Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i Decanter

A seat at the table This month I sat in on a one-day panel tasting (of Italian Vermentino – look out for it in the next issue). I tasted along with the three expert judges, as an observer only, and the fascinating exercise reminded me not only how professionally Decanter’s panel tastings are run, but also how useful they are at identifying the best wines in a single category. I’m used to tasting at merchant or regional tastings, where a diverse range of grapes and styles are showcased. These tastings are expensive to stage, and it makes sense to curate the best lineup possible. In panel tastings, by contrast, any producer or retailer can enter a wine, as long as it meets the criteria. In the Vermentino tasting, many of…

For excitement, look east. I had a chance to judge twice in Georgian wine competitions in 2024 – in the country’s International Saperavi Competition in July and then its International Qvevri Wine Competition in December. The progress Georgia has made in the last decade is astonishing – on two fronts, in particular. The first is the country’s work with its genetic treasure chest of grape varieties. On my first visit in 2013, these seemed a research curiosity, and their widespread adoption and use in the country’s most ambitious wines was tentative. Now, a grand renaissance is underway. Every serious wine producer is crafting an increasing percentage of its leading wines with varieties other than the familiar red Saperavi and white Rkatsiteli. The result is a much wider aesthetic spectrum for…

French sparkling wines designated as Crémant are produced using the traditional method as practised in Champagne, involving a second fermentation in the bottle, and Crémant de Bourgogne is the leading example in this important sector. Across France, more than 100 million bottles of Crémant are produced each year, in eight regions: Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Die (in the Rhône), Jura, Limoux, Loire and Savoie. Crémant de Bourgogne is the closest in style to Champagne, mainly due to the use of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir as the key varieties (although Aligoté plays a significant role in many blends). Appellation rules also permit the use of Gamay (up to a maximum of 20%) as well as Melon and Sacy, although the last two are rarely encountered. Crémant de Bourgogne is produced over a…

Nashi Highball Kiko, New York City kikonewyork.com Created by Chris Lemperle (pictured), beverage consultant at Hudson Square-based Kiko, the Nashi Highball is a crowd-pleasing drink that falls somewhere between a Japanese-style Highball and the classic Stone Fence (a combination of American whiskey and cider). ‘This cocktail is versatile enough for any occasion and is a refreshing choice for fall and winter – perfect with a meal or for a night out. By keeping the base spirit as the focal point, I aimed to accentuate the whiskey (Suntory Toki, £31.89-£46/70cl Widely available) with the delicate profiles of pear and ginger,’ says Lemperle. He notes that the pear cider (Eric Bordelet Poiré Authentique 2022, £13.95-£15/75cl Buon Vino, The Good Wine Shop) creates a dynamic layering of orchard fruit and minerality. ‘The subtle…

Pascaline Lepeltier is terrifyingly accomplished. The recipient of Decanter’s Rising Star Award in 2024 (see October 2024 issue, and ‘Guest column’ in January 2025), she’s a sommelier by trade and still works the floor at Chambers in New York, but makes wine and writes widely, too. In 2022, her debut solo book Mille Vignes was published in France and late last year – finally – was released in English. One Thousand Vines (October 2024, £45 Octopus) is unlike any other wine book I’ve read. It’s grandiose in depth, breadth and ambition, defiantly French in its philosophical slant. Divided into three sections (Reading Vines, Reading Landscapes and Reading Wines), it tackles everything from grafting and microbes to food pairing, bottle shapes and trade routes, via oak forests and the evolution of…

Ask Decanter Each month our experts answer your burning wine questions. Email your queries to editor@decanter.com Duty up, alcohol down Q Since the change in UK duty laws, I’ve seen an increase in the number of wines at 11.5% alcohol and under on shop shelves. How are producers suddenly managing to reduce the alcohol, and should I be suspicious of these wines? Simon Little, London AJustin Howard-Sneyd MW, winemaker and DWWA Regional Chair, replies: There are grape varieties, and winemaking regions, where the final alcohol level of a fully ripe wine is naturally lower. England is a good example, as are wines made in cooler European climates, such as Muscadet and Mosel Riesling. But the question seems to refer to wines that are lower in alcohol than they used to…

As I write this, I’m sitting inside the enormous crater near the summit of Sicily’s Mount Etna – Europe’s most active volcano – enjoying the crisp, rarified air and the prosciutto cotto sandwich I packed this morning. The dark landscape is a sea of basaltic rocks, from peppercorn-sized granules to lava bombs as large as a vintage Fiat 500 – a reminder of the raw power that continually shapes this majestic place. In addition to coming to Etna as a geology enthusiast, I’m here for the wine. My journey began at Passopisciaro, the producer that sparked my ‘sense-of-place aha moment’ more than a decade ago. Walking among the lava flows, which co-mingle with native Nerello Mascalese and Carricante vines, provided the tactile connection to the distinctive freshness and minerality that…

