Gold Medal Reserve des Dentelles Cotes du Rhone Remy Ferbras 2010

 Corked. 

Varied Festive Vino

Matra Mountain Pinot Grigio 2010 - This goes down for me as the benchmark for good value Pinot Grigio. The apple and pear flavours shine through so strongly you can imagine identifying them without reading the label. Well worth a try, and at £6 beats all the PGs I've tried so far, most of which were not so cheap.
Casillero del Diablo Merlot 2010 - You've seen Casillero for sale for sure, it's everywhere. Often that would mean it would be bad, as mass produced = shite. That's not totally true here, it's not outstanding value but is a label which produces reliably decent wines at below and upto the £10 mark. Worth a punt if nothing else takes your fancy. This one was all blackcurranty goodness, strong for a Merlot.

Barolo Vendemmia 2007, Brazin Old Vine Zinfandel and a bonsai tree. Of the three, drinking the tree was probably the most appalling decision. Barolo, made from the Nebbiolo grape, makes other powerful rich wines seem like tiny little children trying to climb up your legs, while the bully Barolo smashes your face in with a coal shovel. Not for the weak. Definitely for those who are convinced deep and devastating wines are for them. Overall however, I preferred the Zinfandel, which was rich and powerful but with a little give. I'm not sure it quite justified the price tag though. Both Waitrose.

Two dessert wines here, both from Sainte-Croix-du-Mont in Bordeux. Somehow, they are completely different. The Chateau Loubens 1997 is practically the colour of gold, rich beyond belief for a wine, and pairs perfectly with exceptionally sweet desserts and salty cheeses. The Chateau La Rame 2009 was far drier and less singularly powerful, and although the colour would be exciting compared with any other white, next to the 1997 it looked weak and pale - the picture does this no justice. I can't say I enjoyed it less though, and it went better with more moderate cheeses and desserts.

I would recommend trying a dessert wine if you haven't - it's an odd experience even if you decide it's not for you. Obviously, don't have it without food, or it'll be like drinking milkshake syrup but without the sugar high which is the main reason for doing so. Unless it's for a bet.

And so to the end of the festival of festive fun-fest, with a Sancerre and a Pouilly-Fuissé. It's Sauvignon Blanc versus Chardonnay and neither comes out the winner.  Sancerre has always been a personal favourite, but both are really interesting examples of their grape and I don't have the wine knowledge to explain how so er... balls.

Red red wine

After a spate of average and poor wines, to have three come along which were all excellent made for a pleasant surprise, and the minimal hangovers even more so...

D'Arenberg McLaren Vale The Custodian Grenache 2008
Coming in at £10, the same price as the Highwire Summit Pinot Noir and cheaper than the Tilia Estate Rubido I didn't review because it was as bad but cost just shy of £20 (don't buy it), this wasn't going to have to work too hard to impress me. Rich, deep and with good fruity notes none of which I could specifically distinguish. Classic grenache. The man in Majestic wine said this wasn't worth cellaring, but it says on the bottle it will 'benefit from extended bottle ageing' which goes to show the guy was a fucking idiot, which came across in the amount of time he spent answering my question about which wines to buy i.e. pointing at a couple and saying 'they're decent'. Prick.

Burgo Viejo Rioja Reserva 2004
Coming in at £12, the same price as... oh wait that was the other one. Actually I had this first and it's a fine example of a nicely aged Rioja, and having had the entire bottle across an evening I felt little to no ill effects except the desire to drink more. However, against the Vina Del Perdon Gran Reserva 2000 reviewed some time ago, this came out just behind, yet costs a little more. Good but must try harder? Or perhaps by the same age it would have been better? I'll never know, but it made a good point of comparison for the...

Vina Muriel Rioja Gran Reserva 1989
The problem with trying to describe how good this was to drink, after the event, is that even in my brain I can't replicate it. I can only remember knowing that it was one of the best wines I've drunk yet. It beat the Burgo Viego hands down, although it didn't come cheap by any means (£25 reduced to £17 for buying two). On this blog so far only two reds can compete, the Chateau Musar and the Beneficio. To compare them: their vintages are 1989, 2003 and 2008; each comes from a different continent; each is made from different grapes. However, of all the wines I have drunk the Chateau Musar and this Rioja seemed to be two of the most alike. The Beneficio, also absolutely epic, was quite a different style - full, deep, richer but far more intense and with less complexity and less intrigue.

