An interesting article by Tim Atkins (Master of Wine and wine writer for UK newspaper, The Guardian), raises a debate which I imagine has been going on for some time. He was responding to some questioning on the relevance of wine critics. “Misguided elitists” who talk among themselves rather than being concerned about guiding consumers is how he describes the taunts.

The most reputable wine critics, Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson to name a few, make a very good living from scoring wines and releasing comprehensive buyer guides. This is one end of the scale. So many wine drinkers take their every word as gospel. They are almost celebrities. The other end of the scale is the multitude of wine lovers, myself included, who just like writing about wine and sharing their experiences. Whether people really take notice of us is another matter.

Critical scores are great for some. For others, they just drink what they like. I thought this was a good paragraph from Atkins.

One of my favourite cartoons shows a punter tasting a sample in a wine shop. “This is disgusting,” he tells the manager. “The Wine Speculator gave it 96 points out of 100,” replies the manager. “OK, I’ll take 10 cases,” says the punter. People who buy wines they don’t like because someone else tells them to are fools.

Many wineries rely heavily on awards and accolades to sell wine because so many consumers rely on them to buy wine. My slight concern with the likes of the Decanter Awards and the International Wine Challenge is the cost to enter them. Many of the wineries who don’t have the marketing spend, or who decide to use it elsewhere, will not enter these competitions and will not be recognised, even though they possibly have a wine better than those partaking in their category.

So many excellent wines, for whatever reason, may be escaping the limelight. Despite this, accolades and awards may very well help to provide a better buying decision. I think wine critics and awards are a great thing. Many of our wines have received superb recognition, and rightfully so, but remember to take them with a pinch of salt. After all, nobody can tell you what the best wine in the world is. Only you know that.

Tim Atkins article is well worth a read.

It’s that time of year again. The results of Decanter World Wine Awards 2009 have been released, and we’re delighted to see, of our current vintages in stock, one Gold, one Silver, five Bronze and four commendations awarded. All can be seen below.

This adds nicely to our medal collection from last years awards, most of which we still have in stock (including a lovely gold medal winning Albarino, which is one of many). We’ll keep you well informed of new award winning vintages as they come in - as well brand new award winning lines.

The Decanter World Wine Awards is great for consumers seeking for tried and tested wine that will deliver on quality, but it must be remembered that there’s big money involved in entering the competition, so many of the smaller producers with lesser marketing budgets can be overlooked.

Gold Medal

Glaetzer Amon-Ra 2007: Ripe fruit with a savoury spice, bacon, liquorice, chocolate and opulent oak - exceptional complexity.

Silver Medal

Langmeil Hangin’ Snakes Shiraz-Viognier 2007: Medium intensity. Gorgeous nose. Lovely, supple mid-palate. Plush and gorgeous.

Bronze Medal

Alta Pinot Grigio 2007: Fresh, herbal, spiced pears and apple. Good acidity, well-balanced, integrated palate.

Tussock Sauvignon Blanc 2008: Fresh but slightly oily note. Well made with good balance.

Elgin Vintners Sauvignon Blanc 2008: Flinty, steely nose, very crisp, classy balance. Long finish.

Langmeil Blacksmith Cabernet Sauvignon 2006: Mint and cassis. Focused. Generous, ripe tannins.

Langmeil Three Gardens 2006: Subtle evolution. Tea, black fruit and pepper, firm tannins.

Commended

Heartland Cabernet Sauvignon 2006

Rockbare Shiraz 2006

Rockbare Chardonnay 2007

Chateau Bauduc Bordeaux Blanc 2008

Other recognised wines of earlier vintages

I’ve recognised the earlier vintages, many of which have received awards in previous years, as I believe they pay testament to the ability of the winemakers.

