Wine News #2

Myself and Emily went down to London on Sunday evening to see my Dad, Anna and Monkey (Nina). Dinner was fun, with Nina her usual troublesome self. She's learning a Norah Jones song on the keyboard and entertained us with several renditions of the intro - which was very impressive, although I do hope she's progressed by next time we go as the intro is quite repetetive after a while.

Emily and Anna ended the evening debating access to university and various related issues - which I will probably end up blogging about before I leave the dreaming spires as it's long been a bugbear of mine. Dad got a call from his Director (he's doing Toby Belcher/Claudius in As you Like It/Hamlet in Southwark which hopefully I'll catch after my exams.) Anyhow he had a surprise run through and had to sneak off before dessert (MARS ICE CREAM!) in order to learn lines. He finds it harder these days - "the decay of a human mind".

I got a couple of bottles to take down.

I got this Cotes du Rhone 'Parallele 45' Paul Jaboulet Aîné from Oddbins on Little Clarendon Street - not my usual Oddbins. The young man working there didn't meet up to the usual standard of friendly and informative oddbins staff. He was pretty patronising, quite rude and actually wrong on a couple of key points. As a result I'm minded not to recommend this too highly. Although it wasn't bad at all.

Oddbins say: "Dark cherry colour with intense red fruit aroma and a round and harmonious palate with a long, warm, spicy finish."

And that's about right. Having said that he claimed that this was likely to be about 60 -70% Syrah (Shiraz) which sounded a lot to me. True enough the Oddbins website confirmed it was 55% Grenache, 45% Syrah. This is a fact that is totally irrelevant to me. But it's a little victory that the oik has been found out bullsh*tting since he was so rude.

Also he recommended this to go with a mild curry - and in my personal opinion for a couple of quid less I could have chosen myself a big bastard Aussie Shiraz that I would have enjoyed more. Sadly I can't really slag this wine off properly though, since it was pretty good and went well with the food.

He also recommended this Alsace Tokay Pinot Gris Cuvee Reserve Caves de Turckheim, that the ladies claimed was very nice. But having tasted it myself I think they were either;

a. Being polite
or b. Already pissed from the bottle they'd polished off first

Now I admit I was ready to just take his recommendation and get out on this so I should have been more awake. Frankly I knew that Alsatian wines were very sweet. Now he claimed that the Pinot Gris grapes would work with that and make for an interesting wine. But it wasn't quite enough and this was not "my bag".

Oddbins say this:
"A lovely wine from Alsace - the driest wine region in France. This Tokay Pinot Gris is packed with stone-fruit flavours and displays good varietal character and complexity."

UPDATE on previous post. The excellent wine which Emily brought round a few weeks ago was the McGuigan Estate, Limestone Coast, Chardonnay 2005 which Sainsburys have on offer here in Oxford right now. It's list price is £8.99 but they've gots shelves of the stuff for £3.99. Now that would normally make me run a mile since it's a hell of a reduction and if it were any good you'd imagine it would go. But this was really really good. Definately grab a bottle of this if you see it. It ain't worth 9, but 4 quid is a steal.

Amusingly however I found last year's vintage of this wine reviewed in 2005 as reduced to £3.99 too - so clearly Sainsbury's have some plan here to make this look like more than a bargain than it actually is. Still it's got to be worth it for what this bloke in Manchester calls (admittedly last year's vintage) "the straightforward light oak of McGuigan Estate Chardonnay" from what he calls "a consistent if not exciting producer". At less than £4 consistent is all you're going to get - but that's not to be sniffed at.