Across the years: wine's power to span time and space

Plus: what I've been drinking this week

Vintage memories: me in vineyards at the foot of the Dentelles de Montmirail, with my friend David Richardson, 2000. Photo: Elin Slavick

THE Italians have a term, vini da meditazione, for wines that deserve quiet thought after a meal. They’re often but not always sweeter and stronger, like Vin Santo and Passito, or old sherry. But for me, there are other wines – or perhaps, other moments when I drink some wines – that inspire meditative reflection on life. So it was with a vertical of three Rhône reds I drank on New Year’s Eve last Sunday.

Domaine Le Clos des Cazaux has long been on of my favourite producers of Vacqueyras and Gigondas, arguably the southern Rhône’s two most serious wines outside of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Run by brothers Jean-Michel and Frédéric Vache, Clos des Cazaux’s winery is in the village of Vacqueyras, around which they own 20 hectares of land. They farm another 15ha five km up the road in the neighbouring appellation, high up at the foot of the rocky Dentelles de Montmirail outcrops above the village of Gigondas.

It is on the latter that they produce La Tour Sarrasine, named for the nearby remains of an eponymous early medieval tower – which is what I was drinking on Sunday. It’s a classic, powerful Rhône blend of 70 per cent Grenache and 15 per cent each Syrah and Mourvèdre, from old vines aged 30-60 years.

It generally takes a little longer to come around than the other Clos des Cazaux wine that I buy regularly en primeur, Cuvée des Templiers Vacqueyras, a Syrah-dominated blend. When I lasted tasted the 2015 Sarrasine a couple of years ago, I didn’t think it was quite ready; it’s perfectly mature now. Despite that, there was a fair degree of vintage consistency between the 2015, 2018 and 2019; the latter two were fresher but very approachable.

But this sort of wine nerdery wasn’t what made me sit and reflect, late on New Year’s Eve. What did was my connection with these wines over the years.

I first tasted Cuvée des Templiers in a mixed case given to me and my wife on our marriage nearly 25 years ago by my mother-in-law’s late partner. While David and I didn’t, on the face of it, have much in common – he a middle-aged Tory drinks-business veteran, me a youngish left-winger working at an environmental charity – we shared a commitment to gourmandise (and a puerile delight in ribbing my mother-in-law.) I learnt a lot about wine from him: it was at his urging that I first took the frightening step of buying a whole mixed case of wine – 12 bottles at once! So I still think of him whenever I open Clos des Cazaux wines.

Soon after, I visited the southern Rhône for the first time with one of my oldest friends from my time in US graduate school, another David. We drove grinning through vineyards at the foot of the mighty Dentelles and stopped to taste in Gigondas village. Later, we brought our young families on holiday near Vaison-la-Romaine – and ended up tasting down the road at Clos des Cazaux. So we drank Tour Sarrasine, Cuvée des Templiers and their entry-level Vacqueyras, Cuvée Saint Roch, around the table in the farmhouse where we were staying. A different year and a different stage of my life – but still the same warm fruit and garrigue herbs.

Unusually for Vacqueyras, Clos des Cazaux also make whites. So at my birthday in April 2021 we drank a magnum of the astonishing Vieilles Vignes 2018, made mostly from Clairette from vines over 60 years old, with a little Roussanne and Viognier: a wine of extraordinary complexity and power. But it was all the more memorable at a party miraculously permitted by the Government lifting its second Covid-19 lockdown just before, allowing me to cook a big paella in the back garden for well-wrapped-up guests. The Vacqueyras and paella were a fine match.

And now, going into a new year, three vintages of Tour Sarrasine, drunk with my brother and his wife, over from the Far East, and their daughter and her new husband. Despite Jean-Michel Vache’s repetition of his grandmother’s dictum that “Un gigot, ça va avec un Gigondas” (“a leg of lamb goes with a Gigondas”), we drank it with a big pot of coq au vin. I was transported back to the Dentelles, towering above the neat rows of vines; we told family stories.

Only the taste of wine has the power to transport us across time and space in this way, conjuring up past places, meals and friends. A wine you have loved over the years has that power more than most - and deserves a few moments’ reflection at the end of an evening.

What (else) I’ve been drinking this week

Barbadillo “Patinegro” 2020, Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz – one of a new wave of unfortified wines from the sherry country, this one slightly straddles that divide by being aged for eight months in barrels previously used for manzanilla. A deep gold colour with an echo of sherry salinity to it and fat, fresh Palomino fruit - really interesting (The Wine Society, £14.95 currently on offer at £12.50.)

Fattoria Le Pupille Morellino di Scansano Riserva 2020 - Elisabetta Geppetti is a force of nature, having taking over her family’s estate in 1985 aged just 20. She has been a tireless champion of the once-obscure denominazione of Morellino di Scansano, in the Maremma to the west of the Tuscan hills. I tasted there in 2009 (or was it 2010?) and was blown away by the quality of her wines. Morellino is the local name for sangiovese: this is as serious as a high-end Chianti, plush fruit underpinned with soft tannins, fresh and elegant  (Divine Fine Wines, Armit Wines, Hay Wines and elsewhere, from £24.50.)

Thymiopoulos “Earth and Sky” 2021, Naoussa – regular readers will know that I am a fan of Xinomavro, the great red grape northern Greece, and of Apostolos Thymiopoulos, one of its most innovative exponents. This a nice taut, elegant example though I have to say I was very slightly disappointed when I opened this for lunch on New Year’s Day with a roast ham. It’s good but I had somehow expected even better- more of the fragrance and finesse of the Dalamara Xinomavros, perhaps (The Wine Society, £24.)