Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

The dreadful storm that swept across Europe yesterday prevented us from hunting wild boar, so we were forced to hold the Château Montus, which last week we promised to taste in our exploration of the Tannat grape. Instead, we opted last night for a bottle of Le Combal 2000 and as we drank it, with the wind howling outside, we raised a glass to those gallant heroes who will take to the fields of France during the Rugby World Cup in September. You see, Le Combal is the product of former-rugby player Matthieu Cosse and his partner Catherine Maisonneuve, who took over an old Malbec vineyard of five hectares in Cahors in 1999. Now they have 20 hectares, and are going over to bio-dynamic growing techniques.

Le Combal is a typical black wine of Cahors and consists of Malbec (90 percent), Merlot (7 percent) and, importantly, Tannat (3 percent). The grapes are harvested by hand and the wine matures in barrels for 14 months. Le Combal is solid and virile, as one would expect from a man like Matthieu Cosse, but along with the power there's the finesse and delicacy of a Serge Blanco or a Barry John . Unlike many a Cahors wine, however, this is balanced and elegant. No tannic monster, in other words. The nose is liquorice, prunes, blackcurrants, blackberries and blueberries. The palate is smooth and velvety with chewy fruit and a creamy hint of oak. When the acidity comes through, it is refreshing.

Our next bottle of Le Combal will be opened on the night of 20 October, when Ireland appear in the final of the Rugby World Cup in Saint-Denis.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 19 January 2007 at 6:03 AM | Permalink

Say you're a mobile professional and you've got a BlackBerry or some other PDA and you happen to like wine. What you want is some kind of software for taking and sorting notes about what you drink. Step forward the Fitzpatrick brothers who have created TastingBuddy, which has built-in links to The Wine Society and merchants such as Lay & Wheeler. This means that their customers are offered preferential rates and downloadable lists of wines to be presented at merchants' tastings.

Naturally, TastingBuddy synchs to the TastingBuddy website, where you can upload your notes. The site provides registered users with searching and reporting tools and allows you to edit your notes from your PC. This being the era of social networking, you can also choose to share your notes with others. Wine and social networking. Now that could have potential.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 14 January 2007 at 8:49 AM | Permalink

For those who are unable or unwilling to seek to seek therapy, blogging is a godsend. Antagonisms can be aired, repressed feelings can be expressed and phobias can be faced. Another benefit is that new ideas can be investigated and avenues can be explored to the point where the writer becomes better able to cope with the "real" world. Blogging isn't for everyone, of course, but it is free and worth trying before more expensive treatment is contemplated.

All that's got nothing to do with wine, but it's the kind of thing that a certain amount of wine leads one to type. The better the wine, the better the typing, and it's hard to find better than Madiran. For those wondering what this is all about, it might be worth taking a quick look at Saturday's post, The Wine Diet. What's happening is that Rainy Day has decided to head to the wine front, as it were, in an attempt to learn about grapes, food, geography, tannin, weather, tea and longevity. And lots of other things, too. The "wine diet" proper will start in spring, but steps are being undertaken now to prepare for the challenge.

The first step involved the consumption of a bottle of Château d'Aydie 2002, a red wine from the south west of France, which was done with the help of Ann and Terry, two seasoned wine enthusiasts who also happen to be patrons of this blog. And better companions for an adventure would be hard to find. Incidentally, Château d'Aydie was chosen at random, but it turned out to be one of those choices that is replete with symbolism because the estate of Domaine Laplace à Aydie is a family run business in the heart of Madiran that honours the region's taurine tradition and Rainy Day is a famed Taurus! So, there.

Anyway, for those who have never experienced wine of this kind, what follows are observations that might be useful if you're thinking of going down the same road. First of all, the alcohol content by volume is 14.5 percent, so we're talking "big" here. The second thing worth saying is that this wine is a masterpiece. Although a mere four years old, it already possesses enormous complexity.

