‘The most unjoblike job in the world’ was how one friend of Tim’s describes his profession as wine writer and photographer. His list of awards as a wine communicator covers pretty much every year since 1988 and embraces books, articles, a prize-wining website and the editorship of Harper’s for three years. Listening to Tim, one might have thought that success was a matter of serendipity and the occasional early rising. By the end of the evening, the photographers and artists in the audience were shaking their heads in disagreement. He trained his eye by collecting photographs before channeling his artist mother to create his own pictures.

This selection of 19 photographs from the world of wine was accompanied by wines linked to the places and people – a biodynamic Sauvignon Blanc from Johan Reyneke in South Africa for example or our closing ‘sticky’ made by Chester Osbourn of d’Arenberg in Australia (shown here showcasing a few of his ‘props’ including the original ‘dead arm’).

For each photo there was a story of the place and the story of how the shot came to be made. For Tim, photographs, like wine, serve only when they truly represent the place of making and the maker. The first photograph – a still life of tomatoes in a Languedoc market – was paired with a bottle-fermented Crémant de Limoux. It’s easy to forget that Languedoc has cool climates as well as hot and this dry wine from Domaine Collin (by way of Yapp Bros) was a fine example of an under-rated wine from an unusual blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Chenin Blanc with an attractively fruity palate, good acidity balanced with roundness and warmth. Tip – taste the bubbles under the tongue.

The second photo (it’s well worth going to www.timatkinphotography.com to see more of his work) was of the biodynamic farmer, Johan Reyneke, shot against the background of one of his wife’s paintings and forming a composition of delicate blues and greys with a touch of pink. Not everyone buys into biodynamics (summed up by Tim as ‘organics with a planetary dimension’) and its deer’s bladders in trees and buried horns of manure but in Johan’s hands it has apparently eradicated the blight of leaf roll virus and its unfortunate tendency to produce ‘bi-polar’ wines (both jammy and green). In Tim’s guide to South Africa, Johan’s wines are ‘first growth’, leading examples of South Africa’s ‘unbelievable transformation’. Close attention to sites and soils have fostered this revolution and Sauvignon Blanc in particular has benefited from exploiting coastal sites to get the cool climate benefit. None of the New Zealand ‘bungee jump into a gooseberry bush’ approach, this unusual and attractive wine had more floral and tropical fruit character, with a bit of ripe gooseberry, but quite unlike the wines of either New Zealand or the Loire. And did you know that Cloudy Bay was very nearly called Farewell Spit?  David Hohne’s choice won out over Kevin Judd (another good photographer).

Two more photos of South Africa showcased the Swartland (the dry, schist-sloped home of South Africa’s greatest next generation reds) and Muisenberg (where Tim judges regularly).

From South Africa to France; from Sauvignon Blanc to Chardonnay: William Fevre 2005 Chablis Les Clos and Henri Boillot’s 2013 Meursault. The photo set started with Lalou Bize Leroy (once of Domaine Romanee Conti) but now with her own domaine. Lalou, hugely wealthy and defiantly independent is not – by Tim’s account – the easiest person to interview or photograph and the story of this photograph involved a pink Chanel gown, a dog that came back to life, a camera-shy model (as well as Anne Claude Leflaive of the eponymous Burgundian domaine). For Tim, Burgundy is more strongly rooted in place and terroir whereas Bordeaux is more managed, more carefully packaged as a luxury item. The Burgundy tip was to avoid anywhere which advertises ‘vente directe’. If the wine is any good it will have been sold/pre-sold.

The first of our two wines from Burgundy was William Fevre’s Grand Cru 2005 Chablis, Les Clos. As Tim pointed out, Chablis is closer to Paris than to Beaune, producing focused, chiselled wines from the limestone soils that the medieval monks identified. Conversely, the clay and iron of red soils make for red wine. Does soil influence taste or – as the conventional wisdom has it – only the structure? Like Pedro Parra, the South American oenologist and soil expert, Tim’s answer would be the former. Les Clos is one of the great vineyards of Chablis and the 2005 was one of the very best vintages. Fevre himself was a great defender of the name of Chablis against the namealikes of South Africa and Argentina whilst innovating in the winery with his then scandalous use of small barriques. Chablis with its high acidity ages well and this wine was still youthful and fragrantly briny, but just beginning to acquire the honey and patisserie notes of its true maturity.

