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Domaine de Torraccia

A desert island red

Went to a new wine shop & bistro today: Vinarius. The import company itself is actually one of Poland’s veterans, having been founded by Frenchwoman Cécile Bergasse in the late 1990s. Following Cécile’s family connections the original catalogue focused strongly on the Languedoc, and wines such as Château Viranel Rosé (and the Blanc, for which I have a soft spot) and Clos Fantine were big time hits on our market.

Times have changed; growing market competition and family life have pushed Cécile to sell the company to an investor last year. This has surely proved beneficial to the portfolio, which is now overseen by Sławomir Chrzczonowicz, a very competent buyer of French wines (and a good friend). He has added blue chips such as Château Pibarnon and Mas de Daumas Gassac, and has unearthed lesser-known quality estates such as Château Mourgues du Grès from Nîmes, Château de Brau from Cabardès or Domaine Grossot from Chablis. Now he is looking beyond France, including the overperforming La Purísima co-op from Spanish Yecla whose inexpensive bottlings I like a lot.

Today I bumped onto an informal tasting of Corsican wines tutored by Sławomir at the new bar, and there one of my all-time favourites: Domaine de Torraccia. My personal preference for the wines of Corsica largely sprang from a single bottle of 1991 Oriu, Torraccia’s top bottling, that I tasted at the already mentioned Rouge Gorge wine bar in Paris 4e.

The owner of Torraccia Christian Imbert surely belongs to vinous France’s most colourful characters. He spent many years in Chad, and only moved to his wife’s native Corsica in his 40s. The 40 hectares of vineyards are located at Porto-Vecchio, at Corsica’s southernmost tip, overlooking Sardinia. This is not usually considered the best zone for Corsican wine: the island’s major protagonists usually operate in Patrimonio to the north or Ajaccio to the west. Whatever his terroir’s credentials, Imbert has been consistently producing some very exciting wines for two decades now.

I am not terribly fond of his Vermentino-based white (reductive and somewhat fruitless) but the Porto-Vecchio Rosé 2007 as tasted today is excellent: classic, restrained but with good structure and elegant hints of red fruits, it makes a perfect food wine. The focus is, however, on three red wines, none of which see any oak (which Imbert considers an adulteration of the traditional Corsican character). The varietal Niellucciu is light, fresh and gluggable while the 2006 Domaine red, in which Niellucciu is spiced up with some Syrah, Grenache and Sciaccarellu, is a distinctively perfumed, medium-bodied wine with surprising ageing potential (the 1998 was drinking beautifully last year).

If I were to choose one Corsican wine to take on a desert island, though, it would surely be the Porto-Vecchio Cuvée Oriu. Made from oldish terraced Niellucciu with 20% Sciaccarellu, it packs considerably more power and concentration than the Domaine red, and is perhaps the most ageworthy wine from Corsica: the 1998 is mature only now, and the 2001 – a brilliant vintage here – needs more time. Today, we tasted the 2004, which is really young and needs a good half hour of airing: the initial bouquet is taut, herby (call it garrigue if you will), sausagey, even gamey, and the cherry fruit unfolds slowly over a core of earthy minerality. The profile is very traditional: Oriu is a wine that starts quite evolved (there is no oak stabilisation, remember) but has an amazing staying power and shows a wonderful combination of depth and elegance. And make no mistake, this is no Sciaccarellu cerasuolo type as in the Clos Capitoro 2000 I reviewed back in January: this is a sturdy, peppery lad that can tackle a game dish. Truly a wine to take on a desert island.

André Kientzler Riesling Osterberg 2007

Another tricky Alsatian

Today was the last day of the five-day tasting marathon I blogged on the other day. Bad lack throughout. The Menetou-Salon from Henry Pellé I much looked forward to was awfully corked. And the Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate–Le Coste 2004 was oxidative and underwhelming.

