Australians generally have a love for wine, and it has become an integral part of the country's culture and social scene. Wine consumption in Australia has been steadily increasing over the past decade. According to the International Wine and Spirit Record (IWSR), wine consumption in Australia increased to 29.6 litres per annum in 2016. In addition, Statista reported that Australia ranks fifth just behind the traditional wine-producing countries Italy, France, and Spain in global wine production.
Further, Australia is known for its red varieties such as Shiraz, Cabernet, Sauvignon and Merlot as well as the white varieties Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. According to Wine Australia’s 2019 report, the top five most popular wine varieties in terms of volume sales in Australia are:
From Popsy & JJ’s wine collection, try:
Popsy & JJ is Australia’s most trusted reviewer of wines from across the globe. The Popsy & JJ online store houses a curated selection of European wines that cannot be found in Australia. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more champagne reviews and exclusive wine sales at great prices!
]]>Here are 3 important things you should know about sparkling wines-– the method, the types and the level of sweetness:
Méthode Champenoise, also known as the traditional method, is the premier method of producing sparkling wine. Secondary fermentation happens in the bottle and will take time to age on its lees (dead yeast cells) which will impact its flavour, aroma and textures.
Also known as the tank method, the Charmat Method is the quick and cheaper way to produce sparkling wines. A tank is used as the vessel to turn the wine into sparkling instead of the bottle. Instead of ageing the wine on its lees, the CO2 will be released which will pressurise the tank for its second fermentation. The sparkling wine will be bottled and sold to the market without ageing.
Transversage or the transfer method is similar to the traditional method. The secondary fermentation will happen in the bottle and will be transferred to the pressurised tank to be filtered.
Méthode Ancestrale or ancestral method involves the wine being bottled and sealed in icy temperatures and filtration to pause the first fermentation for a number of months. Then the wine will be bottled to finish the fermentation and trap the CO2 in the bottle to produce bubbles.
Carbonation or gas injection is the least expensive of all the methods. The wine doesn’t need to have its second fermentation. Instead, CO2 will be injected into the wine and will carbonate in a pressurised tank.
Invented by the Russians, the continuous method is similar to the tank method but with a complicated production method. The entire process takes about a month to complete with a series of adding yeast and transferring to pressurised tanks a couple of times until the wine is clear.
Champagne is the most famous of all sparkling wines exclusively labelled for and produced in the north of France.
Cava originates from Spain and is the country’s most famous sparkling wine. It can only be made in the Penedés region using the traditional method.
Prosecco sparkling wine hails from Italy. The Charmat method is used when making this sparkling wine.
Lambrusco is an Italian red sparkling wine made from very old grape varieties native to Italy. Its flavour profile includes strawberry, blackberry, raspberry and dark cherry.
Crémant uses Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc grapes for its sparkling wine. This sparkling wine uses the same traditional method as Champagne.
Franciacorta is another Italian sparkling wine that requires a longer ageing period using the traditional method. It uses Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes.
Sekt is a German sparkling wine that uses the Charmat method. The grapes used for making Sekt sparkling wines are Pinot Noir, Gris, Chardonnay, Riesling and other indigenous grape varieties.
50+ g/L RS
Very sweet
Secondly, the harvesting and winemaking methods for dessert wines are also very particular. Their methods of production affect their characteristics and sweetness. Lastly, life is indeed uncertain but not with dessert wines. There’s a lot of wonderful and surprisingly good food to be paired with these sweet after-dinner drinks. Eat dessert first with a good bottle of dessert wine!
Dessert wines have higher alcohol content which depends on the process of production. They can range from 6% to 25% volume. Its high sugar content is due to the length of fermentation and the amount of residual sugar in them. Dry wines have less sugar because they are fermented for a period of time while dessert wines have a shorter fermentation process.
There are several methods for making and adding sweetness to dessert wines:
Method 1: To add sweetness before fermentation, winemakers usually dry the grapes first by leaving them on the vine after the harvest date. This process makes sure that there is more sweetness in the wine. Alternatively, there is also a method called ‘noble rot’, which means the mould found on the grape skin speeds up the process of evaporation. The mould, known as Botrytis Cinerea’, also gives unique flavours to the wine because it sucks out all of the moisture leaving a strong sweetness to the grapes. ‘Freezing the grapes’ is also another method wherein the grapes are left on the vine for a longer period and will be harvested during winter.
Method 2: To add sweetness during fermentation, the fermentation is interrupted in two different ways after going through the normal process of harvesting and crushing the grapes. The first method is to remove the yeast by filtering to stop the fermentation to let the sugar remain in the blend. The second method is to remove the yeast by fortifying it. This is a well-known technique of adding sulphur dioxide or more alcohol into the blend to poison the yeast.
Method 3: To add sweetness after fermentation, winemakers add natural sweet liquids like unfermented grape juice.
Dessert wines have a broad category but the most popular are fortified wines, sweet red wines, richly sweet wines and sparkling wines.
These are dessert wines that are now mostly for commercial production. They are cheap and are mostly made in Italy. Examples of sweet red wine are:
Sparkling dessert wines are less sweet because of carbonation and high acidity. Examples are:
There’s a broad variety of dessert wines that can be paired with any kind of sweet dish. The rule is to choose a dessert wine that’s sweeter than the dish.
Popsy & JJ has an enchanting French dessert wine, the Epoque Monbazillac 375ml 2015, in their collection. You can watch their wonderful review here. The Epoque Monbazillac has a golden colour which adds elegance to its pleasing look and taste. It has notes of citrus, candied apricots and sweet pear. Enjoy it with an apple pie or chocolate or coffee-based desserts.
Popsy & JJ is Australia’s most trusted reviewer of wines from across the globe. The Popsy & JJ online store houses a curated selection of European wines that cannot be found in Australia. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more champagne reviews and exclusive wine sales at great prices!
]]>Here are some essential facts about Rosé.
According to historical accounts, it was the ancient Greeks and Roman winemakers who first produced Rosé. Red and white grapes were combined and crushed by the workers using their feet. The juice will be fermented using ceramic containers resulting in dry, tannic and hard wine. Therefore, the wine was diluted to make it less harsh and light-coloured, which was preferred by many during that period. It was in the 6th century BC when grape vines were brought to Southern France.
Maceration refers to the method of letting the red wine grapes rest, allowing the grape skin to touch the juice from 6 to 48 hours. The result is a darker-coloured wine and the flavour is richer. Maceration is the most popular method in making Rosé, especially in the Provence region.
Pronounced as “San-yay”, this method is known as ‘bleeding’ since it intentionally starts as a process to produce red wine before separately making it into Rosé. The juice is bled off during the maceration process. This method is commonly used in Napa and Sonoma.
In the blending method, red wine is blended with white wine to make Rosé. The region of Champagne uses this method.
A variety of different grape types are used to make a Rosé. The commonly used grapes for Rosé are:
The process of making Rosé is similar to red and white wine. The fermentation follows the process of red wine while fermented at the temperature when making white wine.
It was acceptable to blend red and wine grapes in the old times. However, in today’s modern winemaking process, it has become prohibited in many regions as it may lower the quality of the wine. When the crushed grapes turn into juice, the leftover grape skin is what makes the liquid turn pink. The longer the juice is exposed to the grape skin, the darker it becomes.
Because of the different methods used to make Rosé, winemakers have become unstoppable in creating and exploring different blends and styles to enjoy across all seasons. Here are 5 most popular Rosé wines:
The region of Provence dedicates 91% of its vineyards to Rosé. Provençal is a blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Cynsault grapes. The result gives a pale pink hue with light, fruity and soft flavours that match any dish. It has a strawberry, watermelon and rose petal aroma.
This savoury Rosé is made with Syrah (or Shiraz), championed by the region of Rhône Valley in France and Australia. Notes of pepper, olive, strawberry and cherry are found in this Rosé type. It pairs perfectly with barbecue, vegetable and pasta dishes.
Sangiovese is widely produced in Italy. Also known as Rosato in the region, Sangiovese Rosé has medium-dry sweetness with earthy flavours and high acidity. It has a copper-red colour with notes of fruity flavours such as strawberry, sweet cherries and green melon. This wine is best paired with Asian-inspired dishes and chicken.
Tempranillo Rosé hails from the Rioja region in Spain. Locally known as Rosado, this type of Rosé has notes of raspberry, strawberry, white flowers and peppercorn. The best foods to pair with Tempranillo Rosé are tomato-based pasta and pizza, Mexican foods such as tacos and nachos, and grilled meats and smoky dishes.
The primary method used to make Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé is Saignee. It has a deep ruby-red colour that it’s almost mistaken for red wine. Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé has flavours of green bell pepper, black currant and cherry. It's best paired with grilled meat and fish.
From West Asia, the wine trail travelled all the way to the Mediterranean where the seafaring cultures of the ancient Phoenician and Greeks spread wine throughout Europe. The grapes survive the new climates and mutate, resulting in new grape varieties or ‘cultivars’. Today, there are around 10,000 wine varieties identified. Italy has more than 350 grape varieties while France has 204 native grape varieties and Spain has 84.
It would be a waste for travellers or tourists not to try wine tasting activities, visit any wine region, or buy good-tasting wines in a European wine store when visiting this part of the world. There’s an abundance of grapes to discover, vineyards to visit and different European red and white wines to try.
Here’s a quick guide to Europe’s well-known wine region destinations:
Italy is home to some of the world’s famous wines— Chianti, Prosecco, Barolo, Valpolicella, Soave, Orvieto and Etna. This country produces roughly 19 percent of the world’s wines. The wine regions of Italy are located in the far north, usually nestled in mountain valleys at the edge of the Alps. Piedmont’s famous vineyards are on higher, hillier hills on the western edge of the Po Valley. Tuscany and other wine regions sit on Apennines' edges. Sicily’s famed vineyards are on the eastern slopes of the peninsula.
France has a profound impact on new and emerging wine countries. There are 11 major wine regions with a wide variety of climates and territories but the most influential regions are Bordeaux, Bourgogne, the Rhône Valley, the Loire Valley, and Champagne. The famous vineyards of Bordeaux sit on gravelly land near Gironde Estuary. Burgundy and Rhône Valley are on the hillsides.
Spain’s wine making history spans 3,000 years. They have over 600 grape varieties with only 20 varieties used in the majority of wines. Airén is the variety used in white wine while garnacha is used for red wine. Spain’s famous wine region is Rioja. Rioja is located in a river valley hidden by mountain ranges to the north and the west. Rioja wines have four classification levels: Genérico, Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva. Their wines are medium to full-bodied with high tannins. Its distinct flavours are dark berries, plum, tobacco and herb.
Chianti is situated in Central Italy near Florence. It is a mountainous and hilly province where it is locally known as Monti del Chianti, which translates to Chianti Mountain, and Colline del Chianti meaning Chianti Hills. Chianti is also home to one of Italy’s famous exports, olive oil, as well as the artist Michelangelo’s legendary David painting.
This vast region has a continental climate with long hot, dry summers and cold winters. Most of the vineyards can be found at the foot of the Apennines mountains. It is divided into seven sub-zones with their own distinctive name and label for Chianti wine. These are:
Sangiovese is a native Italian grape variety that dominantly makes up the Chianti red wine. It is a thin-skinned grape with high acidity and high tannins. Aside from Sangiovese, Chianti may contain other wine grapes such as Canaiolo, Colorino, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. When poured in a wine glass, Chianti has a ruby red colour with bright burnt orange sparkle.
