You can't tell a wine by it's cover

How often do we look at the label on the bottle of wine before we open it?

Well it seems quite a lot and this is something that the marketeers of wine are fast realising. The label draws us to the bottle particularly when we buy a wine on impulse.   For our Club's meeting though we move on from the impulse buy to another level, not so much about the wine but very much about the label.

Within the club we can now look back over the various meeting and realise that we heard a number of very good speakers and speakers that bring their own nuances to the area we are all interested in, wine and it's enjoyment.

Martin Marais last spoke to us about his own family connections with South Africa, a terrific talk and at the meeting tonight he gave another excellent talk, but this time it was more about the outside of the bottle than the contents inside.

Martin once again a big thank you...

What of the wines?

Before the wines a word about the cheeses and the welcome wine, the writer of this Blog has just returned form the Loire region of France and was able to bring cheese and also some wine. The starter wine was a Loire Sauvignon Blanc. A very acceptable glass as well. The cheeses were also from the region. 

The first wine had the most startling of labels, more Hammer Horror than a relaxed wine. In fact the wine was Italian wine and made with an Italian Grape.   

The wine was just fine, an easy drinking wine and with the added advantage of us to taste a grape variety that was a first for the club. 

And the label,  

The wine is one of the Co-op 'irresistible' range.  

The next wine had a less startling label, in fact a fine label. 

 From the sellers web site:

A lovely white wine from Maison Williams Chase this is an expertly made blend of Vermentino (Rolle) and Viognier.  Called "Papillon", French for butterfly, the name alludes to the metamorphosis which takes place producing a truly special wine after months of skilled and delicate work.  William Chase obtained the small domaine of Chateau Constantin in 2012 and are producing innovative and very enjoyable, first class wines overseen by head winemaker, Dale Clarke.   The grapes for Papillon come from old vines planted on the highest point in the domaine where the terroir has a rich minerality surrounded by undisturbed forests and local Herbes de Provence.  

Those that buy William Chase Vodka and / or Gin will know the name. 

The last white has, by comparison a more subtle label but on closer examination a very interesting one:

A great label and a great wine, this the grape that some love some hate, the Riesling Grape, but this bottle comes a long way to be with us, the wine grown and made in Washington State by the Charles Smith organisation.  

A very good wine as well. 

The cheese we had the Whites were all soft, a Camembert type as well as a sheep and a goat cheese. All well received and a good matching

The red wines were a mix of surprises, The General wine that was almost chose itself given Martin's connection with South Africa.  The wine label was linked to the Boer War, the wine called The General from the  Boer and Brit was from South Africa's Stellenbosch region, it was a Bordeaux-style blend of Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Aged in French oak, a delicious, full-blooded wine.

Martin made no secret of his love of Malbec so the eye-catching label designed to leave the buyer no confusion over what he or she was to buy, an Argentinian Malbec, what it tastes of and what to eat with the wine.  This from the Co-op again.

The penultimate wine had a relatively boring label until one looked more closely, Chinese writing, yes a first for sure, a Chinese wine from Wuhia Valley. 

The question is, what of the wine. Not the star of the evening for sure. So best described as 'interesting' but better wines out there. 

The final wine, a South African Pinotage, was the best of the reds, but this is a wine that split the membership, for some just brilliant, for some OTT.  Best buy to try.

Its label was a clue, it did somehow give a chocolate feel, comforting, warming and a good wine to have reading a book by the fire - not unlike a chocolate bar!  

In summary - what did people make of the labels, did they help in choosing wine?  

Here there was little consensus, they gave no clue as to the wine so as an aid to choice no. Did they encourage the buyer, well oddly for some yes, the Vampire seen in the Grecula wine may have done just that but for as many if not more it was a barrier to the purchase. It was hard to take it seriously. Where does that leave us, well I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder, the OTT label may help in taking you to a wine but would not help in making the decision, in fact probably stop you from buying.  Male or female, it seemed to make little difference. 

All in all a very good, different and enjoyable evening. A very big thanks you to Martin.

AOB

Date of the next meeting 

JULY 22nd 

Guest Speaker.  LEE WINSTON -  NEW ZEALAND WINE MAKER.

But not the blind leading the blind


Wine Tasting and wine knowledge, the the common bonds and appreciations that we, as members of the Freeland Wine Club share.  It was a combination of these that was the main event at the meeting last night in our village hall.

We are lucky having a truly independent wine merchant on our doorstep.   The next village to us here in the centre of Oxfordshire is the village of Eynsham and the wine merchant is The Eynsham Cellars.    For our meeting we were very lucky to have as our speaker for the evening one of the proprietors of the business, Oli Gauntlett, he was assisted by Gervase Wood.

Oli and Gervase presented the first wine which I think most of us would have little difficulty in recognising as a Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc.   The aim of the evening was to allow us to develop more wane tasting skills. This was the first wine, this was one wine most of us could recognise fairly readily, massive fruit overtones with acidity and the colour of one of the countries favourite tipples, New Zealand Savvy Blanc.  This was just a taster, to get know the methods we needed to use to even attempt to identify wine and to place them, all further wines would be served 'blind'. We then needed to clarify  provenance, grape type, complexity, tannin levels, acidity and so on.

