Villa Maria 2006 Sauvignon Blanc
This comes up as a freebie at work functions.
Smell is faint, but consists of Gooseberries, tropical fruit and Grassy Meadow
Taste follows the nose, but the wine is tends toward the acid, even for a Sauvignon Blanc. However, it could charitably be described as "refreshing", especailly nicely chilled on a hot day.
Montana 2006 South Island Pinot Noir
The red that gets rolled out at work functions.
Smelling and drinking this could be compared to eating a fruit salad of cherries and strawberries, sprinkled with a little chocolate and with generous helpings of the planet leaves left in. It has reasonable levels of flavour, reasonable complexity and reasonable balance - average, but certainly not in a bad way.
Lamberts Bay 2006 Grenache-Syrah
This turned up as a freebie in a holiday home we rented.
Smells faintly of blackcurrant & oak wood.
Tastes equally faintly of blackcurrant and more obviously of oak with attendent vanilla & spice, but even this is not strong. Curious tannin - mouth coating yet not astringent. Very 'meh' but not actually unpleasant to drink.
Asda "La Comida" Vino de Mesa
Another freebie in a different holiday home
Smells of oak.
Texture is thin and watery. Taste is unpleasantly acid and slightly bitter with some flavour of oak and cherries.
La Chasse du Pape 2006 Shiraz
Bought on a recommendation from a Malcolm Gluck column, who gave it 16/20 for a paltry £4 a bottle. My suspicions ought to have been aroused by the fact it's labelled "Shiraz" even though it's Vin de Pays d'Oc, and not from the new world.
Aroma of violet and red berry - just like it says on the bottle!
Has classic Shiraz flavours of capsicum, black pepper and perfumed violets but absolutely no worthwhile fruit that I can detect. Wine is also poorly balanced with both excess acid and tannin dominating the flavour, although it does at least carry its medium body well.
Villa Albali "Caliza" 2005 Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon
Was one of my favourite wines before becoming a wine geek, so had a few bottles left over when I stopped buying wine at the supermarket
Aroma of the wine is completely dominated by redcurrant and toast and is really rather enticing - I quite enjoyed sniffing the wine between mouthfuls.
The first thing you notice on tasting the wine is slightly excessive tannin and acid - the initial flavour is sharp and it feels thick and furry on the teeth and tongue. This is a great shame because once you're past this the flavour is excellent - deep fruit notes of red and blackcurrant, cherry and damson beautifully balanced by earthier tones of tobacco and toast. A slight spice accompanies the wine throughout the mouthful, although the finish is short and it doesn't linger.
La Cuvee Mythique 2003
Another pre-geek favourite of which I had a few bottles to polish off.
Smell of red berries and toasted oak.
Although slightly on the acidic side, the palate is pleasingly complex with good flavours of cherry, redcurrant, coffee, liquorice, smoke and oak notes all competeting vigourously for space on your tongue.
Faustino VII 2005 Rioja
Yet another pre-geek favourite, which I couldn't resist snapping up when I spotted it on special offer.
Vivid smell of oak and redcurrant.
Initial flavour on the palate is unpleasantly astringent - dominated by woody oak and overly acid. However, this does give way to some strawberry and redcurrant flavour mixed with a hint of perfumed violets. The finish is nice, as the fruit finally blossoms and develops that classic Rioja jamminess.
So, revisiting these notes, what conclusions can I draw?
That, effectively, finding good wine - unless one is exceptionally knowledgable - is always a gamble. When you swap cheap mass-produced wine for more expensive specially selected wine what you're effectively doing is tilting the odds increasingly in your favour. It's possible to find good wine at a low price on your local supermarket shelves, but you're more likely to end up with something fairly nasty. It's equally possible to pay through the nose for quite poor wine from a specialist, but it's more likely you'll get a great bottle.
As usual, you pays your money and you takes your choice
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I guess his most infamous quote was that Cava was better than Krug, but that's merely one amongst many. Fair enough if that's his palate preference, but his career as a critic has brought him his fair share of ridicule.