I've written before about trying ranges of wines, and how I don't often like all of them. That there is always one wine that is the cousin that gets put in the corner at a wedding because nobody likes him. However, trying five wines from Italian producer Allegrini produced five wines I'd gladly take home with me.
Allegrini Valpolicella, 2007
Soft, gentle nose. A touch confected. Light, strawberry aromas. Palate is simple, raspberry and strawberries with good balance. A fun little wine. 8/10
Allegrini Palazzo Della Torre, 2004
Ripe fruit, cherry and raspberries on the nose and palate. It has grippy tannin and a toasty spice. Very nice. 8/10
Allegrini La Grola, 2004
Tight. Some dark brambles coming off the nose. It is gutsy, with super dark fruit flavours, a bit of dry roasted peanuts too. A touch of liquorice too. 8.5/10
Allegrini La Poja, 2003
Was expecting this to be a fruit bomb. It wasn't. The nose was quite closed, a bit of dark chocolate and dusty cocoa powder. The palate was dark and brooding. It's got a bundle of dark, twiggy, barky flavours. A touch of under ripe bramble comes through. Brilliant. 8.5/10
Allegrini Amarone, 2004
Ooooh. Soooo good. Cherry, a lot of rich cherry leaping from the glass. It also has some bramble pie filling too. Palate is dark. It is like pricking your bramble juice finger with a bramble thorn and sucking it to stop the bleeding! And believe me when I say that is a good thing! Also has cold, stewed blueberries on the finish. Brilliant. 9/10
This producer is great. Giovanni Allegtini questioned traditional winemaking practices in the early sixties, put an emphasis on quality, and his children are doing the same today, particularly with the quality.
Elvis guide to Glenfarclas
I got an email from someone asking me to put the Elvis Presley Guide to Glenfarclas on the blog as they "loved it". This is good for two reasons. Firstly, it means that someone has given me positive comments (which is ALWAYS good for the ego) but more than that, it means someone is actually reading the website and I'm not wasting my time!
Glenfarclas 10 Year (The Sun Record Years) Raw, unrefined and damned sexy. Both Elvis and the ten year old instantly hook you, and while technically both are flawed, they inspire and remain with you forever.
Glenfarclas 105 (Army Elvis)
Elvis is enrolled in the military and doesn’t release any new material. The Colonel realises that people need Elvis records so he throws any old rubbish out onto the market and makes it shiney and glossy. The 105 is much of the same. Crude whisky, with a barrel of alcohol and people lap it up despite it being... well... rubbish.
Glenfarclas 15 Year Old (Movie Year Elvis)
Gentle and Easy. That’s both the whisky and the King’s voice. They are both easily approachable, show everything that you fell in love with the young version, but because they are so punter friendly, you can’t get enthusiastic. You still want to drink 10 year old while listening to Hound Dog.
Glenfarclas 21 Year Old (’68 Comeback Special)
The best. Just perfect in evey way. The sex is back, the power is there, and delivered so so well. You know that things won’t get any better and that this is a pleasure to experience the ride. This is their finest hour.
Glenfarclas 30 Year Old (Way Down)
It’s 1976. Elvis is less than a year from his death, he is fat, unpleasant and lacking talent. The whisky is doing the same, is is not pleasant and it is dying in the barrel. But then a miracle happens. For one last hurrah, both pull it together, rediscover the youth, the sex and the finesse, and they launch it at the world. Elvis records ‘Way Down’, his last great song. Glenfarclas releases the 30 year old, a great whisky and the king .
Glenfarclas 40 Year Old (Dead Elvis)
Old rubbish, jazzed up and thrown out in fancy packaging to make a shed load of money! This is a whisky that should not be released, but the distillery just had to have a whisky at over a grand. The same applies to Elvis' releases in the 21st century.
Glenfarclas 10 Year (The Sun Record Years) Raw, unrefined and damned sexy. Both Elvis and the ten year old instantly hook you, and while technically both are flawed, they inspire and remain with you forever.
Glenfarclas 105 (Army Elvis)
Elvis is enrolled in the military and doesn’t release any new material. The Colonel realises that people need Elvis records so he throws any old rubbish out onto the market and makes it shiney and glossy. The 105 is much of the same. Crude whisky, with a barrel of alcohol and people lap it up despite it being... well... rubbish.
Glenfarclas 15 Year Old (Movie Year Elvis)
Gentle and Easy. That’s both the whisky and the King’s voice. They are both easily approachable, show everything that you fell in love with the young version, but because they are so punter friendly, you can’t get enthusiastic. You still want to drink 10 year old while listening to Hound Dog.
Glenfarclas 21 Year Old (’68 Comeback Special)
The best. Just perfect in evey way. The sex is back, the power is there, and delivered so so well. You know that things won’t get any better and that this is a pleasure to experience the ride. This is their finest hour.
Glenfarclas 30 Year Old (Way Down)
It’s 1976. Elvis is less than a year from his death, he is fat, unpleasant and lacking talent. The whisky is doing the same, is is not pleasant and it is dying in the barrel. But then a miracle happens. For one last hurrah, both pull it together, rediscover the youth, the sex and the finesse, and they launch it at the world. Elvis records ‘Way Down’, his last great song. Glenfarclas releases the 30 year old, a great whisky and the king .
Glenfarclas 40 Year Old (Dead Elvis)
Old rubbish, jazzed up and thrown out in fancy packaging to make a shed load of money! This is a whisky that should not be released, but the distillery just had to have a whisky at over a grand. The same applies to Elvis' releases in the 21st century.
Hold your breathing - 1998 Chateau Maucaillou
We are all told to allow wine to breath. It allows them to open up, to bring out hidden flavours and aromas. So, when I opened up a 1998 Chateau Maucaillou, I did what I usually do and try a bit and write a note. Then, a couple of hours later, after allowing them to breath, I tried them again and found that I'd killed it, by allowing it to breath.
On opening
Menthol, boot polish, a bit of spice, with a good meaty nose. There is soft, grippy tannin, nice liquorice flavours and dark chocolate and cherry stone. 7/10
After 2 hours
A very balanced nose, with subtle menthol aromas, spice is there too but the main difference is that they all work so well together. The palate starts off with the same grippy tannin, but then it gets bitter. You feel as though you are sucking on a pencil. The fruit has gone and you are left with charcoal and black pepper corns on the finish. 5/10
I'm not saying breathing doesn't work, it does. I really think that regardless of what wine you are drinking, everything from a new world Sauvignon to a 50 year old Barolo, needs at least a little air, even if it is just a few swirls round the glass. After just 2 hours open, 1998 Chateau Maucaillou is a bit like a turkey on January 12th - it has been allowed to breath too long.
Fiano Mandrarossa 2006
For no other reason that it is brilliant, try and get hold of a bottle of 2006 Fiano Mandrarossa.Sweet peach on the nose, with a little lemon creeping through, coupled to a palate of pencil lead, cape gooseberry and dried tangerine. The finish is lovely and minerally with a touch of petrol. Brilliant. 8/10
It won the 2007 International Wine Challenge 'Great Value White Wine' Gold medal, and even if it is not this one, you should try and get hold of a Fiano from a supermarket such as Waitrose. It's perfect for you if you don't want to go down the Pinot Grigio route.
You can get it from Luvians Bottleshop for £5.99 or 2 for £10 or you can get it from the Sussex Wine Company if you like wasting money and want to pay £6.95
Crap of the Week: Champichute
Champagne is about joy. Sharing it with friends, celebrating, toasting, Champagne is not a wine you consume when being miserable. Even the pop when opening it usually arouses a cheer from people with empty lives and have nothing better to cheer for.So why someone thought that a parachute for a champagne cork would be a good idea is beyond me, but that is what the Champichute is.
Costing £2.95, the champichute is available from online shop ParamountZone
Shop Talk: Rotten Fish
My boss has a saying whenever a wine rep comes to him saying "I have a brilliant wine to show you", he asks the rep when the last time they ever heard a fishmonger advertising rotten fish? He has a point. In this trade you often hear people 'bigging up' a terrible wine, because they are trying to sell it. I don't have a problem with that really, they are just doing their job and if you have a portfolio with a lot of great wine, and a few duds, then I don't mind having rubbish pushed at me. After all, the wine speaks for itself and if it is rubbish, no amount of marketing bullshit is going to make it better or get it onto the shelf. These wines are not so much rotten fish as a the wine equivalent of tinned tuna compared to fresh.
