Domaine Michel Caillot Pommard Premier Cru 2011

 We got this wine from France and it cost 60 Eur a bottle, but don't think that I am rolling in money. The Domaine is based in Mersault. We drank it with some special friends. It was immediately identifiable as a top red Burgundy and it had all of the characteristics of the region. We drank it with poultry. This wine is superb with food but it is light enough to drink on its own, but not at a barbeque please. The 2011 is at the height of its maturity and it won't be long before I open the second, and our last bottle, with some special friends. You could tell that it is superior wine, but does it deserve such a high price? Well to me it does even when I have paid less for a wine that tastes almost as good. The wine world needs such good producers and they deserve my support. 

The price of standard Burgundy has gone up so much, even in France , that I am now reluctant to buy it, but I can still, just about, find a bargain. In a restaurant you would be expect to pay around 150 Eur, so it is best to buy the wine at a wine merchant and enjoy it with good food and friends at home.

Like everything else, as the prices rise higher and higher the margins of better quality become smaller and smaller. This is why I limit myself to paying no more than 15 or 16 pounds for a wine in the UK. I should expect a really good wine for that, but 5 years ago my limit for a really good wine was 10 or 11pounds.

Wine is becoming so expensive that many people will be put off from drinking it , this could be a disaster for the wine industry in general. I hope that I never see the day when I can't enjoy a really good wine such as Michel Caillot's Pommard, even if it just once a quarter.

 

Christian Pattat Appassimento 2021 and another wine strong in alcohol

Some friends brought this wine around when they came to dinner but we didn't drink it at the time.

We saved it for a couple of weeks and drank it by ourselves with some beef stew on one evening and with some venison stew the following evening. The wine is similar in style to Valpolicella Ripasso and Amarone from Italy. The wine is from Puglia in southern Italy and is produced from a blend of several Italian red wine grapes and I get the feeling that the wine is not produced from a single vineyard.  Appassimento  wines are produced form withered grapes which augment the sugar content. 

This wine is full bodied and tastes of concentrated red fruits. The wine is not dry but it does not taste sickly sweet whatsoever.  It is strong in alcohol at 14.5%. The tannin is well integrated for a 2021 vintage which has matured in oak. It will easily keep for another 3 years. It is a very good quality wine at a reasonable price. Like all good wines it goes well with food and our beef and venison stews went perfectly with it. This is not really a wine for drinking on its own because of the alcohol content and its powerful taste. The wine clears the palate. I recommend this wine it  and compares well with Amarone but it does not achieve the same quality. However, on a cost to quality basis it is more than competitive. Enjoy it. 

https://www.nakedwines.com/products/christian-patat-appassimento-2021

Recently, we went to France to a party in the Ardèche, here we sampled another wine which was strong in alcohol at 15%: Château Mossé 2019 rouge Côtes du Roussillon. I only took one sip of this wine to taste it as I was driving. But everyone else who was drinking the wine agreed that it was of very good quality and had a taste typical of the region. This wine went well with a mixed meat couscous. Another excellent wine for drinking with food rather than on its own .It is well recommended.

Château Mossé Côtes du Roussillon Rouge 2019

100 ml wine tubes "come off it": just another gimmick

 British wine drinkers are supposedly turning to 100ml tubes of premium wine  to reduce their wine consumption. This comes off of the back of dry January. 

Drinkers may want to consider this;  £5 for a 100ml tube for Azevedo Vinho Verde 2022 is rather a lot of money, it is the equivalent of  £37.50 for a 750 ml bottle. A 750ml glass bottle of this wine is £14.95. Your best bet to reduce the cost of your drinking would be to buy a regular bottle and drink it with a partner in two stages. You can easily reseal a bottle of wine and keep it in the fridge for a couple of days or use a vacuum system which will often keep wine for a week in a fridge.. If you can't face drinking a whole bottle of wine then why not pour the wine into a stew and cook off the alcohol. For the price of a couple of  100ml tubes you could afford to throw away a half bottle of this wine. The wine in the example is standard wine and  tastes very good but it is not premium wine, do you really want to pay a lot of money for what is less than a standard small glass of wine?

