I was reading last weeks article over a coffee and I noticed that it rambled a little bit more than usual. Did the new Wednesday delivery of the paper to the people of Clonmel push me away from my normal controlled prose? An interesting and sober thought that I will ponder over my next coffee. Wouldn’t it be great to have an article about coffee? I personally love my coffee and have a very nice old style La Pavoni coffee maker that I received as a wedding present from my sister. I should add I dropped a big hint, including the model number and the best website to purchase it on via a very detailed email prior to the wedding. Ireland has greatly changed since I came from France all those years ago and great coffee is to be found all over Tipperary now. I still wince when offered instant coffee and find it hard to hide my disgust. Luckily I don’t find it on my travels as much. Some great Clonmel spots for a good coffee include Hickeys at the Westgate, Befanis, The 19th Hole and the Clonmel Golf Club of all places. Tommy Ryan of Ponaire coffee, and a member of the Tipperary Food Producers supplies the coffee and it is superb and fresh. The club are giving away free golf to visitors from September 12-18 so I hope they all try the coffee. When I am out and about, trying to flog wine, I find myself in need of a good cup, so please drop me a line and recommend some good coffee spots around Ireland or even Tipperary. I get even crankier without coffee.

Salt ( no vinegar )

That’s enough coffee talk until the Nationalist gets an official coffee writer. As the kids ( and teachers ) head back to the books this week, so will we return to our learning about wine tasting. After the rambling repose of last week, we will focus on the other basic tastes ( after sweetness and acidity ). Our tongue is put back to work once more and saltiness and bitterness are on the agenda. When we talk of food, saltiness is vital and very easy to spot. Try finding a salty wine and you could be searching for a while. According to our lady of the vine, Jancis Robinson, dry sherry, Chilean Red wine, New Zealand whites and the wonderful Syrah’s of the northern Rhone can offer traces of salt, but in essence it is exceptional to find it. Salt is one of the 4 basic tastes so is here for completeness rather than concrete wine reality.

The bitter fruit

Bitterness is the fourth basic taste and it is the flat back part of the tongue that will be most sensitive to it. It is not very common or important in wine when compared to acidity and sweetness but those of you who like your Italian reds, especially from Chianti, Barolo and Barbaresco should find a bitter taste to the wines. This is not a bad thing and the Italians are known to very much appreciate bitter wines. There is medical evidence to suggest that it aids digestion and helps the body cope with the alcohol. The next time you are tasting wine, take what you have learned about sweetness, acidity, salt and bitterness to make a calculated description of the wine you are drinking. It should help you to decide upon your favourite wine style. Therefore, when you come in and ask for a wine you will be able to tell me you want a dry wine with high acidity, no trace of bitterness. I’ll give a choice at different price points and a happy customer is born. Deciphering the style might seem impossible the first time, but it gets easier as you practice. That first time you asked to go to the toilet in Irish in school was excruciating, as the teacher usually wouldn’t let you go unless you said it right. As you bobbed and weaved on the spot trying to get the words together and your bladder about to burst, you thought your teacher a cruel person. However, it got easier to say, and to this day I can still remember, “An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas, Más é do thoil é?” It’s easy change your school pants after an accident, but look what I got as a reward. The gift of language. I am never nervous when I visit the Gaeltacht area, as I know I have the ability to politely source a toilet if the need arises. The Christian Brothers and their strict rules were behind much of my future academic discipline as well as my mortal fears. I never had a particularly bad time from them but learned early not to take them on in public. I’m reminded of Pat Shortt and his drunken bar character Dan telling the story of the two boys having the “simple auld salad” in Hassets field and the terrible beating they got. “Was it the Black and Tans Dan?” asks the barman. “No”, says Dan. “It was the Christian Brothers”. A special hello and good luck to all the children who started school today including my niece Elise, who has a wine named after her. I hope the country is fixed by the time you get out the other end.

The Tipperary Food Producers Long Table dinner was a huge success and if Tipperary beat Kilkenny next weekend, it will be even better. As I mentioned last week, I asked the Kilkenny owner of Domaine des Anges, Gay McGuiness to sponsor a case of his wine for the night, and he kindly agreed, but on condition. If Kilkenny win the All Ireland, I pay for the sponsored wine, and if Tipperary wins, he does. So, for all of you, who enjoyed this wonderful organic wine from Provence, be sure to shout for Tipperary on September 5th. Please visit the website www.tipperaryfoodproducers.com to see highlights from the night. If there are aspects of wine that you want to know about, please feel free to contact me. I’d be delighted for an excuse to write something someone wants to read.

