Yes, in general and in my opinion! Let’s find out why I believe that.
I dislike the idea of fusion concepts, especially when it comes to food. Call me a traditionalist, but I find food that has stood the test of centuries, yet alone millenniums, to be among the very best food one can eat. I love Italian food and I love Indian food, but I do not favor blending the two into a single meal. Curry pastas just don’t work for me. I love Japanese and I love Tex-Mex, but I could not bring myself to even try this fusion concept in one of the hotel restaurants in Sacramento, CA when visiting a while back. The raw tuna quesadillas just did not work for me. Globalization has done a lot to change the world, but when it comes to fusion food, it has only made it worse!
But when it comes to wine blends, I am really starting to favor blends over 100% varietals. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE my 100% varietals when it comes to my favorite grapes such as Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Riesling. But year-in, year-out, it is impossible to get consistent sugar and alcohol levels, with each vintage being affected by that year’s heat index and rainfall causing some vintages to be different in taste than others vintages. That is when a good winemaker can use some of the characteristics of other grapes to provide a better overall taste, by adding a touch of sweetness, or subduing too much sweetness by adding a grape with more acidity or sourness. Good winemakers know how to blend a little bit of another grape or several grapes together to make good to great wines. Even Penfolds Grange over the years has had various amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon blended in to achieve its maximum potential for a particular vintage. Based on what country the wine is from and the local laws, you may still label a bottle of wine by its main varietal as long as the amount of the other grape added is still small, usually less than 15%.
But other wines, especially old world wines have been crafted to be great wines by using various blending combinations. Wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape are predominantly Grenache, but also are allowed to blend in wine from twelve other varietals. Bordeaux blends are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but contain a variety of other grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and possibly small amounts of Petit Verdot or Malbec. A classic high-quality Bordeaux blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc. Australia is well-known and respected for its Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon blends such as you would find in a Penfolds Bin 389 or a Lindemans Limestone Ridge. And more and more, I am loving a wine blend called GSM of Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre. And for white wine, I find the blend of Gewürztraminer and Riesling to be a very nice drink.
More and more, I am enjoying my blends and the craftmanship of the winemaker to get the blends to get the most of of the grapes. The nuances that can develop and the integration of various characteristics provide for a most enjoyable drinking experience. Maybe I am just become more old-world myself, but I find blends age better, are more complex and more balanced, and generally are a bit softer with a smoother mouth feel.
If you have not tried many blends, then I think it is about time you do! And I would appreciate your views and feedback on if you are a single-grape purist or prefer the multidimensional characteristics of a blend.
My wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, is making a magnificent slow cooked beef with mushrooms and barley for this evening! I have been smelling it cook for the last two hours and getting ravenous! We will have a serve of Quinoa and a light salad as sides. With such a combinations of flavors going on, we thought a nice Bordeaux style blend would go really well with this meal. I have had one bottle left of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus which I have been saving to enjoy with some friends, but we just have not been able to arrange a meal together (well, we did, but had a bottle of the 2001 Henscke Hill of Grace with that meal). Fortunately for them, we still have two bottles of the 1992 Lindeman’s Limestone Ridge which I am sure we will drink together.
The ’92 Pyrus is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. I love this blend as each flavor comes through. I have written about this wine previously, when I pulled a bottle out and we had it with soup! You can refer to that post to get a review of the wine. As with that bottle, the cork was perfect on and the sample of wine I had while decanting indicates that this is a slightly fresher and fruitier bottle than the last one we tried. It should be a perfect match for the dinner. We once again will be serving this wine in the Riedel Vimun XL Grand Cru Bordeaux glass to get maximum enjoyment from the wine. The only thing that beats a perfect food and wine match is the same thing, but serving the wine in a Riedel glass! I discuss the benefits of using proper glassware and taste in my upcoming wine book at some length. For a synopsis on why proper glassware is important, review my previous post on Riedel glassware.
This meal and wine will be special. I am sorry we could no longer save our last bottle for dear friends, but we have more than enough ‘last’ bottles to share with them – more than we can find time to drink them all. So it was with some regret, but more excitement that we opened our last bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to match our wonderful beef dinner this evening.
