GoS – for all your cork-doll needs May 17, 2012

I posted these photos on Instagram / Twitter last week but then I thought I may as well put them up here too, seeing as that ‘cork-man’ is the first thing I’ve made since primary school. To be honest, I don’t even know if I made anything there either, I’m just assuming.

I’d been dumping corks on top of a kitchen cupboard for the past while, not really knowing what to do with them but thinking them too characterful to throw out (obviously synthetic and composite went straight to recycling).

Once I’d amassed a decent enough number (some weeks later – abstemiousness is a curse) I placed them as mulch on the soil around one of my potted grapevines. But not only did they look contrived but – obviously – mulch helps to retain moisture in soil, a great thing in Morocco or Death Valley; kinda counterproductive in saturated Ireland.

It was then that I had one of those flashes of inspiration I get just once or twice a year – make a doll out of the corks! I could use that superglue I bought at Christmas to stick back on my wing mirror, booted off by some oik on his way to the White Lady.

Bringing the cork-man into existence took barely an hour but wasn’t without its challenges – no longer can my wife say that she has never had to Google, ‘how to unstick superglued fingers’. Gluey digits and all I was giddy thinking about how excited my kid – who loves new things – would be when she woke up from her afternoon nap and saw it.

Her eyes did actually widen, at first, and she took it enthusiastically from me, before jettisoning it on the couch seconds later. ‘Oh’, I said teasingly, ‘I can throw it in the bin if you don’t want it?’

I’ve found threatening to throw things in the bin to be an effective way of rekindling children’s interest in all manner of things and, sure enough, she turned on her tiny heels and went back to the exquisitely-crafted toy, picking it up and continuing on out to the kitchen with it without a glance back. ‘Where are you going?’ I demanded. ‘I throw in the bin’.

Kids get things too easy these days, that’s the problem.

So anyway, okay, she didn’t really like it, but it’s still a great doll – a great concept. I don’t really want to say too much, but plans for ‘Cork-Man 2G’ are already well under way – I may even be hawking some models on this site in the future (‘monetizing’, they call it). But just by way of a teaser I can reveal that in the newest designs I use superglue only for the torso, but cocktail sticks for attaching the limbs – the eerily-lifelike way in which the barky figurine can now move is really something. You can rotate the arms only 3-4 times before they fall off for good, but, as far as I know, the early iPhone weren’t perfect either.

Notes From Down Under (Pt. 3 / Riesling & the Clare Valley) May 10, 2012

THE WSET GROUP RIESLING MASTERCLASS took place in Taylors, Clare Valley, whose wines trade under the Wakefield name in the northern hemisphere (so as not to antagonise Taylors the Port house). The 14-wine flight is summarised at the end of this post.

Class presenters were the twinkly-eyed, genial Adam Eggins – chief winemaker at Taylors – and Jeffrey Grosset (pictured, below) – ‘The King of Riesling’ (another wine king!) – who, for me, seemed to personify (young) riesling: austere, lean, steely, and exhibiting lifted notes of lime blossom and citrus.

In the discussion we heard that petrol notes in riesling should be considered a fault (Michel Chapoutier said the same thing last year, resulting in one of my more memorable tweets: “Chapoutier: Bubbles in Champagne ‘not quite right’”. You had to be there), often as a result of sunburnt grapes or some other vine stress. Not that I’ve detected much petrol in riesling over the years (the many I’ve drunk have tended to be young-ish) but I would see its presence as unwelcome just because petrol really doesn’t smell nice – I always feel a bit woozy and violated after filling up at the station.

Grosset, like Bruce Tyrrell before him, has little time for cork as a closure (the APCOR people would get very dejected if they spent some time travelling around Australia talking to winemakers). His own screwcap of choice is slightly permeable, allowing an ingress of oxygen that is roughly equal to that of a high-quality cork. But without, I suppose, the risk.

After the session we were given the option of accompanying Grosset around his vineyards for a talk or embarking on the Riesling Trail, a bike ride traversing the handsome Clare Valley. A half ‘n’ half split resulted and I found myself in the saddle (pictured, bottom) for the first time since 2000, when I abandoned my two-wheeler outside the UCC library after finishing my final psychology exam (Q: Do dogs salivate when they hear the bell? A. Yes, but why would you want them to?).

