Confessions of a Wino

Our money pit has had a leak for years.  It’s not pleasant when water pours in to two of the bedrooms.  It’s also expensive, and many ££££s have left the bank account trying to find a fix.  We are making a final bid to cure the leak with a swimming pool like construction that has involved rebuilding most of the flat roof above the bedrooms.  We use this roof as a balcony, half open and half conservatory.  It’s a beautiful feature of the house and worth trying to improve no matter the cost, and no matter that the beautiful travertine floor must be ripped out.

Meanwhile in my wine rack, Argie wine keeps getting better and better and it is far from costly.  This is the third one I have tried by the hand of Susana Balbo, under the Faldeos Nevados brand which, as far as I can tell, is exclusive to the Wine Society in the UK.

On first taste it was quite meaty, grapey, and tangy.  I was unsure – probably shocked by the fact that it is most unlike the bland chardonnays that hail from many new world regions, produced to meet the lowest common denominator of taste.  Bland wines for bland people.  The bland leading the bland, one might say.

One thing that exposes a non-wino is when they ask at the bar for a “glass of Chardonnay” as if Chardonnay was a brand.  Congratulating themselves because the exacting recipes for Coke, McDonalds, Fairy Liquid, and Texaco can surely be replicated by the wine industry, can’t they?  Brand wines for brand people.  This used to annoy me but nowadays makes me smile.

However, as a result of the fashionista’s penchant for Chardonnay, many great wines are over-looked.  This Faldeos could be one of them.  A decent wine, interesting, complex, rich, flavoursome and at less than £5, above all simply fantastic value.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 1:04 pm and is filed under south america. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.