ALMAR – MENDOZA – ARGENTINA

Mendoza is a province in the Argentine Republic, and it is at 34° latitude South and 68° longitude West.

From the Andes Cordillera in the West, uninterrupted and wide with great heights such as the Aconcagua, the highest peak in America at 6,959 metres. To the East, there is a flat and arid region, with low hills and valleys where the vineyards of ALMAR thrive.

The semi desert-like climate, the sandy soil and the average annual rainfall of 250 mm, produce optimum conditions for the vineyards. The orientation of the Andes Cordillera (North - South) favours the formation of the so-called Zonda wind, characteristic of this region.

Arboleda's vineyards' short distance from the cool Pacific Ocean and elevation are the key geographic factors that influence the temperature patterns in the Aconcagua Valley. The source of the Arboleda grapes comes from two self contained estates within the valley. A stunning hillside property some 40 kms inland was acquired and planted in 2000 with a selection of red grape varieties. This property was named “Las Vertientes” due to its natural springs of water. Winemaker Edgard Carter was born in Santiago in 1976 and graduated from the Catholic University of Chile with degrees in Agricultural Engineering and Enology. President Eduardo Chadwick began his wine career in 1983, aged 23. Following his graduation from the Universidad Católica de Chile with an MS in Industrial Engineering, Eduardo joined his father Alfonso Chadwick Errázuriz at the family owned Viña Errázuriz.

Named from the fusion of the Spanish for quality ‘calidad' and land ‘tierra', the philosophy of Caliterra is to make the best vinous expression of the Colchagua terroir. Based around a 1,000ha estate, (250ha planted to date) the winery is situated in the heart of the valley in a self-contained site giving control over all the stages in the winemaking progress. The Caliterra team combine new technology with the natural environment such as the use of precision viticulture, new hillside plantings and sustainable vineyard management, to craft quality varietal wines.

In Champagne there are 17 vineyard areas classed as Grand Cru. Avize is one of these, situated plumb in the centre of the Cote des Blancs, and specialising in Chardonnay.

Vallee de la Marne grows a bit of all the three grape varieties - Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. Montagne de Reims specialises in Pinot Noir. Not forgetting the Champagne vineyards further south in the Aube.

The level of artisan-ness makes Sebastien at Domaine Tour Trencavel look positively industrial, but because of the high (and rising) prices of Champagne you can make a living with very little land....as do Andre Tessier and his wife Francoise in Avize. As one of my customers said "It's like having a small garden pond filled with sturgeon."

Tessier-Pagel (André Tessier married Françoise Pagel). Both had inherited small vineyards from their parents and so Tessier-Pagel was created. The tiny 2 hectare estate is planted entirely with Chardonnay (it is after all mainly in the Cote des Blancs, Grand Cru status!) from these 2 hectares he produces around 9,000 bottles a year which is just about as much as a husband and wife can do on their own without employing anyone else.

Andre plants, prunes, riddles, labels, packages it all himself. He needs help from the family with the harvest and a mobile bottling machine comes in to bottle it all up. Otherwise, Francoise does the accounts and monitors the fax machine (no email or internet here).

They have one small outlying vineyard just west of Bisseuil which is of mere Premier Cru status, but as befits a man who keeps work to a minimum, Andre sacrifices any mention of Grand Cru or Premier Cru off the labels. He would have to have two different labels and the accompanying bureaucracy, so he just leave both off. Placing his 9,000 bottles a year of Grand Cru/Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs is not a problem, so such detail is irrelevant. His wine speaks for itself - five years on the lees (two years more than the minimum needed even for Vintage Champagne) this NV Blanc de Blancs is as rich and complex as its label is plain and simple.

Andre and Francoise are going to make the 2008 vintage and then pass over the vineyards to their children - one hectare each (just the land, not the bottle stock). He will then spend the next five or six years selling his stock, keeping back just enough for domestic consumption! So when it's gone...it's really gone.

A 150 acre estate near the Carmargue in the “Costières de Nîmes” Appellation Contrôllée area. It was bought in 1998 by a very dynamic lady called Diane de Puymorin who set about creating a “real wine”.

The soils are similar to those of Chateauneuf du Papes with large “galets”, or baked potato sized pebbles which absorb the sun’s heat during the day and give it back overnight. This produces wines with greater alcohol, so typical of Chateauneuf, and they also use the same grape varieties; principally Grenache and Syrah (or Shiraz as it is also known).

