Merry Christmas (and what we're drinking)

Merry Christmas everybody (or Nadolig Llawen to those speakers of my native tongue!). I hope you have a cracking day.

D and I prepared our own little pre-Christmas dinner on Thursday, full roast turkey with all the trimmings. We started with Heidsick Gold Top Vintage 2004 (£20 at Majestic Wine) while preparing the dinner and had an amazing Nicolas Potel "Les Charmeuses" Puligny Montrachet Veilles Vignes 2005 (about £33 at Virgin Wines) - absolutely superb.

I'm driving to get my son later on so will probably lay off the booze until later (I may have a glass of my parents' Bucks Fizz (with Tesco Finest Cava instead) :)

Tomorrow's dinner (full-on Turkey again) will have Palliser Estate Pinot Noir 2008 and probably another bigger red to follow.

I'll add the tasting notes at some point, but now, to open presents!

Cheers all!

Merry Christmas.

Wine Investment - The Complete Novice Way

*Disclaimer* - you really should seek sound, professional financial advice before investing. Investments can go down as well as up. This is not a recommendation to invest all that you have in wine, it is purely our story!

I mentioned in my welcome post that D and I had put all our savings into wine. Well it’s true. In June of this year we put about £7,780 into wine. Every penny that we had saved up during the last few years.

If you don’t want to read my house price rant then skip the next paragraph…

We are looking to buy a house in a few years. House prices are ridiculous. In my opinion the true value of a house is about 2 to 3 times the average salary. Historically, that’s what they’ve been. Currently, the average salary in the UK is somewhere around £25,000 yet the average house price is around £246,000; nearly 10 times the average salary. The people responsible for inflating house prices should be hung. I don’t know how anyone around my age, earning around average salary or below, who did not get on the housing ladder years ago, will ever get on there! With only £7,800 in savings we don’t really have an option right now with Mortgages as they are. Many lenders are asking for 25 or 30% deposits, meaning that we need at least £45,000 deposit to get a £180,000 home, and a further £15,000 or more to furnish it. That’s £60k before we start! That is going to take a very long time. At this rate, I’m going to be at least 40 before we can get a mortgage. Then we won’t be able to get a 30-year one because I’ll be more likely dead than working at 70 years of age, after all the booze and cigarettes I consumed in my teens and 20s!

So Why Invest in Wine?

The majority of ISAs and savings accounts are currently giving under 3% interest. Inflation is running at nearly 5%. So in real terms, our money is dwindling by about 2% every year. Great. So what are we supposed to do? Desperate times call for desperate measures…

…So, in the hope of getting a better return than any ISA or regular saver account, we opted to invest in wine. Well, I did, and managed to get D alongside too. Wine has performed better than most other investments over the last 10 years, so we thought we’d give it a go. What have we got to lose? Nothing, apart from £7,800 of “hard-earned”. Oh, and about 3 years of additional saving if it goes wrong!

What is Wine Investment?

Basically, buying wine to sell on in the future, for profit, rather than buying for drinking. Buying wine early, often at initial release from the winemakers (called En Primeur) through an agent such as a wine merchant normally gives the best initial purchase price. However, some wines do drop after initial release and are better bought later on at auctions. Wine is viewed as a medium to long term investment, meaning it takes about 5-10 years before any decent returns can be had, although some may move quicker than that. Long term is good for us because we have a long time before we can save enough for a house deposit!

The mechanics of it are quite simple: Wine is produced in finite quantities. The finer the wine the more desirable it is and the greater the demand in the first place. Over time, some of it inevitably gets drunk, meaning that the quantity dwindles, cutting the supply and driving demand (and hence price) up.  Additionally, most fine wines appreciate in quality with age, up to a certain point, meaning that they will become even more desirable as time goes by.

Can Anyone Do It?

