You say tomato, I say Te Mata

You don’t know how many years I’ve waited to make that feeble pun in print. The Te Mata in question is New Zealand’s oldest family-owned winery, where vines were first planted at their Havelock Hills vineyard in Hawkes Bay back in 1892.

In recent years, the New Zealand wine regions making waves in the export market have been elsewhere: Marlborough, home to the oceans of Sauvignon Blanc that we do our best to drink dry every year; and  Central Otago and Martinborough for their Pinot Noir. Hawkes Bay has taken something of a back seat, despite having a long history of winemaking dating back to the mid-19^th century.

While we tend to think of New Zealand as pretty much a white wine producer (all that Sauvignon Blanc), Hawkes Bay has major plantings of Syrah, Merlot and other red varieties. Sauvignon Blanc is still the single most planted variety, followed by Chardonnay, but as a region it stands out as one of the few parts of the country able to successfully ripen the warmer climate Bordeaux varieties and Syrah.

The climate of Hawkes Bay is broadly similar to Bordeaux, ie warm summers and a strong maritime influence. Hawkes Bay just edges it on annual average hours of sunshine (2188 vs 2052) and has slightly less rainfall (803mm average vs 900mm in Bordeaux). Compare this to the averages on the south coast of England, usually the sunniest part of the UK, of around 1750 hours of sunshine a year and 900-950mm of annual rainfall. I can certainly see the attraction of Hawkes Bay from a sun-lover’s point of view.

A key part of Hawke’s Bay’s renown is down to producers like Te Mata, with their long time reputation for fine reds and compelling white wines.

Te Mata wines in the UK

Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc – Majestic list the 2012 vintage for £23, The Wine Society for £17.50; thedrinkshop.com has the 2010 for £18.21, but you must buy 6 bottles

A style first made by Te Mata in the 1980s, this confounds the typical Kiwi Sauvignon model, which is fermented in stainless steel and designed for early drinking. Looking to Bordeaux (again) for inspiration, they barrel ferment in 25-30% new oak and add Semillon and Sauvignon Gris to the blend. Ignore the usual advice for New World Sauvignon Blanc, which is DYA (drink youngest available) – this is a wine that really gets into its stride after a few years in bottle.

The mix of varieties and the barrel fermentation give a more interesting texture and range of flavours than you would usually find in a Kiwi Sauvignon. The 2012 is a youthful, linear wine with fennel and angelica aromas and a powerful, mineral finish. The 2010 has gunflint aromas overlaying tropical fruit. The palate has some viscosity and a touch of grapefruit bitterness – this would be my choice for drinking now.

Elston Chardonnay – Berry Bros have the 2012 for £28.95, New Zealand House of Wine for £21.99 and various independent merchants at prices in between

We’re more used to Chardonnay being given the barrel fermentation and ageing treatment, in classic white Burgundy mode. While New World makers of this style of Chardonnay are probably heartily sick of having their wines compared to Burgundy, it’s hard to look beyond it when looking for a benchmark for oaked Chardonnay.

I especially love the 2013 vintage, which doesn’t appear to have hit the shelves here yet. It combines Chablis-style minerality and lively acidity with a floral note and manages to combine delicacy with bags of flavour. While you’re waiting for this to arrive, you’ll just have to try a bottle of the linear and intense 2012.

Coleraine 2010 - £49.95 from Berry Bros, £39.64 from thedrinkshop.com, £46.29 from Flagship Wines. Older vintages available from various independents

In New Zealand terms, Coleraine is a positively antediluvian wine, dating back to 1982. It’s the jewel in the crown of Te Mata’s wines and arguably one of New Zealand’s finest. If you have expensive tastes in claret, this could be a relatively cheap option.

It’s a classic Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc and it has classic Bordeaux proportions too: medium, not full, bodied and with a sense of power reined in; dark cassis fruit with cassia and clove spice along with juicy acidity are there now. You could certainly enjoy it now, but wouldn’t necessarily see the point of it for a few years yet.

