Red Wine

We sometimes get Pinot Noir from a place in Alsace (George Klein) along with some other great wines line Tokay Pinot Gris, Gewurzstraminer and Riesling.

A chilled Pinot Noir from Alsace does make a rather nice wine for aperitif...

I also like good wines from Haut Medoc. Example being Chateau Cantemerle, Cru Classe.

Mmm.. Alsace Pinot Noir

It's lamentably hard to get red Alsace wines in the UK - they all seem to stay local. But given the right food you are so right, they can be truly lovely. Closest thing style-wise readily available in the UK is red Sancerre which usually carries a disproportionate and often frankly scary price tag.

Oddbins, I seem to remember, sell - or used to anyway - a Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) from the excellent Rainer Lingenfelder in Pfalz, which is really only the other side of the Rhine from Alsace. (About £6)
As selling German wine in Britain is like pushing water uphill at the best of times, selling the reds is next to impossible and so they are often very good value.
But these are light, crisp red wines and I doubt to everyone's taste, and probably a bit more summery than just now (snowing in London).

But with smoked duck, seared tuna, and charcuterie that's greasy (in the nicest possible way) they can be just fantastic.
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Did you know that Cantemerle is the Médoc property with the highest percentage of Merlot in its vineyards? This makes their 1997 vintage one of the biggest Bordeaux bargains of all time, as 97 was a dreadful year for Cabernet but a good one for Merlot (which had all been picked before the rain, as it ripens much earlier).

Vintage reputations, however, are almost always based on generalisations alas, so everyone (read wine investors) regards 1997 as a poor year across the board.

Dunno where might have any though and it'll still be quite expensive as it's a highly regarded property.

I heard from my friend in Bordeaux that the First Growths are planning/hoping to open 2005 at €200 a bottle this season coming. Blimey. Monumentally great vintage though it may be I sense pride coming before a fall. Not for the first time.

Hi Rod,

I really find your postings and recommendations useful. I really enjoy sauvignon blanc, particularly Cloudy Bay, Stonewall and Babich. This seems to cover expensive, reasonable and cheap. Can you recommend any to match the Cloudy Bay at a lower price?

I agree with regards supermarket wines. However If you play the game you can get bargains ie St Hallets Old Block Shiraz is often found in Tescos for £9 a bottle. Ihave three separate vintages at this price and consider it a bargain. recently picked up a bottle of Grange 1998 for £89 when they are supposed to be close to £250.

Cheers

Hi Spike

You're absolutely right that the supermarkets with their huge power can often offer customers bargains. It's the suppliers that are being pressured to make more, the same, no price increases and so on. End of lines in the supermarkets are often the best bargains. My point is that you will often find the absolute best (not necessarily at the best price) in specialists in exactly the same way that the best vegetables will be in a greengrocer and be 24 hours fresher with less refrigeration and so on. At risk of upsetting Nigel further: best bargains at Richer Sounds - best hi-fi at Naim Dealer.

If you managed to get the 98 Grange (which was also in Sainsbury's, Oddbins, Majestic and others) then very well done, and I kinda hope you haven't drunk it. Southcorp, the parent company sent a container (2200 cases) to Europe due - I kid you not - to an administrative error.

Southcorp Europe (UK) decided not to return it, with the result that probably the best vintage ever of certainly Australia's most collectable wine, was more widely available here than it was in Australia (2200 cases is a very sizeable % of the production). Australians were buying it from UK retailers and having it sent back.

It was something of a scandal down under. The wine is already worth a great deal and rising. Fast. I'd keep it were I you (I'm keeping mine). In any case it's still too young to drink at its optimum.

Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc I find is one of the most reliable wine styles of all, certainly by the time they have left NZ and got 12000 miles to the UK. Not totally in keeping with Happy Chick's thread title however, and once more personal caveats notwithstanding - I like the wines of Jane Hunter (£10-ish, has some oak), Jackson Estate (£9), Isabel (someone else mentioned this). My own company's - VESTED INTEREST ALERT - Southbank Estate (£7 from Majestic) is rather nice. Of the big brands, Villa Maria is not half bad and better by a considerable margin than Oyster Bay IMHO, both £7 ish.

What is probably the case however is that Cloudy Bay ain't what it used to be. There has always been an element of "style over substance" about it, but it is now owned by LMVH (Moët) and they make a great deal more than was ever the case when it first caused a splash. Villa Maria Clifford Bay has always been a better wine (although it costs more).

Personally at that level I'd be getting back into the French stuff. The £10 barrier is when the flinty whiff of a decent Sancerre or Pouilly-Fume really begins to come into its own. For the ultimate experience of Sauvignon Blanc you should try a wine from loopy genius Didier Dagueneau at least once ('specially if someone else is paying).

