This week I ‘ave been mostly drinking...

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator

This week I’ve been mostly drinking…both from the new world and from the old. Firstly, I really wanted to try a product that we only started to stock a short while back… Frostpocket Sauvignon Blanc 2012 from Marlborough, New Zealand. Wow, and was I blown away by this one?! It’s absolutely bursting  to the brim with passion fruit flavours, both on the nose and on the palate with underlying hints of gooseberry and lime. This isn’t a wine you need to have with food either, in fact I’d say that it’s one you should enjoy on its own in order to fully appreciate the extremely intense flavours going on in it. This is no wine for the faint-hearted…far from it, this is a wine that really packs a punch!

The second wine I decided to try this week was the Bordeaux Blend, Chateau De Curcier2006. Again, there was nothing subtle about this wine. However, due to the structured tannins going on in it, I’d definitely call this a ‘foodie’ wine. It is also a wine that really benefits from decanting for a hour or two (something that is regrettably often overlooked, but which many old world wines really do require) in order to release and bring to the fore the lovely forest fruit flavours and chewy tannins. We enjoyed this wine with our traditional Sunday roast lamb, which seemed to complement and stand up quite well to the wine – perhaps that was due to the richness of flavour of the lamb. In any case, this 2006 vintage Bordeaux Blend is one I would really recommend…and at £10.20 per bottle inc VAT it’s fantastic good value for such a well-rounded wine that is full of character.

Russell Wallace, General Manager 

This week I ‘ave been mostly drinking… in the land of the (allegedly) free!  That’s right back from the annual vacation which this year brought me to the land of Minnie & Mickey Mouse, and more pointless incomprehensible rules, regulations and state by-laws than you could shake even the shortest of sticks at, the USA!

When in a wine making country I always argue that why would you drink anything but the local plonk, always that is except that it can be really rather difficult in the USA.  The main problem we have always encountered as wine buyers is that wine in the US is just so difficult to source that it often leaves us with little but the most mass market bland wines possible for the export market.  Here is the issue, the US is a huge country with a huge domestic market.  The amount of the country that grows grapes and makes decent wine is relatively small in comparison, this means that most of the good, boutique and family made wines are snapped up by thirsty US tourists, visitors and friends of the vineyard.  This is fantastic for the vineyard as it allows them to sell all of their production at a premium price, it does however mean that the average British wine buyer can really struggle to find something that is not only good value but also good quality and made with a bit of passion.  After all if the average vineyard can sell most of their production direct to the consumer within the US why would they consider those outside the US looking for a discounted price to offset our high transportation costs?  Combine this with the impossibly difficult to fathom alcohol import and export legislation (even shipping within the US is difficult!) and you have a difficult situation.

This is mostly why I am generally very prone to making US wines one of my last recommendations, but having just been there I did get reacquainted with an old friend the Kendall Jackson Vintners Reserve Sauvignon Blanc.  It is really quite hard to place this wine.  It features the punch of a New Zealand S.B. but none of the intense minerality, the fruitiness of the Chilean and weirdly something of a Chablis type quality.  What else is hot in the USA?  Weirdly the go to house wine (or at least the couple of restaurants I went to where I paid attention) in the USA, Pinot Grigio seems to be the hot topic!  It is not something I have hugely gotten into previously, or ironically during my holiday!  I am not sure why but it has taken until right this moment for me to get my head around it, on my last visit to Napa some 3 or 4 years ago I did not encounter it knowingly even once, yet on this visit it was featured on every restaurant list.  My suggestion is get a bottle from our selection give it a whirl and let us know your feedback!  Failing that/too cheeky?! give us a couple of weeks and check back at this blog as I think I will just have to give one or two a try.

Clive Holroyd, Database Manager

Took my eldest son back to start his second year at university this weekend. Funnily enough as a parent this was harder than last year when he started; then he was unsure of himself and we could dispense advice based on our own (dimly remembered) experiences. This time however he's confident, self assured and knows more about what's going on than we do. It's finally sinking in that he's spreading his wings and starting to make his own way in life - we've spent 19 years nurturing him to this stage but now he's got there its surprisingly difficult to deal with. Anyway, that made me all nostalgic and I started thinking back to some of my memories of him growing up. About 10 years ago we spent two weeks travelling around France with a small car and a tent. Our final few days were spent in the Loire Valley and I still vividly recall a wonderful meal sitting at an outside table at a bistro - a warm lazy summer evening and a delicious red wine to drink. That was a Rasteau, now an appellation in its own right, but at the time part of the Côtes du Rhône Villages AOC. Ever since then a Côtes duRhône red has had the power to take me straight back to that holiday and remind me of a confident 9 year old requesting 'champagne si vous plait' when the waiter asked what he would like to drink. As he's now 19 (my son that is, not the waiter) and old enough to drink I thought a bottle of Domaine Coste ChaudeVisan Cuvee La Rocaille 2006 would remind us all of the occasion. It's a delicious full bodied red with lovely cherry and forest fruit flavours; there's a generous 30% discount on our website, so you can snap up a bottle for a mere £10.32. It's like a very slightly less fruity version of my personal favourite (which I may have mentioned once or twice before) the Welgegund Pinotage which is a very generous 40% off at the moment so you can buy a bottle of heaven for only £13.01. I'm certainly filling my wine rack at this price.