Pop goes Prosecco: sparkling alternatives to the Italian favourite

From the Irish Times, Saturday 21st August, 2015

Are we getting tired of Prosecco? The answer, according to one retailer in the leafy suburbs of Donnybrook, was a quite definite no. “Cannot keep it on the shelves here in D4, dear boy,” he said. “And the same goes for the rest of south Dublin.”

We like Prosecco. It is fresh, fruity, sweetish (although we prefer not to be reminded of this), and best of all, sparkling. We like fizz and we like a wine that doesn’t try to be too complicated. Prosecco doesn’t attempt to ape Champagne, and doesn’t cost the earth. Sales have rocketed here and elsewhere. Over the past few months newspapers have been full of stories of a poor harvest and a shortage of wine. I very much doubt we will suffer from a shortage of Prosecco, but if we do, there are plenty of very affordable alternatives.

Sparkling wine can be divided into three categories. Wines made by the traditional method go through their second fermentation in a bottle. These include Champagne, Cava, the various crémants and many New World sparkling wines. Others go through a similar process, but in a large tank. This is known as the Charmat or tank method. In the third, unofficially known as the méthode pompe bicyclette, the wine is simply carbonated, as with a soft drink. The traditional method is said to produce superior, more complex wines with a finer stream of bubbles (although this may partly be due to the quality of wine used). It also costs a lot more. Prosecco is made by the Charmat method.

In recent years, a new category of ‘non-sparkling’ sparkling wine has emerged. Irish importers realised that slightly less fizzy Prosecco, labelled Frizzante, which comes with driven cork or screw cap, is classified by Customs and Excise as still wine and therefore attracts a lower level of duty. If you buy a bottle labelled Spumante, it will have more bubbles and one of those mushroom-shaped corks. You will then be paying double the rate of tax.

Virtually every country around the world makes fizz of some sort. So far this year, I have tasted some very presentable sparkling wines from Romania and Hungary and some seriously good stuff from Austria, Germany, New Zealand and the UK. Other parts of France, Australia, South Africa and Italy can also claim to make excellent sparkling wine. Unfortunately you will usually pay at least €20 and more often multiples of that for the very best. If any wine ever puts a dent in Prosecco sales it is most likely to be Cava. This Spanish wine is made by the more expensive traditional method and is therefore liable for the higher duty rate, but as it is produced in very large quantities, you can often find it at prices not dissimilar to Prosecco. Not all Cava is cheap; there are plenty of very good, but more expensive bottles. But most of the multiples offer one at €10-€15.

I asked importers for their alternatives to Prosecco. My tasting divided neatly (with two exceptions) into two categories: Prosecco wannabees and Champagne lookalikes. I tried a few very good drier Cavas, including the Tesco Finest Cava, a steal at €10.69, the Aldi Cava Convento (€10.49) and the Segura Viudas Lavit Brut Nature (€22, Next Door).There were also plenty of more expensive sparkling wines from the New World, Burgundy and the Loire Valley.

Two sparkling wines fell into a third category of weird but wonderful; the funky, cloudy and delicious Gaillac Brut Nature 2013 (€29.50) from Terroirs in Donnybrook, and even funkier, in a good way, was the sweet red Reggiano Lambrusco I Quercioli (€19.50) from Sheridans Cheesemongers.This week I have chosen two wines that are similar in style and price to Prosecco and one that is competition for many Champagnes.

La Rosca Cava Brut NV
11.5%
€14.99

Medium-dry peach and apple fruits with good lively citrus to keep it in check. A prefect Prosecco replacement.

Stockists: O’Briens

Jean Claude Mas Piquepoul de Pinet Frisant 2013
12%
€15.95

Lightly fruity and refreshing; this is a very attractive alternative to Prosecco.

Stockists: Deveney’s Dundrum; Clontarf Wines, Corkscrew, Jus de Vine, Martin’s, Wine Centre Kilkenny, Morton’s Galway, 64 Wine.

Graham Beck Brut NV, South Africa
12%
€26.99

A seriously good glass of sparkling wine with creamy raspberry fruits and a long dry finish. A great alternative to Champagne.