On screen as we tasted the wine was a photograph of an unpretentious Burgundian street, taken in early morning with a solitary old-fashioned cyclist crossing the shadow patch that led the eye to the Chablis name on the caves opposite.

The next photograph, taken in a misty December dawn eighty miles south, showed a distant copse rising like a crown from the rows of vines. Unlike the bleached colours and spare tautness of the Chablis picture, this photo and the accompanying Meursault had richer, softer tones of yellow and brown. Meursault’s wines are the richest of the three feuding villages (Puligny wines are most focused, Chassagne a mix of the two) but an administrative error in 1935 meant that they missed out on Grand Cru status. 2013 was a very testing year, cold and wet, and though Henri Boillot’s careful vinification produced decent wines they lack the weight of fruit to sustain the oak treatment. The oak will fade with time but this wine will not be one for lengthy ageing. What was evident on the nose was the characteristic ‘struck match’ note, a complexing factor in Meursault now copied in other countries aiming to produce Burgundian style wines. Had we heard of the ABC (‘Anything but Chardonnay’) Tim wanted to know, putting forward a strong defence of Chardonnay as one of the world’s great grapes and proposing instead the ABPG movement. Judging from OWC members, ‘Anything but Pinot Grigio’ would be a potent rallying call, one which Tim strengthened with his description of the appropriate Riedel PG glass – one with a hole in the bottom.

Rowan Gormley, the man who made Virgin Wines successful, founder of Naked Wines and now CEO of Majestic, was Tim’s next subject. Sat in red velvet armchair, shot against a leafy wall, with a pair of muddy gumboots to keep him company, Rowan’s image, followed by an award-winning shot of an Argentinian boy at play in Buenos Aires under the tenderly ambiguous gaze of his mother, accompanied a Catena Malbec from Majestic. Malbec, brought to Argentina by the French, is an example of how grapes adapt to their environment. A bit part player in Bordeaux, it’s the star of Argentinian wine (though that status can obscure the other grape varieties, as Sauvignon Blanc has done in New Zealand). The Catena wine is grown from irrigated grapes high in the Uco Valley where the grapes develop high coloured skins to withstand the levels of UV radiation. A photo of the Uco Valley with snow-covered peaks in the distance fixed the terrain (Argentina’s first GI area) in our minds and Tim noted that this is an emerging area (like Swartland) in which great wine bargains can be found. This youthful and modestly-priced wine with its typical perfume of violets (generally lacking in the rather ‘brutish’ French single varietals) was rich in ripe bramble-like fruit if not complex and well balanced with a slightly savoury character. A good advert for Majestic.

The next two wines (both generously supplied by Michael Palij, were a step up in quality. The first was Pedro Balda’s Rioja Cosecha. Tim’s shot of the Rioja Alta involved Oz Clarke (his ‘unofficial’ assistant) holding Tim’s feet as he stood atop a bus shelter to take the image. Rioja, which has been under the deadening control of corporations, unions and the governing consorzio for generations is beginning to break free. The future is site-specific – even though the local regulations mean you can’t (yet) even put the name of the village on your wine. One major producer is about to leave the Rioja jurisdiction; others will surely follow. Pedro Balda could be one. He has a doctorate in old grape varieties, a vineyard in San Vicente (one of the handful of great villages) and the mere fact that his 2011 wine is vintage-dated on the label is an act of rebellion ( G- see my note below). Already striking and notably well-structured, this wine needed more time in bottle but the marks of future greatness were clearly visible. It had an intense nose of perfumed damson with some hints of cedar which developed in the glass to reveal coffee, and the palate was rich in jammy plummy fruit with a refreshing savouriness underpinning this… a real wow of a wine, delicious to drink now but promising more complexity in the future.