Well yes. As Myself and D have demonstrated. BUT, the more money you’ve got the better return you’ll get. Our £7,800 is peanuts in this arena. Most of the Bordeaux First Growths approached £10,000 a case this year. Yes, you did read it right, 10 Grand for 12 bottles of wine! The old adage of “How do you make a small fortune in wine?...Start with a bigger one!” certainly applies but it shouldn’t deter. If you've got £2,000 you should see a decent return. If you've got £20,000 then the "World is your Lobster [sic]"!

A couple of points worth noting are:

• Read the excellent investment guides provided by Decanter (http://www.decanter.com/collecting/investment/492293/how-to-invest-in-wine) and Berry Bros & Rudd (http://www.bbr.com/fine-wine/investment). They’re far more informative than I can hope to be in one article.
• Only use a reputable merchant, making sure your purchases are insured at market value.
• Store them properly. Provenance (i.e. proof that they are actually bona-fide and they have been stored in ideal conditions) is key to future re-sale value.

Get your money ready, decide on which wines, contact your merchant, purchase, done. Well not quite. Two years after the wines have been released they usually get bottled and shipped to your merchant’s storage facility (if they have one) or a location of your choice. Keeping them at your merchant’s storage normally costs between £10 and £15 per case per year, but should prove worthwhile. There are specialist storage companies for wines if your merchant does not have their own storage facility.

What Wines Should You Invest In?

The top 30 or so Bordeaux Chateaus, along with some selected Burgundies, Rhone, Italians and to a lesser extent some New World wines (California, Australia), are normally considered “investment-grade”. The best performing are often Bordeaux wines, notably the First Growths and equivalent St. Emillion/Pomerol wines from the Right Bank. The First Growths do very well. Cases of Lafite Rothschild do very well indeed. The 2000 vintage was released at £2,200 and now sells for upwards of £25,000. That’s an 1100% (yes, eleven-hundred percent!) growth in 10 years. Imagine you bought 5 cases in 2001 for £11,000, you’d now be sitting on £125,000!!! However, coming back down to planet Earth again, not all Chateaus or vintages yield those sorts of gains. In fact, Lafite is almost alone. Selected Chateau from lesser growths (the 2^nds, 3^rds, 4^ths and 5^ths) can also do very well but often not to the same extent. On the back of the high prices of the 2009s, even the “second wines” from the First Growths have done very well. Carruades de Lafite, Petit Mouton, Pavillon Rouge, Forts de Latour, all good investments in certain vintages.

The Chinese, with their booming economy and lots of new-found wealth, are voracious buyers of the top wines, Lafite especially. At the time of our buying, not many 2008 wines were left (apart from the dregs), but, if you were lucky enough to get your hands on Lafite, released at £1,850 a case, or Mouton, released at about £1,800, then you would now be a winner. Recently, Lafite put the Chinese symbol for 8 on the bottle and Mouton used a Chinese artist (Xu Lei) for their label. On announcement, both prices shot up. Lafite up nearly 20% overnight from £8,500 a case to £10,000 and Mouton has since risen to about £6,000. That’s how much the Chinese can affect the market. Many of the investment people believe that the Chinese demand will spread to the other First Growths in time. They could be good buys. Also, it tends to be the “lesser vintages” (2004, ‘06 and ‘08) that seem to have shown the most growth in terms of return on investment (basically percentage price increase), and if timed right, can be picked up much cheaper than the “great” vintages (2000, ‘05, ‘09 etc.).

Robert Parker, the American wine critic also plays a large part. His scores have a lot to do with both the initial release price of the wine and its potential investment performance. 100-point Parker-rated wines are almost sure-fire winners!

What Was It Like?

Let’s get this out of the way first: The merchants have enormous mark-ups. It almost feels like you’re being ripped off. For example the 2009 Lafite was released to merchants at €550 a bottle. That’s about £466 per bottle or £5,600 a case. It retailed at around £13000! That’s a mark-up of £7,400 or 232%! Ridiculous! The killer is, if you sell it onwards through them in the future, they’ll also take 10 to 20% of your profit too! At the Fifth Growth level, mark-ups may not be so extreme, but they are similarly greedy. Pontet Canet for example, was released to the merchants at €72 a bottle, translating to about £730 a case. It was sold to consumers at about £1,200 per case.

