2009 Darjeelings (6): Autumn flush

As the first 2010 flush for Darjeeling tea is approaching, it seems fitting to summarise my feelings about 2009’s last, autumn flush. Autumn Darjeeling tea rarely gets any hype, and the tea lover’s attention usually focuses on first or second. I enjoy the former’s finesse and crispness, and the latter’s complexity and full-flavoured summer fruitiness, but I like the autumn teas quite a bit. With their herby, earthy depth and stronger oxidation, they often feel a bit more serious and no-nonsense than the summer flush where the sweet muscatel flavour can get rather repetitive. That’s my feeling, at least. 

In any case I’ve enjoyed these eight teas that were sourced from online tea merchant Thunderbolt. Benoy Thapa is doing some great job on the internet including the very comprehensive company website as well as an informative blog and good activity on Facebook. Benoy also provided some exacting tasting notes on all these teas (click on the links to see these, and the excellent photos), so I’ll merely share my personal impressions. 

All teas were brewed several times including competition style (2g / 100ml) and large glass pot (250–300 ml with dosage ranging from 2.5 to 5g). 

Arya Clonal Exclusive [DJ125] 

A well presented long twisted leaf, moderate fragmentation by Darjeeling standards. Dark brown leaves, modestly tippy. Aroma of dried herbs with an almost caramelly, milk-chocolatey sweetness. 

Glass-brewed with 4g, 2m30s: A peculiar tea, on the high end of oxidation, a little earthy, with autumnal, unsweet, not-too-fruity substance. But has a roundness and dimension of whole(ish)-leaf Darj that’s inimitable. Moderate colour and medium body; astringency is virtually non-existent. 

I actually liked this brewed lighter on less leaf, when it reaches a rounder, more almondy, less earthy expression: a round, soft, very balanced tea. This is very good not great, and although one of the pricier teas from this batch it’s actually fairly honest at $14 / 100g.

Arya FTGFOP1 [DJ107]
Standard machine-processed fragmented Darj leaf, not tippy but with a few unoxidised greenish leaf bits. Aroma is perhaps more nutty and chestnutty than usual. Warmed leaf is bready, sweet, less herby. Brewed leaf is rather green; some proportion of twigs. 

Brewed in glass pot (4g/250ml) this has a medium beige colour, a mild, fleshy, vaguely muscatelish aroma that is simple but good, and a mild balanced flavour with no special merits but pretty good quality for its fragmented leaf. On the finish there is a hint of dryness, atypically for my brewing regime. In fact it’s easy to overbrew, though even when quite bitter and drying on the finish it generates a sweet yun sensation. In a word this has a bit more guts than others autumn flushes, and is very good indeed, especially at $7.
 
Castleton FTGFOP1 Tippy Clonal [DJ312]
A very conservative fragmented leaf grade, negligible tips, generic black tea & brown bag aroma. This is a bit less exciting to look at than other teas on this tasting. 

Brew has a nice colour, not too dark. A little summer-flushy in character with a ripe red fruitiness of red apples. Just some grip on end, even with a longish brewing. No muscatel: mostly baked apples and nuts. This is wholesome but a little generic and while not a pain at $7 / 100g, lacks a bit of personality to me.

Giddapahar China Delight [DJ58]
Similar grade but even less distinctive than the Castleton TPY CL above, smaller and brownier leaf. 

However in the cup it is a different animal. You can push this quite far, the colour is not very dark and profile is better than expected. A light-bodied, grapey, sweet-fruity muscatelish style, broad and full on the palate (these characteristics are emphasises in a longer brew) but untannic, and even the autumnal herby character is very low. The fruit character and the suggestive muscatel note are really appetizing. Very good tea, and a bargain at $5.
 

Goomtee Light Clonal Tips [EX26] 

This, together with the Margaret’s Hope tea below, is quite different from the other teas in this batch in consisting of very well-handled large, wholish hand-processed leaf vaguely resembling a baimudan white tea, including silvery tips, brownish thin huangpian flakes, relatively few stems. The aroma is very herby and bergamottey, with a sweeter baked bread scent when leaves are warmed. Expired leaves are consistently green and rather thin, plantation-like. 

