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Christmas Wine

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WTF is going here ? :) The only comforting thread in off topic has now got people who don't like alcohol so add fruit juice to wine, or are teetotallers ! Or 'special offer' off wine specially for the Brits in Calais. Is this thread crapping ?
I don't know whether to be grateful that the thread is still active, or go and open a bottle of wine. Am trying to save my liver for tomorrow.

I didn't like to say anything, but it did seem a bit strange that a thread about wine was attracting comments from people who don't drink alcohol. The Calais/Lidl thing is fine, because the topic was 'value'.

I didn't get it right, incidentally. The 2016 Bourgogne Rouge from Henri Prudhon in St.Aubin that I grabbed is too lean to carry the richness of the turkey and all the trimmings, the acidity too high and the fruit too restrained, far too young. Oddly enough I made a similar mistake last year. Bloody experts!

A new wine thread next week I think. 2017 Rhone & Burgundy, the current offers going from the wine trade out in Nov-January.
 
Yes too young and better known for their whites aren't they ? Anyway less young than last year so if you keep making the same mistake it won't be a mistake for Xmas 2021. :)
I opened a Flaccianello slightly early for the 2011 because I just couldn't resist any longer, but it certainly carried all the 3.6kg of goose!
We will need several new wine threads to get through Brexit especially as we are on opposite sides of that...
 
Yes too young and better known for their whites aren't they ? Anyway less young than last year so if you keep making the same mistake it won't be a mistake for Xmas 2021. :)
I opened a Flaccianello slightly early for the 2011 because I just couldn't resist any longer, but it certainly carried all the 3.6kg of goose!
We will need several new wine threads to get through Brexit especially as we are on opposite sides of that...

I'm actually very fond of Prudhon's St.Aubin 1er Cru reds, but they always veer towards pale and elegant. Their Bourgogne Rouge is always very delicate, and the acidity in the 2016s is anyway elevated, so yes, novice mistake!
One of the problems with Burgundy at the moment is a complete dearth of ready to drink stock. Nothing much older than 2015, unless you have had the wisdom to squirrel it away in your cellar.

I don't know Flaccianello at all. It's a Liberty Wine agency, so probably fairly available?
 
You are supposed to be the cellar ! Surely your contacts in the business can help you out: or has it all gone to USA/China ? I'm hoping France will have a trade war with both of them and keep it all in Europe...
I buy PN from New Zealand and SA these days.
 
You are supposed to be the cellar ! Surely your contacts in the business can help you out: or has it all gone to USA/China ? I'm hoping France will have a trade war with both of them and keep it all in Europe...
I buy PN from New Zealand and SA these days.

A series of short vintages, combined with high demand and, inevitably, rising prices. There's very little wine about. I did have some bits and pieces of 2011, 12, 13 & 14 until recently, but only scraps, and the lovely 2015s are pretty much sold through. There's still some 2016 about, beautiful wines, but they need patience (and lots of money). 2017 was plentiful, the big trade tastings start next week. I won't taste Burgundy in situ for the primeurs this year.

Authentic single estate Kiwi PN certainly ticks the boxes, but it's still expensive, upwards of £25. The cheaper stuff that you get in the supermarkets isn't truly single estate, confections made up and shipped in bulk, bottled in France(!) or here. They can be OK, or a bit grim. I'm afraid I am hopeless on SA.

I quite rarely drink Cote d'Or wines now. The values lie in the Cote Chalonnaise just to the south, and in the Crus Beaujolais, which is, as mentioned earlier, on the rebound.
 
I didn't get it right, incidentally. The 2016 Bourgogne Rouge from Henri Prudhon in St.Aubin that I grabbed is too lean to carry the richness of the turkey and all the trimmings, the acidity too high and the fruit too restrained, far too young. Oddly enough I made a similar mistake last year. Bloody experts!

A new wine thread next week I think. 2017 Rhone & Burgundy, the current offers going from the wine trade out in Nov-January.

I've really gone off those Pinots lately, many seem to be as you described. The acidity just hasn't been balanced for my palate.

I felt sure it was me rather than the wine changing but maybe not. I still remember my first Burgundy tasting over 50 years ago, loved it.
 
I didn't like to say anything, but it did seem a bit strange that a thread about wine was attracting comments from people who don't drink alcohol. The Calais/Lidl thing is fine, because the topic was 'value'.

I didn't get it right, incidentally. The 2016 Bourgogne Rouge from Henri Prudhon in St.Aubin that I grabbed is too lean to carry the richness of the turkey and all the trimmings, the acidity too high and the fruit too restrained, far too young. Oddly enough I made a similar mistake last year. Bloody experts!

A new wine thread next week I think. 2017 Rhone & Burgundy, the current offers going from the wine trade out in Nov-January.
Possibly bollocks! Ever considered that you taste buds and tastes in wine may have changed? It's your error, not theirs.

