¡Vinos de España!

This was a tasting organised by the Edinburgh branch of Villenueve Wines some weeks ago now, on 7.10.10. Villenueve have an interesting selection, although some of these wines seem pricey for what they are.

WHITE

Vinos Piñol, Portal Blanc, Tierra Alta, 2009 £8

This is a Catalan wine from the DO Terra Alta (or Tierra Alta, in Castilian Spanish) made from a very modern blend of Garnacha Blanca (that’s Grenache Blanc, which, despite the better known French name, is indigenous to Spain) and the more unusual Sauvignon Blanc, not indigenous to Spain and not at all common in this area.

It looks attractive, with a green tint that denotes its youth and its Sauvignon, and an effervescence that again goes with youth and freshness. But it’s a simple wine, without much fruit to offer on the nose, just a vague leafiness. On the palate, it’s slightly tart, with – I’m stretching here – perhaps a hint of the spice that Garnacha Blanca can offer. Very much an entry level white.

Izadi Blanco, Rioja, 2007 £10

White Rioja is principally made from Viura (known in other parts of Spain as Macabeo), a variety that produces typically acidic wine that takes oak well and can be (when handled properly) long-lived. It isn’t, however, a variety that produces a very characterful fruit flavour, which is why I’ve never really understood the attraction of “new wave” unoaked white Rioja, in which the wine is supposed to rely on its inherent fruit rather than its ability to manage oak into a structure that will mature well. A true adherent of old school white Rioja, i.e. the oakier the better, I was startled at a trade tasting a few years ago to discover that all but one of the offerings of new white Rioja was unoaked, and frankly, these were not very notable wines.

This wine, despite billing, is not one of the new school; it is still, thankfully, distinctly oaky. Viura is a great grape for acid, and this cutting wine is definitely one to pair with food – oaky white Rioja and smoked salmon, for instance, is a sublime combination. The oak character itself in this wine is very much American (in Rioja, unlike in most of the rest of the European wine industry, American and not French oak barrels are used) with notes of vanilla, coconut and a confected quality evocative of glue or nail varnish that can also sometimes characterise Portuguese wines. (Nicely, in my opinion, lest that sound like a negative tasting note.) Not a huge amount of depth, no subtlety, but enough punch and acid to sit nicely with your roast chicken. Quite reasonable for £10, these days.

Pazo Barrantes Albariño, Rías Baixas, 2008 £18

Albariño is Spain’s most famous white wine variety, produced principally in the Rías Baixas area of Galicia, Spain’s north-western province (above Portugal on the map). Its prestige inside Spain, not a country especially well-served by its white wines, is high, which has inevitably pushed up prices. As a variety, it is often compared to Viognier thanks to a typical peachy quality, although there are also less exuberant, drier examples.

This Albariño definitely belongs to the peachy-Viognier school, with a fair weight of fruit (peaches meet lemons) jostling with the acid. Clean, fresh, and fruity, fairly powerfully bodied for a white, but not cheap.

RED

Más de Bazán, Bobal, Utiel-Requena, 2006 £10

Utiel-Requena is a DO in Spain’s Levant, inland from Valencia. Often described as up and coming, it actually has a very long-established wine industry. Bobal is a variety indigenous to Spain’s east, not really grown anywhere else, and particularly well established in Utiel-Requena, partly because it proved relatively resistant to phylloxera (the aphid that arrived in Europe from America in the 19^th century and went on to devastate much of the European wine industry). Not known for its finesse, Bobal tends to produce simple, rustic wines that can be charming, or tannic and astringent.

This wine is dark, opaque even at the rim of the glass, which suggests it is relatively heavy-bodied. It has a hot (that is, smelling of fruit from a particularly hot climate/ vintage) and cherried bouquet, while on the palate, it is tannic with soft fruit, simple drinking. Rustic indeed.

Otto Bestué, Finca Sabina, Somontano, 2007 £13

Somontano is a DO in Spain’s relatively remote north east, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Again an area until recently known (inasmuch as it was known at all) for rustic, very local wines, it has supposedly been modernising fast, although I confess I have had many a so-so wine from the area.

This wine is made from a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Spain’s own Tempranillo for a fairly neutral, red wine character. The nose is rather reductive, that is, having had no oxygen for a long time, it begins with sulphurous, gassy whiffs which soon blow off naturally enough, revealing a cherried character. (Rather a typical Italian tasting note, cherries.) Quite tart on the palate, with little depth.  

