Charles Metcalfe:

Some rather depressing research done by UK supermarkets on the level of wine knowledge amongst British wine drinkers. 58% think that Chablis is a grape variety; 43% think Chardonnay is a region and only 16% think Champagne comes from France, often thinking it comes from Italy and Spain. Only 3% consider what they are eating when choosing a wine. Price is the most important factor, even more important than the wine's colour.

Cristiano van Zeller (one of the Douro Boys)

The Douro Boys is a brilliant example of producers working together to promote not only their own wines but also their region.

A survey into what makes a wine producer interesting and credible came up with four important factors. These were small production, good reputation in their home country, wines coming exclusively from their own vines and the estate being family owned.

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Jancis Robinson MW
With Julia Harding MW, Jancis is now busy writing a new study of grape varieties. Of the 1600 different varieties in the world, 10% come from Portugal which is quite extraordinary for a small country.


Advertising by generic bodies is a waste of resources. Jancis cited the large amount of money spent by Bordeaux wines on adverts that were absolutely worthless.

The 50 best Portuguese wines chosen by the journalist who wins the Portuguese wine writer of the year is a very good initiative.

The enthusiasm of the ambassador is helping to promote a country's wines and can be very important, especially in providing recommendations for press and trade tastings.

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Portuguese Wine & International Media

Kristine Baeder (Meininger), Elin McCoy (Bloomberg), Simon Tam (Independent Wine Center, China)

Kristine Baeder

Sadly Kristine's presentation was dreary. Quite why she thought that delegates would want to travel from around the globe to listen to a tedious presentation of her employers' business is beyond my understanding. Still she is not the first to have made this mistake at a conference.

Fortuntately the poor start was rescued by Elin McCoy and Simon Tam. (more to add)

Jancis Robinson MT (master of tweeting)

Ryan Opaz: always a tweet to see Ryan!

Charles Metcalfe


Alastair Marshall (Adnams)

Christine Austin

Neal Martin

Ana Sofia Oliveira, director of marketing VinPortugal

Carrie Jorgensen (Cortes de Cima)

Ken Payton (Reign of Terroir)


 

 

I have recently received a review copy of Tony's new book. He is one of Canada's leading wine writers and probably the longest established. His Cellar Book is subtitled: 'How to design, build, stock and manage your wine cellar wherever you live'.

As you would expect from a writer of Tony's experience this is well written and a good read – he also writes wine crime detective stories. Subjects covered include why you should store wine and where to store it. As well as the basics a considerable part of the book is taken up with what wines to put into your cellar.

Naturally my first check was to see what Tony would recommend in the Loire. His dream Loire cellar includes Silex and Pur Sang from Didier Dagueneau, Grand Clos from Château de Villeneuve, Bonnezeaux from Fesles, Les Rouannières from Château Pierre-Bise, Quarts de Chaume from Domaine de Forges, La Belle Dame from Vacheron and Les Millerits (Anjou Villages) from Domaine des Rochelles. I would be happy with any or all of these choices.

However, Tony has rather exaggerated the area under vines in the Loire – citing 300,000 hectares. This may have been the total pre-phylloxera, there are only around 70,000 ha planted now.

Jancis Robinson MW

Earlier on in the book Tony cites Jancis Robinson MW's guide to grape's aging potential. She gives Loire Chenin Blanc – 4-30 years, which was a bit of a surprise. Having tasted a number of Chenin Blancs well over 30 years of age – some more than 60 years old, this seems to me a bit of an underestimate.

Tony Aspler's Cellar Book is published by Random House, Canada Can$32.95, 339 pages, sepia illustrations.

(Apologies that this post has been rather disjointed for the last few hours but have been caught up with working on the post on my investdrinks-blog.)

Wehlener Sonnenuhr – early morning 10th June 2006

The world famous Mosel vineyards are threatened by the building of a new motorway bridge. Here is an opportunity to add your name to the petition protesting against the construction.

Message from Sarah Washington:
'A small practical task to help save the Mosel valley and Riesling vines from desecration.

The German gourmet magazine DER FEINSCHMECKER has begun an online petition to help save the valley and vines from the politician's bulldozers and concrete.

On the left hand side of the following web page you will find an English translation of the petition and instructions on how to fill it in. The petition is further down in the centre of the same page.

http://www.b50neu.de/feinschm_e.html

You have until the 1st of December to sign the petition and circulate this link wildly. (After so doing you will accrue undying appreciation from all corners of the planet.)

News in brief:

Building work is moving ahead in several places (digging holes and clearing land). To counter this the debate is finally hotting up here in Germany. On Tuesday 3rd November the story was covered on the highly respected investigative news show Frontal21: http://frontal21.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/13/0,1872,7921069,00.html'

Related articles

Jancis Robinson MW: Please fight Mosel madness 11 May 2009
Jancis Robinson MW: Last chance to stop the bridge 17 August 2009
Mike Steinberger (Slate: 10th September 2009): I'm tasting tar, traffic cones, motor oil...

Echoes from the New York Times of an earlier fight to save the vineyards of Vouvray from the TGV. The plan to build a cutting through the vineyards was abandoned. Instead the line was moved a little further east and sent through a tunnel with the tracks laid on a rubber carpet so that bottles of Vouvray being stored above would not be shaken.

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• A tragedy unfolds in Germany's Mosel region (wineanorak.com)

Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion 6th edition, Mitchell Beazley £40, $US60

Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson: The Concise World Atlas of Wine, Mitchell Beazley £18.99, $US29.99

Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine 2010, Mitchell Beazley, £10.99

Francis Gimblett: In and Out of Africa – in search of Gérard Depardieu, The Wine Adventurer Press, £7.99

Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion 6th edition, Mitchell Beazley £40, $US60, 672 pages (publication date: 7th September 2009)

This sixth edition of Hugh’s Wine Companion, which was first published in 1983, has been revised and updated by Stephen Brook. Subtitled The Encylopedia of Wines, Vineyards and Wine revising such a book virtually single-handed in today’s wine world is a huge and daunting undertaking.

