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Christmas Wine

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A heavy day for the Marchbanks Towers postman today - La Pavoni spare parts, four Bill Frisell CDs, Hitchhiker’s Guide original off-air recordings returned, and a new hat. TBH I’m not convinced by the pork pie - I definitely think my head is trilby-shaped. Please don’t feel obliged to tell me if you agree. Or disagree.

I thought I’d celebrate this activity, and the fact it was warm enough to take an aperitif outside, by opening one of my bottles of Les Clos Perdus Corbières. 80/20 Grenache/Cinsault, showing itself with a typical southern Rhône start ending up with a somewhat perfumed finish. Very nice indeed, but I can’t help thinking it’s a boutique wine at a slightly boutique price, and I could probably get more value from, say, Gigondas for the same cost. Then again, that could be my cynicism based on the chosen professions of the expats running the outfit (PR, finance...) - but of course, that’s my problem. It’s still rather a good wine - try one if you can.

Edit: I may have been slightly unfair regarding the price - I had it in mind that I paid something over £20 for this. Now I have checked rather than rely on my faulty memory I see it was in fact £18.50. And the 2015 is currently available in the UK for a little less than that.


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fama said:
I got six Tavel 2019 five Chapoutier rosé
and no3 Castelmaure(£20) from
Vinatis with promos and discounts
the average price per bottle was £12.33
delivered.
And they're not cheap the euro prices look
good but as soon as you switch to UK
delivery the prices jump considerably.
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Vinatis add the duty for UK delivery, which a lot of importers don’t. It is a grey area, to say the least.
 
chartz said:
I love Crozes, a poor man’s St Joseph or Côte Rôtie.
All those wines are produced in the same area, which I know well – this is where my other half is from!
Have you tried the Guigals?
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I might have had a Guigal Côte Rôtie (the basic one) many years ago. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Guigal Crozes or St Joseph. I had some bad experiences with Jaboulet northern Rhônes in the 80s and 90s that I have posted about before. That put me off the area until recently, but I have some stocks of Gilles Robin (Crozes), Saint Cosme (St J), Delas and Voge (Cornas) now.
 
Cheers to Wacko, enjoying some of these https://www.theenglishwinecollection.co.uk/collections/rose-wines. Purchased a 6 bottle, 90quid collection.

Favourite so far is the Chapel Down English Rose, served it a little too cold, the flavours were superb when it warmed up. Second place goes to the Balfour Nannettes
Rose, lovely with a light but strong flavoured veggie lunch. Not sure what the Botham Balfour English Rose will be like later today
 
The Bothem - Balfour nearly took me to the boundary, took a while to catch on. Not quite a six, but a good four, a second bottle would have stumped me
 
Goodness, it’s getting dark quickly nowadays. This was about 9.30pm last night - quite cool as well, but still too good an evening to waste indoors.

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Here we have a bottle of San Brès Minervois made by Luc Lapeyre, about whom I have rattled on before. This one is 80/20 Grenache/Syrah, and a notch down in price terms from the Amourier mentioned previously which also contains a dollop of Mourvèdre. It cost me 6.50€ in March 2019.

Luc is a larger-than-life character in all respects and although extremely serious about winemaking, also very unpretentious. When I met him many years ago he told me (as he sliced up some bread and sausage to keep us going through the tasting) that you didn’t need to know all that stuff written on labels, all that was important was whether the wine was ‘buvable’ or not. San Brès certainly is - in fact I now discover I have drunk all my stock. Another job for me before the end of the year...

Luc says he likes to make wines that go with his local cuisine. I didn’t have any home-made Minervois sausage, so I followed the coq au vin with Red Leicester. The sourdough was home-made though, and I think even Mrs Jono might have been quite proud of it, although I say it myself. Do you think there’s a chance, @Jono_13 ? I hope Luc would have approved too.
 
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This is a CdRV (Valréas) but was a present, so beyond that I had to do some research.