Stockists: Ardkeen; Mitchell & Son; Deveney’s; The Corkscrew; Molloy’s; Next Door.

THE BEAUTY OF BLENDING

From The Irish Times, Saturday 1st August, 2015

I t may not be the first thing that springs to mind when talking about wine, but the art of blending is crucial to the success or failure of a great many wines. There are those who argue that the greatest assets any winemaker can have are the twin abilities to taste and to blend.

You may not realise you are drinking one, but using the term in its widest sense, virtually every wine is a blend of some sort, if only of different parcels within the same vineyard. Blending is simply the process of adding one wine to another. It takes many forms.We are familiar with the use of several different grape varieties, but a winemaker can blend wines from the same grape, but made in a different way, wines from different vineyards, different regions or even different vintages.

Many wine drinkers assume that a blended wine is automatically inferior to a wine made from a single grape variety. We are all used to the inexpensive Australian Chardonnay/Semillon and Shiraz/Cabernet blends. It is true that some takes place for financial reasons, but most blending is done to increase the quality of the finished wine, including many of the above Aussie dual varietals. The aim is to end up with a wine that is greater than each of the individual parts.

The Beauty of Blending was the topic of a discussion and tasting I took part in earlier this year at the Ballymaloe Litfest. I enjoyed the session greatly, not least because there was a wonderful range of wines to taste, including almost all of the great traditional wines; a sherry from Tio Pepe, a tawny Port from Taylors, a Champagne from Bollinger and a Bordeaux and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Only Burgundy stands apart, relying on one sole grape for its red wine, and one for white.

In the classic Bordeaux tradition, Merlot fills out the centre palate of the lean, angular Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc. It has the added benefit of making the wine more approachable in its youth (and ripening earlier too). Shiraz frequently performs the same function in Australia.The final assemblage of a top château in Bordeaux will be the result of blending hundreds of different barrels of wine. It is a skilled process taking a panel of tasters several days to complete.

Most sherry is made by fractional blending, a complicated system whereby young wine is added to the first cask in a criadera or row of barrels and mature wine removed from the other end. The resulting wine will be a blend of many vintages going back decades, if not centuries.

We frequently taste blends without realising it, as producers in many countries can include up to 15 per cent of another grape variety, vintage or even region without declaring it. So your 2014 Shiraz from the Barossa could actually have 15 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, or 15 per cent Shiraz from the 2013 vintage, or 15 per cent Shiraz from Coonawarra.In the past, a great many Australian wines were made from grapes grown hundreds of miles apart. The practice is less common now, largely because EU law frowns on such things. However, Penfold’s Grange, Australia’s most revered red wine, is a blend of wines from many different regions within South Australia. Its white equivalent, Yattarna, blends Chardonnay from the Adelaide Hills with wine from Tasmania, over a thousand kilometres apart.

It is common for a producer of Chardonnay to put a portion of his wine through malolactic fermentation followed by extensive lees stirring to create a softer more nuanced wine, and blend it back into a fresher more acidic wine that has not gone through this process. Some parcels may be aged in expensive new oak barrels, others in stainless steel. The possibilities are endless but in this way a winemaker can make a more complete and complex wine. Arguably the greatest blended wine of all is Champagne.

Santa Rita Secret Reserve White 2013, Casablanca, Chile
13%
€14.99

An intriguing blend of Riesling, Viognier, Chardonnay and Sauvignon that works really well. Lovely fruity summer drinking.

Stockists: Spar, Tesco, Dunnes Stores.

Groiss Gemischter Satz Dorflagen 2014, Niederösterreich, Austria
12.5%
€20-21

From a field blend of up to seventeen different grape varieties, a wine bursting with juicy ripe melon fruits.

Stockists: Greenman, Red Island, On the Grapevine, Donnybrook Fair and Mitchell & Son.

Ch. Sainte-Marie Alios 2012 Côtes de Bordeaux
13.5%
€17.95

From a classic blend of Merlot, Cabernet and Petit Verdot, a supple ripe wine filled with lightly spicy blackcurrant and cassis.

