German Syrah: Some like it cool
At the first wine course I ever took the tutor explained that Syrah and Shiraz are actually the same grape but under different names. It felt like an illuminating nugget of knowledge at the time, but it turned out to be fool’s gold. At their extremes, these two styles are so different that they have little in common. At one end there’s the spicy, savoury aromatics and defined structure born of a warm climate (Syrah); at the other there is the power, density and ripe black fruits of a hot climate (Shiraz).
Both have their fans, but I find that too much heat robs this grape of its aromatic complexity, freshness and drinkability, not to mention adding ungainly weight to its naturally athletic frame. My rule of thumb has always been ‘the cooler the climate the better’. So when I heard that Germany was making some world-class Syrahs I had to investigate this new frontier: how cool is too cool?
Germany has long been famous for the quality of its white wines – in the best vintages. Its climate is so marginal for grape production that in the second half of the twentieth century there were usually between four and five indifferent vintages per decade. But over the past 15 years or so, the climate appears to have become more amenable to viticulture and more grape varieties are being trialled. Today around 40% of German vineyards are planted with red grapes. Germany is now the third biggest global producer of Pinot Noir (here called Spätburgunder), where it has been grown for centuries. But Syrah is new here.
The first vines were planted in 1993 by Werner Knipser in the Pfalz on the back of their success with red Bordeaux varieties. The first commercial vintage was 1997. Hanspeter Ziereisen was the first to plant Syrah in neighbouring Baden in 1999. He now estimates that there are 10 to 15 producers in Baden alone, and 50 to 55 hectares of Syrah planted across the country.
Ziereisen was already making Pinot Noir, but wanted to make a more powerful red – but it had to be something he wanted to drink himself. Since he isn’t a big fan of Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, he decided to plant Syrah, particularly since he draws parallels between the climate of Baden and that of the northernmost valley of the Rhône. “We are the [northernmost] Rhône!” he says with a hearty laugh.
Growing Syrah in Germany however is far from straightforward. “I always thought that Pinot Noir was one of the most difficult grapes,” says Ziereisen, “but Syrah is horrible! It’s only for winemakers that like to work in the vineyard.” It is a vigorous variety which makes it labour intensive to manage, and the berries are prone to fall from the vine.
Achieving sufficient ripeness is never guaranteed, and rain at harvest is a constant worry. “In two to three days the crop is destroyed. In 2006 we were not able to make a Syrah, in two or three days it was completely rotten.” Patrick Johner at Karl H. Johner in Baden, makes Syrah at their New Zealand estate but not at their German property. He believes only 1 in every 3 or 4 years can make wine of an acceptable standard due to all the rain and humidity. “It’s like playing roulette,” he says.
Dirk Rosinski at Knipser agrees that producing Syrah in Germany isn’t easy, but he believes that the humidity issue affects all varieties, not just Syrah. He thinks that in time it could match the quality of the best German Pinot Noir. “But it’s only for the red wine freaks who want to find out what is possible,” he says, “it’s not for every winery. You must be a little crazy.”
For a start there’s the perennial risk of vines dying during the brutally cold winters. If they do survive, low yields of 30-35 hl/ha are required (half that of Riesling) to ensure a good level of concentration. And this – plus the associated costs of new machinery, expertise and oak barrels – all adds up to high prices for the finished wines, so they’re not always easy to sell. Many of these potential pitfalls made themselves known in one or other of the 24 German Syrahs I tasted last week. Quality was very up and down, and there were a good number of disappointing wines. But the best were excellent. And as vines mature, local expertise grows and more favourable sites are identified, quality will only improve.
There are several regions outside of the Northern Rhône that produce excellent Syrahs, such as Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand, Adelaide Hills in Australia, Sonoma Coast in California and Swartland in South Africa. On the back of this tasting, I’m tentatively adding Baden and Pfalz to this growing list.
The tasting
I tasted the wines firstly by region (Baden, Pfalz, Württemberg and Rheinhessen), then in order of vintage starting with the youngest. Only one wine was submitted by each producer (notable absences being Rings, Ellwanger, Zeter and Schneider).This is early days for German Syrah, and styles varied widely even within each region. Baden and the Pfalz are the warmest regions in Germany: unsurprisingly they fared the best. Of the two, Baden was the most consistent in terms of quality, and 2012 proved to be the most favourable recent vintage throughout Germany for this variety.
To compare German Syrah to any other region around the world, the Northern Rhône would be the closest fit. The best were similar in weight to lighter Côte-Rôtie or Crozes-Hermitage but they often had more red fruit notes and many had a notable vegetal or herbal side. This can contribute complexity and character, or greenness and bitterness, depending on the wine.
Often the acidity was quite elevated, sometimes jarring. Certain winemakers left one or two grams of residual sugar in the wine in search of balance, but more often than not this resulted in an uneasy sweet-and-sour effect. Most of the wines had some oak influence, often too much; this was a recurring problem, but at least it’s one that’s easy for winemakers to address.
Overall, of the 24 wines I tasted, 10 weren’t up to scratch – and that’s a lot – but four were outstanding. Sadly only one is currently available in the UK, but others are on their way. I’ve supplied the local retail price in euros as a guide.
Eight German Syrahs to try
Fritz Waßmer Syrah 2012 (13.5%; Baden, Germany)
RRP 29€
Deeply coloured. Intense fruit here – pure blackberry and a hint of classic Syrah black pepper. Medium- to full-bodied for the style, with intense black fruits and real concentration on the palate. The tannins are fine, the acidity firm but balanced, all leading to a medium length, pure, savoury finish. This is very good indeed – notable for its intensity, presence, aromatic complexity and general sense of harmony. A perfectly balanced wine that’s a joy to drink. 2016 to 2020, 92 points.
Knipser Réserve Syrah 2012 (13.5%; Pfalz, Germany)
RRP 60€, for release September 2017
24 months in new French oak, light and medium toast. Transparent dark ruby. Very spicy nose from the oak with juicy loganberry fruit. Autumn leaves, fresh earth and rosemary all lie in wait underneath. Fuller in body than most, with some satin sheen on the palate from the oak. This is more ambitious and concentrated than any other wine in this tasting. Bright, luminous fruit with fine but noticeable tannins. Good purity, and the fruit and oak come together on the long finish, but it will take a while for the wood to fully integrate. 2018 to 2026, 92 points.
Ziereisen Gestad Syrah 2012 (12.0%; Baden, Germany)
£24.00, Howard Ripley
A distinctly earthy style of Syrah with some noticeable oak over the black olive and rosemary. Real freshness, impact and intensity. Tangy finish with some length of fruit and a fine, silky texture. 2016 to 2019, 91 points.
Espenhof Nico Espenschied Syrah 2012 (14.0%; Rheinhessen, Germany)
RRP 24€; 2013 available UK in December from Thirsty Cambridge
Steep, south-facing slope, clay over limestone, planted 2007. No new oak, no additions, no filtration, no fining. Bright, pure, smoky raspberry and cranberry fruit. Pure, sweet fruit on the palate, with a lovely sense of purity and balance. Savoury black olive finish. This is a sensitively made wine that shows off German Syrah's spicy red berry aromatic profile and the fine yet firm structure that sets it apart from other German reds. 2016 to 2018, 90 points.
Bernd Hummel Reserve Malscher Rotsteig Syrah 2012 (13.0%; Baden, Germany)
RRP 25€
Intriguing and inviting nose: high-toned oak spice, raspberry and dried rose. Fuller in body than some, and there is a touch of sweetness here, but it's not out of balance. Not terribly long, but this immediately enjoyable wine has complexity, finesse, and a good sense of harmony. There’s a touch of bitter cherry on the juicy finish. 2016 to 2019, 89 points.
