Very Enjoyable Wines of the World Online Tasting With Kate Barry

Wines of the World Online Tasting

With Kate Barry

Very much enjoyed my virtual visit to the weekend’s Wines of the World Tasting with our host Kate Barry. She had three wines to go through but each was anonymous, wrapped in a brown bag, for the time being. Kate made us work (fun!) to determine what we were tasting.

But she did it so well, step by step, in simple English. No online technical hiccups here, every word from Kate was loud and clear. And there were smiles, slurps, and a few laughs, easygoing all the way, a very pleasant way indeed to learn about wine - see below for next Virtual Tasting. 

Bag No. 1, a white, was first. “We will use our senses: eyes, nose, palate.” Normally, one of the first checks is to see if the wine is corked. If there’s a “damp cardboard” sensation, you’re in trouble. But no need to worry in this case as the closure is a DIAM cork that comes with a guarantee against cork taint.

Kate holds up the first of the wine: “It is lovely and bright with a medium pale colour. Hold your glass at an angle against a sheet of white paper and you can see it’s of medium intensity, lemon with a hint of gold.” Would the nose be medium or pronounced? “Just about medium,” said Kate. Now cover your glass with a hand, swirl, smell. “Woohoo..Absolutely beautiful.” Smell now for fruit, citrus perhaps. “Lemon, lime, here.” Try now for apple and pear. Stone fruit, melon perhaps. Move on to tropical. “A hint of pineapple”. “And I think there’s a tiny bit of white pepper.”

Now we move to the palate. “Get the wine into your mouth and slurp. You’ll notice the difference!” She smiled. “The tip of the tongue will tell us whether it’s dry or not..” Are we salivating? “I think there’s a medium salivation going on, so a medium plus acidity.” Alcohol? Check the glass for legs or tears, the more tears, the more alcohol. Is there a burn at the back of the throat? “I think this is medium.”  The body? Take a sip of water (light bodied) and compare. “This is a bit more than water, so light to medium bodied.”

Now to check the flavour intensity. Medium was Kate’s verdict. Flavours include lime, lemon, green apple, a little spice, minerality (more on palate than nose) plus some stone fruit. Measure the length of the finish, how long does the flavour last? Up to five seconds is short, 5-10 medium, above 10 long.  “Eight seconds, really refreshing”. Nothing jarring here. “I think it has a loverly balance, a lovely wine. Not complex, simple and easy drinking”

So now for the reveal. Old or new world? Alcohol content? Vintage? Variety or blend? What have we been drinking? It was a Michel Lynch “Nature” Bordeaux (AOC) 2017, 12%, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, a typical blend of the region. 

Michel Lynch “Nature” Bordeaux (AOC) 2017, 12%, €16.50 Wines of the World

A lovely pale colour and silver tints, this vintage has an intense bouquet with notes of white flowers and citrus fruit. The palate fresh and harmonious, underpinned by fine intensity and noteworthy mineral tones. Grown from 100% organically grown grapes  in the Bordeaux region of France.

The wine pays tribute to Michel Lynch, one of the great names of Bordeaux wine (Irish, of course). Made from a careful selection of organically grown grapes, it contains as little sulphur as possible and has environmentally friendly packaging.

Fat Bastard Malbec Vin de France 2019, 13%, €11.50 Wines of the World

One difference between red and white wines is that red has tannins. “No tannins in white wine. Full stop!”, says Kate. “Tannins is a dry gritty sensation. Some love it, some hate it. The paler the colour, the lighter the tannin. This one is medium grippy, all integrated.”

The label says a lot here: remarkably full bodied (fat bastard), round and generous. The Fat Bastard Malbec is sourced from southern vineyards, between the Languedoc and the Gers regions. Kate took us through each of the reds in the same way as she tasted the white.

This Malbec has an intense colour with a vibrant purple hue. Elegant with aromas of black cherry and hints of vanilla and chocolate. Generous and unctuous with a delicate spicy finish. Kate: “ It’s a simple easy-drinking food wine. Lovely with a meal. Love it with a steak or Spaghetti Bolognese. Cheese too.”

A French wine created by Thierry Boudinaud, a renowned winemaker who has crafted wines from California to Chile to South Africa. It is named after a British expression describing a particularly rich and full wine.

Graham Norton’s Own Shiraz, South Australia 2017, 14.5%, €14.00 Wines of the World

The Graham Norton Shiraz is from South Australia and is a mix of fruit from different regions offering a reasonably complex, concentrated wine with a deep ruby colour. It’s a bold in aroma and on the palate, juicy wine full of character, just like the man himself! Perhaps that’s why they called it Shiraz rather than Syrah (the French name for the grape denotes, mostly, a gentler wine). 

