Fine Wine Club Archive
Explore your previous cases here in The Archive, with downloadable tasting notes from the winemakers behind your bottles. Plus catch up on live tastings.
Your case & tasting notes - July 2019
We buy our fine wines to order for club members so sometimes there's only enough for one bottle per person. Shop our in stock bottles here.
Passerina Bakan 2018
Country
Italy
Region
Abruzzo
Grape
Passerina
Market Price
£17.99
Angel Price
£14.99
Passerina Bakan 2018
By Riccardo IacoboneThe first thing to consider when approaching wines from Abruzzo in Italy is on which side of the fence do they sit. This area of wine production lies along Italy’s east coast, on the Adriatic sea. It has previously been known for highly cropped grapes which are blended in to other wines in the north of Italy to provide volume. However, today the yields have been reigned in and a select number of producers are invested in realising the full quality potential of this area that enjoy sea breezes from its many high-altitude vineyard plots. Riccardo Iacobone is one such producer who has focussed most of his energy in creating a healthy and vibrant ecosystem in and around his organic and biodynamic vineyards. This includes keeping bees, growing a large range of wild flowers and never using herbicides or pesticides. He is the Dr. Doolittle of wine. The animals love him.
Besides growing his much-loved Montepulciano, Riccardo’s portfolio extends to white grapes such a Trebbiano, Pecorino and Passerina. Each equally delicious as the next but it is the latter that has been chosen for the Fine Wine Club for its wide breadth of aromas and flavours. In Riccardo’s words: “Passerina starts its seduction with the nose: white delicate flowers such as daisy, ibiscus and acacia, and white fruits like lychee, pear and apple, citrus, bergamot, grapefruit, with a lovely balsamic note of sage and thyme. The taste is refreshing and mouth-watering: lime and salt are upfront, then softer sensations take place, and while the palate is still enjoying its crisp side, a delicate note of pineapple gently steps in.”
What a tasting note!
The vineyard is situated in the tiny sub region of Controguerra DOC, which is famous for higher quality Passerina. The planting density of the vineyard is impossibly low; 1,600 vines per ha, compared to 10,000 vines per ha in Champagne. The vines are grown somewhat like trees; upwards, in a pergola fashion. The objective here is protection from direct sunlight to preserve the aromatics. Rather than growing out of the canopy so they are easily accessible to pick as with ‘regular’ grape growing, here a canopy of leaves forms a roof of protection and the grapes hang freely from above. They are also high enough from the ground to prevent risks of frost or been eaten by animals. Harvesting requires quite a bit more work therefore as the picker has to crouch below and reach above to collect the grapes. But they taste great!
Once harvested the grapes are pressed and the juice is left on the skins at a cold temperature of 0C to macerate and extract all the positive aromatics as well as essential nutrients required for a healthy fermentation. Only stainless steel is used here in order to preserve the purity and freshness of the wine. What appealed to me most about this wine was the wide range of exotic flavours and specifically the texture of the wine. It has a silky, glycerol like sensation, yet it’s dry and refreshing. It’s an absolutely beautiful grape variety in my opinion and the quality invested by Riccardo in the vineyard is evident in the depth, breadth and length of the wine.
Unlike many other wines here in the Fine Wine Club, this is not a wine to keep and observe how it evolves. Its appeal is in the youthful, yet intense, primary fruits, so enjoy from now until June 2020.
Christian Patat Friuli Colli Orientali Sauvignon Blanc 2017
Country
Italy
Region
Grape
Sauvignon blanc
Market Price
£19.99
Angel Price
£15.99
Christian Patat Friuli Colli Orientali Sauvignon Blanc 2017
By Christian PatatMany of you will know Christian Patat from the widely appealing wines he makes throughout Italy. This wine differs from those in that he is seeking a different objective here. While his famous wines on the Naked website offer ease of drinking, and the occasional powerhouse, this Sauvignon Blanc from the north-west of Italy is based on elegance and finesse.
So Sauvignon Blanc from Italy. Who, where, what and why?
