When looking for a red O, for week O (2013), I resorted to Otago in the South island of New Zealand and I have gone there again in lieu of a W.
This was something of an act of desperation, as I was running out of time when I found myself in Tescos stocking up on cat food. We get through a lot of that, which is not surprising as we share our home with two cats, and also a remarkable amount of toilet rolls which we put down to sharing our house with another member of the family who is either stockpiling the stuff for when the balloon goes up or secretly insulating the cavity walls with it.
My desperation has also lead me into a corner of the wine world into which I have not knowingly ventured before, but I'll explain that in a minute.
Week W (2015) Wairau Cove, Pinot Noir 2013. Tesco £9
There's a clue on the label about this wine in that it is described as coming from Wairau Cove, South Island, New Zealand. Now, if you got to Google Maps and search for Wairau Cove (I know because I have) you are not immediately transported to the southern hemisphere but instead offered some alternatives. These alternatives are influenced by the location from which your search is conducted. In my case that's near Tring at the north-east corner of the Chilterns, so my options were: Majestic Wines in Berkhamsted, the Wine Society in Stevenage and the Oriental Express takeaway in Weybridge.
Why the hell is that, I hear you thinking? (You aren't? Hmm, curious.) Well the answer is as simple as it is obvious. Wairau Cove is not a wine growing region but a brand. The labeling of the wine as coming from South Island, New Zealand, means that the grapes that have been squished into this bottle could have originated anywhere in the lower half of their home nation.
The back label reveals more home truths. 'Imported and bottled by Kingsland, UK' and that tells us that after fermentation this wine made its way by sea all the way from the antipodes to Manchester in a 20,000 litre bag-in-box, otherwise known as a shipping container before being bottled and distributed to supermarkets.
What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing, however, this is the previously uninvestigated corner of the wine world; 'bulk wine'. Now, from a carbon footprint perspective there is a strong argument for transporting wine without also having to transport 28,500 glass bottles but that's not the only feature of bulk wine.
Part of the charm of wine, for me, is the opportunity to investigate of all of the influences that influence what sits (usually briefly) in my glass. These grapes didn't come from a single place and so the notion of the style of the wine representing the site in which they were grown is invalidated.
Does that matter? Well, the romance of the subject is diminished, but if the drink is still as pleasing then so what? Like most Pinot Noir wines this is a pale to medium intensity ruby red wine (ok, an expensively aged Grand Cru Burgundy will have more interesting hues) with clean, fresh red fruit aromas. It tastes smooth and fruity, isn't sharp or jarring, but does have a slightly confected, almost Jelly-Baby fruit tones. It is not unpleasant.
There was a little part of me that wanted this wine, which was selected quickly without knowledge of what it was, to really challenge my preconceptions and prejudices about bulk wine which had been based only on reading rather than experiment. It didn't. I said it wasn't unpleasant, and it wasn't, but that is an example of something being damned with feint praise. It's simply not exciting in any way and that's a pity because for a drinkable Pinot Noir, £9 is a steal.
This was something of an act of desperation, as I was running out of time when I found myself in Tescos stocking up on cat food. We get through a lot of that, which is not surprising as we share our home with two cats, and also a remarkable amount of toilet rolls which we put down to sharing our house with another member of the family who is either stockpiling the stuff for when the balloon goes up or secretly insulating the cavity walls with it.
My desperation has also lead me into a corner of the wine world into which I have not knowingly ventured before, but I'll explain that in a minute.
There's a clue on the label about this wine in that it is described as coming from Wairau Cove, South Island, New Zealand. Now, if you got to Google Maps and search for Wairau Cove (I know because I have) you are not immediately transported to the southern hemisphere but instead offered some alternatives. These alternatives are influenced by the location from which your search is conducted. In my case that's near Tring at the north-east corner of the Chilterns, so my options were: Majestic Wines in Berkhamsted, the Wine Society in Stevenage and the Oriental Express takeaway in Weybridge.
Why the hell is that, I hear you thinking? (You aren't? Hmm, curious.) Well the answer is as simple as it is obvious. Wairau Cove is not a wine growing region but a brand. The labeling of the wine as coming from South Island, New Zealand, means that the grapes that have been squished into this bottle could have originated anywhere in the lower half of their home nation.
The back label reveals more home truths. 'Imported and bottled by Kingsland, UK' and that tells us that after fermentation this wine made its way by sea all the way from the antipodes to Manchester in a 20,000 litre bag-in-box, otherwise known as a shipping container before being bottled and distributed to supermarkets.
What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing, however, this is the previously uninvestigated corner of the wine world; 'bulk wine'. Now, from a carbon footprint perspective there is a strong argument for transporting wine without also having to transport 28,500 glass bottles but that's not the only feature of bulk wine.
Part of the charm of wine, for me, is the opportunity to investigate of all of the influences that influence what sits (usually briefly) in my glass. These grapes didn't come from a single place and so the notion of the style of the wine representing the site in which they were grown is invalidated.
Does that matter? Well, the romance of the subject is diminished, but if the drink is still as pleasing then so what? Like most Pinot Noir wines this is a pale to medium intensity ruby red wine (ok, an expensively aged Grand Cru Burgundy will have more interesting hues) with clean, fresh red fruit aromas. It tastes smooth and fruity, isn't sharp or jarring, but does have a slightly confected, almost Jelly-Baby fruit tones. It is not unpleasant.
There was a little part of me that wanted this wine, which was selected quickly without knowledge of what it was, to really challenge my preconceptions and prejudices about bulk wine which had been based only on reading rather than experiment. It didn't. I said it wasn't unpleasant, and it wasn't, but that is an example of something being damned with feint praise. It's simply not exciting in any way and that's a pity because for a drinkable Pinot Noir, £9 is a steal.
No comments:
Post a Comment