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Review: Chateau de la Grave Caractere 2005, Bordeaux

…will bloom, big & magnificent, in your gob

A brief third instalment, this evening, in my jamboree of Christmas wines. We’ve already had the festive sherry and the pre-Christmas-dinner Champagne. With the dinner itself (goose, courtesy of my splendid parents) we drank a bottle of Chateau de la Grave Bordeaux 2005.

It was big and blooming. Blooming big and big-blooming, if you want to be all corny about it.

Supported — but not constrained — by a taut scaffold of tannins (this wine could’ve aged further, had I but the patience to let it), it easily squared up against old monsieur goose.

Amidst the usual big bordeauxy flavours there are sprinklings of bitter dark chocolate laced with orange zest. And there’s a real old mushroomy depth to each mouthful, assuming you give it time to bloom and linger, rather than cramming hot parsnips into your maw the very next second. You big yokel.

Verdict

So, yes. A very good, solid bordeaux. Not quite awe-inspiring enough to make me leap and cavort around the festive table (a mercy, perhaps, for all concerned), but very enjoyable, very robust, very satisfying.

Rating ?????
ABV 13%
Price Was something like £18.50 from The Wine Society, but is no longer available there or, it seems, anywhere much else.

Review: Bollinger Special Cuvee Champagne

… will remind you why celebration is — and e’er will be — fizzy

I’ve a few posts waiting in the wings for you, o dear & faithful reader — thanks to the seasonal profusion of alcohol from which we’re just emerging.

We’ve already done the sherry, so accompany me onward through my festive imbibitions. Next up? Pre-Christmas dinner champagne (courtesy of some bloke who took my parents’ old car off their hands and repaid them with a bottle of Bollinger. Which is exactly the way to do things.)

I love good champagne. Conversely, I despise the cheap, astringent carbonated pisswater that all too often comes in its stead.

Fortunately, Bollinger’s Special Cuvee is no pisswater. And if you’ve had your mouth shrivelled by one too many thin and acidic fizzes of late (which seems likely at a time of year when cheap fizz is almost mandatory), your first mouthful of Bollinger will remind you why you ever liked this stuff.

For this is a big, generous old toffee-apple sponge of a champagne. It is expansive. It has that characteristic delicious biscuit quality — except that here it’s richer than mere biscuit. More, I’d say, like the topping of a fruit crumble with oats, butter, muscovado sugar — crisped from the oven.

It’s this lovely savoury-sweetness that makes it, that frees it. It gives the wine full license to go bone dry (as we’d expect of a Champagne) without risking astringency.

Smell-wise, the apple and toffee are there, accompanied (subtly) by the aroma of expensive cigarettes.

And it’s a proper bubbler — pretty lively, not so fine a ‘mousse’ as some other champagnes.

Verdict

So, yes, you have it all above. A fine ol’ champagne, balanced, savoury and delicious. And it won’t shrivel your stomach and tongue with acid. It’s a pricey enough bottle, though, at full price — so if you’re spending £30-40, you should damn well expect finesse.

That said, let it be noted that this is very much the kind of champagne I’d like to be given, were someone to take a car off my hands.

(Let it also be noted, howsoever, that I do not own a car.)

Rating ★★★☆☆
ABV 12%
Price £28 (reduced from £38) at Majestic, £34.98 from Amazon (who knew Amazon sold wine?), and £39.99 from Oddbins.

Millton Te Arai Vineyard Chenin Blanc, 2007, Gisborne

… sheds its steely heiress exterior, switches on some jazz and dances west coast swing

The body, weight and supple finesse of a good chardonnay; the aromatic fruit explosion of riesling. That’s a pretty damn fine combination.

A pretty damn fine combination embodied in this Millton Te Arai Chenin Blanc, which deftly combines many of the attractions of the two top white grapes.

Take your first whiff and you’ll think it’s going to come down much more heavily on the chardonnay side of the scales. It’s got that fat, unapologetic nose-punch — edged about with vegetation. Despite the overtones of candyfloss and blossom, it smells serious, heavy. No messing.