1. Napoleon.
2. Near the Slovenian border.
3. Sauvignon Blanc, as well as Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon – French grape varieties.
4. This region of Italy was ruled by France, under Napoleon, in the eighteenth century, so it was planted with all things French and has since become part of the tradition and culture.
The region in question is Friuli, and within that area the sub-region of Colli Orientali. A small appellation on a hilltop somewhat twinned with Collio, the other hilltop across the valley.
The soils here are largely marl; suitable for both whites and reds, though pockets of soils such as calcareous chalk, like what you see in the Loire, are also found here and which Sauvignon Blanc also favours as it gives more precision and focus to the wines.
Christian came across this project serendipitously. A friend of his was offered the opportunity to take over and manage a beautiful vineyard of Sauvignon Blanc. The timings weren’t right for him so Christian was able to avail of this plot of 40-50-year-old vines and put into place his own practices of organic viticulture to realise the true potential of these grapes.
He set about with a strict pruning regime to cut back quite hard on the vines in order to control the vigour of the site and achieve smaller, but more concentrated bunches – for tastier grapes. He then planted around 15 different cover crops between the vines. These are different herbs and grasses that introduce various nutrients into the soil, such as nitrogen, which is a vital component in the production of Sauvignon Blanc to express the aromatics which it is synonymous with. They are planted just after harvest, in autumn, and eventually mowed in spring when the roots are just at their most effective of contributing their nutrients to the soil. When summer arrives the cut cover crops, now dried out on the earth, are ploughed into the soil. These, along with other natural elements such as cow dung, contribute to the health of the micfroflora and structure of the soil, eventually becoming evident in the colour of the leaves and the truck of the vines which signal a healthy and prosperous vineyard.
For Christian, what all this means is that he is able to realise the full potential of the site. He prefers to pick the grapes ripe, never under-ripe where you would see green, overly herbaceous notes. His theory is if the Sauvignon is too grassy, it doesn’t come from a place, it just comes from a varietal. Therefore, he and his team hand-pick the grapes when fully ripe and do lots of sorting in the vineyard, not the cellar, so that the grapes can go straight into a chilled fermentation tank. Only a small proportion of the wine sees some oak; more as an option to adjust the final blend. After the fermentation, Christian does regular batonnage (stirring up the old yeast) to give texture to the wine, but not too much to keep the freshness of a Sauvignon Blanc. He describes this wine as being sophisticated without being too heavy on the varietal characteristics and recommends to drink now of its freshness your after, or it equally age 4-5 years where you lose lots of the typical Sauvignon characters and see more white peach with a wider range of aromatics. He’s currently drinking, and enjoying, the 2015 and 2016. One final piece of advice would be to not drink this wine too cold. Allow it to show off all of Christian’s hard work in the vineyard. And enjoy.
Rod Easthope Hawkes Bay Syrah 2017
Country
New Zealand
Region
Hawkes Bay
Grape
Syrah | Shiraz
Market Price
£15.99
Angel Price
£14.99
Rod Easthope Hawkes Bay Syrah 2017
By Rod EasthopeGuest contributor and winemaker, Rod Easthope, shares his thoughts on his brand new Hawke’s Bay Syrah 2017. Fine Wine Club members get first dibs.
Syrah may be the third string to New Zealand’s unique wine bow. Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir from the Land of the Long White Cloud have captured the hearts of fine wine lovers and rivalled the wines from their spiritual homes in the Loire and Burgundy respectively. But more recently Syrah from New Zealand has been making the wine scribes and sommeliers of the world sit and take notice.
Like fine Burgundy, Syrah from the hill of Hermitage and the slopes of Cote Rotie in the Rhone valley have become unattainable to everyone except the very wealthy. Burgundy lovers have been forced to reacquaint themselves with lesser appellations and Beaujolais to satiate their thirst. But where to for the Syrah lover if not the Rhone’s expensive and rare examples. The answer maybe Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand.
Like the Rhone’s finest examples, Hawke’s Bay produces Syrah with an abundance of perfume characterised as black pepper, aniseed, dried herbs and cherry like fruit. But unlike warmer climates such as Australia, the palate tends to be medium weight and elegant with a silky charm that contrasts with the intense aromatics.