Logically this brews a lightish peachy colour that is only mildly black-tea scented. Flavour is light and fruity (apples, peaches) with no astringency and a touch of roundness, but also citrusy and bone-dry with good length. 

This is very well-presented leaf-and-bud quality, what Darjeeling should be doing more often to compare more favourably with the best Chinese blacks, but rarely does. Short of greatness but very enjoyable and more than fairly priced at $10 / 100g.

Margaret’s Hope Thunderbolt [DJ565] 
A variation on the above, but an even more impressive whole leaf grade, mixing white tips, some oxidised leaves, and quite a few flat unrolled greenish ‘flakes’. Aroma is faint, bergamottey, slightly reinforced into bready bake with warmth. 
Brewed competition style: A surprisingly light colour! (Although oxidising into a medium beige quite quickly in the cup). Aroma is faint, a bit oxidative / black tea-like. Clean, appley attack with succulent fruit. This is kept light but a black tea not an oolong, uncomplex and not so very fruity but has some impressive yun sweetness on the finish. Also some lovely spiciness. Really a delicious expression of Darjeeling. There’s another pleasant if less full and precise brewing behind.
This is even more outstanding in a large pot (4g / 250+ml), with lovely transparency of flavour and again that Darjeeling typicity without extraction and astringency. This is one tea that I would like to try with a high dosage in clay pot, like a Wuyi oolong. $16 / 100g: expensive by regional standards but more than fair for the quality. ($16 would buy a very average Wuyi oolong).

 
Risheehat SFTGFOP1 Wiry [DJ562]
True to their ‘Wiry’ name, leaves have an elongated straight aspect; small and fragmented. Quite some twigs, no tips. Not an exhilarating grade. Brewed leaf fragments are very small, uniformly brown, reminiscent of some gongfu grade Qimens or black Yunnans. 

Medium+ beige, a lighter colour than expected. A balanced cup with a nutty, typically autumnal character and just minor grip on end. But uncomplex and ultimately a little simplistic. Better balance in a larger pot, with the tannins kept at bay. This surely on the more oxidised end of the spectrum, with a somewhat malty, chewy character vaguely reminiscent of an Assam, but brewed light this can be kept at bay, though at the expense of complexity. This is good tea, but not quite my style. $7.

Sungma Turzum Clonal Wonder [DJ22]
Small leaves, minor tips, intense aroma. A reasonably good grade, but not that makes me ‘wonder’.
Brewed light with 90s, a moderate brown-reddish colour and again a rather intense aroma of dried fruits and apple pie. The oxidation is very balanced and the dry, herby aromas of autumn flush are underpinned by an almost second-flushy fruit exuberance: apples, raisins, plums. This is definitely good, and showing that Darjeeling needn’t be a whole-leaf extravagance like the Margaret’s Hope above to deliver superior character. The only criticism is that this Clonal Wonder is a bit uncomplex. Especially when left too long in the cup or the decanting jug, when it loses its fruity breadth and becomes quite tannic, though not astringent.
Through several brewing attempts I came to the conclusion that large pot and short steeps work best. If brewed stronger, this remains rather simple and becomes overtannic for my tastes, with muted fruit and a rather ordinary profile. Good value at $8. 

Museum shots

The Chopin week is over. Wine and tea drinking resumes tomorrow. Today, I have some clandestine photos of the Chopin Museum (see previous blog entry for details) from the staff pre-opening yesterday.

Happy birthday, Fryc!

Two hundred years ago from today, 60 km west of Warsaw in the middle of absolute nowhere, a boy was born to a modest Franco-Polish couple, and received the names Fryderyk Franciszek.

He was shy, of frail health, preferred milk to wine or tea (and so he isn’t even supposed to be featured on this blog). He loved violets, the Italian opera and wore expensive gloves. He taught the piano to some dumb princesses and countesses and British critics wrote his music was absolute crap. He lived on square d’Orléans and also travelled to Westphalia, Scotland and Majorca where ghosts haunted him in a desert monastery. He died at 39 of consumption, like many people in his time.

Fryderyk Franciszek painted by Ambroży Mieroszewski in 1829: his least evocative portrait but reputedly the most faithful.