If you’d like that Bordeaux blend in something to enjoy rather sooner (and more cheaply!), then search out a bottle of Te Mata’s Awatea. There’s some lovely summer pudding style fruit (and acidity) here and prices for the 2009 vintage start at around £21 from various independent merchants.

Estate Vineyards Gamay Noir 2013 – £12.95 from The Wine Society; older vintages £13-15 from independent merchants

At the positively bargain end of things, I hugely enjoyed this Gamay (the Beaujolais grape) with its crunchy plum and raspberry fruit. It had the acidity and fruit intensity to stand up to a tomato and red pepper risotto and, like Beaujolais, is extra refreshing served lightly chilled.

Everything you think you know about wine is wrong

Back in the mists of time, I remember being taught that all wine-producing grapevines (Vitis vinifera) are grafted onto American rootstocks, to protect them against the splendidly named Phylloxera vastatrix.  Phylloxera is a louse with a complex life-cycle which includes feeding off the roots of vines.  The damaged roots allow in other diseases which can lead to the death of the plant.

Phylloxera is native to North America and arrived in Europe in the second half of the 19^th century.  Over the following decades vine disease and death became endemic across Europe’s vineyards, causing concern, bordering on panic, that winemaking could be wiped out by an unknown enemy.  Once the culprit had been identified the search for a solution began.

The answer lay back in North America, where native vines such as Vitis rupestris had evolved in the presence of Phylloxera and had developed a thick enough “skin” on their roots to resist the attentions of the pest.  All was not plain sailing, though, as these native American vines differed from European varieties, producing wines with what we politely call “foxy” flavours.

The eventual solution was to develop hybrids of these natives and to use only their rootstocks, allowing growers to graft their familiar Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay and indeed any Vitis Vinifera variety onto them.

Without the sturdier, hybrid rootstocks based on the native American vines, I gathered, not a single vine of the European Vitis vinifera would be left standing.

Grand tastings of ancient and rare wines sometimes trumpet “pre-phylloxera” vintages of claret, Port or Madeira – providing a fleeting glimpse of wine as it used to taste before the technique of grafting changed it forever.  For most of us, it’s a taste we can experience only vicariously by reading tasting notes of the lucky few who have tried them.

But then I began to come across to exceptions to the American rootstocks model, such as the ungrafted vines found in Colares, Portugal.  There, the incredibly sandy soil is a barrier that the Phylloxera louse has never been able to cross, avoiding the need to graft the vines onto protective rootstocks.  Bollinger Champagne also famously has its tiny walled vineyards of ungrafted vines in Äy, producing its “Vieilles Vignes Françaises” cuvée.  There are also vineyards in Chile where ungrafted vines flourish, because natural barriers (the Pacific Ocean, the Andes, snow and ice to the south and arid desert to the north) as well as strict quarantine on imported vine stocks have kept the country Phylloxera-free.

Once you start looking, it seems, there are ungrafted Vitis vinifera vines almost everywhere, from Australia and Argentina to China and Crete.

 

Henry Marionnet's Touraine winery

Recently in Touraine in the Loire Valley, I was intrigued to discover a producer, Henry Marionnet, who has 6 hectares of ungrafted vines, including Sauvignon Blanc and Gamay, as part of his 62 hectare Domaine de la Charmoise estate.  M Marionnet is not blind to the risks he is taking and is fully aware that Phylloxera is as prevalent in his vineyard as it is anywhere else.  Currently, however, the fungal-based diseases eutypa and esca are more pressing concerns for winemakers in the Loire, where they are currently responsible for vine dieback and death on a worrying scale.  While Henry Marionnet has no plans to increase the proportion of ungrafted vines on his estate, thus far disaster has not struck and he has succeeded in making delicious wines from his ungrafted vines, sold under the label Viniféra.

