2007 Bordeaux

2007 Bordeaux prices are going to be released pretty soon, probably after Robert Parker releases his scores at the end of the month, and here is my tuppenceworth.

If you wipe your bottom with £20 notes, buy as much as you can. If you don’t want to waste your money, don’t bother. Parker has already said that he thinks most 2007 is “disappointing”, so scores are likely to be low. However, the producers are unlikely to lower prices to make up for this. I doubt we will see more than a 10% drop in prices, but as the pound appears to be on a kamikaze mission, any ‘saving’ will not cross the channel. There is plenty of older vintages of Bordeaux in the UK, with 2004, 2002 and 2001 about to offer great value compared to the ‘07s. If you absolutely have to have some of the new vintage, I’d wait a few years. You’ll find that prices will come down, they will have to, and you’ll get the wines for less than they’d cost you now.

'Special Project' - Y'quem going for silly money

Y’quem is breaking records. A bottle of the 1811 vintage recently sold for nearly thirty eight thousand pounds and a collection of 136 bottles of 70 vintages went for just shy of £370,000 and the question has to be asked, are they worth it?

Sotherby’s, who conducted the auction of the collection, say that they think that the buyer has bought it to drink, which I think is brilliant. These wines are supposed to be drunk, and if the buyer has a place at the tasting going spare, I can be contacted on peterwood@thetastingnote.com, but my concern lies with the line from Lee Zinser of Cellarworks, the company that bought the 1811 wine. He says that the bottle was bought for one of Cellarworks’ clients for “a very special project”. I only hope that project is a nice meal with brilliant wine.

Anything but Crap of the Week - Tippling Cane

I want one of these when I'm old, and is perhaps the coolest thing I've seen in the past week and a half!

In a world where alcohol consumption is almost frowned on and having a hip flask automatically makes you an alcoholic, the Tippling Cane allows you to have a constant supply of your favourite drink yet keeping it out of site from prudish old women.

It costs £51.50 from the unfortunately named "Cox the Saddler", and is part of a series of other walking sticks including one with a cork screw, one with playing dice in it and one with a clock in the handle.

If you want to get one, and I suggest that you get one even if you are young because one day you won't be, you can get them here.

Wine Web Watch - Chantilli Wines Advert

On the old monthly Tasting Note, I used to have Wine Web Watch where I would post links to videos of very silly people doing very silly things with booze.

So it's back with this very silly advert for Chantilli Wines.

Vinitaly - So what was not so good?

Biting off the hand that feeds me! The internal debate of "should I write up all the wines that weren't so good at Vinitaly, especially as it was Liberty Wines that took me out there?". What to do.... what to do?

Well I figured out that yes, I should write up the not so good as well. I am very grateful for the hospitality shown by David Gleave and his team, and have praised many of the wines that they sell in the UK. But there were some wines that did perform below par, and they deserve an airing on this website as much as the good ones. The problem I had was that there was very little that performed badly...

2007 Alpha Zeta Chardonnay
Melon and peach aromas but with quite a firey nose. The palate is a bit oily which is fine, but there is a strange alcohol element that isn't for me. 5/10

2007 Ponte Pietra Corvina Merlot
Cherry. A bit of bubblegum, mint and thyme. Palate is simple, an nice house wine. Totally inoffensive. Finish is a touch iffy, but it is ok. 5.5/10

2007 Ponte Pietra Trebbiano Garganega
Simple, clean. A little oily with lemon flavour. An alright house wine but nothing more. 5.5/10

2007 Leonardo Ser Piero
A trebbiano chardonnay that really doesn’t work that well. A bit of Galia melon, a little lime but a touch thin. Tough spicy finish. 4.5/10

2007 Primo Malvasia
Clean and pleasant on the nose. Palate is too boozy, it is a bit fat and I really don’t like the finish. Not keen. 4/10

2007 Primo Sangiovese Merlot
Confected cheap fruit. Too Jammy though. Palate is bitter, lean sour fruit. It’s ok but too expensive. 5/10

2003 Giustiniana Just
Cheesy – Kraft cheese slices. Palate is chunky, again cheesy with a lot of harsh spice. A clean finish initially but then dirties up leaving you wanting something else to take the taste away. 5/10

