‘This is a good one, isn’t it?’
That’s Amy, just based on an initial snoutful of Clos la Coutale. She’s not wrong.
Amy detests it whenever I try to make her guess what she’s drinking (perhaps she’s read this), and inevitably demands to see the bottle. Fortunately, the label on this one resonates powerfully with her (bizarre and reprehensible) predilection for all things Gothic. I mean, for Christ’s sake, she reads tat like this:
Back to Clos la Coutale: she likes the smell, she probably likes the label (I didn’t ask). And she likes the appellation, one assumes:
‘Ca-hors… Ca-hors… Ca-ORRR!’
Amy did A-level French. Many years ago.
But what does she actually think of the wine?
‘Car interiors.’
There’s a huge pause after this. Should I be concerned that car interiors are the sole feature of this wine? Especially when I have plentiful firsthand experience of Amy’s car interior.
‘It smells purple. Definitely car interiors.’
The interior of Amy’s car is definitely grey (offset by yellow Labrador hair). But she’s right: Clos la Coutale does smell purple, and has that pleasantly headache-inducing, solvent-imbued fullness of scent you get from a new car.
It’s got a good grip to it (like Amy’s car), and (like our friend Melmoth the Wanderer, I suppose) it’s satanically dark. My own notes (yeah, despite how it may seem, I don’t actually write my blog posts off the cuff; they just read that way) say that it has ‘that gritty hot smokey thing’, whatever the crap that means. It’s got the snap of acidity to it that’s so necessary in a wine like this, keeping it focused and articulate.
What else? It’s Autumnal — ‘rainy’, in Amy’s word (which is brilliant).
At this point, I’m aware that I’ve effectively outsourced the writing of this blog post to Amy. But isn’t that — dear reader — a good thing? Frankly, I’m more interested in Amy’s adjectives than those of a Master of Wine.
I realise that sounds cheap. I have immense respect for Masters of Wine and seek not to denigrate them and their kind. My point is about context. If I were a supermarket buyer, I’d want the MW’s verdict, for sure. But in my kitchen, one negroni in, it’s not really relevant.
Anyhow. Clos la Coutale (which you can and bloody well should order from The Wine Society, £8.50) is the inaugural member of a new series, which I’m calling Parn Essentials. In Parn Essentials, I’ll introduce you to the bottles that most frequently lurk in my wine rack; my vinous staples. I realise it’s scarcely an original formulation, and I spent at least a minute trying to think of a wittier name for the series. Without success.
‘That’s your problem, Parn: your lack of imagination holds you back. That’s why you’ll never be a successful wine blogger.’
Oh Amy. You should read some successful wine bloggers.