Ormes de Pez 2007: Decent early drinking

2007: A forward year, so they say

Ormes de Pez is one of my favourite wines.

A former Cru Bourgeois, (I think) it has probably more minerality than any other wine I know.

There are few Saint-Estephe's that can compete with it for big, bold, earthy mineral flavours.

Calon Segur and Phelan Segur, both of which I have been sampling recently, are at the other end of the Saint-Estephe scale for me. Much more subtle. Not better, just different.

The only other Saint-Estephe I know that reminds me of Pez is Lafon Roche, another big beast from the north of the left bank.

This wine, whilst extremely young, almost criminally, is drinking well right now. It has all the character of Pez you would expect.

 I hear the left bank Bordeaux 2007's are generally drinking well across the board.

Mine came from Carrefour in Brussels. More on where to buy it here.

It's not as huge as the 2003, which is possibly the most extreme of this genre I have tried (it's so intense friends of mine disliked it) and I thought this 2007 was well balanced by comparison. It's well worth a try.

1978 Las Cases and 1996 Calon, Cos and Leoville Barton

Cos D'Estournel 96', unbeatable

 Yesterday a few friends and I enjoyed a small horizontal tasting of 1996 wines, and a rather special birthday bottle.

First, the 1996 wines. We tried:

1996 Cos D'Estournel

1996 Leoville Barton

1996 Calon Segur

Opinions differed slightly on the Calon. Some felt it still very closed, even after an hour or so in the decanter.

Others said its nose was superb and it was a great example of Calon Segur's more recent output.

The Barton, we all agreed, was a little rough around the edges.

Las Cases, Barton, Cos and Calon, lined up

It lacked balance, but that may be been the bottle: One of our party has tried it previously and noted that bottle was quite different, as far as he recalled.

The Cos won, as Cos usually does in these circumstances. It still has decades to go, and the forest floor mustiness is just emerging, with so much fruit, depth, character, complexity and finish, it was the wine of the night.

The only one that competed, for very different reasons, was the 1978 Leoville Las Cases. This was something of an outlier to the others, impossible to compare really.

A St Julien wine, but overlooking the Latour vineyard in Bordeaux (Pauillac), some might say it had gone past its best. But for us it still had plenty of fruit, depth and complexity, with that wonderful aged claret nose and finish. A truly great "super second" that I doubt I will taste again, at least in that year.

The wines came from Fine and Rare. Not cheap, but well worth it for a special celebratory evening.

Avignonesi Montepulciano Riserva 2007: Holy Mackerel

Best Montepulciano I've had, no doubt

The say Barolo is the king of wines, the wine of kings.

But most kings wouldn't turn down this Montepulciano Riserva 2007, unless they were seriously inbred and a fan of Black Tower instead.

That's entirely possible, Royals not being the brightest of our breeding stock in Europe.

However, that aside, this wine is well worth trying.

As you may know, they only make Riserva wines in Tuscany every few years, and you can see why when you try this one.

It changed dramatically in the glass. At first it was soft(ish), you could taste the age, the complexity and the fruit. Then it shut down and became quite tannic, almost rustic, as Sangiovese can often be. After another thirty minutes it opened up again, and kept it's more tannic edge, but that softness and slight hint of age came back on the mid-palate.

It's one of more complex Italian wines I have had recently. The 2007's are of course far too young to be be drunk now, but I have had quite a few recently (they have just been released recently in the case of Brunello, I believe) and from what I can tell, it's a great year, much better than 2006.

This website gives the wine a community score of 90. I'd score it higher, if I did such things. Gorgeous, fruity, aged and complex, with that tannic change, it's a journey in a glass. Buy buy buy.

I had it with medium rare steak and a rocket and parmesan salad at Negozio Classica in Notting Hill.

Domaine de la Solitude 2010 Chateauneuf-du-Pape: Plummy elegance and power

Not to be drunk in solitude

"...mainly a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and a light note of Cinsault. These wines are full bodied, rich textured and soft at the same time able to change according to the vintage from sweet black fruits, red fruits, exotic fruits, kirsch, ripe plum mixed with spice notes, leather and smoked: a rich style with mouth finals long and heady."

So says the website for this smooth, elegant CNP.

I'm not sure I can pick all of that up from the bottle I am trying, particularly given the cold I picked up in China (some of their wines are fantastic) last week.

But for those readers who like a smoother, silkier CNP, as opposed to some of the more rustic Côtes du Rhône wines out there, this is a gem. 