Sonsierra, Gran Reserva Rioja, 2001 £18

Gran Reserva on a Spanish wine indicates that in the case of red wines, it must have been aged at least five years (with a minimum of two in oak), which will naturally lend the wine an immediately mature, oak-dominated character.

Rioja is made principally from the Tempranillo grape, Spain’s best, and while it is generally mixed with smaller amounts of other varieties, the Sonsierra is pure Tempranillo. On the nose, it offers notes of wet dog hair, and that port-like glue note along with the fruit. On the palate, I am surprised by the relatively youthful, juicy quality of the fruit – I wouldn’t guess this were a Gran Reserva. Subtle hints of cinnamon and nutmeg also emerge with the brambly fruit. I confess I was a little disappointed considering given what this is; aging might mature it somewhat, but this doesn’t have the depth to go long distance.

Teófilo Reyes Crianza, Ribera del Duero, 2006 £20

Like Rioja, in Ribera del Duero – another of Spain’s great wine-producing areas – they depend principally on Tempranillo (under its local name of Tinto Fino), although here they also mix it with Cabernet Sauvignon. Crianza is another term related to the age of the wine, meaning it has spent at least six months in oak.

This dark, powerful wine has spent a full year in American oak, adding a vanilla character to its strong notes of brambles and black fruit. Far too tannic at the moment and never destined to be a truly great wine, this will nevertheless improve with aging. The intensity of the style could leave me believing it were a Californian wine.

SHERRY

González Byass, Oloroso Dulce “Matusalem” £16/ half bottle

Without going into the details (today) of sherry production, Oloroso is one of the richer, nuttier styles of sherry. Brown in colour, tawny gold at the rim, it smells of walnuts, quite like some port, but without any of the fruit that port would also carry. Medium sweet, with notes of dry toffee and a complex, lengthy, syrupy palate.  

No.1 Sushi Bar

It’s a bit naughty of the No.1 Sushi Bar (Tollcross, Edinburgh) to include wasabi peas on their list of starters, when really these are not starters but bar snacks, crunchy carriers for those who like having their nostrils and upper palate tickled by wasabi, that peculiarly Japanese, mentholyptic alternative to chilli. It’s a shame – fresh peas prepared with wasabi sounded like an exciting culinary innovation, but they turned out to be Oriental supermarket snacks poured out into a bowl and priced up accordingly.

We’d popped in for a quick pre-cinema, and No.1 Sushi essentially did the business. It’s rather like a sit-down equivalent of Sushiya, with stork-print wallpaper for low-key Eastern elegance, but still with the Japanese television going, tonight showing sushi preparation aimed at English speakers. For a real starter, we had dumplings filled with vegetables and bean curd, a natural mix of textures from very mushy bean curd via the vegetably softness up to the slightly crisped dumpling dough (fried, not steamed), and which only really took on flavour fulfilment when properly dipped in the soy-based dressing they came with. Deep-fried bean curd is something that looks alien and exquisite, like squares of Spanish leche frita with shavings of Autumn-dried oak leaf, that once again has a quite simple flavour really needing the soy dressing to bring it out. Presumably without soy sauce the Orient would have been obliged to evolve a different cuisine. We didn’t try any sushi, which is rather unfair on a restaurant with this name, but N1 has at least enjoyed their dragon rolls in the past.

For a winter-filling main, we went for traditional style ramen with Udon noodles (they’re the thick, wheaty ones), one of the great Japanese staples. N1 compared it rather unfavourably with the ramen at Tang’s, where she found the meat meltingly soft. The broth certainly needed a little salt to properly bring out the complexity of flavours that make it up. Dessert – what else but green tea ice cream? This was the way it should be, not too sweet, with a powdery, crumbly texture.

Fremiets revisited

Fremiets 2004 Domaine Jean Boillot Volnay Premier Cru

I wrote about this wine in my post of 25.10.10, and last weekend we revisited it at a more leisurely pace over dinner. We paired it with hare on the grounds that Burgundy is supposed to like game, although perhaps in retrospect and at least in relation to this wine, that should be qualified to game birds. Hare turned out to be much stronger than we expected, with a liverish taste and texture (admittedly ours was a bit well-done) quite like venison, and definitely too much for this fine, fragrant Volnay. In the end, we decided it was much better enjoyed on its own, after dinner.

