From the Great Southern one of Western Australia’s most exciting new regions this snappy sauvignon blanc has a delicate
Posted in General on 14. Oct, 2010
From the Great Southern, one of Western Australia’s most exciting new regions, this snappy sauvignon blanc has a delicate aroma with hints of asparagus and mange-tout; a refreshing spritz follows with full-flavoured crisp, herbaceous fruit and a Pouilly Fum?ike intensity Try with a white fish steamed with ginger. Saturday
2002 Alkoomi Frankland River Sauvignon Blanc, £7.99, SafewayFrom the Great Southern, one of Western Australia’s most exciting new regions, this snappy sauvignon blanc has a delicate aroma with hints of asparagus and mange-tout; a refreshing spritz follows with full-flavoured crisp, herbaceous fruit and a Pouilly Fum?ike intensity. Try with a white fish steamed with ginger.Sunday2000 Ch?au de Cesseras, Minervois La Livini?, £9.45, Berry Bros & Rudd, London SW1 (020-7396 9666)Minervois La Livini? near Carcassonne has become one of the top appellations in the south of France, and deservedly so if this red is anything to go by. Made predominantly from syrah, the spiciness and rich blackberry fruit succulence of the grape really comes through. Ideal with roast duck and smoked meats.Any day2001 Moulin des Cossardi?s, Muscadet de S?e et Maine Sur Lie, £4.99, Marks & Spencer2001 was a very good vintage for muscadet and this version, from Domaine Chon, shows the classic tang and fresh spritz of muscadet left to age for extra flavour and creaminess of texture Lends itself well to soup noodles or prawn wonton.. The manure really hit the fan when French magazine Lyon Mag described Beaujolais not just as fermented fruit juice, but, worse, as “vin de merde”. Prompting this criticism was the execrable 2001 Beaujolais vintage, 15 million bottles-worth of which was distilled or turned into vinegar.
But last month a judge decreed that the magazine had gone too far and ordered it to pay nearly £200,000 in damages. Characterising sauvignon blanc as cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush never fails to amuse the uninitiated at wine tastings, though it’s no more an insult than comparing it to elderflower. But as there’s a movement towards cleaner-tasting wines, people respond less favourably to some of the earthier descriptions – even when they’re meant as a compliment. “Sweaty saddle” used to be a feature of Hunter Valley shiraz until the Aussies began to realise it wasn’t a virtue.
Anthony Hanson, head of Christie’s wine department, caused a stir when he wrote in his book on Burgundy in 1982 that “great burgundy smells of shit”. A decade or so later – reflecting a change in tastes even among experts – he removed the offending word from his second tome.Keen as they are on wild boar and jugged hare, the French also enjoy suggestions of decay or putrefaction applied to their wines. But the expression “sous-bois”, to suggest the wet-leaf, fungal smells of the forest, is reviled by Americans, who generally feel that wine and food shouldn’t be associated with poor personal hygiene. Like Australians, the closest they get to “sous-bois” is “forest-floor fruits” – an admission that decay of some sort can play an acceptable, even pleasurable, part in a wine’s composition – or decomposition.However, like them or not (and whatever names you give them), smells are complex and evocative and have a habit of popping back up our nostrils and into our brains unannounced. When the British wine writer Giles MacDonogh described a young Hermitage as smelling of hamster cages, it was because the odour reminded him of Kylie and Jason, his nieces’ pet hamsters. This malodorous comparison reached the Wall Street Journal, whose headline ran, “If your wine has a smell of ‘dirty feet’, it may be alright”.To return to Beaujolais nouveau, in the days we used to take it seriously by holding a tasting on the day of release, one journalist accused a particular wine that reeked of bad eggs (hydrogen sulphide) of “smelling like a French motorway toilet” That made a headline in the Daily Mirror.
As so many of us have ventured off a French motorway, little imagination was required. Not so in the case of Malcolm Gluck’s description of a wine as “like a sumo-wrestler’s jockstrap,” but let’s not go there …It all goes to show, the language for describing the nuances and complexities of wines, good and bad, is still only in its infancy. Pass the smelling salts, please.Colin Stacey of Manningtree, Essex wins first prize of a 24-bottle pack of Piper Heidsieck party-size (20cl) champagne, worth £150, in Anthony Rose’s Christmas wine quiz. Runners-up Brenda Jolley of Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancs and Mr & Mrs Wyldbore of Uxbridge, Middlesex each receive a four-pack of mini Piper Heidsieck champagne.. Why when I roast lamb am I not left with sufficient gravy? Last time it was a shoulder, nice and pink, but all I had was a dribble of juice – hardly enough to dampen the meat. Am I doing something wrong?
Q: Why when I roast lamb am I not left with sufficient gravy? Last time it was a shoulder, nice and pink, but all I had was a dribble of juice – hardly enough to dampen the meat. Am I doing something wrong?
Shaun Byrne, NewcastleA: Roasting the meat at a temperature high enough to seal in the flavour will also seal in the juice and any that does escape will evaporate in the oven If you want gravy, you must make it.