But get it into your gob and you’ll be surprised. The stern, steely heiress suddenly switches on some jazz, necks a couple of martinis and, before you know it, the two of you are dancing west coast swing.

(Sorry, I know my wine personifications are invariably feminine. What can I say?)

Anyhow, yeah, take a gulp and your mouth is instantly greeted by a burst of sweet fruit and mellow aromatics. The sweet-yet-dry fullness of flavour is very like that of a fine, well-balanced German Riesling, but is underpinned by that butter-smooth, well-bred indomitability I expect of a Chardonnay.

(Yeah, see, our heiress doesn’t ever let herself go entirely.)

Verdict

Metaphors aside, all you really need to know is that it’s delicious, that it’s exquisitely balanced and that it’s quite unlike the last Chenin Blanc you had.

(Unless, um, you last had a bottle of this. Obviously. No need to be a smart alec.)

That balance is brilliant: there’s a very considerable acidity to this wine, but it’s absolutely checked by the honeyed, dewey fruit. The two do not cancel one another out, but coexist harmoniously — keeping your tastebuds dancing between sharp and sweet.

Imagine a mug of lemon and honey where the combinations are absolutely perfectly judged. Then forget that, because this is way fucking nicer.

Almost five stars, y’know. Almost.

Rating ★★★★☆
ABV 12%
Price £12.95 from The Wine Society

Waitrose Solera Jerezana Dry Amontillado Sherry

… is more rough-hewn oak than IKEA pine veneer

What better to write about on Christmas day than sherry? Yes, sherry. Allow Old Parn to add his voice to the loud (yet probably still largely ineffectual) chorus of those who castigate the British public for their indifference to sherry.

Sherry is fucking brilliant.

It’s also pretty much hands-down the best value wine you can buy. Really good sherry is ludicrously cheap. Put a random £6 bottle of sherry up against a random £6 bottle of wine if you don’t believe me.

Anyhow, this here is Waitrose’s Dry Amontillado. With Amontillado, you give up some of that saltwater bite of Fino (and especially Manzanilla) sherries, some of that tastebud-awakening zap of bracing dryness.

But you’re repaid. Oh yes, you’re repaid.

Because the wonderful thing about Amontillado is the nutty, toasty, creamy exhale. The smooth, supple woodiness that lasts and lasts. With a hint of fruited sharpness up there in the eaves.

Waitrose’s offering is on the heftier side of the Amontillado spectrum: it sits on a deep, dark foundation like that of a big Old World red, and in the mouth it bristles with an invigorating spiky coarseness. It’s woody like a rough-hewn oak table, not a veneered pine worktop from IKEA.

There’s a sugary, chocolatey smoothness, though, to the smell. And when you first chuck some into your mouth, you’re greeted by a marzipan sweetness.

Verdict

Very nice indeed. Like I say, this is a relatively gutsy Amontillado, so if you’re more into smooth, creamy goings on, you may prefer others. But I like gutsy.

To get top marks, they’d need to eliminate that slight catchiness at the back of the throat, the barely perceptible roughness that intrudes on the finish. But that degree of pickiness is hardly justified by the price.

If you don’t already, drink sherry. If you like sturdy red wines, this would make a very good introduction.

Oh, yeah — happy Christmas, too.

Rating ★★★☆☆
ABV 19%
Price £7.78 from Waitrose

Castelmaure Grand Cuvee 2005, Corbieres

… would be good in a scrap with some orcs

As you’ll see from the photo above, the best thing about Castelmaure Corbieres could so easily be its rather fine label. The lettering of the name is particularly superb, recalling some kind of 90s fantasy role-playing game. Escape From Castelmavre!

Fortunately, the wine itself is similarly good, and the only tedious quest involved (if your domestic organisation is as deranged as my own) is finding a corkscrew.

