A rather odd photo of Richard Corrigan on the front cover of this month’s Food & Wine Magazine:



It sort of begs a caption competition, doesn’t it?

Wait! There's More…

During the boom years, the wine business made serious hay in the month of December. One company I worked for did anything up to 40% of its annual turnover in the last six weeks of the year. This year is different. Everyone is saying how quiet it is. Surely we haven’t given up on wine drinking?

Like everything else, purchasing patterns have changed dramatically for wine. Wines that sold happily at €20 a pop are now gathering dust on wine-shop shelves. It’s all about value these days.

But what exactly constitutes good value? You might see two wines side by side on a shelf, from the same region and made with the same grape varieties, yet one is €10 cheaper than the other. Surely the cheaper one is better value? It might well be, but it might also be very ordinary, whereas the more expensive one might cause you to throw open your window, thrust out your chest and sing an aria in its honour.

Any bottle of wine on any shelf in any wine shop will have fixed costs. Even if you are given a bottle of wine free from a shop, it will have cost someone a minimum of €2.99 to get it into your hand. That’s if it came free from the producer and cost nothing to transport. €2.99 is the minimum amount of tax payable on a bottle of wine, consisting of €2.46 excise duty and 53c VAT.

If you decide to spend less on a bottle of wine that you normally would, you are paying proportionally more in tax the lower you go.

Here’s a quick ready reckoner:



Spending a couple of euros more on a bottle means that you will be paying proportionally more for the wine in the bottle and less for the tax due on it.

A few more dos and don’ts:

- Don’t just buy your wines from the supermarket with your weekly shopping. You will get little or no advice on what to buy, and so you will probably find yourself buying on price alone. There are dozens of very good independent wine shops and off-licences all over the country, most of which are owned and run by dedicated enthusiasts. (See this excellent collaborative map of wine shops in Ireland.) They will be able to point you in the direction of the really interesting, good-value wines. They will also be much more amenable to doing a deal on volume, but don’t expect them to give you a discount for two or three bottles. Your opening gambit should be a case of 12.

- Do look beyond the obvious and be prepared to step out of your comfort zone. Again, look for advice from a good wine retailer. Let them know what you like and they will help you broaden your horizons.

- Avoid wines you see advertised in newspapers and magazines and on the radio. Wine production is a notoriously low-profit business. If a producer is spending money on advertising rather than leaving it up to the retailer to promote their wines, that’s money that they should be putting into their winemaking.

- Good glassware makes a difference. Spending a few bob on nice glasses will enhance your enjoyment of your wines. Look for brands like Riedel, Schott and Speigelau.

- If you know someone in the trade, pick their brains on what is good and what isn’t.

- Decant a big full-bodied red (especially one from a recent year) to open up the flavours. You don’t even need a decanter to do this. Just slosh it into a jug and pour it back into the bottle.

Sláinte!

The pork scandal that broke last night here in Ireland looks like a complete over-reaction. (What word will be used as a prefix to “-gate” to describe this, I wonder? Will it be known as “Porkergate” or “Sausagegate”?)

From the Food Safety Authority of Ireland website:

Even though it is illegal for dioxins to be present in foodstuffs, any possible risk to consumer health is extremely low and consumers should not be concerned.

So if there is an extremely low risk to consumer health, why risk destroying an entire industry upon which thousands of jobs depend, not to mention millions of euros in exports?

We have several pork products in our freezer. We’re not throwing a single one of them out.

Enough outrage and indignation about the Budget has been aired on the blogosphere without me going on about it too, but there is one element of it that I feel I should raise.

In recent years, the so-called “old reliables” (booze, tobacco, petrol) haven’t been hit as hard as usual in the budget. During the boom years, inflation was always ready to raise its ugly head, and it was felt that too much of an increase in excise duty would stoke it. The ciggies would get hit every now and then on health grounds, and spirits got whacked with a big increase about five years ago, again as a result of social concerns about excessive drinking.

Wine escaped an increase in duty for twelve years, but that run came to an end on Tuesday, when Brian Lenihan added 50 cents (including VAT) to a standard bottle of wine. Other wine styles (fortified, sparkling, etc.) have been increased pro-rata. Taking VAT out of it for now, this adds 41c onto the pre-budget duty rate of €2.05, an increase of 25%-ish.

This is going to cause problems for a number of small to medium sized wine importers and distributors, who are already feeling the pinch because of the credit crunch. This sector relies heavily on availability of credit from banks, simply because it is obliged to offer credit facilities to its own customers. Any new dispensation that upsets this sector’s credit limits will cause big problems for the viability of several small businesses, and as a result hundreds of jobs.