There are several types of Chianti with each wine having its own characteristics, grape varieties and other requirements:
The Italian wine classification for Chianti is DOCG or Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, the highest quality level awarded for Italian wine. The DOCG has a tighter and more restrictive criteria in order for the wine to receive the official DOCG seal of approval from the Ministry of Agriculture. Chianti is one of the first five wines who got the distinction along with Barbaresco (Piedmont), Barolo (Piedmont), Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (Tuscany) and Brunello di Montalcino (Tuscany). Chianti earned its DOCG in 1984. Today, there are 73 wines with DOCG distinction in Italy.
In recent years, the Chianti region has a growing commercial demand to produce organic Chianti red wine. Presently, there are around 50 wine producers using organic grapes. The qualifications for producing organic chianti red wine are:
Panzano in Chianti, a pleasant Tuscan hilltop town, produces the best organic red wine since they are the first consolidated district for organic wine production. The local winegrowers have been exploring sustainable viticulture since 2008.
We’ve all heard that red wine has many positive health benefits. It is rich in antioxidants, it lowers bad cholesterol and keeps the heart healthy. Organic red wine is healthier than the standard red wine because they are produced without chemical pesticides and are free from synthetic additives. It also has less sugar and sulfites.
Popsy and JJ is proud to have the Rignana Chianti Classico DOCG Organic 2016 in its esteemed wine collection. True to its Chianti quality, this premium organic Chianti red wine has a balanced and elegant taste that is fruity with an earthy and spicy aroma. The Rignana Chianti Classico DOCG Organic 2016 is a blend of 80% Sangiovese and 15% Canaiolo. The best food pairing for Rignana Chianti Classico DOCG Organic 2016 are pizzas, Tuscan-style sausages, Pecorino cheese, roast lamb and game such as pheasant and wild boar.
Pinot Blanc’s taste varies depending on the grape treatment and production by region— that’s why the subtle, bland, and neutral taste remark from wine insiders. Additionally, it is often mistaken for Chardonnay because of the similarities in colour and acidity. In reality, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay share similarities in the winemaking treatment process in terms of oak maturity resulting in both having a dry and medium- to full-bodied taste. But generally, Pinot Blanc has a clean and refreshing taste with a hint of smokiness and varietal – varietal as an adjective which means the grape variety’s flavour and aroma, characters of apple, pear, citrus and almond.
To note, Pinot Blanc is the name of the white grape varietal – this time as a noun denoting the wine’s exclusive single grape variety, and has varied characteristics from how and where it is grown and processed. Let’s take a closer look at the three most popular white wine from the same variety:
Pinot Blanc: Alsace’s Pinot Blanc tends to be dry, creamy with almond and hints of apple and spice. It is also used for the French sparkling wine Cremant d’Alsace.
Pinot Bianco: Northern Italy’s Pinot Bianco is made crisper and lighter. It is used in the production of the region’s sparkling wine, particularly Franciacorta.
Weissburgunder: Citrusy, with hints of melon, pear and green nuts, Germany and Austria’s Weissburgunder sweet and lighter. It is used in trockenbeerenauslese, which is Austria’s sweet wine made from late harvest grapes.
Pinot Blanc has a good acidity and softer, smoky character that matches perfectly with food that has a subtle flavour like soft cheeses. Additionally, Pinot Blanc can be paired with light meat as well with salads and pasta with a creamy sauce and dressing.
Here are our 6 best Pinot Blanc food pairings:
Quiche is a French tart filled with heavy cream, cheese and smoky bacon bits. This classic tart dish also originated in Alsace where Pinot Blanc is grown. They obviously make a good wine and food pairing that is ideal for brunch.
Popsy & JJ is Australia’s most trusted reviewer of wines from across the globe. The Popsy & JJ online store houses a curated selection of European wines that cannot be found in Australia. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more champagne reviews and exclusive wine sales at great prices!
]]>If you want to learn more about the origin, production process, and different types of champagne, this guide is for you!
To be called ‘champagne’, the wine must be produced in Champagne in the northeast region of France. It is also important to note that while all champagnes are classified as sparkling wine, not all sparkling wines are considered champagne. Sparkling wines such as cava and prosecco may have some features in common with champagne (and are equally as delicious) but since grape varietals from regions outside of France along with different production methods are utilised, they are not categorised as champagne.
Champagne is traditionally made from three grape varieties — Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier — and is produced in a variety of styles using the traditional method known as Méthode Champenoise. The Chardonnay grape is mild in flavour and characterised by a crisp, acidic taste; the Pinot Noir grape is more varied in deep, earthy flavours; and the Pinot Meunier grape has a bold, rich flavour to effect. Other grapes such as the Pinot Gris, Pinot Meslier, and Arbane are also occasionally used to produce champagne, although these varieties are quite rare. When you buy a bottle of champagne, the grape used to make it should be indicated on the label. If it is not indicated, it is likely that the winemakers used a blend of two or more of the varieties listed above.
The traditional method of making champagne is a complex process that takes years to master. The grapes go through two distillation procedures, firstly to distil the grapes into still wine, and secondly to create the characteristic champagne bubbles by adding yeast and sugar to the wine. After this step, the sparkling wine ages for a minimum of 15 months while frequently being rotated to ensure the yeast keeps moving. To complete the process, the yeast is skimmed off the top of the liquid and the final ingredients are added before the champagne is ready to be bottled up and shipped off to a restaurant or liquor store near you.
Champagne is described in terms of its sweetness, which comes from the unique mixture of the distilled wine and the added sugar content. Sugar is an essential part of making champagne to balance out the high acidity levels of the unsweetened wine. The sweetness of champagne is indicated by the scale of ‘brut’, which ranges from brut nature (extra dry) and dry to semi-sec (sweet) and doux (very sweet). If you prefer dry wine, opt for extra brut or brut nature. Sweeter champagnes are typically served as dessert wines.
Blanc de Blancs, or white of whites, is a style of champagne made purely with white grapes. Blanc de Noirs, or white of blacks, is a style of champagne made purely with black grapes. Blanc champagne typically has light fruity taste notes while champagne made of black grapes are rich in bold berry flavours. A rosé style champagne can also be made by blending white champagne with a small amount of red wine. The red wine used to make pink champagne is different from the red wine you would drink since it is used for the sole objective of adding a particular flavour to the sparkling wine.
The optimum temperature for storing champagne is slightly below 10°C. Unlike red wine, sparkling wine does not improve with age and should therefore not gather dust in your wine shelf for too long. Once the bottle is open, preserve the bubbles by using a champagne bottle stopper. Contrary to popular belief, tricks such as placing a teaspoon in an open bottle of bubbly to prolong the sparkling effect will not work as well as you may think.
As for food pairings, champagne goes well with a wide variety of foods. Drier champagnes like brut and extra brut are versatile, pairing well with poultry, seafood, and other rich or savoury dishes. Sweeter champagnes like demi-sec, sec and extra sec pair well with bold flavours like sweet desserts and spicy cuisine. Doux, the very sweetest of champagnes on the brut scale, is a lovely companion for after-dinner treats.
Popsy & JJ is Australia’s most trusted reviewer of wines from across the globe. The Popsy & JJ online store houses a curated selection of European wines that cannot be found in Australia. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more champagne reviews and exclusive wine sales at great prices!
]]>Do you want to up your white wine game? Take a look at this quick guide to the different types of white wine, the most delicious white wine pairings and the best way to serve white wine to your party guests!
Acidity, alcohol content, tannin levels, body, and sweetness versus dryness are some of the most important characteristics used to describe white wine. A white wine described as crisp indicates that it is fresh, light and slightly acidic. A dry white wine is on the opposite side of sweet on the taste spectrum, while a white wine described as round refers to the smooth and full body of the wine.
The light colour of white wine depends on the variety of grapes used to make the wine. White wine is typically rich in fruity aromas such as grapefruit, apple, peach, guava and gooseberry. Floral aromas like honey and violet may also be present to add more dimension to the taste. In reference to the alcohol content, white wine can be light-bodied, medium-bodied or full-bodied. Lighter-bodied white wines are typically more acidic than fuller-bodied white wines. The acidity can be enriched or subdued by additional factors such as the sugar and tannin content of the wine.
The notable differences in taste and texture between white and red wine can be attributed to the alcohol and tannin structure. White wine has a much lower tannin content than red wine since tannins are found in the skins of grapes, which play a bigger role in the making of red wine. Further to this, white wine is likely to have lower alcohol contents than red wine, which has a lighter taste to effect.
Depending on a number of factors such as the grape varietal and the fermentation process of the grapes, white wine ranges from dry to sweet. Although the degree of sweetness or dryness of white wine is a personal preference, certain styles of white wine are better suited for certain food pairings or recipes when used in cooking. Here is a quick look at the most common white wine styles:
Used in cooking, enjoyed as an apéritif before eating, or served alongside a lunch or dinner meal, white wine is highly versatile. Since white wine is typically lighter to drink with lower alcohol contents than red wine, it can be enjoyed with dessert or in between meals. Thanks to the acidity and pleasant aromas of white wine, it is often used in cooking to add flavour to food or to soften meat.
White wine is best served chilled to accentuate the acidity and crisp taste. The exact temperature to serve white wine will differ depending on the type of wine and, of course, your personal preference. Sparkling white wine, for example, should be served between 8-10°C without ice. The chilled temperatures will allow the bubbles to stay active. Dry white wines are typically served at about 10-12°C while sweeter white wines may be served at around 12-14°C to enable the full taste and flavour profile of the wine to shine through.
When pairing white wine with food, consider the acidity and dryness of the wine to create the most flattering pairings. Dry white wines tend to balance out meals with high fatty contents and rich flavours. Sweet white wines can be paired with savoury dishes to temper the salt levels while these wines can also be paired with sweet dishes to accentuate the flavours in both the wine and the food. If used as an ingredient in cooking, it is a good idea to serve the same white wine with the meal to complement the flavours in the food.
Countless varieties of white wine can be found in the market. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular white wine varietals enjoyed in Australia:
Sauvignon Blanc. Originating from the Bordeaux vineyards in France, Sauvignon Blanc is now produced globally in regions such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Sauvignon Blanc is a light to medium-bodied white wine that pairs well with seafood, white meat and salad dishes. Dry and crisp, this wine is rich in tropical flavours.
Riesling. Another popular white wine variety, Riesling originates from vineyards in Germany and Switzerland. Riesling is typically a light wine with a crisp and sweet aroma that includes flavours like green apple, pear, citrus, apricot, peach and honeysuckle. Riesling pairs well with fish, poultry and pork dishes.
Chenin Blanc. Also originating from France, Chenin Blanc is a versatile white wine that can range from light to full-bodied. This wine is typically high in acidity with crisp, fruity flavours and hints of peach, pear and honey. Chenin Blanc is often blended with other white wine varietals to create interesting new flavours. This wine pairs well with white meat dishes and is also a popular pick as a dessert wine.
Popsy & JJ is Australia’s most trusted reviewer of wines from across the globe. The Popsy & JJ online store houses a curated selection of European wines that cannot be found in Australia. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more white wine reviews and exclusive white wine sales at great prices!
]]>If you frequently find yourself in a pickle about which red wine you should serve for your dinner guests, this quick guide to the different types of red wine is for you!
Made from black grapes, red wine gets its characteristic red hues from the fermentation of dark grape skins. The colour spectrum of red wine ranges from light ruby tones to heavily pigmented dark red. The colour depends on factors such as the type of grape used as well as the duration of the fermentation process.
Red wine is typically high in tannin, which contributes to the dry sensation that is associated with drinking red wine. From a taste perspective, red wines are usually rich in dark fruit flavours along with earthy nuances. The ageing process of red wine often adds subtle but luxurious notes of chocolate and coffee to the taste profile. Some of the most common red wine descriptions you might encounter include cherry, plum, blackberry, fig, clove, cacao, tobacco, leather, smoke, liquorice and violet.
