I was meaning to blog about Waitrose’s wine sale, in which they knocked 25% off the price of every single bottle of wine on their website, but then I got so excited actually shopping on it that it never really happened. I was half-tempted to buy a bottle of 2003 Penfolds Grange, reduced to just (just!) £112.50 a bottle, £60 less (per bottle!) that what the normally reasonable Wine Society are charging, but then I spent not much more than the price of that bottle on 18 other ones.
They must have been absolutely inundated with orders, but 48 hours later mine arrived. I’m quite excited about everything I got, which is just as well because I was starting to become a little jaded with my rapidly emptying “cellar”. Now comes the good bit: drinking it.
We start in the Maipo valley, Chile, and an interesting organic wine made using only natural, wild yeast. Wine Spectator loved it, considering it worth 91 points. “Dark and structured, with loamy tannins carrying a delicious mix of mint, tobacco, currant paste and fig sauce flavors,” they said. “Long and rich on the finish, with classic Maipo character. Drink now through 2012. Tasted twice, with consistent notes.” And mine for £4.49 a bottle. £4.49! It’s a tenner at Tanners!
I’ve never had fig sauce. Or currant paste. But I see what they’re getting at with the dried fruit, particularly fig. And the tobacco’s there, sure enough – I’m sure, and I know this doesn’t sound much like a positive, that I can taste a bit of ashtray. Strong tannins and good acidity and it absolutely reeks – pongs – of varietal character. You could name the grape variety from 15 metres. It’s a well-made wine, it looks and smells great. It just has a tinge of green, unripe, new leather to it, when you want it to be completely worn in. Maybe another year in bottle?
And apparently boffins from a Turkish university analysed a bunch of wines in 2004 for antioxidants and healthy phenols and found Nativa’s Cab Sauv to be the healthiest wine there is. It’s practically medicine.
All the same, a stonking start from my friends at Waitrose. Let’s hope they do the same promotion next year, when (given what they’re saying about the 2004) I might just get a bottle of Penfolds Grange. Someone liked the look of it, anyway – they’re sold out now.
In other news, I picked up a bottle of Banrock Station Shiraz Mataro 2008. Heaven only knows what quantity they make this stuff in – everyone sells it, most of them for very little money (it’s three for a tenner in Sainsbury’s at present), and you can also get it in boxes – but I found it surprisingly pleasant. Nothing mind-blowing, but really not bad at all and excellent value for money at that price. Worth sorting myself out with a few bottles for cooking, taking to friends’ houses and other not very special occasions. The 2007 won a gold Decanter award last year and Jane MacQuitty has recommended it pretty much every year for the last decade, so it’s clearly got something of a following and to be honest I can see why (I can’t normally with high-volume wines). So, a good week then!
cellarfella.com 