Ask the Princess - savoury wine query

Dear Princess and the Pinot,

I want to buy a nice bottle of wine and have a very particular idea about the sort of wine I would like it to be. But I am doubtful that if I go in to the shop I can put across what I want and expect will leave with the wine they want to sell me, not the one I want, and they will manage to make me feel awkward and embarrassed to boot. 

I want to buy a particularly nice wine to celebrate next week, and I really fancy a savoury wine, that is rich and sumptuous, with leather, tobacco and chocolate, but is also mellow. What I really don't want is something that is herby, earthy in any way green, or that has a bitter aftertaste. 

Anyway I have no idea how to ask for something like that except by how I just have, and when I go into a shop they never steer the questions to that sort of descriptor. Instead they normally ask for country, grape type, maybe age and price.

Any ideas?

Answer,

Thank you for your question, and I hope I can help you choose the wine you're looking for. 

The best place for us to start is grape. You want to go for a full-bodied red wine that grows in a hot climate so it has the thick skins that produce the tannins, which will develop the leather, tobacco and chocolate flavours you're after.

Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinotage, Tempranillo, Touriga Nacional, Petit Verdot, Nero D'Avola and Nebbiolo all tend to have herbal/floral characteristics, so lets leave them aside for now. Malbec, although savoury, and full-bodied, tends not to have as much tannin that we're looking for. 

You could reach for a Syrah, with blueberry, plum, milk chocolate, tobacco and green peppercorn as the dominant flavour characteristics, but I suspect this won't be savoury enough for you. Petite Sirah might have the punch not answered by Syrah, with dominant blueberry, dark chocolate, black pepper and black tea flavours. Mourvedre could also be a winner with its blackberry, black pepper, cocoa, tobacco and meat flavour profile. Aglianico might also be a contender with its high tannin, something unusual, and savoury profile.

To avoid the bitter aftertaste from the tannins you should look for something that has had time to age, so ideally at least three years old. 

The next question is price, and since you've not given that to me, I'll give you some options below...

My first choice would be Hewitson Old Garden Mourvedre, Barossa Australia 2009 £54 from DVine Cellars. This is my most favourite wine ever, and is very special with dark plum, salted caramel, cinnamon and seductive smooth tannin with extraordinary depth.

If Old Garden is above your price range, and it is for most people, then I'd suggest Pedroncelli Petite Sirah, Sonoma Country USA 2012 £13.99 from Laithwaites. Purple and dense in the glass. Rich aromas of red berried, plums, cinnamon toast. Deep complex flavours of ripe plum and dark chocolate with a warm spice finish.

Alternatively you could go for something different, more of a risk, with Piccolomini Aglianico, Italy 2013 £20 from Pieroth. Garnet-coloured with high tannins and acidity. Harsh when young, but after some ageing softens to reveal lovely plummy flavours with a hint of chocolate. Famours for being great when paired with lamb.

I hope this answers your question. Enjoy!

To find out more about Princess and the Pinot and our pop-up wine bars please visit www.princessandthepinot.com 

Hewitson Old Garden - Best wine ever?

I forgot just quite how amazing Hewitson's Old Garden is. We bought half a case from DVine Cellars and it has since almost doubled in price. I wish we'd bought a case. Or five.

Before you even taste it you can smell the complexity of the aromas and you know you're in for a treat. Then as you taste it, the flavours change over time. Last night I went through a journey starting with black fruits and chocolate, tobacco and eucalyptus. Then later I got notes of leather and buttered toast. Then it progressed to toffee and finally ginger biscuit. Delicious! The balance is perfect, it will age well, and its made from Mourvedre (aka Mataro).

It's such a treat, I highly recommend you get a bottle to try, even if it is just the once. If you can't justify the price, try the Baby Bush instead which is a cheaper version and also very good.

How to choose an Aussie red wine

The key to choosing and Aussie wine, and indeed many wines, is identifying location, location, location.

In Australia, there are eight main regions for red wines, two cool, two warm and four hot. You need to remember that each region will focus on the grape variety that grows best in the climate/ soil/ water conditions, but they may bottle other grape varieties too. The trick is to choose the region that is best for the grape:

Cool:
Yarra Valley - Pinot Noir
Mornington Peninsular - Pinot Noir

Moderate:
Margaret River - Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot
Coonawarra - Cabernet Sauvignon
Heathcote - Shiraz

Warm:
Hunter Valley - Shiraz
McLaren Vale - Shiraz
Barossa - Shiraz

So if you're looking for a more delicate wine, or a wine with low tannin, the red fruit in Pinot Noir from Yarra or Mornington might be to your taste. These wines can also be served slightly chilled if you're looking for a refreshing drink for warm summer evenings. You may even enjoy the Shiraz from Heathcote which should be more refined than a "normal" Shiraz due to the lower temperature.

