learn more about wine

Previously this goal was to get the WSET level 2 qualification, but now that I’ve taken the exam (haven’t had the result yet) I want to use it for more general comments and tasting notes.

Last night I had a call from G who had just opened the bottle of 1974 cabernet sauvignon from California which a friend had given him a while ago. Said friend knows a lot about US wine and said that the ones made before 1977 are different from the ones made after that date – before 1977 they were built to last.

Naturally I went downstairs to see what it was like. Absolutely sensational! It was up there with the best clarets I’ve ever had. In particular it had a kind of velvety richness to it, with a sweet finish which first reminded me of sultanas, then fruitcake, and then as we moved onto the next glass took on a hint of black treacle.

Although I’ve been a fan of Ridge and Napanook for ages, this took it to the next level. I’ve never had Ridge Montebello, their flagship wine, but it beat the French clarets at a well-known blind tasting and the French were very upset. Now I can understand just how good Californian wine can be.

The good news is that we’ve found a bottle of the 1973 from the same place for less than £30. I realise that’s a lot of money for a bottle of wine, but this stuff is actually worth at least £100. 1973 is my and G’s vintage but was generally rubbish in vinous terms, so I think we might have to get hold of it to drink at our summer celebration….

and if nothing else, studying for it has made me realise what an appalling wine snob I am. The questions on France and Germany and sherry I can answer with ease. I’m also reasonable on Italy, Spain, New Zealand and California.

As regards Australia, I can just about cope with Barossa Shiraz, but that’s about my limit.

As for Chile and Argentina, I’m hopeless! I’d never heard of the Rapel Valley before taking this course, and I’ve never tasted wines made from Carmenere or Torrontes and can’t honestly say that I’ve felt any the worse for it. But they come up all the time in the questions! I begin to suspect the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust is somewhat biased!

The examiners don’t seem to be very interested in South Africa which is fine by me although in her latest column Jancis said there are some gems there, and it entertained me this afternoon to get my lovely South African super-minion to say “Vergelegen” in the correct manner which involved a lot of hacking up of phlegm (the difficult person was out of the office at the time, otherwise that would just have been too much phlegm for one office to handle).

There is also a disturbing absence of questions on Madeira, which is a specialist subject of mine. Perhaps I should write in and complain.

but fortunately I have a knowledgeable friend who sends me emails like this, which he found on an American website. It made me laugh so I thought I’d share!

Q. Karen, what’s the best wine with chocolate chip cookies?

A. This is my kind of question. Cookies are my favorite dessert and I serve them all the time – even after an elegant dinner party. Chocolate chip cookies are harder to pair well with wine than one might think. That’s because chocolate itself is a very profound flavor that’s highly complex, bitter, spicy and sweet all at the same time. Nonetheless, one wine is indeed absolutely perfect with chocolate chip cookies: malmsey Madeira. You just have to taste the rich vanilla, brown sugar, tawny, nuttiness of a great malmsey Madeira next to a chocolate chip cookie to be converted for life. Malmsey, by the way, is the sweetest style of Madeira and it is the one you should buy. The dry styles of Madeira won’t work as well. I usually serve Blandy’s 10 Year Old Malmsey Madeira, and when I bake the chocolate chip cookies I put walnuts in them too to make the match even more outrageous.

Mmmmmm….. :)

that the particular course I wanted to do, which began in February and was on Tuesday nights, seems to have disappeared from the WSET website. No idea why that happened – maybe it was fully booked or something. None of the other courses running in the near future are on evenings that suit me, and I don’t really want to take off 3 days holiday to do it, so I’ve decided to go the distance learning route and have just signed up.

This means doing it in my own time, which shouldn’t be a problem! It’s also considerably cheaper, although I will have to buy the relevant booze myself. Level 2 is pretty basic, to be honest, so I hope to sail through it fairly fast – by the end of Feb perhaps.

When I began investigating these qualifications, the one that appealed the most was level 3, but you can’t do level 3 unless you have level 2 or some wine trade experience (I assume going to lots of my friend’s wine tastings doesn’t count…) so I see getting level 2 as a means to an end, and look forward to attending some actual classes for level 3 later in the year.

well, not this qualification specifically, but a wine qualification of some sort. I thought about doing one a while ago and can’t remember why I didn’t – maybe the thought of shelling out significant dosh when I could just go to ACC’s tastings. But the pay rise should be coming through any minute so carpe diem and all that.

I did some research last night and got very happy about the idea (the dream about being recruited by Berry Bros may have helped) which does suggest that this would be a move in the right direction. Not that I’m seriously intending to pack in my job and work in the wine trade but it is my main hobby these days.

_{clink, hic}

Where was I? Ah yes. So, the WSET is the main wine education body for the UK and has 4 levels of qualification. Level 1 is a day course for newbies who know nothing. I imagine it goes something like: “This is white. This is red. This is pink.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand. We all have to start somewhere. I’m very fortunate that I started at the tender age of 17 and therefore have 17 years of hard boozing behind me.

I’m hankering after level 3, but to be allowed to do it you have to have done level 2, or have some wine trade experience. So level 2 it must be, complete with 1 hour multiple choice exam at the end. What’s that noise? Could it be the quivering of me nerves?

