The Wine Cellar

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Bustino75 said:
Sorry redcgull, my mention of the Chilean Merlot was not to counter you.I actually like Chilean wines a great deal, red and white. I was surprised I didn't like that one!
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That's fine Bustino, i know it wasnt a dig or counter point...<ok>

I do think though that some wine drinkers can get a bit pompus about which wines are better than others but it all comes down to taste/cost... Ive tasted a red wine once, that was £300 a bottle - (i didnt buy it by the way it was at some very pompus do that i went to, penguins suits and all... Well above my usual haunts i may add...) and thought it was crap, but likewise ive had a £4.99 bottle of red and thought it was the best wine in the world...

Its all about the moment, where and with whom that makes drinking wine, or anything else for that matter, better...
 
I agree with that Red, to a point (eg a topped up large glass of Blue Nun is enough to find a reason to leave). And likewise, I went on a visit to a vineyard whilst on a management course in Bordeaux; had a tour of the chateau and the wine cellars and suffered a lesson on wine tasting. The really expensive wines (in the 100s) I just didn't like; certainly wouldn't pay good money for them. There are plenty of cheaper wines I enjoy but to be honest I can't afford to be spending money on expensive wines, so for my regular wines I'll be studying the under £5 column or maybe a little higher occasionally..
 
I very rarely venture north of &#8364;7 for a bottle of wine - here in Germany you can get excellent wines in he &#8364;5 - &#8364;6.50 bracket
 
I agree with you entirely. The place and the moment is what it is about.

But the greatest wine I have ever tasted wasn't particularly at the right time. In 1999 someone invited me to their house to taste 5 wines with dinner but blind. We had no clue what they were but to be honest after drinking them I had no clue as to what they were. All I know is that one wine happened to be head and shoulders above the rest, and even then I thought that one was extraordinary. The wine I liked best was Ch. Cheval Blanc 1985, in fact all the wines were 1985 and all Bordeaux. Everyone there liked it best. The other wines just happened to be Ch. Mouton Rothschild, Ch. Haut Brion, Ch. Ducru Beaucaillou and Chateau Trotanoy. In the realms of the great wines of Bordeaux the only ones missing were Ch. Margaux and Ch. Petrus, and perhaps Ch. Leoville Le Cases. I was lucky to have been invited.

I have every sympathy for people who go round vineyards and think these people are taking the piss, because that night I thought Haut Brion and Mouton Rothschild were ordinary wines. In fact they are great wines and rated very highly by whatever judge you wish to mention, but it's all relative and tasting blind is very analytic. I would love to be able to afford these wines, for a few years I could afford the wines just beneath them. Going round a vineyard you taste the most recent vintage when most of these wines are babies and need 10 years to show their strengths, it's not surprising you don't rate them.

I still dabble in Bordeaux and Burgundy en primeur but old father time is pointing to the clock and maybe I should just enjoy what I have today. And you all right it is about the moment.

Stick
To answer your comment. With CdN it is all about the year. '95, '98 were great vintages from the '90s, but they've been on a roll since 2003. You shouldn't be too worried unless it's a bad year. I drank a '95 the other month and it was really nice, but always drink wines like this with simple food.

Interesting about Petit Verdot. It's a Bordeaux grape that is used in small quantities in a lot of left bank blends (sometimes 1-3%). One really good Bordeaux uses about 5% but I'm struggling for its name....
There are a few Australian 100% Petit Verdots, and they are impressive as it is not a grape that easily ripens. But the most surprising Petit Verdot I've drunk was one from the Languedoc near to Vias. The estate is called Domaine de la Bosq (I think), and you can buy their wine from the Wine Society, but I don't know if they sell the PV. Cheers
 
I was recently given a "wine album" as a present - basically you stick in the etiquette of a wine you tried, and then add notes on how it was (I'm only planning to do this for good ones - seems a waste of effort for ones that I didn't like). Been to my local importer today and picked up the first 6 white wines to be tested:

Ruppertsberger Riesling 2012 (Pfalz) - &#8364;5.95
Karl Pfaffmann Riesling 2012 (Pfalz) - &#8364;6.25
Langwerth Riesling 2012 (Rheingau) - &#8364;9.95 - this is the only German wine I purchased which has the VDP Predikat on the neck of the bottle - usually a guarantee for a good German wine - read more here
Schneiders Moritz Riesling 2012 (Mosel) - &#8364;6.50
Viré-Clessé "Les Grandes Plantes" Chardonnay 2012 - &#8364;10.50
Domaine de Reuilly Sauvignon Blanc 2012 - &#8364;10,25

I'll post back my thoughts on each and whether any of them were worth entering in the album <ok>
 
Cheers Oddy, that would be great. You might want to make a note of the ones you don't like so that you don't waste any money on another one.
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OddDog, will be interested in your comments re. the last two. Who is the producer of the Vire-Clesse?

My wine of the week was a 2007 Denis Race, Montmains Vielles Vignes 1er Cru, Chablis. Wonderful mineral and greengage flavours and that acidity only Chablis provides. Must have picked this up at the producer in 2008 or 9 for &#8364;9.80. Race is in the centre of Chablis and produces wines from about &#8364;5 up to &#8364;20. I usually buy across the range (not the expensive one as he's usually sold out). You can buy a range and drink them in order of price: the premier crus usually need 5 years to show their best, the Petit Chablis is ready after 2. I steer clear of the Vaillons 1er cru, just doesn't seem to belong in Chablis to me. The wine I drank this week is now &#8364;11 for the 2011 vintage.
If you've never bought wine from a producer it's easy and they are nearly always very welcoming. For giving their time I usually buy a minimum of 3 bottles unless the wine is totally dire. If it's good I'll buy more.
 
Bustino75 said:
Who is the producer of the Vire-Clesse?
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All I can gather from the bottle is the following:

Viré-Clessé
Appellation Protégée
Mise en bouteille à la propriété
Par cave de Viré
A F-712600 - Viré - France

and on the front of the bottle "Les Grandes Plantes"

I'll have to check next time I go to the shop who produced it.
 
OddDog
It's from the Cave de Vire, the local co-op. In the Macon the co-ops led the way in improving the quality. Macon Lugny from the Cave de Lugny was a stand out drop.
Should be good.

I'll have to learn how to get the accents....
 
Bustino75 said:
I'll have to learn how to get the accents....
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Depends what keyboard you have. Eg é on my keyboard is Ctrl/Alt/e. Occasionally it produces a Euro sign which is very annoying (typically in trying to demonstrate this it won't do it). The internet gives key combinations for typing French accents but a lot of them don't work on my keyboard. As a backup I have a little notepad file on my desktop with them already prepared and just paste from there. They are all available in Word (Symbols). I believe you can have a virtual international keyboard but I've never used it.
 
Question for the experts. What does it tell you if, when you go to uncork the bottle, the cork starts to slip into the neck of the bottle?
 
It probably means you've had some seepage up the side of the cork There could be 3 reasons I'd think of. The first is the cork wasn't good enough in the first place. The second is the cork totally dried out for some reason and wine went up the side, when laid down. The third is that the wine got a bit warm and wine expanded up the sides of the cork.
Generally I'd reckon it wasn't a good sign and you've got a chance of oxidation. So if the wine smells of sherry that's what's happened.

Any other ideas? I could be totally wrong!!
 
Oxidised wine? Might give you a headache. But as I say Sherry is a partially oxidised wine anyway, and that's OK. You just don't want any species formed that you can't metabolise properly: but that's unlikely.

Just smell it. It could be perfectly OK.

When I was a student banging corks into the bottle as you didn't have an opener was common practice.
 
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