Now that Daz in the Kitchen has rebuilt her computer and is catching up from helping me with a number of technical and publishing issues, she should be able to get a post with the recipe out soon. In fact, she just wrote the post with the recipe, and I am sharing with you here.
While you are unlikely to find a bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to go with this meal, any good Bordeaux blend or a blend such as the Rosemount Traditional should work just fine. Just make sure it is a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend and optionally either Malbec or Cabernet Franc. A Shiraz blend or a GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mouvedre) is likely to be too heavy.
I would, of course! And by the way, that’s 104 Fahrenheit for my adoring (and adored) American followers!
Over time, we have brought more bottles of decent wine to our place in the Hunter Valley. However, I wanted to be careful as I did not have proper wine storage and the temperature can vary greatly from several degrees below zero (Celsius) to 40 or so degrees based on the time of season, so I did not bring too many great wines that I knew I would have to lay down until a future trip. This type of variation is not good for wine storage, especially when a cork is involved. Yet, I always like to have some nice bottles around to go with dinner or to bring to a friends.
And that is how the 2000 Lindeman’s Pyrus found its way to our place in the Hunter Valley. We now have a small Vintec which allows me to store with confidence about 30 bottles of good red and a few Montrachet. I also have about 30 or so other bottles of medium quality whites and reds that I store in a cabinet or under the bed. It was in reorganizing the other day that I found the 2000 Lindeman’s Pyrus which had been around for a while, but I missed transferring to the Vintec. I wanted to make sure to drink it right away and today seemed like a good time for it.
First of all, we are BBQ’ing this evening some pork ribs, corn on the cob, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, and some small tofu steaks. I thought a very nice red wine would go with that. Secondly, I am writing a few wine blog posts today and could not consider writing about wine without having a nice glass at my side to help me out! After all, I am inside and the we are running the Air Conditioner. But that being the case, the room temperature is still a few degrees higher than I would like for the wine, so I have made a rare exception and put two reusable ice cubes into the Pyrus to cool it down a few degrees.
This is a extremely nice, but not a truly great wine (at least not yet!). It is very smooth and balanced. It tastes like a classic second or even possibly first growth Bordeaux, except that it lacks the complexity and robust flavors of a great Bordeaux. But then, I have recently been drinking and raving about the 1987 Lindeman’s Pyrus and the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus, so it may be an unfair comparison to call the 2000 Pyrus lacking in complexity! I expect with another 5 – 10 years in the bottle that the secondary characteristic of the maturing Cabernet Franc grape will add some real structure and an enhanced flavoring to the wine. Unfortunately, this is my only bottle, so I will not be able to witness that unless someone shares a bottle with me in the next decade.
The wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The 1987 Lindeman’s Pyrus and the 1992 Lindemans’s Pyrus also contained Malbec in the blend which would have added to the nuances of these great old red wines. The 2000 Lindemans’ Pyrus has a dark chocolate nose to it and tastes of plums, cherries and blackberry. It is subtle and beautifully nuanced and should be a great match for dinner tonight.
I have been primarily a fan of the the other two members of the Lindeman’s Trio – the St George (Cabernet Sauvignon) and the Limestone Ridge (blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz), but am really growing more fond of the Lindeman’s Pyrus, especially the older ones where the Cabernet Franc grape has had a chance to evolve and provide some real elegance to this great blend.
This wine is so easy to drink! The Cabernet Sauvignon grape is prominent and so smooth. My only problem with this wine is that I seem to only have about one-third of the bottle left for dinner! Oh well, better get onto that!
As mentioned previously, my friend gave me a tremendous cigar for my 60th birthday. You could tell by smelling it, that it would be the finest cigar I have ever smoked. Having smoked it today only confirmed the point! I enjoy a great cigar every now and then, usually smoking the Cohiba Siglo #1 or #2 or the Cohiba Robusto. I may have a Montecristo every now and then. Since I may only have three or four cigars a year, it does not make sense to smoke anything less than the best!
Being on vacation, I brought some cigars along to enjoy while sitting on the back deck in the Hunter Valley. I was also looking for a cause for celebration (beyond just being on vacation!) and had it by having our best quarter ever for my group. We are already over 200% of sales plan for the quarter and finished the year on a high note. I also got a call Friday at 5:00 pm that we closed our biggest deal ever so far, so I knew I had plenty of justification (or just plenty of excuse!) for smoking “Castro’s Cigar.” (I will explain more later on how this great cigar made for Fidel Castro found its way to me!)