So yes an evening of tasting but also one of learning and the cultivation of taste and tasting technique.

For this we need to give a very big thank you to Oli, he had the difficult task helping us proceed on this journey of discovery as well as guiding through the wines,  Thanks Oli.

So the wines: 

The first wine of the evening was the welcome wine, and this was a fine Rosé, the Bergerac Wines are known to some members as being easy on the pallet and on the wallet, a very under rated area of France from the British buyers perspective and for many this Rosé proved the point that Rosé can be a fine wine with both taste and structure.

And on to the tastings. As I mentioned the first wine, and an intro to what was to follow was the highly characteristic NZ Savvy Blanc, the Esk Valley. It seems that this is one of the stores big sellers. Massive citrus tones over acidity, this SB just a million miles from the French offering with the same grape. If nothing else this wide variation is enough to silence those who mock the French and their use of the term "terroir'.  £9.99

Then on to the slightly oaked Chardonnay, but of course we had to identify this from our own testing and analytical ability.  This, surprisingly, was not that easy, in fact most found it very tough.  Amazing when you don't know what is in the bottle that you cannot tell what it is, white wine yes but on from that, Chardonnay? Oaked? New World? Voignier? Endless qestions and not that obvious answers. So a great start to us all climbing our individual learning curves.  £8.19

The third white a Gerwirztraminer, didi anyone identify this very popular grape variety, did anyone realise that this was not German or an Alsace wine but actually came from Chile, a resounding no was the answer. All the whites were well received, all seemed to go very well with the cheeses, a mix of types and cow, sheep and goat, but more of the cheese info below. £8.48

As a break in the proceedings Oli arranged for a short quiz, trivia questions which failed to give a winner, just too many correct answers, so many in fact that the quizmaster ran out of questions and had to devise a question to stump us and hopefully highlight a brain of brains.  

Then on to the Reds.

A great selection, 

I think a lot were able get this wine nailed, not due to its taste, which we should have picked up upon but more by its colour, or lack of.  Always a favourite with many members and a fine wine, very typical of the grape.  The Wild Earth Vineyards Pinot Noir and another NZ wine, Central Otago Valley. £21.99 

There was the Shiraz grape, well we all know that Shiraz tends to be on the peppery side of taste spectrum so how come that one was not like that at all but just a fine wine without this signature take that some love.   I notice the Australian wine maker describes this as brooding shiraz, I cannot argue with that.£12.99

The final wine, surely everyone would get this wine, but no, the blind tasting expertise was not yet a level that allowed many to identify that this wine was a Rioja.   A very fine Rioja as well. £13.99

Cheese

Once again the man I am going to call The Cheese Man of Witney, Witney Market, supplied us with the range to cheeses. If you have chance on a Thursday morning it may be worth your time to look him up and see what he has on offer. Always able to give a full background on the cheeses, he also has some great olives. Well worth the trip for those alone. 

And the cheeses were:

Rollright, Oxford Blue, Jowett, Sarsden,Ruby and Brinkburn. 

At the next meeting will be on the evening of MAY 27th, Martin Marais will be presenting and the subject, The Label on the Bottle.

Bordeaux, from the man who knows

January 29, and the first meeting of the Freeland Wine Club for the 2016 season.

Now Dear reader we have a lot to cover here so I am going to ask you to have a good read of the Blog, not only the review of the very impressive meeting but also what to look forward to in 2016 and the The Wine Club.

The first meeting was all about the wines of Bordeaux.  This is the area of France with a huge output of wines, not just wines but world famous wines of great quality.  It came as a surprise to hear of the historic background to this. For this we need to go way back, to the marriage of Henry the second to Eleanor of Aquitane in 1152.   Its fair to say that drinking water back then was something of a dangerous sport so beer and wine was the chosen drink with maybe some cider.

With the marriage the part of France we know as Bordaeux became part of England and was the obvious place to get your wine from, in many ways things havn't changed, as a nation we still love French wines and the Bordaeux wines especially. The name, Claret has become part of our language, itself a corruption of the Bordaeux wine, Clairet.

We were fortunate in having both a great speaker for the night but also an expert, a well recongnised international expert on the wines of the area, Keith Grainger.  Keith is a consultant wine maker, author, broadcaster and educator.  What he is also is a very accomplished communicator.

Normally on the Blog following our talk at the Club I will write a review of each wine, give its vitals, where you can buy, cost, grape etc. For this talk something different, here we heard of the broad sweep of the history, politics, heritage, the wine types, the main grapes and the soils of the Bordeaux wines.

When people mention the area it is often in hushed tones and the price per case may be discreetly mentioned. And yes they can produce some wines that are eye wateringly expensive but the vast majority are wines are for the majority to drink, people who will spend between £7.00 and £15.00 for a bottle. For such people, and that will mean most of us, that gives some great choices and styles. It was this choice and style of  wine  and wine production we were able to hear of and to taste.  Keith brought with him three whites, and four reds.

