What do the following wines have in common?
Furst Hundsruck GG Spatburgunder
Comando G Las Iruelas
Tenuta della Terre Nere Calderara Sottana
Thymiopoulos Earth and Sky
Storm Vrede, Hemel-en-Aarde
Five wines, five countries, five very talented winemakers, five special places.
Five very special wines, without doubt. These are five wines that will bring a smile of recall to the face of pretty much any up-to-speed global wine critic.
They are great wines, but are these fine wines? Are they revered by the glitterati? Do they fill a glass held next to a Chanel handbag, or by a hand bearing a Breitling Chronomat on its wrist? Are they in a Bond film?
Do I give a damn?
The point is this, and it is a simple one. Winemaking and viticulture are the best they have ever been… it’s taken a while; we’ve been doing this for something like 10,000 years, so we ought to be getting the hang of it. But there is no question that there is more fantastic wine out there than there has ever been. There is also more silly priced wine out there than there has ever been. But why worry? The abundance of great bottles swamps the crazy overpriced stuff.
Amongst a sea of sales pitches, it can be pretty challenging to find unbiased and reliable advice. My advice is find a merchant who wants to listen carefully to what you like and why you like it before they try to sell you their favourites. Take two or three of their suggestions and if they don’t work, don’t go back: they didn’t understand you.
Or, you can cut out the middle man and just go for my list above of five I’d like to open tonight. You might find them hard to get, because plenty of us know who is on form.
Some might be a bit too rich for your wallet: Comando G is a winery that people already talk about in sentences beginning with “remember when…” But if you can’t find Las Iruelas at a sane price, Bruja will tell you what the fuss is about. Anything made by Sebastian Furst or Apostolos Thymiopoulos (with a name like that, how can you lose!) is going to be brilliant value for the wine you buy because these people are brilliant at what they do. The same is true of Hannes Storm.
My point is simple. Don’t mourn that the old greats of fine wine aren’t affordable. The new greats of great wine are waiting to show them the way home.
Nigel