Here’s another of those Châteaux which stopped me in my tracks and made me smile with pleasure when I tasted the wines.

The Vincent family settled on the hill (La Mothe) in the 1920s and so Lamothe-Vincent came into being. Brothers Fabien and Christophe now run the 80 hectare estate together and are producing a small range of super wines.

In the close-knit world of small, passionate wine producers in the south of France I have been lucky enough to be introduced to many estates which would otherwise have been undiscovered my me. Xavier Ledogar at Domaine Grand Lauze is just such a one, introduced by Sébastien Fabrié at Domaine Tour Trencavel.

Xavier with his wife Sandrine and brother Mathieu (still helped by father André) have a 22 hectare vineyard in the heart of the new Boutenac Cru of Corbieres which has been in conversion to organic status since 2006. Two thirds of the vineyards are planted with Carignan and Grenache vines aged between 60 and 120 years and on top of the hill, graze their four donkeys which can be heard for miles when they get excited! Harvesting is all done by hand and Xavier's 96 year-old grandfather still joins in as well as doing the pruning.

This is a story of a terroir based between the Gironde estuary and the Marais poitevin.

Domaine Delaunay was established in the middle of the last century by Joseph Delaunay in the ‘Grande Champagne' area of the Cognac district.

In the very heart of the estate, amongst the chalky hills we have selected some small vineyards to produce quality red wine with Merlot.

The 2005 vintage is a full blend Merlot and was given exceptional care:

- Hard pruning to limit the quantity of grapes/production

- Harvest by hand allowing a rigorous selection of only the healthiest grapes

- Ageing in oak barrels.

This wine has a dense and rich colour, intense aromas of red fruits, powerful and well structured in the mouth with a delicate touch of oak wood.

The family commitment is the production of a limited number of bottles of quality wine, Domaine Delaunay is the first red wine produced on the chalky hills in the very heart of Cognac.

Domaine du Clos Roca is a small 44 acre estate near the old town of Pézenas in the south of France. (Pézenas is to Molière what Stratford-Upon-Avon is to Shakespeare).

The soils are very diverse, as is the variety of grapes planted – Syrah, Carignan, Mourvèdre, Alicante, Grenache, Merlot, Cabernet (and a tiny parcel of Sauvignon Blanc!).

Jean Christophe and Stéphanie Michaux are both fanatical about quality and are making wines to reflect the ‘terroir'. Their vineyard philosophy is somewhere between ‘Organic' and ‘Biodynamic'. The reds are unfiltered so throw a deposit and all benefit from decanting before drinking if possible.

2003 was Jean Christophe and Stéphanie's first vintage, so we are joining them at the very beginning of their venture – can't wait to see how these wines mature. A case of each is very securely cellared under our stairs marked “do not open until 2010”

www.closroca.com

At the Vinisud wine fair in Montpellier this year I selected only two wines from over 1000 producers whose wines I tasted. Les Hauts de Força Réal was one of the two which screamed out at me!

Força Réal, as the name might suggest, is in the French bit of Catalonia, 20 kms to the west of Perpignan down near the Spanish border. The Domaine covers 170 acres of which 100 acres are planted with vines. Cropping levels for Les Hauts de Força Réal are below one ton an acre and the wine just oozes quality.

When they bought this estate back in 1989, Jean-Paul Henriques and his son Cyril decided to re-name it as there were literally dozens of other Mas de la Garrigues. The Domaine was completely refurbished and extended, the Chais re-build from scratch and the vineyards completely re-planted. They had a vision and money to back it up. Everything about this estate oozes class; from the first glimpse you get of it perched up on the Força Réal (the mountain which now gives its name to the estate), the meandering drive up the mountain to the Domaine, the view, when you turn to look back, over the plain with the Med. to your left and the Canigou Mountain in the distance on your right, the Hauts de Força vineyard carved out and planted in 1989 on the shistous soils of the mountain just above the winery, the immaculate barrel room with neat rows of barrels all with that creamy vanilla smell of new oak. You think; “well if the wines live up to this…….” Let me assure you, they do.