Despite the fact that it's 14.5% alcohol, you really wouldn't know from tasting it, particularly once it has been open for 24 hours. 

I am finding less and less point in drinking wines within 24 hours these days. Much better, I find, to open a bottle, taste a glass, write a few notes, then let it breathe for 24 or 48 hours, and then drink the wine with food. 

This Domaine de la Solitude 2010 Chateauneuf-du-Pape is for you if like a big, smooth, powerful, plummy French red. My bottle was a gift, but wine-searcher.com has it for around £20 or a bit less. Worth a try.

I'm really going to miss the 2010 Rhone wines when they are gone. I'm already finding my favourite UK retailers are stocking 2011 Rhone wines now over 2010. 2011 was not as good a year as far as I can tell. Stock up on 2010's while you can, I wish I had.

Cos Labory 2005 Saint-Estephe: A keeper and a drinker

Gorgeous left bank, will be a stunner

I've just discovered this chateau and it seems like excellent value.

I picked up some 2005 and two cases of the 1996 recently.

The 1996 is a bargain, I think, at around £250 per case on the Berry Brother's wine exchange system, BBX.

The 2005, they say, will not be drinking properly until 2015.

I've opened one bottle and left for a couple of days after opening you begin to taste how good it will be when it has aged.

The 2005 is scoring between 88-92 and 16.5/20 upwards. What that means I don't know.

I had a 96 pointer wine recently that was plain awful. But this wine is worth laying down for the next decade.

Having made two trips to Bordeaux in the last 18 months and met wine makers from Cos D'estournel, Pichon Baron, Latour, Comtesse Lalande, Smith Haut Lafite, Haut Bailly, Cheval Blanc, Petrus, d'Yquem, L'arrivet Haut Brion, Lynch Bages, Le Pin and a few others, I can tell you they are all worried about climate change. Very worried. Weather may outstrip technology in wine regions in the next ten years. It's worth stocking up now.

Côtes du Ventoux, 'Les Traverses', Paul Jaboulet Aîné, 2010: Balance and power from Provence

Provence Grenache/Syrah 2010

This is, quite simply, the best wine under £8 per bottle I've tried, perhaps ever.

A bold statement? Maybe. I only bought a single bottle from the UK's Wine Society for £7.50.

This wine is big, bold, smooth, rich, elegant, powerful, all the over used words we use with good wine.

The two elements that come through the most for me are the mid palate density. Explained here, and the balance.

I'd also say it has excellent finesse, which is praise indeed considering it's classed as close as you can get to a Rhone wine, which are less known for subtlety than say a Burgundy or Bordeaux wine.

Anyhow, the 2011 is available at the same price here. A must try. Yes there is a connection between price and quality in wine, but this is a great example of just what excellent value you can get if you shop around, stay away from supermarkets and experiment with organisations such as the Wine Society. You just can never beat France for value wines, it's more or less impossible. It's the same at the top end for me. It's in the £20-100 per bottle range that Italy competes, no other country can come close.

I had a 2002 Torbreck "Descendents" recently. Around £70-80 a bottle or so. Awful. All black pepper and overpowering alcohol. This wine at £7.49 a bottle, is miles better.

Chateau Brown 2009: Tasty but 14.5% alcohol is too much

14.5% phew. Tasty though.

Call me a bluff old traditionalist, as Blackadder once said, but 14.5% alcohol, is too much for any red wine, except perhaps a dessert wine, however it tastes.

Chateau Brown 2009 is good but way too alcoholic even for that very forward year.

It has good balanced minerality, it's peppery, with huge dark fruit typical of 2009.

Fans of full-bodied American wine and fans of Parker will love this. It has more Merlot than Cabernet Sauvignon, which I am always a little dubious about.

It's also dark, inky and full of blackcurrent and cassis, Some reviewers said chocolate, and I kind of see what they meant.

Its slightly tannic but not overly so, and tastes like it should be drunk fairy young.

Chris Kissack, AKA the Wine Doctor, really rates this 2009 but oddly fails to mention the very high alcohol content.

I would give this a 15 or perhaps a 16, if I did ratings, which I of course do not. Who am I do so?

In conclusion, it's tasty but too strong to be a real gem, even at around £20 per bottle.

For a big(ish) tasty wine, I'd suggest instead a Saint-Estephe instead, Chateau Pickard perhaps, at this price range.

