Gently Broaden Your Palate!

Jean Michel Gerin La Champine Viognier

Now and again I meet a lover of Riesling, less frequently someone who loves all of the incredible range of wines this wonderful grape can produce. Mostly, people who enjoy off-dry expressions which combine racy mineral acidity with the perceptible sweetness that makes these wines a great companion to Thai food, as well as duck or even smoked fish. The best of these wines have purity, elegance and linear focus, and those who really begin to explore the range of Rieslings will inevitably discover that Riesling is one of those grapes that expresses where it is grown like no other. The fruit flavours vary with origin: in Australia and New Zealand, ripe zesty lime often dominates but apple or peach flavours are  not uncommon, on slate soils a smoke and spice character can be present and riper wines may also have distinct notes of apricot. The benchmark for off-dry but elegant, even delicate Riesling is German Spatlese which gets better with age, developing notes of honey and spice along with a characteristic petrol aroma.

Let’s try off dry Chenin Blanc as an alternative. Like Riesling, Chenin Blanc is a high acid grape, but the acidity is a little rounder in mouthfeel, both carry residual sweetness with a lightness and elegance on the palate.  The aromatics and flavour profile of Chenin Blanc tends more to apple, quince and pear than the citrus and peach of Riesling, and as Chenin Blanc ages, rather than petrol aromas it develops a distinct lanolin waxiness alongside its honeyed richness. The challenge is to find a good one. The benchmark for off-dry Chenin Blanc is Vouvray – Domaine Huet, Clos Naudin or Marc Bredif come immediately to mind, or across the river to Montlouis sur Loire for Taille aux Loups. Outside of the Loire Valley, the bulk of Chenin is lacklustre. It is still the most widely planted grape in South Africa but until the 1990s was in decline with much of it being distilled. However, a resurgence of interest, particularly in some of the old vines has seen some exciting wines emerge. Most of these are considered dry rather than off-dry but still have some residual sweetness and can feel off-dry because of the ripe fruit and glycerol. Good producers include the Sadie Family, Ken Forrester, DeMorgenzon and Mullineux. There are only a few examples to be found in New Zealand, but these tend to be rather good, the Millton Te Arai Chenin Blanc particularly, Astrolabe and Forrest produce decent examples and look for Nga Waka to join Margrain from the Martinborough region. Most California Chenin is ordinary at best, grown in sites that are too hot, but the Chappellet Napa Valley Old Vine is worth a try.

Marc Bredif 2014 Vouvray Classic, an off-dry Chenin Blanc

Pinot Noir is a much-loved red variety for its light to medium body, crunchy cherry and raspberry fruit and silky tannins. Despite its reputation as a “difficult” grape, good examples are almost ubiquitous. Outside of its Burgundy home where the best wines are eye-wateringly expensive, decent, more affordable Pinot Noir is increasingly produced in Alsace where a combination of global warming and at last reduced cropping is seeing some serious Pinot emerge where the wines were once little more than heavy Rose. German and even Swiss exemplars are numerous and in the New World good Pinot Noir is not hard to find. There is such a wide range of expressions I dare say there are sufficient variations to satisfy a desire for endless variation – but from Pinot Noir what else might I try?

How about Gamay? Like Pinot Noir, Gamay Noir also originates in Burgundy, and while bulk produced Beaujolais Nouveau using carbonic maceration led in the past to a poor reputation, the best, traditionally vinified Cru Beaujolais have often been mistaken for Pinot Noir due to their depth and finesse in blind tastings. Like Pinot Noir, Gamay is typically light-bodied with high acidity and soft light tannins. But where Pinot Noir trends toward earthiness – think mushroom and forest floor, Gamay tends to be both more floral and mineral, with aromas of violets, peonies and sometimes roses which like the aromas of Pinot Noir need a large globe type glass to fully express. Its fruit flavours overlap somewhat with those of Pinot (cherry and raspberry) but with more strawberry and red plum and the even softer tannin structure often makes Gamay a wine eminently suitable for chilling. Unfortunately, outside of the Beaujolais crus, Gamay is not widely grown. There are some excellent producers in New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay, notably Te Mata and Easthope as well as in Central Otago, such as Mt Edward and Te Kano Land Series. Canada also has a few good examples notably in Niagara (Mailovire Wismer-Foxcroft and Balcheder Bai Xu) and Okanagan (eg Blue Mountain Estate). Neither of the two so-called Gamay grapes in California – what until 2007 was called Gamay Beaujolais and Napa Gamay are actually Gamay. The former was just a poor clone of Pinot and Napa Gamay is now known to be Valdigue.

