chardonnay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of Italy's great indigenous grapes, and responsible for Chianti, Brunello and Montalcino wines. It has a keen dryness and bright bite to it, with a firm grippy structure. There is typically a cherry character and it often has smoky overtones and herbal notes thrown in.

 

One of the noblest of the black grapes with an ability to make very long-lived wines. This is the variety of the Northern Rhône - of Hermitage, and Côte-Rôtie. It is deep and dark and dense with characteristic flavours of cracked black pepper, 'smoky bacon' and tar. In the New World the characteristics are much more fruit driven with capsicum and blackcurrant appearing and often a minty character. Anything from soft and juicy to intense, concentrated and powerful in style.

 

Deep coloured and long lasting but not overly alcoholic. This is the major variety of Rioja as well as Navarra, Somontano, Utiel-Requena any many other Spanish regions. Styles vary from deep and concentrated to light, raspberryish and soft. It has an excellent affinity with oak, as can bee seen with modern Riojas.

 

These are other, less planted, varieties that have their own little niches. Carmenère is Chile's flagship red grape variety, as is pinotage to South Africa and malbec to Argentina. Bonarda is indigenous to Italy but the Argentineans are doing great things with it, and Plantagenet in Western Australia are very serious about their cabernet franc which is better known as the third grape of Bordeaux.

 

Italy has literally hundreds of indigenous grape varieties beyond sangiovese and nebbiolo. The great garganega of Soave, nero d'avola, montepulciano, barbera and prosecco are all regionally important and much loved world-wide. From Sicily and Puglia up to the Alto Adige you can find interesting and varied wines with individuality and character that you simply won't find anywhere else.

 

A fine French red grape variety that is much blended with, and overshadowed by, the more widely planted cabernet sauvignon. It is really only in the Loire valley where it produces single varietal wines, and on the right bank of the Gironde where it is more quantitively important than cabernet sauvignon. It produces lighter wines than cabernet sauvignon with firm tannins and a distinct leafy character. It is the variety behind Chinon, Bourgueil and Anjou Rosé in the Loire and is also a vital component of the great Cheval Blanc in Bordeaux. It is also much favoured in north eastern Italy as a single varietal. In New Zealand and Western Australia it tends to be grown for the express purpose of blending with cabernet sauvignon in Meritage (Bordeaux style) blends.

 

This is the absolutely classic blend, best known in Bordeaux, but now imitated all over the wine-producing world. The soft berry fruit of the merlot compliments the tannins and structure of cabernet sauvignon to make wines of immense longevity and potential that evolve with age. At the lighter end of the scale it is a well balanced blend of appealing fruit and style.

 

Syrah blends are mostly a new world phenomenon, with Australia at the forefront here. Cabernet sauvignon or grenache are the most popular blends producing big, jolly, juicy wines with masses of fruit, a minty character and rounded weight. Very friendly stuff, but mostly not for long term cellaring.

 

This is curiously the world's second most planted grape variety after airén. In Spain it goes under the name of garnacha where it is extremely prolific in Rioja among other regions. In France it covers great swathes across the south of the country from the southern Rhône, where it is the major grape, to the Languedoc and Roussillon. In Châteauneuf-du-Pape, on poor soils with rigorous pruning and 'bush' training it can produce dense wines worthy of decades of cellaring. It is also the 'cannonau' of Sardinia - although the Sardinians dispute this and claim it as a distinct variety of their own. In Spain it really comes into its own in Priorat where it makes intense, concentrated, black wines with plenty of structure for maturing.

 

These blends are based on the classic Southern Rhône combinations using syrah and mourvèdre. The best known of these blends is Châteauneuf du Pape, but the French must look to their laurels as there are some very impressive imitators coming out of the New World.

 

Big, dense tempranillo-based wines that show individuality and terroir. These are concentrated wines with firm structure and an ability to mature and develop. Loads of black berry and hedgerow flavours front a big structure and gutsy style.

 

Pretty much everything else we can offer made from red grapes. There is a fascinating range of wines from the traditional blends such as Valpolicella's corvina, molinara and rondinella to more modern innovative couplings like Puelo's bonarda/malbec or Boland Wines' pinotage/cinsault.

 

REDS	WHITES	OTHER
cabernet sauvignon	albariño	beers
cabernet merlot blends	chardonnay	fortified
cabernet franc	european blends	fizz
gamay	european varietals	halves
grenache/garnacha	new world blends	rosé
grenache blends	new world varietals	sweet stuff
interesting combinatons	riesling	memorable quantities
italian varietals	sauvignon blanc	vital ingredients
merlot
new world varietals
pinot noir
sangiovese
syrah/shiraz
syrah blends
tempranillo
tempranillo blends

The eponymous grape variety from Rias Baixas producing high quality white wines of increasing trendiness and price. This very aromatic variety has a distinctive peachy almost viognier-like character and produces excellent wines from the rain-drenched Galicia area of northern Spain. Its thick skins enable it to withstand the damp and mildew of this sodden area and go on to make long lived wines - sometimes matured in oak - of individuality and character.

The ubiquitous grape. Ever since chardonnay became trendy, it has taken a lot of flak and been much misrepresented. Recently, the use of oak has diminished and become more subtle, the wines have become more interesting and individual and overall quality has risen. Chardonnay is known as the Winemaker's grape because it can manipulated in the winemaking process to any style from Champagne to Chablis to a Californian blockbuster. Great stuff that in the right hands makes great wines.

 

Riesling has always been a classic grape making amazingly complex and wonderful wines, but it has a lot of bad press with cheap 'hock' and Liebfraumilch muddying its reputation. Cool climate rieslings from Australia, and New Zealand are a completely different kettle of fish - clean, bright and racy with citric fruit and mineral overtones. Bone dry and very exciting.

 

The great grape of the Loire valley has travelled around the world to cooler climates to make exciting wines ranging from the lean and minerally to broader styles with tropical fruit character and flavours ranging from nettles and hay to asparagus and green peppers. Always crisp and lively it can occasionally cope with a little oak, but is best showing its own pure, true flavours.

 

From Hunter Valley semillon to classic South African chenin blanc, by way of the lively, aromatic Argentinean torrontes, and Tasmanian pinot gris and gewurztraminer. Some are modern classics and others are well thought-through innovations.

 

Traditional wines made from regional, indigenous varieties are in this section, with Soave, Albariño and white Rioja as well as regional French and Italian wines. These styles tend to have become more interesting over the last couple of decades with better winemaking and purer flavours.