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Brezo de Grégory Pérez 2014, Bierzo

Brezo de Grégory Pérez 2014, Bierzo

IMG_1623Brezo de Grégory Pérez 2014, Bierzo
12.5%
€18.50

Available from 64wine, Glasthule, Sheridan’s Cheesemongers

This is an enchanting fruit-filled wine with plump melons and pears as well as a touch of the exotic. There is a lovely lanolin texture on the palate, underpinned by a refreshing mineral streak. Perfect with all kinds of seafood, white meats and salads, but I would fancy it with a few plump scallops. Brilliant wine.

This is made mainly from the Godello grape, with a dollop of Doña Blanca. Godello is the grape behind Valdeorras, another delicious wine from north-west Spain. It is every bit as good, if not better, than Albariño.

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Duxie Grapefruit Tea Pale Ale, Jack Cody’s Brewery

<strong>Duxie Grapefruit Tea Pale Ale, Jack Cody’s Brewery

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Geoff FitzPatrick of Jack Cody’s

Duxie Grapefruit Tea Pale Ale, Jack Cody’s Brewery
5%

First published in the online Irish Times on 24th February, 2016

Yes, you read it correctly. A beer that lists pink grapefruit , lime and earl grey tea as ingredients alongside the usual barley, hops, yeast and water. The label says drink in the sunshine, something that is currently in short supply, or with salads, smoked mackerel or Thai red curry. I had none of these to hand, but gave it a go anyway. It has aromas of candy and orange peel, and a light, refreshing, lightly bitter palate of fruit and candy again and some grapefruit. It also has the slight yet definite soapy perfume and flavour of earl grey tea. I liked it but could see how others wouldn’t.

Set up in Drogheda by Geoff FitzPatrick, Jack Cody’s has been going since the summer of 2014, making a good name for itself with Smiggy Amber Ale and Puck Pilsner. The brewery also has Hail Glorious Saint Patrick Extra Stout out for the coming national day.

Posted in: Beer, Beer & Whiskey, Irish Times

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Winter warmers to brighten up the cold evenings

First published in the Irish Times, Saturday 20th February, 2016

I could and possibly should have written this piece at the start of the year, when half the country was underwater and everyone was suffering from storms, the cold and the rain. General misery in other words. I am not suggesting wine as a cure, but a glass or two of something warming and red over dinner can brighten up a miserable cold evening. I did not partake in dry January.

I had been suffering from a cold/chest infection (yes, that one) for an extended period over Christmas, and was unable to taste anything properly. I felt deprived, so I indulged myself in the month of January, although I observed my alcohol-free start to the week fairly strictly. I drank some very nice wines; it certainly helped me through the darkest month of the year.

Now, with March almost upon us, (and spring, according to some) there are signs of warmer weather to come. On clearer mornings I can see daylight as I return from my walk. But the days are still bitterly cold. As I write, the wind is howling outside. For the moment my rieslings and other light white wines are on hold. I have certainly been drinking more substantial wines to provide warmth and a little comfort.

I am eating different foods, comforting, slow-cooked meals, meat stews, roasted root vegetables and squash. These bigger flavours demand more robust wines. An extra percent or two of alcohol helps keep the cold out of the bones too, although higher-alcohol wines seem to be less common as winemakers decrease alcohol levels. Even after dinner, over fireside chats or snuggled up on the sofa, a rich red wine seems appropriate. I tend to serve these wines a little warmer too (but still only 16-18 degrees).

I have covered winter whites before; as a reminder, I tend to head for richer, more textured white wines too over the colder months. This means chardonnay, viognier, chenin blanc from South Africa, and southern Rhone blends that include roussanne and grenache blanc.

When it comes to red wines, remember that warmer climates tend to produce bigger, richer wines. Countries such as Argentina, Australia, South Africa and California all offer wines that pack a real punch. In Europe, Spain, the southern parts of France and Italy, as well as Portugal and Greece, have the necessary climate. The reds and whites from the southern Rhone often seem tailor-made for winter drinking.The reds cover the full price spectrum. Otherwise I look to the Languedoc and Spain for good-value winter reds. The grape varieties change a little too: less pinot noir, more grenache, shiraz, mourvèdre and malbec.