The colour is ruby red, but as you turn the glass all kinds of hues emerge: black, crimson, blue velvet, violet... The bouquet ranges across the spectrum: vanilla, pepper, blackcurrant, smoke, blackberries, liquorice, cherries, cinnamon, prunes... From eye to nose, this is a pleasure, and then comes the palate: virile, rich, voluptuous, smooth, supple, elegant... The Tannat grape tannins are omnipresent but they do not overwhelm the wine's character. One can imagine how splendid this will taste when it's ten years old. As to appropriate food, you can't go wrong with lamb or strong cheese.

Next week's 100 percent Tannat Madiran wine here will be a Château Montus. Goes well, apparently, with roast loin of wild boar with chestnuts. Got the chestnuts, must find a wild boar now.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 10 January 2007 at 6:08 AM | Permalink

Worth £3,000 ($5,791/€4,454), the Geoffrey Roberts Award is a travel bursary given each year to someone who can show that their travels are likely to make a positive difference to the worlds of food, drink and/or travel. Apply by 30 March, if you think you've got what it takes to win this year's Award.

Back in 2002, cardiovascular expert Roger Corder was given the bursary to study the wine-drinking centenarians of Sardinia. The result is The Wine Diet. His recommendation of up to three 125ml glasses per day for men (half a bottle) and two glasses for women is generous, to say the least. And what about water, which many health fanatics want us to drink all day because otherwise we're going to be dehydrated? Corder says that "…drinking too much water makes you pee away all your water-soluble vitamins. You have to get the balance right."

Red wine, very tannic, is what Corder recommends. For most of us that means Cabernet Sauvignon. It delivers those all-important procyanidins. Because wine grown at higher levels often contains more procyanidins, it pays to pay attention to the location of the winery. Best of all, though, is Sardinian Madiran, made from the Tannat grape. This has the highest procyanidin content of any wine in the world. "Madiran is great, and so is the Tannat grape," says jamie goode's wine blog. Goode is rather critical, however, of the Les Producteurs Plaimont and what they're doing to market Madiran. A good selection of Madiran is offered by vivinum.co.uk. Try a glass today. It's, well, an epiphany.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 6 January 2007 at 10:30 AM | Permalink

On the horizon, like an enormous dark cloud, a potential Sunni-Shiite war across the Muslim Middle East gathers form. The coming conflict will be like the religious wars in Europe in the 17th century, only more terrible. Which makes it all the more difficult to talk about wine, but life must go on; regardless of whatever lunacy the theocrats are planning.

All the internecine slaughter of the past month (was it 3,000 or 6,000 Iraqis?) distracted one from events such as the en primeur sales campaign in Bordeaux, where demand for the exceptional 2005 vintage sent prices to the stratosphere. And beyond. Just after seeing that Lay & Wheeler, the British wine merchants, are offering 2005 Château Climens, Cru Classé Barsac at £684. That's a bottle! Not a case! And with 12 bottles in a case, you can do the math. But hurry. This offer won't last forever. It closes when? "Monday 11th September 2006," say Lay & Wheeler.

Another British merchant, Berry Bros & Rudd, says we can expect to pay £4,000 this year for a case of Château Latour and Château Lafite-Rotschild. That's about double the record. And, despite the terrible state of the world, the brothers Berry and Mr/Mrs/Ms Rudd have already received orders for 6,500 cases of Latour. But because these are hard times, there won't be enough to go around, so the firm will be able to supply only 500 cases. Hurry!

