Confessions of a Wino

Anyone remember the “old” search engines before Google took over the world?  Open Text, Infoseek, Go, Webcrawler, Lycos, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Excite, Magellan, Alta Vista?  Well it seems that many of them live on!  One in particular seems to have inhabited the properties of a wine!  Alta Vista Grande Reserve 2004 Malbec “Terroir Selection” sounded more interesting than it was, though.  At > £10 per bottle, I would stick to the Susana Balbo for a pound or two more.

Usual Malbec flavours abound with bitter black cherries, vanilla, and spice (ginger?), dark chocolate and blackcurrant in this case.  A lot more complex and interesting than many Malbecs I have tasted but quite a bitter finish which put me off a bit.

Better with food than on its own, and it improved once opened a while.  I would give it a try with mature steak.  In the UK you can find it at the Wine Society.

At my local sandwich shop I have been lunching on fruit, sandwiches, and crisps (hey if you’re American I mean chips, ok?).  I am not particularly loyal to any brand of crisps so I was tempted by an offer from Seabrooks which suggested that by collecting 8 packets I could send off to claim a pint sized mug.

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The wine bar in the lower ground floor of F & M Foodhall on Piccadilly is so cool, and I’m not talking about the ambient temperature.  Staffed by a range of nationalities with a variety of experiences in wine.  Our Polish waiter, Artur Zarzycki “vaz early on hiz vine joornee” but seemed to know plenty despite his claimed one year of experience.  And he almost knew how to operate a camera!

Queuing outside F & M on a Sunday at midday (the bloody shop opened late by about 2 minutes 30 seconds), because we had an hour to kill before our reservation at St Alban (more anon).  So, as all the restaurants and cafes in F & M were being refurbished, we dashed down to the wine bar “1707″ where, for £23.90 (inc. service) we got to try a fantastic range of wines.  Who says the posh shops are expensive?

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Deep in Jack the Ripper territory just behind Bishopsgate Police Station lies a dark secret.  Whitechapel is legendary for the murders committed by one of the first serial killers to gain notoriety.  Nowadays an altogether different cereal is found in the back alleys, and the only murder is evidenced by an occasional squealing lobster.

The back alley known as Widegate Street is where I found Sri Thong, a Thai restaurant with a name that brings back haunting memories of that famous and heinous picture of Peter Stringfellow on the beach.

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I am always interested in fairness.  So I buy wine from a variety of sources.  OK I admit I am biased towards the Wine Society and the Sunday Times Wine Club but I also like Majestic and I have been formulating a growing respect for the various supermarkets.

You may remember (or you may have forgotten) my post on Torrontés where I lauded the second grape of Argentina (in my opinion, and second to Malbec), and you may remember my fondness (not) for the self styled Hand of God, Diego Maradona himself.

But this time I am afraid Argentina loses in the quarter final.  Asda’s wine buyers have impressed me greatly at times but the Argentinian Torrontés (Asda forgot the accent on the e) Famantina Valley 2005 was a nice drinkable wine but really not memorable and no distinct flavours at all.  I can tell you that Torrontés normally has the most distinct flavour of apricots -ahhh memories.

Memories?  Actually I prefer mammaries……but’s that’s a story that would not meet the strict decency requirements of a serious wine blog.

In the interests of fairness in my search for the best cheap Malbec I unearthed this little number at Tesco.

Now you might presume that Anubis comes from Egypt but in fact it is from Middle Earth (aka Argentina).  I can prove this is the case because I discovered that Susana Balbo (aka Balbo Baggins) had a hand in making this wine.

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I admire Malbec because it is classy, very tasty and compares well to many old world wines.  But there is another Argentinean grape that makes wine so far from the norm it makes me shiver.  It’s even better than a cup of tea (or did Boy George already do that line?)

The grape is Torrontés and as far as I know it may have originated from Spain.  Now Spain as we know are football’s great under achievers, whereas Argentina cheat, for example the “Hand of God” incident in the 1986 World Cup.  So I am going to assume that the grape came from Spain and that the Argies stole it.

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Just a quick post to say that in an earlier post I mentioned that I had found a pure Malbec at Asda for only £3.78 and now I have tried it I can report that my new found love for Asda’s wine buyers has flourished again.

They described the wine as a “delicious glass of smooth juicy pleasure” and for once I agree with the label!

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Everyone who knows me, knows that I think that Malbec is the best thing to come out of Argentina since news of Maradona’s (drug abuse enforced) retirement.

On my last Malbec post, Denis requested a recommendation for a good starter bottle.  This prompted me to think about both ends of the value spectrum.

I have just tasted a superb Malbec from Asda (UK subsidiary of Wal-mart), at time of writing on special offer at just four of our English pounds (I think it’s still less than a fiver at full price!).  The wine is Malbec Reserve, Famatina Valley 2004 which the label says is produced by some outfit called “La Riojana”.  I guess it must be blended from a variety of sources then, but no harm in that if it tastes good.  And my hand of god says it does!

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