Reviews & Tastings Archives - Page 8 of 10 - Old Parn’s Wine & Spirits Blog

Churchill’s 20 Years Old Tawny Port Review

… will dose up your old-mannish port prejudices with a dose of ketamine (and a creamy macadamia chaser)

Doesn’t port make you think of big old chaps with gouty feet and snuff-reddened noses?

(Especially when the stuff’s made by an outfit called Churchill’s, for god’s sake.)

Well. Well. Cast aside your old bloke. Kick away his walking stick, crush his pipe and torch his slippers. Because this port is as sprightly as fuck.

In the front of your mouth, there’s a huge burst of bright, sweet, ruby cherry. It glitters. Hell, it’s practically spangly. If this is a codger, it’s a codger on ketamine.

But don’t dismiss it as all spangle; wait a couple of seconds as it sinks and spreads in your mouth like butter. Yum, sweet butter. Toasted butter, nutty butter. Macadamia, almond. Cream.

And before I plough on into the ‘Verdict’ section, may I take a moment to commend the packaging? As you can see above, the label is a model of elegant, typographic minimalism (a few lovely details, such as the apostrophe of Churchill’s). And the whole thing came in a very nicely designed box, left. Beautifully conceived and executed, in my opinion, managing to be both modern and tasteful. Don’t you think?

Verdict

So, yes, as I was saying, allow this port to spread and bloom in your mouth: it’s very long-lived (the only respect in which it could be said to be codgerly). It’s also invigorating and vibrant — yet elegant and poised.

Which makes it the freshest, liveliest, most three dimensional port I’ve had in a good long while.

And if you don’t like the idea of being surprised by port, perhaps it’s you who’s getting a bit doddery.

Rating ★★★★ (4 stars)
ABV 19.5%
Price £24.99 from Oddbins

Burgo Viejo Rioja Tinto, Naked Wines

… a Naked wine that’s like silk wrapped around a slightly splintery wooden post. Does that sound sexy to you? Eh?

Decant! Decant! Decant!

Apologies for that triple imperative — arguably a rather abrupt (if not outright boorish) way to begin a blog post. But if you happen to be in possession of a bottle of this Rioja from Naked Wines, let’s hope you’re also in possession of a decanter.

But before I elaborate, let’s talk a little about Naked Wines, shall we? Because it’s quite a funky idea for a business.

Background: Naked Wines

Essentially, the whole shebang is based on the principle that wine is cheaper the earlier one buys it. The logical extension? You buy up all of a wine before it’s even been made. You are giving the maker the security (so the thinking goes) to spend all their time and money making a good wine. Read more about the business model on their website.

Now, I’m not quite sure what I think about this. On the one hand, it’s an attractively original approach, and fosters engagement between grower and customer; on the other, capitalism is economically dominant for a reason, after all, and an organisation that has to fight for its sales arguably has a greater incentive to strive than one that’s implicitly insured against risk. Does a guaranteed income not potentially lessen the drive for excellence?

But that’s theory. I’m no economist; and, besides, we’re interested — aren’t we? — in practice. So let’s dive into this Rioja.

The review

Okay, so here’s where my opening battlecry of ‘Decant!’ comes in. Because the first mouthful I took of this Naked Rioja was pretty disappointing. Sure, up the snout it has a sweet, enticing, raisiny waft. And sure, my tongue tingled like a fairy on acid — but the taste experience was oddly flat, despite the apparent intensity of the wine, leaving an impression of thinness, hollowness. My palate went largely untouched

And my palate LIKES TO BE TOUCHED, alright?

Enter decanter, stage left. Just as well I had a few thumbs to twiddle while I waited half an hour or so to let oxygen work its magic.

And it was worth twiddling. The wine became noticeably deeper, silkier — filled out, if you will. I’m glad my instincts told me I should try decanting, for I was otherwise poised to give this wine a bit of a belting.

The flavours and aromas (initially underdeveloped) expand to transformative effect. Peppered blackberries (just the way momma made ’em); liquorice. The combination of bitterness and fruit is strikingly like that of biting into a dark, dark chocalate-encased cherry liqueur.

Even after decanting, it’s somewhat austere: spiny, coniferous. In some respects it put me in mind of youthful pinot noir: it has that stalky vigour. That haughtiness. It plays hard to get.

Its bitter roughness, however, isn’t so pinot. I wonder if age would meld these two sides of the wine better? At the moment, it’s like silk wrapped around a slightly splintery wooden post.