2006 Conterno Bussiador
More wood than a Keilder Forest. It is spicy, oaky and no fruit whatsoever. Nuts. 4/10

Thats it. There are a few wines that, mainly due to the plummeting pound, are becoming a bit expensive for what they are (some Amarones for example) but generally the wines are worth the money you are paying. It sounds as though I'm sucking up to the company that entertained me for a week, but it the fact is that Liberty's Italian portfolio is very well constructed. Certainly, some wines are far better than others, but as long as the price that you are paying for the less good wine is fair, which inevitably it was, then the lesser wine deserves a good score and I gave it one. These were the wines that I didn't like or thought were not performing as well as they should, and considering I tried several hundred wines from Liberty, having eight get a minor slating from me is pretty good going!

Don't screw me Darling

Im a binge drinker. Or so the government thinks so. The fact that I buy a bottle of wine, and consume it (usually in one evening), means that I am contributing to the breakdown in society and am going to go out and break shop windows and urinate on someone’s doorstep. To stop me from doing this, Mr Darling, our chancellor with the Thunderbirds eyebrows, decided to raise the duty at the last election by 14p, bringing the amount I contribute to the country every time I buy a bottle of wine to £1.45. This is apparently to make reckless people like me unable to buy alcohol, or at least as much of it, by making it prohibitively expensive. If I buy two bottles of wine each week, that is £150 every year I give to Darling. Make the not unreasonable assumption that there are another hundred thousand ‘excessive drinkers’ like me in the UK who buy a couple of bottle of wine to have over dinner each week, and that is fifteen million that we are giving to the chancellor every year. If that was being diverted into helping booze soaked wineys like me get off the dreaded sauce, that would be fine, but it isn’t, so, in the words of Baldrick, “I have a cunning plan” how to shaft the government.

Lets all buy older wine, where older, and therefore lower, duty rates have been paid. It might sound simple, but if we all bought, for example, wine that was released from bond a year ago, it would result in twenty eight thousand fewer pounds going into the country’s coffers thanks to me and my hundred thousand fellow booze hounds. If the wine was released 2 years ago, it figure would be another ten thousand on top. If we all start drinking late 90’s wines that were released at the turn of the century, that figure would be nearer £70,000.

I grant you, it means we have to sacrifice. We may have to drink fully mature wines, but it means we may drink a few less bottles each year as older wines tend to be a bit more expensive, but with a concentrated effort, we could do the government out of a hundred thousand pounds each year pretty easily. It would be a small victory for the wine lover, but it would be worth it. We get better wine and the government gets less cash from us – it is win-win!

This can even be a long-term movement. At two bottles each week, we would need to buy nine cases of wine to last us for a year. If we buy five years supply before the next budget, albeit at the new duty rate, any future duty increases will be kept from the government. And we don’t even have to buy higher priced clarets or Barolos. We could buy six pound Chilean wines, shiraz from Australia and cheapies from European countries. Stick these away for a few years, you can enjoy more mature wines, and screw the government out of some money.

For special occasions, instead of buying a recently released new world wine, search the internet for UK merchant with older wines. For the same price as a recent vintage iconic Australian, you can get a mid nineties wine and pay a duty rate set by Kenneth Clark – and we all know how much he liked his booze! In Clark’s last budget he not only froze duty on wine, but lowered it by 26 pence on spirits!

But before somebody shouts about the Tories being soft of alcohol abusers, and that the Labour party is fighting a just and noble cause, you have to remember that the drink of choice of ‘binge drinkers’ in the mid nineties was an alcopop, and Ken raised the duty on those in his last budget. Clark was also, the last chancellor to take up the option presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the budget, as being the only person able to drink alcohol in the commons. Since then, it has been no booze for Brown and Darling and they have upped the duty on wine in every year they have been in power with only three exceptions.

So unless we get a reshuffle where we get a booze friendly MP in the post, we are stuck with this anti alcohol chancellor and his anti alcohol Prime Minister. So the campaign to screw Darling starts here….

Day 4 Vinitaly - 5th April - Bruno Rocca

There are a lot of big, fancy stands at Vinitaly. Some are there because the wines are crap and they think that by putting on a big show, people will come to them. Others are big because their wines are brilliant, they have made a lot of money and they can afford to put on a big, professional looking display. Then there is Bruno Rocca.