The bouquet is dominated by notes of raspberry and orange, beautiful red fruit aromatics. There’s a little bit of a whiff of childhood about it for me, as the sweet, slightly boiled fruit reminds me of Rowntree’s fruit pastilles and, later on, the distinguished fruit boilings we were given at the end of our dinner at Per Se. Boiled fruit is often cited as a negative quality in “cooked” New World wines, but subtly and in such a fine structure as here, it can be an attractive quality.

Given time, notes of black tea come through prominently amid the fruit. Hints of other typically Burgundian qualities, such as leafiness and game, are never more than very residual qualities. I found it becoming meaty last time (not gamey), but that doesn’t stand out at all this time – ah, the vagaries of tasting. It has a very soft mouthfeel, which suggests to me that it is not a wine that will go on for ever and ever, and when we last drank this, it was felt it was probably a wine for early consumption. On the other hand, TNB ( http://www.finewinediary.com/index.php ) finds it still too young, and I am intrigued to know how it will age. Will the aromatics simply fade out with the soft tannins, leaving little behind, in which case it should certainly be drunk now? Or are those primary fruits going to change with the rich acid into attractive secondary qualities?

There are still two bottles at home. We will give the Fremiets the benefit of time and the doubt and report back in a few years.

Bordeaux Dinner 11.11.10.

These notes were taken over dinner at Hewat’s in Causewayside, Edinburgh. Everyone associates Bordeaux with powerful, earthy red wine, but the whites tonight were a salutary reminder that - when you can find it - white Bordeaux can be stunningly good. As for the reds, the left-bank classed growths from the 90s generally felt still a little hard and tannic, while those from the 80s were becoming more open and attractive.  

I was struggling so much to keep up with notes on the wines that I rather neglected the (competent but uninspiring) dinner.

Moët et Chandon Grand Vintage 2000

A champagne aperitif. Not very bready, really a mix of green fruit and buttercream, a delicious balance of cream and acid with a “not very ferocious” lemon character. Definitely showing Chardonnay character, even without the real toastiness Chardonnay often supports, this is quite a cut up from the Moet NV. Very pleasant to drink now, this no doubt has the potential to be a deliciously rich drink ten years hence.

WHITE

Château de Fieuzal 1999 Pessac-Léognan

A mix of oak and candles on the nose in a fine, delicate structure. It tastes older than its contemporary, the Louvière, and seems a fairly classic example of Sémillon character, although it is made from equal amounts of Sauvignon and Sémillon. Like the Louvière, a brilliant match for our smoked salmon starter. Evolves relatively little over the evening.

Château La Louvière 1999 Pessac-Léognan

Even lighter than the Fieuzal, to begin with there is a relatively small amount of oak in a predominantly citric bouquet, and a slight oiliness on the palate. As the evening progresses, it shows a variety of herby and woody notes (I thought of thyme and pencils), but most prominently gooseberries (classic Sauvignon character) in an otherwise very floral bouquet. The Louvière is 85% Sauvignon to 15% Sémillon, and the dominance of Sauvignon clearly shows through.

Château Bouscaut 1967 Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan

I wrote about the ‘89 Bouscaut in my posting of 5 November, and have since been persuaded to “go old” and try the ’67. The colour is extraordinary for an ostensibly white wine, between apricot and pink. It is exceedingly smooth, with gentle notes of almond, orange, dried apricot and toasted butter. There is no trace of the lemon quality left that lingered in our ’89. Beautifully mature, it doesn’t feel like it’s a bit past its peak.

Domaine de Chevalier 1983 Cru Classé Pessac-Léognan

Still very fresh for a wine of this age, it begins by offering lemony notes along with a surprising saline quality. It has quite a fine structure, with sharp acid. A few woody notes emerge, and then – in the manner of the Louviére, but more powerfully – it becomes highly floral, as part of what I’m now assuming to be a classic Bordeaux Sauvignon style – in fact, it is made from 70% Sauvignon and 30% Sémillon. This wine is from one of the very few Bordeaux estates to be called domaine instead of château.

RED

The multiplication of Bordeaux classification systems can occasionally confuse, and it is worth noting that, for example, the Smith Haut Lafitte is a premier cru in the Graves classification (since Pessac-Léognan is a sub-region of Graves), and not in the 1855 classification of the Médoc (which nevertheless does include Graves wines). All the other reds of this evening are from the Médoc and do fall under the 1855 classification, bar the two Soutards, which are right bank wines measured by the Saint-Émilion classification.

