A tasting of Foncalieu wines hosted by Yorkshire Wine School

Tasting Foncalieu wines with Yorkshire Wine School

A fancy Big Mac style burger from Original Fry Up Material

This was a good way of cheering up a Monday night in February: tasting eight sunny wines from the south of France. From work I take a train from Bradford to Leeds, call in for a tasty hipster burger at Trinity Kitchen and then head up to the Radisson Hotel for the tasting. I'm always excited trying wines that are new to me. Life's all about retaining that excitement for new things isn't it?




The wines are from Foncalieu, a big cooperative of more than 1,000 wine estates, whose winemaker and marketing supremo Isabelle Pangault appears in person to help bring them to life. Yorkshire Wine School's Laura Kent is also on hand to provide expert titbits; Laura is hosting the event and has kindly let me experience it as a guest.

French wine often projects an image of bringing the landscape to the glass - terroir - but I'm interested to hear Isabelle talk a bit more pragmatically about how Foncalieu's agronomist (soil and plant man) Gabriel Ruetsch tailors the wines to the market where they sell them; in other words they look at what sort of stuff British drinkers tend to like and they try to satisfy that demand. That's not to say they aren't reflecting the land though - they have lots of different landscapes and microclimates to choose from, a mosaic of terroir as Isabelle nicely puts it, giving them scope to create different styles of wine. And it is encouraging to hear Isabelle emphasise that it's elegance and freshness they're looking for, in other words they're keen not to obscure the pure fruit with too much oak. The more I'm a wine fanatic, it seems the more I enjoy fresh tasting wines over big oaky ones.

I really enjoyed these wines - in particular the three from Chateau Haut Gleon we tried, especially the white - and it'd be great to try them again with a meal which I bet would make them even better. Here's a quick run-through of my thoughts as I tasted them on the night:

Le Versant Viognier 2013, Pays d'Oc
Smells champagney; tastes like peach, lemon and lime with elderflower freshness. Reminds me of vinho verde.

Le Versant Pinot Noir 2013, Pays d'Oc
Smells of strawberry, or maybe raspberry, and mint. Easy-drinking, a touch dilute?, round and soft texture, nice and fresh.

Griset Sauvignon Gris 2014, Pays d'Oc
Fresh, light rose coloured, a nice refreshing summer drink. Agree with the suggestion of watermelon, rose water and rhubarb from the YWS and Foncalieu tasting notes.

Les Illustres 2012, Coteaux d'Enserune IGP
Smells of Marmite, blackberries, oak and leather. Also brings to mind blackberries in the mouth with black plums and parsley and coriander! Dry finish, would be good with slow cooked beef I think.

Le Lien 2012, Minervois AOP
Smells great - to me of liquorice and lavender - which mixes with coffee and cigar smoke in the mouth. Tastes of expensive oak. Again would be good with beef. Enjoyed this more with a slice of the Friends of Ham salami provided on the table.

Chateau Haut Gleon Blanc 2013, Corbieres AOC
Really like this wine. Reminds me of an Australian semillon. Tastes of nuts to me - hazelnuts, almonds, pistachio with apricots. Really good.

Chateau Haut Gleon Rose 2013, Corbieres AOC
Also really enjoyed this one. Light but with a faint peppery spice, bit more to it than a standard light rose. Tastes and smells of strawberry and pepper, fresh tomato and gooseberry.

Chateau Haut Gleon Rouge 2009, Corbieres AOC
Smells of blueberry and blackberry or blackcurrant and scrubby herbs, rosemary and thyme, with a taste of liquorice.

As I understand it, Le Versant wines will cost around £7.99-8.99 in shops; Les Illustres and Le Lien around £25 (or £60 in a restaurant); and the Chateau Haut Gleon wines around £23-25 each.

Handmade Pasta and Italian Wine Night with Yorkshire Wine School

I really enjoyed this event, which I attended as a guest of Yorkshire Wine School. A cookery demonstration from chef Tom Guise and a tasting of six Italian wines with Laura Kent – a welcome glass of Prosecco, three more whites and two reds.

The pasta was absolutely superb. If I'm honest I'm a huge fan of plain old dried pasta dressed in a good sauce – I love pasta – and sometimes find the fresh stuff to be a slight disappointment, but this was just brilliant. Linguine with clams was excellent; later, a small bowl of spiced squash ravioli in sage butter was an absolute beauty - really supremely good, top-notch stuff. Very impressive.

On to the wines. Of the whites, the slightly off-dry Roero Arneis Malvira 2010 (£10.99, Waitrose) from Piedmont was my favourite, evoking warmer climes as it swished around with the clams like a leisurely breaking tide.

My stand-out red - and favourite wine of the night - was the Langhe Nebbiolo Renato Ratti 2010 (M&S, £13.99), again from Piedmont. I love this kind of thing: big, earthy, savoury aromas mellowing and melding together, just calling out for a fireside swirl in a nice big glass and, I imagine, it'd be great alongside a deep meaty stew or a joint of meat falling from the bone.

The other wines we tasted on the night all went down well: the softly textured Greco Sannio 2011 (£6.95, The Wine Society) white wine from Campania represents very good value; the Primitivo A Mano 2008 (Latitude Wines & Spirits, £8.99) a touch on the sweeter and jammier side of things for me but went down very easily; and the Prosecco Collezione NV Brut (£7.99, Waitrose) simply did what Prosecco does and nicely relaxed the tasting muscles for the main event.

