Home > Wine Features > 2011 Wine in Context Awards (part 4)

2011 Wine in Context Awards

Last year I finished off my review of 2010 with a look down the wines I had tasted at home, picking out month-by-month those that had really impressed. Although there were some great bottles, from the likes of Clos Rougeard, Krug, François Cotat, Climens, Champalou, López de Heredia and so on, ultimately I wasn't really satisfied with what I wrote. The reason was that the list was beginning to look a little like the "Best Wines of the Year" lists you find regurgitated on every other website and web forum you care to look at. On reflection it didn't sit very well with my review of the year, which looks at wine within its context - fine dinners, fun tastings, great moments - rather than divorcing it from its surroundings.

Having said that, sometimes great bottles are encountered at home, without any notable context. All of a sudden, the wine becomes the event. And yes, sometimes these bottles impress with their sheer quality. More often I find there is some other facet that increases the appeal, perhaps one of surprise, of an unexpected welcome characteristic. The most memorable bottles are often those that educate, that open my eyes to wonders not before seen. In each case I end up enriching my understanding of wine, usually while having a superb drink in my hand. There is no better combination!

And so this year I have not scanned through my notes, month-by-month, merely to trot out an impressive list of names, or merely listed the wines to which I gave greatest praise or - and heaven forbid we should bring it down to this - the highest score. In fact my new self-imposed rules forbid me from doing this. Instead, I bring to you here those wines which, at the end of the year remain firmly lodged in my memory. They are those bottles which, when I sit back and reflect, pop into my mind before any others. Thus there is no order or system here; they could be all white and none red, all from the Loire or indeed none at all (although that's not likely with my drinking pattern).

In short, regardless of notes or scores, colours or style, I think these are the bottles of 2011 that really mattered. (22/12/11)

2011 - Wines That Mattered

Two little subsets of wines have really made in impression on my this year, the first from Nantais, the second from Hungary.

A real eye-opener for me was the 2009 Cuvée Granit, a blend of Cabernet Franc, Cot, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from Domaine de la Pépière. I had tasted this wine before, indeed in this vintage, but only ever with Marc Ollivier and his team when I have met up with them in the Loire. It always seemed just a little steely and cool, and perhaps that is what we might expect from the Nantais. After all, Muscadet seems to translate the cool climate and salty sea breezes of the region into the wine itself; this works well with a white wine, but surely not with red? I decided that the wine warranted more detailed examination though, and procured a bottle.

It was, of course, delicious. The lesson here was three-fold; first, know that Marc Ollivier is a very talented winemaker (already known), and this skill translates into his red wines as well as his white (this was a new conclusion). Secondly, the Nantais may be sandy, cool and salty, but even in this environment it seems that superbly balanced red wines of freshness and lift can be made, and they are a world away from the soupy infusions that pass for wine from some of France's other (more southerly?) regions. And thirdly, although the mantra of taste, taste, taste is still one worth following, I was reminded that flying visits do give a somewhat blinkered view of any individual wine, and to spend an evening getting to grips with a bottle, as I regularly do with my Wine of the Week updates, is hugely beneficial in terms of seeing all that a wine has to give.

One other wine from Nantais tasted during 2011 still sings to me, even though I pulled the cork nearly twelve months ago now, and that is the 2004 Gorges from André-Michel Brégeon. I was reminded on tasting this wine that Muscadet has the power to entrance as much as any grander wine from the Côte d'Or or similar; with over five years on the lees this wine was imbued with more minerality and substance then any other wine I have tasted this year. I can't wait to open my other bottles, but I really must hold off to see what a little age will do as well. I was also reminded that I should never give up exploring, as although Brégeon is hardly an unknown, his wines at the time were fairly new to me. With that in mind I will be using 2012 to explore some less familiar domaines through my Wine of the Week posts. I have a few such bottles lined up already.

There are many other bottles that come to mind, such as the supremely elegant 2010 from Grand-Puy-Lacoste tasted in Bordeaux, and that 1945 La Conseillante, but let me stop and rewind a moment - this is a look at bottles opened at home, not on trips and at tastings, which have already had their share of the limelight. And when I restrict myself in this way, my mind turns immediately to Hungary.

I've tasted more Hungarian wine this year than ever before, and have discovered that this country has much more to offer than just the oxidatively-styled sweet wines that Tokaji is rightly famous for. There are deliciously mineral and bright dry white wines as well, from varieties such as Furmint and Hárslevelü, as well as better known names such as Riesling and Chardonnay. And there is also a huge range of styles of red wines, incorporating everything from the indigenous Kékfrankos and Kadarka (the latter an essential component in Egri Bikavér - the origin of the infamous Bull's Blood), esoteric outsiders such as Sagrantino, and a slew of 'internationals' including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah, although with something of a focus on Cabernet Franc which I find particularly appealing.

