rare grapes Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Wojciech BońkowskiWojciech Bońkowski

Vigneti Massa Costa del Vento 2005

Some time ago I wrote about lesser-known grape varieties from Italy’s Piedmont such as Grignolino, Quagliano and Nascetta. Today, a grape that’s perhaps more obscure than all: Timorasso. There’s 50 ha left of this grape, which until recently was on the verge of extinction, replaced as it was by the more productive and hassle-free Cortese di Gavi.

It’s a vintner named Walter Massa who struggled to keep Timorasso going, and there is now a minor renaissance underway, in the Colli Tortonesi DOC in Piedmont’s south-eastern corner, bordering with Liguria and Lombardy.

Gavi wines acquired international fame several centuries ago for their richness of flavour and standing power (two characteristics that escape modern Gavis, based on Cortese). The key to success was Timorasso, a powerful, late-ripening grape capable of astounding concentration and depth. We’re talking about a white wine that was often harnessed to red wine use at the table: fowl, rabbit, even game are staples in this area.

I bought this bottle of Walter Massa Derthona Timorasso Costa del Vento 2005 in 2007, but Timorasso is intended for ageing and at five years this is just beginning to show its breed. Initially a little subdued and unaromatic, honeyed, slightly evolved, it later develops plenty of tropical fruit flavours and a strong scent of dark honey. It carries its whopping 14.5% alc. rather well. The texture is rich suggesting oak ageing (Julia Harding also noticed this, though this wine sees no oak at all!), but this is really not just another oaky Chardonnay: the flavours are more complex and distinctive, the whole is truly engaging, and engagingly vivacious (the combination of tropical fruit and high acidity is a hallmark of Timorasso). Development over two days of drinking has been very good, and this wine will improve further.

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Lake Garda: exciting whites

I’ve spent a week on the Garda Lake last September, exploring the region’s wines and foods. Blessed with hundreds of thousands of affluent tourists each year, the Garda produces predominantly a serious rosé called chiaretto, followed by some interesting lightish reds from the local Groppello grape.

Garda vineyards at Padenghe.

White wine, contrarily to what you might expect from a holiday destination with delicious lake fish, takes a back stage. The area’s historical white, Tocai, has now shrunk to the 60 hectares or so of the obscure San Martino della Battaglia DOC: pithy and mineral with Tocai’s low acidity, the wine has some interest but remains a curiosity. (One good producer is Spia d’Italia whose Bianco dell’Erta 2008 I enjoyed).

Some of the Luganas I recommend.

Far more popular is Lugana, a tourist’s favourite from the Trebbiano di Lugana (aka Turbiana) grape grown on a patch of clay soils at Garda’s extreme south. Lugana is very widely available and at 8–10€ a somewhat pricey but reliable light- to medium-bodied white with good minerality. From a tasting session of roughly twenty wines, my favourites were Olivini, Tenuta Roveglia, Provenza and, last not least, the very serious duo of Luganas from San Giovanni, including the assertive, mouthfilling Busocaldo made according to a bizarre recipe where the wine is aged on twenty times the amount of its own lees (!).

However, it’s the whites wines from Garda’s western shore that have caught my eye during this stay. Curiously, the Riesling Renano (German Riesling) has a long tradition here, and appears as a varietal or blended with Chardonnay, Riesling Italico and/or Manzoni. Given the area’s mild, Mediterranean, well-ventilated climate the wines acquire a rich, broad character unlike Riesling in Germany, but the grape’s inherent acidic drive provides really good balance.

The white Gardas worth seeking come from Comincioli (Perlí blends Trebbiano with local Erbamat – exceptionally there’s not Riesling – short skin contact results in plenty of saline minerality and a really interesting profile); Monte Cicogna (Il Torrione), and San Giovanni (Reis: one of the most mineral wines I’ve had).

