Burgundy is the world’s top dog when it comes to making Pinot Noir but at today’s tasting New Zealand fared much better in a blind line up of Pinots from around the world. Of course we’re in New Zealand so the tasting might have been a bit skewed but there were some real surprises.
There’s a whole number of reasons why the Burgundians looked rather unimpressive today: the 2006 vintage was patchy, the selection of wines was rather tight and closed, and you need more than a splash of wine to make a true assessment of them. They could’ve done with a nice game dish to accompany them too.
Nevertheless Oz Clarke was so unmoved by the 2006 Camille Giroud, Chambertin Grand Cru that he said he found it as exciting as a “bus timetable”. I awarded it a very average 16.5 out of 20 and thought it was a village level Burgundy. At the prices Grand Cru Chambertin commands, this wine shrieked daylight robbery.
In contrast, my favourite wines of the tasting were the 2007 Ata Rangi and the 2007 Felton Road Block 5. Both had beautiful purity, concentration and structure. The tannins were certainly a lot riper and the wines were much more approachable in their youth than Burgundy. The panel of speakers started getting carried away with comparisons to song lyrics in their tasting notes and critic Neal Martin claimed the Felton Road Pinot was his ‘Let’s Get It On’ wine. Unfortunately he wasn’t so complimentary to Russian River’s Littorai Pinot, likening it to a song from Flight of the Conchords, ‘Sugar Lumps’, in which Bret and Jemaine compare their testicles to the sweet cubes. I think I’d rather have Marvin Gaye.
It was good to see the NZ Pinots performing so well but one of the UK’s leading importers Hatch Mansfield warned producers not to set their sights only at the premium end of the market.
The average price for a bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir in the UK is currently £8.93. Patrick McGrath MW, managing director of Hatch said, “I don’t think you want that premium to go any higher because you want to introduce Pinot to the greater public.”
“There’s a huge opportunity for it to become mainstream,” he added.
Tim Atkin MW agreed with McGrath. “ I believe Pinot Noir is a huge opportunity. Under £20 I would rather drink a New Zealand Pinot Noir. If you can crack the £9.99 market then the future in the UK export market is very bright.”
I’m not sure that’s what producers wanted to hear about their precious red grape variety.
If you’re planning on having a conference, stretch the budget to Saatchi & Saatchi’s CEO Kevin Roberts. It may have been 8.30am, an ungodly hour for a wine conference to start, but he managed to wake the industry without the help of caffeine.
The advertising guru certainly gave the industry food for thought when it comes to its image. “You have the most sensual business in the world yet you insist on using packaging that makes it look like toilet cleaner. Following that classic comment up with another criticism of the industry: “Most people have websites that bore you into submission,” he said. Sad but probably true.
He also called on the New Zealand government to get behind the industry with funding to back the New Zealand wine ‘brand’ to make it a ‘Lovemark’, meaning a brand that is both respected and loved, eg the ipod. You could buy another MP3 player, he argued, but you don’t because Steve Jobs and the clever people at Apple have created a cult following. The Kiwi wine industry needs to do the same thing.
Instead of Pure New Zealand, he also suggested ‘Made with Love in New Zealand’ should be its new strapline. Hmmm, not so keen on that one. Maybe we could take a poll on that.
I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to follow Roberts but UK journalist Matthew Jukes did a pretty good job. Following the pretty average 2007 and 2008 vintages in Burgundy, he claimed New Zealand has the chance to attract a new legion of Pinot followers, particularly in the UK. “You have a long time gap between now and the release of the 2009 Burgundy vintage. There is a window of opportunity and it is only going to happen once so don’t stuff it up,” he said.
Less talk, more tasting
The morning’s 2007 blind tasting was an interesting chance to identify regional differences. The Central Otago Pinots were pretty easy to pick from the blind line-up for their powerful structure, dense fruity core, dried herb note and lovely line of acidity. While I picked the two Marlborough Pinots in the line up, it was mainly because they were fruit forward but lacked structure and length. Biodynamic Pinot producer Mike Weersing of Pyramid Valley (see previous blog on Pyramid) pointed out he doesn’t look to make a wine that reflects regionality but his individual terroir. But that’s an argument for another day.
The 2003 line up this afternoon was a bit disappointing. The tannins had dried out on most wines and the acid and oak were sticking out like a sore thumb. The 2003 Felton Road Block 5, Pegasus Bay and Rippon Estate seemed to be standing the test of time better than the rest. Neal Martin, a UK-based reviewer for Robert Parker, had the honesty and guts to stand up and tell the room of 400 delegates what he thought. I wish I had had the balls to get up and say it but I’ve saved it for my blog. There’s less chance of getting something thrown at me.
Wine of the day
This was a toss up between two 2007 Central Otago Pinots - Valli vs Peregrine.
