Wine Woman & Song

Three everyday olfactory workers were in the mood for something spikier.

After a tasting that upheld the status quo in international Pinot Noir we wandered the back streets of Charing Cross like a trio of lost souls with crazed laughter and in the mood to push past Official Judgement.

During the blind tasting I heard a few times, “I nailed it”, said with all the gusto of a funeral director.

If you work on the coal face with customers, then it is hard to be zealous about natural wine, but pretty easy to be disillusioned by wine media, with this heady combination of funk and abandon we stumbled into Terroirs.

We were in a funk. Time for something to mirror our mood.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, when you have 3 wine geeks together, the tastes tend towards fetish. Looking back on the evening, these are almost wine geek cliché. It was fun to choose anything, and so here is what we chose:

2005 Arbois Savagnin, Daniel Dugois – Jura

There is was a thrilling disconnect between the nose and the palate which would have a Wine Show judge throw it out before it entered. Good: hand it here. Very dry on the palate like a sherry with an hyper-real perfume of a Granny Smith apple orchard. It is savoury with a touch of fennel seed and is as unpretentious as a beautiful brooch on a simple suit.

2009 Vitovska, Benjamin Zidarich, Friuli

On the border of Italy and Slovenia, Benjamin Zidarich is a member of the Vini Veri group (this is their Manifesto) who call themselves anarchical naturalists. This has a brilliant weight, very full-bodied but very dry with a warm pear character. Like a caress from an old flame, it meets the food softly, unexpectedly.

2009 Morgon Côte du Py, Domaine Jean Foillard

No nerdy night would be complete without a Beaujolais. It is satisfyingly ironic to drink Beaujolais that is rather serious. Foillard’s wine is up the wrong track in a forest and finding a box of nails and blood on the ground hidden in the roots of the trees. Dark and wrong and necky. Brilliant.

Terroirs 5 William IV Street, London, WC2N 4DW