From Rioja to Brunello di Montalcino. From the wine journalist’s point of view, explained Tim, Montalcino is a blessing. There’s always a scandal fermenting – Brunello-gate in 2008, a cocaine ring in the wineries – and the 250 or so Brunello producers are all at daggers drawn. But the wines always rise above the murk of scandal – just as the villages rose out of the mist in Tim’s photograph. The 2007 La Fiorita we tasted, produced by Roberto Cipresso and aged in small oak barriques, shows Sangiovese’s ability to integrate tannin and acidity. Medium deep garnet in colour this wine had a pronounced nose of dried fruits and jam and lots of jammy fruit on the palate backed by good acidity and fine soft ripe tannins. Despite the significant concentration of fruit the wine had a surprisingly light touch on the palate and a nice spicy character.

This was the last of the red wines of the evening but we did have time for some photographs of Bordeaux, to which Tim makes the annual pilgrimage for the en primeur tasting. We all, he said, connive in a system which takes young wines that with time and (whisper it) a little adroit manipulation can be turned into the once a decade declaration of a ‘vintage of the century’). Tim showed us two photographs – a ‘monastic’ tasting at Chateau Palmer and another ‘magic hour’ image of a tractor and grape-laden trailer crossing the Garonne in low sun.

There’s a Buddhist theory that a photograph takes a piece of your soul, a ‘form of espionage’ even. By Tim’s exacting standards, the image of Chester Osbourn of d’Arenberg misses the soul of the man, a consummate marketeer and image-maker in his own right. Osbourn travels the world with a suitcase of ‘props’ for his wine brands (the feral fox puppet, the ‘dead arm’ and so on) and has been known to strip down to a d’Arenberg branded G-string in front of audiences. The photo he showed us captures Chester’s ‘mad’ side but what did it miss? The Noble Wrinkled Riesling that was our last wine of the evening made it very clear that Chester misses very little when it comes to wine-making. Bright acidity balanced the botrytis richness, with flavours of citrus peel, marmalade and orange, the volatile acidity that often characterises sweet wines was well controlled and this was a near-perfect example of the classic Australian ‘sticky’. Sweet wines are, for Tim, a disappearing art form but right now they represent extraordinary hidden value. Weak currencies, unfashionable countries and lesser known grape varieties can make for extraordinary value – think sherry, the sweet wines of the Jurançon, classic Rieslings.

Just as great wine-makers can produce thrills from grapes we think we know so great photographers can show ‘something you’ve never seen before’ in a place or person. Tim’s final image – nothing to do with wine – was of a boy taken in Manchester at a TUC march. His grave face – ‘so old and yet so young’ – was compelling; a demonstration of how a photographer’s eye can take in circumstance and light and produce a masterpiece of reality. There was nothing confected or unnatural here – and that, Tim suggested, was what great winemakers were now aiming for.

A superb and hugely entertaining evening.

Graham Harding
26/9/15

... and some more details of the wines that we tasted:

1. Domaine Collin Crémant de Limoux,Yapp Brothers, £12.50
   This is a sparkling wine fermented in the bottle made by the “méthode traditionelle” to give autolytic flavours. It is made in a high, cool part of the Languedoc from an unusual blend of the traditional champagne grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with Chenin Blanc. It is a wine that is older than Champagne. Fine bubbles give a light-textured mousse in the mouth with the biscuity, yeasty flavours best appreciated, according to Tim, by rolling the wine under the tongue. A crisp and dry bubbly at a very affordable price.
    
2. Johan Reyneke Biodynamic Sauvignon Blanc 2014, Wine Direct, £13.95
   This wine comes from Stellenbosch in South Africa with the grapes grown on site close to the sea to benefit from the cool climate that sauvignon blanc needs. In 2004 this vineyard became the first biodynamic one in South Africa. Pale yellow in colour, it has aromas of grapefruit and apple, while on the palate it has subtle lemon flavours and crisp acidity.
    