I also like the idea of smoking a victory or celebration cigar to ‘relish the moment.’ Red Auerbach, as General Manager of the Boston Celtics, would sit in Boston Garden watching his beloved Celtics and when he knew the game was in hand, he would light up a cigar, further intimidating the other team. This was a bit arrogant and I am not sure if he ever lit up, only to have the other team come back and win. (Does anyone know?)
I was even more influenced though by Will Smith in the movie “Independence Day.” After a victory in battle (and isn’t life an everyday battle?), Will would always savor the moment by smoking a cigar. I have followed suit and also like to relish the big victories with a good cigar, and had every reason to do so today.
I know this blog is about wine and we will get to the wine soon! However, my choice of wine cannot be adequately justified without explaining how a cigar intended for Castro made its way to me. These cigars are made by Cohiba. They consists of the very best tobacco leaves (similar to premium wines using only the very best grapes). Cohiba then provides these top end cigars to Castro for his private stock.
(I am not certain if everything I mention here is exactly correct, but it makes for a good story, so I will continue!) Every now and then, some cigars are gifted to special friends or used for diplomatic purposes and found their way into the hands of some of the sheiks from Qatar. (I actually do not know if it is now possible to buy these cigars on the open or secondary market at all, but plan to find out!) My friends son is a physiotherapist living in London and provides regular massage to one or several of these sheiks, who as a tip provided some of the cigars to my friend’s son, who then passed on two to his father. His father smoked one and gave the other to me for my birthday. Therefore, I have been waiting for the perfect setting and occasion to smoke this very special cigar and today was the day.
Many of my friends drink cognac or brandy with a good cigar, but I am not into harder liquors. Therefore, I enjoy a good cigar with red wine or port and decided a good bottle of red wine was the answer today. I originally was going to play it safe and go with a bottle of the 2007 McWillams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz. This is an outstanding wine and was awarded the ‘best red wine’ several years ago by Campbell Mattinson. I love this wine and knew it would be a great wine to drink while smoking the cigar.
However, I thought that smoking Castro’s cigar was a rare and unique experience and deserved a rare and unique wine. Since we were up in the Hunter, I did not have full access to every wine in my cellar, but found a 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus. I have had the 1987 Pyrus which was a magnificent wine and decided it was time to open a bottle of the 1992. I was excited as I cut off the seal that the cork appeared in perfect condition – something you cannot guarantee for a twenty year old cork. Still being careful, I used the Ah So cork remover as the best option to get the cork out in one piece and fortunately that is what happened.
I started to decant the wine and was glad to see it still had full crimson color that had not yet turned brownish (a sign that the wine had oxidized to some degree and would be less than optimal if not downright bad). It took a while to work the wine through the filter, even though there was very little obvious tannin separate in the wine. It was just so thick and luscious. While I am sometimes hesitant to use an aerator on a 20 year old wine (since I do not want to break down further an already fragile wine structure), this wine still had a solid structure and I knew that decanting an older Pyrus would take some time and I wanted to help it along with aeration!
We left the wine to decant while out shopping and by the time I got home, it was ready (or maybe since I was just so anxious to get started, I made myself believe it was ready!). Of course, I used the Riedel Vinum Bordeaux glass to drink the wine.
It had roasted nut, plum and full berry flavors. The wine was perfectly balanced with well integrated tannins. It matched a perfect Bordeaux blend using each grape in a well balanced proportion. The grapes were Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. This was an easy wine to drink, so smooth in texture and at 12.5% alcohol. I loved this wine and it beautifully matched the cigar in terms of rarity and elegance. This wine also won three Gold Medals early in its career.
Wine, cigar and Sandalwood incense burning in the background!
I spent 50 of the most blissful minutes I have ever experienced smoking this cigar and sipping this wine! I was expecting the cigar to go for about 2 hours, as I usually take about 1 hour, 20 minutes to smoke a Cohiba Robusto and this was bigger than the Robusto. I think there were several reasons for the time being shorter than I expected. The first was that the tightness of the rolled tobacco leaves was not as tight as a typical Cohiba and therefore drew more freely and was quicker to burn. Secondly, I was concerned with wasting any possible cigar flavor, so I was puffing harder and more frequently than I would with a so-called ‘normal’ cigar! I just did not want to waste a puff!
