Wine with Andy Cronshaw
AS lockdown has continued the popularity of online tastings on platforms such as Zoom has soared.
And the increase in figures show it’s not something that only wine buffs are into.
Lidl’s Master of Wine, Richard Bampfield, has been advising people how to organise their own virtual tastings with tips about sharing the same wines and getting to know about wine terms such as tannin.
He advises people to taste a really strong cup of tea by squeezing the tea bag to get a sense of what the term means.
Over at the Wine Society, 1,200 members joined Chateau Musar’s Gaston Hochar in Lebanon for a special live masterclass via Zoom recently.
Last week, I hooked up with a relative newcomer to online retail, Honest Grapes, for one of its Wine Therapy sessions with more than 50 people.
Honest Grapes has been founded by a group of wine lovers headed by chairman and physicist Nathan Hill.
The virtual get-togethers, based around a package of wines, are becoming something of a speciality for the firm with forays into Tuscany, Bordeaux, Austria, and South Africa.
I joined the party in the Mosel region for a tasting of one of my very favourite wines, German Riesling, with Clemens and Rita Busch.
The wines from their estate are incredible expressions of Mosel Riesling with grapes taken from some of the steepest vineyards in the world.
For the event I sampled a wine from a vineyard called Rothenpfad: Clemens Busch Marienburg ‘Rothenpfad’ Reserve GL 2014.
The red slate which dominates here gives the wines a rich herbal note and this vintage is particularly luscious after lots of high humidity late in the season.
Honest Grapes have put together a Clemens Bush Discovery Case (£140) which offers six outstanding examples of the wines from this estate.
Other bottles in the case hail from legendary vineyards where vines are trailed on impossibly steep terraces on grey slate.
One of the highlights of my year wine-wise.
As trade tastings have been cancelled, buyers and journalists are meeting winemakers via online chats.
A recent online meet-up with Yalumba chief winemaker, Louisa Rose, gave some tremendous insights into the Aussie estate’s Viognier range.
Yalumba is something of a specialist in Viognier, a grape most associated with Condrieu in the south of France.
Since planting the first vines in Australia in 1980, the winery has become one of the world’s leaders in the grape.
Over time Yalumba’s winemakers realised that picking the grapes too early made for flavourless wines.
As Louisa put it, Viognier likes being in the sun and even getting a bit shrivelled like Shiraz.
The experience gained over time has certainly made for terrific wines which make great matches for rich dishes such as smoked fish, tagines and Asian food.
YALUMBA Y SERIES VIOGNIER 2019 (£8 Majestic, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, M&S)
IT’S always worth opening these bottles ahead of time to allow the floral aromas of orange blossom and honeysuckle to lift from the glass.
The palate here is juicy and fresh and the interesting label shows a picture of a young vine as part of a tribute to Yalumba’s nursery project.
YALUMBA ORGANIC VIOGNIER 2019 (£10 Tesco, Waitrose) EVEN more character here with a more pronounced classic Viognier apricot note. There’s loads of texture to the palate with a slightly spicy finish rounding off a superb glass of wine. An amazing bargain for a tenner.