I had always struggled to nail my precise feeling towards Pinot Noir when Danie de Wet did it for me. “You find three kinds of wine: red wine… white wine,” the Sage from De Wetshof said, “and then you have Pinot Noir.” This was over a decade ago when De Wet had been busy at playing pioneer again – not Chardonnay, but by making the first Pinot Noir in the Robertson Valley.
The deceptively simple and seemingly innocuous description stuck, and the more Pinots I drink the more on-the-button Danie’s words appear.
If Janet Leigh were a bottle of Pinot Noir in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho and Norman Bates was a cumulative representation of terroir, Janet would have screamed her tits off in that shower scene. No grape, besides Chardonnay, reacts with such hysterical abandon to soil, climate and nature’s other vagaries as Pinot Noir.
Boere preparing to take on Bordeaux together with a representative from WIETA.
Heading off to Arcachon outside Bordeaux later this month, part of my visit will entail presenting a tasting of South African wines to some local journalists, rugby players and vignerons. As the first American on French soil?+¦-+?+¡during D-Day said: ?+¦?+º?+¦There ain’t no free lunch.?+¦?+º?+æ
So I get this craving, and I must have it. Feel the stirring. The brooding expectation. The sense of “what am I going to do if I don’t get it”?
Drive down to the dodgy part of town to satisfy the desire. Park in darkness. Enter the subtly neon-lit building in one of Cape Town’s side-streets. They are waiting. And yes, there is the object of my want. In front of me. To be had for a few bucks.
The place is DVD Nouveau, the movie Barton Fink. An all-time favourite, the kind of film that calls to be viewed periodically.
It is made by the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. Tells the story of an anal pseudo-intellectual playwright whose pretentious writings stir the attentions of Hollywood. Pretty soon this stuck-up pseudo has sold his soul, exchanging the intellectual zone of Broadway for the cheap commercialism of Hollywood.
Pretty much like Tim James leaving the Mail & Guardian for a wine gig with the Daily Sun.
Anyway, got the movie. And heading off to Casa Emilio for cinematic satisfaction, a spot of thirst gets me to stop at Vino Pronto, a cute little wine shop in the Gardens. Despite the shelves of aforementioned Casa groaning with freebies, I decide to drop some cash on the wine industry. Help them pay for their WIETA audits, methinks.
Believe in fate? The zone? In Pronto Wine Shop?
Right there, before me. On the Chardonnay shelf: Crystallum Chardonnay.
Yup, that’s the vino connected to one Peter-Allan Finlayson, a winemaker who has always reminded me of someone who has just stepped out of a Coen Brother movie. Trendy. Cool. Dishevelled in a cultivated manner. Most of all, self-effacing and humorous. Like the Coens, it must also be said that the dude’s bit of an artist.
,Crystallum’s set of Pinot Noirs has built-up a pretty solid reputation since the release of the 2008 vintage thanks to the superb quality of the wines made from Hemel-en-Aarde fruit, with some Elgin stuff thrown into the Peter Max wine. The other number is, of course, the pants-wetting brilliant Cuv+¬e Cinema.
This was, however, my maiden venture in to the realm of Crystallum Chardonnay 2009,which, incidentally carries the name of “The Agnes” who was Peter-Allan’s great-grandmother.
Peter-Allan Finlayson, great-grandson of the famous Agnes.
Having dropped just over R150 on Crystallum The Agnes Chardonnay from Peter-Allan Finlayson I headed off for a date with Barton Fink.
Look, if Barton Fink the writer ever did kick back to talk about wine, he could have told one helluva story about this. Problem is, it would be long and boring and aimed at sparking off a riot by page 23.
But I’ll just stick to the fact that this is one helluva wine.
Made from three vineyards – two Hemel-en-Aarde way and one out towards Greyton ?+¦-+???+¦-ú?-¦?+¦-ú?+¦+¦ there is a lot going on here in terms of expression. The first is a perfumed decadence and the second a trance-inducing broadness. No lean mineral linearity of limestone soils. No calculated intricacies of lees management to coax a featured Chardonnay personality from the fruit. The wine just gushes rich beauty and deliciousness and is a fine example of why Chardonnay remains the greatest white grape on the planet. No other variety is able of deploying this level of sensorial seduction on an unsuspecting movie lover just wanting to concentrate on a favourite film.
I had to stop Barton’s rantings every now and again with the “pause” button, enabling me to get to grips with the wine.
Was that a hint of Meursault-like hot buttered popcorn on the Crystallum? Yes. Montrachet potpourri? Indeed. O look, a bit of Santenay pebbles. Beaune waxiness? Is true, my bru.
Completing the myriad flavours is aforementioned heady perfume. If more wines smelt like this beautiful aromatic number I’d understand why wine-buffs are forever sticking their schnozzes into the glass.
The other is the palate weight. Like a fine silk kimono, it lies lightly, lies softly. Feels fine.
Just to be sure, I went back to Pronto the next day for another two bottles of Crystallum. And was assured that, yes, nostalgia can indeed be what it used to be.
On a factual basis, the wine is wooded, 2nd fill French. Nine months on the lees. Minimal stirring, shaking and prodding.
Less is more, dude, less is more. No matter how big the craving.
