Confessions of a Wino

I haven’t managed to get a ticket to see Connie in the hottest show in town just yet.  Connie Fisher’s prize for winning a BBC talent contest was the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic at the London Palladium.

But I thought I would get in the mood anyway by trying an Austrian wine whose reputation seems to be growing faster than The Sound of Music revenues.

My Grüner Veltliner came from the Wine Society’s “Exhibition” Range.

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I started this blog on a South American theme and I am happy to keep that going for a short while because the current exchange rates are making S. American wines superb value for money for us UK winos.

I am a fairly new member of The Wine Society, (HQ at Stevenage in the UK). My first experience was of two bottles of Ch. Kirwan at a very reasonable price but sadly very badly corked.

I am happy to say that following a swift refund (no need to return the bottles) the service and wine quality since then has been excellent and I have continue to buy (er.. I mean invest….)

Recently, I have focussed particularly on S. American wines partly because of the value and partly because of a Wine Society promotion.

So this is how I encountered Cono Sur Signature, El Centinela, Sauvignon Blanc 2006 priced at £7.95 direct from the Wine Society.  This wine from the Casablanca Valley in Chile is a classic example of why you should buy wines from South America right now.

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In 1988 I was at the cafeteria of a motorway service station buying a sandwich and I asked where the corned beef was from.  I advised the assistant that I hoped it wasn’t from Argentina.

“Oh, you’re not still sore about the Falklands are you?” she retorted.

“No, actually it was Maradona’s 1986 Hand of God goal.  I’ve boycotted Argentinean products since that day”

Wind forward several years and with the self righteous ban a distant memory, I had occasion to visit the Gaucho Grill on Chancery Lane in  London.  An Argentinean “Grill” restaurant and probably the best steak I have ever tasted.  During that meal I ordered a bottle of Malbec and was wowed.

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