And we had another controversial Alsatian. I have never liked the wines of André Kientzler as much as some of my colleague tasters, but there is no denying this is currently one of the top domaines for dry Riesling. So expectations for their Grand Cru Osterberg Riesling 2007 were justifiably high. It’s an obviously good wine, but difficult to really enjoy. It has a pretty odd mixture of late harvest aromatic notes (raisins, peaches and honey) with a searing acidity that somehow doesn’t taste fresh at all. Alcohol is high (14%), which only adds to the searing impression. In my experience, a Riesling needs to have really superior concentration and body to sustain 14% alc. This wine, oddly, seems a little thin in texture, although it is built around a solid mineral core.

Osterberg is a vineyard with a quintessentially Alsatian mixture of soil: sandstone, limestone, gravel and even some marl. Sandstone usually yields wines that are very high in acidity, and rather quiet in their youth. Surely this shows in this Kientzler 2007. I kept the bottle open for three days and retasted it several times. Hardly any change, and hardly much pleasurability: this is intellectual, ungiving, mildly off-putting wine. It only shone when served with a dish of braised young cabbage.

A Krug dinner

Champagne excess

A taster’s treat tonight. A Krug champagne dinner cooked by Poland’s best chef, Paweł Oszczyk at the Régina hotel in Warsaw. Nominally this dinner was for the launch of the Krug Rosé in Poland, although we drank the Grande Cuvée Brut for most of the evening (and started, atypically, with a most pleasant glass of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2007; Cloudy Bay and Krug belong to the world’s most glamorous brand conglomerate, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy).

As improbable as it sounds, it was hard work. No fewer than 12 courses were served, and I tried to evaluate the wine & food match each time. Some of the highlights were a scallop ragoût where a mild note of burnt butter paired very well with Krug’s long-aged richness, a fantastic discovery with a side dish of gingered al dente lentils, and a stunningly savoury dish of apple-flavoured quail broth with a single tortellino on top (this proved perhaps a bit too gamey for the champagne).

There were also a few duds, such as a prawn tempura with fresh grapefruit that didn’t match at all, and a very well-cooked rack of venison with caramelised shallots which cried for the Krug Rosé – but the latter was only served with dessert. It was a night of excess, and 11 courses paired with a single wine was really too much – there was no way to keep the diners’ attention sharp throughout the menu.

The wines? The Krug Rosé is well-tailored wine with good structure and discrete pink fruit, but it is really nothing special against other rosé champagnes, and costs the earth. The Krug Grande Cuvée was its usual rich, complex, potent self. We actually tasted a range of various disgorgement dates (i.e., wines that had a different time in the cellar after the post-fermentative yeast deposit was removed; sounds geeky but it is a crucial factor for the taste of a champagne). Contrarily to expectations, the younger bottles were showing richer, really quite oaky, with a lot of what the French call charpente – I preferred them over the older bottles that were quite acidic. I probably drank more Krug tonight than I will for the remainder of my life.

Weinbach Muscat 2007, Dal Forno Valpo 2003

Ups and downs

Having a heavy week this week. With my colleagues, we are tasting through 250 wines for the bi-monthly tasting panel of the WINO Magazine. That means 50 wines per day, plus quite a bit of logistics and organisation to handle (tasting is double blind for everybody but me, who control the order and numbering).

Tomorrow we have a themed tasting of Argentine wines, which already makes me shiver with horror at the amount of oak and extract I’ll need to inhale. Today, we went through an assorted bunch of wines from Italy and France. Among them, the Domaine Weinbach Alsace Muscat Réserve 2007. Although it’s never been as exciting as the Riesling offerings from this stellar domaine, I expected a lot more from this. It showed very average, losing even to a cheaper Alsatian Muscat from Laurent Barth (which was really, really good). The Weinbach had a faint varietal nose (apples and grapes) over a core of cool stone, and a rather thin palate with a greenish acidity. Better as it warmed up in the glass, revealing a richer medium body and good balance. But still not the expression and cut one associates with the Weinbach name.

I took the bottle home to retaste with dinner… and there was obvious TCA (cork taint). Upon opening, it was so minor as to pass unnoticed (even among a half-dozen experienced tasters), but clearly robbed the wine of freshness and complexity. This makes you think of how many faulty wines are assessed as if they weren’t…

The other noteworthy wine of today was the Romano Dal Forno Valpolicella Superiore Monte Lodoletta 2003. Dal Forno is about as high one the Italian wine hypometer as can be, but I dislike his heavy, showy style and interventionist winemaking. Still, given the prices and recognition these wines command, it is also worthwhile to taste them when an occasion arises.