Whenever a consignment of wine arrives in Ireland from abroad, the importer must do one of two things. They can pay the excise duty up front (along with the VAT on the invoiced cost of the wine), or they can divert the shipment to a bonded warehouse. They can leave the wine there for as long as they like, but once they release it from bond, the duty and VAT become payable. Most importers avail of a facility called duty deferment, where they pay their duty and VAT to the Revenue on a 30-day-end-of-month basis. To avail of this, they have to apply for a limit to the amount of duty they are allowed per month, and the Revenue require a guarantee from the importer’s bank that not only can this be honoured, but that double that value can be honoured. So if an importer had a duty deferment limit of €100k per month, they would have to be able to show that they were able to pay €200k if need be. If they exceed the €100k during the month, any extra duty would have to be paid up front, or else the importer could lodge a prepayment with the Revenue.

This is where the problem arises. Importers are now going to have to go to their banks to renegotiate their overdrafts to cover the 25% increase in their duty deferment limit. Given the mood of the banks these days, this will not be easy. If they can’t get that extra credit from the bank, they will either have to scale back their business, or reduce the credit terms they offer their customers. Whatever way they go about it, they are cornered. I think that this will lead to several smaller operators going out of business in the next six months.

The other implication of the increase in duty is the loss of business due to cross-border shopping. Excise duty in the UK is £1.46 (€1.88), and VAT is 17.5%. In the Republic of Ireland the equivalent rates are €2.46 (£1.92) and 21.5% (from 1 December). Draw a line from Dublin to Sligo, and every wine retailer in the Republic north of that line will have to compete with that. Sainsbury’s in Newry is already the single biggest retail outlet of alcohol in the UK and on the island of Ireland. It’s about to have an even bigger bumper Christmas than normal.

Tags: wine, Budget

There was an interesting Dispatches documentary on Channel 4 last Monday called “What’s In Your Wine?” It was a bit up and down, and it didn’t reveal much that I didn’t know already, but then I have been working in the wine business for nearly 18 years.

The big issue was about “additives” in wine and how they aren’t declared on the label. Fair enough, the programme made a case for a more comprehensive labelling of what is used in the making of wine, but many of those “additives” are simply vectors that convert the grape juice into a palatable wine. These include yeast (which converts grape sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide) and malolactic bacteria (which convert harsh malic acid into softer lactic acid, a process that is almost universally used in the making of red wine and occasionally in whites.) Sugar is sometimes added before fermentation in order to boost the final alcohol level (a process called chaptalisation), and tartaric acid is sometimes added in exceptionally hot years. Both of these occur naturally in grapes anyway. Oak chips are occasionally used to give a woody flavour to wines, mainly because the market demands it but is reluctant to pay for the cost of ageing in an oak barrel. Powdered egg white is a natural product that is used to fine wines (i.e. remove a haze caused by a naturally occurring protein deposit.) Sulphur dioxide is usually declared on labels, and without it there would be no wine at all, as the grape juice would have gone off before it got a chance to ferment.

The conclusion arrived at was that the big corporations (mostly in the New World) are the ones most likely to have all the hidden additives in their wine, and that consumers should seek out more naturally-made wines from small producers. That’s all very fine and dandy, but as something like 95% of the wine purchased for off-premise consumption in the UK is bought in either supermarkets or off-licence multiples, choice is limited. Also, the mass market actually prefers the confected, tutti-fruity wines of the big New World corporations, and your average punter who is used to supermarket wines would find most small-estate wines too complex for their palates.

Here in Ireland, we have the all-encompassing embrace of the supermarkets as well, but given that our home-grown supermarkets are that bit smaller than their UK counterparts, it is possible to pick up a nice bottle or two from Dunnes, SuperValu or Superquinn. However, we have a wonderful array of independent wine shops, mostly owned and run by serious and knowledgeable wine enthusiasts. A wine blog called Sour Grapes has started a collaborative Google map which pinpoints the good wine shops of the country. This is an invaluable resource for the Irish wine enthusiast.

Last Saturday, Pat Carroll wrote an article in the Irish Times all about alternative closures to cork. Cork taint now accounts for something like one bottle of wine in seven being out of condition. I am a vocal advocate of the screwcap as the closure of choice. The main argument in favour of corks is that they preserve “the romance” of wine. I would much prefer if the closure would preserve the flavours and aromas of the wine, but maybe that’s just me.