When I receive any new book I naturally turn first to the Loire section, assuming that’s relevant – not even I expect to see the Loire covered in a book on Argentina!

So far I have only had time for a quick look through the Loire section and particularly at the selected producers, who are assessed on a scale of one (sound and steady wines) to four stars (exceptionally fine or great quality, consistent over many vintages). The following estates are given four stars for all or part of their production: Coulée de Serrant, Philippe Delesvaux, Château de Fesles, Clos Naudin (Philippe Foreau) and Didier Dagueneau.

Overall I wouldn’t argue with the assessments given to the producers selected, nor the selection itself given that space is, of course, limited. I would, however, have made Clos Rougeard (Les Frères Foucault) a four star producer, especially given their consistently high quality over many years. I noted the comment that Baron Patrick Ladoucette’s ‘Pouilly-Fumé wines are inexplicably expensive, and always have been.

Inevitably there are some minor errors mainly relating to changes in ownership:

Saint-Pourçain is in the process of being promoted from VDQS to AC – awaiting the appropriate Minister to flourish their pen over the document. (I’m sure this news came through after the Companion went to print.)

The Coteaux de l’Aubance AC is for sweet wines only not off-dry whites. The appellation rules require that the grape must should have 230 grams of sugar before any chaptalisation (added sugar) and after fermentation the wine must have a minimum of 11% alcohol and 34 grams of residual sugar. (Quite why producers are still allowed to add sugar when making sweet wine with an AC is completely beyond my understanding but I digress.........)

Muscadet négociant, Marcel Sautejeau, is no longer family run – it has been bought by Castel. Nor is Sauvion et Fils still family owned – bought by Grands Chais de France at the end of 2007.

Château de Fesles is no longer owned by Bernard Germain – it was bought in 2008 by Grands Chai de France. Château de la Roulerie is now owned by Philippe Germain, a son of Bernard.

Raymond Raffault of Domaine du Raifault (Savigny-en-Véron) unfortunately died of cancer a number of years ago and this Chinon estate is now run by Julien Raffault.

Sadly the wines of Château de Chenonceau are no longer made at the château but by Bourgrier. This is a pity not because Bougrier make bad wines but that as vines have been part of the Château de Chenonceau, at least since the time of François 1, and it was one of the first places in Touraine where Chenin Blanc was planted it would be good if the link with the past history was maintained.

Pascal Cotat is based in Sancerre not Chavignol, although the vineyards are in Chavignol.

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Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson: The Concise World Atlas of Wine, Mitchell Beazley £18.99, $US29.99, 352 pages (publication date: 7th September 2009)
This is the first time that Hugh’s famous atlas has appeared in a paperback version. Described as concise, so that this is a more portable version of the full-sized atlas, concision has come at the expense of photos and wine labels rather than the maps and the text.

First published in 1971, the Atlas has long been one of my favourite wine books and I’m sure I will find this new concise edition useful.

A small quibble in the Loire section – Anthony Hwang bought Domaine Huet in 2003 (correct in the Companion) not in 2005 as asserted by the Atlas. I have a rather larger quibble, however, on the assessment of Menetou-Salon – ‘The best can certainly rival the laziest exponents of its neighbour to the east Sancerre.’ This underestimates the quality of the best Menetou-Salon from producers like La Tour Saint-Martin, Henry Pellé, Prieure de Saint-Cérols, Domaine de Chatenoy and others. They are way better than bottles from Sancerre’s ‘laziest exponents’. The sentence seems more to have been written for effect, although, of course, it is always difficult to sum up in the very few words available.

Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine 2010, Mitchell Beazley, £10.99, 320 pages (publication date: 7th September 2009)
I cannot make any comment or complaint about the Loire entries here as I’m responsible for revising them. I’ll leave others to throw stones!

Francis Gimblett: In and Out of Africa – in search of Gérard Depardieu, The Wine Adventurer Press, £7.99
I'm including this self-published travel book to the vineyards of North Africa on the most nebulous of excuses – Gérard Depardieu owns Château de Tigné in the Layon. Not that Francis Gimblett searches for Gérard in the Loire. Instead he was inspired by tasting Gérard's new Moroccan red on a TV programme to set off in a Land Rover to discover the vineyards of North Africa.

The book is an amusing and fun read with a number of one liners, or extended on liners in this case: 'One producer cited global warming as a reason for beginning to make red wine in England; though on tasting his Pinot Noir – the experience not unlike crashing face-first from a bicycle into a patch of nettles ('rather herbaceous', I think he put it). He and his travelllng companion, Philip, get into a number of scrapes, so it is far from a standard wine book.

In and Out of Africa can be bought on-line from http://www.thewineadventurer.com/

Francis Gimblett and Philip@the Vintners' Hall launch party 20th October 2009

Francis accompanied by Philip held a launch party recently at the Vintners’ Hall in London and bravely put on a tasting of around 50 wines from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. Unfortunately the majority rather confirmed the view that North Africa is too hot to make wine that is attractive to drink. The selection from Algeria was particularly poor.

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Taste Languedoc blog
Well-known wine writer and author Rosemary George MW has recently launched a blog on the wines of the Languedoc. She has been visiting the Languedoc since 1979 and has a house down there near Pézenas, so you can be assured that the blog will be authoritative. The url is http://www.tastelanguedoc.blogspot.com/