I can confirm the old maxim is true: you never forget how to ride a bike – though your lung’s memory for efficient breathing is definitely compromised as time goes on.
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In terms of an Aussie riesling recommendation I’m going to indulge myself here and go for a Bubble Brothers wine, but it is truly superb: Mount Langi Ghiran Riesling 2006 (€18 | Grampians / Henty): showing amazing freshness and vigour for a six year-old white; mandarin, kiwi, exotic spice. Just brilliant.
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Here are some Aussie wine events coming up in Ireland between now an the end of May.

May 17 | ★The Riesling Revolution★ | The Grain Store, Ballymaloe -> Three top riesling regions together for a unique tutored tasting. With Carl Ehrhard (Rheingau), Tim Adams (Clare Valley), and Séverine Schlumberger (Alsace). €25. Ph. 021 4652531 or email res@ballymaloe.ie, colm@ballymaloe.ie, or ireland@wineaustralia.com.

May 23 | ★Frankland River tasting★ | L’Atitude 51, Cork City -> Frankland River is one of the 5 sub-regions of Great Southern in Western Australia. Sandy and Rod Hallett of Alkoomi Wines (imported here by Wines Direct) will talk folk through their wines from 6.30pm to 8pm. Tickets €15. Ph. 021-2390219, email info@latitude51.ie .

May 28 | ★A+ Australian Wine Trade Tasting★ |The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin -> Contact John McDonnell on ireland@wineaustralia.com for info.

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WSET Group Riesling Masterclass wines (March 2012)

1. Grosset Polish Hill Riesling 2011 (Clare): tight, minerally, citrussy.
2. Grosset Springvale Riesling 2011 (Clare): softer, more tropical.
3. Mount Horrocks Watervale Riesling 2011 (Clare): (no notes taken!)
4. Jim Barry ‘The Florita’ Riesling 2011 (Clare): light spice, white pepper.
5. Bay of Fires Riesling 2011 (Tasmania): tropical fruit salad, lime, nettles, gunflint – like a sauvignon!
6. Frankland Estate Poison Hill Riesling 2011 (Frankland River): tropical, soft, appealing – my favourite?
7. Taylors St Andrews Riesling 2010 (Clare): talcy, orange scented.
8. Tim Adams Reserve Riesling 2008 (Clare): searing acidity, lemony, super-lean.
9. Peter Lehmann Wigan Riesling 2006 (Eden): quite gentle, citrus peel, fine acidity.
10. Taylors St Andrews Riesling 2005 (Clare): (no notes)
11. Mount Horrocks Watervale Riesling 2005 (Clare): peachy, honeyed, citrussy – generous.
12. Crawford River Museum Release Riesling 2005 (Henty): mellow, gorgeous honey and toast.
13. Jim Barry The Florita Riesling 2004 (Clare): quite mature.
14. Taylors St Andrews Riesling 2001 (Clare: (no notes)

Un-plain Sailing. April 25, 2012

There was a comical mishap earlier when I misread an email and turned up to Kinsale Yacht Club instead of Crosshaven Yacht Club for a Chateau Minuty tasting in association with its Irish importer Rosé Wines Ireland.

I had sped home from work, ironed my pink shirt, changed into my special cream shoes, and bombed it up the hill to the local yacht club in perfect time for the seven-thirty start.

To be honest, the girl there couldn’t have had a blanker expression when I mentioned a wine tasting. I called RWI’s Ciaran and he reiterated what his email had said: the tasting was on many miles away at a different boating fraternity.

Ah well.

Seeing as I was there and all I asked the girl if regular folk could normally access the KYC bar which, it must be said, has very nice views of Kinsale harbour. “Well, not really”, she said, “But you can if you’re a guest of someone who’s a member.”

I considered this briefly before deciding that I would probably need to invest in a hipflask (I had one before but I misplaced it on a night out in Gorby’s) and maybe stroll up to Scilly plateau myself and sit on that bench if I wanted to enjoy a quiet drink while gazing down on James’ Fort and the Kinsale seal.

