Further wines from around the world

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we got a mixed "Off the Beaten Track" case from the Wine Society recently, and a few more of these have now been drunk, so I need to report back on them using the blog as my external memory drive and then I can forget about them and take the bottles to the bottle bank. 

Starting with the white, here we have an Alella from Marques de Alella, 2010. This is Spanish and the WS described it as "a delicate and refreshing wine, full of charm and appeal". We opened it on Wednesday night as I needed anaesthetic to get me through episode 1 of the 8 disc box set of Jason King which G asked me to get for him. Warning to G: I'm going to need something stronger in future to cope with the purple dressing gowns, medallions, moustaches and turquoise cravats - some Felettig marc might do the trick.... Back to the white wine. My verdict: bland and completely uninteresting. Half the bottle went down the sink last night as I was too bored to drink it. It would normally cost £7.50 a bottle but they have inexplicably sold out, probably to saps like me who bought it as part of the mixed case. Perhaps I'm being harsh - it wasn't actively unpleasant.

The rest have all been reds. The label on this one is hard to read - it's a Cote Roannaise 2011 from Domaine Robert Serol, made from gamay. At just 12% alcohol, this was light and I hardly noticed it slipping down. It was perfectly pleasant and cost £7.95 but I wouldn't dash back for more.

This Chateau Ksara Reserve du Couvent 2009 was more like it. This is a syrah-based blend from the Lebanon. I've been a big fan of Chateau Musar in the past, but this didn't have that tarry, baked quality that Musar does. It was impressive and would be a great barbecue wine. Good value at £7.95. I'd have it again.

This was a red from Hilltop Estate in Hungary. I think G liked it more than I did - for me it had "bottle that is going to be hard work to finish" written all over it, although we did manage to force it down somehow. It has a high proportion of cabernet sauvignon and was perfectly accomplished but somehow rather boring and "international", for me. It's only £7.25 though, which makes it good value. I'd have guessed it would cost more than that.

Finally, the star of this particular batch, for me - as the Inverse Law of Labels would predict. This is Kalecik Karasi 2009 from Vinkara in Turkey. As a bona fide wine snob I would assume that Turkish red would be rough and undrinkable except possibly in a Turkish restaurant along with well-charred offerings of some sort. In fact this was juicy and vibrant. The WS notes refer to cherries and redcurrants and for once they are accurate. It was appealing and the kind of thing I think my family would like or would be good for a party at work. I'll almost certainly get some more in due course, although at £8.50 a bottle it was relatively expensive compared to some of the others here. 

Dinner at A de V Towers, 15th March

Last Thursday, T and G came round to mine for dinner and we had a very enjoyable evening. 

T kindly brought along a bottle of Palo Cortado. I attended a tasting once where Palo Cortado was memorably described as "the transsexual of sherry". Wikipedia explains, rather more prosaically: "Palo Cortado is a rare variety of sherry that is initially aged under flor to become a fino or amontillado, but inexplicably loses its veil of flor and begins ageing oxidatively as an oloroso."

It's not a style you see very often and this one was made for Waitrose by Lustau. It was enjoyably piquant and nutty at the same time. We failed to do it justice by having it alongside La Guita Manzanilla - the two did not go together. I'd been to Selfridges the day before and got some of their excellent mixed nuts but T knowledgeably informed me that the finest cashew nuts in the world are served in a hotel in an obscure part of Sri Lanka. Selfridges will have to raise their game!

Next up was this bottle of Vosne Romanee 1er cru les Petits Monts 2004 from Mongeard-Mugneret which we had with some slow-cooked leg of lamb and potato gratin. We had high hopes for this wine which cost a whopping 65 euros. I wasn't previously familiar with the domaine but they seem very serious and are sold by Berry Bros.