The lure of the Kiwi

Two crisp, fresh and zesty Kiwi Sauvignon Blancs here. Not the average supermarket crap either, although Wairau Cove is currently half price at Tesco, so for £5 odd it's at the average supermarket crap price - good news for lovers of SB (no, not Silvio Berlusconi, you get paid to love him not the other way around). Both are good examples of why New Zealand is famous for SB, mixing a light and dry approach with vibrant fruit flavours and good acidity to keep everything in balance. I think I slightly preferred these to a recent bottle I drank which was more in the Sancerre style, but that may be because I was comparing it with Sancerre and, although it's all the same grape, these are quite different in style. Oh dear, I don't seem to have managed to swear or say anything which is not politically correct. I'll have to steal a few lines from Jeremy Clarkson for the next one, that'll be guaranteed to piss a few people off. That's if anyone actually reads this drivel.

Anyway, if you like SB, get down to Tesco and pick up a bottle. And don't worry about that guy, I had to include the picture to prove I don't have the largest bottom lip on the planet. Critics silenced.

Tasting Notes

It's been too long since there's been a proper fight on my blog, so as an excuse to crack open another bottle of red stuff (having demolished the Vicien Bonarda Reserve yesterday) I've decided a taste off is in order. Let's face it though, this isn't really about wine, this is about national pride.

In the red corner we have South Africa's Highwire Summit Pinot Noir. Weighing in at £10 and only a year old, it claims to be light bodied and with an array of red berry flavours, and untypical of a Pinot Noir. In the other red corner is Argentina's Vicien Bonarda Reserve, weighting in at £11 and with three years of maturity on its shoulders. It is grown at 4934ft above sea level and is allegedly rich in red fruit flavours.

In Round 1 South Africa takes an initial lead, with an intense and intriguing aromas, reminiscent of the Viking invasion of Reading in 871 AD as described in Burzum's album Det Som Engang Var, presumably. Argentina puts up a decent fight, with a richness akin to the an impromptu evaluation of string theory by Professor Leonard Susskind of Stanford University fame, but the judges lean towards a one point lead to the Highwire.

In Round 2 Argentina takes the edge early on, with immediately pleasing powerful richness, tinged with a little more sweetness than the judges are favoured towards but nonetheless reminding one of a sustained session of Sepak Takraw (aka Malaysian foot-volleyball, for the ignorant among you). South Africa proves disappointing, perhaps showing its naive youth, as too much tannin gives one the impression of being stuck in a world made entirely of geometric objects with less than eight sides.

In Round 3 nothing happens because Argentina has already won it, and the referee is drunk. Overall however, I'm not a big fan of either of these. The Pinot is too soft and not well balanced, and perhaps need to mature, the Bonarda is rich and sweet but lacks subtlety and complexity. The Bonarda takes it because it simply tastes better and feels like better value, and I appreciate a winemaker that releases their wine when it is ready (18 months of oak ageing for that chappy). The second bottle of Highwire can chill out for a couple of years, by which time it will either be actually worth £10 or, possibly, vinegar. In which case I'll use it to make a dressing. The kind which brings to mind the raging inferno of a hurricane of wasps immediately after your head has been smashed into the inside of their nest and all the wasps have decided that your left eyeball is their new home.

Pérez Cruz Winemaker's Selection 2009

Some facts about this lovely vino:

1) It comes from the Maipo valley in Chile.
2) It is made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Cot.
3) Cot is also called Merlot. I had to look that up on Wikipedia.
4) This is actually a picture of the same wine taken from google images. My wallpaper is much less rubbish.
5) Drinking it is more interesting than reading these facts.

Oh yes and the drinking. Well. It's bloody marvellous! Mostly it is smooth, blackcurranty, juicy and very very cotty. Plenty of intensity and great balance. Complex for a 2009 and further maturity could only make it better. Drinks well on it's own. Probably drinks well with food. So, overall, there's pretty much nothing bad to say about this wine. And the catch? £20 a bottle. Which makes you wonder: how much of my £20 pays for the cot?