Klaus Meyer Rhodt unter Rietburg Réserve Syrah 2012 (12.5%; Pfalz, Germany)
RRP 20€
Young vines (planted 2009) on limestone. Pale ruby. Cherry cola on the nose – robust oak influence, but there is good raspberry and loganberry fruit underneath. Good concentration of sweet red berry fruits, balanced acidity. This is young now, but will improve and come together in time. A wine of considerable finesse and elegance, and has handled the oak well considering the age of the vines. The tannin is fine, ripe, and not drying. There is good potential here – one to watch. 2017 to 2022, 89 points.
Graf Neipperg Syrah 2013 (14.0%; Württemberg, Germany)
RRP 47€
A distinctly savoury nose – black olive, dried herbs, with some just-ripe blackberry. Medium-bodied, velvet textured with a subtle grain. Decent intensity of fruit, and high but balanced raspberry acidity. The tannins are a little sketchy around the edges, but the aromatics deliver much to enjoy. An ambitious style of wine that would be fascinating to taste in a better vintage. 2016 to 2019, 88 points.
Neiss Kindenheimer Katzenstein Syrah 2013 (13.5%; Pfalz, Germany)
RRP 19.90€
Distinctly spicy/herbal nose. Very high-toned and floral. Fine and light on the palate, with sappy fruit. The acidity is incisive but and the wine retains a level of sweetness on the finish. A Syrah for German Pinot lovers? 2016 to 2018, 88 points.
First published on timatkin.com.
Chapoutier 2015 Sélections Parcellaires: the best vintage since 1990?
Every spring, Rhône ringleader Michel Chapoutier comes to London to unveil the new vintage of his top single vineyard wines, the Sélections Parcellaires. It’s a hotly anticipated tasting for a number of reasons. Firstly, because Chapoutier’s wines are consistently among the best in the region. Secondly, because he shows his new vintage six months in advance of most other winemakers, so it’s a tantalising glimpse of what’s to come. And thirdly, because Michel is such an entertaining, outspoken and provocative performer.
This year however, despite being an extraordinary vintage, a trim and well-groomed Michel had less to say than normal – and was even prone to the occasional understatement. In difficult vintages, there is a story to tell – challenges, battles, disasters averted. But 2015 wasn’t difficult: quite the contrary. It is, he said, “probably the best vintage since 1990.” He went on to mention a recent conversation he had with renowned Côte-Rôtie winemaker Marcel Guigal, who suggested it could be the equal of legendary vintages such as 1961 or even 1947. As the 2015 Bordeaux en primeur carousel creaks into action, you might want to save some of your wine budget for the Rhône this year.
Vintage conditions
Michel began by describing 2015 as “a warm year”, a slight understatement that could do with elaborating. After a humid spring, mid-June to mid-August was sweltering, with temperatures regularly topping 37°C (99°F). Regional marketing body InterRhone describes 2015 as “one of the hottest seasons of the last few decades.” It was also unusually dry.
Thanks to ample rain during the previous winter and spring however, according to InterRhone there were no reported symptoms of drought. There were some thundery storms during the harvest in late August and September, but, they say, these caused no ill-effects to the grapes thanks to the thickness of their skins. There was certainly no sign of rot or dilution in what I encountered at this tasting.
Marsanne and Grenache
Michel doesn’t use Roussanne for his white wines, so the four we tasted – one Saint-Joseph and three Hermitages – were pure Marsanne. Generally speaking they have impressive concentration and a sense of easy opulence. These are invariably very good wines, but 2015 appears to be a vintage for those who value richness over tension in their whites.
The two Southern Rhône wines in the line-up were also single varietals, Grenache this time – and are two of the best Châteauneufs I have tasted to date from this producer. The fruit was fresh, defined and intense but what really impressed was the structure – fine acidity matched with some enjoyably emphatic tannins.
Syrah
Unsurprisingly for a holder of large positions of Hermitage, it was the Syrahs that stole the show. The Saint-Josephs were impressive, but the top Hermitage wines were exceptional even by Chapoutier’s high standards. Despite the heat, the wines have retained a sense of freshness and avoided any jamminess. “The level of acidity everywhere is quite high,” says Michel, “you don’t feel the heat like in 2000 or 2003… What amazes me in 2015 is the minerality. We were sure to have richness, but we [didn’t] expect to have the minerality of a cold vintage.”
A defining trait of these 2015 Syrahs is the character and intensity of their tannins. Michel described how the winemaking team discussed the “fresh, slightly biting tannins” (understatement number two) and how to handle them. They considered extended barrel ageing, but in the end Michel decided “we don’t correct the vintage… no, we must capture them.” It was a bold decision. These lupine, saw-toothed tannins have delivered some thrillingly textured wines.
Nonetheless these Syrahs are well balanced, and have everything they need for long term ageing. And they’re going to need it: it will take time for these wines to soften, but it will be worth the wait. “After this tasting you will have a black tongue,” he said. And I did.
Other projects
The tireless Michel has a suite of new projects every year, and he shared some of them with us at the tasting. Although famous for his single vineyard approach to making Hermitage, he is producing a limited number of magnums of blended Hermitage for special occasions such as auctions.
Combining his love-affair with Australia and Portugal, Michel is planting some Touriga Nacional in the Pyrennes region of Victoria, south-east Australia.
We also tasted the first release of Chrysopée, a Grenache Gris/Blanc Collioure under his Domaine de Bila-Haut label. It’s distinctly rich and opulent, but is an impressive example considering the fairly young vine age. One to watch.
One thing however not to expect any time soon is a Carignan. “Carignan – it tastes of Carignan – horrible! You put in 10% it kills the wine,” he pronounced. I knew the new understated Michel wouldn’t last.
Is this the best vintage since 1990? We’ll have to wait until the wines are bottled to be certain. But on the back of this tasting, I wouldn’t rule it out.
Barrel samples tasted at Home House, London on 18th April 2016. Prices will vary between merchants, the below are given as a guide.
Whites
2015 Chapoutier Saint-Joseph Blanc ‘Les Granits’
£220.00 in bond per 6 bottles, L’Assemblage
2 ha, 100% Marsanne, very old vines south of Tournon grown on steep granite slopes.
Slightly honeyed, tangy pineapple and Eastern spices (turmeric) on the nose, and some considered, unobtrusive oak. Lovely texture, very smooth mouthfeel. This is a rich and relatively full-bodied Granits, perhaps without the definition and cut 2014, but nonetheless well balanced, poised and polished. 91-93 points, 2016 to 2021.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage Blanc ‘Le Méal’
£588.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
2 ha, 100% Marsanne, 50+ year old vines on alluvial deposits and large stones.
Beautiful mango, rhubarb and raw cream aromas. Very full in body. Good intensity of fruit, weighty but fresh and well balanced – a relatively opulent and easy-going vintage for this cuvée. Very complete and relaxed in its own skin, with mineral detail on the finish. 95-97 points, 2017 to 2033.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage Blanc ‘De L’Orée’
£622.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
3.5 ha, 100% Marsanne, from Les Murets. 70 year old vines on pebbles and sand.
Immediately richer on the nose than the Méal, with almond milk and poached peach. Very full, very opulent in flavour and texture, with good persistence. This has good intensity, but perhaps without the liveliness of cooler years. The mineral finish neatens everything up however and lengthens the overall impression. 95-97 points, 2017 to 2030.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage Blanc ‘L’Ermite’
£1444.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
0.5 ha, 100% Marsanne, 100+ year old vines on the top of the hill of Hermitage behind the chapel on granitic soils.
Aniseed, lime skin, fleur du sel and a touch of struck-match spicy oak on the nose. Medium- to full-bodied with an intense impression on the palate, incredible intensity of flavour and crystalline fruit. Limey acidity, incredible lift and purity. Long, straight style, saturated with minerality. Tremulous, vibrating finish. A very serious wine.97-100 points, 2019 to 2045.