Sitting around a table, with an Italian couple tagging onto our tasting, in a big communal area where many smaller producers gather to show their wines, where Luisa Rocca showed us her family's wines.

2007 Bruno Rocca Dolcetto d’Alba Vigna Trifole
Nice, gentle fruit, a little green pepper. Cherry lips and dried leafy fruit. Nice. 8/10

2006 Bruno Rocca Barbera d’Alba
Soft, easy ripe berry fruits. A little cinnamon and pomegranite. Very good. 9/10

2005 Bruno Rocca Barberesco
Fresh mint stalks, a little dry tannin. Good vegetal fruit, nice clean finish with earthy fruit. Dried raspberries on the finish. 8/10

2004 Bruno Rocca Barberesco Coparossa
Tannin. Dark and spicy. 9/10

2005 Bruno Rocca Barberesco Rabaja
Juicy, sweet fruit. Palate is hot, great weight, HUGE spice and HUGER tannin. Concentrated. 9/10

2004 Bruno Rocca ‘Maria Adelaide’ Barbaresco
Named after Bruno Rocca's mother who only lived long enough to see one vintage, Maria Aelaide's granddaughter, Luisa, had a tear in her eye when she told us the story behind this wine. Rich, full fruit and spice. Palate is soft, with firm tannins, a wallop of spice. Gentle finish, dry and cherry stone flavours. 8.5/10

With simple, feather designs on the labels, these wines are very good value for money despite them starting at around £15. To me though, they would be more appealing to a restaurant list rather than a retailer's list. They are good wines, don't get me wrong, but they would be a serious hard sell, and explaining the feather on the label, would get tiresome for even the biggest fan of these wines. Having said that, I love them.

Day 3 Vinitaly - 4th April - Highlights

The biggest highlight, for me, on day three was sitting, trying A Mano wines. The wines were nice, but the real reason it was a big deal was that across from me on the Donelli stand was Gilles Villeneuve's 1979 Formula One Ferrari. This car helped the Canadian come second in the world championship, winning three races along the way, which was his highest position in the championship before his death in 1982. Anyway, there were also some great wines on the day. They are these...


2006 Cortegiara Recioto
Sweet, rich nose. Fruit pudding, palate is balanced but not too sweet. Very, very balanced with lovely dried fruit. Gorgeous. 9/10

2007 Poggio al Tesoro Solosole Vermentino
Soft, gentle, very nice simple wine with good spice, a bit of booze and clean under ripe nectarine and pear. 8/10

2005 Poggio al Tesoro Sondraia
Gentle, voluptuous and yet firm. A stern, but caring boarding school matron! Good cassis, a touch of green pepper and a little dried cherry. Good. 9/10

2005 Poggio al Tesoro ‘W’ Dedicato a Walter
Nice, vegetal aromas, a lovely toffee and cherry aroma. Nice, ripe, spicy, fruit. A dark, stalky bramble with liquorice and leather finish. 8.5/10

2007 Giustiniana Gavi Lugarara
Pear, spice, very clean, good lemon pith. A little chunkiness but it all gets cleaned up and is a very nice wine. 8/10

2007 Specogna Friulano – Sample
Turkish delight, a lovely fresh nose. Palate is good, rosewater with gentle perfumey spice. I like this. 8/10

2007 Specognia Sauvignon - Sample
Fresh, gentle with subtle mineral aromas and veggies. Clean, fresh, a touch of cut grass. Not bad. 7.5/10

2007 Specogna Cabernet Franc – Sample
Veggies. Stoney with a little raspberry. Quite green. I want to try this later. 8/10

2005 Specogna Pignolo
Perfumy, raspberries on the nose. More on the palate, a warm spice, quite tannic… no, very tannic. Black pepper and veggies on the finish. Good. 8/10

2006 Specogna Refosco
Rich fruit on the nose, bramble and a bit of dried fruit. Earthy hints and a long dry finish. 8/10

2006 Toblar Cabernet Franc
Gentle vegetal aromas, with nice stone fruit. Lean and dry with lots of cranberry and cabbage and a bit of smoke on the finish. 8/10