I can't help but think that the wine industry is using hyperbole to market their products to make up for the general trend for people to drink less. It's another ruse to extract money from you.

The best thing that the individual could do would be to drink less, but to spend their £37.50 on a genuine premium wine in the bottle and drink it with friends, rather than just slugging down a tube of ordinary wine all on your own .

Another gimmick is dry January, I am never going to indulge in this unless I get too ill to enjoy a glass. Nether my wife nor I drink too much and most weeks we have at least 3 days when we don't drink. My opinion is that if you drink so much for the rest of the year that you have to abstain for one month, then you are already damaging your health and you would be better of, health-wise, to give up completely.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/27/britons-smaller-higher-quality-alcoholic-drinks

As for the ban on 250ml glasses, I think this is another gimmick. Sometimes, I treat myself to a large glass of wine when I don't have to drive. I do this to ensure that I don't order a second 175ml glass. I control my drinking and I do not need to observe the blandishments of others to make sure that I don't drink to much. I don't drink more than a sip if I have to drive and in some countries I do not drink anything if I have to drive. It is all my choice, I do not need the health authorities to tell me what to do.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/large-wine-glass-ban-cuts-drinking-by-76-study/ar-AA1nbZX9

Machine learning programs and algorithms can identify which wines originate from which bordeaux vineyards

Machine Learning programs and algorithms can identify which wines originate from which Bordeaux vineyards. This is a development which we could see coming. A team from the University of Geneva have analysed and completely identified the chemical components of 7 wines of various vintages from Bordeaux châteaux. The wines were all from renowned estates. This means that wines can now be protected from fraud. The researchers trained the computer programs to identify each wine  based on a "chromatogram" analysis. The "chromatogram" was produced by vaporising a wine from the estate and analysing the components. The program could identify the particular terroir for the individual vineyard. This provides proof that terroir is influential in both the taste and quality of a wine. The algorithm was shown to be "100%" accurate  when  identifying a wine from its particular estate.

This technique could be used to identify every wine that is being produced. The program could be used by government authorities, retailers and wine buyers to identify fraud and wine substitution to ensure that consumers know the provenance of a wine. This is a particularly useful development and is a very good reason for deploying "AI" or Machine Learning techniques.

Anything the machine can do could be done by a human being with the exception of  analysing a wine quickly and using the programs to analyse thousands of wine in short order.

This "Machine Learning" technique is, however, a double edged sword. If the components of a wine can  be analysed  with such effectiveness then it would be possible for a "Machine Generating" program to completely duplicate a wine, so that it would be impossible for a human being, or another machine, to tell whether the wine had been produced by natural means or not. What would happen to wine fraud then? It would be impossible to detect a fake.

 A "Machine  Learning"  program could even mimic the year to year differences in weather and terroir. A machine would be able to tell whether a wine was any good or not so human judgement could be superseded and eliminated. What would happen to wine mythology and investment in powerful brand names and vintages?  The whole of the wine business would be disrupted.

What will happen when a wine simply becomes a commodity produced by a machine? Viticulture could be eliminated from the wine production process along with  natural vinification. New brand names could appear based on the effectiveness of a wine algorithm, there will be no need to  cellar an artificial wine as the aging process could be built in to the algorithm. Wine making will become completely standardised and homogenised; any differences in taste will result from plug-in programs. All this will be coming soon; so I think that I might take to drinking beer instead but of course there would also be "AI" produced grog. Maybe a glass of "AI" water will have to suffice.

https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/ai-can-pinpoint-which-estate-bordeaux-wines-come-from-with-100-accuracy-518702/

Franciacorta DOCG white Italian Sparkling Wine

 We tasted this sparkling wine as an apéritif when we joined our friends for dinner. Our host is a bit of a wine expert and asked us to guess the wine blind. I didn't do so bad as I guessed in was a high quality Prosecco; at least I got the country right. My wife was a little more circumspect. She has got a really good sense of smell. She was holding the wine at waist level and the look on her face was a picture. I could tell from her expression that the wine was not Champagne well before she expressed an opinion. She is from the Champagne region of France.