Don’t forget to log onto the blog at www.rednosewine.com/blog or follow the ranting on Twitter – www.twitter.com/rednosewine

For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

Where to now on our rocky road through the technical aspects of tasting wine? Do we have to endure more statistical nonsense about sweetness and acidity? All we really want to know is if the wine tastes good. And so shout the gallery from the rooftops of my imaginary fanbase. Is anybody reading? Does anybody care? Well I can tell you that someone is reading because I got a fan letter. I am not sure they were supportive of the articles or not as it was a bit of a rant, but I am framing it and putting it on the toilet wall with my signed Maradona shirt. To answer the earlier question, yes we do have to endure more wine talk. It is a wine column after all.

Margaux or Pinot Grigio?

And so on to all things grapey, if such a word exists. I appreciate the recent articles may be a little heavy in terms of the technicalities behind wine tasting, so I think I will talk about something a little less taxing. To be honest, it is exhausting writing in that detail, so we’ll all take a week off. The break will do us good and we’ll be ready to talk about something magical or mystical next week. So what to fill the pages of the paper with in its place? I’m banned from talking about France for a while yet, and I have a few things on Italy planned soon. I think use the information we have been amassing these last few weeks should be used, so I will approach a sensitive subject on wine. Do people pretend to like complex and expensive wines because they think they should, when really they would prefer the cheap €10 euro bottle instead? When I attend family gatherings there is often a silent assumption that I will bring something nice to the table. I personally prefer to use up their current stock of Red Nose Wine so they will be forced to buy some more. In any case, I have often arrived with what would be referred to as a serious wine, with layers of complexity. It takes every amount of self control not to recite poetry on the spot; such is the inspiration within this liquid gold. It usually goes in two directions. One person claims to see the light and bows down in adulation before the alter of this most wondrous creation. The other finds it too tough and sneaks away to return with a nice and easy Pinot Grigio. The question is – who is right and who is wrong and is it fair to strip it down like this.

Gary Gubbins of Red Nose Wine at Chateau Margaux

Days of Wine & Roses

I am not talking about the times when you are tired and want an “easy” wine by choice. I am talking about the wine when someone else is buying and money is not a major option. We can all close our eyes and remember the days of wine and roses. As the old song goes, “The days of wine and roses laugh and run away like a child at play. Through a meadow land toward a closing door. A door marked “nevermore” that wasn’t there before”. I think that’s a good summation of the Celtic Tiger actually. Sometimes bitterness can add to the wine, but we’ll get back to the subject at hand.

For all the people who buy cheap new world wine. Are they wrong to like it? Should they aspire to something more. For me, and this is only my opinion, they are right and wrong at the same time. If they like it how can they be wrong, so in this regard they are right. However, as human beings we all should aspire to something better, and the Celtic Tiger proved where this can lead. With regard to wine this doesn’t have to more expensive, and negative equity probably won’t kick in between the purchase and consumption of the bottle. In fact, the ‘better’ wine can often be cheaper. If you recall the sugar article, the added sugar in a lot of the cheaper wines masks the true integrity of the wines, so a bad wine can be very drinkable. We all like a bit of sugar, and the global popularity of Coca Cola and chocolate can attest to this. I know I used to have a problem with Coca Cola ( I don’t want to use the abbreviated version in case there is a whole other misunderstanding ). I would drink a bottle of it without thinking and absorb the sugar at speed. I now only rarely have it, unless I am on holidays in the country I am not allowed to speak of. They still serve it in the tall glass bottle with ice and lemon. I can almost taste it. Maybe I still have a bit of a problem.

Coca Cola

Taste the Difference

The true essence of a wine is when it reflects the people who make it and the land where it comes from. If that is a wine style you don’t like, then that is fine. However, I do think we should all be drinking a wine in its purest form, and that doesn’t ecessarily mean organic. It means there is nothing added or taken away from the essence of the fruit, be it a very cheap wine or a hugely complex monster. There is always a temptation to say wonderful things about complex expensive wines as many people feel they should. I love it when people come into the shop and tell me they know nothing about wine and want me to recommend a wine. I try to determine if it’s for food or if they like it sweet or dry, and the vast majority of the time I will give them a cheap, cheerful but authentic wine. It is usually a cheaper wine because if they are not used to drinking it, the expensive one will be wasted. I love it even more when regular wine drinkers around the 9-11 euro mark ask me for something special. When you go above 12 euros towards the 15 euro mark you should be getting wines that really make you stop and think. No amount of added sugar can replicate this experience and I never tire of people coming back and telling me about tasting the difference. It took me a long time to appreciate the really complex wines and I am still learning and that is a really great part of the job. Ultimately you must enjoy the wine. It should not be hard work so I understand why my Pinot Grigio loving relation likes it so much. However, the same person will not be found hiding when a good bottle of Red comes around. I think it is much easier for the amateur wine taster to appreciate a fine red, compared to a fine white, but it could be argued that some of the world’s most interesting fine wines are white.

