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Heaven: In Vino Veritas - the WINE thread, what you enjoy, current drinking, tastes, recommendations

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  • JuanaCruz wrote: »
    Thought I'd better pop in ...

    The Lidl Australian Clare Valley Riesling *2019* is a lovely summer drop with all the kind of lime and sherbert flavours you'd like and decent length.

    The 2017 was nice but short (young-vines?) and the 2018 forgettable but this is perfect for this kind of weather ... drink by the bottle or caseload.

    The 2017 and 2018 may have been suffering the effects of our long drought. The last couple of years have seen improving conditions. 2021 should be a great year.
  • There are some lovely B.C. wines we have ordered to be delivered during the pandemic. Varieties which stand out are Carménère, Marechal Foch and Gamay.

    I'm deriving the opinion that having wines from your own region or country is the best way to go.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    That was a happy accident - while shifting stuff about in the Wine Cupboard I found two half cases we'd forgotten about: one was Metropole champagne and the other rosé and Monbazillac from Bergerac which we brought back from France a couple of years ago.

    One of the rosé went very well with the roast gammon.
  • JuanaCruzJuanaCruz Shipmate
    edited June 2021
    The 2017 and 2018 may have been suffering the effects of our long drought. The last couple of years have seen improving conditions. 2021 should be a great year.

    Thanks! I suspect the wines were sourced from different growers too but Lidl don't give info like winemaker, let alone grower.

    I will watch out. 2002 and 2012 were both fantastic for riesling in Clare and Eden Valley so maybe 2022 can be too.

    Riesling is so unloved in general in the UK. At my local Sainsbury supermarket I can get (literally) 20 NZ sauvignon blancs, 19 from Marlborough but zero Australian Rieslings. A couple of Austrian and German ones only.
  • @JuanaCruz Mrs BA is a member of the Naked Wines club which specialises in small winemakers. Sauvignon blanc seems to be dropping down the preference list, and some of the Mediterranean whites gaining favour. They have a few Victorian and South Australian rieslings on their list but they are quickly snapped up - all were out of stock when I last looked. We have drunk the last of our Yalumba Eden valley riesling, but need to make some room in the racks and the wine fridge before we order more.
  • JuanaCruz wrote: »
    Thought I'd better pop in ...

    The Lidl Australian Clare Valley Riesling *2019* is a lovely summer drop with all the kind of lime and sherbert flavours you'd like and decent length.

    The 2017 was nice but short (young-vines?) and the 2018 forgettable but this is perfect for this kind of weather ... drink by the bottle or caseload.

    I think I might have picked up a bottle of that on my last Lidl trip - stimulated by the discovery that Lidl's dirt-cheap cooking wines are far better than the Co-ops at 25% of the price, I grabbed a £6.99 Riesling, on the grounds that it is still suffering from the 1970s and you can still get really good Rieslings at a very good price. Sounds hopeful...
  • Incidentally, has anyone noticed the Naked Wines ads with the bottle of "Janus" strategically placed in the triangle of bottles such that the "J" is hidden? Admittedly I have a mind like a neglected septic tank, but that did raise a smirk.
    It's quite drinkable too - though I've yet to find a Naked Wines bottle that I wouldn't say "no" to another glass of.
  • JuanaCruzJuanaCruz Shipmate
    I think I might have picked up a bottle of that on my last Lidl trip - stimulated by the discovery that Lidl's dirt-cheap cooking wines are far better than the Co-ops at 25% of the price, I grabbed a £6.99 Riesling, on the grounds that it is still suffering from the 1970s and you can still get really good Rieslings at a very good price. Sounds hopeful...

    I do my weekly shop at Lidl and seriously love it. The quality is great, there's a relative lack of ready-made food and snacks, so I cook more, eat better and spend the savings on wine ;-)

    It's fantastic for 80%+ of my food shopping with the odd top-ups in other places, often Asian supermarkets or M&S if lazy.

