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Münzenrieder Chardonnay TBA 1998

Patience pays

With two excuses – the awful aftertaste of the sweet Gambellaras I reported on here, and my ongoing Austrian mini-series – I opened this old(ish) bottle of Austrian dessert wine from the cellar.

The Münzenrieder name may not enjoy the galactic reputation of Kracher or Triebaumer but I have always enjoyed their range of sweet wines, especially the Beerenauslesen and Trockenbeerenauslesen which are both affordable and reliable. 1998 was a great vintage for Austrian sweet wines, and at age 10 these wines are now providing a lot of excitement while also showing where Austria really stands in the sweet wine league.

The Trockenbeerenauslese Chardonnay 1998 (9.5% alcohol and some 220+ g residual sugar, I’m guessing) is fully mature now. A very deep amber-brown colour, and a nose of a caramelised-mature botrytis wine with not much complexity at first. Palate shows burnt brown sugar and a touch of bacon-like oakiness. While initially this TBA lacks personality and freshness, time in the glass is bringing quite some sensual bliss: a seriously rich, concentrated wine with generous botrytis. Very good indeed.

16 wines from Gambellara

A DOCG disaster

Went to a friend’s house recently to go through a shipment of samples he received from Gambellara, an appellation from the Italian region of Veneto that was recently awarded a DOCG status.

DOCG is supposed to be a notch above denominazione di origine controllata (DOC, Italy’s appellation of wine origin, equivalent to France’s AOC), although the exact difference is somewhat vague and the ‘G’ of garantita is hardly ever a guarantee of anything. There are currently 34 DOCGs in Italy including classic winemaking zones such as Barolo and Chianti Classico but also some rather puzzling nominations such as Albana di Romagna, an obscure and underperforming white wine zone east of Bologna.

Gambellara consists of 800 hectares of withered volcanic basalt located on extinct volcanoes between Verona and Vicenza in north-eastern Italy. Its whites wines – traditionally sweet passito from dried grapes, and now increasingly dry – are made of the Gargànega grape variety, and are in fact a lesser sibling of the better-known Soave, one of Italy’s classic whites made from exactly the same grape and on similar terroir.

I really, really like Soave and think it is one of the most underrated wines in Italy (today, thanks to the efforts of a dynamic group of vintners, it increasingly lives up to its potential). So I approached this tasting in a positive mood, but was vastly disappointed. We tasted 16 wines (10 dry, 6 sweet) that were all on a disastrously boring commercial level with no interest whatsoever.

Gargànega is not easy grape. It takes an expressive terroir and low yields to show good intensity, and the winemaking style needs to avoid extremes of technicity (bland ‘white-winey’ wines tasting like a million cool-vinified chardonnays or pinots) and oak (which can easily obscure the varietal character). On an everyday level, Gargànega can deliver a vaguely almondy, appley-crisp white with a hint of mineral salinity that is an unpretentious delight with lighter foods, but even that needs to be made properly.

These Gambellaras were simply mediocre. There wasn’t a single bottle I would remotely contemplate buying. They were thin, industrial, with a fair bit of SO2 reduction effectively masking whatever meagre fruit here might have been. There was no dream of terroir, and often not even of basic vinosity. There was so little body and such obvious underripeness in the dry wines it had me wondering what proportion of the 13% alcohol proudly displayed on labels was achieved with the forgiving participation of rectified grape must (Europe’s industrial wine chaptaliser / sweetener for those not in the know).

Even Gambellara’s best-known estate, Luigino Dal Maso, failed to deliver. One notable exception was the Gambellara Classico Prime Brume 2007 by the local co-op Cantina di Gambellara. Nothing great but what this wine should be: pleasantly almondy-bitterish fruit with a crisp, dry palate.

The sweet wines were, in a way, even more nonplussing. Apart from straight traditional passitos (named recioto here; it’s the wine that got the DOCG category from 2008) there were odd variations, including botrytis wines, and recioto spumante: sweet wines made from raisined grapes but given a secondary fermentation; so you have an odd crossing of Sauternes and Moscato d’Asti. The flavours don’t match (you don’t usually squeeze lemon on your peach jam?), the bubbles are as coarse as in Perrier mineral water, and the intellectual level is somewhere near kindergarten. I don’t even mention the other problems (volatility, dirty botrytis, reduction).

I don’t think Italy can find a writer more enthusiastic about its culture and wines than yours truly, but it really needs to work harder. Awarding the country’s highest level of wine certification to a bunch of mediocre stuff like this is surely going to alienate the public. Browsing Italian wine blogs it becomes obvious that the DOCG promotion for Gambellara was entirely a political move (the zone, together with neighbouring Soave, is home to some of Italy’s largest industrial wine producers) but from the consumer’s point of view, it’s an obvious scandal.