With only £7.8k, we obviously had to make do with some of the lesser wines, but still hopefully wines with good investment potential. Anything with a good reputation, good parker points and activity on the secondary market is a reasonable “punt”. There are many merchants offering En Primeur sales and back-vintages of investment-grade wines. Advice from one merchant didn’t actually turn up anything suitable for my budget. They advised against many wines and said to concentrate only on ones with a very healthy secondary market. They also advised to concentrate on the 2009 vintage alone as it would be the one most desired and talked about in years to come. Most were very expensive* and not available in full cases of 12, only 6-packs, due to their huge customer base and large number of pre-orders in this fantastic 2009 vintage. I don’t know why, but I was put off by the idea of a 6-pack; I wanted full cases of 12 (although research does show that a 6-pack is not frowned upon, or regarded as any less valuable than half a case of 12, give or take a few quid. It was more of a personal choice).

[*2009 was a great year in Bordeaux and the Bordelais knew it! Touted as the best for 30 years, or maybe even ever, the En Primeur release prices were several percent higher than the current market prices of the 2005s (the previous “great” year) which had been appreciating for a few years and were physically available. However, looking back at other “great” vintages with some years behind them, 1982 and 2000, several wines are worth a mint! The question is, will the 2009s appreciate as well as these, or better, or were they released at too high a price?]

Another merchant was more accommodating, stating that any wine could be re-sold through them and was “fair-game”, albeit with a substantial commission – they didn’t add! I decided to go with these in the end as they did have wines I liked the sound of, available in cases of 12. Also to split the risk a little I chose not to invest everything in the 2009s, choosing one case from 2002 and one from 2003. What if the 2010 vintage, or the next, or the one after that is better than 2009? Will the value of the 09s plummet? Who knows. Best to spread it out a little then?

However, I will praise both merchants’ salespeople for having patience with a novice. I bombarded them with “what if?” questions, to which they were quick to reply, informative and not once did they get pissed off! On the one hand they have clients spending hundreds of thousands and there they had me, humming and hawing over whether one case of Pontet Canet or Lynch Bages would be the better bet!

It got addictive. Very addictive. I spent many nights glued the PC pouring over prices, growth rates of previous vintages, Parker points and any information I could get my hands on. It was getting too much. In the end I had to man-up and decide.

What Did I Choose?

1^st Growth Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2002 – £2900. Massively overpriced at the merchant when compared to auction prices, but with very good provenance. I was advised that this would be a better bet than Haut Brion and that it wouldn’t hang around long for under £3k.

I (stupidly) passed up a 6-pack of (5^th Growth) Chateau Pontet Canet 2009 at £450 with Berrys only then to purchase a case of 12 elsewhere for £1150. With a Parker score of 97-100 and a lot of interest in this highly regarded Chateau, this might prove to be a good buy.

On the back of the high demand for the 2009, I also purchased a case of Chateau Pontet Canet 2003 for £600. I was advised that the high price of the ‘09s would renew interest in back vintages. This one has 95 Parker points.

I then got a 6-pack of (5^th Growth) Chateau Lynch Bages 2009 from the first merchant (out of guilt from pestering their advisors!) – 94-96+ Parker points and a reasonable performer historically with the 2000 selling for £1600+. I topped that up with a full case of the same from the other merchant at £1040. If it takes off, we might be drinking the 6-pack in our new house in 10 years time!

I went slightly up-market from there to (2^nd Growth) Chateau Montrose 2009 for £1350. Again, a potentially perfect score of 96-100 could make this one a winner.

Finally, that left me with about £300 which I spent on the (Cru Bourgeois) Chateau Sociando-Mallet 2009, 90-92+ Parker points. In all honesty I bought this one with the possibility of drinking in mind. A modest investment at the most, but the 2000 does go for £400+ so it could be ok. In hindsight though, I wish I’d have gone for the second wine of Montrose (La Dame de Montrose 2009) or Pichon Lalande (Reserve de la Comtesse 2009) for about the same price, both described as the finest ever made!

