Chateau Giscours 1995

My friend opened a bottle of this wine the other day at a wine shop. He had been purchasing some wines and asking my wife and I for some advice, and in the end he opened up some bottles he bought for immediate tasting, including this 20 year old claret. Not being one of the better known stars of the Margaux appellation, this aged Bordeaux was really charming that day.

This wine showed a dark ruby rim encircling dark core, and a sweet fruity acid plummy nose wafted from the bottle. The palate was sweet slightly tannic and fruity palate, going onto a soft acid tannic backbone giving good support. Nice now and still capable of giving much pleasure for some years yet.

YCHDA wine dinner 2015

As I blogged a month ago, I had set the theme for this dinner to be cost effective drinking. The wine list turned out to be exclusively from France and Spain, covering a champagne, a Sancerre, even a red Bordeaux (from Listrac) and a couple of Southern Rhones (a Gigondas and a Chateauneuf du Papes). The Spanish ones include the Bodegas Castano Solanera VV 2012 I blogged about previously, and the Englora of which I had previously blogged about its second wine ( as being more value for money).

Well on the night, the champagne was well received (and familiar to some) and the Sancerre though not typical was pleasing enough, and matched the fish appetizer well. As for the clash between the French and the Spanish reds, quite a few like the Fourcas Borie. Others plumbed for the Englora but more for the Solanera. It wasn't as if the Rhones were not appreciated, but just that those that were previously were considered the wines of the night.

Stumbling upon some serious Sauternes at a local supermarket

I went to one of the bigger branches of one of the top 2 supermarket chains near my home and saw a couple of very interesting half bottles on their shelves. Of course no one there realized what these were, and they have not even got the price labels for the wines. I had to ask someone to take it to the cashier to scan it for the price. Needless to say, having established the price of the wine, they were quite amazed that anyone would be interested in half bottles at that price. I thought the price was nonetheless reasonable and these bottles have found their way to my home.

Grower's Champagne

 
(Image from Decanter Website) 

There was this article about grower's champagne in Decanter recently and suddenly I got a promotion email from a wine merchant about it (although they were actually only promoting one such estate); one could be mistaken into thinking that this is the leading edge of a big trend. Well, I don't know about that but it is always interesting to see Decanter's recommendations. The 10 wines featured contained 3 familiar names, though I had only bought (but need to check notes or storage to see if I had already tasted it) only one of them.

I had known about Tarlant and Vilmart and even saw some of their products in the first of the neighbourhood wines shops I befriended, but I had bought a Pierre Peters NV wine from the Club some time ago. Before that, I had bought some champagne from the Champagne House and they had been selling champagne from the Tarlant and Vilmart, but looking up their website now, they still stock Vilmart wines, but not Tarlant, and they also have Hebrart and David Léclapart too.

Wither Hills

Someone introduced us to Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc when everyone was raving about Cloudy Bay's offering. We were  impressed and went on to follow this estate's Sauvignon Blanc wines for some years. The exotic tropical fruit nose and crisp acidity made it a useful food pairing wine especially for people like us who like to eat a lot of fish and seafood (though it does not always prove a good match).

Founded in 1994 by Brent Marris, a former winemaker at Delegat's and sold to the Lion Nathan group in 2002, the winery was known for making good Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. There was a scandal over a Sauvignon Blanc competition entry at which Marris was also judging resulting in the disqualification of the winery's entry.

The challenge of finding cost-effective wines (Old World)

Having tasted a few Spanish wines which are competitively priced, yet garnering RP90 or over has led me to set the theme of this year's Doctors' Association wine dinner as cost-effective imbibing.I thought it would be fun to set the price at below $300 a bottle (or $400 of the special offer price at which the bottle is bought was <$300).

One would quite automatically think of a number of New World countries where such value can be obtained, but I wondered if we can find the same in established Old World countries. It turned out to be possible, and one can even find a claret or maybe two! Sweet wines are a challenge from the Old World, but then we tend to open half bottles rather than full 750ml bottles. So the price restriction the applies to the smaller bottles (375 or 500 ml bottles) which are normally opened at the end of the meal, even when full bottles are drunk in the main meal. Watch this space for further updates.

Interesting Piedmont Whites

(Image from Decanter Website)

There was this recent article introducing 2014 Piedmont white wines in Decanter. Although I had only tasted one of the recommended wines from another vintage, I had actually sampled all the interesting indigenous grape varieties these wines were made from. Actually, I was unsure about the Morasso from Cascina Montagnola, but that turned out to be made from Timorasso, which I had tasted before. Gavi (from Cortese) and Roero Arneis are probebly not unfamiliar to many, but Timorasso, Favorita and Erbaluce are probably rather unknown.

Two grapes were featured three times each Arneis and Erbaluce, and it was one of the latter that I had tried - the Orsolani La Rustia Erbaluce di Caluso (though of the 2010 vintage). You can look up the Decanter article for their notes of the 2014 vintage, but as for the wine I tasted in the 2012 Wine Fair, it was a straw yellow with a crisp nose hinting of citrus notes. These notes carried through to the palate, evolving into a lemony acid backbone. The article suggested their selection are all food friendly wines, and I can think of many a fish dish which would go with the wine I had tasted some 3 years ago.