Woodstock “The Stocks” Shiraz 2006 (Bronze Medal) - 2004 vintage

Tabali Reserva Syrah 2007 (Silver Medal) - 2006 vintage (Bronze Medal in 2008 Awards)

Mirabello Pinot Grigio Rosé 2008 (Commended) - 2007 vintage

Tohu Sauvignon Blanc 2008 (Commended) - 2007 vintage (Air New Zealand Elite Gold)

Palazzi Negroamaro 2007 (Commended) - 2006 vintage

Saxanburg Private Collection 2006 (Bronze Medal) - 2004 vintage

Alvaro Palacios Les Terrasses 2007 (Bronze Medal) - 2005 vintage

Fuenteseca Bobal-Syrah 2008 (Bronze Medal) - 2007 vintage (Bronze Medal in 2008 Awards)

Heartland Viognier-Pinot Gris 2007 (Bronze Medal) -2006 vintage

Glaetzer Annaperenna 2007 (Bronze Medal) - 2006 vintage (Trophy winner in 2008 Awards)

Glaetzer Bishop Shiraz 2007 (Bronze Medal) - 2006 vintage (Commendation in 2008 Awards)

Langmeil Orphan Bank Shiraz 2006 (Bronze Medal) - 2005 vintage (Bronze Medal in 2008 Awards)

Domaine Chante Cigale Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2006 (Bronze Medal) - 2005 vintage (Bronze Medal in 2008 Awards)

Another wine I would like to mention is the 2008 white brother of our award winning Chateauneuf-du-Pape from Domaine Chante Cigale. It won a Decanter Trophy (the top accolade), and we’ll be doing our best to get our hands on a few cases before Christmas.

That’s it for another year - in the meantime watch this space for new wines and awards.

Click here to view all of the results from the 2009 Decanter World Wine Awards

So far so good. We’ve learned of several of our wines landing awards and accolades for 2009 already, with more that we’ll be advised on later.

Aureus Blanc de Blancs Brut: International Wine & Spirits Competition Silver Medal (Best in Class). This Crement de Loire is our sparkling star. Champagne quality at half the price, it has that classic biscuity nose, with pure fruit from the Chardonnay grape, and a perfectly dry finish. We knew this would be a great candidate for an IWSC Medal.

Dignite Syrah 2005: Concours National des Vin de Pays Silver Medal. This Syrah picked up a silver medal at Syrah du Monde last year, which is the world’s top competition for assessing Syrah with exceptional varietal character. Eric Monnin is a rebel winemaker, producing reds that are bigger, bolder and fruitier (perhaps more in line with the New World philospohy you might say), but essentially making top quality wine in minute quantities.

Mirabello Pinot Grigio Rosé 2007: Decanter Commendation. Made from the same grapes that go into its white partner, the Mirabello Rosé is the in-fashion pink drink of the summer. There’s a small proportion of the black Pinot Nero grape, to help develop a fuller colour and flavour.

Palazzi Negro Amaro 2006: Decanter Commendation. A definite foodie wine for those Italian obsessives. This robust, slightly bitter red has flavours of ripe berries, and has developed absurd complexity for the price, after spending 9 months in Slavonian oak casks. A real winner for true wine drinkers.

Stayed tuned for more wines that we’ll be introducing to the range in the next week or two, including a Pinot Noir from the Languedoc which made the Top 100 French Vin de Pays.

Wines or wineries that have achieved awards or accolades will be listed on their individual product pages. Simply hold your cursor over the medals that are pictured for more detail.

Just as we hear that South America is only benefiting from the recession, the Argentinian government announces a $230m fund to assist small producers. So does South America hold the key to future success in the global wine industry?

The New World is certainly giving the Old World a good run for their money during the slump, with the latest export figures indicating that the South American continent has been recession proof thus far. Brazil sparkling wine exports were up 18% in the first three months of the year, Argentina exports were up 15% in volume and 3% in value, and Chile exports were up 21% in March (although value fell by 11% in the first quarter, not helped by the exchange rate).

As consumer budgets tighten, it would seem that some people, who may have spent over €10 per bottle on the more traditional European selections during boom times, are now turning their attentions to South America to benefit from the value on offer under €10. And I’ve no doubt that as soon as things pick up again, we’ll be even better served by this continent.

The aim of Argentina’s latest plans for investment are to help modernise production and increase competition, thus increasing volume (whilst securing the all-important place of small, quality focused wineries) and driving down prices for us. So don’t be surprised if the availability of Argentinian wine in Ireland increases in the coming years - yea!

Whilst the New World wine industry continues to grasp as much global market share as possible, lets not forget the value that can be sought from our European counterparts. In my home, the French Vin de Pays will always be within arms reach.

Statistics sourced from Decanter News.