This is a wine of earth and blood and leather. It’s pretty goddamn massive (as the 14.5% ABV might lead to you expect), filling your mouth with pepper and smoke. A terse barbarian, you might say, rather than a flighty elf.

Although there are scents of cherry, this isn’t – as you’ve perhaps gathered – a fruity crowd-pleaser. It’s inky and enigmatic. It’s also packed with tannin, and could (I daresay) stand a good few years more in the bottle.

Verdict

This is a good, serious wine. It’s not perfect (I’d like a slightly thicker texture – which is by no means to imply that this is thin, just that the punch of its flavours isn’t quite matched by its feel in the mouth), but it’s very good.

If you like your wines brusque yet deep, soily and elemental, I recommend Castelmaure Corbieres. Perhaps snap up a few bottles and leave them in the cellar a year or two.

Just be careful you don’t run into any orcs down there, eh?

ABV 14.5%
Price £10.95 from The Wine Society

Knockon Wood 2007

… is a big old pornstar

Having given their Barbera (poor Barbera) something of a mauling, last time round, I offered Marks & Spencer the chance to win me over. So I picked up a bottle of Knockon Wood — a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Pinotage — in the expectation of a little South African charm. The fact that it was on special offer merely sweetened the deal.

As it turns out, though, I didn’t exactly get South African charm; I got South African wine-porn.

So, first off, this is a BIG wine. You know what I mean. It’s 14.5% big.

During its stay in your mouth, it starts off soft. Then gets much harder. Then softens again, with a valedictory burst of cream. And if you thought I was talking about anything other than wine there, WASH YOUR MIND OUT, YOU SORDID INDIVIDUAL.

There’s a dusty, musky, polishy depth to the wine, and it’s full across the tongue — with a wide, rhubarby blare of flavour. As the crescendo of flavours peaks and eases into diminuendo, there’s that aforementioned creamy finish, thanks to a good hoof of oak. Maybe a little much for my taste.

The coexistence of acid sharpness, musky depth and smooth oak is an interesting one. Ripe blackberries and cream. The wine has quite an unctuous quality, accompanied by caramel, tar, cedar…

Verdict

Like I say, this is a big boy of a wine. It’s confident. It’s smooth. And we had fun.

But (as its pornographic qualities might attest) it’s not the classiest. There’s something rather unrefined about its strutting exhibitionism: those flavours could be tied together more effectively. The whole job could be handled rather more subtly, y’know? As it is, there’s something of the wham-bang-thank-you-ma’am to it.

Then again — um — maybe you’re not looking for subtle porn.

Rating ★★★☆☆
ABV 14.5%
Price £12.99 from Marks & Spencer (currently reduced to £10.99)

Parallele 45 Reserve Cotes du Rhone Villages 2007, Paul Jaboulet Aine

…you can drink alone like the miserable yet discerning alkie you are

One of the reasons I love the Wine Society is its good selection of half-bottles. I often drink wine on my own, y’see (I just wanted an excuse to tell you that, really, as I’m fairly sure it makes me sound sort of cool) — and a half-bottle has that much less (round about half less, in fact) precious liquid to oxidise.

But if you take your lonesome arse into a supermarket and look for half-bottles, all you’ll find is a lamentable selection of mass-produced syrup- and vanilla-fests.

The Wine Society is virtually alone in the quality of its semi-sized selection.

And this — Paul Jaboulet Aine’s Parallele 45 Reserve Cotes du Rhone Villages — is one of the best of ’em.

So, it’s another Frenchy French wine. Full, strong, and (like our friend Domaine Font de Michelle) unapologetically gallic. Its aroma is hoofing enough to make you cough a little, should you avail yourself of a particularly generous snoutful.

Or maybe that’s just an early symptom of consumption.

Dans le gob, il y a beaucoup d’oomph. It’s simultaneously charmingly smooth and a gritty old bastard. It’d be great at film noir.

Loads of depth. Coffee-bitterness. Vegetation. A little oak to smooth it off. And wafting over the top of that are swoons of blossomy violet. Then, long afterwards, just as you think it’s all died down, a distant echo of tinned peaches and cream.