The best argument I have ever heard against corks goes like this. Imagine for a moment that screwcaps were the accepted closure for wines since time don’t-know-when. Then someone comes along and says “Hey! I have a great idea. Why don’t we seal bottles of wine using the bark of an endangered species of tree that is only grown in one part of the world? We harvest the bark, boil it, bleach it and cut it into plugs that are then forced into the bottle in such a way that you will need a special tool to remove it. And as a special bonus, it will render one bottle in seven undrinkable! C’mon, what about this?”

Finally, this week saw the death of Didier Dagueneau, one of the great mavericks of the wine world. His Pouilly Fumé wines were without parallel, especially his cuvées Silex and Pur Sang. His reputation went before him, and legend had it that his arguments with his neighbours about their approach to growing grapes and making wines sometimes ended up in fist fights. He refused to use the formal “vous” in conversation, even once, it is said, addressing the former French president Jacques Chirac using the informal “tu”.

Robert Mondavi, one of the wine industry's legendary figures, has died aged 94. As well as building up his own eponymous empire in the Napa Valley, he also collaborated with the Rothschild dynasty of Bordeaux to create the iconic Opus One.

Decanter have an obituary here.

The latest edition of Hospitality Ireland has an interview with Marco Pierre White, the latest British gastro-celeb to cross the Irish Sea. His new venture, Hell's Brasserie, will open at Harry Crosbie's Point Village in 2009.

Eager to learn from the mistakes of his peers, he wants to be sure that he doesn't offend local sensitivities by only having a token presence in his Irish emporium:

"I'm not going to go to Ireland with that attitude, like certain people do who come from the mainland."

Yup. That's a great way to start.

I arrived back from Vinitaly last night, absolutely exhausted. I was away for five nights, so it was nice to be back in my own leaba again.

To those outside the wine business, the idea of going to Verona to taste wine for five days sounds like a cushy number. Of course, it is an enjoyable and educational experience, and for a first-time visitor like myself, a real eye-opener as to the breadth and depth of wine available from Italy. Up to now my area of specialism has generally been French wine, but my new employer majors big time on Italy, so Vinitaly was a great opportunity to get myself up to speed.

But this was a work trip, and it was five days of hard work. I had to meet all of our suppliers and taste all of their wines, writing meaningful tasting notes that I can refer to in the future as I sell these wines to my customers. Happily, our buyers are experts who have a deep understanding of what Italian wine is all about, so it was no hardship to meet some fascinating winemakers and taste some great wines.

Conventional wisdom dictates that you should taste white wines first and then reds. We decided to do the opposite and taste the big, full bodied reds first thing in the morning. The rationale behind this was that by the afternoon, our palates would be knackered and unable to tackle the reds, and the fresh crisp whites would give us a lift from the late afternoon slump. Happily this worked, and we got through prodigious amounts in the first three days.

Italy is a treasure trove for the wine lover. If you are a fan of international varieties like Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir, etc., you'll find plenty to please you. If you like to try indigenous varieties, you won't have to look too hard to find something to pique your interest, whether it's a Nebbiolo, Barbera or Dolcetto from Piemonte; a Teroldego, Marzemina or Lagrein from Trentino; a Montepulciano from Abruzzo; an Aglianico from Campania; a Primitivo, Negramaro or Malvasia Nera from Puglia; or a Nero d'Avola from Sicily.

I have neglected Italian wine for too long, because in my last job it was something of an afterthought. As a result, I never kept up with the advances made in certain areas. Two of the most famous wines from Veneto, Soave and Valpolicella, I had overlooked for years. In my opinion, they were dull, overcropped rubbish. But while that may have been the case when I started in the trade nearly twenty years ago, it certainly is not the case today. I tasted some magnificent Soaves in the last week, ranging from the fresh and fruity to some that were very complex and minerally. Similarly, the Valpolicellas I tasted were a revelation, with lovely ripe fruit, clean acidity and the right amount of tannin. The best of Valpolicella, the Ripassos and Amarones were just stunning. Demand is high for these wines and prices are going up.

But for me the biggest eye-opener was the standard of the white wines. Again, in my ignorance, I dismissed Italian whites as neutral and insipid. But how wrong I was. Again it was a mixture of both international and local varieties. I tasted some gorgeous Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from Friuli Venezia Giulia, alongside local varieties like Ribolla Giallo and Friulano. Even Pinot Grigio, derided as the blandest of the bland, in the hands of a good winemaker can be very special. I especially enjoyed some Lugana, a Lombardian white wine from the shores of Lake Garda. From further south, Campania came up trumps with Fiano de Avellina, Sannio Falanghino, and Greco di Tufo.