Both would easily get a gold medal and 18.5+ but I’ve plumped for the Valli. What’s so good about it? It has great depth of colour with plum, cherry and signature Central Otago dried herbs. It’s silky in the mouth with a lovely chalky texture on the finish and a vibrant line of acidity. While some NZ Pinots lack structure, this isn’t one of them and the 14% alcohol is beautifully integrated.
So, my Wine of the Week is Pyramid Valley’s 2008 Earthsmoke Pinot Noir. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve tasted from New Zealand but then they’re doing things a little bit differently here.
The Burgundy-trained Californian, Mike Weersing, has been biodynamic since planting in this virgin territory in 2000. Before coming to New Zealand, he lived in a camper van “cadging” jobs off his heroes: Alsace’s Jean Michel Deiss, the Mosel’s Ernie Loosen and Burgundy’s Nicolas Potel. People thought he was mad leaving his winemaking job at Neudorf to set up in the unknown Pyramid Valley but he seems to have proven the sceptics wrong.
What is it that makes his wines so different to the rest of the country? Perhaps it’s the soil. Weersing said, “We could not locate the combination of clay and limestone anywhere else in Waipara.”
Or could the explanation lie in low crops? The two-hectare vineyard planted with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is planted at an Old World density of 1m by 0.8m with only 400g of fruit per vine. Elsewhere, it’s common to see 3.5kg of fruit on a vine – and 5kg for Sauvignon Blanc. The concentration comes through in the wines.
What’s more, 95% of his vines are ungrafted and he has found that those that are grafted on to American roostocks are the first to suffer drought. He’s also discovered that the roots of the ungrafted vines can penetrate the limestone whereas the grafted ones get to the limestone and stop burrowing down, missing out on all the mineral goodness of the limestone. While most would worry about the threat of phylloxera, this vineyard is pretty isolated and Weersing has little concern about the vine louse.
Weersing doesn’t irrigate either unlike many other New Zealand grape growers. In Marlborough, some producers on free-draining gravel soils have told me they irrigate twice a day with 400mm of water at the height of summer. But this goes against his idea of terroir. “You are not just expressing the soil, you are expressing the season,” he says, “ and if there’s a bit of drought stress then so be it. For example, if you love Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses, you want to see it in all its manifestations.”
He makes his wines in a shipping container rather than a swanky winery. He doesn’t add anything including sulphur (until bottling) and when he does bottle his reds, he doesn’t fine nor filter, so expect a slightly cloudy wine but with all the good bits still in it. Considering his wines have a high pH (4.1 for his 08 Pinot Noir), this should mean that the wines are really unstable and prone to microbial spoilage. It goes against all the wine books that his wines should work. But they do.
Some people might think Weersing’s a hippy. Perhaps he is, but who cares? The wines are impressive and I’m slowly coming around to biodynamics. The proof is in the glass.
While Burgundy growers are claiming 2009 is going to be a good year, it could potentially have been ruined by growers picking too early.
Christophe Chauvel, chief viticulturalist at Albert Bichot said, “The vintage looks beautiful but just because the grapes looked nice that didn’t mean they were ripe. On 17 August the white grapes in Corton Charlemagne were already golden. The black grapes were already turning blue and looking ripe on 3 August.”
It is claimed the regulatory body in Burgundy, the BIVB, was too hasty in declaring an early start to the vintage and growers rushed to pick. Although sugar levels were sufficient, the seeds and skins were still unripe in some cases and there will be some producers with some ‘green’ wines and hard tannin this year.
Check out my youtube video of Philippe de Marcilly, commercial director at Albert Bichot, and his thoughts on the early harvest. I’ve just set up my you tube wine channel Check it out. I’ll be posting videos from my travels and tastings around the wine world. Need to steady my filming hand but I’ll be tracking down top names in the industry and asking them tricky questions.
After years of believing there were seven Grand Cru vineyards in Chablis, it turns out that’s not entirely true. It appears there are eight. The one that got away – La Moutonne – sits between Vaudesir and Preuses and has largely been ignored by the wine books.
All two-and-a-bit hectares of this steep south-facing vineyard are wholly owned by Burgundy negociant Albert Bichot. The ruling body of the French appellation system, the INAO, ratified it as an official appellation in 1945 but an official decree was never published. Nothing like a bit of French bureaucracy to complicate things.
The vineyard gets its name from Cistercian monks at Pontigny Abbey, which owned the vineyard until 1791. Apparently the wine gets its name from these non-abstemious monks who claimed, “after drinking this wine, one jumps like a little sheep.”
This is a little gem of a marketing tool – the forgotten Grand Cru. Most PRs would kill for such a USP. Come on Bichot.
Fudging the smudge pots
I’ve been telling all my wine students that grape growers in Chablis burn smudge pots/use aspersion systems to minimise spring frost damage. Well most growers haven’t for the past five vintages. Speaking to a viticulturalist at Bichot, it appears they have become redundant, as frosts are less common – global warming perhaps? In the eight Grand Cru vineyards, frost prevention methods are still used but in less prestigious vineyards, the cost of frost prevention isn’t justified.