Can we detect a hint, a smidgen of greed in all this? Most certainly says Mitch Frank at the Wine Spectator in an article titled "Sales of 2005 Bordeaux Are Sluggish". The crazy prices and the weak dollar are not good news for American drinkers, writes Frank, but by the time you've worked your way to the end of his piece ($ required), you'll find this telling bit: "The Bordelais don't seem to be sweating, however. While the weak dollar has automatically raised U.S. prices for the 2005 futures by 50 percent, the wines are reportedly selling well in Asia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. So with a vintage like 2005 and increasing interest worldwide, château owners were able to raise their prices even if it hurt American sales." Proving once again that it's all relative.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 20 July 2006 at 7:34 AM | Permalink

You can find Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Negro and Merlot in the Trentino region of Italy, but you can find those grapes all over the world. What is special to the northern region is Marzemino, which produces a light, fruity and very drinkable red wine. We certainly drank enough of it last week to stand by that statement. Factoid: In his opera Don Giovanni, Mozart repeatedly mentions Marzemino: "Pour the wine, excellent Marzemino." Rovereto, the second town in Trentino, and a center of Marzemino growing, hosted Mozart and his father Leopold on many occasions. On 26 December 1769, the thirteen-year-old Wolfgang held his first public concert in Italy, in the Church of S. Marco, Rovereto, before a great crowd fascinated by so young a genius. Today, the town holds a Mozart festival in memory of the musician who helped put it on the map. And a Marzemino tip? Try the Battistotti, 2002 Trentino Marzemino. It opens with berry and spice fragrances and tastes of earthy fruit with the tannins adding a somewhat harsh edge to the wine's inherent thinness.

If you'd prefer a wine with a lower tannin level, the Marzemino Mozart is recommended. Pour a glass and put on his motet Exsultate, jubilate, K.165, which he composed when he was just sixteen. The story goes that Wolfgang and his father had traveled to Milan in October 1772 for the premiere of the opera Lucio Silla. The famous castrato Venanzio Rauzzini had sung the role of Cecillo. Why Mozart composed the motet for Rauzzini and not a female soprano is not known. The florid, coloratura style of the piece give us some idea today of the quality of Rauzzini's voice. Exsultate, jubilate received its first performance on 17 January 1773, in the Church of San Antonio, Milan.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 19 May 2005 at 6:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For a special occasion coming up next week, a bottle of Benedictine has been ordered. This famous liqueur is supposed to have been first compounded in 1510 by Dom Bernardo Vincelli in the French Benedictine monastery at Fécamp. It was used to fortify the monks before their chores and restore them after their labours. Benedictine got the royal stamp of approval in 1534 when Francis I tasted it as he travelled through the region. Sadly, some 255 years later, the monastery was destroyed, the order was dispersed and the production halted. The reason? The anti-clerical hatred of The French Revolution. Its Reign of Terror, which saw the abolition of the Julian calendar and the sponsoring of an absurd "religion" called "The Cult of Reason", failed to create any liqueurs, though.

However, as the late Alexis Lichine noted in his classic Encyclopaedia of Wines & Spirits, "Some seventy years or so later, the formula came into the hands of M. Alexandre Le Grand, who established the present secular concern which produces the liqueur." Despite this separation of church and state, as it were, every bottle of Benedictine still carries the ecclesiastical inscription D.O.M., which means not "Dominican Order of Monks," as sometimes has been construed, but Deo Optimo Maximo ("to God, most good, most great"). If you are tempted to try Benedictine after reading this but find it too sweet for your taste, mix it half-and-half with brandy. Delightful, no?

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 4 May 2005 at 6:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Autumn is here and winter is just over the hills. Time, then, for eating hearty food and drinking good wine. Got to put on some "condition" before the frost and the 'flu arrive. So, here are some Rainy Day drinking and eating tips:

Big reds: For meat and spuds, a good claret is your best choice. Cabernets and Merlots from California and hearty Shiraz from Australia are far better options than over-priced Bordeaux. Quiltro Merlot from Chile drinks well and is affordable.

Big whites: The biscuity-rich South African Jordan 2001 Stellenbosch Chardonnay goes well with any decent meal and is a good alternative to fine white Burgandy, which might put a strain on some household accounts. The Wine Spectator has lots of tips in this area. It's also got the story "Women Who Drink Wine More Likely to Become Pregnant, Research Shows".