Kilkenny team sponsor a case of Wine

By the time you (hopefully) read this, the hugely popular Tipperary Food Producers Long Table dinner will have happened. I am supplying the Kilkenny owned Domaine des Anges for the dinner in The Old Convent. I asked the owner, Gay McGuiness to sponsor a case for the night, and he kindly agreed, but on condition. If Kilkenny win the All Ireland, I pay for the sponsored wine, and if Tipperary wins, he does. So, for all of you, who enjoyed this wonderful organic wine from Provence, be sure to shout for Tipperary on September 5th, or I will be broke. Please visit the website www.tipperaryfoodproducers.com to see highlights from the night.

Don’t forget to log onto the blog at www.rednosewine.com/blog or follow the ranting on Twitter – www.twitter.com/rednosewine

For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

There are no late night cheese fuelled hallucinogenic dreams to report, but if tomorrow’s trip to Dublin to see the men in Blue and Gold take on the Déise is not to my liking, there could be a few nightmares ahead. I’ll write the first half of the article the day before the match, and the second half the day after. So, I will try to instil some cautious optimism into this portion and hope to add euphoria to the second.

Is he finally going mad?

Last week we discussed the level of sweetness in wine and the differences between a dry and off dry wine. We were of course using Jancis Robinson’s wonderful book “How to Taste Wine” as our main curriculum textbook for reference. This is of course until I finally get the call from a publisher to write my own book. I think I will call it “How to open a business in a recession and 20 other crazy things to do before you are 40”. I have just had what the texting generation call an OMG moment. For those of you not prolific in this most annoying of languages, this means “Oh My God”. I have just realised I am closer to 40 than I am to 30 and the clock is only going in one direction. Maybe I should contact the publisher instead of waiting for the call. So much for the optimism promised in paragraph 1. Enough rambles in the brambles, to the vino.

Feel the force Luke

Ask someone from a certain generation about Acid and they could conjure up visions much starker than my late night cheese fuelled ones.

But there will be no mention of the light fantastic or taking a trip anywhere near it. When I refer to acid, I mean acidity. To quote Ms. Robinson, “Sweetness ( or lack of it, i.e. dryness ) may be the most obvious of the four basic tastes to students of wine, but what physiologists call sourness is the most vital to the wine itself”. This sourness is how we measure acidity. There is a lot in lemon and vinegar and none in flour and water. While the tip of the tongue is where we measure sweetness, it is the upper edges, towards the back of the mouth that we notice and measure acidity. I have talked about balance many times before and it is essential to find the right balance between sweetness and acidity. Think of Wine Wars (instead of Star Wars) and the search for the secret in a great wine. Just as Luke brought balance to the force, winemakers try to pick their grapes at the ‘Skywalker’ moment.

As fruit ripens it gets sweeter but loses acidity. The winemaker wants the grapes to be as ripe as possible as it makes for richer flavours in the wine, but if they wait too long, then the acidity falls too far and you have a bland and boring wine. Naturally high acidity levels come from grapes with lots of ripening sunshine, or from grapes picked before they were fully ripe. It can also come from the winemaker adding acidity to the wine or fermenting grape juice (must). This can be quite common in warmer wine regions.

Sweetness, I was only joking

To demonstrate how important this balance is, think of a sweet wine, such as a desert wine. Sauternes is the most obvious one that springs to mind. It can be regarded as great when there is enough acidity to counterbalance the sweetness. However, if there is lots of acidity and very little residual sugar, then yuck – a really tart or green wine. The opposite of this is when you get too little acidity and a flat wine. This balance and acidity levels are very often the reason that people think they are drinking a very dry wine, but it could just be an off dry or sweet wine with too much acidity, which can be hard work.

Take care of our Eoin

To measure acidity, Jancis breaks it down into 4 levels :
Green or Tart, Crisp, Flabby or Flat and then Cloying or Too Sweet. I could identify typical wines that can often fall into these categories but I am not sure it would be fair as it would be a generalization. So, when you are drinking your next glass of white wine, as well as trying to identify how much residual sugar is in it ( i.e. is it dry?), try to determine the acidity level. Is it too low, too high, or as Goldilocks found out with the porridge in the 3 Bears House, is it just right. If it is, there is a good chance it is also in balance. The last 2 paragraphs were written the day after the big match, and while happy with the result, we’ll hold off on any euphoria until September 5th. The lads did what they had to do, and let’s hope they can improve again. If anyone comes across Eoin Kelly between now and then, be sure to help him with the shopping and don’t let him do anything strenuous. We need him fighting fit. His 53rd minute goal was simply sublime. I remember going to Marlfield Hurling matches growing up and Theo English shouting for more ground hurling. I think Theo must have been very impressed with the stick work he saw yesterday.

