Whisky

My spirits marathon finishes with whisk(e)y, which I'm going to divide into two: Scotch (and similar whiskies) and Irish and American. Whisky is one of the greatest drinks in the world, whose reputation and commercial appeal grows and grows. Nowadays it's an extremely fashionable drink, but that hasn't always been the case.

The last twenty to thirty years have seen a transformation in the way whisky is made, perceived, and drunk. Single malts, which didn't really exist as a style until relatively recently, have replaced blended whiskies as the fashionable, expensive drink; American whiskey, forgotten and unloved, is now some of the best and most interesting stuff out there; and even Irish whiskey is beginning to get its act together. Then there's Japanese whisky, which is deservedly winning lots of awards. With the English, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, Belgians, French, Spanish, Italians, South Africans, Australians, Taiwanese, and Indians also getting in on the act, these are exciting times...

 

why's it got two different spellings?

In Scotland, it's spelt whisky and in Ireland and the USA it's spelt whiskey. There are exceptions, but it doesn't get much more complicated than that.

malt whisky

The process of making malt whisky is complicated, but basically it involves converting the insoluble starches in barley into soluble starches (which is called "malting"), which are then converted into fermentable sugars by creating a sugar solution called the wort. Yeast is added to start fermentation, and, in essence, a beer is created, which will then be double-distilled in a pot still. The size and shape of the still influences the style and quality of the eventual whisky.

The spirit is then aged in oak barrels - to be called a whisky, the spirit must be at least three years old. These are mostly used bourbon barrels, but also common are barrels which have been filled for a time with a particular style of sherry.

The final whisky will be a blend of different barrels and spirits of different ages, and will be watered down to a lower level of alcohol. This has to be minimum 40%, but higher alcohol whiskies are also released, when it's advisable to add some water when drinking.

regions

the division of Scotland into different whisky areas has no legal foundation: a whisky can taste like anything the distiller wants it to. Although the Highlands and Speyside styles vary hugely, the regions do have some general characteristics.
Lowland a light style
Highland styles vary greatly; Highland Park is peated, Dalmore is rich and heavy, Glenmorangie is light and citrusy.
Speyside two styles: light (Glendiffidich) and rich and fruity (Balvenie, Macallan).
Islay a small island off the west coast of Scotland famous for its peaty whiskies, although there are unpeated examples (Bruichladdich have a very wide range of styles). Ardbeg, Laphroaig, and Lagavulin are the best-known producers.
Campbeltown south of Islay, wth just three distilleries (Springbank, Glengyle, Glen Scotia): rich and heavy.

taken from scotlandwhisky.com

single malt whisky

The important word is "single": this means that the whisky comes from just one distillery. A single malt should be expressive of that mysterious French word, terroir - the water (lakes, rivers, and seas), the land, the wildness of remote Scotland, the type of still, the atmosphere in the distillery and warehouse, as well as the skill of the distiller. A single malt from Islay will be like the island itself: salty seaweed flavours, as well as peat that's been formed over thousands of years. Then there's the ageing process: the years spent in cask and the type of oak. This is why single malts are so sought after - each whisky is a unique expression that couldn't be replicated anywhere else.

blended whisky

Malt whisky comes solely from barley; blended whisky has grain whisky in it too, which is a mix of malted barley and other grains. Unlike malt whisky, grain whisky is distilled in continuous stills. It was the continuous still, an Irish invention, which allowed makers of Scottish whisky to produce spirits much more efficiently and led to the commercial dominance of blended whisky. The Irish decided not to bother with the still. The most famous names date from the mid-nineteenth century, when the use of continuous stills became common, and each producer developed their own style of blend - Dewar's, Bell's, Grant's, Whyte & Mackay, Teacher's, Ballantine's, Johnnie Walker.

Blended whisky accounts for the vast majority of sales of Scotch (90% worldwide). At its best, it should be a complex yet balanced expression of the many different styles of Scottish whisky.

Diploma Tasting

Cameron Brig Single Grain Whisky
It was very interesting to taste a grain whisky, something generally only encountered as part of a blend. There are five grain distilleries in Scotland producing five times as much grain whisky as malt whisky, but only three grain whiskies are bottled. The grain mostly used is maize, giving an oily sweetness to the whisky. This was a decent example: heather, honey, and cinnamon giving the whisky a sweet spiciness.

Auchentoshan Single Malt 12YO
Not far from Glasgow, Auchentoshan is the only distillery in Scotland to always use triple-distillation, strengthening the spirit but lightening the style. The 12YO was quite floral and leafy, with citrus fruits giving way to vanilla and spice on the palate, with an unusual flavour of malted bread coming out with water. A complex but delicate whisky.

Glenrothes Single Malt 1995
Hidden away in Speyside, Glenrothes historically sold most of its whiskies to blends, particularly Famous Grouse and Chivas. It's now owned by London wine merchants Berry Bros & Rudd, who have steered the brand in a slightly unusual direction. Rather than labelling the whisky with an age statement, it's released as a vintage to mark each whisky out. It's always aged in ex-sherry casks, giving sweet dried fruit flavours. This 1995 was quite yeasty too, with flour and malt, and nice vanilla spices.

Glenfarclas Single Malt 15YO
Another Speyside distillery (although it classes itself as Highland), situated at the foot of Ben Rinnes, which gives Glenfarclas a terroir specific character: the local bitter wind, the low warehouses, and the use of sherry casks all contribute to the rich, powerful style. The whiskies oxidise slowly and absorb the power of the old oak. The 15YO was a big, edgy whisky, with cedar, toast, vanilla from the oak, and a sweet, nutty, spiciness.

Laphroaig Single Malt 10YO
Laphroaig was one of the first whiskies I ever truly loved, though on recent tastings I'd begun to find its earthy peatiness a bit too obvious. However, tasting it again, it was hard not to fall for all the smoky, earthy, peaty aromas, as well as the added complexity that comes from the seaweed and smoked fish. This is a whisky so characteristic of Islay: one has to use that word again, terroir.

Johnnie Walker Black Label 12YO
It was fascinating tasting this blended whisky after all the others, as it really showcased the art of blending - taking a vast array of styles to create a blanced, expressive drink. Put simply, this whisky tasted of the other five put together. I particuarly liked the heathery smoke that came through at the end.

always good to have some water when tasting

Japanese whisky

The development of Japanese whisky was directly inspired by Scottish whisky, but it is certainly not an imitation, with its own distinctive flavours and characteristics. Just as with Scotch, it reflects the environment and culture in which it has been grown. Aromatic Japanese wood is used for ageing, and the whiskies don't have as pronounced cereal aromas - Japanese whiskies aren't light, but still floral, fragrant, and fruity.

