-- Year -- ------------------------ After 2000 1996 - 2000 1991 - 1995 1986 - 1990 1981 - 1985 1976 - 1980 1971 - 1975 1966 - 1970 1961 - 1965 Before 1961 -- Price HK$ -- ------------------------ Below HK$ 100 HK$ 100 - 199 HK$ 200 - 299 HK$ 300 - 399 HK$ 400 - 499 HK$ 500 - 599 Above HK$ 600 > -- Country -- ------------------------ France Australia Chile Italy Argentina New Zealand Spain South Africa Hungar Liquer Series (500ml) Connoisseur Series Back 1 2 3 4 Next Grenache Noir GRAPE VARIETIES The colour looks wonderfully dark - but get Grenache into the winery and that colour can disappear with disconcerting ease. It's not the simplest of grapes to handle, and needs to be treated seriously if it is to produce serious wine. The taste of Grenache Noir: Good Garnacha/ Grenache has wild, unexpected flavours: roasted nuts, leather, blackcurrants, honey, gingerbread, black cherries, pepper, coffee, spices, even tar and black olives. As yields are progressively increased these fade into a gentle, soft leathery earthiness; the shock is that they fade rather early. That leatheriness is a telltale sign that the fruit won't be there for ever. Young, vigorous Grenache tastes of strawberries and raspberries, as well, with often a certain dustiness to the fruit that speaks of those arid vineyards in Spain and southern France. ●Grenache Noir Malbec GRAPE VARIETIES Malbec may be blended with Cabernet and Merlot in small amounts in New Zealand and Australia, for extra aroma and fatness of texture. The taste of Malbec: At its best, carefully grown and skilfully vinified in Argentina, Malbec has a dark purple colour, a thrilling damson and violet aroma, a lush fat rich fruit flavour and a positively soothing ripe tannic structure. It can take new oak aging, but it's a pity to smother its natural delicious ripeness with wood. In Cahors the flavour is more likely to be raisins, damson skins and tobacco. In both Chile and Australia you occasionally get the violet perfume and you usually get the soft ripe lush texture. ●Malbec Merlot GRAPE VARIETIES Put it on the shop shelf and watch it disapper. But Merlot's commercial success goes hand in hand with an identity crisis. Merlot winemakers around the world can never agree about what the wine should taste like. The taste of Merlot: Fruit flavours can be of strawberry, raspberry, black cherry, blackcurrants, plums, damsons, figs or prunes. Fruitcake flavours are often found in Bordeaux. There can be spice, too: cinnamon and cloves and a touch of sandalwood, and truffles, tobacco, licorice and toasted nuts. Warm climates can give stewed fruit flavours; cool ones, or over cropped vines, cna give minty, lean, herbaceous notes. It cna be gamy, chocolaty or coffeeish; yet for every Merlot that exhibits such appetizing complexity there are 20 examples that aim for no more than sweet juicy fruit and that seductively velvety texture. ●Merlot Nebbiolo GRAPE VARIETIES Nebbiolo is proving to be one of the most frustrating grapes to grow outside its Piedmont heartland. Growers are examining the minutiae of soil and climate, but the grape still obstinately refuses to play ball. The taste of Nebbiolo: An improbable grape, combining as it does hig levels of tannin with hig acidity and some of the most complex, exotic scents to be found on any red wine. To tar and roses one might add cherries, damsons and mulberries, leather, herbs both fresh and dried, spice, licorice and dried fruit. The tannins mature to a powdery softness; the acidity should be ripe, and there should be sufficient weight of fruit and alcohol to balance the tannin and acidity while the wine ages. ●Nebbiolo Pinot Gris GRAPE VARIETIES Shown here in the early stages of Botrytis cinerea, are more susceptible to the fungus than any other noble Alsace variety. There are two strains of Pinot Gris in Alsace variety. There are two strains of Pinot Gris in Alsace; The Gros Grains, which has pretty well taken over, gives much higher yields than the smaller-berried Petits Grains, which has almost disappeared. But Petits Grains, which has almost disappeared. But Petits Granins gives stellar quality and the new breed of ambitious young growers won't let it disppear completely. The taste of Pinot Gris: Pinot Gris' ability to produce fabulously honeyed wines, with the richness of brazil nut flesh and the merest suggestion of something slightly unwashed. Alasce Pinot Gris revels in spicy, musky, honeyed and exotic flavours yet north - east Italy's copper - tinged, relentlessly popular Pinot Grigio with lightly spicy, minerally flavours makes a sort of superior glugger to go with the fritto misto. ●Pinot Gris Back 1 2 3 4 Next © Copyright 2007 CONCORD WINES. All rights reserved.