Coyam 2010

'The New World' is a funny old term, deriving from Imperialistic categorization of the colonised and a general bolstering of Western Superiority.  As you may gather there is a long and complicated history here, but I would rather leave this for a more comprehensive article on 'old' and 'new' worlds. Let us in this smaller context take one of the leading organic producers without the loaded terms we would normally associate with the two tiers of wine making.

Question Time With Empty

It's a good simple and concise question that John Wilson summed up recently by pointing out had we always used Stelvin we would never move to cork, yet is the answer really that simple? Having sat down to do a blind tasting of a wine Shane had left, I was presented with a dull and dead nose and a palate of harsh acidity... A fault no less, the blind tasting had been oxidised. Provoked by this and indeed the impending arrival of guests and Shane himself, I decided while the topic was hot and many opinions could be had, that I ought to crack open a pair of wines I had picked up in The Corkscrew Wine Merchants on Dublin's Chatham Street. What was so interesting about this? They were both the same vintage no less and to boot one was under cork and the other under Stelvin. 

Artificial Decantation

I managed to follow this wine over three consecutive nights by accident. My busy schedule and a missing vacuum seal had left me relying on my trusty robot bottle stopper. So what were the consequences of this? Well the wine itself was left exposed to the elements, the main one being Oxygen.

Decanting allows a wine to be exposed to a large surface area of Oxygen. This is done to help the wine show its true potential, by mellowing the wine and allowing it to express hidden aromas. A well made wine will always benefit from an hour decanting. A wine that was closed and not up to much when first opened should be jumping out the glass ... unless it needs more time in the decanter or is rubbish to begin with. This isn't much help is it? Ok rule of thumb, if a wine has enticing aromas, but is somewhat elusive, give it some time.

So why so serious, or why are you banging on about this decanting so much? Well if you have stuck with me this far I will tell you why. I opened up the bottle over to the left on Saturday night and had two glasses. The wine displayed nice tight aromas of red fruits and nutmeg. Still slightly closed i left it with trusty Mr. Roboto.