Welcome to the BKWine Brief nr 58, May 2008
To paraphrase Dinah Washington – What a difference a month makes. 31 little days. A month ago I was complaining about the snow storm that hit us going back from Chablis. Today I'm sitting on the balcony under the parasol in summer heat. The vines are busy developing leaves and extending new shoots. I've heard that when they are at their most vigorous they may grow 30 centimetres each day. But later this week the weather gods have promised rain in the Languedoc just when we're going there. I am not very happy with that since we have planned for a barbeque in the vineyards! But the wine growers are probably happy. They have had very little rain over the last two years. When I was there in February they even introduced emergency restrictions to save water.
The AIPFFV
In France they love abbreviations. The longer the better it sometimes seems. So maybe you'd like to join the AIPFFV? It's a brand new association (I just started it) that reads out Association Internationale Pour le Fruit et la Fraicheur dans le Vin, or the Internationonal Assoication for Fruit and Freshness in the Wine. I am often asked by wine lovers "so how long should I keep this wine?". There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that question. Many wines need aging. But often I am inclined to answer "drink it now, it's wonderful as it is!". It seems there are quite a few wine lovers who are convinced a wine must be "old" for it to be good. There are even some point systems, used to rank wines in wine tastings, that allocate specific points to how many years there are until the wine is ready to drink. So, the less drinkable the wine is today the more points it gets. Logical?
I would even be inclined to say that requiring bottle age is not a purpose (or a quality) in itself for a wine. Some wines certainly do require some aging to develop to their full potential – many great wines do. Any many others benefit from some (bottle) age. (Just like some people.) But wine making technology and skills today make for wines that are often excellent to drink already when young. Most modern wines have plenty of ripe fruit and ripe tannins that make them drinkable sooner than what used to be the case. If we go back in time things were perhaps different. They did not have the same technology, resources and skill as winemakers generally have today and harvesting was often earlier giving harsher, more tannic wines which were much less pleasant to drink as young.
I once met a wine enthusiast who said "I don't think any wines less than 15 years old are worth drinking". He misses a lot of wonderful wine experiences. One example: We recently did a big Priorat tasting with some 50 wines from the region. Generally very powerful, compact alcohol-rich wines. Lots of fruit, lots of alcohol and tannins and (often) plenty of oak. One wine was from 2000 but most of the others were from 2004 to 2006. The 2000 certainly stood out from the crowd. It had much more character of dried fruit, almost a touch of sweetness and a slightly oxidised tone (quite natural for an aged wine). You might think that wines in this style, from Priorat, should benefit from or even require quite a bit of bottle age – at least 8 years. But overall my feeling was that then younger wines, with more fruit and more fresh acidity and even a bit of bite in the tannins were nicest to drink. And often that style of wine goes better with food too. But, of course, all this is a matter of taste. There are wine-necrophils and there are those who would swear by a Beaujolais nouveau (albeit few). Who knows, perhaps I should start the AIPFFV? At least it will give us some reason to discuss the wines.
It is soon autumn
Yes it is, even if it doesn't quite feel so at the moment. Now is the time to think about this autumn's wine tours. Take a look at our program: Bordeaux, the Douro Valley in Portugal and Champagne. You'll find more details below. I hope you'll find something of interest to you. And book now!
BKWine on television
We were recently travelling in the south west of France with a wine tour group. One of the visits were to Chateau Montus in the Madiran district. Montus, and the sister property Domaine Bouscassé, is run by the energetic Alain Brumont who has contributed more than most to put Madiran and all of the Sud-Ouest on the wine map. When we arrived, to our surprise, there was a film team on site from the French television channel France 3. They were making a reportage about the group of foreigners (that was us) who came to visit the winery. So in the evening issue of the local news program (not so local – all of south-western France) there were slurping and wine tasting in foreign language on the French television. Fun. Unfortunately not (yet?) available on YouTube.
Britt
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Conseil des Vins de Saint Emilion has elected a new President: Jean-François Quenin at Château de Pressac. Quenin has an earlier career in retail and home electronics behind him before acquiring one of St Emilion's most imposing chateaux in the 90s. No doubt it will be a good thing with some outside business experience in his new job. decanter.com
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