Today I am retasting a memorable bottle I had at Cantrina. This peculiar estate a bit further west from the Garda belongs to artist Cristina Inganni, and was originally conceived as a Pinot Noir winery. Over the years the emphasis has switched towards local grapes such as Groppello and Riesling, though the entire range is highly individual and reflects Cristina’s very free, unorthodox approach.

The dry white Riné has also evolved: originally stronger on Chardonnay, the 2002 vintage we tasted was showing broad-shouldered and a little oaky although surely not yet another oaked Chardonnay: the heavy, stoney clay soils here gives wines with plenty of backbone and that distinctive saline taste of minerality. (They’re not too high in acids, on the other hand). The 2007 Riné has over 50% Riesling and so is a crisper, juicier white. It’s already a little advanced (consistently with Cristina’s saying: Mi piacciono vini bianchi evoluti) but has plenty of substance and an interesting interplay between creamy ripeness and mineral terroir. A very personal wine.

Cristina Inganni and Diego Lavo of Cantrina.

Disclosure

Source of wine: received as gift upon a visit to the winery.

In the middle of nowhere

Bosco Eliceo – a confidential wine-making zone on Italy’s Po Delta – is underperforming. But there’s no better wine than its fizzy dry red to match with the famous Comacchio eel.

Simple pleasures

I’m in Alba in Piedmont for an event called Nebbiolo Prima (formerly Alba Wines Exhibition), a preview of the new vintages of Piedmont’s most important wines: Barolo, Barbaresco, and Roero. It’s a great opportunity to taste more or less all the important wines from my favourite wine region. And it’s consistently one of Europe’s best organised and most exciting tasting.

Apart from its wines Piedmont also has spectacular scenery and some world-class food which I’ll be enjoying over the next few days, from cheese through meat to chocolate and grappa. Before you think it’s a nice vacation imagine tasting around 120 of the world’s most tannic wines every day. It’s really taxing. So today I’m taking it slowly and enjoying this warm sunny Sunday on Alba’s main drag, watching that Italian wonder of social choreography called the passeggiata, and having an al fresco lunch of the local raw beef and tajarin pasta. With this, I’m drinking Vietti’s Roero Arneis 2009, a deliciously unpretentious sugary-lemony light white from the local Arneis grape, as well as the Langhe Freisa Le Naturé 2008 from Pelissero. The latter is crazy stuff like they only make them in Italy: a lightly sparkling dry red with pungent cherry fruit and masses of brett, too. It’s a challenging wine that I’d never let into my dining room with other humans but here, with the pasta under the sun, it somehow works.

Disclaimer
My stay in Italy including flights, accomodation and wine tasting programme is paid for by Albeisa, the Piedmontese producers’ association. I paid for the above lunch and both wines.

The wines of Mannucci Droandi

I received this nice box of samples from the Mannucci Droandi estate in Chianti, after a nice exchange of e-mails with owner Roberto Giulio Droandi. This 30-hectare property in Caposelvi hit the headlines recently with its wines from experimental grape varieties that were recovered from a pool of ancient clones in a programme with the Istituto Sperimentale per la Viticoltura in Arezzo, under the umbrella name of Chianti Classico 2000.

Chianti, we all know it, is made from the Sangiovese grape, and Sangiovese’s ups and downs as a variety define the critical history of Chianti and its Tuscan siblings: Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. And as we all know as well, there are some subsidiary grapes customarily blended into Sangiovese according to the Chianti ‘recipe’ worked out by Bettino Ricasoli in the 1860s: Canaiolo, and the white Malvasia del Chianti (as well as Trebbiano Toscano which is a later, and less happy, addition to the recipe). Hardcore Chianti fanatics might well remember some of the more obscure additive to Sangiovese, such as Colorino, Ciliegiolo, Malvasia Nera and Mammolo (some of these are seeing a minor renaissance and are occasionally made as varietals).