2006 Selvapiana Chianti Rufina
So balanced. A stonking chianti. Earthy, herby and gorgeous. 8.5/10

2006 Selvapiana Fattoria Petrognano Pomino
Soft, sour herry, herbs. It is a big, thick mo fo. Gutsy, dry and leathery. 7.5/10
2004 Selvapiana Chianti Rufina Bucerchiale Reserva
Soft, perfumy with nice dried fruit. A lot of tobacco and leather. Dry fruit. Nice stuff. 8/10

1985 Selvapiana Chianti Rufina Reserva (the artist now known as Bucerchiale)
Lovely stewed raisins, a little earthyness. Palate is great, dry with restrained milk chocolate and a touch of rosemary. Good dry fruit. 9/10

2001 Selvapiana Chianti Rufina Vin Santo
Clean almonds, a honey and orange peel flavour. Dry and then a lovely honey sweetness comes through. Acidity cleans everything up. 9/10

2006 A Mano Primitivo
Wild raspberries and cranberries. Palate is good, dry, a touch of bitter pencil and a little confected raspberries. Still good. 8/10

2007 A Mano Negroamaro
Perfumey with a rustic, peasanty aroma. A little dark chocolate, cherry and peppery spice. Very nice. 8/10

2006 A Mano Pima Mano Primitivo
Dark, got good concentrated fruit. A long, cherry finish. 7.5/10

2007 A Mano Aleatico Passito
Brambles. Lots of brambles. A lovely sweet aroma, balanced palate, dark chocolate, super rich fruit. A stonking wine. 9/10

Day 3 Vinitaly - 4th April - Allegrini

One of the highlights of the day had to be the Allegrini banquet in the evening. After visiting the high vineyards in the shadow of the Dolomites... woah, that sounded too arty and wine writer like.... err... Ok, I'll start again.

After visiting the La Poja, La Grola and Palazzo della Torre vineyards, were invited to the Allegrini banquet at Villa Giona for what was the most informal meal of the entire week! In spectacular surroundings, the evening was pretty much a huge buffet barbecue with various country's sales teams in attendence. With a couple of bottles of La Poja on each table, barbecued ribs, sausages and liver, the British contingent (with a couple of Johnny Foreigners) were dining in the English Room of this 16th century home, an ornately decorated room with paintings on the wall. It was a lovely fun evening, almost like a family barbecue with a couple of hundred family members!

At Vinitaly earlier in the day, we had the chance to try Allegrini's wines. Simply put, they are universally great. Our guide through the wines was Marilisa, a thoroughly charming lady and the daughter of Giovanni Allegrini.

2007 Allegrini Valpolicella
Fun, a nice fresh wine with good fruit. Raspberries and thyme. Soft, gentle and fun. Good balance. 8/10

2005 Allegrini La Grola
Dark, chunky, vanilla pod and a little cherry menthol. Palate is dark, tannins grip and quite spicy, but is very drinkable. Very good. 8/10

2005 Allegrini Palazzo della Torre
Good, dried fruit with a lot of sweet fruit, nice richness and dark berries, chocolate and liquorice. Good. 8.5/10

2004 Allegrini Villa Giona
Very rich, eucalyptus, raisins and mint. Nice chunky, elegant fruit with a soft, velvety texture. 9/10

2004 Allegrini La Poja
Gentle, balanced nose, a good dark fruit, liquorice and dark bitter chocolate. Tobacco comes on with sour cherry. Wow. 9/10

2004 Allegrini Amarone
I wish that this cost less, just so I can buy lots of it. Perfumy, with cherries and a nice bitter pepper and herb aroma. A good dried fruit componant. A bit of booze, and a bit of tannin. Good dark fruit and a rich, sweet tobacco finish. Gorgeous. 9/10

2004 Giovanni Allegrini Recioto
Wow! So good on the nose. Warm, stewed blueberries and cinnamon. Soft fruit pie, minty and toffee on the palate. Stunning. 10/10

I've long been a fan of the Amarone, with the 2001 being a particular, but the 2004 vintage looks to be one for the long haul. The Recioto is decedent, and, from the picturesque La Poja vineyard, the wine that shares it's name is glorious. From the Valpolicella right up to the Regioto, these wines are stunning.