This wine is an amarone in all but name. It smells of prunes, stewed cherries, tobacco, chocolate and spices, and has 15% alcohol. It is to the best of my knowledge made of dried grapes like amarone, and is priced higher than almost all amarones (73€ here in Poland at the current exchange rate). So why call it a Valpolicella? For Dal Forno, it is his ‘second label’ or ‘second selection’ wine: perfect grapes go into his Amarone, and less-than-perfect ones go here. But if you don’t know about this curious policy, you’d be nonplussed by this.

Is this 2003 a good amarone? No. There is far too much extraction and new oak for good balance. The wine smells stewed, tasted stewed and finishes dry-tannic. There is no freshness or finesse, and the fruit is dead. Amarone comes in various guises; I like the more vinous, crisp, less sweet style, and you might like the richer, more powerful one, but balance is the key to success in both. This wine is unbalanced. It tries to impress with its sheer power but goes far too much in the extraction.

Will it ever integrate? We left it in the decanter overnight to see. But predictably, it only got worse. Whatever little freshness of fruit was there upon opening was gone; all that was left was alcohol and oak tannins. Admittedly, it didn’t oxidise even with 18 hours in the decanter. But there was no drinking pleasure. Even the label drinkers among us were skeptical.

Serge Batard Muscadet 2006

Keep it simple

I don’t drink enough Muscadet. Together with its red counterpart – Beaujolais – it is France’s and perhaps Europe’s most undervalued wine, and can really deliver a boatload of enjoyment and refreshment for the modic price of 4–6€. I was reminded of this obvious fact by the Serge Batard Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu sur lie 2006 I picked up in the deli today.

It isn’t a great wine, but I found its simplicity and clean, mineral flavour delightful. A pleasant granitey nose with moderate intensity; perhaps some appley fruit. On the palate there is again an impression of stoniness, and freshly ground pepper. Some expansive fruit of the generous 2006 vintage, otherwise a rather linear, not very long, medium crisp wine. I downed the bottle in a short time and felt like I could open another. That’s what I call drinkability.

Fougeray de Beauclair Picpoul 2007

Burgundy heads south

Got a nice package of samples from France earlier this week. Domaine Fougeray de Beauclair sent four of their burgundies from the northern Côte de Nuits (I will review these soon), but also three wines of their recent offspring to the Languedoc.

One of them is Picpoul de Pinet. It is safe to say that Languedoc as a region specialises in red wines; it takes a special terroir (usually upper than lower in the valleys) and, crucially, a careful selection of grape varieties to make a distinctive white. There surely are some good Chardonnays, Viogniers, Marsanne / Roussanne blends, and a growing number of exciting wines from Grenache Blanc, but also a large amount of pretty bland vins de pays.

Picpoul de Pinet is an oddity, in that is has a long tradition. Unlike the above mentioned grapes that have been imported from other parts of France in the 19th and 20th century, Picpoul (or Piquepoul, as it is often spelled) goes back many centuries and is considered one of the oldest varieties to be still cultivated in the Languedoc. It has a red-skinned version, Piquepoul Noir, that is theoretically permitted in the AOC Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and can be found in a few vineyards in Languedoc’s Minervois (see Clos Centeilles, for example). More common is the white Piquepoul Blanc, of which there is around 1,400 hectares, chiefly in the specialist AOC Coteaux du Languedoc Picpoul de Pinet. Located west of the ancient port of Sète on the gentle hills leading to the Étang de Thau, it yields an interesting white wine that is a perfect partner for the local seafood.

Fougeray de Beauclair’s Picpoul de Pinet Val Grieux 2007 is a good example of this rewarding appellation. Not a very aromatic white but there is a good amount of iodine-laden terroir scents. On palate this shows good balance and Picpoul typicity, with medium-highish acidity, some mid-palate textural density (almost hinting at honey), and medium body. Distinctly maritime but not overtly crisp, this is an unfruity but interestingly textured wine that is made for food. On the picture below, my choice of pairing for today’s lunch: saffron moules à la crème. The delightfully affordable Spanish saffron from La Mancha allows to generously flavour this sauce without too much of a financial headache.