He is a man from the past who is more present in our present than any other artist. Why this is so, and why the curious inflections of his melodies continue to be as poignant as the most emotional speech, is one of art’s mysteries:

Chopin’s 200th anniversary brings a plethora of events, from the just finished Chopin Congress and jubilee concert at the Warsaw Philharmonic, through a marathon of music-making almost everywhere in the world, up to the opening of a lavishly redesigned Chopin Museum in Warsaw. Designed by leading Milanese studio Migliore+Servetto and packed with stunning multimedia content on Chopin’s life, art and context, it is a must-see for anyone remotely interested in music and history. The Museum opens to the public on April 6th, and my modest contribution can be enjoyed on a couple of screens in the ‘Paris’ Room. Please book your flights to Warsaw today!

Brunello: agony and ecstasy

My last two days in Tuscany have been devoted, as every year, to the region's premier red wine: Brunello di Montalcino. Brunello for many is the king of Tuscan and Italian wine. But today the emperor has no clothes. The Brunello scandal that has been ongoing (without a very clear conclusion; see reports e.g. Vino Wire) since March 2008 has done some considerable harm to the appellation. Leading producers were charged with counterfeiting their wines by belnding in unauthorised grape varieties (Brunello is required by law to be 100% Sangiovese). The DOCG rules have since been reconfirmed and a stricter control regime has been established but one of the scandal's outcome is that today, Montalcino is deeply divided with producers, journalists and consumers entrenched on sharply antagonistic positions. 

Brunello's other problem is uneven quality. As usually when a wine-producing zone expands from 1 to 10 in a few years' time, there's a combination of erratic plantings in poor locations, lack of expertise of producers (many of which are investors with no background in wine) and a chase after a flashy international style that contributes to Brunello's disappointing level as a whole.

2005 that we've tasted this year is a case in point. It is by no means a bad vintage, having produced some reasonably deep, aromatic, mid-term-structured Sangiovese wines elsewhere in Tuscany (especially in Chianti). But in Montalcino almost everything has been done to make 2005 worse than it could have been. Late harvesting in a vintage whose primary characteristic was freshness and lightness; overextraction in a vintage with naturally tight tannins; overoaking in an appellation that needs oak less than any other; and, to be honest, an excessive period of wood ageing that exasperated a lightweight vintage and made for the fact that upon release, many wines are already evolved and unfresh.

I've tasted some 90 Brunellos from 2005 and there are very few I'd recommend to buy at the current prices. The overperformers, unsurprisingly, include mostly classic estates with a long track record of excellence such as Costanti and Salvioni. Fuligni, Franco Pacenti, Caprili, La Velona, Silvio Nardi's expensive Manachiara, Il Marroneto, and Banfi's Poggio alle Mura were also good, and I've felt 2005 is a vintage where modern-oriented producers often did an above-average job, especially as several of them have reduced the amount of new wood compared to 2001, 2003 and 2004. Salicutti, for example, used to be an extracted new-oak Brunello a couple of years ago while today it delivered one of the vintage's successes with good body and structure but excellent balance too. Pian dell'Orino and La Fuga are other examples.

Still, it has generally been a rather grim tasting, with many wines quite below their historical average quality: sore disappointments have included Campogiovanni, Ciacci, Lambardi, Lisini, Mastrojanni, Siro Pacenti, La Poderina, and Sesti which are usually among the Brunellos I really like.

The show was saved by private visits to a few dedicated estates where I was offered vertical tastings of several Brunello vintages. Andrea Costanti showed a fantastic stylistic continuity ranging from 1995 to 2009; highlights, apart from an extremely promising 2007 barrel sample, included the 2001 Riserva and two overdelivering hot vintages: 2003 and 1997, which are quite superior to their peers from other estates. And the estate of Gianni Brunelli treated us to a rare retrospective spanning 1993 through 2005: I delighted in the sweet, elegant 1996 and in the brilliantly lively 2003 but the three Riserva bottlings stole the show: the 2004 is young as hell but has superlative balance and fantastic quality of fruit; the 2001 is both sweet and mineral-saline and delivers plenty of sensual excitement without being remotely maturing (tasted from magnum); and the 1997 took a good hour of airing to unfold fully, revealing excellent density and plenty of energy from this rather patchy vineyard. This is why I still care about Brunello, and it might well become the king of Italian wine again one day.

