Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Decanter

EDITOR’S LETTER We’ll always bring you coverage of the classics at Decanter, but adventuring is in our DNA and we consider it equally our duty (and delight) to highlight emerging regions and styles that will be completely foreign to many wine drinkers. The best bottles are often not exported, but it’s still fun seeking out what can be found – discovering unfamiliar grape varieties, or different expressions of familiar varieties. And it’s fascinating to read about the unique challenges faced by winemakers in these territories: having to bury vines in China’s Ningxia region because of the extreme cold; elephants trampling the vines in Thailand; or producing wine in a mostly-Muslim country (Turkey), where average wine consumption is less than one litre per head. In Nashik, India, founder of Sula Vineyards…

Ready? Passport and corkscrew packed? Two weeks of adventure mapped out? It’s a safe bet (for Decanter readers) that the pleasure of wine will play a part in your holiday plans. Fingers crossed, though, that your adventure takes in a vineyard region or two as well. It’s worth it. Here’s why. I’ve loved wine for 50 years. If I’d done nothing but sit at home and drink it, that love would have been a consuming hobby, a lifelong infatuation. What wine and I have is more than that. We have a serious relationship, by which I mean love based on respect and understanding. Agreed, wine has been my work… but you can have a relationship of this sort, too. Just go there. Look around. Stand in the landscape. As the…

Saxa loquuntur’, says the Latin proverb, meaning ‘the stones speak.’ Hungarian winemakers are very familiar with this idea: a key masterclass at this year’s Hungarian Wine Summit was titled ‘Volcanic Wine Rocks’, and featured some of the most fascinating volcanic wines currently on the market. Although volcanic soils cover only around one percent of the Earth’s surface, they can be found in wine regions right across Hungary, accounting for close to 40% of the country’s winemaking territories. We believe that the volcanic terroirs of Badacsony, Somló, Balaton Highlands, Eger, Tokaj, Bükk, Mátra and Zala tell the story of our land’s unique character and heritage through their diverse and mineral-rich soils. These iconic landscapes have produced some of the world’s most unique and internationally acclaimed wines, encapsulating the fiery spirit of…

A few months ago, I was asked to respond to a reader who asked how you could pick out Californian Chardonnay in particular from American Chardonnay in general, when blind tasting. At its root, the question speaks to a broader understanding, or lack thereof, of the myriad growing conditions, terroir and style of Chardonnays being made in the geographically enormous and meteorologically, geologically and topographically diverse west-coast US state of California. The place is massive, and so are the differences. ‘From my perspective,’ says Chantal Forthun (pictured, right), director of winemaking at Flowers Vineyards & Winery in the Sonoma Coast sub-region, ‘the remarkable nature of Chardonnay is its transparency to place and winemaking style. Given its thinner skins, Chardonnay purely translates the character of its site. This makes this variety…

A selection of new releases and seasonal favourites for sunny days. 1 5 Puffins £50/75cl 5puffins.com This elegant gin was created by chef Alex Dilling of Michelin two-star Hotel Café Royal with Martinis in mind. ‘The name 5 Puffins represents each member of my family,’ he explains. A botanical mix including bergamot, angelica, coriander and verbena delivers beautifully balanced flavours. Expect citrus sweetness, crisp juniper, nutmeg spice and an uplift of lemon verbena on the finish, paired with fragrant bergamot aromatics. Alcohol 40% 2 Elsker Dry Pink Gin £30-£36/70cl Amazon, Master of Malt, Threshers Made at the Oss Craft Distillery in Norway by Stig Bareksten, whose drinks are inspired by the untamed Norwegian landscape – ‘elsker’ is the Norwegian word for ‘love’. Wild raspberries and blueberries create the rosy hue,…

Tish gets the inspiration for this dish from the Mediterranean islands of Crete, Sicily and Sardinia, all three of which are endowed with wines that would pair well with it. Of the accompanying flavours, the blood orange is more important than the cumin seeds, calling for a lush rather than linear white. From Crete, I’d be inclined to go for a Vidiano, although an Assyrtiko from Santorini would work, too. Sicily has many full-flavoured whites, of which I think Grecanico would probably suit this recipe best, or head over to the mainland for a Fiano, Falanghina or Greco di Tufo. Sardinia and the Tuscan coast have Vermentino to offer, which would work – as would a young Soave from Veneto. In fact, it’s youth and vivacity you need for a…

