Public tastings: August

Posted on July 26, 2011 by admin

We will be running a series of ticketed tastings in August on the upper level of TAB (3rd floor, Orchard Hotel, entrance via escalator is at street level). There will be both walkaround and tutored, sit-down tastings. Please contact us early if you wish to come as spaces (and wines) are limited. Please also note that the price for walkaround tastings may be used to offset the cost of same-day purchases, subject to minimum quantity requirements and prevailing terms and conditions.

The Daily Extraordinaries

Saturday 6 August, 2-5pm
Walkaround, S$15 per person
Wines meant to be drunk as often as possible. Featuring, amongst others, Eric Texier’s Spätlese-style Viognier (intriguing and delicious), Pineau d’Aunis from Catherine and Didier of Clos Roche Blanche, and Dupasquier’s duo of daily drinkers: Jacquère and Rosé (Gamay and Pinot).

Tutored Champagne tasting

Saturday 13 August, 4-6pm
S$40 per person, very limited spaces.
From west to east, Laherte, de Sousa and Vilmart, three terrific growers. We’ll examine how different vinification techniques and the use (or not) of oak barrels influences their wines. Includes a mystery vintage champagne from one of the growers. Please note that this tasting is at Restaurant Nicolas on Keong Saik Road.

Food for thought (postponed)

Saturday 27 August, 2-5pm (Postponed until further notice)
Walkaround with cheese, S$25 per person
In this tasting we will examine the role of a wine’s pH in altering umami perception thresholds, otherwise known as tasting wine with food. We will have Muscadet grown on serpentine bedrock from Luneau-Papin, the Chenin Blancs of neighbours and friends Evelyne de Pontbriand and Patrick Baudouin, and two very different Northern Rhône Syrahs from Eric Texier, as well as a mystery red.

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Trade tastings: August

Posted on July 26, 2011 by admin

We will be running a series of trade tastings in August on Wednesdays from 2-5pm, on the upper level of TAB (3rd floor, Orchard Hotel, entrance is at street level). Please contact us if you would like an invitation, or require further details.

10 August: Unsung heroes

24 August: Terroir-tastic

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Origins

Posted on July 23, 2011 by admin

I’ve just finished rereading Kermit Lynch’s ‘Adventures on the Wine Route’, which has stayed fresh despite the intervening decades. The mentions of Frank Schoonmaker got me thinking about origins and inspirations, and the debt we (as KOT Selections and individually) owe pioneers like him and Kermit. I was fortunate enough to have lived in England, where I started drinking wine, and North California, where Kermit Lynch still has his eponymous shop.

In London, it was always an educational experience attending a tasting at La Vigneronne, then owned and run by Liz and Mike Berry. Their passionate curiosity was infectious, and there was always an interesting bottle (or more) to be purchased. They now run Vins Fins de la Crau in Provence, and while we have not visited, it is on the agenda for our next trip. A few other merchants made a similar impact: Yapp Brothers, also run by the founders back then; Raeburn Fine Wines in Edinburgh, with a distinctive, deep Burgundy list; and even Oddbins, now a pale shadow of its former swaggering self. Restaurants like RSJ, with its extensive coverage of the Loire, and well-stocked Oxford college cellars meant that it was possible to explore as widely and deeply as one wished, often for a pittance.

Fine wines were more expensive in California, of course, but the wine merchants were equally good: the aforementioned Kermit Lynch, Bill Mayer’s Age of Riesling, and Oliver McCrum, amongst others. On trips to New York, Chambers Street Wines, which opened months before 9/11 (and is still going strong), was an obligatory stop, while meals with Joe Dressner, wine importer extraordinaire, were always entertaining.

While in no way an exhaustive list, each of these wine importers and merchants have made it easier for me, and probably many others, to enter the wine trade. Whenever I drink a wine which they also import and sell, I am grateful that they dared to blaze the trail first.

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Workshop: Wine, Vines, Hermaphrodites & Sex

Posted on July 21, 2011 by admin

UPDATE (28 July 2011): Please contact us if you wish to have a PDF copy of the handout for the event.

YiXin will be discussing how grape vines reproduce (or more accurately, are replicated) and why we should care, as part of the Well-Informed Wednesday series hosted by Books Actually, an excellent independent bookstore located in Tiong Bahru. There will be a couple of wines from our portfolio to moisten the (dry) workshop. Please note that this is a paid workshop.

Date: Wednesday, 27th July 2011
Time: 7.30 pm
Venue: BooksActually, 9 Yong Siak Street, Tiong Bahru, Singapore 168645
Telephone: +65 6222 9195
Price: S$15

Facebook event page

To register, please contact Renée Ting (renee@booksactually) or us. There are only 12 seats, so please register early.

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Portfolio tastings

Posted on May 3, 2011 by admin

We will be hosting a series of portfolio tastings for trade (Wednesdays) and private clients (Saturdays) in August. Watch this space for more details!

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Akan datang!

Posted on May 1, 2011 by admin

Malay for “coming soon” – our shipment from the Loire, Beaujolais, Rhône and Savoie, and Champagne to celebrate!

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Godchildren

Posted on April 11, 2011 by O

Like many of our winegrowers, we often demur when asked to pick a favourite wine from the new vintage. And just as many of them explain their reluctance by drawing an analogy between wines and children, we excuse ourselves by stretching the comparison: we treat these wines like our godchildren.

