio of 1990s or near 1990s.  This was a fascinating comparison between the Santenay already mentioned and two clarets. So on the one hand you had Burgundy (Pinot Noir) v. Bordeaux (mainly Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) and then between two levels, and indeed near vintages, in Bordeaux. 

The Santenay and the Ch. d’Angludet are a fair comparison.  The former is a village wine, ie the level between Bourgogne Rouge and the named vineyards of premier and grand cru. The claret similarly is a cru bourgeois, rather than a classed growth.  The Burgundy is a pale brick colour with some ruby left, but pale and interesting in comparison to the much deeper red of the claret.  Similarly, the Burgundy is now mainly old farmyard smells and a little bit of raspberry and strawberry fruit, while the claret is smooth and integrated, no one flavour dominating, the fine wine version of easy drinking. 

By comparison, the Pauillac, Ch. Pichon Longueville is much grander wine, a second growth in Bordeaux’s (or rather Médoc’s) premier league of 1855.  In the picture above, note the crest in the glass of the bottle.  It is also from a great vintage, the first of the three that run from 1988 to 1990 – Bordeaux certainly had something to celebrate in that run of years.   This is a much bigger, more structured wine, the blackcurrant fruit still evident along with the effects of ageing, now mellow and powerful at the same time. 

As you can see from the pictures, the evening wasn’t all serious wine but a great evening with friends.  But then what better setting is there for sharing fine bottles than with friends who will appreciate them?  The final bottle was a Sauternes with some

bottle age – Ch. Filhot 1994.  I think I picked this up in a Waitrose end-of-line sale and stashed it away.  At this sort of age, the zip of young acids have begun to fade and the marmalade/cooked fruit comes to the fore.  I thought that this was a bit short
on the palate but nonetheless a decent bottle from a difficult year in which there was rain during the crucial September period. 

So 1990 really was something to celebrate.  My only regret was that it is far more difficult to source older Italian bottles, or indeed anything other than Bordeaux or perhaps Burgundy, for mature wine.  It’s fine if you are buying right at the top of the market or by the case – a few specialist businesses can meet that need.  But apart from that it usually is Bordeaux.  Nonetheless, it’s great to have an occasion to try some high quality wines which have survived and developed over the past couple of decades.  

Aged wines are something of an acquired taste.  They set up all sorts of conflicts.  Unless you are very fortunate or rich, laying down wines for the future is only for the patient.  Buying something that will be at its peak in 10, 20 or more years is extremely counter cultural.  Then of course there is the big decision on when to drink the wine – unless you have bought a case, it’s all or nothing.  Finally, there is the matter of taste – do you actually prefer young fruit-led wines or the bready aromas of aged champagne, the distinctly farmyard smells of old Pinot Noir or oxidized styles of old sherries and Vin Santo? 

A few recent bottles illustrates some of these dilemmas. 

Selvapiana Bucerchiale Chianti Rufina riserva 1998 This bottle illustrated the adage that simply ageing a wine will not make it great.  Most wine is best drunk young.  This riserva from one of Rufina’s best growers may have been one of them despite its pedigree from an excellent winery in one of Chianti’s most northerly (and usually age-worthy) areas.  But if it’s a poor year to start with, the wine may just not have the fruit to develop, and that was the problem here.  Despite several hours in a decanter during which cleaned up a slight off smell in the bottle, it never really sang.  Remaining refreshing acidity but mono-linear. Disappointing. 

As commented on in the previous post, the expensive (£120) Taittinger Comtes des Champagnes 1998 still tasted rather closed – so in this case ‘old’ probably means a twenty year weight, rather than ten.  By contrast, 1999 Pannier Egerie is now ready to drink being in that fascinating state of tension between youth and decline, freshness and bottle age.  The sharp apples of the fruit were complemented by mushroomy notes and nice weight in the mouth.  To add to these treats a very generous host recently shared Nicolas Feuillatte Palmes d’or 1998 with us.  Feuilatte is widely available as a entry level Champagne in supermarkets but also has prestige lines of which this is the top offering.  Quite a lot of money had gone on the packaging – special plastic outer capsule, then a honeycomb style bottle.  The wine itself showed real class in the glass with a persistent mousse of ultra fine bubbles.  On the nose it was in mid-life, pastries and yeastiness and then rounded and civilized on the palate.   Probably the right time  to drink it – limited prospect of further development. 

Red Burgundy certainly repays ageing, again if it is of sufficient quality to start with.  At a recent Caviste tasting a Vallet Frères Gevrey Chambertin 2000 was superb – the lovely raspberry and redcurrant fruit now accompanied by a perfect accompaniment of earthly, composty goodness … Not old but perfectly mature.  As we like to think of ourselves. 

Finally, there are a small handful of wines made for the very, very long haul – they make all the preceding wines seems like children in the nursery.  Chenin Blanc can make almost every sort of wine from supermarket shelf-filler, to fizz, to grand white to off-dry or sweet wine that will outlast most of us.  Richard Kelley, an expert on the wines of the Loire, showed a range of these marathon wines for a Caviste tasting of the wines of Domaine Huet in Vouvray, Loire, France.  The reasons for their extreme longevity is the high level of malic acid in Chenin Blanc and then the northern latitude of the Loire.  All the acidity is retained and the wines are aged for decades in bottles; most will have residual sugar to offset the acidity.  Though I didn’t get to the full tasting, Richard still had a precious few drops of:

1947 Le Haut Lieu Moëlleux – as I tasted these wines in the hurly burly of a crowded shop, I am going to quote Richard Kelley’s own tasting note to give some idea of the complexity of these old wines:

