At Decanter we all love our wine, and every week members of the Decanter team - from editorial assistant to publishing director - tell us what they've been enjoying at home and when they go out... What we've been drinking index
Tina Gellie
Chief Sub Editor, Decanter
Laurenz V, Charming Grüner Veltliner, Kamptal Austria 2005
Austria’s Lenz Moser loves Grüner Veltliner – so much so, he doesn’t see much point in making anything else. There’s a winery under his name in Austria, which is his old family company, producing everything from Sauvignon and Chardonnay to Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch, but Lenz himself now makes only Grüner under the Laurenz V label (he’s the fifth-generation Lenz Moser). Unashamedly seeking an international style of Austria’s premier grape, he markets his wines boldly under the Singing, Friendly and Charming labels. At a recent dinner at London’s Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Benares, we didn’t try any of the Singing (Kremstal fruit), but Lenz showed off the new 2009 Friendly (Kamptal fruit) straight off the bottling line – real potential with once it settles. Charming is the most serious of the three lines, also from Kamptal fruit, but with more concentration and minerality. Interestingly the even-numbered years of Charming – 2004, 2006 and 2008 – weren’t showing their best, but the 2007 (ripe apricots, musky peach, and heady jasmine flowers) and this 2005 were the stars. The ‘05 opened brisk and firm with lovely wet-stone minerality and focussed aromas of grapefruit peel and white pepper. On the palate there’s more pepper and some coriander seed, juicy white stone fruits, zesty citrus notes and zingy acidity. A lovely expression of the Grüner grape and perfect with Atol Kochhar’s kaffir-flavoured monkfish tails with tamarind glaze.
Christelle Guibert
Tastings Director, Decanter
Alfred Gratien Champagne 1990
I was very privileged this week to enjoy over dinner at Bistro Galvin this 20 year old Champagne. If tasted blind, I would have never guessed it was a 1990.The wine still had an amazing freshness and acidity; the palate was very vineux complex and rich and displayed beautiful ripe fruit characters, mouth-filling and yet harmonious and elegant.
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