Presenters Noelle and Bob ready for a super, unique On-Air Tasting!
**Check this out** – Sunday 13th March on Bay Radio (www.bayradio.fm) a superb Wine, Olive Oil and Tapas Tasting live in the Bay Radio Studio! A unique event that will have you gasping to get to the shops the next day to buy the stunning Bodegas Roda, Roda 1 and Roda Rioja Wines and their First Class Extra Virgin Olive Oils, Aubocassa and Dauro!
We’ll be tasting these Spanish Classics with a variety of Top Tapas and you
Join the Party on Bay Radio's Sunday Brunch Unique Wine Tasting with Olive Oil and Tapas!
can join the party by tuning in to Bay Radio’s Sunday Brunch Programme, Sunday 13th March – Spring in the air, there’s magic everywhere!
A Spanish company, Estal Packaging, has just produced a new, uniquely shaped bottle, designed by famous Basque Restaurateur Martín Berasategui, which claims to be the answer to the problem of sediment in fine wines. I have a proto-type sitting on my desk right now – alas, empty!
However there are many such bottles that have recently been shipped for trials to a number of bodegas that pride themselves on the longevity of their fine wines. The factory results are excellent but is the proof of the bottle in the pouring thereof, of fine wine that has thrown a deposit? Do they actually work?
There are countless wines produced each year that will not require the services of such a bottle. Some grape varieties rarely leave a deposit anyway and many producers are worried about having ‘clean’ wine so as not to alienate the consumer, who doesn’t want tiny deposits in the bottom of his glass and insists on pouring the whole 75cl.
Yet it can be argued that wines which undergo: fining (a means of clarifying wine by adding a fining agent to coagulate or absorb the microscopic particles left in the liquid which then drops to the bottom of the tank); and racking (where clear wine is removed from the sediment at the bottom of the barrels), lose something along the way.
Purists would say that the heart of the wine has been extracted from the finished product making it a slightly lesser wine. Indeed there are many producers who deliberately do not ‘fine’ their wines preferring to have some sediment in the bottle to help the continuing maturation process. Often such bottles proudly proclaim that the wine has not been fined/racked/clarified warning consumers that there may be a sediment so please pour with care. I often go for such wines.
Well it seems that there is now the increased possibility of our buying wines that have not undergone the invasive procedure of fining and racking but that will still be clear when poured into the glass despite the presence of sediment. The slightly odd-looking, and I have to say, not so aesthetically pleasing, new design will hopefully trap the sediment in its base allowing us the benefit of a wine with its heart in place but without unpleasant looking deposits in the bottom of the glass.
Nevertheless I do have some reservations, which I hope will be proved wrong in the clinical trials that are already taking place.
When a wine is poured from the tank or barrel into the bottles it brings with it the tiny particles mentioned earlier – some of the fruit and the dead yeast. With time, Isaac Newton, our science teachers and, just to be sure, the winemakers, tell us gravity will take these particles down to the base of the bottle. The bottle manufacturers conclude that this is where the sediment will be trapped when the bottle is eventually poured.
However, as we know, when storing wine that has been closed with cork it should be left lying horizontally to keep the cork in contact with the wine (to avoid the cork drying). If we do this with the Martín Berasategui System bottle the sediment will not all be trapped in the base.
Well the design team must have seen this criticism coming as they claim that the new packaging system they have also invented allows the bottles to stay in their case which stores them at an angle, where the cork remains moist and the sediment stays where it’s meant to.
The jury is out but I’m hoping for a positive verdict!
As we’ve said before, chicken is very wine friendly and isn’t proud – it is happy to share the table with all colours and most styles of wine. So it’s the highly flavoured chorizo that we have to deal with in this dish. A young red from Navarra, where Garnacha is the predominant variety in the blend, would suit it quite well.
Sunday Brunch Presenters, Noelle and Bob, enjoying the recommended wines!
However, the chilli included in the recipe would emphasise and noticeable tannin, making the wine harsh and therefore detracting from the dish as a whole.
It might be better, therefore, to go for a Rosado – same place and same grape variety or maybe from Rioja where Tempranillo may also be involved. Spain is home to some excellent rosado wines which are often well under 10€ a bottle, so I think that I’d go for this.
Whilst we were primarily, of course, in the UK to enjoy the company of family and friends at Christmas time, I’m always indulged as far as my observation of current wine trends is concerned. For my part I like to think I strike a happy balance, occasionally I stop taking wine notes and listen!
Our visit last Easter was, it seemed, like surfing in on a giant wave of Sauvignon Blanc! The UK was awash with wines made from this super-crisp grape variety. It was the preferred choice in most houses we visited as well as in pubs and bars, and the wine shops and supermarket shelves were loaded with the stuff. No, problem, I like Sauvignon, and it was a pleasure to try the same from so many different countries – the UK is still the best country on the planet for wine variety!
I expected the same at Christmas – but hey, Sauvignon, move over and make room for Pinot Griggio! Yes the Italian, oh-so-slightly grey-tinged grape variety is currently in vogue. And again, no problem, I often like this wine too, plus it’s good to enjoy variety when offered a glass of dry white.
It seems that, unlike here in Spain, the UK wine drinking public follows fads. What’s ‘in’ this month (maybe week?) could well ‘passé next. I’m quite sure also that, as these darlings of the moment are still good wines, even when they inevitably fall from prominence, they will return another time. It’s a cyclical thing, but who’s turning the wheel, and why?
It may be that the people responsible are those noble gentlepeople of the press (should wine columnists be known as the wine press, do you think?!). If a wine writer is bombarded with samples of a certain grape variety he/she’s bound to write about the wines he tastes. Ergo the more writers who receive these samples, the more column inches there are and bingo, the current tide turns in favour of this next variety. So who orchestrates the sample sending – is it merely coincidence?
I use the ‘more is less’ term here to describe two other traits I noticed in the UK. Cork Talk readers will know that one never fills a wine glass more than a third full. But it seems that in the UK this is not the case (except in the homes we visited, of course, where friends and family are also discerning wine drinkers). I all the pubs and restaurants we patronised glasses were filled almost to the brim. Why is this?
Wine Glasses should be no more than a third full, otherwise More is Less!
I suspect that it is because an unaware public will feel short-changed if they are served a glass that is well short of full. In fact, though, they are already being cheated – of all the aromas, integral to full wine appreciation, that wine offers prior to tasting. If it’s difficult to put the glass to your lips without spilling the contents how can we possibly swirl and sniff and allow those fragrances to tempt us? More is less!
Also ‘more is less’ when I consider many of the wines that I tasted, though you may disagree. Almost all of the red wines I drank, many in fact from Chile (the biggest culprit?), were big. Big in up-front fruit and/or up-font fruit and oak combined as well as big in alcohol. I liked them, initially. The bold flavours please the palate, but the second glass, well it was just too much! Bigger wines, these days it seems, equal less complexity.
Has subtlety been left out of the New World Wine Dictionary? Is finesse a thing of the past in wines from these countries? Has the sophisticated palate been GBH’d by overripe fruit, high alcohol and wooden clubs? More is less!
