Christmas at The Eversley

29-Dec-08 - We had a busy and very merry Christmas this year as James and Claire came down, as well as Claire's father Graham and brother Simon, so it was a full house all round, and I'd been saving up some special wines for the event. We decided to kick off on the 23rd with some proper fish and chips from our local chippie, as a preparation for the marathon task to come. Fortunately we're just across the road from the Chipwick, and the trick is always to ask for a large cod, extra well-done. That way, although you have to wait, the fish is cooked freshly and you know that it hasn't been languishing in the hot cupboard going soggy. Actually Claire had the huss, which I can never face, having chopped up so many dogfish for A-level zoology.

I'd ordered a random case from The Wine Society and we tried a bottle of 2008 Chamonix blanc, Franschhoek Vallée des Vignerons, South Africa - Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc/Chenin Blanc - £6.25) which we'd never had before: bone dry, delicious, controlled fruit and a lovely fresh finish - and closed with the beguiling glass Vino-Lok stopper which, for some reason, I find irresistible. Even Jill liked it and she normally won't have anything to do with Chardonnay (unless it's from Chablis, of course, "but that's different"). It was perfect with the fish, and we followed it with another from the random case: 2007 Picpoul de Pinet from Domaines Félines-Jourdan, Languedoc (£6.75). This again was bone dry with a zesty acidity and lovely fruit freshness. I think that these two wines represent some of the best value for money I've seen this year, and are living proof (for those few who still need it) that spending just a bit more will get you a lot better wine. Unfortunately it ran out just before the fish, so I opened a bottle of the barrel-fermented 2006 Colección 125 from Bodegas Julián Chivite in Navarra (£21.37 from Waitrose - Fernando Chivite very kindly sends me a few bottles every Christmas). The grape is Chardonnay (so Jill was out) but James and I enjoyed it: rich, greengagey Chardonnay fruit with a smoky background of toasty oak - wonderful. The grapes come from the Señorío de Arinzano estate, from whence also come the Pago wines (see previous post 11-Nov-08), but not at Pago prices - although they are, of course, wines at the premium end of the market.

Christmas Eve we were joined by Graham and Simon and got tooled up to approach Jill's special recipe crispy duck with hoy sin, cucumber, spring onions and rice pancakes. This is something she's developed, bit by bit, over the years and now cooks to perfection every time - and the entire family is duck mad. It's fairly spicy, of course, so we needed something fairly robust, and I opened a couple of bottles of the 2000 Clos Monlleó from Sangenís i Vaqué in Priorat. This is a wine I discovered in 2003 when we were doing a mega-tasting for the 2004 edition of THE NEW SPAIN: we tasted some 700 wines blind over a week and a bit, and I scored two of them at 19½/20. One was Clos Monlleó (the other was Vall Llach, also from Priorat). This is a family firm run by Pere Sangenís, his wife Conxita Vaqué and their daughter María, and I actually got to meet them in April, 2005, when I was speaking at a conference in Rotterdam - most charming and generous people. They didn't - and still don't - have an agent in the UK, which is a great pity because the wines are simply outstanding. All right, Monlleó retails at €40 in Germany and up to $65 in America (depending on which state you're in) but as a special-occasion wine it's unbeatable. The family very generously send me a few bottles each Christmas and with the duck it was spot on. It's made from the classic old-vines Garnacha and Cariñena and has all the power, structure and majestic fruit we've come to expect from Priorat - sublime.

