In the afternoon, we’d all signed up for a session with the title “Sparking Wine: The Art of Blending” which turned out to be something of a misnomer, as nobody really talked about blending. Instead, five producers of fizz talked about their wines.
I appear to
have had nothing to say about the first one from CHO Wines except that it was
quite expensive – I've written down $95 but can’t find this wine on their
website. I found the 2014 Fiddlehead Cellars “728 Bubbles” blanc de noirs more
interesting and quite winey for a fizz, and it was only $65. They're based in the Santa Rita Hills area of California.
Next was a
wine from Nautilus Estate in Marlborough, NZ. This was only $40 and very
bubbly. It reminded me strongly of the kinds of New World fizz that were around
when I was an undergraduate – stuff like Yalumba Angas Brut. For me, it was
clean but completely lacking any character.
Then we
moved on to two champagnes. The first was Laurent-Perrier which was perfectly nice but
nothing out of the ordinary. The second, from Henri Giraud, was much more my cup of tea.
This was the Hommage au Pinot Noir NV. It was a much more golden colour than the others and had a lot of mushrooms, yeastiness and richness. Someone mentioned salinity,
which wasn’t a word I’d ever heard used to describe champagne but fitted the
bill. This retails at around $100 which seems like a fair price for it.
Incidentally, the first three wines had been poured before everyone
entered the seminar room, and the last two were poured halfway through the
seminar, which meant that they were significantly colder. I've probably already said this but if there’s one thing
I learned from the IPNC, it's that serving wine at the proper temperature makes
a huge difference.
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