The Tasting Notes Site of tomasclancy.com

Peter Lehmann, Barossa Semillon, Australia 2003 (88) around €11 and on sale at €10.75 when buying a 12 bottle case from Winesonline.ie and selected wine shops nationwide

The Semillon grape is a consistently overlooked variety, it is quite widespread and therefore it tends to lack the novelty or chic of the kind of peripheral grapes like Gruner Veltliner, Torrontes, Albarino or Pinot Gris that pop in and out of fashion regularly. Semillon is most often found blended with Sauvignon Blanc as the basis for the majority of Bordeaux white wines and it often tends to be found bulking out New World Chardonnay mass market blends. Left to its own devices however and its slightly full bodied and unctuous nature evolves into a hugely attractive lime marmalade, nutty and even petroleum jelly like offering. Not for everyone, but this nutty, lime streaked aged Semillon can open your eyes to a whole range of new flavours that Pinot Grigio will rarely offer. A fine accompaniment for Stuffed Pork Fillets and roast potatoes.

Petit Clos by Clos Henri, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand 2008 (89) at €12.99 down from €14.99 in O’Briens Wines nationwide and online at wine.ie

The convoluted double name on the label tells you immediately that you are looking at a complicated production. This is a Sauvignon Blanc, the grape of France’s iconic Sancerre, made by a leading Sancerre producer, in their New Zealand winery in the heart of the world’s second greatest Sauvignon Blanc vineyards, at Marlborough. The French estate is Maison Henri Bourgeois a respected Sancerre and Pouilly Fume maker. Clos Henri is the name of their New Zealand winery. Now, Henri Bourgeois makes an entry level French Sancerre-like Sauvignon Blanc at €12.39 and their actual AC Sancerre is around €20. This wine is excellent, with vibrant, lips-making fruit, touches of lime, some green pepper skin and a slither of minerality, topped off with good acidity. It easily surpasses the complexity and interest of the Petit Bourgois French Sauvignon, but is not a match for the complexity and minerality of their full AC Sancerre. So, at €12.99 it is an easy recommendation, but at €14.99 it falls between two stools. Try this with a Goats Cheese Salad and warm toast.

Chateau Villa Bel Air, AC Graves 2005 (90) around €22.95 from The Vintry, 102 Rathgar Road, Dublin; Berry Brothers, now from their BBR.ie site and from selected independent Off Licences nationwide

This is wine is from a Chateau owned by the Cazes Family, owners of the most famous of the Irish Wild Geese Chateaux, Chateau Lynch-Bages. Villa Bel Air is located to the south of Bordeaux city, in the AC Graves region. Many AC Graves reds tend to be medium bodied and quite savoury, this example is a little more generous, a fault to some. It is a Cabernet Sauvignon driven blend from gravely soils on a noticeable slope. The 2005, a hot summer, still shows through in great ripe fruit, clean plum and blackcurrant notes and a polished coconut sheen, mainly due to the toasty oak. It is a smooth, generous wine that hints at Napa or Margaret River. I have been following the 2003 and the 2005 vintages when ever I can get them and they are still improving, with the 2005 looking like it has a few more years to give. If this were a €60 Bordeaux it would be unremarkable, but at €22, it is a fine cellar choice. Perfect now without decanting, ideal with Lamb or Duck or richer, sweeter meat dishes.

Maison Louis Jadot, AC St. Aubin 2006 (89) around €26.99 from WineOnline.ie and from selected good wines stores and independent off licences nationwide

Thinking of a reasonably priced, ambitious Burgundy wine, invariably brings to mind the small village of St.Aubin in Burgundy. It is literally and geographically around the corner from Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny Montrachet, the two greatest white wine villages and vineyards in the world. The hill of Montrachet which all the best vines cover has had wine lovers genuflecting before its brilliance for five centuries. The results of all the adoration on Montrachet and all of its namesakes are huge prices. Nearby Meursault was the next port of call, similar wines, now rapidly catching up in price, so to St.Aubin. In the village level like this fine example from Jadot we have soft toasty touches in the initial wash, lean nutty, lime flecked mid palate and a finish of taut minerality. In the next level up, Premiere Cru you often get more succulence and complexity. The wine here outshines almost all of the mid range Australian Chardonnays and is begging to be served chilled with a pan fried John Dory

Chateau Rauzan-Despagne, Reserve Blanc, AC Entre Deux Mers 2009 (88) around €14.50 from Searsons Wine Merchants, Monkstown Crescent, Blackrock, County Dublin and at selected wine shops nationwide.