So that was it, all our money spent! I was tempted by some other wines but simply didn’t have the cash:

-         Château Talbot 09 at £400 a case (the 2000 trades at about £600).

-         Château Grand Puy Lacoste 09 at £575 a case (the 2000 and ’05 are about £800)

-         Château Beychevelle 09 at £595 a case, apparently popular with the Chinese due to the dragon on the label (the 2000 is about £1000)

-         Chateau Pavie 08 at £1200. The 2003 had a similar score and is £1700.

So I will keep an eye on these, if only for the masochistic pleasure of saying to myself, “See, I told you so. You should have bought some of them you…”.

What does the future hold?

It’s now 6 months on. Far too early to tell yet, but out of morbid fascination, if we were buying them now, we would have to pay about £9,000 in total. However, that’s not to say we’ve made £1,200 profit – if we were to sell now and take a 20% hit on commission we’d actually be out of pocket. There might be some positive price movement in the summer of 2012, when the wines actually get bottled and shipped out to our merchants (i.e. they actually become physically-available entities rather than “futures”). Also, as the years go on, Robert Parker will re-score the wines from time to time. If the points go up the price might go up. Alternatively, if the scores go down, the price may follow! The Pontet 2003 is nearing its drinking window, so hopefully that should provide some modest short term gain. It will be interesting to see if the exceptional interest in Lafite spreads to Mouton and it experiences the same gains as certain other back vintages, as it too approaches its drinking window.

The 2010 vintage looks to be a stunner too. Will we buy any? If I get a bonus this year, I may try and get a case of Pontet Canet or Lynch Bages, otherwise no. If it's another "great" year, prices will be high but the investment potential might be there too. Keep an eye out for Parker scores and release prices in June/July 2011 and decide for yourselves.

I’ll let you know how ours are doing every now and then. Who knows, in 5 or 10 years we could be laughing all the way to the bank (to have them laugh right back at us as we agree to pay them lots of money, every month, for the next 25 years to live in a building that we can call home, subject to us not losing our jobs, getting ill or affecting our ability to earn in any way).

Or, we’ll be crying into very expensive wine.

Either way, Woo Hoo!

As always,

Speak to you soon!

Cheers

WBFTF

Wines of the Year!

Hello and welcome to the Wines of the Year special 2010, or the very catchy acronym WOTY 2010! I say "wines of the year", but in truth the Blog has only been running since August. However, I plan to make this an annual thing around this time of year, so I thought I'd start now! In a nutshell, it's a collection of the highest scoring wines, how much they are and where to get them.


Without further ado, the top 5 scoring wines from 2010 were:

 Craggy Range, Block 14 Syrah, Gimblett Gravels, Hawke's Bay, 2008.


This one really was a treat. £18.99 from Oddbins. Absolutely superb. Loads of black fruit, peppery after-kick, smoothness and class. 9/10.


Value for money was pretty poor at VFM = 0.47 but again, this was a treat and not for "value drinking".

Villa Maria Reserve, Clifford Bay, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, 2009


Gold medal winning Sauv Blanc in the recent Decanter awards. Thoroughly deserves that. It was £14.99 from Oddbins but now down to £9.99 so be quick. 8.5/10 Bursting with lemon, lime and tropical fruits with zesty acidity and a long mineral finish. Top notch.


Value for money was VFM = 0.57 at the original price but at £9.99 it's more palettable at VFM = 0.85.

Villa Maria Private Bin, Riesling, Marlborough, 2009


Only an entry-level wine for this brand, but it punches way above its weight! £7.99Majestic Wine. A big hit of peach, apples and some lemon/lime citrus. 8.5/10 from


Superb value, VFM = 1.06.