Occasionally though, we get someone trying to sell rotten fish, and that happened today. Two clarets that were "great deals", and they were anything but. One of them smelled of a ripe compost heap, so I am giving it the benefit of the doubt and putting that down to being off, but the other was so past it, I wondered why he was trying to sell it at all. I have been guilty of selling wine that is past it's best before, but I like to think that every time I have done so I've warned the person it might not be at it's peak anymore, and they have generally been pleasant enough. This wasn't though, all secondary flavours and very dusty green peppers. It was totally shot and would never be acceptable. Today I experienced rotten fish...
Occasionally though, we get someone trying to sell rotten fish, and that happened today. Two clarets that were "great deals", and they were anything but. One of them smelled of a ripe compost heap, so I am giving it the benefit of the doubt and putting that down to being off, but the other was so past it, I wondered why he was trying to sell it at all. I have been guilty of selling wine that is past it's best before, but I like to think that every time I have done so I've warned the person it might not be at it's peak anymore, and they have generally been pleasant enough. This wasn't though, all secondary flavours and very dusty green peppers. It was totally shot and would never be acceptable. Today I experienced rotten fish...
Tax and watered wine
The budget approaches us soon, and the Mr Darling will be rising tax on alcohol once again. Upon hearing that there is likely to be between twenty and thirty pence per bottle rise on wine, I thought I would post this article. I wrote it last year and posted it on the first edition of The Tasting Note, and just thought it might be appropriate as I believe he is going to use the excuse of 'curbing binge drinking' to raise taxes for us all.
Originally posted August 2007
Sylvester Stallone needed a licence to mate with Sandra Bullock. In the movie ‘Demolition Man’, Stallone’s character gets frozen and woken up in the 2032 where every aspect of your life is controlled. You can’t have children without state approval, and anything that is bad for you has been banned. You are not allowed to drink alcohol, eat meat or swear, and after visiting the toilet you use three seashells instead of toilet paper. And while 2032 may be a quarter of a century away, but it would appear that there are plans afoot to move towards a society like that shown in the movie.
The Scottish Parliament has tabled plans to ban discounting of alcohol in shops, in an attempt to curb binge drinking. All price cuts that encourage buying more than one item, or anything that gives ‘free’ alcohol to the customer will be illegal. Therefore any ‘Buy One Get One Free’ (or BOGOF) deals, 2 for £10 or 3 for the price of 2 deals will be done away with. And it will achieve sod all.
The Threshers Group, which includes the Threshers, Bottoms Up and Victoria Wine shops, have structured their entire business plan centre around a 3 for the price of 2 promotion. All their single bottle prices are stupidly expensive so that they still make a nice profit margin when they give the third bottle away. Then you have whisky retailers who also do heavy discounts or multibuy deals. Around Christmas time, most whisky specialists will knock £5 off leading brands like Glenmorangie or Macallan, which can be up to 20% of the normal retail price. Oddbins has, for many years, run a ‘Buy 2, Save £10’ promotion over the festive period on a range of malt whiskies.These promotions are now frowned upon because they are encouraging people to buy extra products, which, according to the geniuses running Holyrood, will lead the customer to down two bottles of whisky in half an hour and the go out and vomit on someone’s doorstep.
The problem isn’t even the supermarkets doing huge beer discounts. Most specialist off licenses can’t compete with the supermarket ‘beer by the case’ price. In fact, most wholesalers can’t compete with the supermarkets price on beer. Cases of 24 bottles of Stella for £10 are not uncommon, and for supermarket own brands, you can be looking at as little as 35 to 40 pence per pint! And while a half a dozen guys might meet up to watch a football match and go through a few of cases of beer that they bought from Tesco, and they may get mullered, this is not binge drinking. Yes, it is getting too drunk, too quickly, and certainly isn’t good for your health, but this isn’t the sort of drinking that the SNP are wanting to prevent.
There are many people who will think I’m talking piffle. And I will call them a blind, liberal pillock, who is trying to group all of society’s alcohol problems into one. The people who buy bulk and benefit from multibuys and then drink wine, spirits and beer to excess at home are either having a dinner party, having friends round for an evening of sports or movies. or are alcoholics. With the exception of the alcoholics (which is something that should be addressed in a different article), very few of these people are having these evenings more than once a week, and while this may lead to drinking to excess, it is certainly not binge drinking.
Binge drinkers get drunk by consuming non discounted spirits and the drinking in pubs and clubs. A bottle of Glen’s vodka, at under £10 at full retail price, drunk by three 19 year olds in their bedroom before meeting up with their friends at a pub and drinking spirits, pints and alcopops all evening – that is binge drinking. And the even bigger problem is that they are doing this numerous times each week. And not a single thing that they are drinking is discounted. Not a single thing is from a multibuy deal.
I spoke to a gentleman who runs a pub and will remain nameless, who put the blame for binge
drinking firmly on the doorstep of the retail trade. He said that “it’s the kids who raid their parents drinks cupboard and steal half a dozen cans of Tennents that is the problem”. No it’s not! It’s the two hundred people in his bar every Friday and Saturday night, getting wrecked on cocktails and beer that are not discounted that is fuelling the binge drinking culture. It is those same customers who are staggering home, vomiting on doorsteps and getting into fights. It is those customers that the SNP are trying to ‘make healthy’.
Neither cheap vodka nor the pubs are causing people to binge drink, they are just method by which they achieve their inebriation. The reason that people start binge drinking is because they want to get drunk. Yes, I have got smashed before, but it was more of a by-product of me seeing my friends or having dinner with people and me drinking too much. I didn’t, and never have, set out with the aim on getting drunk, it just sort of happened! The majority of younger people nowadays however, have one goal and that is to lose all control of their brains and get totally drunk, and it because, in Britain, children are not exposed to alcohol in a positive way.
Take the Italians, French, Spanish, Portuguese… hell, even the sausage wielding Germans. Alcoholic drinks are part of their culture, and children are introduced to wine or beer at the dinner table. Even if they do not try the liquid, children see their parents drinking it in moderation and alcohol is viewed as a positive thing. French people have wine in their blood and on their table, and the Germans celebrate with beer whilst wearing leather shorts and playing ‘oompah’ music on trombones. In Britain however, alcohol is seen as something that adults drink, in pubs away from children or, which is even worse, as a form of entertainment in their own homes in front of their children.
Parents will routinely refuse their children a glass of wine, because it contains alcohol, yet will happily pour Cola down their child’s neck. And lets face it, of these two drinks, on a glass by glass basis the wine is a hell of a lot better for your health than the Cola is. A lot of parents will all to often allow their children to see them drunk, making fools out of themselves which is reinforcing the view that there is nothing wrong with getting absolutely smashed for the sake of getting smashed. With all this going on, is it any wonder that our young go out and get drunk several times each week? They either don’t know any difference or want to experience the alien world that is ‘the pub’.
So should we be encouraging our children to have a glass of watered down wine with a meal? Should we be taking our children into pubs and offering them weak shandy? Well not if we don’t want every single child protection agency breathing down our necks and the government saying that we are contributing to the breakdown in society. They will say that education is the way forward, and it is, but the education that will be given will be of the “alcohol is nice in moderation, but YOU MUST NOT GET DRUNK – EVER”, and as soon as that child can get into a pub, they will and they will get obliterated on Blue WKD.
If education is to work, it isn’t the kids we should be teaching, it’s the parents. They should be taught to allow their children to try wine mixed with water or beer mixed with lemonade. They should be taught to not get drunk in front of their children as it will have a negative effect on their children. They should be taught to spend time with their children, engage them and not plonk them in front of the TV with films to watch whilst mum or dad gets blitzed on the sofa with their pals. They should be taught to be good parents!
But it is a lot easier for a government to go along the “blame the industry and/or raise taxes” route rather than actually address the problem, which is, of course, “Education, Education, Education”. Now where have I heard those words before?
Originally posted August 2007
Sylvester Stallone needed a licence to mate with Sandra Bullock. In the movie ‘Demolition Man’, Stallone’s character gets frozen and woken up in the 2032 where every aspect of your life is controlled. You can’t have children without state approval, and anything that is bad for you has been banned. You are not allowed to drink alcohol, eat meat or swear, and after visiting the toilet you use three seashells instead of toilet paper. And while 2032 may be a quarter of a century away, but it would appear that there are plans afoot to move towards a society like that shown in the movie.
The Scottish Parliament has tabled plans to ban discounting of alcohol in shops, in an attempt to curb binge drinking. All price cuts that encourage buying more than one item, or anything that gives ‘free’ alcohol to the customer will be illegal. Therefore any ‘Buy One Get One Free’ (or BOGOF) deals, 2 for £10 or 3 for the price of 2 deals will be done away with. And it will achieve sod all.
