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Côtes du Rhône Simone Joseph Les Vignes Paralleles 2012

Côtes du Rhône Simone Joseph Les Vignes Paralleles 2012

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€13.99

Ripe and rounded with plenty of sweet strawberries and other red fruits and a hint of spice. Drink with red meats; my bottle went down perfectly with grilled lamb chops.

The 2011 vintage of this wine was one of my favourite bottles of 2014. I loved the combination of elegance and rich fruit. The 2012 is equally as good and possibly even better. The Simone Joseph label was developed by Rhône specialist Simon Tyrrell, who, using his intimate knowledge of the region, either buys parcels of wine from individual growers, or personally puts together blends. This is made from a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault.

Available from 64wine, Glasthule; Jus de Vine, Portmarnock; The Drink Store, Manor St.; Cases, Galway; No1 Pery Square, Limerick.

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Hugel Cuvée des Amours 2011, Pinot Blanc de Blancs

Hugel Cuvée des Amours 2011, Pinot Blanc de Blancs

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€15.99

Light apple and quince fruits with a clean refreshing acidity. Perfect sipping wine or with salads and lighter fish dishes.

Pinot Blanc generally gets a pretty bad press, rated lower than Pinot Gris/Grigio, which isn’t saying much. ‘Useful rather than exciting’, according to Jancis Robinson. I think this is a little unfair; I have to say I enjoy the soft easy fruitiness you get from Pinot Blanc and its cousin Auxerrois. I usually prefer them to Pinot Gris/Grigio and they make great party wines, guaranteed not to offend and very likely to please.

Available from The Vintry, Rathmines, Redmond’s, Ranelagh and wineonline.ie

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Waltner Zweigelt 2013, Halterberg, Austria

Waltner Zweigelt 2013, Halterberg, Austria

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€16

Enticing floral aromas with refreshing juicy dark fruits and a tannin-free finish. Great with lighter meats – pork, chicken or charcuterie.

Having arrived back from holiday, with delayed flights and lots of waiting around, I grabbed a bottle of this to drink with a hastily-prepared dinner of chops and salad. It was delicious. Zweigelt can be the Beaujolais of Austria, light refreshing and very gluggable. There are some winemakers who try a little too hard, ageing it in new oak barrels and extracting heavy tannins. To me that misses the whole point; Zweigelt is there to be drunk and enjoyed for its pure free-flowing fruits.

Available from Red Island Wines, Skerries; Listons, Camden St.; On the Grapevine, Dalkey, Cabot & Co. Westport.

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Muscadet: the perfect al fresco summer wine

Muscadet: the perfect al fresco summer wine

First published in The Irish Times
Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 01:00

Those of you of a certain vintage will remember Muscadet with a shudder. For a while in the 1970s and 1980s, this was the favourite tipple of the wine drinking classes. No drinks party was complete without it, and it featured on every wine list in the country. To meet demand, the vineyard area expanded dramatically and the larger companies started making vast quantities of very cheap wine.Most was pretty dire and a some of it probably didn’t even come from the Muscadet region. We moved on to the New World, and poor Muscadet hasn’t really gotten a look in since. Which is a pity as the region has long ago reformed itself (the good producers never went away), and now offers the intelligent buyer a selection of light wines, beautifully made and complex, with a character all of their own.There are few finer things in life than a large plateful of spanking fresh plain seafood washed down with generous quantities of Muscadet. As with Beaujolais, it is the perfect al fresco summer wine, one that seems made to drink outdoors at lunchtime.

Muscadet is the wine; the grape variety is Melon de Bourgogne, a distant relative of Chardonnay. The vast majority of the vines, some 20,000 acres, are grown in the Sèvre-et-Maine region and most bottles will bear this name on the label.In recent years, two other smaller sub-regions to the north have been created, Coteaux de la Loire and Côtes de Grandlieu. Muscadet-Côtes de Grandlieu tends to be riper and fruitier; Muscadet Coteaux de la Loire is lighter and more linear.Muscadet sometimes suffers a little due to its reputation as a crisp light white to go with seafood; although it will never be a big wine, that does not mean it is simple. The best have a wonderful subtle complexity. At a wine fair a decade ago, I worked my way around half-a-dozen small domaines, tasting some superb wines, including some excellent 10 year-old Muscadet.However, I would not recommend ageing your bottles; to me this is a wine best enjoyed in the first few years of its life, when the elegant plump fruits are to the fore. I am happy to say that a few intrepid outlets are now importing some of the top estates – Terroirs in Donnybrook in Dublin has the biodynamic Domaine de l’Ecu, and Le Caveau in Kilkenny has Château du Coing. Whelehans in Loughlinstown in Dublin imports the excellent Luneau-Papin, The Wine Store has Domaine Huchet and Wines Direct offers the wonderful Domaine de la Louvetrie. Most sell at €15-€20, very good value for quality wines. These days, most of the multiples offer decent inexpensive Muscadet. “Sur Lie”, which appears on most bottles, refers to the practice of leaving the wines on their lees, or dead yeast cells, for a period after fermentation. Bottled without filtration, the wines have a slight prickle and a soft creamy texture. Producers in many wine regions, including Burgundy and Rías Baixas, age white wines on their lees for 12 to 24 months to add flavour and complexity. It is traditional in Muscadet.

