Young Wine Writer Award 2011 winner Barley Blyton

The Circle of Wine Writers is proud to announce the Young Wine Writer of the Year 2011 Award winner as Barley Blyton of Bristol. Ms Blyton won the award with her entry ‘A Journeying Introduction to South America and Her Wines’ (read Barley’s entry below), winning over more than 25 other entrants.

Our Young Wine Writer Barley Blyton (left) is all smiles at the award ceremony. Photo: Jim Budd

The Award, now in its 11th year, is sponsored by Pavilion Books (publishers of Oz Clarke and Michael Broadbent MW) and the Circle of Wine Writers, together with Wine Australia. After much deliberation the judges short-listed (in alphabetical order): Barley Blyton, Matthew Brass, Nik Byrne, Tom Constable, Barbara Drew, Nicholas Jackson, Hugh Jones and Sean Tennyson.

This year the judges decided to announce four runners-up as there were so many high quality entries: Matthew Brass, Tom Constable, Nicholas Jackson and Hugh Jones who each received wine presented by Yvonne May, of Wine Australia.

Fiona Holman, Editorial Director of Pavilion Books, said: “This award aims to encourage new writing talent within the world of wine and to provide a real opportunity for some inspiring travel to the vineyards and wineries of Australia. We are looking for wine writing potential rather than extensive knowledge or experience. We had a record number of quality entries this year which was most encouraging and I am sorry we could not give out more awards. I urge all this year’s entrants still eligible to enter again next year.”

Yvonne May, Director Wine Australia UK-Ireland-Europe, said: “I believe it’s important to support up and coming writers in the wine industry. With the rise in of amateur enthusiasts in the evolving online space we know that to stand out you have to be exceptional, and these writers certainly deliver. Our congratulations to Barley; we can’t wait to read her thoughts on Australia’s winemakers, wine regions and wine. Right now Australian wines are more diverse and exciting than ever, and we know that she will be absolutely buzzing from the trip.”

This year’s winner, Barley Blyton, pictured above, works for Davis Bell McCraith Wines, a wine merchant based in Bristol. Barley has an irrepressible passion for Italian wines. She entered the wine trade after finishing her degree in English and Italian literature where she spent most of her time in northern Italy cultivating her enthusiasm for food and wine. As well as a passion for the classic regions of the world, she has a penchant for Sherry and is now a trained official Sherry Educator. Barley was a shortlisted finalist for The Young Wine Writers Award in 2010.

The prizes for the 2011 winner include a £1000 cheque presented by Pavilion Books, a two-week trip of a lifetime to the wine regions of Australia, courtesy of Wine Australia and a year’s subscription to the Circle of Wine Writers.

About the Young Wine Writer of the Year Awards
The Awards are aimed at encouraging and supporting new talent in the world of wine writing. While there are many well-established wine writers in the industry today, the Awards provide an opportunity for younger, less established writers to get a firm start in the world of wine. The announcement was celebrated last night at a reception at Australia House.

For further information on the award contact:
Pavilion Wine:
Fiona Holman Editorial Director, Pavilion Books, fholman@anovabooks.com
Kom Patel Senior Publicity and Marketing Manager, kpatel@anovabooks.com

Wine Australia UK:
Camilla Coste camilla.coste@wineaustralia.com
For more information on Wine Australia visit www.apluswines or www.wineaustralia.com

BARLEY BLYTON WINNER
barley.blyton@gmail.com

The first in a series of articles –
A Journeying Introduction to South America and Her Wines

January 4th
20 minutes down. Tick tock taps your finger, taps his foot, rocks her body, drum rolls his invisible drumstick. Waiting takes longer the more people leave…
We’re sitting on the floor in Buenos Aires bus station watching people. With an unplanned four-hour wait, supper is meagre: sweet Malbec from the bottle and cold, flaccid empanadas. I tip, slurp, gurgle, swallow.
The UK Me has been collecting wine glasses since 18. The dreaded saucepan incident of 2008 is an action-film-trailer of dread as in a single, back hand action I take out 6 Riedel glasses in slow motion they fall and smash in curves and splinters, their thin rims never to be enjoyed again….
How easily, however, I wriggled out of my UK self as soon as I left. My apartment in Buenos Aires came fully equipped with solid, blue-glass mugs but no wine glasses. It’s hot everywhere in the city in January, all of the time. Wines sold in wine shops are hot, wine left on the table is hot and drinking outside is the British equivalent to leaving your glass on the AGA. With decanters and glassware back in the UK our improvisation came in the form of a five-litre water bottle in which we ferry our wine in small servings between fridge and table.
We conducted our initial research into the Argentine selection through Andrea an extremely enthusiastic wine shop owner, updating our expectations and encountering a range definitely broader than expected. What had I really known about Argentina and its wines before I got here?
Malbec and Torrontes

January 19th
Ali, an Argentine cross English gentleman hands me a hip flask. We’re at our next stop, a Giant’s stride from the Capital in a crystalised image of summer: brass coloured light like oil lamps in wooden rooms and comfortable t-shirt cool. In low-slung saddles we ride through the pampas under big skies and hunting birds. I sip at the flask – cool pear-tailed Torrontes, not pure but mixed with the musky horse and metal of the flask giving an uncharacteristic savoury twang to the finish. Torrontes + Gaucho flavour a first but lasting flavour.
We haven’t planned our journey around Argentina; it is a jerky, reactive progression led by a wine or an instinct. I read about a party – 2000 kilometres from Ali’s farm. One week later we were there…

