Jefford’s pick: 10 top wines that are big, balanced and delicious
Attempting to give such wines a prominent acid balance by artificial means is another route to ‘bad’ richness, since the result usually tastes artificial and chimerical. An acid intervention of this sort, indeed, actually destroys balance, making both alcohol and oak taste all the more prominent, particularly if the tannin profile is modest. We must accept that rich, generous wines are sometimes low in acidity; indeed their low acidity may be a key part of their pleasure. A low-acid wine balanced in some other manner can offer some of the most sensually beguiling of all wine experiences.
Warm feeling
Other naturally articulated rich wines do indeed contain prominent acid levels – like rich, Carignandominated red wines from Roussillon or Priorat, especially if grown at higher altitudes. It’s also worth noting that, contrary to received opinion, alcohol is almost always a quiet note in great rich wines. I doubt that anyone who has a chance to compare 2015 Châteauneufdu-Pape with 2016 will
Domaine André et Mireille Tissot’s Château-Chalon 2010 from Jura
Domaine André et Mireille Tissot, Château- Chalon, Jura, France 2010
97
www. stephane-tissot.com An outlier in my ‘generous 10’, perhaps – but I defy anyone to taste this aromatically complex, hugely energetic vin jaune and not find it fresh, entrancing, vivacious: all those things which 15% wines are not meant to be. The only ‘warmth’ is an umami hint. Drink 2018-2026 Alcohol 15%
Dal Forno Romano, Monte Lodoletta, Amarone della Valpolicella, Veneto, Italy 2011 99
£ 182.50 Fine & Rare The strongest wine in my selection, yet this magnificent Amarone’s alcohol is barely visible thanks to its astonishing depth, texture and sumptuousness. Pressed black fruits seep with fruit essences; smoke and cinders; herbal complexities; teasing floral notes, all engraved into a palate that expresses creamy finesse but without a trace of superfluous fat, heat or obviousness. Beautifully crafted, as dignified as any grand Barolo. Drink 2018-2050 Alc 17%
Château La Mission Haut- Brion, Pessac- Léognan, Bordeaux, France 2010
97
£616.67-£665 Davy’s, Millésima Much has been made of the fact that this commanding wine is 15.1% alcohol. It comes across as lithe, energetic, vivacious and intense, curving in a high arrowed arc through the palate and leaving it, 45 seconds or more later, as fresh as when it arrived, and with all the aromatic allusiveness you’d expect: tobacco, plant extracts, incense woods, undergrowth. If there is a generosity of constitution here, it lies in the fruit: roasted plum and blackcurrant with a grilled meat edge. Arresting concentration.
Drink 2025-2050 Alc 15.1%
Dominus Estate, Yountville, Napa Valley, California, USA 2007 97
£ 105-£ 120 Genesis Wines, H2Vin &
£ 189 Richard Kihl This mature wine remains dark black-red in colour. Dark chocolate, roast meat and forest resins haunt the blackberry and plum fruits, but it’s surprisingly vital too, with ringing, resonant, ripe acidity in orbit with the flesh, soft textures and overall amplitude. Pure Napa class. Drink 2018-2028 Alc 14.5%
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Cask 23, Stags Leap District, Napa Valley, California, USA 2013 96
£255 (2014) Enotria&Coe, Great Western Wine This head-turner of a wine is saturatedly dark black-red, with irresistible scents of blue forest fruits, a pencilly freshness and a little bitter-orange charm. Intense, fresh, bright and tightly gathered, despite the intrinsic sweetness of the fruits. Perfumes float to the very end of the palate, which finishes clean and fresh: a wine of ‘invisible’ dimensions whose generosity is carried by its intrinsic grandeur. Drink 2020-2035 Alc 14.5%
Le Clos du Caillou, La Réserve, Châteauneuf- du- Pape, Rhône, France 2016 95
Quintessentially Grenache with Mourvèdre, aged in demi-muids and amphorae. Dry thyme and underbrush scents mingle with graceful cherry and pomegranate. Smoky, nutty warmth lurks behind the beguiling fruits and intricate plant essences, backed by gentle balancing tannin. Drink 2018-2028 Alc 15.5%
prefer the 2015s; the 2016s are much denser and fresher, which inevitably suggests that they are lower in alcohol and ‘less rich’ than the 2015s. Wrong. The 2016s are generally higher in alcohol; it’s just that the alcohol is a less prominent part of their constitution, and their fruit style is brighter. As always with questions of wine aesthetics, it’s the whole that matters, not the individual parts.
Trying to make fresh, light wines by picking early in sites which would naturally deliver rich wines is, in my opinion, also an error – but not one that need concern us here, since such wines will never taste rich but will rather be lean, austere and hard. There are better solutions in order to endow wines grown in ‘rich’ regions with freshness – like vineyard soil restoration, canopy work, ultra-rapid harvesting at the first moment of ripeness, ever-more fastidious fruit sorting, delicate and unhurried extraction, or the use of whole-bunch fruit for red wines or skin contact for whites.
Those suffering ‘rich-wine neurosis’ should seek a cure. The world’s climate is warming. Shifting the location of vineyards to higher altitudes or latitudes, or changing the varietal plantings of distinguished sites, will take time. Winemakers’ understanding of ‘balance’ is deepening and becoming more profound all the time. Ripe wines are here to stay – and they’re getting better all the time.