René Muré Riesling Clos Saint-Landelin 1999

A true grand cru

As an occasion is followed by another, I opened a big gun from the cellar today. A Riesling from Alsace. I reported on some problems with Alsatian wines here and here, but this bottle was simply outstanding.

René Muré is, in any ranking, playing in the premier league of the region. The winery owes its success largely to the Clos Saint-Landelin, a monopole parcel within the grand cru of Vorbourg. With its sun-absorbing sandstone this vineyard belongs to Alsace’s hottest, and consistently produces very powerful wines with record ripeness (lots of VT and SGN level wines, and regular botrytis) but also a strong mineral imprint. For power and concentration of flavour, they are sometimes reminiscent of the Rangen de Thann vineyard (whose terroir, however, couldn’t be more different: volcanic basalt). In the past, I’ve especially enjoyed the dry Rieslings and sweeter styles of Gewurztraminer from here.

This lone bottle of Riesling Clos Saint-Landelin 1999 was purchased for a miserable 15€ on sale in a wine shop in Verona (of all places). I now regret having wasted luggage space for some silly Amarones and not having bought more of this (the current vintage is 23€ ex-cellars). It is really a spectacular wine. Enormously rich. An impressive fully mature deep yellow colour. Nose shows a high amount of botrytis (this varies from year to year; the 2002 Riesling had close to none) in an explosive raisiny, spicy bouquet that also shows quite some peppery, stony minerality and freshness for balance. Palate is massive and impressive, broad and powerful on attack, so mineral that it initially feels dry, although there is quite a bit of residual sugar. A fairly weighty, structured, solar, oily, terroir-driven, peppery, botrytis-spiced whole. Acidity is also rather present, adding to the fairly virtuosic balance of this wine. No denying the high alcohol but this is really a substantial wine, and it carries it with grace. While this quintessentially Alsatian full-blown style might be challenging to the uninitiated, this is really Riesling – and wine tout court – at its best.

Agrapart Avize 1995

Occasions, occasions

With a reason to celebrate, I dug into my champagne bin and found this: the 1995 Avize Grand Cru Brut from Agrapart & Fils.

It’s a bottle I got as a gift during a trip to the Champagne region in 2003, and liked very much back then. Rich, deep, mineral, terroir-driven, compellingly individual for a champagne, it’s been waiting all these years for a proper ‘occasion’. We all know the feeling. Plenty of bottles too good to drink with casual dinners. But ‘occasions’ are rare and never seem to fit the wines (or vice versa).

That’s why this bottle was opened a little too late perhaps. Nothing wrong: in fact I found its slightly frail stature interesting. It was probably at peak two or three years ago (if not downright in 2003, I fear to say). As often with Champagne, there is enough body and power to sustain the wine even a bit past prime.

So what is it like? It’s predominantly vinous. Vinosity is an important category when understanding and discussing champagne. It’s what really sets the ephemeral featherlight fizz apart from a serious white wine that accidentally has happens to have bubbles in it. There are some gorgeous champagnes that are just champagnes: beautifully crafted and delicious to drink but a little superficial; ‘made’, not ‘born’ as good wine should be (Deutz springs to mind; Gosset also, perhaps). And then there are wines with so much substance and density they really become what champagne essentially is: a northern white Burgundy (many examples, from the better bottles of Bollinger through Jacquesson up to many small growers such as Égly-Ouriet or Larmandier).

This champagne, with its somewhat diminished effervescence, is tasting like a mature Meursault. Honey, butterscotch, brioche, praline, some elusive hazelnut, underpinned by a vestige of peary fruit. Then silence, and later, a tight core of minerality. The east-facing bare limestone slopes of Avize shine on the finish. This wine is sensually delicious – it’s Chardonnay at its most Baroque, with sweetness aplenty – but it is also very transparent and terroir-truthful. And that’s quite an achievement for champagne.

Agrapart is a house well-known to aficionados but surely less so to the general public. I see from recent reviews that they’re doing well. The wine I am drinking today is now called Avizoise. I’m sure the good recent vintages – such as 2002 – would be a very fine choice for cellaring. Save it for a big occasion.

2008 Harayama Shincha

Kissing 2008 goodbye

My green teas from 2008 have to move out quickly to make room for 2009s. Longjing, Biluochun, Sencha are all being harvested at the moment, and some are ready for immediate EMS shipment.

