Make Mine a Half

Half-bottles of wine

If I had a pound for every time someone made the unfounded presumption that my job automatically gives me carte blanche to drink wine all day, I would be a few quid better off.  Contrary to the shared belief held by my family, friends and the rest of the U.K. populace, working in the wine trade does not automatically make you a consummate imbiber of all things alcoholic. This is not to say that the opportunity to immerse oneself with alcohol on a daily basis is far from hand – there are a myriad number of tastings and sample bottles continuously doing the rounds.

Despite relatively easy access to alcohol I’ve just never been a big drinker. I can’t easily polish off a bottle of vino in one sitting – sad but true – and 750mls is 375mls too much for my delicate constitution, whether it’s a school night or the weekend. Unfortunately, my problem is not halved (excuse the pun) by using my fiancée to settle the balance, as she’s 9 months pregnant.

Purchasing a 75cl bottle therefore gives me an unwanted headache (before I even put glass to mouth) and an inner dialogue weighing up the pros and cons of buying a full bottle vs a half. In favour of the 75cl option we have the wide variety of choice, something that can never be replicated when it comes to halves. The relative cost of buying a 75cl against a half also warrants careful consideration and inner discourse – if I buy a half bottle at over half the price of a 75cl am I short-changing myself? A counter argument to this, however, is loss of quality experienced by returning to the same bottle a day or two later – no amount of argon or oxygenated pumping will make the wine as fresh as when it was first opened.

At Roberson we are proud of our small but succinct selection covering the majority of regions and styles. If you want stylish Chianti to go with your midweek pizza, a First Growth Bordeaux to accompany a filet mignon or a Muscat to soothe your post-meal sweet tooth, you will find it. So if, like me, you want a wine that satisfies your craving but doesn’t give rise to the 75cl dilemma, do like I do, and make yours a half.

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Arnot-Roberts (California, U.S.A.) – An Excerpt from April’s Wine Club Brochure

Nathan Roberts, Duncan Arnot Meyers and one of their vineyards

By the mid-noughties, Californian wines had become boring. It seemed like all anyone wanted to do (with a few exceptions) was please Robert Parker and make densely concentrated, low acid wines with lashings of new oak. Anything in a heavy bottle tasted the same and the craze for these ‘cult wines’ was driving prices ever-upward. Many buyers, myself included, switched off from caring about California, but unbeknownst to us there was a small group of winemakers rallying against the massiveness. Now the revolution is fully underway and Arnot-Roberts are at the forefront…

Childhood friends Nathan Roberts and Duncan Arnot-Meyers founded their winery in 2001, after Nathan had spent years as a barrel maker (he now makes all the barrels for Arnot-Roberts) and Nathan had made wines at Caymus, Groth, Acacia and Kongsgaard.

Initially their focus was just on making great Californian wines, but when the cool 2005 vintage gave them wines in a more austere, high acid style than the region was used to, Nathan and Duncan reacted completely differently to practically everyone else in California – they loved them. Ever since then they have looked to source only cool climate fruit and minimise interventions, with a view to making wines that are pure, elegant and the antithesis of the souped-up fruit bombs that are still an all too common result of the points chasing culture that continues to dominate.

Nathan Roberts and Duncan Arnot Meyers

It was a couple of years ago that I heard about the rebellion that was starting to gather pace in California, with Raj Parr of Sandhi and Nathan and Duncan at Arnot-Roberts emerging as the poster boys for the backlash. Journalists like Eric Asimov (New York Times), Jon Bonné (SF Chronicle) and the USA’s natural wine champion Alice Feiring were talking up this new wave of subtle and understated wines, and the scramble was on to get allocations from the best producers.

I tasted a couple of the Arnot-Roberts wines while in the USA and was seriously impressed, but my attempts to get an allocation came to nothing. Then, last year, Alice Feiring gave a presentation at the Real Wine Fair about the ‘new California’ and among a group of stunning wines the Arnot-Roberts stood out as the most interesting. Again, I tried to get the wines but their 2,000 case production had sold out immediately after release. Our contact wasn’t a waste of time though, as when our shop manager Joe followed it up with another request for the wines just before the bottling, our persistence was rewarded with the first ever allocation of the wines for the UK market.

Nathan Roberts and Duncan Arnot Meyers

We were assigned small quantities of three cuvées, one of which has already sold out after a rogue salesman promised it all to one of our best restaurant clients. The others will be gone in the blink of an eye, but we made sure to put aside enough bottles of the Syrah for the members of the Wine Club.

