Italian White - Pinot Grigio

Flexing my wine selection rules once again as my shopping opportunities were limited and the alphabet thing is only really there to keep me looking for something to try. Anything, really.

I remember, with some shame, how back in 2012 when the man who had been recruited to fill permanently the job in which I been acting on a temporary basis for the preceding year suggested we should select the house Pinot Grigio, as we first found ourselves entertaining the team for whom responsibility was being transferred, and I felt this showed he was going to be a 'lowest common denominator' type of boss, and that this would somehow enhance my legacy. I was partly right.

I have since come to appreciate that not all Pinot Grigio is non-descript white plonk, so:

Week I (2021) The Society's Pinot Grigio 2018. The Wine Society £8.50 

Pinot Grigio is also known as Pinot Gris in some parts of the world and I do remember tasting St Clair Pioneer Block Pinot Gris, from New Zealand, and being astounded by how rich and tropical it was.  That wine, and others I have tasted from Alsace, is probably an unfair benchmark for the grape generally, but for the price this one puts up a good show.

The Wine Society is of course a long-standing and reliable co-operative society that exists to provide its members with good quality wines from right across the price ranges. Their 'own brand' range of 'The Society's....' wines are made exclusively for the society by established producers. In this case, the Pinot Grigio, the producer is Alpha Zeta who are based in the hills around Verona in North-Eastern Italy. Alpha Zeta have been making wines since the end of the 20th Century, having been created by a New Zealand winemaker, Matt Thomson.

This one is very pleasant. A only £8.50 a bottle it represents great value and is a good example of  why prejudice about any grape variety is a stupid thing. It is more than moderately intense in its flavours, which include both citrus and floral tones, both of them remaining on the palate for a pleasing amount of time. It is quite dry but not in a sharp way and feels quite full possibly because of the 13% abv.

This bottle accompanied a game of Scrabble, the fourth in succession I have lost to The One, which itself preceded a lunch of an excellent white onion soup that made a comfortable partner to the wine. It was finished off with a peanut and cheese cracker collation in front of episode 2 of Bloodlands. It fitted the bill very nicely over its three outings.

I once stayed in the hotel used in Bloodlands as the kidnap location where a man with a certain past was held. A remarkable place which had also been used as the location for Hotel Splendide, a film with reviews as diverse as 'Oddball, Quirky Good Fun' to 'I have never before truly HATED a movie, but this cycnical nightmare......etc'.  Guinness can be delivered quite slowly all throughout the island of Ireland, but this place probably holds some kind of record. Watch the film and if you are ever near Newcastle pop in for a pint and a long wait.

Oh, would I buy again? Yes.

Hedonist

I like the idea of a wine called the Hedonist, especially at present when the nearest I get to hedonism is drinking the wine. We are expecting to hear from the government tomorrow on when any kind of social activity may once again be permitted without the need for intermediary technology. In my family February is a month of post Christmas celebration, including as it does Valentine's Day, at least two birthdays and a wedding anniversary, and this year there has been an addition to the family who I would dearly love to meet before he starts school, so I hope the news is good.

Until we know when normal life beckons I will continue to enjoy what can be enjoyed which this week:

Week H (2021) The Hedonist Shiraz 2018. £14.49 Waitrose. 

I learn from the producer's website that the grapes for this wine were harvested almost exactly three years ago on 18th Feb 2018. For various reasons that I won't type out just for the sake of it and you can read here they describe the vintage as 'standout'. 

Various portions of the juice spent a year in different sized oak fermenters before the final blend was assembled. Blend in this case means the mixing the same juice that had been treated differently, rather than putting together the juice from a number of different grape varieties.

The result is certainly enjoyable. The bottle has a little sticker proudly displaying the Gold Medal from the Decanter Wine Awards. I'm not always persuaded that wine competitions are a reliable barometer of a wine's quality, especially at the lower levels where there is a suspicion that just turning up and not being faulty gets a Bronze, but this one seems well-deserved.

It is a full bodied, smooth feeling and well-structured wine, bursting with the kind of fruit you should expect from South Australia without being jammy and unbalanced. There is some acidity to match the fruit, the tannin is smooth and the flavour profile is not just all kinds of black and purple berries, but also has some spices and liquorice hints. It packs a punch at 14% and went very nicely with the slow-cooked Ox cheeks, which I suspect I have mentioned before.

