From Macon I drove down to Chateau Neuf Du Pape to meet with the winemaker and work on the blend for the 2008 vintage. I have read many times about the “ Mistral “ – a wind which blows from North to South down the Rhone Valley towards the Mediterranean – but I had never experienced its full force until this visit. Whilst visiting the Chateau that gives the town its name- destroyed by the Allies in the war as it was being used as a Gestapo HQ- I was almost blown off my feet whilst taking in the view of the vineyards falling away towards the river. As there was a vertical drop of over 200ft I was relieved to grab hold of a railing and drag myself back to the safety of the car.

The wind acts as a doctor to the vineyard keeping it free of disease and mildew. Great for grapes- I am sure that living with it day in and day out would not be great for my stress levels.

The 2008 vintage has been difficult in Chateau Neuf Du Pape with yields 15% lower than last year and because of the poor summer the quality is patchy. Fortunately my supplier has been delighted with the new business we did in 2008 and has given me the opportunity to blend from his best tanks. I thought the wine we had last year was good but we have dramatically improved it for this year. The body of the wine is deeper and richer, with dark bramble fruit and we have managed to increase the spicy pepper notes on the finish of the palate.

Chateau Neuf du Pape is the most expensive wine in our core range so it is vital that when customers buy it they are delighted with it. In a time of recession value for money becomes even more important, so I hope that people will continue to trust that we won’t let then down when splashing out on a treat.

This week I travelled to Burgundy to finalise prices for the 2008 vintage and more importantly agree the year’s blends of our Macon Village. This wine was new in the range last year and pleasingly sold very well.

There is no doubt that 2009 will be a difficult year for most people and the wine industry is bracing itself. For UK buyers the slide in the value of the pound versus the Euro makes European wine almost 20% more expensive than last year before we even begin discussing the harvest. There is not this level of profit for either the wine producer or retailer to absorb this amount of cost increase so unfortunately we have had to put retail prices up.

To compound the problem 2008 was a very bad year for white wine yields across France. Hail in the spring has meant that in many areas there was only 70% of normal production. This has led to further cost increases as the French supermarkets are buying any French white wine they can get their hands on.

On the positive side the quality in Macon is much better in 2008 than in 2007 with fresher apple/ pear aromas, a gentle citrus undertone and a hint of minerality. Our producer has also invested in new equipment and has refined their wine making techniques which mean we will have a truly lovely wine for this year. Now that the blend is agreed the new vintage could be in stores by the end of February.

Look out for it and I hope you agree with me about the quality

My recent journey to Champagne brought the usual bout of sympathy from my colleagues who were appalled at my plight in having to visit this region. It was a flying visit to taste our wines and gauge the sentiment of producers.

Over the last decade Champagne has been in growth and prices have risen with demand. Each year the growers and producers have been able to sell all of their stock and times have been good. However you may have noticed that the global economy has taken a turn for the worse and being a luxury product, Champagne sales have been dramatically affected. Recent reports show a 25% decline and this is accelerating. The vignerons in Champagne are putting on a brave face but the ultimate impact must be a reduction in prices to stimulate volume.

One of the features of Champagne is its curious method of production ( this is not the place to go into the method but it was clearly invented by a mad obsessive) which means that producers will hold up to 3 years worth of stock for every 1 year of production. This has the rather beautiful result of walls of wine stored deep underground throughout the Champagne region. Millions and millions of bottles of stock which all needs to be funded. In good times banks are all too willing to lend against highly valuable stock. I wonder what the situation will be over the next six months.

Christmas comes but once a year – unless of course you are a retail buyer. Then Christmas wash up begins in January, ideas form in February, are crystallised in March and bought in April. Packaging design starts in May, finishes in June and approved in July. Production starts in August, finishes in September with delivery in October. Panic in November and hopefully satisfaction of a job well done in December.

When I ponder what to serve people at Christmas the pressure is on, as all of my friends and family expect me to deliver something special. We haven’t made the final decision on our Christmas menu yet but the day will start with bucks fizz made with our Veuve Monsigny Champagne- it is the one day of the year when a drink before midday is entirely acceptable.

Before we sit to dinner we will share a glass of Carlin Premier Cru Champagne which will also serve as an accompaniment to our starters for the slower drinkers. Pouilly Fumé or Sancerre will follow as we generally have a light seafood dish and as we are very traditional, to accompany turkey I will take the Chateau Soussans Margaux which is perfect with all the trimmings.