Stockists: Wines Direct, Mullingar.

Grüner Veltliner – Austria’s summery grape

I believe that Grüner Veltliner may be the best white summer wine of all. Certainly it is one of most adaptable food wines, great with most salads, fish and white meats and well able to cope with herbs and Asian spicing. Almost all Grüners are light enough to drink solo and are therefore a great choice for summer sipping wine or as an aperitif.

It is that combination of refreshing acidity and plump fruit that makes them so flexible. They are very rarely aged in new oak barrels, so you get a mouthful of wonderful pristine fruit-filled wine.

Whereas Austrian wines were once something of a joke here, it is now unthinkable that a decent restaurant would not have at least one Grüner Veltliner on its wine list. This is partly proof of their food-friendly nature, but also an indication of how perceptions have changed. It helps of course, that the standard of winemaking in Austria is so high; on a recent visit there, over five days, I don’t think I tasted a bad white. I tasted Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Riesling and, while all were very good, only the Riesling managed to match the sheer diversity of style, including sparkling wine, of Grüner Veltliner. The sparkling wines are improving rapidly and only our penal excise duty will prevent them becoming more popular here. The 2014 vintage was very difficult in Austria – cold and very wet. At times, the producers I met were falling over themselves to apologise for their wines. Despite this, I found plenty of excellent crisp, dry whites and some lovely refreshing red Blaufränkisch too. As noted here before, the red wines of Austria have been improving greatly over the last five years.

But Grüner is Austria’s signature grape, covering almost 30 per cent of all vineyards, and Austria is almost the only country where you will find it. On the final day of my visit, I attended a tasting of 100 Grüner Veltliners in Vienna along with a hundred or more wine writers. Not only was it a lesson in how to organise a tasting, but it provided a great opportunity to reacquaint myself with these lovely wines.Wisely, the Austrian Wine Board divided ta sting into four categories; young and elegant, powerful reserve wines, mature Grüner and innovative and wild. It was proof that Grüner can cover all bases; I was very taken with some of the natural wines, not a category that I always enjoy, and each of the remaining sections had some truly glorious wines.

In certain conditions, young Grüner Veltliner can be light, refreshing and supremely elegant. That does not imply an inferiority to the powerful reserve wines; some of my favourite wines come from Kamptal and Kremstal, where the best wines compare very favourably, although in a more refined style, to the richer more alcoholic wines of the Wachau. One look at the alcohol content on the label will usually tell you the style.

Steininger is perhaps better known in Austria as a sparkling wine producer, but I have always found the still wines to be very good and very fairly priced, too. Birgit Eichinger is one of the great producers of both Grüner Veltliner and Riesling (she also offers a very tasty Grüner Veltliner chocolate). I have tasted the wines of Malat a number of times and often wondered why no Irish importer took them up; now one has. These are excellent wines, light and elegant but full of flavour. Those seeking the richer style should take a look at the wines of Domaine Ott, available in 64wine in Glasthule and elsewhere. There you will also find a wonderful natural Grüner Veltliner made by Claus Preisinger.

On August 7th, Thomas Klinger of Weingut Brundlmeyer, one of the finest producers of Grüner Veltliner will host a dinner in Greenacres, Wexford. He will be joined by Dorli Muhr, responsible for some of the very best red wine in Austria. It looks like an unmissable event. Tickets are €49. Greenacres.ie for details.

Steininger Grüner Veltliner 2014, Kamptal
12.5%
€15.80

A perfect example of the lighter refreshing style of Grüner, with green apple fruits and a crisp dry finish.

Stockists: Wines Direct, Mullingar.

Birgit Eichinger Grüner Veltliner Hasel 2014, Kamptal
12%
€18-19

From one of my favourite producers, a delectable flowing wine with subtle spicy peach fruits, finishing dry.

Stockists: Redmonds, Ranelagh; Mitchell & Son, IFSC, Glasthule and Avoca, Kilmacanogue.

