Mmm.. gotta love dredging up old winey threads.
I recently met a lady and found we both have a strong passion for wine, so we went wine shopping together today - bargain hunting almost.
Here's what I scrounged up
2006 Bodegas Lopez Cristobal Tinto Roble (Ribera del Duero) - £7.50 down from £9.50 - a blend of 90% Tinta del Pais (aka Tempranillo), 5% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged three months in a combination of new and used French and American oak. Never tried the bodega before, but it gets a big thumbs up from Tom Cannavan, so worth a punt.
2007 Sinarra Sangiovese Fattoria di Magliano (Tuscany) - £11.95 - a completely unoaked sangiovese (wit 5% Petir Verdot!!) fermented in stainless steel and then matured in cement tanks. No oak, just fruit. Sounds like my kind of Italian. It got 90 points from Wine Spectator last year and the wine store owner couldn't rave enough about it. Well, apart from the horrid art-nouveau label... blech. Looking forward to it though
2007 Gladstone Rosé Gladstone Vineyard (Wairarapa, New Zealand) - £6.95 from £9.95 - Made from Cabernet Franc and Merlot (yeee-gadz!!), but came with the following Jancis Robinson review: "Drink 2008-09 Smoky, relatively volatile. Fresh, green palate that suggests there is some methoxypyrazine element in here. Unusual and certainly very fresh. 16/20" - Not keen on tampered wines as a rule, but JR seemed to overlook it, so... roll on a sunny day!
2005 Verget Macon Charnay Le Clos Saint Pierre (White Burgundy, France) - £8.95 down from £11.95 - well, Verget has always been a very nice co-operative and 2005 is the best white vintage I've had the pleasure of tasting, so some neat little table wine purchased from the maconnaise. Should be fresh and hopefully oddly deep for the style. The bottle probably won't last the night.
2005 Remi Jobard Bourgogne Blanc (White Burgundy, France) - £11.95 down from £14.95 - A producer going through a lot of changes of recent, yet still producing odd and interesting wines. This is in fact made pure from grapes picked on Meursault vineyards which have been declassified by the winemaker to bog-standard Bourgogne Blanc. Well, lucky me...! And again, JR's review just made me want to try it, even if it sounds a little odd "There's a sort of positive fault, as in Persian carpet, here. The wine is not technically perfect (unlike, say, a Verget) but it's intriguing. Rewarding on a small scale - bit of a patchwork quilt of a wine in that sense. 2008-10. 16"
2006 Les Terrasses d'Éole "Vent di Diamo" Viognier (Vin de pays des Portes de Mediterranee, France) - £8.25 - Not everyone's cup of tea, Viognier, yet I adore it when done correctly. This sounded fabulous and partnered up with my new ladies penchant for cheese. The wine is almost off-dry and hence the apricots and cream of this viongier should do very well with her smelly stuff. The wine sellers blurb said "Pure Viognier, it has a fresh and crisp character on the attack, then subtly fills out with a succulent sweetness in the mid-palate, and finishes warm and long." Fine by me, sir!
Sanice Cesani Vernaccia di San Gimignano (Tuscany, Italy) - £10.50 - I'm a sucker for Italian white grape varieties I've never tasted, and well, even after 9 years I've still not had a Vernaccia. So I bought one. This has a small dollop of Chardonnay in it and is partly fermented in wood. Not normally my style AT ALL, yet I'm informed the oak is barely there and simply fleshes out the wine giving a more robust structure. Very much, looking forward to trying this.
Il Cumot Bricco Maiolica Nebbiolo D'Alba (Piedmont, Italy) - £16.25 - Now here I broke a Cardinal Rune-Rule in wine buying. Never buy cheap nebbiolo. I generally purchase my Barolo's at the £30+ mark, which means, I almost never buy them! /Insert sad face. Still, the wine store owner almost demanded I purchase this. But I didn't. But the lass bought it for me. Aww, sweetheart. Described as a "Scaled down barolo", it didn't fill me with confidence, yet 2004 was to Barolo what 2005 was to Bordeaux and 1996 to Champagne... i.e. almost ALL the wines are good. So... suspicious, but grateful and intrigued.
Alberto Longo Cacc'e Mmitte di Lucera (Puglia, Italy) - £10.50 Well I love unique, and this has that written all over it. Cacc'e Mmitte di Lucera is Italy's smallest wine producing region and has in fact only three winemakers working there. It's a blend of Montepulciano, Nero di Troia and Bombino Bianco... two of those grapes I've never even heard of. Ohhh, excitement. Before the store owner had finished talking about the wine itself I'd grabbed the bottle and plonked it in the box. Even if it's crap it's experimenting wine. Can't wait.
Chateau Marcillac Cotes de Bourg (Bordeaux, France) - £7.95 - And here I broke another cardinal Rune-Rule... Bordeaux purchased for under £15. Well, bollocks to it all I say. The store owner found it exceptionally charming, and Jancis Robinson said "Drink 2008-10 Punch and life. Not smooth but honest. Great Value. 13% 16/20". Rustic Claret for under a tenner? Done and done, sir!
Nittnaus Blaufrankisch (Burgenland, Austria) - £6.95 down from £8.95 - Well, Austrian reds. Can't get any odder than that surely? Nittnaus' Pinot Noir (yes, Pinot bloody Noir) was fabulous, but a touch pricey at £15 a shot. The Blau is a native Austrian red grape variety, rich in tannin and spice and generally give quite meaty, weighty wines. Given the quality of the other Nittnaus wines I've tasted this was worth a punt, even if it's coming to the end of its life. Should be a fun little number, but not expecting the earth.
2007 Bodegas Acústic Vinyes Velles Nobles "Acústic" (Montsant, Spain) - £11.75 - Sold to me as "the most unspanish Spanish wine I've ever tasted" and made with French oak rather than American I was intrigued. "Is it New World style then?", I asked. "Oh no, more Southern Rhone" he replied. "Box it up" I demanded. I know bugger all else about the wine other than it's Grenache and Carginan and made from 65 year old vines. Honestly, enough for me!
2007 Joel Remy Bourgogne (Red Burgundy, France) - £9.95 - I like me a bit of Remy, and his style is lots of new world fruit but with a much drier and finer texture (i.e. lacking the gloss of New Zealand). Simple, honest, elegant Pinot that TASTES of Pinot, for under ten squid. Again, no brainer
And those were my picks today. I could have spent £500+, but I kept it under £130 IRRC and I'm dying to open some over my annual leave coming next week
Anyone else purchased anything interesting
Hugo Rune - Monetarily lighter, but spiritually richer
Lousy drunks. *sips port*