RAYMOND REACHES 50 GEORDIE TORR It’s 50 years since Napa Valley pioneer Raymond Vineyards released its first wine and to celebrate, a small dinner was held at Medlar restaurant in London’s Chelsea. After a glass of the Reserve Selection Chardonnay 2021 (£28.90-£33.59 All About Wine, Shelved Wine, Vinvm, Winesquare), a big, mouthfilling, sun-drenched wine, winemaker Stephanie Putnam joined in remotely from Raymond’s aptly named Red Room, decorated in tones that match the unusual velvet label that adorns the estate’s Reserve Selection Cabernet. Putnam described the evolution of winemaking at Raymond, from the heavy extraction of the 1980s through a period where they were ‘finding themselves’ in the ’90s to a ‘more relaxed’ outlook since the turn of the millennium. Now part of the Franco-American Boisset Collection, the estate is rightly…

EXPERT’S CHOICE TASTED NON-BLIND Stories of appellations and wine regions hamstrung by their commercial success abound. A boom in popularity can sometimes come at the cost of diversity – both stylistic and viticultural – and identity. Perhaps this could have been said of Vinho Verde in the late 1990s, when its off-dry, fruit-driven, slightly fizzy iterations were ubiquitous. Not so today. The northwestern corner of Portugal has re-emerged as an exciting region with an appreciation and understanding of tradition and terroir differences, as well as an appetite for experimentation. A new generation of winemakers has begun to come to the fore, leading the transformation of existing (sometimes their own family’s) estates and starting new, niche projects in collaboration with local growers. They’ve expanded the regional repertoire by reviving an almost forgotten…

Dom Pérignon 2015 vintage released Dom Pérignon 2015 has been one of the latest major releases on a fine wine market that has largely continued to see prices under pressure. Dom Pérignon has been a major star of Champagne’s greater presence on the secondary market in recent years, and the new launch follows the release of the 2013 vintage in early 2023. UK merchants offered Dom Pérignon 2015 for between £848 and £875 per six-bottle case in bond (ib). That’s below the release price of Dom Pérignon 2013, according to Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, but it also said the 2013 vintage had fallen about 15% in price in the past 12 months. On Bordeaux Index’s LiveTrade online trading platform, Dom Pérignon 2012 and 2013 were offered below…

CASSANDRA CHARLICK is an awarded wine journalist, travel and food writer, broadcaster and presenter based in Western Australia. Among others, her work appears in Halliday, International Traveller and Delicious magazines NATALIE EARL is Decanter’s Regional Editor for France. Based in London, she is a keen advocate for organic, biodynamic and natural wines, and is interested in writing about drinking wine more ethically and sustainably CLIVE PURSEHOUSE is Decanter’s Regional Editor for North America. An avid cyclist and former culture editor for US title Peloton, he lives on the west coast and has written about top Oregon and Washington State wines since 2007 OLLY SMITH is a prominent broadcaster and author on food and drink. He appears regularly on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen, writes a regular column in Weekend magazine in the…

When my friend Michael Broadbent, the pioneer wine auctioneer, wrote his Decanter column (he kept it up for over 40 years) he often made life easy for himself by simply telling us where he’d had dinner and what they’d drunk. I’m not quite so convinced that you’d be interested in the Johnson family consumption, but there are occasions when I can’t resist the urge to make you drool. The other evening a gang calling themselves the Notting Hill Grand Cru Club brought their bottles of Musigny and Chambolle – to me the grandest crus of Burgundy; or if not the very grandest, certainly the sexiest – to the Garrick Club in Covent Garden for an evening of what I can’t honestly describe as sober analysis. The only trouble with getting…

