Wine club - Roger Scruton is surprised by New Europe
Published 31 October 2005
New Europe's wines come with a screw top and a few postmodern twists
Bibendum has announced this month's wine club under the general rubric of The New Europe. To be frank, I much prefer the old one - not, I hasten to add, the Europe of Nazism, fascism and communism, but the Europe of settled boundaries, with Germany fragmented, France benighted, Poland united and Belgium a rare bad dream. Still, we have moved on from there, and the wine trade, like the rest of us, has had to catch up. The Germans in particular have taken a great step forward, and the aggressive Riesling on offer, the appropriately named J L Wolf made by award-winning Ernst Loosen, shows us the style: 11 per cent, as opposed to the traditional 8 or 9, and coming from the Pfalz region in a Mosel bottle with a screw top. All my prejudices were aroused, but the wine valiantly resisted them, and the Wolfling was accepted, by the end of the battle, which was also the end of the bottle, as a plausible member of the family.
The two whites from Spain are equally challenging. The Albarino danced in on tiptoe but with swaying flamenco hips that soon had me rolling around in sympathy. It swept its skirts across our salmon, which ran blushing into the abyss, and then danced a paso doble with the cheese. "Phew!" said Sophie, as we reeled away from the table.
The Casa de la Ermita is a much more sour and pious creature, as befits the name. Although the Jumilla appellation does not permit the bottle to say so, this is made from the Viognier grape, which produces, wherever it is planted, a strong, sharp, snail-coloured wine that creeps from the soil, dragging a trail of glistening minerals behind it. If you like the minerals, then you'll like the wine. In this case, we weren't quite sure.
All doubts were swept away, however, by the Artadi Vinas de Gain Rioja, a truly delicious, forward, fruity wine that hits you like sunshine on a barren hillside. We lay beneath its flower-laden warmth, until I fell off the sofa and had to be cattle-prodded to bed.
The Cote de Nuits-Villages is an old-vine Burgundy that presents the Pinot Noir grape in its engaging moment, when the veil of fruit has slightly drawn aside, to offer glimpses of the flesh beneath. I have always had a weakness for this appellation, which is a byword for honest Burgundy with hints of terroir.
As for the Brio du Chateau Cantenac Brown, this is the New Europe with knobs on. The knobs, in this case, are the French insurance giant, AXA Millesimes, which owns the place, and the English director, Christian Seely, who stirs the vats. The whole is packaged with a postmodern label that puts a big ring around the Chateau's multinational name. As you might expect, this, like the Riesling, is a wine with attitude.
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