Nerello Mascalese might also be worth a try, particularly where it is grown on the higher slopes of Mt Etna. Like Pinot, Nerello Mascalese is a thin-skinned grape giving a pale ruby colour to the wine, and a light to medium body. Both have relatively high acidity and fine-grained tannins but those of Nerello Mascalese are firmer. Both tend to cherry fruit flavours but those of Nerello have a characteristic sour edge, and while both have earthy elements those of Nerello are more herbal and resonant of volcanic ash rather than forest floor as in Pinot. Both varieties pair well with similar foods featuring mushrooms, truffle, game birds. Where the sensuality of Pinot Noir might be likened to ballet, the sensuality of Nerello Mascalese is more like flamenco, more intense and brooding. For examples see my earlier blog on this variety, Nerello Mascalese: Hero grape of Mt Etna – Wineinsights Weekly Blog.

With a glass of Nerello Mascalese in a Catania Wine Bar

The stereotypical first red-wine love for many Americans is of course Cabernet Sauvignon. The powerhouse of the red wine world and most widely planted red grape variety, Cabernet Sauvignon can vary greatly depending particularly on the climate where it is grown as it is late ripening and tends to green notes of methoxypyrazine if not fully ripened. Typically full-bodied, its signature fruit aroma and flavour is blackcurrant, often accompanied by plum and dark berries with secondary notes of pencil shavings, tobacco and depending on the new oak percentage, vanilla. The left bank of Bordeaux remains its practical and spiritual home, where it typically has varying but lesser proportions of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot in the final blend, but the Californian Napa Valley may be considered the usurper for the throne. Great examples are produced throughout the world – the Super-Tuscans in Italy, in Australia’s Coonawarra and Margaret River, in Chile and Argentina, in South Africa and even in New Zealand’s Gimblett Gravels and Waiheke island.

 Malbec represents one readily available (and often cheaper!) alternative. Originating in the Cahors region of SW France where it was traditionally known as Cot, Malbec was once widely planted in Bordeaux for blending with Cabernet, but its popularity declined after a devastating frost in 1956 destroyed many of the vines. Malbec from Bordeaux was introduced to Argentina in the mid-1800s and there found its spiritual home in the high altitude vineyards of Mendoza where it thrived in the intense sunlight, cool nights and rocky soils. 75% of the world’s Malbec is now produced in Argentina where it produces plush medium to full-bodied, floral and fruit-forward  wines with softer tannins than a typical Cabernet.  The fruit profile is more black cherry, blueberry and Doris plum with cocoa, black pepper and smoke more evident than the pencil shavings and tobacco of Cabernet. There are plantings of Malbec outside of Argentina and Cahors, notably in Chile but also some in California, Washington State, South Australia and New Zealand but Argentinian Malbec is in such good supply and at various quality and price points, it is the logical first choice for experiment. Some notable producers include Alta Visa, Catena Zapata, Achaval Ferrer, Bodegas Fabre, and Zuccardi to name a few.

Catena 2019 Mendoza Malbec

The first red wine love for many Australians, and not a few New Zealanders, is Australian warm-climate Shiraz. It’s the same grape as Syrah, originating in the Northern Rhone but has become the most planted red variety in Australia and found its new spiritual home in the South Australian Barossa Valley. It produces typically medium to full-bodied wines with plush tannins, velvety mouthfeel and ripe sometimes jammy black and blue fruits such as blackberry, blueberry, Doris plum and Dawson cherry, underpinned with black pepper, clove and brown cooking spices, often with a slightly eucalyptus edge and frequently with vanilla or coconut oak influence – the latter stemming from the common practice of aging in American oak.  

Shiraz is often a blending partner in a Southern Rhone styled blend known as GSM which signifies Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre, or as they are known in Australia Grenache, Shiraz and Mataro. Either Grenache or Mataro might make an excellent divergence from Shiraz to explore. That hero of Southern Europe, Grenache, or Garnacha as it is known in Spain, might be considered the lighter alternative to Syrah. Or perhaps not. Those deceptively lighter tannins hide a high alcohol profile – in Chateauneuf du Pape 16% is now usual and 17% not uncommon. It will sweep you along with its delicious warm climate fruit flavours of ripe strawberries, raspberries cherries, garrigue herbs and olive tapenade. Oz Clarke once described it as “the wild wild woman of wine, the sex on wheels and devil take the hindmost”, but beware the sting in the tail.  It’s the major partner not only in the Southern Rhone reds, but also in the great wines of Priorat. But as the major grape through much of Spain it’s generally best drunk young unless blended with something else to give more ageability and backbone. Old vine Grenache has emerged as an award-winning single varietal wine in South Australia more recently and is well worth a try.