Have you ever tasted a really good bottle of claret? I don’t mean a Château Latour or Mouton Rothschild, there are much cheaper wines that are truly excellent.
When you find one, your mouth zings and you make a strange face like you’ve just reached orgasm and everyone looks at you like you’re a nutter.
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.
I admire Malbec because it is classy, very tasty and compares well to many old world wines. But there is another Argentinean grape that makes wine so far from the norm it makes me shiver. It’s even better than a cup of tea (or did Boy George already do that line?)
The grape is Torrontés and as far as I know it may have originated from Spain. Now Spain as we know are football’s great under achievers, whereas Argentina cheat, for example the “Hand of God” incident in the 1986 World Cup. So I am going to assume that the grape came from Spain and that the Argies stole it.
One Sunday a few years ago Sainsbury’s locked my car in their Huddersfield car park causing me massive inconvenience. Combined with their stock replenishment problems at the time, I swore I would never shop there again.
Regular readers will know that my grudges don’t hold much resolve so last week saw me nipping into Sainsbury’s on Regent Rd in Manchester looking for Malbec. Ciaran had recommended the So Organic Free Trade one.
I am working my way, manfully, through a case of Wine Society branded wines. Not all this evening I might add but nonetheless at a steady pace.
After all, it’s necessary to find some solace when Steve McClaren is manager of your national football team.
This wine is a Saar Reisling Von Kesselstat 2004 and to be frank I am as confused about it as the Wine Society is.
I haven’t managed to get a ticket to see Connie in the hottest show in town just yet. Connie Fisher’s prize for winning a BBC talent contest was the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic at the London Palladium.
But I thought I would get in the mood anyway by trying an Austrian wine whose reputation seems to be growing faster than The Sound of Music revenues.
My Grüner Veltliner came from the Wine Society’s “Exhibition” Range.
Wow – the Wine Society sent me an enticing offer. “A first taste of 2005!”. Twelve bottles for a mouthwatering 67 of my English punts.
Now really…. It’s in their interest to big up the supposed best year in Bordeaux for several millennia – well according to the venerable Robert Parker at least. (Personally I am amazed that an American has any understanding of how to get out of his own state, let alone gain a deep understanding of European culture). I mean how many of you Europeans has met an American who knows the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom?
I started this blog on a South American theme and I am happy to keep that going for a short while because the current exchange rates are making S. American wines superb value for money for us UK winos.
I am a fairly new member of The Wine Society, (HQ at Stevenage in the UK). My first experience was of two bottles of Ch. Kirwan at a very reasonable price but sadly very badly corked.
I am happy to say that following a swift refund (no need to return the bottles) the service and wine quality since then has been excellent and I have continue to buy (er.. I mean invest….)
Recently, I have focussed particularly on S. American wines partly because of the value and partly because of a Wine Society promotion.
So this is how I encountered Cono Sur Signature, El Centinela, Sauvignon Blanc 2006 priced at £7.95 direct from the Wine Society. This wine from the Casablanca Valley in Chile is a classic example of why you should buy wines from South America right now.
In 1988 I was at the cafeteria of a motorway service station buying a sandwich and I asked where the corned beef was from. I advised the assistant that I hoped it wasn’t from Argentina.
“Oh, you’re not still sore about the Falklands are you?” she retorted.
“No, actually it was Maradona’s 1986 Hand of God goal. I’ve boycotted Argentinean products since that day”
Wind forward several years and with the self righteous ban a distant memory, I had occasion to visit the Gaucho Grill on Chancery Lane in London. An Argentinean “Grill” restaurant and probably the best steak I have ever tasted. During that meal I ordered a bottle of Malbec and was wowed.
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