Meeting No 32 January 18th 2011

A New Year but old world wines. Back to France for our wines this month although the wines are from two wine growing regions that we have not tasted before.

The first wine was a Réserve de Courtal, 2008 Fitou, from the Mont Tauch co-operative in the Languedoc situated between Perpignan and Narbonne. Fitou is a blend of Carignan, Grenache and Syrah grapes but according to Jancis Robinson has some way to go in order to realise it’s full potential, however the Mont Tauch Co-operative has a very good reputation.

It turned out to be a wine that received a very mixed reception and although it received an average score of 7.5 this included one mark of 9.5 and another of 6. The notes on the wine – “made in a modern fruit style with ripe strawberry and raspberry notes, while maintaining an authentic, earthy mid-palate and a cracked pepper finish. It makes a great partner for vegetable stews and traditional fare like shepherds pie” – seemed to be sum it up fairly well.

The second wine was from St Emilion; arguably perhaps the best known wine growing area in the world and certainly home to some of the most expensive wine.

The wine was a bottle of Saint-Émilion, Hubert de Boüard 2008 Bordeaux. This wine is made from predominantly Merlot grapes with some additional Cabernet Franc. The overall score from the group was perhaps a little disappointing 7.1 considering our expectations, although the scoring was much more consistent than the Fitou. Again the notes on the wine were fairly accurate – “a supple palate showing blueberry and fresh cranberry flavours, with a slight smokiness” - but perhaps from the makers of Chateau Angelus - probably the most expensive wine in the world, we expected a little bit more, Je ne sait quoi !!

Both Wines are available from Waitrose at £5.99 and 9.59 respectively .

The next meeting is at Jack’s on the 22nd Feb, 14:00

Meeting No 31, 18th December 2010

A festive occasion even down to a fairly heavy snow fall the previous evening which made the roads somewhat treacherous, however June and Ray had prepared a lovely Christmas spread to accompany our wine tasting and a contrasting choice of wine helped to add to a very entertaining evening. The first wine was certainly very different – appearance was fine – a bright clear dark red but from then on the comments were towards the negative. There was certainly nothing festive in the smell or taste instead comments such as nondescript, bland, slightly tart, no real length of flavour and very light. Perhaps no real surprise to find that it was not from one of the recognised wine producing areas but was a 2008 Medina Syrah from Malta – cost around £2.00. and perhaps no surprise either that no one was able to guess the origin. Overall score was 6.5. The second wine was much more to the liking of the group which was reflected in an overall score of 7.9. This wine had very dark red appearance, a strong nose of dark fruit damson, plum, and black cherry. The taste was well balanced with a little sweetness at the front of the tongue – a medium to heavy wine with all the dark fruit flavours with a hint of vanilla and some peppery tones. The wine is available from ASDA at £6.50.

We start 2011 with our first meeting at Mike and Pam’s on Jan 18th at 14:00