The Threshers Group, which includes the Threshers, Bottoms Up and Victoria Wine shops, have structured their entire business plan centre around a 3 for the price of 2 promotion. All their single bottle prices are stupidly expensive so that they still make a nice profit margin when they give the third bottle away. Then you have whisky retailers who also do heavy discounts or multibuy deals. Around Christmas time, most whisky specialists will knock £5 off leading brands like Glenmorangie or Macallan, which can be up to 20% of the normal retail price. Oddbins has, for many years, run a ‘Buy 2, Save £10’ promotion over the festive period on a range of malt whiskies.These promotions are now frowned upon because they are encouraging people to buy extra products, which, according to the geniuses running Holyrood, will lead the customer to down two bottles of whisky in half an hour and the go out and vomit on someone’s doorstep.
The problem isn’t even the supermarkets doing huge beer discounts. Most specialist off licenses can’t compete with the supermarket ‘beer by the case’ price. In fact, most wholesalers can’t compete with the supermarkets price on beer. Cases of 24 bottles of Stella for £10 are not uncommon, and for supermarket own brands, you can be looking at as little as 35 to 40 pence per pint! And while a half a dozen guys might meet up to watch a football match and go through a few of cases of beer that they bought from Tesco, and they may get mullered, this is not binge drinking. Yes, it is getting too drunk, too quickly, and certainly isn’t good for your health, but this isn’t the sort of drinking that the SNP are wanting to prevent.
There are many people who will think I’m talking piffle. And I will call them a blind, liberal pillock, who is trying to group all of society’s alcohol problems into one. The people who buy bulk and benefit from multibuys and then drink wine, spirits and beer to excess at home are either having a dinner party, having friends round for an evening of sports or movies. or are alcoholics. With the exception of the alcoholics (which is something that should be addressed in a different article), very few of these people are having these evenings more than once a week, and while this may lead to drinking to excess, it is certainly not binge drinking.
Binge drinkers get drunk by consuming non discounted spirits and the drinking in pubs and clubs. A bottle of Glen’s vodka, at under £10 at full retail price, drunk by three 19 year olds in their bedroom before meeting up with their friends at a pub and drinking spirits, pints and alcopops all evening – that is binge drinking. And the even bigger problem is that they are doing this numerous times each week. And not a single thing that they are drinking is discounted. Not a single thing is from a multibuy deal.
I spoke to a gentleman who runs a pub and will remain nameless, who put the blame for binge
drinking firmly on the doorstep of the retail trade. He said that “it’s the kids who raid their parents drinks cupboard and steal half a dozen cans of Tennents that is the problem”. No it’s not! It’s the two hundred people in his bar every Friday and Saturday night, getting wrecked on cocktails and beer that are not discounted that is fuelling the binge drinking culture. It is those same customers who are staggering home, vomiting on doorsteps and getting into fights. It is those customers that the SNP are trying to ‘make healthy’.Neither cheap vodka nor the pubs are causing people to binge drink, they are just method by which they achieve their inebriation. The reason that people start binge drinking is because they want to get drunk. Yes, I have got smashed before, but it was more of a by-product of me seeing my friends or having dinner with people and me drinking too much. I didn’t, and never have, set out with the aim on getting drunk, it just sort of happened! The majority of younger people nowadays however, have one goal and that is to lose all control of their brains and get totally drunk, and it because, in Britain, children are not exposed to alcohol in a positive way.
Take the Italians, French, Spanish, Portuguese… hell, even the sausage wielding Germans. Alcoholic drinks are part of their culture, and children are introduced to wine or beer at the dinner table. Even if they do not try the liquid, children see their parents drinking it in moderation and alcohol is viewed as a positive thing. French people have wine in their blood and on their table, and the Germans celebrate with beer whilst wearing leather shorts and playing ‘oompah’ music on trombones. In Britain however, alcohol is seen as something that adults drink, in pubs away from children or, which is even worse, as a form of entertainment in their own homes in front of their children.
Parents will routinely refuse their children a glass of wine, because it contains alcohol, yet will happily pour Cola down their child’s neck. And lets face it, of these two drinks, on a glass by glass basis the wine is a hell of a lot better for your health than the Cola is. A lot of parents will all to often allow their children to see them drunk, making fools out of themselves which is reinforcing the view that there is nothing wrong with getting absolutely smashed for the sake of getting smashed. With all this going on, is it any wonder that our young go out and get drunk several times each week? They either don’t know any difference or want to experience the alien world that is ‘the pub’.
So should we be encouraging our children to have a glass of watered down wine with a meal? Should we be taking our children into pubs and offering them weak shandy? Well not if we don’t want every single child protection agency breathing down our necks and the government saying that we are contributing to the breakdown in society. They will say that education is the way forward, and it is, but the education that will be given will be of the “alcohol is nice in moderation, but YOU MUST NOT GET DRUNK – EVER”, and as soon as that child can get into a pub, they will and they will get obliterated on Blue WKD.
If education is to work, it isn’t the kids we should be teaching, it’s the parents. They should be taught to allow their children to try wine mixed with water or beer mixed with lemonade. They should be taught to not get drunk in front of their children as it will have a negative effect on their children. They should be taught to spend time with their children, engage them and not plonk them in front of the TV with films to watch whilst mum or dad gets blitzed on the sofa with their pals. They should be taught to be good parents!
But it is a lot easier for a government to go along the “blame the industry and/or raise taxes” route rather than actually address the problem, which is, of course, “Education, Education, Education”. Now where have I heard those words before?
Logan Wines
According to the price list, Logan Wines are considered, by Matthew Jukes and Tyson Stelzer, as "truly outstanding and every wine in their portfolio is first class".However, anyone who has traveled on a train will know that there is a lot of difference between first class on a Virgin train and on a GNER train, and the same applies throughout this range of wines from this producer from Orange.
Some of the wines are good, but other... er... not so.
Logan Apple Tree Flat Semillon Sauvignon, 2006 £6.99
A little mineral on the nose, like wet rocks. There is soap on the palate and a bit of spice. Fruit is a bit flat though. 5.5/10
Logan Apple Tree Flat Chardonnay, 2006 £6.99
Yeasty. A lot of confected passion fruit and mango. A bit of spice, and quite a bit of hot alcohol. It's quite clean though on the finish. 6/10
Logan Apple Tree Flat Merlot £6.99
Soft, juicy and with cherry aromas. Palate is a bit bitter and unbalanced. It's got a mid palate dip that allows the alcohol to dominate. Not good, this should be a fiver... if that. 5/10
Logan Weemaia Pinot Gris, 2007 £8.99
Pears and Golden Delicious apples. Quite simple, a bit of hot alcohol. Very clean with a nice graphite flavour. However, the alcohol, like in a lot of these wines, is just too dominant. 7/10
Logan Weemaia Riesling, 2007 £8.99
Very perfumy. A touch of lime and orange. It's simple in your mouth, not too tangy and quite pleasant. 7.5/10
Logan Weemaia Gewurztraminer, 2007 £8.99
Quite nice, a lot of subtle oriental spices - I got a touch of aniseed! The palate is grapefruity, gentle with a softness and good acidity, cleaning up your mouth. Good. 8/10
Logan Weemaia Merlot, 2004 £8.99
Voluptuous. Stewed fruit, quite coconutty with vanilla. Overripe cherry on the palate with milk chocolate. Palate is green, quite tight, firm and a bit metallic. Tobacco on the finish, but it just doesn't work together. 6.5/10
Logan Weemaia Pinot Noir, 2006 £8.99
Nice, soft fruit. a bit closed with sour cherry there. Palate is earthy, closed and has a dark chocolate flavour. 6.5/10
Logan Weemaia Shiraz Viognier, 2005 £8.99
Herby, meaty with a floral element cutting through the weight of the nosel The palate is nice, a touch of spice and the taste of wine gums cutting through the slightly stewed fruit. 7.5/10
Logan Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, 2005 £11.99
Nice, earthy fruit with a juicy, soft perfumy aroma. A bit of oak and vanilla cracking through the fruit. The palate has green, stalky brambles with a touch of black pepper. Quite opulent. Good stuff. 8/10
These wines are what is wrong with a lot of Australian wines. They shouldn't make a bottom end wine, and they do. The Apple Tree flat range is, well, rubbish. If you want this sort of wine, go to a company like Heartland who do it better, for less. The Weemaia range are decent enough but companies like Australia's Heartland or Yalumba, or Crater Rim from New Zealand offer better for the same price. Finally, the Cabernet Merlot is good and worth the money, but do you want to pay twelve quid for a wine that has a purple footprint on it?
