SPECTATOR WINE CLUB

Too good to miss for this Christmas

Auberon Waugh

for possible re-ordering. If my language sounds toutish and extreme, I must apolo- gise, but every one of these wines is a winner.

Christmas is a time for brooding about the poor, and to accommodate their needs Avery has found a £2.85 red wine from Gascony, the COtes de Saint Mont, which stood head and shoulders above all others in this price range. It is an excellently pleasant gulping wine, with no pretension to distinction, but faultless and full of good, traditional red wine taste. The grape is mostly tannat, as in Madiran, but less hard and fruitier with cabernet additions. I had never heard of this VDQS from the Gers, which goes to show how well worth- while it is to shop around in the lesser known areas. Brilliant for parties, and safe to drink in huge quantities, with nothing chemical or mean or sour in it.

Next a truly breathtaking Chilean re- serve cabernet sauvignon (2): knockout blackcurrant smell, ready to drink now, with every characteristic of first-class bor- deaux except price (£3.60). A good, pure, deep wine, full of fruit, with a faint tannic sting at the end which will disappear with food.

WINE AND FOOD SPECIAL

I have never found a burgundy passe- tout-grain I liked before. The mistake is to think of it as burgundy, rather than as an extremely grand beaujolais. As everybody knows, it is produced from a mixture of pinot and gamay grapes. Burgundy is so expensive nowadays that one looks only for the grand burgundy tastes, but once there was a splendid ordinary burgundy one drank in the inns and taverns of that blessed region. This is it the Marmouset 1983 from Remoissenet (3). Not a grand yin, but tasting of the best and richest beaujolais, strong in taste, strong in alco- hol, bright, dry, healthy — at £5 the best possible ordinary drinking wine.

Next, two expensive but good mature burgundies, both from Remoissenet and taken from a large selection which that admirable grower was prepared to make specially available for the Spectator Christ-

mas offer. The Savigny Serpentires 1983 (4) at £13.33 belongs more to the old-

fashioned, sweeter end of the burgundy spectrum, which I adore. Wonderful Bris- tol smell, nothing waterish in this highly Proper old taste, proper length, only falls short of the very best on depth. It is delicious and will certainly go on impro- ving for three or four years. The Pommard 1978-(5) is deeper, dryer, darker with a huge pure pinot smell. This is unmistak- ably top-class burgundy, as it jolly well should he at £22.92 the bottle, although you can pay much more for less good wine from the 1987 and 1988 vintages. This is the last great classic vintage of burgundy. If 1989 turns into another such, they will be paying £25 a bottle for it ex-cellars, with 11 years to wait before drinking. Hurry, hurry while stocks last. I should guess it has ten years life in it.

We fly to California for our first white Wine. The Rutherford Hill Partners Char- donnay 1984 (6) was offered last year and proved very popular, but I had forgotten it and jumped on it as a new discovery with cries of delight. Wonderful buttery smell with a touch of camembert, it has a strong, full finish, real depth, with a lovely hint of dry melon but no cigar smoke, apricots or other complications. Last year I wrote about its 'overpowering colonial smell of honey and straw, its rich, full and dreamy taste of expensive white burgundy'. The honey and straw eluded me this time but at the same price as last year, still under £5 a bottle, it is a better, more concentrated wine at an extraordinarily reasonable price, and people would be foolish to ignore it.

Next an entirely new discovery which had one member of the panel literally dancing with excitement in Somerset. At a London tasting of this wine from a tank sample 1 saw a hardened old wine mer-

chant weep — not what one expects from a Sauvignon Blanc (7). Nobilo's Marlborough vineyard is next door to the Cloudy Bay property whose sauvignons started taking the world by storm about three years ago and is now sometimes described as the best sauvignon in the world. I have not tasted them against each other, but from mem- ory, would judge the new Nobilo's Marl- borough Sauvignon just as good, and much cheaper. Cloudy Bay is almost unprocur- able, in any case, being largely drunk in Australia and Hong Kong before it can get here. On my first tasting I found crushed whitecurrant leaves, on my second lychees, on my third gooseberry, but what the hell. It is a really first-class sauvignon without any of the nettles-and-tom-cat you get from cruder examples. The price of £6.49 is not cheap for a colonial sauvignon; punters will have to take my word for it that it is an experience no serious wine-drinker should miss.

Eight pounds, again, is a very serious price for a colonial chardonnay but I have already offered Rouge Homme's 1987 Coonawarra, and punters will know that it is all there: masses of fruit — apricots, peaches, melons, not always easy to sepa- rate but all there. Anybody will be able to tell it is a really high-class, expensive wine. As a further attraction, it is utterly deli- cious, its enormous concentration of fruit kept in order by the right level of acid.

Next, a dessert wine (9) which is less alcoholic and less cloying than the over- rated Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, as well as being somewhat cheaper at £5.75 the bottle. It is fresh and juicy with enough acid bounce to make one want to go on drinking it, and with the usual, wonderful fragrance of the muscatel grape. Ideal with nuts and Christmas cake, or it is light enough to drink as an aperitif. Finally, Avery's Special Cuvee (1) cham- pagne, which needs no introduction to Spectator readers. Twice, when served it blind, I have mistaken it for one of the great prestige ctwees — a truly elegant, truly enjoyable example which, at £9.58, is £5 cheaper than the cheapest of the grandes marques and nearly half the price of some of them.

Sample cases work out at £11.01 a bottle for the rich (12), £5.29 a bottle for the poor II). The two exciting discoveries in this offer are Remoissenet's Marmouset passe- tout-grain 1983 (:” and Nobilo's Marl- borough Sauvignon, but all the wines are wonderful.