The wine in this case is the 2011 Central Coast Syrah, which weighs in at a whopping 12.9% alcohol and is a blend of fruit from a few different plots (Nellessen, Griffin’s Lair, Alder Springs and Clary Ranch) in the cool climate zones of Sonoma and the Sierra Foothills. It is fermented using natural yeasts and aged in barrels for a year (a small percentage of them are new) before being bottled without fining or filtration and minimal sulphur. It’s a refreshing wine, both in how it tastes but most of all in what it represents – the new California has arrived.

Arnot-Roberts Syrah Tasting Notes

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Roberson at The Real Wine Fair 2013

The second Real Wine Fair took place a couple of weeks ago, on the 17th and 18th of March. We at Roberson love our natural, biodynamic and organic wines so we were really looking forward to taking part and spreading the good word about good wine. For this event, both the trade and retail sides of our business worked together to make things happen, and this was without a doubt one of my best experiences of working at Roberson so far.

Crowds at The Real Wine Fair 2013

Four of our producers joined the adventure to help us to raise even more awareness about these incredible ‘real’ wines. From the Languedoc, Lidewij from Mas des Dames kindly showed her newest vintages of Rosé and Blanc, along with her vibrant red wines – rightly named ‘La Dame’ and ‘La Diva’. Getting the new vintage in before the fair was quite a challenge – she had only bottled her 2012 vintage a few days before and there were a lot of people on tenterhooks in our office wondering if the wines would arrive in time. Thankfully, they did and they couldn’t have been any fresher, showing really well at the fair and getting lots of positive reviews.

Lidewij of Mas des Dames With Her Wines

Zélige Caravent from Pic St Loup came to show the amazing Jardin des Simples and Manouches - light and fresh red wines that will take pride of place in my cellar this summer.

The Wines of Zelige Caravent

A few tables away sat Vignerons d’Estezargues, represented by its Cellar Master Denis. He explained every step of the creation of his wines, and I particularly liked the white ‘Plein Sud’ and the red ‘Domaine d’Andezon’ (which was extremely popular with consumers and trade).

The Wines of Domaine Estazargues

We also had the pleasure of welcoming Laurence from Domaine Roche Buissiére for the first time. Mark, our senior buyer, visited the Rhône Valley last October and fell in love with her natural red wines, named after her children Jeanne and Joseph. Laurence’s smile won over everyone who stopped at her table, and we’re very excited to be selling her wines which have just arrived from France.

Laurence of Domaine Roche Buissiére With Her Wines

Having our producers pouring their own wines is one of the most important parts of the fair for us, but equally important this year was the Roberson pop-up shop. We were asked to run the retail side of the fair, selling the wines on site and for one month afterwards on our website. It was a lot of work to source the wines from everyone and have them ready to sell, but it was totally worth it to see the queues of people eagerly wanting to purchase the great wines they had tasted.

Customers at the Roberson Pop-Up Shop at the Real Wine Fair 2013

We were hoping to take turns walking around the fair tasting on Saturday, but we were just too busy! We didn’t stop from lunchtime on Saturday till long after the fair’s official closing time, but it was so gratifying to see so many people loving the wines. We were totally overwhelmed by the demand. We are selling everything through our website until mid-April, so if you missed out you still have a week or two to get your hands on these incredible wines.

The Roberson Wine Pop-Up Shop at The Real Wine Fair 2013

Thanks to everyone who made this year’s Real Wine Fair possible, and everyone who came to support these incredible producers and their amazing wines.

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Non Primeur – Bordeaux Worth Buying

As is usual whenever we have a Bordeaux-related event, last night’s Non Primeur walkabout tasting attracted a full house at our (though we say so ourselves) beautiful shop on Kensington High Street. The idea of this tasting was to provide a bit of relief from the over-hyped, over-priced en primeur wines that have become a depressingly recurrent feature of this time of year and to show that there are plenty of great wines from Bordeaux that are both lovely to drink now and excellent value.

With a room full of people and four tables covering generic Bordeaux, the larger districts and satellite villages, the top villages of the right bank and the top villages of the Médoc, there was plenty to try and lots of interesting discussion about Bordeaux and the wines in particular.

There were 30 wines on show, so rather than list them all I’ve picked out a few that really stood out on the night.

