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Natureo 2010, Torres review

… is just the kind of de-alcoholised pick-me-up you DON’T need after being told stories of martini-making for the Queen

Now. I wish I could present what follows in the light of intrepid, altruistic experimentation. The reviewer acting on the behalf of his beloved community.

But no. Alas. The only valid explanation is, I’m afraid, my own bestial idiocy.

Picture me, then, as I stroll through the aisles of Waitrose. Perhaps, yes, perhaps I am a little more distracted than usual; my thoughts elsewhere. Specifically, my thoughts are still stuck at Waitrose’s cakes/baked goods counter, to which I was bewilderingly summoned, moments ago; interrupted amidst my blithe perusal of the organic eggs:

‘Excuse me, sir! Can I tempt you with my cakes?’

My dear reader: I am not accustomed to being tempted with the cakes of strangers. Least of all strangers wearing Waitrose caps and aprons. But, heedless of warning signs, I amble across.

‘Is that a bottle of gin I spy in your basket?’ cries this affable (by which I of course mean fucking weird-ass) baker.

‘Er, yup.’

‘Ah, Plymouth. Good choice. I bet it would go wonderfully with one of my cakes.’ (Looking at his cakes, this strikes me as an unsound wager.) ‘May I ask what you plan to do with your gin?’

‘Um … make martinis?’

At this, Waitrose Man’s face lights up like a napalmed shellsuit factory.

‘Martinis! Oh, well! Martinis! I’ll let you into a secret: martinis are something of a speciality of mine. I used to make martinis for a very special person. I can’t tell you who. But a very special person.’

‘Oh,’ I reply, weakly. ‘That sounds like a story.’

You will note that I choose to punctuate the above with a concluding full-stop, rather than a question mark. For, dear reader, it sounded like a story I did not much want to hear. But a story I had a feeling I was going to hear, full-stop or no.

And I was right.

‘Well, let me tell you … I can’t talk too much about it …’ (he looks left and right for eavesdroppers, leans forward and continues, sotto voce) ‘… but I’ll put it like this: when you’re making martinis for the Queen, you must be doing something right.’

***

When at length I’d extricated myself from the above exchange, I blundered dumbly for some time through the aisles of Waitrose, visions swimming before me of my wild-eyed cake-seller shaking his regal martinis.

And it was in this semi-delirious state that I picked up a bottle of Torres Natureo.

Now, you might not be thinking that this sounds like much of a disaster. Torres is a brand that makes some good mass-market-type wines. Indeed, it was this fact, coupled with its being on offer, that motivated me to grab a bottle: ‘I’ll review this for those splendid readers of mine,’ I thought. ‘For they are the sorts who’ll surely flock to snap up a Waitrose special offer, are they not?’

Well, maybe you are.

But maybe you’re not a blind fool like me.

And maybe you’ll therefore have observed those evil, evil words skulking beneath the name of this bottle (in something that looks appallingly like that fucking Brush Script typeface, no less):

‘De-alcoholised wine’

You may imagine my horror when, back at home, my eye fell upon those nauseating words. I felt a searing pain comparable (I am almost sure) with that of childbirth — and let out an appropriately agonised wail:

By the blackened arsehole of Beelzebub — NO!

But, heck, I pulled myself together. Gathered up the scraps of my journalistic impartiality (ha!) and decided to taste the blighter.

And, okay, I’ll be honest: when first I walloped some of the despicable liquid into my trap, I actually thought, hell, this isn’t as appalling as I expected. There’s a snap of acidity that’s almost bracing. A kind of Riesling-esque poise.

Alas, that poise disintegrates more rapidly than a leper in a wind tunnel. And is rapidly succeeded by a grim, pitiless flavour that is hauntingly like that of too-weak orange squash (from cheap-brand concentrate).

What’s more, it leaves about as pleasant a legacy in your mouth as the US did in Vietnam.

Ganky, cloying rot.

Look, it must be really hard to make a good wine with this little alcohol in it. So — how’s this for an idea? — don’t bother. I mean, if you don’t like alcohol, why in the name of the nailed up Messiah would you want to have a bottle of crappy fake-wine? And if you do like alcohol (but you have to drive later, or something) a mouthful of this is a patronising insult to your tastebuds.

Either way: stick to Schloer.

Or, if you’re the Queen, stick to martinis.

Rating ☆ 0 stars (lamentable)
Grape Muscat
ABV 0.5%
Price Currently 20% off — £4.55 — at Waitrose. A temptation to be resisted like the cakes of a lunatic.

Le Froglet Wine in a Glass — Review

In which our intrepid hero subjects himself to the horror (the horror!) of three revolting sold-by-the-plastic-cup specimens from Marks & Spencer: Le Froglet Rose, Chardonnay and Shiraz. A truly gruelling experience.

So, today we’re looking at wines sold by the glass (plastic): three (only moderately depressing-looking) specimens from Marks & Spencer going under the brand name Le Froglet.

Now, you know me for an honest commentator, I hope. So I must confess upfront that my expectations were very, very low. That said, I don’t want to be snobbish about this. There’s nothing remotely wrong with the idea of buying wine this way.

