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Wine Thoughts 2004

Thoughts from 2004....

The Way Forward

It seems that at this time of the year people reflect. What were the best wines I had this year? The worst bottle? The best bargain? And so on. And it seems traditional for webmasters to congratulate themselves over how many page views they receive, and therefore how popular they are. Fine, but I won't join in with that last part - this is a website about wine, not webstats. Although if I can get my brain into gear I will have a look through and choose my best bottles and bargains of the past year, as I have done in previous years, no doubt turning up some long forgotten but very pleasurable vinous experiences as I do so.

Regular visitors will know that this is a website created as a result of a passion for wine - it does not represent a business interest or a role in the wine trade. I have another vocation - providing intensive care for sick newborn infants - which provides my income. This is why the Winedoctor will never be festooned with the tracked cash-generating links which seem to have become so popular on some wine websites this year, and why I haven't made any effort to establish sales of wine on the site. I have no desire to turn this passion into a mere business interest.

Some readers may have noticed that, despite this passion, Winedoctor additions were a little sparse in November and December. I apologise. This is because I spent much of these months - and a not inconsiderable part of June through to October as well - preparing for an interview which came and went on December 22nd. An interview at which, I am immensely pleased to report, I was successful. Regardless of how many great wines I tasted or drank in 2004, this was the years crowning achievement, the implications of which still have not fully registered. I have had a wonderful Christmas break (although I will be working on New Year's Eve!!) and I am looking forward to the fresh challenges that 2005 brings. The first will be arranging a move from Liverpool up to Edinburgh to take up this new post. Hopefully this will facilitate consolidating my wine stocks under one cellar roof, rather than the two private cellars, two merchants and one bonded warehouse where they currently reside. Naturally I can't wait! (28/12/04)

Chucking Bottles

I nearly fell over a bottle of wine the other day.

Several weeks ago I had dinner with Geoff Chilcott, winemaker at Marchesi di Gresy in Piedmont. We tasted, alongside some superb food, a small range of Marchesi di Gresy's wines, including a modern, fruity Sauvignon Blanc which went down well, an internationally styled, soupy-fruited and heavily-oaked Barbera, and a couple of vintages of Barbaresco. When it came to the dessert wine, however, there was a problem - the wrong wine had been delivered. Marchesi di Gresy's UK agency apologised and promised to send on another bottle. Very decent, I thought.

Several weeks on and the bottle never arrived. I've lost the agent's card (no doubt buried on my desk somewhere) and I resign myself to never tasting the Passito Moscato.

Then two nights ago I have occasion to walk around the rear of my house and what should I stumble across by the side gate but a box, just suitable for a single bottle. Judging my the state of it, it's been there a little while - the damp cardboard is showing signs of wear. Inside is the Passito Moscato from Marchesi di Gresy, obviously lobbed over the side gate (seven feet high) by a courier who found no answer upon attempting to make delivery. Amazingly (well, thanks to good polystyrene packaging anyway) the bottle was undamaged. So I get to taste it after all.

The worst wine delivery method? Probably, unless you know different... (10/12/04)

Ten Years On

I'm off tonight to our tasting groups annual 'ten year on' tasting, one of the most enjoyable events of the year. Obviously it is the 1994 vintage we will be examining tonight. As we've already had two Bordeaux 1994 tastings (one of which I missed as I was in the Loire) I'm expecting the tasting to look elsewhere - California, perhaps the Rhone, maybe Lebanon, and who knows where else. It's usually a hectic canter through the wine regions of the world, performed completely blind (except for knowledge of the vintage of course!). The fun is trying to identify the wine blind. Many people say that this isn't the point of blind tasting, and they're partly right - the real aim of blind tasting is to permit unbiased evaluation of the wine, uninfluenced by the label. But it can also be fun to put your wine knowledge and tasting skills to the test, to decipher whether the glass of red in front of you is Rhone or Bordeaux, Gigondas or Chateauneuf, St Julien or Pauillac. Let's hope there's some '94 Musar there tonight; apart from being one of the greatest of recent vintages for Serge Hochar, it's also dead easy to spot when tasted blind.