Like any trade fair, glamour is sometimes used to compensate for lack of quality. There were several stands with dolly birds out front to tempt the punters in. Some of our party decided to put a mathematical theory to the test, that the amount of flesh on display is inversely proportional to the quality of the wine. And so it turned out to be. If the stunna on the stand has big knockers and is wearing a very short skirt, chances are the wine will be shite.

Evenings were taken up mostly with visits to producers. I love visiting a producer's vineyard as opposed to his cellar, as I think you can tell a lot more about a winemaker from how he tends his vines. Good wine starts in the vineyard, and if a producer gets that right, then the job in the cellar is that much easier.

So in summary, Vinitaly was vast. I was there for five days and tasted about 300 or so wines. That's maybe 0.02% of all the wines in the fair. It was an amazing experience, and I hope to do it again some day.

Living in the Midlands means that we don't have the same access to good fishmongers that we had when we lived in de Shmoke. If you like fish, the only way to buy it is from a fishmonger. (I remember a cartoon, years ago, in The Phoenix with two guys behind a fish stall. One says to the other "Well, don't just stand there - mong, for God's sake!")

I don't buy fish in supermarkets, as I find that it usually has at least a day more out of the sea than I would like. If fish isn't absolutely spanking fresh, it's not good.

These days, what we tend to do is to buy in bulk from a fishmonger, have it vacuum packed and then freeze it. Normally, we do this when we go to Cork, where there are several good fishmongers. The best known of them is Kay O'Connell's in the English Market, who have a magnificent display of fish at their stall. If we're in town and want some fish for dinner that night, we usually get it there.

However, if we're buying in bulk, we head for Carrigaline and stock up at Denis Good's. The main business here is fish processing and wholesale, but they have a retail outlet at the front of the building in the industrial estate on the Crosshaven Road. Our regular order is €100 worth of whatever is on offer on the day. Along with staples like salmon and cod, we include things like John Dory, ray, hake, turbot, scallops and lemon sole in the selection. As soon as we get back to my wife's folks' place, the lot goes in the freezer, and when we're going home, it goes in a coolbag with some freezer blocks.

Some purists will say that freezing ruins fish, and that it has to be eaten fresh. In an ideal world, I might agree, but freezing is a compromise I am willing to make, as the end result is far superior to what I have available to me otherwise.

The other consideration is how to cook it. I look on it two ways. If it's big and chunky like a fillet of cod or salmon, roast it. If its thin and flat like sole or plaice, then coat it in seasoned flour and fry it. Some people don't like fish because they think it's bland. Most fish needs something acidic to complement it and bring out the flavour. It can be something as simple as lemon juice, or maybe a salsa verde (lemon juice, capers, garlic and parsley). But best of the lot is a glass of crisp, dry white wine.

Whenever I tell someone that I work in the wine business, their reaction is usually to say how lucky I am, getting to drink all that lovely wine and all that. To an extent they are right, after 17 years in the business I have had the opportunity to taste (note that word, taste, not scull) some of the greatest wines in the world, often at no expense to myself. I should add that in the course of my job I often have to taste some of the most uninspiring, dull, insipid shite ever to emerge from a vineyard. (Yes, Chilean Merlot, that is you I speak of.)

But enough of that, let's get back to the good stuff. In my soon-to-be-previous job, I used to teach wine appreciation courses. During these courses, I used to warn participants of expecting too much from a special bottle. Wine lovers often hoard special bottles, taking them out to stroke lovingly every now and then, waiting for the exact, perfect moment to drink them. And when that time comes, their expectation is so high that disappointment is sure to follow.

I try to avoid this myself, and whenever I acquire something a bit special, I at least try to envisage a time when it could be put to the sword. I came upon a couple of bottles of Chateau Pontet Canet 1966 in excellent nick a few years back, and bought them in anticipation of my fortieth birthday, as I am of the '66 vintage myself. But fate dictated otherwise, as my wife was in the very latter stages of pregnancy with our beloved Aoife as my clock turned 40. But we did one of them justice this year for my 41st, and very nice it was too.