Our three wines this week vary in price. I have ignored the most expensive full-bodied wines, such as Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Plic, Plic, Plic is the sound of rain on the ground, apparently. Montsant is in the hills of Catalonia, high above Tarragona. It surrounds the sought-after region of Priorat, and can produce wines with a similar structure and concentration, if seldom the same polish. Prices are significantly cheaper though. The Casa Castilla comes from Jumilla in southeast Spain.Monastrell, known elsewhere as mourvèdre or mataro, originated in this part of the world. The wines are usually big and structured, sometimes tannic and rustic; certainly not wines to sip before dinner but great on a cold evening. This particular wine hides a warming 15 per cent alcohol very well.Turkey Flat is run by Christie Schulz, one member of a family that arrived in the Barossa Valley in 1847 with the first Silesian settlers. The Butcher’s Block (they once had a butcher’s shop too) is a classic Barossa red in the very best sense. Rich in fruit with plenty of power, this went well with my Szechuan beef stew and the remainder with grilled lamb chops.

Image 15Plic Plic Plic 2013, Monsant, Spain
14%
€13.99

Medium to full-bodied with blackcurrant fruits and a toasty, spicy touch.

Stockists: Wines on the Green; Mitchells; Baggot St Wines; Red Island; Fresh; McCabes; Clontarf Wines; The VIntry.

IMG_0030Casa Castillo Monastrell 2013, Jumilla
15%
€15.50

Slightly gamey rich, rounded plum fruits; rich and rounded with a subtle oakiness on the tail. Great value for money.

Stockists: 64wine, Glasthule; Clontarf Wines; Red Island, Skerries; Fallon & Byrne, Exchequer St.; Fresh Outlets.

ImageButcher’s Block 2013, Turkey Flat, Barossa Valley
14.5%
€21.99

A lovely rich full-bodied red that will provide instant warmth. Plush dark fruits with a solid backbone.

Ardkeen, Waterford; LaTouche, Greystones; Matson’s, Cork; Sweeneys.

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Golden Valley Grasevina 2014 Pozega Valley, Slavonija, Croatia

Golden Valley Grasevina 2014 Pozega Valley, Slavonija, Croatia

Image 3Golden Valley Grasevina 2014
Pozega Valley, Slavonija, Croatia
13%

€14.79 from Marks & Spencer

Floral, with unusual but attractive spicy melon fruits, good acidity and a clean finish. Interesting well-made wine. Drink on its own, or with herby fish dishes.

This wine is made from the Grasevina grape, the Croatian name for Welschriesling. You may not have heard of it, but it is widely grown across central Europe, the Balkans, and Italy. It is typically used to make sweet wine, but can make very gluggable dry white wines too.

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Porteno Malbec 2015, Bodegas Norton, Mendoza

Porteno Malbec 2015, Bodegas Norton, Mendoza

IMG_1604Porteno Malbec 2015, Bodegas Norton, Mendoza
14%

Available from O’Briens for €10.95 for the month of February

This is a really tasty wine, relatively powerful, and rippling with layers of dark fruit. No oak and no tannins; just a big mouthful of pure supple fruit. At less than €11 for the month of February, this is a real bargain.

Argentina is famous for it’s Malbec. Fragrant, rich and powerful, the wines provide a perfect match for all of these barbequed ribs, steaks and other pieces of smoky charred protein. Cheapskate that I am, I often prefer the less oaky, less extracted mid-priced versions. There is some good inexpensive Malbec around too. The Aldi Exquisite Collection Malbec is worth checking out. It isn’t as good as the Porteño though. This is made by Norton, one of my favourite producers in Argentina.

