Holiday wines

Posted on 4 January 2012

Welcome in 2012, dear readers. Many, many thanks for your readership in 2011 – your views and comments encouraged me to keep this blog reasonably updated, not always an easy task with a day job, second day job, and a popular Polish blog to also keep afloat.

In the end, 2011 has been challenging but fun. My latest – and likely biggest – challenge of moving over from a large suburban house to a medium-sized city apartment, taking kilos of tea and 1500 bottles of wine, is luckily over (though I’ll never again move a wine collection by hand – next time I’ll be paying any money for others to do it).

Looking back at my top wine moments of 2011, I was privileged to meet great wine people such as Cristiano Van Zeller and Mladen Rožanić, and drink some big guns such Confuron’s 2009 Clos de Vougeot or the 1996 Château Margaux, although it’s the more ethereal graces of Arianna Occhipinti’s Frappato or Augusto Cappellano’s Barolo that most strongly remain with me. It’s also been a good year for tea, with e.g. the recent 2010 Lishan reminding me how life-enhancing this beverage can be.

I’ve indulged over some good bottles during the holidays. I’ll write up my Christmas eve dinner separately to tell you about my preferred Polish food & wine matches. One later highlight has been a bottle of 2009 Château Poujeaux, another in a series of upsetting 2009 clarets – overalcoholic, stewed-fruity, flabby Merlot-driven, offering little drinking enjoyment at the moment, and I’m also concerned about the ageability of these unbalanced wines. (A number of other 2009s disappointed, including L’Évangile and Fombrauge, with Armailhac the only really good 2009 I’ve tried to date).

I’ve celebrated New Year with a pleasant bottle of Laurent-Perrier’s Grand Siècle, a proper cuvée de prestige I’ve cellared for a few years since release, offering that blend of briochey finesse and steely acidic structure only the best Champagnes are capable of. (Grand Siècle has a vintage version and a NV one, this was the latter, disgorged in 2004). And as per my tradition (see 2010 and 2011), I’ve greeted 2012 with a top sweet wine: Girolamo Dorigo’s 2001 Picolit, an ultra-rare grape making a luscious, raisiny, vanilla-scented wine from dried grapes. It also boasts a stunning mouth-blown Venetian glass bottle and the thickest natural cork I’ve ever seen. Indulgence indeed.

Disclosure

The Grand Siècle and Picolit were samples sent by the producers several years ago. The Poujeaux was a kind gift from a group of friends.