Christmas day started with bacon and eggs and Cava - Jill takes Cava intravenously and likes it absolutely bone dry. Our everyday brand is Calamino from Majestic (at a ridiculous £4.99 on multibuy). It's made by the Codorníu group which, of course, has massive economy of scale as well as nearly a century and a half of experience. The result is clean, fresh, and simply delicious and we demolished a couple of bottles between us before getting to the marmalade. Christmas lunch was spatchcock guinea-fowl with stuffing, roast potatoes, sprouts and chestnuts, Jill's special roast root vegetables plus a big bowl of cabbage for James, which he seems to like. For this I'd saved a bottle of 2002 Divo from Ricardo Benito, Vinos de Madrid. I was fortunate enough to visit the bodega in November 2006, just after I'd voted it my top wine of Spain in the 2006 WINE REPORT, and we enjoyed it on that occasion with the traditional madrileño cocido - a stew of chickpeas, cured meats and, well, anything you have lying around, cooked in the traditional way in an iron pot by the fire in the hearth. It was splendid and, better still, they gave me a bottle to take home. It's made from old-vines Tempranillo and has a wonderfully complex structure, bags of fruit and just the right amount of oak. I presented it at the 2007 DECANTER Fine Wine Encounter, at which time it was retailing in the UK at about £85 a bottle, but since then, of course, the pound has gone through the floor, and I see that Divo is retailing in Barcelona at €140 currently, which is £134 at today's exchange rate. It was splendid with the guinea-fowl, although I did feel that another year or two in bottle would have brought out its full panoply of flavours, but that's my fault for opening it too soon. For the follow-up James rooted out a dust-encrusted bottle of 1990 Pata Negra Gran Reserva from Señorío de Los Llanos in Valdepeñas. Unfortunately the cork had completely dried out at the top and crumbled away as I inserted the corkscrew. This did not bode well, and I had to filter the wine while I was decanting it, which is a tricky business. The end result was drinkable but rather faded. Mental note - drink Valdepeñas Gran Reserva before it's ten years old.

The pièce de resistance (also uncovered by James encrusted in dust) was my last remaining bottle of the 1970 Warre's Tercentenary Port. Simon had brought half a ripe Stilton and this was going to be the perfect combination - a top vintage with 38 years in the bottle. Ominously, the cork on this, too, crumbled away as I tried to open it and I had to do the filtering/balancing act again. It worked, indeed it was very drinkable, but somehow the wine didn't have the power and fragrance I was expecting, and I began to worry about some of the other old bottles I keep in the same rack, including a 1963 Croft (which I bought for £1.30 in 1975) and a 1955 Gould-Campbell (£4.05). Plainly the atmosphere is too dry: I shall have to invest in a pair of Port tongs.

So we went on variously to Janneau Armagnac and Woodford Reserve Kentucky Bourbon to top off the evening.

On Boxing day Simon and Graham were off home, so it was just the four of us for dinner and, Jill being a bit 'cooked out' we decided to have a 'cheese night', with a whole Mont d'Or, the Stilton, some Camembert, a Dickinson and Morris Melton Mowbray pork pie and Garner's pickled onions. On cheese nights Jill bakes a ciabatta bread and we dip it in the melting Mont d'Or before (in this case) falling upon the Stilton once again. I had chosen a 2004 Hayes Ranch Shiraz from California (£5.95 from my random case) but James had already disappeared off to the wine rack. Returning with a 2000 Bodegas Palacio Reserva Especial and I have to say that it was an excellent choice. The wine decanted perfectly and was well into the early stages of maturity, still with working tannins but absolutely perfect with the Mont d'Or - effortlessly matching the richness of the cheese. We followed it with the Hayes Ranch Shiraz, which may not have had the subtlety and complexity of the Rioja, but whose big blockbusting fruit was a very good match for the pork pie and pickles.

James and Claire headed home on the Saturday after a bacon, egg, black pudding and haggis brunch and we had a rather quieter day, but it had been an altogether excellent Christmas. I may stop eating and drinking for several days.

It's That Time of Year Again

A merry Christmas to both our readers!

Alicante revisited

24-Dec-08 - I mentioned in an earlier post (26-Nov-08) that I'd been to a tasting of wines from the Comunidad de Valencia including the DDOO Alicante, Utiel-Requena and Valencia, and I listed some of the wines which had showed particularly well. There was, however, no mention of any wines from the DO Alicante. This is because there was only one bodega there from Alicante - BOCOPA - and I didn't score any of their wines over 16 - I usually only mention wines which I marked at 17 or more.