(What do you mean, ‘That makes it sound kind of sexy’? Jesus.)

Just because it’s naked doesn’t mean you need to get all pervy about it.

Anyhow, this was the first of my six-bottle ‘trial’ case from Naked Wines. So we shall see how the remaining bottles stack up, shall we? They’re certainly in the game.

Rating ★★★ (but only if you decant it, or let it age a while)
ABV 13%
Price £7.99 from Naked Wines (though if you join as a Naked Wine Angel, you get 33% off all the wines)

The Wine Society’s Vin de Pays des Cotes de Gascogne

… is worth knocking over a couple of old ladies for, should you happen to see it at a party

Wine served at post-concert receptions. Not necessarily the most pre-possessing of notions.

I found myself in the Cathedral of Christ Church College on Saturday — for an evening of sacred English choral polyphony from the 16th century, courtesy of I Dedicati, an all-male vocal ensemble directed by Greg Skidmore.

(Now, you may think that sounds niche. However, according to the programme, it offered an opportunity to combine undiscovered gems with ‘very well known’ items of repertoire. There are few places in the world besides Oxford, I humbly submit, in which any piece of sacred English choral polyphony from the 16th century could conceivably be described as ‘well known’.)

Anyhow, yes. I digress. The concert (since you were wondering) was excellent.

… and the post-concert drinks were excellent, too. Not only because they gave me a chance to catch up with the fine old bass who’d invited me, but also because our hosts were serving The Wine Society’s Vin de Pays des Cotes de Gascogne.

As soon as I saw the label, I realised the aforementioned fine old bass wasn’t going to be the only dear friend with whom I’d be reunited that night. Indeed, in my enthusiasm to snaffle a glass I may have knocked over an old lady or two. Never mind. See, I’ve had this wine before. And it’s very, very good.

And the kicker? It’s £5.50. Let me spell that out. FIVE AND A HALF OF YOUR BRITISH POUNDS.

Being relatively low in alcohol (10.5%) it’s perfect for convivial quaffing. It’s clean and verdant. A snap of spring in your mouth. Like crunching raw fresh peas straight from the pod.

And it goes down a treat, let me tell you. Whilst not perhaps quite as swooningly polyphonic as the repertoire of I Dedicati, it is a delight to drink. And is, I daresay, destined to appeal to a rather broader audience.

So should you find yourself throwing a party — for Oxonian polyphonists or otherwise — look no further.

Rating ****
ABV 10.5%
Price £5.50 from The Wine Society

Marks & Spencer Dry Old Oloroso Review

… will allow you to live the dream of swigging 20% ABV sherry from a beer bottle. LIKE A MAN.

First things first. This is a bottle of dry oloroso sherry. Indeed, it’s a half bottle. And I’ve made my admiration of both half bottles and good sherry abundantly clear in the past.

My admiration for this half bottle, though, goes a step or two further. Because this is sherry in a beer bottle. FINALLY MY DREAM HAS COME TRUE: I can slyly swig oloroso sherry from the bottle whilst hanging out with the lads — yet not compromise my appearance of nonchalant masculinity.

(An area in which compromise is a fearful prospect indeed.)

So, the only question should be: is this the sherry you’d want to swig? Or should you carry on rinsing out old beer bottles and laboriously refilling them from that tank in your cellar?

Let’s see.

So, uncork the blighter (yeah, they haven’t introduced a bottle-cap yet) and you’ll be greeted by a delicious waft: full, mellow, barrelly. It smells lovely. Once it makes its way into your trap — well, it’s still pretty nice. Nutty, yes, and spicy too. Like spicy nuts. Or nutty spices, I suppose. At first, it’s delightfully smooth. But let it linger in there and it’ll give you a belt around the tastebuds, enough to bring tears to your eyes.

(Or maybe I just cry easily. Nonchalant masculinity, like I said.)

Verdict

So, yeah, it’s not the most refined of sherries. That’s a shame, because I’d dearly like that woody sweetness it has to develop more in my mouth — but I daren’t let it, for fear that my ‘mates’ will discover me weeping over what appears to be a bottle of beer.

Nevertheless, it’s a handy thing, to have sherry in a 37.5cl bottle. And a glassful of this made a goddamn mean sauce for my seared tuna steak with caramelised onions. Which surely has to count for something.