The top wine is the Hauts de Força 2003 which is a specific parcel of shistous soil further up the hill from the winery. Like Sébastien with his Livinière, Cyril also has a blended wine which encapsulates the style of the Appellation – La Linea is a beautifully crafted red with classic Roussillon.

Back in 2000 Sébastien Fabrié took over the Estate from his grandfather who had been selling the wine to the local growers' co-operative.

Situated half way between Carcassonne and Narbonne, Sébastien thought the wines were too good to be blended away at the co-op so he decided to do his own thing. Part of a small, but growing band of enthusiastic visionaries Sébastien has produced a Minervois of stunning intensity and individuality – ‘terroir'. His 54 acres are planted with the traditional local grape varieties (cropping at less than one ton an acre!) – Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre for the reds and Roussanne with a little Chardonnay for the whites.

Sébastien's ‘Lo Cagarol' barrel-aged red stopped me in my tracks at the Vinisud wine fair in Montpellier this February. Head and shoulders over more than 1000 producers from the area, it was one of only two wines I picked as being top wines to represent the area.

www.domaine-tour-trencavel.com

El Huique (pronounced Weekeh) means “valley where the birds sing”.

The property has been owned by the Echenique family since 1795 and “San Miguel del Huique” is a unique example of a traditional colonial “Hacienda Chilena”. The family founded the winery in 1930.

During the early 1980s the estate suffered serious earthquake damage and the winery was completely re-built as state-of-the-art.

El Huique is located in the Colchagua Valley 200 kms south of Santiago and is surrounded by mountains and hills, and watered by the Tinguiririca river.

Website www.elhuique.com

Hacienda El Espino's owner, Francisco Milan (Paco), started out in the ‘80s as a sales rep. for a shoe company. Almansa is well known in Spain for shoe production. Eventually he set up his own factory and commercialised his own shoes and brands. By the turn of the century, he had three shoe factories exporting all around the world.

Being a native of Almansa and wine enthusiast, he decided to plant his own vineyard, as in Almansa until 1995, the D.O was represented by only one winery. In the 90´s, he bought 700 hectares of land (the site of the Battle of Almansa in 1707) and bit by bit set about planting it with corn, potatoes, onions, fruit trees, almonds trees and olives trees, …and of course vines and a bit of horse breeding.

There are 230 hectares of vineyard. When he started he wanted to plant International varieties as Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet. The first plantings were made in 1999. To supplement these “traditional” varietals, and being one for a challenge, he decided to plant some Petit Verdot, Pinot Noir and the only white grape of the vineyard: Chardonnay. One year later he planted Garnacha, Garnacha Tintorera, Tempranillo and Monastrell.

The estate is about 100 kms north of Alicante with its own special micro-climate dominated by “El Macizo (or Massif) del Mugrón” (see picture above) and a stoney limestone soil giving a real personality to the wines.

Hacianda el Espino dedicates its “1707” range to the Battle of Almansa of that year which was decisive in bringing the Duke of Anjou to the Spanish throne as Philip V.

www.haciendaelespino.com

Louis Fabre and his sisters are the latest generation of a great winemaking tradition dating back twelve generations here in the heart of Corbières. Most of our new wines come from personal recommendations from other winemakers whose wines we adore and whose opinions we respect. So, no surprise then that Christophe Pippo first introduced us to Louis Fabre and that Sébastien Fabrié of Domaine Tour Trencavel spent a six month placement here as part of his winemaking training.

Louis Fabre owns Mas Viel (of Pinot Noir fame)as well as Château de Luc in Lézignan-Corbières conveniently situated between Carcassonne and Narbonne.

I first met Miguel Merino back in the ‘80s when we both had more hair (is that why he cut his photo off at the top?) and I was buying Rioja for Grants of St James's. Miguel left Bodegas Berberana to develop Navarra wines just north of the River Ebro where his force of personality was instrumental in putting Navarran wines on the international wine map. Now he has realised his dream of owning his own Bodega and producing his own wines - fewer than 40,000 bottles a year making him one of the very smallest Bodegas in Rioja.

We decided to ship and sell Private Preserve because it is the only method of conserving a half-opened bottle of wine that I have come across which I think works.

The vacuum pumps I have tried in the past (for both wine and freshly-ground coffee) always leaked after
a few days and, worse still for the wine, I found an unpleasant rubber smell on the first glass from the rubber seal.