You may have heard that red wine is a healthier choice than other alcoholic refreshments. This is because red wine contains plenty of polyphenols that act as antioxidants to help counteract free radicals responsible for health conditions such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. Procyanidins and resveratrol, two polyphenols found in red wine, have been proven to reduce inflammation in the body to elevate good cholesterol while lowering bad cholesterol levels.
Red wines are often categorised according to their body type, which is descriptive of various factors including the tannin structure, taste and texture of the wine. Here is a quick breakdown of the different red wine styles based on body type:
Red wine is best served just below room temperature at about 15°-20°C. When red wine is served too warm, the alcohol presence may overpower the taste, while red wine that is served too cold may have a bitter, astringent taste to effect. If you prefer drinking red wine at cooler temperature, it is best to opt for light-bodied red wines with lower alcohol and tannin levels.
Red wine glasses are typically designed with a large, oval shape that is wide at the bottom and narrower at the top. The reason for this particular design is to allow plenty of room for the red wine to breathe. This will allow the taste profile to develop to its fullest.
When it comes to food pairings, red wine pairs well with bold, flavoursome and hearty meals like meaty dishes or carb-rich foods like pizza and pasta. The dry nature of red wine helps to balance out the richness of these types of foods to add to the overall dining experience.
There are many different styles and types of red wine, each of which has dozens of varieties. Whereas some wines are made from only one type of grape, others are made using a mixture of grape varietals. Red wines are often named after the region they originate from, such as Bordeaux or Malbec. In other cases, red wines may be named according to their grape variety, such as Burgundy or Chianti.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular red wine varietals:
Malbec. Made from thick-skinned grapes, Malbec is a dry full-bodied red wine that is high in tannins and antioxidants. Malbec has a complex flavour profile with smoky notes of chocolate and dark fruits like blackberry. Malbec is often enjoyed as a dessert wine thanks to its rich, sweet flavours.
Popsy & JJ is Australia’s most trusted reviewer of wines from across the globe. The Popsy & JJ online store houses a curated selection of European wines that cannot otherwise be found in Australia. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more red wine reviews and exclusive red wine sales at great prices!
]]>Do yourself a favour and find a good one to savour! Piedmont is the global capital of nebbiolo and is situated in the north-west of Italy. It possesses soils and micro-climates that grow nebbiolo like no other wine region on Earth. Many have tried but nobody can reproduce the magic quite like Piedmont.
More specifically, within Piedmont is a place about the size of the ACT, called Langhe that is host to two of the most famous wine villages in the world, Barolo and Barbaresco. Nebbiolo wines grown within the Barolo region can be labelled Barolo DOCG if they undergo the numerous rigid regulations which include a minimum 18 months oak treatment and minimum aging of 36 months or longer before release. Similarly for nebbiolo wines grown within the Barbaresco region, and they both have become very expensive DOCG appellations in recent years, with Barolo probably slightly in the lead.
Both can also produce reserve labels (riserva) but that requires wines being held back for more than 5 years before release. Barbaresco mostly comes slightly bolder and fuller bodied than Barolo. By contrast, Barolo often takes on the weight and texture of a heavier style of pinot noir and so is often compared with Burgundy. A well chosen bottle of Barolo or Barbaresco usually abounds with aromas of fruit and earth, is beautifully smooth, has oodles of tannin but they are silky soft and great for food matching. They can often have an incredibly long palate showcasing all the flavours of the farm - earth, dirt, cherries and soured dates often resembling the profile of a Christmas cake.
Langhe DOC is also 100% nebbiolo and can be made from grapes grown anywhere in the Langhe region, including those grown in the villages of Barolo and Barbaresco that didn’t get used in the final cut for the DOCG labels. A well chosen Langhe DOC can often out perform a poorly chosen Barolo DOCG or Barbaresco DOCG, but at a much lower price tag. It’s sometimes called the poor man’s Barolo! Even these however are not cheap. Probably best to get in now as the prices are likely to creep up even further!
Popsy and JJ, wine merchants and the leading European wine reviewers in Oz, have a beautiful Piedmont nebbiolo on offer – the Elio Filippino Barolo DOCG ‘La Morra’ 2015 rated 97 points is masterly produced by Elio Filippino. Popsy & JJ refer to Elio as the ‘nebbiolo scientist’!
Check out these rare and very special wines at popsyandjj.com.au and remember, Piedmont nebbiolos are best matched with rich pastas and meat dishes.
]]>Confused?
Let us explain more. Rosé is a wine that takes its pink look from contact with the grape skins, but not enough to make it look like a red wine. It may be the oldest known type of wine, as it is the most straightforward to make with the skin contact method. The colour can range from a pale "onion-skin" orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grape varieties used and wine making techniques.
Usually, the wine is labelled rosé in French, Portuguese, and English-speaking countries, rosado in Spanish, or rosato in Italian.There are three major ways to produce rosé wine: skin contact, saignée, and blending. Rosé wines can be made still, semi-sparkling or sparkling and with a wide range of sweetness levels from highly dry Provençal rosé to sweet White Zinfandels and blushes.
Rosé wines are made from a wide variety of grapes and can be found all around the world. When rosé wine is produced with the skin contact method. Black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically two to twenty hours. They are then pressed and the skins are discarded rather than left in contact throughout fermentation as with red wine making. The longer the skins are left in contact with the juice, the more intense the colour of the final wine.It is not known when the first wine labelled as a rosé was produced, but it is very likely that many of the earliest red wines made were closer in appearance to today's rosés than they would be to modern red wines. This is because many of the wine making techniques used to make today's darker, more tannic red wines such as extended maceration and harder pressing,were not widely practiced in ancient wine making. Both red and white wine grapes were often pressed soon after harvest, with very little maceration time, by hand, feet or even sack cloth, creating juice that was only lightly pigmented.
Today rosé is produced throughout the globe however France is the leader of the pack! From the cooler climate rosé Champagnes and Loire Valley wines to the warm Mediterranean influence climates of Provence and the southern Rhone Valley.The primary flavours of rosé are red fruit, flowers, citrus, and melon, with a pleasant crunchy green flavour on the finish similar to celery or rhubarb. Depending on the type of grape the rosé is made with will greatly vary the flavour.
If there was any wine to convince a rosé denier to start their account, this is the one! The La Perrière ‘La Petite Perrière‘ Pinot Noir Rosé 2018 rated 95/100 is a world beater. As soon as Popsy & JJ had one sip, their jaws dropped, and they were on to it. Popsy said ‘this wine is so pretty that if it had a pulse I’d date it’!
Nothing more could be truer. The Loire Valley has been making rosés for centuries and this one is a pearler. Made from 100% pinot noir grapes and grown entirely on Saget Perrière’s family owned Loire Valley vineyards, the nose abounds freshness, strawberries and cream if that could even be possible?!
They threw this one into a Burgundy glass to emphasise its alluring perfume. There is more strawberry and cream on the palate and it just keeps getting better and more seductive the longer you hold it in the glass. But it’s hard to wait, then suddenly your glass is empty, you refill it and the journey begins again like Groundhog Day!
This wine beckons you to get a rug, throw it on the earth beside the ocean and drink all day with chicken salad. However, on this occasion, Popsy & JJ food matched it with an Indian style vegetable curry which was a foodie moment to behold. It’s a drink-now wine but has enough acid to last a couple of years on the shelf if you forget it’s there ...which you won’t.
Don’t wait to order this wine.
]]>Chablis is the place of birth of chardonnay, its first clones planted by monks in the 12th century. From there it spread southward to the rest of Burgundy and the rest is history. Today chardonnay is the most planted white wine grape on earth!Yet nowhere else in the world can quite reproduce the magic of chardonnay grown in Burgundy. Such ist he case especially with Chablis where some of the soils are 180 million years old and include Kimmeridge clay, lending itself to very distinctive mineral and flinty notes.
It’s just as viscous and has texture as most southern hemisphere chardonnays yet it abounds with that famous minerality and freshness unable to be reproduced anywhere else.
So what is Premier Cru Chablis as opposed to just Chablis? Well, it represents the top 15% or so of Chablis vineyards that are just that bit more luscious than the others. Grand Cru Chablis you ask? Well there are only a few producers gifted with that gong. Supposedly the best of the best Chablis vineyards.
Having said that, once those beautiful chardonnay grapes have been picked and vinified, the chemistry in the bottle will speak for itself. Simply put, Chablis is just special! It’s a magic that must be experienced by any white wine lover before you knock off the earth. As luck would have it, there is an excellent example exclusively available at Popsy and JJ’s online shop.
A couple of Aussie larrikins that bring in artisan wines direct from Euro vineyards to your door via their Oz warehouse. The Domaine Fourrey Premier Cru Chablis ‘Cote de Lechet’ 2018 rated 96 points. Just super stuff and at mere mortal prices. If you’re on death row, try it with prawn linguini for one of the best matches ever made!
]]>In 1998, syrah was found to be the offspring of two obscure grapes from south eastern France, dureza and mondeuse blanche.The style and flavour profile of wines made from syrah are influenced by the climate where the grapes are grown with moderate climates such as the northern Rhone Valley tend to produce medium to full-bodied wines with medium to high levels of tannins and notes of blackberry, mint and black pepper. In warmer climates such as Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale regions in Australia, syrah is more consistently full-bodied with softer tannin, jammier fruit and spice notes of liquorice and earthy leather. In many regions the acidity and tannin levels of syrah allow the wines produced to have great aging potential.
Syrah is used as a single varietal or as a blend. It can be found throughout the globe from France to New World wine regions such as: Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and the USA. Syrah has a long documented history in the Rhône region of southeastern France but it was not known if it had originated in that region.
In 1998, a study conducted by Carole Meredith's research group in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at University of California, Davis used DNA typing and extensive grape reference material from the viticultural research station in Montpellier, France to conclude that syrah was the offspring of the grape varieties dureza (father) and mondeuse blanche (mother). Both varieties are somewhat obscure today, and have never achieved anything near syrah's fame or popularity, and there is no record of them ever having been cultivated at long distances from their present homes. Thus, both of syrah's parents come from a limited area in southeastern France, close to northern Rhône. Based on these findings, the researchers have concluded syrah originated from northern Rhône. The DNA typing leaves no room for doubt in this matter, and the numerous other hypotheses of the grape's origin which have been forwarded during the years all completely lack support in the form of documentary evidence or ampelographic investigations, be it by methods of classical botany or DNA.
Instead, they seem to have been based primarily or solely on the name or synonyms of the variety. Varying orthography for grape names render dubious any name-based evidence of origins. Nevertheless, origins such as Syracuse or the famous Iranian city of Shiraz have been proposed while the genomic studies had yet to be done. It is called syrah in its country of origin, France, as well as in the rest of Europe, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, New Zealand and South Africa. The name 'shiraz' became popular for this grape variety in Australia, where it has long been established as the most grown dark-skinned variety. In Australia, it was also commonly called Hermitage up to the late 1980s, but since that name is also a French Protected Designation of Origin, this naming practice caused a problem in some export markets and was dropped. Legends of syrah's origins come from one of its homonyms, shiraz. Because Shiraz, the capital of the Persian Empire (modern-day Iran), produced the well-known Shirazi wine, legends claim the syrah grape originated in the town of Shiraz and then was brought to Rhône. At least two significantly different versions of the myth are reported, giving different accounts of how the variety is supposed to have been brought from Shiraz to Rhône and differing up to 1,800 years in dating this event.
In one version, the Phocaeans could have brought syrah to their colony around Marseilles (then known as Massilia), which was founded around 600 BC by the Greeks. The grape would then laterhave made its way to northern Rhône, which was never colonized by the Phocaeans. No documentary evidence exists to back up this legend, and it also requires the variety to later vanish from the Marseilles region without leaving any trace.
