Wednesday 28 October 2009

De Bortoli Windy Peak (2008), Pinot Noir ~ Sainsbury's (£7.99)



Betrayed. That’s how I feel: betrayed. Being unemployed I spend a great deal of my time watching DVD’s and was delighted last week when ILoveFilm sent me a copy of Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course. It’s a great little series that is thoroughly unpretentious and more of a travelogue (with a lot of grapes) than an out-an-out wine-bore's educational tool. In the episode on Sauvignon Blanc Jancis interviewed both an Australian and French producer. The difference was immense. The Aussie, whilst admitting that he thought the French had an overly snobby attitude with their own wine, refused when offered a sample to criticise it just because it was French, merely noting that it was a bit too ‘steely’ for his palate. In contrast, true to full-blown stereotype the French man first refused to comment on what he thought of his counterparts wine and then rather sniffily insisted that it might be ‘corked’ (it wasn’t). His only comment was – with face screwed up in disgust – “well, it is Australian”. Now, I’m partial to the odd bit of snobbery myself but it irked me that much that I decided to ‘go Oz’ for my usual Friday night quaffing session. Up the revolution. That’ll learn ‘em (or so I thought). Actually I think the Frenchman might have been narked that French wine sales are falling and Australian wine is still the most imported in the UK.

Having consulted the excellent http://www.supermarketwine.com/, I decided to go for a bottle of Windy Peak (2008), Pinot Noir. I must admit to being quite excited when I took it down from the shelf just looking at the wonderful light-ruby lustre visible through the bottle (yeah, such things do excite me). I really could just have looked at it all day. It promised so much. In any event, it might have been better if I did just look at it. Given that it’s a Pinot Noir, it was fairly thin-bodied but with a short, indistinct, though not unpleasant, nose. Now I forked out £7.99 for this wine on the understanding that I was performing some kind of fraternal service to our Australian cousins, trusting in Chrisopher Lasch’s maxim that ‘family is a haven in a heartless world’. Perhaps ‘hell is other people’ might have been nearer to the mark. I really found the acid balance to be all out on this and – for may palate at least – it was just a little too sharp. This is the kind of wine that might work well in a three for £10 offer but is overpriced at £7.99.

My fellow Friday night Quaffer, Paz, wasn’t that keen on it either. He tried to liven it up by eating Red Curry Walker’s Sensations (improved it a bit), some dry roasted peanuts (a no-no with wine – made it worse) and even some mature cheddar (as many writers now seem to acknowledge, a myth that it always goes with red wine). In the end we just drank it as quickly as possible and talked about winning the Ashes in 2011.

Thursday 22 October 2009

Mont Tauch Reserve de la Condamine (2007), Fitou ~ Sainsbury's £5.99 (reduced from £10.99)



Wine it seems has all sorts of effects. A scientific report I read recently, for example, suggested that drinking a glass of wine on a regular basis might increase life expectancy for up to five years. Actually what really got me interested was that it claimed that Sardinian wine – and a tragic shame this – in particular wine from the region where my wife hails from (Barbagia) is thought to contain a particular type of procyanidin that aids longevity more than in any other part of the world. In fact, people living in the region are twice as likely to reach 100 than in any other place on earth. By my own bacchanalian calculations I should live to be at least 109. Other effects of drinking red wine, however pleasant the bottle itself might be, are less welcome. I discovered one of these last week when I opened what turned out to be an excellently smooth Fitou. And what was this unwanted effect? Simple: I enjoyed a Russell Crowe comedy. To be fair I am a sucker for sentimental films about life changing trips abroad (for obvious reasons to those who know me), but even so the Reserve de la Condamine 2007 packed a good enough punch to make Ridley Scott’s A Good Year a real pleasure to watch. I blame the wine entirely.

This is really a little gem of a supermarket wine and great value for money when bought at Sainsbury’s discounted price of £5.99 (down from £10.99). The nose is hard to place but has a distinct prune-like scent to it, followed by blackberries once it hits the palate (and once you stop sniffing it and start drinking it). The finish is fairly short but it does give off, once again, that faint aroma of prunes, which is far more pleasant than it sounds. I found this a really well balanced wine that I would have no hesitation in recommending as an ideal quaffing wine. Beware, though. You may or may not wake up with a hangover but you might feel more than a little embarrassed by what it does to your taste in films.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Le Village du Sud, Merlot (2007) ~ Co-Op £3.99 (discounted from £4.99)



I’m going to come straight out with it: I’m a label snob. I don’t care all that much how much a wine costs (if it ends up being good) but I am – glibly, naively – drawn to elegant wine labels. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes an attractive wine label but I know what ‘feels’ wrong. It was against my better label-prejudiced judgement therefore that I purchased a bottle of Mont Tauch’s 2007 Merlot from their Le Village du Sud range. Perhaps it was the caricature of the supposed winemaker on the label that put me off, but I have to confess to having my doubts (my naff-alert alarm was going haywire). Attempts at a kind of ‘earthy wine of the peasants’ always feels a little forced in my opinion and you start to have doubts about the contents of the bottle. Normally it's just an excuse to present rough wine and sell it as 'authentic'. It is a vin de pays d’Oc (a less prestigious local ‘country’ wine rather than a fancier AOC or VDQS designation), for those who care about such things. Added to this the wine was relatively cheap (discounted to £3.99) so the two things made me more than a little nervous (I’m not a snob on price but sometimes you have to wonder about such things).

But, as with most of my prejudices, I was utterly wrong. Exhibiting a lovely deep red colour with a faintly marzipan and vanilla nose, I really enjoyed this little gem. Although it’s hard to define any particular fruit aroma other than a generic black berry flavour (there is a hint of dark cherry in there) and the finish is short, it’s well-structured and unctuously smooth on the palate. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this the perfect quaffing and chatting wine. And perhaps more crucially to a man of my particularly unrefined tastes, it went really well with the Hot & Spicy Pringles I was munching on at the time (not to mention the Sensations Chilli & Lime Sensations). I should explain that I did ‘clean my palate’ before tasting the wine but after a glass or two got the munchies. In contrast to another wine I drank that evening, the Le Village du Sud seemed to cope well with the spiciness of the snack minefield I was traversing.

Don’t get me wrong, this wine isn’t likely to end up winning any awards but it won’t embarrass you either should you take a bottle to a dinner party (it’d be a waste to take it to just a party where it’d likely as not get lost amongst all those bottles of Le Piat d’Or and Lambrini). It’d be great value for money at £4.99, let alone the £3.99 the Co-Op have it on offer at.