A couple of weeks later I had an e-mail from Patricia Carbonell, who is in the bodega's export department, asking me if I'd accept some samples, presumably as a result of their non-appearance in the previous post - I offer a consultancy service to wineries aiming at the UK market. They duly arrived and we tasted them over a period of about a week. The wines were all from the bodega's LAUDUM range which, on their website consists of four reds and a white, but in practice has a rather wider scope. At the tasting they were showing Laudum Crianza (Monastrell/Cabernet-Sauvignon/Merlot - 16/20) and Laudum Nature (Monastrell/Cabernet-Sauvignon/Tempranillo - 15/20) which both had a pleasant enough style, although I felt at the time that the ex-cellars price of the Crianza would have made it too expensive on the UK market - approximately £7.99 retail then, now probably £8.49 thanks the strength of the euro and the gink with the eyebrows. There's a lot of competition in that sector of the retail market in the UK but, of course, ex-cellars prices are always negotiable.

The samples also included other wines from the range but no prices, so I can't comment on the value-for-money aspect. These were the best: Laudum Reserva 2001 (Monastrell/Cabernet-Sauvignon/Merlot - quite impressive maturity and a nice richness on the finish - 17/20); Laudum Garnacha Syrah 2006 (a very nice ripe, fresh fruit, delicious - 17/20); Laudum Monastrell Especial 2006 (big, blockbusting fruit, powerful, warm and long - 17/20); and Laudum Petit Verdot 2006 (this grape really has made itself at home in southern Spain: big fruit, warmth, power, structure and complexity on the finish - 17½/20).

These are very good wines and all too often people tend to look askance at wine produced by co-operatives, not just in Spain but everywhere in Europe. What these people need to accept is that, with 325 ha of vines (in this case), if the winemaker has a free hand in terms of grape selection, there's no reason at all why co-ops shouldn't produce high-quality, even great wines.

Memories of Roussillon

07-Dec-08 - We went on a Circle of Wine Writers trip to Roussillon in June last year which I remember as being an excellent set of visits and a real eye-opener as to what's happening in the region. I particularly recall the wonderful landscape and the wide variety of the wines - the classic sweet styles and some startlingly modern examples. I was also fascinated to see that town and village name signs were given in French and Occitan, but apparently most people at home speak Catalan. The Hotel Les Vignes in Rivesaltes (very comfortable, excellent value - €36 a night - by the way, and run by a most charming couple who speak perfect English - +33-4-6864-3434) was flying the French, Catalan and EU flags.

Also on the trip was Per Karlsson, a CWW member from Sweden, and I hadn't realised that he was shooting video until last week when he sent me a couple of samples featuring me lurking somewhere in the background. The first is from our visit to Domaine Boucabeille in Corneilla de la Rivière on Wednesday 13-Jun-07 and features Jean Boucabeille, son of the house, who currently runs the show. The vineyard behind him is entirely worked by hand and they don't even use tractors. He told me the reason why is that tractors compact the soil and, in so doing crush the worms. A single worm, apparently, shifts a ton of soil in a full year, and that turnover is vital for aeration, drainage and for the other minute wildlife which make the soil what it is... And it's the soil which grows the vine. Watch the video here and you'll see that we were tasting his wines under a bower in the vineyard, with me interviewing Jean for a feature on Splash FM. His wines were excellent, and I gave five of them 17+: Monte Negro 2005 (Grenache/Syrah - 'meaty' fruit, complex and minerally - 17); Monte Negro 2004 ('the extra year in bottle really shows' - 17); Les Orris 2004 (Syrah/Mourvèdre/Grenache - big Syrah style with power and weight, mature - 17; Les Orris 2003 (even better -Rhônish in style with big Syrah 'beef' - 17½) and the 2002 (17 - Philglas & Swiggott £16.99).

Another memorable visit was to Domaine Matassa in Calce the following day, with winemaker Tom Lubbe. He's made wine in South Africa and Bordeaux and gave us a splendid picnic in a lovely, dreaming valley, with a tasting of his wines in a roofless shelter in the middle of the vineyard. I interviewed him for my radio feature as well - watch the video here. Tom is something of a perfectionist - "you can only make beautiful wine in a beautiful place" - and describes himself as a 'non-interventionist winemaker. We tasted four of his wines with an excellent tapas lunch, and they all scored 17+. Cuvée Marguerite 2006 (Viognier/Muscat barrel-fermented - big, soft but 'savoury' fruit. minerally, delicious - 17 - Waitrose £17.57); Matassa Blanc 2004 (Grenache Gris/Macabeu - lovely big 'savoury' fruit, complex, herby spicy, fab - 18 - Bordeaux Index £17.78); Cuvée Romanissa 2005 (Grenache/Carignan.Mourvèdre - big, soft, dark, subtle, musky fruit - 17 - Bordeaux Index £14.50); Matassa Rouge 2005 (old-vine Grenache - rich, big fruit yet lovely freshness - 17).