Day 3 Vinitaly - 4th April - Livio Felluga

Day three started well. Tasting the wines of the brilliant Livio Felluga. There is only one word to describe the wines, and that is outstanding. Sure, they are not cheap, with the most inexpensive coming in at around £15, but for any wine buff, you have to try these at some point in your life.

The 2007 Livio Felluga Sharjs is a blend of Chardonnay and Ribolla Gialla, and is one of the more inexpensive wines retailing at £15. Dried mango, a little pineapple and spice coming through with a little apricot on the palate. A wonderful clean wine, dry and with a bit of bitter lemon. 8/10

Next was the 2007 Pinot Grigio (£17 to £18) with it’s dry chalky nose and soft fleshy fruit. It was a little cold, and all I got was a spicy, white pepper and pencil shavings flavour. A touch of peach on the finish. 8/10. Quicky after that was the Friulano. I really like this. It has a salty cheese – almost pecorino – on the nose, a little sage and a touch of peach. The palate is creamy in texture with pithy flavours and again, more peach. A long, spicy finish. 8/10

An Italian Sauvignon Blanc never fills me with enthusiasm. I just don’t think that they do them well. If you want old world, go to France. If you want new world, go to New Zealand and South Africa occupies a nice middle ground. Job done. I have found a fourth home for Sauvignon, and it is Livio Felluga! Their 2007 Sauvignon is so subtle it is glorious. This is a gentle, elegant wine that made me write the words ‘subtle’ and ‘gentle’ and the phrase ‘a touch’ more times in a tasting note than I thought possible. It is truly gorgeous with cut grass, elderflower and asparagus aromas and flavours all mingling together. It was stunning. I rated it 8/10 on the day, but looking back through my notes on the bus that night, it has to be 9/10. It astounded me and made me change my opinions. Not many wines do that.

The 2006 illivio bothers me. And only because they don’t put a capital letter at the start of the word. It makes me think of mass produced electrical goods and that has no place in the wine world. Otherwise we will get things like ‘B-M’ instead of Batard Montrachet and ‘cHablis’. The wine on the other hand, you can’t fault. Created to celebrate Livio Felluga’s 85th birthday by his children, it has nice oaky tropical frUIt flavours and a touch of peach skins. Orange peel is there with a flowery character. 8/10

We were then treated (by accident) to a 1997 Sosso. This was good. Spicy cinnamon and cherry aromas led onto a stalky plum, liquorice and marionberries (a bramble/raspberry like fruit that grows in Oregon). A lovely wine. 8/10. The most recent vintage came next, the 2004, which was a big, chunky, spicy and dark tannin fest. So tight and gutsy, this is the American football player that starts off all tough but then softens into a gentle, polite sophisticated gent. 7.5/10

Then the Vertigo from 2006 came. This Merlot Cabernet is a big on green pepper, cassis and cherry aromas and sour cherries battering through the tannin fest going on in your mouth. It is huge, but brilliant. 8/10 now, but once softened down it could be brilliant.

Finally, the 2005 Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso. This has a perfumy, cherry and violet nose, so soft on the nose. The palate is nicely dry with a dried theme running through it. It has flavours of dried cranberries, dried cherry and dried meat! It sounds bad, but it really works. 9/10

These wines, as I say, are not the cheapest on earth, but they are far from being the most expensive. In a world where Bordeaux prices are creeping to silly prices, Barolos and Amarones are going up too, these wines are becoming good value for money. Look them out, you will love them.

Livio Felluga Website

Vinitaly - Highlights Day 2

As day 1 was spent traveling and seeing a couple of vineyards, the Vinitaly experience didn't start until day 2. Here are the highlights of the wines I tried on that day.

