Winefriend

Posts Tagged ‘Cornas’

Andover Wine Friends’ monthly tasting featured wines from small French appellations and provided a tour of the south of France with a stop-off in Corsica.  Led by Lefty Wright (picture in second box below), it showed what quality there is outside of the well known areas – if you can source these small production bottles, here provided by Yapp Brothers. 

First up was rather a classy wine, AC Cassis, Clos St Magdeleine 2009.  Cassis itself is an old fishing port, now tourist resort, with the AC having 180 hectares of vineyard. Made from Marsanne, Clairette, Bourboulenc and Ugni Blanc, this wine had a good lemon richness on the nose, citrus and ripe fruit on palate with an interesting toffee note (as though it had been in old wood which apparently it hadn’t) and good length.  Structured and substantial it would be good with all sorts of food.
	No photo of Dom. Saparale’s Corse Sartene, 2010 which may have been a Freudian slip as this was the dis-appointment of the evening.  Almost water white, this Corsican Vermentino comes from the south of the island and an altitude of 300m which should make for quality.  Quite a marked nose but only herbaceous and pear drop notes, missing the lemon fruit which characterises good Vermentino from here and other Mediterranean shores.  Those who had had this wine before said it was not a typical bottle.
By contrast this wine was one of the stars of the evening, living up to its top reputation.  La Berne, AC Condrieu 2003 comes from the home of the Viognier grape, which is now grown around the world, in the northern Rhône.  It shone with its rich, honeyed and peach nose with some fine wood notes, classic satin texture and, surprisingly for a very hot year, a good sharp edge of lemon and grapefruit acidity. Very intense, full of elegant fruit, just very good.  Thanks to Lefty for sharing this from his cellar.
	Moving much further south west into Basque country (the last AC in France), this wine is a Pyrenean version of a Bordeaux blend: AC Irouleguy 2007, Dom. Ilarria, made from 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Franc and just 20% Tannat.  Fresh and dried red and black notes on nose and palate, fine perfumed bouquet, medium weight, good tannic structure but perfectly drinkable, medium length.  The domaine works just six hectares of vines.
As there seems to be quite a lot of Cornas about, it comes as a surprise that there is only 110 hectares of vines, 13.5 of which belong to Dom. Lionnet: Terre Brulée, AC Cornas 2005.  And the refinement of the wine was also unusual, as normally Cornas comes in a rustic style.  Perfumed with violet and red fruit notes, slightly meaty edge on the palate but with very good depth of flavour, not obviously peppery.  We agreed that this was an excellent wine and most thought that we might not have spotted the northern Rhône Syrah in a blind tasting. thanks again to Lefty for this bottle from his cellar.
	With nearly 1,000 hectares of vines it was stretching a point to include Bandol in this tasting – but it made the cut on the (good) grounds that Lefty likes it.  And it is another old fishing port which has made its distinctive name in the world of wine.  Powerful aromas of red fruit and blackberries, plus herby garrigue aromas, in an excellent example of a very good if rustic wine.  55% Mourvèdre, 20% Grenache, 20% Cinsault and 5% Syrah make up the blend for Mas de la Rouvière, Bandol 2007.
Back to the genuinely small, Bellet is an appellation with 15 producers which is under threat from being built over as it is now in effect a suburb of Nice.  The blend here is the very local Braquet (now not thought to be a relative of the aromatic Brachetto in NW Italy), Folle Noir and Grenache – so that you can recognise one grape variety.  Dom. de la Source, Dalmasso, AC Bellet, 2006.  Strongly farmyard aromas to begin with, then good red fruit, a fine and structured wine without being heavy this far South, good acidity and length.
	Ch. Simon is the big player in AC Palette, near Aix-en-Provence, as it has 16 of the AC’s total of 35 hectares.  The wine here is made from 45% Grenache, 30% Mourvèdre, 5% Cinsault and 20% of other red grapes which includes some Syrah.  Ch. Simone, AC Palette 2007 is matured in a slightly unusual way: eight months in small casks and then a year in more conventional barriques. Vanilla and red fruit on the nose, refined palate, moderately fine tannins and all round a very classy wine.  A very suitable climax to an intriguing tour of southern France’s small treasures.

February’s meeting of Andover Wine Friends was a spectacular lunch at The Harrow Inn, Little Bedwyn.  They put on a great show for 17 of us, while running the front half of the restaurant as usual.  I was seriously off duty – too much good food, company and excellent wines – so there are no detailed notes this month.  However, here are a selection of photos of some of the seven or so courses plus cheese, almost entirely from these islands. And a brief note on some outstanding wines.

The approach in this restaurant is easy to describe – genuinely warm hospitality, outstanding sourcing of ingredients, perfect timing in the kitchen, innovative combinations and a profound love of wine.  What a great combination!  The event started well with Ruinart Blanc de Blanc Champagne, being poured above left. 