Last call for the Tipperary Food Producers Long Table dinner is coming up on August 25th in Chez Hans, The Old Convent, Inch House and Brocka on the Water. Tickets are all but sold out but we will be twittering on the night. Follow @tippfoood, @rednosewine and @pat_whelan for live updates and photos. I’ll be representing the Network in Clogheen myself and look forward to a wonderful night with Christine and Dermot.

Don’t forget to log onto the blog at www.rednosewine.com/blog or follow the ranting on Twitter – www.twitter.com/rednosewine

For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

I will not mention travel, foreign food or even nice views from hot climate terraces in this piece. I think I have flogged my recent wine trip to within an inch of its life, if transient ramblings through vineyards exist as an entity, and actually have a life. Have I swallowed a dictionary or am I abusing a thesaurus again? Alas I have not. I ate a Pizza late last night and spent the night having mad, crazy dreams and my conclusion is that one of those dreams must have involved a duel with words. Suffice to say, I don’t remember my dreams and this is a very longwinded way of telling you that I will not talk about my trip to France.

Confusing Times in One’s Head

So what else can I talk about? Lots of things I hope you agree. For instance, rather than mention a wine, or a region or price or quality, I will attempt to answer a question that I get asked about regularly. How does one taste wine properly? One must first desist from referring to ones self in the 3rd person, for that gives the impression that one is full of one’s own importance, and this is one of the many regular battles we in the wine world are trying to change. So, we and oneself shall become myself, yourself and whoever else is tuning in. “Dear Doctor, come quickly. I am having the dreams in the daytime now”. Begone foul cheese dream monster and leave me in peace.

Tasting Wine

I have covered the topic of tasting wine before and at the risk of repeating myself ( as opposed to oneself ), I will attack it from a different angle. Even though the jelly bean test is a great way to reveal the importance of smell in tasting, I will refer to someone whom I have a lot of time for when in comes to wine, the first lady of the critics, Jancis Robinson MW. The MW means she is a Master of Wine, of which there are only 280 in the world today. Apart from all that, she is great at getting to the heart of a wine, and is very level headed about the hype and most important, she has a great palate. She has a book called, “How to Taste Wine”, and for someone who wants to go past the “I know what I like” stage of wine appreciation, this is a good place to start. It covers the basic questions and moves with consummate ease up through the more complex parts of tasting.

Sugar or Spice

The first thing she discusses is what formed the basis of the last article I wrote on tasting, which amounts to, “its all in the nose”. Hold your nose as you eat a pineapple and then release it as you chew. The huge rush of flavour comes from your nose and your sense of smell. Draw air in as you eat your food to enhance the flavours. I don’t have enough space to go into all the various aspects involved, but I think they are all important, so I will start with Sweetness in wine. Depending on how it is received, I will cover acidity, tannin, body, balance and the rest of the equation in later articles. Sweetness in wine is one of the most misunderstood descriptions of a wine. The tip of the tongue is the place where we assess how sweet something is, be it ice cream or wine. The science goes back to the basic principle that “grape juice becomes wine when yeasts act on the sugar in ripe grapes to convert some, or nearly all, of it into alcohol”. The sweetness is determines by the amount of sugar left in the juice, the residual sugar. This sugar varies between 1 and 200 grams per litre, and a ‘dry’ wine is a wine containing between 2 and 10g. You will see a lot of cheaper wines ( think Chilean and Austrian ) containing a lot of sugar, as the enhanced sweetness can often mask the rougher edges that might exist. The wine world wouldn’t be what it is if there was not a direct contradiction to this. In this instance, it is the wonderful sweet German wines and the desert wines of Sauternes and places like it. These are super sweet, and a million miles away from the commercial wines with added sugar. People talk about excessive sulphites giving them a hangover, but added sugar isn’t the best thing for your head either. Have you ever had a Coca Cola Sugar hangover? To sum up, most wines are dry and when you are asking for a sweet wine, as yourself if you want a sugary desert wine, or do you mean off dry.

Name the Wines

For reference, bone dry wines include Muscadet, Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc ( Sancerre ; Pouilly Fume ). Dry wines account for most of the wines out there, and they include most Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, white Burgundy, white Rhone & Provence wines, Pinot Grigio, and many more. To experience medium dry, you should look to my favourite white variety, Riesling, Viognier, Gewürztraminer, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris and the German wines labelled Kabinett, Spätlese or Halbtrocken. You then move up to Medium Sweet with late harvest wines from Asti and Moscato or Tokay from Hungary. There are varying levels of Sweet and then very sweet above this with Sauternes being the standout wine. All of the above are white, and while Red Wines do vary in sweetness, 85% of them are Dry, but if you want a slightly sweeter one, try Pinot Noir, Chateauneuf du Pape or a juicy Australian Shiraz.

Don’t forget that the Tipperary Food Producers Long Table dinner is coming up on August 25th in Chez Hans, The Old Convent, Inch House and Brocka on the Water. I’ll be representing the Network in Clogheen myself and look forward to a wonderful night with Christine and Dermot.

