Confessions of a Wino

Have you ever watched a football match where the result went against the run of play?  Or fancied a bird whose face was constructed from the Pam Ayres book of beauty?  Or eaten something like a Seekh Kebab that looks like a dog turd but tastes bloody lovely?

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It’s amazing what you can find through Google.  I typed in Ivy Gestapo and found my website top of the list!  Freixenet pronunciation is another phrase that puts me top, Prezzo Thame is not bad, neither is Cloudy Bay 2007.  Finally, if you are truly bored, try wine combine harvester, another everyday search string that finds my site.

Finding good wine, however, sometimes takes a little more effort.  I made a trip out to Majestic in Leeds and picked up this Tasmanian devil for £14.99.

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And now for something completely different.  I picked a few bottles up at the Leeds branch of Majestic recently (before the fire), including this Montes Pinot Noir for £7.99.  I wasn’t looking for the Spanish Inquisition, and fortunately I didn’t need my Hungarian phrase book.

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This week I am off to see a cricket match (US readers start snoring now).  However this bottle looks more like a baseball bat (RoW readers look on in awe and dismay).

This late harvest (November 2007) from Gavi certainly has a striking bottle.  What about the wine though?

It is the colour of healthy pee and has a sort of pungent sweetness, but I expected it to be sweeter.  In fact it had good acidity and the overall balance of Michael Vaughan combined with the aggression and flair of Kevin Pietersen.  The taste is of Tropicana grapefruit juice and pear juice with some lemon zest and a bit of sherbet dip. Very refreshing as an aperitif but as a food match it went superbly well with pitta bread and hummus.

I picked it up at Majestic for £8.69

“Hey Al, cut to the chase!”  Uhm OK.

Catena has the usual smell I associate with Malbec – rich bitter chocolate and dark cherries.  Taste similar, possibly a touch of tomato ketchup too.  A super wave of contrasting and complementary flavours some spicy, some sweet - not sure how much value this complexity adds. At 13.5% very munchable, though, and I enjoyed it a lot.  Quite expensive but a great, if opulent, partner to beans on toast.

Imported by Bibendum (£11.95) and available at Majestic for £10.99, and Waitrose £10.44.

Does hay fever stop you enjoying wine?  I’ve suffered since I was a teenager, not desperately badly, but some years are worse than others.  Sneezing is easy.  It’s the itchy eyes and the variety of streaming facial liquids that really irritate.

Normally I get it early, I look like a tear-jerk long before May is out, whether I have cast a clout or not.  This year has been great, so far.  I write this late June and have hardly seen a symptom.  But today I have a mild dose.  I keep anti-histamine tablets in reserve, in case of emergency.  I am a hypochondriac in many senses but I dislike medicine and avoid it as a policy….except when things get really bad.  I have taken no prisoners, er pills, this year but I was tempted tonight.

I poured a glass of Alamos Malbec and took a sniff.  Snchoooooooorrrrrrggggghhhhhh!  No smell.  Just a loud nasal fart.

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A trip to Bournemouth last year resulted in me bringing home the best red wine I ever drank, a 1982 Camensac.

Browsing through Majestic the other day, I spotted the 1996 vintage at £19.99.  Only one course of action was available to me, and for once, my bank manager obliged.

It felt right to open this on the anniversary of the barbecue that saw the 1982’s fifteen minutes of fame (and I was surprised that it lasted 15 minutes, so cherished was it by the St Helens massive).

This 1996 Haut-Médoc, at 12 years old, is surely drinking well by now?  I was surprised at the amount of tannins still attacking my upper gums, but, consumed contemporaneously with simply barbecued lamb chops, it was excellent.  Liquorice, blackcurrant, cedar and parsnip – yum.  15 minutes later, it was gone.  With only one bottle in my basket, we had to wave goodbye to the French nobility and make friends with an impudent teenager from the New World.

I am no expert in these matters but I sense that Château Camensac 1996 will keep a good while longer and I shall probably pop back to Majestic for another couple of bottles to squirrel away in my combine harvester.

I’ve tried a few Chilean Carmenères now, and there is an emerging theme.  If I could can the essence of a real wood and coal fire pumping smoke out of an English country chimney in 1974…..it’s a vivid memory jogger!

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When you hear a wine described as “balanced” what does it mean to you?

I unscrewed this bottle of Torrontés and drank most of it before reading the back of the label.  Before opening, I knew that it was made by Susana Balbo one of my favourite Argie producers.  I knew that the wine came from Majestic and retails at £6.99.  I knew that it had a pretty label and came in the usual gargantuan bottles that are trademarks of the land of diminutive Eva Perón.  I am convinced that the bottles used by Dominio del Plata are almost as big as Evita and probably have clocked up more air miles per kilo.

After reading the label I now feel much wiser, because I know that “Crios” means “offspring”.  I know that Torrontés is Argentina’s uniquely aromatic grape, and that it is similar to Viognier with the dry crisp taste of Sauvignon Blanc.  The final interesting fact I took on board was that no oak was used in ageing the wine.  Oh, and just to cram just one more sliver of semi-useful intelligence into my puddled brain, that the wine displays excellent “balance”.

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“Serve this Pinot Noir cool (my emphasis) in a big glass to fully appreciate……” so said the label on the back of this wine.  So why are most bloody restaurants so bloody determined to serve me red wine so bloody warm????

I realised recently, that I had been ignoring Oz wines (sorry Edward!), and that I have not visited Majestic in ages so, on the way back from a Saturday morning haircut recently, I dropped in to see if I could combine these two shortfalls by asking what the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s land could do with the sex kitten of grapes.  Majestic came up with this gem at a mere £9.99. 

When you live in the northern hemisphere, it is easy to forget that in Oz, the further south you go, the closer you are to a frozen pole.  So maybe Tasmania is the Pinot Noir friendly Bourgogne-u-like to Clare Valley’s Cabernet Sauvignon friendly Bordeaux-wish-it-was?  I have a different theory, as you might expect.

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