Confessions of a Wino

I have given mixed reviews of Virgin Wines in the past.  In truth, the quality has varied from the sublime to the downright ugly, but you can’t argue with the prices.  That means value has to be taken into account.  For example, if you sign up for their Wine Bank promotion you merely need to commit a credit crunch dodging £20 per month to your wine account and every three months, Virgin adds another £20 implying a 25% discount on the prices on the site.

So, having tried some bottles at the cheapest end of the spectrum, I thought I would order a few at about a tenner.  But I forgot that this Miudiño Albariño advertised at £9.49 only cost me £7.12 because of Wine Bank.

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So, Naked Wines has launched and as the website quips “Rules:  Nudity Optional” but this looks like a serious undertaking to me.

You may recall that Rowan Gormley described it as the LastFM of wine shopping, but there has been some controversy over the half launch of Naked Wines, the latest project from the former founder and MD of Virgin Wines.  Its aim is to match wine makers to buyers directly (well via Naked Wines to be precise).  True to his irreverent style, Mr Gormley claims that winemakers “would rather be with their vines than in a Travelodge waiting for an appointment with Tesco”.  This is what the internet was invented for.  Look at the effect it has had on auctions, travel agents, banks, electrical stores, estate agents, bookstores.  The internet is the world’s cyber-wholesale Exchange & Mart.

On the other hand, orders still need to be processed, the wine still needs to be shipped, local duty accounted for, customer service delivered, refunds processed.  In this sense, is Naked Wines really so different from other online wine retailers?

I was invited to join the “tasting panel” and three bottles arrived in the post a few days later.  I was expecting some yawningly predictable staples:  a Petit Chablis, an Aussie Shiraz and a NZ Sauvignon for example.  In fact I got a South African Chenin, a Chilean Cabernet/Carmenère and a Spanish erm….thing.  My interest is aroused but I can assure you I was fully clothed as I tasted the first two – both reds.

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US Election night and I am backing Barack.  But not with enough conviction to stay up all night and watch the results.  In fact, not even enough conviction to watch the preamble, since I have just returned from Opera North’s somewhat strange production of Puccini’s Tosca at the Lowry Theatre in Manchester, famed for having the most uncomfortable seats of any modern (or ancient) theatre I know.

I am not much of an opera buff but I do generally love Opera North and I am a sucker for anything live performance – music, theatre, busking, comedy, ballet.  Well maybe ballet is beyond me, in the same way that algebra is beyond a two year old, or an ASBO.

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I hardly dare review a Spanish wine after my admonishment at the hands of Lorenza, but I had already purchased this on my way home from Spain in July.  There is not much to do at Malaga airport other than mooch around the “duty free” shop, and €16.30 doesn’t sound like a lot for a Gran Reserva.

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The European Wine Bloggers’ Conference 2008 was a massive hit, it has to be said, much to the surprise of the organisers.

So much happened in one weekend of my life, I can barely pick out my favourite bits.  Let’s start with the lowlights – landed in Bilbao, bag (including wine samples) landed in Palermo.  Arrived back in UK, bag arrived one hour later, one bottle of wine smashed, clothes ruined and bag stunk of wine, had to drive home overnight with a blood stained handkerchief wrapped around my finger, nearly sliced off from glass shards.

OK, that’s only one lowlight really.  The rest of the weekend was awesome – here are my top 11 highlights:

11.  Teaching Ryan Opaz (US citizen and all round good guy) to say “arsehole” instead of “asshole” – what is the matter with Americans? I suppose we could agree to use “George W Bush” for the same meaning.

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One weekend in La Rioja is not anywhere near long enough to enjoy the fruits (and tannins) offered up by this part of northern Spain.  I was, therefore, extremely pleased to see a visit to Marqués de Riscal winery, one of my favourites, on the itinerary of the European Wine Bloggers’ Conference.