Picture the late-afternoon scene: a glass of pale rosé in hand, I’m relaxing outdoors on an elegant terrace at a world-class vineyard resort. Bob Dylan is playing on the sound system as cosmopolitan visitors are having fun, taking selfies and tasting the estate’s wines. Below are rows of just-harvested Sauvignon Blanc vines, their leaves fluttering in the warm breeze. Beyond, on the distant horizon, I can glimpse a lake fringed by steep, jagged mountains. So where might I be? The Cape, California, New Zealand, maybe Canada? The answer is none of the above. In fact, I’m at Sula Vineyards’ The Source resort in India’s premier wine region of Nashik – about 180km and four hours’ drive east of the bustling megacity that is Mumbai. The resort is aptly named because…

While the colossal changes still required to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions must come from a governmental level, as individuals we’re not powerless to make a difference ourselves. Which wine we choose to drink may seem somewhat trivial in terms of the global challenges we face, but all of the industry’s stakeholders – including wine producers and consumers – have a role to play in tackling the climate crisis. With this in mind, in next month’s issue of Decanter we’ll be introducing a new column, ‘The ethical drinker’ – a guide to making informed, sustainability-led decisions when buying and drinking wine, and why this matters. Each month, I’ll be talking to leading figures in wine sustainability and offering hints and tips on which wines have genuine green credentials, along with…

Spain’s consistent delivery of high-quality wines is changing perceptions in the fine wine investment arena. With growing acclaim and success in competitions, not least the Decanter World Wine Awards, the nation’s hidden gems are proving to have significant potential for appreciation. Spain’s impressive DWWA 2024 results highlight exceptional quality and diversity in the awards’ highest price band (wines above £100 per bottle). Regions such as Rioja and Ribera del Duero, known for their robust reds, showcased their prowess with wines that balance power and elegance, making them worthy contenders for wine investment, managing to combine both immediate appeal and remarkable ageability. The structured tannins and balanced acidity in Spanish reds, particularly from Tempranillo and Garnacha, allow these wines to develop complex flavours over time, making them valuable assets in a…

TASTED BLIND This tasting featured one of the best wines I and my two fellow judges, Matthew Forster MW and Diana Rollan, have encountered in a Decanter panel tasting. A unanimous 97-pointer, Bodega Hacienda Lopéz de Haro’s Classica Gran Reserva Rosado 2013 is vying for a place in my personal pantheon: is this the finest Spanish rosado I’ve ever tasted? It’s certainly up there. In a rosé winemaking world that is increasingly preoccupied with imitating the model of extremely pale, delicately flavoured wines, patented (with extraordinary recent success) by Provence, the Classica was a vivid and timely reminder. Other styles of rosé are available – and a long tradition of making deeper-coloured, more powerfully flavoured and more robustly textured rosados is one of Spanish wine’s many strengths. And sure enough, it…

Graham Beck, Brut Rosé, Western Cape, South Africa NV £14.75-£16.99 Alteus, Majestic, The Champagne Co, Waitrose A blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Pretty red berry and cherry aromas. Time on lees lends creaminess to the toasty palate. Fine bubbles and a long seam of acidity. Cherry, strawberry and raspberry fruit, zesty finish. Lovely. JS Alc 12.3% Aslina, Sauvignon Blanc, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2022 £18.99 MJ Wine Cellars, Our Sommelier Pioneering South African winemaker Ntsiki Biyela’s vibrant Sauvignon shows a tropical palate with bright layers of citrus, minerals and hints of stone fruit, gaining depth and creaminess from time on lees. Zingy acidity throughout. JS Alc 13% South by South West, Chenin Blanc, Margaret River, Western Australia 2022 £14.95 The Wine Society Fleshy yet refreshing take on Chenin Blanc. Fermentation and ageing…

The world of wine is full of unasked questions. Why do we put wine at strengths of 5% and 15% alcohol, and everything in between, in the same 75cl bottle? It’s certainly not because ‘it’s the ideal size for two people.’ Why is Côte-Rôtie in the Rhône valley almost the only wine region where black and white grapes are co-fermented (apart from its mimics in Australia)? And why do well-heeled wine lovers casually pay a premium price for multi-vintage fizz such as Krug Grande Cuvée, Bollinger PN AYC18 and Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle while almost never considering spending a similar sum on a still wine without a vintage? Vintages, it is said, matter. Wine drinkers, I was told while tasting a less than delicious 2013 cru classé Bordeaux, want to experience…

