Meeting No 39 August 16th 2011

Jack’s selection of two New Zealand reds made for an interesting tasting. Merlot and Pinot Noir have not made our tasting samples very often so how do they compare? The first wine was a 2010 Oyster Bay Merlot. Oyster Bay were one of the first companies to recognise the wine growing potential of the Marlborough area at the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island - taking their name in fact from a local bay. However the Merlot comes from the companies’ other vineyard at Hawks’ Bay on the Eastern coast of the North Island. New Zealand wines do have a very good reputation and this wine certainly seemed to uphold that –gaining an average score form the group of 7.8. This was also a consistent score across the group and the tasting notes from the winemaker – “Vibrant plum and blackcurrant, with dark berry fruit, spice and alluring fine grained tannins.” were also upheld.

The second wine was an 2008 Ocean Edge Pinot Noir and despite some good reviews from various distributors, this wine only gained an average score of 5.9 – quite a low score for the group – there was some variation in the marks but no one score the wine higher than 7 and a couple of 4’s ensured it was low scoring. So no surprise that the tasting notes for this wine were not supported. The wine was made by Sam Weaver on behalf of New Zealand Wineco – and although a well-respected New Zealand winemaker this fact did not impress the group on this occasion. The wines are available at £9.79 and £10.29 from Tesco

Next Meeting is at John and Shelia’s on September 13th, 2:00pm

Meeting No 40 September 13th 2011

Back to Europe for this month’s tasting with wine from Spain and Italy. Both wines purchased from Lidl where according to some web sites you can drink like a Prince and pay like a Pauper so how did they compare? The first wine we tried was a 2005 Montecielo rioja at £5.99. The wine gained a very respectable score of 7.0 just below our averge of 7.2. In the glass it had the appearance of healthy medium red and was generally very clean and pleasant on the nose. It had a good length of flavour with a medium body, was considered well balanced and generally a taste of red fruits.

The second wine was a 2007 Barbera d’Asti but despite being more expensive at £6.99, it only achieved one of our lower scores at 6.2. The wine is produced in the hilly areas of the provinces of Asti and Alessandria in Piedmont Northern Italy and Barbera itself is the third most planted grape variety in Italy. Again the wine had a very good appearance in the glass- healthy and deep red almost purple or maroon. However on the nose there was a note of earthy bitter fruit that was not appreciated. The taste was again reminiscent of bitter sloes or some sharp damson. Not a great length of flavour and hence the overall score.

Next Meeting is at Dave and Mollies on October 18th , 2:00pm