Bordeaux dry white wines are some of the first on to the Irish market from hysterically hyped 2009 vintage in Bordeaux. The red wines, especially from the top Chateaux will take another two to three years to arrive on our shelves by then presumably at astronomical prices. As I re-iterate again here, I think En Primeur has become in the main a preposterous rip off for the general public and smaller retailers.  If you are cash liquid and playing the investment game, yes those two people, then fine, for the rest of us, have a look at Bordeaux white wines. My favourite Bordeaux wines from the 2009 have been the white, Smith Haut Lafite being the star so far. This is not a €200 Graves, rather a New World challenging crisp, well balanced and perkily fruity lime tinged delight, a Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle assembly from a Carbon Neutral, Organic farming enterprise by a wine family with three centuries of boom and bust under their belts. Available now, not 2012.

Quinta do Vale Dona Maria, Late Bottled Vintage Port, Douro, 2002 (91) around €26.50 from Cases Wine Warehouse, Riverside Commercial Estate, Tuam Road, Galway and nationwide at cases.ie

This is a very fine Port experience from one of the less fashionable of the Douro Boys, though Cristiano van Zeller is very much one of the leading lights of the New Douro movement that also contains Dirk Van Niepoort and Quinta do Crasto amongst others. The winemaker here at Vale Dona Maria is Sandra Tavares, the leading female member of the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys idea is rather like a band, and in nearly all the photographs of the various members, they always pose, together as a band, its a nice, slightly geeky idea, but sums up the competing fun and seriousness of the transformation of Port into a vigorous important wine and not a marginalised fortified drink. Zeller and winemaker Tavares go a long way in this LBV Port to show the vineyard origins of this deep, luscious, tar-like, dark chocolate and spicy notes, infused wine. Has several more years of potential even approaching 10 years. Perfect with Chocolate Brulee or more adventurously with peppered steaks.

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Lindemans Bin 25, Brut Cuvee Nv (87) around €17.80 on Sale for €13 at Cellar Master, 18 Maple Avenue, Stillorgan Industrial Park, Blackrock, County Dublin, telephone 01 2176508

Wine pricing, is a little like hotel pricing, at one price what is functional and clean becomes enjoyable and a fine fit, but charge a third more and functional and clean becomes drab and souless. Nothing else has changed, just our perception. Well, at €13, the sale price in Master Of Wine Alan Crowley’s Wine Warehouse venture in Stillorgan this light, straightforward, clean, rather toasty sparkling Chardonnay is a fine more muscular competitor for similarly priced Prosecco, but at €18 it is too straightforward, too singular. At that end of the market its competitor is Jacobs Creek, whose the Blanc de Blancs is infinitely better. So, at a good price a fine sparkling foil for a Catalan, Bunyols de Bacalla, small crispy croquettes of cod in a light batter.

Sierra Cantabria, Crianza, DOC Rioja 2005 (90) around €15.45 from O’Briens Wines nationwide and online at wine.ie

The word Rioja once dominated all talk about wines from Spain. Frosted, wire wrapped bottles with Gothic script were piled up on Irish wine shelves. Of course decades of popularity for Rioja brought some complacency, eventually making Rioja a byword for old fashioned and over priced. Then came a revolution, visionary winemakers and renowned Architects descended on Rioja, the wavy steel of the Frank Gehry designed Hotel and Winery at Marques De Riscal has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Over at Sierra Cantrabria, the effort is all in the wine and this stunning, inky dark Crianza is the result. It is packed with dense ripe fruit, 14 months in US oak gives a luscious, creamy toasty note, while rich ultra ripe fruit brings blackberry, leather and dark chocolate to complete the picture. Begging for a thick cut, medium rare sirloin, possibly a last throw of the barbecue. The price is the icing on the cake, eclipsing the New World for value.

