Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i Decanter

Growingup on a farm in the northern Transvaal, Rosa Kruger was surrounded by nature and the perilous immensity of the veldt. From the age of five, she’d regularly pack a bag with food and water and head off, shoeless, into the wilderness with one or more of her five brothers and sisters. ‘We’d come back at darkness to have a bath, get some sleep or receive a hiding,’ she says. ‘We were pretty wild.’ It’s an instructive tale, illustrating several things about her. Kruger is strong, independent of spirit and likes to travel. In short, she was never destined for a desk job, despite working as a journalist and then a lawyer until she was in her mid-30s. Instead, she has gone on to become one of the leading viticulturists…

In some ways old, in other ways new, South Africa occupies a unique place in the wine world. The country has some of the oldest soils on the planet and a history of wine production extending back more than 360 years, yet it’s only in the last 30 or so that the wine-producing nation has experienced a rebirth. South Africa’s wine industry has seen an explosion of well-qualified winemakers exploit the country’s vast diversity of terroirs, and quality-driven red Bordeaux blends have proven to be among the nation’s best, with characteristic New World fruit and concentration balanced by Old World complexity. Setting an international benchmark for quality, results from the Decanter World Wine Awards offer annual insights into the calibre of wine regions and nations, and in 2021 South Africa…

C ognactoday is the culmination of centuries of history and generations of accumulated expertise. The world’s pre-eminent brandy (although the Cognaçais don’t care for the b-word), it has conquered the planet from San Francisco to Shanghai, with many millions of bottles of Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier consumed every year. Change? Innovate? Why on earth would anyone want to do that? And yet they are. Some of this new thinking is rooted in the way Cognac is made – the grapes used, the oak in which it ages – and some of it is a less-tangible leap of the imagination, lifting the veil on one of the world’s more mysterious spirits and unlocking the stories that lurk in vineyard and cellar. Alexandre Gabriel (pictured, p100), owner and master blender…

Theresults of this Barbaresco panel tasting were impressive, with 46 wines (just over half) scoring 90 points or above. It was dominated by the consistently attractive and newly released 2019 vintage, represented by 54 wines. These balanced, fruity and structured wines are accessible in their youth but, in most cases, should also age well. This is in line with recent trends in the region, where even Barolos are now being made in a less demanding and dense style so that consumers are no longer obliged to cellar these wines for a decade or more. Although 2019 was a hot year, the cooler nights in the autumn towards the end of the growing season kept the wines fresh and vibrant, largely accounting for the success of the vintage. Some experts have…

Vignoble Guillaume, Flûte Enchantée, Franche 92 90 Comté, France NV £17.80 Theatre of Wine This unfined traditionalmethod sparkler is Theatre of Wine’s bestselling fizz, crémant in style, though it can’t be labelled as such within the Franche-Comté IGP. Gorgeous red apple fruit, some florality and an almost apple-skin texture. AW Alcohol 12.5% Domaine des Dieux, Claudia Méthode Cap Classique Brut, Western Cape, South Africa 2015 £18.95 Stone Vine & Sun Four years on lees and one under cork lend a lovely complexity to this superbvalue traditional-method sparkler. Stewed apple and pear with creamy touches of crème brûlée and brioche and a rich, honeyed lemon core. NE Alc 11.5% Adnams, Fizz Rosé Extra Dry, Italy NV £10.49 Adnams Citrus blossom and a hint of dust, with an undertone of orange candy…

Château Figeac’s 2020, 2019, 2013 and 2008 vintages set new price records on Liv-ex following the estate’s upgrade to St-Emilion premier grand cru classé A status (see ‘A Month in Wine’, p10). Figeac’s average price had already increased 47% in three years before the announcement, Liv-ex said. It will be interesting to see how Figeac’s market momentum develops. Bordeaux Index reported price rises on all Figeac vintages on its LiveTrade trading platform in 2021. ‘Figeac [has] really benefited from the dual factors of the potential classification upgrade and the ongoing excellent quality of recent vintages,’ said LiveTrade CEO Matthew O’Connell earlier this year. In terms of release pricing, Figeac 2021 debuted en primeur at €162 per bottle ex-Bordeaux, versus €234 for fellow A estate Pavie and €265 for Angélus, an…