Cheers

Rod

Hi Rod,

Thanks for the reply. That explains the Grange 1998. I only bought two bottles at the time in with 10 bottles of Bin 28 with in effect 40% off. I opened one with friends at it was very very good. However, ther is still plenty of life left. I will keep my eyes open for a similar deal and maybe purchase a case. With 40% off the Bin 28 comes out at just over £5 which for a mid week wine is excellent value. I never find I enjoy Bin 389. I keep opening them and never really think I really enjoyed that. Only got a few left so don't think II'll buy many more.

I agree with you on the Cloudy Bay. Although I got a case of the most recent vintage and was very suprised at how much I really enjoyed it. I picked it up at a reasonable price so I'm quite pleased.

I really enjoy Cloudy Bay Vintage Pelorus. With some shopping around it can often by had at ~£14. I really struggle to find any NV champagne under £25 to beat it. It is excellent and a real bargain.

To keep on the red wine thread, If any one shops at Tesco, when they do their 30% off promotion then try a case of St Hallet Old Block Shiraz. The older the better. They don't always have it in store but always have it online with free delivery.

Cheers

quote:

For the ultimate experience of Sauvignon Blanc you should try a wine from loopy genius Didier Dagueneau at least once ('specially if someone else is paying).

Oh yes indeedy! He makes a very decent brew, I gave my folks some Silex and was very disappointed only to get to taste one of the bottles.

Well... I am reallllll fed up. I generally have a monthly spring clean with class in hand, makes the chore more enjoyable.

I started off with the remainder of a bottle of Brunello (2 glasses), then decided to progress to the Barola (which I love). The new one i bought (2 bottles) was bloody awful. I was very let down.

Anyone got any reccomedations for a nice bottle of Barola. Only want to spend £10-£20 a bottle. The one i just tried was "La Mora".

Awful stuff for Barola. Gonna put the cork back in and save it for a friends vist tommorow. (Pooor old Spock).

Happy Chick

HC
Was this a different year to your normal Barola purchase? Our usual christmas dinner Barolo was not as good as previous years. Helpfully I forgot to note the details. Really should have a wine diary methinks.

Howard

Come on Rodsworth

What do you think is a good Barola and Brunello for £10 - £20 a bottle.

Looking for a £10-£15 bottle for general at home on me own leisure and £20-£25 for entertaining weekend music friends.

I'd be honest any more than that is toooo much for casual drinking.

Happy Chick

Probably related to the vintage to be honest.

Alas, La Morra is the name of a town (a very very beautiful hilltop town I might add), and is not really an indication of anything other than geography. It's the home of Roberto Voerzio whose 'Vignaserra' (Nebbiolo/Cabernet blend) is one of my all time favourite wines (at a price lamentably).

I'm guessing that the wine you had may have been a 2002, a singularly crappy year for Barolo, indeed for all Italian wine regions (ex Sicily/Sardinia which have different weather). Barolo (Nebbiolo) is the most weather sensitive variety of all being harvested in October/November at best (the name is from the Italian for cloud or fog as it is always foggy by the time they ripen it).

Best one I've had recently is from a small producer called Paolo Manzone, and it came from Adnams.

I'm afraid it was twenty quid however. (On reviewing this post I find you have to search their site rather than my link taking you there directly).

Majestic used to do a good one (although coincidentally if I remember correctly it WAS called La Morra, so may be the offending article and might suffer from the vintage blight mentioned above).

However as mentioned a really good Nebbiolo d'Alba from a good producer will usually eclipse a Barolo from an unknown.

Perhaps we should all try the Mexican affair that someone mentioned earlier in this thread. I shall add it to my list of things to try for sure.

Cheers

Rod

I fully agree with your post regarding taxes etc Rod.
Having lived in Germany for 5 years your post makes a lot of sense now why its hard to find any decent wine under a £5, where as if I was just looking for some cheapo wine to top up stock in Germany there would be a huge choice of wine for under 5 euros, going to the local Sainsburys etc now and looking for the equivalent I find hard.
Also wine I buy from my Spanish wine club is now £10-£15 dearer per case because it being shipped to the UK
I have now joined Laithwaites wine club so I can enjoy a varied selection of international wine, hopefully I might find some nice treats as I find wine buying a mind field if you are not an expert.
I have picked these 2 out to drink with my wife on Valentines day :glug:

Regards,

John

oh and for desert

I would be very interested to hear opinions from anyone who has tried any of the Lebanese wines, particularly from Chateau Mussar in the Bakaar Valley. For those who havent tried it....do it!

A wine thread! They really have everything on this site.
Hello denizens of the Naim Wine forum.
We don't share the same shops(I live in Belgium) but I'll be reading your comments with interest anyway.