Don’t forget to log onto the blog at www.rednosewine.com/blog or follow the ranting on Twitter – www.twitter.com/rednosewine

For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

Red Nose Wine Article - Nationalist Aug 12 2010

The Irish are a tough bunch. I am just in from a very nice BBQ on the neighbourhood green. It is the 3^rd attempt ( in 3 years ) at it, but we would not let the rain dictate us this time. We stood out on the green in defiance until the drizzle stopped and the sun ( almost ) came out. It was a coming together of neighbours and the local butcher, baker and wine merchant supplied the goods. I spent last Saturday at another barbeque with Pat Whelan at his Oakville emporium of all things nice and tasty. I was giving out free samples of artisan wine to match Pat’s artisan food. One lady came out laden down with meat and before I could offer her a taste, she pronounced that she was a pioneer. I looked at her bag of meat and said, “It could be worse, you could be a vegetarian”. She laughed, but still didn’t break her pledge. However, I have no doubt that she was stocking up for a wonderful party with friends and family, and it is interesting to see the change in people’s attitude to eating and drinking at home. What was great at our local event tonight was that everyone pitched in and brought a plate and did their bit. I grew up in Cherrymount in the 70s and 80s and we would regularly be in our neighbours houses. They were dark days but people knew no better is what they tell us. I think that the current recession ( or maybe it’s a cultural shift ) is making people re-evaluate their social venues. I still like a night out, but it’s nice to meet the neighbours as well.

Leaving the Rat Race

The last leg of my French odyssey took place from Carcassonne to Bordeaux with a stop in the Dordogne valley along the way. I visited Sean and Caroline Feely of Chateau Haut Garrigue. Some of you will know them from one of our first tastings with Caroline in 2008. Others will know them from their cover story on the Irish Times or maybe it was the big TV feature on Nationwide last November. They get a lot of press and for a variety of reasons. Tomas Clancy of the Sunday Business Post calls their wines “a dazzling winery which is a model of organic and biodynamic excellence”. Their Bordeaux style blends have often been compared to a top end Bordeaux that sell for much more. If you ever want to try a 30 euro Bordeaux for half the price, try their red wines. Taste them blind and you will find it hard to pick it out. Regardless of all of this, their story is fascinating and they basically left the “rat race” of Dublin to start a new life in the country with their two young children. They somehow made it work and in a relatively short space of time, they have made superb wines that reflect both the land they come from and the people who make them. The really made me feel welcome and I wish I sold more of their wonderful wines than I do.

An evening with Brando & Pacino

I booked into a cheap hotel in the suburbs of Libourne, near St Emilion for my final night in France. I was expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised. My room was modern with a flat screen TV and the hotel was immaculate. I watched the Godfather in French in complete comfort. Both Marlon Brando and Al Pacino are still cool in French. There was a little restaurant downstairs and I had a fantastic meal for 12 euros. The jug of wine cost 4 euros. One thing I have learned on this trip through the cheap hotels of France is that the house wine is worth trying. In Ireland, the general rule is the house wine is not for drinking, unless supplied by Red Nose Wine of course. You are usually better to try the 2^nd or 3^rd wine on the list. However in France, if you visit places that the locals frequent, then they cannot afford to have bad house wine as the people will not come back. If you go to a tourist spot, you are fair game and you will often do well to get a bottle worth the price. Some of the best wines I drank ( as opposed to tasted for work ) on my trip were carafes of house wines. It’s great to find a cheap wine that you can enjoy.

A morning in St Emilion

Saint Emilion Terrace view

After my good meal, Italian mafia movie in French and power shower the next morning, I headed to the beautiful village of St. Emilion for lunch. I don’t know if the paper has room to print the photo I will send them, but there was a great view from the terrace of the bistro. If you are planning a wine holiday, and don’t want to go too far, St. Emilion is not a bad spot. There are flights to Bordeaux from Waterford and Cork and the village itself is stunningly picture postcard. I would advise strongly against buying any wine in the village itself. Very overpriced, and it is much more fun to go to the local winemakers. I can suggest some good ones to visit if you are planning such a trip. After my picturesque lunch, I headed to the Medoc region of Bordeaux and found myself outside some of the most beautiful and impressive chateau in the world. The villages of Pauillac, Margaux, St Julien and St Estephe are the money villages of French wine. This is where you will find Mouton Rothschild, Lafite, Latour, Chateau Margaux, Leoville Las Cases, and Lynch Bages. You need an appointment made months in advance to visit some of these places. I was visiting a family vineyard in the middle of all this that I import from and their pricing reflects the reality of market, unlike Lafite who’s opening en Primeur price of 1,150 euros a bottle is aimed at the Chinese market. So, amongst this wealthy land, my trip came to an end and I was happy to be back in Clonmel to meet my customers last week. I met some great people and tasted some great wines on this trip but the big thing that I am taking away is that my instinct of moving away from Bordeaux towards more southern based wines was right. The wines of the south really outshone those of Bordeaux in terms of style, price and originality. I will stock both, but the biggest choice and most exciting wine will come from the south.  I look forward to you tasting them soon.