Sweeping generalisations are risky in a smorgasbord tasting, but after appraising 137 wines, the overall feeling among the judges was positive. With more than 20% of the wines scoring 90 points or more, four Outstanding wines and 89% of the wines Recommended or higher, there’s clearly real value to be found in South American reds. Chile delivered most (69) of the entries and also many of the highlights. As Ben Gubbins said: ‘At a price point where Chile has been pilloried for being identikit and boring, these wines were anything but. Within each variety, there was real diversity between regions, which was impressive.’ Pinot Noir and Syrah were highlights, especially those from coastal and southerly regions, which offered fresher, elegant styles. ‘Syrah was a real standout,’ commented Andrew Johnson, ‘and…

Bodegas Sumarroca, The Society’s Cava Reserva Brut, Catalonia, Spain 2021 O £9.76 The Wine Society Showcasing Sumarroca’s trademark unpretentious elegance and complexity. Fleshy blanched almonds, yellow apple and Asian pear with white grapefruit and lime zest, over a layer of frangipane and fresh bread dough. Juicy, elegant and great value: stock up. IS Alc 12% Chassaux et Fils, Specially Selected Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie, Loire, France 2023 £7.49 Aldi Bone-dry, bracing and brilliant with seafood and shellfish, or simply as an aperitif, this is always a reliable Aldi buy. Enjoy the lipsmackingly tart fresh lemon juice aromas and flavours, oyster-shell minerality and creamy lemon posset finish. TG Alc 11.5% El Risco, Blanco, Calatayud, Aragón, Spain 2023 £13.90-£15 Gnarly Vines, Forest Wines, The Sourcing Table With its bright stone fruit and…

Argentina’s winemaking story is one of reinvention, passion and extraordinary diversity. While Malbec remains its global flagship, Argentina’s varied terroirs, high-elevation vineyards and innovative producers offer wines that push the boundaries of excellence. Cabernet Franc, once an understated variety, now commands the spotlight in Argentina’s higher regions. The expressive aromas and poised structure of 2024 Decanter World Wine Awards top-50 Best in Show winner Altaluvia, below, exemplify the variety’s potential to redefine elegance. ‘Argentina is showing this grape like no other country does,’ says renowned sommelier and DWWA Regional Chair for Argentina, Paz Levinson. Reds such as Bemberg’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Domaine Bousquet’s Organic Cabernet Sauvignon (see opposite) further highlight Argentina’s ability to craft world-class alternatives to Malbec. Argentina’s whites are equally compelling. Torrontés, with its heady floral aromas, continues…

VICTORIA MOORE Who? Victoria is an awarded journalist, columnist and author of the bestselling The Wine Dine Dictionary (Granta, 2017), a food and wine pairing guide. She writes the Gulp & Sniff Substack about trends, insights and science in wine, food and smell What? How much do you trust your nose when tasting wine? Victoria has a sniff around the question of whether we should think more about what’s going on with our sense of smell Why? Smell is the superpower we often forget we have. But does it always work the way we think? ANNA LEE C IIJIMA Who? Anna Lee is a Japanese and American wine journalist, writer and judge, also covering sake and shochu, based in New York City. Among other titles, her work appears regularly in…

Talking to a former Royal Marine recently, for a project I’m working on, I was fascinated by his detailed knowledge of the senses. For instance, we discussed whether or not you can hear better with your mouth open. He also told me that, since sight is a critical asset in the field and needs to be used to its maximum potential, Marines are taught about the physiology of the eye, as well as how to override the visual system’s inherent weaknesses. ‘Looking into shadows is a big thing. Your eyes find it difficult to look into shadows. If you’re looking for someone who might be concealed, you have to force yourself to look into shadows and interpret the light that’s emitted.’ Not for the first time, the conversation made me…

Charming yet serious, the new technical director at Olivier Leflaive in Puligny-Montrachet is a breath of fresh air. She’s forthright and decisive yet profoundly modest, and to judge from the wines she’s producing, the house is in skilful hands. Solène Panigai grew up in the wine industry – her parents worked as agronomists in Champagne. She studied in Paris and in Montpellier at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique (now L’Institut Agro Montpellier), from 2018 to 2020, earning degrees in agricultural engineering and oenology. After apprenticeships in Burgundy, Bordeaux and Oregon, she worked for the Burgundy wine board (BIVB) as a research oenologist studying premature oxidation. There she met Franck Grux, longtime technical director at Olivier Leflaive – among Burgundy’s best-known names. Grux had been running Leflaive’s winery since leaving Domaine…