I am the proud owner of a Muscadet vineyard. A few years ago at a wine fair in the Loire, a producer presented me with a wax-covered stick and a small sack. The bag contained salt, Sel de Guérande, and the stick was a Melon de Bourgogne vine. These I was told, were Brittany’s greatest products. I enjoyed the salt and stuck the vine into the only vaguely sunny spot in the garden. Last year, it produced three bunches of very green acidic grapes. I don’t think the vignerons of Muscadet have much to fear from the vineyards of Wicklow.

DSCF5570Muscadet de Sèvre & Maine sur lie, Domaine de la Chauvinière 2013
12%
€13.99

Lovely light refreshing dry wine with delicate ripe plump apple fruits. Perfect with all manner of fishy things. Try it with oysters for a real treat.

Stockists: O’Briens; James Nicholson , Crossgar.

ImageMuscadet de Sèvre & Maine sur lie, Clos des Montys 2014
12%
€15.50

Jeremie Huchet makes the Chauviniére above and this delicious wine too; clean, subtle almost snow-like with a lovely long finish and a subtle spritz.

Stockists: Jus de Vine; McCabes; Redmonds; One Pery Sq. Limerick.

DSCF5496Muscadet de Sèvre & Maine sur lie, Les Pierres Blanches, Domaine Luneau-Papin
12%
€19.95

Delicate refined and crisp with the finest of floral, lemon-scented pristine fruit.
Exquisite wine.

Stockists: Whelehan Wines, Loughlinstown

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Sancerre Florès 2013 Vincent Pinard

Sancerre Florès 2013 Vincent Pinard

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€29.50

A stunning Sancerre with lifted floral aromas, and a superb razor-sharp, clean refined mineral palate, finishing bone dry. Sauvignon at it’s best.

Vincent Pinard has 12-15 hectares of vines in Bué, where he crafts a series of excellent white wines using different techniques, as well as three red wines from Pinot Noir. All come under the Sancerre name. I have only once tasted the Pinot, but his white wines are amongst the very best in Sancerre.

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Gigondas 2011 Domaine de la Bouïssière

Gigondas 2011 Domaine de la Bouïssière

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€31.45

A big warm ultra-ripe enveloping mouthful of refined smooth strawberries and dark fruits, with a lingering easy finish.

I had a bottle of this in my cellar and opened it to drink alongside the beef tortillas my daughter requested for her 16th birthday dinner. It was a brilliant match and a great wine too; I still haven’t figured out how Thierry Faravel manages to make a 15% wine seem elegant, but this combines soft rich fruit with a real refinement. The importer has now moved on to the 2012 vintage. which I have not tasted, but the stores below may have a bottle or two of the 2011.

Stockists: Drink Store, D7; Jus de Vine, Portmarnock; Donnybrook Fair; thewinestore.ie

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A visit to M. Quenard in the Savoie

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Yesterday we paid a brief visit to Domaine Andre & Michel Quenard, one of the top estates in the Savoie. We tried (and bought) some delicious refreshing wines, perfect for the current weather (30+ every day). The Chignin, made from the local Jacquere grape variety was very good, the Chgnin-Bergeron, made from Roussanne, was excellent. The red Mondeuse was light and sappy, perfect for summer drinking, but not, I suspect, something that would appeal to consumers used to rich, fruit-filled red wines. A full report to follwo, but in the meantime a few pics, including some of the wonderful scenery.

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The Savoie

We arrived in the Savoie – high up in the mountains for a week’s holiday yesterday evening. Tried out a few Apremonts – perfect summer drinking. The temperature today climbed to 36 celcius, but with a light mountain breeze. We have stunning views from the gite.

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Had a good shop in the village this monrning, and picked up a large shoulder steak of pork, currently marinating before going on th barbecue, a few beers including a green beer (a local speciality, flavoured with genepi or artemesia, also used in nearby Chartreuse) a bottle of Roussanne and Mondeuse). It all looks very promising.

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