With Christmas pudding I will offer either St Amandus Eiswein or Chateau Romer Du Hayet Sauternes. My preference is the Sauternes but both are delicious. If anybody has room for cheese and biscuits the Sauternes will do very well but as the night darkens and the room seems cosier, Fletchers Tawny Port is the most wonderful wine for this setting. Later on we will serve mince pies and for those with the stamina a refreshing glass of Camoli Moscato Spumante.

Hic!!

A very Merry Christmas to you all and thank you very much for staying with my blog this year!

Danny

I am always interested in widening my experience of all things vinous so when asked if I would like to do a barrel tasting whilst in Bordeaux, I jumped at the chance. Barrel tasting involves sampling the one year old wine taken directly from the barrels they are aging in and gives a fantastic insight into the impact of the choice of barrel on the finished wine.

High quality claret is aged in oak barriques which hold 225 litres, 300 bottles, of wine. Due to the relatively low volume in each barrel and the relative high surface area of wine in contact with the barrel it can have a significant effect on both the taste and the structure of the wine. However in winemaking nothing is simple; the type of barrel can significantly impact the final outcome. Such variables as:

Where did the oak come from for the barrel? Various regions in France, California, Slovenia and nowadays Russia are the most common. Which cooper have you used? Each cooper seems to impart their own style.
What level of toasting has been undertaken? The barrel is charred on the inside to different degrees importing different flavours.

To the tasting. We sampled 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot which had been kept in barrels made by renowned barrel makers from the Bordeaux area, Burgundy, Russia and Slovenia. We also had samples from the Russian cooperage of oak from the Vosges in France. Each style of barrel gave something different to the wine. My least favourite was the Russian oak which seemed to dominate the wine importing harsh tannins and spice flavours. The Burgundian oak had a very delicate impact accentuating the fruit in the wine and delivering a creamy undertone. My favourite however was the French oak from the Russian cooperage which seemed to add gentle tannins and spice whilst elevating the fruit. This also pleased the winemaker as it is a significantly cheaper source of barrels than from the French counterparts.

Of course the true skill of the winemaker will be to blend the wines from all of the barrels to create a single distinctive wine which can age well, is complex but tastes great now. And I thought I had a great job!

Bordeaux is one of my favourite places to visit, especially in the autumn during harvest. You generally leave a cold and damp England and arrive in sunny and warm France. This week Bordeaux provided its usual welcome with a pleasant 23˚C and lightly dappled blue sky.

Due to the poor summer the harvest is two weeks later than usual and growers were still picking Merlot in the Medoc with the Cabernets, Franc and Sauvignon, still on the vine. One of the perks of this job is that I can get very close to the winemakers and I took the opportunity to taste the fresh Merlot juice. Modern wineries will usually pick red grapes, gently crush them and then keep the grapes and juice in contact in stainless steel tanks kept below 5˚C to prevent fermentation starting. This allows the colour to be gently extracted from the grape skins without removing the harsh tannin flavour, essentially the difference between making tea gently in a teapot and squeezing the teabag in your cup.

How to describe the taste of a fresh grape juice from the tank? Well you may keep a carton of grape juice in your fridge as a breakfast drink but even the best product bares no resemblance to the enormous depth of flavour and natural freshness you experience. I could have happily sipped, or rather gulped, all day at this wonderful brew, had the winemakers eyebrows not started to raise at my drinking away her future profits!

So my tip for a perfect autumn break in 2009, slip away to Bordeaux, enjoy the weather, view the beautiful city, taste the magnificent wines and beg your way into a winery to gorge on the juice!

A large part of my working life is devoted to PR and advertising, and in a world that is increasingly media hungry this is an area that devours more and more of my time.

As the percentage of time dedicated to it increases I need to find ways to make the task more enjoyable. I hate the prospect of being trapped by aspects of my job that aren’t fun ( as well as rewarding for the Aldi business), so last week I organised two seminars by Markus Del Monego at two of the UK’s major magazine houses. Markus is an exceptional figure in the wine world as he is the only person to be a World Champion Sommelier, in 1998, and a Master of Wine. Markus’s company CaveCo perform a quality control function on behalf of Aldi and I wanted to expand his role with us so that he can help me take the wine range in new and exciting directions. Part of his brief is to present wine in new ways to professional wine journalists and lifestyle commentators alike and his seminars did just that. By taking a few carefully considered store cupboard items and 3 selected wines he was able to skilfully show how our sensation of taste works and how this influences food and wine matching.

Over two days I joined in all 8 presentations and was as enthralled at the last as I was at the first. I know those attending felt the same and I am hoping to find a way of delivering this on the website in the future. Watch this space.