One of the oldest and still most important companies is Yamazaki who only make blended whisky, but extremely complex ones. There are six different stills at the distillery and five different types of wood are used for ageing (sherry - both American and European casks, bourbon, new oak, and Japanese). This gives the blending team an extraordinary range of possibilities. The other key consideration is that blending is done internally - whiskies aren't bought from elsewhere - meaning that the whiskies are a direct expression of the area and distillery's character. The 12YO is superb: floral with light dried fruits and a little smoke. A delicate yet mature and sophisticated whisky.

Another Japanese whisky worth trying is Nikka from the Barrel. This is a blended whisky for drinkers who like their powerful single malts.

 

English whisky

There's absolutely no reason why the English can't make whisky. The weather's not that different, there's lots of water, and there are plenty of areas where the terrain is as wild as Scotland. Barley is grown in England, particularly East Anglia, and it's used for the production of Scottish whisky. During the nineteenth century, there were large distilleries in London, Liverpool, and Bristol. Nevertheless, there was not one single English whisky made throughout the twentieth century.

With the surge in single malt's popularity, and the premium prices it can command, whisky is being made in lots of other places too, including England. The English Whisky Company was set up in 2006 in East Anglia, and has already gained a good reputation. Hopefully, it will be the first of many English whiskies. Chapter 6, the first whisky to be produced in England since the nineteenth century, is the one to start with.

Welsh whisky

Again, there's no reason Welsh whisky shouldn't exist. The Welsh Whisky Company's range of Penderyn whiskies distinguishes them from other whisky producers by the wood their spirits are aged in. The Madeira is aged first in Buffalo Trace barrels then another six months in old Madeira casks, while the Sherrywood is 70% bourbon, 30% sherry. The former has beautiful aromas of baked apples.





 

Gin

As someone who doesn't like the acerbic bitterness of tonic water, I've never been a big gin drinker. This, though, is an example of a drink becoming so associated with a mixer that the style and diversity of the spirit itself gets overlooked.

what is gin?

Like vodka, gin comes from a spirit that's been distilled to 96% ABV. The difference is that this neutral spirit has been flavoured with botanicals, one of which has to be juniper berries. This ingredient can cause controversy, as there is no legal definition of how much juniper must be in a gin - juniper must simply be "discernible." Without a discernible taste of juniper, the drink is technically a flavoured vodka, and some American craft distillers are getting into trouble for making "gins" that don't taste enough of juniper.

the botanicals

juniper obviously. These are berries from Italy and the Balkans which give gin its distinctive pine aromas, as well as heather and lavender.
coriander a botanical found in the best gins. It gives spicy flavours which change according to where it's from: Morrocan coriander produces peppery aromas; eastern Europe and Russia spicy, citrus, and floral; and Indian coriander even more citrus.
angelica root a traditional botanical which gives earthy and woody aromas and balances the perfume of other botanicals
orris root another botanical which balances other, more volatile aromas, giving floral and perfumed flavours
lemon and orange peels citrus aromas are the first to be released in distillation, so a gin made from an early cut will have strong citrus flavours

the regulations

gin the basic definition for inexpensive gin, which must have detectable juniper flavours
distilled gin redistilling a neutral spirit with juniper berries and other botanicals. Any flavouring or botanicals can also be added after redistillation. Hendrick's, famous for its cucumber flavours, is a good example of this; cucumber does not react well with the distillation process, so it is added afterwards.
London (dry) gin no flavourings or botanicals can be added after distillation. Despite the name, this style can be made anywhere in the world.

Diploma tasting

"own label"
This gin was so bad, we weren't even told who sells it. (It apparently costs around £10, of which £9 is tax.) Once again, not a great advertisement for the supermarkets. It was probably "cold compounded," meaning that juniper flavours were added to the spirit. It smelt of juniper but tasted of nothing but very harsh alcohol.


Beefeater London Dry Gin
Citrus flavours dominated; Beefeater is known for using Seville oranges which gives a gin a bitter edge. There was also a woody earthiness from angelica root. And there was juniper as well, obviously.

Bombay Sapphire London Dry Gin
A famous brand that's all about the nineteenth century, but was created in the late 1980s. Its clever association with Empire and its stylish bottle helped make gin fashionable again. Floral and perfumed (lavender and saffron), with liquorice adding a bit of sweetness to the finish.

Plymouth Gin
The only gin that has any geographical requirement: it must come from Plymouth. There are fewer botanicals used, and the taste is heavier and oilier. I was a bit disappointed with this gin.

Tanqueray Gin Export Strength
Another well-known name that's made with just four botanicals, with the coriander giving white pepper, cumin, and citrus aromas. Very good, but I was junipered-out by this point.

Although it's good to taste well-known brands, I would have also liked to have sampled some of the premium craft gins that are becoming increasingly fashionable, to see the differences between brands that have to stick to a recognisable recipe and new distillers who can more or less do what they want - as long as the juniper's discernible of course.

Jenever

A juniper-flavoured spirit which must come from the Netherlands, Belgium, or nearby France, jenever is noticeably different from gin. Jenever bars in Belgium and the Netherlands have a bewildering array of jenever drinks, all served neat as small shots. It's made from a combination of a highly-rectified spirit (like gin) and moutwijn, a low-alcohol grain spirit, which lessens juniper's impact on the flavour. Unlike gin, it can be aged in oak. Jonge jenever can have a maximum of 15% moutwijn, has to be colourless, and can be lightly sweetened. Oude Jenever has to have a minimum of 15% moutwijn, can be coloured (through oak contact or with caramel), and can be sweetened to a greater degree.

Vodka

Of all the spirits, vodka is the one I have the hardest time with and find difficult ever drinking for pleasure. It doesn't really taste of anything except alcohol, and any flavours it may have are masked by the alcohol's warming potency. The Diploma tasting did change my mind a little bit, and I learnt how its neutral flavours make it a great base for cocktails. If vodka turns up in the tasting exam, though, it's going to be a challenge.

what is vodka?