Syrah continues to be the main grape of the northern Rhône and is associated with classic wines such as Hermitage, Cornas and Côte-Rôtie. In the southern Rhône, it is used as a blending grape in such wines as Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas and Côtes du Rhône, where Grenache usually makes up the bulk of the blend. Wines made from syrah are often powerfully flavoured and full-bodied. The variety produces wines with a wide range of flavour notes, depending on the climate and soils where it is grown, as well as other viticultural practices chosen. Aroma characters can range from violets to berries, usually dark as opposed to red, chocolate, and black pepper. No one aroma can be called "typical" though blackberry, coffee and pepper are often noticed. With time in the bottle these "primary" notes are moderated and then supplemented with earthy or savoury "tertiary" notes such as leather and truffle. "Secondary" flavour and aroma notes are those associated with several things, generally winemakers' practices such asoak barrel and yeast treatment.Syrahis grown throughout the Rhône valley and the wines that are made from it vary greatly, even over small changes in the vines locations. The differences in the soil quality as well as the changes in the slope of the terrain tend to produce different styles of wine. Ranging from the mineral and tannic nature of Hermitage, to fruity and perfumed in the case of Côte-Rôtie.
What about gorgeous grenache? Grenache is actually one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world. It ripens late, so it needs hot, dry conditions, where the grape most likely originated. It is generally spicy, berry-flavoured and soft on the palate and produces wine with a relatively high alcohol content, but it needs careful control of yields for best results. Characteristic flavour profiles of grenache include red fruit flavours like raspberry and strawberry, with a subtle, white pepper spice note. As grenache ages the wines tend to take on more leather and tar flavours. Wines made from Grenache tend to lack acid and tannin and it is often blended with other varieties such as syrah, carignan and tempranillo.
In Spain grenache is mainly produced in the southern Aragon wine regions of Calatayud, Carinena and Campo de Borja, but it is also used in blends, like Rioja wines with tempranillo. Grenache is the dominant variety in most Southern Rhône wines, especially in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where it is typically over 80% of the blend. In Australia it is typically blended in 'GSM' blends with syrah and mourvèdre with old vine examples in McLaren Vale. In Italy, the Sardinian D.O.C. wine Cannonau di Sardegna is by law 90% local grenache. Grenache or garnacha, as it is known in Spain, most likely originated in the region of Aragon in northern Spain. Plantings probably spread from the original birthplace to Catalonia and other lands under the Crown of Aragon such as Sardinia and Roussillon in southern France. An early synonym for the vine was Tinto Aragonés, red of Aragon. Grenache, under its Spanish synonym Garnacha, was already well established on both sides of the Pyrenees
when the Roussillon region was annexed by France. From there the vine made its way through the Languedoc and to the Southern Rhone region where it was well established by the 19th century. Grenache was one of the first varieties to be introduced to Australia in the 18th century and eventually became the country's most widely planted red wine grape variety until it was surpassed by Shiraz in the mid 1960s. Early Australian Grenache was a main component in the sweet fortified wines that was the lynchpin of the early Australian wine industry.
In the 19th century, California wine growers prized the vine's ability to produce high yields and withstand heat and drought conditions. The grape was extensively planted throughout the hot San Joaquin Valley where it was mainly used as a blending component for pale, sweet jug wines. In the late 20th century, the Rhone Rangers movement brought attention to the production of premium varietal grenache and Rhone style blends modelled after the grenache dominate wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Syrah (or shiraz as Aussies like to call it) is one of the world’s oldest grapes.
It was on Popsy & JJ’s list of must-haves from France. They lucked in when they found the Louis Max 'Max' Cotes-du-Rhone Syrah-Grenache 2018 rated 94/100 that has been blended with grenache! When they sat with Claire the wine maker from Louis Max for a tasting, they knew they had struck gold! Louis Max was founded in 1859 in Burgundy but then soon expanded their interests to mostly south eastern regions of France, including the Rhone Valley.
The grapes for the Max were cultivated on very old wine making soils in the heart of the iconic Rhone Valley. Wine making in this region predates the Roman Empire and its rich soil and climate are ideal for producing rustic, fruit driven wines often blending syrah, grenache and mourvedre grapes.
The Max is a near 50/50 split of hand-picked syrah and grenache fruit, superbly showcasing the Rhone terroir. Its colour is ruby, and the nose is full of fresh prunes and cherries. The tannins are as smooth as a new born’s skin, the palate has good length and is like a fresh fruit explosion in your mouth. There are also loads of earthy notes which gives it a rustic feel and perhaps separates it a little further again from similar blends produced in Australia.
This wine has been so well produced that we thought Claire more of a magician than winemaker! You could cellar this wine for another 5 years or so to develop it further, but good luck with that as you won’t be able to keep your hands off it! Popsy & JJ matched it with pork and fennel spicy sausage pasta, and we were in rustic heaven!
Order ripping wine by clicking here.
]]>When you’re looking for a dessert wine to match that perfect chocolate moose or that allusive crème brulee, think French. There is no substitute that can match sweetness with all the elegance and complexity on the planet like a French dessert wine. The most famous area in France for making dessert wine is the Sauternais district, nestled in the south-east of the famed Bordeaux region. It’s made from grapes indigenous to Bordeaux, semillon, sauvignon blanc and muscadelle that have been affected by the botrytis cinerea or noble rot.
However, another iconic area making similar wines from the same grapes that grow an incredibly close imposter is Monbazillac. It sits south-west of Bordeaux city, just outside of the Bordeaux wine growing district and is sometimes half the price of similar quality Sauternes. If you have never sampled a Sauternes or Monbazillac dessert wine, you need to do so soon -before everyone outside of France discovers them and they become too expensive!
As luck would have it, Popsy and JJ have a gorgeous example from Monbazillac. And it won’t cost you the Earth to see just how good French dessert wine is. The Epoque Monbazillac 2015 which Popsy and JJ rated 95/100 was matched with an Ash goat’s cheese from Minchinbury NSW but you could just as easily pair it with chocolate moose, crème brulee or your favourite dessert. Be prepared and make sure you have a second bottle handy!
]]>‘Super Tuscan’ wine is a term you hear people rave on about all over the world now. It has generated a global cult following. Essentially it is the relatively new concept, derived from the 70’s, where some renegade vignerons started growing Bordeaux grapes on Tuscan soil, such as merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. Some of the wines produced caught the attention of the world and the rest is history!
Super Tuscan wine now has its own classification –Indicazione Geographica Tipica or simply IGT. A well picked bottle is one of the special joys in life. It melds so seamlessly that rustic Tuscan earthiness derived from those alluvial soils with perfectly elegant Bordeaux grape varieties. A well-chosen Super Tuscan is a death row drink paired with a perfect steak or a rich pasta.
Popsy and JJ, Australia’s leading European wine reviewers recently sampled a superb example Rignana IGT Super Tuscan ‘Il Riccio’ Organic 2015 and rated it 97 out of 100 points.
]]>Here is a beautiful bubbly for all occasions! Prosecco is an Italian DOC or DOCG white wine produced in a large area spanning nine provinces in the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions, and named after the village of Prosecco. It is made from the Prosecco grape, renamed Glera in 2009 within the European Union. Prosecco is almost always made in sparkling or semi-sparkling style but a still wine tranquillo is also made. Within the larger designation are two small DOCG areas, Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco in the hills between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene and Asolo Prosecco around the nearby town of Asolo.
In 2019, Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene became an UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage Site, in large part due to the region's role in the production of Prosecco.
The first known mention of the name Prosecco is attributed to the Englishman Fynes Moryson, who used the spelling Prosecho. Moryson, visiting the north of Italy in 1593, notes: "Histria is devided into Forum Julii, and Histria properly so called ... Here grows the wine Pucinum, now called Prosecho, much celebrated by Pliny". In 1754, the spelling Prosecco appears for the first time in the book Il Roccolo Ditirambo, written by Aureliano Acanti in Novoledo, in the municipality of Villaverla located in the Province of Vicenza.
Up until the 1960's, Prosecco sparkling wine was generally rather sweet and barely distinguishable from the Asti wine produced in Piedmont. Since then, production techniques have improved, leading to the higher quality wines produced today. According to a 2008 New York Times report, Prosecco rose sharply in popularity in markets outside Italy, with global sales growing by double-digit percentages since 1998. Approximately 700 million bottles of Prosecco were sold in 2019. Unlike Champagne, Prosecco is usually produced using the alternative Charmat–Martinotti method, in which the secondary fermentation takes place in large stainless steel tanks rather than in each individual bottle, making the wine less expensive to produce, and the minimum production time is 30 days. Higher quality Prosecco using this method will ferment the wine over a longer period, up to around 9 months. Nevertheless, the production rules for both the DOCG's also allow the use of the traditional method of secondary fermentation in the bottle, known in Italy as Metodo Classico.
DOC and DOCG rules allow up to 15% of Prosecco wine to be a blend of Verdiso, Bianchetta Trevigiana, Perera, Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, or Pinot Noir. Most Prosecco, whether DOC or DOCG, is made as Spumante sparkling wine or Frizzante (semi-sparkling). Prosecco DOC Spumante is the most famous and popular variety, with longer-lasting bubbles. Prosecco DOC Frizzante has less lingering bubbles. Depending on their sweetness, in accordance with the EU Sweetness of wine Regulations for Terms used to indicate sweetness of sparkling wine, Proseccos are labelled "Brut" (up to 12 grams per litre of residual sugar), "Extra Dry" (12–17 g/l) or "Dry" (17–32 g/l). Extra-Dry has been the dominant style made, but the amount of Brut is now increasing.
There are two Prosecco Superiore DOCG's, divided by the River Piave, in the Treviso province of Veneto. Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG, is made on the hills between the towns of Conegliano, Valdobbiadene and Vittorio Veneto. Producers from Valdobbiadene have recently tended to skip the mention of Conegliano on their front label, calling their wine Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore. The second DOCG is the smaller Asolo Prosecco Superiore DOCG, produced on the hills near the town of Asolo. While the bulk of Prosecco DOC is grown on low-lying plains in an extended area covering 23,300 hectares, the DOCG Prosecco Superiore is grown exclusively on hillside vineyards in two far smaller growing areas, being 6,860 hectares for Conegliano Valdobbiadene and 1,783 hectares for Asolo. The steepness of the hills means that everything, from pruning to picking, is principally done by hand.
The La Caneva Dei Biasio Prosecco DOC Treviso Extra Dry NV rated 94/100 has been skillfully produced by a small artisan vineyard that has been run by a family for the past 80 years. Pour this into a traditional flute you will notice the constant fine bead that is long lasting. The straw colour reminded us of a farm shed full of hay. This extra dry has subtle sweetness with flavours of honeydew melon and pear. It is a perfect aperitif wine but don’t underestimate this as a wine that can be drunk with your main meals. We matched this with a butter prawn curry and the two together worked a treat. Serve this cold. We put it in the freezer about 10 minutes before serving. Don’t forget that Prosecco is a great wine to mix and make some super summer cocktails like a Bellini, Aperol Spritz (a Popsy and JJ favourite when we were in Verona) or a Spagliato.
]]>We got you covered! Soave, pronounced swarr-vay, is arguably the most famous white wine in Italy. Granted in 1968, the DOC title covers wines made from Garganega grapes grown in hillside vineyards east of Verona, in the Veneto wine region of northeastern Italy. A dry, crisp, fruity white wine, Soave's naturally refreshing appeal led it to phenomenal popularity in the second half of the 20th Century. Interestingly Soave and Chianti were the first zones in Italy in 1931,to be recognized by Royal Decree as having the potential for producing fine wines. This document delimited the borders of the production zones which, in the case of Soave, coincide with those fixed under the current production regulations for Soave Classico.
