Confessions of a Wino

The best recommendations for a wine do not come from journos, PR samples or special offers. For me, they come from genuine wine enthusiasts who trouble their pockets to retrieve a cherished bottle from their cellar to share with you. Either in person or in absentia.

This bottle was given to be at a board meeting by one of my colleagues who has travelled extensively around South America and hearing my mild enthusiasm for Chilean Carmenère, passed a Cuvée Alexandre into my dirty paws one rainy Tuesday morning in Newton le Willows.

This grape, widely planted in Chile but d’origine Bordeaux often reminds me of real wood fires on cold winter days. Rich and herby, yet smooth and oaky, this example is full on, but refined and very moreish, albeit bound to give me a headache in the morning.

I daren’t look up the price, because the quid pro quo is that I need to return the favour. But, knowing Chris, this is not a cheapy £5 bottle of wine. I think I’ll be reaching into my Eurocave for a decent Bordeaux or Argie blockbuster, maybe not quite stretching to a Catena Zapata or Cheval des Andes.

If you want to buy some, try your local independent.

If you want to test your principles to the limit don’t join Opus Dei, simply have a daughter! My wife is Catholic but, less than impressed with man’s (and, in particular the Church Of Ireland’s) interpretation of God’s way, vowed that our darling would not be forced into a religion. What could go wrong with bringing her up to respect life and people and then allowing her to choose her own religion later in life? In a word, schooling.

There are three to choose from in our area. Two are poor to average, according to OFSTED reports, and one is excellent, but is a Catholic school and realistically requires a baptism. Decision unmade but faith tested is probably the best way to describe the current situation.

How does a winemaker cope with breaking principles every day? How to produce wine that is honest and tasty, yet can make money? I’ve long admired Chilean conglomerate Concha y Toro for making very passable wines en masse and to a decent, very drinkable, quality. Errazuriz is almost there but not quite. Take this Chardonnay, for example. It tastes fruity but a bit tinny and sharp. You can get it for about £8 from Majestic (depending on the prevailing discount scheme), so it falls in the same price bracket as CyT. But, despite the overt apple and pear flavours, this is missing a little je ne sais quoi. Errazuriz is lager in a can, compared to CyT lager in a glass bottle. I’m sure they are catching up, though.

One of the wine guys in Majestic (most of them are pretty knowledgeable in a wonderfully geeky kind of way), recommended this, when I enquired about big Chardonnays. Surely you are just recommending your latest offer? Admittedly buying two bottles to save £12 is a good deal, but it sounds like you are trying to get rid of it. “No I tried some at home last weekend – really fruity, big and scrumptious”.

He meant in a new world style, rather than a classic Burgundy. I’m not sure. The heaviest thing about this wine, apart from the slightly excessive 14% ABV, is the bottle. I know I paid its air freight from Argentina, but delicate petals adorn the inside. It tastes pretty classy. Quite peachy with vanilla and elderflower. The only new world giveaway is a nod towards one of those banana shaped foam sweets from the Pick n Mix.

Regular readers know that I am a big fan of Catena Zapata wines. This one is not cheap at £23, but with a double bottle discount reducing the price to £17, it is well worth a try. Drank mine with a simple pork chop cooked on the skillet at about 12 degrees (the wine not the chop).

My take on Carménère, especially when made in Chile, where it is more commonly called Carmenère or even the totally vulgar Carmenere, is that it smells of real wood fires. The wonderful scent that welcomes you back to a Cotswolds village on a crisp winter evening after a long walk in the hills, when you are making your last, trudging and tired, but relentlessly determined steps towards a cosy, heart and toe warming pub.

This Chilean model, which lacks self-confidence to the extent that it opens its kimono on the front label to guide your taste buds towards an “exotic and spicy, full bodied style with damson and blackberry fruit”, has so much smoke it triggers a gag reflex. When first poured, a dip of the nose is like putting your head over the top of the Cotswold village smoking chimney. Face crumples. Nose drips. Eyes bleed.

Fortunately the wine does mellow a bit when tasted, but there remains a slightly astringent and  cacophonous afterburn. Not great for a wine being punted by Majestic for £7.99.

Drink it very cool or better still, opt for the vastly superior Casillero del Diablo Carmenère even more widely available and in the same price bracket.