 

Confidences de Prieuré Lichine – Margaux – 2008

The second wine of Château Prieuré Lichine, supervised by the famous Michel Rolland, the Confidences was superb last night. Compared to other Margaux on the left bank table it showed great balance, with just enough (and not too much) body to make it enjoyable.

confidences-de-prieure-lichine

 

Château de Landiras – Graves – 2010

The newest addition to our Bordeaux selection, Château de Landiras is located on the edge of the Sauternes area. Although quite young compared to the others Graves present, this 2010 was (for me anyway) the best value wine in the room. At £14.95, it showed amazing complexity and a delicious fruit flavour.

chateau-de-landiras

 

Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet – Haut Médoc – 1998

Another highlight of the night on the Regional and Satellite AOP’s table, this 1998 showed very well and tasted delicious. Nice and mature, this was absolutely classic claret from Sociando-Mallet, and drinking at its peak.

 

All in all, this was a great evening that did exactly what we intended – show off the great variety, value and quality that is available in the world’s most famous wine region if you look beyond the big names. If you were thinking of investing in en primeur this year, you might want to think again. There’s plenty of great Bordeaux already out there that’s ready to drink and which now looks decidedly underpriced. Now that’s something that really is worth buying.

The next instalment of our tasting programme is in the works. Sign up at the bottom of our homepage to get updates via email.

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1995 Bordeaux: A Horizontal Tasting

Wine Glasses at Our 95 Bordeaux Tasting

Last night the scene was set for a fairly epic evening of indulgence, tasting Bordeaux wines from 1995. This was such a brilliant opportunity to compare wines from the left and right banks from the same year, and the tasting room in our Kensington shop was full to capacity with over excited and very eager winos. It was, as anticipated, a great evening with some absolute stunners – some less flashy than others but all showed amazing freshness of fruit and without exception were drinking beautifully.

I should also mention that at the end of the evening Mark proposed two votes. The first  - Which wine would those present purchase with their own money? This via some margin was won by the Leoville-Barton. The next vote was if Roberson were paying, which wine would the audience choose? This unsurprisingly went to the Mouton-Rothschild.

1995 Bordeaux - The Wines

Here are my tasting notes from an unforgettable evening.

 

Château Haut-Bailly

Pronounced truffle, smoke and blackcurrant. On the palate, full of sharp spice, tar and supple tannins. Lots of freshly ground black pepper.

 

Château Cantemerle

A  nose less pronounced than the Bailly, but with flavours of redcurrants, smoke and strawberry jam. On the palate, the texture was velvety smooth, with sweet jammy fruit and mild chilli culminating in a soft lingering finish. Classy!

 

Château Palmer

Soft red fruit on the nose and delicate oak notes. Like the Cantemerle the nose was not as pronounced as the Bailly. The palate had an abundance of coarse black pepper, cinnamon, cloves and wild strawberry fruit. Notes of tobacco with a lovely soft finish.

 

Château Leoville-Barton

Medium – light nose of strawberry and redcurrants with a hint of cassis. On the palate, soft summer fruits with amazing body and balance. Dark chocolate flavours woven together with sweet spice. Very well rounded.

 

Château Leoville-Poyferre

Liquorice spice and cloves on the nose. The palate had flavours of aniseed and black pepper with silky cloves and warming spice on the long finish.

 

Château Cos D’Estournel

Lovely orange peel and cloves with a pronounced sweet, spice and perfumed nose with some woody notes. On the palate, strong spice, pepper, bittersweet chocolate and tar. Really smooth body with a lingering spice.

 

Château Clerc-Milon

Fresh, pronounced rose petals on a very floral nose. Summer perfume notes. The palate bursts with flavours exploding in the mouth. Wonderful depth with smoky chocolate, sweet spice and cocoa. Lovely smooth body. Superb!

 

Château Trotanoy

Nose smells of lovely deep raisins, gentle spice and flavours of currants and plums. In the mouth, full flavoured prunes, liquorice, chocolate and marzipan. Nice body with a smooth warming texture, soft and silky with ground black pepper. Excellent!

 

Château Cheval Blanc

Strawberry jam, white chocolate raisins and summer compote on the nose. The palate filled with fresh, over-ripe cherries and raspberry jam – so concentrated and full on. Amazing body and balance, a wine that’s seductive and delicious. The flavours just kept emerging, with the freshness of fruit, given the age, amazing. Long finish. Seriously good!

 

Château Mouton-Rothschild

This was something else…! By way of comparing this with the wines tasted already, I imagined a parallel of being in a queue of slow moving traffic. You might notice a nice BMW, a couple of Mercedes S Classes’ or maybe a Porsche or two and have a little daydream. This, however, was as if someone had opened a door and invited you into the A-list lifestyle! Money was no object anymore, your chauffeur driven Bentley was parked and you’d been ushered inside a pampered bubble. Naturally, you had your own road – traffic, queues and the ordinariness of daily hum-drum just didn’t apply.

