Spring Tasting 2018, Three Wine Report

Yesterday saw the annual Tutto and Gergovie range Spring Tasting. As expected, it got incredibly busy and tasting everything proved an ambitious and ultimately vain task. So rather than name-drop 90 odd wines with three word notes, here are my top three single wines of the day. In no particular order:

2015 Gabrio Bini, Serragghia Bianco Zibibbo 19 Month Skin Contact

You can’t miss Gabrio Bini with his very small blue tinted spectacles, flowing white hair and weapon grade moustache. Before I discuss his wines, I’d like to offer a special mention to his delicious capers!

Gabrio grows wine on the tiny volcanic island of Pantelleria. Whilst technically Italian, Pantelleria is geographically far closer to Tunisia than Sicily. Gabrio is best known for his dry Serragghia Zibibbo aged in amphora with 7 months of skin contact. The wine I’d like to discuss here is the brand new 19 month iteration of this. Gabrio’s son Giotto came up with the idea of leaving the wine in contact with the skins for a further year as an experiment, and what a great idea that turned out to be! 2015 is the first ever vintage of this experiment.

The wine has a murky hazy look, you could almost pass it off as a super trendy dank DIPA. The smell is intense, slightly musty but also very fragrant. The palate is a full intense, rich punch of amphora and grape must. Tannins and surprisingly bright acidity battle on the tongue. Thick and wonderfully deep and complex flavours invade the palate and set up camp there for full minutes to come. I almost feel like I can still taste the wine. The 19 Month Skin Contact Serragghia Zibibbi from Gabrio Bini is most definitely a successful experiment.

2013 La Grapperie, La Desirée

It was peak frenzy time. Renaud Guettier stood serenely in the mists of the half pissed elbowing crowd in a knee-length grey car coat fastened all the way up to his mildly amused smirk. He was calmly pouring samples into a wall of floating glasses held by disembodied hands in front of him, gently mumbling stock phrases about Chenin Blanc and old vines for the millionth time that day. He seemed very cool and confident.

Renaud makes wine in the northern most wine-growing region in France around the village of Bueil en Touraine in the Côteaux du Loir appellation. He keeps Chenin Blanc, Pineau d’Aunis, Gamay, Grolleau and Côt vines with an overall average age of 80 years!

His whole offering at the Spring Tasting was excellent but the wine that really impressed me was La Desirée. La Desirée is 100% Chenin Blanc from 40-80 year old vines on clay and flint soils. It spends 60 months in oak barrels. The wine is very fresh on the nose, lots of exciting floral notes leap from the glass to make your mouth water. The first sip glides across the tongue with searing acidity, then, the rounded fruit notes kick in to gently coat the palate and disappear leaving a lingering feeling of intense satisfaction. La Desirée is a beautiful wine, get involved.

2009 Jean-Pierre Robinot Iris

At this rate, I might change the blog name to “the Robinot fan boy blog”. What can I say, they’re amazing wines! Jean-Pierre was stood behind his table beside his wife, Noella and Action Bronson sidekick Clovis Ochin. He was holding court from beneath his Cave Ox flat cap speaking French to everybody regardless of them understanding. Everybody was laughing, everybody was enjoying the wine and Jean-Pierre was, as ever, grinning widely as he poured very generous tasting measures to the crowd.

The range of Chenin Blanc and Pineau d’Aunis was superb, but there was a cheeky surprise at the end. After the 2010 Juliette (which was a strong contender for wine of the day) came a bottle of 2009 Iris, one of Jean-Pierre’s still Chenin, but this one was sweet! 20g of residual sugar, the Chenin for Iris comes from vines over 70 years old and spends a minimum of 24 months in barrique. In 2009, some of Jean-Pierre’s wines were allowed to be affected by botrytis, hence the sweetness.

Iris was far richer in style than Robinot’s other sweet wines. A punchy pungent sweet odour poked out of the glass. The flavour was rich, with a thick mouth feel. Any freshness and tartness from Juliette is nowhere to be found here, this is a decadent lush treat showing beautifully how far Chenin can go in its versatility. Another win from Robinot.

Another year done! (That's a Kernel Damson Saison)

Thanks to Tutto and Gergovie for creating such a great opportunity to try so many brilliant wines and meet so many fascinating people right on my doorstep. A real treat! See you next year!