The question is — never mind the idea — what’s the reality like?

In answer, dear reader, I give you —

Le Froglet Chardonnay, Vin de Pays d’Oc 2009

So. You’ve got over the novelty of opening a wine as though it were a yoghurt. What now? Stick your big old snout in there, that’s what.

Except that, being full to the thick plastic brim, there’s no room for your big old snout.

So pour it into a proper glass, why don’t you, and try again?

Your labours will be rewarded with a truly awful gutwipe of a smell. Like the breath of a depressed office worker who ate a stale bacon & egg sandwich for his lunch.

It is truly, offensively grim.

At this point, you’re understandably wary. But you chuck it down the hatch in any case, reasoning ‘Since when has my sense of smell ever been a reliable indication of putrescence?’

…and — first gob-impression? IT ACTUALLY TASTES OF NOTHING.

Unfortunately, you will be looking back on that first impression of nothingness as a kind of golden age of Le Froglet Chardonnay. It was at its peak then. ‘The tragedy of Le Froglet,’ you will muse, ‘is that it never recaptured that tantalising early promise of nondescript mediocrity.’

Because, after a second or so of wondering whether you accidentally just bought a plastic glassful of foul-smelling water — the stale sandwich you smelt earlier hits you smack in the gob. And fucking horrendous it is, too. Cardboardy flaps of egg-marinated bacon in that suddenly-not-so-tasty-tasty malted bread.

Now (you might note) the smell’s mellowed a bit. Now it’s like the remnants of a KFC bucket left out overnight in the corridor of a student hall of residence.

If you can manage to get this wine into your mouth without inhaling, it’s just about bearable while you hold it there. But sometime — sometime, my friend — you’re going to have to swallow. Then there’s the aftertaste. The preserved egg sarnie.

I am not exaggerating when I say that this is truly horrific stuff. There will be a patch of dead grass in my garden tomorrow morning where I chucked the rest of this devilpiss.

Onward, then, to —

Le Froglet Rose, Vin de Pays d’Oc 2009

Imagine a nightmare scenario in which you are given a plastic teaspoon and ordered to eat an entire washing-up basin full of Tesco Value strawberry jam.

The smell of Le Froglet’s Rose is strikingly, strikingly similar to the smell of the strawberry-scented vomit that you will copiously spew in the aftermath of the above scenario.

Sickly sweet, but with a rancid acidic tang.

At least with the white (incredulous, I find myself harking back) there was some lingering presence of the chardonnay grape, even if in brutally abused form. Here, there is nothing but sickly, rotten, jammy fruit.

Once it’s actually in your mouth? Well, it’s not actually as full-on sweet as I’d expected. But horrible nevertheless. A bit bitter (not in an appetising way, but in the same way as accidentally sucking your finger after touching some chemicals), with overtones of loo cleaner. Not nice loo cleaner, either. The kind of stuff they use in prisons.

When the sweetness comes (which it does, like a warm, candyfloss blanket, once you’ve swallowed) it is almost a blessing.

I’m not entirely sure whether this is worse or better than the white. It’s less in-your-face-evil, but more slyly insidious. The white was like Krang in Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles; the rose is more like Nick Griffin.

I’ll leave you to judge which you’d rather spend an evening with.

… and skip on, meanwhile, to —

Le Froglet Shiraz, Vin de Pays d’Oc 2009

… Which is dark. Dark as the soul of Le Froglet.

Snout-wise, it’s the least offensive of the three by some margin. That’s not to say it smells promising. No indeed not. But it’s not actively repellent. There’s sweet red fruit (worryingly sweet) and, yeah, vanilla. And cheap wood. It’s like walking into a discount furniture warehouse.

And in the gob, it’s also by far the least horrible. There’s still that ol’ bacon & egg sandwich whiff to the whole affair (which is clearly something to do with either the glue they use to stick on the lid or else some kind of preservative), but at least there’s a modicum of normality to the thing. I mean, it tastes like cheap plonk, sure. But at least it tastes like recognisable cheap plonk, not some outlandish liquid beamed to Earth by aliens as part of a sick reality TV escapade to amuse the folks back home at Alpha Centuri.

It’s very very sweet, yet also laced with a last-minute tannic mouth-shrinker. In no way does this qualify as a recommendation, but it has the dubious honour of being crowned ‘winner’ of this evening’s taste-off. A contest, I might add, that set me back a total of £7.95 (£2.65 each) — a sum I parted with heavily against my better judgement, and largely in order to provide entertainment to you. Yes, you.

So the least you can do is leave me a comment or something.

Now. Christ alive. Get me some malt whisky.

Rating ☆ (0 stars) for all of them. The ‘winner’ included.
ABV 12% (rose), 12.5% (red), 13% (white)
Price £2.65 a pop from Marks & Spencer

Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling 2009, Zimmermann Graeff

… is cloying, over-sugared, facile — with that kind of stagnant sweetness that leaves a residue of post-boiled-sweet-overdose gank in your mouth for about an hour afterwards

You know how German wines are unfairly shunned on account of a reputation for sickliness garnered by the years of Hock, Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun? You know how getting some people to try a glass of German Riesling is like persuading Fidel Castro to front a Gilette ad campaign?

