Santenay

The Cote de Beaune starts, from the south, with some less well known names. Although not strictly the last wine-producing commune in Cote d’Or, (which falls to the relatively obscure villages of Sampigny, Dezize and Cheilly, sharing the well-known cru of Maranges), Santenay is generally regarded as the southernmost outpost. Many buyers come here to try finding quality red to fill the gap between the grander communes and the Rullys, Givrys and Mercureys of Cote Chalonnaise.

The place is in fact two villages, with Santenay-le-Bas being the larger part and where many of the larger domaines are, and Santenay-le-Haut which is a much older hamlet. The two main tourist attractions are the casino and the hot springs, which has been famous for its restorative properties as early as 17^th century.

This southern end of the Cote de Beaune is most confused geologically and is atypical of the Cote as a whole, with radical changes in the soil. Part of the commune is analogous to Cote de Nuits with deep, though not exquisite red with long life. Other parts give light wines more typical of Cote de Beaune. Generally it has a reliable robustness rather than elegance or complexity. Officially there are 12 premiers crus but only 5 are encountered regularly: La Comme, Clos des Tavannes, Les Gravieres, Maladiere and Clos Rousseau, with the first three are the heart of the appellation. Here marly, limestone soil gives the wine earthy and robustness.

One thing to note is that the Pinot Noir are trained en condon de royat, to limit the vigor from naturally productive soils. However, whether the Santenay is interesting or age-worthy depends as much on the producer as on vineyard. There are pockets of excellence where old vines, small yields and careful winemaking contribute wines of higher quality. Best producers include Vincent Girardin, the many Moreys in Chassagne, Domaine de la Pousse d’Or, Louis Jadot and Drouhin. White Santenay is becoming increasingly widespread and popular but still accounts for less than 10% of the appellation.

Wines I have tasted and currently owned from this commune:

• Albert Bichot, Santenay Les Charmes 2006
• Camille Giroud, Santenay 2006
• Domaine de Bellene, Santenay Les Charmes Dessus 2008
• Jean-Claude Boissot, Santenay 1er Cru Grand Clos Rousseau 2005
• Jean-Marc Vincent, Santenay 1er Cru Les Gravieres 2006
• Leroy, Santenay 1999
• Maison Louis Latour, Santenay 2007
• Vincent Girardin, Santenay 1er Cru Clos de Tavannes 2006
• Vincent Girardin, Santenay 1er Cru Les Gravieres 2007
• Vincent Morey & Sophie, Santenay 1er Cru Beaurepaire 2007
• Vincent Morey & Sophie, Santenay Les Hates 2007

Cote d'Or

Why in such a small piece of land can such a diverse and interesting variety of wines be produced? That may be a question many wine-lovers would have on Cote d'Or. One of the most important wine-producing region in Burgundy (or should I say the world), Cote d'Or lies in an geological fault line where there are several different epochs, and with the weathering of the rocks in the eons, different texture and mixture provides a big variation in soil type. Generally calcareous clay soil (marl), the combination with the stones and scree washed down from the limestone higher up the slope makes the perfect soil for wine.

The altitude of the mid-slope is roughly constant in Cote d'Or, at about 250m. The slope faces east with a bias to the south, particularly in Cote de Beaune. Burgundy is the northenmost area in Europe producing great red wine. To make the Pinot Noir ripen before the cold and damp autumn, the climate in each vineyard (mesoclimate) and the physical characteristics of the land, are critical. So this east-facing factor is important as the morning sun warms the ground and heat it all day, and the hill protects the vineyard from the southwestern wine which is wet and rain-bearing.

Another quality factor making Cote d'Or so famous is the choice of vines and the ways they are pruned and trained. Most growers in Cote d'Or are focused on quality instead of quantity, with organic and biodynamic viticulture increasing popular. The region is famous also because of its long history. There is already records on the study of its wine since the 12th century, from the Cistercian and Benedictine monks established one cru from another to explore their potential.

Cote de Beaune and Cote de Nuits are separated only by a few miles, but the classification of the land in this small strip is the most elaborate in the world. Based on the system developed nearly 200 years ago, the wines are divided into four classes. Grand Crus are the first class, which about 30 are in operation today, mainly in Cote de Nuits. Each has its own appellation, with the single, simple vineyard name like Musigny, Corton, Montrachet or Chambertin (sometimes with the prefix "Le").

Premiers Crus is the next rank, which uses the name of the commune followed by the name of vineyard, for example, Chambolle-Musigny Les Charmes. There is an obvious variation among the Premiers Crus, as there are 622 in all. Some Premiers Crus, like Perrieres in Meursault or Les Amoureuses in Chambolle-Musigny, often command prices higher than lesser Grand Crus.

