16 FEBRUARY 1985, Page 42

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Spectator Wine Club

Auberon Waugh

Punters may grow bored with the way I push a different C6tes du Rhone at them every month, but I persist in believ- ing that they offer the best value for money to those who like a full, fruity wine which does not appear to have been doctored. This example (1), from my nearest wine merchant in Somerset, has the distinction of being the longest-serving daily drinking wine — for ordinary, non-festive occasions — in the history of the Waugh family. We finally decided that the various Riojas in this price range (just under £3) were either too thin and dull or too rich and fancy for long-term drinking. Fourteen months later (there is no discernible difference between the 1982 and the 1983) we still lap up this wine with enormous pleasure. I can think of no better advertisement. Nobody has ever disliked it although I suppose a dedicated claret drinker might not be too keen. It probably wouldn't help with his Aids and other problems, either. Although it may not quite compete, at its delivered price, with the shelf price of the COtes du Rhone at your nearest supermarket, I would be surprised if anyone would deliver a better wine cheaper.

I offered this white Macon Villages (2)

briefly last year and was surprised at the warmth of the response, having thought it overshadowed by the Macon Vire from Bonhomme which I had offered the month before. By coincidence, I hope to offer the 1983 Macon Vire next month, and have been told it is sensational although I have not tasted it yet. But it will also be £1.37 a bottle more expensive, at £5.02 as against £3.65 for this Macon Villages, so I sincere- ly hope it is everything which has been claimed for it. Having returned to the Macon Villages on the recommendation of a correspondent in northern England, I find we have polished off three cases in as many months which is quite extraordinary in a household which is not by nature much given to white wine. It has a lovely, unmistakably Chardonnay taste with very little sharpness — which makes it equally acceptable as an aperitif or as a wine to drink with meals. Quite possibly it is not a wine for keeping, but I find it utterly delicious now, served at only a few degrees under room temperature at any hour of the day or night.

Now for the big one. Faithful readers already know my feelings about Serge Hochar's miraculous Chateau Musar from

the Lebanon. I bought five cases of the 1977 and already wish I had bought more.

The 1978 (3) is slightly less black and dense, slightly more forward. Those who objected to the massive concentration of the 1977, finding strange and alien tastes

there — what I called the medicine chest syndrome — will take to the 1978 more readily since it is a more conventional

wine: a Lafite (if I may risk Pseuds Corner) laced with a 1967 Chateauneuf du Pape Les Cedres rather than a Latour laced with

1978 Hermitage La Chappelle and a drop of port. But they are both magnificent

wines, and the 1977 is already turning into

a great one. Incidentally, I have heard that some branches of Waitrose have a few

bottles of the 1977 Musar left at the cash

and carry price of £2.90, and earnestly urge any reader within striking distance of a Waitrose to go and grab them. Sonic punters — especially women, oddly enough — remain sceptical that even a Christian Lebanese can possibly produce serious wine. It really is important — more important with this than any other wine know — to serve it at room temperature or one degree above, and to decant it two or

three hours before serving. Under those,

circumstances, you will find that the 197.1 has lost all its rough edges and the 1978 Is already a truly lovely wine, whose equiva- lent in quality from France would cost well over twice the £4.57 asked, if such an equivalent existed. I include the 1972 Savigny les Beaune (4) because I am always on the look-out for parcels of old Burgundy and my clever

Bishops Lydeard wine merchant has found one, but I am not going to rave about a 1972 Savigny at £9.03 even if others are

paying more for virtually undrinkable 1980s and 1981s. It has a thoroughlY

respectable pinot taste — perhaps a trifle sharp, like so many 1972s, but not offen- sively so — and is in every sense a WO,

which the French would call 'correct • Perhaps the main reason why everybody In England is being so rude about Burgundy is simply that we cannot afford it any more.

The 1979 Saint Emilion (5) is here because I have been neglecting serious claret drinkers, and this seems to me a good example of a year which, in the, merlot-based regions of St Emilion and

Pomerol, has already overtaken the more acclaimed and more expensive 1978s. tt, has none of the complication of a cbeval

Blanc or an Ausone, but it is a good, thick wine from a famous vineyard at the bottom of the village and will arrive in a handsome wooden case. Two of my panel left-wingers — said they preferred it to the Musar, and stuck to their guns, even when they discovered it was twice the price. The

other three members preferred the Musar at any price and I must admit that the

Couvent des Jacobins seems to end rather thin and waterish compared to that mag- nificent wine. But there is no accounting

for tastes. both