Verdict

Even if it weren’t for the boon of its half-bottle enclosure, this would be a winner. With, it, it pretty much has the rostrum to itself. I should probably add that you can also buy full-sized bottles. But that’d only mean sharing. Pah!

Here’s my advice: if you want to be cool, stick to the half-bottles. Alone.

Rating ★★★★☆
ABV 14%
Price £5.75 (half-bottle) from The Wine Society (Agh! Bastarding hell! It’s no longer available!); £8.95 (full bottle of the 2008) from Wine Direct

The Wine Society’s Exhibition Cairanne, Cotes du Rhone, 2007

… reminds me, alas, of my one-time DT teacher — but is nevertheless actually rather nice

You know how it is when, try as you might, you’re unable to find much to say about something? Not because you don’t like it and are trying to be polite; just because, well, it’s just it.

Thing is, there are some times you need to find something to say. If you’re writing a wine blog, for instance.

Or if you’re a teacher at parents’ evening, faced by expectant parents.

Indulge me, then, as I cast my mind back to Mr Kingston, my teacher for Design Technology — a man who, at parents’ evening, saw fit to inform my mother and father that I was ‘a nice enough lad’. Whilst I’m sure they were relieved at this insight, I suspect they also felt somewhat shortchanged with regard to critical analysis of my DT skills.

(Which were, incidentally, lamentable.)

So, via Mr Kingston then, allow me to meander my way to The Wine Society’s Exhibition Cairanne 2007. It is, without doubt, a Nice Enough Wine. But I know you, dear reader, expect more of me than this. So I’ll try a little harder.

Well, for starters, it is (like me) actually a good bit nicer than ‘nice enough’. It’s certainly a lot nicer, for instance, than Mr Kingston. I mean, I actively like it. Believe me.

It’s deep and long — again in contrast to Mr Kingston — but, like him, it possesses a degree of acidity alongside a good amount of stoutness and body. Both Mr Kingston and The Wine Society’s Exhibition Cairanne are not delicate creatures — and yet, in spite of it all, both turn out to be a little softer, a little smoother (steady on) than you’d expected.

(It turned out that Mr Kingston ran a tabletop wargaming club for eager small boys.)

Verdict

I feel slightly odd in recommending a wine I struggle to find much to say about. But I drink ’em; I blog ’em. And this is a nice wine. It’s good with food, weighty, full and balanced. I like it. I just don’t have much more to say.

But at least I tried, eh Mr Kingston?

Rating ★★★☆☆
ABV 14%
Price £8.95 from The Wine Society

Domaine de Gournier, Vin de Pays des Cévennes Rouge, 2009

…doesn’t strip to its underwear while you’re still pouring the drinks

Okay. Let’s rattle through this one quickly, shall we? I mean, we’re all busy people.

So. Domaine de Gournier, Cévennes. It’s red. Dark red. Heavyish.

Both to the nose and in the mouth, it’s far from being an exhibitionist. You need to work at it a bit. The one flavour that presents itself unashamedly is plum. Caramelised plum, what’s more — which is a pretty nice kind of plum if you ask me.

(Marks & Spencer does a plum danish pastry. This is like those plums.)

Aromatically, we have yeasty, herby things (rosemary? Thyme?) going on. Squint your nose a bit and you might, like me, be put in mind of rain-laden pine-trees.

Taste-wise, alongside the M&S plum, there’s a peppery spiciness. Soil. Leather. Coffee. It’s the kind of wine, in other words, that’d wear tweed and wellies.

It’s also a smidgin on the harsh side (I do mean a smidgin): that little tight rasp at the back of the throat. But what did you expect?

Verdict

If you’re looking for a rough-and-ready, vaguely Bordeaux-style weekday wine that doesn’t strip to its underwear while you’re still pouring the drinks, this will do a fine job. And it won’t decimate your bank balance.

Unless your bank balance is £57.50.

