Wine cannot be fair

Fair-trade wine what is it? Is it fair that the monopoly in Finland buys fair-trade wines for two to four euros while selling them for four times more expensive while the newspaper writes that a Finns average spending for fair-trade products is below 18euros. 

What's fair that for 2010 the coffee, wine and bananas where the top 3 fair-trade products. So one bottle of wine, more than one bag of coffee and even more bananas. 

Here's news in Finnish which is about a research that 2.8 and 2.3 euros per kilo were the sums of fair-trade and non-fairtrade coffee which went back to the country of origin. I have trouble seeing that such high sums or as high percentages are possible in fair-trade wine business.

Would you fancy a glass of wine perhaps?

What is a great way to enjoy a bottle of wine when there's no a corkscrew or glasses available? Being lighter than glass bottles I find myself loving this "invention" evermore. I came across to this coincidentally when wandering in Prowein in Dusseldorf and I think it deserves a post.

Pinot Noir from Finland. Great to avoid.

Does the monopoly buyers want to buy spoofed stuff? Do they just like bad wine or are their taste buds calibrated to crap? I sincerely hope it is not the other obvious notion.

Let's look at these two recent new products just introduced here in Finland. They were obviously an attempt to respond to the voices of growing PN-audience. PN has to be juice from heavens because of such a scarcity. There is a sole retailer selling off-trade wine and it is state-run enterprise. Therefore it is no surprise that the suits remember their citizens have an appetite for substitute products (e.g. flour for bark, coffee to chicory). Our history is written to alternate from tyranny to famine to depression.

Someone is still living in the wartime I suppose. Why else would they present these products?

First one's description is only in Finnish but I'll translate it for my nonnative audience.It is described to be a light, supple yet rich in nuances. Aroma characteristics can be described as "hapokkaan marjainen" which if understood correctly in the context of the other characteristics means more or less like this: Raspberries and some strawberries dipped in acid finished with a dollop of spices. Why does this bother me? Well spices but only fermented and aged in steel then straight to bottles. But here comes the more worrying news. Alcohol at 13%, acids at 5,7g/l in tartaric, residual sugar 7g/l and extract upped to whopping 37g/l . Sounds so manipulated winemaking as possible. It screams it! Why the only Italian PN they sell here be spoofed? And why do they buy Italian PN, well now they are searching for the future release a good quality PN from Spain which is what Spaniards are known for internationally or not.

The second product they are offering to the fans of PN comes from Germany. Great! Spätburgunder is great! I have a huge appetite for stuff from the better producers which there are sadly only handful but in growing thankfully! I've never heard of this producer, but what strikes me is the description of the vinification this time. The vintage is 2009. Today is 25th February so we would have to go 17-18 months to participate to the picking. They say this did age 15 months in french oak barrels from which 70% new and after that 12 months of bottle aging before release. What? Can you really trust the descriptions if you can say whatever you like in there? I highly doubt it saw even french oak or maybe in powder form. And I just checked they have the same descriptions in Swedish so it cannot be miswritten.

I have not tried either of these two wines. I believe it was money well spent.

stars, constellations and business in wine part 1

Wine is getting a tough business. At least  for the growers, importers and retailers it's like trying to find your car keys from a bucket full of... or better yet an age-old outhouse that has never been emptied and you ain't the first one that has dropped your crap and keys to your Porsche.


For the growers it is getting harsh because of climate warming. The need is increasing to plant irrigation systems or/and replant with different varieties for the (near) future. Let's not forget droughts and floods also the earthquakes and fires which damage the current year. Vintage variation is greater than ever? Where to sell the wine with this glut and prices cloying with record high prices of a bottle of wine while other can't even sacrifice their wines for cheaper than dirt.


Importers are having always having worse times because they are the intermediary between growers and retailers at least here in Finland. The oversupply of grapes and stagnant growth of consumptions keeps the prices shallow. Retailers are also experiencing difficult times as the consumption isn't really growing that much and out of tens of thousands "brands" what the people want to buy? There's just too many shelf square meters that have to be used for wine that doesn't make profit but you really can't cut up the shelf space without diminishing the selection. The monopolies are experiencing troubled times when allegations of price and range fixing are trying to be avoided as the only news about the monopolies tend to be bad news. The connotation of monopoly is fixed to be negative and the worse news are constantly dug deeper.