One of the first Syrah wines from Hawke’s Bay to capture international attention was the Craggy Range Le Sol. And it just so happens that I was the Chief Winemaker at Craggy Range and was integrally involved in growing and making this headline grabbing wine. So, naturally, I was keen to capitalise on this experience to produce a Syrah for the Fine Wine Club.
The Rod Easthope 2017 Hawke’s Bay Syrah is from a single site in the heart of the Gimblett Gravels winegrowing district. This vineyard is organically managed and boasts a range of Syrah clones. The grapes were entirely hand-picked, then destemmed to open top fermenters where they were hand-plunged for the duration of fermentation. An extended period on skins post fermentation has lent the wine immense length and depth.
Once basket pressed the wine was run to a mix of French oak barriques and puncheons. The new oak component was 20% of the total meaning the that the new oak flavour does not dominate the grape derived aromatics. After a winter slumber in barrel the spring warmth encouraged a natural malolactic fermentation to completion. After a total of twelve months in barrel the wine was racked, fined and lightly filtered to bottle.
This wine lives up to its billing; beguiling aromatics of red cherry, black pepper, a hint of liquorice and tar. The palate is deceptively svelte. It’s silky length unleashing waves of fruit and character. This would appeal to lovers of fine Burgundy and Cote Rotie in equal measure.
Luca Hodgkinson The Old Mule House Priorat 2016
Country
Spain
Region
Priorat
Grape
Prieto Picudo
Market Price
£22.99
Angel Price
£18.99
Luca Hodgkinson The Old Mule House Priorat 2016
By Luca HodgkinsonLuca Hodkinson writes about the history and winemaking of his new Priorat which is exclusive to the Fine Wine Club
The wine region of Priorat was already planted with vineyards before the devastation of which the Phylloxera pest and was a prosperous region of wine and alcohol production. The high content in alcohol of all the wines of this region meant at the time a special quality treatment and the Priorat wines were used as a major blender wine for other wines of other regions.
The vineyards were owned by small growers who had their plots of land here and there. They came from the 9 villages in the Priorat to their vineyards, some for the day and some stayed over night, usually with their mule, the only animal capable of walking around this rocky and hilly mountains with some weight . Some of them built small houses to stay for the night and a cover for their mule, near a water well . Some of the houses were also used as fermentation cellars, where the grapes were carried to, fermented and then the free run juice was transported to the villages once dry, again on top of the back of their mules. The rest was sent to the distilleries to make high quality alcohol that was later traded in Reus, once called the capital of alcohol of Europe.
Today, the landscape is covered by scattered vineyards and mostly forests that have grown back from these old terraces. But you can still guess in between the trees and the vineyards these archeological pieces of proof of the viticultural history of this region.
My father, with the help of my grandfather, bought this property in 1972. It was a crazy bet at the time. Priorat was the poorest region of Catalunya, Franco was still around, and the property comprised 2 ruined buildings and 4 ruined Mule houses, not much to make a living off! Except for the remaining 70 Ha of land, that had a lot of potential.
I say it is a young project because we have only started to make wine in 2014. It was when I focused on starting this project after I felt ready -with a few vintages in my body- to start our family project, in a very slow motion timing. Selling grapes to finance winemaking while we discover what we are able to grow, and we define our style and identity.
The vintage 2016 was a very interesting one in the Priorato, average yield but with a very fresh summer and a fresher autumn. So it was perfect to keep acidity. In my search for separating all of our plots and terraces one caught my attention while tasting the grapes. It’s a couple of terraces of Garnacha Negra (Grenache) oriented East, just below what use to be a Mule House, now rustically re-converted in a guest room with an open air bathroom.