Well, as we learn from the Chianti Classico 2000 programme, it’s not the whole story. Historically – i.e. in pre-phylloxera and pre-scientific replanting times in the early 1800s and 1700s – there were far, far more varieties grown in Chianti, and Sangiovese was anything but dominant in the vineyards. The plantings were universally mixed and a single harvest was operated where all varieties were picked and then pressed and vinified together. This traditional system persists in some areas of Germany and Austria where it is known as gemischter Satz whereas in France or Italy, the complantation has been largely abandoned. Italians have a term for a blend of grapes made in the vineyard and vinified together: uvaggio.

Now here are some of the excitingly obscure name of historical Chianti varieties that were examined with the CC2000 study:

Albano, Cascarella, Lugliola, Malvasia Bianca Lunga, Orpicchio, Perugino, Salamanna, San Colombano, Trebbiano Dorato, Vermentino Bianco, Zuccaccio (these are all white) and Aleatico, Canaiolo, Colorino del Valdarno, Foglia Tonda, Formicone Bonamico, Grossolano, Lacrima del Valdarno, Mammolo Nero (in several subvarieties including Primaticcio, Piccolo, Sgrigliolante) Mammola Tonda, Morellino, Passerina, Primofiore, Pugnitello, Rossone.

Before you smile asking ‘who on earth needs all these obscure useless grapes’, it is worth remembering that many grapes that were on the verge of extinction just a decade or two ago are now firmly established as some of the world’s most exciting. (Viognier is one example).

Vineyards in Ceppeto. © Mannucci Droandi.

The best-known of these revived Chianti grape varieties is Pugnitello, the best-known version of which is bottled by the large estate of San Felice. It’s an impressive wine showing Pugnitello as grape with massive colour, great concentration, powerful structure coupled with very sensual fruit. My only criticism is that it is very unlike Chianti as we know, much the opposite of Sangiovese, and so its possible use in a Chianti blend is problematic.

Mannucci Droandi, meanwhile, are offering varietal bottlings of other obscure historical grapes. The Barsaglina 2007 is a wine of some body and extract, quite tannic on end (I wonder how much of this derived from wood, of which there’s obviously been a little), rich but restrained and structured – which perhaps sums up the Chianti terroir somehow. The colour is moderately deep and the bouquet is modest: a little reductive and animal at first, with some bright red berries underneath. The fruit register and highish acidity are in fact Sangiovese-reminiscent, though the fierce tannins are not. Made in a rustic, challenging, not very elegant style, but surely with interest, though it’s hard to see exactly what this would contribute to a Chianti blend. The Foglia Tonda 2007 is altogether a better wine, with a cleaner and deeper aroma and a more balanced palate where the tannins are more integrated; there is some wood support but better digested than the Barsaglina above. An attractive wine with broad, assertive fruit and very good concentration, smoother and easier than a comparably sized Sangiovese (indicating Foglia Tonda as a softening and perhaps enriching grape in the blend).

The Ceppeto property. © Mannucci Droandi.

Yet the most excitement comes with the regular, Sangiovese-based Mannucci Droandi bottlings. The Chianti Colli Aretini 2007 (coming from the historical core of the estate, the Campolucci vineyard located outside the Chianti Classico zone) is a typical Chianti with strong acids and mineral tannins, and plenty of seriousness too: most of Colli Aretini wines are for immediate drinking while this, aged in oak, can easily wait 4 or 5 years. Good impressions too for the Chianti Classico Ceppeto 2006 (Ceppeto is the name of a different, recently acquired property), riper and broader than the Colli Aretini, structured and tight and still somewhat dominated by the oak and extract, but with good fruit, length and potential. The Chianti Classico Ceppeto Riserva 2006 basically continues along the same lines, extractive and powerful with a tight mineral kernel wrapped in semi-intense crisp cherry. I’ve retasted these 2006s recently in Tuscany and they are evolving quite well (if slowly). Really distinctive and engaging stuff for a winery that only started bottling in 1998.

Tuscan winter.

Disclaimer

Source of wines: samples sent by the winery.