Vino Nobile: overdone, underwhelming

My palate is exhausted after 220 Chiantis and 104 Vino Nobiles that I've tasted since Tuesday. Tannins are supposed to be a natural preservative and so I've probably extended my lifespan by a good decade, but they're really exhausting. And it's all made worse by the high-acid, high-tannin 2007 vintage that provided some exciting drinking but the wines are really rather tense. Plus there's the execrable tendency towards overextraction that is really ruining the life of an appellation like Vino Nobile.

The latter is an interesting illustration of what has to be defined the Tuscan disease. It's a historical terroir with impeccable pedigree and geologically and climatically, it really has all the cards in hand to produce some great Sangiovese. When you taste the simplest local wines labelled Rosso di Montepulciano, they have enticing intensity of cherry and currant fruit and are really a joy to drink, slightly chilled, over a plate of the unbeatable local hams and pecorino cheeses. It's all the sadder that the higher you climb up the 'prestige' ladder, the least interesting the wines become. Overextracted, excruciatingly tannic, palate-nimbingly drying, overripe, overalcoholic, macerative, flabby, chocolatey are only some of the descriptors I've used in my notes for the single vineyard and riserva bottlings. As a group they're really coming across as mutant modern Sangioveses, consultant winemaker-driven to taste like new-wave Right Bank Bordeaux.

Arguably Vino Nobile's strong natural tannins call for a compulsory long ageing in wood and bottle, and the vintages we've been treated to – 2007 for Nobile and 2006 for riserva bottlings – are just way too young. It's a criticism that extends to the entire Tuscan operation: Chianti have been presenting their 2008s and 2007s (I've refused to taste the former, there being happily enough 2006s too to occupy me, but colleague writers have gone through a 100 samples and already summarised the vintage before it is even bottled for good), Brunello is releasing the 2005s when actually today is really the right time to taste and drink 2004s, or even 2001s for the more serious wines. The Chianti Classico DOCG consorzio have introduced a measure where 20% of a riserva stock can be held to release later than the minimum required ageing, but it's hard to see why this 'optional' change (that several winemakers admitted not really understanding) would contribute towards changing the current state of affairs where Sangiovese wines, simply put, are released too early.

Why this matters was shown by a few older vintages of Nobile that were head and shoulders above their young counterparts: Contucci's Pietra Rossa 1996 and Riserva 1986 were both far from maturity and the Vigna d'Alfiero 1999 from Valdipiatta, from a slow-maturing north-exposed plot that notoriously delivers the toughest (and somewhat overextracted and overoaked too) Nobile in youth, has acquired a miraculous elegance that you wouldn't suspect when you taste the 2006. Alfiero 1999 (with the older vintages of Boscarelli and Poliziano's Asinone) was quite the best Nobile I've tasted.

Vernaccia: white Tuscany

I traditionally spend the third week of February in Tuscany, invited alongside other writers and wine buyers by the consorzios for Chianti Classico, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino who make the new vintages available for tasting.

Vernaccia tasting at the modern art gallery in San Gimignano.

It’s an intense time of hectic tasting, crisp acidity and crunchy tannins. Sangiovese is a fantasting grape but it’s easy to overdose. So it’s really delightful that this year I’ve started the Tuscan immersion by the preview tasting of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Tuscany’s premier white wine.

Vernaccia has the laudable habit of spicing up its Anteprima with a comparative tasting with a famous French wine appellation. Past editions have featured Chablis, Sancerre and Hermitage, and this year it was Pouilly-Fuissé. Such comparisons have a limited direct relevance but they’re a good occasion to taste some proper French wines (something I must do more often) and look at Vernaccia in a broader context.

The Vernaccia consorzio president Letizia Cesani with Philippe Valette
and Fabio Montrasi (of Château des Rontets).

It was actually a brave move on Vernaccia’s side, as the comparison surely showcased some of the appellation’s inherent problems. The major one, for me, was a lack of stylistic homogeneity and a clear direction. It’s especially evident in the Riserva bottlings. New oak, used oak, large oak; oak fermentation, stainless steel fermentation, skin contact, lees contact; ageing in oak, in concrete, in bottle: I’ve tasted over 25 Riservas without quite understanding where they should be going. The best examples, such as Giovanni Panizzi’s 2002 and 2006 (see also my earlier article here), or La Lastra’s 2002 and 2001, or Mattia Barzaghi’s Cassandra 2007, are wine of compelling substance and potential, but many others are just coarse and excessive with no sense of harmony.