Vina Leyda, Reserva Riesling, Leyda Valley, 2008


Another Riesling. Again, excellent. £9.99 from Virgin Wines. Really fresh with a zingy acidity. I could pick out pink grapefruit, lime and exotic fruits or pomegranate on the finish. It has that herby/minerally edge to it as well which brings a bit of complexity. Stonking stuff. 8.5/10


Good value too at VFM = 0.85.

Esk Valley, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, 2009


Beautiful effort for the price. £8.97 from Laithwaites. Loads of tropical fruits, lemon and lime, purity, good acidity and very refreshingly drinkable. Superb 8.5/10.


Great value at VFM = 0.95.




I really hadn't noticed until writing this that 4 out of the top 5 are from New Zealand! That's a pretty impressive statistic and testament to the quality of wines coming from there. The Chilean Riesling was also a suprise.


The Best of the Rest...
Despite not scoring quite as highly, there were some superb wines that I feel I should mention on the basis of quality or value. These were...
1. E. Guigal Cote du Rhone 2006 - £9.99 from Majestic Wine (or as low as £6.79 at the moment when you buy two). Generous black and red fruit, cherry finish. Great spicy Syrah blend. 8/10.
2. Chateaux Musar 2002 - £17.99 from Majestic Wine. A taste of Bordeaux via Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. A treat, but well worth it every now and again. Plenty of life left in it with vibrant acidity, great blackcurrant and black cherry flavours. 8/10
3. Abbot's Vale Chardonnay Viognier 2008 - £5 (as part of mixed case) at Tesco. Super-smooth apples, peaches, mellon and cream. 8/10
4. Andrian Gewurztraminer 2009 - £15.49 from Oddbins. A lovely burst of fruit, tangy, tingly acidity. Smooth mouthfeel drenched in lychee, peach and reminiscent of elderflower-wine. 8/10
5. Bodegas Renacer Punto Final Malbec 2009 - £9.99 from Oddbins.Spicy, plummy and sweet blackberry and black cherry. Lovely. 8/10
6. Fabre Montmayou Gran Reserva Malbec 2007 - £12.99 from Latihwaites. Again, smoky, spicy plums with blackberries and cherry. Plenty of life left in it. 8/10.


Again, New World leading the way with 4 out of the 6. Two Argentinian Malbecs and an Aussie Chardonnay Viognier. I'm classing Lebanon as New World but that feels wrong somehow for an ancient civilisation! Anyway, the Old World had some greats in the form of the Guigal Cote du Rhone and the Italian Gewurz.



Honourable mentions...


We've had some wines outside the formulaic "mixed case of 12" reviews. Two really stood out. They were:

Edgebaston, The Pepper Pot, 2009. - £12.99 from Oddbins. A blend of Syrah, Mourvedre and Tannat from South Africa.  Absolutely stunning, spicy, meaty, peppery black fruit. An enormous mouthfull of flavour. Excellent 8.5/10. Not cheap but worth every penny!

Vina Mayu, Reserva Syrah, 2007. - £11.99 from Majestic Wine. A (Decanter) Gold medal winner again here and thoroughly deserving of it.From Chile's cool-climate Elqui Valley. 100% Syrah. Again, absolutely stunning, spicy, smoky, blackberry and blackcurrant with pepper. A sweet and long finish. Excellent 8.5/10. Again, not cheap but worth it!






So there we have it; the best wines from 2010.  I can thoroughly recommend any of these to give great drinking pleasure over the festive period. It'll be a tougher job sifting through all the wines next year, but one I'll relish!


As always...


Speak to you soon.


Cheers


WBFTF

Majestic Wine - Final Part

Welcome to the third and final part of the Majestic Wine case, handpicked mixed-12 according to my rules. A quick summary of what I chose can also be found here:

We've had some crackers in this case and I must admit, I've been very impressed by the quality to price ratio of most of the wines. Let's see if the case finishes in style...?