2015 Chapoutier Condrieu ‘Coteau de Chéry’
Not available to taste this year.
Reds
2015 Chapoutier Châteauneuf-du-Pape ‘Croix de Bois’
£183.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
5 ha, 100% Grenache from Bédarrides, 45 year old vines grown on large pebbles and sandy red clay.
Lively, fresh and perfumed red berry fruit, all very open and transparent. Well integrated spicy oak and a touch of liquorice. The palate is fairly full-bodied and rounded with creamy fruit, but is balanced with good tannic crunch, lovely acidity and vibrancy. Medium length. One of the best Croix de Bois yet. 91-93 points, 2016 to 2023.
2015 Chapoutier Châteauneuf-du-Pape ‘Barbe Rac’
£199.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
4 ha, 100% Grenache grown on galets over red clay and sand, 90 year old vines.
Richer on the nose than the Croix de Bois, with darker brambly fruit. Good definition and clarity to the aromas. Full-bodied, saturated with rich plum and blackberry fruit, but with ample brisk acidity and firm tannins. Good length of fruit into the finish. The alcohol is just a little noticeable at this stage, but it doesn’t detract from what is a successful, rich and succulent Châteauneuf. 92-94 points, 2017 to 2025.
2015 Chapoutier Crozes-Ermitage ‘Les Varonniers’
£131.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
3.2 ha, 100% Syrah, 60+ year old vines grown on west-facing granite slopes.
Dense, reticent nose with pure brambly fruits. Full, intense and ripe on the palate with slightly powdery tannins. Inky concentration, full extraction. The tannins are a little gruff at this stage, so it would be good to retaste once in bottle. 89-91 points, 2019 to 2024.
2015 Chapoutier Saint-Joseph ‘Les Granits’
£200.00 in bond per 6 bottles, L’Assemblage
2.5 ha, 100% Syrah, very old vines on stony granitic soil.
Deep, dense, meaty, slightly spicy nose. Intense, full of fruit, full-bodied and powerful. Mouth-coating ripe tannins. A powerful wine, with a saline, mineral, savoury finish, well integrated oak and a good sense of balance. Saturated with tannin, but ripe tannin. 93-94 points, 2019 to 2027.
2015 Chapoutier Saint-Joseph ‘Le Clos’
£480.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Millesima
<1 ha, 100% Syrah, 15 year old vines on granitic soil.
Darker and denser than the Granits, with some raw beef on the nose alongside violets, liquorice and fresh herbs. A different tannic register to the Granits: massy, thick and sumptuous tannins. The acid level is on the low side but essentially balanced, and it has a good sense of straightness and purity. A pleasing earthiness on the finish. This will be good, and highly complex I suspect, with sufficient time. An ambitious, modern and well-crafted Saint-Joseph. 93-95 points, 2021 to 2029.
2015 Chapoutier Côte-Rôtie ‘La Mordorée’
£348.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
3 ha, 100% Syrah, 70 year old vines on steep terraces of mica-schist in loess on the border of the Côte Blonde and Côte Brune.
Very much on the fruit here, not so much in the way of herbal or sylvan register. A touch of black olive tapenade underneath. Full-bodied, and packed with ripe, thick, earthy tannins. Long, very dry finish. It will take a while for the oak to fully integrate and the tannins to soften, but this is a good Mordorée. 91-93 points, 2019 to 2027.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage ‘Les Greffieux’
£582.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Millesima
3.5 ha, 100% Syrah, 50+ year old vines at the foot of the hill grown on alluvial deposits, shingle and clay.
Fresh, perfumed blackberry fruit with some integral dark chocolate and kirsch. Full-bodied, powerful, very fresh and lively, with crisp, assertive tannins and a long finish. Very well balanced, more complete and harmonious than usual. A step up for this cuvée, it feels effortless this year. 94-96 points, 2023 to 2037.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage ‘Le Méal’
£622.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
2.2 ha, 100% Syrah, 50+ year old vines on high terraces of shingle and clay.
Intense, complete, fresh and natural nose, very relaxed and harmonious. It has an easy authority. Very full in body, opulent fresh fruit alongside liquorice and sage, Very long, mouth-coating, with a gently serrated tannic finish. Saline and mineral – the terroir really makes itself known. One of the most impressive young Méals I’ve tasted. 97-100 points, 2025 to 2045.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage ‘Le Pavillon’
£898.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
4 ha, 100% Syrah, 65 year old vines on granitic soils from Les Bessards.
Deeper, slightly meatier than the Méal, but less effusive in fragrance – smells like bottled ink, blackberry juice and fresh herbs. Easy, smooth and svelte on the palate but it harbours a considerable weight of super-fine tannin, all perfectly ripe and not overdone. Wonderfully intense expression of pure lively fruit on the palate. It has a elegant mouthfeel, and really builds in power to a very long finish. Plenty of acid, very saline, highly mineral - an athletic wine. 97-100 points, 2025 to 2050.
2015 Chapoutier Ermitage ‘L’Ermite’
£1000.00 in bond per 6 bottles, Fine+Rare Wines
3 ha, 100% Syrah, 80+ year old vines at the top of the hill around the chapel on loess over granite.
Dark, deep, brooding. Aromatically this veers towards the mineral; petrichor and fleur du sel. Sublime freshness, almost like sea air. Full-bodied, but strapped in with tannin. The quality of the tannin is very impressive; highly assertive, almost saw-toothed. But crucially they are ripe and elegant. This is incredibly long and pure. It will take time to come around, but will be superlative. Straight, long, as smart as a whip. 98-100 points 2027 to 2060.
First published on timatkin.com.
Beefed-up beef
For those of you reading who have children, just consider this fact for a moment. Some parents of young children don't drink wine. Hard to believe isn't it - who are they, and how do they survive? Perhaps they don't: I've never met a teetotaller with kids.
One reality of having young children is that you don't get out to restaurants quite as often as before. So it becomes more important than ever to know a bit about food and wine so you can eat well at home. Seeing as it goes so well with wine, I ended up learning a bit about steak. It helps that I've got one of the best butchers in London (The Butchery SE23) not far from my house. I visit them every week.
There are several factors that influence what your steak is going to taste like. The biggest factors are the breed of cow, the age of the cow at slaughter, the cut of meat, how long the meat is aged for, and what the cow eats.
I produce the wine list at The Table Cafe in London Bridge, and in January they held a beef tasting in conjunction with the charity Pasture for Life (you can read about it in the April edition of The Dish magazine from The Sunday Times). They promote the rearing of cows and sheep exclusively on pasture, as there are significant benefits to the animals, the farmers, the consumer and the planet. We tasted a variety of cuts from pasture-fed cows from various farms around the UK. Every piece of pasture-fed beef tasted more characterful and complex than the exclusively grain-fed beef we had to compare.
Farmers Weekly also ran a feature on the tasting, and they asked me a few questions about matching beef and wine.
Why do people recommend drinking red, rather than white, wine with beef?
There are several reasons. It’s partly that the aromas and flavours commonly found in red wines tend to be a more natural marriage with those found in red meat, but it’s also because of the abundant tannins in red wine. Without getting too technical, these naturally occurring, flavourless compounds react with the proteins found in beef to produce a cleansing, refreshing sensation in the mouth as you sip the wine between mouthfuls.
How do I choose a particular type of red to go with a particular piece of meat?
The best rule of thumb is to match powerfully flavoured wines with intensely flavoured cuts of meat, and more delicate wines with subtler pieces. So if you’re eating some rare fillet that hasn’t been hung for long, go for a medium-bodied red like a Pinot Noir; for a 90-day-aged piece of marbled ribeye seared on the grill, consider something more robust like a Cabernet Sauvignon.
Wine lovers have a diverse vocabulary of descriptive terms - should beef enthusiasts have the same for their product?
