Wine with Leslie: How to get into texture — and an €8 Pinot Noir at Dunnes
Leslie Williams gets into texture this week in his wine column. Pic: ThinkStock
Every week on this page I make several attempts to describe the way different wines taste by focusing mainly on how they smell and taste. However there is one more element I should probably focus on more, and that is texture.
The way a wine sits on the palate, how the fruit interacts with the acidity in my mouth, and how easily it slips down the throat are all important to the enjoyment of wine. On a hot summer day, you will likely want a lighter texture to the wine you might serve with a winter roast beef.
Recommendations this week are all wines with texture, and with high levels of what we in the trade call ‘textural complexity’. By this, I mean that you should find yourself noticing not just the taste, but the way the wine feels in the mouth, the way the tannins dry out your gums and the inside of your cheeks, how the acidity tingles your tongue, and how refreshed your palate feels once you have swallowed the wine.
I’ve gone for a mix of ‘natural’ and conventional wines including a wine style everyone thinks they hate - oaked Chardonnay. It is true that oak in white wine can add some sweeter notes but in the wine below there is plenty of balancing acidity and citrus flavours and I bet you will like it more than you think.
I had to include a Pét-Nat, which finishes the last part of its fermentation in a sealed bottle to trap CO2. Unlike with Cava or Champagne the dead yeast cells and sediment are not removed, so the wine will pour cloudy with the creamy yeasty lees flavours mixing in with the fruit flavours. Crucially the yeast will have eaten all the sugars so pét-nat wines are generally bone-dry.
Alsace gets two picks below because we don’t drink enough wine from that region - it’s a part of France I strongly recommend for its picture-perfect villages and delicious regional cuisine as much as for its wine. Flammekueche (a sort of bacon and cream pizza), Choucroute Garnie, goose foie gras and all kinds of delights await you. Finally I haven’t neglected red drinkers and you will also find two fruity textured reds to taste and chew on.
Reduced from €17, this is a blend of Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Muscat, Gewüztraminer and Chasselas - and as you might expect the grapey floral aromas of Muscat and Gewürztraminer are most noticeable on the nose. On the palate this is lush, rounded and textured but with just enough balancing acidity. Try with Thai or rich Chinese food.
On offer in Dunnes for €8 and for €9 in SuperValu (normally €15). Chile is by far the best value place to find Pinot Noir and the cool Leyda Valley gets lots of Pacific breezes. A ripe style of Pinot with soft raspberry and strawberry fruits hitting the palate first, but followed immediately by textured earthy notes and a tangy mineral streak.
You expect texture with decent Rioja but frequently this comes from extensive oak ageing as much as from quality grapes. This organic and bio-dynamic Joven Rioja is completely focused on the fruit with bright cherry and red plums on the nose, darker berry fruits on the palate, and a pleasing sappy, mouth-coating, intensity.
Melon, apple pie, vanilla, textured creamy fruits with a touch of spice and a clean finish - what’s not to love? Yes, this is an oaked Chardonnay from California but made with a focus on balance and elegance and I bet you will love it whatever your prejudice against the style. Also, watch for the Pinot Noir.
Pét-Nat bottle is the ultimate for texture with the unfiltered lees coating the palate and brisk acidity on the finish to clear it all away. From a field blend of red and white grapes, floral red fruit aromas, crisp, layered and textured and a bone-dry finish that brought to mind tart blackberries.
A low intervention organic Riesling from the heart of Alsace, around a half-hour drive south-west of Strasbourg. Apple, limes and under-ripe pear aromas, taut but ripe, with full textured open and rounded flavours that pleasingly coat the palate - a bonus salty tang on the finish.
Another year, another release of Midleton Very Rare, easily our best-blended whiskey. This is the 40th edition and now comes in sustainable recyclable packaging - I will miss the old wooden box but the last one got used as firewood.
For the 2023 Kevin O’Gorman and team have increased the pot-still levels in the blend a little but you will still find some floral notes from the grain element. Aromas of spice and ginger with background dried fruits in syrup. Caramel, vanilla and cream hit the palate first followed by dried exotic fruits, pepper and spice, and lingering tangerine and apricot flavours on the finish. Buy it to drink it, not resell it!
