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From:
Mark
Category: Wine
Date: 25/11/2006
Time: 18:59:46
Majestic Wine Warehouse seems to go from strength to strength. Always hitting the right notes in terms of interest, quality and variety. This season is no different and alongside Waitrose are the two shining stars of the 'mass' wine retail market. Although not a place to go for one bottle of wine (minimum of case case purchase necessary) if you are stocking up for the festive season then you could lose yourself in here for quite a while.
Due to the sheer size of the recommendations (and I use a pretty strict criteria!) I have decide to split Majestic's recommendations into two parts - White and Sparkling and Red and Fortified - to be published separately. Please find the Reds and the Fortifieds below:
RED
Château de Pennautier Cabardès 2005 Cabardès, Languedoc-Roussillon, France £5.98
Cabardes is a very recent Appellation (1999) and is a very strange place. The law allows wines to be made from blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Grenache, Cot (Malbec) and Fer Servadou! This is not a single varietal type of area! As a result of masterful blending you can get an amazing range of flavours that a single varietal simply cannot produce. This affordable, entry-level wine, whilst not one to move earth will still give you a quality insight into this new area. Vibrant raspberry red fruits, blackcurrant leaf,
mace-spice, crisp, medium bodied, a little rustic but really interesting for the price.
Camplazens Syrah 2005 Vin de Pays d'Oc, Languedoc-Roussillon, France £6.49 - Buy 2 save £2.00 = £5.49
This youthful red from the South of France is a dead ringer for the style of wines you get further north in the Northern Rhone. Owned by an English couple this mid-weight wine has a dollop of toasty oak with an aromatic
blend of damson, citrus peel and a hint of the garrigue (herby scrub).
Opague young ruby colour with a soft baked, sweet plummy, fruits of the forest fruit a ripe but fresh nose laced with a toasty oak, spice and the slightest
whiff of capsicum and parma violet.
Château Guiot 2005, Costières de Nîmes £5.99 - Buy 2 save £2.00 = £4.99
Simply a cracking wine for the price. Real France in a bottle. Beautifully balanced blend of Grenache and Syrah, oozing with forest fruits and herby thyme/sage. All comes packaged in a full but elegant body, rich and with absolutely no rough edges. Very, very classy for the price.
Clos de los Siete 2004 Mendoza, Argentina £10.98
Made under the direction of the second most influential wine 'personage' in the world, Michel Rolland (the first being Robert Parker). Michel consults across the globe but his home is crafting cult wines at scores of Bordeaux estates. With Merlot he is king but he can also weave his magic with another traditional South-West French grape variety, Malbec. This wine is of course from Argentina - a place where Malbec (like it does in Cahors, SW France) excels. Under his expert guidance he has crafted a stupendous wine. Cassis, fruits of the forest, ripe fig and
Swedish liquorice balanced against an overt but finely-grained expert use of French oak. It has excellent weight and
structure. Is this Argentina's best wine?
Barbera d’Alba Sucule, Domini Villae Lanata Cascina Lo Zoccolato, 2003, Piedmont Italy £8.50 - Buy 2 save £1.00 = £7.99
I have a real soft spot for Barbera. Lovely deep colours, soft tannins, refreshing acidity, chocolate and violets, strawberries and cherry fruit and if done correctly has some structure and elegance. This is a great example of this northern Italian grape. Plays second fiddle to Barolo but in my books makes for a more accessible, consistent, loveable wine! Trade in your French varietals, your Cabernets and your Shirazes and make a bee-line for this delicious food friendly concoction.
Vergelegen Mill Race Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2004, Stellenbosch Vergelegen £8.49
I have mentioned Vergelegen before and I have the greatest respect for their wines and winemaking. Their winemaker Andre Van Rensburg produces some of the Cape's finest wines. This is no exception. Serious class in a glass but at a price that would make other Bordeaux blends blush. This wine has great structure, finely
grained tannins, superb balance. Mixing red stoned fruit and pippy berries with a mocha mouthfeel. Well done. So accessible that you may forget it has 14.5% abv!