When we harvested it I thought I needed to keep it separate, although it was a very small batch. Once fermented (wild yeasts) we realized that it had a very good and long acidity and a vibrant tenacity. At such a point that the second fermentation -malolactic fermentation- did not happen spontaneously. Lactic bacteria are not fond of very acidic and alcoholic wines, and this wine probably has an acidity comparable to a crispy Sauvignon Blanc! As a result this batch stayed a part for a long time in barrels until today… Our philosophy is not to add anything else than a little bit of sulphur (sometimes) in our wines,
It took two years to make the malolactic fermentation and the wine is now what it is: a pure Priorato, vibrant, very much alive, with 2 years of aging in barrels. Because it has aged this 24 months in barrels, and because the malolactic fermentation happened very slowly in barrels, the aging impact of the oak on the wine is very well integrated. As a result, the smoothness of the taste counterbalances the long acidity that keeps this high note to the very end of the tasting experience. I like to think that the effect of soils is reflected in the texture of the wine, and more than texture we should talk about tactile sensations. This tactile sensation in your palate and tongue correspond to what the soil is composed of. In this case, you can almost feel the cold, sharp slate that allows high alcohol wines to feel fresh. Thanks to this very particular condition, this wine will age easily for more than 10 years. The cork has a guarantee of 12, so we should be fine!
I believe we don’t have a terroir in Priorat, because we don’t have anything like earth here... we only have stones! but we most definitely have a Stoneoir, and this is our interpretation of it. I hope you can enjoy it and that it can transport you to our very special piece of land in Priorat.
Domaine Giroud Macon Uchizy Vieilles Vignes 2017
Country
France
Region
Burgundy
Grape
Chardonnay
Market Price
£19.99
Angel Price
£15.99
Domaine Giroud Macon Uchizy Vieilles Vignes 2017
By Cathy and Eric GiroudA quick masterclass on Burgundy to kick us off. The white wines of Burgundy specifically.
In the far north, separated from the main body of the region, lies Chablis. It’s northerly location and Kimmeridgian soil giving it a tight, linear profile when tasting. Moving south, 130km down the road is Dijon where the Côte de Nuits begins and is adjoined to the Côte de Beaune; together they go by the grand title of the Côte D’Or, the Golden Slopes. The grape here, like Chablis and the majority (80%) of Burgundy, is Chardonnay. This is where we see the grape variety open up in complexity and structure. World class wines such as Meursault, Chassagne Montrachet and Le Montrachet hail from here. Their power and intensity marry well with new French oak and the best of them have the potential to age over a couple of decades. Next up is the Côte Chalonnaise; often over-looked or considered inferior to the above, but it is simply singing from a different hymn sheet. It offers another perspective of what Chardonnay can do throughout this wine region which is 230km in length. Here the wines are slightly lighter, have a purity and cleanliness to them. This is home to Rully and Montagny. They are sometimes more refreshing than complex. Which brings us to its southerly neighbour - Mâconnais. Having followed a relatively narrow line down the A6 from Beaune to Lyon, the region opens up somewhat here. Striking structures rise out of the ground and perch like thrones, their cliff faces over-looking the wide valley floors below. Names such as Pouilly-Fuissé and Saint-Véran found fame here. While the principle grape remains to be Chardonnay here (the alternative being Aligoté), there is a specific clone named Musqué that is widely grown. Its name describes its sensory characteristic; slightly musky in aroma. Further to this, given its more southerly location to Chablis, Chardonnay in the Mâconnais has a riper, more exotic profile.
And so to this wine in particular. Going under the title of Macon means it is not exclusively from one specific registered village or site. That’s fine. It’s important not to get lost in the bureaucracy of wine too often. While it can maintain greatness in some of the aforementioned wine appellations above, there is also scope for quality outside of the textbook. Location, age of vines and general care are the factors which can enable a vineyard to create a great wine. These vines have been in the family of Cathy Giroud for three generations and currently record a ripe old age of between 40 and 60. (Old for vines – spring chickens for humans!)
Their health may be down to the absence of herbicides sprayed to combat weed growth. Instead Eric and Cathy manually till the soil to aerate it and enable the growth of microflora in the soil for the sprawling roots to feed off. Everything seemed to go in the Giroud’s favour in 2017. No frost ( a rarity these days), no rot within the canopy despite the plentiful rains, which when followed by the abdundance of sun enabled great growth and yields. These older vines producer smaller berries than their younger counterparts, resulting in more concentration and flavour intensity. The bunches were machine harvested, as opposed to hand-harvested. There a few reasons to choose this approach – access to manual labour, costs etc.. But one key advantage to machine harvesting is the speed in which the grapes can be collected, in the very early, cool mornings, thereby preserving all the key aromatics.