Available from Lockett Brothers
Tesco Tenner: Tesco Finest Sonoma County Chardonnay, 2006
As Britain's biggest supermarket, Tesco has a responsibility to it's customers to deliver quality. There was a time when their wine range didn't come anywhere close to giving this. So Tesco recruited Bibendum's Dan Jago, he got rid of the rows of cheap Aussie chardonnays and started injecting depth in the range. With over three hundred new wines, Jago certainly has had an effect on the supermarket's range, but has he done anything about quality?Rather than give my own opinions, every month, I’m going to randomly choose a wine that costs less than a tenner and ask you to go off and buy a bottle, try it and vote to tell us if you like it or not. I'll post the results of the poll with my view on the wine, and we can all determine if Tesco is giving it's customers good wines, or if they are still stacking 'em high and selling 'em cheap.
First up is Tesco's Finest Sonoma County Chardonnay, 2006. Rather than start with a very cheap wine, I thought I'd give Tesco a chance to show a wine from the upper limits of the ten pounds budget. Priced at £7.99, this should at least be able to deliver a decent drink
Crap of the Week: Hipflask in a book
The first 'Crap of the Week' comes from internet shop findmeagift.com and is a hip flask in a book. Aside from the very predictable cover with 'The Good Book' written on it, this retails at £15.99 ($30.31).
You see, this is what is wrong with the world. People just have no imagination when it comes to humour. This sort of junk, along with comedy socks (which should be uninvented BEFORE nuclear bombs) are strictly aimed at boring farts who are in dire need of a humour injection.
If you want to sell your soul and buy this, click here
I'm a soul man - The wines of Crater Rim
I hate TV shows like the X Factor. They produce the same namby pamby, dull singers year in, year out, that sell bucketloads of CDs to idiots. They rip out any interesting element that the singer's voice may have and make them dull, boring singers with a limited shelf life. I also think the same about new world wine ranges. Whenever I get a producer showing me their range of wines, I usually find that they are going to be a soulless experience. Multiple grape varieties instead of a few, excellently chosen ones producing good wine and making use of the terroir, totally inoffensive guff that tick the flavour profile of the grape but do noting more.
I expect to get the pitch perfect but dull tones of Leona Lewis instead of the imperfect, but brilliant voice of James Brown.
Then occasionally, you get something different, and that is what I got with Crater Rim.
These wines, not available (yet) in the UK, are brilliant. They have the usual new world mix of grape varieties, but they don't produce the same fruit bomb wines that you usually get.
Crater Rim Sauvignon Blanc, 2007 £10.00
Simple, gentle nose. A bit grassy, with asparagus. The palate is reasonably big, tangy with a spicy, passion fruit flavour. A little hot, but really nice stuff. If there is a weak point in the whites, it is this, but it still gets 8.5/10
Crater Rim Waipara Riesling, 2006 £10.00
Germanic nose, with soft, lemon and lime creeping off. A touch of sweetness too. The palate is all about lime, a touch of tangerine and with a lovely sweetness. It is brilliantly balanced, and so clean. Fantastic. 9/10
Crater Rim Akaroa Pinot Gris, 2006 £13.00
Not available and never to appear again. This late harvest wine is all marzipan, rich and nutty, on the nose. The palate has the marzipan again, with cooked butter, tangerine and pears. It is minerally on the finish. Brilliant. 9.5/10
Crater Rim Cantebury Pinot Noir, 2006 £13.00
Perfumy with nice raspberry aromas. Palate is soft, with earthy, stony fruit. Shows restraint and balance. Nice and sexy with a gentle spicy flavour and a bitter finish. 8.5/10
These are brilliant wines, being interesting and affordable and delivering passion in a glass. They may not be 'perfect', and doing everything that every other Kiwi wine does, but they show soul. They are the James Brown of New Zealand wine.
Crater Rim website - www.craterrim.co.nz
I expect to get the pitch perfect but dull tones of Leona Lewis instead of the imperfect, but brilliant voice of James Brown.
Then occasionally, you get something different, and that is what I got with Crater Rim.
These wines, not available (yet) in the UK, are brilliant. They have the usual new world mix of grape varieties, but they don't produce the same fruit bomb wines that you usually get.
Crater Rim Sauvignon Blanc, 2007 £10.00
Simple, gentle nose. A bit grassy, with asparagus. The palate is reasonably big, tangy with a spicy, passion fruit flavour. A little hot, but really nice stuff. If there is a weak point in the whites, it is this, but it still gets 8.5/10
Crater Rim Waipara Riesling, 2006 £10.00
Germanic nose, with soft, lemon and lime creeping off. A touch of sweetness too. The palate is all about lime, a touch of tangerine and with a lovely sweetness. It is brilliantly balanced, and so clean. Fantastic. 9/10
Crater Rim Akaroa Pinot Gris, 2006 £13.00
Not available and never to appear again. This late harvest wine is all marzipan, rich and nutty, on the nose. The palate has the marzipan again, with cooked butter, tangerine and pears. It is minerally on the finish. Brilliant. 9.5/10
Crater Rim Cantebury Pinot Noir, 2006 £13.00
Perfumy with nice raspberry aromas. Palate is soft, with earthy, stony fruit. Shows restraint and balance. Nice and sexy with a gentle spicy flavour and a bitter finish. 8.5/10
These are brilliant wines, being interesting and affordable and delivering passion in a glass. They may not be 'perfect', and doing everything that every other Kiwi wine does, but they show soul. They are the James Brown of New Zealand wine.
Crater Rim website - www.craterrim.co.nz
Grenache me baby - wines from the South of France
Niel Armstrong was the first man on the moon. Bill Haley released the first Rock n Roll record. Maggie Thatcher was the first female Prime Minister and Hilary Clinton could become the first female President. And Peter Lehmann Grenache was the first Grenache I tried!
As a result, every time I try a Grenache, I tend to think about the Lehmann wine, and remember how much I really didn’t like it! And trying a series of Grenache dominated French wines, meant that the unpleasant Aussie wine was on my mind for a few hours. I would put prices, and retailers, but they aren’t really available in Britain… yet!
Domaine de Cassan Cote du Ventoux Les Esclausels, 2006
Clean, fresh and with very simple fruit. Palate has a touch of spice, a bit of tannin and a bit of tangy citrus. This is nice and minerally, with a herby note, that would go perfectly with fatty French peasant food cooked by a wonderful French wife with big French bosoms and a French apron. 7/10
Cotes du Rhone Domaine de l’Ameillaud, 2006
A load of coffee, burnt toast and stewed fruit. The palate is good, a touch of mint with lovely stewed fruit. Minty flavours just clean up the palate before the finish, which then settles in your mouth and slowly disappears. 7.5/10
Domaine de Fenouillet Beaumes de Venise Terres Blanches, 2005
Very very minty with lots of herbsand a bit of green cherry fruit. A lot of booze! Quite nice and a lovely finish of stoney fruit. 7/10
Chateau Redortier Beaumes de Venise, 2004
Black pudding on the nose. Very spicy, with great fruit. A bit of oak on the nose too. The palate has good ripe cherry and a gamey flavour. Apparently, this was put into a blind Chateauneuf tasting, where red herrings were not allowed, and it really pissed off a lot of producers as it beat the lot! Any producer who does that, just to annoy a Frenchman, gets points in my book! 8/10 for the wine, plus 1/10 for being mischievous! 9/10
Domaine de Cassan Beaumes de Venise Saint Christophe, 2005
A very simple nose, not much coming off it and is kinda boring. The palate starts off the same but then, echoing the Batman TV series of the 1960’s, BAM! WHACK! WOP! OOOFF! A bundle of brilliant bitter cherry and spice bombards you, then throws a bit of chocolate into the mix. Brilliant and so surprising. 8/10
Domaine les Ondines Plan de Dieu, 2005
Sour cherries and a bit of boot polish and a touch of sweetness on the nose. The palate is nice and spicy, with a cranberry and raspberry flavour. A super long finish. 8/10
Domaine les Ondines Vacqueyras, 2005
A little minty, toasty with liquorice and cherry. The palate is nice, grippy tannin, with a bit of coffee and cherry stones. A bit of booze and spice on the finish, but it is dominated by coffee and bitter chocolate. 8/10
Domaine de Cassan Gigondas, 2005
Nice, pretty nose. Subtle cherry on the nose. Palate is big and spicy with a simple fruit flavour. Just too closed and will need some time to open up. 7/10 (potentially 8 or 9/10)
The Peter Lehmann demon was exorcised long ago, but this put the final nail in his coffin. There wasn’t a single wine that I would be disappointed drinking, and some that were particularly interesting and fun. I hope these wines make it to Britain. Wines like these are often overlooked for other big named regions, and they offer great value for money.