Decisions Decisions

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For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

John cools off in the heat

Emmanuel Gaujal is the foremost consultant in Provence wine and in particular white wine. He owns a company that consults with other winemakers but his most important client is the very famous Chateau Miraval. I have used the word famous with many vineyards so you might think, “here he goes again”. Why is Miraval famous? Is it because it goes back to pre Roman times or because Pink Floyd recorded their seminal album “The Wall” there? Is it because The Cranberries recorded in the same studio, as well as a lot of other famous artists? Maybe it’s because it was recently purchased by a very famous Hollywood couple who are among the most famous people on the planet, if you are into that type of thing. All of the above is true, but it is also famous for creating a white wine that many regard as the best in France.

Gary Gubbins of Red Nose Wine in Chateau Miraval, Provence

In advance of the trip I had to send details of my car and the person travelling with me. A rigorous interview at the security gates and we were in, and took the 2km drive to the main house and around the back to the office where an early morning coffee and a discussion on the philosophy of the estate was had in the courtyard. Organic is the order of the day here and very traditional methods are used in parallel with Mr. Gaujal’s many years of expertise. He helped create estates including the original incarnation of Chateau Vignelaure, later made famous again by David O Brien. This part of Provence is not really known for white wine as the hot weather does not make a good bedfellow for the acidity often required in great white wine. However the commune of Correns near Brignols uses its altitude ( a few dodgy bends were manoeuvred to get there ) and microclimate to create a truly exceptional wine. We tasted their Rose ( called Pink Floyd ) before the 3 whites. While the “Lady Jane” is the wine that is technically the most complex, for me the middle wine, Terre Blanche really stole the show. It had supreme balance, acidity and a wonderful expression of fruit. It really impressed me, and also my guest, who usually prefers red wine. At a fraction of the cost of the serious Burgundy wines, I am seriously considering trying it out on the Irish market. I’ll keep you posted. If I get it in, it will be in small amounts, but I will open it for a week in the shop. I can’t promise we will get Brad or Angelina over for a tasting, but you never know.

The Miraval estate covers 2 appelations - Cotes de Provence ( left of road ) and Cotes Varois ( right )

After the visit to the Hollywood Hills, we met one of my earliest suppliers, Philippe Guillanton of Chateau Margui for a very long and leisurely lunch. This was followed by a visit to Margui itself and while I have been there a few times, my guest has not, and was suitably impressed. He renovated an old farmhouse from the 18th century and it is a sight to behold. If you are near Provence, and want to visit a vineyard, let me know. Philippe is a most gracious host and his estate will blow you away. Like most of France, Philippe is very excited by the 2009 vintage and i have the white chilling in the fridge as I write. The reds won’t be bottled until next year. I have long waxed lyrical about Philippe and his generosity to me when I started. The fact that his wines are still as popular is testament to his skill as a winemaker and a businessman. Until next time, from the sunny south of France.

Gary Gubbins of Red Nose Wine and Philippe Guillanton of Chateau Margui

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For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

Nice Port at 1am - still about 28 degrees

How does one indulge in one’s favourite tipple while enduring such heat? It is a question that may affect many of you while on holidays this summer as most of Europe is at the start of a period of oppressive heat. Here are a few tips that may be of use while drinking wine on your holidays. The main one is obvious but absolutely essential to avoid a holiday hangover. When out for your meal and enjoying your wine, drink at least equal amounts of water while having the wine. I always have two glasses on the go, water and wine, and would often go through at least two carafes of water during a meal. You are losing fluids at a very quick pace in the heat and alcohol only accelerates it. I know I am now going to jinx myself for tonight, but I rarely get a hangover abroad. There was of course a trip to Sunderland for a football match with the Laffansbridge gentleman’s club a number of years ago which resulted in a woeful mix of ale, beer, wine, ale again and all at a ferocious pace. My requests for water were laughed at in equal measure by my Killenaule relations and the miners from the North East of England. I was quite ill. It is football and alcohol that lead me to the article. I went to watch the World Cup final last night in a pub on the port called Ma Nolans. The place was jammed and the doors were open so the air conditioning was effectively useless. There was sweat pouring out of the Dutch, Spanish, French, English, Irish and all manner of other nationalities that crammed in there. As the night progressed and the heat and tension with it, a girl collapsed and had to get medical attention. Heat and alcohol are not good bedfellows. So what is one to do, especially if you usually prefer Red wine?