Riscal is a traditional old winery yet some experimentation is being dared, such as the inclusion of increasing quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon in this Tempranillo dominated region, and talking of innovation (a noun to which Riscal aspires) it is hard to ignore the stunning architecture of the Frank Gehry building.  Although supposedly representative of the wines of Riscal, I suspect Gehry may have been influenced by something more hallucinatory than wine when he sat at his drawing board at the turn of the millennium.  Very impressive though it is, I spat rather than swallowed, the argument that it “blends in” with the surrounding landscape.  I think its very beauty is that it blends in like a spaceship placed next to the Houses of Parliament.  Come to think of it, when is the London Eye scheduled for take off?

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A mate, and former business client, used to take me to Rafa’s El Rincon in Manchester (I always paid).

When it came to whistle wetting tapas oil, Marqués de Riscal was our weapon of choice, partly because it was bloody good, partly because it was bloody and good, mostly because the bill payer knew it was bloody good value.

Taking good note of my cyber-mate, Rob‘s evaluation of the 2003 Rioja vintage, I popped into Sainsbury’s in Manchester and after a bit of mooching, selected a 2003 Marqués de Riscal Reserva at only £9.99, apparently £3 off (but I remember Rafa selling this stuff for less than 20 quid – not much of a mark-up!)

I wonder if the reduction is because most of Sainsbury’s customers had read Rob’s comments about 2003 and have already moved on to looking for the reputationally better 2004 and 2005 vintages.

I was not put off.  The wine, to me was top notch, tasting mostly of blackberry and apple crumble with cream and vanilla pods.  I always look out for Riscal in Spanish restaurants in Manchester, Spain and other places.

What’s in a name?  Or the way it is pronounced?  Or the way it is presented?  Hyacinth Bucket was famous for re-packaging her married name as “Bouquet”.  Snob residents of Burnage in Manchester (pronounced burnidge since 1478) are heard to mutter that they come from Burnaaaarj (as the French would pronounce it).

Long ago, the Cockburn family must have realised that their own name needed a bit of thought.  Who is going to buy a bottle of port from a company that sounds like a naked barbecue incident?  And so they became Coeburn by pronunciation.

193 years later, and change is on the agenda again, as Cockburn’s have decided to repackage port to make it more trendy, more appealing to the contemporary drinker, more relevant to the modern dinner table, and perhaps more attractive to the Buckets of the world.

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Every now and again, someone leaves a comment on this blog that makes me laugh.  Recently, I nearly wet myself when this comment appeared on my post about the Costa del Crime:

Hola, por si entiendes español, te mando esto, deberias elegir otros vinos en España, los que eliges ( valga la rebundancia ),aquí se utilizan para desatascar el inodoro y el cava freixenet para lavar al perro. Saludos

As it happens, Spanish is a language that avoided me at school, so it is not technically true that I wet myself when Lorenza left the comment.  Fortunately, my mate Paul, who learnt Spanish on a beach near Barcelona whilst variously selling deckchairs, running a water skiing school and generally bumming around for several years, was able to assist.  Here is his translation:

Hello, in the case of you being able to understand Spanish, I am sending you this. You should choose other wines in Spain, the ones you choose, here we use them to get rid of smells and Cava Freixenet is for washing the dog.

Thoughts of massaging Cava into Bonzo’s furry skin got me to wondering whether Spanish dogs are exported to Korea as a canine take on wagyu beef?

On the way home from Banús, and on Sundays many restos are shut.  Our contorted journey this time, for some reason, comprised a bus to Marbella, a taxi to Fuengirola and a train to Malaga airport.  Planes trains and automobiles!  Good job we had the best part of a day to waste.

Apart from the travelling, our first waste of time was stopping at La Tasca de los Niños.  The only excitement drawn from that place resulted from a couple of Spanish piss-heads already warming up for the European Cup Final (Spain were to deservedly beat Germany 1-0).

Fortunately tapas are served on small plates, so after the first two disappointments, we decamped to Cervecería Gambrinus right next door to the rail station.

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