Wine "Insight"
Dear Wine Lover
| Dear wine lover We pride ourselves on taking German wine more seriously than any other non-specialist wine website and this week was no exception. Our German specialist Michael Schmidt, who lives in the Ahr Valley, delivered the first of his three reports on his intensive tasting of Grosse Gewächse at this year’s showing in Wiesbaden – this week GG Weiss- and Spätburgunders. Once the other two are published next week, we’ll have published Michael’s detailed tasting notes on 240 of these GGs – mainly 2018 dry whites and 2017 reds. Many of these represent fabulous value compared with their non-German peers, particularly red and white burgundies. And then don’t forget that way back in April Julia treated us to a preview of the 2018 GGs from the hugely respected Keller of Rheinhessen. Just after last week’s email went out on Friday, we published Michael’s report of this year’s Nahe auction results, in which Keller wines, once again, reached incredible heights. We published perhaps our longest article ever, all the entries on brandy from the second edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine, which we were forced to omit from the third edition for reasons of space. An attentive Purple Pages member with a particularly long memory reminded me – 13 years afterwards – that I had promised to publish them on JancisRobinson.com. Samantha Cole-Johnson continued to share the secrets of winemaking and the 2019 Oregon harvest from her position as an intern in a Willamette Valley winery. There is so much topical information there, and interesting images, that we republished it free yesterday. Nick interviewed the popular Christine Parkinson on her first day of leisure after 18 years of guiding the drinks offerings at the Hakkasan group of restaurants all over the world. Her wise words on sommeliers and the evolution of taste in alcoholic drinks are well worth reading. Also on Saturday I published my thoughts on the state of rosé champagne, while my fellow Master of Wine Charles Curtis contributed an overview of the US champagne market after this year’s MW champagne tasting in America. I contributed one of those articles that will make many people sick, a description of two quite amazing dinners I was treated to in the space of three nights recently, in Mouton and Pol – perks of the job. I took this picture at Mouton’s extravaganza at the Palace of Versailles. Slightly more down to earth was my account of a presentation of wines by Australians Andrew Caillard MW and Mike Bennie chosen to represent likely future icons of Australia. I also wrote about a new annual award for the ‘world’s best vineyards‘. I’m a little sceptical about the enterprise but was delighted to find that those given first and second position in the inaugural awards, Zuccardi of Argentina and Garzón of Uruguay, happened to be kindly supplying wine for last night’s London wine gala for the global literacy charity Room to Read. My World Atlas of Wine co-author Hugh Johnson attended, to celebrate our UK publication day (Tuesday saw it published in the US), and donated a bottle of his Tokaji Essencia 1993 for the auction. Also at our table was Guillaume d’Angerville of Volnay, who was inspired to donate his top Jura Chardonnay from Domaine du Pélican for us all to drink with a Central Coast Chardonnay from Raj Parr because of his faith in the curative powers of reading. Today has a strong Australian accent. We offer up Julia’s detailed report on some top Clare Valley Rieslings (a riposte to Michael?) and Richard’s wine of the week, an Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir that withstood blind comparison with some other fine Pinots, including some from Burgundy. We wish you many great wine discoveries,  |
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