Wine of the Week: Blanquette de Limoux

My wine of the week this week was discovered during the recent Tesco Finest Pop Up wine bar in Soho.  It was a fabulous marketing idea and I wish it could have been there for longer than a fortnight but, as I’m sure the staff would attest to, I gave the wine list a good going over whilst it was there.  Who can complain at a sleek bar with bouncers ensuring it doesn’t get too busy and wines on show at between £3-7 a glass? Especially when I tell you that the £7 one was vintage champagne....

I worked out that I tried 15 of the wines on offer and whilst there were a couple of less than great ones (the enigma of a low cost but excellent Chateauneuf-du-Pape remains elusive) I was bowled over by several of them. I have got into the rather short-sighted habit of thinking that it’s not worth drinking anything under £10 a bottle. We’ve all heard the tales about the value of actual wine in the bottle once you’ve accounted for tax, duty, import costs etc. Well, I was wrong. Yes, I will repeat that as it’s a rare day when I admit to it but – I. Was. Wrong.

Wine of the Week: Bobos Finca Casa La Borracha 2013 #WineWednesday

I am of the opinion that Bobal is a seriously underrated grape as are the resulting wines. Google it and you're hard pushed to find more than a handful of examples for sale in the UK despite its reasonable price point and approachable character. Anyway, more on the grape Bobal more generally in an upcoming Wine Grape Challenge post, for today I'm focused on one very particular Bobal that has made it to the top of the pile to be my wine of the week.

Bobos is made by Finca Casa La Borracha, a boutique winery run by three friends of mixed Spanish and Swiss nationality and located in the Utiel Requena area of the Valencia Region on the eastern coast of Spain. La Borracha make a series of wines from their 61 hectares of land all within 500 metres of the winery itself. 

All grapes are handpicked and fermented in 400 litre temperature controlled barrels. This is a high tech bodega with a focus on the highest quality- something that has not traditionally been the norm in the region. 

#WineGrapeChallenge 4: Hondarabbi Xuri

For those of the procreating variety half term dawns again and Facebook begins to be filled with humblebragging status updates about the queues at Gatwick or "treating myself to a glass of rose by the pool #blessed". For those of us not off sunning ourselves in foreign climes, knocking back cheap local plonk and thinking it’s the bee’s knees, spring can drag in the city.  Seemingly interminable rain showers make us wonder if summer might never arrive, or worse still has been and gone. Thankfully there has been the odd evening in the last couple of weeks like tonight when we can spend long evenings sat outside bars and restaurants behaving like we’re in the middle of San Sebastian rather than somewhere off Carnaby Street in the middle of Soho with a faint whiff of drains in the air. No matter- a hubbub of chatter and a plentiful supply of tapas can lead me to only one grape this week – Hondarrabi Zuri!

#WineGrapeChallenge 2: Pedro Ximenez

It would be wrong of me not to dedicated my grape post for this week to Pedro Ximenez considering I've been exploring the wilds of its home, Andalucia. PX is most commonly known as by far the darkest and most syrupy of dessert wines; often cited as a rare match for chocolate dishes or good mainly for pouring on ice cream (although the latter might be a British thing). This is doubtless delicious but feels like what can be a bit of a waste of a better PX. It is true that many of the cheaper versions of PX served up in the UK are of the throat-itchingly cloying variety- lacking in acidity and essentially like attempting to drink liquidised raisins but a good PX can be a thing of beauty- balanced and mellow. If you are interested in how the sweet versions are made Bodegas Robles have a very good pictorial overview here

#WineGrapeChallenge 1: Nosiola

Entry number 1 of what I hope will be 1386.. The beginning of the Jancis 'Wine Grapes' Challenge. If you missed how it began the take a look here.

I promised that I wouldn't start this challenge with something run of the mill and pedestrian. I therefore hope you agree that a dry Nosiola from Trentino fits the bill nicely. Never heard of Nosiola? Nor me......

Starting the #WineGrapeChallenge

1386 different grape varieties. In a possibly ill-advised moment of insouciance I agreed to a challenge as something of a now very belated New year's resolution. To find and drink wines made from each and every one of the grapes featured in Jancis Robinson's bible of oenology; "Wine Grapes". A fit of bravado committed me to the project when the lady herself confirmed via Twitter that she didn't think anyone else had done it before. 

Hawksmoor Wine Club: Yquem & Apple Pie

I can't remember how old I was when I first heard of Chateau Yquem. Along with a Chanel handbag it was one of those things I somehow inherently knew I wanted. I do have vivid memories of hunting for it in supermarkets on French beach holidays as a teenager and only once finding it  (in hindsight 680 francs was probably a bargain for a full sized bottle but seemed a crazy fortune at the time!)

Yquem is one of the few white wine chateaux to have reached a level of name recognition and mythical status to rival its Bordeaux neighbours such as Lafite, Pétrus or Margaux.   Clichéd phrases involving "nectar" and "liquid gold" are regularly bandied about in the tumultitude of articles on the subject.  

I'm not going to bore you with the basics of Yquem (botrytis, semillon, sauvignon etc etc) and leave it to someone much more qualified. For more of the story behind both Yquem the wine and the chateau and also some fabulous photography I can't recommend Richard Olsen's book Yquem enough, he knows much more about it than I can ever hope to.  So back to actually drinking the stuff and the evening I popped my Yquem cherry.... 

Hawksmoor have founded a wine club with the intention of offering amazing and often otherwise inaccessible-to-mere-mortals wines by the glass accompanied by a suitable dish.

So last week I was pretty excited to head on over to Seven Dials for an apple pie and a glass of Yquem for £22. Now there may be some of you out there who think that £22 still sounds like a totally nuts price to pay for what is essentially a cake and a glass of wine. Contrary to popular opinion amongst those nearest and dearest to me, I'm not living in cloud cuckoo land. It is a lot to pay unless you're really into wine. Bear in mind that only a few days later I was in another London restaurant who were offering the same Yquem, same year, same everything for £48 a glass. Without the pie. Imagine that.

The wine in question was a 1998 Yquem served in half bottles of which they had bought in a few (reputedly from Roberson but not 100% sure). Anyway so onto the wine itself. Golden in the glass leaving a pattern of rivulets swirling around the glass from the sweetness. I could sit and smell it for ages were I not such an impatient creature. Pure sweet honeyed olfactory blast. 

Enough acidity to prevent the wine cloying in the mouth and to stand up to the relative sharpness of the apples in the tarte. The comparative youth has meant that the more detailed fruity notes still remain. The botrytis in this bottle has permitted a super sweet concentration but  without erring too much towards the slightly bitter, petrol note that can creep in. In short, a nicely balanced wine.  

The lovely, lovely Hawksmoor chaps even gave me a second taste from a different bottle (just checking consistency within the vintage, totally necessary y'know how it is.....)  If this event was anything to go by, I can't wait to see what other Hawksmoor wine events are coming up.

So was it everything that I hoped and dreamed of, this elusive Elysian liquid? Yes.  I'm left with an expensive problem however; I want more.

Roberson are currently selling the 1998 for less than £100 for a half bottle, it'll keep for decades. Go on, you know you want to

Oh yes and the pie was very nice too.....

Hawksmoor Seven Dials

11 Langley St, London, Greater London WC2H 9JG