I have to disclose that the vast majority of these wines have come from Winedoctor sponsor Jason Cozzi, and so readers may wish to bear that information in mind when I wax lyrical about the wines. But those of Zoltán Demeter have struck a particular chord, and although distinctive and clearly 'of Hungary' - and please note before reading the next part of this sentence that I have no wish to demean the wines with infantile similes - the wines do twang the same notes on my palate that a particularly mouth-watering vintage of Vouvray might. They have substance, yet also a slightly pithy grip in some cases, good minerality and fresh-boned acidity. Overall, my experience with these wines has been a real eye-opener for me.

Which only leaves me wondering, what other delights are out there, as yet undiscovered. I keep hearing good things about - incredibly, I think, but I'm keeping an open mind - the wines of Turkey. And what of Hungary's neighbours, once good sources of decent quality and yet inexpensive varietal wines, Romania and Bulgaria? Do these other nations have hidden gems as Hungary does, or are they waiting for the reinvigoration that Hungary experienced once Communist rule ended? Answers on a postcard, please.....

Winedoctor Disclosures

Next up, my usual array of annual disclosures. Many seem to be the same, year after year, but this is still a process worth engaging in. I know some writers are on record as thinking it ridiculous, but I prefer to make these disclosures - no matter how insignificant some might be - so that readers might make this judgement for themselves.

• Yvon Mau/Freixenet: press trip for 2010 Bordeaux, including travel and hotel accommodation in France (but neither in the UK) and hospitality. Also two nights free of charge in Château Preuillac later in the year, and one dinner.
• Salon: accepted one night's hotel accommodation from Claire de Lune, PR company for the Salon des Vins de Loire.
• Other Salon-related support: A buffet meal courtesy of courtier Charles Sydney.
• Chapoutier: flights and one night's hotel accommodation, dinner and lunch, as part of a press trip.
• The Boivin Family: dinner at Au Bonheur du Palais in Bordeaux.
• Samples received: too many sources to mention, but a wide range of wines for review from merchants, PR firms and producers.
• Gifts received: one Chapoutier sweatshirt (white, and therefore almost unwearable because of local fashion laws).

It is also only fair that, in contrast to the above and in keeping with what I have published in previous years, I indicate here the many tastings and events at which I have funded my own attendance. This section should also feature a large majority of the wines that appear on Winedoctor, many of which (especially a good number of those from the Loire, and the more mature wines, especially Bordeaux) have been purchased using funds from my own pocket.

• Loire 2009 and Loire 2010 tasting with Charles Sydney, London
• Travel, hotel accommodation and subsistence for the Salon des Vins de Loire and Renaissance des Appellations tastings, Angers, France
• 50 Great Portuguese Wines, Edinburgh
• Flights, accommodation, car hire and subsistence for a trip to Tuscany, including visits to Fontodi, Fonterutoli and Fèlsina, Italy
• Liberty Wines Tasting, Edinburgh
• Louis Latour Tasting, Edinburgh
• Bibendum 2011, Edinburgh
• UK travel and accommodation en route and returning from the Bordeaux 2010 primeurs, France
• UGC tasting of the 2009 Bordeaux vintage, London
• IMW tasting of the 2007 Bordeaux vintage, London
• Flights and one night's hotel accommodation for a trip to taste Château de Fesles, Bordeaux, France
• Subsequent car hire and subsistence during three days of visits, Bordeaux, France

Strangely, despite being so very busy in the last two months, this is a slightly shorter list than last year. So how come I seem to have less time than ever?!

And Now it's Your Turn....

That's enough moaning about my self-imposed workload from me. What are your favourite wine moments of 2011? Have you opened a special bottle to celebrate a great occasion, a significant birthday, a wedding, graduation or perhaps something a little more unusual or obscure? Perhaps you have welcomed your own little Pikachu of sorts into the world? Or have you sat on the banks of the Rhône, eating fresh-water lobster washed down with a minerally St Joseph? Or was the moment of 2011 watching horse races on the beach in Spain, copita of salty Manzanilla in hand, as the sun disappeared behind the distant horizon? Whatever your favourite wine moment of 2011 may be, do please let me know.

Wine in Context moments don't need to concern great or expensive wines to qualify, it's the context that I'm looking for! So send me your best wine moments of 2011, and I will post them online (I am assuming your consent for that!) over the coming weeks. Email them to me here.