Sadly, I found it disappointing. Normally I love Vosne-Romanee but this didn't hit the spot. It was a plummy, murky colour which T described as "grey". I got baked fruits on the nose and the palate was smooth and integrated. It was decent mature burgundy but lacking any kind of wow factor. We gave it an 8.

After that our spirits were restored by T's claret jelly which was a great success and possibly the highlight of the entire evening.

Finally, G assembled an assiette de chocolat on my new rectangular white plates bought specially for this purpose so that we no longer have to eat it off the table. This consists of different things from Michel Cluizel - a piece of coffee-flavoured chocolate, some chocolate-covered coffee beans, a piece of chocolate with orange peel in it, some chocolate cocoa nib things, a piece of special single plantation chocolate, and finally a couple of chocolate-covered almonds. For some reason, it is eaten from right to left. I think T was possibly rather perplexed at G demonstrating his OCD tendencies (it's essential that everyone must have the same number of pieces) but the calvados soon took away any concerns. Thanks to both for the pleasure of your company. 

Cheap and cheerful whites

A few weeks ago the Wine Society had an offer called "Off the Beaten Track" which tempted me into buying a mixed case. So far we've had two of them, both whites.

The first was a Bourboulenc from Domaine de Limonet, 2010. This is a Vin de Pays de l'Aude which is from the Languedoc. It was 13% alcohol. Pale gold in colour, it was fresh and had good acidity. It wasn't complicated but had a little bit of oak and went well with crab. We felt it was the kind of wine to drink young. It would normally be £7.75 a bottle which seemed about right. I enjoyed it but I think by the end of the bottle we were getting a bit bored with it, so while it was interesting to try, I doubt whether I'd have it again.

The second was this Quinta da Lagoalva, Talhao 1, 2011 from the Tejo region in Portugal. I know very little about Portuguese whites other than Vinho Verde, and this proved to be a pleasant surprise. It was quite floral on the nose and distinctly lemony and zingy on the palate and went well with the lamb biryani we had for supper. Again, 13% alcohol, fresh and light, and one to be drunk young. According to the notes, it's a blend of arinto, verdelho, sauvignon blanc, alvarinho and fernão pires. I felt this would have wide appeal and would be a good party wine. At £6.75 a bottle it seemed good value and I'd certainly consider getting some more.

Manzanilla La Guita

I'm a big sherry lover, and when G told me about La Guita, I had to get hold of some. It's available in half bottles from various places and in the end I got mine from Sipp which is a shop on the Brompton Road, just down the road from Harrods. I toyed with the idea of going there but in the end laziness prevailed and I ordered 12 halves online, incurring the annoying £10 delivery charge. It worked out at £6.50 a half all in.

It's made by Hijos de Rainera Perez Marin and comes in a convenient screwcap bottle with a vibrant orange seal. There's a bit of string taped under the label; I'm not entirely sure what its function is! Also, the date of bottling is stamped on the label - in this case July 2011 - which is a nice touch.

I enjoyed it a lot - it's very fresh and relatively light in style, although it gained some weight overnight, so definitely one to be drunk over no more than 2 evenings. I think I like it about the same as La Goya, and it would be interesting to compare the two - must get some La Goya in before this runs out. Corney and Barrow are now selling La Goya for £6.29 a half so they are directly comparable. These two, and the trusty but more heavyweight Pastrana Manzanilla Pasada from Hidalgo (£9.95 from the Wine Society, £11.95 from Waitrose, I think - an interesting example of good value from the WS) are currently my three favourite manzanillas.

Cocktails at the Zetter Townhouse

Last Thursday I met up with martini guru R and we went to the Zetter Townhouse in Clerkenwell for cocktails. I whizzed round on the Metropolitan Line from Euston Square to Farringdon which was a surprisingly fun experience - the old dreary grey, graffiti-marked trains have been replaced by something whizzy and modern resembling a giant bendy bus - and Farringdon station appears to have expanded to the size of several football pitches.