In Apulia (4): Three wines that work well

In my recent series on Apulia I have been fairly critical of some aspects of the region’s winemaking. Back at home I sat to a relaxed tasting session with some potentially controversial wines, to see whether my feelings have softened.

Feudi di San Marzano is a large commercial winery making wines in a very fruity style (they’re high on the list of favourites of Luca Maroni, Italy’s most controversial critic), including the Primitivo Sessantanni that embraces the grape’s excesses I mentioned here. ‘Sud’ is San Marzano’s range of everyday varietal wines, and includes (interestingly) a white Verdeca alongside a Shiraz, Primitivo and Malvasia Nera. This latter grape is ubiquitous in Salento, the southern part of Apulia, but has always been used exclusively as a blending variety for its deep colour and lush fruitiness. (I’ve heard a theory that it belongs to the Grenache family). It allegedly lacks structure to be bottled on this own. Well, this Sud Malvasia Nera 2007 works very well indeed. It is a simple wine with not much bouquet to speak of, but making a statement about Apulia as a serious source of irresistibly tasty ripe fruit. The New World inspiration is very obvious here but the whole has a natural freshness and joyfulness that is rarely seen in an overseas wine. Unsophisticated but delicious, in a word. (It’s about 8€ retail).

With the Santa Lucia’s 2000 Le More, I wanted to double check my mixed impressions from a Nero di Troia tasting organised for us at Canosa by the Radici association. This grape is another former blending variety that has quickly risen to fame in recent years. But it’s still much a work-in-progress as producers are trying to figure out what winemaking styles suit it best. Rosés, light unoaked reds, classic long-aged large-oak examples, as well as turbocharged new oak modern fruit bombs are produced. The latter solution is the least interesting, the general feeling about Nero di Troia being that it tends towards overextraction, and doesn’t digest new oak well at all. The 2006 Riserva Le More from Santa Lucia was a case in point, and I much preferred their lighter Vigna del Melograno bottling. Well, I was proven wrong with the 2000 vintage of this wine. Time has been gracious to it, and it’s showing brilliantly. It has two major merits today: it has totally digested its oak, and shows Nero di Troia’s exuberant floral profile well. Colour is still dark, bouquet only mildly evolved, softly olivey, rather simple as befits this rustic grape variety, but with good overtones of violets and other flowers. On the palate this still is quite dynamic and bit of tannic-punchy, with Nero di Troia’s typically moderate acidity. Modern and dark-fruity but with really good structural balance, and more seriousness than most Troias.

Leone De Castris is one of Apulia’s veteran wineries, but with a recent change of style with the hiring of consultant Riccardo Cotarella I have been very underwhelmed by their wines. Especially by the Salice Salentino Riserva 2006, and all-time classic of traditional Apulian balsamic evolution, and following the Cotarella ‘revolution’ more of a blueberry muffin milkshake Mendoza Malbec-wannabe. (It is declared to be 100% Negroamaro grape aged in large oak; judging by what’s in the glass I have every reason to question both claims). So as a consolation I opened my last remaining bottle of the pre-Cotarellean Salice Salentino Riserva 2001. What a delightful wine! An unashamedly evolved, transparent ruby colour and an engaging bouquet of ripe cherry and red berries, with a hint of Salento stewed fruit preserve character, with minor herbiness for complexity; no oak, no tar. The real interest is on the palate with excellent volume of ripe and fleshy but vibrant fruit. And there’s quite some tannins on the finish. Still too young, should wait another 2–3 years at least. Where the latest vintage is flabby and boring this is poised and refreshing, structured and drinkable, sturdy and elegant at the same time. If you have bottles left, cherish them. This wine is no more.

Source of wines: Feudi di San Marzano – own purchase, Santa Lucia, Leone De Castris – samples provided by the producers (back in 2004).

Two big wines from Clos du Gravillas

To Minervois or not to Minervois?