Situated in the eastern part of the Province of Vicenza, in the foothills of the Lessini Mountains, the Soave zone is not a particularly large wine region however it produces very significant quantities of wine despite the fact that the area is one of the most specialized and densely planted in Europe. In this area, there exists a traditional and indissoluble link between viticulture and terroir; the area of specialized vineyards has remained practically unchanged compared to 100 years ago and indeed there does not seem to be any valid reason why it should increase.
Soave saw a peak of popularity in United States during the mid-20th-century Italian wine boom that followed the end of World War II. Soave even surpassed Chianti in the 1970s as the largest-selling Italian DOC wine in the US.Only white wine is produced in the Soave region and a minimum of 70% must be the Garganega grape. For Soave DOC up to 30% of the blend can come from Trebbiano di Soave, also known as Verdicchio and Nestrano. The DOC rules place new emphasis on the quality varieties and exclude Trebbiano Toscano, which had been allowed to constitute up to 15% of the blend. All the grapes used for the DOC wine must be harvested to a yield no greater than 14 tonnes per hectare with the finished wine fermented to a minimum alcohol level of at least 10.5%.To provide distinction between the quality levels, the Soave Superiore DOCG was drafted in October 2001 and put into effect as of the 2002 vintage. Soave Superiore is the DOCG title given to Soave wines from the appellation's highest-quality tier. However, fewer than 1 percent of Soave's wines carry this appellation. In the Soave Superiore DOCG, Garganega must also account for a minimum of 70% of the wine, but Pinot bianco, Chardonnay and Trebbiano di Soave are allowed to fill up to 30% of the remaining blend, with Trebbiano Toscano and other local white grape varieties such as Friulano, Cortese, Riesling Italico, Vespaiolo and Serprinapermitted up to 5% collectively. Grapes are harvested to a more restricted maximum yield of 10 tonnes per hectarewhile the finished DOCG wines must reach a minimum alcohol level of 11.5%.
You can just imagine drinking the Fabiano 'Le Coste' Soavé DOC 2018 rated 94/100 on a sunny day by the water in Venice or, for the slightly more adventurous, on the Amalfi coast paired with some pipis or oysters. It is clean, crisp and delicious, full of citrus flavour yet somehow magically without any harsh bite. There is a heap of floral aromas on the nose like grandma’s garden! There is more texture than say a Clare Valley riesling but less than your
typical wooded chardonnay. It comes as fresh as mum’s daisies and calls for any seafood pairing on a sunny day.It is a session wine and you could honestly drink it all day without rushing for a Zantac!
They paired the Fabiano ‘Le Coste’ 2018with some pipis cooked in a chilli, shallot, garlic, and white wine sauce. It was a match made in heaven! To buy this amazing wine just click here!
]]>If you love red wine and have never sampled a proper nebbiolo grown and made in Piedmont, then you have been much deprived! Do yourself a favour and find a good one to savour! Piedmont is the global capital of nebbiolo and is situated in the north-west of Italy. It possesses soils and micro climates that grow nebbiolo like no other wine region on Earth. Many have tried but nobody can reproduce the magic quite like Piedmont. More specifically, within Piedmont is a place about the size of the ACT, called Langhe that is host to two of the most famous wine villages in the world, Barolo and Barbaresco.
Nebbiolo wines grown within the Barolo region can be labelled Barolo DOCG if they undergo the numerous rigid regulations which include minimum 18 months oak treatment and minimum aging of 38 months or longer before release. Similarly for nebbiolo wines grown within the Barbaresco region, and they both have become very expensive DOCG appellations in recent years, with Barolo probably slightly in the lead. Both can also produce reserve labels (riserva) but that requires wines being held back for more than 5 years before release. Barbaresco mostly comes slightly bolder and fuller bodied than Barolo. By contrast, Barolo often takes on the weight and texture of a heavier style of pinot noir and so is often compared with Burgundy. A well chosen bottle of Barolo or Barbaresco usually abounds with aromas of fruit and earth, is beautifully smooth, has oodles of tannin but they are silky soft and great for food matching. They can often have an incredibly long palate showcasing all the flavours of the farm -earth, dirt, cherries and soured dates often resembling the profile of a xmas cake.
Langhe DOC is also 100% nebbiolo and can be made from grapes grown anywhere in the Langhe region, including those grown in the villages of Barolo and Barbaresco that didn’t get used in the final cut for the DOCG labels. A well chosen Langhe DOC can often out perform a poorly chosen Barolo DOCG or Barbaresco DOCG, but at a much lower price tag. It’s sometimes called the poor man’s Barolo! Even these however are not cheap. Probably best to get in now as the prices are likely to creep up even further!
Popsy and JJ, wine merchants and the leading European wine reviewers in Oz, have 3 beautiful Piedmont nebbiolos on offer – the Elio Filippino Langhe DOC 2016 rated 96 points, the Elio Filippino Barolo DOCG ‘La Morra’ 2015 rated 97 points, and the Elio Filippino Barbaresco Riserva DOCG ‘San Cristoforo’ 2012 rated 98 points - all masterly produced by Elio Filippino. Popsy & JJ refer to Elio as the ‘nebbiolo scientist’!
Check out these rare and very special wines at popsyandjj.com.au. And remember, Piedmont nebbiolos are best matched with rich pastas and meat dishes.
]]>Bordeaux‘s signature grape varieties have traversed the globe, to the extent that cabernet sauvignon and merlot have risen to the summit of the world grape planting league in the past two decades.
What’s in a Bordeaux red? A Bordeaux red usually combines two or more of the classic Bordeaux varieties: merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, malbec, petit verdot and carmenère. There are no specific rules on percentages in the finished wine, yields when growing or planting regulations as found in Bordeaux itself. It is simply a term for the grapes used. So let’s focus on the two main grapes of this blend, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. The earliest recorded mention of merlot was in the notes of a local Bordeaux official who in 1784 labelled wine made from the grape in the Libournais region as one of the area's best. In 1824, the word merlot itself appeared in an article on Médoc wine where it was described that the grape was named after the local black bird who liked eating the ripe grapes on the vine. By the 19th century it was being regularly planted in the Médoc on the "Left Bank" of the Gironde.
After a series of setbacks that includes a severe frost in 1956 and several vintages in the 1960's lost to rot, French authorities in Bordeaux banned new plantings of merlot vines between 1970 and 1975. In the 1990's, merlot saw an upswing of popularity. Red wine consumption, in general, increased in the US following the airing of the 60 Minutes report on the French paradox and the potential health benefits of wine and, possibly, the chemical resveratrol.
The popularity of merlot stemmed in part from the relative ease in pronouncing the name of the wine as well as its softer, fruity profile that made it more approachable to some wine drinkers.The taste of merlot hinges on where it is grown. It straddles the fence between lightweight and something a bit bigger. Well produced merlot is like a big old comfy chair, and is packed with ripe mouth filling fruit and very little tannins. So when you are looking for a merlot or a blend do yourself a favour and buy from where the original merlot clones came from, Bordeaux France. Cabernet sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. Cabernet sauvignon became internationally recognized through its prominence in Bordeaux wines where it is often blended with merlot and cabernet franc.
For many years, the origin of cabernet sauvignon was not clearly understood and many myths surrounded it. The word ‘sauvignon’ is believed to be derived from the French sauvage meaning ‘wild’and refers to the grape being a wild vine native to France. The grape's true origins were discovered in 1996 with the use of DNA typing at the UC Davis Department of Viticulture. The DNA evidence determined that cabernet sauvignon was the offspring of cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc and was most likely a chance crossing that occurred in the 17th century. Cabernet sauvignon has been mentioned as the ‘ruler of the reds’ by Matt Skinner. The great examples of this wine display the finesse, elegance and the ability to age!
The most common aromatic and flavour components found in cabernet sauvignon are dark fruits like plum, black cherry, and blackberry along with warm spice, vanilla, liquorice, and black pepper. You will frequently whiff aromas of tobacco and leather.This is a full bodied red and is suited to full big flavours. Beef is a great match as the tannins of the wine will work to cut through the texture and fattiness of the meat. The Chateau Robert Cotes de Bourg 2016 rated 94/100 is blended with 55% merlot, 40% cabernet sauvignon and 5% cabernet franc. It is no wonder that this wine was a standout as the family have been making wine for 4 generations! It has been blended so well and the dark berries that you get on the nose and the smooth tannins are joyous to the taste buds! This is a really charming Bordeaux that won’t break your budget. It can be matched with so many everyday meals. Just because you have a casual meal doesn’t mean you have to have a casual wine. Popsy & JJ matched it with a cheeseburger with brioche bun and special sauce!
]]>Let’s clear this up right now. Chablis is not a grape! It’s an iconic wine region located within Burgundy, France. It’s found at the northern most tip of Burgundy and like all Burgundy white wine, it is made of 100% chardonnay grapes.
Chablis is the place of birth of chardonnay, its first clones planted by monks in the 12th century. From there it spread southward to the rest of Burgundy and the rest is history. Today chardonnay is the most planted white wine grape on earth! Yet nowhere else in the world can quite reproduce the magic of chardonnay grown in Burgundy. Such is the case especially with Chablis where some of the soils are 180 million years old and include Kimmeridge clay, lending itself to very distinctive mineral and flinty notes. It’s just as viscous and has texture as most southern hemisphere chardonnays yet it abounds with that famous minerality and freshness unable to be reproduced anywhere else.
So what is Premier Cru Chablis as opposed to just Chablis? Well, it represents the top 15% or so of Chablis vineyards that are just that bit more luscious than the others. Grand Cru Chablis you ask? Well there are only a few producers gifted with that gong. Supposedly the best of the best Chablis vineyards. Having said that, once those beautiful chardonnay grapes have been picked and vinified, the chemistry in the bottle will speak for itself.
Simply put, Chablis is just special! It’s a magic that must be experienced by any white wine lover before you leave this planet. As luck would have it, there are 2 excellent examples exclusively available at Popsy and JJ’s online shop. A couple of Aussie larrikins that bring in artisan wines direct from Euro vineyards to your door via their Oz warehouse. Domaine Fourrey Chablis 2018 rated 95 points and Domaine Fourrey Premier Cru Chablis ‘Cote de Lechet’ 2018 rated 96 points. Just super stuff and at mere mortal prices. If you’re on death row, try it with prawn linguini for one of the best matches ever made!
]]>If you love red wine and have never sampled a proper nebbiolo grown and made in Piedmont, then you have been much deprived! Do yourself a favour and find a good one to savour! Piedmont is the global capital of nebbiolo and is situated in the north-west of Italy. It possesses soils and microclimates that grow nebbiolo like no other wine region on Earth. Many have tried but nobody can reproduce the magic quite like Piedmont. More specifically, within Piedmont is a place about the size of the ACT, called Langhe that is host to two of the most famous wine villagesin the world,Barolo and Barbaresco.
Nebbiolo wines grown within the Barolo region can be labelled Barolo DOCG if they undergo the numerous rigid regulations which include minimum 18 months oak treatment and minimum aging of 38 months or longer before release. Similarly for nebbiolo wines grown within the Barbaresco region, and they both have become very expensive DOCG appellations in recent years, with Barolo probably slightly in the lead. Both can also producereservelabels (riserva) but that requires wines being held back for more than 5 years before release. Barbaresco mostly comes slightly bolder and fuller bodied than Barolo. By contrast, Barolo often takes on the weight and texture of a heavier style of pinot noir and so is often compared with Burgundy. A well chosen bottle of Barolo or Barbaresco usually abounds with aromas of fruit and earth, is beautifully smooth, has oodles of tannin but they are silky soft and great for food matching. They can often have an incredibly long palate showcasing all the flavours of the farm - earth, dirt, cherries and soured dates often resembling the profile of a xmas cake.
