Confessions of a Wino

A revisit to this wine that I last enjoyed (immensely) a couple of years ago.  I am almost sorry that I have just glugged my last bottle of Château Sociando-Mallet 2001.  On this form I really ought to order some more, but it has gone up in price rather a lot since I purchased.  Up to £40 per bottle right now.  Ooof – one in the nuts for my wine budget.  Actually, I was one of those footballing kids who used to duck when planted in the wall.  I also made my own a useful, if cowardly, habit of turning around as the kick was taken, to protect my valuables at the expense of seeing the ball.  Oh well, it’s only a goal isn’t it?  On reflection, I am surprised I never made it into the England squad, when you look at the current crop.

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I have a lot of respect for Stuart Pearce.  I liked him as manager of Man City although clearly he was not experienced enough at the time.  For the last couple of years he has been preparing England Under 21s for the European Cup.  We were clearly the best side in the tournament with the possible exception of Germany, who gave us a 4-0 bloody nose in the final.

But for 3 key suspensions, England might well have put up a fight, but what do I know?  I don’t have Sky Sports in the flat so I have had to suffer Wimbledon instead where sulky Scot/plucky Brit (depending if he loses/if he wins), Andy Murray, was on terrestrial TV playing in the latest night ever finish at Wimbledon (no football connection there – not any more anyway) against Stanislas Wawrinka, the more than plucky Swiss.

Bellingham “The Bernard Series” Old Vine Chenin Blanc 2007 is pretty plucky.  I thought Chenin Blanc tipped a wink to Blandshire, on average.  But this far from average example has more spunk than Murray, more intensity than Pearce and more grunt than Michelle Larcher de Brito.

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Do you ever wonder why people insist that Sauvignon Blanc smells like “cat’s piss on a gooseberry bush”?  Exactly how many people have smelt a gooseberry bush, never mind one that a cat has pissed on?  What sort of cat was it?  Was it in season?  Male or female?  What had the cat eaten and drunk?  What variety of gooseberry?  Was the bush flowering or in fruit (or neither)?

I’ve just got in from a motorway traffic jam and I’m astonished by the exercises my brain races through while the car idles.

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Now, I could bore you with the old story about Dick van Dyke’s ropey cockney accent, but I am going to spare you that.  Instead, I am going to bore you about the third English wine I have sampled this year, Limney Horsmonden 2006.

Well the first thing to say is that they are not going to win any prizes for label design.

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Well the English football season is back and what better way to celebrate Man City’s stunning victory over West Ham, than with an English wine review? 

This wine was made from a grape variety about as well known as most of the Man City first team.  For those not in England, Sven-Göran Eriksson has been on a buying spree across the globe bringing in players from Bulgaria, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Bosnia & Herzegovina.  Names like Elano, Bianchi, Geovanni, Garrido, Fernandes, and Schonburger.  Oh no, hang on, that last one was the name of the grape used to make this Three Choirs Stone Brook 2005.

 

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Where is the sense of individual responsibility in society these days?  My parents and grand-parents all lived through at least one world war, enduring hardship and shortage.  When something went wrong in their lives, their first reaction was to set about putting it right using their own endeavours.  I am not saying that governments and corporations should be absolved of negligence, nor that they should not take sensible precautions to increase safety for us all, but the balance of responsibility has shifted too far.  Matt Rudd writing in The Sunday Times agrees.  In a simple day out with his wife and toddler he counted a whopping 289 warnings/instructions.

If parents can’t be trusted to educate their kids to the point that they understand that coffee “may be hot”, or that smooth floors “may be slippery when wet” then the world has lost something.  In today’s litigious society (it starts in America, quickly migrates to Ireland, and lands in the UK shortly afterwards) the first thought when we have an accident is “who can I sue?  How much money can I make?”  So the inevitable result is a world full of nannying warning signs that guide us, cajole us, restrict us, instruct us but rarely inform us.

The warning on my bottle of Bacchus 2006, however, was clear and stark, “Made in England”.

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