I love Murray River Salt....and they aren't paying me to say that. It's a pretty pale pink colour.

Sainsburys Taste the Difference Sancerre 2004 £8.54 has a round, fruity, open nose with a touch of minerality and a clean freshness. The good, underlying fruit with its tantalising honeycomb edges was somewhat hidden by the very high acidity on the palate. So I thought perhaps what it needed was some cheese to round it out...

First up Organic Wensleydale. This crumbly white is more texture than flavour but did fill out the wine and brought forward the fruit -peachy aromatics. The lightness of the almost cottage cheese texture really complemented the delicacy of the wine. There was a hint of a salty tang too.

Then Woolsery, http://www.woolserycheese.co.uk , this is a medium hard goat's cheese from Dorset and is so tasty. It was the best in combination with the wine too. The slightly salty creaminess perfectly cut the acidity of the wine down to size. The cheese had a decent level of acidity to it as well. It was grassy and had a goaty note but was not overly pungent. Great stuff.

Next up Vintage Gouda, the label didn't give a year or age though - perhaps this is cheese parlance that someone can enlightenment me about? This had a wonderful flavour, nutty, earthy, hay aromas, very fruity in fact. It is a dense and creamy cheese which cancelled out the acidity in the wine altogether and made it seem almost flabby! Not quite right together.

Finally Doux de Montagne, very like a Spanish Manchego with its subtle flavour and rubbery texture. It tasted slightly soured too but in a good way. The wine overwhelmed this cheese though and it had very little impact when tasted together.

By Campbell Mattinson
Publisher, The Wine Front

Torbreck’s top shiraz – the Run Rig Shiraz, priced at well over $200 per bottle – is probably Australia ’s most hedonistic wine. It leaps out of the bottle like a rattlesnake, all fanfare and bite. It is, always, dangerously drinkable. It is thick with flavour and accented by sweetness, its spicy, gravelly, smoky complexity ramping its class through the roof. There’s always been a question mark though: this tastes so bloody good the day it is released – what happens if you stick it in the cellar? Is it Australia ’s best early-drinking wine, or will it develop and evolve if given time? A tasting in the Barossa Valley recently of every vintage yet made of Torbreck Run Rig Shiraz (including the just-released 2005) threw a crust of clear answers.

The full article is available to subscribers only. Click here for the full article. 

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This time of year the wine lover is inundated with T-day wine recommendations..."German Riesling is perfect with turkey"...."A Beaujolais is a sure bet on Thanksgiving"...."Burgundy, both red and white are ideal on your Thanksgiving".....etc. etc.

I for one am tired of staid poultry & stuffing wine pairing suggestions. 

How about something different to eat and drink on Friday - the day after turkey day?  May I suggest a Vermentino, not from the sardinian coast, but from Lodi, California.  Who knew the California version of this hefty-spicy-herby-citrusy grape could be so true to its Italian roots?  After racking up mo' mo' credit card debt on Friday, take the edge of with a plate of turkey enchiladas paired to Uvaggio Vermentino 2006 ($10).   It will be the best wine-food match you will sample all week.

Another Moronic Convergence set for our place tonight: tonight's showdown is Monastrell/Mourvedre. So far, I think we have to Spanish, two Californian, and one French.

Highly anticipated results to follow...

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Win a Two-Week Trip to France - 28 June 2008

Many people would be able to identify a bottle of wine that was truly faulty and, in a restaurant, ask for a replacement. But would you be able to tell what the fault was or what to blame for it? It is all to do with perception threshold. Different faults require different parts per thousand or even million to be perceived.

Some people are more sensitive to certain faults than others so while the host, who may taste the wine as it is brought to the table, is happily quaffing, one or more guests could be secretively retching into their napkins. Depending on how well you know your host and judging, diplomatically, how much of an ego dent your comments could produce, it might be worth discreetly asking people to have another careful sniff.

 At a wine faults workshop this week, it was made clear that a fault is only a fault if the people drinking the wine consider it to be. For example the "fault" brett - produced from brettanomyces yeast acting on the phenolic acids of the grape - is a characteristic that some tasters love and some winemakers deliberately introduce. It can produce strong animal characteristics that enhance a wine's complexity and increases some people's pleasure.

Of course it is very important to get the balance right because the smallest increase tips a wine over from animal (yum) to bretty (yuck).  And even in the lower doses some people adore the fragrant pong while others will recoil in horror at the filthy stench. Perception is all.

Then there is actual corkiness. Produced by TCA, TBA and TeCA it has various origins like the high levels of chlorine used to clean the winery and equipment, the breakdown of other cleaning agents by funghi in the winery - low ventilation and high humidity contibuting to high levels in the atmosphere.