Spanish Fans on Nice Port after World Cup

If you like Rosé, it can be a great summer drink as it is light and very refreshing. It can be served cold as ice and often that can also mask the actual winemaking. Local wine is always a good choice as it is cheap and usually free of too many dodgy elements. It rarely has to travel far so doesn’t need much preserving. It can be rough as a badger as well. You need to find one you like and off you go. I am afraid I am going to name drop a little, so apologies in advance. A few years ago I was down in Provence to meet some suppliers and two friends of mine came along for the break. At the weekend we went down to a famous seaside village and the two lads had gotten a taste for Rosé. I was in and out to an internet café dealing with work issues so I wasn’t drinking. It was around the time of the Cannes Film Festival and who walks down the harbour only Stephen Spielberg and his wife. We all said hello and he said hi and waved. A couple of hours later and I had lost count of the Rosé the boys had gone through. Stephen and his entourage passed back up and said “You guys still here?” and gave a very friendly smile. One of the lads turned to him, deadpan, and said “We’re only trying to have a quiet drink. Will you just leave us in peace and stop harassing us”. To his credit, Mr. Spielberg roared laughing and apologised for disturbing us. The reason for this story in a wine article? Like I said, I was name dropping, but it did have Rosé in it and the lads were up the next day with no, or very little effects. I am not condoning excessive alcohol consumption in any way and especially in the heat. For me wine is best served at the dinner table, but when men of a certain age get a little unexpected holiday, they tend to go a little mad, or maybe it’s the heat.

For you red wine lovers, the best advice I can give you is what I am doing myself. Ask for chilled Red wine (it should be cheap and local) when out and about, or buy a basic bottle from your neighbourhood independent wine shop and stick in the fridge 30 minutes before opening. It is very refreshing and tastes quite nice as well. Avoid big red wines unless you want a little help dozing off for your siesta. Alternate with the water and enjoy your evening speaking French, Spanish, Italian or some hybrid of them all. Next week sees me on my odyssey to find the next big wine and I have a week’s work in the vineyards. I will be posting blogs and tweets direct from Provence, Languedoc, Roussillon and Bordeaux.

Don’t forget to log onto the blog at www.rednosewine.com/blog or follow the ranting on Twitter – www.twitter.com/rednosewine

For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

John on the way to Juan Les Pins - Bastille Day

I then decided to see if they could eat in a restaurant under virtually no shade. Silly Daddy Pig. While the view was spectacular in Juan Les Pins,

Juan Les Pins, COte d'Azur

I never got to revisit F Scott Fitzgerald’s old haunt, the Hotel Belles Rives. I had visions of dumping the wife and kids for an hour as I sat on the veranda looking out over the med, waxing lyrical with the ghosts of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I did manage to get within 50 yards of the place though, but only because this was here.

Kids enjoy keeping Daddy steps away from F Scott Fitzgeralds old haunt

As the great Bob Dylan once wrote ( or sang ), “twas in another lifetime, once of toil and blood”. My rapidly depleting wine is superb and I got to hang out with some great people today and see some stunning scenery. However, call it age or a sense of what’s important, but I’ll wait a few more years for my Hemingway moment. Even though I am still bitter about the hand ball, I love this country and I love their wines. I am on my last sip of a wonderfully cheap Cotes de Provence that I used to drink when I lived here many years ago. Some things still stay the same.

“Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé !”
Possibly my favourite scence in film history from Casablanca

Water is one of the four elements, with fire, earth and air the other three. There is of course a Bruce Willis film about an attractive supermodel from Eastern Europe being the fifth element. There was very little wine in that particular film, so we will dismiss it. By all means, if it comes on TV late at night, take a leaf out of George Hook’s book, and Sky Plus it. You can judge for yourself, but always remember, Sky care; as least that’s what George tells us. I am now well into the second paragraph and I haven’t really talked about wine. Water is a very important component to wine, but seeing that if you spill it on yourself, you will get wet, but this may be fairly obvious. But to assess the impact water has on the lifecycle of the grape and subsequent wine, you need to look at one important factor. Is it a dry vineyard or does it use irrigation. As a rule, the old world is dry and the new world tend to use irrigation, but there are countless wines that dismiss this theory. In fact, there seems to be a growing trend from premium winemakers in the new world towards terroir driven ‘dry’ vineyards. A lot of it stems from the practice of ampelography ( the “wha” is the cry from the back of the church?). As any proficient user of Google will tell you, it is the practice of matching the grape variety to its environment. If this is done correctly, you really shouldn’t need to irrigate the vines. Buyer beware when you see certain grape varieties grown in areas where they really don’t belong. What Mother Nature can’t provide, Uncle Chemistry supplements and Doctor Paracetamol is needed for Father Hangover. As is the wine world’s prerogative, there are of course exceptions and little pieces of land with very different characteristics to its neighbours have been found and miracle wines produced.