Vodka can come from absolutely anywhere and be made from absolutely anything. The one consistent rule is that it must be distilled to 96% ABV (in the EU; 95% in the US) in order to make the spirit as neutral as possible. For this reason, a continuous still has to be used. The traditional raw materials are grain (barley, wheat, and rye) and potatoes, but lots of other ingredients are now used, including grapes (for example, the premium vodka Cîroc).

what does it taste like?

Neutral vodkas such as Smirnoff are the most common and popular, but there are producers who want their vodka to have some character, reflecting the raw material. These will still be light in flavour, but discernible: wheat will give the vodka wine and anise characteristics, rye zest and spice, while a barley vodka will be clean and crisp, and one from potatoes full-bodied and creamy.

Flavoured vodkas are also becoming increasingly fashionable - which is how vodka used to be made before the neutral style took over in the mid- to late-twentieth century. These will usually be nature-identical rather than natural flavours and are added after distillation. Fruit is the most common flavouring, but anything and everything is being added to keep up with fashion.

Diploma tasting

Tasting vodka at ten in the morning was not something I ever imagined doing and it was with some dread that I took a sip of the first drink. The experience, though, was a lot more enjoyable that I'd feared.

spot the flavoured vodka

Wyborowa Vodka
A rye-based vodka that had delicate flavours of lemon and white pepper. Quite pleasant, without being especially exciting.

Zubrowka Bison Vodka
The most interesting vodka we tasted. Although Zubrowka are the only producer who flavour vodka with grass, doing so dates back to a time when all vodkas were flavoured - a traditional drink that now feels very modern. My tasting notes are on my general Diploma blog.

Chopin Potato Vodka
This was another very good vodka. It's only produced from September to December during the potato harvest (there are 3kg of potatoes needed for each bottle). The flavours were quite complex with a greater depth than one would expect from a vodka - a creamy mouthfeel of yoghurt and vanilla, as well as a fuller body from the potatoes.

Smirnoff
The very first sniff was an instant recall of a nightclub during university days. How can a drink that smells and tastes of so little be so resonant? Smirnoff was popular in Russia in the nineteenth century, but began its conquest of the world in the 1940s as part of the Moscow Mule cocktail. It's now the biggest selling international brand in the world. It tastes of absolutely nothing.

Brandy

The word brandy comes from brandewijn, the Dutch for "burnt wine," which is pretty much what brandy is: a wine distilled into a high-alcohol spirit. Brandy can be made anywhere in the world, but as ever it's France which has the most famous examples. I've written about Cognac before, so here I'll focus on the other famous French brandy, Armagnac, as well as Spanish brandy.

Armagnac

One of the central reasons for the success of Cognac over the centuries is trade. Cognac is just north of Bordeaux, with easy access to the international trade routes that the port has historically provided, particularly to important spirits markets such as England/UK and the Netherlands. Although also in the south west of France, Armagnac is located further inland with no easy access to a major port and has therefore never had the commercial success of Cognac - though it hasn't suffered the boom and bust cycles of that region either. 

Besides location and reputation, there are other significant differences between the two styles of brandy:

grapes as with Cognac, the most important grape is Ugni Blanc (Trebbiano in Italy), which produces a wine with neutral aromas and high acidity. In Cognac, it accounts for 98% of plantings, but in Armagnac it's lower, at 55%. 32% of plantings are of Baco, the only hybrid grape allowed in the production of quality wine in the EU (a hybrid grape is a cross between a variety of the European vitis vinifera, in this case Folle Blanche, and a North American vine species, in this case vitis riparia), which gives rich, earthy, dried fruit characteristics to the spirit. Ten grape varieties are permitted, but the other two important ones are Colombard and Folle Blanche, an aromatic variety which was badly hit by phylloxera in the nineteenth century.

taste Armagnac is a much more rustic, earthy drink than Cognac. A unique still, called the alambic Armagnaçais, is used, a type of column still which produces a relatively low alcohol spirit (often less than 60%). Distilling to such a low volume of alcohol, as well as using more aromatic grape varieties, means that the aromas and flavours of Armagnac are much more powerful and aggressive than Cognac. I prefer the robust, agricultural taste of Armagnac, but it all depends on personal preference, as well as the time and occasion.

ageing the terms are very close to Cognac, but with slightly different definitions. Although this provides a point of difference between the two, I don't think it's very helpful, leading to confusion as well as abuse by lesser brandies not subject to regional regulation. The ages refer to the youngest wine in the blend. 

Blanche unaged (a category introduced in 2005)

VS/*** one year

VSOP four years

Napoléon six years

hors d'age/XO ten years 

age indicated the youngest spirit is the age stated on the label (e.g. twelve years)

vintage this is a huge difference from Cognac, which (more or less) doesn't allow vintages. For a market that likes to see a year on the label, this is a huge advantage Armagnac has over Cognac. 

Diploma tasting

At the end of the spirits tasting, we all got a number on a piece of paper, which denoted which spirit we'd get to take home. I was 19 out of 26, so I was delighted to walk away with this Armagnac.

Bas Armagnac Dartigalongue VSOP 
A lovely soft toffee fudge nose, floral and fruity too, like chocolate strawberry sweets; on the palate, the alcohol is warming at first but smooth, with a minty, caramel, chocolate mouthfeel, with coffee and toffee and a peppery spiciness to it from the well-integrated oak. A very good, complex, but accessible brandy.

if you buy Armagnac, make sure it's from Bas Armagnac

"French brandy": warning!

During the brandy tasting, we sampled ASDA's French Brandy, a dreadful, barely drinkable spirit. Not only that, its labelling was extremely disingenuous, using Cognac and Armagnac terms to its advantage. On their website, below the product listing, ASDA claim that they "do everything we can to make sure the information about the products we sell is always as accurate as possible," but that "we recommend that you always read the label carefully before using or consuming any products." Well, quite. The label has VSOP in large letters, *** at the bottom, and the word Napoléon at the top: three entirely different ageing terms to impress the unsuspecting customer. It's easy to get frustrated by the French appellation system, but it's there for a reason: to protect quality wine areas. In this instance, though, only Cognac and Armagnac are subject to appellation regulations, meaning that unscrupulous producers in the rest of France (or British supermarkets) can use the terms however they want.

Spanish brandy

Spanish brandy is a widely-produced drink without any great reputation, yet its slight sweetness and sherry flavours can make it a very flavoursome and surprisingly complex brandy. The main grape is Airén, which until recently was the most planted grape in the world, grown in La Mancha in the heart of Spain where the wine is usually distilled too. The grape is lower in acidity and higher in alcohol than the French brandy grapes. The two main areas for actual brandy production are Penedès in Catalunya and Jerez in Andalucia; the latter is the only Spanish brandy controlled by law.

