Sparkles & Surprises (Session 11 - 21 February 2009)

This week we resumed with the attendance of guests. Olivier Gasselin of Chelsea's 'Bluebird' restaurant graced us with his presence again. His astute observations are always welcome, whilst his cautious approach keeps us focused on what we are experiencing.

A surprise was to come an hour into the session when Swissotel's Alan Calzari knocked on the door with Mandarin Oriental's Markus Lindner! This added more opinions and observations from seasoned F&B professionals. 

If the concept of recommending waters with wines is ever going to gain market acceptance, it is vital that the decision makers in the industry gain exposure to our tastings whilst they are still an imperfect science, in order to understand that this isn't something that we are making up as we go along!

With sparkling waters today we sampled:

2007 Riesling Eden Valley, Terra Barossa

2006 Clearwater, Chardonnay Marlborough New Zealand Sherwood Estate

2007 Rioja Blanco Barrel Fermented  Viura (10% Malvasia) Luis Canas

2006 Viognier 'Mill Road Vineyard'   Eberle Paso Robles

Nicolas also suggested that we calculate the entire cost of Minerals & Terroir to date, in terms of wines, waters and our time...I have no idea what that is likely to be. Needless to say, we wouldn't have been putting our spare hours into this if cost was an issue.

Highlights were the emergence (finally) of a clear leader in terms of a sparkling water that has begun to show more consistently across the white wines. It is a French naturally sparkling water that is high in bicarbonates and sodium.

Complement...or Enhance? (Session 10 - 7th February 2009)

 

Today we established a further definition to the scoring category. In addition to defining the score based on taste experiences, we also determined that a wine need not necessarily 'enhance' a wine, in order to recommend it alongside it. 

Quite simply, sometimes a water can prove to be an excellent complement to the wine - a 15+ almost. So we have decided to include the score of 15 into the recommendations list also.

 
Complement?

Or enhance?

Three Amigos...Two Viogniers (Session 9 - 31st January 2009)

With Sparking water today we sampled:

2007 Chenin Blanc, Morgenhof Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2007 Viognier “Villavieja”, La Agrícola, Mendoza, Argentina

2007 Maria Gomes, Luis Pato, Bairrada, Portugal

2007 Viognier, Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes, Domaine Yves Cuilleron

The presence of two Viogniers, both Old and New world, offered us a great opportunity to start answering some questions - such as whether it is the grape variety, or the terroir (and other factors) that determine the pairing with waters. The answer was more indicative of grape variety, but there were key discrepancies. For instance, there were three instances in which there was a recommendation with one wine, but not the other. In one instance, where there was an old world recommendation, the new world wine was deemed to have been harmed by the same water.

Hmm, curious and a little frustrating as it would have been lovely to have drawn a line under it and said "wow, it is simply the grape variety that matters!", but then, wine is a little more complicated than that isn't it...

Having said that, there are instances in which the same water has been recommended with both wines, so I think that this may prove to be the key. If we can find waters that consistently pair well with certain grape varieties, then not only will we be able to incorporate these into wine menus with a high degree of accuracy, but from a scientific perspective, we shall be able to understand which key combination in minerals is necessary for consistent wine-specific matching.

Striking a balance... (Session 8 - 24th January 2009)

Today we had the pleasure of hosting freelance journalist Fionnuala Synnott to sample Still waters with some rather eclectic wines (well, 3 of them):

Meursault “Clos du Cromin”, Domaine Bitouzet-Prieur 2006 Burgundy (Chardonnay grape)

Grappoli del Grillo, Marco de Bartoli 2005 Sicily, Italy (Grillo grape)

Terra do Gargalo 2002, Monterrei, Galicia, Spain (Treixadura, Godello, Dona Blanca grapes)

Corse Calvi “Clos Culombu”, Domaine Culombu 2007, Corsica (Vermentino grape)

Fionnuala (I have to concentrate when spelling her name!) was delighted to find that the Irish spring water was her mother's favourite from her home county. I am sure that this didn't influence her scoring!

She also made some very astute observations regarding the scores, commenting on how the score of 6-9, rather than saying 'harms elements of the wine' should be altered to reflect/accomodate when a wine is unbalanced as a result of the introduction of water to the palate. Roberto and I agreed and this has now been included in our ever evolving score sheet.

Nicolas was away, which meant that not all of the wine was finished. Since I normally take the empty bottles with me for potential future photo opportunities, someone had to finish off the wine...ah, well!

Happy New Year! (Session 7 - 17/1/09)

Today, Godfrey Spence was again the guest. It is a pleasure that with his experience, this new concept should be of such great interest.

With Sparkling waters we tried:

Rueda, Herederos del Marqués de Riscal 2007 Rueda, Spain (Verdejo grape)

Rias Baixas O Rosal, Valmiñor 2007 Galiçia, Spain (Albariño grape)

Nuragus di Cagliari “Pedraia”, Cantina Santadi 2007 Sardinia, Italy (Nuragus grape)

Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, Domaine de la Janasse 2007 Rhône Valley, France (50% Grenache, 25% Roussanne, 25% Clairette)

The Nuragus proved a wonderful wine, whose prominent characters made it difficult to find a water which 'enhanced' it. Having observed this though, there were waters that harmed the character too, which demonstrates the value of a 0-20 system of scoring as relevant when appreciating wines in a dining environment.