Well, let a doubter taste this Piesporter Michelsberg and you’ll set back the cause a decade or two. Because it’s cloying, over-sugared, facile. That kind of stagnant sweetness that leaves a residue of post-boiled-sweet-overdose gank in your mouth for about an hour afterwards.

Okay, so it’s not an expensive Riesling. But, hey, I’ve drunk plenty of great Rieslings at this price. I hoped we’d left this kind of thing behind.

So leave off persuading your friends to pick up a bottle of Zimmermann Graeff’s Michelsberg. You’d be better off pitching Castro that ad idea of yours.

Rating ☆ (0 stars)
ABV 9.5%
Price £5.99 from Majestic Wine

Piemonte Barbera 2009, Marks & Spencer

… tastes of chunder

I fear this photo may actually make the wine look more appealing than is my intention.

Uh huh. A really, really horrid wine.

A really, really horrid wine that was nevertheless, I observe with icy authorial detachment, nominated (in its 2007 incarnation) as ‘wine of the week’ by none other than the Belfast Telegraph.

I wouldn’t have bought this (Belfast Telegraph recommendation notwithstanding), but for the fact that I was snaffling up one of those Marks & Spencer ‘Dine in for £10’ offers, ages ago, and literally had to get it. Yes, had to. There really was no alternative.

So, yes, insofar as it qualified me for the meal deal, picking up this wine actually saved me money.

That’s about all I can say in its favour, however. Because I’m afraid it actually tastes like sick.

Just as well, then, that I opened it with the express intention of casseroling the blighter to within an inch of its grim and impoverished life. But I thought I’d pour myself a thimbleful and chalk up another review — just for y’all.

Verdict

So, in what is my least nuanced review yet, I have little to add. I entitle this section ‘Verdict’ out of habit — but, once you know it tastes of bile, are you really in need of further summation? In case you’re hanging on for a redeeming feature, I’ll end your misery: there isn’t one. It has virtually no aroma. It is thin, watery, sour, bitter. I’ve only had two mouthfuls and I already feel a stomach ache lurking in the wings.

No stars for you today, M&S.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t make my casserole taste of sick.

Rating Zilch
ABV 13%
Price £5.49 from Marks & Spencer

Oyster Bay Merlot Review

…will alternately patronise and assail your tastebuds

I was about to give Oyster Bay Merlot a bit of a break. But then I looked it up to find that a bottle (admittedly of the 2009 as opposed to my 2008) goes for £9.99 at Majestic. So no break for you, Oyster Bay.

But let’s start at the beginning.

The only reason I have this bottle is that I was given it. By an organisation, I hasten to add, not an individual. A ‘thank you for your business’ kind of thing.

But, yes. I don’t buy wines that look like Oyster Bay Merlot. Nail me into a broomcupboard and call me Satan if you wish (and what else would you do with Satan but nail him in a broomcupboard, I ask you?) — but that’s the unvarnished truth. It’s prejudiced, I realise, but my experience of mass-market wines that look like this and are called things like ‘Oyster Bay’ fills me with a dark, viscous dread.

But the misery of it all is that I was going to tell you it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Yeah! I was going to tell you that. Up until I realised that bottle — had I bought it myself — would’ve cost me a sodding tenner, rather than the £6-7ish I was expecting, given the name/label design combo.

Hell, I was never going to recommend it, you understand. But I was ready to concede that simply not being revolted was a kind of triumph.

Well, at £9.99, excuse me if I’m a little less forgiving.

So. The first thing that hits us? Ribena. Or Kia Ora. Or (Christ save us) Snapple. The kind of thing they’d market as ‘Very Berry’ flavour.

To be fair, this initial bouquet is hands down the worst feature of this wine (aside from its price: did I mention its price?). Because once (if) you get through it, you’ll actually be surprised at the amount of bitterness. There’s a touch of vanilla, but most of the finish is dominated by the woody depths of the tannin.

A schizophrenic wine, then. All kiddy sweetness to begin with, then cagey gruffness to finish. And there’s no transition to speak of: the flavours shift abruptly, without ceremony. Quite bizarre.

Verdict

So, as I may already have implied, a price tag of £9.99 on a wine like this is an absolute joke. At £6, I’d have expected the Kia Ora — but been grudgingly surprised at the unexpected tannic depth. It would certainly not have succeeded in making me commend the wine — but it would have succeeded in being better than most of its ilk.

BUT IT IS NOT £6.

Paying ten quid for this is like paying ten quid to have an unattractive gigolo spend an evening patronising you with syrupy platitudes and discussing Nietzsche. In alternate sentences.

Whatever turns you on, I guess.

Me, I chucked the rest of that gigolo straight into a casserole. Yum.

Rating ☆ (0 stars)
ABV 13%
Price (for the 2009) £9.01 from Waitrose online, £9.99 from Majestic. But don’t, alright?