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~ "studied carelessness"

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Tag Archives: Wine tasting

‘Yesterday When I Was Young’

17 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by juleslewis in Wine

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Tags

Baudelaire, Charles Aznavour, France, Grenache, Mas Foulaquier, Pic Saint Loup, Syrah, Wine, Wine tasting

‘Yesterday when I was young, the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue’

I’m often asked what it is that I look for when I taste a wine. I cannot recall my exact answer, but I guess it’s something like the late, great, Charles Aznavour is attempting to describe. Perhaps the search for truth, beauty, love and a return to the simplicity of youth – before life gets in the way and makes things just a little too complex.

L’Orphée is an equal blend of Grenache Noir and Grenache Blanc and 50% Syrah and expressive of the terroir and biodynamic practices of Mas Foulaquier’s  eight hectares on the northernmost edge of the Pic Saint Loup. 

The soil itself, as D H Lawrence would describe it: nurse of passions, stage of dramas, and habitat of local gods.

It opens dramatically with a bit of oxygen, so give a bit of air, put down the Baudelaire, and marvel as the earthy and floral aromatics come to the fore, exploding with rich dark blueberries, plum, pepper and violets prior to a lip smackingly sapid and softly generous finish with a stony minerality and plenty of concentration.

Like rain upon the tongue!

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Temperature Control

11 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by juleslewis in Wine

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Tags

Serving Wine, Wine, Wine tasting, Wine temperature

2013-10-10 18.36.26 (3)

When I select wines for buying, I often taste blind, where possible, and always at room temperature – especially the whites. This allows the aromas present in the wine to come to the fore (often pre swirl) and an accurate assessment of their true quality to be made, as well as any obvious, or less obvious, examples of physicochemical spoilage such as; oxidation, chemical or enzymatic reduction, microbial spoilage or precipitation by crystallisation or polymerisation.

I taste alone most of the time, finding this suits my rather misanthropic temperament, and as most of my selections are based on personal opinion it helps eliminate distractions making it easier to concentrate on the wine in the glass.

At the end of the week we taste as a team, this is a great way to round out the week, engender that Friday feeling and swap opinions and perceptions. On a monthly basis I meet with a control group, of like and unlike minded palates, to broaden out and level the tasting field and receive some invaluable market research into the bargain.

This has been the norm for the past three years, we taste all the wines as a double blind, and agree to disagree on a regular basis. One thing we always agree on however, is the correct or optimum temperature at which the tasting samples should be served. Sommeliers and Restaurateurs are aware of this, as a matter of course, but how many members of the wine buying public are so well informed.

I’ll walk you through it, excuse the dryness wine nerds, but it will help enormously:

Dry, white, wines should be served between 8 and 14°C, this spectrum covers most eventualities such as time of year, season and temperature of surroundings. The lower end of the scale is better for simple, primary-fruited wines such as Sauvignon Blanc, while the higher end is for more robust, complex, secondary-fruited wines such as White Burgundies.

Champagnes should be drunk at around 8 or 9°C, cold but not too cold, vintage wines can take 10°C.

Rose´s and Clairetes between 8 and 12°C, higher end for serious cru classe rose’ with the lower price bracket benefiting from pre chilled glasses prior to pouring and, in extemis, even accepting an ice cube or two on a hot summer’s day.

Sweet, white, wines should be served between 6 and 10°C depending on age, the older the wine the higher the temp. Sweet reds at between 10 and 15°C – tannins depending.

Fruity, juicy, thirst-quenching reds with simple aromatics, such as Beaujolais can be served around 11 to 14°C, with the lower end reserved for vin de primeur (Beaujolais Nouveau) and the higher end for the Crus. You can even go cooler for Nouveau and room temp for Moulin a Vent.

Rhone wines range from as low as 13°C for basic CDR Villages rising to around 18 or even 19°C for the serious kit such as Northern Rhone Syrah and Southern Rhone Grenache. A good rule of thumb here is that the bigger the structure of the wine (tannins and extract) and the more complex the vinification and maturation methods, the higher the serving temperature – so you can go up to around 19 or 20°C for red Bordeaux.

Red Burgundies should be served between 14 and 17°C dependant on the style and weight of the wines.