Drink it with food, I think. Being a robust kind of character, it could stand up to most things you’d throw at it.

Thoroughly respectable without being exceptional — though at this price, that in itself is not to be disparaged.

Rating ***
ABV 13.5%
Price £5.75 from The Wine Society

Stella Bella 2008 Chardonnay, Margaret River

…is a vocal quartet with soprano, alto, tenor and bass. And clean underpants.

It took me years to trust Chardonnay. I’d just tasted too many horrible wines. You know the kind. Cheap. Rough. Oaky. Sweaty.

Robin Hood’s underpants in a bottle.

And I wasn’t the only one. If there is one grape that people consistently cite as the one they don’t like, it’s chardonnay. People who otherwise love wine and drink open-mindedly.

Perhaps you’re one yourself? Are you?

Well, take a mouthful of Stella Bella 2008. Listen. Hear that? That’s the sound of your preconceptions jamming their fingers into the mains socket and crackling like cartilage on a bonfire as they fry.

Because this is a really, really nice wine. And it’s a chardonnay.

More than that, it’s an Australian chardonnay.

But I don’t think they serve this one in Wetherspoons, sadly.

The first thing you notice? Well, the fact that you have a choice about the first thing you notice. Nothing thrusts itself in your face: the wine has a lovely discrete quality. It’s peachily soft, melt-melt-melt-melting. A sophisticated seductress.

But it’s not all about the perfumed kiss; there’s real tonal range here. The slightest hint of the chargrill — a savoury, mouthwatering bitterness. Then there’s pineapple and cream; lemon curd. And on top of that the vigorous watery snap of fresh green chilli.

Verdict

If you’ve formerly shied away from chardonnay, you owe it to yourself (and to me, damn it, to me) to try this. It proves beyond any doubt that Australia is more than up to the job of handling this grape. It’s shiningly good.

Perhaps the best thing about it is its range and balance. It’s a vocal quartet with soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

And they’re all wearing meticulously clean, beautifully scented underpants.

Rating ****
ABV 13%
Price £12.50 from The Wine Society (no longer in stock), £12.95 from The Drink Shop

Côtes-du-Rhône, Domaine Jaume, 2007

…doesn’t pretend to be TS Eliot

Aromatically, Domaine Jaume’s Côtes-du-Rhône isn’t especially forthcoming. There’s a bit of polish, a bit of woodiness. But I’ll admit that, on the evidence of first whiff, my expectations weren’t all that high.

But what a nice gobful it turns out to be. Big, full, confident. Swish it round and round your mouth for several seconds like a godawful prat if you like: it won’t turn to paint-stripper on your palate (unlike many big, roughish reds at this kind of price); it’ll certainly set the front of your mouth tingling like a recovering dead limb. But that’s invigorating, isn’t it?

Yeah, so it’s not a dignified, subtle wine; it’s a hoofer. But a very nice, balanced and (above all) reasonably priced hoofer. I drank it with homemade cottage pie, which was about right, I’d say.

There’s a bit of tannin there, but not lots. Understated but firm. Like a good teacher, who barely has to raise his voice in order to maintain classroom discipline. Or some such tortured metaphor. It keeps the wine focused and structured, prevents slackness at the fringes.

What else? Sweet cherries, varnished wood, liquorice, a not unpleasant hint of vegetation. Accents of black pepper and perhaps even cinnamon. And a very satisfying nuttiness to finish.

Verdict

This isn’t the most complex or subtle wine. But you don’t always want complexity and subtlety, do you? Otherwise you’d be reading bloody TS Eliot instead of this old bollocks, right?

Yeah. Sometimes you want a good, honest gobfiller. That’s this.

And if someone gave me a glass of Domaine Jaume, I’d almost certainly guess it was three or four quid more expensive than it is. Which has got to count for something, right? Especially for a ‘well known’ French region like Côtes-du-Rhône, which is often horribly overpriced and mediocre, relying on name alone.

So, a fine value hoofer, then. Stock up.

