My top 10 wine moments of 2020
It’s been quite the year. You don’t need me to tell you how difficult and traumatic 2020 has been, in all sorts of varied and insidious ways. However, with an attempt to channel some optimism and to look on the bright side of things (especially in some continued darkness), here are some of my top wine moments of 2020.
1. Something new
My top wine moment from the start of the year (remember when we could travel and meet in groups!?) involved a wine style I’d never come across, Tokaji Szamorodni Szaraz, which I tasted on a visit to Hungary. Tokaj is famous for its luscious sweet wines. This particular wine style is dry (‘szaraz’) and sees whole bunches of grapes – typically with a mix of ‘healthy’ and botrytis-affected grapes – fermented and then aged in barrels under a thin film of yeast – similar to the flor found in fino sherries. Utterly idiosyncratic and amazing.
2. Generous hospitality
A couple of hours before my return flight from Budapest I chanced upon The Tasting Table – a small wine bar set up by Taste Hungary. The staff had their hands full with a large tableful of tourists; yet they made me feel extremely welcome, and when they saw my notebook and learned when my flight was, they insisted on taking me through a whistle-stop tour of Hungarian wines. I learned so much in that hour and a half (I think I’m still processing it all!). Perfect hospitality and one of the best parts of the wine trade – sharing passion for wine generously.
Tasting dry Szamorodni Tokaji in the cellars of the Pajzos winery in Hungary.
The Tasting Table wine bar in Budapest - well worth a visit.
Homemade wine from the depths of the cellar became a regular feature of lockdown life in 2020.
3. The joys of sharing
Back in England, as the pandemic hit, I swapped out a honeymoon for five months of lockdown with my new in-laws. I have many fond memories of that time – not least of all the amazing spring weather we had as well as the opportunity, with four adults in the house, to try and to share many more wines! Thankfully, wine merchants were deemed ‘essential businesses’ and allowed to stay open during the UK lockdown.
4. When wine ‘doesn’t count’
Lockdown also coincided with my in-laws preparing to move house, and thus a countering force to my purchases of ever more cases of wine was the need to ‘drink down the cellar’ – which included many demijohns of homemade wine of indeterminate vintage. We’d imposed wine-free days on Mondays and Tuesdays (I suppose it gave something of a routine to the week…) but I loved how regularly the homemade wine was brought out on a Tuesday night because ‘it didn’t count’!
5. Wine faces
On a related note, my next highlight is the look on my mother-in-law’s face when yet another case of wine arrived at the doorstep!
6. The screens are all right
The lockdown brought new technology to the wine world – and an opening up of the wine tasting experience to new audiences. My first online tasting was a gift from a kind friend of a vertical of red Burgundy. I’m not a complete convert to the online tasting experience – screen fatigue, low production value, and the absence of an in-person connection are amongst its negatives. But – I did appreciate the ability to taste samples of wines I wouldn’t have tasted even without a pandemic, as well as the direct access to the winemaker and other experts. Overall, there is a lot of potential here.
One of the advantages of online tastings is the ability for anyone, anywhere, to hear directly from winemakers. Romain Taupenot leads an online tasting of six vintages of Taupenot-Merme, his estate in Morey-Saint-Denis, Burgundy.
Sampling the produce at Westwell Wines Estate in Kent, just before harvest 2020.
A beautiful wine from Tillingham enjoyed on one of the few occasions when the pandemic seemed to recede into the distance.
7. Actually going outside to visit a winery on a beautiful sunny day
In September I visited Westwell (whose wines I thoroughly enjoyed during lockdown) for a tour and tasting in their Kent winery. It was my first winery visit since February. Early autumn, the air was fresh, the vines at work ripening their grapes, the English Channel – visible in the far distance from the top of the vineyard – glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. Bliss.
8. What pandemic?
I had this bottle of Tillingham in an actual restaurant the day after my birthday. The wine was amazing – all steely acidity with whorls of flavour and texture emerging in subtle eruptions along my palate – and the food superb. And, tucked away in the mezzanine of Sager + Wilde on a Tuesday night, when the masked serving staff disappeared to attend tables downstairs, I forgot for a blissful 10 minutes that we were in the midst of a pandemic.
9. Lift off!
This year I launched my infographic wine guides! This project has been several years in the making and has been a huge effort for me personally. I’ve been really touched by the positive responses from people all around the world who have supported the launch and bought wine guides – and who are finding them both useful and beautiful, which is exactly what I intended. There have been some lovely things said about them and I’ve been encouraged to make some more.
10. Something else new
The year began with a new wine experience, and thus it ended – with a flight of wines from Slovenia, supplied by Slovenian wine specialists Vinoo. I’ll have more to say on this presently, but I was impressed by the quality of these wines and the huge diversity of wine styles. There’s something for everyone there and Slovenian wine should definitely be on your radar in 2021.
In 2020 I launched my infographic wine guides!
An eclectic - and colourful! - selection of Slovenian wines from Vinoo.