Trading highlights from Bordeaux Index (see chart) show how some Burgundy wines from sought-after producers have seen significantly higher prices in 2022 so far. White Burgundies also feature prominently alongside reds on this list. Separately, Bordeaux Index is preparing to add Burgundy wines to its LiveTrade online platform in the near future, said LiveTrade CEO Matthew O’Connell. On the auction scene, Zachys’ August mid-year review highlighted strong demand for ‘big bottles’ of blue-chip wines. Six of its 10 best-selling lots in 2022 were large-format Burgundy wines, led by a six-litre methuselah of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Romanée-Conti 1991 that it said fetched US$323,700 (£280,332). Next up were six-litre bottles of DRC, Romanée-Conti 1989 and 1994, which sold for $211,650 and $161,850 respectively. In the UK, Cult Wines recently partnered with…

TIM ATKIN MW is a Decanter contributing editor and awarded wine journalist, author, broadcaster, judge and photographer. He publishes timatkin.com, where his South Africa 2022 Special Report is available now (£20) SARAH JANE EVANS MW is an awarded journalist, author and broadcaster, a DWWA Co-Chair, and the chair of Spain’s Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino. Her new book The Wines of Central and Southern Spain is due out in January 2023 GEORGINA HINDLE is Decanter’s Bordeaux correspondent, tasting and writing about the wines of the region where she lives, as well as editor of Decanter Premium, overseeing Decanter’s global fine wine content for online subscribers RUPERT JOY is an international consultant and former UK and EU diplomat. He has a longstanding interest in wine and has written for Decanter…

Napa Valley land once home to the historic Soda Springs resort has been acquired by RH, a luxury design and furnishings group. RH chairman and CEO Gary Friedman told an earnings call: ‘We closed on 856 acres [346ha], probably the most beautiful piece of property in all of Napa.’ He added: ‘We’ll build a guesthouse, residences and a winery.’ The group opened luxury hospitality venue RH Guesthouse New York in September. An English sparkling wine released at £195 per bottle by Gusbourne Estate is thought to be the country’s most expensive cuvée launched to date. Gusbourne produced just under 4,000 bottles of ‘Fifty One Degrees North’ from the 2014 vintage. Aged for 80 months on lees, it’s a blend of two-thirds Chardonnay and one-third Pinot Noir. ‘It’s a wine that…

Wine has been presented in glass bottles for so long now that the association between the product and its packaging is umbilical. We have come to think of wine as belonging in bottles. It is an association that has served wine lovers well: glass is inert, robust and attractive; and no one has yet invented a viable alternative for ageing wine. Over the years, other formats have been launched for ‘drink now’ wine, from bag-in-box (BIB) to aluminium cans and plastic bottles. But they have had a chequered history. Until fairly recently the wine inside was often cheap, not always cheerful, and sometimes prone to oxidation or other faults. That is starting to change. A quiet revolution is underway, driven by the climate crisis, better packaging technology, lifestyle changes and…

Muchof the messaging in food media seems to take a ‘this is what you should be cooking right now’ approach: ‘try this cuisine’, ‘use these leftovers’, ‘eat seasonally’ and so on. It’s probably counterproductive to a (still relatively fresh) cookery writer’s career to state it, but there’s too much choice. At the genesis of this book, it struck me that we’ve found ourselves looking at things the wrong way around. Aspiring to master new (to us) cuisines, use up leftovers and eat ingredients at their peak are all relevant. But these are distracting sub-themes when there’s something more visceral that sits above them all: most of the time we simply cook the things we do so that we can eat what we fancy. With that realisation in mind, I set…

It was during my early wine studies that I discovered a wine region around the town of Tortona in Piedmont, northwest Italy, and a white grape variety growing there that I hadn’t heard of at this point: Timorasso. Digging through a few reference books, I discovered that it was once a noble variety produced in significant volumes in the area, but that after the impact of phylloxera, it was replaced with vines that are more productive. On the verge of extinction, Timorasso owes its modern existence to a farmer of Monleale, Walter Massa, back in 1987. He decided that the time for the high-yielding and more widely planted Cortese grape was over, and took the bold – some may say crazy – decision to replant with Timorasso. The grape is…