It is sometimes hard to convince my colleagues that trips to vineyards are not just an excuse for a couple of fun days out of the office, especially when their nearest equivalent is a visit to a fish processing factory in Grimsby! So you can imagine the looks I received yesterday after returning from my visit to Chablis and Sancerre, two of the worlds most prestigious wine growing regions.

Rather than waste breath telling them that I had to get up at 4.00am to catch a plane to Europe’s most despised Airport, Charles de Gaulle, I simply decided to exaggerate how wonderful the experience had been, adding several degree’s ˚C to the temperature and extra courses to the lavish meals experienced.

My search for suitable Chablis has been a long one but in Louis Moreau I have found the perfect partner for Aldi. The family has made wine in the region for generations and Louis builds on this tradition with his wine education in California and attention to detail in the winery and vineyard. The first bottling of our new Chablis, “Domaine de la Vigne Blanche”, took place last week and I visited to confirm that the bottling had reached the standards of the approved samples. It exceeded my expectations and will be even better once the wine has settled after bottling which usually takes 2 to 3 weeks. The Moreau family have an impressive range of Chablis from Petit Chablis to Chablis and the two premium levels Premier Cru and Grand Cru. Whilst it will be the Chablis that finds a place in the core range, the other wines are impressive and I hope to find a place for some of them in the 2009 specials programme.

From Chablis I drove the two hours to Sancerre where Sauvignon Blanc, rather than Chardonnay, is the exclusive white grape variety. My mission here was to secure supplies for 2009 as volumes have been tight in 2008 and not likely to improve next year. I also took the opportunity to taste 25 other blends of Sancerre and remain very pleased with the style we have. Unlike Chablis, Sancerre also has a red variant, rarely seen in the UK. Made from pinot noir it is light and fresh in style and makes an elegant rosé. The wines I tasted were impressive and have given me even more ideas foe 2009.

Now all I need to do is to convince the business to give me space for some of these terrific wines. I can feel another trip coming on!

I don’t know who first coined the phrase, ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’, but they were probably a cynic – someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. The thought came to me as I was looking at our own rosé wines. Five years ago we had just one, a Blush Zinfandel from California that was very sweet and smelt and tasted of a rich summer pudding drenched in cream.

We still have one, Burlwood White Zinfandel (£3.99), that has a steady market, but our range now includes pink wines from Australia, France, Italy and Spain. What is different about these wines is that they can be enjoyed on their own, or with food, right through the year.

Many of the latest generation of rosés are made in a more robust style that makes them ideal with food. Take, for example, the Viña Decana Rosada (£3.29) from the little known Spanish wine area of Utiel Requena, a rocky plateau some 35 miles inland from Valencia. This is one of the few places in the world where they grow a grape called the Bobal that is used mainly for blending with Garnacha. Leaner and more acidic than most Spanish reds, it produces a deliciously fruity pink wine that can be enjoyed with typical spicy Spanish sausages, cold Continental meats, lightly curried cold coronation chicken and even chilli stir-fried giant prawns.

The latest addition can be described as ‘An Aussie pink with muscle’. This is Bushland Merlot rosé (£4.99) that is made from 100% Merlot grown on the tough red basalt soils of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. When I was out there recently I took part in the final blending and feel that we have a wine that will appeal to our customers all over the British Isles. Like most Australian wines it is very definitely fruit-driven, a just off-dry soft pink wine with fine tannins that can be poured with pleasure on almost any occasion; with friends, with fish, with a whole range of cold meats and pizzas. I hope you like it.

As regular readers will know I am not one to witter on about all the awards that Aldi’s wines have won. Suffice it to say check out the website for our haul in 2008 to date. I must say however, that any work I have done has been blown out of the water by my colleague, Caroline Carey, with “The Fishmonger “ frozen fish range that recently won the “Grocer Gold “ award for the Own Label Range of the Year category at this year’s Grocer Magazine Awards. This is probably the most prestigious grocery award in the UK, so short of scooping golds in every category at next year’s wine shows I am afraid I will have to remain in her shadow for the foreseeable future.

It seems that you can’t turn on the TV at the moment without some expert blathering on about the decline of the economy. This has certainly had an impact on consumer behaviour and at Aldi we are seeing the benefit. Sales are flying and hopefully our new customers can really see that the words we constantly use about quality and value are genuine. We have recently launched a whole raft of new wines from Sancerre at £8.99 and a premium Pinot Grigio de Trentino at £4.99 to entry level Italian Red and White wines at £2.79. So however much cash you have to spend on wine there should be something there to experiment with. As I’ve said hundreds of times before; whatever price you pay you won’t get better value for your cash than at Aldi.

What’s more the same principle that is applied to the wine range goes for the rest of the products in the store and now you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask the good people at The Grocer Magazine!