Wolf Blass Presidents Selection Shiraz 2004, South Australia £12.00
Okay...I try to steer clear of larger producers if at all possible but this Wolf Blass (like some others) is a top, top wine even if it costs a dozen notes. Rich, minty, tannic, concentrated, oaky vanillins, blackberry fruit, toasted spices. Will age very well but drink now and will give you almost as much fun.
Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon 2004, Curicó Valley £9.99 Buy any 2 Chilean wines save 20% = £7.99
I love Aurelio Montes's wines. One of the very top producers in Chile. This benchmark Cabernet is a classic and no claret comes near it for the price. Cassis and currant leaves with
beautifully balanced oak aging (in American oak) giving a vanilla and slight coconut quality to match the slight cedar scent. This is a Medoc-cum-Chile wine.
Winemaker's Lot Carmenère 2005, Lo Makena Vineyard, Maipo Valley £8.49 - Buy any 2 Chilean wines save 20% = £6.79
Carmenère is a speciality of Chile (although it
originally came from Bordeaux). it is very
much like Merlot (often confused) but has an extra dimension (and I think interest) of a leafy and sometimes fresh mulchy type quality. This is a super example from a vineyard that makes
some of the finest in Chile. Rich plum and cassis, dark chocolate, some leafy notes. Well knit and balanced.
Saintsbury Pinot Noir 2003, Carneros,
California £19.99 - Buy any 2 Californian still wines save 20% = £15.98
The classic benchmark Carneros Californian Pinot Noir. I have no
hestitation in recommending this fantastic wine. The quality would cost near double in Burgundy but here you get stronger, riper flavours but in no less a classy package. The natural, non-interventionist winemaking leads to a summer pudding of fruits backed up with mocha and bois de sandale. All perfectly integrated. A true classic. Buy to save 20% and feel good that you have one of the world's finest Pinots.
Penfold's Bin 28, Kalimna Shiraz 2003 South Australia £10.00 - Buy any 2 selected Penfolds wines save 20% = £7.99
Kalimna fruit used to (it might still be in small quantities) go into the legendary Penfold's Grange (£130-200 a bottle). This wine demonstrates why Penfolds sets itself apart from the other larger operators in terms of quality and style at all levels. I would never be embarrassed turning up to a dinner with a bottle of Penfolds. They deserve more recognition than ever. This example has brooding dark fruits with real concentration and potential complexity as it ages.
Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2003
South Australia £11.99 - Buy any 2 selected Penfolds wines save 20% = £9.59
How do they keep on doing it - quality from the top to the bottom of the range. A classic Aussie Cabernet with amazing balance, use of oak, finely grained tannins and real concentration - for what is a very reasonable price (for the
quality you are getting)
Cape Mentelle 'Trinders Vineyard' Cabernet / Merlot 2003 Margaret River, W Australia £11.99 - Buy 2 save £2.00 = £10.99
From the same stable as Cloudy Bay (the cult Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc) this wine is from Western Australia. This area, in my humble opinion is capable of produce some of the great Cabernets (indeed Shirazes and Rieslings) of the world. An ideal maritime climate tempers the heat of the interior of the continent at the point
were it is washed by the Indian and Southern Oceans. The quality to come
from producers such a Cape Mentelle (as Vasse Felix) are
testament to the potential unfolding in the Margaret River area. This area is doing to Bordeaux blends what New Zealand did for Sauvignon Blanc (although arguable they have gone on to be
accomplished at other things
as well). This wine is an
excellent example of what the are can produce: a kind of new-world old-old world bridge. Claret-style elegance and finesse with a new world energy.
Vasse Felix 'Adams Road' Cabernet Merlot 2004, Margaret River,
W Australia £9.99 - Buy 2 save £2.00 = £8.99
Along with Cape Mentelle this pioneering estate has helped define the Margaret River as every bit as great in potential as the Gironde at Bordeaux. This claret style wine is an excellent substitute, pound for pound for claret (albeit with some richer, riper flavours) but has all the class to take all comers - especially the French! Will drink well now or age with grace.