As well as the food and wine tasting, an interesting feature of the night was a talk about the 'flavour wheel' and the principles of food and wine matching. Laura said that, while different people will have their own tastes in terms of the kinds of drinks they like to match with different foods, there are certain effects that always tend to take place when you combine different things. For example, eating salty food can make a wine taste less bitter, it can play down the acid and can make the wine feel smoother or "bigger" in the mouth - certainly the clam linguine eaten along with a slurp of Soave Classico Pieropan 2011 (Latitude Wines & Spirits, £12.99) appeared to give the wine a bit more richness, a bit more body than when I tasted it on its own.

It's all really interesting stuff – a good reminder of the fact that, yes foods and drinks objectively have flavour properties, but how we taste or experience those flavours will vary depending on when we taste them. As well as the chemistry that comes into play as in this example of salty foods, there are also psychological factors that sway how we experience flavours. Think of the "holiday effect" when you bring back a case of wine that seemed delicious at the time, but then you taste it when you get back home…

Oh, and one final point, this was also the first time I'd had the chance to taste monosodium glutamate (MSG) in its naked state. A strange experience! Converting flavour experiences into words is notoriously tricky anyway, but with the umami, savoury type thing that MSG is all about, it's almost impossible to put into words. It doesn't taste of a whole lot on its own - although it does taste of something - it's more like a bass note that delivers a bit of oomph to everything else; enhances other flavours as opposed to adding something immediately definable in itself. Parmesan cheese and soy sauce are packed full of it.

An Argentinian Wine Tasting with Gaucho's director of wine Phil Crozier

This was a great event at Gaucho's Leeds restaurant, not just because of the wines, but also thanks to the knowledge and enthusiasm of our host, Phil Crozier. He has that great combination of being extremely knowledgeable and passionate about a subject but with an ability to speak about it without pretentiousness.

He's an interesting character: having started out as a musician and then going into sound engineering, he sort of drifted into the wine trade. He modestly says a lot of it was down to being in the right place at the right time: it was the mid-90s and Argentinian wine exports were just taking off, enabling him to transform Gaucho's wine list. Phil says he essentially worked through a list of wine importers, going from A-Z, and ended up with a room packed full of sample bottles to work through all on his own. Not knowing much about wine at the time didn't stop him: the best way to learn was to taste, taste and taste again. Here he is now as a successful restaurant chain's head of wine and a leading authority on Argentinian wine.

On to the wine. This tasting was all about showing what Argentina can do aside from Malbec. Not because there's anything wrong with the country's Malbec, far from it, but to show that the country isn't a one-trick pony and to highlight a growing appreciation in Argentina that different grape varieties can thrive in different areas.

We tasted five wines, one white and four reds, and my two favourites were a Cabernet Franc and a Tannat. Two varieties that are less common than Malbec on the supermarket shelves - certainly in the Argentina section - but I think they showed really encouraging signs that there is a hell of a lot more to come from Argentinian wine.

Catena Cabernet Franc 2008, from the Uco Valley in Mendoza, shows the kind of elegance that Argentinian wines can achieve: sprigs of mint and eucalyptus on top of fresh red fruit, creating a really fresh, balanced mouthful. No surprise the 2009 vintage won gold at the recent Decanter World Wine Awards.

Probeta Tannat 2010, from fruit grown at an altitude of 1,750 metres up in the region of Salta, is a beguiling wine with herbal aromas you can't quite put your finger on - rosemary and thyme and sage, perhaps, with some blueberry fruit. The mouthfeel is a touch firm - Phil pointed out you get a sense of green tea on the finish due to the tannin - so this could soften into an even more impressive wine in a couple of years. He also points out that in Salta you have perhaps 50 days extra ripening compared to Bordeaux, giving this tough, temperamental grape more time to ripen into something beautiful. He believes Tannat may well represent the future for the north of Argentina, and with this one I can see why. Really, really good.

The other three grape varieties we sampled were Torrontes, Petit Verdot and Bonarda. Seleccion G Michel Torino Torrontes 2010 was a bit too richly perfumed for my personal taste, but many will love the freshness and floral flavours of elderflower and slightly sweet lime marmalade. Emma Zuccardi Bonarda, another Decanter 2011 medal winner, smelt quite big and alcoholic in the glass, with a menthol aroma too. In the mouth it was packed with jammy fruit that was a touch sweet for my taste but nevertheless a good example of what this originally Italian grape, the second most planted in Argentina, can create. Finally the Pinca Decero Petit Verdot 2006 was a big dark wine with stocky legs that stuck to the inside of the glass when you gave it a swirl - a real winter warmer. When speaking about the aroma, Phil evoked childhood memories of pencil shavings in the classroom, and he was spot on.

It was a really inspiring, enjoyable tasting.

Moncaro Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico 2010, £4.99 (Waitrose)

You'll see the glass is empty in the photo, which is all you need to know with this one - this bottle won't last long. An ideal easy drinking midweek white for spring/summer time, especially in terms of value for money. I bought it this evening as a cheap bottle off the cuff, without expecting too much, when I called into Waitrose in Leeds for some pizza on the way home from work.

Fresh, pure, dry, pretty uncomplicated and with an almost olive oil-like texture. In fact both the flavour and texture bring to mind a little olive oil with a dash of fresh lemon juice stirred in - so it's a very good food wine.

I've just referred back to the 'Top 5 Italian White Wines from Waitrose Spring Collection' on Vinissima, and I'm not surprised to see this one on there.

It is a bargain - and in fact I've just noticed the 2009 is only £4.74 per bottle on the Waitrose website.

Moncaro Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico 2010, Italy
Waitrose
£4.99

St Hallett Barossa Riesling 2009 (£4, Co-op)

This is a real bargain.

Flinty on the nose, minerals, rocks baking in sunlight. In the mouth, sherbert lemons and pear drops minus the sickly sweetness, with a waxy edge. A shaving of coconut on the finish.

Grown-up traditional lemonade. An early evening refresher, sweeping away the cobwebs of the day. At this price, snap it up.