Just a Nice Label?

As with wine, everyone’s taste in art is different but, for me, Domaine Lombard’s ‘Azalée’ (Yapp Brothers, £16.25) has one of the most attractive labels I’ve seen in a long time.  Admittedly, there’s not much information on it – all the important stuff is reserved for the back label – but it’s certainly a design that catches my attention – and that’s a first step to buying a bottle.  The real question, though, is, is it just a stylish label or does the wine inside the bottle live up to it? 

There are no worries on that score; the wine is a delicious, deeply coloured, medium-bodied red with lovely aromas and flavours of damsons and violets and a hint of white pepper.  The soft tannins mean that you can enjoy it now, especially with grilled red meats (give it an hour or so in a decanter before drinking), but it will easily keep a few more years.  A blend of mainly Syrah grapes but with an addition of a little of the aromatic white variety Viognier which gives the wine an attractive floral lift.  The two varieties are fermented together, not a common occurrence for a mix of red and white grapes, but one that is found in one of the great wines of the Northern Rhône, Côte Rôtie.

The Azalée, from vineyards between Valence and Montélimar in the Rhône Valley, could be labelled Appellation Contrôlée Brézème – not a particularly well-known designation – or the more familiar AC Côtes du Rhône.  However, the producers chose to ignore both and, instead, marketed it as IGP de la Drôme (for more details about the IGP classification, see my blog of 2 weeks ago “Give Rosé a Try”).

So, AC or IGP, good label or bad, what is really important is the wine in the bottle and, on that score, Azalée is definitely one not to miss.

All on the Label

Depending on your artistic point of view, you might describe the label on the bottle in the picture as minimalist and classy or simple and easy to ignore.  Either way, it contains everything you need to know about the wine inside – provided you know how to interpret it. 

Let’s start at the top.  Verdicchio (pronounced Ver-dicky-O with the emphasis on the middle syllable) is one of Italy’s best native white grape varieties.  Most widely planted in the Marche region in the east of the country, it’s also found further north around Lake Garda where it’s used for one of my favourite whites, Lugana, and also added to some of the wines of Soave. Below that are the words ‘dei Castelli di Jesi’.  Both ‘dei’ and ‘di’ mean ‘of’ or ‘from’ and you’ll often see them on Italian labels.  In this case, it tells you that the wine is from an area known as ‘the Castle of Jesus’ which is, as the words in red confirm, a DOC – the Italian equivalent of the French Appellation Contrôlée.  ‘Classico’ tells you that the wine is made from grapes grown in the original and best part of the DOC and ‘superiore’, in this case, means that lower yields were used, giving more intensity to the wine.  Finally, you have the name of the producer, Tenute Pieralisi, who is an Azienda Agricola – someone who grows their own grapes and makes the wine on their own property.  There’s a useful back label, too, but we won’t go into that now!

So, lots of information on a label that, at first, looks quite simple.  But what about the wine itself?  As with many Italian wines, there’s not much to greet you on the nose but, once you taste it, there are lovely clean, fresh citrus flavours – grapefruit and lime – yet the wine isn’t quite bone dry; some late harvested grapes have been included in the ferment giving an extra richness and complexity before a long, dry finish. 

I bought Tenute Pieralisi’s Verdicchio from the Wine Society and, at £10.50, it’s an absolute bargain.

Look Beyond the Label

How important is the label when you’re buying wine?  It’s often the first thing that catches your eye.  Sometimes your attention is drawn for positive reasons – to an attractive, stylish design, perhaps – other times, a label just screams at you – and you feel like screaming back!  But also, there are the labels that are a little grey and anonymous, the ones you can easily pass by.  I’m sure that some would put Domaine Maby’s ‘La Fermade’ Lirac Blanc (Wine Society, £13.95) in that latter category.  Yet, to me, having enjoyed Maby’s wines in the past, I saw it differently. 

But, whatever your view of this particular label, there should be no doubt about the wine inside: a delicious full-bodied white of impressive complexity. Mainly made from White Grenache (55%) with additions of Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc, this has a striking, straw-yellow colour in the glass with subtle floral and citrus aromas.  The palate is full and intense, reflecting (but not dominated by) the 14.5% alcohol, with rich, smooth flavours of juicy melon and peach and gentle hints of orange, all leading on to a long, dry, herby finish.  This is a lovely wine to drink on its own, but it just cries out to be teamed with something tasty in a creamy sauce – we chose rabbit but a well-flavoured fish or chicken dish would pair just as well.

While the label tells you very little about the wine, the embossing on the bottle (difficult to show in a photograph) is rather more forthcoming.  It proudly proclaims Lirac to be one of the Crus (the prestigious named villages) of the Rhône, so taking its place alongside many famous names, Châteauneuf du Pape probably being the best-known among them. 

This warm, Mediterranean-influenced, part of France is far better-known for its red wines yet almost 1 bottle in 5 produced here is either a flavoursome, weighty white or an attractive, herby dry rosé – try the same producer’s Tavel Rosé if you see it.  But, in the meantime, enjoy their white – whatever you think of its label.