The cork industry is keen to point out that it is not something inherently present in the corks more of a contamination at the winery. The plastic in alternative closure linings etc are equally susceptible to this contamination. With increased awareness, far higher standards of hygiene than ever before and alternative cleaning solutions available the problem should be getting better. However despite some high profile cases in California back in 2004, there are still many wineries taking the easy option and continuing bad practices.

At the other end is a sulfide problem that produces a tomato, truffle, cabbage, rubber character. This is reduction, the opposite of oxidation and the result of a complete seal which prevents any movement of oxygen into the wine. Unlike oxidation though, this can be corrected sometimes as simply as swirling the wine in the glass or decanting the bottle thereby allowing some air contact and dissipating the bad aromas.

This problem has been most associated with screwcaps which provide such an affective seal that all the positive benefits of cork permeability have been lost alongside the problems that can occur for freshness through excessive permeability.

New Zealand wineries have famously chosen to address this by slightly oxidising the wine before bottling in order to achieve balance once the wine is in bottle. As is often the case with the New World, they are quick to respond to problems and criticism.

However this is a dangerous and nervy solution and not always successful. Pascal Chatonnet, leading faults scientist, oenologist and consultant to wineries all over the world, argues that some of the essential character and originality is lost through this process and the overall quality and elegance is compromised, though this is not necessarily understood by the consumer as the original wine is not available to compare.

What is important to the cork industry is that while a consumer might recognise the wine is faulty, the only real language employed to describe or attribute the fault invokes cork. This is of major concern and is where the charm offensive needs to conentrate, for cork may not have played any part whatsoever.

For consumers the challenge to the industry as a whole is to find a closure with the correct level of permeability and which is kept free of contamination. It is in everybody's interests and with a more frank discussion opening up we can only hope that solutions won't be too far away.

On the Train to Valencia!
As I write, we are heading down south to the warm, sunny beaches of Valencia. We’ll be visiting with a few key people from the wine tourism industry along with a new client, who is just starting out in the world of exports. Interestingly, they own one of the largest nursery’s for vines in Spain; hence, it will be fun to see how they are grown and prepared for the vineyards. Beyond all of this, we have a tasting with an old friend whose book we reviewed here a few months ago.

We’re both excited to be able to come down here after many months away to taste new wines, as Valencia really is one of those regions that is too often overlooked, while producing some of the most exciting wines in Spain.

Joining the Rest of Iberia
Now that the weather is officially blistering hot, and Iberian businesses are closing up shop at 2pm, we felt it was appropriate to follow suit by cutting down our posting to approximately 3 times a week. I say approximately, because our correspondents now located in Andalusia, Beijing and Lisbon will be contributing as well. But keep in mind that this is only until September when we’ll return back to our normal 5 days a week publishing schedule. Hopefully our decision will help to encourage you to get outside as well this summer, far away from blinking cursors and television sets Side note: we are still looking for a correspondent in the US, and are open to anyone who has a passion for both Iberian wines and writing. Please drop us a line if you, or someone you know, might be interested.

Portuguese Wineries Curious about Blogging!
Lucky us! We get to visit the Douro in summer! Imagine 100F/40C temperatures and crazy heat. We’ll be meeting with two small wineries, one of which is starting a small project in organic wine. We haven’t visited the Douro valley since 2003 and are ecstatic to get back there to see the lush green vineyards and beautiful Douro river. However, we’re curious if you have any questions you’d like us to ask this small port house regarding the process of going organic in Portugal. For example, what organic means in the Douro or even why they chose to take the leap in the first place? We believe they will be only the second or third port house to have any organic wine production, which makes the transition all the more exciting.

I’m headed to Minnesota! Ryan that is…
Ryan will be heading back to the US at the end of July and the beginning of August. On his to do list are the following: drink down his cellar a little bit more, renew his drivers license, consume at a minimum 1 hoppy beer a day, shoot photos at a cousin’s wedding, and rag on his dad who is turning 60. Should be fun! And if your in MN, or passing through, please give him a shout and maybe you all can meet up.

We’ll be back with some regualarly scheduled program in a few days, but for now we’re headed to Xativa to meet up with a new winery! Should be fun!

Till soon,

Ryan and Gabriella Opaz

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How many times have you bought a wine based on a promotional price?  Or bought multiple wines you didn’t really want because of a three for two type offer?  We may be all falling for “artificial promotions” that are anything but a good deal. 

According to a fascinating article in The Guardian, brought to our attention by regular Bottletalker Wine-Scribbler, up to 80% of sales of some wine brands are generated through “half price” offers that are anything but genuine.

There are some good quotes in the article from wine industry insiders confirming that what have long been speculated to be dubious “offers” are exactly that and give no real value to the wine drinker at all.

 Read more for the full story.

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