Wine wine wine wine WINE!

As summer approaches like an angry stepfather, a young man’s thoughts turn to wine. Ah, what could be more pleasant in the warmer months than sitting on someone’s cottage roof with a box of Sauvignon Blanc and a catapult? Nothing, that’s what. Here I will sample some of the new white delights and assess them with impartiality, except in one case where I have accepted a kickback.

The 2007 vintage of Chateau Le Bronjames Semillon has finally been released from captivity, and the prospect of tasting it is making everyone lick their lips like chapstick tasters. It certainly is excellent on the nose and rigid on the tongue but sadly it is also disappointing in the ears. There are overwhelming indications of carbuncle and mimsy in the aftertaste, and it does incur a tendency to be sodden in the backsplash. This wine gets a score of sixteen.

Dizzy Hipflask Wineries have just started exporting their Nomenclature Pinot Gris, which has a picture of a whelk on the bottle. After tasting it, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a bad wine, really; it has just fallen in with some bad Pinot Noirs that have led it astray somewhat. It’s nothing that a good grounding – and, failing that, military school – won’t fix. C plus, with no prospect of parole.

The latest 2008 White Zinfandel Special Edition from Australia’s Sprightly Sprocket vineyards comes with a host of extras, including a making-of documentary, grape profiles and a wonderful series of winemaking bloopers. Bonus material aside, this wine holds its own extremely well, which is handy for those of us who have run out of wine glasses. A good slosh in the mouth produces a scintilla of trustworthiness and oak. Twenty-nine points (subject to change).

Fans of utterly awful wine will be thrilled by the latest crap from Ted and Frank Shufflebotham Wines of Distinction and Quality and all that other stuff that Wine People Want. Their new Sauvignon Blanc is like drinking a cup full of battery acid and sorrow. The bouquet has elements of primary school janitor’s jockstrap and sick, and the lingering aftertaste is like waking up in bed with your brother’s girlfriend and having no recollection of the previous night after the point when you decided to split up the taxis outside the club. Nul points.

Finally, there’s a new winemaker on the block: Pierre De Fenestration. Wow, he’s so cool and mysterious! Does anyone know anything about him? He makes all the other winemakers look dull and boring…I wonder if he has a girlfriend yet? I heard he has a motorcycle and told the Vinyard Inspector to “shove it”. Sigh, he’s so dreamy. Eighty-four points.

All of these wines are available from your local booze emporium, or that man who smells of chips and cigarettes in the park. If you are under 18, please get a passing stranger to purchase your wine for you. Contains sulphites.

Summer Wine Reviews!

Once again, the hot weather is approaching, and for most of us that means watching cricket from a silly mid-off position and clapping politely when a bowler scores a maiden over or takes several wickets in quick succession. And what better way to accompany the world’s silliest sport than a box or two of high quality wine? I had a look at some of the newest plonks hitting the supermarket shelves.

Chateau LeTrec 2006 Sauvignon Blanc is a delightful wine that really stands out from the crowd with its wonderful label. My eye was really drawn to the picture of an ostrich wearing a monocle and bowler hat, eyeing up a glass of the wine with a speech balloon saying “magnifique!” No doubt about it, this wine is excellent; the colours are superb, with really lifelike ostrich colours on the bird itself and a very jolly crimson background.
Tasting notes: White.

Cavernous Cavern Zinfandel comes from California and was, I found, a little indistinct. The picture on the label merely shows a panoramic scene of some mountains. Even worse, it’s in black and white, which is totally unforgivable in today’s excellent wine-label-producing climate. I hope for more from future vintages, maybe someone on a pogo stick jumping a chasm, or even a cute bird.
Tasting notes: 13%

Chateau Pays-Medoc 1984 came highly recommended from a well-respected wine magazine, so I decided to try some. I wish I hadn’t. At more than a hundred pounds for a bottle (you could buy a case of Gallo for that!), I expected a lot more. The label, though much bigger than most modern ones, contains mostly writing, with a tiny, poorly-drawn picture of a castle at the top. Is that where the wine was made?, I wondered. If so, they should throw all bottles of it from the highest tower at once. Truly dreadful.
Tasting notes: Winey.

Cute Little Kitten with a Broken Leg Chardonnay is the best wine I’ve ever had, and will be the only wine I will ever buy from now on. The label features – get this! – a little tabby kitten! But look! One of his liddle legs is in a plaster cast! Aw! He looks so sad and cute! I want more and more of this wine because I never want to stop looking at the label! Look at the kitten! Aw!
Tasting notes: Wet.

Special Valentine's Day Review: Lovers

As it's Valentine's Day, I thought today I'd review some of the lovers I've enjoyed in recent weeks.

First off, there's Suzanne, who scored very highly indeed. She was a little more expensive than other lovers, but first impressions were good: a full body, rich, and most pleasing on the eye. I detected fragrances of jasmine and summer fruits, with a hint of leather and birchwood. Suzanne has a unique velvetty texture which feels especially good at the back of the tongue; this is complimented by a gently brittle aftertaste which is both alluring and fragile. If I had one complaint with this lover, it's the unnecessarily high alcohol content. But this splitting hairs; she certainly goes down well, and her tannins are delightful.