Besides, go to wine should (and should have been for many years) be the Cotes de Provence Rosé.
 
It is an interesting dilemma whether to reduce the price of your 'daily' wine so that you can buy 'special' stuff. Or just stay steady in the middle.
ie for the sake of illustration £10 for 'daily' to finance £60 for the odd 'special'. Or stay around £15 all the time.
I'm far too promiscuous to have any kind of plan: I like frequent different tastes and still get suckered into 'special offers' sometimes. Maybe just haven't found the perfect wine I can afford to stick with.
And too old now to do the intelligent (assuming you have the funds and knowledge) thing of buying what you want to drink in 20 years.
 
Possibly bollocks! Ever considered that you taste buds and tastes in wine may have changed? It's your error, not theirs.
Besides, go to wine should (and should have been for many years) be the Cotes de Provence Rosé.

Only drink rose in summer. Preferably in Europe. Preferably with a view of something. Otherwise meh.
 
Possibly bollocks! Ever considered that you taste buds and tastes in wine may have changed? It's your error, not theirs.

Besides, go to wine should (and should have been for many years) be the Cotes de Provence Rosé.

Ha! I think you missed the point. I'm meant to be the 'expert' (I'm not) and I gave myself poor advice in choosing badly from my own stock!

I tend to agree with wacko on the Provence Rosé. I drink it and enjoy it when I'm poured some, but rarely take it home myself. We sell loads of it in the summer.
 
You are supposed to be the cellar ! Surely your contacts in the business can help you out: or has it all gone to USA/China ? I'm hoping France will have a trade war with both of them and keep it all in Europe...
I buy PN from New Zealand and SA these days.

Got any recommendations for SA? I went last year and couldn't find any PN that I preferred to a decent Burgundy, might be going again later in the year.
 
Mainly generic stuff this festive season. The stand out bottle was consumed last night, a Dolce 2011 Late Harvest Wine from Napa. Absolutely superb.
 
Only drink rose in summer. Preferably in Europe. Preferably with a view of something. Otherwise meh.
Agree. Rose de Provence is great in Provence on a terrasse in front of a cafe, less so in Leeds in October.
Best I ever saw with RdP was on a cycling holiday in the Alpes de Haute Provence, my pal and I had stopped for the day and were having a beer. A white van parked up and out got 3 men in overalls, filthy with dust. They smacked the dust off with the usual cries of "Thank Christ that's over, bloody hell, state of those timbers, thought I'd never get off that roof" and the usual. They sat down, said hello to the barman, nodded and "bonjour" to me and my pal, "Yes bloody right we want a drink Gaston, after the way we've been working, bloody parched we are. A carafe, 3 glasses, get one for yourself" . My pal and I just sat there with our demis, bemused at the sight of 3 builders in filthy overalls sipping rose wine while they told the tale of what a bloody awful job this roof was.
 
Got any recommendations for SA? I went last year and couldn't find any PN that I preferred to a decent Burgundy, might be going again later in the year.

I bought Crystallum Cinema. All depends what you mean by decent burgundy...
 
Still Christmas, I’m told by those that care about these things. Monkfish on the menu tonight. I thought about one of these to go with it, picked up in Auchan on the way home a couple of weeks ago for about 10€ each...

To say I did a double take when I saw a Burn bottle on the shelf is an understatement. It was a bit like finding Glenfarclas 25yo marked down 30% at Tesco.

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Burn is my favourite Alsace producer, although I haven’t visited much in the last decade as there has been a huge increase in demand for and price of their wines in that period, mainly down to R*bert P*rker. I’ll definitely spend way too much there when I’m in Alsace next month, though. I’ll balance it out by walking (or swaying) the 100 yards down the cobbled street to buy some everyday drinking wine at the splendid and lesser-known Clement Weck.

I knew absolutely nothing about the Klipfel, but it was a 2015 VT, so I took a punt. When I got home I looked it up in Tom Stevenson’s Big Black Book of Alsace and was pleased to see he rates Clos Zisser pretty highly.

But back to the monkfish - in the end I thought I’d leave those two bottles in the ancestral cellars for a bit and instead go back to one of my Monoprix bargains from last year, the Zind-Humbrecht Gewürz. Sadly only one bottle of each of these left down there now...


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Thoroughly enjoying a bottle or three of Paul Blanck Gewürztraminer. Not a wine I’ve tasted much over the years. Would welcome other similar recommendations in the £15 - £20 range.
 
^^ amazing prices. Don't think I've ever seen Zind discounted. Haven't had the Blanck but I should have.
Only just recovered and a couple of friends coming for dinner tomorrow... They are Italian so I'll open a Quintarelli Valpolicella for them and let them compare it to a Ridge Geyserville: a fair fight.
 
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