We left chilly and snowy England at the crack of dawn on Monday by EuroStar to find ourselves in chillier and snowier France. The frosty weather and frosty economy have undoubtedly thinned visitor numbers at the annual Salon des Vins de Loire, but it is still one of France’s best regional wine fairs with a diverse selection of exciting wines to taste.

The recent vintage run has been excellent, 2009 and 2010 are both terrific, but conditions were more challenging in 2011 with much depending on how wine-makers managed their vineyards and when they harvested their grapes. As seasoned vigneron Vincent Lecointre from Coteaux du Layon explained, ‘2011 was a year of great successes and great disasters’. According to impressively-moustachioed Loire expert Jim Budd who we button-holed on arrival, the worst hit area had been Nantais where grey rot had impacted heavily on the Muscadet harvest.

Our old chum Fredrik Filliatreau from Saumur Champigny was positively upbeat, talking us through an impressive range of brightly-fruited Cabernet Francs that should make for rewarding early drinking when they are bottled this Spring. Sauvignons from Menetou Salon and Sancerre are bien classique, with a nervy minerality and fine elderflower and nettle aromas.

Encouragingly, some of the best wines we have tasted have also been some of the most keenly-priced – there are exciting wines in prospect from Saumur, St Pourçain and Chinon. Finally, we have managed to bag some last call allocations of the voluptuous 2009 reds that are drinking splendidly already and will continue to do so for a further few years. After two days of full-on tasting, our palates are primed and our notebooks are full. We are off for a well-earned demi-pression at the Brasserie de la Gare.

Long before I met my wife she belonged to a Wine Club in Cardiff, not that I think really this was for genuine oenophiles but more of a social club where the cheese got as much attention as the wine. It was though by all accounts great fun and had a loyal following.

At one such gathering she was persuaded to buy a bottle of Chapoutier Côte Rôtie 1996 (for what was then an unusual concept – drinking at some point in the future). This bottle has been with us now for more years than I care to mention, moved house with us and still with its hand written sticker “DO NOT DRINK UNTIL 2010”

It’s been an ongoing debate – as 2010 passed, when would we actually drink this single bottle?

Last weekend we had friends round, a normal drill of each couple bringing one of the courses – Richard decided on Beef bourguignon (after a few errors with a beef wellington earlier the previous day) – so we decided that we may as well finally drink the CR96.

It felt like my Chemistry A level practice all over again – I knew the theory – now it was time for the real thing. We decided on a face off – we lined up a Jasmin Côte Rôtie 2004 to ‘compare and contrast’ – well, following the science A level reference – more an experiment control. So, having asked (one of) our resident Rhone experts at Yapp HQ I was ready.

We kept both bottles outside during the day – it was 12-13 degrees, so ideal – warmer than chilled whites but cooler than normal red serving temperature. We decanted (with military precision) both bottles 1 hour before serving the Beef bourguignon.

The 1996 on pouring was thinner and browner that the 2004 –and on decanting had hardly any nose. The 2004 however had a classic Northern Rhone nose – a bouquet of raspberries and violets and a palate of dense black fruit flavours and ripe tannins.

However, an hour later the 1996 had literally blossomed – and now in comparison was way in front – always reassuring when your revision comes good in the exam!

The 1996 Côte Rôtie was devoured by all at the table, it was delicious and had a finish that was seemingly never ending.

Should you want to repeat this at home (we had great fun doing it) you’ll find our selection of Côte Rôtie wines here.

Happy drinking!

Never let it be said that Yapp Brothers are a parochial bunch who aren’t prepared to spread the good word far and wide.

Last week I stepped off the Bristol – Glasgow flight to join up with ace Catalan wine maker Christine Campadieu who had come from Collioure, via Barcelona and Berlin (where she had taken part in a gourmet wine dinner at Michelin 2 star, Regent hotel). To complete the international mix, I’d persuaded my Colombian wife to head up from London for a spin around the Highlands. Thus assembled, our polyglot hire car headed north up the A9 to host a tasting and dinner at The Cross at Kingussie, in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park.

Christine Campadieu outside The Cross, Kingussie

David and Katie Young’s welcoming ‘restaurant with rooms’ is a must for any greedy wine lover who fancies a break in some wonderful countryside. A great deal of love and attention has gone into putting together a terrific wine list, which has been regularly commended, most recently Imbibe’s Small Restaurant Wine List of the Year 2011. In fact, the Youngs’ visit to Domaine Le Tour Vieille last year was the catalyst for this event.

To kick off the evening, Christine provided guests with an entertaining introduction to the wines of Roussillon and conducted an hour long tutored tasting covering eight wines from the estate. We then enjoyed white Collioure with an inspired Catalan dish of salt & pepper squid with anchovy aioli, before washing down Rothiemurchus Estate roe deer with red Collioure Pinède 2008. The local Blarliath cheese course accompanied red Puig Oriole 2008 before the finale of a wonderful chocolate brownie with heavenly Banyuls Réserva. I think Christine and Isabel were suitably impressed (possibly shocked) that I managed a digestif of Bruichladdich Octomore, the world’s peatiest whisky.