At the end of last month I posted a story about Europe attempting to legalise the blending of red and white wine to make rosé. There had been much anger from wine producers, particularly in France and Italy, who believed, if passed, this law would undermine the industry of authentic rosé. You can view this post here.

So I was quite happy when I caught the article below on Decanter News this morning. It looks like European wine makers have been cut some slack, for the time being anyway.

The EU has announced it will drop plans to allow red and white wines to be blended to make rosé, agriculture minister Mariann Fischer Boel announced today.

The announcement comes after months of strong lobbying from wine-producing countries in Europe, including France and Italy.

Producers and lobbyists argued that allowing the blending of red and white wines to make rosé – a method legal in New World wine countries and, ironically, Champagne – would destroy the ‘nobility’ of the more traditional method of maceration used in Europe.

‘It’s become clear over recent weeks that a majority in our wine sector believe that ending the ban on blending could undermine the image of traditional rosé,’ said Fischer Boel. ‘I am always prepared to listen to good arguments – that’s why I am making this change’

The blending plans were drawn up to allow EU to be competitive with New World rosé producers and would have only been allowed in the production of Table Wines.

Sourced from www.decanter.com/news 8/6/09

Sitting late last night, glass of Zinfandel in hand and a copy of Decanter magazine from the not so distant past, I stumbled across an article by TV’s Oz Clarke, asking why there are no good, mid-range wines from California available in the UK. I think this is also a fair question to ask as an Irish consumer when questioning Californian wine available here.

When Oz and James May were galivanting around California for BBC’s “Big Wine Adventure”, it came to light very quickly that that key mid-range price bracket was not being catered for in terms of quality, like it would be from other countries, such as France or Australia. Oz expected that $15 (perhaps equivalent to a €12 bottle available in Ireland) would be a safe place to start, giving him the best value for money, but he struggled to find anything that would have him going back for more.

Varietal character, a sense of terroir and the personality of the producer lacked in this category that should be hitting such a large market of wine enthusiasts. His notes consistently read ‘remarkably little flavour’, with ‘clean’ and ‘inoffensive’ simply not being ambitious enough for this kind of money. As with all wine critics that are taken seriously, OZ would be scoring against retail price - thus judging a wine based on value for money.

California is certainly producing some amazing wines. The same could be said of Oregon. Although my time in California and experience in the market here would lead me along the same line of thought as Oz Clarke. While the U.S. has cracked it when it comes to world class wines (which you might have to pay an arm and a leg for) and inexpensive, mass produced grape juice that isn’t aimed at the wine enthusiast, there is a massive gap - where affordable wines at exceptional quality are more readily found elsewhere.

Decanting: “Optional and controversial step in serving wine, involving pouring wine out of its bottle into another container called a decanter. ” Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there seems a perception among some that decanting, or letting a wine breathe, is completely unnecessary and only useful for showing off an elaborate, expensive and glorified crystal jug at the dining table. For most wines, in fact for all white wines, it’s completely unnecessary, and I’m sure there are indeed those who just like doing it to show off their jugs now and again.

Before the art of filtration and clarification, wine, often poured straight from barrels, had a considerable amount of sediment left over from the wine making process. Completely harmless, and usually the sign of a good wine, it can taste and look a little unpleasant, so it was the norm to filter this out with the help of a decanter. Nowadays most wines have been cleared of this solid matter before packaging, but some will develop in bottle with age.

The best reason I can see for using a decanter is to let the wine aerate. The large surface area in contact with the air in the decanter alters the wine, softening its youthful bite and encouraging the development of the more complex aromas that normally develop with years in bottle. For this reason even those inexpensive wines can benefit from decanting, if a first taste reveals a tannic, grippy, youthful structure.

Now let me now introduce you to Gary Vaynerchuk, the Internets most revered wine blogger and owner of Wine Library, a $45 million wine business based in New Jersey, USA. Gary gets over 80,000 viewers daily, and in the attached video he compares a freshly opened Amon-Ra with one that has been decanted. We stock the 100 Parker Point 2006 vintage, so if you ever have an occasion special enough to open this kind of wine, please, pretty pretty please, decant before drinking..!

Ps. Decanters don’t have to be expensive either. You should pick one up for around €10.