Malat Grüner Veltliner 2014, Kremstal
12%
€18.95

Fine crisp slightly spicy melon fruits and clean as a whistle. Perfect sipping wine on a summer’s evening

Stockists: Searsons Wine Merchants, Monkstown.

Coravin – does it work?

Last February, I went to the Irish launch of Coravin, a new wine preservation device, which promises to allow you to enjoy wine from the same bottle over a period of months, if not years.Founder Greg Lambrecht became frustrated when his pregnant wife was unable to drink wine. He couldn’t consume an entire bottle every night, and, in any case, he wanted a to have a glass of white wine, then one of red, and possibly a glass of dessert wine too. And so he started off on a 12-year process that was eventually to lead to Coravin.He focused on how to extract the wine without introducing any oxygen. The answer is a very smart small piece of equipment that looks a little like a microscope, with clamps to grip the bottle, a long thin needle that pierces the cork, and a capsule of argon gas that automatically replaces the wine as you pour out the desired quantity through a spout. Once you remove the needle, the cork springs back to reseal itself. It doesn’t work on screw caps or plastic corks, but apparently does with all kinds of cork. Coravin claims the wine will remain fresh indefinitely.

There are other wine-preservation systems, such as the Enomatic, but that is expensive and takes up a lot of space. The Vacu-Vin and related Verre de Vin systems work for a short period. Nothing else performs for as long or as reliably as the Coravin promises. A wine enthusiast can now pour a glass of a particular fine wine, reseal it and then return for a second glass months later. It will certainly be of real interest to those who like to have a glass or two of vintage port or dessert wine after dinner. Restaurants can now offer a huge range of wines by the glass, including fine wine, without fear of being left with an opened, rapidly oxidising bottle. Wine shops can offer their customers multiple samples before they buy.

The big question, of course, is does it work? Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker are both fans. Château Margaux uses it to test their wines before sending them abroad for tastings.Recently, I was invited to a follow-up tasting by Coravin agents. We blind-tasted the same resealed wines from February against freshly opened bottles. None of the journalists present were able to tell the difference, and we are not alone. Apparently, more than 2,000 professionals have completed a similar tasting, and none so far has a 100 per cent success rate.

The Coravin does have disadvantages. It is expensive to buy and does have operating costs; I found my argon capsule was good for about 15 bottles – that is 65 cents per use. It is also quite fiddly to use. I cannot imagine a sommelier bringing it to the table. It would be great for restaurants that want to offer fine wines, even flights of a fine wine, or a glass of fortified or sweet wine at the end of a meal. But you probably won’t see it being used on the house wine. I find a bottle of wine rarely lasts more than one evening chez Wilson, and you don’t need a seal if you drink any remaining wine the following evening.There is also a strong argument that a bottle of fine wine, or any wine, is best enjoyed with friends and not kept for your own personal enjoyment.However, my wife and I often enjoy a glass of white wine before dinner or with a starter, and then move on to a red. I can now crack open a very nice bottle and reseal it for a few weeks. So far it is proving very useful.

The Coravin is available through wineonline.ie and various retail shops including some O’Briens outlets for €299. Two replacement capsules cost €19.99 and each one works for anything from 15-30 glasses of wine. This week, I recommend three expensive wines that might be best enjoyed by the glass.

Mas de Daumas Gassac Blanc 2014
IGP St. Guilhem-le-Desert Cité d’Aniane
13%
€45

An elegant white wine with enticing floral aromas and soft juicy white peach fruits.

Stockists: Red Nose Wines, Clonmel; Curious Wines, Cork.

Jurancon, Clos Uroulat 2012
12.5%
€29.95

A deliciously refreshing dessert wine with tangy pineapples and tropical fruits. Heavenly with Roquefort.

Stockists: Redmonds; Listons; Fallon & Byrne; The Corkscrew; Green Man, Terenure; Avoca; World Wide Wines; Le Caveau.

Bodegas Tradicion Amontillado Vors, Jerez
20%
€69.99

An epic dry sherry of breathtaking complexity that demands to be sniffed and consumed slowly, sip by glorious sip.