Dalwhinnie Moonambel Cabernet Sauvignon, Pyrennes, Victoria, Australia 2004 (93) around €38 from Wines Direct, 49 Lough Sheever Corporate Park, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath and nationwide on winesdirect.ie

The modern Australian wine revolution began here in Ireland in the middle of the 1980s when Jacobs Creek and Wolf Blass started to push Piat D’Or and Black Tower off the wine shelves. Very quickly indeed names like Penfolds arrived and convinced people that Australia was also a fine wine producer too. Latterly a Classification has been set up, called Langtons to rank Bordeaux style, the best fine wines in Australia. This wine, which we have praised before has been rated with the best in Langtons. The Cabernet here now 6 years of age is reaching a level of maturity and richness that many Classed Growths would envy, with years to come. Dense, blackcurrant, now loosing its bramble notes and gaining leather and cedar touches. A fine Paulliac at Cru Bourgois prices, the beauty of top end Australian wine. Perfect for slightly rare lamb and minted potatoes.

The Marches region in north eastern region of Italy is one of the most overlooked regions in the wine world. Of course there are good reasons to pass by the Marches quickly, not least is the fact that large portions of it are indeed a fairly flat and sweaty coastal plain. Worse has been its propensity for producing, or rather, overproducing mediocre, bland wines. This would be hard to recover from if you were the country’s only wine producing region but encircled by Tuscany, with its Chianti andMontalcino and Venice with its Amarone and perky Pinot Grigio , this makes the Marches task very difficult. So, when you taste this steely, well elaborated and clean white wine with aspirations towards something from Alsace or the Loire at €9, it is a really delicious development. This would be excellent with a rich creamy pasts dish or perhaps a smoked salmon starter. Worth seeking out.
Pegos Claros, DO Palmela, Portugal 2005 (89) around €14.50 from Fallon and Byrne, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2; Wine Boutique, 2 Thorncastle Street Ringsend Dublin 4 and from selected wine shops nationwide

Portugal is producing increasingly fashionable and highly commercial red wines. The Douro region is at the forefront of a stable of highly fashionable wineries and wine makers, but this wine like an example we recommended 2 weeks ago, is from the south from regions to the west and south west of Lisbon. These are not yet being lauded by the wine critics and prices have remained attractive like the wines. Last week billionaire winery owner BernardMargrez , who owns dozens of Chateaux in France and across the world, bought his first Douro property with the proceeds of a sale in France, he stated that an icon wine was his goal. This is now a problem, the wines of Portugal’s Douro are excellent, but increasingly very dear. This wine benefits from Douro like enthusiasm, excellent weather and unique local grapes, but without the hype. It is a rich, dense, dark wine with cherry and blackcurrant notes, quite firm tannis and a toasty, very slightly spicy finish. It would be perfect with a chewy, pink rack of lamb with a bright authentic ratatouille.

Clos Du Pape Blanc, AC Chateauneuf Du Pape 2003  (90) €39.95 from O’Brien’s Wines shops nationwide and online at wine.ie

Sometimes a wine is so famous and so celebrated it gets overlooked in the rush to find the next big thing, well Chateauneuf is one wine region that has suffered this problem more than most. In the annual drive to investigate the admittedly excellent wines in beautiful villages that surroundChateauneuf Du Pape in the southern Rhone, the main game in town does sometimes get a raw deal. This is especially so of the white wines of Chateauneuf which do need a little push to attract people’s attention. The white wine from Clos Du pape is perhaps the finest in the commune, but it suffers from one slight issue. It needs time, plenty of time before it transforms from a rather elegant and firm white wine of interest, into the mellow and opulent white wine of desire that it can become with 5 or six years of age. The 2003 is now entering this phase and remarkably O’Briens have bottle scattered across the country of this highly desirable vintage. It is just developing rich mellow lime and boiled fruit notes on the palate, with spice and some hints of coffee astoundingly on the nose. It is a rich, daring and intriguing wine with another decade of evolution to come. A match for a super elegantpanna cotta or a plate of cold hard Comte cheese.