As a result, every time I try a Grenache, I tend to think about the Lehmann wine, and remember how much I really didn’t like it! And trying a series of Grenache dominated French wines, meant that the unpleasant Aussie wine was on my mind for a few hours. I would put prices, and retailers, but they aren’t really available in Britain… yet!
Domaine de Cassan Cote du Ventoux Les Esclausels, 2006
Clean, fresh and with very simple fruit. Palate has a touch of spice, a bit of tannin and a bit of tangy citrus. This is nice and minerally, with a herby note, that would go perfectly with fatty French peasant food cooked by a wonderful French wife with big French bosoms and a French apron. 7/10
Cotes du Rhone Domaine de l’Ameillaud, 2006
A load of coffee, burnt toast and stewed fruit. The palate is good, a touch of mint with lovely stewed fruit. Minty flavours just clean up the palate before the finish, which then settles in your mouth and slowly disappears. 7.5/10
Domaine de Fenouillet Beaumes de Venise Terres Blanches, 2005
Very very minty with lots of herbsand a bit of green cherry fruit. A lot of booze! Quite nice and a lovely finish of stoney fruit. 7/10
Chateau Redortier Beaumes de Venise, 2004
Black pudding on the nose. Very spicy, with great fruit. A bit of oak on the nose too. The palate has good ripe cherry and a gamey flavour. Apparently, this was put into a blind Chateauneuf tasting, where red herrings were not allowed, and it really pissed off a lot of producers as it beat the lot! Any producer who does that, just to annoy a Frenchman, gets points in my book! 8/10 for the wine, plus 1/10 for being mischievous! 9/10
Domaine de Cassan Beaumes de Venise Saint Christophe, 2005
A very simple nose, not much coming off it and is kinda boring. The palate starts off the same but then, echoing the Batman TV series of the 1960’s, BAM! WHACK! WOP! OOOFF! A bundle of brilliant bitter cherry and spice bombards you, then throws a bit of chocolate into the mix. Brilliant and so surprising. 8/10
Domaine les Ondines Plan de Dieu, 2005
Sour cherries and a bit of boot polish and a touch of sweetness on the nose. The palate is nice and spicy, with a cranberry and raspberry flavour. A super long finish. 8/10
Domaine les Ondines Vacqueyras, 2005
A little minty, toasty with liquorice and cherry. The palate is nice, grippy tannin, with a bit of coffee and cherry stones. A bit of booze and spice on the finish, but it is dominated by coffee and bitter chocolate. 8/10
Domaine de Cassan Gigondas, 2005
Nice, pretty nose. Subtle cherry on the nose. Palate is big and spicy with a simple fruit flavour. Just too closed and will need some time to open up. 7/10 (potentially 8 or 9/10)
The Peter Lehmann demon was exorcised long ago, but this put the final nail in his coffin. There wasn’t a single wine that I would be disappointed drinking, and some that were particularly interesting and fun. I hope these wines make it to Britain. Wines like these are often overlooked for other big named regions, and they offer great value for money.
News: Dalmore sponsors an F1 team
The 'newest' team on the Formula One grid will attempt to drag itself from the back of grid with the help of Dalmore Single Malt whisky, announced today as a sponsor of the Force India team.
Team owner, Vijay Mallya, bought both the team and the distillery in 2007, along with the rest of the Whyte and Mackay portfolio, to add to his Kingfisher beer brand. It appears that he is going to bankroll the team himself, using it as a mobile billboard for his brands which are prominent all over the white car. Despite this being the team's first season as Force India, it has been in the sport since 1991 as the Jordan, Midland and Spyker teams, with drivers such as Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher. This years drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil, could stand a chance of scoring some decent finishes this year, as the car is designed by Mike Gasgoyne, who, in recent years, turned around the fortunes of the Renault and Toyota teams and was also chief designer in his current team's best years, as Jordan, in 1998 and 1999.... oh you really don't give a stuff, you are reading this because you like booze and don't give a stuff about motor racing. Well here is something to ponder. How come tobacco advertising has been banned from F1, yet alcohol hasn't. Lets face it, drinking and driving are two things that you shouldn't want to mix....
En Primeur Jadot 2006
En primeur tastings are a bugger. I've not tried enough cask samples to be able to get a grasp on what I should be looking for, and while I can make an estimated guess as to what these things might become like, I tend to rate them on what they are like now, which is TOTALLY wrong! As a result (and also because I have lost my notes) I defer to my pal Richard, who has written things up on his blog and is a lot more experienced in Burgundy and cask samples.
Click here to see his notes
Click here to see his notes
Vintage Ports with a British Gent
I know a chap called Henry. He is eighty years old and is an old British gentleman in the truest sense, driving a battered old Range Rover to and from his large house and who speaks with an upper class British accent. He is a slightly eccentric man - the sort of gent that made Britain great! You can even imagine him taking potshots at walkers who happen to wander over his fields!
And like me, he has a passion for Port, and after we discovered this mutual passion, he has been very generous in allowing me to try some wonderful vintage ports from his cellar. In September of last year, to celebrate his birthday, he opened the last two bottles of 1927 Taylors from the twelve cases his father bought for him over seventy years ago, and, just for another small tipple, he also let me try a 1955 Cockburns that he had opened on a whim!
And then this year, he celebrated his Golden Wedding anniversary with a 1958 Martinez and a 1966 Taylors. Again, despite barely knowing him, he saved some of each of these and brought them for me to try.
Martinez Vintage Port, 1958
Rich, round and with a soft, sweet tobacco and bramble aroma, with a good dose of Christmas Pudding. Quite herby too. The palate is sweet, a bit prickly and spicy, and the fruit is a little dumb. Clean, yet lean on the finish with a bitterness on the finish. 7.5/10
Taylors Vintage Port, 1966
Rosemary with menthol, caramel and cherries on the nose, with a subtle spice coming through a juicy and dark fruit palate. This isn't quite ready yet, with a bit too much booze and dark secondary flavours. This certainly has the time to open up and get better. 8/10
Both good port, but not as good as the drinking companion! A legend.
And like me, he has a passion for Port, and after we discovered this mutual passion, he has been very generous in allowing me to try some wonderful vintage ports from his cellar. In September of last year, to celebrate his birthday, he opened the last two bottles of 1927 Taylors from the twelve cases his father bought for him over seventy years ago, and, just for another small tipple, he also let me try a 1955 Cockburns that he had opened on a whim!
And then this year, he celebrated his Golden Wedding anniversary with a 1958 Martinez and a 1966 Taylors. Again, despite barely knowing him, he saved some of each of these and brought them for me to try.
Martinez Vintage Port, 1958
Rich, round and with a soft, sweet tobacco and bramble aroma, with a good dose of Christmas Pudding. Quite herby too. The palate is sweet, a bit prickly and spicy, and the fruit is a little dumb. Clean, yet lean on the finish with a bitterness on the finish. 7.5/10
Taylors Vintage Port, 1966
Rosemary with menthol, caramel and cherries on the nose, with a subtle spice coming through a juicy and dark fruit palate. This isn't quite ready yet, with a bit too much booze and dark secondary flavours. This certainly has the time to open up and get better. 8/10
Both good port, but not as good as the drinking companion! A legend.
Booze is cheap - the proof
For years the price of fine wine has been creeping up. Wines that, ten years ago, were affordable are now not. I recently heard a gentleman who has worked in the wine trade for many decades say that when he started he could drink classed Bordeaux, now he can only afford cru Bourgois. But then I found some old catalogues from three merchants, Saccone & Speed, Peter Dominic and Alastair Campbell, dating from the mid 1950s through to the early 1960s. Looking through them, and salivating over legendary wines for less than one pound fifty per bottle, two things struck me. Firstly, the wine merchants of yesteryear were vastly different from today and secondly, it appeared that the wines were so expensive in days gone by.
First up, Alastair Campbell. Decades before that name meant Labour party spin, if you lived in Edinburgh, it meant the Bruntsfield Place wine merchant. His small, pocket sized brochure starts with eleven pages of waffle, albeit with perfect grammar. An introduction explaining why prices have gone up, puts the blame firmly with the almighty, by stating “for three years now the sun hasn’t shone when it should have, frost has appeared when it needn’t have done and mildew, oidium, hailstones and several feet of snow have all occurred in places and in an abundance that they never bothered in living memory”. There is also evidence of recycling (in 1955!) with the suggestion “Empty Bottles? Unless you want to keep ‘em for the next Celtic v Rangers tussle – we’d welcome their return…”. How I long for an end to political correction when it was ok for a wine merchant to suggest chucking glass bottles at football fans….