£17.99 is a lot to spend on any bottle. For a Chilean wine, this is like spending £20 on a burger. It better be bloody, and it better be bloody brilliant.

This De Martino is a field blend and, at 13.5%, sensibly low in alcohol for a Chilean red. Predominately Malbec with a fair bit of Carménère and other grapes chipped in from various corners of the field, it tastes of rich smooth chocolate, red apples and glacé cherries with pepper. I know what you are thinking and no, it’s a compliment.

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When I am in a really good mood, my Opus Dei style self-flagellation is a mooch through the wine aisle at Sainsbury’s. Brings me back down to depression with a bump. Yard after yard of unremitting boredom. Branded wines at prices that, once you have removed duty, VAT and cost of shipping, indicate an investment of around $0.20 in the actual wine. It’s a bit like reading a John Major biography. Grey, grey, and thrice grey. Where is the Edwina Currie moment? Could this Yali “Gran Reserva” Carmenere (sic) be the money shot? At £9.99 for a Sainsbury wine, it better explain itself.

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This wine is a winter warmer. It’s rich, spicy and South American with an aftertaste like a Molotov cocktail. Why would you not slug it down merrily? Here’s why not.

I love Carmenère, especially that begat of Chile, where it seems to have adopted an ethereal status. Casillero del Diablo is one well priced example. This one (£6.49 from your local Co-op) has the usual richesse and deep interesting autumn fruits, but with a certain bitterness. It also smells dirty in a meaty fart sort of way. But this is not a Pinot Noir where subtle barnyard flavours are a bonus. Normally, Carmenères have the winter aroma of real wood fires and I miss that here.

I strongly recommend Carmenère, and I am certain that Co-op has many excellent wines in stock, probably including the Casillero. I’m afraid that 120® 2010 is not one of them.

When you are a wine magpie like me, you tend to lose some bottles to middle age.  Kiwi Sauvignon Blancs from a couple of seasons ago, found looking (and tasting) forlorn in the corner of the garage.  Cheap and cheerful cherry flavoured Malbecs that prove that half lives apply outside the nuclear industry.

I dug out a few old bottles from the bottom of the rack recently and this appeared, purchased from Majestic a couple of years ago.  I feared the worst.  But still opened it, obviously!

I should have trusted Catena (the reliable makers) and Bibendum (the reliable importers) and, in no small part Majestic (the now evergreen but reliable retailer), who despite their various mark-ups only billed me £7.99 for this excellent wine.

Full of smooth zingy fruit, it is still quite ‘in your face’ like a New Zealand Pinot Noir, but somehow with a surprising amount of refinement.  I treated myself to a bottle at about 15 degrees with beans, bacon, mustard and watercress on toast (I know what you are thinking…..phwaaaarp).  YUM!

I got reprimanded on Twitter (I am @tiptoptaps) for slagging off wine brands, when I made a curt comment about Jacob’s Creek.  In response to a question from someone interviewing the head winemaker at JC, whether I had any questions for him, I put my tongue in my cheek and said “yes, could he stop?”  But I am not against wine brands at all.  It is a massive mistake to judge a lady by her dress sense.  Even if you are desperate.

For example, I have always shown affection for scantily clad beach babes from Chilean conglomerate, Concha y Toro, and especially their sub-brand Casillero del Diablo.  OK, it is not fine wine, but this cost me £6.99 from Sainsbury (available from many sources including Tesco and, I haven’t bothered to check, but presumably Morrisons and Asda too, and maybe Somerfields and Co-op).  How is such a ubiquitous and cheap wine so tasty?

Put aside your preconceptions about mass produced wine.  CyT keep demonstrating that large quantities of grapes can be turned into very drinkable slosh.

The Carmenère is always a bit of a bonfire night wine.  Autumn fruits and the smell of real wood fires.  Make sure you stick it in the fridge for 30-40 minutes before drinking to maximise the flavour (see WART).

Last time I wrote about the London food bloggers’ beefy hero of Shoreditch, I was accused of snobbery.  I was unkind to the waiting staff who I described as ‘skateboarders’ lacking coordination and worse, more dishevelled in appearance than most customers.

However, my steak was so mouth-wateringly, drool dribblingly, bib wettingly luscious, that Truly Scrumptious couldn’t have tempted me away from it, even if she had offered to blow my Toot Sweet in the back of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  I had to come back for another try.

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