Gabrielle on the other hand, was a disaster. She started promisingly enough, with a slow, downtempo effort that was both sensual and sexy. It was mostly downhill from then on, unfortunately, with much of what passed afterwards being filler. The heavy, fast-paced rhythms of our later meetings simply did nothing for me, and the spoken word sections were, quite frankly, embarrassing. It's a shame, because I've heard many good things about Gabrielle's live shows. Perhaps that's where she excels.

Finally, I wasn't expecting much from Benjamin, but I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Despite my being relatively new to this particular style of lover, Benjamin was a joy from start to end. I just could not put him down. His opening lines had me hooked, and his prose was truly delightful; indeed, I was literally struck dumb by one of his passages in particular. I understand why people may think that he is a little overlong, but when a lover is as satisfying as this, I don't have a problem with length. If anything, I would have enjoyed even more! Benjamin was gripping throughout, and had a wonderfully explosive climax. Fantastic.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Restaurant Review: Waiter! Waiter!

The Waiter! Waiter! restaurant in Battersea has been open for six months, and is steadily earning itself a reputation for serving top class food at fairly decent prices. The main talking point of the establishment, however, is that it is owned and run by Jacques LeBeouf, the famous pastry chef and former Miss Paraguay.

The décor in the dining room is particularly stunning, with beautiful crystal chandeliers and very thought-provoking tables. These physics-defying furniture items somehow manage to hold up one’s plates and elbows despite their legs not actually reaching the floor. Extraordinary.

Once my wife and I had stopped admiring the chandeliers, tables and the cleanliness of our hands, we were forced to choose our dishes, which, given the extent of the menu and the quality of the meals on offer, was no easy feat. Luckily the waiting staff are equipped with cattle prods, meaning that the terminally indecisive have some added incentive to choose quickly. I opted for the soup of the day (although not, I was informed, that particular day), and my wife – after a bit of encouragement from Nigel, our waiter – chose the chicken Caesar salad.

Once it arrived, my wife was highly complimentary towards her entrée, though Nigel said that that was a side-effect of the high-voltage shock, and after a little while she stopped talking to it and started to eat. Waiter! Waiter! prides itself on its restaurant-joke-applicability, and as a result my soup came complete with fly in it. This is a very nice touch that my wife and I enjoyed greatly, though I must say I was a little disappointed that our waiter, when asked what the fly was doing in my soup said ‘The backstroke, sir’, when it was quite obviously doing a front crawl.

For my main course I had the ‘Gammon Surprise’, which was indeed a big surprise, as I had ordered the halibut. With a side compote of plum and damson, and topped with lemon margarine, it had a slightly awkward air of perspicacity to it, although my wife put that down to the gentleman on the next table whose cottage pie was repeating on him. My wife, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed her duck a l’orange, despite the fact that the kitchen had run out of oranges and so had to make it with banana.

I had the rhubarb crumble for dessert, and my wife had the chocolate fudge cookie. We didn’t like what we had so we swapped.

In summary, then:

Waiter! Waiter! Restaurant, Battersea:

Décor: Four bangers (out of five); Very nice, but a little disorienting
Food: Three bangers (out of four); I burped up a little bit of sick afterwards
Service: Eight bangers (out of eleven); Nigel gave me his number
Price: Ten bangers (out of ten); For some reason I wasn’t billed

New Wine Releases: Pinot Gris Roundup

The new Cabernet Sauvignons are out, but let’s forget about them! It’s summer, so we all want to be sitting on the roofs of our sheds with a rose between our teeth and a bucket of Pinot Gris between our legs, right? Right! Onward!!

Fleeting Gannymede (by the good men and women of Shattered Flask Vinyards in Western Australia) is a queasy, flaky panhandler of a white wine, with a few extra balustrades added to the tannins for good measure! It loses a few points for being a little sentimental, body-wise, but overall it has a quaffability-to-furtiveness ratio of at least three quarters! I give it a Seventy-Two!

The Pig that Died (Bonus Beats Vinyards) is nothing if not contagious. And it’s not contagious. So it’s nothing to me! You hear me? You’re NOTHING TO ME! Forty-nine points.

Sir Elton John has acquired some grape fields in southern Italy, and the first release is Rocket Man Pinot Gris. Like the man himself, this is a short, tempestuous wine that doesn’t age particularly well. Best enjoyed around 1978. Sixty-six points.

Pinot Gris is well-known in the wine world for going very well with salads, particularly when eaten off the back of a leopard. This has never been more true than in the case of Waįn Sweaty Barrel Select from McVinYards Vinyards. The addition of ball bearings to the drink really emphasizes the middle eights and suspended sevenths, but watch you don’t choke on them! This gets my best score of the day, ninety!

Wines available from the following stockists: Strangebins, Felchers, Talladega Nights and Ron’s Top-Notch Wine Emporium by the Seaside.