This label will lead you to some of the very best Champagnes
As well as a Blanc de Blancs, some Champagne houses produce a Blanc de Noirs, a white wine made from red grapes. This is made by quickly crushing the grapes and separating juice from skins. The permitted red grapes in Champagne include pinot noir and pinot meunier.
Typically, a larger Champagne producer will offer a range of wines including a Brut Non-Vintage, made from a blend of red and white grapes from several vintages and several sub-regions. There will also be a vintage, made from grapes produced in one year, a rosé, a demi-sec (medium dry), and a luxury cuvée, the very best wine they produce. Some will also produce a Blanc de Blanc (or Blancs) or a Blanc de Noirs, or both.
You may also come across the term Côte des Blancs on the label of some Champagne bottles. This translates as 'hillside of the whites' and refers to a specific area rich in chalk and limestone soils that produce very crisp mineral wines made from the Chardonnay grape. So it is a Blanc de Blancs from the Côte des Blancs.
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Blanc de Blanc Champagne tends to have a lively acidity, fresh floral notes, with plenty of lemon and peach fruits. It is usually finer and less fruity than a blended wine. With age it takes on notes of brioche, toasted hazelnuts and freshly baked bread. These are among the best Champagnes so don't ignore them.
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Irish Times
29-07-2025
- Irish Times
Sydney got the Opera House and we had Ardnacrusha. It's time for that kind of ambition again
The imposing cathedral of St Cecilia of Albi sits in the middle of a modest French town in the Languedoc region, towering over everything around it. Built as a fortress against heresy and rebelliousness and as a symbol of episcopal power, it is the largest brick cathedral in the world, with an estimated 25 million bricks used to build it. Constructing such a monumental symbol of authority takes time and immense resources. Albi Cathedral took 200 years to build. It is estimated that the cost of building it would have run to hundreds of millions if not billions of euro in today's money. READ MORE One study suggests that between 1100 and 1250 the building of Gothic churches in the Paris Basin alone consumed on average 21.5 per cent of the regional economy. Luckily Bishop Bernard de Castanet of Albi was able to sell spiritual indulgences to his parishioners which helped to pay for its construction. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were built at a time when the Catholic church was the dominant source of power in Europe and long before the nation state had emerged to shape and direct the aspirations of the masses. Many, if not most, of these remarkable buildings have also become cultural icons and house artistic and architectural treasures intended to inspire – and terrify – the parishioners into religious obedience. Nowadays it is impossible to imagine such a project. I'm guessing that present generations lack the patience or naivety to bet their faith and taxes on a project that would take generations to complete, and religious threats are unlikely to have much sway these days. Yet the 20th century saw the completion of magnificent megaprojects, the construction of which was often controversial at the time. One example is the Sydney Opera House. Originally commissioned in 1959, it took 10 years longer to build than originally envisaged and it went over budget by 1,360 per cent. The project was plagued by political interference, changes in government and constant budget scrutiny that ultimately led to lead architect Jørn Utzon's resignation in 1966. He left Australia and never came back to see the project completed. Yet within two years after opening, the Opera House had been paid for, thanks to a lottery that had been set up to fund it. The Sydney Opera House is now a Unesco world heritage site. In comparison to other European countries, Ireland has few modern standout buildings. Our national contribution to world architecture and engineering is modest and associated with colonial grandeur rather than public buildings or large infrastructural projects. There are compelling historical reasons for the impoverished state of Ireland's public infrastructure until independence in 1922, though perhaps the nation's railway network is an exception. One of the first initiatives of the Irish Free State was the construction of the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme in Co Clare, which was completed in 1929. At a projected cost of £5 million (which was about 20 per cent of the national budget in 1925), it was an enormous sum for a post-Civil War state. Critics argued for smaller, less ambitious projects or said the money would be better spent directly on agriculture. Today's megaprojects are more likely to serve functional rather than cultural needs, such as the national children's hospital or MetroLink , a tunnelled metro system that will connect the city centre with the airport and towns of Fingal. (I am a member of the board of Transport Infrastructure Ireland , which is the sponsoring agency for MetroLink.) Many large-scale infrastructure projects have been hugely damaging to the environment, for example the Three Gorges Dam in China. But large-scale projects do not necessarily need to be environmentally destructive. We need to think of supergrids, forests, bog restoration, metro and light railway schemes as megaprojects that are consistent with our climate