Perhaps most memorable visit was next day to the Château de Jau in Cases de Pène, which is a grand old house with a modern-art gallery and a wonderful restaurant terrace under what is claimed to be France's oldest mulberry tree (they used to make silk here). The restaurant operates in the summer months, and, rather unusually, you order by the wine, and with the wine comes the food - locally produced sausages and lamb cutlets, cooked over sarments in a big outdoor oven. The whole thing is run by the strikingly-attractive Estelle Dauré who told me that "there is no jaja without Jau". I think I know what she meant... We tasted La Jaja de Jau which is a simple, everyday red ('good glugging stuff') but the best wine of the day was the Château de Jau 2003 (Syrah/Mourvèdre/Grenache/Carignan - excellent power, weight and structure, complex length - 17). The Château's traditional sweet wines are stocked by Les Caves de Pyrene.

Interviewing Estelle Dauré at the Château de Jau

Trains, Potatoes and the M25

04-Dec-08 - [Anorak alert - there's rather a lot about trains in this post] The day did not start well. I left the house at 05:15 in driving rain and a force-8 gale coming in from the north east, and the taxi dropped me at Worthing station ten minutes later. The doors to the station were locked. A member of staff appeared with a bunch of keys and attempted to unlock them, but without success. He disappeared, and came back with another bunch of keys, but this, too, proved to be of no avail. "You'll have to go round by the gate" he shouted to me... And I trudged off in the pouring rain, half the length of platform three, through the disabled-access gate and all the way back down the platform to the ticket machine (the booking office isn't open at this time of the morning), and then through the underpass to platform 2. The London train was on time, and I'd checked the timetable before I left: change at Three Bridges for Redhill. I was surprised at how busy the train was at this time of the morning - by the time we reached Hove it was full, and from Haywards Heath standing room only. I looked around the carriage and wondered if these people had to do this every day to get to jobs in London: I count myself lucky that I mainly work from home.

Got off at Three Bridges which has one of the most windswept platforms I've ever visited. There is cover from the rain, except that the wind was blowing it sideways and it was absolutely freezing - I even saw some sleet. There is a small, unheated waiting room and the door is on the wrong side for the up platform, but I took refuge anyway, and watched a Victoria train come and go from the platform opposite. This was to be my undoing. I returned to the platform on which I had arrived to find that the Thameslink train did not stop at Redhill, and I was advised to change at Gatwick. I did manage to squeeze myself into a seat, wondering the while why the timetable had told me this train stopped at Redhill. I checked 24 hours later and realised that the Victoria train I'd seen had been the one which stopped at Redhill: the station has two up platforms, and I had been on the wrong one. At Gatwick I was directed from platform 4 to platform 1, but at least they have working escalators there, and I caught the next Redhill train with a few minutes to spare, arriving about 20 minutes late.

From then on, however, it was to be plain sailing, wasn't it? Peter Marshall, the publisher of YES CHEF! Magazine was waiting for me and we set of for the Channel Tunnel. The wind, rain and spray on the M25 would have done justice to a deep-sea fishing expedition, but we got to Folkestone in just over an hour for the 09:05 shuttle (they're only running them every 90 minutes on weekdays at the moment). Interestingly, there were almost no formalities on the way and, significantly, there was no-one at passport control. This was to have repercussions later.

We were on our way to a potato tasting at the Château de Montreuil in Montreuil-sur-Mer, an excellent place and somewhere I've visited a number of times before, most recently in the autumn of 2006 on a day-trip from Shoreham to Le Touquet with James and Claire. This, by the way, is an excellent jaunt, or at least it is if you live only three miles from Shoreham airport. Ten minutes in a cab to the airport, half an hour's check-in, a 45-minute flight and a 25-minute cab ride to Montreuil - less than two hours door-to-door. By car via the tunnel it's about three hours door-to-door from The Eversley on a good day (assuming you haven't just missed a shuttle) which, when you consider that LHR is a good hour-and-a-half's drive and the ridiculous two-hour check-in regulations means that you've arrived before you'd even have got on the 'plane to fly to France.

