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Tag Archives: Claret

Eau Naturel

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by juleslewis in Wine

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Bordeaux, Claret, natural wine, Wine, winetasting

I’m here for a winetasting. Set up by a friend in a crusty old gent’s club to presumably add some context and gravitas to the wines on show. ‘You’ll love it’, I recall him saying, ‘It’s right up your street’ – thankfully he didn’t say alley. It’s true, I generally enjoy listening to old relics of the wine trade banging on about Claret, as what they often lack in knowledge they make up for in amusing anecdotes. But this one is different, and I silently curse my (soon to be former) friend while absentmindedly gazing at a clumsily executed seascape and wait for the florid, farm-fresh, magenta faced, red-trousered windbag to stop talking.

As this appears not to be anytime soon, I smile, to feign interest, and settle back into the coma inducing embrace of a faux leather chair, fingering my glass of ‘not so good ordinary claret’ fighting the unripe, unresolved tannins (akin to licking the floor of a long abandoned outhouse) my disappointment growing as I’m told the wines are available in large format bottles and come with their own presentation box – presumably to die in.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the wines of Bordeaux – just not these, and while the windbag extols their, non existent, virtues to his captive, comatose, audience I look for a plant pot to pour mine into, although sympathy for the plant prevents me. Dumbstruck by the bombast and troubling certainty with which Tristram Shandy’s Uncle speaks, I am secretly in awe of his Farage-esque absolutism and the kind of extreme self-confidence that leaves no room for doubt, nor brooks interruption. 

I overlook his use of the words ‘pedigree’ and ‘breeding’ and even his positive spin on Brexit, but when he moves on to the subject of Natural Wine and manages to dismiss an entire movement – something previously done by Jonathan Ray (in an interview with Jason Yapp, who, rather surprisingly, failed to ask him to qualify such a sweeping assessment) and Bruce Palling in the Spectator – my hackles rise, particularly as he outlines his, ill informed, views on organic and biodynamic practices whilst eagerly extolling the merits of the appallingly adjusted and astringent plonk he’s peddling.

Now I must admit to disliking the term ‘natural wine’ as it implies that other wines are unnatural, and is probably an insufficient way to describe a complex ideology that includes organic and biodynamic viticulture, minimal handling and intervention, fining and filtration and extremely radical, yet differing, views on the use of sulphur dioxide. 

Contextually, the movement began as a counterpoint to the fruit bomb driven behemoths beloved of Robert Parker, seeking a return to something more artisanal, both in the vineyard and the winery, with the ultimate goal being to make wine with no other ingredient than the grapes themselves.  

Obviously this requires some firm ground rules: no factory farming, all vineyards must be organic or biodynamic and hand harvested only – machine harvesting however sophisticated damages the vines and compromises cropping – use of indigenous or natural yeasts, no culture corrections, no enzymes, additives, acidity regulation, no additional sugar (to increase alcohol), tannin, sulphur addition no higher than 7mmg/l, no fining, no filtration and absolutely no heavy manipulation such as; reverse osmosis, cryoextraction, spinning cone, centrifuging, rapid finishing or ultraviolet C irradiation – bet you didn’t know all that stuff went on did you?

And that’s just scratching the surface of an industry that regularly uses; tartaric and citric acid, potassium sorbate, gum arabic, carboxymethyl cellulose (to prevent crystals forming) dimethyl dicarbonate (to kill microbes) a dash of megapurple (to increase colour and boost mouthfeel), activated charcoal, potassium ferrocyanide, copper sulphate, pectolytic enzymes, bentonite clay and a soupcon of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone! Now these may not be as dangerous as climate change denial or driving at 30mph in a 20mph zone, but they may go some way to explaining that hangover!

However, if your goal is to take wine back to the Stone Age then you are not going to please all of the people all of the time. I admit to not liking all natural wines. Some are quite frankly volatile, full of brettanomyces, brown as Victorian furniture and, even in youth, smell like a teenagers bedroom, or an old aquarium, and taste like licking the outside of a wet canvas tent. When they are good they are very very good and when they are bad they are horrid. 

A word of advice though before you open up Pandora’s box. Do not judge natural wines against other wines, judge them against others of their type and always on their own terms. In a world of, increasingly, bland homogeneity they make a refreshing change for people with open minds.

Which brings me back to Mein Host whose mind could only be opened by invasive surgery. ‘Right, that’s stumps’, he says, ‘Lovely to chat’ – although he hadn’t – and makes his way into the evening to await the arrival of his sedan chair.

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“Life’s too short”

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by juleslewis in Wine

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Tags

Angelus, Claret, Dry January, Henry Fielding, Simon Hoggart, St Emilion

_MG_5073

“To drink bad wine” – to quote the late Simon Hoggart. But somewhat worse to drink no wine at all.

Now, if you’re an alcoholic, a recovering alcoholic, an alcoholic in waiting, or “stark raving mad” – to quote Henry Fielding – you may have fallen victim to the most miserable New Year Resolution of them all – the dry January.

A concept unique to the British Isles – the home of binge drinking – the dry January is the classic nanny state answer to the excesses of the festive season.  Many of my friends have embraced this concept, (a desire for yet another shared experience, or alternatively as a form of competition that does not require exercise). Statements such as “If I can do it you can”, “We are all in this together” and “We can have one hell of a ****up come February”, provide scant compensation for Hurricane Hercules, biblical rainfall and the polar vortex – personally I prefer Claret.

If you are deluding yourself that the aim of a dry January is to substantially improve the function of your liver, it is probably best to refrain from drinking until March at the very least. By which time – on venturing forth for a tipple – you may find that your local pub, club, cocktail bar or restaurant has closed down.

I grant you the liver does take a beating over Christmas, but better to slow down than to give up. Being good for a month, then binge drinking at the end of it, doesn’t solve the problem – it makes the miserable dreariness of a northern European winter harder to bear. It increases social awkwardness and lures many an unsuspecting (and boring) evangelical model of temperance into the open, bingo winged, arms of the sugar-packed soft drink industry.

Moderation in all things is the answer, this keeps your doctor happy, blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity down, and increases your ability to operate the television remote in the nursing home of your children’s choice.

Drinking less alcohol appeals more to my rebellious inner child. A minimum of two days off the booze a week (choose the dull days) has to be good for the liver and the wallet, allowing you to drink better wine for the remainder – particularly at the weekend.

Better wine means spending more money, but here’s the best bit, quality wine forces you to savour and enjoy it, makes you focus on what’s in the glass and enables you to discuss it without slurring your words or falling asleep.

Remember, hoovering up large glasses of neutral smelling, flabby, tasteless whites and sweet, cheap reds, (filled with unfermented sugar) are the reason many of you are currently enduring a dry January.

As you get older you need to watch those units of alcohol – don’t waste them on cheap plonk!

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