IWSC Associate Judge of the Year 2011

The International Wine and Spirit Competition is the most prestigious competition of its kind in the world. Established in 1969, the competition sees entries from 82 countries put through a two stage judging process including full blind tasting and chemical analysis. The judging panel reads like a who's who of the wine and spirit world, and is comprised of people who excel in their fields.

Each year, small number of associate judges are selected to sit on the panels - a maximum of one per panel, judging no more than two categories over the six month judging process. As you may have guessed by now, this year, I was one of these associate judges. I wrote about the experience here (and was very pleased to see it re-published on the IWSC website).

To be selected to join one of these panels was an honour indeed - definitely something worth adding to the old CV. Imagine my surprise then, to be informed that I had been short-listed for an award: The IWSC Associate Judge of the Year. Here's what they say about the award:

The award for Best Associate Judge was set up by the IWSC in memory of Peter and Penelope Duff, who dedicated 30 years of service to the Competition.

Associate judges are selected from recent and present WSET Diploma students, with each successful applicant invited to a maximum of two sessions during the six-month judging period.

The winner is selected based on reports submitted by each of the chair judges, who are asked to offer their views on the contribution of the associate allocated to their panel.

So as you can imagine, I was dead chuffed to be in the running. Even more so when I discovered the winner would be announced during a five course black-tie banquet in London's Guild Hall. I won't keep you waiting any longer (I can hardly bear the suspense myself): I won!

The banquet was superb, and before we had even seen our seats we had been treated to a tasting of every one of the Gold and Best in Class Medal winning wines and spirits. Every event I've encountered which has had anything to do with the IWSC has been superb, and the awards evening was certainly no exception. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Burgundy Visit, 2011 - Day Three

Our third and final day in Burgundy began in quite possibly the most picturesque little town known to mankind: Meursault. As the sun rose on the town hall, this sleepy village yawned into action, the light streaming across the vineyards in on the horizon.

A short, brisk walk through the village took us to the door of Domaine Latour-Giraud, where we were met by Jean-Pierre Latour. He tentatively told us that he speaks a little English. This was the first sign of his tendency to understate: he had a grasp of the language which continues to elude many native speakers. He was similarly humble about his wines, despite being widely considered one of the best wine-makers in the region, and the winery itself was all business.

Now perhaps it was a function of the time of day (a 9am tasting is enough to challenge even us hardened professionals), but the balance of citrus and vanilla oak on Jean-Pierre's wines was quite extraordinary. The first wine I tasted (2009 Meursault Cuvee Charles Maxime) was so reminiscent of honey on toast, I felt like I could've eaten it for breakfast (please note, this is a metaphor, no need for an intervention). Jean-Pierre uses only free run juice, and ferments using only natural, wild yeasts - another great example of the regions tendency to embrace a more natural approach to wine making once again.
Our next and final stop was to Pouilly-Fuisse, in the Mâconnais sub-region of Burgundy, where we paid a visit to Nicholas Robert of the Robert-Denogent winery.

It was apparent from the moment we arrived in Pouilly-Fuisse (which is actually made up of two villages, Pouilly and Fuisse), that the area has far steeper hills then the rest of Burgundy. Closer inspection reveals a different pruning system is in place to allow airflow through these hill-top vines. In the winery, however, all of the previous revelations pale into insignificance.

Having been in the wine and spirits trade for some time now, I'm well aware of the effects of using oak to age a liquid. I'm also aware that different types of oak will work in noticeably different ways, and that even when the same species of oak is used there will be subtle variations in the way the flavour manifests itself. What I was not ready for, however, was quite how marked these variations could be. Two identical wines, made from the same grapes, from the same vineyard, which had been stored in barrels in the same cellar, side by side, made from the same type of oak should, to all intents and purposes, taste very similar. Well, we tasted two such wines, straight from the barrel, and they were completely different! I would happily believe that one had spent two years in American oak, and the other six months in French oak, but it wasn't the case. 

Of course, oak is a natural product, and as such will be prone to natural variations, but quite the extent to which two barrels can vary took me completely by surprise.

And so it was that our whistle-stop tour of Burgundy came to an end. From Chablis, through the Côte d'Or to Maconnais, we had visited five different wine-makers, each making very different wines. The lessons we learnt? Well, there was an enormous amount of technical knowledge which simply cannot be gleaned from textbooks, but the most important (in my humble opinion) were as follows:

• Terroir is important, and makes a huge difference to the style of wine produced
• Oak can vary tremendously in the effect is has on wine
• Burgundian wine makers are amongst the best (and, in some cases, maddest) in the world
• "I don't like Chardonnay" is an invalid sentence

Burgundy Visit, 2011 - Day Two (part two)

The third chapter of our trip to Burgundy took us about an hour and a half south on the A6, to the southern part of the Côte-d'Or: the Côte de Beaune.

Land here is knee-tremblingly expensive. I'm told that 1/24th of a hectare (about 400 square metres, or 20mx20m) recently exchanged hands for 900,000 Euros. It seemed almost blasphemous to walk on it.
What makes the land here so special, is that it changes so much in such a small space. Within Beaune there are around 50 different soil types, each bringing different qualities to the wines they ultimately produce. In the picture below you can see two sides of a single-width track: to the left there is chalk, to the right, clay.