I usually cannot smoke a cigar beyond the last 25 cm – 35 cm, as they become too harsh and also are hot on the fingers while holding them. This one however, did not become harsh at all and I could have smoked it to the very end except it was too hot to hold. However, I did get it down to about 18 cm before snuffing it out!
The total experience took 50 minutes and I also got through about 2/3rds the bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus during that time.
While I have had some truly decadent experiences previously in life, I believe this 50 minutes now has reached #1 in terms of decadence and pure sensual pleasure in such a concentrated period of time. I know I will never have a better cigar. I will have comparable wines (heck, I still have two more bottles of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus left!) but the combination of the wine, the cigar and the reason for celebration was a truly unique and pleasurable experience.
“Just open it and drink it,” many of you would say. But a 20 year old iconic red wine certainly deserves more care and ceremony than that! A number of seemingly small steps can make the difference between the wine being ‘passable’ and exceptional. And it only takes a few more minutes to make it exceptional, so you would be foolhardy if you did not give it a chance!
Granted, the wine will be good or ‘not good’ mostly based on how it has been stored for the last 20 years and what has happened with the micro-oxidation that has gone on in the bottle during that time. This will be heavily influenced by the cork quality and if it has been faithful or not.
While you are no longer in control of the previous storage or the cork quality, there are four things you have control over in preparing the wine for drinking, all which may influence if the wine is suitable or not:
Removing wine from cellar / storage, stand up-right and let rise to room temperature
Choosing to use an Ah So cork remover as the cork will be fragile (any cork after 12 – 15 years tends to become saturated and soggy (unless the cork grain is very tight) and is at risk of breaking apart. See picture in my post ‘A disappointment, but one moves on!’) of a crumbled cork from a 17 year old bottle of wine.)
Decanting the wine, avoiding the use of a filter or aerator if possible. If required, use a filter, but never an aerator for a 20 year old wine
Let decant for only 30 – 60 minutes. Then re-bottle if not already consumed, and consuming the wine within several hours
You should remove the wine 3 – 12 hours before you plan on opening it. By allowing it to come to room temperature slowly before opening the bottle will put less stress on the wine as you decant it. And standing it up allows any free sediment to settle to the bottom of the bottle, potentially removing the need to filter the wine while decanting.
Perfectly preserved cord after 20 years!
The Ah So cork remover is far better for delicate corks than more traditional cork screws as it provides a grip on the outside of the cork (instead of drilling down through a soft cork center) and also ensures the cork has been ‘twisted’ to separate the cork from the bottle. Over time, the sugar in wine can crystallize, attaching the cork to the bottle and make it difficult to separate and remove.
Now if you have no sediment and no cork floating in the wine, you can decant slowly without using a filter or aerator. If you do have some indication of sediment or cork, then use a filter but not an aerator. The structure of an older wine becomes very fragile and will start to separate in a short period of time, further losing fruit flavor and its integrated texture, and an aerator worsen this effect noticeably. (While I am a big fan of aerating most wines, never aerate a ‘museum’ wine.
Let the wine decant for a short period of time, maybe 30 – 60 minutes. This old a wine does not usually require much more air to make it ready to drink. You usually just want to get any older smells entrapped in the bottle out and let the wine breath a little. If you are not going to drink the wine immediately, then re-bottle it, but make sure to consume within several hours. This old a bottle of wine will not last the day without some deterioration.
There are a few exceptions to this rule for very robust, built to last wines, but this is the general rule. You can test a sip or two every 15 minutes to see if the wine continues to improve or not and once it shows no further sign of improvement, then re-bottle. Some wines such as an older Penfold Grange and the 1987 Lindeman Pyrus require a long time to decant to reach maximum potential.
I used the above process to open a bottle of the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus. This is a beautifully-aged wine made of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. This type of blend has great potential to last a long time and beautifully mature in terms of the complexity and integration of flavors. Thanks to the cork being in perfect condition, the wine is exquisite! It would have been slightly better 3 – 5 years ago and has lost just a touch of its fruit flavors, but still very flavorful. It has big plum flavors with a trace of tobacco which I really enjoy in an aged red wine.