There's a need for a hero. Who can save the industry? Does it need a savor or saving? Casualties are those who caused the whole thing? From turmoil to tomorrow.

Chardonnay muscaté

What on earth is that? Is it a clone? Will find out so stay tuned in.

Les Empreintes from Laherte Frères with my quick ct-note:


Clear and bright medium light golden color.
Clean and intensive nose of citric fruits, some complex greenness and smokiness with lees aging notes but such an inviting and refreshing scent.
The palate has a bright laser like and mouth drying acidity which makes you start salivating. The flavors are competing with each other. On the back you have the complex citric flavors with supporting or trying at least is some oak and smokiness and autolytic notes, while the most dominating flavors are the rocky yet a bit chalky minerality which carries the wine to the other sphere! 

Extraordinary because of the complexity and intensity of different yet harmonizing flavors, long length, yet the balance is built towards the tart yet refreshing acidity. This is a prime example why some want to do malo in champagne. I like this tremendously but not for everybody! This was the non dosé edition

Grape-varieties and vineyard:

40%Chardonnay (1/3 of Chardonnay muscaté). Les Chemins d’Epernay. Clay soils with a little silt stratum in surface. Chalky subsoil. Plots planted in 1957.
40% Pinot Noir. Les Rouges Maisons. Soil fairly deep with an important presence of clay, flints and schists. Chalky subsoils. Plots planted in 1983.
20 % Pinot Meunier. Les Monts Bougies. Soft soil with a dominant of silt and marl. Limestone subsoils. Plots planted in 1965.

Back again

This time back for longer period of time. A vision to do at least one post every week. Studying the double you set for a diploma now.

Dessert and Sweet Fortified Wine please.

In Finnish food&wine pairing discussion, sugar is the main key factor when trying to decide the wine with dessert. The same old story begins always about having a sweeter (higher sugar content) wine than in the food. Fortunately, the normative way is starting to crumble. The starting point I'd credit to the revolutionary white chocolate and rosé pairing by Cloetta Fazer and WineState.

Last week I did a tasting/food pairing. Anyway there was a protrusive moment when sparkling rosé was paired with some sort of berried mousse. It was spot on! What next? Is there more? Let's forget the sugar and the alcohol? What a structured world of wine pairing!

Time to get my goggles on and dive at the deep end...

Red with Fish?

-Red wine with fish.
-What? No. Ever drank wine with food? Get outta here!

I dare you to try this great bordelais dish but with some improvising.
This dish is about river lamprey(nahkiainen, lamproie, カワヤツメウナギ) and red wine.
This darkening Autumn has created a great food sensation with such a simple ingredients and such a great match! All you need is (cold) smoked lampreys and a gamay from Beaujolais or more specifically Morgon Cotê de Py 2008 by Jean-Marc Burgaud.

Did Burgaud have lamproie when he made this wine? The Perfect Match in a long time. But if you don't have lampreys I think eel would work as well. If you don't drink when eating leave the bottle to mature for awhile.

Yeast

Iphone blogging rules or not?

I got myself thinking about yeast and decided to post my irrational thoughts.

First things first. It is common to use non-commercial yeast to make wine typical of its origin or better stuff than the commoners buy...

Why beaujolais nouveau has banana and other weird aromas? Gamay? Not the carbonic maceration either but the commercial yeast type playing the lead main role.

Let us go back to the naturalistas. Would go full monty if you happened to have the banana under your trousers? That's what I thought. It sure is more awkward if it's artificial than the real thing. But in wine even the realest must fix the the landscape because vine doesn't equal to wine without intervention. To shoot the pistol or to choke the chicken. Errrr. What?何?

Is modern style valid anymore?

I'm drinking this Chateau Berrye 2003, a Saumur rouge made from cabernet franc, and my short tasting note would read out like this: A ruby red of medium intensity, very intense nose of wooden spices and red berries, palate has lot's of wooden tannins with medium high acidity as well as alcohol and a fruit forward style wine.  A structured wine with interplay with fruit. A Modern Wine. Le vin moderne shortened to vin merde.

Is this valid anymore? Modern has been modern for ages. Should we move to post-modern wines which I would suggest the natural movement to be or define modernity again?

Speaking of which. I find going back to the roots like going back hundreds of years very modern in contemporary thinking about wine, food and life.