American vintner Alex Gambal appears to be enjoying a happy retirement skiing in the mountains of Wyoming, but the path that brought him here was anything but direct. Although Gambal is among the most successful Americans to make wine in Burgundy, the learning curve was steep and the obstacles were nearly insurmountable. The challenges and pleasures of his journey are admirably laid out in his book Climbing the Vines in Burgundy (£18.99 Hamilton Books, August 2023). ‘Archetype of a small négociant house that is both demanding and trustworthy, Maison Alex Gambal, created by an American who fell in love with Burgundy, has emerged in barely a decade as one of the steadiest and most quality-oriented of the Côte de Beaune.’ This 2015 quote, from French wine magazine La Revue du…

A CORE TO EXPLORE… Whisky aficionados will know That Boutique-y Whisky Company as a source of rare, interesting limited-edition and single-cask bottles. But now the cult independent bottler has released its Core Range – a permanent collection of five signature bottles that represent key whisky styles. Crafted in small batches, the new range includes a smoky Islay 8 Year Old Single Malt (£41.95/70cl, Alc 45.8%), a smooth Blended Grain 30 Year Old Scotch (£74.95/70cl, Alc 45.8%) and a characterful 8 Year Old Canadian Corn Whisky (£36.95/70cl, Alc 45.8%). But my highlight was the richly complex Highlands 18 Year Old Single Malt (£84.95/70cl, Alc 45.8%), aged in a combination of ex-bourbon, oloroso and PX Sherry casks, offering an elegant interplay of subtle smokiness and sweet caramel. Scotch fans should also make…

Mediterra is a collection of my favourite recipes gathered over many years of travelling through the Mediterranean, from shore to shore and beyond to its islands – holidays, work or research, I’m there! While the countries of the Mediterranean are varied and diverse, food and its culture are a common thread: the way of eating, sharing and revelling in the daily meal is an almost sacrosanct act; a passion and love for the produce and a focus on flavour, seasonality and simplicity. This is a cuisine of the sun. A cuisine of fragrance and flavour: olive oil, fresh herbs, ripe seasonal tomatoes, juicy stone fruits and oozy figs, sizzling garlic, crushed spices aromatic from roasting, the perfumed zest of orange, lemon and bergamot, smoky grilled meats served with flatbreads to…

TASTED BLIND ENGLISH & WELSH STILL The mere fact that Decanter held its first ever UK still wine panel tasting this summer is testament to just how seriously these wines are now being taken. Admittedly, compared to the the country’s sparkling wine offering, it’s a young category. But based on this and other very recent tastings, it’s an exciting and ambitious one. Although the judges had high expectations that weren’t always fulfilled, the characterful nature of so many of the wines we tasted and the sheer diversity of styles was hugely encouraging. The fact that our scores were often quite different, and that there was considerable debate between us about several of the wines, was usually more to do with the innovative spirit of the winemakers and their willingness to push…

Devaux, Blanc de Noirs, Champagne, France NV £31.99 Majestic Made from 100% Pinot Noir, this has reserve wines drawn from two solera systems dating back to 1995 and 2002. It’s rich in style with mellow red berry fruits, ripe red apple and brioche toastiness. Dosage 7.8g/L, tart acidity keeping it fresh. AW Alc 12% Chateau Ste Michelle, Eroica Riesling, Washington, USA 2022 £21.30-£25.75 NY Wines, The Fine Wine Co, Vinvm, Winedirect This partnership between Germany’s Erni Loosen and Washington State’s Chateau Ste Michelle is a perenially reliable buy. Its off-dry style, bright acidity and succulent flavours of ripe honeyed pears make it a delicious match for dressed crab. TG Alc 12% Catena Zapata, Angelica Zapata Malbec Alta, Mendoza, Argentina 2018 £29 Tesco Your know you’re in safe hands with the Catena team.…