 

Henry Marionnet

While I have grown used to stumbling across ungrafted vines at almost every turn nowadays, it is unusual for a winemaker to make a wine purely from such vines. My inner wine geek rejoiced as I was treated to a tasting of two wines – made from the same variety and from the same vineyard and vinified in exactly the same way, but one from ungrafted Sauvignon Blanc and  the other grafted onto a rootstock in the usual way.  While the grafted wine made perfectly textbook Touraine Sauvignon, with plenty of herbal, blackcurrant leaf flavours, the ungrafted wine was a revelation.  It had greater intensity, more pronounced fruit and with a broader range of flavours – a more substantial wine in every way.

 

Marionnet Sauvignon Blanc Viniféra

The same experiment with M Marrionet’s Touraine Gamay provided a different illustration of the role of rootstocks.  The ungrafted wine had more structure, but also more elegance and delicacy than the grafted one.

 

Marionnet's Cot from ungrafted vines

Henry Marionnet’s Viniféra wines are not widely available in the UK, but you can find his Gamay Viniféra at Caves de Pyrène of Guildford for £15.97 a bottle or at Exel Wines for £90.09 for six bottles.  His Provignage, made from ungrafted vines of the very rare Romorantin grape is available through The Wine Society for £42 a bottle.

 

Provignage, made from Romorantin grapes

Heny Marionnet’s wines were a fine illustration that the world of wine is not static and will always contain more complexity and contradictions that you will ever find in a text book.  The wine world, as with real life as a whole, is often messier and more interesting than the theory.  Those working at the margins are often the people who propel the world of wine forward into other, more interesting places, enriching it for us all.  Even if sometimes they make us despair of ever being certain of anything ever again.

Maybe not everything you think you know about wine is wrong – but it seems there is always something new to learn.  Sadly, I hear we are now supposed to refer to Dactulosphaira vitifoliae instead of good old Phylloxera vastatrix.  Is nothing sacred?

Beaujolais - back to the Eighties?

Margaret Thatcher in the news, David Bowie in the charts, Beaujolais in my glass – is this really 2013, or have I travelled back in time to 1983? 

Back then it was Beaujolais Nouveau that had us all aflutter:  a wine bottled and released almost as soon as it had finished fermenting.  Its charms are all about immediate drinking, with its cherryade fruit, mere suggestion of tannin and sometimes more than a hint of Hubba Bubba.  

At least part of its success was due to the publicity raised by the race that developed around this wine that was released annually on the third Thursday of November.  Trains, planes (or helicopters) and automobiles were involved in bringing Beaujolais to British drinkers post haste from the vineyards, brightening up an otherwise dull time of year and providing a perfect excuse for a liquid lunch.

Beaujolais Nouveau is still made, although in much smaller quantities than its 1980s heyday, when it accounted for around 60% of all Beaujolais produced.  The Nouveau is designed to be drunk over weeks, rather than months or years – though the distinction between it and regular wines is really not that great.

Wine geeks (me included) will want to know that the Nouveau style is achieved by the use of carbonic maceration (or in many cases, actually semi-carbonic maceration – I did say this bit was for geeks).  In classic red wine making, the grapes will first be crushed (though not pressed) to release their juice and to allow the skins to contribute colour and tannin during the subsequent fermentation.

Carbonic maceration, in essence, involves leaving the berries whole in the fermentation vats.  Yeasts on the grape skins will start to feed on the sweet juice within the berries, leading to a gentle fermentation which results in a wine with plenty of colour, low tannins and “so bright you gotta wear shades” fruit.  However, alongside the fruit can be some less welcome aromas of banana liqueur, even bubblegum.

The Beaujolais quality ladder

If you want to leave the ephemeral charms of Beaujolais Nouveau behind, it pays to understand a bit about how the region’s wines are classified.