Riesling: The fruity Lingenfelder 2001 is very good value and is ideal with smoked salmon. On the other hand, the more expensive Burgreben 1999 Bott-Geyl is a typically taut, minerally Alasace Riesling and is perfect for food with a high fat content. If, for some reason, you are not a Riesling fan, but you'd like something pleasant to drink with your smoked salmon, reliable matches include a lightly oaked Chardonnay or a crisp Sauvignon Blanc. By the way, the salmon should be eaten with fresh brown bread that's been baked by the Rainy Day mother and spread with Irish butter.

Sherry: Look out for bargains from bodegas such as Hidalgo, Lustau and Valespino. With soup, try a tangy fino or nutty, dry amontillado. Overall, sherry is remarkably good value these days.

Port: Taylor's 10-Year-Old Tawny goes best with blue cheese. Cheddar is a trickier business, though. A New World red or white works best, but if you are a daring type, try an oloroso sherry. Oporto Wine has some enticing offers at the moment.

Good food and drink will go a long way to helping you stay healthy and happy this autumn and winter, but they need to be balanced with lots of physical and mental exercise. Rainy Day is a holanthropist and the holantrophy motto is "mens sana in corpore sano".

Diarist of the day: David Gascoyne, 27 September 1938

"Listened this evening to Chamberlain's wireless address. He spoke slowly, in a sad and exhausted voice, and expressed a pathetically sincere horror of war. However much one may have disliked, even despised this man before, the crisis, and however true it may be that the futile policy of his government in the past is responsible for the present situation, one cannot deny that during the last few weeks he has done everything one could possibly expect him to do; and his attitude has been human and dignified, in stark contrast with the crude mock-heroic posturing of the Nazi villain."

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 27 September 2003 at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"I stopped drinking French wine for a while when the French engaged in nuclear testing in Muroroa Atoll some years back," says Rainy Day visitor Peter Gale, originally from London, but now living in Copenhagen. His quandary: "The high and mighty attitude of the French now is a good excuse to stop drinking an over-priced, inconsistent product, but what are the alternatives?"

Given that I've written the odd word here about wine, I'm delighted to help. So, Peter, the solution, in a word: Italian. Brunello di Montalcino (1997) Siro Pacenti, Messorio (1999) Le Macchiole and Marzieno (2000) Fattoria Zerbina, to name but three, easily match the best French reds. The thing is that English-speaking wine merchants tend to ignore Italian wine for the simple reason that by the time they've understood the French appellation contr? system, their brains are too taxed to take on another foreign language. This is a shame because most Italian wine producers don't bother with such details as name of region and so on. They usually decorate the label with some exotic typography,a fancy brand name and the name of some small village and that's it. After that, you're on your own.

What the anglophone fan of Italian wine needs, therefore, is a good guide and Marco Sabellico and Daniele Cernilli's The New Italy: A Complete Guide to Contemporary Italian Wine is a good starting point. While waiting for Amazon to deliver that, you should visit the excellent Slow Food website and check out its wine recommendations (registration required). By the way, the Slow Food movement publishes what has come to be regarded as the essential guide to Italian wine, the annual Gambero Rosso. It appears in English as Italian Wines and the new edition, Italian Wines 2003 will be published in April in the US by Antique Collectors Club and in Britain by Grub Street.

Again, you have to allow for some Italian idiosyncrasy with the Gambero Rosso as the wines are not named by the producers but by their (often tiny) villages. Still, the reports on the individual wineries are thorough and the list of the top wines to which the guide's tasters give no, one, two or three glasses (tre bicchiere) according to quality is today's benchmark.