For one, it was a sip of Champagne snaffled from her grandfather’s glass as a young girl; for another, a first teenage glass of wine in a restaurant just outside Chicago. For one, it famously was a 1959 Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses on a college date, and for yet another, it was the early realisation that wine is ‘this extraordinary pleasure that comes from nature, the source of beauty and thoughtfulness, not something you put on a shelf, but something you take into your body’. All of these wine epiphanies happened 50, 60, even 70 years ago and set four different women on the path of wine – at a time when it still was very much a man’s world. They needed grit, resilience and determination to succeed, but all rose…

If you’re planning to celebrate St Patrick’s Day on 17 March, then it really has to be Irish whiskey in your glass. Known for its distinctive single pot still style – involving the use of a mixed mash bill containing unmalted barley – Ireland is now home to both innovative small distillers and big names such as Jameson. Here’s a selection to try. 1 Bushmills Black Bush £24-£38/70cl Widely available First granted a licence to distil in 1608, historic Bushmills has grown to become one of the largest Irish whiskey brands in the world. Its classic Black Bush is a reliable and versatile blend that combines light grain whisky with a higher proportion of rich Sherried single malt. Generous fruity nose with notes of sweet apple and ripe grape, as…

How did anyone survive the 1970s? Flares, chicken in a basket, filthy wineries full of concrete tanks… True, the first two haven’t aged well. But some of that ’70s winemaking is coming back. What? Smoking Gauloises over the de-stemmer? Of course not. But wineries aren’t just about stainless steel any more. Seriously? I thought that stuff was a winemaker’s dream! Instant temperature control, easy to clean, nice and shiny. What’s not to like? Inox is fine, but more and more wineries are experimenting with tanks made of other materials. Such as what? Wood, clay and, er, concrete. I thought concrete was rubbish! OK, those old square tanks lined with epoxy resin aren’t as easy to control as a steel vat, but they are well insulated, stable – and…

Approximate number of bottles 2,000-plus How long has it taken you to build your cellar? I started collecting seriously in the early 1980s Have too much Provence rosé Don’t have enough Domaine Leflaive Oldest bottle Bouchard, Le Corton 1923 Greatest under-the-radar discovery Kumeu River Chardonnay, New Zealand Look forward to opening Château La Mission Haut-Brion 2022 Past their best Several white Burgundies from the 1980s Bottle with a story Château Montus, from Madiran. We first encountered this wine at a quirky restaurant in Paris specialising in the produce of southwest France, where every table had its own toaster. They brought us a can of foie gras mousse and a basket of thickly sliced country bread and we toasted our own bread to enjoy with the foie gras. The one bottle…

Abruzzo in the limelight JAMES BUTTON UK importer Armit recently arranged a small lunch at Noble Rot (yum!) with winemaker Cristiana Tiberio. I couldn’t help but get drawn in by her recollection of restoring two abandoned vineyards that her father Riccardo purchased in 2000. Together with him and her brother Antonio, they removed all the overgrowth and carefully pruned the old, ungrafted vines every winter until, in the fifth year, they finally bore fruit again. The vines turned out to be the rare Trebbiano Abruzzese variety, rather than the much more common Trebbiano Toscano – reportedly, only Valentini was making wine with Abruzzese at the time. ‘Trebbiano Abruzzese had disappeared over the years, because it’s a very delicate grape,’ Cristiana explained. Tiberio’s vineyards are ideally placed near the medieval hilltop…

Llopart, Original 1887 Corpinnat Gran Reserva Brut Nature, Catalonia, Spain 2011 O £45.50 The Wine Society Having spent 108 months on the lees, there’s wonderful depth and complexity here, with toasted nuts over fleshy peach, apricot and quince. A creamy layer of lemon curd and strudel gives mid-palate weight. Albeit mature, it preserves remarkable freshness. IS Alc 12% Vietti, Derthona Timorasso, Colli Tortonesi, Piedmont, Italy 2022 £33-£39 Corking Wines, Strictly Wine, The Fine Wine Co This Timorasso, a local white grape of Piedmont, is intense, broad and pithy, with licks of lime and lanolin, apricot skin and lychee, and floral overtones. Good now, but will reward time in bottle. Vinified in ceramic, oak and steel. JB Alc 13.5% Marimar Estate, Mas Cavalls Doña Margarita Vineyard Pinot Noir, California, USA 2018…