Wine is a subtle, nuanced and varied drink, so to communicate about it with precision requires a diverse vocabulary. Beef lovers can surely find just as much detail in their favourite subject, so there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be a similarly complex language to talk about it. Whisky, coffee and chocolate aficionados do, so why not beef enthusiasts?
What is your favourite beef dish and wine combination - and tell us the words you'd use to describe both...
I try to keep things simple when cooking beef. A T-bone or sirloin perhaps, seared on the griddle, then finished in the oven if it’s a thick piece. My default accompaniments are sautéed potatoes with rosemary and garlic and some wilted, buttered spinach. The wine will depend on the cut, but it’s hard to go wrong with a textured red from the Northern Rhône.
How big and how buoyant is the English and Welsh wine industry?
We had 135 wineries at the last count, and we make on average 4 million bottles a year. But it’s growing at a remarkable rate. Due to our cool climate, we have trouble sufficiently ripening grapes to make red wines, and those we do produce are at the lighter end of the scale. So it’ll be a while before we’re having English wine with our steaks... But our sparkling wines are going from strength to strength, and a glass of English fizz is an excellent way to start a good meal!
You can read the full article here: Pasture fed beef article Farmers Weekly
I'd like to do a more scientific tasting at some point, but my experience at this tasting is that seeking out 100% pasture-fed beef is worthwhile - the flavour and texture are infinitely preferable to exclusively grain-fed beef.
In your glass in sixty minutes
Whizzing home in my driverless car, I zip past yet another boarded-up wine shop. I suspected this one wouldn’t last much past 2020. You couldn’t sample the wines or buy food, and they didn’t have any wines you couldn’t find elsewhere. Some small chains are still going strong, but you can’t actually enter their shops anymore; they are just storage depots and delivery hubs. Walk-in customers became too troublesome for staff, who were busy picking, packing and delivering single bottles for immediate delivery. Shop customers were increasingly rare anyway – it’s so much quicker to order via an app while on the go than travel out of your way to browse in a shop, and no-one wants to carry heavy bottles all the way home. Why would you when every wine shop offers delivery within 60 minutes of placing an order?
‘This bus terminates here.’ Shunted out of my daydream, I gather my bags of clanking bottles, step into a rainy London evening and trudge home. We might still be waiting for driverless cars, but one-hour wine delivery is now a reality in several UK cities. London is the best served to date, with players of various different sizes: Amazon, Henchman and The 10 Cases. I tried them out to see how they compared. Is this really the future of wine retail?
Amazon Prime Now
First launched in Manhattan at the end of 2014, Amazon Prime Now arrived in London in June 2015, and has since been rolled out to Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester. To access the service, firstly you have to subscribe to Amazon Prime at £79 a year. Deliveries to qualifying postcodes within 60 minutes cost a further £6.99 each and there’s a minimum order of £20; to deliver outside of the core areas, you can request a two-hour slot slightly later in the day for free. There are thousands of items to choose from, including hundreds of wines and spirits.
I subscribed to the service, downloaded the app and started shopping. Searching for ‘wine’ produced 769 results. The range is similar to what you’d expect at a supermarket convenience store or a corner shop – Echo Falls, Blossom Hill, Gallo – with a few more interesting bottles around the £25-£30 mark. I opted for a 2007 Oddero Barolo at a very reasonable £22.86. Prices on the whole were pretty cheap.
It turns out that the areas in London that enjoy 1-hour delivery are constricted; I tried a dozen postcodes before I could find one that worked. So I tried the 2-hour delivery option instead. I ordered at 6pm, selected the soonest possible delivery slot (8pm to 10pm) and my bottle was delivered at 8.45pm.
“Ultra-fast delivery of a great bottle of wine or champagne ahead of a last-minute dinner party or birthday party is proving popular”, says Jason Weston, director of Prime Now. “The range of products available for customers in 60 minutes has increased since launch and we will continue to enhance the range to suit customer demand.” This is the main issue for serious wine lovers; at present there is very little you’d want to drink. If their range was transformed from the basic to the exceptional I could see myself using it, but the service isn’t cheap.
Henchman
If you’re in Central London, you can get Henchman to pick up pretty much anything from any London store (from McDonalds to Harrods) and deliver to your door in less than 60 minutes. You can order using their iPhone app or their website. Most drinks orders cost £3.95 + 10% of the total bill if using one of their three suggested providers, or £7.99 + 10% if asking them to collect from the retailer of your choosing.
The app is easy to use and I quickly browsed through their three suggested retailers. Henchman Vault contains spirits and big-name Champagne; there’s plenty to choose from but you’re paying top whack. Nothing But The Grape sell organic wines at curiously inflated prices (£18 for Les Jamelles Pays d’Oc Chardonnay, anybody?) They also list wines from M Wine Store, the retail outlet of M Restaurant in Victoria. Prices are the same as in store (i.e. quite expensive) but they do have a decent range; I bought a bottle of Eben Sadie Sequillo White 2012 for £23.50. With delivery and 10% surcharge, it came to £29.80. My allotted henchman, Gergo the Badger, had it delivered to the City in 45 minutes.
“We expect 1-hour delivery to be the norm five years from now,” says COO Adib Bamieh. “The ‘slow’ [option] will be next day. You won’t be able to compete as a retailer with longer lead times.” Henchman have ambitious plans to extend their delivery area, add new UK cities (and even new countries) to their operations. “We’re applying logistics to retailers across London” he says, and they’ll soon be adding more retailers to the app, essentially giving them a new route to market via Henchman platforms and 1-hour delivery capabilities. If I was pressed for time I might use Henchman again, but until they’ve added some better-value suppliers I’d opt for the ‘custom delivery’ option.
The 10 Cases
The 10 Cases is a restaurant, wine bar and shop in Covent Garden, Central London. They were recently looking at other potential restaurant sites to open around London and one under consideration had an enormous cellar. With London rents being painfully high, they thought about how they might get another revenue stream out of it, and wondered if 1-hour delivery would be a popular service. In the end they didn’t secure the site, but the idea had stuck, so they ran a week’s trial last month with a limited selection of lines. They were offering a 50% discount for those willing to give feedback, so I gave it a test run.
Their shop contains an excellent range of wines, but only 20 were available via their pilot website deliver.the10cases.co.uk (you can also see their delivery area here, it's a bit smaller than Henchman's). I ordered four bottles, amongst them a Gaia Wild Ferment Assyrtiko 2015 for a perfectly reasonable £19.00. My wines were delivered to the City after 55 minutes by an eccentric-looking man on a bicycle. You have to search by style, which is a mild irritation if you’d rather just see the list of wines. What makes this service particularly interesting is that delivery is free and there is no minimum order.
During their trial week, they delivered 400 bottles to 100 addresses. The owners surveyed users afterwards and report that 95% said they would recommend the service to a friend. The beta version came to an end on 24th March. “The big thing will be the app coming out in July,” says co-owner Ian Campbell. And as for eventually going national? “That’s the moonshot, but we’re way off that. But it would be foolish not to think of it.” He admits he’ll have to sell a considerable number of bottles to make it work financially, but as soon as their delivery zone reaches my door and they've expanded their range, I’ll be a customer. With excellent wines, free delivery and no minimum order, frankly it’s a no-brainer.
Looking forward
Once outside Central London (Zone 1), good wine shops become increasingly dispersed, so the burgeoning growth of on-demand wine delivery is great news for local drinkers. It’s going to be at least a year I suspect until any of these services reach my door in Zone 3, but I can’t wait until they do.
