A hike around Barolo villages

We had been waiting for this trip for 15 years, after that first bottle of Barolo at our anniversary when we were wine dunces and had no idea what to expect. I won’t say that bottle of Barolo changed my life but it certainly opened my eyes to the world of wine.

Our recent holiday in Barolo was an indulgent five days of wine, food and all things good about Italy. The best thing was that this was not a business trip. It was a holiday with my husband only, so no visiting wineries every hour. For me, it was the ideal way to appreciate Barolo and its wine, much better than being shown from winery to winery. We stayed in a small B&B, La Giolitta, in the village of Barolo which only has an 800+ population. The hostess was knowledgeable and arranged for us to visit three great wineries—without anyone knowing that I am from the trade. They were Mascarello Bartolo (fantastic wine, available from BBR in Hong Kong; I had met the owner, Maria Teresa, before, so it was like meeting an old friend), Giuseppe Rinaldi (family owned traditional Barolo, not easy to get hold of), and Gianni Gagliardo (decent wine with a good restaurant, but I would have loved a chat with the winemaker himself). We also dropped by to see Chiara Boschis (Azienda Agricola E. Pira e Figli), a modern Barolo winemaker with vision (wine available from Heritage Wines).

And we made a last minute visit to Marchesi di Gresy in Barbaresco, thanks to arrangements kindly made by its distributor, Roddy from Wellspring Wines. The chief winemaker is Kiwi Jeffrey Chilcott. We had an intensive tasting and lively discussion for over two hours—and it could easily have been a lot longer if not for the football match that he had to watch!

On our first day, we hiked a loop from Barolo to Novello then Monchiero, Monforte and back to Barolo—18km in total, walking through both cru and lesser vineyard areas, as well as the hazelnut plantations and small remaining patches of indigenous woodland. The soil is so different from plot to plot, and by observing the conditions of the vines I could see why one was a cru vineyard and another not (or at least not suitable for Nebbiolo). The sophisticated thing about this hike was that we didn’t need any packed lunch or energy bars. We could take a break at every village for a snack, gelati and ... of course... vino, and we even saw a parade of old motor bikes on their Sunday outing at Montforte. Better still, we felt guilt-free after the long walk and tucked into an absolutely delicious dinner of brasato al Barolo (beef braised in Barolo) with a bottle of ... uuh ... Barolo and more... for dinner that night.

We were there at the end of June, just before the summer crowds, so it was remarkably quiet and everyone was very relaxed. The light at that time of the year is fantastic. We drove around the hilltop villages in the late afternoon from 4:30 to 7pm, capturing the best lighting for photography.

Now, back in Hong Kong with all those fond memories of Barolo and two dozen of its wines not available in Hong Kong. It may be a selfish thought but I do hope these Piemonte villages will not become swamped by ‘wine tourists’. We would love to go back to its tranquility.

More photos here.

A 160 year old Mourvèdre

It is not easy to find a 100% Mourvèdre as it is invariably part of a blend. So when Dean Hewitson decided to conduct a vertical tasting of his Old Garden Mourvèdre, it certainly attracted the attention of sommeliers and wine writers.

What is even more unique is that Old Garden Mourvèdre is made from the oldest Mourvèdre in the world. Planted in 1853, the vines are 160 years old this year. Dean decided to celebrate this with a vertical tasting around the world: Australia, London, New York, Shanghai and Hong Kong. He started making this wine in 1988. 2010 is the latest release but he brought along barrel samples of the 2011 and 2012 vintages. A line up of fifteen 100% Mourvèdres was an impressive sight.

The older vintages are mellow with a lingering length and backed by fresh acidity, somewhere between a Gran Reserva Rioja and an aged Barolo, while the younger ones are concentrated, spicy, and surprisingly elegant at over 14% alcohol. The finesse comes from a combination of factors: the age of the vines, the soil and the climate.

Mourvèdre is a late ripener and therefore ideal in hot climates as it only ripens by the beginning of autumn rather than in the heat of summer, thereby retaining acidity with a perfect balance of both sugar and phenolic ripeness. The vineyard is dry farmed, with roots penetrating some ten metres deep into the ground, which is sand over limestone for water and nutrients that help provide evenness in the wine. Being 160 years old, the vines bear few but highly concentrated fruits. There are only eight rows of plantings so you can imagine that production is limited. And it will keep reducing gradually as the vines get older and bear even less fruit.

