March: This is typically a month of two halves. The first half includes the final preparation for spring, including planting new vines in areas that are free from frost-danger. Spring does not officially start until the 21st March but the unpredictable variation on temperature has meant this can often come sooner. As the weather warms up in the second half of the month, so does the soil temperature and several things start to happen. The new canes will start to produce sap and the vines will come out of dormancy as the temperature of the soil reaches around 10°C . The winter buds will slowly expand and become woolly, leading to eventual budburst as seen in the picture above. Spring is finally here!
Hello Wine Lovers! It almost feels like Spring arrived in late February this year, but March makes it official by the 21st. Needless to say, we’ve got some great wine events to see it in, kicking off with a look at some of the new developments in the South African wine industry on the 7th March, before heading back to our old stomping ground of the International Blind Tasting on the 21st. Then, to finish the month off and welcome the warmer weather, we’ll be heading to Alsace for a white-wine themed tasting, looking at the vastly different mono-varietal wines made in this cool, fragmented region in the north of France. As always, do be quick to get in touch as the spots do disappear quickly, and I very much look forward to seeing you all again for good wine, great company and some delicious snacks. Until then, Happy Drinking!
7th March – The New South Africa– 10 spots left – 30 euros p/p
21st March – International Blind Tasting – 10 spots left -30 euros p/p
28th March – The Wines of Alsace – 10 spots left – 30 euros p/p
Articles: I probably spend too much of my time reading online articles about wine. However, as a result I can find and select a choice few to share – here are my three favourites from last month!
1. ‘The Final Turn of the Screw’ by Tim Atkin MW. Corks vs Screw-caps; will the debate ever stop? Interestingly, yes, I think that opinion is starting to settle on a common ground, simply and plainly explained by Tim in this piece. I’ve drank several older wines bottled under screw-cap myself and I have to say, the luxury of knowing that the wine is going to be in good condition is quite fantastic, particularly if you’ve paid large amounts of money for it! Well worth a read and his thoughts echo my own – I won’t spoil it for you!
2. ‘Wine in the Air’ by Jancis Robinson MW. I found this one really interesting. Like so many things, I’ve sadly missed the boat on quality air travel; should you want to have anything beyond a bland, sloppy dinner and a tiny bottle of wine that tastes of almost nothing, you need to have enough money to book a seriously expensive ticket. However, I didn’t know much about the process of how wines were chosen for flights, how the tenders worked or that it’s true; the amount invested in such things really has diminished over the years! Jancis Robinson looks in detail at the selection process and draws on her own considerable experience, choosing wines for British Airways, prior to them developing ambitions to become a budget airline, of course.
3. ‘Lost in Translation’ by Anna-Harris Noble. I’ve already found this article to be incredibly useful! Based in Madrid, Anna-Harris is a wine educator and writer, and recently wrote this lovely article for Spanish Wine Lover, detailing some of the more commonly used expressions, phrases and technical terms in English, along with their English translations. For someone who often talks about wine in both languages, this is invaluable to me and I hope it will be equally useful to those of you living in Spain as well!
Wine of the month: I’m constantly on the look-out for wines of real quality and value; here is my favourite wine of the month
Lapierre Cuvee Camille 2016: My trip to Lyon in February wasn’t intended to be much of a wine-focused adventure, but I unearthed so many delicious wines along the way, one of them has taken top spot! I’m a big fan of Lapierre, his plots of old vines on the Cote du Py in Morgon and the 2016 vintage as a whole here. However, I’d never tried his Cuvee Camille, and I was quite taken with it. Ripe, bright red-currant and cherry fruit, crushed rocks, violets and sappy herbs; classic Lapierre, although much tighter than their Morgon Classique from the same vintage. Really bright acidity, light, supple tannins and a lovely finesse on the palate. I suspect this will be quite special with a few more years in a cool cellar, but good luck keeping your hands off it until then! Utterly delicious Cru Beaujolais.
Rants and Musings
Some off-beat topics about anything related to wine.
As we come closer and closer to the warm-weather part of the season here in Barcelona, otherwise known as 9-months-of-the-year, I start to glance nervously at the bottles I have lying around at home. You know the ones, they give them away at wine stores….in exchange for money….. and you end up with far more of them than you really have space for. No? Just me? Either way, it’s a problem.
There’s not really a lot of storage options in Barcelona. Space is at a premium even in the nicer parts of town and most restaurants and bars that have reasonable wine lists often don’t invest in any sort of professional storage options even for their own wines. I’m very fortunate that I’ve found a static storage space for wine, but it’s very limited in terms of wine and as we’ve covered, they keep popping up from absolutely nowhere. As far as I can tell, there’s no reasonable strategy to stop acquiring wine, so it’s up to us to find a solution! So, what are the options?
Talk to a restaurant and see if you can rent some space? That would imply that they’ve invested in it themselves and as most requests for something as simple as corkage is often greeted with suspicion, I suspect it may take a leap of faith from both parties to store wine here. Rent a space underground and turn it into a mini-wine-bunker of sorts? This is the most tempting option and something I’m currently working on with a couple of friends. Watch this space! If it works out and is safe and steady in terms of both security and temperature, it’s something I may look into helping other people out with. The third, and most popular choice is to buy a wine fridge and keep it in your home. All well and good, except that without air-conditioning, sometimes the apartments here get so hot that the small motors at the back of these fridges simply can’t keep up and burn out. I know, because I have no air conditioning and it’s happened to me. Option number 2 it is, I think.
If you’ve found a good way to store wine safely in Barcelona and have gotten as far as reading this part of the newsletter, I’d love to hear from you! With the growing wine culture of the city, it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a big enough issue for it to become a business, but until then I’d be very interested in keeping my delicious, fermented grape juice safe.
Social Media
These newsletters only come out once a month and there is a limit on space for content. If you use Social Media and want to keep up with regular wine updates and occasional rambles, feel free to connect with me on any of the following platforms.
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That’s it for this months newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it and please, if you have any suggestions or things you would like to see get in touch! Either respond to me here or email to fintankerr@winecuentista.com I can’t wait to see you all soon for more wine, food and good company.
Fintan Kerr