January 25th
I knew exactly how big Argentina was but I didn’t know how big it would feel. In a car. Driving every day. Fruit-picking-picketers elongated our journey, we played follow my leader for a whole day through Patagonian pear orchards, vineyards and waterways, all as lost as each other we tracked brake lights through the dust and dusk until one day we arrived. I had Ernesto Catena’s sparkling Chardonnay in my rucksack Tom had Bodega del Fin del Mundo’s Pinot in his. Still suffering from the previous day’s food poisoning we set off. We walked for seven hours through bright white perished trees, through bamboo and boulders, through bogs and stunted vines over hand-made bridges and up the cliff face – the river always on our right. The river turned into a waterfall. Passing us were guys with barrels of beer and wine on their backs and at one point a man with a double base strapped to his spine. I was absolutely knackered, too tired to feel embarrassed at being overtaken by barrel-bearing-beings.
It was dark by the time we reached the top. We sat on the edge of the cliff, drumming to our backs and wedged our wines into winter ice pockets that had yet to melt with summer. Natural ice buckets – amazing! I can’t be sure this is an objective memory: the pizza I had that night was the best pizza I have ever tasted. The pop, the splurge, the rush of invigorating bubbles, the rush of being over the waterfall and looking down on the moon. The Chardonnay bubbles were sweet wintered apples, the inside of the bottle tasting like the outside, of the slatey water, the dry rocks and the headiness of so much sky.
The pinot was funky, complex yet fresh and lifted. I felt giddy that there was no more uphill, just the rest of the wine and the whole night before we had to walk down!

January 26th
Patagonia makes a lot of sense as a wine-growing region. After hours of driving on a straight flat road the road begins to curl around mountains. Bariloche feels like a twee Austrian ski town, it’s midsummer and I need a coat (that I don’t have). We eat trout and drink big chardonnay and Torrontes. They are obviously hot climate wines but they match our barbequed fish, strong and simple flavours.

January 28th
I am in awe of Argentine winemakers. I was surprised when I arrived in the vineyards surrounding Mendoza. My terroir driven mentality took in the flat, flat, flat and the day drenched heat. I curled up in the shade and waited for my evening energy to emerge but watching my solar panelled boyfriend Tom bouncing around thriving on the sun it was clear that the heat and the light fills him up with energy. Malbec seems to be the same and like him sulks under our Northern Hemisphere rain. Whereas European winemakers have to search for favourable microclimates and a metre up or down the slope can make so much difference here the challenges are different. Argentine wines, to a certain extent have to be a product of their climate otherwise where is the authenticity of origin? These rich fruit exploding flavours do provide a brilliant match to the simple, bold parilla culture of barbequed meat…but how do winemakers get around the ever-penetrating sun to get more from their wines?
Underground with the Pulenta brothers we whirl our Cabernet Franc in big crystal bowls and breathe in such refined fruit and characteristic frills of pencil shavings, fluted wood edged with lead. How did they retain these flavours under this soil-slapping sun? I’m slowly having to let go of my European opinions that flat plains and irrigation lead to only acceptable quality wines. This is clearly not the case but despite everybody’s explanations of night picking, early picking, melt water and canopy management I am still stunned that they can escape the pervasive sun and find these complex, nuanced flavours underneath. Although I had associated Argentine wines with vibrancy I don’t think I had a clue of the elegance they are capable of.

February 8th
A bridge broke between La Rioja and Salta. 29 hours on a bus. We’ve brought a bottle of wine with us, meant for our arrival. We sit with crowds around our traffic jam, looking at our bus for several hours drinking Syrah from water bottles cut in half. The Syrah is unctuous and mature. Viña El Cerno is a small family owned winery experimenting with ageing their wines before release to encourage people to drink more mature wines. At the moment there is very little tradition of consumers laying down wine themselves. The oldest from the later 90s struggle from having been kept in too high temperatures but they are getting the hang of it and around them they are beginning to develop a market, a taste, and understanding for wines of greater age. This Syrah is seven years old. The fruit is still rich and balanced; a leathery, gamey flavour is coming through. Our view doesn’t do it justice. This generation of Argentine wines is hugely different from the last Eduardo tells me but the winemaking tradition is not new. This means that they have the fantastic advantage of old vines and experience of trial and error already behind them. As the world has opened up it has pushed up standards and although the flying wine makers have, at times, been criticised for spreading homogeneity of style it has also encouraged winemakers to compare their wines with other great regions and generally improve their own – on Eduardo’s desk are samples of Crozes-Hermitage and Barossa Shiraz. Aging wines before release seems to be something emerging only in the last ten years but if Viña El Cerno is anything to go by this could help broaden the perception of the Argentine style.

February 9th
We arrive in Salta. It feels lusher here, wetter, more like Jungle. It’s like all the stuffing has been pulled out of a duvet and bits of fluff are still drifting in the air. Among the sky of floating feathers mountains stand still in tropical humidity. On the other side of the mountain is a desert. San Pedro de Yacochuya’s Malbec for me has been the pinnacle of expression, exceeding my imagination. Power underneath lifts into roses, coal and violets, the length is long and smoky but the core is minerals and damsons and a hearty richness.
We’ve finally conceded and bought ourselves a wine glass, as we’re on a budget it’s one between two! Wrapped in newspaper it is our prized possession and so far is faring well as we drive, bus, hitchhike and sail our way around South America. Let’s hope we can get it home with us and add to it my collection.