Two interesting bottles from the Clos du Gravillas estate in the Languedoc. Vintners Nicole and John Bojanowski (as you can see from the name, there’s even a Polish connection) are known to wine geeks as patient champions of the Carignan grape. They even established the Carignan Renaissance association to help the rebirth of this quintessential Mediterranean grape.

It’ll be a tough job. No other grape has been denigrated so much in the last few decades. In France, authorities to their utmost to get rid of Carignan wherever they can. You can cash in thousands of €€ just by uprooting Carignan vineyards, no matter how good the wine they produce. In the variety’s traditional stronghold, the Languedoc, every single AOC appellation has a maximum limit of this grape in the blend (usually 40%; 50% in Corbières; the backwater AOC of Fitou is an honourable exception in requiring a minimum of 30% Carignan).

Until recently, Carignan was charged with all possible crimes. It was deemed responsible for the major wine glut of the Languedoc – whereas the real culprit were the heroic yields to which this flexible grape was harnessed (300 hl/ha was, apparently, far from being the record). Carignan was alleged to be a ‘rustic’ grape, unsuitable for ‘modern’ viticulture (read: mechanical harvesting) and its wines unappealing to ‘contemporary’ tastes (read: too acidic). It was also judged a ‘clonal disaster’ (but why did you ask nurseries for high-yielding clones back in the 1970s?).

The slow change in Carignan appreciation we currently witness is partly the merit of growers like the Bojanowskis who show the potential of the grape with low yields and old vines (these can run up to a 120 years in places), and partly that of the wine zone of Priorat in Catalonia. Here, schistous soils, high elevations and a semi-Mediterranean climate results in some stunningly rich wines that have been making the headlines for a decade now. While the early successes of Priorat were based on the Garnatxa (Grenache) grape, there’s an increasing interest in the local Carinyena (Carignan), which helps to balanced Garnatxa’s sexiness with some meaty spice and minerality; Carinyena-dominated wines such as Cims de Porrera, Clos Martinet and Vall-Llach are among the most exciting not only of Catalonia but of entire southern Europe. With such stunning wines being made with Carignan, it’s no wonder producers all around the huge crescent of Mediterranean land that was once ruled by Aragon (from Valencia to Sardinia) where Carignan was the dominating variety are starting to pay much more attention to its potential.

If you look at it, Carignan is remarkably well-adapted to the various terroirs of southern France and north-eastern Spain. It ripens late so can be cultivated even in the hottest vineyards of Priorat and Collioure, yet buds late too so you can plant it fairly high without fearing for spring frosts (Priorat has plantings up to 900 m). While the new clones can yield generously resulting in pale diluted wines, with a bit of discipline and well-drained soils the grape is capable of great concentration (more so than Grenache, I think). It has a very deep colour (even more so than Syrah; in fact, it’s been used for years as a colouring ingredient in blends) that is very stable over time (unlike Cinsault, the ‘other’ traditional variety of the Languedoc that loses colours quickly). It’s also usefully high in acidity and very resistant to oxidation (unlike Grenache); it actually has a tendency towards reduction, producing (courtesy of brett, more often than note) the meaty, barnyardy bouquets that earned it the adjective of ‘rustic’.

Clos du Gravillas’ best expression of Carignan is Lo Vièlh from vines planted in 1911, 1952 and 1970. In the 2005 vintage it’s a wine of considerable density and concentration. There’s an obvious whiff of sausagey animality but this easily blows off with 15 minutes’ airing (always recommended with Carignan, at any price level). Apart from decanting, I also recommend chilling slightly (16C is a good idea), as this tends to help the fruit on which this wine is not particularly high. It’s hardly a very deep or elegant red, but has a sense of natural power and vigour about it. The old vines are also showing in a crisp, perfectly integrated acidity and juicy, earthy tannins (there’s been some oak here but thankfully, it hasn’t obliterated this natural tannic expression). Good minerality, too. I don’t think it’s a wine most drinkers would qualify of ‘great’ (whatever your definition of the term is), but it’s authentic and has a story to tell. I’d be curious to see how it ages: it has plenty of content but not so much fruit.