But drinking tea up is no easy task. Any tea lover will know the embarras de richesse of a drawer full of samples. With 70 at this moment, I think I am among the least overstocked. Some teas can age, of course, and these will be happy with a few months’ oblivion as I delve into newly delivered 2009s. But fragile green teas – especially those from Japan, in my experience – should ideally be consumed within the year of harvest.

Today’s is definitely a belated note, then. The 2008 Harayama Shincha was made with the first spring harvest of last year. Shincha – ‘new tea’ – is often nicknamed the Beaujolais Nouveau of the tea world. It is equivalent to what the Chinese classify as pre-Qing Ming (or ming qian): the first spring buds plucked before this major Chinese festival that usually falls at the beginning of April. So in essence, this Harayama (a prestigious origin in the prestigious region of Uji) is an early harvest sencha Japanese green tea.

Merchant: Eastteas
Price: £16 / 100g
Brewed in: Korean clay cup (see photos)
Dosage: 4g / 120ml

Leaf: Immaculate elongated pressed leaves boast an impressively consistent dark green. This clearly belongs to the light-steamed family of Japanese tea (a.k.a. asamushi). I somehow found these wonderful leaves representative of the perfectionist Japanese aesthetics. Dry leaf smell is a concentrate of vegetality, with notes of asparagus, artichoke, and especially extra virgin olive oil.

Tasting notes:
1m @ 70C: A typical pale golden / celadon colour. The nose is quite aromatic with a top note I identified as nutmeg. Body is round and flavourful, allying sweetness with vegetal freshness, losing its bite gradually as there is very little overt grassiness: this is true to the shincha sort in being airy, light, without the tang of full-season sencha.
30s @ 70C: Good character, if a little less intensity than the first brewing. With fruity notes a bit lower, the full glutamic scharge is arriving with more power. This tea is easy to overbrew (in fact brewing at 85C results in too much astringency) but if you find the right balance it is really delightful.
80s @ 80C: Now slowly eclipsing into a vague greenish soup. Still pleasant but with limited interest.

Overall this tea has held reasonably well (my notes from November 2008 and this morning are consistent), and although hardly complex, it really delivers very good intensity of spring leaf flavour. Just what shincha should be. I can’t wait to receive my 2009s!

I also draw your attention to the lovely tea items on the photos (also purchased from Eastteas). The handy crackled celadon clay pot and accompanying cup are by Korean potter Mr. Bo Hyun, and have an effortless elegance while being very practical for brewing a single cup of green tea (especially fragmented-leaf, as in this case). The carved wooden tray is my Mr. Kang. It is perfect as a small tea table for one, or for serving three or four guest cups on.

Polz Sauvignon Therese 2003

Classy slate

Let’s look at another top estate from Austria: Erich & Walter Polz. Based in Southern Styria, the Polz family has been in the forefront of the winemaking revolution in this once incurably rural, and now cutting-edge-modern wine region.

Styria’s major advantage is its geological richness and variety of wine terroirs. Across a limited area, you can find marl, sandstone, volcanic basalt (brilliant soil for Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer, two of the region’s best-performing varieties), opok (a compressed grey sandstone giving some stupendously mineral wines) and limestone. The latter is dominating in the top Styrian crus such as Grassnitzberg, Hochgrassnitzberg and Zieregg, on the border with Slovenia; these sites are yielding some very exciting wines from Sauvignon Blancs, perhaps the grape’s most interesting renditions outside the Upper Loire and Marlborough.

The wine I am drinking today – Sauvignon Blanc Therese 2003 (another older vintage unearthed in the cellar) – is from a different type of soil, however. Pure slate is most readily associated with the Rhine and Moselle Rieslings, and is a rather rare soil to grow Sauvignon on. The vineyard itself – Theresienhöhe – is also one of Styria’s highest at 450 meters. Grapes ripen well giving a very structured wine that is aged in wooden barrels. Oak-aged Sauvignon can often be clumsy, sacrificing the grape variety’s inherent freshness and exuberance for no apparent advantage. This wine is a different story.

Tasted last year while in Austria, the newly bottled 2007 was very terroir-driven, with impressive concentration for Sauvignon, and good acidic poise: just waiting to build proper complexity over five or six years in the bottle. It was markedly deeper and more mineral in expression than the Hochgrassnitzberg Sauvignon Blanc 2006, from a limestone vineyard: the latter is giving a more flowery, vegetal, expressive rendition of the grape. The Sauvignon Therese 2005 (from a pretty difficult vintage in Styria) was still showing quite young, but with a more rustic, meaty, grassy edge to it.

