Spanish muscle and English passion

Wine tasting (read quaffing), is once again proving to be a lovely distraction from the hum-drum of everyday life. Not that the expansion of my family from 3 to 4 is hum-drum; far from it – but there is a certain routine of going to work to a job you aren’t particularly enjoying at the moment

I’ve preoccupied my time looking on LinkedIn a fair bit – at roles that I’m suited to, that look great, that I’ve even applied for to get the practice – only to fall short. What am I doing wrong? Is it me? Is it them? Anxiety creeps in, pulse races, nerves jangle.

Probably not the best time turn to the bottle then. And yet, when things are hum-drum you do turn to things you know; a renewed sense of passion for things that usually fall away when life is, on the whole more varied and interesting. Plus I have two kids now, so actually wine is practically the one thing keeping me sane.

Two outstanding bottles to share this week, first this fine Spanish beauty Huerta de Albala Barbazul 2012 which arrived in my wine box from Highbury Vintners earlier in the month. This is gorgeous, muscular and inky, quite Rhone-like. It’s from the Cadiz region of Spain (which tends to grow a lot of red Bordeaux varietals) – made most famous by Sherry – and is a combo of syrah and cab-sauv. My scrawled notes say; tight, black fruit, baked figs, meaty. I really enjoyed this gutsy number.

Score: 4/5 and a big shout on the Arnie-ometer ‘Do it. Come on. Do it now!‘

Label: a stunning, embossed ‘White Horse’ motif. I’d love to know how this was inspired. Given it is nearly identical to the white horse in Oxfordshire, I wonder if there’s a connection somehow.

Price: £10.90 (Highbury Vintners)

Courtesy of Visituk.com

Next up is my first ever UK wine. Ok so I’ve drunk plenty of English wine, but never reviewed it, and certainly haven’t paid it much attention. Don’t know why when English wine is getting rave reviews everywhere, especially the sparkling wine.

Stopham Estate’s Pinot Blanc 2013 is, quite simply, stunning. If I blind tasted this, I would never ever guess this was English. It’s quite full and the initial zip of sweetness is beautifully countered by intense acidity and dryness. The flavours are really quite tropical; guava/passion fruit, pink grapefruit and gooseberry. I was more of a fan than my wife, and definitely will be getting some more of this.

Score: 4/5 and another ‘Do it. Come on. Do it now!‘ from Mr Schwarzenegger

Label: Not really a fan. Pretty basic, but probably reflects the fact that they don’t have the budget for fancy designers.

Price: £14.99 (Waitrose)

@jk_cunningham

Play it again Sam

Humphrey Bogart’s eponymous character in Casablanca never actually says ‘Play it again Sam’. It’s one of the most misquoted film lines of all time – right up there with Dirty Harry, Star Wars and the Graduate.

Matetic Vineyards’ Corralillo Riesling from Chile’s Casablanca region is a mis-nothing; in fact it’s absolutely on the money, for me at least.

By god I loved this wine. Riesling is my greatest white wine love. If I could only have one white grape for the rest of my life, Riesling would be it hands down; the different expressions for me – from the absolutely razor sharp bone dry, to off-dry richer styles – are simply wonderful.

I think this is the first Chilean Riesling I’ve had, and given Casablanca’s coastal location, this is super-charged, practically popping back out of your throat! It’s all saline, kerosene, grapefruit peel, lime and tart, under-ripe green apples. There’s also a beguiling floral note to it, that lifts it from being dagger-to-the-jugular dry (a bone-crunching 6.3 gr/l on the residual sugar levels) to something all together more intriguing.

It’s a pungent one and won’t be to everyone’s taste but I LOVE IT.

Scores on the doors:

Overall remarks: Arnie says ‘You’re a choirboy compared to me!‘  = 5 points!

Packaging: a simplistic horse with a few too many legs or a very large tail? It conjures up images of a hardy donkey or a South American child’s toy?

Eco-credentials: None

Price: £13.50 from my local wine shop but possibly cheaper elsewhere online

@jk_cunningham

 

Ciu Ciu and Ciu again

Straight off I really liked the Ciu Ciu ‘Le Merlettaie’ Pecorino 2014. I’d just got home with Ashley and as soon as I walked through the door was gagging for some wine.

This is chewable. It’s got depth and a density to it, quite viscous-like and fat but with a decent punch of acidity to go with lovely baked apple, pear, grapefruit peel and something floral.

It’s way too easy to drink. If it were a school night I’d be careful, but as I wrote this on Friday night, my wife was in with baby #2 (Astrid) trying to get her to sleep, even after I’d already done an hour of fruitless labour; as you can imagine it went down easily…

Scores on the doors:

Overall remarks: Arnie says ‘Get to the chopper!‘ = solid 3 points

Packaging: delightfully heavy and tapered bottle, with a lovely embossed image of a sort of medieval Italian piazza with some children holding what look like severed heads or helmets?? I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to what it is, but I’m stumped.

Eco-credentials: gets a bonus point because it is certified Organic and Vegan according to CCPB – the Italian non-food organic certifier.

Price: Some retailers like Buonvino do it for £12.95. I got mine from Highbury Vintners for essentially £10.90 (less 10% as a wine club member)

 

 

Waa waa whine whine wine

Hola. I’m looking forward to writing again about wine , but also London/Dad observations (now with two kids, one a bit of a whiner) as and when they come to me.

Over the last year wine has basically just been another thing on the shopping list, not really something to savour – especially with belt-tightening as life in London with kids takes its toll on the finances. I mindlessly add bottles to the Ocado shop, or grab and go – a depressingly sad state of affairs.

Wine has become a necessary staple since baby #2 came a long (*am I one of those middle class alchies?).  If any of you are familiar with Hurrah for Gin‘s hilarious take on parenting and the need for a drop of alcohol to stay sane, you’ll know what I mean. We probably get through half a bottle between us per night; the fuzz of wine before the dream-feed/night-feed stretch and my crunchingly painful 6.15am wake up call (not complete till Ashley is heard shouting ‘Daddy get out of bed and play with me‘) is welcomed after a day at the office….

Well fuck that. I love wine too much to let a WSET Advanced qualification go down the pisser just because I’m lazy and buy crap for a tenner from my local mini-market (which, to give it it’s dues now does a hipsterishly-good selection of London-brewed beers).

Primarily I’ll be reviewing wines from the following sources;

• my own stash of laid down wines at Fine & Rare and The Wine Society
• the monthly wine club box put together by the wonderful team at Highbury Vintners
• the occasional supermarket stop off when I’m being lazy and/or if my Mother in Law comes round with tropical-fruit-mouth-bomb NZ sauvignon…

I’ll probably do a rating based on WSET’s systematic system, overall remarks will be Arnold Schwarzenegger-based, along the lines of:

• ‘You’re a choirboy compared to me!‘ = WSET Outstanding = 5 points
• ‘Do it. Come on. Do it now!‘ = Very good = 4
• ‘Get to the chopper!‘ = Good = 3
• ‘Chill out dickwad‘ = Acceptable = 2
• ‘Screw you!‘ = Poor = 1

Packaging; labels are art nowadays and since packaging has become an integral part of the experience, I’ll provide some commentary on label and story-telling.

Eco-credentials bonus; if there is any indication about eco-production method, sustainability/biodiversity credentials disclosed there will be a bonus point.

Retail price (if possible I’ll state the en-primeur price if relevant)- note that I pay 10% less with my vintner because they kindly knock that off for the monthly subs.

@jk_cunningham