Confessions of a Wino

I’ve just received my first case of 2004 en primeur and although arguably a bit early to drink, I always like to have a taste of any wine I receive.

I’m not sure how much this wine cost me in the end, since I lost my records.  The only offering I could find online was in magnums from Berry Bros and Rudd at an equivalent to £20.75 per bottle.

I got strawberries dipped in dark chocolate and champagne sauce. It opened up after while to reveal notes of blackcurrant and grapefruit. At 13%, a powerful wine but not over-alcoholic.

Verdict – very nice wine but needs longer in the bottle.  The Winediva also seems to like 2004 Batailley although warns of patchy quality around Bordeaux from that vintage.

The first Batailley I tried was from the 1996 vintage and I remember thinking what good value it was for the quality of the wine.  This one again is good value.  2004 may not be the best year ever in Bordeaux especially when compared to the remarkable, 2000, 2003 and 2005 vintages that ambushed it.  But I like it and very much look forward to trying my next bottle…in a year or so.

I am in danger of teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs.  Not my real Grandmother, I mean you.  You are probably aware that generally, whilst in Bordeaux a Premier Cru is better than a Grand Cru, in Burgundy it’s the other way around.

Anyway, I was curious as to the difference between a Chablis, a Premiér Cru and a Grand Cru so I’ve started an experiment.  I decided to pick a brand and try all three.  So I waited eagerly for the Sunday Times Wine Club to deliver my mixed case of two of each from the Domaine Long Depaquit stable… I was badly let down.

The six bottle case actually had two bottles of Premiér Cru and four bottles of Grand Cru.  I decided not to complain, albeit that this is hampering my test.

So to the question of the title.  The short answer is that I don’t know yet – I have only tried the Grand Cru.  To give it its full title “Domaine Long-Depaquit, Les Clos 2002 Albert Bichot Chablis Grand Cru”!  It tasted of rich creamy butterscotch and oozed class from every sip.  An elegant wine with lots of complexities to savour but at £24.99 a bottle it should be bloody good!

The 2004 Premiér Cru was £13.99 and the 2005 bog standard £11.15.  When I have tasted the PC I’ll get back to you.  In the meantime I’ll just ponder why the Domaines of Bourgogne put so much information on their wine labels whilst the Bordelais so little.

Anyone who has tasted the “ordinaire” from 2005 please leave a comment…

I am always interested in fairness.  So I buy wine from a variety of sources.  OK I admit I am biased towards the Wine Society and the Sunday Times Wine Club but I also like Majestic and I have been formulating a growing respect for the various supermarkets.

You may remember (or you may have forgotten) my post on Torrontés where I lauded the second grape of Argentina (in my opinion, and second to Malbec), and you may remember my fondness (not) for the self styled Hand of God, Diego Maradona himself.

But this time I am afraid Argentina loses in the quarter final.  Asda’s wine buyers have impressed me greatly at times but the Argentinian Torrontés (Asda forgot the accent on the e) Famantina Valley 2005 was a nice drinkable wine but really not memorable and no distinct flavours at all.  I can tell you that Torrontés normally has the most distinct flavour of apricots -ahhh memories.

Memories?  Actually I prefer mammaries……but’s that’s a story that would not meet the strict decency requirements of a serious wine blog.

I am not sure, to be truthful, whether Mr Kipling only “bakes exceedingly good cakes” in the UK, or whether he deigns to offer his wares through the supermarkets of the world. 

Regular readers will know I have been munching my way through a Wine Society case of 2005 claret.  In the interests of fairness I purchased a similar early release case from the Sunday Times Wine Club and tonight opened the first bottle.

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Although I generally disapprove of pre-selected cases, I do subscribe to the President’s Cellar from Sunday Times Wine Club which pings me 6 bottles every 6 months at about £20 per bottle.

It does force me to explore wines that I would not otherwise choose and you probably know that I am not the greatest fan of Australian wine.

This bottle of Tamar Ridge Pinot Noir 2002 came to me a few years ago from Tasmania, via the President’s Cellar and was getting to drinking up time.  So I opened it.

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When you join a wine club, the first thing they do is try to get you to commit to a monthly/annual/quarterly case of wines “to help you explore the wine world you might not otherwise experience”, whereas you are stupid if you don’t realise that it’s just a plan to get a commitment to spend.

On this basis I was once stupid enough to subscribe to the Sunday Times Wine Club’s “Cellar Classics”, a six monthly case of 6 reds and 6 whites of about £10 a bottle.  In the end I decided I could pick the wines better myself and cancelled. 

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My second favourite film of all time is “The Italian Job” – I mean the original one with Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill et al.  So this barmy April weather had me on the balcony humming “On days like these” by Matt Munro and that got me thinking “hold on lads, I’ve just had a great idea!” and searched my collection of Pinkos for an Italian Job.

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When I turned 18 we did a sort of lad’s rite of passage thing.  Some guys did sickly things like inhaling a whole cigar.  Others did amateur self harm (but not on Iggy Pop’s scale).

The idea I most admired was the guy who ate a whole pot of jam.  This doesn’t sound very rock and roll does it?!  But have you ever tried it?  The first spoonful is delicious but by the time you are half way through the jar, it is getting sickly to the point of making you gip.  In that sense it’s a bit like drinking an Aussie Shiraz.

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Exactly how many quarters has Manchester got?  Can a city have more than four?  I hear tell in the press of the latest campaign to create an “Irish Quarter” which is bringing England’s second city to the point of fractional incongruence.

Personally, I like the Spanish quarter and one of my fave tapas places is on Deansgate two forward rolls from the new Beetham Tower – Evuna.

Did you know that the Beetham Tower at 47 floors is the highest residential building in Europe.  Has anyone told the residents on floor 36 that the fire brigade can only reach the fourth floor?  Food for thought!

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Now you may well have tried some Rioja red wine from Bodegas Martinez Bujanda but have you ever tried a rosé?

I have and it’s sublime……….on a warm summer day.

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