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2009: Wine in Context - Your Turn

I've reviewed the year, and declared my top wine moments of 2009. Not ust the best wines, but those wines that showed best in a certain context. Wines that made life just that little more special, or accompanied a fabulous, thought-provoking or maybe even tragic event. Here are the first four submissions - with more on the way - from Winedoctor readers. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Send me your best wine moments of 2009, and I will post them online (I am assuming your consent for that!). Email them to me here.

I will return to updating Winedoctor next week, so please enjoy whatever festivities you have planned over the next few days, open some good bottles, and most importantly share them with family and friends. Merry Christmas! (24/12/09)

Let me ask you something before I tell you my wine moment of 2009: what wine got you irreversibly hooked? I still remember mine (a 1990 Amarone from Masi) and I’m sure you do too. It was such a revelation, after a few years spent sipping wine here and there without paying much attention as all young man growing up in Italy are bound to do. So, flash-forward ten or so years to today, I'm married to a wonderful French woman and under our belt we have great memories from wines from all over the world, including a vertical of Yquem, extensive merlot tasting topped off with a Petrus 1970, ditto for Cabernet Sauvignon and Mouton 1955, ice wines from Ontario from when we were living in Montreal, Canada, to a fantastic Dom Perignon and Cheval des Andes dinner at Elbow Beach Hotel from our time in Bermuda, and recently several Greek varieties as I’m now living in Athens, Greece. We actually got in touch with a nice wine club here called Oineas and we just received our first order for the new cellar we’re setting up as most of our stock had to go since we moved several times. Some of my constant favourites are Chateau Musar, Cheval des Andes, and too many from Alsace to mention, but the bottom line is there is nothing like a first time revelation, right?

Wrong. My best moment in 2009 was actually last night and it was thanks to a East India Solera from Lustau which we paired with foie-gras over toasted bread. It was our first Sherry and it definitely was a revelation quite similar to my first Amarone. It was a familiar yet indefinable experience at the same time, challenging and stimulating in a way that was new to us. All that alcohol to harness! All that rich “juiciness” to deal with before being able to grasp the subtle flavours. I felt like a total newbie! How cool is THAT?? Boy, am I glad we ordered several Sherries from bone try to sweet, via very rare olorosos and palo cortados. I feel like I’m 20 again, and have just discovered a new land to explore and I have little or no clue on how to do it. And that, my friend, is PRICLESS and definitely my 2009 wine moment.

All the best and keep it up.

Thank you Camillo - it looks like the brilliant Sherries of Lustau have found another fan. It's a fabulous moment when you regain, even just for a brief second, that wonder you experienced with your first ever wine revelation - Chris.

Wine in context 2009 for me was sitting on a bench in our garden one evening last summer watching the swifts diving around catching insects while sipping a glass or two of Trimbach’s Gewurztraminer Vendage Tardive 1990. A magical half hour spent quietly contemplating both the wonder and beauty of the natural world at the same time as marvelling at the skill of the winemaker and the savouring the astonishing liquid in the glass. I have often been stopped dead in my tracks by the wonder of nature – but very rarely by a wine. This was one of these exquisitely rare moments when I was stopped dead by both.

Thank you for sharing this Philip - I think this has to be on of my favourite submissions, a moment when wine and life intertwined. Superb! - Chris.

This is my personal top five for 2009:

1. Kanonkop Estate Paul Sauer 2005
South-African wine with a Bordeaux blend (70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% of Cabernet Franc and Merlot), it remained for 25 months in new French oak. It was obviously still very young but already very accessible and this will get better with age. I didn't drank any very expensive Bordeaux this year, but this was the best Bordeaux blend wine I drank this year, this is at the level of a 2nd Grand Cru Classé. (18-18.5)

2. Naledi Cabernet Sauvignon 2000
Again a South African wine, a bit of a surprise to me because I'm not such a great fan of their wines, this wine is made with help of Alain Moueix, it is a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon on French oak, very powerful and in a way still very young and fresh, strong acids and a long finish, this is my style of wine and offers an excellent quality/price ratio. You have to drink it during a two-day period, already from the third day on there were well marked signs of oxidation, even with vacuum conservation. There's no urge to drink it right away, it still has some years ahead of it. (17.5-18+)

