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.