So, here is a simple consumer gadget straight from “best-practice” modern winery techniques; a “gas blanket”.

It is the oxygen in air which spoils the wine. A squirt of nitrogen into the bottle (and replace the cork) displaces the oxygen and forms a perfect seal against oxidation. As long as you don't shake the bottle about it will be as fresh as the day you squirted it for weeks or months, let alone the next day!

Less than 7p a squirt – a small price to pay for half a bottle of fresh wine, and a major weapon in the fight against middle-class binge-drinking on wine!!!!

So, who else thinks it's the one to use?

“It works! Le Test Score: 9 out of 10.”
La Revue du Vin de France, November 2005.

“I have found Private Preserve to be a brilliant device, the best I've tested.”
Malcolm Gluck, Superplonk.com

“One dozen wines tested: Over the course of eight weeks the quality of the samples remained excellent due to the use of Private Preserve.”
Dr. Peter von Weymarn, Owner of Freiherr Heyl zu Herrnsheim winery, and Physicist from the Max-Planck-Institut.
“The best wine preserver I've tested is PRIVATE PRESERVE… half bottle of cabernet left for six months… still fine when I finally reopened it.”
Dan Berger, Los Angeles Times

The CANTINE SACCHETTO wine-making company is located at the point where the provinces of Treviso, Padua and Venice all meet in a small town called Trebaseleghe.

The company was founded by the late Sisto Sacchetto who set up his vineyard and wine-making trade in the early 1920's. The change into a more productive and structured reality took place in the 1980's at the hands of the second generation. Filiberto and his son Paolo still handle the selection of the wines with respect for the values linked to the land and tradition. Any innovation or modernisation introduced to the winery has always been carefully planned from every point of view, with the aim of improving the quality of the product and the production process; in the choice of skilled staff of expertise; in the search for suitable packaging for each product and, finally, for a specific and diverse marketing strategy.

Verus, or "Verus Vinogradi" to give it its Slovenian title is a truly remarkable outfit; a young and dynamic phoenix (comprising three of the nicest and most talented people you could wish to meet)risen from one of the large ex-state wineries in Slovenia.

PANGEA is defined as one super continent. A united land, an extensive valley, an eternal ocean... 250 million years ago the sea floor spread and Pangea broke up into the continents we know today.

Pangea is the perfect expression of two continents joined together; renowned Australian winemaker, John Duval working with Chilean winemaker Felipe Tosso and premium Syrah with "terroir" attitude from the Apalta vineyards of Viña Ventisquero in Chile.

John Duval was Penfolds' winemaker for 29 years (1974 to 2002) and Chief winemaker responsible for their iconic Grange from 1986 to 2002.

In 1989 he received the Robert Mondavi Trophy for the Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London. In 1991 and again in 2000 he was named Red Winemaker of the Year in the International Wine Challenge in London. In 1995, the 1990 vintage of Penfolds Grange is named as the Wine of the Year by the prestigious Wine Spectator Magazine from United States.

Felipe Tosso joined the team at Viña Ventisquero in 2000. Owner Gonzalo Vial had poured $50 million into creating a brand whose wines expressed the unique characteristics of Chile, and wanted Felipe at the helm. Since 2003 he has been working on the creation of premium wines with John Duval. In November 2006 they finally reached the epitome of excellence launching a limited production of an icon wine Pangea.

Amazingly Villa Maria was only founded in 1961, but has grown to be New Zealand's most successful privately owned producer, achieving extraordinary results in competitions worldwide.
George Fistonich - Founder of the company remains the dynamic driving force behind Villa Maria. His hugely passionate enthusiasm and tireless dedication to the New Zealand wine industry earned him the title Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit - the equivalent of a knighthood.
Alastair Maling MW is the Winemaker. One of only a handful of Masters of Wine in New Zealand,.
Villa Maria owns and manages vineyards in Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Gisborne and Marlborough. Increasingly important are some of the single vineyard sites such as Taylor's Pass, and Richmond Brook.
“Non-Intrusion” is the philosophy, allowing the flavours of the fruit and the character of the vineyard to be expressed through the wine. Fruit and terroir in perfect harmony? Bring it on!!!
The varietal wines Single Vineyard wines express the terroir and vintage characteristics of their particular microclimates. They are one-off parcels with limited production, not necessarily produced every year.