And the wines? Some were bought at the Harrow and some came from people’s own collections. To pick out some unfairly:

• the Ruinart is wonderfully balanced and very refined
• Didier Dagueneau Pouilly-Fumé Silex, Loire – great, concentrated mineral Sauvignon Blanc … because there is a tradition of drinking this great wine at the Harrow
• a stunningly good, moderately priced Semillon from Australia which the Harrow stocks: Mount Horrocks Semillon, Clare Valley, Australia
• a wonderful white Grenache (not a phrase you can often employ!) from Catalan Spain – Ctonia, Masia Serra
• three Rieslings to compare – Eden Valley, Australia; classic Mosel; Schlumberger Grand Cru from Alsace
• decent Condrieu from Christophe Pichon and Cornas from Domaine de Rochepertuis
• sadly another ‘drink at the Harrow’ tradition here did not come to pass as the 1985 Hermitage from Jaboulet was over the hill – I suppose in this case it just rolled gracefully down the hill
• Spinnifex’s Indigene and Shiraz-Mataro from the Barossa, big fruit numbers but beautifully structured and complex, especially the latter
• there were quite a few others which probably deserved a mention …
• and finally, a brilliantly concentrated and only moderately sweet Banyuls: Coume del Mas Quintessence Banyulus Rouge
• some people found a little space to try two different Grappas

With many thanks to the whole crew at the Harrow – you deserve your success.

Blind tasting of random wines again … I think the best thing is to group the wines by type, clarity after the event being so much easier to achieve than at the time. So off we go with a, er, peculiarity:

	It’s definitely red, it’s sparkling, it’s slightly sweet … it’s not Shiraz, it’s lighter in weight, simple, and has cherry-aid and light plum fruit. The combination of being slightly sweet with a few tannins was a bit strange. We did know that its provider has a record of ‘enjoying’ some of the lesser well known German wines:Ferdinand Pieroth Burg Layen Meister Rouge Sekt Rot Mild. This wine comes from the Nahe region of Germany and basically is an inexpensive – and inoffensive – slightly sweet sparker. It was the subject of considerable verbal abuse: ‘not as bad as I thought’ being capped by ‘it’s nice to try a wine you know you don’t want to taste again’
On to a famous name from New Zealand: quite a powerful if restrained nose, gooseberry and some mineral notes, a slightly salty tang – I thought it was Sauvignon Blanc around Sancerre, 50% correct. Superb palate, the raciness of NZ Sauvignon Blanc reined in by the moderate use of oak.  This is from Kevin Judd, erstwhile wine maker at Cloudy Bay, now making excellent wines of his own: Greywacke, Wild Sauvignon, Marlborough, 2009, ie wild as in yeast, rather than rampaging grapes.
	There would have been an fascinating comparison between Mas de Daumas Gassac, Vin de Pays de l’Herault, 1995 and Le Soula, Vin de Pays Côtes Catalanes 2004, but sadly the latter was faulty: not much going on except hints of curdled milk … But the former aged southern French white, an eclectic mix of Chardonnay, Petit Manseng and Viognier (plus 10% undeclared!) was all ripe apricots and dried fruits …. papaya got mentioned in passing.  It was perhaps beginning to fade or at least for there to be a question about oxidation, but it is well into its second decade.
And while we are on the subject of the unusual, what about a somewhat atypical white Burgundy:  Domaine des Forges, Clos sous le Chateau, St Romain AC, 2004?  A slightly yeasty nose, some minerality leading some think about a more famous village such as Puligny, stylish and worthwhile.  Saint-Romain as an AC is a pretty recent invention and well worth it judging by this example.
	Through an unveiling accident of an innocent sort, we all knew this was South African Chenin Blanc … DeMorgenzon, Chenin Blanc, Stellenbosch, 2007. It’s all so easy when you know what it is:  white flowers, citrus, apples, great ripeness, indeed fat and waxy, superb full fruit on the palate and very good length.  Four reds followed, two Italians, both unusual in different ways, and then a Corbières and a northern Rhône.
Italy has many famous red wines and many important grape varieties which are quite widely dispersed. But it also has local specialities like this Nerello Mascalese (and presumably a close relative Nerello Mantellato) which produce find ‘Burgundian’ wines on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily.  Tenuta delle Terre Nere, Etna Rosso, 2009 - pale ruby in colour, rather funky fruit and some green tannins – is produced from vines surviving on their volcanic soils for between 40 and 140 years.
	Further north in Tuscany, the second half of the twentieth century was marked by a great deal of experimentation with French grape varieties, producing the so-called Super Tuscans.  Nambrot IGT Toscana 1998 belongs to this trend and is basically Merlot from an aristocratic estate in the Pisan hills, Tenuta di Ghizzano. The reminiscence of chocolate and balsam on the nose are quite typical, the high levels of tannin (after 13 years) was not.  I am not sure they had quite mastered this style in what was quite a difficult year in the Tuscan Maremma, a vintage rated only 88 by erobertparker.com.
The evening finished with two French wines, one from up and coming Corbières and one from established Cornas.  In Les Clos Perdu, Mire La Mer, AC Corbières, 2005 you could taste the Languedoc sun: ripe fruit, new oak, hints of burning, soft tannins – despite the fact that this is more than half Mourvèdre, known for its tannins.  The blend is 55% Mourvèdre, 35% Carignan and 10% Grenache.
	This final wine was surprisingly difficult to spot given that it is 100% Syrah from a classic region, the northern Rhône: attractive nose of liquorish notes and sweet fruit, ripe red and black fruit on the palate, prominent tannins – but no obvious pepper or spice which might have given the clue:  AC Cornas, Domaine de Rochepertuis, 2003 – all that ripeness was no doubt due the sweltering conditions of that very hot year.
As usual this was a splendid evening, with excellent food from the Red Lion at Overton. The quality of the wines certainly did exceed, or even compensate for, our ability to track them down in a blind tasting.  I think the picture on the right sums this up well: this blind tasting business is seriously overrated!  You can decide if the oddities of the title are the wines or the tasters.