God cousins

While it would be silly and tiresome to detail every potential angle of such an analogy (e.g. the triangular nature of the relationships between parent, child and godparent), there is one facet which encapsulates our approach. Like godparents of an exceptional child, we are proud of every single wine we import, but cannot and do not take credit for its success. We just try to hold up our end of the bargain – understanding their individual quirks, treating them with care, and being honest with their parents when required.

We are very privileged to be working with a wonderful set of growers/parents, and to be able to see their new offspring every year.

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Champagne – Laherte Frères

Posted on March 30, 2011 by O

Horse and plough in 'Les Clos' parcel

Originally, we had not planned to visit Champagne, having already decided on our portfolio from previous trips and grown tired of seeing the sad state of the region’s many chemically-abused vineyards. But over dinner in Charnay, our friend Eric Texier convinced us that we should visit Aurélien Laherte. And we’re happy that we did.

The Laherte family has deep roots in the village of Chavot, located at the confluence of the Vallée de la Marne and Côtes des Blancs. This means that Aurélien is fortunate enough to be working with some very fine and diverse terroirs, old vines planted by his grandfather (including some via provignage, or marcottage), and lesser-known, rarer varieties. He brings to this a dedication to vineyard work (some of the land is in biodynamie, and most of the rest is organic) and a thoughtful approach in the cellar (such as the installation of a second press to shorten the harvest process and ensure fresher juice).

The results are impressive. Most of his production (only 7,500 cases a year) is in two cuvées: the Meunier-dominated non-vintage Brut Tradition and the Blanc de Blancs (Chardonnay, of course). Both are fine examples of a drier, racier style of Champagne, and will benefit from some bottle aging, as will the 2004 vintage bottling, which shut down over the course of 2 days. In contrast, the current ‘Les Empreintes’ was gloriously fruity and minerally, reflecting the ‘imprint’ of the 2007 vintage which it is based on. On the more exotic side, we enjoyed the stunning ‘Les Clos’, a melange of 7 varieties from the 2005-2007 harvests, and the delightful ‘Les Vignes d’Autrefois’, a chalky, red-fruited Pinot Meunier from very old vines.

We are delighted to be working with Aurélien.

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Touraine – Clos Roche Blanche

Posted on March 13, 2011 by O

Seccotine stalking

Suzanne Blanchet, in her 1982 ‘Les Vins du Val de Loire’, wrote of Catherine Roussel, “Elle apporte le raffinement et le doigté que seule une femme sait avoir”1. Nearly three decades later, that remains true at one of our favourite estates, Clos Roche Blanche. Catherine, together with Didier Barouillet, is still making some of the most graceful, serene wines we have ever tasted.

Clos Roche Blanche sits on top of a hill halfway between the towns of Pouillé and Mareuil-sur-Cher, just off the banks of the river Cher. The drone of vehicles along the A85 to the south is only audible in winter, when there is less foliage; the vineyard is otherwise as peaceful and calming as the wines that come from it. Accompanied by one of their many cats, Seccotine2, we strolled around and between the various plots, picking up fossils, admiring the old vines (planted by Constant Ragot, Catherine’s ancestor, more than a hundred years ago), and digging up the soil with our bare hands.

O’s personal epiphany was a decade ago with the 1998 Côt (also known as Malbec elsewhere), which demonstrated how a wine did not have to be concentrated or extracted to be intense and deep. This time round, we had the 1999 towards the end of the tasting, which was still youthful, probably requiring another decade to reach full potential. Both wines, of course, are long sold out, but we think the 2010 vintage is ample consolation.

Since 2008, when they rented out part of their land (and the Chardonnay vines), they only make a couple of whites from old Sauvignon Blanc vines. The #2 zips across the tongue, without ever seeming harsh or tasting confected, while the #5 (from 2009) is rounder and softer from the extra year in old oak. The ‘Pif’ is a delightful vin de soif, with its Côt and Cabernet Franc (in1:2 proportion) teasing the best out of each other. It will mellow with age, but the fruit is so vibrant now that it can be drunk without regret. Similarly, both the Gamay and l’Arpent Rouge (Pineau d’Aunis) are fresh and lively wines; the former more floral and mineral, the latter spicy and exotic.

We hope others will find just as much joy in their wines.

1 Roughly translated: “She brings an elegance and light touch which only a woman possesses”.

2 Named after a brand of glue because she stuck so closely to Catherine and Didier.

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Muscadet – André-Michel Brégeon

Posted on February 17, 2011 by O
André-Michel Brégeon

André-Michel Brégeon

It is tremendously difficult to explain the utter brilliance of Michel Brégeon’s Muscadets. There is of course the unique terroir, an outcrop of gabbro amidst the gneiss and granite, farmed by hand and with heart. The vines take after him — fully mature, with the ailments of advanced age, but still sprightly and productive, happiest in the sun. Then there is the subtle genius of his cellar craft, an unerring intuition paired with accreted experience.

Amongst others, we tasted a magnificent 2004, still in tank and on its lees, fresh and already complex. The final cuve of 2009, a smoky distillate of minerals, will be bottled when it’s ready. A bottle of the 1998 was far too young, strikingly pure and razor-sharp, as was its younger and more precocious sibling from 1999. The mousseux (in picture) was perfect on a clear winter afternoon, sweet fruit with a saline backbone, as dry as his wit.

We regret that we won’t have any of his wines in the next few months, but we are content to wait patiently. In a world which seemingly deifies the nanosecond, it is good to pause and listen to a wise old man try (and fail) to explain how he makes such beautiful wines.

Sometimes, words fail all of us.

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