I'm curious about the comments on pinot noir here. I did try some pinot noir from Alsace a while ago, and it didn't retain my interest.
I tried pinot noir from Sancerre once, but I forgot. I wanted to try some pinot noir from Oregon but never got around to it.
Before you start imagining things: I remember quite fondly some bottles of red burgundy. So I'm a bit curious to try the same grape in other regions. So if you could tell me about a good red Sancerre, I'd be grapeful.

AlexanderVH - you might like to try Chilean Pinot Noir. Con Sur make a very nice drop for about 6 Euros and it's a good run for a low-end Burgundy in my opinion.

Glug, glug, glug. That was the sound of a 1998 Penfolds 389 Cabernet Shiraz going down the hatch with tonight's dinner. Still intense and powerful, but smoothed by the aging.

Steve

thanks jlfrs -I hope that's not your real name- I'll keep an eye on that Con Sur. I have one chilean wine in the cellar at the moment, a "Coyam" that I haven't tasted yet.

I usually don't drink that much, so the winelist takes careful crafting. Most of what I drink is french. That should expand over time.

Ah that's Cono Sur. It googles easier coz "con sur" is french. And that name covers several valleys.

Afterthought: I might get 5 or 6 interesting pinot noirs together, then open them with some friends and appreciate the variety. Oregon, Chili, New Zealand, Australia , Alsace.

AlexanderVH,(I hope that IS your real name!),

A blind tasting is not only a good idea but great fun!

My wife and I quite often get together with her parents and her brother and his wife for a home cooked meal at one of our houses.

We're all wine drinkers and when 6 people sit down to eat and drink it generally involves 4+ bottles.

We kick the evening off with a few nibbles and a blind wine tasting. The person who bought the wine dispenses it and makes a note of the answers to the country of origin, grape or grapes, strength, price and how nice it is on a scale of 1 to 5. Bonus points,(and smugness), are awarded to those who can name the actual producer.

The winner chooses the order in which they are drunk.

We find it a great way to be adventurous,(someone inevitably buys a wild card to throw the tasters), remember what's good and what isn't and learn something into the bargain.

We do a similar thing with the cheese and Port/Madeira.

I did a wine appreciation course at a Technical College in Sydney a few years ago. Seven weekly sessions, about three hours per session, and 10 to 12 wines tasted each session, together with education on grape varieties, wine regions, wine making technique, and wine and food matching. I don't consider myself an expert at all, but I learned a huge amount which has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of wine.

The entire course, including all wines, cost A$300 (about GBP100 or USD200). What a great country I live in.

Steve

My father in law was a wine merchant before he retired and left over the wine business to his son.
He's got a huge background in the matter, and he still does the stocking up of the wine and often travels to visit the wineries.
So I got into wine through the back door as it were. The last time I did some more or less organized tasting was when I planned a trip
to Vouvray (Loire) to buy some wine.

Today there was a birthday lunch at work- and we like to enjoy ourselves:
We ate risotto and drank mainly a young Zenato Valpolicella(5.3 euro).
At the end we shared a single bottle of Prunotto Nebbiolo d'Alba 2002(15 euro).
I would think they're both well worth their price.
I'm going to get me a bottle of that Prunotto and take the time to get to know it better.

Nebbiolo d'Alba is becoming the moral of this thread... Prunotto's is a fine wine IMO too.

I just got back from the Salon des Vins de Loire in Angers. Quite why they organise a tasting of such summery wines in such a dreadful industrial park in February under the most leaden skies imaginable and when the temperature doesn't get beyond freezing ever, is beyond me. Maybe they want to sell more red wine.

Still, in the Loire, as elsewhere in France, 2005 looks like an absolute stunner of a vintage.

Angers, with its charming medieval centre and beguiling castle, is twinned with - Wigan.
And I have often wondered why. This time I finally discovered the reason is rugby related. It is still weird to drive along a grand boulevarde called "Avenue de Wigan" in an ancient French city though...

What was I drinking, I should have said minimally 1 bottle per week.
Yesterday night I got to taste several interesting wines.
I had a very nice first encounter with a 22 year old californian sweet wine from Yuba County.

Today, visitors. I'm preparing an unknown(to me) Muhlberger Riesling vendange tardive, from 'Poderi Rosso Giovanni' the Carlinet and Infinito
and a Berthet Bondet vin jaune from 1986.

Red Loire: I had decided their Cabernet Franc was not for me, when the old man changed my mind. There's some good stuff.
But still I'd be surprised if there would be much of a market for it outside of the Loire.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
HC
Was this a different year to your normal Barola purchase? Our usual christmas dinner Barolo was not as good as previous years. Helpfully I forgot to note the details. Really should have a wine diary methinks.

Howard

Sorry Howard.. been away for a bit. I believ it was a different year and different make. Me thinks a wine diary to be a good idea.