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Writing about the wines of Piemonte, Italy and France
As a small, gastronomic, diversion from the wines of Piemonte, I am marking the end of an era with the imminent closure of The Harrow, Little Bedwyn. For the last 21 years Roger and Sue Jones have run this brilliant and civilised restaurant with a great cellar. For many of those years it had a
Radda is probably my favourite Chianti Classico commune. With elevations up to 550m, sweeping slopes and dense forests, it is the coolest part of Chianti Classico. Historically, the challenge was to ripen grapes fully. Radda is also home to a number of great wineries, Montevertine, Volpaia and Monteraponi to name a few. The revived Castello
Then there is the elongated perfume-jar bottle from Domaine des Fournelles which uses a ton of glass. Finally, in the rosé section, the rather elegant contemporary rosé look adopted by Vignerons Des Pierres Dorées: Let’s move on to more conventional Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages. As already said, there are lots of traditional bottles and labels, but
I have only recently come to realise how much I love Syrah as a wine. It has now joined my personal pantheon of Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir, Sangiovese (and quite a few other tannic Italian varieties) and the very best examples of Chardonnay, roughly in that order. These are the varieties I want to cellar
We all know that the best wines today have to be ‘chalky’, ‘slatey’ or ‘gravelly’ – that is a major thing that distinguishes them from everyday, merely fruity wines. It would be interesting to do a research project on how this situation came about (MW research project anyone?) But that is not for now. Andover
In my last post Mineral muddle, I wrote about Alex Maltman’s new book on geology, soils and the vine. His main concerns are geology and soils. But along the way he explains how a vine gets the nutrients it needs. Reading this book reminded me that these basic processes are rarely explained outside of scientific circles.
Alex Maltman, Vineyards, Rocks, and Soils. the wine lover’s guide to geology, Oxford, 2018 In John Szabo MS’ otherwise excellent book, Volcanic Wines (2016), there is a particularly alarming example of poor logic. It comes when talking about the derivation of wine flavour and texture from the geology and soils of the vineyard. He cites
