In Sancerre

The Sel De Grenier is one of those rather frilly French restaurants which can put you on edge until you realise all the diners are much more relaxed than the staff. And what could be more unstressed than eating in the garden at the heart of the lovely historic quarter of Montlucon in the Bourbonnais. That's close enough to the Loire for me to order a Sancerre. Not the classic steely white of that region, however, but this lovely cherry red. It went beautifully with some classic French food avec une twiste:  beef carpaccio with a basil sorbet, par exemple.

Rustic Romeiko

If you can't be great, at least be local. I drink a fair amount of Greek wine and struggle to find anything particularly good or interesting. Well, this one isn't that good but it was interesting.
The Makrakis family who make it proudly inform us that Virgil (an Italian surely?) said that counting the number of wines was like counting grains of sand. Their particular grain, or rather grape, is Romeiko which packs a reasonable kick alcohol-wise but is a relatively subtle flavour. Even the red has a suggestion of sherry about it. Fruity but with a dry edge.
It went perfectly with the fresh wild greens, smoked pork, spinach pies and rabbit with thyme that formed our diet at Milia, the wonderful traditional holiday village in the midst of the western Cretan mountains, just 30 minutes drive from the idyllic lagoon beaches of Elafonisi.
It's a charming and comfortable rustic spot and like the rest of Crete totally uncrowded at this time of year (early April) before the charter flights start to arrive.
You can stroll around Minoan ruins covered in wonderful spring flowers and take your pick of the restaurant tables in charming ports like Chania. And it's still warm enough to swim.
I didn't want to leave Milia. Partly because of the wood fires, sunny balconies, lovely walks, good food and even this wine. But mainly because to get in and out you have to brave a dizzy-making two kilometres of unmade mountain roads. You will need a drink after that.

Changing Cairanne

Wine really does have a life of its own. Even in the bottle it changes over time. And once released it continues to develop new characteristics. Take this Cairanne.

I really like the various Cote Du Rhone villages. Each has its own personality and they can be better value and more interesting than many of the well-known Rhone appelations. But I have had problems with Cairanne before. To my palette it can be a bit leaden, almost steely combined with a rather jammy, full-blown fruitiness. One of the few times I have ever left a bottle undrunk (apart from it being off) was a Cairanne.

So it was when I first tasted this a couple of years ago. But when opened this week, it had taken on a more velvety, less full-blooded body. And when left open in the bottle and glass for an hour or two, it became a very civilised, quite rich wine. Even one mouthful seemed to have quite a different finish to the first impact on the nose.

I just don't know enough about wine [as you will have gathered from this blog] to work this out. But I am looking forward to opening another bottle of this in a couple of years to find out what happens next.

Better Than Coal

I confess my real wine cellar is nothing like the one in the background of this blog. It's actually a very narrow coal hole that runs under the hallway of our Victorian terrace house. It isn't ideal as the temperature is not constant and the underground tributaries of the Fleet River are just inches below in the London clay. But it holds my collection of wine bought en primeur over the last decade or so that we've lived here. This bottle is something I dragged out in the last week past the tool boxes and the ladder, up the four steps into daylight.

After a decade of rest it's a wonderfully fruity but full and quite subtle wine from that most mixed wine region of France, the south-west. It's a beautiful part of the country, where the hills start to rise away from the Med, heading off into deeper Languedoc.

I am delighted to say that this will happily rest a couple of more years in the coal cellar and, I think, improve. The 2005 and the 2007 also awaits.

Tunisia Needs A Red Revolution

Tunisia needs another revolution. Nothing wrong with the democratic developments, but the wine could do with a coup.

There I am with ancient historian son in a bar in El Kef - at the furthest reaches of the Empire (Roman) watching Esperance Tunis FC win the African Champions League while tucking into some rather lovely herby crispy pastries, curried chicken etc.

The mood is liberated in every sense, less than a fortnight after their elections. The drive from the capital out west has taken us past a vast swathe of fertile farmland with vines here and there.

Then the wine. Well the rose was worse which made this red seem adequate. Smooth, rounded, pleasant but entirely characterless. Certainly not Grand Cru.

Still, who's complaining at the price and the setting of the hillside medina and the context of new-found freedom.

Maybe the climate isn't perfect and perhaps the soil doesn't offer much in the way of mineral input. But with the French influence and the Lebanese example surely Tunisia can have a wine to match the glorious evocation of Carthage?

Go to the fabulous mosaics of the Bardo Museum and there's lots of evidence that Bacchus has a fantastic history here, now it needs some investment in the future.

Appalachian Autumn

This was one of the better Virginian wines that I tasted on a very brief trip down the Blue Ridge mountains. Most of the good wine is on the east of the Shenandoah national park, especially around Charlottesville. But this winery is a bit further south near Roanoke.

Their wines are mainly Italian but this one is, of course, a French grape varietal and so not suprisingly it evoked Claret rather than Chianti.

A soft, smokey texture and nose, fruity but not over-powering. 

I actually drank this with a very good dinner at the charming and very hospitable Gristmill Inn in Warm Springs. As the name suggests, this lovely village in a valley of the Appalachian Hills has wonderful bathing in America's oldest spa pool. 

So all round it made for a day of real liquid refreshment.

Jordan Red

Mount Nebo is one of those Biblical places where religious history of a number of faiths comes together in a spectacular setting. But I am afraid this is not the Promised Land for wine-lovers, yet.

We were here because our Syrian holiday was put on hold by the forces of democracy sweeping across the region. Jordan was a beautiful, hospitable and fascinating alternative. Safe, comfortable and full of interest. Sadly, this wine was no miracle.

A little sour with an indeterminate flavour that was neither novel nor reassuring. Lebanon shows that even countries with small internal markets can produce excellence but it takes a lot of investment in wine-making skills.

At least it wasn't as sickly sweet as the Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc from the same company. 

So go to Jordan for the amazing archeology: the extraordinary city of rock tombs at Petra; Crusader and Muslim Castles, Roman Cities, Byzantine Churches, and Hellenistic Palaces. 

Go for the stunning landscapes from the desert to the Dead Sea, from the green hills of the north to the coral reefs of the Red Sea. 

Go for the cultural mix that included a Christian Easter as well as Islamic and Bedouin music for our delight.

Toast all these delights with some of the local plonk by all means, but perhaps have some water with your wine. 

Dramatic Rasteau

The Rhone is the spinal cord of western European history, linking the civilisations of the Med to the cold, grapeless North. Head south nowadays down the Route de Soleil that follows that river's course and turn left about 100 km before Marseilles and you'll find Rasteau.

It's not actually on the Rhone, but it's one of those wonderful places that make up the superior appelation of Cotes De Rhones Villages. 

I love the words Vacqueyras, Gigondas, Tricastin and Rasteau. I spent a wonderful evening once on a terrace outside a farmhouse in the Ardeche with a top Dutch theatre person supping these fruits of the south. Short, wrinkled, moustache. Great raconteur and lover of the wines of the southern Rhone.

Those sensuous names, when rolled around his gutteral Nederlandish mouth, sounded even more  dramatic and full of flavour.

And at their best, that's what these wines are like.

Very local. Full of the stones and herbs that make up that almost-Provence landscape.

This little number was a relatively modest bottle bought en primeur from the Wine Society that I've had in the coal cellar for five years. Hence, all the dust and cobwebs on the label. 

But it's a lovely drinkable red which given some time in the air, opens up nicely from a very concentrated, deep red, almost sharp, into something quite wonderfully sunny and relatively sweet. 

I dedicate this little blog to the memory of Ric Van Hulst.