Dean doesn’t own the vineyard, and he is smart enough to allow the owner, the sixth generation of the Koch family, to tend the grapes for him. After all, the family has been looking after these vines spanning three centuries since 1853 so they should know what is best for them. Dean is also pretty much hands off at the winery. He experimented with different percentages of new French oak in the past few years to strike a perfect balance with the fruit but has never done anything radical, preferring to let the wine express itself. The one arguably radical thing he did was to switch from cork to screwcaps in 2002, but he believes this is for the better.

This was truly a unique tasting. One can easily find vertical tastings of Bordeaux or Burgundy covering two decades, but one of 100% Mourvèdre? You don’t come across that too often.

Hewitson Old Garden Mourvèdre is available from Kedington Wines.

Muscadet, a treat with seafood on Lamma

Not sure if it's just me, but this summer somehow seems hotter than usual. It’s not only the temperature but also the brightness of the sun and the humidity, so that even when I walk into an air conditioned room I still feel the heat dragging me down. No wonder I didn’t taste any red wine at all at the Sopexa French Wines Trade Show.

I might have missed some fine reds but I did make a superb discovery: Muscadet from the Loire. Made from 100% Melon de Bourgogne (or Melon), the wine is neutral and light bodied. Yet its crisp, marine freshness makes it a perfect summer drink—who wants a heavily perfumed wine at 30ºC? Even chic ladies sometimes trade their makeup and designer shoes for an afternoon on the beach!

I tasted the full range of Muscadet from Domaine Ménard-Gaborit. The wine, with its saltiness, kept reminding me of the sea breezes and salty air of the outlying islands like Lamma and Lantau. What a wine to go with the al fresco seafood at those places! Muscadet is an outdoor wine, great with fresh seafood and good company. There is also an oak-aged Méganome Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie that has a rounder and slightly nutty palate. In fact, Muscadet is the favoured pairing with oysters back in Nantais where the wine comes from.

This again illustrates the point I keep making: wine doesn't need to be expensive and exclusive. An average Muscadet is less than HK$150 a bottle, and I can promise you that this wine will give you more pleasure with Lamma or Sai Kung seafood than a Bordeaux that may be ten times the price. I told Monsieur Maxime Lavolé, owner of the winery who is seeking an importer here in Hong Kong, to ask his eventual distributor to focus on these outdoor seafood enclaves. They would make a fortune!

Sadly, wine from the Loire, let alone Muscadet, is not yet popular in Hong Kong. I reckon this is more to do with fame and price than quality. A hot and sweaty Hong Kong summer definitely needs more Muscadet to tone down the heat and accentuate the freshness of the seafood.

Celebrate the summer with Joiy

At last, an extremely user-friendly wine of decent quality that doesn’t scare off new drinkers!

Joiy is a sparkling wine made from 100% Riesling from the Waipara region in the South Island of New Zealand. Its refreshing and fruity style (think floral, citrus and honey, aromas of a Riesling!) with only 9.5% alcohol is perfect for an aperitif in summertime or alfresco dining. It reminded me of spritzer (white wine soda from Austria), vinho verde (the petillant white wine from Portugal with about 10-11% alcohol), tinto de verano  (red wine with water or soda in ice from Spain) and even Fanschop (draft beer with Fanta orange from Chile).

What is great about this wine is its packaging. It is fun, unpretentious and easy-to-understand. Inexperienced drinkers who are unfamiliar with wine labels are often confused and many simply give up and have beer or soft drinks (God forbid!) instead. In a way, we wine people have ourselves to blame as we often, rightly or wrongly, heap all the technical terms and jargon we know on these poor souls. Wine is for enjoyment; we should not put pressure on newcomers who want to share our passion.

Joly's 250ml size and screw cap makes it a very convenient drink. Winemaker Chris Archer even showed me photos of consumers drinking it with a straw. And why not? I can see this as a gateway to the world of wine. Didn't we all drink Babycham before we moved on to Champagne?

But Joiy isn't just for the entry level consumer. OK, it is not a complex wine that requires the ritual of breathing, decanting and using an appropriate glass, but its quality is definitely better than a lot of wine in the market. I would have no hesitation to grab some for a boat trip or beach outing rather than resorting to gassy beer or cloying soft drinks. Ali Nicol summed it up quite nicely in his article, ‘It’s girly; but I like it!’

Let’s let our hair down and enjoy wine in a casual and cheerful way once in a while. Wine doesn’t need to be serious all the time.

Joiy is available from The Crush.