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Not a term often addressed to Queen Vic - 'little' maybe, but 'beauty'? |
I just noticed that it's been 4 months since I last posted. Mea Culpa. I've been posting a lot on my other blogs and have neglected this, my original blog (started in March 2008).
I've also been drinking a lot of good wines during those 4 months and hopefully can line up the synapses to remember and report on the most interesting of them.
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To kick things off (and Happy New Year to all readers) yesterday we treated ourselves to a bottle of Sacred Hill Riflemans Chardonnay 2016. I hardly need to remind those in the know of the provenance of this wine and that successive vintages rarely disappoint but I will remind you that my partner, Her Indoors, after a couple of years living in Toronto, developed a taste for California chardonnays. Her favourite tipples from New Zealand and Australia were very rarely available in the province-controlled liquor controlling board LCBO with the best offerings coming from France and USA. American, and in particular California chardonnays dominated the shelves (the Canadian offerings were extremely dismal) and she developed a taste for the sweeter, higher alcohol wine styles. That hasn't been a problem since, in recent years, California chardonnays are seen more on New Zealand supermarket and wine shop shelves than ever before, albeit under a small range of brands and labels.
I like some styles of California chardonnay and have marketed some and have visited many producing companies but haven't found the ones I've liked available in New Zealand - Frey, Kongsgaard, V Sattui, Far Niente, El Molino, Mondavi Reserve etc. I stick to my favourite Hawkes Bay labels and, quite frankly, the more American chardonnay that Her Indoors drinks the better (for me) as there is more of my favourites left over for me to drink over the next day or so.
Anyway, as I said, last night we opened a Sacred Hill Rifleman's 2016. There's a lot going on with this wine - it's very mineral with a lot of biscuity characters along with - believe it or not - cashew nut flavours. As an experiment I filled a bowl with salted cashews and dried apricots (the wine also has an apricot kernel flavour like good cognacs have) and we nibbled these while drinking. The food/wine match is astounding. The wine is tight - very tight and we decided that it would be better tasted a day after opening. It was also stinky - very stinky with sulphur characters (not sulphide) that didn't dissipate in the glass which is why many wine writers describe it as 'complex'. We had a glass each and put it in the fridge to try the next day - today.
Tonight, on taking out of the fridge and trying again the wine has 'loosened' up a bit and the citrus and biscuit characters with that lovely apricot and cashew nut favours are more pronounced with the 'linear' and mineral notes more subdued. What wasn't subdued however was the sulphur or mercaptans.
The sulphur (mercaptan) is a natural byproduct of fermentation and is often exacerbated by 'complex' winemaking practices like barrel fermentation and ageing, lees stirring etc. Copper reacts with mercaptans and helps them dissipate.
Good old Queen Vic sorted it and the resulting wine was clean, fresh and the fruit was more pronounced.
YOU LITTLE BEAUTY!