Mas Jullien 1999

Mas Jullien belongs to the handful Languedoc wine estates that have been making a name for themselves for two decades now. Young Olivier Jullien is renowned for vinous France’s most contagious smile, but also for his humble approach to terroir and winemaking; his three wines (apart from the rare white and flagship red, there is a lighter, more affordable red aptly named États d’Âme) are probably the most transparent, stone-driven in the entire region.

Always too early.

I admit to have a patchy record with Mas Jullien. On several occasions the wine was either totally dumb, or filthily corked. On other ones, it was too young, and only hinting at its real dimension. I have a mixed case of vintages in the cellar but every time I think about opening a bottle, I withdraw in the fear it is too early.

On a recent trip to Wiesbaden I visited Weincontor, an outstanding wine merchant with the guts (a rare thing today) to cellar most of the wines they buy and release them when roughly ready to drink. Thus, 1998 Chianti, 1995 Mosel Riesling, 1999 Châteauneuf and 1998 dry Jurançon were purchased for forthcoming ‘occasions’. For drinking today, a Mas Jullien.

Contrary to what I expected, the Mas Jullien Coteaux du Languedoc 1999 is everything but mature. Typically for this wine, the colour is not too concentrated, showing a warm red tinge. On the nose, we get a core of solid cherry fruit, a bit of alcohol, and what I identified as Carignan herbiness (which is partnered by Syrah here). Surely an impressive wine on the palate, concentrated with lots of presence. Surprising acidity and surprising backwardness: not even merely mature, even though the tannins are softened and quiet. Really lots of zest: it is a Mediterranean wine, but there is also a high-grown uprightness and austerity of the high-perched limestone vineyards that the current vinous nomenclature labels Terrasses de Larzac.

This is a grown-up wine. If you come to the Languedoc for its luscious spicy fruit, look elsewhere (though you need look no farther than Mas Jullien’s États d’Âme). If you’re on your way down from Burgundy or Barolo, you’ll want to stay.

Jacques Puffeney Savagnin 2002

Personalité, je chéris ton nom

I delight in the wines of the Jura. Reading randomly through wine blogs and articles, I can see I am not the only one. But Jura’s ascent to recognition has been a slow one. Ten years ago, I think very few foreigners cared about this region, and in France its wines are best described as confidentiels.

Geographically it would be difficult to be more peripheral. Jura occupies a dead point between the back doors of Burgundy and Switzerland. With the former, it shares two of its five grape varieties – Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – as well as its predominantly clay and limestone soils that bear some similarity to those of the Côte de Beaune. With the latter, a firm, semi-Alpine climate where autumns are chilly rather than Burgundian-Indian, resulting in some unique red wines styles that only bear some resemblence to those of Savoie and Neuchâtel, and white wines largely architectured around acidity.

In recent years, delicious budget-priced sparkling wines (Crémant du Jura) and some fascinating mineral-driven Chardonnays have done a lot to spread the region’s name. But I, always looking for vinous oddity, have a profound love for Jura’s speciality, yellow wine – vin jaune – which is a gently oxidised 14% white aged no less than six years in wood, in unfilled barrels, where local strains of yeast grow a thin protective film. This latter technique (called sous voile) inevitably sparks comparisons with fino sherry (or for the well-travelled, szamorodni Tokaj), but whoever has tasted vin jaune knows that its bouquet of curry spice, morel mushrooms and walnuts can be compared to nothing at all.

