SPECTATOR WINE CLUB
Always fresh and optimistic
Auberon Waugh
he Great Heat of July caught me with a cellarful of chardonnays from the four corners of the earth but no sauvignons to speak of. Much as I adore almost all the tastes of chardonnay, one needs a change, and I am coming round to the view that sauvignon makes the better aperitif in hot weather. Chardonnay is best for cultivating the civilised despair of a damp, cold summer in England, but a good sauvignon is always fresh, always optimistic. For the first time in the history of the club, we are offering four whites and only two reds — a tribute to the damaged ozone layer.
I was reluctant, at first, even to taste the Château Pichon Bellevue(1) despite the fact that Richard Meyer, of Avery's, had been raving about it for weeks. White Graves, with very few exceptions, has always struck me as a waste of time, whether cheap and semi-sweet or over-priced and oxidised. The growers there were reluctant to intro- duce the new techniques of cold fermenta- tion and went on spoiling their wine in rotten old wooden vats.
However, there are always exceptions, and Avery has found a winner in this unlikely area. By any standards it is a thoroughly decent dry white wine with just the right balance of gooseberry leaf in the flavour. At £3.92 the bottle, with none of the tom-cat element which is coming into fashion among the sauvignons of Bergerac, It is a rare example of the old world redressing the balance of the new.
The next four wines are all from New Zealand, a country which has not featured much in the Wine Club offers to date, although John Avery has a strange affinity with it and makes long trips there every year. I kick off with the Montana Sauvig- non Blanc of 198812) because a few readers may already have discovered it, and I have been assured that nobody can beat our Price of £4.69 the bottle. In fact I first discovered this wine on the Peter Dominic list, and insisted that Avery include it. Despite the fact that it must be mass- produced at this price, I should not hesitate in describing it as one of the classic wines of the New World, with a wonderful crushed nettle smell introducing as heal- thy, fruity and delicious a sauvignon as I have ever tasted. It does not have the slight sweetness of the more expensive Cloudy Bay sauvignon, but it has an exciting sting at the end of the palate' which leaves the tippler hungry for more. I have introduced this wine to friends at every point in the affluence spectrum, and they haveall fallen for it. I found it at a smart wedding, and everybody was raving about it. Next a Gewurztraminer from the Nobilo range(3). These heavier, slightly more ex- Pensive wines are John Avery's pride and 3°Y. Three or four years age we were
pouring gewurztraminer all over each other — possibly as a result of the excellent 1983 vintage in Alsace — and then, quite suddenly, people lost enthusiasm (possibly as a result of the poor Alsatian 1984s). But it is a wonderfully rich and spicy wine which has the advantage that you can drink it with anything, including foods which no other wine can reach — Indian, Chinese, Thai, smoked fish, etc. Although not by any reckoning a sweet wine, Nobilo's gewurz is definitely at the richer end of the spectrum. At just under £5, it beats alsace into a cocked hat.
I have been offering so many excellent colonial chardonnays this year that I feel I can descend to shorthand to describe Nobi- lo's Gisborne 1988(0. Classically excellent smell, a lot of oak (cardboard, not glue), bit of butter, no melon, not much peach (perhaps yellow peach) but the preponder- ant fruit, surprisingly enough, is lemon. Good acid which keeps the cardboard at bay, but it is lemon which gives it class. Now for the reds. Nobilo's Pinotage(5) has practically no smell but recommended itself for a good, round taste and easy drinking. Pinotage is a lush, fruity grape, a cross between pinot noir and cinsault, tasting rather like Zinfandel without the holly leaves. It is chiefly found in South Africa, and those who have some conscien- tious objection to drinking wine from grapes which might have been touched by kaffirs or whatever can always have a crack at this specimen from our socialist white cousins down under. At £5.09 the bottle, it is not tremendously cheap, but then these Kiwis have a lot of social conscience problems to pay for.
Finally, back to South Australia for Tim Knappstein's 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon(6). This is the true Oz Cabernet taste which could never be mistaken for anything else. Nothing herbaceous, or stalky, or subtle, or elegant, but a huge, rich, impeccably concentrated mouthful of the right stuff, the real fruit. Although it comes from Clare Valley, it has a characteristic Coona- warra nose of burned red earth and another substance called Ethel Methyl or something of the sort. At any rate it is a very good example and I love it.
The mixed case works out at just over £5.22 the bottle, and there should be plenty of time to re-order. My own guess is that it will be the Montana Sauvignon Blanc(2) and the Nobilo Gewurztraminer(3) which sweep the field on second orders, but it will be interesting to see.
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