Langhe DOC is also 100% nebbiolo and can be made from grapes grown anywhere in the Langhe region, including those grown in the villages of Barolo and Barbaresco that didn’t get used in the final cut for the DOCG labels. A well chosen Langhe DOC can often out perform a poorly chosen Barolo DOCG or Barbaresco DOCG, but at a much lower price tag. It’s sometimes called the poor man’s Barolo! Even these however are not cheap. Probably best to get in now as the prices are likely to creep up even further!
Popsy and JJ, wine merchants and the leading European wine reviewers in Oz, have 3 beautiful Piedmont nebbiolos on offer – the Elio Filippino Langhe DOC 2016 rated 96 points, the Elio Filippino Barolo DOCG ‘La Morra’ 2015 rated 97 points, and the Elio Filippino Barbaresco Riserva DOCG ‘San Cristoforo’ 2012 rated 98 points - all masterly produced by Elio Filippino. Popsy & JJ refer to Elio as the ‘nebbiolo scientist’!
Check out these rare and very special wines at popsyandjj.com.au. And remember, Piedmont nebbiolos are best matched with rich pastas and meat dishes.
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Champagne is a French sparkling wine. Many people use the term Champagne as a generic term for sparkling wine but in the EU and other countries, it is illegal to label any product Champagne unless it came from the Champagne wine region of France and is produced under the rules of the appellation. This alcoholic drink is produced from specific types of grapes grown in the Champagne region following rules that demand, among other things, specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within the Champagne region, specific grape-pressing methods and secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to cause carbonation.
The oldest recorded sparkling wine is Blanquette de Limoux, which was apparently invented by Benedictine monks in the Abbey of Saint-Hilaire, near Carcassonne in 1531. They achieved this by bottling the wine before the initial fermentation had ended. Over a century later, the English scientist and physician, Christopher Merret, documented the addition of sugar to a finished wine to create a second fermentation, six years before Dom Pérignon set foot in the Abbey of Hautvillers. Merret presented a paper at the Royal Society, in which he detailed what is now called méthode champenoise, in 1662. Merret's discoveries coincided also with English glass-makers' technical developments that allowed bottles to be produced that could withstand the required internal pressures during secondary fermentation. French glass-makers at this time could not produce bottles of the required quality or strength.
In France the first sparkling champagne was created accidentally; the pressure in the bottle led it to be called "the devil's wine" (le vin du diable), as bottles exploded and corks popped. At the time, bubbles were considered a fault. In 1844 Adolphe Jaquesson invented the muselet to prevent the corks from blowing out. Initial versions were difficult to apply and inconvenient to remove. Even when it was deliberately produced as a sparkling wine, Champagne was for a very long time made by the méthode rurale, where the wine was bottled before the initial fermentation had finished. Champagne did not use the méthode champenoise until the 19th century, about 200 years after Merret documented the process.
The 19th century saw an exponential growth in champagne production, going from a regional production of 300,000 bottles a year in 1800 to 20 million bottles in 1850. In 2007, champagne sales hit an all-time record of 338.7 million bottles.
In the 19th century champagne was noticeably sweeter than the champagnes of today. The trend towards drier champagne began when Perrier-Jouët decided not to sweeten his 1846 vintage before exporting it to London. The designation Brut Champagne was created for the British in 1876.
The grapes pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay are primarily used to produce almost all Champagne, but small amounts of pinot blanc, pinot gris, arbane, and petit meslier are vinified as well. Only these specific grapes grown according to appellation rules on designated plots of land within the appellation may be used to make Champagne.
Champagne became associated with royalty in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The leading manufacturers made efforts to associate their Champagnes with nobility and royalty through advertising and packaging, which led to its popularity among the emerging middle class.
Most of the Champagne produced today is "Non-vintage", meaning that it is a blended product of grapes from multiple vintages. Most of the base will be from a single year vintage with producers blending anywhere from 10–15% (even as high as 40%) of wine from older vintages. If the conditions of a particular vintage are favourable, some producers will make a vintage wine that must be composed of 100% of the grapes from that vintage year. Under Champagne wine regulations, houses that make both vintage and non-vintage wines are allowed to use no more than 80% of the total vintage's harvest for the production of vintage Champagne. This allows at least 20% of the harvest from each vintage to be reserved for use in non-vintage Champagne. This ensures a consistent style that consumers can expect from non-vintage Champagne that does not alter too radically depending on the quality of the vintage. In less than ideal vintages, some producers will produce a wine from only that single vintage and still label it as non-vintage rather than as "vintage" since the wine will be of lesser quality and the producers have little desire to reserve the wine for future blending.
A cuvée de prestige is a proprietary blended wine usually a Champagne that is considered to be the top of a producer's range. Perhaps the first publicly available prestige cuvée was Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon, launched in 1936 with the 1921 vintage. Until then, Champagne houses produced different cuvées of varying quality, but a top-of-the-range wine produced to the highest standards and priced accordingly was a new idea. In fact, Louis Roederer had been producing Cristal since 1876 but this was strictly for the private consumption of the Russian tsar. Cristal was made publicly available with the 1945 vintage. In the last three decades of the 20th century, most Champagne houses followed these with their own prestige cuvées, often named after notable people with a link to that producer and presented in non-standard bottle shapes.
A French term literally "white from blacks" or "white of blacks" for a white wine produced entirely from black grapes. The flesh of grapes described as black or red is white; grape juice obtained after minimal possible contact with the skins produces essentially white wine, with a slightly yellower colour than wine from white grapes. The colour, due to the small amount of red skin pigments present, is often described as white-yellow, white-grey, or silvery. Blanc de noirs is often encountered in Champagne, where a number of houses have followed the lead of Bollinger's prestige cuvée Vieilles Vignes Françaises in introducing a cuvée made from either pinot noir, pinot meunier or a blend of the two, these being the only two black grapes permitted within the Champagne AOC appellation.
A French term that means "white from whites", and is used to designate Champagnes made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes or in rare occasions from Pinot blanc. The term is occasionally used in other sparkling wine-producing regions, usually to denote Chardonnay-only wines rather than any sparkling wine made from other white grape varieties.
"Pink Champagne" was a cheap, sweet version of sparkling wine made in the 1950s and early 1960s because the average American consumer at the time thought brut champagne was too dry, but it has been discontinued. Brut rose Champagnes came along in the 1990s, a version as dry as regular brut Champagne. They are produced either by leaving the clear juice of black grapes to macerate on its skins for a brief time, known as the saignée method, or more commonly, by adding a small amount of still pinot noir red wine to the sparkling wine cuvée. Champagne is typically light in colour even if it is produced with red grapes, because the juice is extracted from the grapes using a gentle process that minimizes the amount of time the juice spends in contact with the skins, which is what gives red wine its colour. Rosé Champagne is one of the few wines that allow the production of rosé by the addition of a small amount of red wine during blending. This ensures a predictable and reproducible colour, allowing a constant rosé colour from year to year. It is popular in many countries and in high-end restaurants due to its soft yet sensitive taste, which is advantageous in food and wine pairing.
Just after disgorgement a "liqueur de dosage" - a blend of - most times- cane sugar and wine (sugar amounts up to 750 g/litre)- is added to adjust the levels of sugar in the Champagne when bottled for sale, and hence the sweetness of the finished wine. Today sweetness is generally not looked for per se, dosage is used to fine tune the perception of acidity in the wine. Wines labelled Brut Zero, more common among smaller producers have no added sugar and will usually be very dry with less than 3 grams of residual sugar per litre in the finished wine. The following terms are used to describe the sweetness of the bottled wine:
Extra Brut (less than 6 grams of sugar per litre)
Brut (less than 12 grams)
Extra Dry (between 12 and 17 grams)
Sec (between 17 and 32 grams)
Demi-sec (between 32 and 50 grams)
Doux (50 grams)
Champagne is a passion of ours and we had to find a true aperitif style one to bring back and boy did we hit the mother load. Not only is it truly amazing it is also super rare!
Charles Mignon Premium Reserve Brut Champagne NV rated 97/100 is a super prestigious Champagne that has been given top honours among the upper most echelon of Champagne houses! It has also won over 150 top awards! It is a truly artisan house, now overseen by the current generation of the Mignon family, Guillaume and Manon, who as kids ran through the vineyards and played hide and seek in the cellars. On our research, checked via local retailers in France this sells on average for slightly more than Veuve Clicquot. That’s if you can find it!
The grapes used are 20% pinot noir, 25% chardonnay and 55% pinot meunier. The grapes are picked by hand, pressed and fermented in thermo-regulated stainless-steel vats. A work of precision to preserve the primary aromas and the imprint of the terroir. It is then aged in cellars at a constant temperature of 12° for 18 to 24 months.
So, what’s in the bottle? Immediately on pouring it you notice the incredibly fine bead which leads to a luxuriously creamy mouth feel. On the nose is apple, pear and a hint of stone fruit. On the palate is another blast of pear, some citrus notes and a trace of brioche. The acid leads to a fantastic burst but is kept in check by the perfect balance of sweetness and fine bead. It is a super finessey style only the finest Champagne houses seem to be able to muster. Nothing in your face about this. They tasted dozens and dozens of Champagnes and although they wanted to bring you back a couple, the Charles Mignon was just such a standout that it was all we needed! Don’t miss out on this rare glimpse into the artisan, historic world of French Champagne.
A few Popsy & JJ tips ...we used flutes in our video review, but you could certainly throw it in a nouveau style of champers glass if you’re feeling posh. This one could sit in the cellar for a few years but that won’t happen at our houses! With all its finesse, they matched it with fresh natural Sydney rock oysters with Tetsuya dressing on the side. What more could you need in life?!
Get this artisan Champagne for your home!
The village of Soave has a rich history since the time of the Roman Age. It played an important part as a Roman centre connecting ancient Roman cities in Italy. But the unforgettable wines in this region exist to this day. According to legends, the name Soave wine was found in the writings of the famous Italian poet, writer and philosopher Dante Alghieri.
The Garganega grape, a late-ripening variety, is one of the oldest grape varieties in Italy. It is also the 6th most planted white grape. It doesn’t have a distinct aroma but has notes of almonds and white flowers. Soave’s hillside is fertile due to its unique soil composition— it is rich in limestone and other sedimentary materials such as alkaline, clay and volcanic rocks. Soave wine is produced with a minimum of 70% Garganega grape while the 30% blend can come from Trebbiano di Soave.
Soave white wine became most popular in the United States after World War II. It has three Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC): Soave, Soave Classico and Soave Colli Scaligeri. Soave DOC has an annual production of 30 million bottles. It is lean, straightforward and sometimes nutty in flavour. On the other hand, Soave Classico yields 12 million bottles per year. Soave Colli Scaligeri is not considered by some as a type, and is labelled simply as Soave.
Soave also achieved two Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita: Soave Superiore DOCG and Recioto di Soave DOCG. Soave Superiore DOCG is made from carefully selected ripe grapes in the best vineyards. Due to its popularity, the Soave Superiore DOCG has a limited yield. Recioto di Soave DOCG received the distinction in 1998, a first achievement in Veneto. It is made from semi-dried grapes placed in special racks above the cellars for at least three months before it is pressed and fermented.
Soave, typically, has a peach, honeydew, citrus with notes of saltiness on the palate. It smells with notes of green herbs, melon and white peach. Accordingly, grapes produced from volcanic soil have high levels of acidity and a fruity aroma, cinnamon and almond, while grapes produced in the limestone hills have hints of tropical, floral and citrus aroma.
