Matthieu Barret Côtes du Rhône Petit Ours Gris 2010

Ever bet on a horse because of thew colours or the name? If you have you have also chosen your wine because of the label. This label is one of those labels.

Perched just out of reach of the kids at Seddon Wine Store, the Matthieu Barret Côtes du Rhône Petit Ours Gris (little grey bear) 2010 Syrah and Grenache blend is in prime view of us big kids and am happy to say is a constant mover. The nose is full of bright red fruit with sweet raspberry pronounced. The palate has an almost cooling feel about it with more fruit; raspberry, blackberry and licorice allsorts. The mid palate pushes most of the fruit aside with balanced acid and soft chewy tannins cleaning up all and sundry. A good wine and maybe just as fun as putting $2 each way on the jockey wearing the pretty silks.

Drink with lamb casserole
Drink till 2015
90
Quality cork 13.5%v/v $29 Seddon Wine Store

Yves Cuilleron à Chavanay Rhône Valley Les Vignes d'à Côté Roussanne 2011 and my French Onion Soup

Sometimes things just work together. Simple ideas that make it obvious. The Yves Cuilleron à Chavanay Rhône Valley Les Vignes d'à Côté Roussanne 2011 and French onion soup work together. Well. Simple. Not together and the Roussanne is just another aromatic wine and the French onion soup is just a viscous and winter warming soup. Together they shine with the wine full of rich honey suckle and soft candied peaches and pears on the nose, the palate continues on this way with touches of prickly stewed pineapple, ginger and plenty of finesse.

I think I have called the end of Summer at least a dozen times. I'm going to call it again because right now it is hailing and 13°C here in downtown Brunswickistan, so this wine and this soup need your attention people. Alone good, together stunning. Simple and delicious pleasures.

My French onion Soup

1 kg brown onions  - sliced

100 grams butter

1 tablespoon of flour

1 litre of water

200 grams Gruyere cheese

1 baguette

salt and pepper

Melt 150grams of butter in a big pot. Slice all onions and add to pot. This needs plenty of stirring and should take up to 20-30 minutes to colour. When you have a decent colour, add flour and continue to stir for a couple of minutes. Add water and 100 grams of Gruyere to melt in soup. Bring to the boil and and reduce to simmer for 30 minutes. Cut up baguette on an angle and lightly toast. Cover with grated Gruyere cheese and stick under grill and place on top off soup when cheese melted. Bon.

Drink with my French onion soup

Drink till 2015

96

Diam cork 13%v/v $30 Seddon Wine Store

 

E. Guigal Côte Rôtie Brune et Blond 2000

This is a stellar wine! The E. Guigal Côte Rôtie Brune et Blond 2000 was absolutely pure joy to drink and unfortunately my last one.

E. Guigal has been described as the ‘Locomotive’ of the Rhone and the ‘Pirate of the Valley’ in the way they forage out the best fruit year after year. I would describe them as the Penfolds of the Rhone with parcels of fruit from Côte Rôtie up in the north to Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the south and everything in between.

From an average year, this wine still has all the hallmarks of a great Côte Rôtie wine. There is still plenty of brightness in the colour with no signs of an orange rusty hue. The nose is the winner here with layers of complex aromas; savoury cherry, herbs - bay leaf sticks out massively, and the prickly spice of tobacco. The palate still has a wonderful acid hit that is not astringent but clean and sharp with more savoury flavours dominating and finishing with subtle dusty tannins. Pure joy this was!

Drink with Roast Chicken
Drink till 2020
96
Quality cork 13%v/v $130 Langton’s online auctions www.langtons.com.au

M. Chapoutier ‘Deschants’ 1997 Saint-Joseph Marsanne

You know how sometimes you get in a rut and things just seem to go along grey. Right now there isn’t really that much happening over here in Brunswick - some street work happening outside and two people bickering about who knows what in an accent I cannot seem to pick. Apart from the skies opening up and Henry spending another night crying and wanting to play, nothing much is really happening.

I needed a buzz other than coffee. So as I was sneaking past Henry’s room so as not to wake him up, and still wearing my pj’s, the thought of posting something other than, 'this is nice, this goes with that' got me going, so off I went to my recent wine archives and pulled out this gem - to write about, not drink; it is only nine in the am right now.

So here goes. M. Chapoutier ‘Deschants’ 1997 Saint-Joseph from the Northern Rhone. This is a wine I paid about $10 for back in 2003 at The Wine Societies Xmas sale where they were flogging wine that people either did not want or did not know. Ten bucks is damn cheap so I took all three that were available.

Now the ‘Deschants’ is 100% Marsanne grown biodynamically in the Rhone, and a variety that is lost in the ocean of Savvy B and Chardonnay that is on the market today. It is also a variety that can be drunk young or cellared for 20+ years. Yet it is also a variety that demands a good growing season, with natural acidity being its hallmark to a great wine.

On a side note, M. Chapoutier has since 1996 transcribed Braille on to all of their labels. Far from being a gimmick, the symbol draws on the history of the Hermitage vineyard. Maurice Monier de la Sizeranne is the owner of the plot of the Hermitage, ‘la Sizeranne’, is also the inventor of the first version of abbreviated Braille.

So the wine.

Like I said, I got all three for $30 – a steal I thought. The first one was oxidised to the be-jesus, not a good start. The second was soaked in cork-taint and at this point I was thinking I had got jibbed. So the third bottle was neatly tucked away in my cellar until last week when I was doing a bit of inventory and happened to come across the forgotten third bottle.

Now it is fair to say that I was quite pessimistic about this one, with its two siblings failing to show the goods. There was promise on looking at the bottle, with no ullage noticeable. In the glass the wine had the appearance of Botrytis orange, and at only 12.7% a/v, I thought the horse, and the wine, had definitely bolted. But alas, this one was the gem! This nose is possibly one of the best I have come across for any wine, with very noticeable honeycomb coming through in the form of the crunchie bar chocolate. In the mouth was very viscous, with wax and more honey bobbing up. The real pleasure of this wine was that Erin did not like it. More, or actually all, for me – mucho fantastico!!

Great balance, wonderful length and real complexity. Just a shame that it was my last one.

Drink now
Drink with braised Rockling with a leek and butter sauce
19/20

M. Sorrel 'La Grael' Hermitage 2001

When I first tasted this wine last year I was immediately drawn to the way that over time, this wine, like no other I have drunk, evolved in such a way that even after 2 hours, the wine was still coming up with new flavour spectrums.

The colour is a deep ox blood red with absolutely no translucency (with further investigation I found out this wine had 23 days on skin, hence the massive colour). On the nose at first there was a real smack of olive tapenade, really big and really one dimensional. Later the nose showed lovely hints of white pepper then later again soft red fruit – whacky stuff this one. In the mouth at first was a great marriage of tannin, oak and black fruit. The tannins after a while in the glass and decanter melded in to a fine chalky feel in the mouth with the fruit growing longer and longer with every sip.

The longer and longer and longer I drank this wine the more it evolved until finally I was hit with the olive tapenade I got from the initial whiff. Wine like this really doesn’t get any better.

Drink with saddle of lamb cooked medium rare.
Drink till 2030
19/20