Piedmont is Italy's classic quality wine region but Tuscany is coming on strong due to huge investment in the industry and a run of remarkably good vintages. Here's a list of five stunning Tuscan tre bicchiere reds:

Nardo 2000 Montepeloso Vigna D'Alceo 2000 Castello dei Rampolla Giramonte 2000 Fattoria Castiglioni e Mantagnana Solaia 1999 Antinori Casasilia Chianti Classico 1999 Pogio al Sole

These Tuscan tre bicchiere reds are high in quality and, alas, in price so the best thing to do is compare prices before buying. The Wine-Searcher.com site is invaluable here. Many Italian merchants ship internationally and at keen prices so it pays to do some leg work. But who needs an excuse to visit Italy anyway?

Diarist of the day: Frances Stevenson, 24 March 1919

"D. [Lloyd George] told me a funny story about Clemenceau & Klotz [French minister of finance]. The latter is very unpopular, & a deputation of ministers waited upon C, asking that he should be removed as he was not playing the game. Clem. explained that he did not wish to dismiss him now, as it would unstabilise the Government. 'Very well, we must shut our eyes,' said they. 'Yes, said Clemenceau, 'one always shuts one's eyes at the most delicious moment. It was Clemenceau who also said that 'All the great pleasures of life are silent.' ."

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 24 March 2003 at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Perhaps less flavourful than Chardonnay and not quite as aromatic as Pinot Gris, the Pinot Blanc variety nevertheless produces attractive dry white wines. Known as Pinot Bianco in Italy, it's called Weissburgunder in Austria and Germany. However, it is in the beautiful vineyards on the slopes of Vosges Mountains in the Alsace region that this grape really excels.

Our Gustave Lorentz Pinot Blanc Altenberg de Bergheim 1998 had the colour of pale straw and offered a delicate white-fruit bouquet with a hint of hay. Deliciously supple in the mouth, it delivered juicy fruit and mineral flavours on a steely acidic structure. Easy to drink and versatile, this is a natural partner for roast pork and sauerkraut. Great value at €7.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 14 December 2002 at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chardonnay is America's benchmark wine. However, it's omnipresence has become oppressive for some, with the result that many New World drinkers and growers are desperately seeking high and low for a chardonnay substitute and a few feel that they've found it in pinot gris. The jury is still out, though. Fact is, the white burgundy grape is ideally suited to the American climate, culture and palate, regardless of what wine snobs may say.

We tried a Haywood Estate 1997 and it lived up to our chardonnay expectations. Tasting notes: deep yellow colour, pear aroma, full body, flavours of tropical fruit that finish with a suggestion of smoky apples. At €10, this Californian import is somewhat overpriced, however.

Mention of apples there reminds me of a tip for a delicious nibble that I picked up yesterday from Megnut, currently dallying in Paris. She got it from Textism, long time resident of Pompignan. Here goes: slice a Gala apple and spread a thin layer of fresh Roquefort cheese on one side. Eat. Scrummy!

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 27 November 2002 at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Rheingau is Germany's classic wine producing region. Almost all of the vineyards are planted with the aristocratic Riesling grape and in great years the area produces extraordinary wines. Those who know their grapes know that Rieslings contain significant amounts of residual sugar and that without a compensatory amount of acidity they'd simply taste like fruity sugar water. Aware that they need to retain acidity, the Rheingau winemakers don't subject their vintages to malolactic or secondary fermentation as the makers of high-acid wines such as Chablis do. The result is brilliantly balanced wine.

We enjoyed a bottle of Riesling from Weingut Robert Weil in Kiedrich, where 52 hectares of vineyards (96% Riesling and 4% Pinot Noir) are cultivated in an environmentally friendly manner with organic fertilizer and without herbicides. This leads to elegant, complex wines with many nuances of flavour and bouquet and a distinctive fruitiness. Our tasting notes: 2001 Qualit䴳wein Trocken; perfect interplay of acidity with natural sweetness supported by a mineral character that speaks of slate; hints of apple, spice, apricot, honey, orange; medium-bodied with a memorably flavourful finish. Excellent value for 10 euros.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 20 November 2002 at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Italian word Piemonte means "foot of the mountain" and that's where one of the world's great wine-producing region finds itself: in the north-western corner of the country, where the Alpine chain separates Italy from France and Switzerland. The region produces some 50 million cases of wine a year, with the best-known appellations being Asti Spumante, Barolo and Barbaresco.