Brandy de Jerez is aged in the same way as sherry, using the solera system, which means that spirits of different ages are continually being blended together to create a consistent taste year after year. This ageing system, together with the blending of high- and low-alcohol spirits from distillation, gives a Spanish producer a variety of options for the style of brandy. Further complexity comes from ageing in old sherry barrels, the previous sherry contents imparting flavour rather than the oak: grilled nuts from a fino barrel, walnut, plum, and figs from an oloroso barrel, and raisins from Pedro Ximénez.

Diploma tasting

Sobreano Solera Reserva Brandy de Jerez
The one Spanish brandy we tasted was very good and represented excellent value, especially compared to ASDA's own French Brandy. For a price little different, this had all the complexity of a brandy one should expect, with figs, raisins, sultanas, hazelnuts, and coconuts.

At the higher ender of the scale, I'd recommend Lepanto, also from Gonzalez Byass, or Lustau, another brandy from a great sherry company.

 

Pisco

I've never tasted pisco and it wasn't touched on during our Diploma tasting, but it's something we need to know about. There are two types of pisco, Chilean and Peruvian, both claiming to be the more authentic. The major differences are the grape varieties allowed, the distilled level of alcohol (much lower in Peruvian), and ageing in oak (none for Peruvian, at least 60 days for Chilean). I've never heard good things about pisco, but I'm open-minded about all these drinks...

Madeira

I spent the weekend visiting friends in Madeira, which gave me a chance to taste some of the great fortified wine at source. Like the island itself, the Madeira wine industry is quite traditional, its international heyday two hundred years ago. With its oxidised, rancio qualities, complex flavours, and astonishing ageing ability, there's no drink quite like it.

a little bit of history

Madeira is a small, sub-tropical island in the Atlantic Ocean, historically the last port of call for the Portuguese and other traders before the Americas and Asia. The style of the wine developed from its travels across the Equator. Two things would happen to this wine: first, it was fortified with distilled cane spirit to make it last the journey and, second, the barrels were used as ballasts on deck causing the wine to be baked at a consistently warm temperature, producing a dark, mellow, and extremely popular wine. By the eighteenth century, fortification was standard practice and the wine was baked on the island to replicate journeying across the Equator. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Madeira was a very fashionable drink - George Washington drank a pint a day, and it was used to toast the Declaration of Independence - but it was badly hit by phylloxera in the 1870s, when many vines were replaced with sugar cane. The wine nearly disappeared in the early twentieth century, but it's made a slow recovery and general quality has improved over the last twenty years.

lamb grazing in a back garden above Funchal

the styles

If there's no name of a grape on the bottle, then it's made from Tinta Negra Mole, an undistinguished but versatile black grape that accounts for 90% of all plantings on the island and is used to make the most basic Madeiras. These will be labelled dry, medium-dry, medium-sweet, or sweet. The "noble" grape varieties, all white, are named on the bottle and indicate a particular style:

Sercial - dry to off-dry; a traditional aperitif and the palest coloured of the four styles, with an acidic tanginess. 

Verdelho - medium-dry; this can be the most balanced in fruitiness, acidity, and sweetness of the four styles. 

Bual - medium-sweet; the name is an Anglicisation of the grape Boal. This is fruitier and more likely to accompany a dessert. 

Malmsey - sweet; here, the name is an Anglicisation of Malvasia. A rich, very sweet, deeply-flavoured wine, yet balanced by naturally high acidity, with the greatest ageing potential of them all. 

Blandy's helpful explanation of the four "noble" grape styles

the ageing

Most wines are baked using the estufagem process. This can be done by heating the wine to temperatures of 55°C for at least ninety days for the lower quality wines and, for higher quality wines, heating the wine in wooden casks for six months to a year at between 30 and 40°C. The highest quality wines have no artificial heating - instead, the oak barrels are left for many years at the top of the lodges in Madeira's consistently warm temperatures of 20°C.

The youngest Madeira is three years old, which is aged in tank rather than wood. After that, there will be an indication of the wine's average age - five (tank), and ten, fifteen, or, less common, twenty (all aged in oak casks). A vintage Madeira has to have been aged for at least twenty years, and can be aged for a hundred years or longer. A Colheita is a fairly recent style which has to come from one year but has been aged for a shorter time (five years or more).

a wine cellar I stumbled across full of very, very old bottles of Madeira

what I tasted

There are only six exporters of Madeira, producing four million bottles a year. I visited three of them, all in the main town of Funchal. D'Oliveiras is located in a large, atmospheric lodge full of bottles of old wine and barrels with wine still ageing in them. However, the staff weren't very welcoming and we were given tastings of three basic wines. I got the distinct impression it would be a huge inconvenience to them for me to buy something. 

typical Madeira vintage bottles; Terrantez is another "noble" variety, but even less common - 1976 and 77 were particuarly good years for this grape

H. M. Borges weren't much more accommodating, but they did have a broader and better range of wines to taste. I stuck to tasting four similar styles: five-year-old medium-sweet, ten-year-old Boal, fifteen-year-old Boal, and 1995 Colheita Boal. At €14 for half a litre, the latter seemed a tremendous bargain until I tasted it. The ten and fifteen year olds, though, were very good, complex if slightly reserved. 

Blandy's is a much bigger and slicker operation than the other two, with a guided tour and a gift shop. There were more extensive tastings on offer, though for a fee. I couldn't resist tasting this 1960s trio, the first time I had ever tasted vintage Madeira. 

Sercial 1966 - the nose on this was the most intense and oxidised of the three, with immediate treacle, toffee, and syrup, which continued into rich chocolate, dried fruits, and Christmas cake, with further mature notes of leather, earth, and mushrooms. Given that maturity, it was amazing how fresh the palate was, due to its high acidity. The dried fruits weren't quite as intense as the nose, either, with a spicy dry finish to add to the chocolate and coffee. 

Verdelho 1968 - my favourite of the three. Brown in colour, with much less intense dried fruits - dried apricots, poached pears, raisins, and fruitcake, with a bit of fudge, and almonds and marzipan. That sounds pretty intense, but all these flavours were so balanced and complementary. Likewise, the palate was subtle, complex, and long, with mellow cinnamon and clove spices with lingering white pepper. 