One-hour delivery will give me a sense of spontaneity and freedom that current next day/next week deliveries don’t. And I’ll be able to free up some space at home – there’s no need to store as much wine when I can get exactly what I want within 60 minutes. It can take me an hour or more to visit some of my favourite independents just to fetch a couple of bottles: that’s a good part of my Saturday. It will free up a couple of hours every weekend and I don’t mind paying for that. Shopping for wine is a pastime I enjoy – but not as much as spending time drinking it with friends.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love visiting wine shops where I can taste, drink, eat and chat to experts. But 1-hour delivery will inevitably mean we visit wine shops in person less often. Once delivery prices come down, I’m sure many people would sooner request a delivery than walk 10 minutes down the road. Retailers are going to have to work even harder to justify asking us to spend time travelling to them. The best will doubtless continue to thrive, but those that don’t adapt will be the ones you see boarded up from the window of your driverless car.
First published on timatkin.com.
The shock of the new
When tasting my way through a large number of unfamiliar wines, there are a few tell-tale signs that I’ve encountered something special. Firstly, an involuntary smile creeps over my face. Secondly, I find myself hurriedly writing a long note. But I know that I’ve come across something truly singular when scoring the wine feels pointless; after all, if a wine has no peers then how do you rank it? Discovering a unique wine is rare, but they are worth pursuing as they can stimulate like no other.
All wines are arguably unique if they reflect the specific place in which they’re grown. Even different bottles within a case of the same wine might taste subtly different from each other after years of ageing. But there are certain wines that are so unusual that they don’t belong to any established style or tradition.
Their uniqueness can be down to a number of factors, or even a combination of them; rare grape varieties, unusual blends, unexplored regions, idiosyncratic techniques in the vineyard or cellar, the list goes on. Albariño from Rias Biaxas in Spain for example is a popular style, but discovering an exceptional example that was aged under flor can recalibrate our understanding of the grape, the region, and what they are capable of. Just because we are accustomed to a prevailing style doesn’t mean it is the best: the wines of Bordeaux were once mostly white.
Wine lover David Crossley has tasted more of these unique wines than most, admitting “I’ve always had a real fascination with obscure wines.” After regularly attending bring-a-bottle tastings that focussed on traditional wine regions, he found that people would take increasingly expensive wines. He felt that obscure wines tended not only to offer better value, but they also regularly delivered “the absolutely massive excitement in trying something you’ve never tried before.” This is what prompted him and his friend Dave Stenton to establish the Oddities tastings: bi-monthly bring-a-bottle lunches which regularly feature some of the strangest wines imaginable.
The challenge in unearthing unique wines is that if they gain a following, they don’t stay unique for long. “Some used to be unique,” says Crossley, “but then [other producers] followed them, like Gravner with the amphorae. Obviously they were still doing that in Georgia, but not that many people knew about it. Now it’s relatively common… it’s become a unique style, rather than a unique wine.” Today’s mad experiment is tomorrow’s established classic – even Tokaji had a maiden vintage. Fortunately the global wine scene never stands still so there’s always more to discover. Crossley suggests pre-phylloxera vines and cross-border winemaking (growing the grapes in one country, making the wine in another) as being fertile ground for producing unique wines.
Needless to say you don’t find these wines in the supermarket; it takes a certain type of wine merchant to take them on. Red Squirrel specialises in wines made from rare, native and alternative grape varieties and they have over 150 different varieties on their books. Founder Nik Darlington explains that “it’s still quite rare to come across something truly rare, truly unique” but for him the commercial justification is being able “to show something totally, totally different”. He stresses that obscurity in itself is not the aim. “We don’t go in for anything just for uniqueness;” he says, “it has to be worth the money… And some grape varieties in some parts of the world are disappearing for a reason!” Sadly there are less diligent wine merchants out there who confuse a unique wine and one that is just curiously bad.
Although some rare and marginal grape varieties are dying out, Doug Wregg from natural wine specialists Les Caves de Pyrène thinks that we’re going to be encountering more unique wines, not fewer. “More and more of these wines are being made,” he says, “and it tends to be the latest generation of winemakers.” It’s increasingly common for young winemakers to complete one or more stages at wineries in other countries before returning home, and this leads to precisely the kind of cross-pollination of ideas that can generate unique wines. Wregg explains that if merchants have long term relationships with producers, these wines will eventually find their way onto the market: “if the growers are making them, you have to follow the wines to a certain extent.” Furthermore, wine professionals enjoy selling them.
Unique wines offer uniquely valuable drinking experiences. They deliver the thrill of new and unexpected flavours and textures which can challenge your own notions of what makes a wine great, or even pleasurable. They take you out of your comfort zone, and momentarily return you to the state of the curious beginner. But best of all, they stimulate your mind and palate like no other wine, and as Crossley puts it, “Some people like what they know, buying case after case of the same Shiraz… I just love stimulation, whether it’s music, art or travel, and wine just fits into that.”
Seven unique wines to try
Dominique Belluard ‘Le Feu’ 2014 (Savoie, France)
Les Caves de Pyrene, £35.30
Made from the Gringet grape on steep slopes facing Mont Blanc, this is the only grower in the region to use it in a non-sparkling wine. Notable purity and clarity of aroma: raw cream, quince and mint. Though very light in body, it’s surprisingly assertive of the palate, with piercing acidity, real intensity and inner steel; it has remarkable impact for what is essentially a gentle, subtle wine. It speaks an intriguing dialect I don't quite recognise.
Gentle Folk ‘Blossoms’ 2015 (Adelaide Hills, Australia)
Noble Fine Liquor, £27.00
The polar opposite of what Australia is known for in the UK. Two thirds Pinot Noir, one third Merlot (with a squeeze of Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer). Slightly cloudy. Bright and fruity on the nose – a degree of carbonic maceration I suspect. Light and zippy with a lovely balance of acidity and crunchy strawberry, cranberry and redcurrant fruit. Very dry, slightly spicy, surprisingly long finish. Feels very pure and transparent, this is exceptionally pretty and drinkable.
Henry Marionnet ‘Provinage’ Romorantin 2010 (Loire, France)
Excel Wines, £50.62 for the 2011
Brought to the February Oddities tasting by Robbie Ward of Vintrepid Wines. From a parcel of pre-phylloxera Romorantin planted between 1800 and 1850 in the western part of Touraine. The nose is very pure and fresh with aromas of caraway, fennel and radish. Low alcohol, high acidity and a tremulous mineral finish.
Eulogio Pomares Albariño Maceración con Pieles 2013 (Rias Baixas, Spain)
Vagabond Wines, £37.95
This pure Albariño from Rias Baixas undergoes two weeks of skin contact before spending nine months in used French oak barrels, and the result is incredible. It has beautiful tangerine fruit inlaid with subtle saffron and turmeric, is full-bodied but sublimely fresh, perfectly balanced and very long.
Lino Maga Montebuono 1990 (Oltrapo Pavese, Italy)
N/A
Brought to the February Oddities tasting by Tony Rogers. A blend of Croatina, Uva Rara, Ughetta and Barbera grown on tuffo soils on a singular four hectare plot surrounded by forest in Oltrapo Pavese, Lombardy. Rustic, almost volcanic in temperament, this is a powerful, bracing wine. It’s showing serious complexity at this stage and it’s still kicking, with tar, wood smoke, cherry and bitter orange peel aromatics leading to a bright, almost sour finish. It growls.
Bruna 'Maje' Pigato 2014 (Liguria, Italy)
Red Squirrel, £14.99
Pigato is a rare Ligurian clone of Vermentino; maje are the traditional stone terraces that hold up the blue clay on which the vines are grown. Delicate, fresh, perfumed nose with a touch of white pepper and celery. Light bodied, silken in texture. A beautifully balanced, effortless and charming wine it has the symmetry, delicacy and precision of a paper doily.
Pierluigi Zampaglione ‘Don Chisciotte’ Fiano 2013 (Campania, Italy)
Passione Vino, £25.00
Brought to the February Oddities tasting by Nayan Gowda. Golden in colour, this Fiano undergoes seven days of skin contact which gives the wine fullness and a subtle tannic structure. The nose is faintly waxy, with dried apricot and a background smokiness. Dry, savoury and saline on the finish, but not without a core of sweet fruit. A complex and considered wine.