Grapes used in Piemonte include Dolcetto, Barbera, Freisa and Grignolino. Surprisingly, despite its fame, less than three percent of the acreage is given over to the Nebbiolo grape, which is the primary variety used for Barolo, Barbaresco, Boca, Carema, Fara, Ghemme, Roero, and, of course, Nebbiolo d'Alba and Nebbiolo delle Langhe.

Nebbiolo is one of the two great red-wine grapes of Italy. The other is Tuscany's Sangiovese. Its name comes from nebbia, or "fog", because it ripens best and gives its finest wines in places where there is a good deal of morning fog during the harvest. One of those places is the Monferrato hills in the south of the province of Asti and that's where the Araldica co-operative has 2,000 acres of vinyards. In partnership with Martin Shaw, the star Australian winemaker, Araldica bottles Alasia, a wine that exemplifies modern techniques while retaining the characteristic Italian taste of the region's limestone-clay soil.

The bottle we drank was an Alasia Langhe Nebbiolo, 1995. Here are our tasting notes: fine red colour. Good nose with hints of toffee, cherry and fruitcake. Medium-bodied. Hint of sweetness on the palate, pleasantly grapey. Can still improve. Slightly pricey, though, at 10 euros.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 12 November 2002 at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy". Samuel Johnson

Late last night, at the end of a full day, I poured a snifter of Cardenal Mendoza for Mrs Fitzgerald and another for myself. Cardenal Mendoza is the darkest of all the Jerez brandies and it is distilled by vintners Sanchez Romate. This has to rank amongst the greatest spirits of Spain. The nose is spectacular with hints of dates, plums and roasted nuts; the texture is rich and creamy with a commanding, lingering finish, and the flavours include apricot, fig, peach, smoke, toffee and honey. Here is a brandy that makes one eager to be heroic in the Johnsonian sense.

The pleasures of the brandied evening were further enhanced by the music of Alboka, whose latest CD, Lorius, I listened to courtesy of my charming colleague Enrique Recabarren. With Juan Arriola (violin), Alan Griffin (alboka) and Joxan Goikoetxea (accordion), Alboka play a distinctive form of Basque music that's full of an Iberian passion tinged with Celtic melancholy. On this recording, they're joined by some first-class guest musicians, including Marta Sebestyen from Hungary, one of finest singers of contemporary folk music.

Cardenal Mendoza, Alboka and then, to bed.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 10 October 2002 at 7:13 AM | Permalink

Malvasia de Sitges is a sweet wine that was once the main reason for the town's international reputation. Today, Sitges is a favourite hang out for the global jet-setting gay crowd, where the nightlife vibrates until dawn along Calle del Pecado (Sin Street). On the third Sunday of every September, though, wine fans descend on the town for a programme the organizers describe in Catalan as consisting of: 'Concurs de Trepitjadores de Raim, Font del Vi i Sardanes'. In other words, a grape stamping competition, a wine fountain and the dancing of the Sardana, that peculiar expression of Calalunyan identity which moved Santiago Rusiñol to observe 'the heart dances but the head calculates'.

Anyway, while the music played, ten teams of strong-thighed young men pounded the first fruit of the local harvest with their bare feet and a beautiful Pubilla, or harvest queen, was selected after being placed on a scales that used bottles of Malmsey wine as counterweights. Once the winning team had been announced, after treading nine litres of grape juice, the sponsors, Torres, turned on the 'wine fountain' &#151 a plaster figure in the shape of a classical goddess on whose shoulder rested a barrel, which poured forth a steady stream of robust red until midnight. Thrifty locals filled plastic containers from the stream and visitors were encouraged to fill themselves. Remarkably, and impressively, there was neither drunkenness nor disorder.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 16 September 2002 at 12:43 PM | Permalink