However, Aussies are known for their BIG reds...

If you like something with complexity (a variety of flavours) and higher tannins, I'd say try one of the Cab Savs from Margaret River or Coonawarrra. One thing I love about Cab Sav from Australia that you don't get in the rest of the world is the flavour of eucalyptus, which gets picked up from the soil and air as the eucalyptus trees expel their oils. It makes these wines fantastic for anything that has red meat and mint/ rosemary/ thyme. The wine has high tannin which is good for steak and roast or grilled meat, and the eucalyptus matches the herbs. Top match for a roast lamb, lamb chops, or even Lebanese/ Greek kebabs.

My favourite Aussie red is a Shiraz. Yum. Big fat blackberries. Alcoholic Ribena. Telly wine. Easy drinking, no food required, warms you up and goes down a treat. Most should have a lovely spicy finish, peppery. I would always recommend a Shiraz from Barossa as a starting point, you can't go much wrong. If you're not a connoisseur then price will mostly make the difference of how long the flavour, and bottle, will last. It's a good idea to drink a Barossa Shiraz slowly as the warm climate tends to encourage a greater alcohol content. Boozy!

TIP: The longer-lasting the flavour of the wine, the longer it takes for the flavour to disappear, and the longer between sips. You/ I/ we tend to take sips more frequently with short-lasting wines.

If you are a connoisseur, then I recommend you move on from Barossa Shiraz and try Barossa Mourvedre, an element in GSM (something everyone should try), and very delicious in its own right. These wines go great with mushroom, veal, beef, pasta, BBQ, duck with cherry jus... or on its own.

You can really get carried away with Barossa wines, I certainly do, as I bought a case + 3 bottles of a wine that isn't available yet + a magnum that cost £100 at the Hewitson & Elderton wine dinner at DVine cellars a few weeks ago. http://www.dvinecellars.com/ so the best tip I can give you is that so long as the label says "Barossa" on it, it will be a good quality wine. If it says "South Eastern Australia" it won't be a bad quality wine per se, but it means the producer has taken grapes from all over Australia to make the blend. This ensures their wines have consistency, and therefore more reliable (once you find a wine like this you love, you can buy it over and over again, and that's what the big guns are aiming for), but it means they don't have to pay attention to the wine when they make it, and that's what's special. "Barossa" on the label might make the starting price higher, but you can stay low without risking quality.

TIP: If you like big Aussie reds, look out for "Barossa Shiraz" on the label.

My favourite Aussie red is Rockford Rod & Spur Cab Sav & Shiraz. Tip top wine. http://www.australianwinecentre.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_Rockford.html

If you want to look for an easily identifiable brand, you can't go wrong with Wolf Blass Yellow Label. It doesn't say "Barossa" on the label but it does say "South Australia" and all the Shiraz vineyards I listed above are in South Australia, so its good enough.

Zalze, Shiraz-Mourvedre-Viognier, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2011 (Price:0)

I am determined to find South African wines I like, I normally find them too harsh and too punchy. I recently found some Italian wines I liked (I'll tell you about these another time), so South Africa is next on the list. I chose this one, because of the blend - Aussie GSM (Grenache-Shiraz-Mourvedre) being one of my favourites. I have high hopes... the only concern before I take a sip is the price, but Tesco tries to keep their wine offer affordable, so here goes...

The smell is exactly as I would expect - punchy and alcoholic, yeah its 14.5%. And first sip, same thing,  woah, that's a slap in the face. But it has more depth as you let it linger. It has lots of black fruit flavours, there's an underlying shrubbery flavour, which lifts into a more fragile finish of herb and spice, which is quite unusual.

I'm being taken back to hot summers in the countryside when you pick fruits from bushes (even if you don't eat them, because you're not sure if they're poisonous), then you slip on loose soil, so take a sharp breath and grab onto a branch to catch yourself and can smell the leaves on the branch as you leverage yourself back into your stroll in the countryside. A mini adventure.