Stockists: Wines on the Green; Black Pig, Donnybrook.

Whiskey Galore – Teelings Irish Whiskey

The Irish Times 4th July 2015

The Teeling family can take a huge amount of credit for the current revival in the fortunes of Irish whiskey. John Teeling was the first to challenge the might of Irish Distillers by setting up Cooley distillery in 1987. It must have been a lonely furrow to plough in those days, but he succeeded in creating viable alternatives for Irish whiskey lovers.

Cooley was always innovative, releasing interesting whiskeys under various names, as well as supplying own-label spirits to many others. In 2011 Teeling and his investors sold Cooley to American giant Beam for $95 million.

Teeling is in the process of building a large column grain distillery in Dundalk, a very canny move. While all the talk is about Single Pot Still whiskeys, blended whiskey makes up the majority of sales, and the new distilleries (26 and counting) will need to buy their base whiskey somewhere.

Teeling’s sons Jack and Stephen obviously inherited his entrepreneurial skills and seem poised for success with their Teeling Whiskey Company. The full story featured recently in Whiskey Business, a four-part documentary on TV3. The Teeling whiskeys are interesting, the label design excellent, and the most of the prices hit the “profitable premium but affordable” category.

The final coat of paint was being applied to their new distillery and visitor centre in the Liberties in Dublin when I arrived last month. The building is smartly designed, a mix of bare cement, exposed wood, steel and copper, giving it an edgy industrial feel. There is a shop, a tasting area and café as well as a bar with wonderful barrel-shaped snugs looking out onto Newmarket. There is a rooftop garden too. It is open for tours and hopes to become a major tourist attraction.

Master distiller Alex Chasko started out as a brewer in Portland, Oregon, but is clearly very much at home discussing whiskey and the art of blending.

Production had started when I visited, with a wort fermenting away, although according to Chasko it will be the end of the year before they hit full production of around 500,000 litres a year. It will then take several years before any of the distillate can be called whiskey.

In the meantime the Teelings bought up stocks of old whiskey from Cooley. These have been put to good use, finished in various casks and released as a series of very tasty whiskeys. I have featured the Single Grain Whiskey (€45) here before. Finished in American Cabernet Sauvignon casks, it is smooth and buttery with vanilla and spice. The Small Batch entry-level whiskey was the first release.

“The challenge was to say ‘this is who we are’, to take existing stock and make it unique,” says Chasko. They did this by marrying grain and malt whiskey in rum casks to create a distinctive and delicious whiskey with raisins, vanilla spice and light woody flavours.

“For the Single Malt, my instructions were simple,” Chasko says. “Make it the best.” He chose from whiskey originally distilled in 1991, and aged in five types of cask (White Burgundy, Californian Cabernet, Sherry, Port, and Madeira).

The 21 year-old Reserve Single Malt was created by fear, jokes Chasko. “What happened if it was crap? That was two and half years ago. Now we can’t keep it in stock.”

This wonderful complex whiskey, smooth and quite delicious was finished in Sauternes casks. At the top of the tree is the 26 year-old Reserve Single Malt (€475) a truly unique whiskey that has been partly aged in White Burgundy casks. It is full of fruit and lemon zest, with subtle deep woody flavours.

It seems that once again the Teeling family are laying down the gauntlet to Irish Distillers and the other Irish whiskey producers.

jwilson@irishtimes.com

Teeling Whiskey Small Batch
46%
€37.99

Raisins, vanilla spice and light woody flavours on nose and palate, with a soft sweet finish.

Stockists: specialist off-licences.

Teeling Whiskey Single Malt
46%
€52.50

Aromas of tropical fruit, lemon zest and spice, and a palate of toffee, caramel and exotic fruits. Full of flavour.

Stockists: specialist off-licences.

Teeling Whiskey 21 year-old Single Malt
46%
€150

Wonderful aromas of white stone fruits, honey and beeswax; the palate explodes with complex flavours of peaches and apricot with a background note of smoke.

Stockists: specialist off-licences.