Wine is all about shared experiences and camaraderie, writes Raymond Blake, as he recalls the wonderful wines he enjoyed this year
For me, wine is about conviviality and good fellowship. It is about sharing and enjoying communal pleasure. A glass drunk alone can be enjoyable but the pleasure is one-dimensional. Wine only comes into its own when there is company. Then the enjoyment and satisfaction is fully three dimensional, adding conversation and kinship to the restricted joy of solitary consumption. Wine’s great gift to mankind is the ability to bring people of widely differing backgrounds and beliefs together in harmony. And, because its production tells a story of people and place and time, I believe it sits above all other alcoholic beverages in this respect. I count myself lucky to have shared the wines below with generous, like-minded friends over the course of the last 12 months or so.
Château de Fieuzal blanc, Pessac-Léognan 2019 – France
I often play a little game, asking well-versed wine lovers to rattle off the names of the world’s great wine styles, a request that always prompts a roll call of the ‘usual suspects’: Red Bordeaux, Mosel Riesling, Burgundy of both colours, Barolo, Napa Valley Cabernet, Sauternes, Northern Rhône Syrah in the shape of Hermitage and Côte Rôtie… Seldom, if ever, is dry white Bordeaux mentioned. Yet, when prompted, everybody readily agrees that it is worthy of the highest approbation, which leads me to label it as the wine world’s most overlooked, though not underrated, style. Why this should be so, years after I first posited this paradox, remains a mystery to me. Baldly stated, there can be no arguing that at their best the dry white wines of the Graves region, specifically Pessac-Léognan, compare with the world’s best.
I must declare a soft spot for Fieuzal, for it is one of the ‘Irish’ châteaux of Bordeaux, having been owned by the Quinn family since the beginning of this century and, though best known for its red wine, the white is a particular favourite. This bottle had reached what I regard as the ‘crossroads’ in its ageing cycle, when the perky notes of the Sauvignon Blanc begin to subside and the Semillon makes its presence felt. A beautiful savoury quality added complexity to the ripe fruit; harmony and lingering satisfaction were its hallmarks.
Niepoort, Coche Branco 2021 – Portugal
“A magnum is the perfect size bottle for two people – when one of them is not drinking.” Though this quote is attributed to many people, it was from Dirk Niepoort that I first heard it. Niepoort is one of the great characters of the Portuguese wine industry and it is no exaggeration to say that he can take much of the credit for the burgeoning interest in Douro Valley wines, most especially unfortified table wines fermented to complete dryness, unlike their luscious cousins, vintage and tawny Port. I have enjoyed a lifelong love of Port and that is not about to change, but today I also delight in the quality and variety of Douro table wines. Time was when the reds tasted like coarse Ports with the sweetness removed and the whites were lumpen things of little beauty. Not anymore.
A wine loving friend hosted a group for a Sunday lunch last June, telling me in advance that this was one of the wines he was planning to serve. I had never come across it before and I certainly was not disappointed. If I had tasted it blind I might have guessed white Burgundy – not in a million years would I have placed it in the Douro. The impression was as much about texture as flavour, for it caressed the palate, svelte rather than lush, with a delightful saline ping on the finish to prompt another sip. Structure and balance were its hallmarks; the structure coming from a spine of fresh acidity, the balance by way of wonderfully pure fruit. Seek this one out.
Champagne Charles Heidsieck, Brut Réserve – France
If any wine can be described as precocious in youth it is Champagne, yet many people choose always to drink it young, seemingly unaware of the great gustatory pleasure that aged champagne can deliver. Some even go further, averring that it should be drunk young because it does not age well. As I write, I am reminded of the time a few years ago, driving with the radio on in the car, when the station’s resident wine ‘expert’ suggested just such a course of action. I hollered my disagreement and hammered the steering wheel to vent my frustration. Even 12-18 months ageing will soften the citrus and green apple notes of youth, rounding them out a little while integrating the other flavour components.
Wine anorak that I am I had noted on the back of this bottle that it was given to me in June 2017, meaning that it enjoyed a sevenyear slumber before I broached it. It was stillbeautifully vibrant, with a vigorous surge of bubbles and persistent mousse, and a pale yellow colour. Yet, almost paradoxically, it also boasted delicious maturity, with the frailty of age still well in the future. Succulent and mouth-filling with great amplitude of flavour it disappeared out of the glass indecently quickly.
Château Léoville Las Cases, Saint-Julien 1982 – France
Though it is always referred to as ‘château’ you will struggle to find that word on the label of this, one of the grandest Bordeaux wines of them all. Instead, the full name – Grand Vin de Léoville du Marquis de Las Cases – takes up a full two lines and is never used in common parlance. (A trick question for wine lovers is to ask them for Las Cases’ full name.)
The wine itself is full and firm, commanding in youth with a streak of austerity that makes it forbidding to neophytes. Drinking Las Cases at anything less than 15 years old is almost a waste, for it is closed in on itself, hibernating as it were, until it begins to unfold and blossom into magnificence. At 40-plus years of age this bottle had reached a plateau of excellence: the colour was still deep, yielding to garnet at the rim; the nose boasted gorgeous cedar-scented fruit; the palate was soft though not frail, with the appealing sweet savour of well-aged claret. Nineteen-eighty-two might be considered the first ‘vintage of the century’ – now a tired tag dispensed with scattergun abandon – but on the basis of this bottle it is a billing that ‘82 deserves. In short, a delight.
Egon Muller, Wiltinger Braune Kupp, Riesling Spätlese, Mosel- Saar-Ruwer 2006 – Germany
I once wrote: “Riesling is Germany’s signature grape and it achieves excellence in many of her wine regions while in one it produces featherweight wines of transcendent beauty. They are as puzzling as they are satisfying, for it remains a mystery that something so delicate can still have the intensity and durability of a polished diamond. These are ballet dancers made wine. They hail from the Mosel, source of nectar to the cognoscenti but largely ignored by mainstream consumers. Such a situation seems inexplicable, though its parallel in the world of literature sheds light. Mosel Riesling is the poetry of the wine world; great poetry is the summit of literature but that does not convey popularity. We stick to prose, more easily accessed and understood.”
This bottle delivered a surge of vinous poetry – and then some. The colour had deepened to a burnished copper-gold and the nose called to mind a panoply of preserved citrus fruits. On the palate, the fresh fruit of yore had been caramelised by the passage of time. The plump sweetness, taken on its own, would have been cloying, but the bright ping of acidity balanced it perfectly. Oh, to have a case in the cellar.
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, La Tâche Grand Cru, Monopole 2000 – France
Tasting the La Tâche 2023 from barrel with Bertrand de Villaine last July was a treat, and not just because of the ever-unfolding flavour but also listening to de Villaine’s efforts to capture its multi-layered magnificence in words. He first likened it to an onion but, not liking the image that might conjure, he then suggested millefeuille, the thousand-leaf gateau. I responded with my own suggestion of a Russian doll that you never get to the centre of. Eventually we agreed on something like: “A Millefeuille Russian Doll”.
Whatever the wordplay, there can be no doubting that La Tâche is by equal parts beguiling and rewarding. Earlier in 2024 I had tasted the 2021 on release, along with the other wines in the DRC stable and found it the most appealing of them all, writing that it called to mind, if such a thing could be possible, “a ballet dancer singing a marvellous aria.”
Much the same could be said of this La Tâche 2000. It was gloriously scented with notes of fruit and spice and sweet incense. All these carried through to the palate, where the supporting cast of soft tannin and civil acidity filled out the flavour, adding breadth, depth and length in wave after wave. Very much a Millefeuille Russian Doll.
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