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Crazy Creatures Gruner Veltliner 2014, Malat, Kremstal

Crazy Creatures Gruner Veltliner 2014, Malat, Kremstal

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Crazy Creatures Grüner Veltliner 2014, Malat, Kremstal
12%
€18.95

Light, fresh, clean, lean green apple fruits with a touch of spice. Michael Malat suggests it as a breakfast wine; I would say lunch. Perfect sipped solo or with shellfish. There is a series of Crazy Creatures labels, signifying the fun ‘pop and go’ nature of the wines.

The Austrians were in town last week, and I tasted a fantastic array of scintillating white and red wines. The Austrians don’t really do cheap, but they don’t really do bad wine either; there was hardly a dud in the entire tasting. Grüner Veltliner is the national specialty; it ranges in style from crisp and dry to rich and textured. Either way, the wines are great to sip on their own, and are one of the most food-friendly wines of all.

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La Solana 2012, Suertes del Marqués, Valle de la Orotava,

La Solana 2012, Suertes del Marqués, Valle de la Orotava,

Image 1La Solana 2012, Suertes del Marqués, Valle de la Orotava,
13.5%

€27 from 64wine, Glasthule; Clontarf Wines; Baggot Street Wines; Blackrock Cellars; Michael’s, Deerpark; Redmonds, Ranelagh; Black Pig, Donnybrook.

A truly fascinating wine with lifted floral and forest fruit aromas, cool dark fruits and dark chocolate on the palate, a refreshing acidity with a mineral core. The overall impression on the palate is light, fruity and savoury all at the same time. Gorgeous wine.

Do you go head off to the Canaries for a blast of sun? If you do, then on your next visit, I suggest you check out their wines the next time. I was bowled over by some at a tasting last year. This wine, from Tenerife, is made by a modern, family-owned estate from the unknown (outside of the Canaries) Listán Negro grape variety. The vines are 80-100 years old and grown on dark volcanic soils. It is fermented in concrete tanks and large old oak casks to allow the fruit to show through. I featured this wine in the Irish Times last year. Recently I cracked open a second bottle and was still blown away.

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Stone Barrel Oatmeal & Coffee Stout

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The Rotation Series Episode 4 Oatmeal & Coffee Stout
Stone Barrel Brewing Company

6%
First published in the online Irish Times Wednesday 17th February, 2016

What do bankers do when they tire of taking our money? Make beer if Stone Barrel is anything to go by. Niall FitzGerald and Kevin McKinney had been friends for a long time. “We both worked in financial services in the glory days. We were low level though” stresses Kevin, “if we had been real bankers we have a really fancy brewery by now.” For the moment they brew in Craftworks, the brewing facility in Broombridge. However, they have now bought their own kit and hope to set up their own operation in the next eight to ten weeks.

“We were home brewers for a long time and like a lot of people, always wanted to have our own brewery.” Their first beer, Boom, was released in November 2013. “We made a conscious decision to develop one product and push it as much as possible. We are hugely proud of the result; it is our bread and butter.” The oatmeal and coffee is the fourth in their rotational series. “Whenever we have a bit of spare capacity we try a once off to keep us and the beer drinkers interested,” says Kevin.

The label is not the easiest to read. “We had a mishap with the printers and the label came out a lot darker than we anticipated”, says Kevin. “But we needed to get the beer out there before Christmas so we went ahead. Label aside, this is a very nice beer, with plenty of dark roasted coffee and dark chocolate too, alongside some hoppy fruit. All of this darkness matched my mood, as I watched Ireland go under in Paris.

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An Irish favourite: Rioja reigns from Spain

First published in the Irish Times 13th February, 2016

In the weeks before Christmas I spent a great deal of time standing in wine shops, inveigling customers into buying a copy of my wine book. One store I visited had two giant piles of rioja reserva on offer at a discounted price. There were other wines on promotion too, but it was the two riojas that flew out with the greatest speed. Both stacks were severely depleted by the time I departed a few hours later. Rioja, and rioja reserva in particular, has long been one of our favourite wine styles and shows no sign of losing popularity.