Unfortunately, there were precious few wines I can compare to the present day in Alastair Campbell’s list. I realised that the best regions to stick to were Champagne, Bordeaux and Port, as these regions are the nearest France has to Brands. Germany, Burgundy, Spain etc, are mainly described as “Hock”, “Chablis” or “Rioja” without a producer, which, aside for being no good for this article, shows how uneducated the customer was forty years ago.
I needed to figure out the costs of wine in relation to the average weekly wage. In 2007, the average weekly wage (according to National Statistics) is £498 for a man. In 1958, it was seven pounds. Now, as a lot of folk reading this will never have dealt with pre decimalised British currency, I’m going to convert everything into decimal to make life easy.
The first wine I found was Lanson Black Lable Champagne. The fifties price was 27/6 (twenty seven shillings and sixpence) or £1.375 or 20% of the weekly wage. Compare that to today, where Lanson costs £22 per bottle at Oddbins, that is 4.5% of the weekly wage. A 1935 Sandeman Vintage Port was 33 shillings, or 23.5% of the weekly wage. A 1985 version of this port, with a similar amount of age today as the ’35 had in ’58, is £28 from Fine & Rare Wines, or 5.6% of the pre tax average earnings.
I looked to Saccone & Speed’s “Wine & Cigar List – Summer 1954” to see if prices were falling in the 1950s. After passing by a quote from Aristophanes, I looked at some Bordeaux wines. A 1948 Mouton Rothschild was 234 shillings a case, or £11.70, or just under 2 weeks of the ’54 average wage of 130 shillings. However, when I looked for the price of a similarly aged Mouton from this decade, I found that it cost nearly three weeks wages. Remembering that in 1954, Mouton was a second growth, I checked other first growths, and found that there were similar results, with the price (in relation to the weekly wage) being more expensive today than half a century ago. Normal service was resumed with a 1926 Gruaud Larose was 18% of the weekly wage per bottle. I looked to a good vintage from the seventies, for a similarly aged wine, and found 1970 Gruaud going for £55 or 11% of the average wage. Moet & Chandon 1947 was, in today’s money, £1.47 per bottle (22%) compared to Moet 2000 today at £35 (7%) and a matured for 20 years Offley Boa Vista vintage port was twenty one percent, for the ’35 vintage in ’54, and only 4% for the 1985 vintage today.
Forwarding a decade, “The Wine Mine” from Peter Dominic Ltd, I decided to look at their spirits prices. Gordons Gin is today thought of as cheap gin, and you can usually pick it up for at the most £11 (2.2% of the weekly wage). In 1961 it was 39/9, or just under £2. The average weekly wage was eight and a half pounds, so this made a bottle of Gordons cost just under twelve hours work! Smirnoff was the same as Gordons, and Cinzano was 9.4% compared to 1.3% today. Comparing single malt prices shows that in 1961, Glenmorangie 10 Year Old was £2.37 (28%) and Laphroaig 10 Year Old £2.62 (31%), compared to £22 (4.4%) and £20 (4%) respectively today.
But it was reading The Wine Mine’s Bordeaux introduction that interested me the most. I quote, “In the past 10 years demand for Claret from such countries as Germany, Belgium, Sweden and the USA, to say nothing of our own, has increased and with demand exceeding supply, prices have risen. ‘Uncle Sam’ in fact now drinks three bottles of French wine to ‘John Bull’s’ four and, with the rate of exchange in his favour, ‘Uncle Sam’ can afford the best”. How times have both changed, and not changed! While prices for French wine, particularly the top wines, are still increasing, it is the far east market not the USA that a significant contributor to the rise. And since the skinny chip changed it’s name to Freedom Fries when America invaded Iraq and decided it didn’t like France, the American market has dried up. And as for the exchange rate being in “Uncle Sam’s” favour? Best not go there…
So really, we shouldn’t be moaning when yet another champagne house hikes up it’s retail price to fund it’s latest marketing campaign or when the latest vintage of port gets inflated values. Compared to forty or fifty years ago, things aren’t that bad. OK, so in 1961 you could buy a nice house for four times the annual wage, when today you need six, we are taxed much more than fifty years ago, and society has gone to hell, but we can drown our sorrows in booze because things are cheaper now than they have ever been.
First up, Alastair Campbell. Decades before that name meant Labour party spin, if you lived in Edinburgh, it meant the Bruntsfield Place wine merchant. His small, pocket sized brochure starts with eleven pages of waffle, albeit with perfect grammar. An introduction explaining why prices have gone up, puts the blame firmly with the almighty, by stating “for three years now the sun hasn’t shone when it should have, frost has appeared when it needn’t have done and mildew, oidium, hailstones and several feet of snow have all occurred in places and in an abundance that they never bothered in living memory”. There is also evidence of recycling (in 1955!) with the suggestion “Empty Bottles? Unless you want to keep ‘em for the next Celtic v Rangers tussle – we’d welcome their return…”. How I long for an end to political correction when it was ok for a wine merchant to suggest chucking glass bottles at football fans….
Unfortunately, there were precious few wines I can compare to the present day in Alastair Campbell’s list. I realised that the best regions to stick to were Champagne, Bordeaux and Port, as these regions are the nearest France has to Brands. Germany, Burgundy, Spain etc, are mainly described as “Hock”, “Chablis” or “Rioja” without a producer, which, aside for being no good for this article, shows how uneducated the customer was forty years ago.
I needed to figure out the costs of wine in relation to the average weekly wage. In 2007, the average weekly wage (according to National Statistics) is £498 for a man. In 1958, it was seven pounds. Now, as a lot of folk reading this will never have dealt with pre decimalised British currency, I’m going to convert everything into decimal to make life easy.
The first wine I found was Lanson Black Lable Champagne. The fifties price was 27/6 (twenty seven shillings and sixpence) or £1.375 or 20% of the weekly wage. Compare that to today, where Lanson costs £22 per bottle at Oddbins, that is 4.5% of the weekly wage. A 1935 Sandeman Vintage Port was 33 shillings, or 23.5% of the weekly wage. A 1985 version of this port, with a similar amount of age today as the ’35 had in ’58, is £28 from Fine & Rare Wines, or 5.6% of the pre tax average earnings.
I looked to Saccone & Speed’s “Wine & Cigar List – Summer 1954” to see if prices were falling in the 1950s. After passing by a quote from Aristophanes, I looked at some Bordeaux wines. A 1948 Mouton Rothschild was 234 shillings a case, or £11.70, or just under 2 weeks of the ’54 average wage of 130 shillings. However, when I looked for the price of a similarly aged Mouton from this decade, I found that it cost nearly three weeks wages. Remembering that in 1954, Mouton was a second growth, I checked other first growths, and found that there were similar results, with the price (in relation to the weekly wage) being more expensive today than half a century ago. Normal service was resumed with a 1926 Gruaud Larose was 18% of the weekly wage per bottle. I looked to a good vintage from the seventies, for a similarly aged wine, and found 1970 Gruaud going for £55 or 11% of the average wage. Moet & Chandon 1947 was, in today’s money, £1.47 per bottle (22%) compared to Moet 2000 today at £35 (7%) and a matured for 20 years Offley Boa Vista vintage port was twenty one percent, for the ’35 vintage in ’54, and only 4% for the 1985 vintage today.
Forwarding a decade, “The Wine Mine” from Peter Dominic Ltd, I decided to look at their spirits prices. Gordons Gin is today thought of as cheap gin, and you can usually pick it up for at the most £11 (2.2% of the weekly wage). In 1961 it was 39/9, or just under £2. The average weekly wage was eight and a half pounds, so this made a bottle of Gordons cost just under twelve hours work! Smirnoff was the same as Gordons, and Cinzano was 9.4% compared to 1.3% today. Comparing single malt prices shows that in 1961, Glenmorangie 10 Year Old was £2.37 (28%) and Laphroaig 10 Year Old £2.62 (31%), compared to £22 (4.4%) and £20 (4%) respectively today.
But it was reading The Wine Mine’s Bordeaux introduction that interested me the most. I quote, “In the past 10 years demand for Claret from such countries as Germany, Belgium, Sweden and the USA, to say nothing of our own, has increased and with demand exceeding supply, prices have risen. ‘Uncle Sam’ in fact now drinks three bottles of French wine to ‘John Bull’s’ four and, with the rate of exchange in his favour, ‘Uncle Sam’ can afford the best”. How times have both changed, and not changed! While prices for French wine, particularly the top wines, are still increasing, it is the far east market not the USA that a significant contributor to the rise. And since the skinny chip changed it’s name to Freedom Fries when America invaded Iraq and decided it didn’t like France, the American market has dried up. And as for the exchange rate being in “Uncle Sam’s” favour? Best not go there…
So really, we shouldn’t be moaning when yet another champagne house hikes up it’s retail price to fund it’s latest marketing campaign or when the latest vintage of port gets inflated values. Compared to forty or fifty years ago, things aren’t that bad. OK, so in 1961 you could buy a nice house for four times the annual wage, when today you need six, we are taxed much more than fifty years ago, and society has gone to hell, but we can drown our sorrows in booze because things are cheaper now than they have ever been.