    Does anyone else find the UK *incredibly* snobby and class-ist about supermarkets? It's bonkers. But Lidl has recently opened up far more branches in our leafy suburb than any other supermarket chain so ... maybe there are a lot of "closet" Lidl shoppers. No else one seems to admit to it round here lol.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Being a bibulous sort - and friends likewise - we keep a close eye on all the supermarkets. For a time the house champagne was from Lidl, though latterly the Aldi one has replaced it. Waitrose has been stocking a very interesting range of rare varietals. Morrison's at one point has a very good Cava. Asda is not nearby, so don't usually shop there, but did make an online order during lockdown when supermarket slots were hard to come by. Never quite forgiven them for substituting a NZ Pinot Grigio with one from the Veneto.

    We don't shop solely for drink, so I also have a rating for quality/range of fruit and veg/meats/desserts/chocolate (Aldi scores very high on that one) etc. So choice of Big Shop is driven by what we feel most in need of (though Lidl has been disqualified of late because of their laxity about enforcing mask wearing).
  • I had my 70th birthday party today, and despite my request for no gifts, I now find myself with 13 new assorted wines, among them a Krondorf Barossa Shiraz, a deBortoli Deen botrytis semillon a Vino dei Santi from Italy and a Galway Pipe Grand Tawny port. There was no room in the winerack before this, so Mrs BA and I will have up our consumption or resume regular dinner parties.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Many congratulations to a youngster. Enjoy your gifts.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Many happies,Barnabas_Aus, I trust that the actual day was the 11th
  • My Lidl Riesling turns out to be a Rheinhessen one - I've yet to have a glass as I should be doing the watering, but the Knotweed has poured herself one and it's got a yeasty nose like champagne, tastes of peaches, and has a juicy mouthfeel. Just the plonk for a sultry evening spent wondering how I'm going to get out of bed tomorrow, never mind play cricket (overdid it on the allotment, methinks). Have to look out for the Clare Valley one.
  • Pangolin GuerrePangolin Guerre Shipmate
    edited June 2021
    A belated happy birthday wish, Barnabas_Aus! Cent' anni!*

    Many years ago, a friend had been working in Melbourne, and brought me back a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, which was a blend of two regions(!), Barossa and Clare (I think was the second one). Years later, group of us decided to have a dinner party to clear out our cellars of wines that were getting a little long in the cork, and we tasted the wines beforehand, to make sure to weed out any that might have gone off. By that point the CS, then about 15+ years old, had developed a gorgeous, velvet texture, almost port-like, and the fruit had gone a bit (very pleasantly) stewy. We drank it with a chocolate and pistachio terrine. Swoon-inducing.

    *[May you live] One hundred years!
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Be careful what you ask for🙀
  • Sojourner wrote: »
    Many happies,Barnabas_Aus, I trust that the actual day was the 11th

    It was indeed!
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Happy birthday to us🍾
  • We Geminis need to stick together.
  • Are you not already?
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    Ontario shipmates in search of a nice summer sipper should check this out:

    https://www.lcbo.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/en/lcbo/white-wine-14002/le-fils-des-gras-moutons-sur-lie-muscadet-sèvre-et-maine-2019-363150

    A crisp leesy-appley-minerally white, and only 12%. (We had it all by itself on our front porch after dinner. It probably would have been better before dinner.)
  • @Marsupial Oooh... thank you for the heads up. A much under appreciated wine. At 12%, suitable for breakfast! (One of the best breakfasts I've ever had, because I was satisfying a very specific craving, was a dozen oysters, grilled garlic rubbed baguette, and a bottle of Muscadet.)
  • @Marsupial You mentioned on the All Saints Canada thread picking up a Pinot Noir/Gamay blend. While this is/was prohibited in Burgundy, it's a common blend in Switzerland, where it's called Dôle, and identified especially with the Valais. It's always PN/G, but I think that other grapes are permitted in minority proportions. If what you bought is a good iteration, expect a medium bodied, fragrant wine with good ruby clarity. I found it a surprisingly good, refreshing companion to steak tartar. Unfortunately, we rarely see Dôle in Ontario, so my stewing envy of you is assuaged by knowing that a local vintner is producing this blend.
  • I’ll report back when we open it. It’s part of a series of Estate wines that are about $25 - a bit pricey, but reasonable for a well-made wine from Ontario.