goals. Nature restoration and climate adaptation, too, are a long-term, expensive endeavours that require government leadership and multigenerational financial commitments. Such megaprojects benefit the public good and the environment, and their economic benefits are spread widely. For this reason, committing to nature restoration, public transport and a renewable energy system is ultimately the hallmark of a mature democracy in the 21st century. The State (or its proxies) will have to plan for the future, acquire land portfolios and shoulder long-term investments that inevitably carry risk. Long-term, large-scale projects require a political vision combined with a strong administrative state to secure the funding to see them through to completion. Megaprojects are complex, expensive, high-risk but ultimately transformational. When MetroLink is ready to take passengers from the early 2030s, there will be no doubt it was worth the long wait. Sadhbh O'Neill is an environmental and climate researcher. She is writing in a personal capacity
Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Irish Times
This label will lead you to some of the very best Champagnes
Blanc de Blancs is a French term that literally translates as 'white from whites'. It is used to denote a wine that has been made solely from white grapes. In the vast majority of cases, the wine will be sparkling and usually from the Champagne region. Around the world, most white wines are made exclusively from white grapes but in Champagne producers frequently blend wines from both red and white grapes, hence the need for the term. Almost all white grapes grown in Champagne are chardonnay although this won't appear on the label. As well as a Blanc de Blancs, some Champagne houses produce a Blanc de Noirs, a white wine made from red grapes. This is made by quickly crushing the grapes and separating juice from skins. The permitted red grapes in Champagne include pinot noir and pinot meunier. Typically, a larger Champagne producer will offer a range of wines including a Brut Non-Vintage, made from a blend of red and white grapes from several vintages and several sub-regions. There will also be a vintage, made from grapes produced in one year, a rosé, a demi-sec (medium dry), and a luxury cuvée, the very best wine they produce. Some will also produce a Blanc de Blanc (or Blancs) or a Blanc de Noirs, or both. You may also come across the term Côte des Blancs on the label of some Champagne bottles. This translates as 'hillside of the whites' and refers to a specific area rich in chalk and limestone soils that produce very crisp mineral wines made from the Chardonnay grape. So it is a Blanc de Blancs from the Côte des Blancs. READ MORE Blanc de Blanc Champagne tends to have a lively acidity, fresh floral notes, with plenty of lemon and peach fruits. It is usually finer and less fruity than a blended wine. With age it takes on notes of brioche, toasted hazelnuts and freshly baked bread. These are among the best Champagnes so don't ignore them.
Irish Times
29-06-2025
- Irish Times
Why does it seem that wines are getting stronger?
You are not mistaken ; the level of alcohol in wines has been steadily increasing for the last decade or more. The reason for this is quite simple, at least in part; climate change . As grapes ripen, their sugar levels increase. When the grapes are picked, crushed and fermented, those sugars turn into alcohol. So, the more sugar in the grapes, the more alcohol in the finished wine. As many wine regions have become warmer, so the alcohol levels of the wines have increased. Bordeaux is a perfect example. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, most Bordeaux was between 12 per cent and 13 per cent abv. Nowadays, it is not unusual to find wines with 14 per cent or more, with many hitting a heart-warming 15 per cent. This is partly down to climate change. An increase of one degree centigrade can make a huge difference to ripening grapes. In addition, during the same period, growers learned to farm better, reducing yields and harvesting at optimal periods. All of this meant riper grapes with more sugar. Wine can vary in alcohol from as little as 5 per cent to 25 per cent abv. Lower alcohol wines can be made in three ways. The grower can pick their grapes early, before the sugars have had a chance to increase. This will make for a lighter but probably quite acidic wine. Alternatively, a producer can stop the wine from fermenting halfway through. This will leave the wine tasting a little or very sweet. German wines such as Mosel Riesling and Italian sparkling wines such as Moscato d'Asti are made this way. It is also possible to reduce wine after fermentation by vacuum distillation, reverse osmosis, or spinning cone. All three of these will lower alcohol levels but may also affect the taste of the wine. READ MORE Any wine with more than 15 per cent abv will usually have been fortified, or had brandy added. This is the way sherry, port, marsala and madeira are made. Wines with high alcohol are not necessarily a bad thing, although it does mean you should drink them in smaller quantities. But wine is about balance and both a good Mosel riesling, with an abv of around 8 per cent, and a fine old oloroso sherry at 20 per cent are among the greatest wines of all. In the European Union, all labels must state the alcohol content of the wine. Producers are allowed a 0.5 per cent tolerance one way or the other (0.8 per cent with older wines), so your 13.5 per cent wine may actually be 14% or 13%.
