The results for Sancerre 2009 have been published in Decanter’s September issue, with the vintage being described by judges as atypical and inconsistent, despite some very attractive, drink-now wines. One critic described it as “a Jekyll and Hyde vintage”, although Loire 2009 as a whole was considered a good year.

Sancerre is known for its terroir and is believed by many to be the world’s best region for Sauvignon Blanc. Crisp acidity, herbaceous flavours, lively acidity and a flinty minerality are some of the famous trademarks.

The 2009 vintage was hot, and it was difficult as a result. After bottling it was noted that alcohol was a problem (some over 15% ABV), although the better examples mellowed down with time. The trick was to pick at the optimum point in time, when the desired alcohol level and flavour profile could be achieved. Unfortunately for some, there was no window of opportunity to do this, so grapes were left on the vine for longer than they should have been, impacting on final alcohol levels.

Another criticism was the number of faults. According to one critic, there were only five or six screwcaps among 112 wines, yet in the space of 40 wines they came across five corked wines. One of the replacement bottles was also corked and another was oxidised. I will continue to bang the drum for screwcaps. These kind of wines need to be fresh and that’s what screwcap will bring, whilst drastically reducing the number of corked and oxidised bottles.

Decanter’s piece on this finished by ensuring consumers that there are still good buys out there. This is a low yielding vintage after all, and with so many micro-climates, you can’t tarnish all with the same brush, but they urge consumers to buy with caution.

It was with sheer delight that we discovered our JJ Breton La Clochette Sancerre receive ‘best value’ Sancerre of 2009, earning a truly brilliant 17.5 out of 20 points. That’s a bit of a snip at €14.99.

“Lovely mineral fruit - serious, complex, sleek and long. Powerful and elegant; wears its weight lightly. Terrific.” (17.5/20, ‘Highly recommended’ & ‘Best Value Sancerre of 2009′)

Full article available in Decanter’s September 2010 issue.

With the surprise arrival of my girlfriend into Curious Wines on Saturday afternoon after a four hour drive from Armagh (she must love me), I decided a night out in Cork City was required. I called Fenns Quay restaurant to book a table for two. We needed a food and wine fix fast, and boy we got it.

I had confidence in this choice of restaurant because of the recommendations from previous clientèle and I knew Kevin at Fenns Quay is a passionate man for his wine. Too many restaurateurs can’t see anything past profit margins on a wine list, so it’s great to see someone making a name for themselves through their wine offering as well as their food.

I ordered a Clonakilty black pudding starters and Bronagh opted for mushroom-pastry-type dish. We were in a mood for a red meat main course, so I got Slaney Valley lamb chump and Bronagh went for the char-grilled 10oz sirloin steak. Both were cooked to perfection. Rare, not blue, but rare. I find when you ask for medium-rare in Ireland, you more than often get medium. Ask for rare on the continent, and you’ll get blue.

Everything was excellently presented, the seasoning and flavours were balanced, and the atmosphere was relaxed. The wine list certainly didn’t disappoint either, a good selection offering the usual suspects (Italian Pinot Grigio, Aussie Shiraz) as well as a number of wines that you won’t see everywhere, including an Austrian Grüner Veltliner and an Italian Grillo.

I needed something edging on big and bold for the main course, so my mind was made up (with the help of Kevin) by the Doña Paula Argentian Malbec. I understand we received one of the very last bottles. The back label would lead you to expect red fruit on the nose, and this might have been the case when young, but this ‘07 was showing darker fruits on the nose (dark cherry, blackberry) and even a little licorice. The palate was beautifully rounded, medium-full bodied with melt-in-your month tannins and another good whack of blackberry. It just added that extra 20-30% to the whole experience.

Obviously the standard of the food is the most important thing when eating out, but the experience as a whole can be diminished by a poor value wine list. I recently went to a very popular Cork restaurant and the food was excellent but the wine disappointing. I believe Kevin and his team delivered excellent value on both fronts, as well as very attentive and friendly service. Cork has a brilliant culinary scene, but if you’re around the city any time soon, don’t miss out on a truly great dining experience at Fenns Quay.

Check out Paul Kieron’s (Grapes of Sloth) take on Fenns Quay here. More details available on menupages.ie

Barely six months have gone by since a group of French cowboys got nabbed for flogging the equivalent of 18 million bottles of fake Pinot Noir to US. giant Gallo for their brand Red Bicyclette. Now, similar news has resurfaced after the company involved in one of Australia’s greatest wine deceptions has had its cards dealt by the authorities.

The Aussie wine company in question is now in liquidation and has been fined around A$350,000 (€245,000) for selling Chardonnay juice made with a heavy hand of sultana grape juice. The discovery was made back in 2003, with Hardy’s being one of the unfortunate victims.

The question is, would you really notice? Most of this stuff probably ended up in bag-in-a-box, or ‘goon’, as it is affectionately known by backpackers. As a former goon guzzling backpacker myself (we’ve all been there, right?), I never thought it tasted anything like Chardonnay anyway, and I wouldn’t have cared if it was half freshly pressed Jawa juice (watch Star Wars Episode IV), never mind sultana juice. At that time, I probably valued the alcohol content more.