The Château was built by the Wooster family (no relation) in 1933 as a holiday home and has a lovely, relaxed feel, from its architecture to the gardens and the interiors. Chef-patron is Christian Germain who, with his English wife Lindsay, runs a very genial, comfortable and delightful establishment. Christian is an alumnus of The Waterside Inn and regularly entertains Michel Roux and other members of the Roux 'club'. Today was no different: he was cooking alongside Pierre Koffman, late of La Tante Claire, who was the first head chef at The Waterside Inn under Michel, and the subject was potatoes. We were also joined by Claire Harrison, the 'Potato Princess' who seems to know more about the vegetable than anyone else in the world, except perhaps Alexis Dequidt of Touqet Savour, a company which grows and sells only potatoes, all over France. The fully detailed article will appear in the January, 2009 issue of YES CHEF! Magazine, so for the moment let's just say that we tasted more than a dozen varieties, roast, baked, mashed and chipped and as crisps, in salads, with herring, oysters (not for me), snails and the most magnificent rib of beef, washed down with a very decent bourgeois claret. I have to say that the humble potato is my 'desert island' food: so versatile that you can make anything with it (I've even heard of a potato bread-and-butter pudding) and absolutely delicious. Indeed, the night before Jill had found some Shetland Black potatoes at Waitrose and baked them. They're small but they bake beautifully. The lunch was a splendid exercise, in excellent company.

Anyway, we had to dash before 14:30 to get the 16:07 shuttle, and got there in good time, which was just as well. I mentioned that there was no-one at passport control on the way out - well, on the way back I realised that my passport had disappeared. Couldn't find it anywhere. Fortunately I keep a scan of the main page on my laptop, and I also have a photocard driving licence, so I cast myself on the mercy of the man in the booth, and was able to give him the passport number and other details from the scan. It was obvious from his questions that, once the number was typed in on the computer, all my details came up on the screen. Indeed, I suspect that the government has huge databases on all of us, probably including how we voted at the last election and the size of our most recent drinks bill. We had to hang around a bit as the time crept on, but eventually they came up with a couple of forms to fill in and sign. If I do find the passport (and this could mean ringing around everywhere we went that day) it will now have been cancelled anyway so it's going to cost me £72 for a new one, but at least we got through... We were the very last car on the shuttle, and we arrived back at Folkestone at about 15:50.

So far, so good. On the way back we decided to go to Gatwick rather then Redhill: it's (theoretically) easier for me because I can get a direct train to Worthing, and although the detour off the M25 is about 4 miles longer than that for Redhill, it's all motorway rather than suburban streets. I got to the station (it's a long walk into and out of the South Terminal first) about 17:15 and realised I was in the 'black hole' in the railway timetable. Normally trains run half-hourly, but the next direct train wasn't until 17:58, and I didn't fancy freezing to death on the platform (surely Gatwick is the most inhospitable of stations, presumably because if you go upstairs to the airport terminal it's full of shops and bars, so they don't feel that they need to have anything on the platforms. There was a southbound train due and, owing to a fault in the system, it was posted as calling first at Eastbourne. This was patently wrong, so I got on with a view to changing at Haywards Heath, one stop down the line. Needless to say the train was packed so I had to sit in first class. There was a guard on board, but he didn't venture between the people-crushed aisles. At Haywards Heath I crossed platforms to find that the direct train from London Bridge was due in a few minutes, and wondered how I could have missed it at Gatwick if it was following so close behind. Could I have been on the wrong platform? Again? Twice in one day? I checked afterwards and realised that the London Bridge train doesn't stop at Gatwick - and I thought I knew my way around the railway timetables. It was packed, of course, and I sat in first class, quite willing to pay the extra in return for the luxury of actually having a seat on the train but, again, no-one came. So I was home before 18:30 and getting stuck into a large one moments later, having covered about 380 miles in just over 13 hours.

I did rather better than Peter. He rang me at 19:30, two and a half hours after he'd dropped me at Gatwick, to say that he had progressed just ten miles since then. Apparently a lorry had spilled some gas canisters on the road and the Police had closed it. When things finally got moving again they were slowed down by an unrelated car fire on the opposite carriageway with traffic slowing down to look at it, of course. I think even a sardine-tin train is better than trying to use the M25 after 5 o'clock.