So: a creditable performance, but a tad eye-watering for Old Parn. Sly sherry-swiggers may note with excitement, however, that M&S has a whole range of sherries, all bottled thus. And I’m clearly going to work my way through them all.

Rating ★★
ABV 20%
Price £7.49 from Marks & Spencer

Prinz von Hessen Riesling Kabinett 2008

… has (alas) had much of it winning subtlety beaten out of it — leaving it cowed and wretched, cringing in the corner like a maltreated animal

Opening a bottle of wine is a time of almost intemperate joy for me. A time pregnant with possibility. My mind conjures the potential delights ensconced within those glassy walls. My focus sharpens. The world narrows to this: the loosing of the cork; the exquisite slow prise of the corkscrew (waiter’s style only, please); the first snatched whiff at the neck of the freshly denuded bottle.

(Before you ask, no, my palms are not sweating.)

What I mean is, there’s a hell of a lot of hope invested in those meagre 750 millilitres of liquid.

And that’s with any halfway respectable wine I open.

With a German Riesling, well, let’s just say that (in terms of relative expectation levels) Obama had it easy.

Because it was Riesling that started me off on all this. This wine business. Riesling that first fascinated me; Riesling that first beguiled me. Riesling that first made me realise how people got so damn into the whole malarkey.

Which is why I opened this bottle of Riesling Kabinett — snaffled in the Wine Society’s January sale — with even greater eagerness than usual.

ALACK, dear reader.

I was disappointed.

For a German Riesling, it’s fairly closed-down aromatically. Some fruit, some lavender and suchlike. But it’s hardly leaping out at you like a mad axe-murderer in a dark alley.

The lavender’s there in the mouth, too — but here’s where the axe-murderer does jump out. And hits you with a swingeing blow of winey bosh. It’s overwhelming. Not in a hedonistic pleasures kind of way; in a Blitzkrieg kind of way.

There’s a nice, unexpected hint of toffee to its finish, but unfortunately one that’s ultimately overridden by acid. So kind of like chewing a toffee that’s been soaked in vinegar, then. Which curtails the pleasure somewhat. Once that’s cleared, though, you’re left with some lovely delicate floral, peachy perfumes lingering. This is hands-down the nicest part of the whole experience. And the thing that keeps you going back to your glass, wondering if you got it all wrong.

But you didn’t.

Verdict

This actually reminds me of some of the New World attempts at Riesling that founder because of a climate or style of viticulture that’s unsuited to the strengths of the grape. If I was blind-tasting this, I’d say it was a Riesling from a too-hot part of Australia.

Because it tastes like much of the winning subtlety of the grape has been beaten out of it. Not completely removed, you understand; just cowed and wretched, cringing in the corner like a maltreated animal.

Which makes me sad.

The wine isn’t bad, I should add. But this is a not-inexpensive German Riesling, for Christ’s sake: it could be magical. It should be magical.

Which, given my lofty expectations is all bit of a shame.

You reading this, Obama?

Rating *
ABV 11.5%
Price £11.95 from The Wine Society (no longer available); £87.32 for six from Bibendum;

Paxton Shiraz Rosé 2009 review

… is a spirited and jolly bid to make pink and green go together. And is sort of successful.

Yep, it’s a pinkie.

And this one really is pink. It’s deep and dark and vibrant. No pallid blush here; this is a full-on crimson. The difference, I guess, between the colour your face might turn if someone paid you a flirtatious compliment, and the colour your face might turn if you accidentally exclaimed the name of the female genitalia in a class of 13-year-olds.

So. It’s very pink. It’s also green — on the face of it at least — judging by Paxton’s membership of something called 1% For the Planet, and the fact that the wine is made biodynamically.

Which sounds good, even if you’re not really sure what it means.

Meanwhile, fittingly given its colour, it leans more toward the red side of things than the white. You’d not want to chill this’n more than a tad, or you’ll kill off its plump, rosy jollitude.

Because, yeah, it’s pink; it’s jolly. Just like every stereotypical rosy-cheeked wench of tiresomely unimaginative fantasy fiction. Nose-wise, it’s all raspberry and strawberry — almost disconcertingly so, if you’re wary of Kia Ora wine syndrome, like me. And in your mouth, it’s very bright and full.

What surprises is the amount of body (which is what makes it more reddish than many rosés). There’s a good welter of matt tannic action. It’s potentially a mite confusing, even, given the sweetness of the initial mouthburst.