Bual 1968 - a similar brown colour to the Sercial, but more similar in intensity to the Verdelho, with figs, raisins, dates, toffee, and hazelnuts. The palate was the spiciest of the three - cinnamon, ginger, and white pepper - that slowly faded away to chewy dried fruits and an everlasting finish. 

Sercial '66, Verdelho '68, Bual '68: three extraordinarily complex examples of one of the world's most historic wines

what to drink it with

The depth of flavours in great Madeira wine are so complex and intense that it needs a food to match. I tried the three vintage Blandy's with a ginger chocolate sweet; the ginger, the chocolate, and the sweetness each complemented the three wines' varied flavours. Anything with chocolate and coffee is an ideal combination, especially for the sweeter styles. I'm not convinced I'd want to try a Verdelho with soup, as the Blandy's sign above suggests; the drier styles work well as apertifs or with a nutty dish. The oxidised nuttiness of the wines makes them a great accompaniment to an almond or marzipan dish and it almost goes without saying that Christmas cake and sweet Madeira are a match made in heaven.

where's the Christmas cake?

Rum

Ah, Ron. Another spirit that once upon a time I wouldn't have gone near but which I'm now extremely intrigued by, especially the dried fruit and sweet spice flavours of oaked dark rum.

Perceptions of rum are dominated by Bacardi, one of the biggest international spirits brands in the world (globally, it sells nearly 20m cases a year, second only to Smirnoff). I remember the ads from the '90s: a trendy, cool drink which meant guaranteed success with Latina women; such an ad inevitably led to ordering one in a bar, and, equally inevitably, vowing never to drink the stuff again. For an older crowd, though, rum means Navy Rum: bottles with drunken sailors on the front and only ever ordered by an old ruddy-cheeked, frantically stubbled man. Both these styles are image conscious, Bacardi the party spirit for good times (and, of course, to be drunk with coke), Navy or dark rum the drink of history and tradition. Neither image does much for rum, though.

this looked really cool in the 1990s

 

an ad for Lamb's Navy rum about the "True British Character" - featuring a Creative Branding Guru...

what's it made from?

It was probably Marco Polo who brought back sugar cane from Asia and it made its way to the Caribbean through the Spanish (by way of Christopher Columbus). By the seventeenth century, sugar cane was an even more valuable commodity than gold, so much so that it led to the development of the slave trade. Extracting sugar from the plant creates a residue of sticky sweet molasses, which planters distilled into spirit so as not to waste any material. By the eighteenth century, this spirit had become extremely fashionable in Britain - yet another spirit with a heavily colonial history.

Most rum is made from molasses, though it can also be made from sugar cane juice (particularly in the French islands Martinique and Guadaloupe, when it's called rhum agricole).

different styles

white rum - clear and colourless; if they receive any oak ageing, the colour is filtered out (which is how Bacardi has traditionally been made); flavours aren't particularly intense, though this depends on the desired style.
golden rum - the colour comes from time in oak (as well as some caramel for consistency), and the ageing results in a greater complexity.
dark rum - the different methods of distillation for rum lead to spirits of lighter and heavier intensity - a dark rum will be made from the most intensely flavoured spirits, while the dark colour comes from lots of time in oak. This prolonged maturation also allows the unripe, green cane flavours of the base spirit to develop into rich tropical fruits. The heat of the Caribbean plays an important part in maturation; a "tropical year" is eight months long, so a twelve-year-old rum is almost the equivalent of a twenty-year-old spirit from a cooler climate. This is the kind of stuff sailors used to drink in great quantities, and there's another style of dark rum - Navy Rum, which is even more aromatic and has caramel added to it to give it a burnt-treacle flavour.

where it's made

Most countries in the Caribbean produce rum, and often the base materials are shipped from one country to another - as long as the drink is made in a country capable of growing sugar cane it can be called rum. The major countries include Guyana, which uses Demerara sugar and produces a broad range of styles of rum due to the unusual wood pot stills used for distillation, Jamaica, where the variety of styles comes from the length of ferment, and Cuba, where the style of white rum originates.

Diploma tasting

Bacardi - my notes say vegetable and grassy, with green bananas and bubblegum. I'm not sure it even tasted of that much, but we have to write something for the tasting exam. We also need clues to help us spot which spirit is which when we do the exam, especially when they're this bland, so for a white rum we should be looking for tropical fruits such as underripe banana. These clues didn't help me for the mock blind tasting at the end of the day, as I thought this was a vodka (we were warned that it's easy to confuse white rum with tequila; I wish I'd made a mistake that obvious).

La Mauny Rhum Agricole - a much, much more interesting white rum. The clue is again green banana and grass (flavours you don't find in vodka), but there's also cinnamon, white pepper, melon, and smoke.

Appleton Estate 12YO - no confusing this with vodka, as it was mahogany coloured. The tropical fruits were much less ripe, with cedar and sherry aromas from the oak, and treacle, toffee, and fruitcake from the molasses. 

El Dorado 15YO  - another mahogany coloured rum, with lots of complex aromas. I've already talked about this, and Pusser's Navy Rum, in my initial blog about the Diploma spirits classes. These two rums were fantastic.

Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum - I coped pretty well with tasting nearly forty spirits one after the other, by taking small sips that I thoroughly spat out. This, though, was 63% and the alcohol was immediately apparent before even pouring it from the bottle. On tasting, the aggressive alcohol did fade to reveal tropical fruit aromas, but the level of alcohol meant that there's no way this could ever be considered a complex drink. Quite amazing, though, to produce a drink of this quality with such high alcohol.

cachaça

We weren't given any cachaça to taste, but we were told that it may appear in the exam. Thanks for that. Cachaça is the second most drunk spirit in the world, after Shochu (an Asian spirit) - so there's more of it produced than vodka. Most of the production and consumption, though, is in Brazil, meaning that its importance is local (to a country of 200m people) - that's definitely changing and the international importance of cachaça is growing. It's made from sugar cane juice rather than molasses; this means it's technically no different from rum (particularly rhum agricole), but the Brazilian authorities have been campaigning to get international recognition of cachaça as a distinct product and last year, the US finally agreed to recognise cachaça as a separate category. Cachaça's the base ingredient in a caipirinha, which is how recognition of the spirit has been growing in the UK and elsewhere. I do have memories of drinking cachaça in Lisbon, but those memories are dim...

