Chambeyron-Manin The history of the Chambeyron-Manin family entwines with the competing crops of Cote Rotie. Wine is largely on top now, in terms of financial and cultural return, but its ascendancy is relatively recent. For the Chambeyrons, vegetables, fruit and tobacco have been as much a part of their story as wine. The earliest record I can find is that of Jean-Marie Chambeyron. Jean came to the region as a stone-mason towards the end of the 19th century but soon switched to making wine for the local cafes and bistros. He was one of the men who helped replant …
Controversy
Drinking old Italian wines can be like licking god’s coat-tails, but has the era between 1960 and 1980 yielded more misses than hits? I think so. Here are my reasons why and some non-scientific thoughts on a recent dinner and tasting. Not Bartolo, not Gaja, not Conterno, not Rinaldi, not him, not her. Sure. These are some of the historic greats of the world. But they are the exceptions not the rule. Not only that, but they are I think exceptional in a way that is unique to Italy and not France. There’s so much stuff, that could, that should …
Clape 1979 – 2015 with Olivier Clape
It’s very easy when writing about wine to fall into the habit of wittering mindlessly about how great everything is. This guy is passionate, this persons wine is fantastic, on and on and on and on… I heard Tim Atkin talking about Klein Constantia on Radio 4 the other day. Great wine no doubt, but the whole thing had the feel of a thirty minute advertorial. It makes me want to write a wine column where all I do is slag-off wines. I think there could be a gap in the market since the Wine Advocate started basically giving every …
Le Grand Patron – George Vernay
Condrieu as an appellation does not generally enjoy the favour of the cognoscenti. The condescension towards Viognier was caused by the exaggerated character of many of the wines and an over-expansion of vineyard land, that when planted on inappropriate slopes, was massaged by winemakers into an over-blowsy wine of little acidity and tropical fruit. But amongst all that, there remained a man of total seriousness, Georges Vernay, whose wines deserve total respect and close scrutiny. With the expansion of vineyard area, and growth in places that aren’t really appropriate, new growers pushed the yields up from an average of say …
Edmunds St-John
“If Randall Grahm brought the flash to the Rhone movement, Steve Edmunds brought the soul” Patrick Comiskey, American Rhone. When Jean-Pierre Perrin of Chateau Beaucastel was weighing up whether to invest in establishing the Tablas Creek winery in Paso Robles, he asked to meet Steve Edmunds so he could taste his 1986 Brandlin Ranch Mouvedre. They met and tasted, and Perrin recalls being so impressed with this wine, he cites it as a tipping point for going ahead with the project. The more you read about Steve Edmunds, the more you realise, that he, Forest Gump-like, seems to enter in …
Jurassic Park
The Rhone Valley’s viticultural dinosaur” was how Robert Parker described St-Peray in 1987. The appellation blurs its boundaries with the sprawl of Valence, and it can be difficult to spot where the town ends and dinosaur territory begins. The village itself remains rather down at heel, spottily pretty, like the off-beat charm of its wide-ranging wines. Today 60% is still, 40% sparkling. I have no real knowledge of the area, my only experience was battling the Sat-Nav to try and find the cellar of Hirotake Ooka, a natural producer whose brilliant wines en cuve didn’t quite seem to survive the …