Even though I have had the fortune to taste some great wines in my career, others have eluded me. I have never tasted Petrus, Romanée Conti, and until Christmas night just gone, Chateau d'Yquem. Like nearly every other wine lover I have ever met, I am passionate about dessert wines. And for fans of dessert wines, Yquem is a milestone. It is regarded as the greatest sweet wine of the world, and the most famous wine of the Sauternes appellation in Bordeaux.

In September 2005, I spent a week in Bordeaux as guide of a wine tour. Once, when I had some time away from the group, I was browsing a wine shop when I saw some half-bottles of Yquem 1994 at somewhere between €50 and €100 ( I can't remember exactly.) Normally Yquem is several hundred euros per bottle, so I said "Sod it" and bought one. I knew 1994 was not a great year for Sauternes, but if it's a really bad year, Chateau d'Yquem will not release a wine under their famous name. So I figured that if Yquem made a wine that year, it must be of a high standard.

When I brought it home, we decided that Christmas would be a good time to give it the chop. The first weekend of December that year, my wife discovered she was pregnant, so that put an end to that. The following Christmas, we were still in the throes of being new parents, and fell asleep on the sofa at 9pm, so the Yquem stayed in its bottle for another year.

But this Christmas I was determined to lose my Yquem virginity. I had the Riedel Sommelier Sauternes glasses cleaned and ready. The bottle was chilled, but not too cold. We had a chunk of stilton to go with it. We opened it, and it was…

…alright.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but it was disappointing. There was a bitter streak down the middle of the palate, and it had no length whatsoever. I can still remember my first taste of Haut-Brion, Lafite-Rothschild, Margaux, Vega Sicilia, Krug, Penfold's Grange. This was completely forgettable.

Mind you, I wasn't paying for my first taste of all of the others. That might have been it.

Perhaps in future I should take the approach of Miles from the movie Sideways, who dispatched his cherished Chateau Cheval Blanc 1961 thus:





One thing I never understood from that movie - Miles reveres Pinot Noir and despises both Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Yet his prized bottle is Chateau Cheval Blanc, a blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Maybe it's an in-joke or something.

In Lidl yesterday, picking up a few bits and bobs (including their very good Serrano ham and Italian salami), I was making my way to the till along the aisle with the wines. Up to now, I have found the wine selection in Lidl to be atrocious, and normally wouldn't bother even looking at what was on offer. But a couple of things caught my eye this time around. It would appear that they have done a bit of work on their Italian offerings.

I picked up a Teroldego Rotaliano Riserva 2004 for €7.99 and a Vino Nobile de Montepulciano 2004 for €10.99. Teroldego is a grape variety local to Trentino in the north east, and sightings of it are rare on export markets. This one was perfectly drinkable, but it lacked the smoothness and depth of flavour typical of this variety. I'm enjoying a glass of the Vino Nobile as I write this. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made using the Sangiovese grape, and comes from the village of Montepulciano in Tuscany. Considered one of Italy's finest red wines, it usually retails for €20+. (It's not to be confused with Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which is made using the Montepulciano grape and comes from the Abruzzi region to the east of Italy.) At €10.99, this is a genuine bargain.

Also a bargain, and I suspect a mistake, is Lidl's Parmesan. Priced on the shelf at €19.99 per kilo, but at €9.99 on the packet, I bought two quarter-kilo chunks for a fiver. It's the real stuff too - Parmigiano-Reggiano - not some ersatz parmesan-type cheap hard cheese.

Things have been quiet on the blog front for the last while, for one reason or another. Work has been quite busy, with a lot of toing and froing. I have found that I have had a dearth of ideas for posts, and those that do crop up seem like too much effort to write up.

But anyways, I'm on hols at the moment. I'm at home minding the little 'un. My sister, who looks after her during the week is away with her gang on their jolliers. My wife started a new job last month, so she can only get one week off, hence my status as a househusband this week. We will be on hols en famille next week.

The burtda went grand. I was working all day, but we managed to avoid the rain in the evening and get the barbie going. A nice piece of lamb was the order of the day, and we accompanied it with a nice bottle that we had originally planned to open last year on the 40th, but circumstances dictated otherwise. (Pontet-Canet 1966, in case you're curious.)

We were in Mayo last weekend, and took ourselves off to the beach on Sunday. Folly, you might think, but it was a lovely day on Cross Strand near Louisburgh. Not warm, as such, but very pleasant. I love the beaches around there, as the sea can be quite wild and dramatic, and also the fact that they are nearly always practically deserted. This weekend was no different, and with the exception of a few surfer d00dz, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. It was Babba's first trip to the seaside, and she even got to dip her piggies in the Atlantic. Back home on Monday, and since then thankfully the weather has been holding up. Walks at Emo Court are a regular feature of our days this week, and in this weather, it's a very pleasant way to pass an hour.

