Saturday 25 June 2016

Bandol

My second visit to Oakland saw a sun-soaked evening with views that could have been straight from Marseille in Provence. Appropriately enough, because I was there to join a long-established San Francisco tasting group to explore the wines of Bandol, a small Provençal appellation not far from Marseille, with vintages going back to 1993. As we sipped on a rosé from legendary Bandol producer Domaine Tempier, while looking out on Lake Merritt, the city hall, and San Francisco in the background, one member of the group commented, "This almost makes me want to move to Oakland."


the place

Bandol, like the rest of Provence, is best known for its rosés, as these complex, aromatic wines, based on the Mourvèdre grape, go beyond the general perception of rosé as a simple, light-coloured, easy-drinking summer wine. If there is one rosé worth spending $30-50 for a bottle, then it's Bandol. However, these rosés - unusually - overshadow the great reds of Bandol, again based on Mourvèdre. These big, structured reds emerged around the time of the Second World War, from grapes grown on steep terraces directly overlooking the Mediterranean. The climate is warm, with intensely hot summer days and mild winters, ideal for the late-ripening Mourvèdre. The altitude of the high terraces, together with the moderating influence of the sea, help cool the climate to prevent the grapes developing too powerful aromas. All of these complex dynamics lead to wines that are tannic and closed when young, but which slowly open up with time.

domaine tempier

Domaine Tempier are an example of Provence's long winemaking history, dating back to the eighteenth century, but also of the recent development of the region's great red wines. Until the late nineteenth century when artists came to paint the beautiful, remote landscape, Provence was a rural Mediterranean region cut off from metropolitan Paris. This meant that its wines did not develop in the same manner as regions such as Bordeaux which were more connected to cosmopolitan markets. It was in the 1940s that Domaine Tempier emerged as one of the leading wineries of Bandol, when Lucien Peyraud and his wife Lucie Tempier moved into the property. They weren't the only ones to notice the potential of Bandol, and with a handful of other producers they pushed to have Bandol recognised as a great winemaking region by basing the wines on Mourvèdre. Sought-after if still not widely known, Domaine Tempier's wines are defiantly old-fashioned: funky and difficult when young, but concentrated and long-lived, and one of the great expressions of the Mourvèdre grape. 

mourvèdre and the blends

eight Mourvèdre-based wines
Bandol is the one appellation in France where Mourvèdre is the most important grape. It produces smoky, earthy wines with bramble fruits and plays a small, if significant, role in the wines of southern Rhône. In warm Bandol, this late-ripening grape comes into its own; at the same time, however, I feel Mourvèdre is still at its best in a blend, even when the dominant grape. (This is true too of Paso Robles in California, the one other region I know of that excels in Mourvèdre-based wines.) The big black fruits, black pepper and liquorice spice, and dry tannins are best balanced by the red fruits and low tannins of Grenache and the fruity softness of Cinsault. This was the case with the seven Bandol wines I tasted: my three favourite wines had 50-70% Mourvèdre in them. This highlights the complexity and range of the Bandol appellation, with a series of grapes working together to create extraordinary wines. 

 

the wines

These wines were all tasted blind, apart from the rosé. I'm not a huge fan of tasting wines this way, as instead of being educated about the wine it becomes a guessing game. We also had to rank the wines from first to last, again difficult given the range of vintages. But the tasting highlighted the consistent quality of Bandol reds, their ageability, as well as how surprisingly approachable they can be while young.

Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé 2015

Floral, aromatic, and casually sophisticated, this is a young wine that is easy to sip on but has enough structure to continue ageing and to be paired with a range of foods, including salmon or soft cheeses. The only one of these wines not to be tasted blind. ✪✪✪✪✪

my tasting notes and ranking

Wine A: Domaine la Suffrène 1998

This was my number one ranked wine, with mature earth, game, leather, mushroom aromas, but still with fresh black fruit aromas of brambles, together with black pepper and liquorice aromas. The tannins were drying but old enough to be well intergrated. ✪✪✪✪✪✪ (#1 for me; #3 for the group)

Wine B: Domaine de la Bastide Blanche 2012

I've tasted this a few times teaching, and I again liked this wine with its smoky, toasty, floral, and blackberry aromas, the tannins not too aggressive despite its youthfulness. A good example of how Bandol can be approachable when young. ✪✪✪✪✪ (#3 for me, #5 for the group)

Wine C: Domaine de Terrebrune Rouge 2011

Founded in the 1960s, Domaine de Terrebrune also helped push Bandol into the international spotlight. Another good example of Bandol at a young stage of its development, with floral, spicy, black fruit aromas. ✪✪✪✪✪ (#4 for me and for the group)

Wine D: Domaine Tempier la Migoua 2003

From one of Domaine Tempier's most famous vineyards: this should have been very exciting to taste, especially at a perfect point of its development at thirteen years old. However, I personally found the wine disappointing and wondered if it was corked. The rest of the group loved it though ... ✪✪✪ (#8 for me; #1 for the group)

Wine E: Porvey 2015

This was the ringer in the tasting - a Mourvèdre from California. As it was only from 2015 and tasted like it had only just stopped fermenting, it was quite easy to spot. It was from the Sierra Foothills, which I do think has great potential for Mourvèdre. ✪✪✪ (#7 for me; #7 for the group)

