Confessions of a Wino

Drinkable white wine at less than a tenner a bottle is getting harder to find. What if you are sick of Echo Falls, Gallo, and Jacob’s Creek? What is the thinking man’s oenological WAG?

From the country that is rapidly becoming the home of football, white Riojas made from Viura, Malvasia and Verdejo grapes are a good starting point, especially from a price perspective. I visited Marqués de Riscal in 2008 and was impressed by the quality of the prevailing base white wine, especially scoffed with highest quality Pata Negra cured pork. Technically this white is not from Rioja but the nearby Rueda region bit it shares all the typical features of its cousin.

Pleasantly surprised to find it at Majestic for only £6.49 I reached into the fridge for some Sainsbury’s “Taste The Difference” chorizo Ibérico Bellota and unscrewed the cap.

This Verdejo tastes a tad Thai: Dill, lemongrass, ginger and a touch of chilli mark out the corners of the pitch. The goalposts are stacked, not from jumpers, but pink grapefruit husks.

Fruity, fresh and refreshing, it’s no wonder white Riojas are so often seen as house wines in London restaurants and frequently present the best value on the list. If you are the Thai bride of a Spanish footballer playing in England, take note.

It’s difficult to make a case against buying wine from Majestic, especially when you can source wines like this 2004 Reserva from only £12.99.

Cune (a.k.a. CVNE) Rioja is a pretty good marque to look out for, should you decide to scour this historic wine region of northern Spain. But the food match I’m going to recommend might surprise you.

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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.

When I visit London at weekends I like to scoff a proper Sunday lunch.  Whether I take Champagne as an aperitif depends on whether my team has won or lost.  On the occasion of 15 May 2011, I lunched at Foxtrot Oscar and the fizz, Raspberry Bellini, (OK I know it is Prosecco, not Champagne) was to celebrate rather than commiserate for a change.  After a 35 year “hiatus”, Man City won a trophy, the FA Cup.  And yet, I then went on to drink RED wine.  And on the day after a certain team from East Lancashire won the Premier League!

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The hyper-observant of you will notice that there is a sex shop a couple of doors up from this back street tapas joint.  When I sat down to eat at La Taberna del Gourmet recently, I started to wonder whether “Pikante” might offer better value, and possibly have more edible items for sale.

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2004 was, by most commentators, considered to be a good year in Rioja, and Laguardia might be the prettiest village in all of Northern Spain.  So this wine has two things going for it already.

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Marqués de Riscal is getting older by the day.  When I reviewed the 2003 eighteen months ago, the bottle pronounced that the Bodegas was founded in 1860.  In this latest 2004 release, two new years have been discovered.  It’s a bit like Joan Collins in reverse.  Wine must be the only field in which the older you are, the more attractive you become.

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In order to test my hypothesis that it is possible to contract Deep Vein Thrombosis whilst watching an opera, I went to see the 3.5 hour epic Don Carlos at Leeds Grand Theatre last week.  But way back in 1867, Giuseppe Verdi must have foreseen that the seats in the balcony of this fine theatre would be designed for pigmies and children only.  Although there was only one interval, he thoughtfully planned the opera in four acts with a total of six scene changes.  My calves yelled with delight each time the curtain fell and I was able to stand for a few brief but exquisite seconds.

As an opera, Don Carlos has it all.  Intrigue, deception, death, war, royalty and of course, adultery, all of which delivered by a huge cast.  I know you southern types have Sadlers Wells and the Royal Opera House, but up here where it’s cold, wet and cheap… Well we have got Opera North and we are justifiably proud.  This was one of the best productions I have seen with the pick of the cast being William Dazely as Rodrigo, veteran of equally excellent ON productions of Let ’em Eat Cake and Of Thee I Sing where he was a great President – John P Wintergreen.

Anyway back to Spain where Don Carlos (son of Philip II King of Spain) had to suffer the ignominy and heartache of having his promised love, Elisabeth de Valois, marry his father in a political settlement, and as you can imagine, that makes for a promising start to any story.

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I was at Sam’s Chop House in Manchester earlier this week.  Pat and Martin were kind enough to chip in and buy me a decent bottle of wine in memory of my birthday.  One from the year of my birth and reduced by an impressive £50 from the normal price.

Riojanas Monte Real Reserva 1964 had a dodgy cork, took an age to decant and was served too warm for me (about 23 degrees – I would serve at 18).  But it is probably the oldest wine I have ever drunk, so I was intrigued.

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US Election night and I am backing Barack.  But not with enough conviction to stay up all night and watch the results.  In fact, not even enough conviction to watch the preamble, since I have just returned from Opera North’s somewhat strange production of Puccini’s Tosca at the Lowry Theatre in Manchester, famed for having the most uncomfortable seats of any modern (or ancient) theatre I know.

I am not much of an opera buff but I do generally love Opera North and I am a sucker for anything live performance – music, theatre, busking, comedy, ballet.  Well maybe ballet is beyond me, in the same way that algebra is beyond a two year old, or an ASBO.

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