In the end it was a more consistent showing for the basic Vernaccias (and the odd single vineyard selection), many of which provide a happy reflection of San Gimignano’s sandy-clay terroir: unaromatic and sometimes low on fruit but with vivid salty, bitterish mineral notes on the palate, Vernaccia is one of Italy’s most distinctive white flavours. Highlights included Vincenzo Cesani, La Mormoraia, Mattia Barzaghi, and Cappella di Sant’Andrea, athough it should also be said there was a large amount of bland industrial-tasting wine that does nothing to enhance Vernaccia’s reputation.

The wine was better preserved than the label.

The Pouilly-Fuissé team was restricted to three estates, but they provided some very exciting drinking. I found Guffens-Heynen’s wines built around oak, but they’re real masterpieces of oak vinification and the Mâcon-Pierreclos 1er Jus de Chavigne 2006 is one heck of a vibrant, structured, mineral Chardonnay, and the Pouilly-Fuissé Deuxième Tri 1993 was impressively preserved for its age.

Yet in a way the more stimulating wines came from Domaine Valette, including a bold no-sulphur (there’s only 8mg added at bottling) Viré-Clessé 2006 and 2003 that was slow to open but revealed an intriguing herby-medicinal minerality and a wide panorama of salty notes; it’s really thoroughly recommended for 16€. And Château des Rontets offered three very solid bottling of Pouilly-Fuissé: the Les Birbettes, from 80-year-old vines, is extractive, deep, majestic and impressive. We were surely looking at the elite of Pouilly-Fuissé but they surely showed a level of consistency, concentration and depth that is beyond the reach of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, for the moment. Reasons? I’d identify a long consolidated tradition of wine production in Burgundy, but also a stronger emphasis on vineyard management, and importantly, yields: yields are always relative and should be taken with a grain of salt but a Vernaccia producer is happy to produce 50-60hl/ha with a planting density of 4–5000 vines/ha while the Burgundian standard at 10K vines/ha is closer to 30–40hl. That’s three times less than in Tuscany. 

2008 Dahongpao

I don’t often blog on Wuyi oolong teas – because I don’t often drink them. While ‘cliff tea’ (yancha) is, for many aficionados, the epitome of the tea experience, I have an issue with their highly roasted aromas and their bone-dry style. I admire the best examples, but when choosing a tea to drink, my thoughts usually drift towards Taiwan or China’s two other major families of oolong: Dancong and Anxi.

But this 2008 Dahongpao (‘Big Red Robe’) from Wuyi is one that I do find utterly irresistible. Sourced from London’s Eastteas, it is said to be manufactured by master roaster Mr. Xu. It’s rare to see a teamaker named in any vendor’s description (since so few teas in the West are purchased directly from producers) and I tend to take hyperbolic stories of master roasters with a grain of salt (or two), but in this case the description is fair. This tea shows an extraordinary roasting skill, and is really an outstanding example.

The roast is in fact rather low for a Wuyi tea. It has been used like new oak in a very good red Burgundy wine: it’s there, and in fact there’s a lot of it, but its presence is very much in the background of things. It provides a discrete canvas over which to tell a story of fruits and spices. Without it, the aromas wouldn’t quite be as complex or deep, but it is never allowed to take first stage.

A confirmation of how thoughtfully this tea was roasted can be seen in the image above and below. The colour of the brew never really goes much beyond orange-peachy, quite a difference from the reddish-brown of a typical Wuyi tea such as Shuixian (see here for an extensive review). And the expired leaves open almost completely, revealing a deep green colour rather than brown: a sign of moderate roast.

In the cup, this tea again is vastly superior to the Wuyi average. Even brewed in a porcelain gaiwan, it is more balanced, elegant, complex and smooth than a heavily roasted Shuixian. But the real difference is revealed in a Chinese yixing clay teapot. Staging a classic gongfu brewing regime with high dosage (5–6g / 100ml is good) and very short steeping times (as short as 5–7 seconds initially) I am rewarded with an outstanding complexity and fascinating progression. Opening with a cornucopia of dried fruits, peaches, apricots and honey, moving slowly through a period of more present roast (brews #2–3) towards a renewed apricottiness, this time with added quince and hazelnut.