3. Tenuta di Nozzole Chianti Classico Riserva La Forra 2006
I drank three different Brunello's this year, but my best Tuscan wine was the La Forra. It gives a good indication of the excellent 2006 vintage for the Tuscan wines. It came as a surprise that it was already so good at only three years of age. It's 100% Sangiovese. What a long and pleasant finish, it remained brilliant during the whole four-day period I drank it. (17.5-18+)

4. Château Brown 2005
As a Bordeaux lover there has to be some in my list of course. It wasn't the best Bordeaux I drank this year, but certainly the best under 20 Euro. I'm a huge fan of Pessac-Léognan, so I'm afraid I'm not completely neutral on this subject. I drank it on two occasions. The first time was in the beginning of the year, than it surprised me by its quality, the second time was a couple of months ago and than there were already clear signs that it was entering its dumb stage, so don't touch this for the moment. (17)

5.Château de Carlmagnus 2005
By far the best Fronsac I ever drank, also the highest alcohol percentage I ever noticed in a Bordeaux : 15.5%, but it wasn't alcoholic at all, a great wine for around 15 euro. (16-16.5+)

I think I didn't quite got the right idea of the thing you ask the readers to do: sorry about that, I just looked at my wines of 2009 and not the drinking circumstances.

No problem Kris, all submissions welcome. Certainly a good line-up of wines, and it's great to see the someone recognise good value in Bordeaux rather than just swooning over the big names (which we are all guilty of from time to time I think). Thanks! - Chris.

Thank you for sharing your wine experience – Winedoctor has been a great pleasure for me and also a great source of valuable information.

Speaking about wine and special moments – for me it was opening the bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape Chateau Saint Andre 2005. This bottle in fact reflected the way I have passed in some three months of this year – from person, who has some initial experience in wine to person who has considerable theoretical and, of course, practical interest. It all began with the birth of daughter in August – this is the moment when you know your habits will change a bit and you will spend some more time at home rather than going out to gym, cinema, book shop and other likely places. I have been drinking wine before, but my interest was never very deep and when I bought something I always avoided French wines – their etiquettes were too complicated for me. Yes, in that time I was already discovering wines that I find truly beautiful – Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc form Marlborough for instance – but it was more coincidence than regularity.

One day in early September, when I was reviewing my conversation with a sommelier from great restaurant Vincents in Riga, from where I come from – he regarded my request for new world wine as a company for dinner with respect but made a presumption that I, given my interest, will definitely explore the old world and especially French wines. I was thinking about this and suddenly it all struck my mind – that I will definitely find out much interesting things about wine, I will finally be able to understand wine and, besides - what would be more beautiful than spending cold winter evenings with the glass of good wine and daughter? And so I began to explore and it went forward fast. In the alcohol boutique, were I was buying the likes of cognacs and whiskies before, I started to buy wine and every time it was possible I held a long conversations about wines and shared many opinions. I was reading some wine books and also found “Winedoctor”. And, of course, I was drinking wine.

However, in the early stage of all this exploratory process one thought was in my mind: what if all of this is fake – I mean that there is no real distinction between the quality of wine and behind all those fancy bottles of Margaux, Pauillac and likes there is no real taste and pleasure and it is just ordinary wine with good PR and marketing and that’s why it costs so much more and chills in the menus of fancy restaurants. But of course the only way how to find out was to taste. And so I opened the bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape Chateau Saint Andre 2005, I tasted it and – I really felt the difference. So it was somehow very bright moment for me – I am not saying that if this wine was bad I would quit the wine world. But since it wasn’t it was a great purpose to dig in deeper. And that’s what I am doing and will definitely continue to do.

Thank you indeed Eric - it seems as though this bottle was very confirmatory for you...and it sounds as though you are just setting out on what is sure to be a long and very rewarding journey. Welcome on board! - Chris.

Wine in Context moments don't have to concern only great or expensive wines to qualify, it's the context that I'm looking for! So send me your best wine moments of 2009, and I will post them online (I am assuming your consent for that!). Email them to me here.