Friday, July 17th, 2009
17th July 2009
We’re off to Australia tomorrow for a 17-day tour of the country’s major GIs and sub-regions.
We can promise some fascinating Featured Tastings and Cellar Door write-ups from Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales as well as interviews with celebrated winemakers and other industry leaders.
We’ll also get round to delivering on those promised tastings and other Beijing events from a little earlier this year.
All tastings notes to be available here and on Adegga.
Monday, July 13th, 2009
NV Alvear Solera 1927 Pedro Ximenez, Montilla-Moriles
Available from Palette Wines: Office 6585 3099 or diego@palettewines.cn and from their shops in Shunyi (8046 4461), Central Park (6533 6605) or Dong Si Shiyitiao (64054855)
A perfect match for a bowl of cold ice cream! This is a sweet, dark, luscious wine filled with the fragrance of dried fruits, caramel, honey, butterscotch and fruitcake. It can be kept in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks without problem, if you can resist. It is exceedingly sweet, but with complex dried fruit and caramel flavours. Makes the perfect after-dinner drink to share with friends – particularly with a generous bowl of vanilla ice-cream! Serve chilled.
2006 Grace Vineyard Rosé, Shanxi
Available from Torres China contact: Sophie Sun sophie@torres.com.cn
This rosé is made from the freshly-picked Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot of Shanxi’s Grace Vineyard(s) and is made via the saignée method (see Wine Tips and Tricks July). Its freshness is preserved by low fermentation temperatures which result in cool and bright fruit flavours without a hint of oak. This classic rosé from a non-classic region provides fresh berry fruits combined with refreshing acidity and an elegant mouth-feel that will partner well with all sorts of salads as well as lighter Chinese styles of dish such as those found in Cantonese cooking.
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
A Bleeding Rose
As summer heats up, thoughts of wine often turn from dark and warming reds to light and refreshing pinks. But recently the European Union shocked Europe’s wineries by suggesting legislation to allow the widespread blending of red and white wines to make rosé. The suggestion brought outrage and storm to the pink wine world. Why?
Rosé Champagnes are nearly always actually made by blending, a practice defined under AC law (the Champagne region being largely defined by the art of the blend). But makers of still rosé wines are proud of their own time-honoured ways of producing cheeful pinks without recourse to blending.
In fact, one of the most useful ways of making rosé is by removing some of the wine early during red wine fermentation and bottling it. Without substantial skin contact, the removed wine is light pink with delicate red-berry or other red fruit flavours and little or next to no tannin.
This type of rosé is known as ‘Saignée’, the French term for ‘bled’; and the practice is thought to make the remaining red wine more concentrated and intense in flavour. Because of this and because such rosé wines can be sold quickly, the Saignée method has proved a useful source of income for red winemakers in places like Bordeaux especially! There are, however, also some serious ‘Saignée’ Rosé Champagnes worth trying.