A dry vineyard means no irrigation, and a reliance on the weather falling at the right time. In many cases, the lack of regular water puts a stress on the vine, which many people believe is necessary for it to produce it’s best expression of fruit. Think of professional sport, and the shots produced in the heat of battle in golf majors, or the incredible scores found on All Ireland day in hurling. Look at cycling, and drugs or no drugs, the limits those people push their bodies to in the Tour de France is insane. After hours in the mountains, they must then sprint to defend attacks. I have no idea if Lance Armstrong is a nice guy or not, but having read his book and seeing him in his pomp on the Champs Elysee in Paris, he produces his best “fruit” while his body his under severe stress. Other people collapse at this point, and some vines can also collapse under the stress. The dry vineyard people also believe in this stress, so on older vines you will have roots that travel for miles underground in search of water and their fruit is a reflection of this journey as much as it is about the plot of land where the vines are planted. One of my best selling wines is Chateau Margui from Provence and Philippe Guillanton planted apricot trees near his white wine vines. These were young vines so very impressionable and almost immediately took on the flavours of the nearby fruit.

Irrigated vines would be very fruit driven as well, but the characteristics of the grape variety would be stronger here. The fruit tends to be more forward so Cabernet Sauvignon tends to taste of blackcurrant and other typical Cab Sab varieties. They can be jammy ( in hotter climates ) or quite vegetal in cooler climates. They get drip-fed water at appropriate times so never to be under pressure. This begs the question, for vines that are not irrigated, what are the optimal times to get a drop of rain. Ideally, a vineyard will get rain early in the cycle to encourage growth, but a rain towards the end of the cycle can bring on rot, which is not what you want. Excess rain in June can also prevent pollination of the vines flowers. A blast of sunshine in the last month before harvest has been known to save many a vintage. Too much rain at this point and you get big fat juicy grapes, but they are not concentrated. There is too much water and not enough fruit.

I have a personal preference for dry vineyard wines, but there is a strong case for a little bit of help at certain times, when there is a real need to save the harvest. Both Spain and France are reviewing their laws on this, so you may see changes going forward. Life is hard enough for these people, without losing everything to a hot spell at the wrong time. Shrivelled up dehydrated grapes can often result in very concentrated wines, and very often with high levels of alcohol. Climate change is forcing the issue to the table sooner than it might have. When the weather is perfect ( like 2009 was all over France ), the taste of place and character from a traditional wine is a great advert for nature. So, as I finish writing, I look forward to tonight’s home grown spinach and the good weather returning sooner rather than later.

Red Nose Wine are making room for the news wines we have found, and are having a massive sale starting this week. There will be very serious wines and not so serious wines to be had, at clearance prices. Prices start from €3.75.

Don’t forget to log onto the blog at www.rednosewine.com/blog or follow the ranting on Twitter – www.twitter.com/rednosewine

For anyone who would like more information and can’t make it into the shop, please feel free to contact me at info@rednosewine.com

“Life is much too short to drink bad wine”

I asked everyone to open it up a little early, so at 8pm I did the same. However, I knew the wine, so felt it only polite to start ahead of the group. ( They had to wait until 9pm). The wine is question was a Cotes du Rhone from Nicholas Boiron, maker of the award winning Chateauneuf du Pape wines. It was also from great 2007 vintage so it had a lot of body and very pure fruit. In fact, when deciding on which wine to use for #TWEBT, it was these recent comments from Robert Parker, that made up my indecisive mind – “last call…2007 Cotes du Rhone’s among the best values I have ever tasted but disappearing, and replaced by less successful 2008s and 2009s”.

Gary Gubbins and Nicholas Boiron C de Pape 2009

I really wanted to put in a Loire Cabernet Franc, or maybe a Chenin Blanc, but felt it important to give the crowd something they might be familiar with and enjoy across the board. There were some very nice comments about the wine and I think for the most part everyone enjoyed it. There was a very interesting Whiskey tasting going on it parallel. Most people got old world, and higher end of alcohol spectrum but it took a long time to get the 3rd grape variety, Cinsault. To be fair, its only 5% of the mix. The newly anointed @grapes_of_sloth, Paul Kiernan was very aggressive with his guesses. He tweeted with the air of a man with his WSET diploma in the bag. I got so carried away with it all, I even offered a free bottle of wine to the person who guessed the right grapes in the right order of magnitude. A bottle will soon be on its way to @JoannaSchaff – Congratulations.

Anyway, all in all a great night and I was delighted with the response to the wine. While not to most adventurous selection, I think it goes to show that if you look for it, there really are top quality wines from the south of France at a great price. With the sale on, this wine is a steal at €13.05 ( 10% off ). Other similar wines are on sale with 15% and 20% off.

Big thanks to Brian and Kevin for inviting me… we all await Twebt 6.