Cimson Aroma Newsletter

Epicurean Newsletter about Wine, Art, and Food!

June 08 | Volume 15

Precision of taste and aromas of a particular wine reveals high quality. And I have the chance to come across wines with these qualities from time to time.

I was for instance really impressed by some of the 2006 wines from Philippe Pacalet (our interviewee this month) tasted recently and showing nice precision and purity of aromatics. I therefore thought I would speak to this man who told us about his traditional winemaking and his “gastronomic” wines...

And precision is not the case of fine red or fine white wines only as our "Rosé Wines - Part 2" article reveals with recommended wine estates in Italy.

But to start off, we thought we would tell you about our team of sommeliers as they provide a very important service at our events.

Have a very good month!

Olivier Bourseau, MD

Part 1 - About Our Sommeliers - Did You Know...?

Service is paramount in our business. This is why we work with the best only. Our sommeliers are for instance selected from Michelin Starred and established restaurants.

But is this sufficient? No it isn’t. Because you are expert in your field doesn’t mean you have the right approach in communicating your knowledge to others.

At Crimson Aroma, we are committed to making the fine wines we provide approachable to you no matter which kind of wine knowledge you have, if any at all. This is why we hire our sommeliers depending on their ability to communicate with facts and an open mind to you what sits in your glass.

This way you can really discover and learn about these wines without fear, and engage with our staff.

For your information, please find below a non exhaustive list of restaurants where our sommeliers come from:
Claridge’s, Club Gascon, Maze, Gordon Ramsay’s Royal Hospital Road, 1 Lombard Street, Artisan at the Westbury Hotel, Theo Randall at the InterContinental...

Request a quotation here.

Part 2 - Interview - Philippe Pacalet - Winemaker in Burgundy

At a recent tasting in London, I had the opportunity to sample some of Philippe Pacalet’s 2006 including Gevrey Chambertin village and 1er Cru Bel-Air, Nuits St Georges and Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru.

Even though his Burgundies were all different from each other bearing the specificities each different site was providing, they were also showing similarities: precise, pure and intense fruit, great balance with good tannins showing good potential to age, and long length. What struck me the most was the purity and great precision of their aromatics.

I needed to meet and speak to this man who, apart from having fantastic winemaking pedigree, has been successfully true to a traditional and very precise approach of winemaking.

Read the intervew here.

Part 3 - Recommended Wine Estates - Rosé Wines - Part 2

Further to our "Rosé Wines - Part 1" article detailing some of the best wine estates in the South of France last month, we present a list of recommended wine estates in Italy.

Even though Italy is probably the richest wine country in the world in terms of the different styles of wines it produces thanks to about one thousand different local grapes varities used, we thought we would focus on 3 major areas which produce serious rosés:

Alto Adige in the Northeast (Grape variety: Lagrein). The combination of Altitude and sometimes steep soils provide great ripening for the Lagrein varietal which makes fragrant rosés. The rosé Kretzer made in the area comes from the word "Kretze", a woven basket formerly used to seperate the recently pressed juice from the solid parts.
Recommended Wine Estates: Hofstätter; Muri Gries; Cantina Terlano; Alois Lageder.

Campania in the South (Grape varieties: Aglianico). The secret to great rosé is probably to use great grape variety. Aglianico is a grape making complex and structured red wines with good potential to age. In the case of rosés, Aglianico also provides good aromatics and good structure and the resulting wines also have a good mineral character. Classy wines.
Recommended Wine Estates: Mastroberardino; Feudi di San Gregorio; Cantina del Taburno.

Abruzzo in the South (Grape varieties: Montepulciano). Montepulciano is less strucured than Aglianico cultivated in Abruzzo. That said the resulting wines are fruity and also very elegant.
Recommended Wine Estates: Torre dei Beati; Bruno Nicodemi; Valle Reale.

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