For such a young wine region, Margaret River – Western Australia’s most important wine GI (Geographical Indication) – has made a big impact. The first winery, Vasse Felix, was established only in 1967, quickly followed by others, but the focus was then on Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay was not widely planted for another decade, with the first commercial bottling released at the end of the 1970s. As with much of Australian wine then, early releases were big and oaky. However, for the past 20 years, Margaret River Chardonnays have shown increasing levels of refinement. The best may not come cheap, but they do represent exceptional value for money when compared (as they often are) to top Burgundy. ‘I was pleased to see so many wines listed under £30 in this tasting,…

Rathfinny, Blanc de Noirs Brut, Sussex, 92 91 England 2018 £40.50 Rathfinny Wine Estate Whole-bunch pressed and fermented in stainless steel. Citrus blossom, acacia honey, blackcurrant and hints of pastry on the nose. More brioche and leesy richness on the palate with traces of sweet spices and almonds. Drying white pepper to finish. SW Alc 12% Tetramythos, Sauvignon Blanc Natur, Peloponnese, Greece £24 The Sourcing Table Though not native, Sauvignon Blanc has proven its worth in this fresh, textural wine from the north of the Peloponnese region. Macerated for 18 hours then fermented in oak, this elegantly combines citrus and pineapple with stone and dried herbs. NE Alc 13% Château Barbeyrolles, Pétale de Rose, Côtes de Provence, France 2021 O £28.95 Corney & Barrow Vibrant and intense, this combines restraint…

‘Built to age for decades,’ said Decanter Burgundy correspondent Charles Curtis MW, who rated the wine 98 points after tasting it at a Domaine Ponsot 150th anniversary event. ‘There is a lovely deep colour here (as with many of the 2019s) and marvellous aromas of ripe cassis,’ Curtis said. ‘The purity of fruit is impressive – chief winemaker Alexandre Abel relates that, despite the heat, there were no shrivelled grapes or sunburn.’ UK merchant Lay & Wheeler offered the wine ‘from a client’ at £2,400 (6x75cl in bond). US merchant K&L priced the wine at $749.99 per bottle, ex-tax. Decanter PREMIUM Collectors and investors will find a wealth of useful information on decanter.com/premium, including expert assessments of the latest vintage releases and comprehensive tasting notes. Current reports available on our…

How did you get here? I began working with AXA Millésimes when I was appointed MD of Quinta do Noval just after we acquired it in 1993. Noval had gone through a difficult period, and the vineyards and the wines needed a lot of love and attention. I spent seven marvellous years in the Douro working with the Noval team to bring it back to being great again. Then, in 2001, AXA invited me to come to Bordeaux to take on the role of MD of the AXA Millésimes wine group, and that’s what I have been doing ever since. Any tips on time management? How do you divide your time successfully between so many properties? he key is to have brilliant, competent people in each property with whom you…

From the vineyards of Oregon on the west coast to those of New Yo rk’s Long Island in the east, the wine regions of the United States are vast and varied. And increasingly important to us here at Decanter – across not only the magazine and website, but our Decanter Premium channel online, the annual Decanter World Wine Awards and events such as our inaugural New York Decanter Fine Wine Encounter in June 2022. We strive to provide the best coverage for our international audience and so felt it was time to have a permanent Decanter representative based stateside: someone who has their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in wine regions across the country and who can oversee our growing team of US-based writers. Clive Pursehouse joins Decanter…

I completely agree with Mr Matheson (‘Hands off my wine, please’, Letters, October 2022). It is impossible even for the most assiduous of sommeliers to provide the required degree of diligent attention in refilling glasses, even in a moderately sized dining room. We all consume wine at different rates and require refilling at different intervals. Only we know exactly when and to what level we want our own glasses refilled. Sommeliers should ask diners whether they want the bottle left on the table and this should be the norm unless diners request otherwise. Recently, as a sommelier was disappearing to a remote part of the dining room clutching our bottle, I called him back and requested the bottle be left on the table. A couple seated nearby applauded our stance…

