A MEDICINAL WINE?

You've heard of the expression "I'll have a medicinal whisky". I bet you've never heard "I'll have a medicinal wine".
When we have colds, sore throats etc we often resort to hot toddy's with whisky, rum or brandy in them but rarely have wine. Why is that? Is it the fact that we think spirits are better as they are stronger? Or is it because we cannot taste wine very well when we are under the weather. The fact is though that there are many more instances of medicinal wines than spirits (and yes I know about the origins of famous liqueurs like Chartreuse, D.O.M. Benedictine etc)

Wines have been used for health reasons since ancient times.

Some of these uses involved drinking large amounts to ease pain although it was often temporary and usually involved waking up to find someone had sawn an arm or leg off. A positive side effect of being drunk during amputations was that blood pressure was lowered which helped in the process.

The Ancient Greeks used wine to carry medicinal herbs and spices as curatives and restoratives. Bitterness in more modern medicines was disguised by wine.
In the early days of the Australian and New Zealand wine industry wines were promoted as containing health promoting additives and named Tonic wines. It was no coincidence that wine pioneers were also doctors e.g. Doctor Penfold. Wine was used as an antiseptic and it was common practice to wash wounds in wine before putting bandages on.

Nowadays there are many endorsements for wine as it is recognised as being beneficial to health as an anti-oxidant, a digestive aid and even prescribed as a sexual stimulant!

Recent research says moderate consumption of wine - around half a bottle a day - leads to a longer, healthier life than that enjoyed both by non-drinkers and by over-indulgers.
So, where is this leading to? I have a cold (a man's cold which is always the worst kind)and a sore throat. I am having a medicinal glass of wine (Taylors 2007 Merlot which is rich and juicy but has a softness that soothes my raw throat - yum).

SEX, SIN AND RETRIBUTION

We went to the opening of Jenufa tonight, Janacek's dark opera.
It was chock-a-bloc full of God, religion, sin, guilt, redemption(Robert would have been in his element) and the inevitable consequences when these things take over people's minds and life.
The opera started out a bit lame for half of the first act but then took off with some great performances. The sets were perfectly suited for both theme and practicality and the music was in balance with the singing and was not intrusive. I guess a lot of this was to do with the unfamiliarity (to me)of Janacek's music with no classic pop tunes coming out (I do think they could have slipped in Styx's 'Jennifer' or Donovan's 'Jennifer Jupiter' though to liven things up a bit).
re Janacek's music it is a little known fact that there are never Double Basses playing in his music. Apparently he couldn't stand them. The low vibrating noises gave him throbbing headaches so he banned them.
What has this got to do with wine you may ask? Well, not a lot but Steva, the cad in the opera was a bit of a drunkard and often had a bottle in his hand.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

I'm just taking a break from doing some tiring work and my mind wandered to winemakers names and winemaking terms (it has been a bit of a joke in winemaking circles when the winemaker is named Brett as 'brett' -brettanomyces in its varying guises is a compound that can impart complexity to wines but often is a detraction from pleasant fruity flavours and seen as a fault - Who says winemakers don't have a sense of humour then?)

Anyway I got to thinking of other names and came up with these:

MALolactic fermentation
ETHYL acetate
MACeration
HERBaceous
MATuration
FILtering
LEEs
ESTERs
CHAPtalisation
AMYlase
BENtonite

There must (pun intended) be lots more.
Send them in and win a prize.

ENOUGH'S ENOUGH

I drank some Californian Cabernet Sauvignon the other day. It was a massive Christmas pudding type of wine. The label said that it had 15.5% alc/vol. The reality was closer to 17%. The wine cost USD250 per bottle. Robert Parker gave it 96 points. Overall effect was like drinking a pan galactic gargle blaster I imagine.

Yesterday I opened a Kim Crawford SP 2007 Tietjen vineyard Gisborne Viognier. The label says 15.5% alc/vol. I suspect the reality is higher. Not quite the PGGB effect but the alcohol was annoyingly evident rendering the wine virtually undrinkable.

High alcohol red wines taste porty. High alcohol white wines take on a beer character. Neither are very attractive so why do they do it?
At wine shows and early on in their comparative tasting life the high alcohol can make the wine stand out and give it more 'body'. With some age though the alcohol remains undiluted while the other components have melded leaving a hot character.

If I want to drink a very high alcohol wine I prefer to sip a glass of sherry or port.
I don't want to be sucker punched by an innocent looking table wine.

Thor Iverson in his Oenolog blog discusses high alcohol wines for those interested.