In some ways Beaujolais is refreshingly straightforward – the reds are all made from the Gamay grape (or Gamay Noir à jus blanc to give it its full name) which seems to have a natural affinity with the region’s granitic soils.  Large-ish grapes with thin skins make for fruity, fleshy wines which are relatively light in colour.  The tiny proportion of white Beaujolais (yes, I’m not teasing, it does exist) is made from Chardonnay.

Knowing how to interpret Beaujolais wine labels should give you a good idea of what you’ll find in the bottle.  At the most basic level is straight Beaujolais, made anywhere within the region and accounting for around half of all production.  A step up from there is Beaujolais-Villages, made from generally hillier sites which have been judged to produce better quality wines.

At the top of the tree are the ten Beaujolais “crus” – essentially villages whose wines have been judged of sufficient quality that they can simply put their names on the label.  If you’re planning a wine-themed pub quiz any time soon, naming all ten is an exquisite torture akin to recalling the names of the Seven Dwarfs.  For the record they are:  Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, Chiroubles, Chénas, Moulin à Vent, Saint Amour, Fleurie, Regnié, Juliénas and Morgon.  In the interest of journalistic integrity, I hereby confess that I could only get to eight without recourse to a reference book.

Some of my current favourite Beaujolais – none with a hint of bubblegum (and shoulder pads are strictly optional)

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Beaujolais-Villages 2010 - £6.99

If you ever set foot in a wine bar in Paris or Lyons, it’s likely that the wine you’ll be offered to accompany your plate of charcuterie is from Beaujolais.  The region’s wines are the perfect foil to salami, ham, saucisson, pâté and the like, its lively fruit and juicy acidity cutting through the fattiness of the meat.  This one is a great example of decently-priced, good quality Beaujolais with attractive strawberry fruit.

Georges Duboeuf Chiroubles 2011 - £9.99 from Waitrose

If there is one name synonymous with the region it is that of Georges Duboeuf, the man behind the flower Beaujolais labels and indefatigable promoter of the region.  This wine is a delight for Spring drinking:  vibrant, deeply coloured, with floral and loganberry-scented fruit, soft tannins and wonderful light freshness.  Chiroubles is renowned for producing the lightest wines of all the Beaujolais crus and this one is a charmer. 

Henry Fessy Brouilly 2011 - £11.99 from Waitrose

Classic Beaujolais is definitively light bodied, and this lightness can lead to it being denigrated as lacking seriousness – an unfair charge that is never levelled at its northern neighbour, Burgundy, and its decidedly light Pinot Noir.  If you’d like to see what a serious lightweight wine tastes like, then grab a bottle of this Brouilly, from the most southerly of the ten crus.  The low temperature fermentation has retained the freshness of the lively red fruit but also managed to provide enough depth of flavour to make a perfect match with spring lamb.

New balls please

With our exit from the Euro a couple of weeks back – what, you didn’t know? Yes, we lost to Italy on penalties in the quarter final. Oh THAT Euro, you say. This column has a proud history of hanging out in the shallow end of the pool of intellectual and political import, and it’s not about to change now and start providing incisive and telling insights into the economic woes of the Eurozone.

No, I merely remark that, once booted out of the Euros, we turn our sporting attention and wine goggles from footballs to tennis balls and Wimbledon, SW19.

Some sports lend themselves to stereotypes and the football versus tennis clash provides a rich source of inspiration. Tennis seems so much more refined, well-mannered, dare I say it, so much more Surrey darling, than football. Tennis players are undoubtedly athletes making great physical effort on the court – yet you don’t find them spitting on the grass between points, or doing that nasty footballer hold-one-nostril-while-blowing-out-of-the-other noseblow as they trot back to their chairs at a change of ends. And in general tennis players don’t question the personal habits or parentage of the umpire if a call goes against them.

The drinks that we associate with the two sports reflect these differences too. Years of hooliganism and drunken bad behaviour mean football fans at the ground itself are denied the pleasure of knocking back a bevy as they watch. But if they could, it would be hard to imagine them passing round pitchers of Pimm’s, being sure to get plenty of cucumber, strawberry and mint in their glasses. OK, maybe at Chelsea.