This was pure, full-fat, unadulterated luxury on an epic level. A nose filled with black cherries, milk chocolate and raisins. The palate so multi-dimensional and multi-layered, filled with redcurrants and fresh jammy fruit, with an amazing balance, and soft, sweet tannins. A gentle silky body, but complex with an incredibly long finish. Beautifully seductive and utter indulgence.

The Tasting - 1995 Bordeaux

As a wine enthusiast it is so easy to get seduced by the big names. The serious dosh that these wines demand, and the sheer luxury and history surrounding names such as ‘Mouton-Rothschild’ can cloud anyone’s judgement, if they’re lucky enough to ever try them!

However, sometimes in these legendary brands you find something totally remarkable – a wine with the strength and character to instantly show a non-wine lover what all the fuss is about. A wine capable of transforming anyone with its magic. Wine is all about pleasure, and there is so much joy in sharing the experience of tasting something utterly amazing. The ‘95 Mouton is undoubtedly for me such a wine (an epiphany wine as I like to call them). I would happily bet a month’s salary that if you tried it without knowing what it was, it would still make an ever lasting impression. Pure artwork and greatness in a glass.

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Old Italian Walkabout: The Wines

Three Wines at the Old Italian Walkabout

Nothing gets a wine nerd as excited as the thought of trying really old wines. Why? Because these are very rare encounters. Eventually there will be no 2010’s and 2011’s left, and with each passing year and each bottle bought and drank, each wine becomes a little rarer in the world.

We couldn’t quite believe it when we stumbled across a wine collector in Lake Como with an incredible hoard of old vintages for sale. We checked it out and found that they’d been stored with great care, so while we knew that they might not all be at their drinking peak, we were confident they would at least taste the way they should. We bought them, shipped them here, and added ‘Old Italian Walkabout’ to our Winter/Spring 2013 tasting programme.

Mark Surrounded by Old Wines

There were wines from top class producers like Gaja, Biondi Santi and Nino Negri, from many of the top DOCs in Italy – Barolo, Barbaresco, Chianti - as well as lesser known regions like Ciro, Spanna, Grumello, which were just as intriguing. The bottles were in incredible condition – most of the labels were totally intact, the corks coming out with ease. And what beautiful bottles!  Some of the labels were works of art.

Five Old Italian Wines

Getting your head around very old wine can take some time. They taste completely different than when they’re young. Rich and ripe fruits are gone, and in their place cooked fruit, leather, tobacco and earth remain. Another thing to consider is that wines from this generation were made completely differently to how they are today. Modern wines have a much greater concentration of fruit, with a smoother, more supple tannin structure. Wines made in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were intended to age and soften before drinking, so we were hoping that in 2013 some would be nicely into their stride!

The tasting took place last Thursday evening in our beautiful shop on High Street Kensington. As we expected there were stand-outs and duds. We won’t go through all 41 wines, but here are our favourite ten, and the ones that disappointed.

 

STARS OF THE NIGHT

1974 Vajra, Barolo – Spiky but leathery. Mature but still an incredible sense of vibrancy.

1974 Vajra Barolo

1970 Cabutto, Barolo – 1970 was a great year for Barolo, and it shows in this wine. A beautiful nose of dried rose petals and leather. So soft and delicate, yet retaining great power on the palate. We compared it to your favourite old leather wallet that’s pretty worn around the edges but still so soft, familiar and sophisticated!

Old Cabutto Barolo

1967 Angelo Gaja, Barbaresco – Seriously developed fruit, with leathery, tar flavours. Still an incredible structure and freshness to this wine – quite a feat considering it’s nearly 50 years old!

1967 Gaja Barolo

1978 Luigi Calissano, Barbera d’Asti – As one of the cheapest wines here (it would cost about £10 a bottle if made today), this was a revelation. Beautiful sweet oak with lots of lovely vanilla flavours. 1978 was a great vintage but this was still clearly made by an expert wine-maker.

Old Cailssano Barbera

1973 Aldo Conterno, Grignolino – So light and fresh! Lovely toffee aftertaste. This is the kind of table wine that Aldo Conterno would have had for breakfast, so to stand the test of time the way it has is astonishing.

Aldo Conterno Grignolino

1973 Pelizatti, Valtellina, Sforzato – This is a tough wine style, similar to Amarone. It’s very alcoholic but still has wonderful cherry fruits. We were impressed.

