Double Good in Portugal and Holland

For the first time since I do not know when, two weeks went by without my imbibing one drop of my beloved Chardonnay wine. The reason being a trip to the Netherlands and Portugal where the former destination saw a laddish immersion in beer, and the second based on the fact that the Land of the Long Sardine does not do much Chardonnay, and it is deemed unmannered not to partake in the joys of the more abundant local wine varieties.

Yet, despite this non-appearance of my favourite white grape of Burgundy, this European jolly saw me having two of the finest white wines I have ever had.

The first was on a chilly autumn evening in The Hague, the frigid temperature elevated by the unexpected warm hospitality of the local Dutch people. They can be a weird bunch, portraying a unique combination of being both anally boring and loafishly brash. But on this night the streets were filled with smiling, friendly Dutch folk, chirping and greeting and giving quaint comments about my attempts to speak to them in my mother tongue of Afrikaans, which is related to Dutch.

“Your language sounds so cute!” the lady-owner of Bouzy wine bar in The Hague enthused. “It sounds like you are talking like a drunk baby who has just crapped in his nappy!” Charming, I know, but perhaps that’s what they teach you at sommelier class in the Netherlands.

However, she – like many Dutch girls easy on the eye – took my order of a white wine from Condrieu with pleasure, as well as the order of 12 Dutch oysters. In Holland, raw oysters are a safe bet foodwise as all the cooked stuff consists of overdone meat battered into croquettes and balls of some kind, limp soggy cabbage and some thing of greyish white sauce resembling the mother’s milk of an oil-clad, dying North Sea whale.  

In any event, I had decided on the Condrieu as the bite in the night air called for a warm-fruited wine and, besides, this northern Rhône wine is a bit of rarity in my homeland down south.

The wine was one from Pierre Gaillard, vintage 2021 and as my hostess poured a sample and I swirled and nosed it, I had that rare feeling of having made the right decision at just the right time.

It was a glorious perfume, warm hay basking under a low late afternoon sun, fried curry leaves and dried mango. Not a mineral, stone or crisp edge in sight. This evocative tropical nose tempted me to assume the Condrieu would be on the sweetish side, as many of these and other wines made from the Viognier grape are. But no, it was all dry, but one that achieves that extraordinary balance between being invigoratingly fresh and sap-laden as well as skirting on the side of an idle and glowing fruit plushness.

In the mouth the wine was extremely forward and precocious, choosing to seduce from the attack on the palate. It slipped and slid and probed, like a fine silk neckerchief that had been soaked in scented palm oil. This sexy presence on the palate elevated the flavours to groin-clinching heights, making this definitely the most exciting experience I had in the Netherlands.

Peach and apricots rode on that glistening coating of Condrieu texture, but the simplicity of these tastes was quickly compounded by other more intriguingly exotic offerings. Fired chestnut smoke lay there, interspersed with nuances of mace and burnt saffron, an edge of wild honey and some golden sultana paste. To close it off, a more refined layer of wild heather and potpourri. It was mesmerising, and dreamlike, so much that I can’t remember getting to the oysters.

Rave wine number two, and this in a cramped noisy restaurant in Porto, Portugal. The place was heaving, aromas of codfish, olive oil and hair-cream hanging in the Douro River air. Tiago Mendes was in town, son of the legendary Anselmo who is one of Portugal’s most famous winemakers, especially of white cultivars.

Tiago got my attention with a Vinho Verde – not hard as I am a sucker for the stuff – but this a single variety made from the Loureiro grape. Loureiro and Alvarinho usually command the blended Vinho Verdes, with Loureiro known for offering broad white fruit to the blend as opposed to Alvarinho’s stone-edged mineral hit.

But here was a Vinho Verde from Anselmo Mendes, 100% Loureiro and only the fourth or fifth time I had ventured into this territory. But by far the best.

Everything the Gaillard Condrieu was, the Mendes Loureiro 2020 ain’t.

Take a Cru Chablis, filter it through an Alpine mountain glacier, and you’ll end-up with something to the tune of the Anselmo Mendes Loureiro. It is icy, frigid, lean…makes an anorexic Franciscan nun seem like a loud plump slut strolling the streets of Lisbon.

On the nose, Mendes Loureiro, bears jagged edges of pine-cone, frost-covered alfalfa and green quince. The smelling of it alone is a rush, clears the head, focusses the mind. It is an in-the-zone wine.

Christ, but the taste is gorgeous. Alive and exhilarating and clean, leading one to wonder at how something like a ripe juicy grape growing in northern Portugal can be honed into such a precise, exact and pure, pure glass of white wine. This is where the wonderous life-cycle of nature is captured by the vineyard, bled into the grape and masterfully reborn by the hands and mind of a blessedly skilled winemaker. It is a miracle.

As far as flavours go, there were green almond and salt-lick running a line, with patches of yellow plum and lime, stardust brought from the heavens and rained upon by wet sheets of pure mountain water. The pulse raced as this wine was consumed in eager draughts, setting one on edge, on the edge of greatness.

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