Wine F: Domaine Tempier la Migoua 1993

tasting notes and results
On tasting these wines blind, I found this wine very similar to Wine D - it was in fact from the same vineyard - but more alive, fresh, and vibrant, despite its faded colour and nose. The palate was particularly, and surprisingly, fresh with lively black fruits and acidity together with mature, animal aromas. This wine proves how well Bandol ages. ✪✪✪✪✪✪ (#2 for me; #2 for group)

Wine G: Domaine Tempier Cabassaou 2013

This time, a little too young: Domaine Tempier, and Bandol in general, do need time to open up, especially with the drying tannins. Still, attractively floral. ✪✪✪✪ (#5 for me; #6 for group)

Wine H: Château de Pibarnon 2010

Perhaps the least interesting of the wines tasted, and the one with the most Mourvèdre (90%), with a confusing combination of high tannins, high acidity, fading colour, black and dried fruits. Neither old nor young, probably needing some more time to come together. That's the way wine can work: immediate and appealing when young; attractively mellow when old; but confused and indeterminate when adolescent. ✪✪✪ (#6 for me; #8 for the group)

Monday 20 June 2016

Fortified Wine Exam

Much has changed since I started the WSET Diploma in January 2014. Then, I was working for a wine merchants in Manchester, now I'm working at a winery in Napa. Oh, and I'm also married. That's how much time it's taken to complete the Diploma, my studies prolonged by my move to California. It was a year ago that I took the exhausting and exhaustive day-long Unit 3 exam (Wines of the World); this week, I was back in San Francisco to take the final exam on fortified wine. This is one of the few exams I've genuinely looked forward to, if only because it would mean a welcome and overdue end to studying for the Diploma. I also love fortified wine, especially sherry, but that doesn't make being examined on it any easier. I'll find out in a couple of months how I did, but here's how it went on the day.

Unlike last year when I nearly missed the exam due to a three-hour car journey caused by faint drizzle, I made the exam in plenty of time by taking the beautiful ferry trip across San Pablo Bay into San Francisco. A fellow student and I met before the exam to taste a little bit of sherry to acclimatise our palates and to steady the nerves. 

At this late stage, I don't see much point cramming information into one's overloaded brain, but most students were busy reading books when we walked into the exam venue. Given the wide range of subjects covered, it's impossible to guess which pieces of information you're likely to need to know and which you're not. For me, it was more a case of staying calm and relaxed until the exam eventually began. 

theory

The exam is 65 minutes long, with a blind tasting of three wines and three theory questions, each of which take ten minutes to answer. I tackled the theory questions first, in part to get them out of the way but also because running out of time is a real danger with the theory questions. 

Turning straightaway to the questions, I felt a sense of relief as the topics were relatively straightforward. I left the trickiest topic (Key Madeira Shippers) till last, going straight to Fortification of Sherry. This involved describing when fortification happens (after fermentation which is different from most other fortified wines), and the different levels of fortification that result in the many styles of sherry. The next question was on Rutherglen, an area of Australia I would love to visit one day and about which there is a lot to write. Key Madeira Shippers I found trickier because there are only seven independent producers plus a co-op in Madeira and production is small, so it was hard to know what the examiners were looking for. I felt that I answered all three questions comprehensively, though, and that all my studies had been worthwhile.

Students taking the exam in Europe were asked about Key Madeira Shippers, The Fortification and Maturation of Vins Doux Naturels, and Pale Cream Sherry, while students in Asia were asked about Key Madeira Shippers, Sherry Varieties, and The Fortification and Maturation of Vins Doux Naturels - all questions I would also have been confident answering.

tasting

The tasting was harder. My ideal tasting would have been three distinct styles of sherry, but as soon as I saw the bottles of wine I knew we were in for a port tasting. The question revealed that the wines were indeed from the same region; we didn't have to answer which region, but which style each wine was. And this I found very difficult: the first and third wines were a similar deep ruby colour, while the middle wine was much paler and more faded. On first sight, I guessed this was a tawny but overthought it: the colour was more garnet than tawny and although there were lots of dried fruit aromas I didn't sense the nuttiness that is typical of a tawny, so I put that it was an LBV. Wrong: it was a tawny. Always go with your first instincts - at least when you're right. The other two wines were very similar and I really didn't have a clue what style each one was. The first was complex and intense, and I guessed it was a young vintage port: it was a ruby. The third was less complex and less intense, so I guessed it was a ruby: it was a vintage port. I hope my tasting notes were accurate enough to make up for mistaking the wines; if not, I also hope my theory answers were strong enough to compensate for the tasting. I really don't want to have to do this exam again; I want this Diploma over and done with.

wines tasted

Taylors First Estate Reserve Port ($20) 

I'm going to have to seek out a bottle, because I thought it was fantastic!

Niepoort Tawny Dee (not on sale in the US, sells for £6-10 in the UK) 

used to sell this wine in the shop in Manchester, so disappointed I didn't recognise it.

Ferreira Quinta da Leda Vintage Port 1999 (again not on sale in the US, but would be around $50) 

once more, disappointed I wasn't able to spot a vintage port that's nearly 20 years old - at the same time, I didn't find it that impressive.

I'll be getting the results in a couple of months, let's see how I do ...

Update, 16 August
I just got the results for this exam. As I hoped, I passed the theory with distinction; as I feared, I failed the tasting. That's frustrating, because that's the only element of the Diploma I didn't pass. However, my theory answers compensated for my tasting and I came away with an overall pass. Which means the Diploma is done and dusted!