Steenberg Merlot 2010

I'm approaching the stage in my personal wine education where I'm going to start blind tasting. I think I can say with complete confidence that I would have got this wine 100% wrong in a blind tasting. I don't know what Steenberg's secret is, but they've managed to make the gentle and unassuming Merlot grape produce a more Cabernet Sauvignon / Shiraz like wine - big full bodied and absolutely delicious.

The wine is dark red with just a hint of a tawny rim and it coats the glass nicely hinting at a high alcohol content (14%). The nose brings an initial waft of savouriness followed quickly by deep and juicy red fruits with just a subtle hint of vanilla.

I couldn't wait to taste the wine and it lived up to its promise with a lovely mouth filling flavour a perfect melange of the savouriness and the fruits that I picked up on the nose, a nice almost chewy complexity and just the tiniest hit of tannins on the finish. Due to a miscalculation on Russell's part I got a full 75cl bottle to taste, but this wine was so good that the entire bottle only lasted a little longer than the "one gulp" 12.5cl samples we normally get to taste.  A new personal favourite.

Clive Holroyd
Database Manager

"At last a white wine that needs some air"

Mission Estate Reserve Chardonnay - I have, of late gotten into quite a comfortable place with modern Chardonnay regarding them all as really quite similar unoaked whites that could quite easily be mistaken for many other whites that we all know and don't loathe owing to not having a recent past obsession with heavy oaking.  So I have to say I opened up the Mission Estate Reserve Chardonnay expecting more of that same familiarity.  I, had not in fact, noticed that this was the Reserve wine which undergoes barrel fermentation and so I got a whopping surprise when hints of barrel (notice I am being careful not to say oak here!), jumped out of the glass and onto both my palate and into my aroma sensors. 

First impression straight out of the bottle ???????  It made me really sad this was the first Chardonnay I have had recently that was not an instant appeal.  So I tried it again and no magic had yet happened.  So I sat down and popped the glass on the table and instead enjoyed a little catch up TV leaving the glass alone for a good 20 minutes not to purposefully aerate it but in fact it was just not what I had in my head so my brain was just readjusting what it was hoping for with what it was getting.  Part way through an episode of my favourite show Gold Rush (sad I know but I just love it), the adverts were fast forwarding so I picked up the glass by habit had a quick sniff, a sip and a wine snobs gargle.  It took a moment to register but the first reaction now was just wow, what a wine.  The hints of toasty vanilla were still there but much more mellow and subdued, they had faded to the background and integrated into the wine as a whole.  That left the tropical fruits to come out and shine and boy did they, bags and bags of banana, mango, passion fruits and too many more flavours to name them all just raced around the mouth.  By this point the wine was not fridge temperature so no doubt this also helped the fruit flavours to develop.  After that glass I wanted to make sure so I poured another glass with the same result of the wine balancing out and integrating itself perfectly over the space of 10 or 20 minutes.

So there you have it, and it is a lesson I should really know by now.  If at first sip a wine does not seem right then give it a chance.  There have been many times, more commonly with a red I will admit, that first sample was really off-putting and it had been written off.  Stubbornness had then brought me back to the glass only to find a completely different wine.  Now I would not say that you need to go out and invest in a wine aerator or decanter specifically for white wine.  It is much less common and so the justification is not there, instead I wanted to suggest a few easier and cheaper options.  Firstly use your biggest glass, not a normal small white wine glass.  You do get some wider bowled wine glasses often called Chardonnay/Montrachet glasses, these are as the name suggests for more oaky styles of Chardonnay that require a little air.  Play with the wine, swirl it in your glass and take your time.  Have you ever had a mint tea in Morocco??  If so you will have seen them pouring the tea from the pot at full arm stretch into the cup, this works well with wines that need a little air but it does take a bit of patience and probably a cloth at the ready!  If none of these work or require too much restraint, then just pour yourself a glass for now and a glass for later straight away.  By the time you finish glass one then glass 2 will be ready and waiting at its’ best!

Russell Wallace

General Manager

3 Recommendations from Russell

With Mothers day upon us I thought I would treat my mum to a little bit of a wine tasting with dinner on Sunday. She is vegetarian so we had a nice baked gratin barley dish with some lovely creamy mushrooms and some baked spud, squash and spicy beetroot. I thought it would be nice to open up a few totally different types of wines, see what went well with the food (loads of different flavours and textures going on there) and what generally was enjoyed without prior knowledge of what was what.

So we had the Doolhof 2009 Chardonnay, the Mission Estate Riesling and the Mercedes Eguren Sauvignon Blanc.

First up the Chardonnay, this is always my favourite: presenting unoaked Chardonnay to virtually anyone is always a guaranteed success in terms of it being both enjoyed and surprisingly so. The fruits tended towards the exotic and were alive and still quite full. I would imagine a younger version will be even more intense, but for this purpose the softer fruits and the mild acidity alongside some more robust alcohol and body did well for the creamy angle of dinner. (The current vintage of this Chardonnay is 2011).