Old Valtellina Sforzato

1957 Nino Negri, Inferno – Apart from having one of the most amazing labels we’ve ever seen, we couldn’t believe what good condition this was in for a wine from the 1950’s. We think it has masculine elegance – powerful but restrained.

Old Nino Negri, Inferno

1973 Fondiara di Puglia, Aglianico del Vulture – Tonnes of cedar box and tobacco on the nose, with some sweet fruit on the palate. A real weight and presence, with an almost glycerine quality that coats the mouth. When opened it was full of toffee, but this faded a little as the night went on.

Old Italian Wines Lineup

1969 Tedeschi, Amarone – We were quite surprised to find this had a Champagne cork and cage, as it’s not a sparkling wine. This is basically an Amarone with fermentation halted to keep it sweet. We imagine the producer used a Champagne cork for worry that a second fermentation might start! Interesting style, and one for Amarone fans.

Old Tedeschi Amarone

1967 Ruffino, Chianti, Riserva Ducale – One of the stand outs of the night (if not THE stand-out). Really intriguing, bright nose. Whiff of haystacks, leather and old, dark cherries. Unbelievably fresh. This wine is like a beautiful old woman. You can tell she was a stunner in her hey-day, and she still has that spark behind the eyes! As an example of older wine this is a knockout.

1967 Ruffino Chianti

 

 

THE DUDS

1978 Marchesi di Barolo – very shy nose, has lost its flavour.

Old Italian Wines

1967 Ceretto Barolo – this is on the brink of death. Down the sink.

1964 Produttori di Carema, Carema – This one split opinion a little. It was clearly gone a bit bad, but some of us liked the Sherry-like flavours and nutty aftertaste it had developed (even if it wasn’t supposed to be that way).

1964 Enrico Serafino Barbaresco Riserva Speciale – Well past its prime. No thanks.

 Two Old Italian Wines

1977 Torre Melissa, Ciro – Just past it.

1975 Jerzu, Canonau – Corked -happens to the best of them!

 

All in all we thought it was a really successful evening, and while not all wines were top notch, it was an incredible experience to try so many from so long ago. The  next time we sip our 2010 Chianti Classico, we’ll wonder what it will taste like in 2060, and maybe even set a bottle aside to see for ourselves.

 

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San Sebastien and Taxoli

PinxtosAs the newbie here at the shop, my time is spent absorbing as much as I can – jumping in on the tastings, samples, and in general just always feeling a little lost. I’ve just come back not long ago from a short trip to the continent (as the lone American here I really enjoy calling it The Continent) which included a stay in the Basque Country of Spain around the town of San Sebastian. A warm September it was there with temperatures in the high 20’s. With weather like that red wine just didn’t seem appropriate, especially when browsing the very wide selection of pinxtos on offer in the bars. Pinxtos also known as Basque tapas, are piled high on platters from, oh, about 10am. The morning starts off with some of the town’s older clientèle enjoying a glass of beer or a txakoli and maybe a hefty slice of tortilla.

Txakoli is about the performance. It’s not poured into normal wine glasses but instead into tumblers that look like a short pint glass. The bar tender pours it from high up in the air, sometimes from over his head, frothing it up which takes away a bit of the bubbles but leaves a nice spritzy, effervescent aspect. I’m kind of a sceptical traveller and I assumed this was only for all of the tourists (we had showed up in town during the film festival) but was proven wrong on every occasion, seeing as it is just the custom to pour it with a bit of flair. Judging by the price of a glass (hovering around the €1.50 point on average) I can’t begin to imagine the quantities that this one single town must go through in a day.

TxakoliEating takes on a new meaning here as well. After spending a couple of years in Italy I thought that Italians knew how to eat (and believe me they do) until I went to San Sebastian. All day, everyday, from sun rise to sun set people were eating. Ice cream, pinxtos, cakes, tortilla, chips, hamburgers, sandwiches, jamon,etc. etc. etc. — no reference to the time of day, the weather or any other external factors, it was really an amazing spectacle. This continued well into the night, ending it seemed around 3am when people finally left and went home. In the mornings, things slumbered to life slowly — bakeries filled up, people drank coffee and had some breakfast, and then BANG back at the eating. Astonishing. And the financial crisis? It seems people there are dealing with it by consuming as much as they possible can.