Appellation Communale is the third rank, with the wines able to use the name of the commune, like Meursault, and often referred to as 'village' wines. It is now allowed to put the specific vineyard on the label, but it must be printed in smaller fonts than the commune name.

The last rank is the Bourgogne. However, it is not to be under-estimated and some growers actually produce wine of this level which offer very good value for money. Personally I have tried the Bernard Dugat-Py Bourgogne 2005 and at only HK$360 per bottle it is one of the best value Burgundy I have tried so far.

One final word, we must distinguish the name of a vineyard from a commune. Many villages have now affixed their names to their best vineyard. Although the name does not differ much for a Chevalier-Montrachet and a Chassagne-Montrachet, don't expect they will be just similar. Difficult? Maybe. But I am sure with more tasting and paying attention to my blog you will know more and more. I am going to write the communes in Cote d'Or from south to north from next week on. So enjoy drinking!

Wineshark weekly - 24 Jul 2011

This week I have been in Kuala Lumpur Mon-Fri, so not much to write about except going out with my colleagues to couple of places for dinner. None are anything exceptional, like going to Madame Kwan for some Malaysian food and also a Japanese restaurant. During the trip, I got a call and finally the wines that I have bought a while ago (already 4 months!) at the Watson's Bordeaux Grande Tasting arrived. My headache... now I got about 60 bottles in my office... Really having a big problem in keeping them...

Good that my wine buddies have confirmed our next tasting event in Aug. It will be a Santenay + Chassagne-Montrachet tasting, with eight wines coming from the two communes. I will write the tasting note later but suffice to say that we are going to have an interesting one - a Le Montrachet Grand Cru, think that is the most expensive white I have so far...

In this week's cooking class we made the following: Smoked Salmon Boats and Spaghetti Alla Marinara. Quite easy to make (except the sauce for the spaghetti which if have to do it right need to spend some time). I also helped to cook the spaghetti and tried to 'throw the wok' a couple of times in front of the class. Really heavy! But still I managed to do it!!

CIVA has organized an Alsace wine fair this Sat, and it is the third time I joined this fair. I normally bought quite a few bottles in this event to last for my Alsace consumption in the year. This year is no exception. Don't say I am crazy but I have bought around 20 bottles. Really on a buying spree nowadays, haha...

Since I have spent too much on wine this week (maybe all along...) I have to get something cheaper for dinner. We went to Liang Liang Noodles Shop at TST New Mandarin Plaza. The noodle is relatively good, with a lot of choices on the things that you can put in your noodle. Not too cheap though as we spent $108 for two persons.

This week I am barren on my wine tasting despite buying so many... Really look forward to spending more time in HK and resume my wine appreciation journey...

Wine 101 - taste of wine

The flavors of a wine is actually revealed through various ways: the taste in our tongue, and the aroma perceived with the wine in our mouth. As you know from your biology lesson, our tongue can detect the taste of sweet, salty, sour and bitterness, but besides those the texture of the wine, like the smoothness, creaminess and viscosity, also contribute to the overall palate of the wine.

Since only the aroma molecules that escape from the wine can reach the olfactory centre along with the air we breathe in, it is a good way to slurp when tasting, to increase the amount of such molecules for better detection. So when you wonder why someone can detect more flavors than you when doing a tasting, remember whether you have done this to increase your exposure to the aromas!

When wine flows through our tongue, depending on the temperature, our taste buds will feel first sweetness, then closely followed by acidity, which are the two basic structure for a white wine. But important thing to note is that the sweetness impression is not just depending on the residual sugar, but also the alcohol. Also, what differentiate a good sweet and dry white wine is the sweet-sour structure and balance.

For red wine, the main difference is the presence of tannin. Tannin is derived from the grape skin, seeds, stems and also the wooden barrels used in the maturation process (though to a lesser degree). It gives a clue whether the grapes are ripe when harvested. An unpleasant bitter and grainy texture will point to a bad vintage, unripe grapes, or some defects in the vineyard or production process. A mature tannin, showing silkiness, smooth and transparent, is also a prerequisite for a great red.

The sensory impression of a wine can be very diverse. At the end, the key is the complexity and intensity of the flavors. Simple wines will give you a one-dimensional sensation, either fruity, vegetal, or woody. But a true great wine have a long-lasting, multi-layered bouquet with fruity as well as other characteristics that can help you to appreciate the terroir of the vineyard, the viticulture and vinification of the wine, and other things that make wine so enjoyable and interesting.

Finally on the finish, another critieria for a great wine is the length the wine can sustain in your mouth. If you can still feel the lingering after swallowing for a short while, then we have a long finish and typically give you the satisfaction of having tasted a good wine.

