Confessions of a Wino

The wines of Château Musar are often thought of as a tad barking mad. At #EWBC 2008 in La Rioja, delegates were presented with a blind tasting. Not one person out of 50 odd wine buffs got even close to identifying this Lebanese woofer. So is it really so weird?

I bagged a bottle of the second wine, “Hochar” 2003 from the Wine Society at a reasonable £10.50.

It tastes like a cross between a Bordeaux and a Burgundy. Very subtle and fine tannins, some barnyard, and loads of fruit. A Pinot Noir on speed? The Bordeaux is represented by cherries and cedar wood.

Trouble is, it is not even close to barking mad. Actually it is quite classic French. But, it is priced at French levels, and that makes it a direct competitor.

If I am wrong, I have a couple of bottles of the first wine in my cellar which I can’t wait to try. If I am right then maybe I shouldn’t drink it at all, instead focus on finding the right moment to sell at enormous mark-up to a Chinese speculator, who will probably end up enjoying it with Coke when the fine wine market finally implodes.

Avoiding ugly tasting shite like Echo Falls, where do we look for a cheap, but decent, red wine?  South America is one place to focus on, where even the big brands can taste excellent.  The next place to look is probably the south of France.

This Languedoc came from the Wine Society at £5.50.  So, it fulfils the “cheap” requirement.  When first opened, bitter damsons clogged my cheeks forcing a Vito Corleone face-pull.  Not wanting a horse’s head on my pillow, I allowed it to warm and drank on.  It developed nicely in a vanilla and cherry compote frenzy.

It is always going to taste a little cheap , D’Oh!…It is!  But it goes incredibly well with hummus (other spellings are available) and pitta bread, and it is much more fashionable to be seen with than the branded wines from the US and Australia.

Mooching through Sainsbury looking for the perfect wine to match my experimental dish of pork chop with thyme, garlic and mustard, depression was setting in. Supermarkets only seem to stock lowest common denominator wines these days.  No experimentation, no originality, no joy.

I plumped for this Central Otago Pinot Noir at £9.99. A price point which, in riot torn Salford, apparently requires a security tag. How many bottles of wine can you actually smuggle out in your underpants? And how many rioters would actually dare to choose a Kiwi Pinot?

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Even with one trouser leg rolled up, £32 is more than I usually spend on a bottle of wine.  About 4 times my average price – how outrageous!  What coaxed my bank manager to clear funds for this bottle from the Wine Society?

Maybe it was a tasting at the Freemason’s Hall in Manchester, where the signal to gain entry was not the usual hand contortions that portray a shadow shaped like an Esther Rantzen vegetable, but a mere Wine Society membership card.

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I once returned 5 badly corked bottles of Luis Cañas to the Sunday Times Wine Club, one by one.  The poor call centre staff, on seeing my number, started greeting me with “your usual complaint, Mr Bathgate?”.  They had a point.  I had only ordered half a case.  But, fair play to them, they refunded every bottle.

And that meant that ordering Luis Cañas again was not scary, not even from the same merchant.

Mind you, I still opened this bottle with a little trepidation, as my Tesco pizza frazzled in the oven.  It cost me about £20 after all, having arrived as part of a President’s Cellar selection from the STWC.

At first it was a shade bitter but, no worries.  After a bit of air, all the smoothness of the 18 months of oak ageing came through and the wine revealed its fruity, mellow underbelly.  A Spanish wine that tastes more like a Bordeaux and yet goes marvellously with spicy pizza?  That has to be worth £20.

Burgundy wine can be expensive.  Gevrey Chambertin is no exception.  So when the moths blinked as I opened my wallet to send £20.99 to the Sunday Times Wine Club for this Labouré-Roi, I took Tony Laithwaite on face value, (and that takes a leap of faith).

I must have ordered just two bottles because I found this right at the back of my rack, and I reviewed it once before (and loved it) a couple of years ago.

This time round I wasn’t quite as impressed.  Did I over-chill it?  Maybe it was going through a famed Burgundian middle-age crisis.  Either way, it is a tastyish wine – I just question whether an investment of over £20 plus two year’s storage charges in my Combine Harvester is really worth it. 2009 Beaujolais looks better value to be honest, and is outperforming many a Bourgogne right now.

I discovered two things about Austrian wine last year. Firstly that there are some amazingly good reds. Secondly, that sourcing them in the UK is like trying to find a Greek MP at a “Bring back the Drachma” rally. But at an Austrian wine tasting I attended in London this year, I was assured that all the couple of hundred or so wines, are available in the UK.

Until EWBC 2010, Vienna, I was a virgin to Blaufränkisch, a grape that frequently makes Pinot Noir style wines – smooth, fruity, and deliciously drinkable. I have now tasted enough to know that it is nearly always a good choice when eating out in Austria and, if you can find it in the UK, a serious alternative to certain Burgundies (albeit frequently almost as expensive). I thought I would call out a couple to remind myself to look out for them.

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I’m getting quite used to Opentable.  I don’t always book through the website  (or natty iPhone app) but it isn’t half useful for finding a table at short notice.  Especially in London.  Especially if you want to eat within a caber toss of where you happen to be.  And I happened to be in Lancaster Gate, if you are posh.  Or Bayswater if you are not.

Opentable threw up Angelus on Bathurst St.  Was it to be an homage to a great wine, or a mare?  (“Mayor” – see what I did there? Dicky daughters and all that).

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At two separate Wine Society events recently, one wine has stood head and shoulders above the rest for me, and I have been looking for an opportunity to shout it out.

However, it raises a wider issue about wine branding.  When it comes to certain wines (mostly French if I am honest) I like to think that I should be able to choose the original wine over one badged by a retailer.  So am I being immodest to think that I can do better than an institution that has been around since 1874?  Am I <gasps> a “wine snob”?  And worse, an ill-informed one to boot?

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Situated in a lovely part of Amsterdam with a village feel that reminds me of certain parts of New York and London (but with more canals and lower rise buildings), Fred had telephoned ahead to strong-arm them into giving us a good table (on account of it being my birthday).  They delivered on that front, with the best table in the house in the corner of the window.  But did the food and wine follow suit?

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