It brings me around to a point about the wine. Txakoli is not really a wine that is going to change your life — unless you happen to be drinking it in San Sebastian, in a pinxtos bar, with a plate of jamon and tortilla, surrounded by people from around the world on a warm fall evening — that €1.50 glass might just make you forget about where it is you’ve come from and where it is that your headed. The atmosphere that surrounds you when you drink can make all of the difference — drinking txakoli here in London will probably not give you the same effect. When you remove wine from it’s indigenous origins, from it’s natural habitat, I think that perhaps we can loose what that wine means, what it represents. For me, txakoli will always represent San Sebastian.

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A Pontet Canet Tasting with Alfred Tesseron

Pontet Canet TastingAs you may have noticed from our tasting programme, last month was pretty full. One of the highlights came on the 19th of September when we had the great pleasure of receiving Mr Alfred Tesseron from Pontet-Canet for a vertical tasting of his wines from 2000 to 2009.

At 7pm the evening began with M. Tesseron explaining the history of Château Pontet-Canet back to the 18th century. As we tasted each wine, he also gave us an overview of his work during the year and it was fascinating to see how every vintage had a different story to tell.

Tesseron describes himself as a lucky man for 3 reasons:

  • He has wonderful “terroir” back in Pauillac
  • He has a faithful acolyte in the form of Michel Roland, who helps him to better understand his vines
  • He has a strong desire to keep improving, year after year

When he makes his wine, he takes every decision based on taste. To decide exactly when he needs to start his harvest, he eats grapes in every parcel of his domaine until they taste just right. Once the harvest is over, he will test every tank to control temperature and fermentation and will release the wines only when he feels they are ready.

Everyone in the audience had their own favourite vintage, but the room was broadly split between those who preferred the vintages from the early 2000′s and those who preferred the more recent wines. My personal favourite was the 2000 but it was fascinating to taste the variety across the 10 years.

When Pontet-Canet began to switched to biodynamic farming in 2005, many dismissed it as a marketing exercise. But after 7 years, with 40% of the domaine now being completely biodynamic, it is clear that the change is a permanent one, designed to improve quality, and Tesseron plans to continue increasing the biodynamic element each year.

At the end of a fantastic evening of great wines, all agreed that M. Tesseron was passionate about his wine and pleasingly frank about whatever issues he had during the harvest or winemaking process. I’ll leave you something he said which seemed to sum up his approach and explain the quality of the wines on show: ’Let the vintage express itself, do not try to copy an older one.’

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Sine Qua Non – An In-Depth Producer Profile

 Roberson Wine's Sine Qua Non Tasting Lineup

In advance of our much anticipated Sine Qua Non tasting tonight (those are the wines, pictured above) we’ve been very busy researching the estate and the wines (I say ‘we’, but really I mean ‘Mark’). In the course of this it’s become pretty clear that there isn’t much detail freely available out there at the moment (which is perhaps not surprising given the scarcity of the wines) so we thought we’d share everything we’ve found out with the world by making tonight’s tasting brochure available as a free download.

If you’ve ever wished there was a bit more information on this unique producer, have a read of our (OK, Mark’s) Sine Qua Non profile. It might just be the most comprehensive document available on the estate, and it’s the next best thing to being at the tasting tonight.

Full report on how those wines actually tasted to follow…

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Champagne 2012 – The Good Kind of Apocalypse

The weather in the Champagne region is not always perfect. In fact, one of my French friends (from Champagne) is the only non-British person I know never to complain about the weather here in the U.K. – which tells you just how bad it can be.

At Roberson we love Champagne and have been importing the wines of Dosnon & Lepage for  about two years. We have had great success with listing it in top restaurants and we truly enjoy drinking it on every possible occasion.

This is harvest time in Champagne and last week I was exchanging emails with Nicolas from the domaine, trying to find out how the 2012 vintage will turn out. In truly French fashion, his reply was dramatic:

‘Harvest will begin on Monday and 2012 has been apocalyptic! We had freezing temperatures from winter until the end of May which badly affected flowering. On the 7th of June we were hit by a huge hailstorm and lost 15% of our production. Loads of rain in July resulted in grapes literally rotting on the vines.’

This sounded ominous, but I read on.

‘Fortunately we had a beautiful August and September and analysing the grapes we will have a good vintage in term of quality but a poor one in terms of quantity.’

In short, the 2012 Dosnon & Lepage wines (and presumably this will be mirrored across other producers in the region) will be good but there will be 30% less of them than usual.

Being a winemaker in Champagne is obviously very hard work, and when the wine is in the bottle they still have to go out and sell it. Fortunately for Dosnon & Lepage, the latter part is easy.

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