In WSET Level 4, the things that we need to note in tasting include the following:

• Sweetness
• Acidity
• Tannin (in level and nature)
• Alcohol level
• Body
• Flavour intensity
• Flavour characteristics
• Other observations
• Length

And base on the assessment of color, nose and palate, to form our conclusion for the wine including:

• Quality
• Reasons for quality
• Origins / variety / production method
• Price
• Age (in years)
• Readiness for drinking / potential for ageing

Not easy, right? So nothing can replace sufficient tasting experience, and now my friend, when do we drink together?

Burgundy

Talking about French wine, most people will think of three names: Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne. I am going to write in a more detailed way the most complicated one in my opinion - Burgundy. It has quite a number of distinct and eminent wine regions. Cote d'Or is the heart of Burgundy, comprising of Cote de Beaune in the south and Cote de Nuits in the north, which is also most famous for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Chablis, Cote Chalonnaise, and Maconnais also offer high quality wines themselves. Beaujolais, immediately south of Maconnais, is quite different from the rest of Burgundy in both its scale, style, soil and grape.

With its long-history and fame, there is however hardly any big producer from one end of Cote d'Or to the other. Most of the few big holdings of land in fact were broken up during Napoleon times so Burgundy is one of the most fragmented region in France, with an average holding is a mere 6 hectares.

Because of this fragmentation, Burgundy has a problem of unpredictability. Even in the same climate, same commune, same vintage, the wine can be made from quite a number of people in a small plot of land. Monopoles, or whole vineyard in the hands of a grower, are rare exceptions. The smallest growers may have parcels in two or three vineyards and the bigger ones may have 20-40 ha spread in small plots throughout the Cote. A typical example is Clos de Vougeot, with 50 ha divided among more than 90 growers.

As a result about 65% of Burgundy is still bought in barrel from grower by negociants who will blend with other wines from the same appellation, and offer as a given district wine. Reputations of these negociants vary, with Bouchard Pere et Fils, Joseph Drouhin, Faiveley, Louis Jadot and Louis Latour being reliable. Boisset has improved enormously throughout the years and some ambitious emerging negociants like Dominique Laurent and Verget are fast developing in their red and white respectively. Some respected growers also are starting their own negociant business.

There are nearly 100 Appellations Controlees in Burgundy. I will talk more about those later. But the following can be applied to wine from any grape grown in any part of Burgundy, whose soil and terroir may be below par: Bourgogne (for Pinot Nor and Chardonnay), Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire (for a mixture of local Burgundian grapes), Bourgogne Passetoutgrains (for a mixture of Gamay with at least a third Pinot Noir) and Bourgogne Aligote (a tart white made from Burgundy's other white grape). Next week I will focus on Cote d'Or to discuss in more details.

Wineshark weekly - 17 July 2011

This week is relatively quiet on my wine tasting, since I was in Seoul for three days. But in this trip I had tried some good Korea dishes, and some interesting ones! Haha!

Our office in Seoul is located in Gangnam, a busy financial district. On one side we are facing a busy street similar to our Des Voeux Road Central. But at the back there are a lot of side streets with many small restaurants. Over lunch a lot of people crowded in these, and I tried a Ginseng Chicken soup on one day and a Walleye soup on another. Both are simply fantastic. Nothing expensive (in Korea standard) also, around KRW 13000 per person. Highly recommend!!

One night I went out with the Korean team to another famous Korean restaurant called 'Da Cheung Kam' (sorry for my Cantonese translation). Actually been there twice already by myself. But this time the team ordered a specialty dish in southwestern Korea, I don't know the name but they told me it is fermented stingray. Taste like ammonia... Not something I would fancy (in fact even for a lot of the locals the taste is simply too exotic), but given my adventurous spirit I had two pieces. Not too bad if I roll it with a piece of pork and some kimchi in a marinated mint leaf... Forgot to take a photo though.

On Friday I had dinner with my two wine buddies in Kowloon Cricket Club. The place is really nice and price is reasonable. I had a Smoked Salmon and Shrimp for appetitzer and a Lamb Shank for main. Delicious. We opened a bottle of Alsace Pinot Noir and a Barbaresco. Enjoy the meal and the chat very much...

This week in the cooking class I made three things: a Potato and Tuna Cake, Tomato Apple Salsa, and Grilled Chicken with Crabmeat Lobster Sauce. Quite easy to make and tasty. I am thinking probably in future I will write the recipe and take some photos when I do those at home to share with the readers.

Finally got some time to plan my wine tasting event in Aug. Decided to fix the date at 20/8 which is the only date I am available (haha, not pretending to be busy but really a crazy period for me from July onwards on traveling). Got two themes to choose from: Santenay + Chassagne-Montrachet or Germany. Will see how the team prefer and will share more later on. To celebrate my task completed (what an excuse!) I opened a bottle of Tinto Pesquera Crianza 1995.