The next day, fortified by a hearty breakfast where attention to every detail was again evident (homemade HP sauce with locally-sourced sausages and black pudding, alongside Boston-style baked beans) and refreshed by a stroll up the river that feeds this one-time Tweed mill (where we spotted red squirrel), we headed South.

If you are heading into the Cairngorms, I would strongly recommend a visit to the Edradour Whisky Distillery just outside Pitlochry. It’s Scotland’s smallest distillery, a gem and what there is to know about Malt Whisky that our guide Frank couldn’t tell us, isn’t worth knowing.

Frank at Edradour Whisky Distillery

Our season of events kicked-off in earnest last Thursday with a Tour de France wine dinner at my local ‘The Cornerhouse’ in the delightful market town of Frome in Somerset. If you had told my teenage self that I would be extolling the virtues of Frome as an adult you’d have met with a reaction of disbelief. I grew up nearby and Frome was where you went if you wanted to get duffed-up on a Saturday night – any night really if you weren’t choosey.

Contemporary Frome has embraced café culture (La Strada, Divas and The Little Red Café), boasts a brilliant independent bookshop (The Hunting Raven) and can even muster a quorum of people interested in the finer points of food and wine matching. Things just aren’t what they used to be!

Patron Martin Earley took over the Cornerhouse last February having scoured Southern England for a site with potential and a certain je ne sais quoi. He is passionate about good food and fine wine and took very little persuading in letting us take over his dining room for a soirée of gastronomic and vinous indulgence. As guests arrived we sampled a terrific array of canapés, including some excellent salmon and rare roast beef crostini, which we partnered with a Saint Péray Mousseux Brut made by Jean-Louis Thiers. This relatively-rare, bottle-fermented, sparkling Marsanne hails from the Southernmost (and second smallest) appellation of the Northern Rhône. It has a fine mousse, an attractive orchard fruit bouquet a fresh, bracing finish and proved a popular primer. Napoleon Bonaparte is alleged to have become a passionate imbiber of Saint Péray during his military cadetship in Valence in 1795. That may be apocryphal but the truth should never get in the way of a good story.

Our second wine of the evening, served alongside a deftly-cooked and delicious dish of Filets de Rouget (red mullet sounds like a bad hair do) with a tomato, garlic and basil dressing, was the failsafe Saumur Blanc 2010 from the ever-reliable Cave de Saumur co-operative. This crowd-pleasing dry white wine has the twin merits of being extremely flavoursome and inexpensive. It is made entirely from Chenin Blanc, a woefully underrated grape variety, and has zesty, citrus aromas, a lively dry palate and a wonderful affinity for seafood. Our bottling is adorned with a magnificent deep blue label depicting a De Galle-esque profile designed by gifted polymath Pippa Goldfinger (aka ‘Mrs Yapp’).

After a refreshing Sorbet au Citron, which the lady who was sitting next to me declared the finest she had ever tasted, we moved on to our main course of stuffed best end of lamb served in a vegetable broth. Martin explained that this was a recipe from the mountains of Corsica that he felt would be a sufficiently robust vehicle for a pair of chest-thumping reds – both in the promising 2009 vintage. First we served a Pic Saint-Loup ‘L’Arbouse’ from Mas Bruguière. Decanter magazine recently described it as “A seamless blend of Grenache and Syrah, with real character and notes of black cherry, blackberry, bitter chocolate, asphalt and herb-covered roasted meat.” It certainly went down well on the evening although it had tough competition from the Vin de Corse Sartène from Domaine Saparale. Unsurprisingly, this earthy, Maquis-scented blend of Nielluccio and Sciacarello married particularly well with the lamb and (if the empty bottle count is a testament to popularity) just found favour on the night.

Martin then introduced a patriotic brace of cheeses – a Bath Soft Cheese which was perfectly à point and a tasty ‘Gough’s Cave’ Cheddar (the only Cheddar made in Cheddar). At this juncture we somewhat indulgently served a Nuits-Saint-Georges 2002 from Domaine Paul Misset. Jane MacQuitty described this, in The Times, as being a “gorgeous, smoky, gamey red Burgundy with lots of liquorice-licked fruit.” Although biased I have to concur and it proved a great match for the cheeses.

Our final course was a classic Tarte Tatin accompanied by a Monbazillac 2009 from Domaine de l’Ancienne Cure. The richly-honeyed, golden dessert wine complimented the caramelised apple to perfection and made for a fitting finale to a hedonistic evening. As my fellow diners dispersed I then enjoyed the rare pleasure of walking home after hosting a dinner. The team at the Cornerhouse had excelled themselves which is a very good reason to visit again in the near future!