Loire Whites

I recently had a blast at the current world's best restaurant and it got me thinking how little I know about wines from my favorite country. A good Loire is just so hard to find. I knew one or two of these producers. That is I knew the name, maybe once tasted his product. Dang!

Philippe Tessier

Domaine du Petit Coteau

Damien Laureau

Château de Passavant

Vacheron

Gourdon

Domaine des Sablonettes (Christine & Joël Menard)

Back from Hiatus

Summer is almost over. Still 2 weeks vacation left. Next week to Noma. Here's something I've done this summer.

Vin Rosé

Recently, I had two to start up the summer which has yet been rather cool one. The first was from legendary AOC Tavel which I would classify near Provence or is the Provençal style is close to Tavel: Low acidity, high alcohol level with intense fruit. The other rosé style is more about the crispness that is gotten from the high acidity and not trying to stuff too much fruit in to the wine. Maybe it has something to do with the cepages as well.

Chateau de Ségriès from Tavel can attract people. A very modern touch. It has an intense pink color with strawberry aromas as intense as the color. Well made wine. A bit lazy I think. I'm getting tired of these modern fruity wines but still I rather liked it.

Jean-Marc Burgaud's Rosez! was a post modern one. Elegant light color just a dash of reddish. The intensity of the fruit is light with more about minerality and crispness than fruit. Complexity was revealed gradually. Which, combined with the lightness and high evaporation made you want to take another sip before it would disappear! A beauty.

Imitating or hoaxing

German riesling

What makes wine spoofed? Comparing riesling to pinot noir can I claim that riesling is more spoofed wine? It has to be filtered and heavily sulfured to avoid unwanted secondary and/or malolactic fermentations in bottle. The suggested maximum yield is much more higher for riesling than pinot noir. What about the style wanted? Does riesling have too many styles? Does it need so many styles? Can the kellermeister or weinmacher believe they can produce 6 or more different styles of wine from the same riesling, vineyard, year alternating the hanging time of the grapes. Is there a style that is better than the rest? Can you make good spätlese trocken in Mosel? Is this varying styles spoofing also? Should we just drink traditional Spanish reds from old vines and pruned to natural low yield combined long aging to reduce the needs to manipulate the wine.

Is riesling morally better than Bordeaux?

Yesterday I had a middle aged spätlese trocken from Kesselstatt from Piesport Goldtröpfchen of Mosel. It was definitely well made wine but something normally associated to other german wine regions. An imitation,show off or just marketing? World of riesling is complex but somewhere inside lies the fascination but it's a very spoofed but what isn't.

Why Australian riesling is different from the old world?

I think it's kind of funny that Jancis Robinson has compared the Bordeaux '09 to Napa. The good ol' days were all about the former: Comparing new products to established legends. Will the future bring us more comparisons of yardsticks to current trends? What will happen when the yardstick is being made to resemble more the wine that compares itself to legend? Will the alcohol and prices escalate? Everything flows to this same pond full of hot climate wine. The classic notion of narrowing circle: Australia's snow will never melt but Europe will warm.

                                                         Is it too hot in Finland?

César - Un cépage très rare

The other day I found out that pea and other dominating vegetal aromas and flavors in wine isn't really for me. This had a load when popped and poured. I went against the advice from the merchant and suffered. Luckily they passed away and disappeared the next day. 

The flavor profile was very different from pinot noir. More like fuller bodied northern syrah with black pepper. What reminded me of Bourgogne was it's lovely acid structure and cool fruit characteristics. This wine was 100% césar from Yonne département. According to the appellation rules, this ancient grape variety from Yonne (look for Irancy) could be called appellation d'origine contrôlée Irancy only if it had 10% or less césar and the rest pinot noir. While tasting the wine I could see why! Such a green wine only made in the better warmer years.

This cépage, also known as gros noir or romain according to this dedicated cépage site,  is very vulnerable to oidium and mildew so needs much caretaking and attendance. I'm honored to have privilege to be able to drink vielles cépages français! This wine was Domaine Sorrin-Coquard Cuvée Antique 2005. Antique price as well!

Incapability of Impartiality and Irancy

I'm opinionated to like what I buy. If I served a 20-year-old Pomerol from my own cellar, can I safely it's in ok condition. I'm confident that I'll be able to admit that the bottle served is cork tainted or that it wasn't the perfect example of the wine but the brettanomyces characteristics or problems caused by heat exposure are too much for me to admit when I'm having such a precious wine.