Region / Country: Ribera del Duero Spain

Vintage: 1995

Grape: 100% Tempranillo

ABV: 13%            

Price: HK$695

Tasting Date: 16 July 2011

Official website: www.grupopesquera.com

Wineshark Score: 92

Intense garnet color with a brownish rim showing its age, this Ribera del Duero Tempranillo exhibits an intense and fully developed nose of earth, tobacco, savory, prune, wet leaves, rust and coffee characters. This full body wine has a medium acidity and tannin, supported by a well-integrated and smooth texture. Its medium intensity flavors of cocoa, strawberry, earth, tobacco, cigar box, savory and prune characters bring a complex and long finish. Overall a good quality wine with an impressive and intense nose showing good maturity aromas while on the palate still maintaining a good balance of fruit and acidity to make the wine vibrant despite its age. Ready to drink now to avoid the wine going into the decline stage.

On Saturday night we went to Yixin Restaurant at Wanchai. I gave this restaurant a 5-star rating, really need to come again!! I have the BBQ Pork, Shrimp with egg white in Chinese wine and a vegetable. The BBQ Pork is the best I have ever had! It is juicy, with a good balance of fat and lean meat, and roasted to the right level. Perfect! The other two dishes were also very good. Final bill: $600 for two, quite reasonable. I did not bring wine but next time with a bigger group should do that. Corkage is $100 per bottle.

Wine 101 - Nose of Wine

Actually 2/3 of the perceptions of a wine tasting come from the nose. Our nose can detect a wide range of smells, but whether our brain has the ability (or training) to filter, identify, and evaluate differentiate a good wine taster with the general public.

To release as much of the aroma molecules from the wine as possible, we need to swirl the glass, then dip your nose into the glass and breathe in the vapor. In fact, by the spectrum of aromas it gives wine taster a clue to the grape variety, location, method of fermentation and maturation, and age of the wine.

In order to help you to detect all the aromas, it is always good to concentrate on groups of aromas. First I would suggest trying to detect the fruity ones. In white wine, typically you may get apple, lemon, peach, pineapple, pear... And in red wine, you may detect berries, cherries, plum and so on. Secondly the vegetal and floral notes of flowers, grasses, leaves can be focused on. By these two main areas it can probably give you the idea of the grape variety, and for a simple wine the aromas fall mostly under these two categories.

In the professional world the word 'bouquet' refers to aromas not merely fruity or vegetal but also reflect the terroir, vintage, method of maturation and age of a wine. For white wines, this extended to the range of honey, butter, vanilla, cedar, minerals. More complex range includes various spices, chocolate, coffee, smoke. Some rather unusual aromas are also present in wine, like petrol, wet wool and varnish. A really great wine will have a balance of different aromas, not just only one or two.

In WSET level 4 we are required to write a tasting note on the following:

a. Condition (clean / unclean)

b. Intensity

c. Development

d. Aroma characteristics

Personally I have bought a set of the tasting kit for training my nose. They are expensive but really can give you a good idea of the different aromas and is a great help in training your nose. More importantly, if you don't know how liquorice smells, for example, how can you detect it?

France

 

When one thinks of wine, most likely he or she will think of France. So let's start to have a study on the wine producing regions in France, the largest wine-producing country in the world. It has a wide range of different climate, with ocean, sea, and the continent influence, as well as different soil types. One of the things that set France apart from the other wine-producing countries is the attention to control, with the famous Appellation d'Origine Controlee (AOC), started in 1920s, restricting the use of geographical name to wines made in a precisely specified area, along with the grape varieties, maximum crop per hectare, minimum ripeness, how vines are grown, and to a certain extent how wines are made. It is administered by INAO. However, nowadays there are constant debates as to whether this AOC system restricts or help the French wines compete with the New World. Just below AOC, the VDQS, only constitute 1% of the harvest. The second largest category is in fact the Vins de Pays (VDP). At the bottom is the Vins de Table (VDT).

When looking at the wine label you may notice some terms which I would like to explain:

• Blanc - white
• Mis (en bouteille) au chateau - estate-bottled wine made by the same enterprise that grew the grapes
• Rouge - red
• Vieilles Vignes - old vines

The famous wine regions in France include: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and Rhone, plus Alsace, Beaujolais, Chablis, Jura, Loire, Provence, Savoie and SW France. The largest quantity of wine actually coming from Languedoc-Roussillon. Subsequently I will give a more detailed sharing on each region, and drilling down into the commune and village level, to share with you the tasting of the wines coming from different producers. Stay tuned!!