The wine turned out to be Franciacorta Brut NV from the Brescia province of Lombardy in northern Italy. This sparkling wine is made by the champagne method. The wine is very fine and of excellent quality with a "biscuity" flavour  reminiscent of Champagne. You can also taste the umami flavour of the yeast after the wine has rested on its lees. The wine was bone dry and has very fine bubbles. Franciacorta is produced from Chardonnay grapes in gravel and limestone based soils and the taste resembles Crémant de Bourgogne which is also produced by the champagne method from grapes grown on limestone soils - mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It is of much higher quality than most of the Prosecco produced in the Veneto region. Most Prosecco is not produced by the champagne method, so the secondary fermentation takes place in a tank.  There are, however, some higher quality Proseccos that are made by the champagne method, hence my confusion, or that's what I like to think. 

Why did my wife not even have to taste the wine before she recognised that it was not Champagne? She grew up in Champagne and is completely familiar with the wine, she doesn't need to become "all analytical" she just recognises Champagne by its smell and doesn't even have to taste it - like I do. She never gets it wrong like me, as I have mistaken an English sparkling wine for Champagne at a blind tasting.

My wife and I had not tasted Franciacorta before, but we shall drink more of it in the future even though it is more expensive that standard Prosecco. However, we will still stay loyal to the world's best wine like true Champenoises and an honorary male one.

https://www.majestic.co.uk/sparkling-wines/castelveder-franciacorta-brut-23356 

Are we going to see the demise of the wine industry?

 Further to my previous article, I can see more and more problems ahead for the wine industry in both France and the rest of the world, we could see wine production almost disappear in the future , but not in my lifetime.

There has been a huge drop in the demand for wine in France and other countries. Part of the problem for wine producers is a change to the buying power of younger people who are turning to non-alcoholic drinks, and drinks which they consider safer to consume from the point of view of chemical additives. 

Probably, advertising campaigns about the consumption of alcohol are beginning to work especially with the younger generations who are concerned about  the effects of over consuming alcohol on their health. Younger people  are turning to cocktails etc. without alcohol. France has a culture which encourages the development of new tastes so wine is under threat. 

All of us are concerned about the additives in our food; sulphites are added to most wines to act as a preservative, so many young people are reducing their wine consumption to reduce their ingestion of chemicals. Sulphites, however, are added to an enormous range of food and drinks but wine seems to be the strongest target against sulphites.

Even though demand for wine is falling, the price of wine does not seem to be going down, even in France. Many vineyards are being grubbed up  to reduce wine production. Eventually a new balance will be established between production and demand and no doubt  prices will go up. Soon, the majority of the population may only be able to afford wine on special occasions - even lower quality wine. What a shame it will be if the tradition of opening a bottle of good wine with friends disappears.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230825-france-eu-to-spend-200-million-euros-on-destroying-surplus-wine

French wine production and Consumption

 The French like other Europeans are consuming less and less wine, so much so that the French government is purchasing millions of Euros worth of wine to financially support the industry. This excess wine is being converted into alcohol for products such as hand sanitiser.

The reduced consumption of wine has many causes. I believe that the message about not drinking too much is getting through especially to young people. Excessive drinking undoubtedly leads to health problems. Inflated prices are also contributing the to financial woes of the wine industry, reduced production will lead to further price increases. Automation of the wine making process may not be able to reduce the cost of a bottle.

All in all the wine industry faces trouble.

From a personal point of my wife and I hardly drink more than a bottle of wine per week, unless we have friends around.. We are increasingly reluctant to pay inflated prices for our wine and we rarely buy Burgundy in the UK.

Champagne and English sparkling wine prices are sky rocketing so consumers are changing to Prosecco and Cava. Luckily we travel to France often enough to buy  reasonably priced Champagne.

Climate change is affecting Prosecco production so the outlook for sparkling wines is not good.

I hope that the wine industry does not suffer too badly from climate change and demographic effects to cause the demise of the industry. There is nothing I like more than a good bottle of wine with my food and friends, so cheers.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/france-fund-destroying-excess-wine-demand-falls