What wine are you drinking today ?

It's a Barefoot Merlot for me 

Barefoot? Really? I've not tried the merlot, but the white that someone brought round once was undrinkable and went down the sink.  

Not tried the White! My better half likes the Merlot, so that's good enough for me 

Not in a celebratory wine mood !

have a spicy Bloody Mary with gin.

Just opened a bottle of this to go with steak. To cheer me up.

With Britain's exit of the EU on the horizon, now might be the time to dash over to Calais and pick up this little beauty;

Virgin Wines sell it for £12.99 a bottle and you get an excellent wine for the money from one of Australia's oldest wineries - you will be delighted, it's delicious.

However, if you get to Calais ASAP you can pick it up for £2.49 a bottle.  No, that's not a misprint - two pounds and forty nine pence of your slightly devalued sterling is enough to buy one bottle, so I might suggest you buy a case.  Or two cases, or perhaps three..  

tonym posted:

Just opened a bottle of this to go with steak. To cheer me up.

I'm sincerely hoping it wasn't ten years too soon, Tony.

Chris

A glass or two of Triade dry white here. On offer at corner shop. A blend of fiano, falanghina and greco. Fresh and fairly complex. Dangerously gluggable. Great with some grilled salmon, potatoes, greens and some Hollandaise. A simple man, easily pleased.

C.

Monday night, Margaux* from Marks. A bit overwhelmed by the smokey paprika and chorizo in the paella but we both thought it good when we were able to taste it after the meal, berryish and refined if slightly backwards at coming forwards.

C.

* own label

Whilst I'm not much of a connoisseur some friends brought a couple of bottles of this round yesterday evening and it was surprisingly nice, really smooth and drinkable on its own.  Seems a bargain at £5 per bottle, most cheap red is undrinkable!

Finkfan posted:

It's a Barefoot Merlot for me 

I'm sure I can see a verruca on that foot, 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Barefoot? Really? I've not tried the merlot, but the white that someone brought round once was undrinkable and went down the sink.  

Nigel, you really ought to try the Barefoot Merlot...

it brings the sink and waste up to a far better shine than the white  : )

Gifted to me with a bunch of flowers for dog sitting duties,

the flowers look very nice! : )

Debs

Very dry and lacking in body, but still okay drinkable.

Okay i've been a bit naughty and not decanted and allowed it an hour to de-gas, but i've got the impression of improved future potential with the remaining 5 bottles of this case, which would do better left in my dusty cellar to mature up for a year or three : )

Debs

You know how some people just stare at you with that really confused look on their face when you start telling them about your HiFi?

That's me with wine ... I don't 'get' it, I definitely don't like it, I don't understand it and when I hear the descriptions of it I understand fully just how other people must feel when I describe how a hifi setup sounds.

I do feel that I'm missing out and I promise I have tried!

Phil

Not even some champers for the launch of the new Uniti line, Phil?

Steve

naim_nymph posted:

Very dry and lacking in body, but still okay drinkable.

Okay i've been a bit naughty and not decanted and allowed it an hour to de-gas, but i've got the impression of improved future potential with the remaining 5 bottles of this case, which would do better left in my dusty cellar to mature up for a year or three : )

Debs

Call me old-fashioned but you are drinking this with some food aren't you Debs?

C.

sjbabbey posted:

Not even some champers for the launch of the new Uniti line, Phil?

Steve

I made myself a nice cappucino when I got home and cracked open an ice cold bottle of Diet Coke ... does that count?

Phil

So you bottled it then! 

Congratulations on today's launch. Will be looking closely at the Atom when it arrives to replace my UQ2.

Steve

Christopher_M posted:

naim_nymph posted:

Very dry and lacking in body, but still okay drinkable.

Okay i've been a bit naughty and not decanted and allowed it an hour to de-gas, but i've got the impression of improved future potential with the remaining 5 bottles of this case, which would do better left in my dusty cellar to mature up for a year or three : )

Debs

Call me old-fashioned but you are drinking this with some food aren't you Debs?

C.

Is there any other way? : )

Debs

Apparently so.

C.

Jimi Hendrix comes to mind : /

naim_nymph posted:

Jimi Hendrix comes to mind : /

To my mind that lack of body in your Chianti now means that the wine is not a keeper. I'd be interested to know what Rod (or anyone else) thinks. When are fruit, alcohol, tannin and acid in harmony in such a wine?

C.

Bottle of the 2012 open here. No food with it but light enough to be good on its own

Buy it while you can. Cairanne is lobbying (hard, likely successfully, and probably deservedly) for an Appellation of its own, and when/if they get it, the one sure thing is that the prices will go up. Quite a lot. They certainly did when Gigondas, Vacqueras and Rasteau were similarly elevated from the pool of 'just' Côtes du Rhône Villages...

Re the Chianti, it all depends. Lack of body is no bar to being able to age, but fruitlessness is. The remaining bottles don't - instinctively - sound especially worth keeping to me from your description Debs (but nor can it really do any harm). Most Chianti these days is 'designed' to be drunk young for the very simple commercial reason that almost all Chianti is drunk young these days.

rodwsmith posted:

Re the Chianti, it all depends. Lack of body is no bar to being able to age, but fruitlessness is. The remaining bottles don't - instinctively - sound especially worth keeping to me from your description Debs (but nor can it really do any harm). Most Chianti these days is 'designed' to be drunk young for the very simple commercial reason that almost all Chianti is drunk young these days.

Many thanks for the response, Rod : )

may be better to return my remaining 5 bottles and swop for something more to my taste (?)  a dry red wine is fine for my palate but i find this Chianti far too sharp and bitter to enjoy fully [ An odd bottle perhaps? ]   ....i don't feel lucky.

I bought some nice Cantele recently:  6 bottles of Negroamaro, and 6 of Primitivo, no complaints with these : )

I've had a lucky run with Italian reds past couple of years, this Chianti is the first hiccup. 

Debs