So, anyway, no Provence rosés for me tonight, sadly. But I did manage to get in two pinks this week – hailstones, gales, and awful floods notwithstanding: this cerasuolo, and the Champagne-method Italian sparkler (Franciacorta - maybe you’ve heard of it?) below, as well as a burly red and a light white. Such diversity!

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1. Los Frailes ‘Efe Barrica’ DO Alicante 2008 -> 13.5% ABV -> organic grapes -> RP €12 -> Mary Pawle Wines -> Full-bodied blend of 80% monastrell (mouvedre) and 20% cabernet sauvignon. Distinctive, spicy nose of cedar and baked blackberry / raspberry, leading on to a smooth palate featuring silky, unobtrusive tannins, and satisfying cassis and prune flavours. Throws a light sediment. Seems to be in its prime now. ★★★★

2. Villa Dria Colombard-Sauvignon IGP Côtes de Gascogne 2011 -> 11.5% -> RP €10-€12 -> River Wines -> {sample} -> Another 80/20 split, this light-bodied but intensely flavoured, uncomplicated French white is full of zingy acidity, wet stones, and lemon and Granny Smith flavours. Very like a good Touraine. Great advertisement for colombard, a workhorse grape used also in Cognac and (as a very minor component in everyday) white Bordeaux. ★★★

3. Lo Sparviere rosé Franciacorta DOCG {sample} -> 13% ABV -> RP About €40 -> N/A in Ireland -> 100% Pinot Noir -> Part-fermented in oak. Deeply coloured, with fairly large, assertive bubbles. Raspberry, redcurrant. Rich, fruity, full bodied. A bit too punchy? ★★★

Dodgy credit cards, a jammy header, and some good wines. April 16, 2012

'Even criminals know who I am' - Annan

It finally seemed like web sales were blowing up last week at Bubble Brothers, before the unhappy denouement turned out to be that all the impressive looking (but odd in hindsight) transactions were with stolen credit cards. Before the fraud came to light I actually had cause to speak on the telephone with one of villains and he was as nice a fella as I’ve encountered; during our five-minute chinwag we even managed to get in a mini-discussion about former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

I suppose the two things I learned from the debacle, which rumbled on for much of the week, were that tricksters can still have okay knowledge of international politics, and that the purchase of 12 half-bottles of Port in April should be seen as a red flag.

It looked on Saturday like the week was going to end on a minor high after my team Everton went one up and seemed to be heading to the F.A. Cup Final for the first time since 1995, before a second-half equalizer from a back-pass attempt my wife would have executed better followed by a humdrum flick-on five minutes from time sent them tumbling out to a minor team from below them in the league.

Here’s what I’ve been supping of late.
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Little Beauty Gewurztraminer (Marlborough), 09 {sample} -> Wine Alliance; RRP €20-€22 -> Thinking man’s lad’s mag Esquire describes this as heady and spicy, slightly smoked and gloriously complex, while celebrity chef / flawed-namer-of-children Jamie Oliver pours it at his Cornwall restaurant Fifteen. I found it to be textbook gewurzt from Eveline Fraser, former head winemaker at Cloudy Bay. Aromatic, buxom, and luscious, with ripe flavours of orange oil, honey, lychee, guava, and jasmine. Off-dry (12g/l residual sugar), and long. Caution is advised though as it obliterated my (admittedly feeble) white sole, so match it with more forceful foods (creamy curries, paté). ★★★★

Other interesting ones I’ve had this month include Bubble Brother’s new organic mauzac from Gaillac (€16.50 / savoury and apple-peely food wine for the more involved wine drinker), Wakefield’s Jaraman Cabernet Sauvignon 04 ★★★★ (€20 / beautifully mature now – prune, cassis, coffee. But I never knew Australian producers could list two regions – Clare Valley, Coonawarra – on a front label; surely ‘South Australia’?) from 1601 Off-License Kinsale, and this single-estate, lees-aged, organically-farmed (though not certified, again), surprisingly-round, lovely Pouilly-Fumé 09 €16.99 €12.99 ★★★ my mum brought me from O’Briens.

