Michel Chapoutier
“Wine is not serious, it’s a hobby. Your children are important. Wine is for fun.”
I often come across some succint snippets of knowledge from seasoned industry figures that make me stop and think, which either change an attitude or remind me of what it is I love about wine. To start I’ve used a quote from Rhône legend Michel Chapoutier, featured in a piece in the November 30th 2012 issue of Wine Spectator.
For more on Michel Chapoutier’s wines just click here
Here at The Motley Cru, we (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’) am not given to discrimination, pretension, bigotry, and/or any other words you would care to use that allude to a state of mind where I outright condemn a grape varietal, country, region and/or method for its sake alone. I’m an equal-opportunities drinker, and believe all wines should be approached in their own right with all baggage left at the door, as I’m sure most concerning wine lovers do.
That said I do have an issue with Prosecco, at least the stuff that’s readily available here in Ireland. Firstly, a quick couple of facts:
1) Duty on ‘sparkling wine’ – which covers everything from Champagne, Cava, New World fizz and, yes, Prosecco – attracts exactly double the duty than still wine here in Ireland: €3.97 per bottle before VAT in fact. Why this is the case completely eludes me; perhaps the only sparkling wine that the mandarins in Dáil Éireann are used to is Champagne that routinely retails above €50 and where an extra €4 or so wouldn’t make much of a dent to their bulging pockets, all the while not cognisant of how much of a difference that sum can make to a €14-€15 Cava, for example. Either way we’re stuck with it.
2) Prosecco comes in two styles: fully sparkling (‘Spumante‘) and lightly sparkling (‘Frizzante‘). Only the Spumante falls under the duty band for sparkling wine, while Frizzante is considered a still wine as it doesn’t have the full pressure to categorise it as a fully sparkling wine. Ever needed to use a corkscrew to remove a cork from a bottle of fizz instead of it just popping? That’s a Frizzante fizz for you.
The result is, you’ve guessed it, that we see far more Frizzante Prosecco here than Spumante since the final price on shelf is going to be at few Euro cheaper than its sister wine. As such Frizzante Prosecco is often under the psychologically important €10 mark (or at least regularly promoted to this level), with all other fully sparkling wines firmly trapped above it.
The problem with this is that the bubbles, being only semi-sparkling, tend to fizz out very quickly, often leaving you with some insipid flabby fruit juice in the glass, and at which point I become rankled, again, by the stuff. But it’s cheap, and it’s the economy stupid, so Frizzante Prosecco is bought by the lorryload all over Ireland.
Mionetto Vivo
So imagine my surprise when I was handed (with my eyes rolling I must admit) a glass of Prosecco at a function recently, only to be taken aback by its quality: it was rich, toasty, interesting, and what’s more fully sparkling, a rarity where volume and cost are issues. I rushed to find out what it was I had been served: Mionetto Vivo, a new Spumante readily available in O’Brien’s, and though it wasn’t sub-€10 it was only €11 on promo – result!
I later bought a bottle and enjoyed it at home, and proudly pronounced that I had found my ‘Cava-killer’, the Spanish sparkling that was heretofore my go-to for easy weekday (read: cheap) fizz.
But then Google threw up an uncomfortable reality: it wasn’t actually Prosecco at all. Prosecco is made with the Glera grape, whereas Mionetto Vivio is made with the unusual combination of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Verduzzo and Pinot Blanc, so not Prosecco per se, though it is from a renowned Prosecco producer and from the same region.
Still, this is still a fantastic fizz and will most certainly be my sparkler of choice for easy entertaining, especially when O’Brien’s run it at 2 for €22, which they often will I’m sure.
Mionetto Vivo
€12.99 or 2 for €22 in O’Brien’s
Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Verduzzo and Pinot Blanc (no evidence as to the proportions though)
www.mionetto.com
Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay
Admittedly it was the 2010 I tasted and not the now infamous 2009, but given it’s a supermarket offering from the behemoth Wolf Blass then vintages rarely should be of consideration. What I found was that it was, well, a little of everything to keep it a crowd-pleaser: some soft tropical fruit, some citrus, a lick of oak … but, really, nothing to suggest premier cru Côte d’Or I would have thought.
Not that it’s bad of course – it’s very drinkable, and in fact I was glad to have finally broken my embargo on Wolf Blass wines (which was founded on nothing more than some rare pretentious discrimination by yours truly), but a wine of note it was not.
Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay 2009
€10.99 to €11.99 or thereabouts, but perpetually on promotion and available almost everywhere
South Australia
100% Chardonnay (I’m assuming?)
www.wolfblasswines.com
And no, the title doesn’t refer to something you might indulge in during a hard night on the tiles, but rather an intriguing beverage from Innis & Gunn.
I recently picked up this very interesting-looking beer in O’Brien’s for €3.50 or thereabouts, with the box in which it came being what caught my eye. Then there was the description: Innis & Gunn Irish Whiskey Cask Oak Aged Beer, another first for me, and there was no time at all before I was walking out with is snugly under my arm (after paying of course), my interest highly piqued.
Innis & Gunn Irish Whiskey Cask Stout
The blurb informed me that the beer within was “Scottish Stout matured in oak barrels that previously contained triple distilled Irish Whiskey” for “60 days prior to release”. Being a fan of both craft stouts and Irish whiskey I couldn’t wait to get my lips around it.
It was gorgeous; a deep but not thick palate, quite medium- to full-bodied but less so than initially anticipated. There’s lots of concentration and depth, and a zinging mid-palate of well-integrated bitterness that gives it a fantastically energising zing. Smooth and alluring, it’s a real treat and miles ahead of the commercial stuff.
And then I noticed the alcohol percentage on the side: 7.4%!! Meaning that this is definitely a slow sipper, if not for the quality then for the liver!
Innis & Gunn Irish Whiskey Cask Stout
Around €3.50 in O’Brien’s
www.innisandgunn.com
Glen Carlou Grand Classique
I’ll admit that I know very little about South African wines beyond their renowned (if overlooked) Pinotage and Chenin Blanc offerings, and even then I’m normally at a loss. It seems I’m not the only one though: the people of Ireland have largely turned their backs on the country and its wines, and it’s by far the worst-performing wine producer here with a drop of -27% over the last twelve months in the off-trade. I fear that this may be a vicious cycle in action: the worse a country performs the less likely a retailer will stock or promote it, and thus it’s relegated to the bottom shelf where it’s even less likely to be sold, and so on and so on…
So fair play to O’Brien’s for pushing the Glen Carlou Grand Classique 2005 during their Fine Wine Sale last November (I’m eagerly anticipating the next!), but even then it took a price drop and a favourable review by the estimable Tomás Clancy to get me to buy it, with the added sweetener being that it had some bottle age. So I bought a couple of bottles and felt adventurous for buying wine from a country that has been producing the stuff since 1659. Strange that.
So what was it like? Absolutely delicious in fact. It reminded me of a Coonawarra Cab: full, rich, eucalypt and blackberry goodness, very strong on the fruit and really quite deep, so old-school dusty Bordeaux fans may want to give this a miss. I’m guessing that it may have peaked already though, so though it won’t dis-improve any time soon I just won’t hang on too long to drink the other bottle.
Glen Carlou Grand Classique 2005
€18.99 from O’Brien’s
Wine of Origin – Paarl
41% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot, 6% Malbec and 5% Cabernet Franc
www.glencarlou.co.za
… one wonders what one write at this point, and whether the same trepidation coursed through the minds and fingers of other Irish wine bloggers when starting out.
Perhaps a mission statement of sorts would be a start: why, in a sea of enthusiastic and erudite wine blogs being written here in Ireland, should I ever consider wading in with ‘yet another wine blog’?
I work for one of the larger, more established wine importers in Dublin and love what I do; however it is mostly an office job with all the limitations that entails, and I feel that a blog would allow me to further connect with all the wonderful people involved with wine here on this island of ours, most of whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet over the years at various wine fairs and events. It would also allow me scope beyond what happens in same-said office, and hopefully open up some interesting opportunities along the way. That’s the prospect at least!
I can’t say that I’ll reach the heights of established scribblers Lar Veale or Paul Kiernan (sadly no longer blogging), or the always excellent and informative blogs of Matt Kane of Curious Wines and Paddy of The Vine Inspiration, not to mention the charming young upstarts at The Empty Glass whose incisive posts belie their age(s). But, I’ll give it my best and have the craic along the way.
This blog will take many forms and have many facets, hence its ‘motley’ moniker. There will be mostly tasting notes of wines of course, and they’ll either be hastily-typed sketches or prose-style tracts; either wildly vague or anally particular; providing or lacking prices and stockists. Sometimes there’ll be musings, reports, reviews, and sometimes I’ll do restaurants. Who knows? Not me that’s for sure, but I hope we all have the craic along the way…