And here is this bottle of 2003. Could a Sauvignon from this torrid vintage have survived five years in the cellar? At the beginning there are some burnt rubber reductive aromas but with time, good gooseberry-scented freshness is showing up. Really a powerful wine in mouth, with substance and focus and a firm bitterish finish still. There is also an almost biting mineral charge: I think the acid-giving energy of slate has considerably helped this wine to survive and improve.

All in all, this was a fairly instructive bottle of wine. On paper, I would have dismissed it, looking at my tasting note from release when I remarked on the New-Worldish style of the wine (nettle and kiwi fruit), moderate substance and little complexity. Over half a decade, it has not only stood the test of time but developed good depth and improved its terroir references. This is a valid confirmation of the excellent job done by the Polz family in this uneasy vintage and of the sheer class of the Theresienhöhe slate. (I also very much recommend the Morillon Moth 2007, coming from the very same vineyard: a brilliantly fleshy, terroir-driven, unobese take on Chardonnay).

Two reds from Austria

Hit and miss

Continuing my Austrian thread I am drinking two top reds tonight. They are made with the leading Austrian varieties – Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt – and represent a key area for red wine production, Middle Burgenland, and South-Eastern Styria which is more renowned for its whites but has quite some potential for reds too.

As I wrote in my earlier post on Austrian wines, reds from this country tend to be a mixed bag. While global warming has made Austria’s climate favourable for growing almost any dark-skinned variety (there are even patches of Sangiovese, Tempranillo and Tannat), the quality is still uneven. At the bottom end, where in the past many wines were unripe and diluted, the rise in quality has been obvious: a 7€ bottle of Zweigelt today usually represents good value for money and offers a healthy portion of fresh berry fruit and vinosity. The medium range is where some of Austria’s most exciting wines are to be found, with a growing understanding of the local terroirs and a moderate use of oak. Here, Blaufränkisch is the king, being a more refined and mineral variety than Zweigelt; many cru bottlings from the Burgenland can be had for 12–15€, and are really exciting in a balanced, crisp, Central European, vaguely Burgundian style. Another grape to look for at this price range is Pinot Noir.

In the past, red Austria’s biggest problem has perhaps been its top shelf. With a lot of ambitious estates coming into the game in the mid-1990s, there was a proliferation of expensive bottlings – usually blends with a strong emphasis on French varieties, often Merlot – that were marred by excessive extraction and overenthusiastic use of oak. With some vintages still on the unripe side of ripe, there was also an unpleasant green character to many wines. Harsh tannins, buttery oak and herby greenness combined to create a very Germanic cocktail that made many wines seem a bit ridiculous when compared to top-scoring red wines from Italy, France or even Spain. Of tonight’s wines, the Weninger Blaufränkisch Reserve 2001 belongs to that category. Made in Middle Burgenland on the border with Hungary (the Weninger family actually owns a separate estate on the Hungarian side, in the town of Sopron: see map on their website), this wine was released in 2004. Mild evolution to colour. Nose is not bad, but definitely has a bretty, barnyardy reductive character masking the fruit. Palate has a pleasant fruity attack (some Blaufränkisch cherry) but gradually tastes less and less exciting as the overoaking and overextraction become evident. Finishes with exaggerated, harsh tannins and no fruit. Highish acidity not adding to the experience. This shows how intellectually limited was that ‘Millennium’ style in Burgenland, and also how ill-suited to Blaufränkisch, which comes out heavy-handed, anonymous and uninteresting. While this TN sounds harsh, I want to say that recent Weninger productions are in a quite different league, with more balance and fruit. I particularly like the Blaufränkisch Hochäcker and the very mineral Blaufränkisch Dürrau (very promising in 2007), as well as the Blaufränkisch-Zweigelt-Merlot blend Veratina. At the end of the day, I’ve had more fun with Winkler-Hermaden Olivin 2002, although it doesn’t enjoy the reputation of Weninger. Made with 100% Zweigelt from brown volcanic soils in South-Eastern Styria and aged in local oak, this wine elevates the tricky Zweigelt grape to a new level. Colour of the 2002 vintage is surely not very dense today. Nose is not very rich and rather lacks definition: some pepper, some meat, some ripe red fruit. Palate is definitely better, medium-bodied, with a good amount of sweet fruit (cherries perhaps), spiced up by some Speck saltiness and the usual Zweigelt creamy, almost gluey texture. Not a lot of structure or acidity with tannins totally integrated now, but also no signs of decline and no tertiary character. A pleasant wine for sure, consistent with my early TN of the 2002 upon release. Here again, the recent vintages (especially 2005) are superior by a large margin.