SPAIN MAKES GREAT WINE TOO

Here in New Zealand we have made a phenomenal movement from crappy jug and quart bottle beer, watered down spirits and very ordinary second class wine to drinking and appreciating some of the best boutique beers in the world (and the two major brewers have been pressured into getting their acts together and giving us much better options),having greater appreciation of the best imported spirits (and starting to produce some damn good local ones)and producing and drinking in greater quantities some of the cleanest and freshest wines in the world.
re Wine that is good. We have greatly increased our wine consumption and awarness and nowadays a BBQ is more likely to have a predominance of wine rather than beer (even though if a lot of it is cheap and cheerful NZ and Oz wine).
But, in our wine growth we have become a wee bit arrogant, thinking that all NZ is good, all other countries wines bad. Why is this? Well, winewriter and media enthusiasm counts for a lot but also, the decline of the traditional wine merchant structure in New Zealand and the rise of the simple format- offering supermarket and surviving liquor chains is another reason. (Forget nearly all of the myriad of small operators who used to be select wine shops but are now RTD and cheap beer and spirit suppliers to our children). Thank God for the handful of serious specialist wineshop operators around the country who, whilst stocking and actively supporting the best of Australian and New Zealand wines are brave enough to offer us some of the best wines from the rest of the world. They are replicating, in a small way, the role of the traditional wine and spirit merchants of years gone by. Now any fool can research and import the world's celebrated wines. They will unfortunately be prohibitively expensive. The serious wine operator goes a bit further in his/her reserach and finds us the world's best affordable wines (and believe me there are plenty of those).
In this Post I will talk about a Spanish wine, a Rioja (North East Spain). The Rioja region is comprised of the hilly Western Rioja Alta and the flatter Eastern Rioja Baja with the Northern Alavesa. Each component of the region has different degrees of heat and cold, wind, rainfall and soil conditions. The normal Rioja is a blend of different varietals (Garnacha, Tempranillo, Mazuella and Graziano)from more than one of the regions components. There are some producers however who concentrate on one region and almost one varietal with a view to making unique terroir-driven wines.
Contino Reserva Rioja is a good example of one of these. This individual estate wine is 80% Tempranillo from a 45 hectare vineyard in the Northern Alavesa region. The grapes are fermented in stainless steel (as in New World) and matured in French and Amereican Oak (also like New world wines). The result is rich, intensely fruity and beautifully balanced wine. A treat and one of life's true pleasures. I wish we could see more of these types of wine available in the supermarkets and bigger chains who spend a fortune trying to convince us that they cater to all of our needs.

WINE AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

If we eventually discover the end of the Universe, I wonder what wine they will be drinking there?
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Universe said that the best drink ever invented was the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. As I have never tried a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster I can't compare with the best drinks I have ever had and as the drink was a kind of cocktail it doesn't count as wine.
The oldest recorded wine style is Commandaria, a sweet fortified wine from Cyprus. These 'nectar-o-the-gods' style wines have featured over the last couple of thousand years so it is not impossible that something similar could be found at the end of the universe.
The trouble with sweet fortified wines is that they are easy to drink but can end up giving you a powerful hangover not unlike that provided by the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, described by Douglas Adams as having an effect similar to having one's brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.

CHARDONNAY

Richard, a friend of mine has said that a Wine Guy should write about Chardonnay. He obviously has a poor memory because in an earlier Post I wrote that the best Chardonnay I have ever tasted was a Montrachet and likened it to a Maserati Quattroporte - beautiful, stylish but very very expensive.
Richard, who almost single handedly keeps the Australian Chardonnay industry going, discovered Chardonnay when some wag told him there was a 'hardon' in every bottle. He took it literally and is still looking for it.
Chardonnay is rightly described as being one of the classic varietals, in the first division of wine (other team mates are Riesling, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc). Some fools have recently disparaged Chardonnay and coined the term ABC - Anything but Chardonnay. I think this must have been some Pinot Gris growers somehere. Chardonnay has so many different forms that one should never become tired of it, all one has to do is look at another style or country of origin.
I am in Australia at present and have attended a Wine Event where there were many styles of Chardonnay being shown - most of them very good. The stand-out was a very expensive 2005 Grand Cru Chablis from the Les Clos vineyard which has always been a favourite of mine. Good Chablis has a flintiness or minerality about it that gives it an interesting middle palate. The second most favoured Chardonnay amongst many from Australia, France and New Zealand was 2007 Man O' War Valhalla Chardonnay from Waiheke Island. This also had minerality which gave it an extra dimension - fruit, minerality and Oak in perfect proportion - Yum!