Finally then, a few samples from new-ish importer Distinctive Drinks: Leteo Rioja 10 ★★★ (joven, Beaujolais-like, exuberant, and offering exceptionally easy drinking, though hardly classic Rioja), Leteo Rioja Crianza 08 ★★★★★ (opulent, plush style with toasty oak and ripe flavours aplenty – I really loved this one), and the zesty, relatively rich Tresolmos Rueda 10, ★★★ which was a star match with monkfish in Asian butter sauce made from my Fishy Fishy cookbook.

Notes from Down Under (Part 2 / Hunter Valley, Semillon, Bruce Tyrrell) April 4, 2012

Tyrrell Vat 1 Semillon 2012 tank sample - lemongrassy goodness

"It got six-out-of-twenty; the spit bucket would have got eight" - Tyrrell

The Hunter Valley, two hours NW of Sydney, was Australia’s first viticultural area to be planted (1825) and is today renowned for its singular semillon (zingy lemongrass when young, honeyed toast in maturity – ‘a wine of two lives’) and – to a lesser extent – its restrained style of shiraz.

Books always say that the Hunter is warm and humid with lots of cloud, so no one could have been surprised when we arrived to find it warm, humid, and cloudy. More of a thunderbolt was that the locals pronounce the ‘l’ sound in ‘semillon but not the ‘z’ in ‘shiraz’. You get used to it after a while.

The first masterclass of the trip was semillon with wine-world luminary Bruce Tyrrell (3rd cousin of top Aussie wine critic James Halliday), who was always good for a line. “If you find a winemaker that wants to fiddle with semillon, shoot him”, he told us was a local saying, meaning, I think, that only a dunce-winemaker would attempt to oak semillon, encourage malolactic fermentation, or use fancy yeasts to ferment it. The trick for Hunter semillon (and Clare riesling), he said, is to pick at the right time and keep the ferment clean – the day you pick the grape is the single-biggest determinant of quality.

He described the change from cork to screwcap as the best thing to happen to Hunter Semillon (and also refrigeration – back in the day they used to add ice to the ferment) as the slightest taint will stand out “like a dunny on a ridge”, adding that he has “no faith in the cork industry as a quality supplier.” Under screwcap his semillons can age for 50+ years, apparently; with cork they become increasingly hit and miss as the years go by.

Hunter semillon is always pretty low in alcohol – 10%-11% ABV (my mother will never take to it). With alcohol much higher than this, acidity drops dangerously and the wines become hot, hollow, and flat. The Hunter is phylloxera-free; Bruce has messed around with rootstocks for non-phylloxera reasons before but the trials have never worked out.

You can see the wines we tasted in the panel there to the right. The things that stood out for me were the huge taste difference between young and old semillon (not sure which I prefer) and the clear organoleptic variation across the single-vineyard semillons. Peter Lehmann’s Barossa rendition was soft but good, the Xanadu (which included 5% sauvignon) was totally different from the rest of the flight, exuberant, passionfruity, and simple to understand. Noble One was of course stunning.

Thwack golf ball into Hunter Valley - check.

Semillon masterclass lineup

After the masterclass and some epic Tyrrell-made sandwiches I was all set to check into the hotel for a beer from the miniature fridge and an afternoon nap but instead three local winemakers kidnapped the group and took us in Jeeps on a winding spin up to the Hunter’s highest point. Myself and the Korean woman rode with this guy and we all had beer en route – I can’t say what happened in the other vehicles.

As we ascended, the weather deteriorated and it was pure Ireland-style conditions at the remote, deserted summit. I thought maybe we’d be killed here and our bodies dumped over a gully but, in fairness to our Australian hosts, they just gave us more beers, local wines, and golf clubs to thwack balls off the ridge into the misty Hunter Valley below.

As a non-golfer, I was quietly ecstatic with my shot insofar as the metal stick made good contact with the dimpled white ball and drove it into the verdant valley at an angle that was only moderately askew. The Australian representative’s shot blew everyone else’s out of the water though (sadly, he was first), while the fella pictured – whose punt was more than respectable – is Gary Hewitt, Mr. Winnipeg (Canada).