Following the inaugural Natural Wine Fair in London in May I entered into an interesting correspondence with a journalist called Sarah Scott who writes for a magazine called Vegetarian Living. Sarah had attended the Natural Wine Fair and had been impressed by some of the wines on tasting there and was keen to write a feature on natural wines. As we have mentioned (frequently) beforehand ‘natural wines’ are fairly loosely defined at present but are fundamentally organic or biodynamic wines that are made with minimal intervention in the vineyard and cellar. Sarah just wanted to double-check on the credentials of natural wines with regard to their suitability for consumption by a) vegetarians and b) vegans.

One could be forgiven for thinking that (as it is made from fruit juice) all wine is suitable for both groups but that is not the case. The crux here is to do with products that are used to clarify or ‘fine’ wines and these can be of animal origin. One might reasonably assume that organic and biodynamic wines cannot be made using animal products but that is not the case either, as I discovered from consulting Monty Waldin’s excellent book ‘Biodynamic Wines’ [Mitchell Beazley 2004]: “If fining agents are used they must not be man-made, so the synthetic free radical PVPP is banned. All other fining agents used in conventionally grown wines – such as gelatin, egg-white, isinglass, and casein – are permitted.”
So it is possible to have a ‘natural wine’ that isn’t suitable for vegetarians or vegans.

This is pretty frustrating from a vegetarian stance as very few natural wine makers deploy either isinglass (which comes from the swim bladders of fish) or gelatin (from animal bones) as a fining agent but at present there is nothing saying they can’t so one cannot assume all natural wines are vegetarian-friendly. More irksome still is the fact there is rarely anything on a wine label telling you anything about this so it is necessary to check at source how the wine has been made if one wants a definitive answer.

The outlook is even more problematic from a vegan viewpoint. Lots of natural wine-makers use egg white (hopefully from outdoor-reared, organic hens) or casein (a milk derivative) to clarify their wines and wines made by such methods are not suitable for vegans. Plenty of natural wines are not fined or filtered at all or are fined without animal products so could be vegan friendly but there is currently no way of knowing without asking the producer or supplier. The use of horses to plough vineyards is increasingly popular in the natural wine making firmament but this, along with the use of animal manure in composts and milk-based sprays for vine treatments may raise issues for strict vegan adherents.

Clearly greater clarification is called for. Or maybe the answer is no clarification at all!

Perhaps I need to get out more…

Here are just some of the vegetarian wines in stock at Yapp Brothers:

• Côtes de Provence: Domaine Richeaume: Cuvée Tradition 2009
• Côtes du Roussillon: Cuvée Tradition 2007
• Vin de Pays Catalan: Empreinte du Temps Carignan 2007
• Vin de Corse Porto Vecchio: Domaine de Torraccia Rouge 2008
• Pic Saint-Loup: l’Arbouse 2009 Mas Bruguière
• Saumur Rouge: Domaine Filliatreau Château Fouquet 2010
• Jasper Hill: Georgia’s Paddock Shiraz 2007

John Livingstone-Learmonth

We were honoured last week when distinguished Rhône expert, author, journalist and creator of www.drinkrhone.com John Livingstone-Learmonth and his wife Fiona called in at our shop in Mere to pick up some Clape: Cornas (1995 and 1999 as you ask) that we have been holding for them in our customer reserves. Fortunately John had phoned ahead which gave me a chance to gather up a few bottles from newly-shipped vintages as it is always a pleasure to taste with ‘le prof’. John and Fiona were looking nicely bronzed having just returned from a marathon Rhône tasting in the Maldives in the company of Marcel Guigal and the frères Perrin.

We kicked-off with a white Lirac: La Fermade 2010 which John deemed ‘sound’ and ‘versatile’. He thought it would work well as an aperitif or with food. We then tasted the white Chave Hermitage 2008 which he thought was ‘unformed’ and ‘oakier than anticipated’ but had good potential and might develop well over the next 5-10 years. The Costières de Nîmes ‘Cuvée Prestige’ Rosé 2010 was well received ‘a touch of sweetness but does the job’ was John’s matter of fact verdict but it was trumped by the Tavel: La Forcadière 2010. John liked that so much he bought a case which I suppose is the highest praise a wine can get unless, of course, he’d bought 2 cases. We then moved onto taste a red Lirac and red Costières de Nîmes both of which were bien classique before rounding things off with the red Chave Hermitage 2008 which we both concurred is an understated and deftly-made wine in a challenging vintage.

Tavel: La Forcadière 2010

After I had arranged an impromptu ‘goodie bag’ for Fiona replete with Glen Baxter posters, T-shirts and ‘Yapp’ mugs my other great mentor, my dad, arrived and they adjourned to the Red Lion in Kilmington to sample the Butcombe Best Bitter. What John thought of that I don’t know but I doubt they keep a better beer in John’s neck of the woods in Bexhill-on-Sea. They haven’t got the terroir!