To my knowledge there has never been any crowd trouble when Wimbledon kicks out at the end of play, despite many spectators having consumed gallons of Pimm’s, on top of a few shared bottles of Champers over lunch. Mild irritation that public transport really could be better co-ordinated, outrage at the cost of strawberries and cream (“For what you get it must work out at over a pound per strawberry.”), wishing those women players wouldn’t shriek and grunt like pigs in labour, and so on seems to be as far as tennis goes in terms of aggro.

Assuming you are in the comfort of your own home and not stuck at Wimbledon itself, forced to shell out a fiver for a pint of sickly sweet Pimm’s, what is a suitable tipple to have by your side as you sit comfortably while the athletes in white disport themselves on a tennis court for our enjoyment?

Beaujolais 
If there were ever a wine whose style fits this on-off, so-so summer weather, it’s Beaujolais. These mostly red wines (but see below) are full of vibrant, juicy fruit, yet are light of body and tannin. Always give them a bit of a chilling to heighten the refreshment value.

Beaujolais-Villages, Combe aux Jacques, Louis Jadot 2011 – from around £9.99 at Waitrose, Tesco, Budgens, Spar and Booths
This is the Beaujolais equivalent of Gordon’s Gin – the reliable standard that all others are measured against. Good balance of refreshing, juicy raspberry and cranberry fruit, with the tannins giving the palate texture. Textbook stuff.

Chiroubles, Georges Dubeouf 2011 - £9.99 at Waitrose (currently the 2010 vintage)
As you climb the Beaujolais quality ladder, the word Beaujolais itself is left behind and instead you find one of the ten “crus” or sub-regions on the label – in this case, Chiroubles. Remembering all ten is a wine-lover’s alternative to the pub quiz stalwart of naming the Seven Dwarves. The various crus reflect differing soils, aspects, altitudes – all those things which can be neatly summed up in the word terroir. Georges Dubeouf is one of the biggest names in Beaujolais, whose face, memorably likened to a “haunted parking meter” by Anthony Rose, each year launches millions of bottles of Beaujolais onto the market. This Chiroubles has perfumed fruit with generous black cherry and raspberry fruit flavours that scream summer drinking.

White Beaujolais 
A few years back, a (non wine trade) friend asked me if I’d ever tried white Beaujolais. I looked for a sign in her eyes that she was winding me up. Was this some kind of test? Was this the wine equivalent of being sent to find some sky hooks?

A quick scramble to check reference books taught me that such a thing does exist and now, finally, I’ve tried some for myself. Made from Chardonnay, it represents only 1% of production from the region, so it’s not the kind of thing you’ll stumble across regularly. Beaujolais the region lies immediately south of Burgundy, the spiritual home of Chardonnay. Neighbouring regions fashioning white wines from the same grape they may be, but a casual drive from one to the other will tell you that they feel quite different. Where Burgundy is built on limestone, Beaujolais’ bedrock is granite, which informs the flavours of its wines. Here the Chardonnays feel softer and rounder, often with subtle herbal flavours alongside the ripe honeydew melon. If Scotland had the climate for wine-making, this is how I imagine its wines would taste.

They are not the easiest wines to track down, but if you put the effort in, you too can try the “What do you think of white Beaujolais?” question on someone - and watch them squirm.

Beaujolais-Villages Blanc, Vieilles Vignes, Domaine Arnaud Aucoeur 2011 - £10.95, current vintage is 2010, from Yapp Brothers (www.yapp.co.uk)
Fresh and youthful aromas redolent of sea breezes lead onto a gently rounded palate with aniseed-tinged fruit.

Beaujolais Blanc, En Fût, Jean-Paul Brun 2010 - £12.95 from Ox House Wines (www.oxhousewines.com) for the 2008 vintage
Ambitious and Burgundian in style, this barrel fermented and aged wine has flint and angelica aromas, fine acidity and great length.