I'll post a full report in the next few weeks, but in the meantime I shall reflect on last years event, featuring the 1993 vintage. My notes are combined from two events, the annual tasting and a grand 'ten year on' dinner which I hosted. (3/12/04)

Reflections on the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter

I arrived home late last night, following a rather lethargic train journey and a ride on the last bus of the day; the clock told me it was close to midnight as I stepped through my front door. Travelling to and from this sort of event can be tedious to say the least. Last year, on the way down to the event, I spent seven hours on a train thanks to an electrical failure on the track ahead. This year I arrived at Lime Street Station only to find all London trains had been cancelled. I had to trundle over to Manchester and pick one up there. At least there was some entertainment on the journey - a couple who blagged (I overheard their plan being formed) their way to Manchester by claiming they had lost their ticket, their bags, their ID, everything. The ticket collector obviously knew when to cut his losses, and they travelled free. And later there they were, on the London train out of Manchester, pulling the same scam, only this time with a slightly different story. Once again the ticket collector couldn't be bothered and they travelled free. I have discovered the cheapest way to travel to London, but not having the brazen bare-faced cheek of some I'll continue to purchase a ticket in future.

The Decanter FWE was good, although there were few exciting moments, if any at all. The Yquem tasting was a classic taste of Emperor's New Clothes; here were a selection of vintages, from 1999 back to 1986, in which there were no real stars. A full report will follow, but suffice to say the much discussed 1999 (recently released at a lower than usual price) was devoid of botrytis, the 1991 was over the hill, and other older vintages displayed varying amounts of volatile acidity, off aromas and, in the case of one bottle, TCA. Clearly there was marked bottle variation. I can think of many Sauternes from which I have derived piles more pleasure.

Out in the grand tasting there were some good wines, although none that really impacted in the way that, say, Baumard's Quarts de Chaume did in the French Encounter in May. There was just one corked bottle (Carbonnieux 2001) at the very start of the second day; it was first pour from the bottle so nobody else had suffered. Proprietor Anthony Perrin quickly replaced it although why he hadn't assessed it first I don't know. Some nice Austrian whites were to be found, including a good Chardonnay TBA which was probably the most memorable wine of the tasting. It was good to experience a reigning in of the use of oak in many New World Chardonnays, with both Australians (Wynns) and Chileans (Errazuriz, Casa Lapostolle, also Montes to a lesser extent) showing wines with good lemony freshness to counteract less obvious buttery-nutty notes than would have been found a few years ago. There were some good clarets on show from the likes of Kirwan and Beychevelle, and an abysmal 2002 from Talbot. Other 2002s faired much better; I think they show less well than the 2001s which continue to demonstrate lovely balance and potential, whereas the 2002s have more tannin without a lot more fruit it seems. As with the Yquem tasting, full reports will follow, but unfortunately not this week as I will be tied up with management issues which will keep me away from The Winedoctor for another week, culminating in interviews (I'm asking, not answering) on Friday, although I'm also working the weekend. Never mind; I hope to get back into the swing of things the following week. Au revoir! (22/11/04)

Hectic Times

My last posting here started with a comment "So much wine, so little time!". If only I knew then what I knew now. I'm swamped with work at the moment and seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time on board trains traversing the country at the moment - south to London, north to Edinburgh, then south to London again. I arrived home too late to open a bottle last night, and I suspect the same will be true of tonight; a shame, as I've been impressed by a number of Côtes du Roussillon wines I've tasted recently and I am eager to try some more. Thank heavens for the Lustau Almacenista Amontillado I found in the fridge - I squeezed in a quick glass on arrival home. I'm endeavouring to squeeze in my usual regular updates to the site, but at the moment I'm having to prioritise a little. I have to sleep as well!

Champagne Saturday

So much wine, so little time! I haven't come close to writing up my notes from the Etienne Hugel dinner that I alluded to below, and have since attended very informative vertical Bordeaux tastings - yet more notes to write up. And the wealth of other notes, profiles and articles I have to add (including profiles of Les Aphillantes Côtes du Rhône, Chateau Fortia, Chateau Haut Bailly, and a mature Graves tasting to scrape the surface) beggars belief. And tomorrow, to add more fuel to my fire, I am off to a splendid Prestige Cuvée tasting featuring Roederer Cristal, Dom Perignon, Veuve-Clicquot's La Grande Dame, Pol Roger's Winston Churchill and more. All mature vintages, of course. Life is good!