It is 75/25 Grenache/Syrah and comes from a Demeter-certified vineyard. The only other one of those that I know offhand is Domaine Huet, so that was a good omen. ‘Drink within five to six years maximum’ says the website, so that seemed about right. And it was really lovely. Quite tannic when I took a post-corkpull snifter, an hour later it had really smoothed out. Again, breathing time is recommended on the website. (So is decanting, but I ignored that, as usual.) This is an excellent southern CdR, as good as I’d hoped the 2016 Coudoulet I opened a few weeks ago was going to be (but it wasn’t.) Highly recommended.

I see from Wine Searcher that it retails in the UK for about £22 (nice present!) which puts it loosely in the Coudoulet price bracket. Demeter wines tend to sell at a premium. Whether the biodynamic practices contribute to the quality of the wine, who knows, but they certainly haven’t done any harm in this case. And respecting the terroir and assisting the grapes naturally without over-intervening has to be applauded.

In deference to the wine’s biodynamism I waited for the moon to come out from behind the clouds before taking a picture. It would have made a nice shot if my phone had been capable of getting it in focus, although if you zoom in it is disconcertingly reminiscent of the front cover of Consequences.

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^^ You may have been unlucky MB: have you tried only 1 ?
The Coudoulet '16s that I have had have been very nice. In fact I might open another today to confirm that :)
 
fama said:
@Marchbanks I wonder how that compares to the Megaphone?
the 2018 of both I see can be had in mainland europe for ~13 euros
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I’m not too good on comparing wines tasted weeks apart, although there was definitely some similarity. I like Mégaphone a lot, but if you can get the Élementaire for 13€, do. I’ve seen it at nearly 14€, but with delivery in France that comes to over 16€... I’ll be driving near to a merchant selling it at 18€ next month, so I’ll probably get some there. It’s always interesting to have a mooch round - you never know what you may find - and he stocks the Gramenon 100% Syrah CdR too (Sierra du Sud), which would be interesting to try next to the Saint Cosme I mentioned upthread.

wacko said:
^^ You may have been unlucky MB: have you tried only 1 ?
The Coudoulet '16s that I have had have been very nice. In fact I might open another today to confirm that :)
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There was nothing wrong with the Coudoulet, it just didn’t seem as good as I had hoped. It might be a question of expectations. I didn’t know what to expect of the Gramenon, so it had nothing to live up to. Or perhaps I was in a better mood last night, what with listening to Viv Stanshall’s old radio shows and the moonlight and all?
 
^ I think the '16 Coudoulet benefits from a decant. It has more 'backbone' than expected from a second wine at 4 years. The CT drink by '28 sounds right so plenty of time...
A friend of my son told him there are serious price reductions in France now and she is stocking up... I look forward to seeing the trophies of the final 2020 MB chevauchée.
 
wacko said:
^ I think the '16 Coudoulet benefits from a decant. It has more 'backbone' than expected from a second wine at 4 years. The CT drink by '28 sounds right so plenty of time...
A friend of my son told him there are serious price reductions in France now and she is stocking up... I look forward to seeing the trophies of the final 2020 MB chevauchée.
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Interesting that the Gramenon website suggests the Elémentaire should be drunk no later than 2022. I’ve seen suggestions on a couple of French websites suggesting this might be down to its organic/biodynamic production - specifically the lack of sulphites.

Wine fair season is starting now in France, so there will be a good few reductions. It should be in full swing when I get there in three weeks (no coincidence.) But I’m hoping for another pre-final-Brexit trip - if I can get back just before Christmas that will put me in quarantine until all twelve bloody days have passed.
 
You do have to treat Gramenon carefully. I once had a consignment of Sierra du Sud which refermented. Not nice.

When the wines are on form, which is more often than not nowadays, Gramenon is a wonderful source.

I still had a few bottles of 2010 La Sagesse until a year or so ago, it was wonderful.
 
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