Next up was the Riesling. Now I can see this wine really taking off if we could all (and I include myself in this) remove the negative musty, old, German connotations that we have surrounding this grape. It is a superb, often dry, flavour packing love machine of a grape and does extremely well out in New Zealand. There are Citrus and peach flavours here in abundance but it is that extra aromatic loveliness that just makes this a stand out. Now, many people refer to Riesling as having a characteristic "petrol" flavour, yes I know what you are thinking, something like "well stuff that I don’t fancy drinking my car!" In reality, in modern Rieslings, especially quality examples from the new world, this character is quite mild I promise. If you concentrate you can sometimes detect the faintest hint of it. More important in this wine is the relatively warm Hawkes Bay climate this wine comes from. For Riesling this is a master stroke as it keeps the acidity in check and the alcohol somehow still stays nice and modest at 11.5%. Can you tell this was my wine of the night, and in fact a god send for the spice within the black pepper lacing much of the dish and the spicy beetroot?

Last up was a Sauvignon Blanc, I sort of picked this one to be a bit mean if I am honest! It is a Castilla Sauvignon and it has had a year or so in the bottle so some of its’ intensity has mellowed out and there is nothing Marlborough-esque left here. In fact the reaction when guessing was "well it is not a Sauvignon Blanc" (at this point I restrained my balls of laughter at the statement coming from some of the world’s most experienced Sauvignon fans). What we have left with this Sauvignon is a delightfully soft and mellow white. An excellent sunshine, lunchtime and enjoy it on its’ own kind of white. If you know and enjoy a typical and modern White Rioja, then this is for you. White Rioja, in the modern unoaked and as delicate as a game of Jenga that has been going for half an hour, is what the Spanish love with lunch or a party evening "on the tiles." Uncomplicated and soft but full of quality and absolutely pleasant. So perfect as a third and final wine that we all enjoyed after eating.


Russell Wallace, General Manager

3 New Recommendations

SAWL0009B11X  Doolhof Wine Estate Signatures Unwooded Chardonnay 2011

I was fortunate enough to taste the 2009 vintage of this wine at the weekend but was feeling slightly daunted by opening the bottle as I imagined it might be a bit stewed with it being a slightly older vintage!  No way.... this was lovely and really enjoyed it.  Good acidity and the fruit was still vibrant and tasting well.   Typical green apples showing through with a tropical edge.  Not too dry making this an easy drinking white.  I’m looking forward to tasting the 2011 now as I’m sure it won’t disappoint.  If you’ve gone ABC (Anything But Chardonnay), this one will change your opinion, promise!

  

SASW0016B13X  Delaire Graff Chenin Blanc 2013

I love Chenin Blanc, one of my favourite varieties when I’m choosing wine from the new world, crisp, clean and citrusy, and there are a few in our portfolio which I’d class as my favourites.  Tasting this one was a bit of treat as its from one of our newer producers in our portfolio which I’m not so familiar with.  So, it was opened with gusto on Saturday night (although, I have to point out that any wine opened in my house on a Saturday night ... or I guess any night of the week..... is opened with gusto!!).  This Chenin Blanc is quite different from my usual quaffing Chenin, in that it is more upmarket, although I would point out its not massively upmarket in price.  It has all the attributes of a typical Chenin:  good acidity, citrusy, but added to that are honeyed tones which add weight to this normally fairly light style of grape variety.  A great wine for accompanying food and a great contender to fight off these big Australian Chardonnay’s.  Highly recommended to try if you prefer a white with a bit of muscle.

FRSO0510B12X  Chateau Maris Minervois Organic 2012

It’s ages since I’ve tasted Minervois, one of the old style wines, possibly slightly forgotten with the huge platform of wine we are now privy to in the UK.  The South of France is one of those areas which has a bit of everything when it comes to grape varieties and keeping track of them is no mean feat.  I made it one of my missions when I was studying wine to hone in on the South of France and try to decipher every single grape variety they grew there – I think I might have shelved that project and moved onto something slightly less time consuming!, but at the same time, I’ve kept my enthusiasm going for this area as there are some really great wines that, if you are a wine lover, don’t steer away from them, get stuck in and try them!

 This Minervois is really smooth with dark jammy fruit, surprisingly velvety and definitely elegant.  It has a little edge of spiciness on the finish and is perfect for drinking on its own as well as with food.  I was really impressed with this one, quite often Minervois, from past experience, can be middle of the road, lacking in character but this was superb in quality, taste and finish.  I’ll definitely be ordering this one again and its a snip at the price for this standard.

Susan Ross, Sales & Marketing