SIMON HOGGART
GOSH, there's some not very nice wine about. The other day
I tried a few bottles of something called 'Origin', a branded series of wines from single-grape varieties. They're boring and bland. It's less a wine than a marketing exercise — catering for people who've been bullied into thinking that their own taste buds aren't up to the job.
Good wine needn't be expensive, nor does it have to come from some boutique vineyard where a crazed obsessive creates two dozen cases a year from soil so desirably barren you couldn't grow turnips in it, making his daughters squeeze each grape with their thighs. But it must have its own flavour, its own savour, the sense that someone has put in their skills, ideas, eccentricities and even love. Good wine is made by people with a passion for good wine, whether they are working on two acres or on 10,000.
Which brings me to the first of our Christmas offers. It's from Corney & Barrow, and as ever the fabled Brett-Smith Indulgence kicks in — a £6 discount on every case if you buy three, or just two within the M25 sent to the same address. So you could knock 50p off each bottle price.
First, C&B's terrific house wines: the white0) is guzzled in great quantities by C&B staff and, these days, by Spectator readers. It's light, fresh, crisp and lemony without ever being acidic. The house red(5) is every bit as good as you'd expect at this price, and is a perfect excuse for avoiding the dreaded Mouton Cadet, given to unlucky people by well-meaning visitors.
If you want to go a step up, try the Domaine Les Escasses 2002(2), also from Gascony, but which has just a little more body, a little more perfume, and is a touch more floral. This is a seriously good wine, and remarkable value at £4.80.
We've offered La Cornbe de Grinou(3) from Bergerac before, and it's always been a great hit. It's very thy but also has a lovely honeyed taste. Perfect as an aperitif, but also excellent with fish and the lighter meats. Like many white wines, it benefits from being opened for a spell before you drink it.
The luxurious Christmas white is the sensational Eradus Sauvignon Blanc 2002(4) from New Zealand. I may have mentioned that I recently saw a bottle of Cloudy Bay in a restaurant priced at £40. But this, in my view, is better, combining the familiar gooseberry, grass and kiwi flavours with a sumptuous mellowness. it's fruity, it's smooth, it's delicious, and it will cost you only £8.23. So with the Indulgence you could have five bottles at home for the price of one Cloudy Bay in a caff.
We've also offered before the tremen dous Domaine de Saissac from the Pays d'Oc(6), a Cabernet Sauvignon. It's priced at a fraction over a fiver a bottle, and it really is a first-rate wine — lighter than your average Bordeaux, and just right for everyday knocking-back quantity, perhaps with the Christmas Eve casserole or the Boxing Day leftovers.
C&B's own McLaren Vale Shiraz 2001(y) is not light; in fact, it's a terrifically meaty wine: powerful, fleshy, but with that lovely whiff of eucalyptus you find in the better Oz Shirazes. This would be fantastic with game, or turkey, or beef, or on its own.
And the red treat is the Chateau de Lamarque 1998(8) from the Haut-Medoc. This is for people who still crave the classic claret, with its smoky, oaky, cigary, cedary flavours but like to pay less than £12. Terrific value. It's right for drinking now, so would be a marvellous accompaniment to Christmas dinner. Or for drinking secretly on your own.
There are two sample cases: one for everyday Yuletide boozing, the other slightly .....4 more upmarket. Delivery, as ever, is .free.
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