2006 Poggiotondo Chianti Superiore
Dusty, lean fruit, a bit of sour cherry and dried fig. A little overripe banana (?). Palate is simple, earthy – a good peasant wine. This is what I want. Flawed but great. 8.5/10

2004 Fontodi Vigna del Sorbo Chianti Classico
Again, dried cherry, a bit of Christmas pudding (just a little). Palate is nice, dry, spicy with good smoky element to it. 8/10

2007 Capezzana Vin Ruspo Rose
Strawberry and Irn Bru! Good, simple and gentle with raspberry flavours. Fun. 8/10

2006 Capezzana Barco Real di Carmigano
Polished, very rich, nice cherry and raspberries. Dry, earthy with a smoked fish element. A lovely wine, with a stalky bramble finish. 8/10

2005 Capezzana Villa di Capezzana Carmignano
Dried stewed fruit. Good, cinnamon aroma. Dry, bitter toast, good stalky fruit. Bramble and a lovely spice. Such a cracking wine. 8/10

2003 Capezzana Ghiaie della Furba
Rich, gentle stewed fruit, very intense cherry and strawberries. Palate is nice, balanced with earthy stalky fruit. Lovely. 8/10

2002 Capezzana Vin Santo
Lovely dried raisins, spicy, Christmas cake and not too sweet. Very elegant wine. Clean, leaving a nice nutty finish. So clean. 9.5/10

2005 Petrolo Galatrona
Dark, haunting nose. Quite ripe, a bit of intense, bitter chocolate and a long finish. I love this. 8.5/10

2006 Isole e Olena Chianti Classico
Light, gentle wine. Gentle raspberry flavour with coffee. Finish is soft, herby with great length. 8/10

2005 Isole e Olena Ceparello
Soft, round nose. Raspberries, strawberries on a dry, firm tannin palate. Lots of berry leaf flavours, quite chocolatey and with wild raspberries. 8.5/10

2004 Isole e Olena Syrah
Juicy, bramble and cracked black pepper. Palate has barbecue smoke then a tight, intense spice fest. Very dry, great! 8/10

2006 Isole e Olena Chardonnay
Good, touch of woody spice. Melon is good, got spicy, clean flavours of lemon and with bang on acidity. 8/10

2007 Proprieta Sperino Rosa del Rosa
Very pretty, gentle raspberries. A gentle palate, clean with just a touch of mint and lovely fruit. This is a ****ing good rose. 9/10

2006 Vie di Romans Dessimis Pinot Grigio
Candied orange peel, a little full on. Palate is good, oaky, spicy with a bundle of booze. Yet it all works. Very very well. 8.5/10

2007 Vesevo Falanghina
Lemon, a touch of lime. Nice peachy pear aromas. A savoury finish. Very clea, and a very good wine. A touch too much warming alcohol on the finish. 8.5/10

2007 Vesevo Fiano di Avellino
Nice ammonia and grass on the nose. The palate is rich, honeyed with a bitter toast and zesty lemon. This is tasty. Gorgeous on the finish. 8.5/10

Farnese Edizione 7 (2005 Vintage)
Rich, balanced with a touch of light fruit mingling with dark berries. A bit of chocolate, a bit of hot pepper and a dry finish. This was inspired by Hugh Johnson saying that there wasn’t an “Italian Wine” As a result, this wine with Italian grape varieties - Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Negroamaro, Primitivo and Malvasia Negra 0 was born. 9/10

Day 2 Vinitaly – 3rd April – Pieropan

There is a scene in the Disney cartoon Ratatouille where the ‘evil nemisis’ food critic, Anton Ego, takes a mouthful of food cooked by a rat and it transported him back to his childhood, such was the power of the food.

I had a similar experience at Pieropan. A few years ago, I tried a vertical tasting of Alvarinho at Quinta do Soalheiro in Portugal. After spending a week in, possibly, my favourite country when it comes to wine, that tasting on the last night stuck with me the most. Tasting various Soave’s at Pieropan had the same effect on me on Day 2 of the Vinitaly week. We were fortunate to try the most recent vintages, and also a couple of older gems.

