The Wines of Yamaya. Part 3: Antonin Rodet Mercurey 2009

Get in! A great value bottle of burgundy from our friends at Yamaya. I picked this up for around 3000 yen at the Karasuma branch and I was pleasently surprised.

Mercurey is the most famous appellation on the Côte Chalonnaise, beating out Rully on production of red wine by some margin, so I had serious doubts whether a large negociant like Antonin Rodet could produce quality at this price point.

On first pouring this is definitely on the richer side for Bourgogne. A dense red colour. With a very broad, fat nose of red fruit. Both fresh and dried fruit are here. Classic cherry, pommegranite and fruitcake. Without much in the way of savoury notes, this wine manages to avoid jamminess or over simplicity.

On the palate there's a touch of residual sugar, but the fruit stands out in broad brush strokes. First comes the cherry sweetness, lifted by a pleasently degree of acid. The flavour mellows into a kind of stone fruit (not really Victoria plum, but it's the closest thing I could think of) smoothness that persists long after wines of a similar price have given up the ghost.

Highly recommended. Get a French rack of lamb from Meat Shop Meister and treat yourself.

A nice refreshing glass of copyright infringement.

Available at Kintetsu Kusatsu for your tasting pleasure.

The Wines of Yamaya. Part Two: Cosme Palacio Rioja Blanco 2011

Been into the Rioja recently. I had the pleasure of a Viña Tondonia Blanco '99 Reserva a few weeks back and I wanted to see if I could get in the ball park for less money. 
Of course that's insane. The Tondonia was absolutely terrific. Huge length and complexity and so much more interesting to wine geeks than even the most refined Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. Thursday night wines, though, are made of different stuff.
I picked up this bottle for ¥1800 at my local Yamaya. It's a 100% Viura wine aged in 225 litre new French oak barrels. I liked the fonts on the label, too. Let's see what it has to offer. 

Opened and poured, this has an even colour reminiscent of a ripe English pear without much of a sparkle. A decent glassful has a colour that's becomes denser at the core. The nose has "that Viura thing" going on. Somewhere between "something that died in the forest" and, the altogether more prosaic, banana. As it warmed in the glass hints of sour lime emerged and everything intensified a little. Don't be put off by the hint of death on the nose. It's interestingly macabre rather than horrifyingly off-putting.
The flavours are strange here. Nothing leaps out but there's a very nice balance of citrus, hazelnut and cocktail bitters. The more the oxygen got to it, the more lime juice came out. Nice. Odd combination, but it works well. Once again, I think that in a world of Chardonnay drinkers who might occasionally have a drop of Sauvignon Blanc, this provides comparable quality, but a ton more interest at the price point.
Stick this with some prawns There's something about the flavour profile of this wine that's convinced me it'll suit the earthy seafood stylings of our sea-bug friends. That and hard cheese. I'm getting hungry again...
If you weren't particularly interested in wine, but just turned up at a party in need of a drink, I doubt this would work for you. It's far too geeky and singular to please a crowd of any reasonable size. If, however, you're sick of same old choices and enjoy drinking with your brain switched on, this may well be up your street.

The wines of Yamaya. Part One: Cuvee Anne-Laure Pinot Blanc 2011

I thought I'd write a few articles for all my brothers and sisters in Kyoto. You may well be able to get the wines in this series from other places as well...

Pinot Blanc doesn't get much love. Many of the epithets applied to it are rather pitying and sexist, such is the stigma applied to this grape. "Ugly Sister", "Good personality" and "wall flower". Not very edifying on behalf of the wine reviewers and pros I've heard from. I'll do this bottle the favour of not being supercilious. I hope it's up to the task.

A deep straw when you pour it this wine doesn't exactly sparkle in the glass, too bad. A nose of ripe apple floats above a suspiciously grapey base. It's very much like the rich Muscat grapes, perfectly bunched and spotless, that people send to each other as summer gifts in Japan. There are some over-ripe russety tones as well.
The palate is quite well balanced, slightly off dry with some acid present, I definitely detect the roundness of a lot of Auxerrois in this blend (In Alsace Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Auxerrois can all be included in a wine labelled "Pinot Blanc"). This in itself is not a bad thing, but it is certainly an uninteresting thing to taste.
Apple, Melon, Grape, Meh.
This wine is relatively food friendly, I suppose, but the finish is short and it's totally uninspiring. There are definitely cheaper whites at Yamaya that blow this tripe out of the water.
Waste of space.