_{sorry, I’m so bloody arrogant I’ll probably go and fail it now! ;)}

Then it will be on to level 3, and then (the gods permitting) level 4 which is the Diploma, and then (ditto) do you know what comes after that?

Master of Wine!

Ooh yeah. There are only 265 MWs in the world. Giorgio knows one (she’s a tax lawyer like him, yawn) and apparently she doesn’t have to pay for her holidays because she gets invited to be a judge at things.

Now there’s a thought.

_{but it may be necessary to invest in a set of false teeth. The tannin, the tannin!}

On Thursday I went to one of the events of the year, a vertical tasting of Chateau Musar, which is a cult wine from the Lebanon. The vineyard was founded by Gaston Hochar in 1930 but really began to take off under his son Serge in the 1950s, who benefited from the advice of Ronald Barton.

Clearly making wine in a war zone poses some unusual challenges, and apparently at one point the cellars doubled up as bomb shelters for the locals.

The grapes used are cabernet sauvignon, grenache, mourvedre, carignan and cinsault, but the exact mix varies each year. The wines are not filtered or refined in any way, and display an extraordinary concentration.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is how well it ages – when we had a tasting of it last year, ACC said that at 15 years it suddenly takes on a different quality, and this certainly seems to be the case from the wines I’ve tasted. It is released after 7 years – so this year the 2000 has become available which costs about £14 but prices rise steeply for earlier vintages and they are hard to find.

On this occasion we tasted the following vintages. My tasting notes weren’t as comprehensive as usual since I was with a friend who kept talking to me ;)

• 1999: pleasantly burned raisins on the nose, quite jammy on the palate. Drinking already but will keep.
• 1997: rather thin and acidic.
• 1994: distinctly browner in colour, stewed fruits on the nose – some said beefy!
• 1991: this was a fantastic vintage and they made a lot. Black cherries. Excellent finish.
• 1990: cloudy appearance, more subtle nose
• 1988: quite brown in colour, earthy on the nose. Still has some way to go.
• 1981: ACC said wet saddle on the nose. Seamless. Fully mature and deliciously mellow. My wine of the night – but unfortunately not available commercially.

The good news is I have a case of halves of the 1999 vintage in storage – now all I need to do is resist the temptation to start drinking them until 2014!

and I have to say, it was a great success! My trusty friend ACC came up trumps as usual. We tasted:

• Cremant de Bourgogne, Dufouleur Pere et Fils 2004 (my house fizz)
• Ridgeview 2000 blanc de blancs (a wildcard English entry – it showed very well)
• Leclerc Mondet reserve (ACC’s house champagne)
• Moet et Chandon en magnum (surprisingly good, I think it had some age on it)
• Veuve Clicquot (lovely)
• Louis Roederer (ok)
• Bollinger (very good)
• Pol Roger (ditto)
• Ruinart (disappointing)
• Krug (not my bag)
• Salon 1996 (see below)

The purpose of the tasting, for me, was to discover which of the above should be my house champagne and generally to learn about the differences in style. This isn’t the sort of thing you can do by yourself ;)

We made it a blind tasting, and there were points for identifying them. I got two out of the 11 – the Cremant (which I thought I would get, as this was a discovery we made in Burgundy in April and I have drunk a ridiculous amount of it since then) and the Krug, which stood out a mile but I didn’t actually like.

I have to say something about the Salon here. Salon is, in my opinion, the finest champagne available but unfortunately with a price tag to match. It’s made in very small quantities and hard to find. I first had it when I was 18 (!) – George and I came across a bottle of the 1982 in Fortnums back in 1991. Absolutely stunning stuff and if push comes to shove, I have to say it is my favourite wine. George procured 3 bottles of the 1996 recently and it shows what an absolutely top bloke he is that he decided to contribute one of them to this tasting. Unfortunately none of us identified it! I think it’s probably too young and we’d better keep the other two bottles for a few years.

George also identified 2 out of 11 and so did Philippe, a colleague of his – so the three of us tied. The prize was a bottle of cremant so we let Philippe have it on the grounds that we have considerable stocks already ;)

My brother and sister-in-law came along (hadn’t seen them since the wedding!) and I think they had a good time. They were a bit nervous beforehand but ACC is very informal and laid-back and after a few glasses it got quite fun. I’m now thinking about getting ACC to do a tasting for my family and friends next year, possibly for Dad’s 65th birthday.

Champagne cocktail evening in London Zoo. It’s New Year’s Eve after all!

1. First up, a variation on the French 75, as follows: shake equal amounts of gin, Cointreau and lemon juice with ice, pour into flute about half way up, top up with chilled champagne (or cheapo Cava on this occasion).

A French 75 would have a teaspoon of sugar instead of the Cointreau. My version is perhaps a little more sour. I think I’ll call it the Bitter and Twisted ;)

2. Next, a simple little adaptation of the Kir Royale. I used damson liqueur instead of creme de cassis. Ratio approximately 1:4 liqueur to fizz. Not bad at all.

3. As above, but with liqueur de framboises instead of damson liqueur. This is the one in the photo. Mmmm. Delicious, even if I do say so myself! ;)

Cheers! And happy new year!