Jane Anson
is Decanter’s Bordeaux correspondent and a contributing editor
Addressed to your Bordeaux correspondent Jane Anson: do you personally buy Bordeaux en primeur? And if so, what are you planning to buy from the 2019 vintage for your own personal collection?
Nick Gough, London W2
Jane Anson replies: I do buy en primeur, and enjoy the process, but not in huge quantities because I am on a journalist’s salary! I don’t buy every year – so did not buy in 2017, for example, because this was a more challenging vintage and felt like less of a ‘must buy’ for me – but did order a few cases in both 2018 and 2019, which were both excellent vintages.
I bought Denis Durantou properties this year, because 2019 was his last vintage. He very sadly passed away in May 2020, at around the same time that we were all tasting en primeur. My purchases did not include his main estate Château L’Eglise-Clinet, but his wonderful smaller properties Les Cruzelles and Montlandrie, both of which I always love. I bought them because I knew I would not be able to have wines made directly by him again, and already know how much these wines will mean to me in years to come. They are also likely to be difficult to get hold of in the future.
For the more classic wines, I tend to buy wines such as Langoa Barton, LalandeBorie, or second wines Réserve de Pichon Comtesse and Le Petit Lion (Léoville-Las Cases) – so, winemakers that I respect, at the level that I can afford.
I keep seeing the phrase ‘clean wine’. What is this? Is it the same as natural wine?
Kath Osborne, by email
Anne Krebiehl MW replies: Clean wine is nothing but a marketing ploy that exploits consumer ignorance about how wine is made. This concept has worked in cosmetics for a long time, and now cynical marketeers are applying it to wine, declaring their product as ‘clean’, implying that it is produced to supposedly higher health standards than other wines – denigrating those in the process.
No wine is ‘clean’, because wine contains alcohol. ‘Clean’ wine cannot be compared to natural wine, which, without legal definition, usually means wine made from grapes grown with low environmental impact and vinified either without additives or with as few as possible, notably the preservative sulphur dioxide. In a way, most of these wines are far ‘cleaner’ than those purporting to be ‘clean’.
Concerned consumers are better off looking for wines that have been certified organic, biodynamic or sustainable.
I love cooking with cumin: I use it in many dishes, from chicken and lamb, through duck to fish and even my chickpea and mushroom non-meaty special! But this versatility and its amazing flavour can make it hard to match with the right wine. Can you give any advice? M Fletcher, Bristol
Fiona Beckett replies: Join the club! I love cumin too, though it’s rarely so dominant that it overrides every other flavour. Except perhaps in a lamb tava – a Cypriot dish with which I’d generally serve a dry, maybe Greek or Lebanese red.
Otherwise, the slightly sour lemony taste of cumin suits crisp dry whites and pale Provençal rosés better in my book. Nothing too fruity – it’s more about the acidity. I came across a couple of Armenian wines from Tanners recently that I think would work really well: Yerevan’s Kangun-Rkatsiteli 2018
white, which is slightly spicy itself, and the accompanying Areni-Karmrahyut 2016, a mellow red which has a bit of bottle age to it. Both are under £10 (£9.95, in fact), and well worth trying.
In general, when pairing spices, it’s more a question of thinking about the overall style of the food. Cumin is predominantly a MiddleEastern spice, so it helps to think about the kind of wines that go – or don’t go so well – with mezze and grilled meat, especially lamb. It also features in Indian food but not as distinctively. It’s not a hot spice, more an aromatic one, so needs fresh acidity rather than full-on ripe fruit.
For me, big New World reds like Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz are just too powerful. Even Sauvignon Blanc can be a bit too fruity. Oh, and although I normally go for a red with lamb, Greece’s Assyrtiko is really good for grilled lamb with cumin!
D
or 3x150cl magnums, priced at £26 per bottle and £ 54 per magnum in bond – for delivery in summer 2022.
Rathfinny co- owner Mark Driver said the scheme follows strong demand for the flagship wines and enables fans ‘ to reserve cases of our future releases’. Visit www. rathfinnyestate.com for more.