Acoupl e of decades ago, tourists came to Prince Edward County for the thrill of the great outdoors. Golden beaches. Glassy lakes. Rolling fields studded with photogenic dilapidated barns and mom-and-pop farm shops. Those things are still here, and people still come for them, but they’re no longer the main draw. Most weekenders who make the drive about 2.5 hours east from buzzy Toronto in summertime are keen to experience just one thing: Ontario’s most exciting new wine scene. Practically an island, Prince Edward dangles by a thin strip of land from southern Ontario – it’s almost entirely surrounded by the gently lapping surf of Lake Ontario and dotted with other bodies of water. Because of its unusual climate, it has long produced excellent orchard fruit – and, as local…

The pre-eminence of the noble Chardonnay is due in no small part to its ability to be shaped according to a winemaker’s preference and to wear many guises, from nervy Chablis through to oaked and opulent scene-stealers. Initially used as a blending grape, Encruzado – which calls the Portuguese region of Dão home – rose to single-varietal prominence thanks to a similar ability to wear oak, and lees ageing, with relative ease. However, Encruzado is no neutral blank canvas, but rather carries a character all of its own. It is argued that Dão’s abundance of pine forests infuses the wines with a resinous quality, countered by grapefruit citrus and a seam of minerality. Furthermore, when planted in the right spots, Encruzado retains a wonderful natural acidity, which ticks the ageworthy…

BUSY ON BORDEAUX PLACE GEORGINA HINDLE With September now firmly fixed in the calendar for major wine releases (see ‘Marketwatch’, p145), the ‘Beyond Bordeaux’ tastings saw a host of international winemakers flying into the city to showcase new vintages and new cuvées. I was lucky enough to catch two newcomers: Paul Hobbs, introducing his Argentinian wine Viña Cobos 2019 (POA Alliance Wine); and the team from Champagne Lanson, showcasing Clos Lanson 2009 for the first time. I also met returning visitors Trevor Durling with Beaulieu Vineyard’s BV Georges de Latour 2019 from Napa (along with back vintage samples spanning 2018, ’17, ’15, ’12 and 1991), Sam Barry showing the new Jim Barry, The Armagh Shiraz 2018 vintage (Clare Valley) and Bibi Graetz with his new Tuscans Testamatta 2020 and Colore…

A ustriaas a whole is still white wine country, but of the 30% of red vineyards, by far the most widely planted grape is Zweigelt at 6,130ha (figures from Austrian Wine, to end May 2022). These vineyards are mostly in the regions of Burgenland (2,337ha of Zweigelt) and Niederösterreich (3,478ha); lying within Niederösterreich is the DAC of Carnuntum, which is known for its Zweigelt wines and has 232ha planted. Other Austrian wine regions besides Burgenland and Niederösterreich account for less than 6% of the country’s total Zweigelt production. Zweigelt’s ubiquity is perhaps the more surprising as, like Germany’s Müller-Thurgau, it is a crossing – of Blaufränkisch and St Laurent, although fruitier but less elegant than either of its precursors. The grape was created in 1922 by Dr Fritz Zweigelt, who…

PROMONTORY 2017, DOMINUS 2019 (NON-US) Promontory 2017, from Napa Valley’s Harlan family, was set for international release via the Place de Bordeaux in October. It’s highly rated (Decanter 98pts), but a smaller vintage – 75% of fruit was safely picked before wildfires interrupted harvest. Also in October, UK merchant Corney & Barrow planned to offer Napa’s Dominus 2019. TAITTINGER COMTES DE CHAMPAGNE 2012 UK merchant Goedhuis & Co said it expected to offer the latest vintage of this prestigious blanc de blancs cuvée in November. It’s a relatively late release from Champagne’s well-regarded class of 2012, but is potentially one to watch. ORNELLAIA VENDEMMIA D’ARTISTA 2019 CHARITY AUCTION Limited-edition bottles of Ornellaia 2019 will be auctioned online by Sotheby’s 5-19 October. The sale features 100 double magnums, 10 six-litre imperials…

Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com While there was a chance that Burgundy prices would see a period of consolidation in 2022 after strong gains in the second half of 2021, this has not been the case, with the trajectory of prices continuing in a similar vein, albeit with activity more muted over the summer, as usual. Indeed, prices across top red and white Burgundy are up more than 25% in 2022, meaning that Burgundy remains very much at the front of the fine wine market, with only Champagne price gains in a similar area. We continue to see the demand and price gains in the market…