Most of us would be unaware that rioja has been going through a huge personality change over the last decade, redefining itself several times over. You could now argue that there are three categories of rioja, with some crossover, but generally very different in style. Yet despite this upheaval, rioja has managed to retain its position as Spain’s favourite quality wine.

Until the late 1990s every bottle of rioja was classified according to how long it had been aged in oak barrel and bottle prior to release. Under this system, there is a specified a minimum period of ageing in oak: six months for crianza, a year for reserva, and two years for gran reserva wines, At one stage the required period of ageing was even longer in each category. Some, such as López de Heredia, still age wines for 10 or more years in barrel.

Old barrels were generally used to avoid oak flavours while allowing the wine to soften and develop delicate mushroomy, leathery, earthy flavours. Nowadays, a portion of newer barrels is sometimes included to add vanilla and spice.

Classic examples of the traditional style (López de Heredia, Muga Prado Enea and La Rioja Alta 904 spring to mind) can be superb, complex wines that last forever. The only exception to ageing in oak was up north in Alava, the Basque part of Rioja, where the tradition has been to drink young, unoaked wines often made partly or completely by whole-berry fermentation. These light, acidic fruity wines went perfectly with those tapas the Basques love to eat in bars and restaurants.

Rioja expanded massively in the 1990s and at times the quality of the wine decreased. There was a downward pressure on price in Spain (where most rioja is sold) and elsewhere. It lead to some very cheap and uninspiring reservas and gran reservas. During the prolonged period of economic success in the years preceding the millennium and after, many producers started to produce a new, modern style of rioja: full-bodied wines with high levels of new oak, alcohol, ripeness and extraction. They were also very expensive.

These fruit bombs were rapturously received by much of the media and a sector of the public. They were generally categorised as simply cosecha (meaning vintage or harvest) and ignored the traditional system of classification.

More recently there has been a move among smaller, younger producers towards much lighter, more elegant wines with little or no oak ageing. Again these are simply labeled cosecha. They often come from a single vineyard, some are made by whole- berry fermentation, others simply fermented and matured for very short periods in stainless steel or cement.

While I enjoy rioja reserva, I have always been a fan of the less oaky style as well. Tempranillo has such wonderful clean, delicate fruit it is a pity to mask it with too much oak. Having said that, the best of the traditional style are unique wines.

I received a number of excellent samples from the trade for this tasting. Sadly I couldn’t find space for the wonderful LZ de Lanziego (about €20). I also tasted the fine GA2 Graciano from Curious Wines (€17.49), and the excellent Artuke Pies Negros 2014, a wine that features in my book. See wilsononwine.ie for full details of the tasting.

jwilson@irishtimes.com

WINES OF THE WEEK

IMG_0005Artuke 2014, Rioja
13.5%
€15.70

Seductive wine; supple easy sweet ripe strawberry and red cherry fruit, with surprising concentration and depth.

Stockists: Listons, Camden St; 64wine, Glasthule; Clontarf Wines

DSCF6385Cantos de Valpiedra 2012,Rioja,
13%
€18.50/£12.50 This was an excellent cultured modern Rioja, with smooth supple cassis and subtle spice. A real crowd pleaser at a very fair price.

Stockists: jnwine.com

Image 26Señorío de Cuzcurrita 2008, Rioja
14%
€20.99

A lovely mature wine with ripe sweet strawberry and dark fruits laced with a soft, dusty earthiness, a little oak, and a fine minerality.

Stockists: Wines on the Green

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Prova Regia 2013, Arinto, VR Lisboa, Portugal

Prova Regia 2013, Arinto, VR Lisboa, Portugal

IMG_1562Prova Regia 2013, Arinto, VR Lisboa, Portugal
13%
€13.95

Stocked by a large number of independent wine shops and off-licences.

I have been enjoying this wine on and off for many years. Plump tropical fruits with pineapples and peaches, and a good fine crisp acidity. If you are tiring a little of Sauvignon Blanc, this is the perfect replacement. Drink on its own, or with fish. Arinto is widely grown in various regions of Portugal. The grapes retain a good acidity even in hot climates.

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