The structure of the wine has held up well, but is fragile and will not last long. Therefore, I need to drink this wine today. I am craving a pizza to go with it, or some nice lamb, but we planned to have leftover black bean soup, some corn-on-the-cob, and a salad for dinner. But it seems almost sinful to have this great wine with a spicy black bean soup!
Cheese/meat plate with 1992 Lindemans Pyrus and Rockmellon
Therefore, we decided to make a last moment change (as the soup, salad and corn-on-the-cob will last until tomorrow) and made up a cheese and salami / prosciutto plate instead which will suffice for dinner and be more enjoyable with the wine than black bean soup!
I am now 2/3rds the way through the bottle (and finished with this post!), so you do not need to be concerned if I finish the wine today or not!
[Post-writing update: I stand corrected. I saved the other 1/3 rd of the bottle for a day later, and it was still surprisingly good. If a wine is very well crafted such as the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus was, then there is less of a concern about it deteriorating quickly. This wine is still a star the day after opening!]
In my opinion – “Yes, most of the time.” I am a believer that spending some time with air after opening a bottle helps to finish the wine and make it closer to its optimal drinking state. This is not always the case, but should be considered most of the time. Plus the ritual of decanting a wine can enhance the sensual pleasure of drinking wine. I am not big on “form over function,” but do get joy out of decanting a bottle, watching the wine spiral down the decanter and the smell rising up as the wine breathes. Check out my recent blog post “Wine Foreplay and Sensual Pleasures” to find out more on how sensual, almost erotic decanting wine can be!
The visual and nasal aspects of decanting are both enjoyable, and it builds anticipation for the liquid to hit your palate!
Minimally, all wines should be opened and given several (5 – 10) minutes for any odors that may be still captured in the head space (the air at the top of a bottle of wine regardless if under cork or screw top) of the bottle should be given time to flow out. This will improve the drinking experience by removing any intervening unpleasant smells.
It is difficult to determine the absolute optimal time to open a bottle of wine. Fortunately, many good wines can be drunk over a several year period where they are truly outstanding. However, it is often the case that when we open a bottle, the wine is still a little tight, and exposing it to air for 30 minutes up to several hours can really help the wine. The transformation includes the wine becoming smoother in texture and more mellow in taste. The little bit of remaining tightness is gone or significantly reduced.
In general, decanting a wine for 30 minutes up to two hours should do the trick. However, some really complex and very well structured wines that demand to be in the bottle for 10 – 20 years, may require a decanting period of two to three hours or even longer. The 1987 Lindemans Pyrus for example, should be decanted for 6 – 8 hours to provide optimal drinking pleasure. This is because of the nature and role of the Cabernet Franc grape as part of the blend. This is a complex grape which evolves over a very long period of time, making some of the 20 – 25 year old Pyrus a truly magnificent drink. Yet, it needs long exposure to air to really complete the process.
I tasted this wine a while back at Lindeman’s after it was open only two hours and while I liked the wine, I felt it had bit of an aftertaste, so had a difficult time committing to buying much of the wine. My bride though who has a much better palate than me, loved the wine and insisted we go back the following day to get some more. (This was a $90 bottle of wine, but because the bottle had been shortfilled at 747 ml instead of the full 750 ml, they were going for $30 per bottle). The bottle had stayed open over night and when I tried it the following morning, it was absolutely brilliant! We ended up buying the last four bottles and I am really glad we did as we only have three bottles left now. This is a complex wine that is 25 years old, and it needs a lot of time to breathe! But most bottles require far less decanting time to finish off nicely.
However, be very careful and I suggest not decanting very old and fragile wines for too long. They lose flavor far too quickly and will become tepid or even flat. While many wines can be drunk over several days, older, fragile wines should be drunk within an hour after being opened.
Most people only think of decanting red wines, but I have found great benefit in decanting really large, robust white wines also. 5 – 20 year old aged Chardonnay, Semillon and other whites deserve an hour of decanting to really bring out the flavor, as does truly great Montrachet wines.
And in case there is any doubt, do not decant a Champagne! It will quickly lose its bubbles! Drink Champagne right from the bottle!