3. William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 2005, Private Stock, £50.00
   Tim pointed out that Chablis is so far north that it is as close to Paris as it is to Beaune. Cistercian monks established the vineyards, choosing the sites by trial and error. All the Grand Cru sites are on a single hill. Tim considers Les Clos to be the great vineyard of Chablis. He thinks that the great advantage of Burgundy over Bordeaux is that you can establish a relationship with the producer whereas the great Bordeaux vineyards are owned by large companies who market their wines as luxury goods. He was taught on his MW course that a soil can affect the structure of a wine, but not the flavour, but he disagrees. He thinks that the best chardonnay is produced on limestone. This soil was one under the sea, which gives the wine a briney character. The wine is vinified in 70-80% old oak. It is pale yellow, has a spicy nose and a complex palate of apple and peach with an elegant, long finish. The 2005 vintage was one of the best vintages in recent years and the wines have remarkable longevity. Tim does not agree with the ABC (anything but chardonnay) movement, he thinks that chardonnay grapes produce superb wines.
    
4. Henri Boillot Meursault 2013, Majestic, £35
   This wine is not a Grand Cru and never could be, because, as Tim explained, there are no Grand Crus in Meursault for the simple reason that the vignerons missed the application deadline in 1935! They have, no doubt, been rueing this oversight ever since. Climatic conditions in 2013 made for a testing vintage but the quality of this wine shows how much winemaking has improved in recent years. Its low alcohol and light colour do, however, reflect that summer’s conditions. It was fermented in large, 350 litre French oak barrels. On the nose there is the customary aroma of a struck match resulting from the presence of sulphites. There are stone fruit aromas on the nose and the palate is rich and opulent with flavours of peach. Tim considers this to be a Puligny-style Meursault. Incidentally, the most unlikely countries for producing Chardonnay that Tim had come across were Bolivia, Denmark and Zimbabwe, until he was asked to blind-taste a wine whose maker then proudly announced that it had been the product of a greenhouse in South Shields!
    
5. Catena Malbec 2013, Majestic £9.74
   This wine comes from the Uco Valley part of the Mendoza wine region in Argentina. The climate is very hot but the malbec grapes can withstand the heat because of their thick skins. The variety of local conditions means that malbec produces quite different wines in different areas of Argentina. Argentina is under-rated as a wine country. It is moving away from high alcohol wines. This full-bodies wine has an aroma of black fruits and violet while the palate has blackcurrant and blackberry flavours, firm tannins and good acidity.
    
6. Pedro Balda Cosecha 2011, Winetraders, £57.50
   This Rioja is made from pure, old vine tempranillo. It comes from a single vineyard, which is an increasing trend in Rioja. It is made in the modern style and vinified in French oak rather than the traditional American oak. The four classifications of rioja (Joven, Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva) have no regard for quality and so this producer has stopped using them. The wine is earthy and smoky on the nose while on the palate there are intense cherry flavours. The tannins need more time to soften.
    
7. La Fiorita Brunello di Montalcino, 2007, Winetraders, £58.50
   This wine is made from 100% sangiovese in the southern part of the Brunello appellation. It is aged for 24 months in oak barrels. A lovely garnet-coloured wine with cherry aromas on the nose and a full-bodied palate of intense red fruit flavours with marked acidity. 2007 was a very good vintage but the harsh tannins need more time to soften.
    
8. D’Arenburg The Noble Wrinkled Riesling, Great Western Wine, £11.50
   This dessert wine comes from the McClaren Vale region of South Australia. It is made by Chester d’Arenberg, a larger-than-life character with a penchant for very colourful shirts! The botrytised wine has a deep gold colour, a rich, complex nose of apricot and marmalade and a very sweet concentrated palate of honey, nuts and citrus with good balancing volatile acidity and a medium finish. A delicious wine that matches well with fruit-based desserts.

Peter Coggins
20/10/2015