Sorry June...

Firstly the good news...the Salomon Groovey Grüner Veltliner 2009 from Oddbins (€11-99), which I got in honour of our Austrian visitor, was quite delicious; crisp, tangy and a little spicy. We lashed through the two bottles I had bought, I wished we'd had more to go with my delicious smoked mackerel pate, which no-one ate apart from YHB, alas. I must have unique tastes.

Our guests brought a selection of wines and I shall be reviewing them as I drink them. First up is a Tesco Barolo 2005. June brought this along and was keen to know if it is any good. I have seen this in the shop and have been tempted, but it's a pricey wine to take a punt on. Tesco are very good at the moderate priced own brand reds, but can they do it with a wine from a "premium" region?

The answer is - not this time. I believe this bottle was corked, but not in the normal way. I read an article on the web somewhere recently that said there are four (I think) main ways a wine can be "corked", caused by different factors and with different effects on the taste. This wine was very sharp, almost fizzy on the tongue and very acidic. After almost five hours in the decanter it had lost some of it's harshness and you could maybe get some idea of what the taste should have been.

There's no way this wine tasted as the maker intended, ( I know Barolos historically have been huge tannic beasts, requiring much decanting, but this was not the issue here), so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and endeavour to try it again in the future. Sorry June.