Lo Vièlh is Clos du Gravillas’ top red (they also make a great job in the lighter bottlings); the top white is L’Inattendu. This wine, produced since 1999, was one of the first varietal versions (now there are far more) of Grenache Gris, one of several natural clones of the Grenache family: a pink-skinned version that’s traditionally been used to add fruit to oxidative sweet wines like Banyuls, or finesse to dry reds. It packs in a lot of punch and the 14% alcohol here can be considered a relatively light rendition.

If you’re thinking of Languedoc as a land of bland apéritif whites made from Clairette or, worse, Chardonnay, the L’Inattendu 2007 will come as a shock. It’s a very structured, brutally mineral wine that’s positively anti-aperitifey. Aromatically a bit challenging (ranging from fallen apple through onion to white pepper), it explodes on the palate with saline sappiness and rocky austerity. I think this sees new oak but there’s so much power to these grapes that they’ve eaten it all. It’s bone-dry, broad-shouldered but not exactly rich; a sort of sturdy, no-nonsense, caloric white wine that makes me think of lonely shepherds in the mountains having a cup of wine on a chilly August evening. If you’re not up in the mountains lonely, I’d serve this with food, although finding a good match will not be easy: the Bojanowskis suggest anchovies (notoriously difficult to pair with), I’d try salted cod or perhaps, simply, a slab of hearty pain de campagne with salted goat butter… It’s another wine I’d love to try at age 10 but with a few thousand bottles made each year, my chances are low.

It’s sadly representative of the French appellation system’s absurdities that L’Inattendu is now an AOC Minervois (before, Grenache Gris was not recognised so it was a Côtes de Brian vin de pays) while Lo Vièlh is denied the AOC (which apart from the 40% Carignan cap, requires a minimum of two grapes to be used) even though the vines were producing Minervois wine some decades before the AOC was born in the brains of technocrats. But that’s a parenthesis. If anything with the Gravillas name makes it your way, be sure to check it out: these are very interesting and engagingly authentic wines.

The wines of Giovanni Panizzi

Another box of samples. 9 bottles from the stellar estate of Giovanni Panizzi in San Gimignano, Tuscany. I’ve followed Panizzi’s progress since my first trips to Tuscany in 1999, and today place him at the very top of this interesting appellation.

The local speciality here is the white Vernaccia grape, made into a dry wine that’s classified as DOCG Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Vernaccia shares some characteristics with Orvieto (see here for a recent post): a structured white wine with good minerality and ageing potential, it has a bit more acidity and substance than Orvieto while usually avoiding the latter’s 14% alc. Vernaccia, especially when aged, can resemble a good Chablis, to the astonishment of the unprepared.

This series of recent releases showed Panizzi in excellent shape. The Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2007 is a model of its appellation with vibrant citrus over sea salt and limestone; a more mouth-watering and stomach-waking white I cannot imagine. The shortly oak-aged Vernaccia Vigna Santa Margherita 2008 is head and shoulders above past editions of this label (which I’d found a little clumsy): oak adding a half-layer of peach richness without obliterating the tense salinity of the straight Vernaccia. The Vernaccia Riserva 2003 is a very serious bottle indeed, though I discourage you from opening it too soon: wait for the Chablisian echoes of Jurassic oysters and clams to unravel in a decade’s time, when the honeyed-toasted bready barrique melts away. Good drinking pleasure but mixed thoughts about Il Bianco di Gianni 2004, a somewhat predictable Vernaccia-Chardonnay-oak blend that lacks originality and shows how substantially Panizzi’s handling of oak has improved in four years: where the Santa Margherita was allusive this is a bit too sewn-wood-drying.