Front Page Coverage

01-Dec-08 - Another year, another birthday, and another opportunity for James to show off his weird sense of humour, thanks to Moonpig. This was his card:


Mind you, I really was in the pages of OK! magazine once... Here it is - With Marco Pierre White's ex-wife Mati in happier times: 2001 to be precise, when I was doing some consultancy work for the relaunch of Tío Pepe.

Wines of Valencia

26-Nov-08 - Valencia tasting at the former Great Eastern by Liverpool Street station in London (now known as the Andaz) for a full-day tasting of wines from the Comunidad de Valencia (DDOO Alicante, Utiel-Requena (UR), Valencia (V) and Cava (C) as well as the odd VdM), organised by the Chamber of Commerce of Valencia in Spain using UK-based Hispanic Consulting (see the Rueda tasting 21-Oct-08). Tasted 54 wines and was rather impressed. I did this tasting (not necessarily with the same group of bodegas) just over a year ago and thought then that the wines were improving strongly, but another year and another leap in quality. People tend to think of Valencia as a never-ending fount of good value-for-money supermarket-level wines and, indeed, it is, but there is more. My 17+ picks below, and prices (where I was able to get them) are calculated according to the JR consultancy spreadsheet (and I have erred on the high side) as to what they would approximately be at retail in the UK (allowing for the knee-jerk changes in duty and VAT from 01-Dec-08 by the gink with the eyebrows):

Agro de Bazán (UR) - 2006 Mas de Bazán Crianza Merlot - £10-£11 - I know this bodega from the parent company in the DO Rías Baixas where they turn out an excellent Albariño, but this was good, well-structured red with good balance an just enough oak to showcase the fruit. 17/20.
2007 Mas de Bazán Rosado is a Bobal, Merlot and Cabernet-Sauvignon mix and I wrote "delicious glugger, 'nouveau' style, aromatic, perfumed, simple, delicious". 17/20.

Sebiran - NV Coto d'Árcis Brut (C), Macabeo - £9 - The mousse didn't look much in the glass but GB it exploded powerfully on the palate. Hint of autolysis on the nose, and warm, toasty, spicy, long finish. Very good. 17/20.
2007 Coto d'Árcis Bobal (UR) - £5-£6 - smoky nose, big, crisp fruit on the foretaste, big structure, style, a bit austere at the moment but has potential. Needs time. 17/20.
NV Coto d'Árcis Brut Especial (C), Macabeo - £11-£12 - Good mousse, lovely structure with power, weight and excellent fruit balance. Complex finish. Excellent. 18/20.

Coviñas (UR) - 2005 Aula Crianza Merlot - £7-£8 - Bright perfume, big fruit and structure on the mid-palate, oak noticeable, austere finish but lovely complex structure. Needs time. 17/20.
An honourable mention here to Viña Enterizo Rosado (Bobal) and Viña Enterizo Tempranillo, both well-made and very acceptable wines (16/20) - but at a price which could see them on UK shelves at the magic £3.99 a bottle.

Emilio Clemente (UR) - 2004 Emilio Clemente Crianza, Tempranillo, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Bobal - £12-£13 - 'Nicey-spicy' nose with deep dark fruit, big structure on the mid-palate with good fruit balance, lotsa tannin but the fruit is fighting through. 17/20.
2004 Peñas Negras, Tempranillo, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, 5 months French oak - £6-£7 - Dark fruit nose, some austerity but good structure, nice fruit balance on mid-palate. Needs a bit more time. 17/20.

Chozas Carrascal (V) - 2007 El Cabernetf de Chozas Carrascal - £17 - The subscript 'f' gives away that this is Cabernet-Franc (not permitted in the DO Valencia) and not Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine is very good, however, if rather closed on the nose. The palate offers big structure and lots of mineral fruit, it needs time. 17/20.
Las Ocho - £11-£12 - This made from eight varieties (hence the name) and has an almost tobacco-y nose with big Cabernet-Sauvignon fruit on the palate with a lot of tannin (but enough, not too much) and a long, rich finish. 17/20.