Tequila & Mezcal

When visiting @drinkaddition in Seattle three years ago to avoid the Royal Wedding, he told me what a big tequila fan he was and how he was building up quite a collection. My reaction was, Why? Are you crazy? That stuff is foul. He protested the contrary and gave me a tasting through the different styles of tequila. The next day I went out and bought a bottle to take back home with me.

Like Jägermeister, building a reptuation on being so rough that it has to be necked as quickly as possible is not good for the long-term economic stability of a drink - compare that to whisky or brandy, drinks seen as sophisticated and mature and therefore commanding premium and super-premium prices. As I learnt, tequila is capable of that sophistication, but also of a welcoming intimacy sometimes lacking in those superaged drinks. Tequila's a drink that should be taken seriously, and the gradual rise in the sales of premium tequilas suggests that consumers are finally beginning to appreciate this.

what is tequila?

It's made from agave, a pretty crazy plant that grows in the ground like a potato, looks like a pineapple, and has massive razor-sharp leaves. Tequila production is always going to be small, especially compared to spirits like vodka, because it takes seven to ten years before the agave plant's ready to be harvested (and it dies once it's flowered, so that's that for production). Harvesting also involves tackling those massive razor-sharp leaves with a large axe, a time-consuming and labour-intensive process.

Tequila has to come from a specific area of Mexico, loosely around the town of Tequila and the city of Guadalajara, and has to be made from blue agave (there are 200 other varieties). There are two types of Tequila: Tequila 100% Agave, which is exclusively made from blue agave, and Tequila, or mixto, which is 51% blue agave. It's the former you want to be trying.

how's it made?

The leaves are cut off as close to the plant's hard core (piña) as possible; this piña is halved and cooked, either in traditional ovens or pressurised cookers, which produces fermentable sugars. This cooked agave is ground down to release the sugary juice and then fermentation starts, which lasts several days. Distillation then takes place in a pot still to produce a spirit which at around 55% is still full of the agave flavour, before it's watered down to the desired level of alcohol (min. 35%).

styles

blanco - tequila aficionados argue that this is the purest expression of the agave, as the drink undergoes no oak ageing.

reposado - this literally means rested, which is quite an expressive way of saying that it's spent a small time in oak (minimum two months). This gives it a pale golden colour and a light sweetness. Personally, I find this style a bit of an inbetweener.

añejo - this means aged, meaning that it's spent at least one year in an oak barrel (old Bourbon). Again, certain tequila purists may argue that this takes away from the agave flavour, but it does add a buttery, vanilla complexity to the drink, as is the case with any spirit.

Which style you prefer depends entirely on personal preference, but the characterful agave flavour should always be evident. There's also a style called muy añejo (very aged) which I've never tasted, but I wonder if the oak would smother that agave taste.

what does it taste like?

The agave taste is very distinctive; the nearest British equivalent is perhaps turnip. Unlike a lot of other white spirits, the aroma of tequila is immediately apparent: bitter, green, rooty, earthy, and, quite simply, agave (if I ever get to smell agave, I'll say it smells like tequila). You might get other spicy vegetables like pepper and jalapeño, but that might be overcomplicating the simple expressive agave qualities. If it's been aged in oak, then there'll be a creamy vanilla texture as well; but the key is marrying the natural agave characters with the oak.

diploma tasting

We only tasted two tequilas, both of them from El Jimador, a major brand. The blanco was very simple; it didn't really have the immediate, expressive agave flavours that one would expect from this style, and was quite disappointing. The añejo was superior, with cheesy, vanilla, cigar smoke aromas. I think this demonstrated the point about the greatest tequilas being blancos; it takes real skill to create highly expressive, complex drinks solely from the plant, while oak can add a complexity that hasn't come from the plant itself.

mezcal

And then there's a sibling drink which at its worst can be as bad as anything out there and at its best even better than anything out there. Mezcal isn't as geographically specific as tequila and can be made from a number of agave varieties. It also very rarely encounters oak. The piña is roasted in underground ovens, which gives mezcal aggressively smoky and earthy aromas - a more extreme version, for both better and worse, of tequila. This is a drink you have to spend some money on - and when you do it's worth it.

Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal - Santo Domingo Albarradas

Here's a mezcal I bought on my last trip to Seattle. On the nose it has all the characteristic bitter green vegetables from the agave, with a delicate smoky earthiness. That smokiness really comes through on the palate, where it's almost like an Islay whisky, with seaweed and smoked fish flavours, but there's a lasting smoked spiciness to the drink, like roasted peppers. This is a white, unaged spirit that tastes as complex and long as an aged whisky, yet is youthful and fresh, full of the aromas of the raw material. This is tequila/mezcal at its most expressive and youthful, but with real lingering complexity, and proof that you don't need oak ageing to produce a great spirit.

note the absence of a worm

Gonzalez Byass Sherry/Champagne Tasting

Drinking sherry in a fancy restaurant in historic surroundings is just about as close to my idea of heaven as it can get, and that's what I found myself doing on Friday afternoon.

the venue

The Midland Hotel in Manchester is where Rolls met Royce, and is a beautiful, commanding example of Manchester's Victorian history. Like much of the rest of Manchester, it was rundown over the years, but now it's once again an example of Manchester's new vibrancy and self-confidence. The French restaurant has been reinvented as a modern institution for contemporary cuisine by award-winning chef Simon Rogan, and last year Mr. Cooper's House and Garden opened, designed as a more accessible and less exclusive alternative to the French. It's still a pretty luxurious setting, and sat around a table drinking champagne I felt I could have been in a high-class Parisian restaurant.

the champagne

Gonzalez Byass distribute Deutz champagne in the UK, so we got to taste their wines as an opener. Deutz is an historic champagne house, dating back to 1838. They're known for their vintage wines - the 2006, which we tasted, came top in a recent Decanter tasting, ahead of perhaps more famous names. It was certainly an exceptional wine; fresh and lively, with power and structure from the Pinot Noir (60% of the blend), with complex yet delicate autolytic notes, with a beautiful finish of red apples and cinnamon. We also tasted the William Deutz 2000, which was still incredibly lively despite its age (it was only disgorged last April; Deutz have the welcome practice of putting disgorgement dates on the bottles). Its palate was more mature and developed than the 2006, though, a bit earthy, with mushrooms, bruised apples, and crème brûlée. My favourite wine, though, was the Rosé 2008 - biscuits and toast with delicate red fruits. A subtle, complex wine.