I believe that the senses are most open when you're tasting blind. If sense someone serves you something special, are you capable of saying your honest feelings without adding a little bit of make up.

Anyways, couple nights ago I had a blast! Opened a completely new stuff for me. A pinot noir from Bourgogne from 2007. Ok. I admit it sucks if that's my idea of new next level stuff... But this thing was a beauty. It had so much of the good things I like in my young pinot.

Shiny pretty color but maybe not filtered. The color doesn't matter in pinot noir. The crucial point concerns about fining and filtering your wine. When undone it can mean that brett dominates if something happened, like the season was rainy or old oak is used in vinification. But brett doesn't mean it's a fault, for example seek the famous Chateau Musar from Lebanon.

The aromas and flavors of flowers and cool red berries that are ripe and therefore lightly sweet. Which is balanced by the intense acidity that is zesty but thoroughly integrated with the fruit. Kind of like yin yang. Also some oak aromas that can be obtained from pièces vieux and some vegetal flavors from leaving some stems balanced with low tannin level of pure silk. Pure balance the whole wine.

Ok, I'm biased. I like coolness (read: not overripe) in my wine but this can still mean almost every northern pinot noir meant to drunk young (or old). So what was it that made this so special and new?

The striking minerality! Only from Kimmeridgian chalk! The chablisity!

"Red Chablis"

Irancy.

Irancy and the 2 other communes that make the AOC Irancy is Chablis' close Southwestern neighbor, distance less than 20km. Same kimmeridgian characteristics that give Chablis the famous minerality are found here.

The third red wine grape in Bourgogne can be used up to 10% in AOC Irancy pinot noir must be rest. This was pure pinot noir. AOC Irancy is relatively new area found at the 1999. Before the red wines could be Bourgogne Irancy labeled. For more information check this or McDuff's blog

Seems like the most the Irancy I know of is being made by famous Chablis vignerons like Vincent Dauvissat and Clotilde Davenne (17 years in Brocard now focusing to her own 8.5ha)

Next up: the third grape variety. 100% César. 

spring is natural this time of the year

Oh. Spring. The wine is...

Champagne.

Blanc de blancs.

No or low dosage with respect to the wines.

Naturally milky wine or not.

What a difference does a color make in wine! A hazy or milky red wine cannot be perceived as tasty as bright wine or can it? If the color is not bright, I might have a strong feeling that there might be something wrong especially if it's the first time I'm tasting it. The non-filtered or/and non-fined wines might behave that way I have recently learned.

I can imagine how many riesling producers lose their good night's sleep over the worrying of the potassium bitartrate crystals appearing in wine. Couple of weeks ago I had a '98 Santenay from Bourgogne where one bottle was bright but slightly out of condition and another one milky and more expressing nose but not giving everything I'd hoped an aged wine to give. In the end I concluded error on both of them or was it?

Last week I found milk in my red Bourgogne again. This time smelling like manure. It was a lovely rustic wine. I understand that the haziness could come from hands-off-style vinification. Weird. Does the real wine mean more non bright wines? I need to try the third wine Naudin-Ferrand Bourgogne '07 again.  Waiting how it will show itself me this time.

Recaredo Is Promising

How tough it is to get people to taste something they have never heard of and can't find almost any reliable information in English from the web. A couple of weeks ago I participated to a Recaredo portfolio tasting where there was just one handful of people.

What a producer. Not your average cava! The cavas were reductive and oaked like Bollinger or Krug but as stylish as them. Apparently, they age their bottles with natural cork stopper. The oldest cava tasted was from the '99. The single vineyard Turó d'en Mota of just 0,97ha. It was just extraordinaire quality.

Today, they try to do everything manually and respecting the biodiversity. They produce xarel.lo based brut nature cava with remuage and degorgement à la volée with an official organic approach to their viticulture. However they are still experimenting with yeast. Currently relying mostly to commercial but working towards to their own culture.

Recaredo is doing to cava what I like about my favorite grower-champagnes. I can know from which vineyard(s) the bottle comes from and can further find information about the climate and soil characteristics. This is what I miss in Champagne in general. Luckily there are many excellent and promising producers in Champagne. Recaredo is now excellent but with a promising future ahead. I hope to be able to follow their journey.

Writing this I have developed a thirst for champagne so I guess I'll be celebrating the 1^st of May with some recently acquired Tarlant.