Verdict

I’d very happily drink this wine without thinking too much about it. That sounds a bit of a back-handed compliment. I guess it is. But sometimes you don’t want to be challenged, right? Just ask President Mubarak.

I can imagine drinking it outside in the sun and having a fine old time of it.

But given its rosy-cheeked barwench simplicity, I’m not sure it’s wholly worth £11.99, though — unless you really, really like pink and green together.

Rating ??
ABV 11.5%
Price £11.99 from Oddbins

Balgownie Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005

… will put you on a level with Vladimir Putin — or else leave you yearning for a cellar

We all have our own milestones in life.

Some people tell themselves they’ll have made it when they finally get that bmw they’ve always lusted after; others, when they have their first child. Or their first million. For other people still, their life truly attains meaning only once they have undertaken a stage-managed execution of a large predatory beast that, thanks to odds stacked monumentally in its disfavour, has absolutely no fucking chance of defending itself.

(Ah! To be a True Man!)

But I? I, dear reader, am — relatively speaking — humility itself.

I tell myself that I’ll have made it when I have my own cellar.

NO, NOT IN A JOSEF FRITZL KIND OF WAY, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING MESS. GET OUT NOW.

Unfortunately, see, Old Parn is forever schlepping his arse from one rented hovel to the next. And the rented hovels of Oxford, it seems, are low on cellars.

(They are also, FYI, low on pianos. Irrelevant but true.)

The point? For, of course, there is always a point, my pretties, isn’t there? Yah. The point is that the very best place for the above-depicted bottle of Balgownie Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 would be a cellar.

A cellar. Alongside 11 other bottles of Balgownie Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, if you please.

Because this is a wine I have done something of a disservice by killing before its prime (and, seamlessly, we’re back to Vladimir Putin again). In 5–10 years, it’ll be fucking delicious. No mistake.

Right now, it’s formidable — commingling fruit and wood and frost and metal. Bracing stuff. In the same way that rugby on a frost-hardened pitch in mid-January was (apparently) also bracing.

As you’d expect (if you’ve been paying attention so far, not allowing your mind to wander to fleeting visions of the Russian President’s naked torso), there’s a welter of tannin going on in this mouthful, which gives it more backbone than a frigging brontosaurus.

It filleth thy gob.

There’s pepper and, yeah, fat juicy black olives squished between the back of your tongue and the roof of your mouth. That bit where it’s all slimy and squishy. Yes, right there. But don’t keep poking around, alright? You’ll only make yourself sick.

What else? In the catalogue of flavours (never convinced how interesting this is to read, but still) we have ticks next to liquorice, parma violet and young sour blackberries.

Sniff (if you dare) and you’re hit with that huge, almost impenetrable board-pen smell. Well, obviously it doesn’t actually smell like a board-pen. That would be horrible, and this is, in fact, lovely. But you know how a board-pen’s smell absolutely fills up your whole nasal world and makes you almost cry with the intensity of it?

(NO I HAVE NOT BEEN ABUSING SOLVENTS.)

Well, this is like that in its intensity. Dude.

The length is great, the balance is great. The wine is powerful, matt, complex.

All great, then. And drinking it right now, I’d give it three solid, solid stars. If that’s what you’re going to do, then you should definitely decant the old boy well in advance to let him breathe and relax a little. To, um, massage that huge backbone a little, y’know.

But, oh sweet messiah, how those three stars would multiply (I have no doubt) after a good few years in the quiet, the cool, the dark.

A good few years in my non-existent cellar, in other words.

In anticipation of which, I’m upping the rating to 4. But only if you’re patient.

Verdict

Well, you big smug cellar-owning bastard, buy a case of it then, why don’t you? Leave a comment with a link to a photo of it in your goddamn cellar, alongside you, smirking like a fat little oik.

I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY NOW.

Rating ★★★★ (but only ★★★ if, like me, you persist in drinking it now)
ABV 14%
Price £13.50 from The Wine Society, £15.99 from Marks & Spencer.

El Seque 2006 Alicante

… will sweep you off your feet with its gnarled hands and unshaven chops

A massive, dark wine. A depth-charge of earth and plumstone and fire. Muscle and silk.

This was my first encounter with Alicante. I hadn’t known what to expect.

Yes, it’s a hefty, uncompromising, gobfilling beast. But a fine beast, a noble beast. This was like very good southern French Vin de Pays, or perhaps a good Rhone wine. It has that rustic, unpretentious grandeur to it.