Dahongpao is one of the four ‘historical bushes’ of Wuyi (si da ming cong), a status roughly equivalent to a Burgundian grand cru such as Richebourg or Clos de Tart. Accordingly, there are many derivations, imitations and counterfeits, and drinking them sometimes makes you wonder what the fuss is about. This expensive example puts things in order, and shows why Dahongpao’s reputation is well deserved. 

In Apulia (4): Three wines that work well

In my recent series on Apulia I have been fairly critical of some aspects of the region’s winemaking. Back at home I sat to a relaxed tasting session with some potentially controversial wines, to see whether my feelings have softened. 

Feudi di San Marzano is a large commercial winery making wines in a very fruity style (they’re high on the list of favourites of Luca Maroni, Italy’s most controversial critic), including the Primitivo Sessantanni that embraces the grape’s excesses I mentioned here. ‘Sud’ is San Marzano’s range of everyday varietal wines, and includes (interestingly) a white Verdeca alongside a Shiraz, Primitivo and Malvasia Nera. This latter grape is ubiquitous in Salento, the southern part of Apulia, but has always been used exclusively as a blending variety for its deep colour and lush fruitiness. (I’ve heard a theory that it belongs to the Grenache family). It allegedly lacks structure to be bottled on this own. Well, this Sud Malvasia Nera 2007 works very well indeed. It is a simple wine with not much bouquet to speak of, but making a statement about Apulia as a serious source of irresistibly tasty ripe fruit. The New World inspiration is very obvious here but the whole has a natural freshness and joyfulness that is rarely seen in an overseas wine. Unsophisticated but delicious, in a word. (It’s about 8€ retail).

With the Santa Lucia’s 2000 Le More, I wanted to double check my mixed impressions from a Nero di Troia tasting organised for us at Canosa by the Radici association. This grape is another former blending variety that has quickly risen to fame in recent years. But it’s still much a work-in-progress as producers are trying to figure out what winemaking styles suit it best. Rosés, light unoaked reds, classic long-aged large-oak examples, as well as turbocharged new oak modern fruit bombs are produced. The latter solution is the least interesting, the general feeling about Nero di Troia being that it tends towards overextraction, and doesn’t digest new oak well at all. The 2006 Riserva Le More from Santa Lucia was a case in point, and I much preferred their lighter Vigna del Melograno bottling. Well, I was proven wrong with the 2000 vintage of this wine. Time has been gracious to it, and it’s showing brilliantly. It has two major merits today: it has totally digested its oak, and shows Nero di Troia’s exuberant floral profile well. Colour is still dark, bouquet only mildly evolved, softly olivey, rather simple as befits this rustic grape variety, but with good overtones of violets and other flowers. On the palate this still is quite dynamic and bit of tannic-punchy, with Nero di Troia’s typically moderate acidity. Modern and dark-fruity but with really good structural balance, and more seriousness than most Troias. 

Leone De Castris is one of Apulia’s veteran wineries, but with a recent change of style with the hiring of consultant Riccardo Cotarella I have been very underwhelmed by their wines. Especially by the Salice Salentino Riserva 2006, and all-time classic of traditional Apulian balsamic evolution, and following the Cotarella ‘revolution’ more of a blueberry muffin milkshake Mendoza Malbec-wannabe. (It is declared to be 100% Negroamaro grape aged in large oak; judging by what’s in the glass I have every reason to question both claims). So as a consolation I opened my last remaining bottle of the pre-Cotarellean Salice Salentino Riserva 2001. What a delightful wine! An unashamedly evolved, transparent ruby colour and an engaging bouquet of ripe cherry and red berries, with a hint of Salento stewed fruit preserve character, with minor herbiness for complexity; no oak, no tar. The real interest is on the palate with excellent volume of ripe and fleshy but vibrant fruit. And there’s quite some tannins on the finish. Still too young, should wait another 2–3 years at least. Where the latest vintage is flabby and boring this is poised and refreshing, structured and drinkable, sturdy and elegant at the same time. If you have bottles left, cherish them. This wine is no more.