Sarget de Gruard Larose 2004: Excellent value under £25

Superb nose, will be better in five years

Second wines of second and third growth's are the way to go for value drinking.

That is, if you define value drinking around the £20+ mark.

That's hard to justify for every day quaffing of course.

But before opening this, Sarget de Gruard Larose 2004, the second wine of Gruard Larose, I'd had a glass of the Wine Society's Catena Cabernet Sauvignon for about £11 per bottle.

What a stark contrast, The Catena was really nothing special, despite the Wine Society hype. Big alcholic New World fruit, not much density, little complexity and a relatively disappointing length of finish given how they have sold this wine on their website.

Then we tried this Sarget de Gruard Larose 2004, which I bought in Carrefour in Bordeaux in October last year. I don't recall what I paid for it, perhaps 20 Euros.

Wow, what a difference. This 2004 is on the cusp of greatness, for the price and the year that is.

It's say £9 more than the Catena mentioned above, but a world away in difference. Well worth the extra £9, I would argue.

You can decant it for an hour or two, with an aerator (do they make a difference? I don't know) and just sit and breathe in the nose in a big Bordeaux glass for half an hour.

I didn't take a sip for ten minutes.

What a gorgeous nose of ripe cassis black fruit with a hint of mustiness/forest floor/age, and perhaps lead pencil shavings (first time I have picked that up in wine).

Pencil nonsense aside, it's certainly got a woody (but not oaky) bouquet, combines age, power and fruit superbly, and has wonderful balance.

The finish will improve I think, over the next five years or so. At nine years old, it is still rather young. It is still slightly tannic but I am sure those will even out in the next few years. One to keep, and to drink a bottle of occasionally to see how it is maturing.

Really superb value at around the £20 mark.

Here's one UK retailer that sells it.

I shall be hunting down a case of this to put away for 2015.

(I just noticed that I'd reviewed this wine before, here. I thought I had, but couldn't find it when I searched for it on the blog, but here it is. Interesting to note I had picked up slightly different notes last time.)

Paolo Manzone Barolo Serralunga 2007: Austere, complex and classic in style

Powerful, elegant, punchy, complex

This wine is described elsewhere as "austere and intense".

I thought that was a very apt description. I had only a glass and a half, without it having much time to breathe, over dinner recently, and still it was superb.

Another reviewer says that the region, Serralunga d'Alba, is home to the most classically structured Barolos. 

This wine, left, scores 90 from one reviewer.

I thought it was superb, but it appears impossible to find, at least on the internet.

All the more reason to seek it out.

It strikes me, from what I read, as a deeply traditional example of the best of Barolo.

As elsewhere, there is huge controversy around the modern versions of Barolo, which have been accused of being too fruity and oaky (sound familiar Brunello and Bordeaux fans?).

Anyhow, this seems like a classic, if you can get hold of some.

Taylor's Vintage Port 1994: Wow, but not cheap

Hubbada Hubbada, damn fine Port

Usually, I'm not a huge port fan.

I often find it, well, a bit cloying. That's harsh I know.

That's probably a particularly tough assessment when it comes to good quality port, rather than the lower end stuff I said I quite liked on this blog before.

The 1994 Taylor's is the top end vintage, so I am told.

I am organising a wine tasting / 40th birthday on Friday and this is the last thing on the menu. So as organiser, I poured a glass to taste tonight. Wow.

It's about £80 a bottle from Fine and Rare UK. More from elsewhere.

Is it worth it? Depends on how much you like Port. I wouldn't pay that. But I am lucky enough to share this bottle with six others.

They say Wine Spectator gives it 100 points.

As we all know, the 100 point system is increasingly, and rightfully under scrutiny.

But this is damn fine Port I must say. As a Port amateur I can say it has a huge, alcoholic nose with gloriously complex and deep red fruit. It's big, smooth, supremely elegant and has without doubt, the best finish of a port I've known. Buy some. If you like top port, I imagine this is what it feels like.

I wrote the above prior to reading the Wine Spectator review on Amazon (Amazon, the shame!):

"In a word, superb. It's full-bodied, moderately sweet and incredibly tannic, but there's amazing finesse and refinement to the texture, not to mention fabulous, concentrated aromas of raspberries, violets and other flowers. Perhaps the greatest Taylor ever, it's better than either the '92 or the '70, though it's very like the '70 in structure."

Let it breathe, and it's an absolute belter.