Quite a good wine for a tasting actually. The flavours alone, mostly primary, could fill half a page of your notebook! As is often the case in Australia, the fruit comes from different areas, three in this case: “The Barossa, McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek; each brings something different.”

Kate enjoyed tasting this one. “A dry wine with medium plus acidity.” She expected a high alcohol count, judging mainly by the burn at the back of throat, and she was spot on. Lots of primary fruit flavours plus some spice. Excellent finish too and well balanced. “I’m a lover of this wine and I hope you enjoyed it too.” We did, enjoyed the whole session.

Casa Silva - Live Zoom Virtual Tasting March 26th

The next live interactive virtual tasting will feature wine expert Kate Barry and Stephen Ludlam from Casa Silva. Casa Silva is Chile’s most awarded winery of the 21st Century – outstanding wines of great quality and fantastic value. It has the oldest wine cellar in the Colchagua Valley. Beneath its traditional and historic facade, however, is one of Chile’s most modern wine facilities. Should be a superb evening.  More details, including booking, here.

Kate will hold another recorded (non Zoom) tasting in mid-April. Keep an eye on the website for details. By the way, Wines of the World also do private tastings for firms and other groups.

 

Leisurely Tour and Tasting at Cotton Ball Micro-Brewery

Leisurely Tour and Tasting at Cotton Ball Micro-Brewery

Eoin (right) starts the tour.

The sun shone as members (and guests) of the Munster Wine & Dine gathered at the Cotton Ball for a leisurely tour of and tasting at the pub’s own micro-brewery. The brewery was founded by the Lynch family less than five years ago yet they’ve outgrown the original brewery and have moved into a new one in their Mayfield (Cork) premises.

The old brewery is being wound down, our guide Eoin Lynch told us, but is still being used for some brews, including their Lynch’s Stout. He is delighted with the “huge difference in space” afforded them by the new facility.

They also have their own mill, the grain coming from Togher. Speciality malts are imported, mainly from Europe, and we had some fun smelling the many aromas.

Speciality malt, from Belgium

Someone asked what’s the most popular beer. Eoin: “Most of the beer in the world is lager. Craft or not, you can’t ignore that. It is a very competitive market with more and more craft breweries opening. We use tip top ingredients here but labour is the big cost!”

They have almost tripled batch size with the new facility. “But we still need to balance demand, not to get too far ahead. You don’t want product sitting around.” And he confirmed, in response to a question, that draught does indeed taste better. One of the reasons is that most bottles are filtered for “shelf life purposes”.

He showed us some of their kit, including the bottling line, capable of doing 1,000 bottles an hour. A new keg wash means they put through three kegs at a time instead of one previously.

Now it was time to sit down in the Brewery Room, pay tribute to the bar founder, one Humphrey Lynch, Eoin’s great-grandfather, who left Ballyvourney at 15 years of age and settled in an American town known as Byefield which he later used in naming his Cork estate house. 

Cheese please

After working for two years with Joseph Longfellow, cousin to the famous poet, he worked for a year in the ship yard at Newburyport until the American civil war broke out. 

He was one of the first to enlist in the 4th U.S regiment light artillery battery and served through 27 general engagements principally in the army of the southwest and along the Mississippi valley. Then he worked for 14 years as a foreman of the picker room in Newburyport cotton mill. 

This would later give him the name of a public house he purchased in Baile na mBocht  (now Mayfield) after returning to Ireland in 1870’s. Nowadays, each bottle from the new brewery pays tribute to the man who made it all possible, bearing an image of American Civil War veteran Humphrey on the label. 

Keg washing facility

We were on the draught though, five beers in all. And Isabelle Sheridan of On the Pig’s Back supplied the cheeses for the pairings. Generally, it seemed the stronger the beer, the stronger the cheese. 

For instance, the lager and the easy drinking Indian Summer paired well with the Ardsallagh Feta, the Ale with Hegarty’s Cheddar, the Indian Pale Ale (with the Magnum hops, a favourite bittering hops here) with both the Cheddar and the Bleu D’Auvergne. The stout too matched up well with both the cheddar and the bleu. And Hegarty’s new comté style cheese called Teampallgeal was very popular across the board!

le bleu

A pint of Lynch's

After that generous tasting, there was a pint “of your choice” for each guest and lots of chat as the evening wound down and I relaxed with a flavoursome pint of Lynch’s excellent stout.

Until the next time, which will be a mid-summer trip to the county on July 8th. Members are asked to keep an eye on their emails for details. Later in the year, we will be visiting The Mews in Baltimore and Longueville House in Mallow.

• A more detailed account of the soldier and entrepreneur Humphrey Lynch may be found here  
• The Cotton Ball website is here. 
• For more info on Munster Wine & Dine, click here