Very deep, inky and intense, it has a fantastically long finish, remaining silky and substantial in your mouth throughout.

It’s the kind of wine that makes you want to take a big gulp and set it swirling round your mouth for as long as you can bear it, until your whole face tingles and your sinuses thrill and burn.

Verdict

Not demure, not soft, not gluggable. Who the fuck wants gluggable, anyway? Some arsehole who hasn’t discovered water yet?

No, this is a wine that doesn’t apologise, doesn’t smarm, doesn’t pussyfoot. It’s seductive, though. In a gnarled hands and rough, unshaven chops kind of way.

(See, there — I did a non-feminine wine personification. Happy now?)

I reckon it’s a pretty dashed good wine. Crack it out to accompany a dark, wintry stew, why don’t you? Give the beast a whirl. See if he doesn’t sweep you off your feet a little.

Rating ★★★★
ABV 14.5%
Price £14.50 from The Wine Society (no longer in stock, alas); £20.85 (£18.75 case price) from BBR

Spy Valley Gewurtztraminer 2009

… makes an F-117 Stealth Fighter look a bit indiscrete and rough round the edges

Now, Spy Valley may not mean much to you. Not even with its trendy Modern Warfare-type label design. To you, it may be just one more highish-end New Zealand wine brand.

But Spy Valley and me? We got history.

Okay, as history goes, this is very recent history. History from last Wednesday evening, to be precise. On which date, several bottles of Spy Valley Pinot Noir ushered me — disarmingly — far, far down the path of inebriation. To a destination marked ‘Hammered’.

You know. The head-in-hands, only-daring-to-peek-between-clawed-fingers, occasional-abject-moaning-to-noone-in-particular kind of hammered.

(Resulting in, incidentally, a maybe-if-I-wear-my-suit-into-work-today-I-will-trick-my-brain-into-behaving-like-a-professional kind of hangover, the next morning. I don’t think the suit fooled anyone, to be honest. My brain least of all.)

Anyhow. You may well imagine the barely-concealed suspicion and simmering resentment with which I eyed the bottle of Spy Valley Gewurtztraminer I subsequently found lurking in my wine rack. The way you might regard the sister of a man who’d recently punched you in the face.

But, Spy Valley Pinot Noir, all is forgiven!

Because your sister, it turns out, is pretty damn fit.

In other words, this is a very good Gewurtztraminer. Putting it to your nose is like turning on a big tap of flowers, tropical fruits, perfumes of the Orient.

And this wine is smooth. It is so smooth it’s practically frictionless. It makes an F-117 Stealth Fighter look a bit indiscrete and rough round the edges. And it sits in your mouth like nectar. It may well be the quietest, stillest thing you’ve ever had in there: it’s the polar opposite of fizzy. It’s almost as if it went right through ‘still’ and came out the other side.

This is anti-fizz.

And, Christ alive, it’s nice.

Verdict

Unlike our earlier Alsatian fling, Cave de Turckheim, the hefty alcohol of this wine is brilliantly handled, with no flabby belch of ethanol to trouble your quaffing. This is a pedigree Gewurtztraminer — exhibiting all the classic characteristics of the breed. Its honeyed — almost candyflossed — greeting mellows to an unctuous, gobfilling equilibrium. Deliciously inert. And there’s some raisiny depth (and a distant bite of gooseberry) there too, in case this is all sounding a bit too flimsy and high-note for you.

Almost indecently drinkable, then. I could get through bottles of the stuff.

So beware, Old Parn: maybe she’s not so different from her brother after all.

Rating ????
ABV 13.5%
Price £10.95 from The Wine Society (no longer in stock), though I got it in the January sale for a delicious £9.50. They still have it though (for £12.49) at Majestic, and their current deal on New Zealand wines potentially brings that down to £9.99. At that price, I would. Wouldn’t you?

The Wine Society’s Rioja Crianza 2006

… will give you some youth, some punch, some spunk. And all for just £7.

The Wine Society’s ‘house’ Rioja is a confident, unfussy sort of affair. When you stuff your nose into the glass, you get a nice deep, serious kind of waft: a new pair of leather shoes just out of the box.

This is laced (see what I did there?) with a stalky vitality that lets you know: this isn’t going to be an unctuous, indulgent, wallowable kind of wine, but one with some youth, some punch, some spunk.

And, yeah, it’s not a fusty old Rioja. There’s a nice tannic weight to it, combined with a stinging little bite of sharpness. But these qualities are smoothed over somewhat by mulled red fruits: plums, cinnamon, pepper. And a dab of oak there at the back. Where I like it.