You can now follow my Tweets at http://twitter.com/#!/WineBlogFrugal

By the way, for any new readers unfamiliar with my blog, please see my other posts over to the right and down a bit or read my introduction here:

E. Guigal, Côtes du Rhône, 2006

Guigal is one of the Rhone's most famous producers.The name attracts some serious money for prestige wines such as Cote Rotie or Condrieu. This entry level wine certainly comes from a good stable. 13.5% alcohol.

The Look: A deep, dark red with opaque purple lowlights and ruby highlights. Very slight hint of age with its brick-red tinges.

The Smell: Smells great, spicy, slightly smoky, peppery, dark forest fruits and plums.

The Taste: The first taste is bright, acidic, spicy and some good tannin, slightly restrained fruit with a cherry finish. With food (Morroccan Lamb) and after a little while it opened up with much more red fruit, cherry, redcurrant and even raspberry hints. Lovely spice.

The Score: Superb for the money. 8/10. Highly Recommended.

VFM: At £9.99  a bottle this is good value at VFM = 0.8. However, if you're quick there's an offer on at Majestic now for get 2 for £6.79 each!. 

 

Maraques de Caceres, Rioja Blanco, 2009
White Rioja here using the Viura grape. This brand is a supermarket stalwart for its red Riojas but I must admit, I'd never seen the white until now. 12.5% alcohol.

The Look: A plae yellow with some straw colour.

The Smell: Lovely and aromatic, honey, sweetness, some citrus and flowers.

The Taste: Taste is quite retrained, not a lot of flavour. Acidity was too harsh to pick out much fruit and it left a bitter aftertaste (although I do think I served this a bit too cold, which may be unfair). Quite minerally but unfortunately spoilt by the harshness.

The Score: This was ok. Nothing more. 5.5/10.

VFM: At £7.99  a bottle this is reasonable value; VFM = 0.69.

Lawson's Dry Hills, Pinot Rosé, Marlborough, 2008
This is the first Rosé from the producers who started the winery in 1992. Ripe pinot and plenty of skin contact ensures a deep colour. 12% alcohol.

The Look: Very intriguing - more orange than red, a rusty, vivid sunset type colour.

The Smell: Initially a bit reticent (straight from the fridge) but given time to warm up a bit it displayed lovely sweetness, strawberries and raspberries.

The Taste: Again, initially vague but after a while it bloomed into a pleasing, bright, mouthful of strawberries, sweetness and a hint of smokiness. Some spun sugar or caramel on the finish too which was a bonus.

The Score: Very good Rosé. 7.5/10. Recommended

VFM: At £9.99  a bottle this is pretty good value; VFM = 0.75.

So, there we have it: 11 bottles polished. A cracking result for Majestic; I will most certainly be returning to get more in the near future. 3 Highly recommended, 5 recommended and the remaining three weren't that shabby, considering the price.

So, Christmas is fast-approaching. Keep your eyes peeled for Wines of the Year, What we'll be drinking over Xmas, Wine investment the novice way and anything else I can fit in!

As always...

Speak to you soon.

Cheers

WBFTF

1000 Hits!!!

A benchmark has been reached! Thank you all for taking the time to view my Blog, I hope you have found it to fulfil its promises!?

I shall be continuing with even more fervour now until the next benchmark (10,000 hits!).

One thing remains though to make it even better: Comments! I had envisaged a more interactive experience if I'm honest, so please people, feel very free to post comments, questions, agreements, disagreements or anything you deem relevant.


Thanks again for your support!

Speak to you soon.

Cheers.

WBFTF

Majestic Wine - Part 2

Welcome to the second part of the Majestic Wine case, handpicked mixed-12 according to my rules. A quick summary of what I chose can also be found here:

We had to catch up on the whites this week after devouring three reds last week, but threw in a cheeky red and a Cava also. And there were some beauties...

You can now follow my Tweets at http://twitter.com/#!/WineBlogFrugal

By the way, for any new readers unfamiliar with my blog, please see my other posts over to the right and down a bit or read my introduction here:

Villa Maria, Private Bin Riesling, Marlborough, 2009
The "Private Bin" series wines are the entry level wines for this brand. This Riesling comes from vineyards scattered amongs the Wairau and Awatere valleys of Marlborough on the North East coast of New Zealand's South Island. 12.5% alcohol.

