Confessions of a Wino

Me and my Chairman finished a meeting in the City and decided to go for a quick beer………which turned into erm, two bottles of wine.

The reason being that we stumbled upon Clause on Lovat Lane off Eastcheap EC3.

This bar must think it is Christmas every day.  Between 5pm and 7pm they have a happy happy happy hour where all wines (except house) are half price!  So we “invested” in an Errazuriz Sauvignon Blanc, Chile 2005 at £17.50 (or rather £8.75).  It would have been rude not to have ordered some nibbles to go with it, so we didn’t.

Then after a second bottle we ordered the bill and, including service, it was less than 20 quid – what in London?  In the City?  At a posh bar?  “Yaw ‘avin a larf” my chirpy cab driver said to me on the way back to Kings Cross.

Oh the wine?  Er yes, it was full of rich fruits and –  oh who cares – it was very very very drinkable and at that price I suggest you get down to Clause the very next time that the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the, well er, 17 to be precise . . . . .

Clause.  1 Lovat Lane, off Eastcheap, London EC3R 8DT.  +44 (0) 207 283 6191.  info@clause-bar.co.uk.  www.clause-bar.co.uk.

A few days in Newquay, Cornwall had me looking and talking like a surfer dude in no time.  Fistral Beach is the centre of all (cool) surfing activity in England., So seeing as we were staying at the Headland Hotel next door, why not skip down to the beach and Fistral Blu, a trendy eatery, we thought.

It claims to be fine dining but falls a bit short of that.  In fact I was left unsure as to what exactly it was trying to achieve.  Do they want surfers fresh from the beach, or the rich and famous of Newquay to drive down to eat?

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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.

Anjou, the Loire village better known for its Rosés is the latest to be laughing behind the back of the wine buyers at international warehouse shop, Costco.  Once again Costco has placed cost as a more valued criterion than quality.

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Recently I went to the Harrogate Flower Show at the Great Yorkshire (everything in bloody Yorkshire is bloody “great” apparently!) Showground.  Amongst the commercial stands selling everything from gardening gloves and phallic water features, to clothes and picnic hampers, there was an odd display of flowers….and the usual bit of local produce…

Now you’ve all been there.  The twee little stands where grannies used to sell their home made pickles and marmalade – well guess what?  Yep, they have been replaced by commercial organisations making a profession out of attending shows and selling mass produced jam.  Actually that’s a bit unfair – there are still some good ones to buy from, just make sure you taste first.

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New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs have had a good time recently but I think the old world is fighting back with aplomb.

To support my case I am going to ask you when the last time you tried a Sancerre – any Sancerre.  Or a Pouilly Fumé?  Find the right one and you get sublime Sauvignon Blanc with more subtlety than the impudent new world youths.

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Now, we already know that the Spanish football team is ever the under-achiever.  Possibly only England can compare to their dismal lack of success when matched against national expectation.  But what are they like at making wine?  In a wine competition, I suspect the English would contrive to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.  However, I think Spanish wine is pretty good on average, and maybe they finally have a sport to excel at.

Firstly let me clear up the fact that I am about to review a wine that claims it is from Spain but many would say it is made in Catalunia.  Without getting into Iberian politics perhaps I’ll move on to this rather nice Cava (pronounced more like cava in cavalier than “carver” as most people seem to say).  But that’s not the only pronunciation problem here since the Cava is named Freixenet and as best as I can establish that is pronounced like Fresher-net.

Still, I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition when I asked for the wine at my local Co-op supermarket. (more…)

Now I don’t want to be accused of bias.  I buy wine from all over the place, but to be honest Tesco is normally bottom of my list despite it being the location of choice for most of our grocery shopping.

So in the interests of giving it a fair hearing, I recently purchased a couple of sample bottles, the first of which I will review here.

£6.99 for a Grüner Veltliner seems a good deal.  Tesco’s offering was “Singing” Grüner Veltliner from Laurenz und Sophie.

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I saw the musical recently at Leeds Grand Theatre – it was so so.  This post is nothing to do with musicals though.

Regular readers will know that I am a new member of the Wine Society in the UK and have been experimenting with various wines, mostly the Society’s own brands.

At £7.50 the Society’s New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc 2006 is less than half the price of Cloudy Bay but way more than half the quality.

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