Château Smith Haut Lafitte 1994 Pessac-Léognan Premier Cru

The Smith Haut Lafitte still seems fresh, and even a bit closed. It has fairly thick tannins, black fruit, hot wood, no real secondary notes yet. I found this to be the most simple of the reds, but there was at least one vote for it as wine of the evening. I suspect a few years careful aging might make it a very different wine.

Château Langoa-Barton 1994 Saint-Julien Troisième Cru

An absolutely classic Bordeaux nose of cassis and cigar box, followed by softer notes of lead pencils on the palate. It still feels a shade too young, but has more to offer than the Haut-Lafitte, and is certainly at the beginning of its drinking window.

Château Langoa-Barton 1996 Saint-Julien Troisième Cru

1996 was a better vintage in the Médoc than 1994, and that shows through very clearly when comparing the two Langoas. The 1996 has a similar but more complex nose with leafy notes, and an attractive smokiness also showing though the classic cassis and cigars. Over the evening, the 1996 goes on to exhibit a perfumed quality before, interestingly, entering a dumb phase, which may suggest it has quite a lot more development to do.

Château Pontet-Canet 1995 Pauillac Cinquième Cru

A fairly heavy nose, with notes of gravel, earth, wood and, eventually, beef stew among the black fruit. Powerful, tannic, too young, needs time.

Château d’Armailhac 1995 Pauillac Cinquième Cru

Another 1995, this is again a bit too young, although this is less obvious than with the Pontet-Canet. Lighter than the Pontet-Canet too, with floral notes but an overall less complex, less attractive nose.

Château Pichon-Longueville 1989 Pauillac Deuxième Cru

Fairly classic Cabernet character, the sort of sweet cassis that can evoke Ribena. Also some lovely, unusual curry spice notes in a juicy, very smooth structure. More developed and considerably more attractive than the previous two. Definitely one of the best reds of the evening.

Château Leoville-Barton 1988 Saint-Julien Deuxième Cru

Gravelly with notes of tobacco, and mouth-wateringly acidic. N1 thinks it is too acidic – certainly it calls for a good steak, at least at this age. Powerful fruit dominated by a mineral character, I probably would have guessed this were from the Graves in a blind tasting. Got more votes than any other as the best wine of the evening.

Château Lagrange 1982 Saint-Julien Troisième Cru

Intense cassis with subsidiary vegetal and tobacco notes. Extremely smooth palate. This is drinking beautifully now, but as a serious wine from such a good vintage I would also expect it to be able to go on for a good long time yet. Lovely structure.

Château Beychevelle 1986 Saint-Julien Quatrième Cru

Sadly, just a touch corked, this was the only bad wine of the evening. Still plenty of good qualities, such as liquorice and black tea, show though, advertising an attractive wine underneath. I’m not sure of the “wet leaves of Autumn” note is part of the wine per se, or the corkiness.

Château Soutard 1970 Grand Cru Classé Saint-Émilion

Notes of plum in tomato sauce, this is very moreish if perhaps a little faded. The Soutard is our first right bank wine of the evening and it shows in the soft fruit, more rounded character, although the very smooth character is also a function of age.

Château Soutard 1990 Grand Cru Classé Saint-Émilion

This is a stunning wine, showing much better than its very much older brother. The bouquet is a mixture of liquorice, classic “wet dog” and highly floral aromatics – quite a complex blend at the beginning of its drinking window.

DESSERT

Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey 1997 Premier Cru Sauternes

Repaint the house! – is my initial thought (admittedly after 16 other mostly unspat tasting measures) on smelling this premier cru sweetie, as the luscious apricot fruit has alcoholic notes so intense it evokes housepaint. There’s so much power here, in a wine very young for what it is. A real botrytis beauty, with subtleties no doubt destined to emerge, but for now, I would give this some cellar time.  

Fortification for salarymen

Experience (multiple visits) continues to suggest that Sushiya remains Edinburgh’s best Japanese restaurant. I am especially partial to their vegetable tempura which, at its best, comes as a work of art with crispy batter clinging to the vegetable in pendant, alien forms. I confess it wasn’t quite so artistic on our visit last week – no strange branches of batter at improbable angles - but it still tasted as good. Shame that our sushi rice was a little tired, and had probably been around for a while, but everything else was lovely.