Recioto di Soave has a distinct honey-like colour. Its flavour has traces of fruit, raisin and sweet spices. Its dry and sweeter flavour is due to the residual sugar left while drying the grapes. Soave that tastes bitter and with an almond finish are the cheaper variety. Soave that is aged for more than five years has surprisingly intense flavours of marmalade, lemon, honey, fennel seed and beeswax.
Soave wine generally pairs with seafoods such as mussels, scallops, lobster and certain fish varieties. It also tastes well with grilled poultry.
Villa Canestrari is a true artisan winery and the Villa Canestrari Soavé Superiore DOCG Riserva 2015 rated 97/100 is an outstanding wine where you can taste the history of the area! Popsy & JJ found a family that is obsessed with this grape and making amazing wine! They have been making wine for 4 generations. The lessons passed down from family member to family member are still being used today.
The harvesting starts around mid-September and ends in October; two passes through the vineyards and careful grape selection ensures perfect ripening. The grapes are then left to dry for two months. The wine matures for at least one year in new, lightly toasted barrels, thus encouraging the malolactic fermentation. Bottling is followed by extended cellaring before release.
Villa Canestrari, when poured, is a golden straw colour. Its aroma abounds with exotic fruit and gorgeous spicy, nutty notes. The palate has just a hint of vanilla with quite intense stone fruit, and traces of banana and pineapple. Its superb balance is a credit to their masterly vinification. Popsy & JJ matched this with a Barramundi fillet with crispy skin and these two together are like Tubs and Crocket from Miami Vice, a great team for a summer day!
You can order this outstanding wine in our collection today!
If you love wine and have never experienced the magic of a Tuscan red, it is a must that you seek out some and drink them with your wine loving friends! Tuscany is the mecca of sangiovese and it is grown in a number of famous areas, such as Chianti, Montalcino, and Montepulciano. A well chosen Chianti melds that unique Tuscan earthiness with glorious sultanas, prunes and soured fruits like no other wine. It comes mostly medium-bodied but can also come full-bodied. It has silky but ever present tannins that are made for pairing with barbequed pork and lamb. It also abounds with natural acidity that makes it a perfect match with tomato based pasta or pizza. Bellissiomo! A special experience and even more magical knowing that the land that its fruit was farmed on has been producing wine for almost 3 millenia! For all we know, Jesus may have shared a Tuscan red while breaking bread with his apostles at the last supper!
‘Super Tuscan’ wine is a term you hear people rave on about all over the world now. It has generated a global cult following. Essentially it is the relatively new concept, derived from the 70’s, where some renegade vignerons started growing Bordeaux grapes on Tuscan soil, such as merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. Some of the wines produced caught the attention of the world and the rest is history! Super Tuscan wine now has its own classification – Indicazione Geographica Tipica or simply IGT. A well picked bottle is one of the special joys in life. It melds so seamlessly that rustic Tuscan earthiness derived from those alluvial soils with perfectly elegant Bordeaux grape varieties. A well chosen Super Tuscan is a death row drink paired with a perfect steak or a rich pasta.
Amarone is grown in Veneto, just outside of the famed city of Verona and has caught the attention of wine lovers the world over! It is made using a combination of the ancient method of racking grapes to partially dry them (usually about 4 months) and modern technology. The result is a wine of alluring soured dark fruits with great intensity. They come mostly full bodied and have endured at least 2 years oak and 2 years sitting in the bottle before release. This is an unusually large amount of oak for a European wine but it is often barely traceable due to the intensity of the fruit. It is typically very smooth, mysteriously exotic and continues to woo wine lovers from afar. It is also a wine that can cellar well if you have the discipline to hold off from what is already an amazing result. It comprises 3 main grapes all native to the Veneto region - corvina, corvinone, and rondinella - and in that proportion. A divine breed of wine that wine lovers must try before you die! Have it with a garlic and rosemary barbecued rack of lamb for a perfect match! If you want to join the Amarone club and have a death row experience, go to Popsy and JJ who have brought back an absolute beauty from Veneto, available exclusively online through popsyandjj.com
If you have never sampled the magic of a perfectly balanced and complex white wine known in Venetian circles as Soave Superiore DOCG, then you need to do so before it gets too expensive! In producing Soave, named after a small town in Veneto, the principal grape being Garganega, there are two key lines, the fresher, simpler and super easy drinking style of Soave DOC that you might pair with fresh oysters or pipis and the more complex and serious style of Soave Superiore DOCG to be paired with richer dishes such as prawn linguini. For Soave Superiore DOCG, harvesting starts around mid-September and ends in October; two passes through the vineyards and careful grape selection ensure perfect ripening. The grapes are then left on straw racks to dry for two months. The wine matures for at least one year in new, lightly toasted barrels, thus encouraging the malolactic fermentation. Bottling is followed by extended cellaring before release. This wine when poured is often a light golden straw colour, while the aroma abounds with tropical fruit and hints of sweet spice, the palate often has a hint of vanilla is usually very long showcasing exotic fruit. Despite the oak treatment, the fruit takes centre stage as it always should with good wine. It has quite a luscious viscous texture a little bit like chardonnay. If you’re a chardonnay drinker and you’d like to try something different and interesting, then this is the one to try! If you’re a red wine drinker but would like to enter the wonderful world of whites then this is also a great place to try. Luckily for Aussies, Popsy and JJ have travelled to Veneto and have sampled some beautiful Soaves and have 2 beauties on offer. The first, a super fresh and cheerful Soave DOC, Fabiano Le Coste 2018, and the second, a more complex style just described, Villa Canestrari Soave Superiore DOCG Single Vineyard 2015. Both are ready for shipping to Aussie homes. Check out the video and written reviews at popsyandjj.com! Have it with a crispy skin barramundi for maximum impact!
If you love red wine and have never sampled a proper nebbiolo grown and made in Piedmont, then you have been much deprived! Do yourself a favour and find a good one to savour! Piedmont is the global capital of nebbiolo and is situated in the north-west of Italy. It possesses soil and a microclimate that grows nebbiolo like no other region on Earth. Many have tried but nobody can reproduce the magic quite like Piedmont. More specifically, within Piedmont is a place about the size of the ACT, called Langhe that is host to two of the most famous wine cities in the world - Barolo and Barbaresco. Wines grown within the Barolo region can be labelled Barolo DOCG if they undergo the rigid regulations including minimum 18 months oak treatment and minimum aging of 38 months or longer before release. Similarly with Barbaresco DOCG, and they both have become very expensive in recent years, with Barolo probably in the lead. Both can produce Riserva labels but that requires wines being held back for more than 5 years before release. Barbaresco mostly comes slightly bolder and fuller bodied than Barolo. By contrast, Barolo often takes on the weight and texture of a heavier style of pinot noir and so is often compared with Burgundy. A well chosen bottle of Barolo or Barbaresco usually abounds with aromas of fruit and earth, is beautifully smooth, has oodles of tannin but they are silky soft and great for food matching. They can often have an incredibly long palate showcasing all the flavours of the farm - earth, dirt, cherries and dates often resembling the profile of a xmas cake. Langhe DOC is also 100% nebbiolo and can be made from grapes grown anywhere in the Langhe region, including those grown in Barolo and Barbaresco that didn’t get used in the final cut for the DOCG labels. A well chosen Langhe DOC can often out perform a badly chosen Barolo DOCG or Barbaresco DOCG, but at a much lower price tag. It’s sometimes called the poor man’s Barolo! Even these however are not cheap. Probably best to get in now as the prices are likely to creep up even further! Popsy and JJ, wine merchants and the leading European wine reviewers in Oz, have 3 Piedmont nebbiolos on offer - Langhe DOC, Barolo DOCG and Barbaresco Riserva DOCG - all produced by Elio Filippino. Popsy refers to Elio as the ‘nebbiolo scientist’! Check out these very special wines at popsyandjj.com. And remember, Piedmont nebbiolos are best matched with rich pastas and meat dishes.
If you love your white wine and have never tried a Friuli white then you are missing a piece in your life! In the north-eastern part of Italy where the Alps border on Austria is a microclimate that produces some striking wines. Here they make 5 bottles of white for every bottle of red. And the sauvignon blanc from Friuli is like nothing else you have tried. Don’t expect the Australian or New Zealand versions of this wine. Reset your mind and your palate! For starters, it has far more texture and viscosity than your typical southern hemisphere sauvignon. It displays loads of exotic, tropical fruit with aplomb, has incredible minerality you can only expect from a euro wine, and has a very long palate. If you serve it to your chardonnay guzzling friends, they probably won’t pick it as a sauvy. Superbly complex white and one you must try before you die! Have it with a whole baby snapper for a magical food moment. Luckily Popsy and JJ have brought one back from Fruili for Aussie wine lovers – Dario Coos Sauvignon 2018. It’s exclusively available through Popsy and JJ at popsyandjj.com
Burgundy has become a global icon and a name you hear thrown around all the time. If you’re an Aussie you might not know that white Burgundies are made from 100% chardonnay and red Burgundies are made from 100% pinot noir. Burgundy is the birth place for both these wonderful grapes and today they’re planted all over the world in huge abundance. If you want to know why Burgundy invented pinot noir and why it grows so well there and how the resulting wine melds so seamlessly the earthy character from its unique soils and the natural characteristics of the grapes so well, then you must sample one! Earth, strawberry and cherry come together and become lifelong friends. As luck would have it, Popsy and JJ have got a beauty on offer - Domaine Fourrey Pinot Noir Burgundy 2018. It’s available in Oz exclusively at Popsy and JJ’s online store at popsyandjj.com. Try it with a duck à l’orange or cod fish with a rich beurre blanc sauce for something different!
Combining Burgundy’s microclimate, limestone soil, traditional vinification as well as modern techniques produce a wine that is coveted globally and unable to be perfectly reproduced anywhere. It’s made purely from chardonnay grapes which are indigenous to the region. Due to its popularity, chardonnay grapes are now the most planted grape in the world. Yet nowhere else in the world can quite reproduce the magic of chardonnay grown in Burgundy. Such is the case especially with Chablis which is predominantly an unoaked chardonnay. It’s just as viscous and has texture as most southern hemisphere chardonnays yet it abounds with minerality and freshness unable to be reproduced in Oz or NZ. It’s a magic that must be experienced by any white wine lover before you knock off the earth. You never know when that’s gonna be so visit Popsy and JJ and check out their 2 amazing Chablis wines exclusively available through their online shop. Just super stuff and at mere mortal prices. Visit popsyandjj.com. If you’re on death row, try it with prawn linguini for one of the best matches ever made.