First published on timatkin.com.
The wine trade's annual health check
Every year, after an overindulgent Christmas, the wine trade books an appointment with me for its annual health check. Though most of its vital signs are entirely typical for a patient of its age, it suffers from a certain… anxiety. Normally I just let the patient talk – and my god can he talk – but the same worries crop up, year in, year out. This year I intend to take him to task on three persistent concerns: ‘We need a Jamie Oliver of wine’, ‘If only there was more wine on the television’, and ‘How can we make wine more fashionable?’ Let’s try to put these unhelpful notions to bed once and for all so he can face the new year unhindered.
‘We need a Jamie Oliver of wine’
Ever since Jamie Oliver helped usher in a more accessible and informal food culture in the UK in the early 2000s, there has been a regular cry from the wine trade: “what we need is a Jamie Oliver of wine!” The first to be given this moniker was Australian Matt Skinner, who did an admirable job of reaching out to new drinkers. But rather than the Messiah he turned out to be a very naughty boy. Many have staked their claim to the title since then: none have lived up to it. And nobody will.
Food and wine are very different things. Just because a glass of claret complements a steak, it doesn’t follow that what worked for food will work for wine. We must all eat food daily to survive; wine is an occasional treat enjoyed by a minority. Eating well need not be expensive; drinking well is rarely cheap. Much of the joy of cooking is creating your own dish from raw materials; with wine, you simply uncork the bottle. An accessible, mainstream wine culture in the UK would of course be welcome, but wine needs to find its own answers to its own unique challenges.
‘If only there was more wine on the television’
Some subjects are perfect for television. Cookery, cars and home improvement all involve skills that are entertaining to watch and can offer ideas that we can use in our daily lives – after all, everyone needs to eat, move around and live somewhere. Wine, however, is not the most dynamic of subjects. It’s not even the most colourful. And not everyone drinks it – in London, one in three people are teetotal, and not all of those that do drink are interested in wine. So it’s hardly surprising that it doesn’t regularly feature on our most mainstream, and most visual, of media.
Wine already has more than its fair share of coverage: Food & Drink, Oz & James, Saturday Kitchen – and we can soon add The Wine Show to this list. Due to the essentially static, quiet nature of a glass of wine, these tend to be driven by the charisma or eccentricity of the presenters or the beauty of the landscapes they’re talking over. There are plenty of more popular subjects that see even less airtime. You see more Starbucks on our high streets than wine bars, and our national thirst for coffee certainly isn’t driven by TV shows.
‘How can we make wine more fashionable?’
Looking down at the worn red corduroys of my patient, it’s hardly surprising he’s worried about his appearance. Certain trade tastings have the look and feel of a history teachers’ convention. But yet again, he worries too much. Is beer fashionable? No; craft beer is fashionable, a small but vital and vociferous niche within an ocean of identikit lagers. Is wine fashionable? No; but go to 'natural wine' tasting and you’ll see more beards than a mead-making workshop in Dalston. That the wider wine trade can appear a little staid gives pockets of wine, whether it be natural, orange or Sherry, the chance to shine all the more brightly when its time in the spotlight comes around.
Final diagnosis
I hope I’ve talked some sense into my patient this year. Firstly, he must stop pinning his hopes on finding a ‘Jamie Oliver of wine’. Food and wine may be connected but they are very different fields. Besides, the wine trade doesn’t need to look outside itself to find someone to take wine to the masses; it contains plenty of characters more than capable of doing this already at a grass-roots level. Secondly, he needs to stop obsessing about television. A glass of wine isn’t much to look at, and listening to someone’s enthusiastic tasting note doesn’t make it any more compelling. There are better ways to spread the word. Finally, wine is too big a subject to be fashionable in itself; that the wine trade lacks swag might even be a blessing in disguise. My diagnosis: self-flagellation, mild hypochondria and suspected gout, but overall the wine trade is in better shape than it thinks.
First published on timatkin.com.
Wine matching: Apricot and almond tart
The recipe
Serves: 8
Use a rectangular tart tin or a 23 cm round tart tin.
280 g packet sweet shortcrust pastry (or even better, make your own).
100 g unsalted butter
100 g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 g ground almonds
12 fresh apricots, halved and stoned
fresh cream, to serve
Preheat the oven to 200c/180c (fan oven) and place a baking sheet on the middle shelf to get hot (this will help crisp up the base of the tart). Unroll the pastry and fold in half and then in quarters. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to form a rectangle a little larger than a 12x32cm fluted flan tin. Press well into the base and sides allowing a little pastry to overhang the edges. Prick the base with a fork and chill for a further 20 minutes.
Line the tin with baking paper and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes until the edges are golden. Remove paper and beans and leave the pastry shell to cool. Once cooled, use a small sharp knife to trim off the overhanging pastry so it is flush with the edges of the tin.
Place the butter and sugar in a food processor and blend until smooth, add the eggs, vanilla and almonds and blend until evenly combined. Spoon the almond cream into the pastry shell and press the apricot halves well down into the cream. Transfer to the oven and bake for about 40 minutes until firm and golden (cover with tin foil if the pastry starts to get too dark).
Remove from the oven and allow the tart to cool for 30 minutes or so and serve at room temperature with a little fresh cream.
Matching wines
Château Raymond Lafon 2008 (£15.75 for 37.5cl, Haynes, Hanson & Clark)
This dessert is so versatile when it comes to matching with wine that it opens up a dizzying range of possibilities. Most major French wine regions offer something sweet that would work; Chenin Blanc from the Loire, Muscat from the Languedoc-Roussillon, Pinot Gris from Alsace, even sweet Champagne. But for me there is no better match than Sauternes, the most regal of all French sweet whites.
The Sauternes region is found 30km southeast of Bordeaux on the Garonne River. Château Raymond Lafon is a small but quality-minded estate situated near Chateau d’Yquem, unquestionably the greatest Sauternes estate of all. Full and rich but balanced with a crackle of acidity, this is a vibrant example with aromas of apricot and beeswax.
Château Suduiraut ‘Castelnau de Suduiraut’ 2008 (£16.00 for 37.5cl, Oddbins)
Most Sauternes is a blend of aromatic Sauvignon Blanc and rich Sémillon grapes, sometimes with a splash of musky Muscadelle. The misty vineyards are prone to developing a benevolent fungus called Noble Rot which concentrates the natural flavours and sugars of the grapes and adds notes of marmalade. The wines are usually aged in new oak barrels, which adds further complex layers of honeycomb and toasted nuts: all flavours that marry perfectly with this dessert.
Although this is the ‘second wine’ of Château Suduiraut rather than the top wine in their range, the quality is still high, as you’d expect from one of the best estates in Sauternes. It’s full, lush and luxurious with long-lasting flavours of honey, stone fruit and barley sugar.
Château Laville 2009 (£17.00 for 37.5cl, winetrust100)
Vintages can make a big difference in Bordeaux, and 2009 was particularly good for Sauternes. It was a hot, dry year with an abundance of Noble Rot that resulted in particularly rich, concentrated wines. Château Laville is a small property, and although it rarely receives the attention of some of the bigger names, the wines can be exceptionally good. The current owner Jean-Christophe Barbe certainly knows how to get the best from the magical fungus; it’s his area of expertise as Professor of Oenology at the University of Bordeaux.
His 2009 vintage is intense and viscous, with powerful yet defined flavours of Seville orange marmalade, apricot jam and vanilla pod. It’s extravagantly enjoyable, with a long toasty finish. Serve this alongside a home-made tarte aux abricots and you’ll have some very happy guests indeed.
First published in Living France magazine. Recipe by Louise Pickford.
English wine: too much of a good thing?