Lets talk about the styles and taste of the first two Whites, and here was a perfect of example of the range of styles available. The first wine was a fresh clean Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon (10%) blend. A very good wine, fresh, easy on the pallet and very good with light foods, fish particular.

The other white was so different, a blend of the same grapes but held on oak, and a wine that was not for me but for others the preferred wine of the two. So a good start to the evening, a range of styles very evident and giving the buyer a choice, a real choice of which way to go when choosing. This theme of, variety, came up often in the talk and discussion. Given the 7,300 different chateaux and the 10,000 different wines this won't come as any surprise.

First of the Reds followed, in fact we tasted four reds, all of the same vintage , 2011, all with very similar blends, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Carbernet Franc. Surprise surprise, they were all the same but also all different, more tannin here, less oak there, softer on the nose with this wine and more fruit of that one. Confirming Keith's notion that the wines are highly varied in style. 

All the reds were classified under the fairly recent classification, Cru Bourgeois. This is a classification that may awarded each year to the wine of a Médoc Chateau . The property will have been inspected and if it is accepted as eligible, it may present its wine each year to a panel for blind tasting. Only wines that pass this test will have the label (of course) and such a wine will be to a defined and high standard.

The final wine of the night was a sublime sweet wine, also the bargain of night. This was a 1998 Sauternes. My goodness, this along with a cream 'blue' cheese was something very special.  It seems the wine is available at that famous wine merchant M&S at the spectacular price of £13.00 for a full sized bottle. 

Sniffing:

We all think we can tell the difference between strawberries and pineapple don't we?  Well we don't! 

Between tasting wines we were asked to identify various fruit smells, not easy!  The lemon smell most could choose, also the vanilla but of the others, very few were able to even guess. One stand out winner was Renata and John, and an apron was theirs as winners:

All in all a great evening, well presented, enjoyed and well received. Many thanks to Keith for doing such a great job and also to David for finding an arranging the evening.  

In fact David was a great help in all sorts of ways, here checking the wines.

The Club was able to pass monies to Sue Hall for the Heart Foundation as a result of the raffle. Sue is to host an open house at her daughter's home on Friday of next week, for more detail drop me an email.

DATES for  the diary:

March 18th     Eynsham Wine Cellars Presentation

May 27th      Martin Marais, The label tells all, or does it?

July 22nd      New Zealand wines by a New Zealand wine maker

September 30th    German Wines

November 25th   Social Evening 

Now The Fourth Time

Dear Reader, so many things come as surprises when really they shouldn't be so. With the Wine Club the surprise has been that we have just enjoyed our fourth end of year bash.  My, doesn't time fly? Yes, as members know, the last meeting of the year is the pot-luck supper and end of season wind down.

As is often said, '...and how was it for you?..." well for this Blogger it was very good.   In the company of good friends, having to endure a Champagne tasting while selecting from a choice of great foods. Oh and did I say taking part in good but not too competitive quizes all based upon wine?

So yes, a great night was had by all.

We started with a glass or two of welcoming Champagne and here the mysteries of the evening began. I should explain. We thought that it would be good to have a tasting but not as we normally do it with our eye on the measure and the taking suitable of notes etc. On the occasion we would simply have a selection of the best that Epernay has to offer and come to conclusion as what was the better wine, the most enjoyable wine.

More of this anon.

First a very big thank you goes to all of the members who arrived on possibly the worst night of the year clutching a great variety of very good food.  Many thanks.

Then what of the Champagnes?

As you may know reader, this time of the year is the time of the great wine discount, and particularly, the great Champagne discount. The market is awash with Champagne and there are some great offers out there but are the Champagnes as great?  So for this evening  purchases were made of four Champagnes, ranging in price from £48.00 to £10.99.  All but the Aldi wine were discounted.

They came from, Aldi at £10.99,  Sainsbury at £17.00, M&S at £32.00  and Majestic at £48.00.

Here they are:

Aldi @ £10.99

Sainsbury @ £17.00

M&S @ £32.00

Majestic Wine Warehouse @£48.00

All the bottles were concealed and we tasted while eating for the most part, during the evening everyone was asked for their choice as favourite.  So Dear Reader what do you think we would find? Intriguing no?

The most popular and by a hair's breadth was the M&S wine.

No2 was the Aldi and the least expensive.

No3 was the Pol Roger, and the most expensive.

No4 was the Sainsbury Blanc de Noirs. Mid way on price.

I know, a most un scientific test but one cannot help but say, a very interesting result. 

What else did we do on this night?  We had quizes on the subject of wine and winemaking.  our thanks go to Martin Marais, he did great job, we all enjoyed failing to answer many questions and not being aware that China has more vineyards than France. 

Also a big thanks for those that snapped up spare bottles at our auction with the monies from the sales going to the charities working in Syria. 

A brief look to the diary for next year, here are the dates:  

More details on the programme to follow when confirmed.

January 29th.  The Best of Bordeux Wines

March 18th

May 27th

22nd July

30th September

25th November

And now some snaps:

To all our readers, have great a Christmas and a sparkling and wonderful New Year, and good imbibing folks!