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Taste of the Grape, Autumn Wines and Spirits – Part II

Written by Giles MacDonogh

Taste of the Grape, Autumn Wines and Spirits Part II

Written by Gile MacDonogh

20 november,2024

A great autumn treat is the Bordeaux Grand Crus Classés Tasting at Church House. It is interesting to see how recent vintages are panning out for some of France’s top wines. There is huge promise in the 2023s and 2022s, but with a few honourable exceptions, most 2021s are distinctly lean. The previous vintage, 2020 is on track to becoming great, but one to put away for a good few years yet.

Daniel Cathiard at Smith-Haut-Lafitte is still bathing in the glow of his royal visit. There was a photograph of King Charles on his stand. I didn’t quite have the nerve to ask if Charles and Camilla were offered a therapeutic bath in grape pips and husks as I was when I stayed a night in the château. I declined, telling Daniel’s wife Florence that I would take the treatment internally with dinner. To be fair to the Cathiards, the wines are really tip-top. The 2021 will be ready long before the others.
The Pomerol Château Gazin was the first to show a 2023, and wonderful it was too. The 2022 was already having its siesta, while the 2021 was quite a step down. Gazin showed the 2020 too, which was a classically elegant Bordeaux, not a blockbuster.

It is always a pleasure to see Stephan von Neipperg on these occasions. He is a remarkably fluent commentator on wines and vintages, and he makes some of the best in Bordeaux. I started with the Clos de l’Oratoire in St Emilion. The 2023 (in cask) was peppery, the 2022 closing up, the 2021 light but pleasant, and the 2020 really quite heavenly. This pattern was established for his other wines. With the Château Canon La Gaffelière, the 2021 was one of the best I’d tasted, although not a keeper. The 2021 La Mondotte was gamy, which I quite liked, but the 2020 in another league.

Château Canon conformed to the rule. The 2023 is quite seductive in its primary fruit. Canon’s stablemate (they are owned by the perfumier and fashion-house Chanel), Château Rauzan-Ségla in Margaux had one of the best 2021s: a very attractive nose, but not much body. As a rule, the 2021s are better from the Médoc. The star for now was the 2020 with its lovely cooling tannins and great length. Also, in the Médoc, Branaire-Ducru produced a stunning, classic 2020. The excellent Château Pontet-Canet follows the same path: enchanting fruit on the 2023, 2022 creeping into its shell, 2021 better than most, and a simply magnificent 2020.

Château Montrose was a little different. They didn’t show the 2023. The best here were the 2022 and 2020. The 2021 seemed awkward. The last stop is always the luscious sweet Sauternes Château Guiraud, a real palate-cleanser after all that tannin. Here the 2023 was the most promising, the 2020 light but lovely.

The Serbian Vojvodina was a different kettle of fish. We had a tasting of Grašac wines orchestrated by Caroline Gilby and Igor Lukovič. Grašac is better known by its other names: Olasz, Laski, Italico and Welsch Riesling.
None of the synonyms inspires confidence for those who knew Eastern European wine before the Fall of the Iron Curtain, but in Austria – particularly in Styria and Burgenland, Welschriesling has always had a very good reputation. In Styria it makes fresh, lemony every day white wines with a racy acidity, while in Burgenland Welschriesling provides the grapes for many wonderful sweet wines – high acidity is the perfect foil for a wine that might otherwise be simply cloying.

The wines we tasted were from the Fruška Gora in the Vojvodina, a low mountain stretching east-west above the south bank of the Danube. Like Lower Austria, hundreds of kilometres away, it benefits from the warm Pannonian climate, and thanks the Roman Emperor Probus for planting its first vines. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1718 to 1918, and many of the older local buildings are in an all too familiar idiom.

Some of the Grašac wines were impressive: the powerful, fresh appley and cooked gooseberry-like 2023 Frug; the minerally 2023 Đurđić and the best of all 2021 Geronimo Erdevik, made from old vines and tasting of dried fruits (particularly apricots). There was also a late harvest wine from Fruškogorski Vinogradi which showed that the Vojvodina could make good sweet wines too.

A particular treat was matching some other Vojvodina wines with a lunch prepared by the kitchens of the Swedish star-chef Niklas Ekstedt in Whitehall. Smoked ember-baked scallop with a flambadou oyster worked best with a 1922 Chardonnay S edition from Kovačević; birch-fired trout with grilled vegetable foam and dill was happy with a natural wine, the marmeladey 2022

Uncensored Traminer from Bikicki; a hay-smoked beef tartare with a pickled trompette mushroom, went well with the 2021 Momentum Cabernet Sauvignon Veritas; the pine-smoked duck with apple purée was happy with the excellent 2019 Fabula Lagum from Chichateau; and, finally the smoked dark chocolate mousse with blackberries and blackberry ice cream was coupled with a wonderful 2012 Bermet from Kiš. It was reminiscent of cold mulled wine and quite delicious.