Most interesting among the whites, in a way, was the Vernaccia Evoè 2006. Made in a historical style with a long two-month maceration of skins in oper wooden vat, this wine follows the modern ‘fashion’ of macerated whites without going over the top. The typical bouquet shows notes of ground pepper, apple skins, citrus with really good minerality (not an easy thing to obtain in this style), while the palate is broad, rich, bold, nicely fruity too (stone fruits), although the balance is a little controversial: acidity is low (again, a common characteristic of skin-contact whites) and there is what I identify as residual sugar. Alcohol is moderate (13.5%). A very engaging and not too expensive (16€) bottle that confirms Panizzi’s position at the forefront of Vernaccia today.

Panizzi also belongs to the premier producers of red wine in this predominantly white-wine district. In the past San Gimignano has limited itself to quaffable Sangiovese da tavola and made no claims to steal the show to its neighbour, Chianti (Colli Senesi in this case). In 2006 red wine pressure was acknowledged through the establishment of the DOC San Gimignano Rosso, even though many wines remain classified as IGT (as e.g. the very delicious Campore from the Casale Falchini estate). Panizzi has both: the Vertunno 2005 is a Sangiovese-driven DOC that’s full of rustic Tuscan charm, crying for a wild boar pappardelle. Rubente 2005 is a neat IGT Cabernet Sauvignon with very modern winemaking, exuding confidence in the cellar if in the end not different from all those warm-climate Cabernets around. The top red Folgóre 2003 mixes the two in a way: Cabernet and Merlot add lead-pencilly tannins and plushness while Sangiovese lends (some) freshness and Tuscan character; add lavish oak and five years of age and you get a kind of Pauillac-ised Brunello. Although it’s from a hot vintage that was notoriously difficult to balance in Tuscany, this bottle can easily age another 5 years. The style of the reds is modern and rich and while they lack the intellectual interest of the whites here, it’s really very solid winemaking.

For the pink-inclined there is also the well-made and serious Ceraso Rosa 2008.

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.

Quinta do Ameal Escolha 2003

A perfect substitution

I had a bottle of Chablis in the fridge to open with a Thai dish I cooked. But it turned out awfully corked. So I had to go down to the cellar to quickly find a replacement. My choice was the Quinta do Ameal Escolha 2003.

It all reminded me of stories of famous pianists or singers. Your career is deadlocked, you failed to make an impression on the critics, you’re about to leave that hostile Paris or London where musical competition is too strong. On your last day you go strolling to the zoo and when back at the hotel, a message awaits: the primadonna is ill, you need to replace here in Aida tonight. This Portuguese white behaved like an exceedingly good soprano on replacement. It sang all the notes right, and brought a sense of relief.

It is interested that I blogged on 2003 whites a couple of weeks ago. If there is one country you wouldn’t expect to deliver any interesting whites in this vintage, it has to be Portugal. It’s usually considered a red-only producer, even by experienced critics (e.g. see a recent discussion here). I think the best Portuguese whites, such as Bucelas, Encruzado from the Dão region, and some Douro whites are much underrated. And then there is vinho verde, ‘green wine’ from the granitic soils and rainy Atlantic climate of northern Portugal. Among the myriad of local grape varieties here, Loureiro is one that shines. Ameal’s Escolha, produced at only 5,000 bottles, is perhaps the grape’s best interpretation. Aged in oak – which very few local wines can survive – it is a wine built for ageing. But six years in a hot, low-acid vintage?

This has not only survived but now seems at peak. Oak is present on the nose and (less so) palate, but integrated with the rich, peachy, almost Viognier-like substance. On the finish there is a bitterish grapefruit pithiness of Loureiro peeking from underneath the oak. A round wine in texture but not flabby or fat (as in many other 2003s). I think part of the success lies in Loureiro’s inherent lightness, and part in the low alcohol (12%; the difference with the 14% Grüner Veltliner from Austria I reviewed recently is telling). I’ll be keeping my bottles of the 2006 vintage for a few more years.