the sherry

This was where the afternoon got truly exciting for me: fifteen sherries, ranging from young unfortified wine to thirty-year-old PX. We started with Mosto Palomino, mosto referring to the unfortified base wine and Palomino the most important sherry grape. Quite how such an uninspiring wine can develop into a drink as wonderful and complex as sherry is difficult to understand, but it's all about the fortification, ageing, and blending. The mosto is taken from the first pressing of the grapes; delicate juice is classified as suitable for fino, more robust juice for oloroso. This mosto was quite full on, smelling and tasting of a roomful of apples, and was probably destined for an oloroso.

sherry rainbow

We then moved on to Sobretablas Fino, a wine still developing into a fino. It was only a few months old, fortified straight after fermentation, not yet transferred to oak barrels, and still in an early stage of development, with rough, aggressive, volatile flavours. This wine would turn into Tío Pepe, which we sampled next. It was extraordinary to trace the gestation of the fino, from a simple base wine, to a volatile young wine, to one of the greatest drinks in the world: fresh and delicate, yet full and mature, with flavours of apples, wood, nuts, yeast, and chalk, I don't think there's a drink I fall in love in with so easily as a fino.

Tío Pepe's probably the most famous fino. The firm now known as Gonzalez Byass was established by a banker back in the day when there was more money to be made from sherry than banking. Although he knew about money, Señor Gonzalez knew nothing about sherry and enlisted the help of his uncle, Pepe, who promised to help but only if they made a pale, dry, and deeply unfashionable style of sherry. That drink's still called Tío Pepe. Gonzalez Byass's rep, Paul, who guided us through the tasting was proud of the drink and rightly adamant about how it should be drunk: chilled, in a white wine glass, and with food. 

The structured tasting continued with Viña AB Amontillado, a style which began life as a fino but is refortified to kill off the flor, and then is aged for a further period of time to develop oxidative qualities: in this case, the wine was aged under flor for four years, followed by a further six years of oxidative ageing. I loved this wine: it still had the woody delicacy of the fino, but with creamy apples, caramel, and vanilla.

The next wine was, at thirty years, a very old amontillado. Del Duque was described as being like an antique shop and was really leathery - perhaps too much so. We were able to compare this to Cuatro Palmas, a special blend of four different unfiltered wines of up to forty-five years of age. This was creamier, richer, not as drying, and more complex. Unfortunately, there's only enough wine left for two years' worth of bottling.

We then returned to the base wine and followed a different tasting path. The mosto we tasted was probably ready to become an oloroso, and we began again with the Sobretablas Oloroso, which was a lot more stable than its fino equivalent and was already tasting of raisins - it had begun oxidising from the moment of fortification. This was followed by Alfonso Oloroso, an eight-year-old wine which was probably a little too young, though it had nice orange peel and nutty flavours.

Perhaps the best wine of the tasting was the Leonor Palo Cortado. This had the unusual characteristics of a palo cortado - the delicacy of a fino and the depth of an oloroso - resulting in a unique profile of poached pears and dried fruits.

It was then that we moved on to the other important sherry grape, Pedro Ximénez, of which there was 25% in the Solera 1847. There was a little bit of syrupy treacle sweetness from the Pedro Ximénez, but it was balanced by the dry oloroso's nuttiness and dried fruits - a fresh, complex wine. The Apostoles Palo Cortado was another great example of palo cortado's unique personality, and I can see why it's a style that aficionados consider to be the greatest expression of sherry. This is a thirty-year-old wine, an oloroso and PX (15%) blended together when they were twelve. Rich fudge notes, with apricots - a great, if unexpected, combination.

We finished with the truly sweet stuff. The Matusalem Oloroso Dulce had not only a mahogany appearance but aroma, with a rich bitterness from the oloroso and dried fruits from the PX. Nectar PX was a young and not especially complex wine, dominated by raisins, currants, and sultanas. The final wine, Noe PX, was PX at its most intense and craziest: 450g/L of residual sugar, with intense, chewy flavours of raisins, currants, figs, and Christmas pudding. This is a great after-dinner wine - and one that's been used in wine and cigar tastings.

Gonzalez Byass are determined to make sherry fashionable again. With wines like these, I really hope they succeed.

Thanks, uncle Pepe

Diploma Week 2 - Days 2 and 3

Over the course of these two days, we tasted around 35 spirits under the guidance of Michael Walpole, who had spent 30 years working for Diageo before joining the WSET. These tastings were intense, educational, yet quite frustrating. Intense for the amount of high-alcohol drinks we tasted, educational for the sheer range of drinks we sampled, and frustrating for the contradictory WSET approach to studying and tasting drinks.

very good or outstanding?

On Thursday morning, we began by tasting three vodkas, a forbidding and unpleasant proposition. Surprisingly, I quite liked all three and could appreciate the warming sophistication of the drinks despite their neutral, high alcohol flavours. One in particular everyone in the group seemed to like was the Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka, a Polish vodka flavoured with grass from fields that European bison graze on. It had a light colour to it, and a subtle texture. Many of us thought it was outstanding, as there was very little to fault about it, but Michael said it was merely very good because there are superior vodkas sold in Poland. If there are even better vodkas than this, we thought, then fair enough.

Later on during our brandy session, we tasted Rémy-Martin's XO. This is a very expensive brandy (£120+) from a famous Cognac name, but it's one I've tasted before in a Cognac line-up and found disappointing, especially for the price. Michael waxed lyrical about the drink, declaring it outstanding, and I couldn't help question him. 'I've tasted better XOs than this, so how can I describe it as outstanding?' I asked. 'Because it's outstanding.' 'But you said the vodka this morning was only very good because there were even better vodkas out there, so if I know there are better Cognacs out there how can I call it outstanding?' 'Because it's outstanding.' 'So why wasn't the vodka this morning outstanding?' 'Because there are better vodkas out there.'