The Look: A very pale wine with lemon highlights and almost water-white at the rim.

The Smell: Quite restrained at first but this was straight from the fridge and pretty cold. Did develop smells of lemon/lime, sweet apples and maybe some melon or peach.

The Taste: Wow! A big hit of fruit and lively, refreshing, acidic "tanginess". Green apples, peach and  a lemon/lime citrus burst. Pleasing in the mouth and gorgeous! The only thing (and this is a very slight thing) that lets it down is that after the 2nd or 3rd glass, the acidity did start to become a little mouth-puckering and grated slightly. However, with food I think this would not be noticeable.

The Score: I dont use the term lightly; this is a kick-ass wine. Only £7.99? Really? Sssshhhh don't tell anybody and we can snap it up before the price rises... 8.5/10. Highly Recommended.

VFM: At £7.99  a bottle this is fantastic value; VFM = 1.06. This is what it's all about, great tasting wine at a great price. Bravo.

 

Verdiccio dei Castelli di Jesi, Monte Schiavo, Italy, 2009
From the hilly Marches DOC area of Italy on the Adriatic coast. The "Classico" on the label suggests it is from one of the oldest districts of the region. 13% alcohol.

The Look: A pale yellow with straw-coloured hints. Almost water-white at the rim.

The Smell: Very similar to a Sauv Blanc, citrussy, slightly grassy with a herby/minerally edge to it.

The Taste: A nice, fresh acidity. Good balance of fruit with abundant nectarine, grape-juice and grapefruit. Lovely. Went well with our bacon-wrapped Cod fillets wiht Rosemary. Not incredibly long, More "minerally restrained" than a "fruit bomb". A very good, food-friendly white or equally at home on its own.

The Score: Good stuff, plainly and simply. 7.5/10. Recommended

VFM: At £7.49  a bottle, again, this is GREAT value VFM =1.0.

 

Neblina, Carmenere, Central Valley, 2009
Valle Central , as the Chileans say, is directly across the Andes from Argentina's Mendoza region. A real bargain wine here (£5.99), let's see if it's any good... 13% alcohol.

The Look: A deep, plummy purple turning to a bright lipstick red at the rim.

The Smell: Smells smoky and meaty with lots of plum character. Also faint hint of violets/floral whiffs.

The Taste: Very much like it smells; spicy, smoky plum. Fairly bright acidity, some decent tannin. All in all, quite well integrated. Not a bad drop. D said "very drinkable". 

The Score: Very good for the price!. 6.5/10.

VFM: At £5.99  a bottle this is again gives great value at VFM = 1.0

 

Codorniu, Seleccion Raventos, Cava, NV
A traditional Champagne method sparkler here from the Catalan region (I've just returned from Barcelona and criminally, didn't try any local Cavas whilst there!). This particular cuvée is to celebrate 125 years of Cava-making .11.5% alcohol.

The Look: Pale straw-yellow with greenish highlights.

The Smell: Smells citrussy, with cakey-sweetness. Champagne flutes are not the best for smelling - I should have used my tasting glasses!

The Taste: Taste is citrussy-fresh, good acidity, fine bubbles. Some apples and pears and a long finish that is biscuity or cakey. Can definitely pick out the Chardonnay..

The Score: Very good. Better than some £20 Champagnes we've had and this is only £6.99 Cava!. 7.5/10. Recommended

VFM: At £6.99  a bottle this is again gives superb value at VFM = 1.07. A great (and much cheaper) alternative to Champagne.

So, there we have the second part. Very good indeed with three great wines. Value and quality at the same time? Majestic are shaping up to be a good merchant.

Next time, to finish off the case, there remains a Kiwi Pinot Rosé, a Cote du Rhone and a Rioja Blanco. A potentially fine finish? If current form is anything to go by then yes!

As always...

Speak to you soon.

Cheers

WBFTF