Steven Spurrier’s wines of the month – August

Decanter’s long-standing consultant editor and 2017 Decanter Hall of Fame Award recipient picks fine wines to drink now and others to lay down, all priced from £25 upwards...

From the cellar

Royal Tokaji, Mézes Mály 6 Puttonyos, Aszú 1999

The 174th dinner of the Saintsbury Club, suitably held on St George’s Day 23 April, had the usual range of eight different wines – beginning with a vintage Champagne and ending with an early-landed vintage Cognac – all presented by the members. The theme was Burgundy, and after Confuron-Cotetidot’s Chambolle-Musigny 2002 and before a splendid Warre 1985 Port came this superb Tokaji, given to the Club of course by Hugh Johnson, founder of the Royal Tokaji Wine Company. The single-vineyard Mézes Mály, which translates from Latin as ‘honeycomb’, was classified a Great First Growth in 1700 ‘to be the first choice at the Royal table’.

The skill and traditions of producing aszú wines have changed little since that time, sugar-gorged aszú berries from Furmint, Hárslevelű and Yellow Muscat vines being macerated with top-quality base wines in small 140l Gönci barrels in RTWC’s 13th-century cellars for five-and-a-half years before bottling. With nine degrees of alcohol, 235g/l of sugar and 12.9g/l of acidity, the 1999 is immensely rich but perfectly balanced. Dark amber in colour, with a marmaladey concentration, Johnson described it laconically as ‘the wine that can raise the dead’. In its 20th year it was full of life and certainly raised our spirits.

For the cellar

Rocca di Montegrossi, Geremia 2015

The Rocca di Montegrossi estate, covering 20ha of vines and as many of olive trees in the village of Monti a few kilometres south of Gaiole, was brought back to life in 1990 by Marco Ricasoli-Firidolfi, whose cousin Barone Francesco Ricasoli farms the much larger Castello di Brolio on slightly lower slopes nearby. Organic since 2006, vineyard management and cellar work is traditional, while Marco’s puristic approach creates wines that are strikingly modern and full of life. His SuperTuscan IGT Toscana Geremia – named for the family’s founder Geremia and generally a blend of 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon – spends 20 days in the fermentation vats and a further 10 days of maceration before being aged for two years 70% in medium-toast barriques and 30% in tonneaux, only one quarter new, for two years before bottling without filtration. I have known this wine through several vintages, opening my final bottle of the 2001 over Christmas and sending a note to Marco that it had ‘the class of a secondgrowth claret’. He was pleased, but reminded me that his claret ‘spoke Gaiolese’. Indeed it does, with density of colour, sapidity, even succulence on the palate with spice and grip on the finish. This 2015 is well worth waiting for. Drink 2022-2035; £22 (ib) Stannary St Wine Co.

The Spurrier Selection

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