Up and coming on the Wine Mothership video channel!

Sorry for the video hiatus! I've been incredibly busy cutting the drunk bits out of our recent tasting of '78 Rioja. Delicious stuff and it went down so fast we were drunk before we got to the end of the video. Still worth a watch though!

Upcoming delights are;

'78 Rioja

Blogger gang tasting!

White Margaux (yes, I know it's just AOC Brodeaux, but still...)

A Vampire Cabernet Sauvignon from Romania! ( It may be the first time there are two Shit Wines on an episode)

'09 Pomerol

Requests welcome!

Osaka American wine day.

Two weeks ago I has the opportunity to swing by the Osaka American wine day. This yearly event, sponsored by the US government was a lot of fun! 

I won't bore you with the details, I'll just tell you about the wines.

Rack and Riddle Blanc de Noirs.

Recommended. 100% Pinot noir with obvious skin contact during early production. This salmon pink sparkler had more fruit than most red grape sparklers I've had. Strawberries on toast.

I love a Petite Sirah, especially one as as balanced and mineral as this Madrigal 2009 example from Napa. Wonderful acid, which came over as minerality, and very nice length for a wine in this price bracket. I just wish it were a little more concentrated. Also recommended.

Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc. New York. Typical cassis and blackberry leaf flavours on the front end. Hollow mid palate, hard acid on the finish. Interesting, not good.

10% too green. Avoid.

Patz and Hall Pinot Noir. Utterly unremarkable in every sense. Paint by numbers Pinot. Wil certainly have it's fans. Price check on aisle 18.

Peachy Canyon Incredible Red. Incredibly American. Totally unremarkable. Avoid.

Find of the night was the Birichino Vin Gris. Wonderful aromatics on this. Almost Alsatian in its florality. Fizzy acidity and old fashioned sweets with tropical hints of pineapple, jasmine and Japanese cherries. 

Quite a resinous body and great length. I think this would suit a wide variety of situations. I'll personally open up a bottle next time I have a picnic by the river.

Order it from Wassy's today.

See you at the Osaka Hilton next year.

Whoppee cushion a la Provençal. Domaine Tempier Bandol

Here's something I've bee meaning to get to for a while, a nice bottle of Bandol!

For the uninitiated, Bandol is a south eastern appellation of French red where the Mourvèdre grape predominates. I'm big fan of the big M. Some of the the nicest Rhone reds, both southern and Northern, have exhibited big, fleshy chunks of velvety bramble fruit as a result of the inclusion of this smooth criminal.
Further exploration, in the company of Shadow Pony, has led me to South Australian mono-varietals of amazing power and concentration and cheapo Spanish mouthwash.

Time to bring it on back home.

I cracked this one open just before my birthday dinner last weekend (the family have requested no cake) just to see if it needed a decant. On first inspection there was a ton of acid, bright fruit and a little nail polish remover. Re-cork, I thought to myself, and I bagged it up to take it over to the rather wonderful Raisin.
The journey and the wait didn't do this much good. The first glass exhibited a very closed character. After inspecting the pale, clear crimson hue, the nose was rather reluctant. That is to say as reluctant as a claustrophobic pony who's afraid of the dark would be if invited for a shift down a coal mine. Nothing. Red and chalk.
The Shadow Pony provided the tasting cue of the night when he said it tasted like a new Whoppee Cushion. Fair enough. Lead and pink Hubba Bubba was what I got. Little in the way of discernible fruit and only short to medium in length.
We abandoned this until the end of the night. An hour in it felt better balanced, with a more raspberried, if slightly lactic quality on the palate. The length had improved as well, although not enough.
At around 4000 yen from the usually impeccable Takimoto wine shop, I don't think I'll be venturing down to Bandol again in the forseeable. I'll be getting my Mourvedre kicks from Australia.