Happy Christmas 2020

 Happy Christmas, one and all!

Just in case this is the only historical record recovered by some future generation, you should know that 2020 has been an unusual year. However, I am not prepared to allow it to become the third year since I started this little blog to have no entries at all. I have added the bread and cheese pages this year, but wine is where I started and I am determined (yet again) to re-establish a habit of exploration and comment. Unless there is a radical change it is likely I will have enough time on my hands to get back into the swi(n)g of my little project, given that the Covid-19 pandemic looks set to continue into a second year despite the recent start of the vaccination programmes. Enough of that.

Weeks 1-52 (2020) Tesco Finest Barolo 2011. £17 for the current wine.

I have had this one in the cupboard for at least four years, so I can't remember what I paid for it at the time. It may even have been a present which, if that was the case, is greatly appreciated.

Usually, when I drink Barolo I find it to be an enjoyable experience, but it is all too rare an occurrence. I think this is because of an earlier experience, between 15 and 20 years ago, when I bought a bottle along with a small baguette and some pate on the way home from the station to make a light supper. That's a polite way of saying 'to have something to eat whilst drinking an entire bottle of wine in front of the television', which was something of a habit during a less than satisfactory period in my personal life. My education in wine had not started at that point, but I must have been sufficiently aware of wine to know that Barolo could be special, otherwise I would have picked up the supermarket red with the best discount. I remember wanting a big, rich juicy-fruit type of wine that would be easy to drink and that would wash down the fatty pate and leave me ready for bed. I think I must  have tasted some Barolo somewhere previously, and enjoyed it, but my recollection of why was obviously unreliable. The wine I had was very dry, had astringent tannins (not a phrase I would have understood at the time) and was high in acidity. I was most disappointed and I am not sure I even drank much of it. I think it was this bad selection, made in not unreasonable ignorance, that has left its mark and made me unreasonably timid about the wine.

As this year Christmas lunch was an intimate affair just for me and The One, who is not a keen wine-bibber, I thought I would put to the test the advice that I have read quite widely that Barolo makes a good partner for a turkey and sprout blow out. I took the precaution of decanting the contents of the bottle (using the ornate decanting funnel given to me by generous friends earlier this year to mark a significant birthday) a few hours before what became a late afternoon meal, and although I did not taste it both pre- and post-decantation and so cannot be sure, I think this was a beneficial approach.

I thought it was lovely. The One didn't, for reasons not dissimilar to those matching my historic disappointment, but even on a good day red wines of most types are not really her thing. It had the acidity to cut through the phenomenally luscious gravy, the restrained tannins to prop up the turkey and stuffing and the complexity to compete with and complement everything else. I didn't finish the bottle with the meal, even if it would have been more acceptable on Christmas Day than on a school night, but saved about half of it for Ron. (Later, Ron.)

When I returned to it on what was probably Boxing Day, I think I enjoyed it even more. The meal was much the same as the previous day, given that a 4 kilo turkey is a bit more than two of us could devour in one go, so it was either the extra time it had spent in the decanter or, more likely, something about my taste buds / demeanour / expectations / weather / what was on the telly, that made the difference. 

Labelled as Tesco Finest this wine was made by Cantine Ascheri Giacomo, a great producer who is based in Bra, Piedmont, where in September 2019 with some friends we visited the International Cheese Festival. But that's another story.