It is amazing who you meet online and I am not even a teenager. I don’t think he is trying to groom me, but my cyber-mate, Peter May, is something of an expert in the wines of South Africa. He recommended that I drink more Chenin Blanc, and suggested Ken Forrester would take me into the woods and chop me down to size.
Last year I did a virtual world tour of Pinot Noirs. I enjoyed it very much but after several barnyard runs, I decided I wanted to be unfaithful and try another grape.
On the basis of the majority opinion of serious wine commentators I chose Riesling, but I have not been quite as enthused as I was by the Brigitte Bardot of the grape world.
I tried comparing Riesling to the new mini – refined, exciting, reminiscent of the past, and better made by Germans. But I would like to retract that statement and simultaneously upset many wine purists, because my experience says wines from the noble Riesling grape are better built by Australians.
Take Pauletts, Polish Hill River from Clare Valley. I picked it up from Majestic at only £9.99 – cheaper than your average German. Grapefruit, melon, a touch of marzipan and a sliver of ginger root. Like many Rieslings, it goes superbly well with Thai food and, after all, Thailand is closer to Australia than Germany (I think). So this logical reasoning is indisputable proof that criminals make better Riesling. I’m sure Dr Spock would agree.
So maybe Riesling is the Ten Pound Pom of grapes:Â Cheap, well travelled, classless, and ultimately better off in Australia.
I’ve got my comeuppance for slagging off Mark Hughes. Man City announced that the UEFA Cup quarter final home leg would be a “reward for the fans” and tickets were priced at only £5 so “ordinary fans” could come and watch. I am obviously not an ordinary fan since, despite numerous calls to the ticket office (engaged tone) the match is sold out and I have to watch on some backwater internet channel. Shame – I am in Manchester on 16 April when the town turns into a Hamburger for a night.
So perhaps I should be more complimentary about people I have never met.
Everyone knows that it is impossible to mass produce and mass market a decent wine – especially a Pinot Noir. Trouble is, nobody told Alfred Hurtado. His Chilean Cono Sur brand is taking over the world and rightly so.
The primary responsibility of a wine producer is to make drinkable or, better still, remarkable wine. It is a bit like a restaurant whose benchmark is firstly decent food, then cool atmosphere, warm ambience, decent price, and finally how good looking the waitresses are – oh and the quality and price of the wine list helps!
Fundamentally I care about our planet and I am very much in favour of reduced carbon emissions. Irrespective of whether you believe the global warming doom mongerers, you would have to be a nincompoop of Victorian standards not to accept that pumping out all this shit into our precious H2O is simply a route to premature apocalypse.
However, is there really a need to shout so loud about your green credentials? I expect as a matter of course that winemakers use ever more green and efficient production methods. So I am always suspicious about any product that claims to be “greener” – it is the Toyota Prius effect applied to the wine industry.
This “green” one from Virgin at £8.99 wasn’t undrinkable but it was unremarkable.
I’ve sacked Mybloglog. What is the point when Facebook (you see, no need to provide a hyperlink) is taking over every social interaction on the web. I like to think that LinkedIn looks after business interaction, but Facebook’s success in the social space has undoubtedly been due to its open platform.
Jo le taxi (aka wine delivery driver) this week brought me a small but intriguing parcel I ordered en primeur over a year ago.
The reason I was interested in this wine was threefold…
1) it was by Paul Jaboulet Ainé
2) it was from Beaumes-de-Venise, a well known sweet white wine area but this was a red Grenache/Syrah
3) it was pretty cheap!
As I stare at the bottle and write this, I have no idea how much the wine costs, nor how well reputed it is. I have not read the label on the back and I have no record where I got it from (presumably a present then).
It is always interesting to attempt to not be swayed by a label, but given a Château Lafite 1787 and an Echo Falls Merlot in each other’s bottles would I notice? I might rate the sickly lifestyle brand, with almost certainly the British & Commonwealth record for slowest and most annoying website ever, the best wine. Maybe I am a Label Mabel. A brand junkie. Or just a marketing and packaging enthusiast?
My prejudices say this wine is cheap. The colour is dark and much too purple. The taste is jammy. Specifically blackcurrant with a wipe of strawberry. There is also something tangy and sharp. But actually I quite like it. At 13.5% not as blockbusting super-jammo as I feared. Yes, quite tasty. I think it would compare favourably to a £7.50 Chilean Cabernet.
So how much is it then? Off to Google. Tesco.com have it for £6.17 a bottle (in cases of 6). That sounds fair. Bit better than a cheapy, not in the same class as a 10 quider but drinkable with the right food – in this case Marmite on white toast is the perfect match.
At some point in your life, birthdays stop being beacons shining light on a promising future and instead become lamp posts illuminating yesterday’s gloomy streets. A time to look back longingly at your youth and wonder what might have happened if you hadn’t bought that Ford Escort with the faulty brakes, or kissed that fat bird with dentures behind the bike sheds at school.
But the lacerations eventually healed and I was able once again to enjoy eating the sweets of my generation without the nightmare of that mousetrap snog to haunt my tongue.
Have you ever been haunted? The name Teyssier has been my stalker recently. It has bought out the best of Virgin Wines and contemporaneously the reason why they often ever so slightly under-achieve. Well, nobody can please everybody every day!
I have some empathy with John Major and his propensity to give her a pubic service. Edwina Currie, in her prime, was almost certainly a foxy chick, and she sure has the personality to entertain a Minister of State. However, her period of public service is not remembered fondly by the British egg trade.
Now though, it seems eggs are safe after all – hoorah! Boiled eggs are one of my staple dishes and I eat far more than the three a week that most of the public (including me) used to think was safe.
But is there a wine that matches my eggy soldiers? Will two bell towers stand proud to the challenge?
Stumble It!