    We opened up a very nice 2016 Adelaide Hills Shiraz last night - The Lane Block 14, which a friend gave us two years ago. Beautifully aged, very savoury, with reasonable alcohol (13.5%). Adelaide Hills Shiraz sometimes has a rather strange (not necessarily unpleasant) green herbal character to it because of the cooler climate, which this did not have.
  • Bumping the thread to mention we uncorked the Kanonkop Kadette Pinotage that I mentioned to PG on another thread when I bought it back in August. Very nice, meaty and savoury in a style that strikes me as very South Africa. It was wine #2 for a steak dinner with a friend - wine #1 being an excellent Pinot Noir from Hidden Bench in Ontario.
  • I must try the Hidden Bench. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm always on the look out for a local Pinot Noir worth supporting.

    A friend of mine who is a decently knowledgeable amateur described drinking a Pinotage as akin to drinking beside a tire fire, and that he's never had one that convinced him otherwise. By itself, I can sort of understand that, but with certain foods, it's le vin juste*. Grilled meats. There is no better wine on this planet to match with the sweet/sour/savoury of lamb sosaties, especially in the open air, where less brawny wines tend to dissipate.

    *the appropriate wine
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Marsupial, I've made a note to look out for Kanonkop Kadette Pinotage (such a peculiar name) for this summer. I went onto the Kanonkop website and saw that the grapes used in the Kadette range don't come from Kanonkop vineyards, which suggests to me this may be an unacknowledged blend or buying in of superior grapes. Puzzling. Kanonkop's wines have done well because of their unhurried ageing process, as I understand it.

    Historically, to confirm what @Pangolin Guerre says, Pinotage (a grape crossing of Cinsaut and Pinot Noir) was regarded as unappealing because of its very inky colour and high tannins giving a sharp, pungent or even bitter taste. The aroma and aftertaste could be quite challenging, reminding some of burnt tar if not tyres! Because of pricing though, it was a huge seller in South Africa and there's no doubt that sitting outdoors with a fiery sunset, perfectly grilled meat and aromatic smoke doesn't make one inclined to be critical about what's in that refilled glass.
  • I don't know that it's still the case, but one of the claims to fame of the Kanonkop Pinotage was that it was the only Pinotage and the only South African wine kept for the dining room of the House of Lords.
  • Hoping I didn't ask this before somewhere... Has anyone here ever tried the Omerto tomato wine from Québec? (https://omerto.com/en/) It doesn't appear to be available outside Québec, and we probably won't be there again for a while. I find the idea intriguing and perhaps worth a try.
  • Never. I did once try a Quebec fermented maple syrup, made in the style of a medium sherry. An interesting curiosity, but I prefer the real thing.
  • I attended a wedding in the Eastern Townships ca. 2006, and the wines were from a local vineyard. The wines were organic, the vineyards were mixed crops (herbs and something else grown between the vines), but I don't think that there was a manure-filled bull's horn buried under a full moon. The wines were barely drinkable.
  • I attended a wedding in the Eastern Townships ca. 2006, and the wines were from a local vineyard. The wines were organic, the vineyards were mixed crops (herbs and something else grown between the vines), but I don't think that there was a manure-filled bull's horn buried under a full moon. The wines were barely drinkable.

    Darn... You pressed the 'release memory' button and I remembered an engineers' visit to the Andrès winery in Saint-Hyacinthe, many, many years ago. The wines were mostly so awful that we thought it was hilarious. Most memorable was the Baby Duck, so spectacularly bad that nobody got past a small taste of it. They told us that it had been popular at one time, but was by then hard to sell anywhere except in Newfoundland.

  • Riesling seems to be making a bit of a comeback here in Oz. We have just finished a bottle of Calabria Bros 2018 Riesling from the Eden Valley in South Australia, the heart of Riesling production in Australia. It has a citrusy nose and palate, and is very easy drinking. At 20AUD a bottle it is very affordable, and much superior to the many ordinary sauv blancs which wholesalers have inserted onto restaurant winelists here.