Either way, it wasn’t good news for the aussie wine industry. It’s a frightening thought of how many suppliers and producers all over the world get up to this kind of thing every year and don’t get caught. Unfortunately, at the lower price end (and I’m not just speaking for the wine industry here) consumers will always be exposed to cut corners.

There’s a massive market for something that resembles wine. Something alcoholic and easy drinking. Nothing wrong with that of course, each to their own, but when you’re in the business of shifting massive volume at rock bottom prices, somebody somewhere is going to feel the squeeze and be pressured into taking the wrong action.

Not that sultana man, Andrew Hashim, should be excused for his actions of course. He was one of the key players in this scam, receiving a fine and costs amounting to over A$100,000. He can’t pay it though, because he’s bankrupt.

Picture sourced from an awesome clothing crowd down-under. Join the revolution at slapthegoon.com

We’ve fought tooth and nail over this grape variety before. Whether it’s your cup of tea or not, Riesling comes in many different guises depending on where in the world it is grown.

The Germans are perhaps regarded as the original and best by critics, producing serious wine drinkers wines that get even more serious with age. Alsace provides another Old World haven, with chalky-clay soils and a slightly different winemaking approach, many of the wines tend to be drier and weightier on the palate with higher alcohol. Oh, and let’s not forget Austria. The home of the supreme Grüner Veltliner. Again, well rounded, drier and higher in alcohol.

In the New World, there are the citrus fruit bombs of Australia. Crisp and steely with a lean acidic backbone, head to Clare and Eden Valley for some of the best examples. Then there is New Zealand, and specifically Waipara, north of Christchurch, which might just take the crown for Riesling capital of the New World. It’s cool enough to retain vibrant acidity yet warm enough to ripen the grapes fully so they display wide ranging aromas and flavours from lemon and lime to mandarin, and on occasion stone fruit and honey notes from botrytis influence. Those elusive chalky mineral characters make for a great finale.

What’s my Riesling capital of the world? I’ve had some great experiences with Riesling from all over the world. It was probably a dry Austrian Riesling, the Wohlmuth, which initiated my interest. Since then I’ve enjoyed a number of very memorable wines from Germany, France and Australia, but for me at this time, it would be hard to beat Muddy Water’s James Hardwick Riesling - and yes, it’s from Waipara. Gotta love it.

So what’s your Riesling capital of the world?

The above picture is of Riesling grapes harvested in the Czech Republic…. Oops, forgot that country.

Many of you have already noticed some wines sneaking up over the 15% ABV mark. We’ve been here before. Whether you enjoy high-alcohol wines or not, it is a fact that many more countries are struggling to keep alcohol levels down due to climate change.

The South African wine industry has most recently expressed concern, with some proposing for legislation to be passed that will allow producers to water down grape musts. The idea is to give winemakers more flexibility and control over alcohol levels. As it stands, grapes are left hanging on the vines to achieve ripeness, but longer hang-time leads to higher alcohol levels in the final product.

As Decanter reported only last week, the South Africans may run into trouble when it comes to Europe, as it claimed international regulations would prevent the sale of wine within the EU made using grape must which has been diluted with water.

Question 18 of our National Wine Drinkers Survey asked the Irish wine drinker if they had a certain preference for alcohol level.

Only 3% of respondents had a strong position on alcohol, with 2% actively seeking out low alcohol wines, and half that number actively looking for high alcohol.

Almost 6 in 10 people didn’t care what alcohol was in a wine, provided the taste was right.

Of the different age groups, only the Over 60s stood out as actively selecting a particular alcohol level, with almost 7 in 10 choosing wines in the 11-14% bracket.

If more consumers worldwide adopted the Irish attitude, perhaps winemakers wouldn’t be so concerned. Saying that, there could well be a cultural shift in Ireland over the next few decades with a more moderate approach to drinking alcohol, and alcoholic content will naturally play its part in that.

That is “Barbera” is a sweetheart, not “Barbara”. Although I don’t doubt that if your name is Barbara you are also a sweetheart.

Every week I seem to stumble across a new native Italian grape variety. It’s just one of the many things that keeps me curious about Italy. And it would seem that with every bottle I open, I’m tasting my way through hundreds of years of old worldly heritage.

Barbera is a grape variety that has caught my attention lately. I’ve known about it for a while, but for many wine drinkers it is still unfamiliar. It could have been much more popular today had it not been for some bad publicity in the mid-1980’s. A number of Barbera producers decided to add methanol to their wines, killing more than 30 people and blinding many more in the process. The fall in demand for Barbera allowed for Montepulciano to take the hot seat.

This story has echoes of Austria’s disastrous anti-freeze scandal around the same time. Whereas serious longer term damage was inflicted on the Austrian wine industry, the Italians escaped from this one with their reputation as a whole left reasonably intact. Lessons learned have led to a gradual revival of this Italian sweetheart, and hopefully before long it will be rolling off the tongue of wine guzzling enthusiasts as effortlessly as “Montepulciano”.