Once inside the winery the grapes are gently pressed, cooled, their particles allowed to settle over three to four days before fermentation kicks off in stainless steel tanks. No oak is used to preserve the primary, pure fruits which the old vines yield. The wine is then stored in these tanks, that are packed like sardines inside the smallest winery you’ve ever seen, for one year to rest and marry.
The wine is ready to be drunk already. 2019-2020. Ideally don’t drink too cold. Chardonnay starts out like a blank canvass; its sense of place and origin painting its identity across the palate. Too cool and you silence that expression. Somewhere heading towards room temperature and it starts to speak to you. Here, there are some lovely ripe cantaloupe melons and golden delicious apples on the nose. The palate is layered with crystalline qualities of honeydew melon, with a ripe unctuous mouthfeel. There is just enough acidity to counter balance this level of concentration of fruit, often found in good quality, well maintained older vines.
Roblin Sancerre Rouge Origine 2016
Country
France
Region
Loire Valley
Grape
Pinot noir
Market Price
£24.99
Angel Price
£19.99
Roblin Sancerre Rouge Origine 2016
By Matthias and Emile RoblinSancerre Rouge is one of those wines which evokes thoughts of ‘where has this wine been all my life and why haven’t I heard of it before?!’
The reason is relatively straightforward; 80% of Sancerre Rouge is sold and consumed in France. It’s miniscule production, relative to its better-known white wine cousin, is simply not enough to export. The grape here is Pinot Noir and oh how the wines have improved over the past decade. In fact, most red wines from the Loire have improved greatly in recent years, thanks largely to better canopy management to enable full maturity of the grapes, so that there are less green, herbaceous notes of yesteryear and more ripe, juicy and silky fruit characteristics today.
This particular wine from Mathias and Emile Roblin is a perfect benchmark of quality for the new style of red wines from the Loire. The nose evolves from a restrained style of Pinot Noir, to a more open, advanced, ripe and fruity style with a really lively palate. The wine has lots of vibrancy; crunchy red fruit characters of raspberry, some cranberry and just enough acidity to give you a tingle. Importantly, the tannins are well managed in that they give a nice lightly chalky support to the wine. Subtle, but effective, in their role. Tannins are one of the trickiest things to get right when looking for balance in a wine, especially when aiming for full maturity so Emile and Mathias have really nailed it here.
The ripeness, Emile tells me, comes from the greater proportion of limestone than clay in the Portlandian soil on which these Pinot Noir vines grow (in comparison to a greater proportion of clay to limestone in the Kimmeridgian soil on which the Sauvignon Blanc of Sancerre Blanc grows). Furthermore, their south facing orientation give the vines longer exposure to sunlight which enables full maturity. Emile believe that 2016 was on the best vintages for Pinot Noir in the Loire; the cool weather pattern resulted in a longer growing season but in perfect health. This encouraged them to do whole bunch fermentation on one third of the harvest. Fermenting the grapes whole, as opposed to crushing them and fermenting the juice on their skins, gives more freshness to the wine. The fermentation happens inside the berries, giving greater purity of fruit. However, it’s a technique only to be used when the stems have ripened completely, from green to brown, so as not to introduce a harsh stalkiness to the wine. The balance of the crop was de-stemmed and fermented as normal, with the wine sitting on skins for two to four weeks, depending on how each tank is progressing. They taste daily and once each tank has achieved the correct structure and flavour balance, they drain off the skins and transfer to 600L barrels. They favour this size of barrel over the 228L barrels used for Pinot Noir in Burgundy as the larger format gives less of an oak flavour influence, and simply allows for the slow and gentle contribution of oxygen through the oak to help soften and round out the wine.
This is a wine that can age for five to eight years, where the primary fruit which is so evident now will evolve to a more savoury, slightly truffle-like character and an even silkier palate. Each to their own as to when to consume.