Rare Napa gems in demand Historic Napa Valley wines have put in eye-catching performances at recent US-based auctions, suggesting bidders continue to cherish rarity amid a subdued general market. Zachys sold a magnum of Heitz Cellar’s Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1974 for $11,250 (£9,035), including buyer’s premium, at its ‘Collection of a Lifelong Enthusiast: The Final Installment’ in New York in late January. Its pre-sale high estimate was $7,500. Featured in Decanter’s ‘Wine legend’ series back in 2017, this wine helped to put California on the modern fine wine world map. Production in the 1974 vintage included 1,200 magnums, said Zachys. Charles Antin, Zachys’ global head of auction sales, said between one and five magnums of the wine are sold globally each year – making them extremely rare. Meanwhile, Sotheby’s…

Small California crop a mixed blessing California’s 2024 wine harvest was the smallest in 20 years, preliminary figures have indicated, but a separate report says oversupply issues may still mean consumer deals in 2025. California’s wine grape crush in 2024 was 2.84m tonnes, said a preliminary government report in February. That’s down from nearly 3.69m tonnes in 2023. While 2024 harvest yields vary by area and several producers have praised the quality of the fruit, the vintage was likely California’s smallest since 2004. Audra Cooper, director of grape brokerage at the Turrentine Brokerage company, said the crush report contained some ‘double-edged news’. California is one of several wine regions in the world facing surplus supply. Cooper said: ‘The total California Cabernet Sauvignon crop was down 31% from 2023 and 22%…

Spice it up Gavin and Kate Cox are big fans of the Bloody Mary, but became frustrated with the inconsistency of how their favourite cocktail was mixed and served at bars and restaurants, and even when drinking with friends at home. Cox’s Original was born of that frustration. Launched in 2010, the award-winning spicer is a blend of 15 spices, herbs and natural flavourings, including tamarind, horseradish and ginger. ‘I began the recipe using ingredients in my kitchen cupboard,’ explains Gavin. ‘Through trial and error – and 20 different blends – I finally got to the basic recipe and the right mix of chillies, celery salt, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce.’ Now the duo have launched the Cox’s Original Bloody Mary Mixer Kit. Containing a bottle of Cox’s Original, Folkington’s…

Cognac isn’t like single malt – or, at least, most of it isn’t. When you buy a bottle of Lagavulin or Glenfarclas, you know precisely where it’s from, whether it’s Islay’s wave-lashed coast or the heart of Speyside. The vast majority of Cognac, on the other hand, is blended from a dizzying number of individual eaux-de-vie to achieve a harmonious whole. The concept of provenance is nebulous – Cognac’s vineyard is enormous, stretching from La Rochelle in the north to the Bordeaux vignoble in the south. There are, however, exceptions. While Cognac is dominated by the big houses – Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier – smaller operators often create Cognacs from their own vineyard holdings. Seek out Jean-Luc Pasquet, Jean Fillioux, Michel Forgeron, Château Montifaud and more from specialist…

Roman Tournier is on a mission to put Piwi grapes (see definition, below right) on the world wine map. Hailing from a small village in the Fronton region in southwest France, Tournier’s grandparents were farmers, mainly producing grains and cereals but also selling grapes from their 8ha of vines to the local cooperative. After studying viticulture and oenology, he worked in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in the Rhône valley, at Domaine de Beaurenard, followed by stints in New Zealand, Languedoc and Luberon. The Piwi adventure started in 2021 when he returned home and realised that fungal vine diseases were a big problem in his region. ‘All my friends were already losing 80%-100% of their production,’ he tells me. Deciding that he wanted to ‘try to do something that will be more relevant, which…

Celeb watch ANDREA BOCELLI Who and what? Beloved Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli has released a trio of new wines from his homeland. Made in collaboration with his brother Alberto and Italian wine powerhouse Zonin1821, the new additions to the Bocelli 1831 range comprise a Prosecco DOC; a white IGT Toscana blend of Vermentino and Viognier; and a red IGT Toscana made from Sangiovese, Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. Hailing from a tiny Tuscan town near Pisa, Bocelli’s family has been making wine since 1831 (hence the label’s name), and the singer took an active role in the creation of the new wines, which he felt would work better as blends rather than solo acts, sending the team from Zonin1821 back to the drawing board. Like Chapoutier’s Rhône wines, the…