If you’re a riesling fan or a white wine lover and you’ve never sampled a perfect Alsatian riesling, there is a gap as big as the Grand Canyon waiting to be filled in your life! That’s a good thing. There is no escaping the wonders of the alluvial soil and microclimate of Alsace which lends to superb white wines with awesome minerality and superb subtropical fruit flavours, such as lychees, peach, pear, apple, and citrus. Riesling is often considered the noble grape of the Alsace region, and they have been producing it for many centuries. And the region as a whole has been producing wine for over 2000 years! Alsace riesling balances acid, sugar, minerality and fruit so harmoniously. Not an easy trick but when you’ve been doing it for this long, it comes a little more naturally. One taste of the Cuvée Jean-Charles 2018, available exclusively at Popsy & JJ, is proof in the pudding! On the nose is citrus, pear, and traces of pineapple. More citrus on the palate and the acid kept nicely in check. Try it with an Indian fish curry if you want a peak preview of heaven! Check it out at popsyandjj.com
You wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t come across the term ‘Bordeaux red’ or ‘Bordeaux blend’ in your life! That’s because the natural birthplace of the most planted grape on the planet, cabernet sauvignon, is a place called Bordeaux. It’s the birthplace for cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, petit Verdot as well as the almost-extinct grape carmenere that’s making a big comeback in Chile. Although cabernet sauvignon is the most planted grape in the world, the most planted grape in Bordeaux is its sibling merlot, and both are the offspring of cabernet franc. In Bordeaux the rare and special clones of merlot contribute to some of the most revered wines on the planet. If you haven’t sampled a well-chosen Bordeaux red, you are missing out on a treat! That rustic Bordeaux earthiness is signature to most wines that originate from this region and it melds so superbly with the dark berry nuances of the Bordeaux grapes. A smooth St Emilion Grand Cru matched with a beef fillet with bearnaise sauce and a Paris mash on the side is a match made in foodie heaven! Luckily for Aussies, the leading euro wine reviewers in Oz, Popsy and JJ, have selected a few beauties for their collection. All are exclusively available at their online shop popsyandjj.com
When you’re looking for a sweet wine to match that perfect choc moose or that allusive crème brulee, think French sweet wine. There is no substitute that can match sweetness with all the elegance and complexity on the planet like a French sweet wine. The most famous area in France for making dessert wine is the Sauternais district, nestled in the south-east of the famed Bordeaux region. It’s made from semillon, sauvignon blanc and muscadelle grapes that have been affected by the botrytis cinerea or noble rot. However, another area making similar wines from the same grapes that grow an incredibly close imposter is Monbazillac. It sits south-west of Bordeaux city, just outside of the Bordeaux wine growing district and is sometimes half the price of similar quality Sauternes. If you have never sampled a Sauterne or Monbazillac sweet wine, you need to do so soon - before everyone outside of France discovers them and they become too expensive! Popsy and JJ have an absolute ripsnorter from Monbazillac. At $26 it doesn’t cost you the Earth to see just how good French sweet wine is. We rated it 95/100 and matched this with an Ash goat’s cheese from Minchinbury NSW but you could just as easily pair it with your favourite gooey French cheese, or even a choc moose or crème brulee would work brilliantly.
Pouilly-Fume is named after a famous area within the much talked about Loire Valley. It is made entirely of sauvignon blanc but comes in a form almost unidentifiable with the southern hemisphere version. It has texture more resembling that of a chardonnay with more viscosity and texture than the NZ or Tassie version. Its palate exhibits plenty of exotic, tropical fruit but never in excess or in your face, quite restrained and long lasting in the mouth. It typically comes without any notable grassiness or massive acid rush ...but has enough acid to carry the weight of the wine and exude freshness. If you weren’t familiar with Pouilly-Fume, your first guess as an Aussie might not necessarily be sauvignon blanc, so Aussies need to reset their palates. Some of the finest white wines in the world are made in Pouilly-Fume. Wine lovers must try a bottle of Pouilly-Fume before they die ...it almost certainly won’t be their last! Australia’s leading European wine reviewers Popsy and JJ have a cracker available by Domaine Saget which abounds stone fruit, stewed passionfruit and lychees. It has a subtle, almost prefumey thing going on that catches you from behind when you’re not paying attention. At some point you realise there’s still a trace of fruit hanging around your Adam’s apple long after your last sip has passed. It just keeps hanging on for dear life! At just $49 it is a bargain for such prestige wine. Popsy and JJ rated it 96/100 and food matched it with a prawn linguini with butter, olive oil, garlic, chilli and white wine. C’est parfait! Go to popsyandjj.com to purchase or see the full review.
We celebrate with fizz at every possible occasion ...weddings, wakes, xmas, new year, promotions, business wins, new births, and so forth... How did we ever get started on fizz? Well, it was an unsuspecting group of monks in the town of Limoux in the Languedoc wine region in South-East France that were busy making their new batch of white wine in 1531. They bottled their wine soon after fermentation stopped which is what normally happens at a winery. What they hadn’t realised was that the sudden cold weather front had momentarily paused the fermentation process. Once the warmer weather resumed, the fermentation continued in the bottle only to make the wine fizzy since the carbon dioxide could not escape. Fortunately, many of the upper class and royals loved the fizzy wine that resulted and the rest is history. So Languedoc can claim the first bottles of bubbles that ever existed in records kept by the Benedictine monks of the abbey of Saint Hilaire. From there onward, sparkling wine became very popular all over Europe. The Italians, French and Spanish excelled at making this variety and soon established their own particular protocols of vinification. The original and still the traditional method is where the second fermentation occurs in the bottle just like the monks accidentally did in 1531. Not long after fizz became popular the Champagne wine making region commenced making traditional method bubbles and became the most popular area for it, delivering crisp cuvees blending fine chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier with excellent results. Some of the finest Champagnes today are made in limited quantities by some of the finest artisan producers that have been farming their land for generations. It is a crazy thought to not sample some fine Champagne during your wine journey. Popsy and JJ, Australia’s leading European wine reviewers have found a very special artisan wine available only in very limited quantities, especially in Australia. It is Charles Mignon NV and has won over 150 awards over the last 15 years. It has been given a rating of 97/100 by Popsy and JJ. It is only available exclusively through their online shop at popsyandjj.com. The land from where its fruit is derived was first used in viticulture 2000 years ago but is run today by 4th generation growers Guillaume and Manon Mignon who once ran through the vineyards and played hide and seek as kids. One bottle of this presents a master class of sparkling wine making. It usually sells for more than Veuve in Paris but it is available in Australia for just $69 at Popsy and JJ. They matched it with oysters and Tetsuya dressing but it is a quintessential aperitif style with loads of citrus, pears, apples and brioche notes and comes with a very fine prestige bead that could be matched to most light cocktail foods to begin any special celebration.
]]>Trust your own taste buds. Your taste buds are like your fingerprints – there is no other with the same. So what you like is okay no matter what anyone says. If you talk to a wine aficionado to help you choose a wine, just describe exactly what you like. Ask yourself, do you prefer a full bodied wine like cabernet sauvignon or syrah (or shiraz as Aussies like to call it) or do you prefer a lighter wine like pinot noir or something in between, like a well chosen Chianti.
Did you know, most of the richness of good red wine comes straight from the grapes themselves? Knowing that the rounded and diverse fruity and spicy flavours are the pure result of the process of fermentation and maturing over many years make us very appreciative of what we pour into our wine glasses!
Red wine can be beautifully complex, usually stronger than white and rosé wines and ready to be uncorked any time of the year. Because red wine often improves with age and is collected by enthusiasts and saved for special occasions, the act of buying red wine is often more complicated than buying whites and rosés which, in many cases, shouldn’t be left hanging about for too long.
The wine industry has come a long way, and these days you can find most bottles your taste buds desire online. Having said that, buying European wine online in Australia can be slightly tricky if you don’t first have some good information. Buying online means you cannot sample the wine before purchasing, so you need to know what you’re talking about.
Luckily for you, we’ve reviewed over 2,000 European wines at Popsy & JJ (tough job, we know) and selected the top 32 for our online shop – ready to be shared with all Australian wine lovers!
Well that depends if you are from an ‘old world’ or ‘new world’ wine making country? Australia is distinctly ‘new world’. That doesn’t mean better or worse. Basically, ‘old world’ wines are considered those wines grown in Europe (where wine grapes have been cultivated on soils for literally thousands of years!) and ‘new world’ wine is considered wine grown in countries where Europeans have settled in the last few hundred years, such as USA, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and NZ.
The ‘old world’ is far more obsessed with the ‘terroir’, that is the soil and microclimate of the area. Many of the famous European wines are named after the famous areas they come from, such as Burgundy, Barolo, Bordeaux, Chianti, Chablis, Soavé, Champagne, Pouilly Fumé and so forth. By contrast, the ‘new world’, countries such as Australia and USA, are far more obsessed with the specific grape variety, such as cabernet sauvignon, syrah (or shiraz in Oz), pinot noir, grenache and so forth. In France, if you’re into red Burgundy, they know you like pinot noir as they are made from 100% pinot noir grapes, but the grape is not their number one focus. In Italy, if you’re into Barolo, you like nebbiolo as it’s made from 100% nebbiolo. The old world would suggest that nowhere on the planet can reproduce nebbiolo quite like the Barolo wine region does, or pinot noir quite like Burgundy wine region does, as the soil and environment are so unique and play such a big part in it, that nothing can quite make up for that. And they would be right. Just the same reason why syrah (or shiraz) is very different when grown in the Hunter Valley versus Barossa Valley versus Hermitage (northern Rhone). All delicious but completely different profiles given the vast differences in soil and environment in these 3 different areas. Vive la difference!
So when choosing a wine, what we wine obsessed nuts at Popsy and JJ suggest is that you take both the grape variety and the area into consideration as both are important and will greatly affect your drinking experience! Note the texture of wines and the fullness of the wines you prefer. And find out if the wines you are intending on buying will go well with the food you like to cook. So do your research and just make food that will match the wines you love. Wine is so much better with perfectly matched food and vice versa!
If you intend to buy wine from Popsy and JJ, and you are unsure about it or have any questions regarding all the above, then contact us! Describe what you like, and ask us all your questions before you buy! We love to discuss wine and are only too happy to take your questions. No question is too silly or crazy!
Red wine is typically denser than other wines, but its structure can vary greatly. Fuller-bodied wines pair excellently with richer foods and red meats while lighter-bodied wines are better matched to lighter dishes such as chicken stir fry or baked fish. But remember to take the sauces into account! Richer sauces may require a fuller bodied wine.
Red wine is known for improving with maturity, but there are many factors that come into play to ensure it ages perfectly. Note also, not every red wine is made for aging so make sure you discuss cellaring potential with your wine merchant. Popsy and JJ having cellaring recommendations listed online for every wine they stock.
Temperature, light and humidity are the major elements to be considered when cellaring red wine – the optimum storage environment is at about 15°C give or take. But most importsantly, wine does not like big temperature fluctuations or hot spells. Dark-tinted bottles help to protect the wine from harmful UV-rays, and a too-dry environment will dry and shrink the cork, causing oxygen to make contact with the wine.
The shelf life of different types of wine can range greatly, so talk to your wine merchant about the cellaring potential of your wine if you intend to store it.
The debate about whether or not red wine is actually healthy has been going on for years. Don’t we all just want to hear – for once and for all – that the lovely glass of red wine we enjoy at dinner is also good for our bodies!
There are many studies that show drinking red wine in small doses does, in fact, have health benefits. Everything in moderation!
So, why is red wine good for you? To summarise and simplify, red wine is filled with polyphenols like tannin, pigmentation, aromas and other plant compounds. The antioxidants in red wine have been found to lower the chances of heart disease and type-2 diabetes, thanks to the condensed tannin which is also present in green tea and dark chocolate.
Of course, the health benefits of each red wine will differ according to the level of condensed tannins it has. In this regard, cabernet sauvignon is considered healthier than Pinot Noir, for example.
Typically, dry wines and those higher in tannin are healthier than sweet wines and those lower in tannin. Of course, lower alcohol percentages also equal a healthier lifestyle.
Your next question is probably, how much calories are in red wine? Despite being the healthier choice among other wines, red wine isn’t the lowest in calories. Less caloric than white wine but generally more caloric than rosé, one bottle of red wine on average contains about 535 calories.
When it comes to our reds, we don’t play around! Our love for red wine goes way back – years before Popsy & JJ was born. We want to share our love for wine and all things delicious and this platform is the perfect way to do that. Keep an eye on Popsy & JJ for more wine reviews coming your way at popsyandjj.com
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