With so many fine new labels coming out of Australia nowadays, it is easy to forget the ones that have been around a long time. The grandaddy of them all is Penfolds, a firm that has been in business since the 1840s.

During its first hundred years of existence, Penfolds concentrated on fortified wines and brandies. All that changed after the firm’s chief winemaker, Max Schubert, visited Europe in the late 1940s. Schubert was taken up by the Bordeaux winemaker Christian Cruse, who taught him the craft of making first-class wine. The young pupil became obsessed by the idea of making an Australian wine to rival the French classics.   Read the rest of this entry »

The world’s Pinot Noir makers divide into two schools. There are those who say “We are striving for greatness.  The greatest Pinot Noirs are made in Burgundy. Therefore our Pinot Noir will be as Burgundian as we can make it.”  Others say “We too are striving for greatness, but greatness can take many forms.  It is impossible to fake a Burgundy, so we are not going to try. Our Pinot Noir will take on whatever character our location and technique give it. If the results are not Burgundian, so what?  All that matters is that the wine be outstanding.”

The first school contains some Oregon houses, one or two in California, and many more in New Zealand. The second covers just about everyone else, including the Argyle winery of Dundee, Oregon. Read the rest of this entry »

Alistair Darling is the minister responsible for Britain’s finances. Lately Britain’s finances have not been doing well. However unfairly, many people are holding Mr Darling to blame. In an interview with the Guardian, he revealed how these people are expressing their displeasure. He and his wife recently ate in a restaurant with another couple. When they tried to order a second bottle of wine,

“The waiter came over and said ‘too much wine’ in a loud voice. So we stuck to one bottle for the entire meal.”

If you have ever wondered why British food and British restaurants are so awful, this story tells you all you need to know. Read the rest of this entry »

The region of Alentejo used to be best known for corks. It is said that over half the world’s corks are from Portugal, and of these nearly all are from trees in Alentejo. Since the 1970s the region has also produced some interesting wine. Its best-known firm, Herdade do Esporão, hit form in the 1990s. Since then a combination of sound investment and the gifts of an Australian winemaker named David Baverstock have taken it from strength to strength.

This Reserva is the estate’s flagship wine. It has a bright, appealing nose of strawberries and tulips. On the palate it is robust and slightly tart, with a strong presence of oak. It is fiercely strong (14.5%), and while not perfectly balanced, it is straightforwardly enjoyable, particularly with the right food: steak or venison would go perfectly. $17 in the US, $8 in the UK. Read the rest of this entry »

Some weeks ago I argued that this Chianti, like so many other red Tuscans, was no longer good value for money.  On reflection I think this was unfair.  I would still say that, in most years, these wines offer a poorer deal than wines of equal stature from, say, Chile or South Africa. But some years are better than others, and a few are exceptional in every sense.  This week’s vintage is undoubtedly one such.

I have heard the Antinori family called the Rothschilds of Italian wine.  It would be truer to call the Rothschilds the French Antinoris.  The Rothschilds have been prominent only since the early 1800s, and they entered the world of wine in the 1850s.  The Antinoris have been growing wine since the late 1300s. Twenty-six generations later, the Antinori family owns vineyards in Tuscany, Umbria, Piedmont, southern Italy, and even California. Read the rest of this entry »

Those who are supposed to know about these things agree that times are getting tougher. Economies are ultimately shaped by how people feel, and right now the predominant feelings are gloom and foreboding.

For those of us who can remember the 1970s the present worries seem eerily familiar. Soaring fuel prices, terrorism, environmental hysteria, the fear that our society and culture are sliding into a moronic abyss – today’s headlines take me straight back to the happy world of my teens. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chilean house of Cousiño-Macul has been going since the mid 1850s. It is still run by its founding family, using vines imported from Bordeaux at the time the house began. Thanks its to location and climate, Chile is immune to the Phylloxera aphid which destroyed most of Europe’s vines later in the nineteenth century. So the wines of Cousiño-Macul offer a direct link to a much earlier age of winemaking.

The connection used to be very apparent in the house’s flagship wine, Antiguas Reservas. This was an old-fashioned, idiosyncratic red that aged very well and was frequently compared to good Graves. That it cost only a fraction of the price of Graves made it especially appealing. Read the rest of this entry »

By general consent 2005 was one of the greatest Burgundy vintages. Some are calling it the greatest ever. The richness, complexity and sheer majesty of these wines have been praised universally, even by those normally sceptical about Old World vino. The result, inevitably, has been record prices. Good Burgundy was never cheap, but the 2005 top growths now fetch the same as vintage Champagne.

Billionaires will doubtless be very happy. So too will professional wine critics, whose job lets them drink the very best. That just leaves the remaining 99.99999% of us. Our acquaintance with the better-known 2005 Burgundies will be confined to a wistful stare in our wine merchant’s, followed by a vicious gasp as our gaze settles on the price sticker. Read the rest of this entry »

Odd region, Ribera del Duero. A plateau over 2500 feet above sea level, enduring blisteringly hot days and frosty nights, this is not the first place one would choose to grow grapes. Yet since the 1860s it has produced Spain’s most prestigious wine. Vega Sicilia is a blend of Tinto Fino – the local name for the Tempranillo grape – and Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec. Recent vintages cost around $400 a bottle.

You might suppose that so renowned a wine would have encouraged a horde of local imitators, as Biondi-Santi did with Brunello di Montalcino. But there have been no Vega Sicilia copycats, and until comparatively recently the Duero valley remained a backwater. This all changed in the 1970s, thanks largely to one man, Alejandro Fernandez. His Pesquera, a 100% Tinto Fino, changed the region’s fortunes. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the big political arguments have their counterparts in wine. Take the question of trade. One of the loudest debates of our time is between those who favour governmental control and those who would rather trust market forces. In this argument the world of wine perfectly mirrors the world of politics, with continental Europe obstinately in the first camp, the New World unthinkingly in the second.

Italy, France and Spain require that wines be classified by government-appointed experts, and that each wine label reveal its classification. The consumer must be sure whether he is paying for a vin ordinaire or a grand cru. He must be certain that if a wine comes from a particular location, it will only contain the prescribed amount of a certain grape. Armies of bureaucrats enforce these rules. Anyone who disobeys faces a stiff fine, perhaps even imprisonment. Read the rest of this entry »