Confessions of a Wino

My first experience of buying from the Virgin Wines auction site left me with a case of total tosh to distribute discretely amongst my sorry mates.

But I bravely (some would say foolishly) tried again and this time things look more promising.  This one came from a case of All White Delights and I successfully bid less than £50 including delivery!

I am a fan of Argie wines - Malbec and Torrontés are my favourites.  The Colibri was typical of other Torrontés I have tried with lime, kiwi and rich apricot flavours.  Simple and unpretentious, I like it.

The insipid colour was paler than an albino’s bikini line, but it is a lively, zingy and decent (but cheaper) alternative to Sauvignon Blancs.  It ticks all the boxes for me.

Many people have contacted me asking why it is so difficult to find recommendations on my site.  Sample quote, “I just wanted to find a decent red to take to a dinner party and I had to page through the whole bloody site!”

I am generally against rating wine because it is so subjective.  Who am I to judge whether you will like a wine or not?  However, I can judge whether I like a wine or not, so I use a binary rating scale.

1 = I like it
0 = I don’t like it

So I am not going to award 5 stars, or 90/100 points, or even a top ten.  But I have decided to start a favourites page where I will highlight wines that I tried recently and really liked.  Some food venues are also covered.  It is completely subjective and totally at my discretion how long an item stays in my “favourites” and demotion does not mean I no longer like it.  It’s just a fun way of sharing my thoughts, albeit somewhat randomly.

You can find Wino’s Favourites under “Pages” (see top right on the home page).

Any feedback is appreciated.

I have long been a fan of Susana Balbo’s Malbecs since I first discovered them on the rip-off wine list of the Gaucho Grill.  So I was intrigued to see this blend, named Brioso, on the virtual shelves of the Wine Society.  At £14.95 ($30) it is not cheap so it needs to be measured against serious competition.

As blends go, this one has a whopping 5 varietals contributing to the mix, but did this add as many facets to the flavour of the wine?

Read the rest of this entry »

As Frankie once said, I did it myyyyyyy waaaayyyyyy, but he made the mistake of singing the song in English, at least according to the owners of this Italian resto in Leeds.

It must be hard to compete against Bibi’s but Mio Modo does so with panache, at least as far as food is concerned.  The wine list, however, is a different matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you were thinking of inviting me to a party in the near future, you might want to think again.

I’ve been experimenting with Virgin Wines and, having built up a bit of a credit in my Virgin Wine Bank, I thought it would be fun to try and spend some of my ill-gotten gains on the auction part of the site.  In concept, it’s brilliant, but as with all auctions, caveat emptor applies, in other words, make sure you know what you are buying…..

In a head-rush, I read about the Marqués de Valencia Gran Reserva 2001 and thought it looked a nice Rioja.  Voted wine of the year 2007 by Virgin members, the retail price was advised as £95.88 per case.  For a Gran Reserva this seemed cheap so I quickly placed a bid of about £65 and an hour later had won the case for less than £50.  That’s cheap for any wine.  When it arrived I understood why.

On opening it smelt a bit odd.  Where is the familiar vanilla/oak?  Why does it taste of petrol?

Read the rest of this entry »

The magic of modern technology means this post is brought to you whilst I am travelling on England’s East Coast Mainline.  If only the wireless internet was as fast as the train, though.

The franchise, which used to be run with aplomb by GNER, has recently been acquired by National Express.  The first change I noticed was that they had re-priced the wireless connection according to average bandwidth achieved - yes - it is now zero cost, free of charge, 3 bits per second allowing you to download the home page of Confessions in only 12 minutes but at least no negative effect on your wallet (or purse) .  Otherwise things seem “same old, same old” and as ever infinitely superior to the west coast service operated (without aplomb) by Virgin.  I am in the fortunate position of often being able to choose which service I take to London and that is why I am here right now.

In addition to railways, in life generally, I tend to make choices based on snapshots, mere slivers of experience, and hence I am many times more likely to choose a wine from Burgundy or Bordeaux, than the Rhône Valley.  This is a shame - especially on the evidence offered by this bottle.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was delighted to receive the 2005 Château Guiraud I ordered en primeur what seems like ages ago.  The photo below shows it compared to the same wine from the 1990 vintage (on the left).  Wow!

As I speed towards old and wrinkly, it’s nice to see that some things can age with enormous grace.

“Serve this Pinot Noir cool (my emphasis) in a big glass to fully appreciate……” so said the label on the back of this wine.  So why are most bloody restaurants so bloody determined to serve me red wine so bloody warm????

I realised recently, that I had been ignoring Oz wines (sorry Edward!), and that I have not visited Majestic in ages so, on the way back from a Saturday morning haircut recently, I dropped in to see if I could combine these two shortfalls by asking what the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s land could do with the sex kitten of grapes.  Majestic came up with this gem at a mere £9.99. 

When you live in the northern hemisphere, it is easy to forget that in Oz, the further south you go, the closer you are to a frozen pole.  So maybe Tasmania is the Pinot Noir friendly Bourgogne-u-like to Clare Valley’s Cabernet Sauvignon friendly Bordeaux-wish-it-was?  I have a different theory, as you might expect.

Read the rest of this entry »

Can you play a musical instrument? I’ve been trying to learn the guitar for more than 30 years and I am still useless. Every time I pick one up (I own two or three) and start making some progress, I am consumed by some other pastime, like blogging, or work, or trying to lose weight.

My life (and presumably yours) is controlled by one’s own priorities. On a scale of one to ten how do you rate: Family? Work? Music? Art? Science? Procrastination? Procreation? Playstation? It seems that music all too frequently falls down my list.

I once signed up to eBay, purely to sell some old punk singles. When I realised they were going for peanuts, I ended up buying more Monkeys; adding to my rarely played and esoteric collection. Whilst I am now the proud owner of the excellent original version of Banana Splits by The Dickies on yellow vinyl, did I really need it?

Read the rest of this entry »

So the football season is coming to a close and it’s time to start thinking about cricket.  England will entertain two wine nations, New Zealand and South Africa, in the 2008 summer’s international test matches.  Tonight I am preparing for the season by drinking wine from a non cricketing nation.  On my world tour of Pinot Noirs, this latest is another one from the Wine Society Chilean PN mixed case (£82), and is the second from the Leyda stable.

Read the rest of this entry »