Le Beaujolais Nouveau 2010 est arrive

The third Thursday in November always sees the arrival of that year’s Beaujolais Nouveau. Whilst many wine lovers hate Beaujolais Nouveau and the hype has died down considerably over the years, it is still something us more open minded wine lovers can look forward to. It is always best to slightly chill it and enjoy it in a party atmosphere.

I had my first taste of this year’s wine on Thursday lunchtime in France and although it had the typical banana / pear drops taste I was actually far more impressed than in many previous years. Light and refreshing, with lots of young fruit, it was actually quite pleasant!

This tempted me to buy another bottle on the way home to England at Orly airport. I always tend to believe that the Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau is slightly better, so I bought a bottle from Bouchard Pere et Fils, a negociant in Beaune. This one was also quite pleasant with bags of both pear drops and berry fruits. Cost was Euro 6.60 and scored only about 10/20 but it’s a once a year fun experience. You can always buy better wines at the price but variety is the spice of life.

So my conclusion, one of the better years so do go out and try some!

Report on our November Get-together

Ian introduced us to some very interesting wines from The Wine Society for our November get-together. Although seasonal colds and business and other commitments reduced our number to just six, we had a very enjoyable evening tasting the type of wines that Ian likes to drink – off-dry whites and fruity reds. Welcome to Penny who joined us for the first time. Ian slightly overspent his £50 budget but donated the extra guinea. With the cost of the food added, the evening cost our participants just under £10. For the food this evening we had smoked salmon, home made pork liver pate, chicken and mushroom soup, cheddar cheese, bread and the usual cucumber, celery and carrot palate cleansers.  If you want to know more about the locally reared pork that went into the pate go to http://www.whyisthereair.com/

Ian gave us a short potted history of The Wine Society at the start of the evening. It is non-profit making and owned by its members and has been established since 1874. If you want to know more go to http://thewinesociety.com/

As usual we tasted all wines blind and had 6 glasses each so that we could properly compare all the wines. This month’s review features the scores of Penny, Sheila, Jane and John, all using the Tongham Tasters’ wine scoring system. In descending order of our tasting team’s votes, here are the wines we tasted:

1. Zarcillo Bio Bio Valley 2009 Riesling Chile - £5.95
For the second month, a reasonable priced wine was the most popular with 4 of us voting it their top wine. Scores from our tasting panel out of 20 were – Penny 18, Sheila 15, Jane 15.5, John 16.5. Jane got a lovely elderflower bouquet from this wine and the taste then became a slightly sweetish lime but enough acidity to balance any sweetness. Clive reckons it would make a great wine for drinking on its own as an aperitif. A number of our group immediately opted to get Ian to order more of this gem.

2. Dona Paulina Cabernet Sauvgnon 2009 Rapel Valley Chile - £4.75
Although nobody voted this their top wine, absolutely everyone had this in their top three wines of the evening. At a price under £5 this is a guaranteed crowd pleaser, and, interestingly enough, another wine from Chile. Scores were – Penny 17, Sheila 17, Jane 13.5, John 14.5. This wine started with an unusual nose of blood oranges and pink grapefruit and had a beautiful mellow taste that didn’t immediately shout Cabernet Sauvignon at us. If you want a red party wine for Christmas, this is the one!

3. Von Othergraven 2009 Altenberg Kabinett Riesling Mosel Germany - £14.50
This wine split the group into two. For two of our tasters it was their top wine of the evening whilst some others didn’t get this wine at all. This German Riesling was unusual in that it had a slight fizz. Detractors thought that this was an odd wine tasting of fizzy sweet grapefruit, whilst those who loved it found it fresh and slightly metallic. Scores were Penny – 10, Sheila 18, Jane 13, John 9.5. Just shows how different our taste buds are!

4. Les Coteaux Tufiers 2008 Vouvray Chenin Blanc Demi-sec - £6.95
Ian played a trick on us by suggesting that he had selected three Rieslings and then slipping this one in – he certainly got us – John could even get the hint of diesel typical of Riesling! Two of the team had it as their runner-up wine of the evening. However, Sheila described it as cheesy ice-cream soda and for Ian it was not acidic enough. Scores were Penny 10, Sheila 9, Jane 14, John 15.5. Despite all the comments this was a fairly typical Loire Chenin Blanc but these are not to everyone’s taste.

5. Taverna Syrah Basilcata 2008 Italy - £6.95
Penny had this wine as her bronze medal winner but four of the team voted this the worst wine of the evening! It had a milk chocolate nose that seemed quite promising but this wine was too young and had too harsh tannins for most of us. Scores were – Penny 15, Sheila 9, Jane, 11.5, John 7.5. Not worth opening another bottle of this for a few years unless you love really strong harsh tannins. Taste was typical cheap young Shiraz according to John who at least guessed this grape variety.

6. Morgon Cote du Py 2009 Jean-Marc Burgaud - £11.95

This wine didn’t really deserve to get no top three votes with its soft Cherry and vanilla taste, but obviously had no wow factor for any of us. Scores were – Penny 14, Sheila 14, Jane 6 (although she later changed her mind into double figures), John 13. So actually it didn’t do as badly as its position in this list suggests and is actually a quite pleasant example of the excellent 2009 Cru Beaujolais.

After drinking all this lovely wine we persuaded Clive to buy the wines for our February get-together (it is rather dangerous when you have six bottles to share between six of us!). However, next month on December 9th we look forward to tasting Sheila’s favourite wines. Do join us! In the meantime, thanks to Ian for November’s excellent tasting.