Japanese-style eggplant came marinated in soy, ginger, spring onion and bonito flakes. Absolutely delicious, even if it needed to warm up a little, as it came fridge cold. The marinade gave me a very vivid taste memory of Boston’s stellar Japanese restaurant O Ya.

Grilled ox-tongue skewers came with a peppery marinade, and a slice of lemon. The marinade was spot-on; the lemon was a mistake, as the lemon juice rather swamped the surprisingly light flavour of the meat. I am sure ox tongue isn’t always so chewy, but it tasted good and I don’t consider the texture to have been a problem.

A bowl of their traditional ramen, the heart of our meal, comes steaming and full of goodies, including bean spouts, bamboo shoots (surprisingly sweet), half an egg, pork (which has been in some kind of sweet marinade) and of course the ramen noodles themselves, in a beige broth tasting of miso and egg. This hearty kind of food, a defence against the ferocious northern Japanese winter, is the counterpoint of the image of Japanese cuisine as being composed of sculpted, precious little cuts of raw fish on miniature roundels of rice. 

We’ve had a lot of fun in the last couple of years learning about sake. Sushiya doesn’t give one much choice in the matter, since sake culture has yet to reach Edinburgh (unlike London, where it can feel there is nary a street without a Japanese restaurant, and sake lists can be very developed). The Hakushika Ginjo is a fairly low-end sake, frankly a little rough, short on the palate, with slight (fairly typical) notes of melon and cucumber. But every sake lover has to start somewhere, and for the time being, this is what there is in Edinburgh.

Dessert was green tea ice cream, matcha-heavy and not too sweet. Lovely.  

Sushiya does really look the part; I’ve never been to Tokyo, but the narrow room with high tables, barstools, TV playing unsubtitled Japanese TV and a counter behind which you can see sushi getting prepared correspond exactly to how I imagine a noodle bar ought to look. It’s small, cosy and sometimes steaming. You wouldn’t want to linger here; it feels more like a fast-turnover sort of place that, in Japan, would be fortifying salarymen against another epic shift in the office. 

The many forms of lemon

Château Bouscaut Cru Classé de Graves 1989 Pessac-Léognan

Chardonnay – from dry, oaky white Burgundy to exuberant, tropical New Worlders – is a basic touchstone of wine drinking, and the first grape variety many people learn to identify by taste. It takes oak aging very well, and while there is a wave of unoaked Chardonnays now coming out of the New World, Chardonnay remains the natural, default assumption when oak taste is prominent in a white wine.  It can come as a surprise to the palate when an unidentified, oaky white does not otherwise correspond to a Chardonnay profile.

That was my instinctive reaction when I tasted this wine, even though I knew perfectly well there was no Chardonnay in it. It is dry white Bordeaux, which in general is made from Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc or, as on the case of this wine, a blend of the two. It smelled initially of lemons and dusty oak. Now lemon must be the most common tasting note of all in a white wine; probably more white wines than not could be plausibly described as having lemony notes. (I once got in trouble for writing elsewhere that one wine offered in a tasting “smells fresh and lemony; but so does washing-up liquid, and this is not much better, so let’s move on.”) And Chardonnay, while it is more classically fuller, tending towards melon and in some cases tropical fruits, may often have lemony notes to offer.

The Château Bouscaut ’89 did not remind me of Chardonnay at all, despite its oak and lemons. Where Chardonnay would be rich and melon-like, the Bouscaut is dry, not full. It has a very slight smoky note rather integrated with the oak, and a waxy texture that makes me think of candles in churches. Waxiness is a fairly classic Sémillon note, and it can come across in Tokay, too.

This is a good wine. Better vintages of it from the sixties are still being drunk (by the proprietor of Raeburn Fine Wines). No doubt the lemony quality in such old wines will have become quite attenuated, hopefully against the growth of attractive secondary qualities in among the wood, although it might by then be wood and not a great deal else. As for us, it went surprisingly well with our quiche lorraine (and egg can be a bit of a wine killer), although it struggled against the cumin in our sautéed cabbage, and did not perform particularly well against the chestnuttiness of roasted Red Hokkaido squash or the very evocative “Autumn woods” taste it took me a while to place of roasted Harlequin Squash.