Australia Day - The Millennium Dome syndrome
There have been three major expenses that have wasted the taxpayers money since Tony Blair won his landslide and Prescott danced to 'Things can only get better'. The Millennium Dome in London and the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Alongside the latter in Edinburgh, there is Dynamic Earth, a building that bears a striking resemblance to the waste of money in London, but this glorified tent has a purpose. On land gifted to the people of Edinburgh, on the condition that it be used for the public good, Dynamic Earth tells the evolution of this small planet we call home. Built in the shadow of Arthur's Seat, it was the venue for the 2008 Australia Day tasting, where suppliers of Aussie wine congregate to show off the jam and spice fest that is Shiraz.
Having had my faith in wines from the colonials restored in the second half of last year, I was actually looking forward to going and seeing how Australia wanted to portray itself on the international stage, and I was surprised by what I found. The nation that gave us the over oaked jam fest, heralded the grape variety on the label and that said that "terroir is just a poncie name for dirt" are wanting to be like Burgundy!
I started off at the Negociants table, trying wines from Yalumba. Having heard many good things about the oldest family owned winery in Oz, I found that they were nearly all pretty appealing.
Yalumba Y Series Riesling, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
Good, clean, crisp. Simple lemony and limey fruit on the nose and palate, quite clean with good acidity. 6/10
Yalumba Y Series Unwooded Chardonnay, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
Melon and a bit of weird pear drops on the nose, the palate is a bit flabby, but it is drinkable enough. 5/10
Yalumba Y Series Viognier, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
Take a bar of soap and suck on it. That is pretty much what you are getting. A total lack of fruit and it's just pretty poor. 4/10
Yalumba Y Series Shiraz Viognier, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
A touch confected, but simple. A bit of cherry Coke on the nose. Palate has a touch of bubblegum, but it is not bad. This, cold, in the summer will be great. Not a serious wine, but it doesn't have to be. 7/10
Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier, 2006 £8.00 - £10.00
This is bigger than the Y Series, spicy nose and a lot of limes. Palate has a flavour a bit like Wine Gums and is a bit thin on fruit and fat on weight. Iffy. 5.5/10
Yalumba Hand Picked Shiraz Viognier, 2005 £12.00 - £15.00
It is porno! Big, gloopy and thick. Cassis and a wallop of cracked black peppercorns. The palate is chunky with a lot of spice and chocolate, and more of the dark berry fruit. The finish is a little wak though. 7/10
Yalumba Hand Picked Tempranillo Grenache Viognier (TGV), 2006 £12.00 - £15.00
Good fruit, a lot of ripe, light berries. Quite floral. Fruit is nice on the palate, a bit of light cinnamon and then a strange bit of marmalade coming through on the finish. Nice though. 6/10
Yalumba Tri-centenary Grenache, 2005 £12.00 - £15.00
Herby with light simple fruit. Its a very soft wine, nice chocolatey flavours and a lot of cherry stone flavours. 7/10
Yalumba The Menzies Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004 £23.00
Herby, a lot of green, old Cabernet flavours - cherry, cassis and green pepper - and then sweet tobacco. It is nice, but at that price? 7/10
Yalumba The Octavius Barossa Old Vine Shiraz, 2004 £45.00!!!
It might be tasty, but it is not worth the best part of fifty quid. It is gutsy, like a cigar that has rolled around on the earth for a bit. Soupy palate, a bit of bitter burnt toast ad rich, sweet jammy fruit. 6/10
Yalumba The Signature Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz, 2004 £25.00
Rich and brambley. It has a nice stalky aroma with the sweet, spicy fruit mingling with it. The finish is a bit poor, and you'd want a bit more than that for over twenty pounds. 6/10
With the stars definitely being the sub £10 reds and the hand picked series, which have cool packaging by the way, Yalumba was indeed, a perfect place to start. These are Australian wines as they always have been. The grapes are of utmost importance, and the region second. They are not complicated, and deliver bang for the bucks, which is what Australia has always been about.
Moving on, I visited the Stratfords Wine Agencies table. Wakefield's 2006 Shiraz was one of the wines that got me interested in antipodean wines again, and they were showing their new Jaraman range, so new they were being shown under their non EU brand, Taylors. They are taking wine made from grapes from their owed Claire vineyards, and, taking inspiration from 'Fusion food', they have 'fused' them with wine from other regions of Australia. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but multi region Australian wines were always the cheap wines. Wakefield are trying to do to wine what Gordon Ramsay did to the steak and kidney pie - take something cheap, make it brilliant and sell it for twice what it used to be!
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Riesling, 2005 £13.99
From Claire Valley & Eden Valley. Clean, light Riesling with nice lime flavours and a mineral element. It is nice and zingy with good acidity. 7/10
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Chardonnay, 2005 £13.99
From Claire Valley & Adelaide Hills. Nice, simple fruit. Good, simple fruit with a slight oaky aroma, vanilla pod and mango. The palate is nice, with an cedar flavour. Quite simple. 8/10
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004 £13.99
From Claire Valley & Coonawarra. Earthy secondary flavours dominate with cassis and cherry creeping through. A lovely mouthfeel, with grippy tannins and a bundle of fruit. Good stuff. 8/10
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Shiraz, 2004 £13.99
From Claire Valley & McLaren Vale. It's big, juicy and thick with damson jam and a bundle of chocolate on the palate. It does then clean up and is quite light and clean on the finish. 7/10
All good, solid wines, well worth the money and filling a gap in the Wakefield range between the super Estate wines and the premium St Andrews range. I can't help thinking that they should just drop the Wakefield name from the label, as independent retailers, which this wine is aimed squarely at, will not want to have shelves filled with one brand.
At the other end of the spectrum, but on the next table, were the Kooyong wines rom Mornington Peninsula. These wines are possibly the closest Australia will ever get to Burgundy, but will they sell? Two estate wines, a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir, get the range started just under twenty pounds, and then an extra seven or eight pounds will get you some interesting terroir influenced wines.
Kooyong Estate Chardonnay, 2005 £17.99
Nice, easy fruit with a bit of tropical fruit and very restrained oak. Nice and clean. 8/10
Kooyong Faultine Chardonnay, 2005 £24.99
Deeper tropical fruit, showing a lot more balance on the nose than the Estate wine. Subtle yeasty flavour with a little lemon zest showing through. 8/10
Kooyong Farrago Chardonnay, 2005 £24.99
Huge! A lot of brioch and masses of passion fruit and mango. This is a big fella. 7.5/10
Kooyong Estate Pinot Noir, 2005 £17.99
Good cherry fruit with a brilliant, earthy palate. It has good fruit and a bit of cherry and cranberry going on. 9/10
Kooyong Ferrous Pinot Noir, 2005 £24.99
Nose is soft, with very simple cassis and green peppers. A bit of spice and chocolate round up this wine.
Kooyong Haven Pinot Noir, 2005 £24.99
Soft, very opulent. A touch of Pinot stink. Palate is rich, spicy and spirity. Good. 9/10
Kooyong Merres Pinot Noir, 2005 £TBC
Sweet and spicy. A rich wine with a mass of juicy fruit finish and a bit of hotness just to spark things up. 9/10
They certainly show Terroir in Australia, and do it very well, but they are just a bit too pricey. Nobody will buy them without trying them first, and they certainly won't understand them without having a taste. The same applied with wines from Cult & Boutique Wines, a specialist importer, run by two massively passionate men who love all things Australian.
The Colonial Estate 'Emigre', 2005 £44.99
Soft and juicy nose, with spicy pepper coming through the bramble. A lot of spice, cherry and cassis on the palate and a nice finesse on this Shiraz/Grenache/Cabernet/Mourvedre/ Carignan/Muscadelle)! 7/10
Clarendon Hills 'Onkaparinga' Old Vines Grenache, 2005 £44.99
Not a lot of fruit on the nose, with Cranberry just creeping through. The palate is super simple, a touch of spice and cranberry and then a MASS of spice smacks you in the mouth. 7/10
Kay Brothers Amery 'Block 6' Shiraz, 2004 £44.99
It's got nice balance, the palate has good tobacco, spice and bramble and it's not too jammy. This is a food wine, but it shows good balance. 8/10
I walked from table to table, sampling these wonderfully designed wines, yet realised that very few people would actually get to try them. You see, Australian wines are like the two big tents. Wakefield's Jaraman range or Yalumba's wines are like the Australia Day's venue. They are maybe not brilliant, but are reasonably inexpensive and actually serve a worthwhile purpose and can be enjoyed by millions.
