primowino

I was at a large wine tasting event here in Edinburgh recently and spoke to some burgundy and bordeaux producers about this year's vintage. The general opinion seems to be that it is a bit patchy, because it was just too dry for most of the summer. Has anyone else heard similar stories for France? No doubt when the wine's start to appear on the shelves it will have been a "miracle" vintage.

Yes, they can make great aperatifs and are relatively cheap. However they range from very dry to fairly sweet and don't usually let you know on the label. I like them dry and the best examples I've had were from Fonseca and Niepoort.

I, like many of you by the sound of it, have pretty much given up on Beaujolais of late, especially Nouveau. However there is one interesting possibility. I have drunk Beaujolais Villages and cheaper Cru Beaujolais at about three years old and they were a bit like mature burgundy (with some imagination). So if that's the stuff you like but haven't got the right bank balance, experiment.

I have spoken to a couple of Musar stockists in the UK about older vintages, I was particularly interested in 1979, and was warned away because each vintage is released to the market in batches. Older vintages are therefore likely to have been stored for several years in Lebanon or an adjacent country and storage conditions are very variable. I have a couple of bottles of the 1995 and will leave a WTN when I try one soon.

I drank this at a wine tasting, with several hundred wines on offer, and I concluded it was my favourite red there - closely followed by a 1999 Gevrey Chambertin from Bouchard. At the same event I had been disappointed by Penfold's Grange from the same vintage, as to me it offered none of the characters of a hedonistic Aussie Shiraz or the depth of a classic Rhone Syrah. The Stonewell on the other hand is the best example of a plump voluptuous Shiraz I've tasted, with ample blackberry and cherry fruit and enough time in barrel to eliminate most of the usual sweetness and give a bit of backbone. This backbone also probably means you can hang on to some bottles, if you have enough, for a few more years and see how it develops. The other important difference between this wine and the Grange is price, £30 compared with £120. As is often the case, in wine regions the world over, you should probably steer clear of the "best" example of the genre unless money is no object and choose from the chasing pack.

BJS is short for Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr, one of the top vineyards in the Mosel. This stuff is nectar, if nectar can be light, ethereal and only 8% alcohol. Most people probably drink Ausleses as a dessert wine, but Haag's wines are best not adulterated by anything but the lightest food. The flavours are difficult to compare with earthly fruits, but if pushed I think there are apples here. There are also hints of petrol coming in, I think it is at a perfect age unless you are completely allergic to the character of mature riesling. These wines are amazing value in the UK, I bought this two years ago for £14 and you can get Haag's generic Riesling Kabinett for £8 and it is great. In the last decade people have moved strongly towards red wine, partly for reported health advantages but also possibly and ironically to get away from nasty off-dry whites especially bad German examples (I suspect this is more true of the UK then the US). Many people are therefore missing out on some of the best wine values around.

For those who don't know it, Chateau Coutet is one of the top producers in Barsac, Sauternes' neighbour making the same style and quality of sweet white wine. Had the 1981 on Saturday night with a few friends with some good duck liver pate at the start of our meal (I couldn't find Pate Foie Gras at short notice) and with an almond cake with summer fruits for dessert. I had drunk the 1986 vintage a few weeks before for my wedding anniversary - there's an age clue, I've been married 17 years - this was still just about hanging in there with a not too unpleasent caramel finish to it that I put down to oxidation. The 1981 although from a less celebrated vintage was still very youthful. It was light and fruity, mainly orange, with no cloying finish and importantly for a fairly expensive wine (about £30 in the UK), left a very pleasant and lingering taste in the mouth. I conclude from these two wines that in this case the storage of the wines (I can't vouch for the storage history of either) has been more crucial to their development and longevity than the original vintage quality. An obvious statement maybe, but when buying older wine we should probably be asking for a "full service history".

I had a very small glass at a wine tasting yesterday and my analytical powers may have been hindered by the two and a half hours of tasting already past. It was my first experience of Grange and as warned by Australian friends it was dissapointing. I know it is probably too young at six years old but I think it had breathed for a couple of hours. On the positive side it was fairly dry (I find most Australian Shiraz too sweet) and had some mineral undertones, but not much. It neither had the oppulence of other good Australian Shiraz's, nor the complexity and length of a good Rhone red or, to compare it with similar priced wines, a top red bordeaux. This wine now costs around £120 at release in the UK and with the exception of rare poor vintages prices rise with age. At this price I could buy almost any of the top bordeaux wines on release, or all but the very best at maturity. I confess to being a bit of a Francophile (or at least a Europhile) when it comes to wine, but my ardent Australia (and her wines) loving friends were in agreement.

Thanks for the notes. I have drunk Kefraya and Musar and always been impressed and I believe Ksara is equally reliable. Kefraya make a pretty good second wine (Les Breteches) which is cheaper and good value, but a word of warning about Musar's second wine (Hochar), I have had two different vintages and I find it a very thin wine with some strange flavours going on. I can't remember if it has some indigenous grape varieties with the bordeaux grapes, but unlike Chateau Musar it tastes nothing like red bordeaux.

This is my first egullet entry so excuse the amateurish formatting. If busboy wants to taste some real cats pee he should try French Sauvignons instead of New Zealand, most of which tend to have overpowering tropical fruit flavours. Bordeaux examples tend to be more peeish than Loire ones (e.g Sancerre), as long as they are predominantly Sauvignon and not Semillon. Best of all try some Vin de Pays Sauvignons, they are often the most characteristic of cat's pee and gooseberry and cheaper. Now I'm on board I plan to leave WTNs when I drink anything interesting, but as I'm in the UK they may not always be wines you can find in US shops. Tomorrow night I'll be drinking a 1992 Fritz Haag Auslese and I'm expecting some of that diesel starting to come through.