SPECTATOR WINE
CLUB
Learning from the French
Auberon Waugh
It is surely the best compliment one can pay the French to point out how the wine culture they developed has been tran- planted to such unlikely places as Lebanon and New South Wales. If these countries are producing the same or similar wines more cheaply than the French, then it is the kindest thing to point this out, too. First a smooth, warm red Cotes du Rhone from the Domaine Garrigues(1). I tasted this one last year and did not think much of it, but it has come round very well, retaining a little bite which means that it will keep a long time and might even improve further. I should put it among the fullest, kindest wines which France can show in its price range of £3.36 the bottle.
I do not know how many people remem- ber the wonderful 1978 Cheret-Pitres I offered about four years ago. The 1979 was nearly as good, as this 1982(2) is even better. From Portets, with 50 per cent of merlot grapes, it drinks wonderfully now with a richness and concentration which people have come to expect from the '82s. Personally, I will keep it for two years, but it is no crime to drink it now. At £6.82 the bottle, I should judge it the best buy available from Bordeaux in this frenziedly hyped year, but it is definitely a burgundy drinker's claret. By any standards it is a serious and proper wine for the price. By Burgundian standards, it is a flaming mira- cle.
I wish I could say the same about the next offering.(3) By Burgundian standards, it is once again a seriously proper wine — Ampeau is a small producer who enjoys colossal prestige in his own small world — but the price of £13.57 is another thing. The wine has good depth and concentra- tion, and is surprisingly long in the palate for a new-style burgundy. It is also about half the price of similar wines from less good producers like Chauvettet.
Rosemount Show Reserve Char- donna?), the only white wine in this offer, is also the only Australian chardonnay to which Robert Parker, the American guru, awards five stars — 'outstanding' — which is his highest accolade. In Burgundy, he awards it to seven producers; in California, I am sorry to say, to 13 in the chardonnay estates. Personally I might have been more generous to other Australian producers, but the Show Reserve is definitely less over-oaked than, for instance, Petaluma, more concentrated in its fruit than Linde- man or Tyrrell, with a longer life ahead of it than Merrill or Orlando. It is a lovely wine, positively tropical in its fruitiness, with the wonderfull 'buttery' colonial nose I have grown to love. It can be drunk now but will develop untold complications if it is allowed to go to sleep for two years from 1988-1990, when it will taste of cardboard and glue. At £6.49 the bottle, it is a doddle. Chauvenet's Chassagne-Montrachet 1985 by contrast — a wine so hidden as to be almost tasteless at this stage — was priced at £20 a bottle when I last saw it.
Now for Lebanon where Serge Hochar learned his extraordinary skills as a wine- maker at Ronald Barton's Château Lan- goa, producing the vintages of Leoville- Barton which have put it at the top of St Julien's second growths.
My panel, who had a preview of the 1981,(5) kindly arranged by M. Hochar with an opening price to test the market, all raved about it. It already has the wonderful, thick nose of the 1977 with the promise of greater complexity than any since M. Hochar's 'wild' 1964. Aniseed root, coal tar, and liquorice were all found lurking in the tremendous depths of this wine. I should guess it will go on develop- ing for 15 years at least. With winter coming on, I sometimes wonder why I buy anything except this wine at £5.42 the bottle. Cases may be secured for a down payment of £25.04 now, second payment of £40.00 in January 1988 when they will be shipped. The 1980(6), which I described last year, is developing just as I imagined it would. At £5.04 it has less complexity than the '81 and already resembles a classic heavyweight claret, with a huge cabernet nose and massive concentration in the mouth. It seems sweeter than the '81 with none of the cinsault-Red Cross characteris- tics of young Musar. It is already a serious- ly good wine with many years ahead of it. The '79, by contrast, probably needs drink- ing now. I do not know why it should have peaked so soon. It is another beautiful, thick velvety wine, without perhaps the elegance of the '80 or the complexity of the '81, but heavier than the '78 which has disappeared from the market. I am drink- ing my stocks of the '79 fast and enjoying them very much indeed. The three Musars offered should provide anyone with a complete planned cellar in red wines to cover the next fifteen years, which is not too bad at an average price of £5.21 the bottle.. Remember that all Musars except the very oldest should be decanted at least half an hour before drinking. And they taste even better next day.
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