It was a conversation which summed up what I've found frustrating about tasting during the Diploma so far. The WSET have created an objective tasting schemata, which their tutors interpret in an inconsistent and personal fashion. I think, for the large part, you've got to stick with our own judgement, using your knowledge and experience.

whisky tasting

what we tasted

In short, just about everything apart from Cachaça. Spirits I've never tasted before, spirits I've never wanted to taste before, and spirits I now want to taste again. I won't go into detail about all the spirits, as there were just so many we tasted and I plan to blog about each different spirit up till the exam next month. Although the breadth of the tasting was extensive, I felt we could have tasted more premium spirits as opportunities to taste such drinks are rare. There's also a section in the book on cocktails, but it's not something we need to study; this is a shame, as having tasted all these different spirits I'm interested to discover how they work with other ingredients.

brief highlights

Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka (£20)

Vodka's just something I never drink; the first sniff of the Smirnoff we tasted brought back many bad memories. This Polish vodka really opened my mind to vodka, though. There was a complex elegance to it, with a long, lingering finish. The range of engaging flavours overlapped, creating a rounded texture - marzipan, lemon and lime, grass and hay, chamomile and mint, with spices from the rye. Apparently, this goes very well with fresh apple juice and a suggested cocktail was with lemon, ground almonds or amaretto, and apple juice.

Pusser's Blue Label Navy Rum (£30)

Now here's another drink - dark rum - that not that long ago I wouldn't have gone near, but a brief taste at hangingditch of one last year gave me an idea of the depth and complexity of the drink. This was confirmed by this astonishing spirit, which British sailors used to drink a pint a day of. The flavours were rich, deep, and intense with lots of dried fruits (figs, prunes, and dates), and Christmas cake. The treacle and toffee sweetness came from the raw material, molasses. Its colour comes from ageing in old Bourbon oak barrels, making the spirit toasty and smoky, with cinnamon and cloves spices. Yet in the midst of all this dark complexity were light tropical fruit flavours of banana and melon.

El Dorado Special Reserve 15YO Demerara Rum (£40)

And Pusser's wasn't even the best dark rum we tried. This Guyanan rum has won plenty of awards and has lots of similiar complex flavours, but with an added depth and finish, with a creamy vanilla texture also coming from the oak, as well as chocolate and coffee. I'll be exploring the world of dark rum with some pleasure.

Johnnie Walker Black Label (£25)

Spirits are all about fashion. Blended whiskies like Johnnie Walker are highly sought after in other parts of the world such as Asia; in Britain, they're seen as yesterday's drink - it's the Single Malts that are sought after. I've drunk plenty of Scotch, but never even considered trying Johnnie Walker - now I will. This was simply superb: a complex combination of all the other Scotch whiskies we tried and a prime example of the art of blending.

am I now an expert?

You'd hope so, having tasted so many spirits. However, there's still a lot of work to be done before the exam next month: learning to distinguish between each spirit, recognising the raw material, and remembering the vocabulary. We had a mock blind tasting at the end of the final day; I correctly identified the grappa and tequila, but thought the Bacardi was a vodka. The hardest thing is distiniguishing one mediocre drink from the other - not the kind of revision I really want to be doing...

I didn't drink a drop

 

Diploma - Week 2, Day One

the exam

A mere three-day week this time, after the opening five-day slog in January. It opened, however, at 9am with the first exam of the course, on Wine Production. I've slaved over the Study Guide, pored over David Bird's excellent Understanding Wine Technology book, and made copious notes; stared at pages trying to remember the difference between flash and tunnel pasteurisation, finally figured out the differences between various rootstocks, and hit a complete blank at understanding all the trellis systems; and at least a week before the exam got to the point where it was impossible to digest any more.

The exam itself wasn't much different from what I expected: badly-phrased questions trying to catch students out on topics I knew I hadn't quite fully grasped. I'm sure I did OK, but looking through the trickier questions afterwards it was annoying to see that I'd picked the wrong option for quite a few of the ones I'd narrowed down to 50/50 - though some of them are still impossible to figure out even having looked at the Study Guide.

the fizz

The exam was followed by twenty-one sparkling wines, which was a great way of forgetting about the early-morning stress. Our tutor for this day was Michael Buriak, who had quite a dry wit and spent his time focusing on the wines rather than the theory. I found this very useful, as I don't drink sparkling wine very often and really needed guidance through all the various styles and how to describe them - the theory I can learn at home.

For instance, whenever I taste champagne, "apple" is the fruit I invariably end up using to describe it, but that feels so limited. Now I know that there are lots of ways to describe that consistent apple taste in champagne: bruised apple, baked apple, cooking apple, fresh apple, ripe apple, red apple, ripe red apples, crème brûlée. It'd still be nice if there were some other fruits in champagne, though.

I've also always thought using words like brioche incredibly pretentious, but they are necessary. You have to mention the autolytic character if it's there (and if it's not, then point out its absence), which comes from extended contact with dead yeast cells: yeast, lees, biscuit, bread, brioche, toast, pastry, fruitcake. I don't think any of this makes it any easier to describe uninteresting wines, but it gave me a lead into how to define wines of some quality. The day also confirmed that terms such as "Brut" are meaningless when compared to still wines, as most sparkling wines are off dry.

wines of note

Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Rosé NV
We sell this wine at hangingditch, though I've never had a chance to taste it before. It was outstanding, with beautiful red fruits and complex autolytic characteristics. This was one of several wines of the day which pointed towards the potential depth of non-vintage champagnes. (£60)

Jack Rabbit Sparkling White Zinfandel
I only include this because I didn't even know sparkling white Zinfandel existed. If you want a wine that tastes of a watermelon lollipop, then this is the one. It sells for £2.29. Seriously.

which one's the sparkling Zinfandel?

Tesco's Cava Brut NV
This was one of three examples of entry-level sparkling wines and was truly awful. The two worst wines on the course so far have been from Tesco. (£4.49)

Waitrose Champagne Brut NV
This non-vintage champagne from Waitrose was a much more interesting and impressive example of a supermarket label than the Tesco Cava, albeit at a higher price. Complex autolytic notes (yep), bruised apples (yep), and truffles (a fancy term for mushrooms and one I shall now use whenever possible). (£19.99)

Cloudy Bay Pelorus 2008
Cloudy Bay are so famous it's possible to forget they produce high-quality wine. This has spent four years on its lees and is still a young wine. Unlike an equivalent champagne, it has flavours of stony fruits (peach and apricot), but with autolytic characteristics and, yep, baked apples. (£18.99)

Bollinger Grande Année 2004
By this point, I'd given up spitting. Bollinger are one of Champagne's most famous names and this wine was pretty special, disgorged only in January last year, meaning that it had spent eight years on its lees. The whole shebang of champagne flavours were in this wine, and more: mushroom AND truffle, smoke and toast, bruised apples and toffee, and old brioche. That's right, old brioche. This is some wine, but best drunk now. Good job I was on hand. (£60)