When I bought a cheeky mystery case of red Burgundy “to drink now” from the Wine Society they probably didn’t realise how literally I would take the title of the case.
In barely the time it takes a Tory MP to repay his moat cleaning expenses, I am already deep into my third bottle.
Just one day after the final match of the season, the 2008/9 FA Premiership is already a distant memory. We now enter the silly summer season where silly sums will be spent on sop soccer stars with scant regard for common sense or the common fan.
If there is one maxim in life that everyone understands it is that money does not guarantee success. I mean, look at Mark Hughes’ under-achievers. Being a long suffering Man City fan, it is no surprise to me that we scraped in mid table a whopping 5 points clear of footballing paupers, Stoke City, even though one of our players cost more than Stoke’s entire squad.
I have to congratulate Stoke on an over-achieving season. Based on the resources available to them and being newly promoted to the division, they were odds on to get relegated. But Tony Pulis had a well thought out strategy and it worked.
Strange game football eh? But the same can apply to wine. This bottle came from a Wine Society Mystery Burgundy Case (average implied bottle price £20 but actually was on sale for £56.75 on the WS website). Ouch! It better be good!
Cafe de Luna, on boulevard de Clichy is a bustling bistro that caught my eye on a cheeky weekend visit. We were staying round the corner in the ninth and needed a reasonably priced dinner. That is a challenge at the moment for Brits in Paris due to the parity of Euro/Sterling.
I started with Bourgogne escargots in garlic and mopped up every last morceau! Eating snails is always a bit like chewing on rolled up condoms but it is the sauce that makes the strange texture so appealing.
And so Eurovision has come and gone and, for once, the UK didn’t come last. In fact we made a creditable 5th place, although we had to recruit the noble Lord Webber of Musicals to write us a tune and, predictably, the singer had to come from a reality TV show.
Some have criticised Eurovision in recent years alleging tactical voting as being the cause of the UK’s fall from grace. I say our entries were just pap and wouldn’t have troubled the scorer in a hitting a barn door with a banjo competition.
Highly variable results is something you get used to when you drink Burgundy. Was Jean Grivot Nuits-St-Georges Les Lavières 2004 a “Waterloo” or did it score null points?
Chez Clément has many branches in Paris and one in Nantes. Is this the French version of Chez Gerard? Je pense que oui!
Quand j’ai écrit du Prince des vins (Marquis de Ségur) et ce vin ci, en Octobre 2007, je n’ai pas su qu’il y avait encore une bouteille dans mon moissonneuse-batteuse. Je viens de le déguster.
I think I may be a wine magpie. I keep buying so much more wine than I could possibly drink. It’s the explorer in me – I just want to keep trying new things.
But enough is enough, so I made time to do a little sorting through my wine rack (I didn’t dare unpack the combine harvester – that’s a week’s work). I was surprised to realise how much French wine I have in store – about 70% of my entire collection is French. Quelle horreur! Why oh why when it is so expensive?
Three reasons:
I’ve said in the past that if a rising tide floats all boats, then in good years like 2005, it must be worth rowing across to Analogy Island in one of the lesser bateaux of the Bordelais flotilla.
So I popped a few quid in the post to the Wine Society for a case of Côtes de Bordeaux 2005 and they sent me, amongst other bottles, some Château Martinat Côtes de Bourg.
It justified my argument. There is some real shite sent down La Gironde in the name of fine claret but I think the enormous majority of wines are born of genuine fathers (and mothers….) who really care.
This is certainly the case with Martinat. Whilst I do not know the winemaker (Stéphane Donze, since you ask), you only have to sip the wine to taste the parental devotion.
This kid is spicy, fruity, intelligent and rich – almost destined to grow up to be Stephen Fry’s replacement on QI. The taste is peppery, plummy and with firmish tannins I found it a nice match for spicy pizza.
Mine was £9.95 from the Wine Society but unsurprisingly now sold out. Shame because it is one of the best ten quid bottles I’ve tasted in a long while.
Childhood memories. Good and bad. Ahhhh.
I am not sure whether I was more phlegmatic than other kids of my generation but this wine reminded me of Tixylix.
Paul Mas Estate, Marsanne, La Forge Vineyard did also taste of apricot and honey and as it happens I liked the taste of Tixylix. I have little experience of the Marsanne grape and to be honest I picked the bottle up as an experiment. And I am glad I did.
Another Vin de Pays D’Oc – the southern French region that I am starting to explore more thoroughly, mainly as a result of wallet shrinkage. At £7.99 from Majestic, I think this is another example of why you should be exploring it too.
Gordon Brown’s nanny state has reached a new high in the form of film censorship and advice. I was watching an advert on TV for a kids film and the smallprint warning said “contains mild threat and comic fight scenes”. What is the point of such a warning? It is inconsistent with other media and not very helpful in any case.
Take an average episode of Dr Who that is aired by the BBC at peak family viewing time on a Saturday tea time.  I used to watch regularly in the 1970’s – Jon Pertwee was my Doctor.  There is more to frighten children than any amount of comic fighting. By the time I watched The Omen, I was fully prepared. It could have been labelled “may contain mild Satanic undertones”. But Damien was simply nowhere near as scary as a Dalek.
Stumble It!