The 40th vintage of the Soave Classico was the 2007 vintage. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best value for money Soave there is. Retailing at just under a tenner in the UK, it has delightful honey and melon on the nose, coupled with a little bit of lime. The palate is minerally, with a soft, light citrus flavour and a touch of spice. It is so clean and balanced. Stunning. 8.5/10

Pieropan’s Soave Calvarino 2006 is the latest offering of this wine. I’ve always had a soft spot for this wine that was first made in 1971. The Calvarino vineyard has been in the family since 1901, and apparently it ages very well. It was quite cheesy, a lemon curd aroma and a touch of lime zest. Perfumy with great mineral elements and just a touch of booze and white pepper. Very gentle nose but it just explodes in your mouth. Brilliant. 8.5/10

2006 Soave La Rocca. This wine, like me, came along in 1978 and is the only Soave to be aged in oak. It is soft, fuller on the nose with a little popcorn aroma and lemon. The palate is oily, with good lemony flavours and a hint of overripe apple. It is really, really good. 9/10

Then, two older vintages were given to us. The first serving of the 1997 Soave Calvarino was good. Lovely, rich aromas of honey and lemon. A palate like old champagne, honey, brioch and a little gravel and burnt match, just a touch too much alcohol. I scored it 8/10. Then we were presented with the other bottle that had been opened of this wine, and BOY, it was a revelation. All the flavours were the same, but just so much more balanced. Not as much spice, not as much of a boozy kick as the first, and a finish that is so soft and balanced. It was my ‘Ratatouille’ moment and I can’t help scoring it 10/10.

Then to finish, a 1993 Soave La Rocca. Sweet, honey and voluptuous cheesy aromas. A spicy, rich and peppery palate full of lemon zest. So wonderfully spicy with a long finish that is lemony and pithy. 9/10

To visit their vineyards and their cellar was a joy and I’m always worried that my scoring will reflect the location and not the wines which still have to perform when you are at home, on your own, depressed in your bedsit! These wines certainly performed well in spectacular locations, but I guarantee that they will perform well in your home, regardless of how palatial or squalid it may be!

An Apology to OW Loeb

As most of you know, I run a wine shop and write on this blog in my spare time. One of my suppliers, OW Loeb, has expressed objections to an article I wrote regarding a case of wine samples they sent to the company I work for. Their objections were as follows

a) That as these were sample bottles for the company I work for, I should not write about them on The Tasting Note.

b) That the comments were not complimentary

c) That the article was not well written.

Firstly, let me apologise unreservedly to OW Loeb, regarding the first point. As these bottles were indeed sample bottles sent to my workplace for evaluation, it was perhaps a little silly of me to write them up without warning OW Loeb that they were going to appear. I will be, therefore, contacting all of my suppliers and asking them to confirm in writing that they will allow me to comment on any wines they send me as samples.

Secondly, the comments made in the article were, as with all my articles, my opinions. For these I do not apologise. If I find a wine is good, I will say so, like all critics do. However, unlike most wine critics, I also publish the bad reviews. I appreciate that this might annoy some people in the wine trade, retailers, importers and producers, but if I don't like a wine I'm going to say so. That isn't to say anybody should pay any attention to me. The statements I made are my view and I am allowed to like a wine just as much as I am allowed not to like a wine, and it is open for anyone to disagree with what I say - make a comment on the blog telling me I am an idiot and don't know what I am talking about if you must, I won't delete it - everyone's opinion is valid and anybody who says that my view is wrong has a right to their opinion. So for my actual comments on the wine, I stand by what I said.

Thirdly, that the article was not well written. I deliberately have mentioned this to show I am not above criticism myself and do not hide away from it and complain when people say bad things about me. I get some regular readers, and they appear to like my writing style, but the representative from OW Loeb didn't, which is fine. I am not claiming to be a wonderful scribe, with the finesse and polished grammar of a professional writer. I am aiming to entertain and bring a little fun to the wine world, and most importantly, tell my views of wine and spirits. If OW Loeb didn't like my article, thank you for the feedback, it is appreciated.

I have deleted the offending article from this blog, and hope that all suppliers and producers around the world, realise that if they use the press and internet to their own benefit, when something critical is written about a product, they have to accept it. I crossed a blurred line between my work and my blog - for that, I apologise to OW Loeb.

Vinitaly - Day One

Awake - 2.30am UK time
Flight - 6.30am UK time
Second Flight - 12.40pm UK time (after 5 hours at Stanstead and 1 'Steak and Eggs' from Frankie and Johnny's)
Arrive Verona - 2.40 Italy time
Visits to wineries, a huge dinner and checking into the hotel at 1 am

If you think I'm going to write about the wines I tried, you're nuts.....