Sitting in the October sunshine, chewing on the corner of my baguette, I wonder how many others have witnessed this timeless scene: pickers working their way up rows of vines, loading their baskets with bunches of grapes. But this isn’t Sancerre, it's Sussex, and the baguette was from Greggs. There are now 135 wineries across England and Wales, and 2015 is looking like another good harvest.
At the last count we had 1,884 hectares (equivalent to 2,645 full-size football pitches) of vines planted in the UK, but if current trends continue this will double within the next seven years. This is sure to have serious ramifications for those involved. I asked some figures at the forefront of the industry what was likely to change if and when this comes to pass. The answer is just about everything – from wine styles, to pricing, to distribution, to export and, perhaps more ominously, the total number of producers. Just what are we going to do with all this extra wine?
The most obvious answer is to increase distribution in the UK. Waitrose already stocks 100 different lines, and represents 60% of English wine sold in supermarkets. English wine buyer Becky Hull MW has noticed the upsurge in availability and says she is aware of “a massive sea-change for the industry – so much more volume is becoming available.” Thankfully there is demand; their year-to-date sales are up 93%. “We’re trying to make more space,” she says, “but the shelves aren’t elastic… more retailers are going to have to back English wine seriously, not just a token gesture.” The key will be price. “Customers are prepared to pay a bit more for local provenance, to feel part of their local community” she says. But English wine “needs to compete for that ‘everyday drinking’ slot.”
Still wines are cheaper to produce and faster to get to market than sparkling wines; if oversupply of grapes does become an issue then a proliferation of inexpensive still wines are sure to follow. As the industry develops, we’re likely to see increasing diversity of style. Mike Paul is a consultant to the English wine industry and he thinks “we’ve hardly started yet. If you look at table wine there’s an awful lot that’s going to happen.” We’re even making dessert wines now; Waitrose has just listed a sweet Ortega from Denbies in Dorking.
But Ian Kellett, founder and MD of Hambledon Vineyard in Hampshire points out that currently when it comes to English wine “the action’s all happening in fizz”. So far the French have been the main beneficiary of our unquenchable thirst for premium bubbles; last year we imported 33 million bottles of Champagne. Many of the bigger English producers are banking on local drinkers switching allegiance. Kellett predicts that over the next 10 years English sparkling will take a fifth to a quarter of Champagne’s market share. “Champagne will be hopping mad,” he says. Frazer Thompson, CEO of Chapel Down in Kent agrees: “I do expect the ‘value’ Grandes Marques to see some erosion by English Sparkling wine” with the possible result of some even exiting the UK market.
At the moment, most English sparkling wines are priced at the same level as Champagne, around £20 to £35. Some, such as Julia Trustram Eve at trade association English Wine Producers, predict that we’ll see more prestige cuvées being launched. Others, like Kellett, think that in time we’ll also see £10 bottles of English sparkling wine in Aldi and Lidl: “It’s close to certain we’ll see these types of product in the market,” he says.
As production increases more and more producers are looking to export. There are no official figures, but Trustram Eve says that exports currently account for considerably less than 10% of production. Since “these are still very early days”, she says, 20% would be a sensible aim. Looking forward seven to ten years, Mike Paul would like to see this reach 30%: “if there is a big oversupply, the pressure [on prices] is going to be downwards; that’s why export is so important – it’s a safety valve.” He adds that English embassies and high commissions should be pressed into serving English wines at receptions as a matter of course. Mark Driver, joint owner of newcomer Rathfinney Wine Estate near Beachy Head in Sussex is even more bullish, with an export target of “50% from day one”.
Red Johnson (son of wine writer Hugh Johnson) is CEO and founder of The British Bottle Company, whose business is the export of premium British drinks. “We are seeing a lot of interest,” he says, “people genuinely enjoy the wines” but awareness of English sparkling wine outside the UK is still low. Another challenge is that “the technical infrastructure doesn’t really exist yet – there are no refrigerated containers leaving the UK at the moment”. But the main issue is price. His experience in export markets is that “people don’t believe they will be able to sell it for the same prices as Champagne,” so in general a price that sits slightly below Champagne would be advisable.
Just as plantings have been growing steadily, since 2009 we’ve seen an average of six new wineries being established every year. A number of people I spoke to think that this is too many for the UK wine industry to support. Thompson at Chapel Down certainly thinks so. “A lot of the entrants that we’ve seen have been enthusiasts. There needs to be scale players… there will be consolidation,” he says. “Only the strongest will be able to survive.” Others like Driver at Rathfinney are more sanguine. Over the next ten years he predicts that production of English wine will in fact exceed official forecasts, growing from the current 4.5m bottles to around 12-13m bottles in a good year. “We’ve gone from a stage when you could wander around and sell your wine at any price you wanted,” he says. “Now you have to work a bit harder.”
Paul Pippard has certainly been working hard. Earlier this year he moved with his wife Alice and their 2-year-old son Ossie to East Sussex after selling their London home and using the proceeds to buy a plot of land. They’ve just finished planting a 2.5 hectare vineyard called Beacon Down. “We’ve stuck our neck on the line with all the expenditure” he says, but you can tell he’s thrilled to be chasing his dream. But for him, and dozens of other English families that have chosen the same path, the dream may require a little more stiff upper lip than they may at first have imagined.
First published on timatkin.com.
Wine matching: Chicons Flamands
There are three different coloured chicory; red, green and white. The white variety is forced in dark cellars or under a dark barrel, a practice that originated in France in the 17th century and was taken up in Belgium around 1850 where the plant was known as witloof meaning white leaf. For this recipe you can use any of the three varieties, all are equally delicious.
Chicory is most valued as a salad leaf, adding a hint of bitterness to a dish, but they are equally delicious braised and then cooked wrapped in ham, covered with a cheese sauce and baked. Depending on where you are in France you will find this dish on menus under different names. In the north of France and in Belgium it is called Chicons Flamands whilst more commonly in other regions it is known as endives au jambon sauce mornay.
Serves: 4
50 g butter
8 small heads chicory
juice of half a lemon
8 slices jambon
200 ml single cream
a little freshly grated nutmeg
100 g Comté, grated
25 g Parmesan, grated
25 g dried breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
little gems, halved
oil and lemon juice
Preheat the oven 190c. Melt the butter in a flameproof casserole and add the chicory and cook over a medium heat for 5-6 minutes until browned all over. Add a splash of cold water, the lemon juice and salt and pepper, cover the dish with a lid or tin foil and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 45 minutes until the chicory are tender.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 10 minutes, then wrap each chicory with a slice of the ham and return to the dish. Combine the cream, nutmeg and Comté and pour over the chicory. Scatter over the Parmesan and breadcrumbs and bake for 15 minutes until bubbling and golden. Serve with the little gems dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.
The wines
Jean-Luc Colombo ‘Les Abeilles’ Côtes-du-Rhône Blanc 2013 (£10.49, Drinkfinder.co.uk)
Bitter chicory isn't the most wine-friendly of foods, but the principal ingredient of a recipe isn't always the most prominent flavour. Don’t forget to consider any sauces when choosing a wine to match a dish – in this case a cheese sauce. The tannins in red wine don’t always get along with melted cheese, so a rich, medium to full-bodied white would be a better option.
Rhône supremo Jean-Luc Colombo makes some great value wines and this blend of local Roussanne and Clairette grapes is no exception. Roussanne delivers pear and honeysuckle aromas whereas Clairette adds body and weight. Though fresh and floral on the nose, it has enough richness to work with the cheese and ham in the dish.
Mas La Chevalière ‘Vignoble Peyroli’ Chardonnay 2012 (£12.99, Majestic)
A degree of acidity in the wine would be welcome to provide some contrasting freshness, but avoid anything too zesty or overtly fruity like Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling. If the wine has spent some time in oak that’s a bonus, as it can add body and some toasty notes that would chime with croutons and the subtle spice in the sauce.
