Ogier Clos de L’Oratoire Chateauneuf du Pape, Southern Rhone, France.
June 1, 2013 
Grapes
80% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 5% Mourvedre, and 5% Cinsault
Facts
- It’s been a little-while since I last had/reviewed a bottle of CdP (what the cool kids call it…or at least…what I call it). Chateauneuf-du-Pape isn’t for everyone – its intensity and “tertiary” flavors certainly take some getting use to – but I’d probably put it up there as my overall all-time favorite French wine region.
- Seven generations of winegrowers have tended to the vineyards Ogier uses for their grapes, since 1780. The Ogier winery itself was founded in 1859. The one thing you can say about the French, is they know how to “do” history!
- The Clos de L’Oratoire label has remained unchanged since it was designed in 1926.
- The Ogier Clos de L’Oratoire Chateauneuf du Pape spent 12 months of its existence in oak “foudres.” These massive wine barrels are of an undefined size, but usually are between 4000-8000 liters in capacity. Each barrel holds enough to fill 5,000-10,000 bottles of plonk.
- All the wines from Ogier are made from organically grown grapes, but it’s not something they brag about. You’ll find that with a lot of French producers; namely, they aren’t in a big hurry to plaster “ORGANIC!!!” on the front label of their bottles. The polar-opposite of their New World counterparts. For Ogier, they’re just making wine the way they always have, and not simply to cater to Portland-dwelling-carrot-munching-tree-hugging-20-something-hipsters. It’s a small demographic after all…
- 91 points in the Wine Speculator and 93 from the Wine Enthusiast (I haven’t come up with a “creative” way to twist their name yet…but I will)
Posted in Reviews | Tagged Chateauneuf du Pape, Cinsault, France, Grenache, Mourvedre, Ogier, Rhone, syrah | Leave a comment //
Big Alcohol Gives Wine Lovers a Headache.
June 1, 2013
Article from The Asian Age (..the source of ALL my wine news..)
Do those New World Cabernets and Zinfandels make your head spin? Fed up with having to stop drinking after just one glass?
Plenty of wine lovers around the world will have noticed their favorite tipples are getting stronger, and many of them are unhappy about the hangovers that come with increased alcohol levels.
But it seems they have only themselves to blame as experts say that changing consumer tastes are mainly responsible for driving the trend. Wine critics and advances in winemaking techniques also shoulder some of the blame for what experts say are unbalanced wines that can cause health risks and safety issues, casting a pall over the pleasure of imbibing.
“The rise in alcohol content of wine is primarily man-made,” reported a working paper by the American Association of Wine Economists in 2011.
Click here for the full article from The Asian Age.
My Thoughts…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There’s a time and a place for high alcohol wines!
I don’t think we’re in any danger of seeing wine stores dominated by wines with 16%+ alcohol wines, but this “high octane trend” does seem to be quickly filtering down to grocery stores and wine lists of chain restaurants.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I myself used to be a big fan of these “monster” wines; but now they give me a hangover after just a few glasses.
As my wine drinking has evolved, I let “subtlety and elegance” take the place of “high alcohol” and “crazy fruit extraction.” I’m not saying that’s the path everyone should take…actually…that’s a lie…that’s EXACTLY what I’m saying! In-fact the sooner drinkers can appreciate wines that don’t “let it all hang out,” the sooner they’ll realize that many of the wines they used to love…well…all taste the same.
With said, the success of brands like Mollydooker and Orin Swift didn’t come because they make subtle and restrained wines. U.S. wine drinkers DO love some “guts” to their juice; at least, that’s what I’ve found, but personally these bottles just don’t float my boat the way they used to.
Posted in News | Tagged High alcohol wines | Leave a comment //Taken: The Wine Bottle Warning Device!
May 19, 2013
Have you ever had a bottle of wine “Taken?”
Introducing the Liam Neeson “Taken” wine bottle warning device!
Simply print and cutout the template below, and hang it on any bottle you don’t want your friends, family, roommates, house guests or friendly Eastern-European terrorists to touch. It’s sure to send the right message!
Kupljen “Spirit of Svetinje” White Wine Blend, Jeruzalem, Slovenia.
May 16, 2013
Grapes
34% Chardonnay, 33% Renski Riesling, 33% Pinot Gris
Facts
- Ahhh yes! There’s nothing better than getting home from a hard day’s graft ( after staring at a computer for most of the day) than to kick off my shoes, and reaching for a bottle of Kupljen “Spirit of Svetinje” from the Jeruzalemsko-Svetinjske hills of north-eastern Slovenia…
- Ok, so that’s a lie. Firstly, I mainly work out of my house, so my shoes are pretty-much off all day. Secondly, this happens to be the first bottle of Slovenian wine which has ever entered the Chislett household; and indeed, the first which has ever graced my lips.