I bought this on the same day as some Italian Primitivo that a friend recommended as a bargain being sold by Aldi at £4.99 a bottle. It was a good call as that turned out to be a very easily drinkable red, even if it was a little one dimensional. This was three times the price and worth it but I probably shouldn't get into the habit on those days when I just fancy a glass of TV wine.

I have tried this wine at least once before. That was back in 2013 when I presented it as part of a 'wines of South Australia' tasting for a U3A group in North London. They liked it, too.  I liked them and hope that they are all still sipping away despite the pandemic and look forward to seeing them again one day.

Buy again? Yes.

Garnacha Blanca

If February has ides, then these are they. Nothing to fear other than the continuation of the recent cold snap and the threat of slippery doorsteps. I forked out £8.99 on 25kg of Rock Salt on the basis that the Beast from the East was about to reappear, courtesy of Storm Darcy, but although we did have an attractive covering of snow and temperatures down to -7℃, I still have 25kg of the stuff, should you need any.

Not really white wine weather, however, according to my own rules which only I am allowed to break, this week requires a white grape and as on this occasion I have found one whose name begins with the letter of the week we will try:

Week G (2021) Jordi Miro Garnacha Blanca, 2018. M&S £9.

Garnacha Blanca, or as the French say Grenache Blanc (or the English, White Grenache) is one of Spain's less widely known varieties. There is as much of it in South West France as thee is in Eastern Spain where it can appear in Priorat and Rioja amongst other regions.

In France it also can be part of the blends of white Chateauneuf-du-Pape (yes, it can be white) and Cotes du Rhone, and also in the sweet Vin Doux Naturel of Rivesaltes in Roussillon.

It is naturally low in acidity, has a tendency to oxidise easily which can lead to off-flavours such as an undesirable Sherry-like tang, but can provide softness in blend.

This wine is a single variety wine and so the grapes used are 100% Garnacha Blanca. It has a slightly oily mouth-feel and my instant reaction was 'ho-hum'. I first tried it alongside a quite creamy turkey, ham and mushroom pie and that may not have given it the greatest opportunity to show its best face. A wine with more acidity would have cut through the texture of the sauce a given a better balance.

I came back to the second half of the bottle twice over the following two days. The third showing was its best, when it accompanied nothing more epicurean than the remnants of a sharing sized bag of honey roast peanuts and an episode of Mastermind. On that occasion I noticed the reasonably lengthy finish that had some rather appealing tropical fruit notes. It is labeled at 13.5% abv and this with the mouthfeel ruled out the possibility of it being described as light, but I wouldn't call it rich.

I suspect it would have impressed a little more had I tried it in the summer. Not a bad wine, but neither a memorable one. Would I buy it again? No, because it doesn't stand out from the crowd of £9 wines sufficiently well to make itself special.

Did I ever tell you about how I failed the second round audition for Mastermind? (Apparently, yes, in August 2015. Apologies for banging on about it.)

Fusion

No, not a blend of Jazz and Funk, or even something clever with sub-atomic particles, but a fusion nonetheless. I have just checked back through my wines of the week and find I have sampled 144 wines to date and none of them has been from Margaret River, Western Australia. I find this very surprising as it is a region which, to my tastes, produces a consistent high quality and often good value output.

Week F (2021) Xanadu Fusion, Margaret River 2018. M&S £12.

Xanadu is not a winery I have previously come across, but they have an interesting history and plenty of awards to boot.  Started by an Irish immigrant doctor in the late 1970s and later bought by the family behind the wines of Yering Sation in the Yarra Valley, whose Pinot Noir is a particular favourite. 

What is curious is that their website makes no mention, that I can find, of this particular wine. I did wonder if they had discontinued this wine but further investigation reveals it can be bought in Woolworths, just not the erstwhile UK purveyor of pick-and-mix, but the Aussie supermarket that remains very hail and undoubtedly hearty, so perhaps it's just bottled for those outlets rather than direct sales.

I had assumed that Fusion probably referred to a Bordeaux blend of grapes but on reading the back label find it is attributed to wine being the fusion of environment and people, art and science, time and place, and this wine being a blend of all of these elements.

This a slightly romantic bit of marketing guff, but the label needs to be filled with something. Unless of course you are old-school French in which case it might just shrug. Either way, it is a delicious, full-bodied fruit and spice mix with firm but ripe tannins and quite an alcoholic punch at 14.5%, according to the label.

It is quite typical of Cabernet Sauvignon from Margaret River and that is, for me, a good thing. I have fairly frequently bought Vasse Felix's Filius bottling and this compares well to that with the added advantage of being a tiny bit cheaper.

Will I buy it again? Yes.