The Languedoc isn't always the most fulfilling region to explore when looking for good Chardonnay – often it’s simply too hot there for this variety. This wine is an exception however. A side project of the Chablis house Laroche, this vineyard is planted at high altitude, which gives the wine freshness and a fine beam of acidity. A light touch of oak provides richness without concealing the flavour of the fruit.
Champ Divin ‘Pollux’ Côtes du Jura 2010 (£17.20, Tanners)
Cheese is so diverse it’s important to match the right style of wine to the specific cheese you’re eating. The main type in the dish is Comté, from Franche-Comté in eastern France, and it pairs well with local Jura wines. Many of their best whites have an oxidative, sherry-like tang that work like a dream; the older the cheese, the more oxidative and intense you can go with the wine.
Champ Divin are a small biodynamic producer in Jura and Pollux is their blend of hand-harvested Chardonnay and Savagnin grapes. It’s a fresh, almost saline wine that bursts with intense walnut, mushroom and beeswax flavour that would be a memorable choice, particularly with a flavoursome two-year-old Comté in the sauce.
Recipe based on a version by Louise Pickford. First published in Living France magazine.
Breathable drinks
Like most kids of my generation, I was obsessed with Star Wars. My favourite scene was the Mos Eisley Cantina, where Luke Skywalker meets Han Solo in a violent dive bar teeming with various rubber-headed aliens drinking bubbling concoctions and inhaling noxious vapours. So the idea of inhaling a drink rather than actually drinking it still feels excitingly futuristic to me. But this brave new world of breathable drinks is already at hand. I tried a selection of sprays, mists and vaporisers to see if this really is the future of drinking.
WA|HH Quantum Sensations
The WA|HH Quantum Sensations spray is a collaboration between designer Philippe Starck (he of the tripod lemon squeezer) and Harvard professor David Edwards. It holds 2ml of alcohol and delivers just 0.075ml per spray, which is designed to give a fleeting feeling of light-headedness with a lingering flavour. It takes the form of an engraved metal tube the size of a lipstick, into which you insert one of two plastic pods: Fresh Flash or Spicy Demon.
After some vigorous pumping, it coughed a small spray onto my tongue. Any perception of alcohol was overcome by a burning sensation that lasted for several minutes before gradually fading. It didn’t taste great; cheap vodka, or cheap vodka with Szechuan pepper for the spicy version. Like a fancy breath freshener with added fire, I’m not quite sure when or why I would use this. I can’t see it catching on.
Vaportini
Anything denounced by a hysterical Daily Mail article tends to be worth trying, so I was intrigued to get my hands on the Vaportini. It consists of a glass sphere with a hole into which you pour your choice of spirit. The sphere sits on a stand that fits over a pint glass, with a candle at the bottom. Once the spirit starts to evaporate, you suck up the vapours with a metal straw. Detractors claim it is potentially dangerous, pointing out that because the alcohol bypasses your stomach, natural ways of regulating your intake such as vomiting aren’t available. Jack Faller, COO of Vaportini, counters that “fear media sells… We have sold 50,000 units in the last three years. There hasn't been even a hospital visit because of the use of a Vaportini.”
It’s actually a simple and elegantly designed contraption, but you wouldn’t want your mum to walk in while you’re using it; if feels like some sort of bong for booze. I tried it with a shot of Edinburgh Gin. The vapours were pleasantly warm, smooth and aromatic, and did reflect the gin, though the higher-toned floral and spice I could pick up by smelling a glass of it were less apparent. Though the flavour hit was frustratingly brief it did deliver a light-headed sensation from the alcohol. For all the hysteria, using the Vaportini is hardly dramatic; but while staring at the thin glass globe filled with warm spirits sitting above a lit candle, it wasn’t hard to imagine how this could quickly change. The Vaportini undoubtedly works, but I found it made me thirsty. So I made myself a G&T, which, I must admit, was rather more enjoyable.
Airdiem
French military helicopter pilot Eric Gormand discovered smoking shisha pipes whilst on a tour of duty. After 10 years in the army he left to develop his own range of high-end pipes called Airdiems. Unlike shisha pipes they don’t use tobacco; instead they vaporise any liquid that is placed in the bowl by heating it with charcoal. To try the Airdiem I visited Noir, a cocktail bar near Bond Street in London, which has been granted UK exclusivity. Bar manager Monika Mak gave me a demonstration, explaining “we tried to smoke everything when we started – coffee, chocolate, mascarpone cheese… you can smoke anything that is natural and can be turned into a liquid.”
Mostly, however, they vaporise cocktails: I tried a blend of Cointreau, Solerno blood orange liqueur and a drop of lemon essence oil. The result was enjoyably fresh and citrusy, like smoking a clean, alcoholic cigar but with a lighter-bodied mouthfeel. The flavour is fleeting but when served alongside a Kiss Me Deadly cocktail in conventional liquid form (mandarin and lavender shrub, gin, champagne) the two complemented each other nicely. Although my experiment in vaporising Chianti was less successful, my only regret was organising the meeting first thing on a Monday morning. You can’t spit vapours like you can with a liquid, so it put a rather interesting slant on the rest of my day.
31 Duke Street
London W1U 1LG
020 7224 3452
www.noirW1.com
Open 7 days a week from 5pm till late
One Airdiem £20 (lasts around 40 minutes); one Airdiem and one cocktail £30
Alcoholic Architecture
I arrive just before opening time at the bar and knock on the door. “I’ll be back in a minute, I just have to feed the snake” says Sam Bompas before he lets me in. Customers “get a little alarmed if they catch me handling an albino snake in the ladies toilet” he explains. Alcoholic Architecture in London’s busy food hotspot Borough Market is the latest installation from flavour conjurors Bompas & Parr. Located on the site of a former monastery, the atmosphere of this subterranean grotto is somewhere between monastic and gothic with the occasional ghost-train flourish, all to a soundtrack of Joy Division under subdued neon lighting.
I came to experience its main draw: a room containing a dense walk-in cloud of vaporised gin and tonic. Visits to the bar are restricted to an hour: 40 minutes in the cloud has the same alcoholic hit as a large G&T, absorbed through your lungs and eyeballs. Breathing through your mouth, you can feel the flavour tingling on your tongue; lemon, juniper and quinine are just about discernible. When you’ve had an eyeful, you can drink cocktails in the adjoining bar, all of which feature drinks which owe their existence to monks, such as Chartreuse, Benedictine, and, er, Buckfast.
“We’re giving people a different way to taste gin” says Bompas. In terms of pure flavour, I would still choose to drink it, but it gets you talking and thinking about drinks in new ways. It’s also great fun. He believes that Alcoholic Architecture is “an entertainment, a piece of theatre where the consumers are the actors” rather than a just a bar. Its other function is to help to fund their new project, the British Museum of Food, which will open next year on the same site. It will be a more conventional, permanent attraction – but Bompas & Parr couldn’t do boring if they tried.
1 Cathedral Street
Borough Market
London SE1 9DE
Open until end of January 2016
Buy tickets in advance via their website
One hour tickets £10.75 - £13.25
Image © Marcus Peel
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for
Although some methods are more successful than others, it would seem that inhaling drinks isn’t quite the exciting future I’d imagined – at least, not yet. They all produced a light-headed buzz similar to swallowing alcohol, but none of them delivered the intensity, clarity and length of flavour you experience from sipping a good quality drink from a glass. That’s not to say they aren’t enjoyable; the Airdiem in particular delivers an enjoyable if evanescent burst of flavour. You can imagine how this or the Vaportini could add a third, vaping dimension to the hitherto binary field of food and drink matching. What they do guarantee is a bit of fun and theatre. Drinks vaping is still in its infancy, and if current methods and technology improve it could become more compelling. But in the meantime, I can’t see the highball or the wine glass being consigned to the museum quite yet.
First published on timatkin.com.