Dominio de la Vega - NV Cava Brut (C), Macabeo - £8-£9 - Some autolysis on the nose and a good mousse, clean fresh and delicious on the palate, although perhaps just off-dry. 17/20.
NV Cava Rosado (C), Garnacha - £8-£9 - Some rich fruit on nose and palate, but the finish is bone dry. Delicious. 17/20
NV Cava Rosado (C), Pinot Noir - £13-£14 - With 20 months on the lees this has a gentle strawberry perfume and lovely, balanced fruit. 17/20.
2006 Cava Brut Nature Reserva, 80/20 Macabeo/Chardonnay - £16-£17 - Very clean, dry, 'chalky' Chardonnay noticeable on the nose and a crisp, clean bone-dry finish with lipsmacking acidity. 17/20.
NV Artemayor Cava (C), 60/40 Macabeo/Chardonnay - £22 - Barrel-fermented base wine with six months in new French oak and 36 months on the lees gives this a wonderful richness and a long, smooth finish. Class! 18/20.
2004/5/6 Artemayor (UR), Bobal - Single vineyard Bobal with 16 months in oak gives subtle power and fruit on the nose, big fruit and commensurate tannins on the mid-palate and a warm, spicy, oaky length with a hint of bonfire. Complex and starting to drink excellently. 18/20.

Sierra Norte Ecovitis (UR) - 2005 Cerro Bercial Premium Ladera Los Cantos, 63/37 Bobal/Cabernet-Sauvignon - £15-£16 - Smoky-oaky, tight, dark fruit nose and very tight tannins on the palate but big structure and a long, warm finish. There is much potential here. 17/20.

Señorío de Villafames (VdM) - 2002 Fernando Diago, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah - £14-£15 - Raisiny fruit and a 'hidden' richness on the nose, big fruit, power and spice on the plate, and a long finish. 17/20.

Finca Ardal (UR) - 2003 Lagar de Lar Crianza, Tempranillo, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot - £13-£14 - Dark Tempranillo fruit on the nose, big structure, power and fruit, tannins also big but in balance, long. Excellent. 18/20.
2005 Ocho Cuerdas Bobal - Dark, spicy, peppery nose, big fruit and tannins on the palate and a long finish but this needs more time. 17/20
2005 Ocho Cuerdas Crianza, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah - £11-£12 - rather closed on the nose, but some hints of fruit, good, big stuff with power, weight and concentration. Good length. 17/20.

Pago Casa Gran (V) - 2006 Falcata, Monastrell, Garnacha Tintorera, Syrah, Cabernet - £9-£10 - Rich, 'dark chocolate' nose, big, rich structured, complex palate with a powerful finish.
2007 Repos, Moscatel, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer - £6-£7 - Spicy Moscatel nose, very clean, crisp acidity with musky fruit and bone dry on the finish. Delicious. 17/20
2006 Falcata Arena, Monastrell, Garnacha Tintorera - £14-£15 - Another Biggie: power, oaky vanilla, toast and big, dark fruit, beautifully integrated. Long. 18/20.

Romeral Vinícola (UR) - 2008 Castillo Requena Rosado, Bobal - £5-£6 - Very crisp, fresh, strawberry-scented fruit, delicious, gluggable, uncomplicated bright fruit. 17/20.
2002 Lomas del Castillo Reserva, Tempranillo, Bobal - £5-£6 - Soft, subtle fruit with a hint of richness on the nose, some austere tannins but the fruit fights through on the mid-palate, long, very good. 17/20.

Overall, the tasting showed that the Valencia region, whilst still able to turn out good, everyday wines at supermarket prices, is also producing wines of considerable class higher up the price scale sometimes, perhaps, a little ambitiously priced but nevertheless reflecting an enormous amount of hard work by the bodegas - my lowest mark of the whole tasting was 14/20, which is well with the limits of acceptability.

The tasting also changed my opinion of non-Catalan Cava. In general I've always found these wines pleasant, uncomplicated and decent but uninspiring, as they tend to be 100% Macabeo which is something of a neutral grape. However, the wines on show here were very different: judicious use of oak for some of the base-wines and (I never thought I'd hear myself say this) some Chardonnay, plus long ageing on the lees really does deliver results.