“Come, for I am drinking stars!” -Dom Perignon

You’ve probably been to a party, event or some kind of celebration where sparkling wine was served. If you didn’t like it, the chances are you aren’t drinking the right stuff. Proper sparkling wine isn’t just mass produced carbonated grape juice, dressed up in a pretty yellow price tag on our supermarket shelves. I’m not talking about the sugar-loaded, fizzy alcoholic pop.

Yes, sparklers do start out as regular bubbleless wine. The secret to it all is the second fermentation, which requires the addition of yeast and sugar. A little more alcohol and a lot of heavenly bubbles are a result of this second phase, with the natural carbonation (no dry ice is used for these babies) and complex flavours developing the once still wine into something else all together.

The tank method of fermentation stops the carbon dioxide gas from escaping. It dissolves into the wine, which is bottled under high pressure in order to retain the bubbles.

Bottle fermented wines are more labour intensive and production costs are higher, but when it comes to quality, there are two mains advantages. With the extended contact the wine has with dead yeast, complex bready and biscuity flavours develop. Secondly, the bubbles are much smaller and longer lasting.

According to many, the best sparkling wine in the world is Champagne. And surprise, surprise, it’s made by the traditional bottle fermented method. On top of this, there is the demand. Champagne carries value in its name and you’ll pay for that too. Is it worth it? Personally, yes, but its not an everyday wine. You wouldn’t be opening one in front of Coronation Street on a Monday night. It’s for special occasions. Christmas, birthdays, weddings and so on.

Then we have our less expensive alternatives. Don’t turn your nose up. There are many, many really good sparkling wines, particularly from Spain and Italy, that use the bottle method or the tank method of fermentation. Spanish Cava and Italian Prosecco’s offer beautiful, fruit driven sparklers that are becoming more and more fashionable.

If you’re keen to try an affordable Cava in your next case, don’t miss out on our award winning Mas Macia Cava Brut, currently on sale with the rest of our Spanish range. €14.39 won’t break the bank, and for that special occasion, there’s the Sommelier Gold Listed Lallier Champagne to wipe the floor with any other Champagne within its price range, or the Decanter 5 star Duval Leroy Grand Cru Champagne 1996, which is our true sparkling star.

This line is the provocative lead-in on the cover of April’s Decanter magazine, and before I’d even got to page 46 it had my mind racing. Where would you start? What an absurd - no, disturbing idea! You can’t pick a favourite wine any more than you can pick a favourite child, I tell anyone that asks the question!

But interestingly, let the question sink in for a bit and it does trigger an enlightening series of questions into your deepest wine-drinking preferences. What’s particularly provocative is that it’s not the classic ‘what’s your desert island wine?’. It’s much more profound than that. If you could only drink one wine. Ever again.

Firstly, red or white? Or rosé or sparkling? Or sherry, or port, or another fortified wine? Dry or sweet, or somewhere in between? New World or Old World? Do you have a country of origin that you could spend the rest of your wine-drinking life in? Or a single grape that you could pick over any other?

What was fascinating was the variety of responses from the Decanter contributors to whom the question was posed. Of 16 experts, not one chose a Bordeaux and only two plumped for Burgundy, despite the magazine constantly having to defend accusations of bias for the world’s two most famous wine regions.

Only half of the panel selected wine in the traditional sense - red or white - five red, three white. As many chose Champagne as chose red wine, with the final three opting for fortifieds, two for sherry, one for a personal favourite of mine, Madeira.

My own process of deduction took me through, in order:

• Colour - white, just. The finest wines I’ve ever tasted have been red, but the wine I couldn’t live without most is white.
• Grape - it just has to be Riesling. Chardonnay offers variety, Sauvignon Blanc gets my juices going, I love good Chenin, Pinot Gris, Marsanne, Roussanne, Albarino, Viognier… but Riesling has the structure, the sweetness, the finesse, the ageing capacity, and the ability to match with so many foods, that I feel it’s the one I’d miss most.
• Region. Oh dear. I mean, it’s not like Riesling can be grown anywhere, so the choice is actually relatively limited. But you’ve the homeland of Germany and the Mosel, neighbouring Alsace, fabulous New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Oregon…

OK, I’ve decided. If I could only drink one wine ever again it would be delectable, adaptable, majestic Riesling from Alsace.

So what’s yours? Give us a country, a region, a grape, even a specific label - go on, if there was only one…