giving the wrong idea

2008 Lomond Syrah | WO Cape Agulhas | South Africa

No one likes to be jerked around. Dirty jokes aside, we all want a certain degree of reliability in wine. Life too, in general, but it's far too difficult now to find truly reliable people. So we make do with what we have. When we go wine shopping, what certainty do we have that we're going to like a wine? Unless it's something that we've tasted before, most often we're going in blind. Less bitter to swallow for something under $10 ... increasingly harder to accept for anything higher. It's been a common topic lately to discuss the use of tasting notes, and how as consumers, we need to be aware of the types of wines certain critics prefer - after all, one man's 95 pointer may be another man's 80.

Tasting notes are tricky - some people write out pantry lists of ingredients they think they smell/taste, while others leave it more poetic, more abstract. I believe there's a middle ground between the two approaches, because neither one achieves the real point of it all - offering a complete perspective of what the wine is. And of course, let's not forget, most wine critics aren't writers. Read a few tasting notes from some of the most widely circulated American critics and you'll see that most of what passes for wine writing is nothing more than a string of (the same) flavour descriptors.

So I've got beef with this wine. And as a friend once said, beef goes well with wine, so here we go. This example, a S. African syrah was described as reminiscent of a northern Rhône wine, that savoury, peppery style of syrah. It's fucking anything but. Which isn't a problem per se - it's just that when it's described as such, we should have certain expectations when we buy it. The wine is done in that big style, what most people think of as what syrah should taste like. A bit disappointing, but in this case, it's the inaccurate tasting note that's the source of the problem.

Reliability, though not sexy or particularly exciting, is a virtue. I lack a lot of things, but reliability is not one of them. And I want my tasting notes to be so as well.

DF

the sauvignon blanc for hotpot

2009 Leopard's Leap Sauvignon Blanc | Western Cape | South Africa

2010 Elgin Valley Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc | Elgin Valley | South Africa

2009 Durvillea Sauvignon Blanc | Marlborough | New Zealand

After watching the tv event of the year (Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, duh), I was inspired. They're all badass as hell, but Candice Swanepoel takes it to a whole . . . 'nother . . . jaw-dropping . . . tongue-wagging . . . mind-blowing . . . level. South African wines don't usually catch my eye, but damn, CS makes me want to pay more attention.

So, sauvignon blanc with hotpot. I had some friends over, wanting to do something heavy on seafood and greens. They brought over the most amazingly thin slices of beef and pork as well, to round it out. We had so much food - far too much for 6 people, but I was hungry and ready for the challenge. New world sauvignon blanc can be interesting, sort of the other half of the more traditional character of this wine (dry white Bordeaux, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé). New Zealand's famous for that clean, overtly fruit-forward style, with the herbal notes that blast you in the face. No subtlety there, but I was interested to see how the South Africans were handling it.

Turns out, not that well. Both wines were lean, not usually an issue with sauvignon, but in this case a bit overly so. Without body or texture, the wines are just shrill, a mess of green aromas and cheap fruit. But the New Zealand sauvignon wasn't that much better. Tropical fruits, pineapple and all that, with a marked sweetness on the palate.

A forgettable trio of wines. Sauvignon blanc does well in a lot of different styles, but personally, the benchmark I hold it to are the dry whites of Bordeaux. Handled in oak, they have all the aromatics and texture I look for in a great white wine. Well extracted acidity give some excitement on the palate as well as the ability to age. Don't want to stupidly put out any blanket statements, especially after tasting 2 (!) South African wines . . . but maybe they need a bit more time to learn how to handle sauvignon, and perhaps decide if there's a future for this varietal.

DF