Summertime and the Living is Easy

I know that I may be counting my chickens while they fry, but I am basking in this glorious North Island summer – weekends on Waiheke Island, in Maraetai, Matheson’s Bay and Opito Bay sipping chilled whites, rosés and, as the sun wanes, the odd bottle of noir.

I have mentioned the importance of temperature before - in the context of maturation and cellaring. This time I wish to push the case for cooling red wines to a suitable drinking temperature. Last Friday, Wattie and I decided that it would be a DVD and take-aways night. It had been a warm day and the evening was quite balmy when I stopped in at Miguel Frascione’s Accent on Wine in Parnell and discovered the 1999 Chateau Hourtin-Ducasse from the Haut-Medoc in Bordeaux. Around $27 and a purportedly good vintage, ready to drink. When I arrived I shoved the bottle into the spartan fridge to the raised, left bushy eyebrow of mine host. After mingling with our friend Stella for openers, we tucked into our curry and the cooled Bordeaux. What a very pleasant surprise: superbly elegant with only 12.5% alcohol, dusty, subtle tannins with ample fruit, nothing overpowering, like a friend putting her hand on my shoulder and then sliding it down into the crook of my arm, familiar and friendly, no hesitation in our step. The Hourtin-Ducasse was a stylish partner to our mild green fish curry. I will certainly be heading back to negotiate a better price for 6 or 12 of this wine, and so should you.

The cooling had tightened the wine a little without closing down the flavours. Try this at home with a bottle of red: start by chilling the wine to around 14°C and then taste it as it warms up. Keep practicing and you will soon be able to tell the appropriate temperature just by touching the bottle or by the time it has spent in the fridge.

Having a large cellar of single bottles of wines and no cellaring system can be the greatest pleasure or tragedy. Every now and then I find a bottle of white wine that has lurked away, hibernating past its use-by date but then, and more often, I will find a bottle of wine that surprises and surpasses expectations.

Last Saturday was such a day. After enduring a decidedly average lunching experience at Onetangi Beach I crept into the cellar and withdrew a bottle of Isabel Estate Pinot Noir 2000 from the Tiller Family Vineyard. I need to pull my head in here as I have previously questioned the maturation potential of New Zealand Pinot Noir. This wine, stored in dark conditions with a constant cool temperature, was superb. After pushing in the cork (two broken corkscrews in the drawer thanks to rental fiends), the wine showed dark cherry fruit with subtle, pleasant smokey meatiness. The elegant palate continued on and on.

If this wine is anything to go by, then Marlborough will surpass its international Sauvignon Blanc reputation very soon and go on to become one of the world’s supreme pinot noir regions as well.