Yering Station Pinot Noir 2004, Yarra Valley,
Victoria, Australia £9.99
If you can ever find the reserve version of this - buy it. It might cost twice the price of this but...wow! If you cannot you can get a slice of Heaven (albeit on a slightly lower cloud) in this wine. Probably, for the price the best quality Australian Pinot Noir there is.
Yering Station was Victoria’s first vineyard, originally planted in 1838. This is made in the 'cool' Yarra Valley in Victoria and exhibits some dark plum and cherry, spice and almost gamey (it will develop this more with time) meat juice palate. This is true class in a glass. Its finish is so long it will help the bottle be savoured twice as long!
Chateau Musar 1999, Bekaa
Valley, Lebanon £14.99
Okay - you will either love it or hate this wine. Volatile at times (vinegar), bretty (old horse urine) and sometime oxidized and
tasting so burnt and rubbery in a blind wine tasting it can only be Chateau Musar! Saying that I love it! Totally unique, this vintage (some say you should not touch it in ten years) has less of the above and more of the concentrated richness of a reduced plum
sauce that has been poured over a star
anise infused plum pudding. Powerful, heady stuff. Made in a war zone. The cellars have been used as bunkers.
Copertino 2003, Masseria Monaci,
Italy £5.49 - Buy 2 save £1.00 = £4.99
Another wine from a the hot part of the Med. This is a great value rich plummy spicy, juicy wine made from the 'Negroamaro'grape (means bitter - black). Put to one side all those obvious, cheap new world reds and plum for this spicy little number - its interesting, well made,
complex, cheap (although you would not know it) and you won't regret it.
Valpolicella Classico Superiore 2003, Ripasso La Casetta di Ettore Righetti,
Veneto, N. Italy £9.99
This is a turbo-charged Valpol. Forget what you think you know about that
awful stuff you used to drink. This bears as little resemblance as a Millet's Mac does to a Karl Lagerfeld creation. Masses of rich
morrello cherry not available anywhere else. Drink this and people will love you.
DESSERT
De Bortoli Show Liqueur Muscat NV, South Eastern Australia Special offer = £7.99
The fortified Muscats of Australia are amongst the finest wines of their kind in the world. Easily on par with the finest ports, Banyuls and Sherries. This is a wine made for after dinner, to be savoured with rich chocolate desserts. The wine itself is intensely sweet, coffee, prune, caramel and candied citrus. It is like a sweet crude oil. Complex, balanced and
moreish. Have with Christmas pud or Chocolate things!
Noble One Botrytis Semillon 2001, De Bortoli,
Australia, 375ml Half-Bottle Special Offer = £12.99
This is one of the greatest single sweet wines in the world. It is the Grange of Sweet Wines, it is the Chateau d'Yquem of Australia. It needs no introduction. This is in the premier-league of sweet wines and made from the same grape as Sauternes. Drink a bit of history.
Royal Tokaji Blue Label, Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 2000 Tokaj-Hegyalja, Hungary £16.25
Tokaji only comes in 25cl or 50cl bottles. Having said that you would not want to drink much more than half a litre of this super rich nectar. Tokaji is my favourite style of sweet wine. Much sweeter than Sauternes but also much more acidic (rather like cutting cream and honey with lemon juice). The flavour defies normal wine descriptions but it is safe to say that it exhibits lemon (zest), orange (peel), acacia honey, jersey cream, beeswax, lanolin, noble rot, quince,
grapefruit....I could go on. 50cl of pure Heaven. Nothing really comes near it. Nothing ever will. This is a well priced example from a top Estate (Royal Tokaji). This is their entry level wine (for the top stuff increase wallet size five-fold). However the other, greater, Tokaji's just improve on perfection and stack, like Angels, up the side of the Almighty's dais.
Fonseca Crusted Port 2000 £13.99 - Buy any 2 selected Ports and Madeiras save £4 = £11.99
A much ignored and consequently (in this country) rarely seen style of Port that has had no filtration and throws a large deposit. But the particulate in the wine helps it develop in its own style and this fine example is from the excellent 2000 vintage. Rich, full-bodied, will age but whatever you do.....decant the stuff very carefully!
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