So what better way to catch up on things than to escape the day-job and work on the site for a day? So that's what I have done. Naturally I'll pop out for a long lunch as well, where I hope to spend some time confusing a Burgundy with a Rioja - after all, I can't spend all day sitting in front of a computer! (17/9/04)

Three Handshakes

No update yesterday, as I had a somewhat hectic day - those who read my note last Friday (below) will know I started a new job on Monday this week. By the way, thank you to those that were good enough to email with a suggestion of which Champagne to drink! As it happens the winner, by just one vote, was Laurent Perrier's Grand Siecle, so I'll have a tasting note for this wine online soon!

Etienne Hugel & co.Once evening arrived I made my way to the excellent London Carriage Works, unquestionably Liverpool's leading restaurant, for a tasting dinner featuring the wines of Hugel. Obviously there will be a full write-up of the food and the wines in the near future. The scene was set when I arrived and was greeted by three warm handshakes, the hands belonging to three men by the name of Hugel, Jaboulet - there's something familiar about those names - and Matieu Buval of Drouhin. Seated at Etienne Hugel's table, the evening was most enjoyable and very informative. There was comedy a plenty, not least from Etienne who is a marvellous public speaker, but also from Nicolas Jaboulet who, as we drank a Hugel Pinot Noir, sent one of his own reds over from the bar; a good natured dig at Alsace from the Rhône! As I said a full report will follow soon. (7/9/04)

The Weekend Ahead

Today is the end of my time at my current workplace; on Monday I start a new job. This sort of thing happens every six or twelve months to us medics, so it's not as major an event as you might think. Nevertheless, this time I feel there is a need to celebrate as I move on to pastures greener. My celebration won't be tonight, as I am off to a tasting, and unusually I'm not even sure what that tasting is. It will either be 1983 Bordeaux Revisited or two mini-verticals, of Clerc-Milon and d'Armailhac; it depends on how many people turn up! Either way I know I have a pleasurable evening ahead. So it will have to be Saturday night that I celebrate. I shall open one of these;

I have other vintages - in particular caseloads from the 1996 vintage - but these I want to leave in the cellar for now. So if you have an opinion on what I should be opening this weekend, do e-mail me. (3/9/04)

Scores

Where is the torrent of complaints I was expecting?

Did you perhaps not notice?

During my recent trip to the Loire, I spent a little time, early one morning, thinking about the way I rate wines. Ever since I started tasting wine and making a conscientious effort to record my thoughts, I've finished each tasting note with a score. This has always been a descriptive note rather than a number or some other code, starting at awful, and moving up through fair, quite good, good, very good, excellent and for the most remarkable wines, outstanding. So it was a seven point scale, or at least it seemed like it. Because I purchase with care (don't we all) it's not often I dish out any of the first three comments. So for a while I've been working with what is essentially a four-point scale. It was very easy, and it avoided the silly idea that wine can be analysed in a scientific fashion, as suggested by points scores.

As the last few years have passed, however, I began to feel restrained by this system. A case in point would be the Vieux Chateau Certan profile, where I tasted six delicious wines. I ranked them all as excellent which was true, but looking back that makes it difficult to see which I actually preferred. I needed more flexibility, and this Summer I bit the bullet. And so here I am, now happily scoring wines out of a possible twenty, à la Coates. And I'm loving it - I'm surprised at how quickly I've taken to it. The main advantage is that it allows one to draw out nuances of preference with groups of wines which otherwise would all be rated the same. This adds a quality to my tasting notes that was absent previously. I still think it is important to recognise that scores relate to one experience with a wine, and that when next tasted the wine will have aged, but also the situation may be very different; different food, surroundings, company, and so on. I take care of the former (the ageing) by adding a '+' to my scores if I feel the wine has potential to improve; but otherwise the scores remain very subjective. Just because I've embraced this new system, it doesn't mean I have forgotten how silly the rigid application of a score to a certain wine can be!

