Someone up there likes me, Smithers

On Tuesday I mentioned that I thought the Gerard Bertrand Tautavel in Dunnes was overpriced at €13-99. Lo and behold when I was down there again yesterday it had been reduced to a mere €6-99. Either somebody in Dunnes reads this blog and listened to my screed or they looked at the sales figures and realised nobody wanted to pay full whack for a decent, around a tenner quality wine, I guess we'll never know.

I bought two specials in O'Briens on Tuesday also:

Louis Bernard Chartreuse de Bonpass Cotes Du Rhone Reserve 2006 - €9-95 reduced from €10-95. I liked this a lot. Good full fruity flavours, a bit of body and nicely balanced. Decent value at a tenner.

Chateau Remaury Minervois 2008 - €9-95 reduced from €12-45. This wine, not so much. As the nominally more expensive of the two I was hoping for more. When Minervois is done right like here, it is delicious. The Remaury was initially a little sharp , even after a couple of hours in the "decanter", and it never really evolved much beyond that. Maybe it needs another couple of years in the bottle but it's not one I'll be buying again.

BTW - Mary Dowey has a very good article in the March Issue of "The Gloss" on ways of expanding your wine horizons, I can't find an online version but if your better half buys this mag then it's worth a look.

Aldi Update & Tesco Valpolicella

As predicted Aldi wine number 3 was not good. I decanted it, gave it an hour and a half and it was still nasty. I've had worse, but not by much. Well, you pay peanuts - you get monkeys.

On a brighter note we drank the Tesco Crozes Hermitage which was one of three I bought here. It was very pleasant, a little bit fruity, a little bit "Rhoney", also, the phrase "well integrated tannins" springs to mind, so I'm going with that.

As we watch the first episode of the last season of Lost, big WTF at the half-way mark (it's a "feature length" episode), we are sampling the Tesco finest Valpolicella Ripasso I picked up a couple of days ago. I was a little apprehensive about this wine as I loved it last time out and now it has been reduced to a mere €8-35, I was wondering if I had been overly generous previously.

Happily I have been vindicated altho' it took a couple of hours. Even after having been decanted for a good hour this wine was a little sharp and not what I remembered. Another hour down the road however and I'm loving it. It has all come together most triumphantly with plums and a hint of bitter cherries and is now tasting like a wine of twice the price. If you can afford the waiting time (I'd give it the full 2 hours), and you can afford the price tag, (there's not much you can buy for less that's drinkable), what are you waiting for?

BTW - As I was perusing The Gloss magazine, Herself buys it - I only read Mary Doweys wine column, and as fate would have it, what wine is she recommending? The Tesco Valpolicella Ripasso, she says "finding a decent version [of Ripasso] at this price is a miracle." I can't find a link to the article, you'll have to take my word for it...