Dinner with Kevin Judd from Greywacke

Last night saw us hold our first event of the year, a dinner with Kevin Judd at the Dining Room in Reigate, for those who don’t know who Kevin is, he’s the winemaker from Greywacke, formerly the founding wine maker from probably New Zealand’s most iconic wine, Cloudy Bay. Kevin produced the first 25 vintages at Cloudy Bay, and introduced the world to the fantastic Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, after leaving Cloudy Bay, Kevin decided he wanted to continue wine making, but now under his own label, Greywacke. He buy’s his fruit from various vineyards around Marlborough, including from his good friends at Dog Point (another one of our favourites) who are the other original founders of Cloudy Bay, they also very kindly let him use their facilities to produce his wines. He did remark that it’s now more affectionately known as the Cloudy Bay retirement home, as many of the original staff from Cloudy Bay now work at Dog Point or with Kevin at Greywacke.

Listening to Kevin talk about his wines and the wine making process, the most amazing thing was how little intervention he did with them, to put it in his own words, I press the grapes, put the juice into the tanks or barrels depending on which wine he’s making, and leave it to get on and do it’s own thing! This all helps to keep the pure fruit flavours that you find in his wines; another thing was the use of wild yeasts to produce his Wild Sauvignon and his Pinot Noir, which just help to add another dimension to his wines.

Along with the wines we’ve sold in the past, he also bought some of his Chardonnay and Pinot Gris for us to taste, and like his other wines we know so well they didn’t disappoint, unfortunately at present they are only produced in small quantities, but we are hoping to get some of his next vintage of the Chardonnay, but again we only be able to receive a small quantity, so if your interested in them, then make sure you get your orders in early!

The wine we had on tasting were;

2011 Sauvignon Blanc – this just had beautiful green fruit flavours and aromas, with a touch of minerality to go with it, great acidity, producing a beautifully restrained and elegant glass of wine.

2010 Wild Ferment Sauvignon – with a much richer mouth feel, and more complexity than his ordinary Sauvignon, with a hint of Vanilla and softness to the acidity which just made this wine absolutely stunning.

2009 Chardonnay – again this wine had a real richness to it, with slightly savoury/lanolin aromas, with a touch of citrus on the palate and a creamy texture, combined with a minerality and a long lingering finish that made this wine just amazing. (Can’t wait till we get this in)

2010 Pinot Noir – with both some dark and red fruit flavours and aromas in the glass, intermingled with a smoky vanilla oak, soft fine tannin and a great acidity to it, and a length of flavour that just kept on giving, this wine did not disappoint.

2010 Pinot Gris – this wine was slightly off dry, but with stone and dried fruit flavours, the perfect amount of acidity, and as with all the others a length of flavour that just kept on giving, it worked very well the raspberry and vanilla in the desert, but was a little challenged by the chocolate.

We would just like to thank both Kevin and his wife, Kimberly, from everyone at the Vine King for joining us in this fantastic evening, and taking the time out from there busy schedule to go through their wines with us and our guests. We’d also like to thank the Dining Room for the stunning menu they produced and the excellent service they gave us all.

Burgundy 2010 – a Magical Vintage

(Thankfully, more Houdini than David  Blaine!)

The doomsayers had started by writing this vintage off and to be fair, come the end of August it was looking pretty dismal.  However, Burgundy is all about the magic of wine and the importance of harvest.  In 2010 the magic was strong and they have pulled out one hell of a rabbit, from the proverbial top hat!

                      

2010 Burgundy  is relatively small and will go down as a vintage that was extremely challenging but where the growers and winemakers have excelled, the results are nothing short of thrilling.  In fact, I am so excited about this vintage, I feel this actually surpasses the offering from 2009, with 2010 offering sophisticated “Haute Couture” against the more “High-Street” appeal of 2009. 

The Whites

With a decent level of ripeness, just under 2009, but with better acidities, the whites are uniformly pretty darn delicious and, I feel better than 2009.

The Reds

More care has to be taken at looking at these but where the winemakers have excelled, I again feel the 2010’s are even more thrilling than the more opulent 2009 vintage.

Despite the euro weakening, basic economics of the harvest being 40% smaller, means that prices have gone up marginally.  Needless to say, we’ve tried our best to hold them as sensible as possible!

The loonies are taking over!

Every Biodynamic  wine I tasted appeared to have the edge.  I know many are sceptical about why, if you plant a cow corn with cow manure in a corner of the field and then spray it on the vines later as a fertiliser you make better wine.  There’s a hell of a lot more to it than that and for a full explanation into the theory please check out our friends at Wikipedia, then look up Rudolf  Steiner but please maintain a sense of balance!

Now I’ll be honest, when I hear the words holistic, energy, and phrases like “natural order” etc I find it hard to suppress the urge react like Bluto  in Animal House but those who practised this method just seemed to excel in 2010.  Further evidence of this being taken seriously, is that every large supermarket arranges their press wine tastings according to a biodynamic calendar – but maybe their wines need all the help they can get!

So put your scepticism aside, I don’t know how it works but then again, I barely understand how a car works, just give Biodynamics a go....although please your sandals behind!