The likes of Kooyong, Kay Brothers and, of course, The Grange are, technically, superior products, which cost a lot more to create and will be enjoyed by a select few while the masses go on, ignorant to their pros and cons. These wines, these Australian 'terroir' wines, are the Millennium Dome.
Having had my faith in wines from the colonials restored in the second half of last year, I was actually looking forward to going and seeing how Australia wanted to portray itself on the international stage, and I was surprised by what I found. The nation that gave us the over oaked jam fest, heralded the grape variety on the label and that said that "terroir is just a poncie name for dirt" are wanting to be like Burgundy!
I started off at the Negociants table, trying wines from Yalumba. Having heard many good things about the oldest family owned winery in Oz, I found that they were nearly all pretty appealing.
Yalumba Y Series Riesling, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
Good, clean, crisp. Simple lemony and limey fruit on the nose and palate, quite clean with good acidity. 6/10
Yalumba Y Series Unwooded Chardonnay, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
Melon and a bit of weird pear drops on the nose, the palate is a bit flabby, but it is drinkable enough. 5/10
Yalumba Y Series Viognier, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
Take a bar of soap and suck on it. That is pretty much what you are getting. A total lack of fruit and it's just pretty poor. 4/10
Yalumba Y Series Shiraz Viognier, 2007 £6.00 - £8.00
A touch confected, but simple. A bit of cherry Coke on the nose. Palate has a touch of bubblegum, but it is not bad. This, cold, in the summer will be great. Not a serious wine, but it doesn't have to be. 7/10
Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier, 2006 £8.00 - £10.00
This is bigger than the Y Series, spicy nose and a lot of limes. Palate has a flavour a bit like Wine Gums and is a bit thin on fruit and fat on weight. Iffy. 5.5/10
Yalumba Hand Picked Shiraz Viognier, 2005 £12.00 - £15.00
It is porno! Big, gloopy and thick. Cassis and a wallop of cracked black peppercorns. The palate is chunky with a lot of spice and chocolate, and more of the dark berry fruit. The finish is a little wak though. 7/10
Yalumba Hand Picked Tempranillo Grenache Viognier (TGV), 2006 £12.00 - £15.00
Good fruit, a lot of ripe, light berries. Quite floral. Fruit is nice on the palate, a bit of light cinnamon and then a strange bit of marmalade coming through on the finish. Nice though. 6/10
Yalumba Tri-centenary Grenache, 2005 £12.00 - £15.00
Herby with light simple fruit. Its a very soft wine, nice chocolatey flavours and a lot of cherry stone flavours. 7/10
Yalumba The Menzies Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004 £23.00
Herby, a lot of green, old Cabernet flavours - cherry, cassis and green pepper - and then sweet tobacco. It is nice, but at that price? 7/10
Yalumba The Octavius Barossa Old Vine Shiraz, 2004 £45.00!!!
It might be tasty, but it is not worth the best part of fifty quid. It is gutsy, like a cigar that has rolled around on the earth for a bit. Soupy palate, a bit of bitter burnt toast ad rich, sweet jammy fruit. 6/10
Yalumba The Signature Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz, 2004 £25.00
Rich and brambley. It has a nice stalky aroma with the sweet, spicy fruit mingling with it. The finish is a bit poor, and you'd want a bit more than that for over twenty pounds. 6/10
With the stars definitely being the sub £10 reds and the hand picked series, which have cool packaging by the way, Yalumba was indeed, a perfect place to start. These are Australian wines as they always have been. The grapes are of utmost importance, and the region second. They are not complicated, and deliver bang for the bucks, which is what Australia has always been about.
Moving on, I visited the Stratfords Wine Agencies table. Wakefield's 2006 Shiraz was one of the wines that got me interested in antipodean wines again, and they were showing their new Jaraman range, so new they were being shown under their non EU brand, Taylors. They are taking wine made from grapes from their owed Claire vineyards, and, taking inspiration from 'Fusion food', they have 'fused' them with wine from other regions of Australia. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but multi region Australian wines were always the cheap wines. Wakefield are trying to do to wine what Gordon Ramsay did to the steak and kidney pie - take something cheap, make it brilliant and sell it for twice what it used to be!
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Riesling, 2005 £13.99
From Claire Valley & Eden Valley. Clean, light Riesling with nice lime flavours and a mineral element. It is nice and zingy with good acidity. 7/10
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Chardonnay, 2005 £13.99
From Claire Valley & Adelaide Hills. Nice, simple fruit. Good, simple fruit with a slight oaky aroma, vanilla pod and mango. The palate is nice, with an cedar flavour. Quite simple. 8/10
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004 £13.99
From Claire Valley & Coonawarra. Earthy secondary flavours dominate with cassis and cherry creeping through. A lovely mouthfeel, with grippy tannins and a bundle of fruit. Good stuff. 8/10
Taylors (Wakefield) Jaraman Shiraz, 2004 £13.99
From Claire Valley & McLaren Vale. It's big, juicy and thick with damson jam and a bundle of chocolate on the palate. It does then clean up and is quite light and clean on the finish. 7/10
All good, solid wines, well worth the money and filling a gap in the Wakefield range between the super Estate wines and the premium St Andrews range. I can't help thinking that they should just drop the Wakefield name from the label, as independent retailers, which this wine is aimed squarely at, will not want to have shelves filled with one brand.
At the other end of the spectrum, but on the next table, were the Kooyong wines rom Mornington Peninsula. These wines are possibly the closest Australia will ever get to Burgundy, but will they sell? Two estate wines, a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir, get the range started just under twenty pounds, and then an extra seven or eight pounds will get you some interesting terroir influenced wines.
Kooyong Estate Chardonnay, 2005 £17.99
Nice, easy fruit with a bit of tropical fruit and very restrained oak. Nice and clean. 8/10
Kooyong Faultine Chardonnay, 2005 £24.99
Deeper tropical fruit, showing a lot more balance on the nose than the Estate wine. Subtle yeasty flavour with a little lemon zest showing through. 8/10
Kooyong Farrago Chardonnay, 2005 £24.99
Huge! A lot of brioch and masses of passion fruit and mango. This is a big fella. 7.5/10
Kooyong Estate Pinot Noir, 2005 £17.99
Good cherry fruit with a brilliant, earthy palate. It has good fruit and a bit of cherry and cranberry going on. 9/10
Kooyong Ferrous Pinot Noir, 2005 £24.99
Nose is soft, with very simple cassis and green peppers. A bit of spice and chocolate round up this wine.
Kooyong Haven Pinot Noir, 2005 £24.99
Soft, very opulent. A touch of Pinot stink. Palate is rich, spicy and spirity. Good. 9/10
Kooyong Merres Pinot Noir, 2005 £TBC
Sweet and spicy. A rich wine with a mass of juicy fruit finish and a bit of hotness just to spark things up. 9/10
They certainly show Terroir in Australia, and do it very well, but they are just a bit too pricey. Nobody will buy them without trying them first, and they certainly won't understand them without having a taste. The same applied with wines from Cult & Boutique Wines, a specialist importer, run by two massively passionate men who love all things Australian.
The Colonial Estate 'Emigre', 2005 £44.99
Soft and juicy nose, with spicy pepper coming through the bramble. A lot of spice, cherry and cassis on the palate and a nice finesse on this Shiraz/Grenache/Cabernet/Mourvedre/ Carignan/Muscadelle)! 7/10
Clarendon Hills 'Onkaparinga' Old Vines Grenache, 2005 £44.99
Not a lot of fruit on the nose, with Cranberry just creeping through. The palate is super simple, a touch of spice and cranberry and then a MASS of spice smacks you in the mouth. 7/10
Kay Brothers Amery 'Block 6' Shiraz, 2004 £44.99
It's got nice balance, the palate has good tobacco, spice and bramble and it's not too jammy. This is a food wine, but it shows good balance. 8/10
I walked from table to table, sampling these wonderfully designed wines, yet realised that very few people would actually get to try them. You see, Australian wines are like the two big tents. Wakefield's Jaraman range or Yalumba's wines are like the Australia Day's venue. They are maybe not brilliant, but are reasonably inexpensive and actually serve a worthwhile purpose and can be enjoyed by millions.
The likes of Kooyong, Kay Brothers and, of course, The Grange are, technically, superior products, which cost a lot more to create and will be enjoyed by a select few while the masses go on, ignorant to their pros and cons. These wines, these Australian 'terroir' wines, are the Millennium Dome.
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