Verdict

Like most of The Wine Society’s ‘house’ range, this is an admirably solid, dependable wine for a very good price. Spend £7 on a Rioja in the supermarket and find one as good as this and you’ll be fortunate indeed.

That said, it’s not flawless. It’s a tad thin in the mouth for my liking, and (for my taste) the sour bite is a little overdone. I’d like this aspect of the wine reigned back a little. So — as I’ve implied — it’s dependably rather than inspirationally good.

Not that I’m so naïve, dear reader, as to expect inspiration for £7. Dependability suits me just fine.

Rating ★★★
ABV 13%
Price £6.95 from The Wine Society

Corriente Del Bio 2009, Pinot Noir

… is serious, poised and (at time of writing) rather good value

A bottle of Corriente Del Bio Pinot Noir from Marks & Spencer

I thought I’d crack open a bottle of this M&S Pinot Noir. It’s reduced right now, y’see, from £8 to a mere 6 — a bargain to which my attention was drawn by Fiona Beckett’s Credit Crunch Drinking.

Now, if you fervently adore pinot noir in the way that I do, your eyes will already be lit up at the prospect of a bottle for £6. But is it good?

Yeah, it’s pretty good. Serious, proper stuff. It doesn’t have that over-veggy, slightly composty thing that some cheaper new world PNs do. And it’s silky light, laced with becoming aromas of orange zest — though I’d like a little more body, please.

(But then, I’m a scrawny wee runt.)

Thanks to relatively prominent tannins, it also has that somewhat austere cranberry dryness. Best with food, I’d say.

Verdict

Not at all bad, M&S. For £6, this is definitely worth a try. It wouldn’t, though, be my £8 pinot noir of choice. I’d take the Wine Society’s Chilean Pinot Noir any day. And use the spare £1 to BUY SWEETS.

But if the notion of a serious, poised kind of wine for £6 grabs you, haul ass down to M&S soon. It won’t be on offer for much longer.

Rating ★★ at full price; ★★★ at its current price
ABV 14%
Price Reduced to £5.99 at Marks & Spencer (usually £7.99)

Prieler Pinot Blanc, Seeberg 2009, Burgenland

… will take you down a crispy duck boulevard. But quietly.

Let’s kick off with the good: this is a liltingly fresh pinot blanc, front-loaded with a walloping great bomb of soft fruit. And take it from me, dear reader: it you’re going to be walloped by a bomb, there’s no better bomb by which to be walloped than a soft fruit bomb.

Oh yeah. Heck yeah.

Meanwhile, shove your schnoz into the glass and you’ll delve your way into a magical fantasy land of lemon sherbet fountains and boulevards lined with streetlamp-sized crispy-duck pancakes (yes, really: the water-blood of just-sliced cucumber combined with hoy sin sweetness and sizzled duck).

Back to the gob and, post-bomb, you’ll find there’s a certain unexpected bitterness. Not unpleasantly so.

But the rub. Ay, the rub. You knew there was one coming.

… This wine isn’t as good as it should be for the price. It’s not bad, and, as I’ve already implied, it has some kind-of-funky, kind-of-interesting things going on. But not in sufficient abundance. I’ve focused in on them because I was tasting the blighter. Squirting it to all corners of my trap, snuffling at it like a trufflehunter.

In other words, I should probably have held back on the crispy-duck boulevard stuff above, which makes it all sound quite psychedelic and in-your-face, I realise. But can you blame a man? It’s not every day you get an oriental delicacy wafting up out of your white wine at you.

Y’see, the problem is that you have to work relatively hard to get much out of this wine aside from its initial fruit bomb. Which, though nice, is scarcely £13-worth of bomb (sorry to disappoint you, wine terrorists).

Verdict

So, to be honest, I expected the wine to be a good bit more interesting than it is. What post-bomb complexity it has, it conceals beneath a veil of chardonnayish anonymity. Which is a shame.

Tasting it, I felt bleary-tongued: as if my senses somehow weren’t quite awake enough to experience it properly. Because everything except la bombe is too distant, too muted.

It’s not a bad wine, but at this price it should be better. Dial it up, Prieler, dial it up. Except the bomb. That’s loud enough already.

Rating ★★☆☆☆
ABV 13%
Price £12.99 from Waitrose (£12.34 with online discount)

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