Christmas Wine II
- Thread starter Dogberry
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andrew d
pfm Member
Popped into Waitrose Canary Wharf. Gone are the days when cases of wine and selling for £1,000's were stacked up like best sellers in a bookstore. Bottles of Chateau Margaux 2010 at £850 a pop were available as was a Nebuchadnezzar of Chocolate Block for those who like that kind of thing.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
Yes, that was the one. Are they really asking £16 for delivery? If you are interested in buying it, I’d ring them and ask about the provenance. If you are satisfied ask what they will charge for a single-bottle delivery of a £200 sale. If they insist on £16, tell them to stuff it. Then, if you still want to go down this road, how about a 2014 Las Cases at £165 with free delivery? Those that know about such things say it is drinking from 2020. Or 2023. Or 2028. Or ‘now’, whenever that was written.
mandryka
pfm Member
What I've decided is that I'm going to split the cost with a friend and we'll share the bottle together, probably mid to late April. If the experience is satisfying I may well join Cellar Circle and do what I said -- give them £100 a month and use it to buy four bottles of the special stuff a year. If all that proves satisfactory, I'll up my game to buying in bond etc.
I also have a bunch of French friends telling me that it's hopeless to try to buy Vin Jaune in the UK, so I really must go to Besancon and tour the area ASAP.
And I'm so enamoured with Tondonia Gravonia that I'm really really tempted to buy a bottle of Reserva Blanco.
And my doctor, who's a friend from Greece, Crete, keeps telling me that I must stop drinking all this crap and buy Retsina and Raki instead. And drink it with feta.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
You mean you didn’t take heed of the Wise Words of Sue back in November?
mandryka
pfm Member
¡Olé olé!
I didn't know she was wise at the time, but I have just compensated by ordering a couple of bottles of Allende, which she recommended a few days ago -- my first order from Decántalo (free shipping and corkscrew as a welcome gift, all taxes paid.) I also bought a couple of Ponce Pino, which was raved about by a bloke on Cellar tracker who seems to spend much of his life drinking Yquem and such like, and a couple of bottles of Lanzaga, which I think @wulbert recommended.
Anyway, I thought you didn't even like rioja!
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I’ve been hunting for this, and finding only empty space above the shelf labels. This afternoon, in Aldi no. 4, I had just reached the wine section when a woman pushing a mega-buggy and surrounded by a kind of huge electron cloud of coughing, shrieking body parts approached me rather too closely for my liking. (There seems to be a lot of Covid about round here, and catching it now would be immensely inconvenient.) I backed away against the shelves to let them all go by. ‘All right?’ said Mother Nucleus to me sarcastically as her orbiters re-coalesced around her. I turned back to the shelves. ‘I don’t think that man - yes, that one there - thinks much of us’ she said loudly. ‘He looked utterly disgusted.’ I was rather pleased with this as I had made no effort whatsoever to change from my default expression of bemusement and incomprehension. Unfortunately I soon found another ‘Priorat £3.99’ label with empty space above it. I stormed off towards the exit, definitely wearing a look of disgust by now.
By the tills was a chap looking at a rack of reduced stuff. I saw bottles. Priorat! I started to remove a few. The chap looked interested. ‘Is it good?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never tried it,’ I said ‘but it was mentioned as something to look out for on Christmas Wine.’ He nodded thoughtfully, then took one himself. The power of internet influencers!
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I like white rioja, but red is a different matter. It always puts me in mind of half a glass of grape juice mixed with half of oak sap. However, my Hispanophone chum tells me OK, there’s an element of that about the style, but I’m being a stuck-in-my-ways wimp who simply can’t be bothered to acquire the taste of something that is fantastic. I’m predisposed to believe I’m always to blame for everything, so I think he’s probably right. And he’s already dragged me kicking and screaming through a crash course in decent Argentinian Malbec which seems to have stuck successfully. So I’ve got six Tondonia 2008 sitting in the ancestral cellars waiting for him to say ‘NOW!’
eternumviti
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French Oak is increasingly used in Rioja, replacing to varying degrees the traditional coarser grained American oak, so less of that often rather sweet vanilla-coconut character. Remelluri is one to look out for, single-vineyard wine made by Telmo Rodriguez on his family property.
eternumviti
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Yes, the structure of the wine industry in Rioja, with a predominance of what are essentially merchant houses buying in grapes (or wine in barrel) and blending owes much to the arrival of Bordeaux merchants seeking continuity of business during phylloxera.
Haven't tried the Janesse.
Haven't tried the Janesse.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
Thanks for the recommendation. Someone else pointed me towards Roda for the same reason. I see Decántolo have Remelluri Reserva from 2015 as opposed to Roda from 2019 so it might be a better bet for instant gratification.
I haven’t tried the Janasse either.
mandryka
pfm Member
I’ve ordered a bottle of Telmo Rodriguez Lanzaga from Decantolo on the basis of Wilbur’s recommendation. They’ve dispatched it and it’s due at the end of the month.
But really it’s all too complicated. How old does it have to be? Does it have to be Gran Reserva, reserva or crianza? There’s this at Berry Bros for example - instant gratification possible for me if I can be arsed to take the tube to Green Park.
https://www.bbr.com/products-20138128007-2013-la-granja-gran-reserva-remelluri-rioja-spain
To be a bit less grumpy, I’m looking forward to exploring Spanish wines more, Delcantolo seems good to deal with and there are specialist shops in London with interesting stock.
But really it’s all too complicated. How old does it have to be? Does it have to be Gran Reserva, reserva or crianza? There’s this at Berry Bros for example - instant gratification possible for me if I can be arsed to take the tube to Green Park.
https://www.bbr.com/products-20138128007-2013-la-granja-gran-reserva-remelluri-rioja-spain
To be a bit less grumpy, I’m looking forward to exploring Spanish wines more, Delcantolo seems good to deal with and there are specialist shops in London with interesting stock.
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eternumviti
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I tend to find gran reserva to have had a lot of the fruit stewed out of it by oak. I find straight reserva to have the best balance. In fact I'd probably be quite content with good crianza.
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