    Riesling is one of the specialities of the Canberra region, where I live. Indded the region hosts an international wine show entirely devoted to rielsling. For those who don't know it, Canberra has a cool climate! Doing my best to keep the local producers in business, I had a couple of cases in the cellar, all bought at cellar doors, but that was before the current COVID lockdown which has made us "liquidate" the stock to the extent I have only a few bottles left. The only Canberra brand likely to be exported is Shaw, which is good value for the quality but not especially cheap; the other producers are too small to do this.
  • Just to add that the 2020 vintage from the Canberra region (but not form South Australia) was literally a write-off, the grapes were all tainted by smoke from the"black summer" bushfires. But the 2021 vintage is shaping up beautifully according to the makers, though it's hard to obtain becasue of COVID restrictions.
  • We don’t get a lot of Australia Riesling here in Ontario, because it’s a grape that grows here enthusiastically and produces good wines at a wide variety of price points, but glad to hear it’s doing well there. We do get Aussie Riesling in from time to time, Clare Valley being the region that comes to mind most easily.

    Around the topic of Riesling, we have been experimenting lately with a Hungarian wine from the Lake Balaton area from a grape called Zenit. (Producer is Szászi Birtok if that helps anyone.) Kind of Riesling-ish, a bit pricey for what it is in Canada but looking at their website the local bottle price seems to translate to 7 euros which is more than reasonable.
  • @Marsupial Have you noticed how the selection of wines from less popular regions has been severely pruned over the last, say ten years? there used to be a couple Hungarian and Bulgarian wines from native grape types available that have disappeared. They were quite good, and bargains, too.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Pangolin Guerre, @Marsupial I thought Eastern European wines were on the big comeback trail? Not that we get them in the Cape (South Africa), I hardly ever get to taste wines that aren't South African. Fished out this from Jancis Robinson, one of my favourite wine writers.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    Most memorable was the Baby Duck, so spectacularly bad that nobody got past a small taste of it. They told us that it had been popular at one time, but was by then hard to sell anywhere except in Newfoundland.

    I don't drink at all, and even I know that in my youth, Baby Duck was the official drink of Newfoundlanders Who Want To Get Drunk Dirt Cheap.

  • MaryLouise wrote: »
    @Pangolin Guerre, @Marsupial I thought Eastern European wines were on the big comeback trail? Not that we get them in the Cape (South Africa), I hardly ever get to taste wines that aren't South African. Fished out this from Jancis Robinson, one of my favourite wine writers.

    I haven’t been looking carefully enough at the Eastern European section of the LCBO to really get a sense of trends, but as @Pangolin Guerre says the offerings these days are slim. I do remember a nice red (Kekfrankos) and a nice white (one of the Tokaj grapes, but vinified* dry) both at reasonable prices. My sense is the same as @MaryLouise that this is an up and coming wine region but the LCBO doesn’t seem to have caught on - most of the bottles I’ve encountered recently have been from other sources.

    (*not “vilified”, as Autocorrect wants)

    Uncorked (well actually unscrewed) an unoaked Ontario Cab Franc from 13th Street Winery last night. Very herbal, more than we noticed when tasting at the winery, good match for our rosemary balsamic marinated pork tenderloin.



  • @MaryLouise The problem lies not with eastern Europe but with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the government importation and marketing monopoly under whose tyranny we suffer. They decide what we can buy, and are aggressively uninterested in the consumer. We can order through private importers, but they are subject to a different set of byzantine regulations imposed by the LCBO, and will order only in lots that make business sense. My desire for, say, a case or two of Gamza from Bulgaria, would be insufficient to attract anyone's interest. (I have a personal horror story for another time when I have more energy.)

    In the post-1989 era a lot of the wine from eastern Europe being sold here tended to be recognisable grape types, like Cabernet Sauvignon, that were attractive more because of the price than the quality. My interest is more in their native grapes, like those mentioned in the Robinson piece that you linked (and thank you, btw). My fear was that those native cultivars would be ripped out in favour of recognisable ones to produce oceans of affordable but anonymous wine. I notice that some producers are interested in produce quality iterations of the traditional types, and that's encouraging, but we get very few of them here.

    @Marsupial, if the Tokaji (Furmint? Hárslevelü?) was dry, perhaps it was vilified in Autocorrect's assessment.
  • Possibly. I’ll let you guess the grape from the fact I didn’t mention it in my previous post. (I can spell Furmint. :wink: )

    It was reasonably priced and very cheerful, so I wasn’t complaining. It might also help that I’ve never actually tasted the good stuff.
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