Christmas Drinking

Christmas for us, starts with a Scandinavian Christmas Eve with herring and a beetroot salad to start, followed by a ham and sweed pudding.  Not wishing to miss out, Christmas Day is a traditional British one, with Turkey and all the trimmings - 2 Christmas celebrations, means double the wine!

After a couple of cheeky pints, with the boys from the Reigate shops after closing, I dashed off to my parent's house for Christmas Eve, kicking off with a bottle of stunning Vilmart Grand Reserve - Vilmart's Champagnes are simply some of the very best on the market and if you want to try something truly stunning, go for their top cuvee, the "Coeur de Cuvee 2003".

Accompanying the herring was a fine German Riesling from the pfalz (I missed the name as I was at my parent's house), follwed by a 2001 Chateau du Tertre, Margaux and a 2007 Chateau Gloria, St Julien.  Two excellent clarets both drinking well now but, dare I say, made more enjoyable knowing that having bought them En Primeur, they missed the crazy pricing that afflicted 2009 & 2010 vintages.

On to Christmas Day:
For aperitif, we kicked off with what must be one of SA's best wines, 2005 Krone Sparkling Pink from Tulbagh - light, delicate and in my mind as good as any pink Champagne at twice the price.


Then we hit the turkey which, with the best will in the world, is usually out classed by bread sauce in my mind.  Next year I'll try a capon, or beef but sadly not goose again, as it took 2 hours to deep clean the oven last time! 

White
2008 Naiades, Rueda, Spain - a little off the beaten track but this big, polished white had real gravitas and reminded me of a very serious white burgundy - Spain makes some intriguing whites as well as reds and I'll get these showcased in the new year with a tasting or two.  Delicious with the seafood starter but even better with the turkey.

Reds
2006 Chambolle Musigny VV, Vincent Girardin - delicate and pretty, this one didn't benefit from prolonged decanting to be honest, being better when I'd just pulled the cork....blinking fickle Burgundy!

2004 Nuits St Georges 1er Cru Argillieres, Dureuil Janthial - opened 5 hours before serving and it just improved as the night went on deep, complex, multi-layered - and I re-found my burgundian love!

Tastings for the New Year:
I'm going to be putting a massive tasting plan together for the new year, including more wine maker's dinners in restaurants and hopefully I'll get one night hosted by my mate Ben Henshaw from Indigo wines.  Ben knows a thing or two, as he's twice won "Best Spanish Wine Importer" at The International Wine Challenge.

Anyway, details to follow on that.

Also, I have a new video to be filmed of me tasting 4 non-alcoholic wines for the new year....they things I do!

As for the shops, we're open today and tomorrow and have managed to get yet more wines onto the shelves, ready for New Year Eve's, dinner party rush!

2011 Apello Sauvignon, Marlborough £7.99 – a Kiwi Cracker!

2011 Apello Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

It all came about during one of my meetings with my fellow “Vindipendents” (a group of like minded independent wine merchants). We were chatting about how surprising it was that so much NZ Sauvignon was selling around £7-9, but thought none of those we had tasted were actually that good and surely we could find something better?

So we resigned ourselves to tasting a lot of chemically altered muck; often too green, too acid, or just too plain weird…until we finally struck vinous gold when we got in touch with a very well known producer in Marlborough. They had a little “over-production” that if they sold under their own label would mean they’d have too much……so we got this great juice for a bargain and “Apello” was born!

Now, I’m afraid I won’t be divulging the source, but needless to say, these guys make some very good wines and no, it’s not Cloudy Bay!
The Importance of being independent
This is what I think being an independent is all about, finding and delivering products that exceed expectations and providing choice over boring, bland brands, wines that have both character and value. We actually care about the wines we get in and do not look at our buying as “category management”!

It was nice to see the independent flag being waved so strongly by Mary Portas in her recommendations to the government on the future of the High Street.

The Jester from Mitolo - A Great Aussie Shiraz

First of all I’d like to welcome you all to my inaugural post for our new blog, to match the fantastic new website that we’ve finally launched. We were deciding the other week what wines to put on tasting for that weekend, when I spotted we’d got the new Mitolo Jester Shiraz in, and being a fan of Aussie Shiraz I plumped for this one.

The fruit for this wine is grown in the Willunga district of the McLaren Vale in South Australia by Frank Mitolo, who founded the vineyard in 1999, who was then joined by legendary wine maker Ben Glaetzer in 2001; who managed to scoop Young Wine Maker of the Year on more than one occasion and numerous other awards along his way. The climate there is that of warms days and cool nights, which help to create an even ripening period, giving the fruit great flavours and helping to create ripe, juicy tannins in the wine.

In the glass, it had an opaque crimson/purple colour, with really pronounced aromas of dark fruits, cherries, plums and cassis, with a touch of sweet spice, liquorice, coming through from the background. On the palate you got these wonderfully intense jammy flavours of plums and dark cherries coming through, and then you got the sweet spice which just combined with the intense fruit flavours perfectly. Merge this with just enough acidity to make your mouth water and the juicy, ripe tannins and you got a stunning and well put together glass of wine.

This, I have to say, was not what I was expecting, I expected it to be far more spice than fruit, which is what you tend to expect from an Aussie Shiraz, but this was the exact opposite, and was just absolutely stunning. To go along with all the fruit, it had a great structure as well, making this such an enjoyable wine that I’d highly recommend, especially with the dark nights and colder weather setting in.

Enjoy

Jez

Greetings

Hello! you have stumbled the official forum/blog/bear-pit for the Vineking. For those accessing this through our shop - Greetings! for those who've stumbled across us through the myriad paths and routes online - Greetings also! We work in wine (if you haven't guessed).

So - what's this all about then? Well, being an opinionated lot, we've decided the world needed yet another place to listen to the various staff here talk the hind leg off a donkey about anything alcoholic. As such, expect reviews of decent watering holes, bottles which have caught our eyes or interesting producers who we have had the pleasure of working with recently. This is intended to be a fun read and as such the sales plugs will be kept to a minimum.

Anyway - enjoy. Feel free to leave comments and discuss what you've read. Agree with a point of view? Brilliant - please tell us - it always puts a smile on our faces. Disagree with what we've said? Shame on you. But - why?

Any questions beyond that? No? Excellent. Read on - Jez has been up to no good with some Mitolo again. Wonder's will never cease.

Joseph.