If you are reading this and want to join in the fun, just email tonghamtaster@gmail.com or ring John on 07717 876743.

John’s Quick Italian Wines Review Part 2

You may recall that in October I did a review of 6 supermarket Italian wines from Tesco. This month I tasted 6 specialist wine shop red Italian wines from Majestic. Which were the best tasting and which were the best value? They were tasted on different days and were not tasted blind. See the review below in descending order of rating with score out of 20 using the usual Tongham tasters system:

San Gimignano Sangiovese A Passoni La Momoralia 2007. £9.99 but if buy more than 1 bottle £7.99. (scored 15 points)

At £7.99 this is rather a joy and is better than some expensive Brunellos I have tried and which are made from the same grape variety. Do try this one as it has a great balance of fruit and oak and acidity

Langhe Nebbiolo de Forville 2008 Barbaresco. £9.49 but if you buy more than 1 bottle £7.99. (scored 15 points)

This is a big wine and of a modern style so it is good to drink young. Initial impression is great but it tails off a little as you go down the bottle. I found this wine a bit of an enigma as I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as I scored it.



Wine for a candle lit Italian supper?



Roversi Barolo 2006 MGM Mondo del Vino. £12.49. (scored 14.5 points)

Another big wine and a good nose, but the overall flavour and balance didn’t entirely work for me, although still very nice. However, at the price you could do better.

Dolcetto D’Alba de Forville 2009 Barbaresco. £9.99 but if buy more than 1 bottle £7.99. (scored 14 points).
A very nice wine with no detracting features but nothing to make me fall in love with it either. Dolcetto is another of those grape varieties you see only in Italy and mainly in Piedmont and is typically very fruity. Alba is the city this comes from.

Bardolino 2009 Tenuta di Naiano by Allegrini, Corvina and Rondinella grapes. £7.99 but if buy more than 1 bottle £5.99. (scored 12.5 points)
Fantastic everyday wine at £5.99. Rather light but very pleasant cherries and custard (only joking!, I mean vanilla) taste. This is very nice slightly chilled and may appeal to Pinot Noir lovers, although it uses local Italian grape varieties.

Villa Dante Riserva Chianti 2005. £7.49. (scored 11.5 points)
This didn’t score too well because it is rather thin bodied. It also has quite a confusing array of flavours that compete with each other rather than add complexity. It gets better after a few days so aerate this one by vigorously pouring from a great height into a jug or decanter and then leave to breathe.

I have to say that I was impressed with these six wines, only the Chianti being rather a disappointment.
So what is my conclusion, do I prefer shopping for Italian wines at Tesco or Majestic?
For helpful and knowledgeable staff, no surprise, Majestic won hands down. The Farnham Surrey Majestic staff needs congratulating.
Both stores on the day I went had a reasonable variety to choose from – little to separate them here.
In terms of flexibility Tescos win as you can buy just one bottle whereas at Majestic you have to buy at least six.
In terms of price I paid £37.01 for wine normally priced at £49.35 at Tesco. At Majestic I paid £49.94 for wine priced for single bottles at £56.94. So both came in under my target of an average £8.50 per bottle. It is obviously easier to buy cheaper wines at Tesco.

In terms of enjoyment the Majestic wines easily came out on top scoring 82.5 against the 69 for the Tesco’s six wines.

However, we must remember that the Majestic wines were the most expensive, so which represented the best value? Difficult to assess! The Tesco’s wines cost just 54 pence per point whereas the Majestic wines cost 61 pence per point. On the other hand the Majestic wines had much more of a wow factor, less were disappointing and none were undrinkable.

Unless, you are on a tight budget, my conclusion would be to choose Majestic as the winner here. Wherever you buy your wine do try some of these non-global wine varieties – Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Dolcetta, Corvina and Rondinella etc.





Bronze Medal Marsanne at £3.47!

There is no doubt that I am lucky in normally being able to avoid the 3 bottles for £10 price range of wine. However, I was recently tempted to try a sub-four pound wine, based on consistently good reviews in the press and the fact that it won a bronze medal at the International Wine Challenge. The wine was from Asda and, on the day I bought it,it was priced at just £3.47! It was a Vins de Pays D’Oc Marsanne 2009. Various different wine writers such as Olly Smith, Jane McQuilty, Victoria Moore and Christine Austin had lavished praise on it with such phrases as…..Peach and white blossom……Fragrant touch…..Faintest hint of almond blossom and orange peel….Gentle appley spice……honeysuckle and apricot…..white pepper on the finish……soft tropical fruit scented…etc etc.



Peary Marsanne?



It is interesting how different tasters came up with fruits as different as apricot, apple, orange and tropical fruit! Unfortunately, I got something very akin to pear drops. Perhaps, not quite the banana flavour pear drops associated with Beaujolais Nouveau but certainly a candied pear flavour. Perhaps if I was a professional wine writer I would describe it as…..a hint of pear and marzipan!

For me this is a wine taste I am not particularly enjoying. I recently opened a bottle of the white Rhone wine Parallele 45 and it had exactly the same taste but more concentrated – which in my view made it worse rather than better.  Perhaps, it is just me but tastes that resemble sweet and fragrant in a dry wine just don't work unless you have it with exactly the right food.

However, at this price you might as well buy a bottle and come to your own opinion. It certainly makes a good food wine but perhaps not for drinking on its own. In the worse case you could cook with it! I certainly don’t know a better white wine at this price, but is it worth a bronze medal?  I scored it very creditable 12/20 but would prefer a glass of good Muscadet any time.