Rating ★★★☆☆
ABV 13.5%
Price £7.25 from The Wine Society

Domaine Font de Michelle 2004, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

…thrusts an unapologetic gallicism in your direction

This wine is French. It’s very French.

That’s a good thing, by the way.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what I mean by that, except that everything about its smell and taste thrusts an unapologetic Gallicism in your direction.

Much like General de Gaulle did, I’d imagine.

Its relatively rare — and very welcome — for a wine both to evoke an overflowing of fruit (here, ripe, fat cherries and crushed raspberries particularly, as well as dark, rich prune) and to maintain an almost austere, savoury complexity, bound in by a fruit-kernel-bitter structure.

Verdict

This is a massive wine, a fireball blooming in the mouth. Suck and chew on it for several seconds and you’ll see what I mean. Its intensity and depth is port- or brandy-like. But despite its massiveness, it doesn’t overreach. It keeps its structure and integrity right through its development: no telling belch of alcohol or flab of fruity decay.

I’m not sure if you can still readily buy the 2004 Domaine Font de Michelle: I got it a while ago from the Wine Society, but it’s no longer available there. Other vintages, though, seem to be available at Waitrose and Lay & Wheeler. On the strength of this one, I’d recommend trying others.

Rating ★★★★
ABV 14.5%
Price £20.99 from the Wine Society (no longer available)

Thomas Mitchell Marsanne, 2008

… puts on other beverages’ clothing and hangs around in bars

Well, for most of today I have been half-deaf. Yeah, that’s why they call me Old Parn. The mundane and somewhat distasteful reason for my deafness is a blocked right ear.

Anyhow, mindful of those stories that tell of people deprived of one sense enjoying increased acuteness in all others, I wandered (ensconced within my curious, insulated realm of semi-silence) into the Oddbins that nestles mere metres from my doorstep.

And decided to pick something I’d never normally: a big South East Australian white.

(I mean a big South East Australian white wine, obviously.)

You know what? It’s not at all bad. Unusual, certainly. Possibly not even to my tastes. But not at all bad.

First thing that hit me upon cracking the blighter open? The smell of beer. Really. I’m not messing around: this actually smelt, at first waft, bizarrely lager-like. You’d think that’d be pretty offputting, non? But I didn’t find it so.

This is a rich, full, golden wine. A wine that has a great deal of heft. It’s butch. But perfumed, all the same. And there’s nothing wrong with being butch and perfumed, let Old Parn assure you right away.

And what perfume it is. So once the beer has subsided, welcome to the land of fruit juice. There’s loads of pineapple (fresh and slightly acid, not cloying and overripe) — in fact, there’s a distinctly cocktailish character to the thing. But not in the same way as that mediocre Friuli from last week. A hint of herbaceousness balances the fruit … and there is a definite fruit pastille presence. The green one.

It’s staggeringly huge in the mouth (yeah, yeah, as the actress said … whatever …) — not remotely subtle or restrained, it throws itself at your tastebuds and wraps them in a matronly embrace. Impressive, if you like that kind of thing. Indeed, its dessert-wine-esque hugeness leads to its most notable downfall: it’s too full-on. I’m more fussy than many about this — but I don’t like my wines to taste alcoholly. By which I mean, to have that somewhat raw, unrefined alcohol blast when left too long in the mouth. It makes them taste cheap.

And this wine otherwise tastes more expensive than it is.

Verdict

For the price, and if you like whackingly domineering white wines full of alcohol and fruit (but still dry), this is a pretty good choice. Don’t pair it with delicately flavoured food, though; I’d probably stick to drinking it on its own, or alongside strongly flavoured/spiced dishes. Don’t worry too much about obscuring its subtleties.

To be honest, it’s not the kind of thing I often fancy. But who’s fighting for the fancies of a half-deaf old codger anyway? Certainly not big, butch, perfumed South East Australian whites.

Rating ★★★☆☆
ABV 13.5%
Price £7.99 from Oddbins