In an ode to the great grape explorers, Lisse Garnett unearths the Indiana Joneses of wine, who have created the ultimate Bordeaux blend. Welcome to Pangaea, the wine with a PDO of planet earth…
Bordeaux is the ancestral home of a blend of grapes so revered, its likeness has travelled the globe. Winemakers as far away as America, Chile and Australia have paid homage to the famed Bordeaux chateaux with their blends.
Bordeaux’s marginal climate requires a palate of varieties to fight the perils of nature; powdery mildew and underripe grapes can segue blends in all manner of directions. Inky Malbec and crimson Carménère are hardly found in Bordeaux today for this very reason. Yet their ungrafted brethren thrive in Chile and Argentina where they find full expression without the perils of that temperamental climate.
Each of the six Bordeaux varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Carménère, offer individual attributes that becomes more than the sum of their parts when blended, characteristics that ebb and flow according to vintage. Highly skilled blending will allow for the fluctuations of vintage but also evolution in bottle.
Grape explorers and master blenders all over the world have continuously sought perfection by exploring the hallowed ground of the Bordeaux blend. Penfolds intended ‘to transcend boundaries’ with Penfolds II, a wine that combined the best grapes of Australia with those born of Bordeaux. Pangaea has taken this concept to its apogee.
Pangaea is the optimum expression of the finest grapes on the best micro-terroir the world has to offer; Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, Merlot from the Right Bank of Bordeaux, Malbec from Argentina’s Uco Valley, Cabernet Franc from Helderberg in Stellenbosch and Petit Verdot from Castilla La Mancha in Spain.
The blend is named Pangaea after the supercontinent that existed before the world’s land masses drifted apart 200 million years ago. It is the ultimate Grand Tour of infinite flavours that morph and flow with each day’s consumption. It’s a fantasy wine of mythically dense and long proportions, and it brings maximum pleasure.
A paean to France’s most affable son, Michel Rolland, it was conceived by a Saffer named Travis Braithwaite, a businessman who had the idea and the crucial accompanying sense to yield to Rolland to master it. It’s the ultimate collector’s dream, and easy to ridicule on paper. But the market has spoken, and so have the critics; Pangaea is magnificent.
Pangaea is not at all what long standing Rolland critics would have you expect, it has freshness and intensity and is judiciously oaked. Braithwaite labelled their first 2015 vintage ‘scary’. Each and every variety was shouting to be heard and it took a long time for them to mellow. Therein lies Rolland’s great skill, he is able to perceive the future potential of each variety in bottle and blend accordingly.
This is the wine no one dared assemble, only a blender as accomplished and fearless as Rolland could do it. And it took Travis Braithwaite, a businessman, with a touch of the impresario, to inject life. He cut to the quick and came up with a bottle that sated the deepest desires of the market. At £500 a pop it’s hardly going to change the habits of UK drinkers and with only a couple of thousand bottles available, few will be fortunate enough to taste the notional PDO of Planet Earth.
In many ways, Pangaea is the ultimate f*ck you to wine conspiracy theorists. A fantasy conjured from the very best micro-terroir chosen with a sensual human lens prodigious enough to encompass the world. Rolland is one of only a handful, he may in fact be the only individual, who will ever be equipped with the mental Rolodex required to judiciously select the perfect components of a Bordeaux blend with a notional PDO of THE WORLD.
Wine has always been susceptible to fashion and trends, to marketing campaigns that have changed the path of vinous history. Champagne is a prime example of this, for who does not associate the concupiscent froth and pop of the Champagne cork with sexual pleasure, success and excess? Frivolity in times of trouble should be questioned but I see Pangaea not as superfluous but logical. And there is so little of it, every bottle is made with genuine care and attention to detail. Buying a wine as fine as Pangaea is a costly undertaking. The label alone is a stunning piece of engraved art. Every bottle is numbered, the wax lovingly hand-embossed.
There is an element of mysticism, of the divine, still present in wine that touches a nerve in each of us. Early civilisations sought enlightenment through wine, they believed drinking it facilitated communication with the Gods. In the Christian faith, the manifestation of the divine is literal; holy wine is considered to actually be the blood of Christ. Man has walked with wine throughout history, so it’s no wonder we get a little touchy about its origins.
Wine is a broad church with room for all, and though few have the talent of Monsieur Rolland nor the drive of Mr Brathwaite, many are guilty of taking themselves just a little bit too seriously. I do find it entertaining when the troupe turn on true talent like Rolland, who is anything but formulaic. He has opened a hidden door to an enclosed and enchanted garden for countless enthusiasts – and his difference should be celebrated.
Pangaea 2016: Tasting Notes
Alcohol 14.7%. Harvest began in February end ended in November thanks to a smorgasbord of complexity created by numerous climates. Each variety is vinified in its own country thus ensuring individual terroir expression. Subtle tweaks are made by Michel. This blend of Pangaea is Merlot dominated and instantly attractive. After decanting the wine became smoother, rounder and even more elegant. I drank this over three pleasurable days.
This wine is a Grand Tour of infinite flavours that morph and flow with each day’s consumption. I love the velvety textural elegance, the baseline of dark plum, liquorice, dark chocolate, anise, golden tobacco, molasses, coco nibs and perfectly ripened supple tannins. Cool and fresh as weighty silk, sapid with savour; there is umami, there is hoisin, peppery saline, sour plum and bitter endive. Pure elegance, quenching acidity, worlds within worlds of salty savoury ripe fruit and gorgeously chewy, endlessly stimulating, ever evolving texture. It is, simply, timeless.
Pangaea is available through selected stockists. For more information, including details of the vineyards which contributed, please visit www.pangaeaestates.com.