Vin jaune is made from Savagnin, a grape, like many things in the Jura, grown nowhere else at all – although genetically it is a cousin of the well-known Gewürztraminer. Technically it is Traminer without the gewürz – spice – even though it has plenty. Even when grown without oxidation, Savagnin is easily recognisable for its spicy aromas, as well as it mouth-puckering acidity. In fact, no matter how warm the vintage this grape always manages to taste green and underripe (whence the initial idea of keeping it in barrel for so long, to tame the harsh acids). Although the recent trend in the Jura has been towards a mild ‘internationalisation’ of its wines – planting more Chardonnay, and vinifying Savagnin less oxidatively – and although some of the resulting wines are spectacularly good, I firmly believe Jura’s best calling card are the sous voile wines. Not only vin jaune though – there is plenty of interest and value for money to be found in the lighter examples of oxidative-aged Savagnin.

Here is one from Jacques Puffeney, a Jurassic veteran and one of the region’s most uncompromising producers. Only a quarter of his Savagnin yields vin jaune; the rest is blended with Chardonnay in the delicious Cuvée Sacha or given a shorter period sous voile to produce this wine, simply called Arbois Savagnin.

Jacques Puffeney in January 2007.
This is the best photo his badly lit cellar allowed.

2002 was a soft, ripe, classic vintage in the Jura, and this wine can save as a benchmark for Savagnin. It is extremely typical, with notes of garam masala, leavened bread and green apple, followed on the clean palate by outstanding minerality and length. Judging by a certain structural crudeness on end, this is still very young, but I enjoyed it just as much on a cool winter evening with some friends, with some good quality Comté cheese (Jura’s other outstanding agricultural product) someone brought from Paris. This wine really delivers much food for thought and much terroir for its very modic price of 11€.

Puffeney’s Savagnin stays nearly 4 years in these large foudres.

Clos Capitoro 2000

A remarkable red from Corsica

I got a bottle of this Corsican red (essentially as a gift after a copious dinner there) from François Briclot, the patron of the Rouge-Gorge in Paris’ rue Saint-Paul (he has since quit this lovely wine bar, which is a real shame).

Corsica has been steadily gaining ground in recent years with its white wines based on Vermentino, but I have a soft spot for the reds. Granite and limestone together with high altitudes and a windy (if warm) can deliver wines with wonderful finesse. And then there are the two native Corsican varieties. Niellucciu (believed to be a sibling of Sangiovese, but as always such kinship has more to do with DNA than any similarities in character) is the more common of the two, giving wines of compelling texture and ageworthiness. It is pretty easy to find – the best examples are probably those of Antoine Aréna and Yves Leccia, but my favourite by far is Domaine de Torraccia Cuvée Oriu. The 1991 (incidentally tasted at the very same Rouge-Gorge in 1997) was one of the first great terroir wines of my life, and I have loved every vintage since – especially the 1998, 2001 and 2004.

Corsica’s other indigenous grape variety, Sciaccarellu, is much harder to find in pure form. Apparently it is difficult to grow – and certainly to drink. The colour of its wines is very pale and unstable:

and the aromatic spectrum can be challenging (there is a Pinot-like stink that Corsicans like to compare to wild hare fur…). To those open-minded, though, Sciaccarellu can offer a fantastic Old-World finesse and a unique profile.

The last few remaining 100% Sciaccarellu wines are to be found in the Ajaccio AOC in the south-west of Corsica. I tasted some good bottles from Comte Peraldi and Clos d’Alzeto, but this Ajaccio Cuvée Réservée 2000 from Clos Capitoro was in a different league altogether (and note this producer makes a more expensive version of the grape, named Cuvée Jean Bianchetti). It boasts a fantastic faded ruby-orange colour that is even lighter than an orthodox Nebbiolo (see photo above). The bouquet is surely that of an aged wine, with aromas of almonds, herbs and olive oil, followed by a palate that is tertiary and meaty (Sciaccarellu always is anyway) with little fruit but good presence and length, and finishing with those powdery Corsican tannins that the producer so aptly describes as petits tanins au léger granuleux dus au sciaccarello. Alcohol is moderate (13%). The most surprising thing about this wine is its reserve: it started evolved and sedate but continued to gain life and zest over two days. The last sips were deliciously clean, stylish, traditional, refreshing and individual.

This wine is about as far as you can get from modern-vinified reds full of fruit, oak and extract. It is a glimpse of how red wines were made in the Mediterranean in the 18th or 19th century. A truly memorable bottle.