Confessions of a Wino

Beaujolais 2009 is reputed by Wine Society marketing materials as even better than 2003 and 2005.  Since I really enjoyed wines from both those vintages, I was prepared to fork out £150 for a case of some of the finer ones, like this Fleurie.  Normally tasting of Bazooka Joe and about as serious as a school playground, wines from this most charming of villages are great summer barbecue and salad wines.

But this year, there is more headmaster than pupil in the wines.  No hint of bubblegum in Trenel, but a lovely zingy tartness tasting of ever so slightly unripe strawberries and tinned pineapple.  My other selections were from Moulin à Vent and Morgon.  I expect them to be even more serious and maybe long lasting, not least based on their more expensive price tag.

From the Wine Society at £9.95

I’ve just placed my first order with Naked Wines.  Is this news?  Not really, I suppose, but the strange thing is the reason why.  Naked has persistently pestered me, offered free samples, discounts and special offers and I have resisted for over a year.

I attended EWBC 2010 and witnessed something very interesting.  Naked founder, Rowan Gormley,  (fortunately wearing clothes in front of several hundred people) standing side by side with Willi Klinger of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, a top guy by any standard, running a mass taste-off between 11 Austrian Wines.

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If there is a wine region in the world right now that is in the ascendance, it surely is the South of France and, specifically, the Languedoc.  Partly driven by credit crunch belt tightening, and partly by improved quality, and wider availability (in the UK, at any rate).

This stonker came via the Wine Society from Cévennes at a mere £5.75.  At this price it is hard to fault.

Rich, earthy, root vegetables and plums, well worthy of your attention.  Follow WART advice and stick it in the fridge for half an hour before opening.

In February I sampled the 2006 Pinot Noir from this brand and gave it a good account.  A 2008 appeared recently, I figured it was worth another go.  But Pinot Noir is notoriously fickle and as a result is often expensive.  Is it possible to make a decent one and then ship it half way across the world and then sell it for a pittance?

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I have pondered, on increasingly rare occasions in my curmudgeonly middle age, whether to write about poor wines.  It is hardly constructive.  There is at least one theory that says make positive comments public and keep negative ones private.

But this website is my own personal record that I rely on for my own future advice.  So I reckon it is OK to report wines that I really don’t get on with.  Otherwise I might buy them again in the future, at my own cost.

Malumbres 2009 came to me as part of an end of season mixed rosé case from my most dependable supplier, The Wine Society.  Here, in England, we have experienced an Indian summer, at least in terms of temperature.  I was in London today – early November and 16° C!  That would have charmed June in the 1970′s (OK, 1976 excepted).

But this Spanish wine, that should boast of bull fighting and castanets and taste of sunshine actually couldn’t even outshine a (burnt) microwave massacre# pizza from Sainsbury.  Lacking in acidity and fruit, it reminded me of the place I once worked: The 3 B’s:  Bitter, bland and burnt.

Note to self:  When you look back at this post-senility, BBBs stood for Bradford & Bingley Building Society.  Like Accrington Stanley, who are they?  Precisely…

# Following on from the Sainsbury Basics and, Taste the Difference ranges, Microwave Massacre is the latest Sainsbury lifestyle brand.  Or at least that is my prediction for 2011.

I was mooching through Sainsbury’s wine section looking for something interesting to go with a pork chop dish I have been working on.  I have to say it was a pretty depressing mooch, with very little to trouble the adrenalinometer.  Rescue came in a bottle of Casillero del Diablo Carménère, a wine I have tried before and enjoyed.  It is from Chilean giant, Concha y Toro, the one brand that seems truly capable of producing wines that rise above the lowest common denominator of the North American and Australian market leaders.

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So the World Cup is under way and the Spanish are hardly justifying their place at the top of the bookmakers’ lists, with the defence doing a passable impression of a kilo of Emmental.  Probably not much of that being sold in Spain tonight.

Meanwhile, new world wine nation, Uruguay, macerated mid-world South Africa 3-0.  And France will have to cheat considerably more than they have so far to win the special FIFA Bloody Sunday Award for fair play.

I guess it’s a good job they can still make great grape juice.

This is a rough country wine from Côtes de Blaye.  Earthy, plummy, dark and fruity.  Like Thierry Henry but more even handed.

Perfect with peasant food – my team of choice was a cheese (not Swiss) omelette and a handful of salad leaves.

I passed £7.50 to the Wine Society.  A quick toe-poke at Google revealed that it is scarcer than a Dubliner in South Africa right now.

I’ve been trying a few reds from South West France like this one from the Wine Society.  Mostly my experience has been good.  No, astonishing!

This rich smoky bomb is no exception.  Like inhaling a beetroot and blackberry flavoured firework.  Not so much representative of its terroir as made from the very scorched earth the vines are grown in.  From the vintage that deep fried numerous Gauls, this is a red-blooded hot spicy mama.

Gunpowder and plot (maybe without the treason, but you never know in France).  Truly delicious and at £7.95, a bargain.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried.  The Riesling grape, to serious winos, is what Der Ring des Nibelungen is to opera buffs.  If you don’t understand it, appreciate it, enjoy it, you are a mere Muggle.  Muggles merely struggle to consume the enormous contents wondering what type of hash cakes the buffs eat for breakfast.

And like The Ring, the natural home of Riesling is the Federal Republic of Engineers.  But at the risk of you thinking I have Teutonic Plague, my favourite Rieslings have come from Australia so far.  Just don’t tell anyone, please.

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There are some cracking wines coming out of South West France, especially Languedoc, right now.  Sadly this isn’t one of them.

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