- The first thing that caught my eye, was that this bottle’s an ‘03. For a white wine, that’s usually not a good sign. Usually the stuff you find in the bargain bin at the local liquor store.
So I jump onto the Kupljen website, half-expecting to be told the current vintage is in-fact 2012 (or something similar). Nope! The current vintage is in-fact 2003….I sure-as-hell hope that the nice people at the Kupljen winery know what they’re doing here…
- Luckily for me (and you), the nice people at the Kupljen winery have actually been making wine – in one form or another – since 1836….so they’ve had plenty of practice. Little-did-I-know, the wines from this particular region of Slovenia are famed for their aging potential.
- The Kupljen winery is a family winegrowing estate, with winemaker Jože Kupljen (no, I can’t pronounce it either) launching the Vino Kupljen wine brand in 1976.
- Renski Riesling: It’s kind-of like Riesling, but not….
- Oh, you want more information than that!?!?! Well, Renski Riesling tends to be more aromatic than the more common “straight-Riesling” grape, showing lots of acidity, as well as peach, apricot and mineral notes.
The World in Wine – INFOGRAPHIC
May 16, 2013
Wine infographic brought to you by: www.wild-grapes.co.uk
EVERYTHING Pairs With Pinot!
May 9, 2013
Sauternes – Ain’t Nobody Got Time Fo’ Dat!
April 30, 2013
Even though Bordeaux remains the Old World wine of choice for many with new money to burn, their tastes are no-doubt changing.
When people think of Bordeaux, sweet wine is more than likely the LAST thing on their mind!
Sauternes and Barsac, in the Bordeaux region of France, make a very different kind of wine than people have come to know Bordeaux for; namely, sweet and white. But growers in the region have slowly started to move away from producing sweet whites, after they’ve seen it fall out of fashion with the general public.
“It’s sad because Sauternes has never been better,” said Andreas Larsson, a Swede who won the “Best Sommelier in the World” competition in 2007. “But that’s the way the world is going. There’s no market for sweet wine.”
Adding to the woes of Sauternes was a disastrous 2010 vintage, in which some of the top properties, including D’Yquem, decided not to make any sweet wine at all, saying the grapes lacked the necessary concentration.
What is different now is that some chateaus are giving up entirely on sweet wine, and outsiders are moving in, looking to make dry wines in the area.
Olivier Bernard of Domaine de Chevalier, which produces some of the greatest dry red and white wines in Bordeaux, from the Pessac-Léognan appellation, said “Sauternes is one of the greatest white wine terroirs in the world, for sweet or dry wine, but what the market wants now is dry wine.”
Click here for the full article from the New York Times.
My Thoughts…
I always have the hardest time selling/tasting people on sweet dessert wines…actually…let me rephrase that: Wines in the “dessert wine” category are no problem to sell, it’s more their levels of sweetness within that category.
Not all dessert wines are created equal, and people have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Moscato and Sauternes are in the same category, since they have very different levels of sweetness.
I guess what bugs me is that I keep reading these articles from numerous “well-respected authors/sources” saying that tastes are changing and people are gradually moving into drier styles of wine. I don’t know where they’re getting their information, but I couldn’t disagree more! The recent Moscato craze should help to – at least partially – backup my theory.
As with most of these “issues of taste” in the wine industry, I put it down to educating the consumer i.e. no-one knows what to do with Sauternes! Do you drink it like table wine? Do you sip it like brandy? Do you pour it over your ice-cream? What do you do with it?!?!
Those, at least, are the problems I personally see from my time spent “in the trenches” (and by ‘”trenches,” I mean running a wine bar…)
I hate to say it, but this story is just another example of French wine producers wailing “Woe, is me!” after they have rested on their laurels, struggled to move with the times and failed to continue to educate wine drinkers on their product.
Wine consumption is at an all time high. There should be no excuse for slow sales of ANY wine category. Problem is, now that Sauternes producers have dug themselves into a hole, digging their way out is going to be quite the struggle. On second thoughts, maybe they can convince a rapper to write a song about it! Hmmmmm….now let me think….what rhymes with Sauternes….???
Posted in News | Tagged Bordeaux, France, Sauternes | Leave a comment //← Older posts