So what's been going on? I had planned to write at length about the Darren Graham affair, and may yet live up to that ambition. That sort of nonsense should have no place in any sport. Hopefully the GAA will use the opportunity to do something positive.

The recent Irish Times series about "Rip-Off Ireland" almost inspired me to put fingers to keyboard, but so far I have manfully resisted. Maybe next week. Or then again, maybe not.

On the tech side of things, Fake Steve Jobs has been unmasked. Apple have released new iMacs, so my machine is no longer cutting-edge. Still, I got ten months or so on the frontline, so it wasn't too bad a stint. Also, the new iLife and iWork suites have been released. I have ordered my copy of iLife '08 already. And to top it all, my .Mac account goes up from a measly 1GB to a much more respectable 10GB of storage. Once I install Leopard, I will use some of that space to back up all my photos (to go with my current backup regime of external HDD, Flickr and monthly DVD burn.)

Next week is Aoife's first birthday, so there will be lots of excitement to be had. She has a new little cousin as well, who was born just three weeks ago.

Then there's the preparations for the World Cup coming up as well. Loads to write about, just have to find the time.

So that's it. The babba is having a snooze at the moment, but is due to wake up any minute, so I'd better sign off.

Seasonal food is a topic I come back to every now and then. I see it as important, not just from the "food miles" aspect, but also because food that has a short journey from the farm to the plate is likely to be more nutritious than that which has flown long-haul.

Asparagus is something we are used to seeing on supermarket shelves pretty much all year around. The European asparagus season is quite short, only a few weeks, and we are in the midst of it right now. Outside of this season, most of the asparagus you see comes from countries far away like Peru.

I love the stuff. Fresh asparagus, steamed, served with butter, salt and pepper, or dusted with fresh parmesan or smothered in freshly-made hollandaise sauce…

It doesn't half make your wee smell, though.

Tags: asparagus, seasonal food, wee

I have written before on the subject of tasting notes on restaurant wine lists. Most restaurants feel the need to describe what their wines taste like (well, that's not exactly true. They usually get their suppliers to do the describing for them), but in the end what ends up of the list is usually pretentious nonsense.

The idea of describing what wine tastes like is sound, but only when the wines being described actually have some character. In Ireland, seven bottles out of ten come from the "New World" (i.e. Australia, Chile, USA, South Africa, and to a lesser extent Argentina and New Zealand), and most of those have a retail price of €8 or less. Most of them are made (or marketed) by big corporations, and the wine in the bottle is usually a secondary consideration to the brand name on the label. The best you can say about them is that they are bland or inoffensive. If a restaurant stocks one of these, I can't see why they should see the need to describe what it tastes like. A picture of the label would be more effective at communicating the message.

Yesterday, I was in Dún Laoghaire and ended up in Café Mao for a quick nosebag at lunchtime. (I have never understood the rationale behind the name of that restaurant. I can't imagine a restaurant called Café Stalin, or Café Pol Pot, but that's by the by.) Anyway, while I was there, I came across an exquisite example of oenobollocks. A Merlot (always a difficult one to describe) on their wine list was flagged up as this:

Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues. Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices. Intensely vinous, harmonic.

This tasting note consists of three verbless sentences describing appearance, nose and palate. Obviously it was written by someone who has studied wine tasting, because these three things are considered sacrosanct when it comes to writing tasting notes. But sadly, the whole lot is meaningless bollocks.

"Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues."
Are Burgundy-red hues feeling a bit poorly, and Ruby red is wiping their feverish brows?

"Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices."
It's a cheap fucking Merlot. You don't get intensity, persistence, complexity, scents or spices with cheap fucking Merlot. You get bleh.

"Intensely vinous, harmonic."
Rule No.1. of writing short tasting notes: never use the same word twice. Once again, you don't get "intense" with cheap fucking Merlot. I should freakin' hope it's "vinous", seeing as it's wine, after all. "Harmonic"? If you ping the glass with your fingernail, does it give a perfect C major? I think the word the writer was scrambling for there was "harmonious", but again, it would not be appropriate here.

There probably is a nice picture of a kangaroo or something on the label of this wine. They should stick with that to sell it rather than trying to describe how awful it tastes.

Tags: wine, Tasting notes