A Great Tasting Beginning to 2011

Great News for Wine Lovers! After a disappointing 2010 which saw very little of our fabulous wine discoveries being made available to enjoy in the UK, 2011 looks set to be a very happy year with the launch of a new company Blackfish Wine.  Blackfish is dedicated to supplying UK retail and the hospitality trade with full flavoured, expressive wines from talented small producers. And Vinbiz has the very exciting task of getting these wines tasted at all our fabulous wine tasting events!

On Jan 17^th, we had the opportunity to meet independent wine growers from all over France and taste a selection of their wines to assist in choosing the range of Blackfish wine. Wine 4 Trade deserve high praise for assembling such a diverse range of very regional wines created by some interesting personalities. This very exciting tasting will certainly have a great deal of influence over the tasting parties I conduct throughout 2011. There were some great wines with some great stories behind them

First we met Juliette who creates Pineau des Charentes with her husband in the tiny village of Macqueville, near Cognac. Pineau is a delicious blend of grape juice and Cognac, available in both rosé and white varieties. The Cognac is added to the juice to stop the fermentation so that some of the natural grape sugars are retained, then the Pineau is aged in French oak barrels for 4 years to create a smooth, balanced flavour. I particularly liked the spicy rosé which had rich prune flavours and a honeyed texture.

The Pineau des Charentes was a great aperitif which we followed with some deliciously crisp and fresh Alsace wines made by Michel Fonné. Michel is committed to sustainable farming as demonstrated by his use of the Tyflo label. Tyflo members earn the honour of displaying the label through a carefully monitored probationary period of two years to demonstrate their commitment to nature friendly, vine-growing techniques.

Michel’s wines are bursting with beautiful flavours – the Pinot Blanc was very soft with a subtle sweetness in the mouth and a refined, dry finish. The Gewurztraminer was spicy and rich while being fabulously fresh.

I was keen to try some Corbieres and we were made most welcome at the stand of Chateau Le Bouis. Didier Bonnet conducted the tasting of dry reds with lots of bramble fruit. The star was most definitely the Cuvée Romeo, a Decanter Gold Medal winner. This blend of syrah and carignan was both vinified and aged in oak barrel, deeply coloured with heady aromas of blackcurrant and vanilla bursting into blackberry and liquorice in the mouth, with subtle woody notes and a very long finish.

We were very impressed with Frédéric at Closerie Chanteloup, a very old family run winery producing organic Touraine wines in the Loire Valley. The sauvignon was incredibly vibrant bursting with elderflower and almost crunchy with freshness.

On this tour of France we really had to try some Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Eric Plumet took us through the biodynamic wines of Domaine La Cabotte. Biodynamic farming involves very careful observation of and working with the environment, soil, and changing seasons. It is labour intensive! Therefore only a small percentage of Cabotte vines are treated with these techniques. Eric was clearly very proud of the results; the wines fully expressed the terroir and were full flavoured, rich and spicy. A whole range of grape varieties go into his Chateauneuf-du-Pape, all from very old vines, and the resulting wine had incredible minerals and lingering, big, complex flavours.

Attracted by the name “Poulet et Fils”, I decided to also try some white Rhone wines. Emmanuel Poulet’s sparkling blend of clairette, aligoté and muscat was a deliciously easy drinking fizz. The still muscat and clairette was sweet but not sugary. Again, this was very easy drinking and enjoyable with lovely grapey flavours (interestingly, muscat is one of the only grape varieties to produce flavours of grape in wine!)

Another highlight of the show was the tasting of Patrick Fourreau’s first ever vintage of St Emilion Grand Cru. Patrick’s family has been making Pomerol wines at Chateau Haut-Surget for four generations, but he is the first to invest in St Emilion, using all his experience to create a very special wine with huge potential to improve further over the coming years. His decision to extend the family vines to this prestigious land springs from his personal love of the terroir and how this is reflected in the wine. Haut-Surget is very much a family affair and Patrick looks forward to how his 8 year old twins, a son and daughter, will express their very different personalities through the family vines.

On to Provence to visit Chateau de Calavon, a wine estate run by the Audibert family for over 150 years. I wanted to try a Provence Rosé and this winery delivered a very pale and interesting cinsault, syrah, Grenache pink. But this was overshadowed by the excellent white, a blend of vermentino and clairette which was very distinct, smooth with exotic fruit and lots of citrus, and the incredible Grande Réserve 07 which was the best red of the day. This full-bodied, oak aged blend of cabernet sauvignon, grenache and syrah was elegant with discreet wood balanced by red fruit. It was very rounded with great complexity – a total delight! A must for the Blackfish range!!

Still on the look out for a good Rosé, we spotted a very inviting bottle amongst the Rhone wines of Domaines Bour. Of course Nathalie Bour encouraged us to try the whole range of her family’s wines and the Syrattitude stood out, not only for it’s distinct name and labelling: old vines had produced full flavoured syrah which was aged in French oak to create mature red fruit flavours with very refined tannins. But it is the Rosé that sticks in my mind: a beautifully aromatic blend of cinsault, grenache and syrah full of strawberry and peach flavours – totally delicious.

It really was a fabulous and very exciting tasting, not only because of the diverse variety of wine but also due to the dedicated and very passionate wine makers that attended. Here at Vinbiz we can’t wait to be enjoying these wines and sharing the stories with the enthusiasts that come along to our tasting parties. Heres to a delicious 2011!!