If you need the effects of the terroir on the wine explaining to you, you could do an awful lot worse than spending the afternoon with Sebastian Roux, who walked us through the vineyards, bringing the wines to life as he did so.
Back in the tasting room, we were guided through some twenty-something wines: having moved further south from Chablis, there was now Pinot Noir to get to grips with as well. The tasting room was well stocked, and we worked our way through an astonishingly wide variety of wines. If you, or anyone you know, has ever uttered the words "I don't like Chardonnay", then I would argue you (or they) simply haven't found the one you like yet. Never have I seen such an array of texture, acidity, fruit and flavour as I did in that one tasting session, all from just one grape variety (well, two including the Pinot Noir, but you see my point...).

Tasting room at Domaine Roux Pere et Fils

The Pinot Noirs also showed remarkable diversity, with supple, soft tannins and ripe red fruit. Autumn was the perfect time for tasting these gems of the Côte de Beaune, but that certainly shouldn't stop you visiting Sebastian when he comes to London for the Bibendum Annual Tasting in January.

Burgundy Visit, 2011 - Day Two (part one)

Day two of our vinous adventure began, unsurprisingly, where day one had ended: Chablis. After a quick breakfast, we set about trying to find the inimitable Patrick Piuze (accompanied, incidentally, by a rather lovely sunrise).

I've been aware of Patrick Piuze for a few years now, and imagined that a brief walk through Chablis would take us right past his door - it's not that big a town, after all. The reality was far more difficult, with the lettering on his door being negligibly bigger than the words you are reading now. This, he tells us when we finally arrive, is quite intentional. "Only the post-man knows where we are" he tells us, giggling with obvious amusement.

Panoramic View of Chablis Grand Cru

Patrick is not like the other wine producers in Chablis. He is not alone in wanting to stay off the tourist track, but he is unique in his history. Patrick, you see, isn't even French. He's French-Canadian, and has followed a rather unconventional track to arrive as a highly respected wine-maker in one of the world's most highly revered wine regions. His travels have taken him through Australia and South Africa, and delivered him, thankfully, to Burgundy - and what a wonderful addition to the region he is.
Patrick currently produces 18 wines each year, and invited us to join him in tasting through the 2011 vintage, unfiltered, straight from the tanks.

The wines were, simply put, a revelation. It is always a delight to be able to taste wines in their infancy, and everyone enjoys a sneaky peek 'behind the scenes', but these wines were exciting in their own right. Never mind that they had come straight from the tank, they were absolutely stunning! In all honesty, I would never have been able to tell you these were unfiltered wines if I had tasted them blind-folded, and I can't wait to see them when they're 'finished' (which reminds me, you should come to the Bibendum Annual Tasting on January 25th and see for yourself). Without exception they were exciting, racy wines, with acidity and minerality galore, as Chablis should be.
Patrick, as a late-comer to the region, doesn't own his vines. He does, however, work extremely closely with the people who do, and even does all his own harvesting (helped by friends and family, but never machines). Because of this, he knows every inch of the Chablis region like you know the back of your hand. Or like you would know the back of your hand if you spent every waking minute looking at it. With a microscope.
He delights in showing us precisely which part of which vineyard each of his wines comes from: he know's the soil, the temperature, the rainfall of each vine, and chuckles to himself as he regales us with stories from each one. He's a character, and his wines represent him well.

If you ever thought Chablis was all about stuffy pretentiousness, you have to meet Patrick: he will change your mind conclusively.

Burgundy Visit, 2011 - Day One

On November 21st, Bibendum’s Training Team packed up and headed to Burgundy for an educational extravaganza.
Why Burgundy? Simple, really: if you can understand Burgundy, then you can understand Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from all over the world. And November is an ideal time to visit, since the sun-seeking tourists are long gone, the harvest is completed, and the wine makers are still around making wine rather than on their annual pilgrimage to various wine shows around the world.
Our first visit was to the village of Prehy in Chablis, where we met with Bernard Legland. This enthusiastic wine maker took us immediately to a beautiful hillside from where we could view his vineyards. The panorama which unfolded was stunning, as you can see below:

He then showed us around the vineyards, and took the time to show us the pruning technique he employs to ensure the right amount of sunlight and air movement is afforded to his grapes. Moving into his tasting room - a wonderful cellar which I am extremely envious of - Monsieur Legland was kind enough to take us through a range of different vintages from the various parts of his 15 hectares.

It was clear, even with my basic grasp of French, that for Monsieur Legland, Chablis is defined in the main by two things: acidity, and minerality. The terroir is so important in Chablis, and the best wine makers allow it to speak as clearly as possibly. I'm aware that I risk sounding like a wine-bore here, but it can be seen obviously when you look at his vines. 10 - 15 years ago, the vineyards here would have looked very different. The vines were the same (literally, the ones pictured above are 30-60 years old), but the spaces in-between have changed vastly, as a result of a change in viticultural practice. Herbicides and pesticides are a thing of the past now, so grass and weeds grow quite freely in and around the vines. The emphasis now is on interfering as little as possible, and simply allowing the ground and the vine to work together to produce great quality fruit (which is, obviously, all Chardonnay grapes since we're in Chablis). I say 'simply' somewhat inaccurately here: though the concept may be simple, in practice it is actually far more difficult! Bernard is an extraordinary chap, making extraordinary wines, and I'm very pleased that I am now familiar with both.

Bernard Legland will be in London displaying his wines at the Bibendum Annual Tasting on January 25th, 2012 - just let me know if you'd like more details.