What about Italian, Spanish and Portuguese reds? I hear you cry. Well you should have learned a thing or two by now, the higher the tannin the higher the serving temperature should be.

And finally. If you are serving cheap, white wines, to people who get through a lot of volume but don’t care about the taste, then chill the bejaysus out of it so as to mask any neutrality, lack of structure and faults therein.

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“Gustatationary Substitution”

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by juleslewis in Wine

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Chambolle Musigny, Château Cos d'Estournel, Clive Coates, Glass, Master of Wine, Oddbins, Taste, Wine, Wine tasting

wine glass

“Is a power far beyond the wildest notion

only one precise solution is the key

Gustatationary Substitution is for me”

I came across a unique example of substitutionary gustation recently, whereby tasting notes were declared defunct and replaced by a tennis pro-esque fist pump to indicate the quality of the wine. Presumably a single fist pump was preferred as there was a glass of wine in the other hand? As entertaining, and momentarily exciting, as I found the concept I was mortified at the increased likelihood of spilling the wine during such an energetic method of approval.

When I first joined the wine trade, it existed somewhere between mothballed and food stained pinstripe and the shiny, man-made fibres of the future. And I didn’t fit in. My personal preference, for impartial advice, came from the be-t-shirted hipsters and college drop outs of Oddbins, whose witty and irreverent descriptions filled the shelves of their teeming, untidy and exciting high street stores.

My first boss was a man who saw himself as a jewel in a dung heap, whose shine masked a deep insecurity that manifested itself in appalling and ungenerous snobbery. Being a callow youth, I was unable to see that he was afraid of me and my big nose – as he was already suffering from the presbyosmia, or loss of smelling ability, that begins in middle age. Despite this unheeded affliction he was trusted to buy pallet loads of wine – with a myriad of faults – for people whose taste buds had caught the Last Train to Clarksville. A more generous and magnanimous man would have asked my opinion, given me the fist pump of approval and then passed the opinion off as his own. Moral: don’t diss the young when it’s your duty to help them.

My next lash from the tongue of disapproval occurred during a vertical of Cos D’Estournel going back to before the Great War. After so many brilliant, but aged examples, of this venerable property my tannin jaded, but distinctly un- presbyotic palate was enervated by the exciting, fruit forward and recently bottled 1985. As I enthused about the wine in the glass – after being asked my opinion on this occasion – I was immediately admonished for preferring it to the superior 1986. Now, I had read my Clive Coates and Michael Schuster and I knew the received opinion about the 86 being the better wine – but what if I loved the wine in the glass and wanted to buy it? It certainly got my fist pumping. Moral: don’t diss a potential punter.

Where is this leading to you may ask? Well, there are two types of tasting note and taking into consideration inexperience and received opinion. together with a glimpse  of a label, neither can be replaced by a fist pump.

The first is an objective note, purely analytical, often devoid of emotion and listing the wines constituent parts, merits and demerits, quality and potential longevity. It is also used to provide context as to where the wine sits in relation to others in its region or commune and to frame it within its own vintages. This kind of note often comes with a shorthand, and often controversial, score.

The second is of the journalistic variety, often subjective and full of personal opinion and perspective. Although designed to promote and sell the wine, it contains a description of what the wine smells, or reminds the consumer of, great if its flowers,  fruits and holidays, not good if its sweaty saddles – but then again. This is a positive note, usually unconcerned with shortcomings and centered around the wines affinity with food.

To conclude this rather long post, I want to illustrate how easy it becomes to overlook the true purpose of wine in the pursuit of nerdyness.

Some years ago, during day two of the Master of Wine examinations, students were asked to identify two pairs of French wines in a new/old world flight of four. The traditional double blind format also required comments on region, commune, vintage, quality, capacity to mature and use of oak. Diligently working through my allotted three minutes per wine, I was struck by the clarity of the final wine of the flight, a 1er Cru Les Amoureuses, Chambolle Musigny 92 from Comte Georges de Vogue, so much so that I stopped scribbling and drank it.

Moral: Wine is a wonderful drink, best shared than consumed alone – as friendship is its engine and true purpose. Analyse it by all means, but remember to retain perspective and a sense of  humour, together with an ability to communicate your enjoyment and wonder through your tasting note – a fist pump is not enough.

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