I had a memorable saké-matching meal too, but I must confess I was pretty new to top-quality saké. The event took place at Silo in Hackney Wick. I had been to Silo before, but in its old incarnation in Brighton. It is a zero- waste restaurant – the world’s first. I had an interesting meal in Brighton, but this one seemed to be a bit more hedonistic than the last, which is surely a good thing if you are dining out. Simplicity, like frugality, begins and ends at home.

The first course was a ‘Quaver’ with Yama no Kasumi sparkling saké: the quaver was naturally a sort of sweet biscuit with grated cheese. The saké was cloudy with a good, creamy pear-like taste with some caramel. The next course (‘onion course’) was a grilled red onion with Tsuchida 99 which used a koji mould fungus, one of the sources of miso which yields the much-lauded ‘umami’ or ‘savoury deliciousness’. It certainly reminded me of dried cep mushrooms, ham and chestnuts and went very well with the modest onion.The third course was Dragon egg tomatoes, koji caramel, nasturtium with Zaku Monad which was another tasting experience altogether: roses, slivovitz, and quite salty on the palate. The tomatoes were all different with a creamy sesame-imbued sauce.A fourth course united seabass sashimi with turnip kimchi and a Tokyo Port Brewery Junmai Ginjo sustainable saké. The saké was all pears and pear-drops with a salty structure and some honey sweetness.A fifth was composed of Siu pork with a Shichida 75 junmai (pure rice) saké. The marinaded pork was cut from the shoulder and cooked with sesame and wild garlic.


A sixth brought together Amazake dessert and Daruma Umeshu Koshu, a sensational old saké tasting of apricots, plums and salt. And then, course seven produced a second dessert, a sort of bread-and-butter pudding sandwich made using stale bread and demerara sugar.
The sandwich was filled with butter and sprinkled with elderflower vinegar. It was delicious. They called it ‘close the loop ice cream sandwich’ and it was served with Tsuchida 99. This was the best combination of the evening.

While saké is strong (mostly about 15%), vodka is naturally stronger (40 + %). My next food-and-drink matching meal involved vodka-based cocktails. The venue was The Ivy in Covent Garden, on the site of the last incarnation of the venerable restaurant Boulestin. I was told there were now as many as fifty Ivys all over Britain, all offering something of the theatrical allure of the mother-house. The vodka was a rarer bird: Altamura is distilled in Poland from a special, protected, primitive durum wheat from Altamura in Puglia which gives it a sort of bready character as well as both smoothness and
delicacy.


We had a champagne cocktail, very nice arancini and olives, and the chance to sample the PDO Altamura bread; martinis were served with an old-fashioned, unashamedly smoky, smoked salmon; fillet steak and pommes dauphinoises with negronis and an espresso martini with the Ivy’s chocolate bombe.It was a very enjoyable meal but I half wondered if I was going to make it home. I had been wise, however, and not finished any of my drinks. I think that saved the day.
Finally, in a nod to the approaching Advent, together with my son Joseph I sampled a box of whisky tots from Drinks by the Dram which might be the ideal present for your favourite whisky-loving codger. Ours was ‘World Whisky’ with twenty-five (ie one included for Christmas Day – which
is not strictly speaking in Advent) 3 cl dram bottles, coming from all over the whisky world, and a very wide world it is too.

https://drinksbythedram.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooekO76YEn-rpusKRxCUmDNYmFrXd2i0XGUrOuaPoGyhqS6v-Hj

You can tailor your choice to more classic whiskies, bourbons, Japanese whiskies, peaty whiskies etc. if you don’t fancy this particular box.
There seemed to be a random element about the selection, but maybe that made the exercise more fun. There was one Scot, a 15-year-old Tamdhu from
Speyside, and apart from that, six Indians, five Irish, three US, two English, two Japanese whiskies and one apiece from New Zealand, Sweden, Wales, Australia, Denmark and Israel. Some were a little disappointing,but others made our eyebrows shoot-up.

 

 

The best were (in no particular order) Teeling Pineapple Rum Cask (Ireland), Nikka From The Barrel (Japan), Stauning Danish Whisky El Clasico Rye, Fielden English Rye Whisky and High Coast Whisky Oak Spice fromSweden.

Let winter roll in: I am now braced for it!

 

 

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Giles MacDonogh

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