Confessions of a Wino

You may recall my suspicions about a new case from Virgin Wines were mostly unfounded, as the first bottle I tried was rather nice.

The case also contained three wines from the same stable – a Marlborough outfit by the name of Belmonte.  I tried the Pinot Noir recently with surprising results.

The first aroma was of compost, soft brown sugar and fruit compote.  The flavour quite light and fruity, brambly but with a sharpness not present in most Burgundies.

I’ve been sampling a few kiwi Pinot Noirs recently with encouraging results.  This Belmonte, though, was a bit thin and no better than average, even ordinary.  In fact the bland adjective cluster could have been invented to describe the experience of drinking Belmonte Pinot Noir.  I guess it’s not too expensive at £9.99 (update…link broken – this wine has suddenly disappeared from the Virgin site).  I guess it’s not desperately bad either, but I notice that many of the reviews on the Virgin site support my view.

Belmonte Pinot Noir is exclusive to Virgin Wines - probably just as well it’s not more widely available, as there are much better wines at about £10 from any supermarket.

So the jury on Virgin Wines is still out with two successes and one moderate failure.  I’ll keep sampling.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 9:38 pm and is filed under new zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.