Pleasingly, the feedback has been excellent; nothing but support, and not a negative comment to be seen. Long may my scoring continue! If you have any thoughts on scoring wine, email me. (30/6/04)

Bordeaux 2001

A major change at The Winedoctor, coincidental with my recent major overhaul (still slowly ongoing by the way, as I gradually change the deepest pages to the new look) is a reduction in the frequency of my wine recommendations. There are a number of reasons for this, but to cut a long story short (I may write in more detail at a later date) I wanted to ensure every recommendation is for a truly worthwhile wine - stopping the weekly recommendation means I won't be trawling the supermarket ranges looking for possible candidates which, although half-decent, are often branded wines that often don't offer true interest even if they do offer value for money.

The main advantage that this affords me is a little more time to look at other aspects of wine, and the hot topic at the moment is Bordeaux 2003. Well, with some it is. With ridiculous (and still escalating) prices I was turned right off, and bought little before stopping altogether. And so I have been looking at other recent Bordeaux vintages, in particular 2001. I purchased sufficient 2002 en primeur, attracted by low prices - even for the first growths - the result of course of Robert Parker's absence from the scene. But the 2001 vintage is not represented in my cellar as yet - well, not if you exclude the Climens, Rieussec, Suduiraut, Guiraud, Lafaurie-Peyraguey, Doisy-Daene, Lamothe-Guignard, Coutet and Sigalas-Rabaud - this was a fabulous vintage for Sauternes!

Looking around I see some good 2001s at attractive prices, and I predict these prices will rise in the next few weeks. There is plenty to suggest - to those with their ear to the ground on fora.erobertparker.com - that Parker scores will move upward in the forthcoming edition of the Wine Advocate. So, for interests sake, I have documented a few wines here which may be of interest. These prices were correct as of June 15th.

I'll revisit these in a week or two to see how the prices have changed. (18/6/04)

I return from the Loire...

...and naturally it's great to be back. I had a fabulous time, meeting some of the Loire's top vignerons during a series of tastings in which I focussed on Layon and Vouvray, although I did venture further afield as well.

My top memory of the trip has to be my meeting with Bernard Fouquet of Domaine des Aubuisieres. Fouquet is clearly one of the top vignerons of Vouvray, who pays great attention to his terroir, and has a truly impressive array of wines from the 2002 and 2003 vintages which I tasted. And yet there is not a hint of self-importance about the man. He seems amiable, approachable and laid-back. When he heard that I had just visited Catherine Champalou he had only positive comments to make about that estate. And as he observed my children playing among barrels of soon to be bottled Vouvray, he reassured me "Jouer est normal. Ne pas jouer n'est pas normal". A man of great quality, producing superb wines, and yet, since parting with Oddbins, with no UK agent or distributor. Now there's an opportunity for a wine merchant!

There's been all sorts of fun going on while I have been away. Rick Stein contacted me about some Italian wines, which I thought a little weird. It turns out that this Rick Stein runs an Italian restaurant in Chicago, and has never been to Padstow. Also Steve Wright of the BBC contacted me for some information on English sparkling wine. I didn't think Top of the Pops 2 covered such a broad range of subjects! Unless it was something to do with his radio show, of course...

Watch out for my Cream of the Loire 2004 feature, coming soon, featuring Chateau Bellerive, Domaine des Baumards, Jo Pithon, Domaine des Aubuisieres, Champalou, Henri Bourgeois and notes on numerous other odd bottles tasted. (7/6/04)

New Look

What a Spring cleaning break that was! I must confess I haven't quite finished the overhaul of The Winedoctor, and so firstly I must apologise - at present there are most probably a few broken links here and there, and there are still several hundred deep pages that I just haven't had time to change over to the new look. These pages still bear the old design, which in fact wasn't that old - it's just over twelve months since I dumped the old blue framed layout which surely someone other than myself must remember!

I hope my new design makes the site more streamlined and readable - it is the first time I think I have achieved wide 'cross-browser compatibility', as internet geeks might put it. I also hope it seems less cluttered than some sites on the internet, which seem beset by too many flashing affiliate banner ads, tracked referral links and google ads, all with the aim of squeezing a few pennies out of the visitor. The Winedoctor is all about my passion for wine, and a personal record of my wine and wine-related experiences, and not blatant commercialism. I hope you enjoy it!

Coming soon on The Winedoctor:

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