Palazzone Orvieto Terre Vineate 2006

Several days without blogging but not without drinking, of course. As a succession of spring vegetables enter the kitchen, I have been primarily opening whites, and cleaning the cellar from the 2006 vintage – another ripe low-acid vintage that left me somewhat bored and tired in such regions as Austria and Italy. Yet there are some good surprises, even among the less expensive wines. Here is one unassuming bottle that proved one of the most memorable food & wine match with a freshly made pesto sauce.

It is from Orvieto, in the Central Italian regiono of Umbria. Since I remember, Orvieto was one of my favourite wines – or rather, one I wished was among my favourites but that so rarely delivers. Produced from a traditional five-grapes blend (including Grechetto and Procanico, the latter better known as Trebbiano) on poor soils (some volcanic), it should be one of Italy’s most mineral and deeply refreshing whites. It is a kind of more southern Soave, if you want: not very aromatic but with enough mineral extract and structure to age well, and withstand oak.

The problem? Few producers are really working hard to produce good wines. Unlike the vast majority of Italian appellations, Orvieto has been really underperforming of late, and so very few wines are showing the real potential of the terroir. This is made worse by the fact that the appellation’s largest and more notorious estate, Castello della Sala (part of the Antinori group), is strongly focusing on French grapes, and focusing its own Orvieto DOC close to the bottom of the range.

You could say that there is only one estate that has been consistently delivering quality and character in the last years: Palazzone. The best bottling here is Campo del Guardiano which has an astonishing ageing potential despite seeing no oak and not much of a late harvest. The Orvieto Classico Superiore Terre Vineate 2006 is Palazzone’s simpler offering, a very reliable wine with good terroir character. Alcohol is surely high (14% – a pretty natural range for Orvieto) and there is the ripe, low-acid character of the 2006 vintage, but also reasonable depth and a touch of minerality. I tasted this wine upon release two years ago and the tasting note was nearly identical: this is now predictably less appley and citrusy, but showing no truly maturing notes. I don’t recommend holding on it, though. Pop the cork now and enjoy this good Orvieto with its natural food partner: chicken, rabbit (there’s no fish in the high Umbrian hills, remember) or aromatic herb-based dishes like the one I chose.

Just a joke…

Bründlmayer Spiegel 2002

An antique mirror

As promised in an earlier post I brought a mixed case of Austrian wines from the cellar to sample through in the coming weeks. This particular wine is an old acquaintance – Bründlmayer was one of the first quality estates from Austria I was introduced to, and I remember going crazy about the 2000 Langenloiser Spiegel upon release (it remains one of the very best matches with cabbage in my memory).

The 75 hectares (organically grown) of the Bründlmayer estate in the region of Kamptal are located on some of the most coveted locations of all Austria. Among them is Spiegel, a dramatic sun-exposed hill with very warm microclimate (hence the name, ‘Mirror’, presumably) allowing for high ripeness. In recent years, with global warming making a difference, this vineyard has perhaps become a little too hot for Grüner Veltliner (this one, for example). But Bründlmayer has dedicated Spiegel to Grauburgunder and Weissburgunder (Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc), both late-ripening, with the latter providing crucial acidity to the blend. This aspect, together with a good minerality from the limestone & loess soil, also ensures a long aging potential to this bottling.

Here’s evidence of that with the Langenloiser Spiegel 2002, cellared by yours truly since release in 2004. At first this is tasting a little banal and one-dimensional but shows very good evolution in the glass. Nose is mildly maturing and elegantly oaky (high-grade butter and cream; in fact there is only partial aging in Austrian casks). I think Weissburgunder is having the upper hand in the blend at this stage, offering crispness, mineral transparency, and a lighter aromatic register (citrus). But the key to success has surely been the low alcohol (12.5% only): the wine has remained refreshing and alive instead of tiresome and sticky.

It is interesting to note that back in 2002, this wine was a roughly 55–45% blend of Pinot Gris and Blanc; now with some new parcels coming into production, Pinot Blanc has been reduced to a mere 10%. I am a big fan of Pinot Blanc and usually find its refreshing, flowery, crisp profile a beneficial addition to Pinot Gris, but tasting Bründlmayer’s Spiegel 2005 and 2006 recently I must say it is still a remarkably fresh and balanced wine. Highly recommended – not only with cabbage.

Austrian trade tasting

My top picks from the annual Austrian trade tasting in Warsaw, including some delicious whites from the lesser-known Wagram region.