1947 Le Haut Lieu Moëlleux (original cork)
The most highly respected Loire vintage of the 20^th Century and in Gaston Huet’s own words ‘The greatest vintage I ever made’. The harvest commenced on the 19^th September. Polished. Complex appearance with orange bronze moving to olive green at the rim. A mature nose with some positive oxidation. Complex and smoky with aromas of brown sugar and cinnamon. Beautiful on entry, it has poise and perfect balance. It is delicate, elegant, textured with a fresh, pure apple purée nose combined with toffee apples, crème brûlée and pommeau. There is a pure, racy acidity that contributes to the incredible length and persistence. This will continue to age indefinitely. A perfect wine. (08/04)

1938 Haut Lieu Demi-Sec – it’s difficult to believe that this bottle is more than 70 years old and still going strong, but it is.  You might be relieved to hear that it is beginning to plateau! Kelley says: 

Mid-full and polished appearance. Yellow/orange. Exotic nose with dried oranges and a mineral edge. Some mushroom, but retains good fruit to the palate. Bone dry on entry and finish with severe, but not unpalatable acidity. Quite simple. Drinking now or soon. (07/06)

1990 Clos du Bourg Moëlleux 1ere Trie.

By comparison, a babe in arms: easy to appreciate, lush, sweet, ripe apples, excellent acidic finish. In this company the strapping 19 year old comes over like a mere youth. 

There are many yet older wines still available – port, madeira, claret.  Michael Broadbent’s classic Vintage Wine. Fifty years of tasting over three centuries of wine is an excellent guide.  But these few bottles at least begin to  open up the complex question of how old is old – at least in terms of wine.

Being an orderly sort of soul, in general I much prefer to go to a themed tasting, rather than a broad sweep across regions.  Comparison is a very powerful tool but I would rather limit the field and try to learn a bit more about an area or grower in depth.   Occasionally you get the best of both worlds, as happened at a recent Coe Vintners tasting, which took place at Home House, a private club in Portland Square.  Billed as a fine wine tasting, it certainly lived up to that with quality wines from Champagne and Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, a few Italians and Spaniards and even the occasional Australian.  But the star of the show was undoubtedly Olivier Humbrecht of whom more anon. 

In the general tasting some tables really stood out: 

Sumptuous Champagne from Pannier and from Dampierre.  I particularly enjoyed 1999 Pannier Egerie and the corresponding non-vintage Rosé.  The latter has a lovely raspberry and strawberry nose, balanced fruit and refreshment, delicious.  The 1999 has good freshness alongside some interesting, mushroomy tones, a nice weight in the mouth  I was less enamoured of the Pannier Blanc de Noir, ie made as white wine from the juice of black grapes. It was certainly distinctive with yeasty, even doughy smells to the fore.  Dampierre was also excellent, especially the Family Reserve Grand Cru, 2000: toasty, hazelnuts, good fruit and very long.  Altogether much better value than the Taittinger Comtes des Champagnes, white of 1998 (still tasted rather closed) and the rosé of 2002.  Of course if someone else has the wines in their cellar and the patience, that might be another matter entirely …

I also tried the Barolo and Barbaresco from Giacosa Fratelli, not least because I had bought a mixed case of these for a forthcoming tasting.  Overall conclusion was that they really need time to get out of their rather rustic youth (the two basic wines) though the 2005 Barolo Bussia has already has some perfume to offer.   A tasting in 2014-20 anyone?  This was even more the case with promising red Burgundy, eg PC Clos de Thorey Monopole, Nuit St Georges, 2006 from Antonin Rodet – I could taste the youthful acidity hours later!  But in ten years time it will be wonderful. 

No need for delayed gratification, however, with the wines of Zind-Humbrecht, though they too will develop with age.  Olivier Humbrecht was showing a great range of wines, 13 in all.  I concentrated on the ones that were new to me, especially from the Clos Windsbuhl vineyard.  The firm’s comment is:

“The Clos Windsbuhl is, with the Rangen vineyard, the least precocious site that we cultivate on the estate. The higher altitude, the old rocky calcareous soil, its location near the forest all participate to create a slow ripening process. Often criticized in the past for this characteristic, we think that on the contrary, it helps the grapes to keep a structure based on acidity and not alcohol, and also that the vines have more time to ripen the grape physiologically.

Humbrecht explained further that the vineyard is around 300 metres above sea level, 100m higher and so cooler than most, and that it has a mixed history.  Before they bought it, the older owners had worked for quality (only really good vineyards had names historically in Alsace) but then there was neglect, overplanting, overproduction in recent times.  Having acquired it on the basis of its ancient reputation, they have grubbed up the new vines but kept the old ones. 

Pinot Gris Clos Windsbuhl 2007: made with the fruit of the old vines, this is an amazing combination of crisp fruit and structure in the mouth. Wow! 

Gewürztraminer Clos Windsbuhl Vendanges Tardive 2005 – rich, dense, even tending to oily texture from late picked picked grapes, medium sweet but with good acidity, absolutely delicious. 

Another vineyard featured was the Grand Cru Rangen de Thann, very steep (to the point that it has to be ploughed using a winch) and South facing.  In addition to the two Pinot Gris I missed in the excitement (2005, 2001), there was:

Riesling Grand Cru Rangen de Thann 2007, a superb complex nose of honey, nuts and something herby/herbaceous, rounded in the mouth, melons, ripe fruit in general, even pineapple, with a refreshing finish.  Excellent. 

I finished the Zind-Humbrecht table with Pinot Gris Heimbourg Sélection de Grains Nobles 2005, a wine with well over 100 grams of residual sugar per litre – a huge, sweet sticky, but with great marmaladely flavours and counterbalancing acidity, and great persistence.