Thought to have originated in Monferrato, part of the Piemonte region in Northern Italy, Barbera is capable of very high yields, so pruning is important for producing the best fruit for the best wines. To soften the naturally high tannins, winemakers may age in oak, giving the wines an extra richness, with flavours of plummy black fruit and spice. Lighter styles boasting red fruits are also common. For me, Barbera, with its signature high acidity, is one to be enjoyed with food.

Well worth a try, and with 20% off the indicated price until the end of August, our Barbera del Monferrato from Bricco dei Guazzi is a great place to start.

Pruning your crop can be a bit of a pain in the butt. Hundreds of man hours are spent every year pruning the vines of New Zealand’s vineyards, but some Kiwi viticulturists might be tempted to bring in a very different form of personnel for future vintages, in the form of a vine pruning robot.

The Robocop of the wine world, or Robo-chop as I like to call it, uses a sophisticated 3D camera to judge distance from the vine as it moves between the rows at walking speed. It can even see in the dark, allowing it to work through the night. The technology is being developed in Christchurch and supposedly has the potential to save the industry NZ$20 million per annum.

Pruning is a pretty essential part of the viticultural process. It’s not just a theory, but a proven technique. The pruning of branches, roots and buds will help keep a plant healthy, increasing and/or improving the yield of fruit. In the case of the vine, the health and quality of the grapes are improved with proper pruning, and it is of course labour intensive, which is part of the reason better quality wines are more expensive.

The bulk of this work in New Zealand, particularly for the larger wine companies, is carried out by foreign labour, drafted in when required for a short period of time. With the best part of NZ$20 million per annum to be saved, it is these jobs that may be affected most in the future.

If the robot is successful, in the sense that it proves cost-effective and does as good a job as human labour, it might just catch on around the world, reducing jobs in the industry worldwide and making some already very wealthy MDs of lucrative wine brands even more wealthy. When you look at it in that light, it’s perhaps not all that good.

At least if you’re a robot builder, you’ll have a job for life. Unless, robots start building robots. But that’s just silly, right…?

Three public wine tastings will be taking place across the country next month telling the story of Australia’s Clare Valley. We’re helping the organiser, John McDonnell of Wine Australia, to spread the word and round up a few troops. So where will you be on the 7th, 8th and 9th of September?

It’s a long way from Clare to here

Wine Australia is delighted to send you details of a series of events we will host in early September. Entitled “It’s a long Way from Clare to here”, these evenings set out to tell the story of one of Australia’s most
famous wine regions, the Clare Valley in South Australia.

Located about 2 hours drive north of Adelaide in South Australia, the valley has a wine making history that goes back to the 1840’s. And with a name like the Clare Valley, the region obviously has strong Irish links. It was named by Edward Gleeson (known as the King of the Clare) who left Sixmilebridge in Co Clare in 1850.

Now home to about 40 small to medium sized wine companies (most family owned), not only is it one of
Australia’s prettiest wine regions, but it is also producing some stunning wines. Our evenings will give you a
chance to taste many of these wines and learn more about Australia’s ‘Irish’ wine region. Tasty nibbles will also be served on the night.

Leading our tour of the valley we are delighted to have Tim Adams, owner and winemaker of Tim Adams Wines. With over 30 years experience growing and making wine in the valley, there is no better man to take us on a tour of his Clare. Wines of O’Leary Walker, Mt Horricks, Jim Barry, Knappstein and Wakefield will also feature.

Cost and Bookings

The cost of the evening is 20 Euro per person and places can be reserved as follows;
1) For the Cork and Galway events, direct with our office 065 7077264 or ireland [at] wineaustralia.com.
2) For the Ennis evening, direct with the Glor box office on www.glor.ie or (065) 6843103

If you need any further information about these events please contact us.

Best wishes and we look forward to hopefully welcoming you at one of our Clare Valley nights in September.

US-based Global Traveler magazine (it’s painful to do, but in this case I must spell ‘traveller’ the US way) recently conducted a survey to find the best business class in-flight wines. Austrian Airlines came first, scoring highly across all categories, with its Champagne, both its white wines and one red wine all placed in the top ten lists for their respective categories. Qatar Airlines came a very close second.

The Top 10 Airlines for Business Class Wines were:

1. Austrian Airlines
2. Qatar Airways
3. TAM Brazilian Airlines
4. South African Airways
5. Emirates
6. Mexicana Airlines
7. LAN Airlines
8. Jet Airways
9. Lufthansa
10. American Airlines

I’m a somewhat of a frequent flyer myself, but finances dictate that I join the rest of the cattle in economy. Being a regular passenger of Ryanair, I couldn’t upgrade even if I wanted to, although I do like the idea of free standing seats (they’re still looking at doing this, according to the in-flight magazine). I found the wines on offer to economy passengers on British Airways and Qantas flights to be fairly decent, despite not making it into the top 10 for business class flyers. Qantas is currently serving Langmeil’s blockbuster, the Valley Floor Shiraz, on various flights worldwide.

“This time next year, Rodney…” and all that, but if I ever strike oil you know who I’ll be flying with and where I’ll be sat. One can always dream, eh?