It is amazing who you meet online and I am not even a teenager. I don’t think he is trying to groom me, but my cyber-mate, Peter May, is something of an expert in the wines of South Africa. He recommended that I drink more Chenin Blanc, and suggested Ken Forrester would take me into the woods and chop me down to size.
As if it wasn’t hard enough already (no pun intended), blokes everywhere are giving up hope of ever getting another blowjob.
Before Americanisation, I used to think that “head” was the foam on a pint of beer. As a mature Wino, I now I fully realise that it is the bubbles on top of a Bellini. And I love a Bellini.
Last year I did a virtual world tour of Pinot Noirs. I enjoyed it very much but after several barnyard runs, I decided I wanted to be unfaithful and try another grape.
On the basis of the majority opinion of serious wine commentators I chose Riesling, but I have not been quite as enthused as I was by the Brigitte Bardot of the grape world.
I tried comparing Riesling to the new mini – refined, exciting, reminiscent of the past, and better made by Germans. But I would like to retract that statement and simultaneously upset many wine purists, because my experience says wines from the noble Riesling grape are better built by Australians.
Take Pauletts, Polish Hill River from Clare Valley. I picked it up from Majestic at only £9.99 – cheaper than your average German. Grapefruit, melon, a touch of marzipan and a sliver of ginger root. Like many Rieslings, it goes superbly well with Thai food and, after all, Thailand is closer to Australia than Germany (I think). So this logical reasoning is indisputable proof that criminals make better Riesling. I’m sure Dr Spock would agree.
So maybe Riesling is the Ten Pound Pom of grapes:Â Cheap, well travelled, classless, and ultimately better off in Australia.
The primary responsibility of a wine producer is to make drinkable or, better still, remarkable wine. It is a bit like a restaurant whose benchmark is firstly decent food, then cool atmosphere, warm ambience, decent price, and finally how good looking the waitresses are – oh and the quality and price of the wine list helps!
Fundamentally I care about our planet and I am very much in favour of reduced carbon emissions. Irrespective of whether you believe the global warming doom mongerers, you would have to be a nincompoop of Victorian standards not to accept that pumping out all this shit into our precious H2O is simply a route to premature apocalypse.
However, is there really a need to shout so loud about your green credentials? I expect as a matter of course that winemakers use ever more green and efficient production methods. So I am always suspicious about any product that claims to be “greener” – it is the Toyota Prius effect applied to the wine industry.
This “green” one from Virgin at £8.99 wasn’t undrinkable but it was unremarkable.
I’ve sacked Mybloglog. What is the point when Facebook (you see, no need to provide a hyperlink) is taking over every social interaction on the web. I like to think that LinkedIn looks after business interaction, but Facebook’s success in the social space has undoubtedly been due to its open platform.
At some point in your life, birthdays stop being beacons shining light on a promising future and instead become lamp posts illuminating yesterday’s gloomy streets. A time to look back longingly at your youth and wonder what might have happened if you hadn’t bought that Ford Escort with the faulty brakes, or kissed that fat bird with dentures behind the bike sheds at school.
But the lacerations eventually healed and I was able once again to enjoy eating the sweets of my generation without the nightmare of that mousetrap snog to haunt my tongue.
Is the Sony brand dead?
I used to be a Sony snob – hifi, TVs, Playstations, Walkmans. OK I admit I never had a Betamax, but I know early adopter friends who did. In the 1970s our household was the first in the street with a colour TV. In the 1980s we were last to invest in VHS technology, albeit by virtue of Radio Rentals and with a third of my first adult weekly paycheque as a deposit.
I am currently watching a Sony TV from the 1990s which is fab. I also own a Sony TV from 2007 that is total tosh – picture quality, software, remote control – all about as user-friendly as a Doberman shaped perambulator.
Germans never use three letters when it is possible to craft a word from three k’s, four ch’s and at least two consecutive f’s. W also features prominently. Perhaps it was a German who extended the short form “world wide web” into the excessive and unnecessary “www”, possibly the only acronym with three times as many syllables as its original “long” form.
Perhaps it belies a Teutonic predilection for taking more time than is sensible in the name of quality, or detail at least, and if this applies to winemaking, this may explain some of the prices of German Rieslings I have seen recently. And I bought most of mine before Sterling/Euro parity played havoc with my holiday plans. I don’t suppose Angela Merkel would have welcomed me to her country anyway, given her views on Gordon Brown’s “world saving” economic initiatives.
The third sample from Rowan Gormley’s new venture, Naked Wines, is a Chenin Blanc from a part of the world Rowan should know well, since he was born there. Not surprising then that South Africa is well represented in the early offerings from Naked, and Bain’s Way seems to be manning the midfield with several varietals available.
I like Rowan and want to support his new venture but I can’t pretend that I like a wine when it smells of napalm. Come to think of it, I have never smelt napalm but I imagine it to be a rubbery petroleum mixture. Anyway, of the first two naked wines that I tried, one was good, one poor.
So with the scores level at the hour mark, can Bain’s Way nip into the penalty box and slot home the winner?
I have given mixed reviews of Virgin Wines in the past. In truth, the quality has varied from the sublime to the downright ugly, but you can’t argue with the prices. That means value has to be taken into account. For example, if you sign up for their Wine Bank promotion you merely need to commit a credit crunch dodging £20 per month to your wine account and every three months, Virgin adds another £20 implying a 25% discount on the prices on the site.
So, having tried some bottles at the cheapest end of the spectrum, I thought I would order a few at about a tenner. But I forgot that this Miudiño Albariño advertised at £9.49 only cost me £7.12 because of Wine Bank.
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