Dear <<First Name>>
Does wine need to be demystified? There was a discussion about this very topic on Twitter (where else?) this week following a tongue-in-cheek post by my friend Ruth Spivey. ‘I am so sick of people saying their aim is to demystify wine,’ she wrote. ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my days making it as complicated and as intimidating as possible. Who’s in?’
It sort of depends what you mean by ‘demystified’, I suppose. I’ve never had any time for wine snobs, label buyers or people who use wine to show off or belittle others. I also subscribe to the opinion of the late Bob McLean of St Hallett in the Barossa Valley who always described wine as '75 centilitres of fun'. But I also wouldn’t be without what we might call the mystery, the magic, the sheer ineffability of wine.
We all experience wine in our own way. My rapture is your disappointment. But taking the mystery out of wine – over-explaining it and dumbing it down – does it a disservice. Wine is as complicated as you wish to make it, like most subjects, but let’s not reduce it to its bare bones. As Albert Einstein once wrote, ‘everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler’.
I like the idea that wine can entertain and make you smile. That’s why I’m looking forward to receiving my copy of Burp, which focuses on ‘the design and the stories behind the labels’. Will it help to demystify wine? Maybe. Maybe not. But like all good wine communication, it should attract more people to the pleasures – sensory, emotional and, yes, intellectual – of fermented grape juice.
Cheers,
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In the wake of the latest tabloid story about a £4 South African red beating bottles ‘costing ten times as much’ in a wine competition, Andy Neather asks what our unwillingness to spend more on a bottle of plonk says about us and our attitude to so-called ‘pricier tipples’.
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93 points
So much Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tastes as if it’s come out of the same bottomless tank, that it’s a pleasure to come across something that restores your faith in the quality of New Zealand’s most popular wine style. Made by Master of Wine Liam Stevenson, this was picked early (by hand, not machine) and fermented with lots of solids in old French oak barrels. Dry, savoury and complex, it has appealing notes of gunflint and elderflower with subtle oak and a hint of passion fruit. Very smart.
£18.95, 13%, The Pop Up Deli
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I came across Pepe Mendoza when I was doing some research for a tasting of Alicante wines. I interviewed him on Zoom and enjoyed listening to him expound on his vision of what fresh, balanced Mediterranean wines should taste like. He’s no fan of figgy concoctions with 15% alcohol, preferring reds and whites that reflect ‘the landscape, the soils and the area they come from’. Rightly described by the Wine Society as ‘one of Spain’s most exciting new talents’, he makes an impressive range of wines from local grapes, including the very rare Giró.
You can read my reviews of five of his wines here.
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It looks as if I’m going to miss out on my annual trips to South American this winter – missing two chances to see the Andes, from both the Chilean and Argentinian sides. I feel a strong emotional connection with these mountains, one I don’t feel anywhere else in the world, so looking at old photos will have to suffice until I can get back there. I took this photo in the Zuccardi vineyard in Paraje Altamira early one morning after a snowfall the night before. The mountains are so close that you can almost touch them.
If you’re interested in buying signed prints of any of my photos, email me at admin@timatkin.com.
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With the recent release of a new documentary about Billie Holiday, one of the greatest-ever jazz singers, I pulled out some of my old vinyl to listen to her again. Billie’s was a short and largely unhappy life, marked by addiction and a string of bad relationships, but some of the music she left behind is sublime. Other singers had greater ranges, yet hers was a voice imbued with hurt and damaged defiance. This is a live recording of Don’t Explain. One of the great performances. I can’t wait to watch the documentary.
PS If you like my weekly music recommendations, I have collected them on my Spotify playlist titled ‘Music to Drink Wine to’.
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Master of Wine Steve Smith is a scarily brainy person. He seems to know a lot about almost everything – but he’s also a lot of fun to hang out with. One of the world’s leading viticulturists and the man who created the Craggy Range brand from scratch, he talks to me about the unrealised potential of Syrah in New Zealand, why he thinks Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is ‘pigeon-holing’ the country’s image, his new project running Pyramid Valley and his plans for the next 15 years, which he hopes will be the ‘most prolific’ of his brilliant career.
Don’t forget, Cork Talk is now available on Spotify. You can listen to this week’s episode, plus my back catalogue of interviews.
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Join me on Thursday 3rd December as I explore South African classics – as well as some off-the-beaten-track varietals – from one of the country’s leading producers, the KWV.
The Mentors is a range of limited production wines, designed to highlight the impact of terroir and climate. Alongside the core range, winemaker Izele van Blerk and her team have the enviable freedom of pursuing innovative new varietals and blends, available in very limited quantities.
You will be one of the first to try the new vintage of The Mentors Chenin Blanc 2019, a classic South African varietal, followed by The Mentors Petit Verdot 2017, a varietal more commonly used in Bordeaux blends, and then the new Limited Edition Petite Sirah 2018, of which only 1,000 bottles were produced.
You can pick up the trio of wines – plus your complimentary invite to the virtual tasting – from Slurp.
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As well as my weekly Podcasts with some of the wine world’s leading lights, I interview the subject at greater length on Instagram Live, so you can join in and ask some questions of your own.
These are on my @timatkinmw account. You can watch back-episodes on my IGTV channel, or join us on the night.
This weekend’s guest is Laura Catena of Catena Zapata in Argentina.
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Over the past 10 years, I’ve published more than 40 in-depth reports covering Latin America, South Africa, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Brunello di Montalcino and Spain. I’ve walked every vineyard, interviewed every producer and tasted every wine to bring you the inside track on the very best these regions have to offer.
My most recent report, South Africa 2020, and all past reports are available to purchase on my website.
I’ve also published a free download of the 2020 South African wines of the year this week, to allow people to compare and contrast my wines with those given Five Stars in the annual Platter Guide.
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