Unfortunately the Zetter Townhouse website seems to be down at the moment which shows the perils of relying on the online cocktail list to remember what we both had... I'd been to the Zetter Hotel for Sunday lunch before and was favourably impressed, so was looking forward to this. The Townhouse is round the corner, in a very nice Georgian building on St John's Square. You go in through the front door, past a curtain and find yourself in something that looks like someone's living room - comfy sofas and chairs, old tables, bookcases. At just before 6, it was quite full but we didn't have to wait long before someone came and found us a table tucked around a corner.

To start with we had dry martinis made with Plymouth gin, with an olive in R's case and a twist for me. They weren't served in traditional martini glasses but rather what looked like antique champagne cups, full to the brim. They were very good and in R's opinion only surpassed by the ones we had at the Lanesborough back in the days when Salvatore Calabrese was still working there.

The other cocktails we had were also very well-made and interesting with unusual ingredients, particularly in R's choices from the house cocktail list. When I asked why R had wanted to come here in particular, he said he'd seen it on some list as the no.1 cocktail bar in London, and I could understand why.

Our only quibble was that there were no free nibbles, but on the other hand the cocktails were about £8.50 so about half the price of a posh hotel bar these days. We ordered a little pot of olives to share, which came in a miniature jar. We also got unasked-for glasses of water which were regularly topped up by the waitress - we were certainly well-looked after. The atmosphere was cheerfully without being too noisy and we weren't too close to anybody else. All in all, it was a really good experience and I'll definitely be back.

Beaune 1er cru Clos des Ursules 2004, Domaine des Heritiers Louis Jadot

Another premier cru, this time from Louis Jadot. Or is it? I've just been looking at their impressively fussy and annoying website trying to work out what the difference is between Louis Jadot and Heritiers Louis Jadot - they seem to be a different group of vineyards that LJ presumably bought up a while back, although please correct me if I'm wrong!

The label says that Clos des Ursules is a 1er Cru Vigne Franches. A "clos" is a walled vineyard, so apparently this one is part of the larger Vigne Franches vineyard. Have just anxiously checked the yellow book (the Wines of Burgundy by Pitiot and Servant), failed to find it, realised this was because I was looking at Pommard not Beaune, and can confirm it does appear on their list in its own right. Phew!

This bottle cost 37 euros and came from the Boutique des Domaines which is a shop on Place Carnot in Beaune that sells quite a lot of Jadot. As Clos des Ursules is a monopole ("seul proprietaire" says the bottle) we had to have this one.

It had a dark, plummy colour and looked glossy. The nose was sweet and jammy with a tinned strawberry element. On the palate, it was soft and congruent with the nose, richer than we'd expected and in a big style. Not tres Beaune at all. We liked it more at the start than at the end - it lacked complexity, and became a little boring. It certainly showed that the 2004 reds are drinking well now, and had no room for improvement. It just about maintained a score of 8 although I feel slightly resentful writing that. Certainly not value for money, especially when I think about Giboulot's lovely Beaunes...

Saint-Aubin 1er cru La Chateniere 2007, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey

Talk about a double-barrelled title!

I brought this back from Burgundy a couple of years ago and the trusty premier cru project spreadsheet informs me that I got it from the fabulous Mon Millesime for 26 euros. It then went to G's cellar in Rutland to be put out of the way for a while. We decided it was time to give it a whirl a few nights ago. It was in a big heavy bottle which seems to be one of these newfangled things that are made of special UV-resistant glass. It also had a wax seal, usually a good sign.

It was a lovely light gold colour and fresh and lemony on the nose = code for being too cold, as it was just out of the fridge. The palate had good body and elements of honeysuckle, elderflower and lemon sorbet. All in all, it was very precise and delightful and ranked 9/10.

I did some homework afterwards to find out more about M. Colin-Morey and see that Jancis has written him up in the past. He makes wines right up to the top level, so this seems to be confirmation of the rule that the lower wines of good producers can be excellent value.