Special offer
Spectator Wine Club
Auberon Waugh
Mr Lawson's wonderful Budget seems to invite an offer of cheapies for sum- mer drinking, since it has made an enor- mous difference to prices at the cheap end of the market, practically none at the ex- pensive end. In any case I have often observed that the English seem to welcome the summer as an excuse not only to take all their clothes off but also to serve cheap wine. This Lawson Celebration Summer Offer concentrates on reds, partly because everyone is pushing cheap whites at the mo- ment, partly because I am fed up with the notion that one drinks only white (or at best pink) wine in summer. Of course one goes on drinking reds, unless one is mad or eating nothing but fish. I would not be sur- prised to learn that red wine also stimulates melanin pigmentation or suntanning.
My first choice is a good, cheap substitute for Beaujolais. The Ardeche is a small area in the middle of the Cotes du Rhone about half way between Hermitage and Chateauneuf du Pape which is chiefly famous for its Syrah (see below), but I found the Gamay more successful. although made from the same grape as Beaujolais, the taste is more pronounced until it might be described as a caricature of Beaujolais. I have had a similar gamay- experience once or twice from certain St Amours, but from none of the other Beau- jolais villages. This wine is not so elegant or balanced as a St Amour but then it is a great deal cheaper at £2.40 and I should judge it an interesting and thoroughly satisfactory wine to serve slightly chilled with any sum- mer meal.
The problem with cheap reds, as I have often pointed out, is that whereas it is easy to find acceptable, slurping wine which has practically no taste, as soon as it starts developing a taste of its own it falls into one of two categories — people either adore it (all the more for its being so cheap) or they detest it (ditto). As a general rule, hosts tend to adore it, guests tend to hate it but that is not invariably the case, as punters may have found with the Wente Zinfandel, which went down tremendously well at a New Year party in my home. At any rate, in acknowledgment of the violent differences of opinion which arise over strong-tasting cheap wine, I have decided to break my own rule and offer a wine which I personal- ly find disgusting, although at least two members of my panel thought it delicious — the Syrah de l'Ardeche. For those who
like it, this wine may be just the thing. .1° me it has a smell which is faintly reminis" cent of Messrs Trueffit and Hill's hair preparation called CAR, or possibly Trumper's Euchrist. I would not personauY recommend it — unless for external use 011' ly — to anyone who has not discovered it already. But it has a strong, distinctive taste for all that, and some people love it. The Saint Joseph, made in the same village of St Desirat-Champagne as the previous two (between Condrieu, which in my opinion makes the best dry white wihe of France, and Tournon) is also a product of the syrah grape, of course, but is altogether less controversial; although again I have met people who can't tak,e. Saint Joseph at any price. I found it NT and distinctly pleasant when served c°°.i Anyone who finds it too sharp should Ptit.1,1 away and drink it next summer, when it ", be blander. This wine won a silver medal a` the Grand Concours of Macon in 1982 an is a good example of a minor wine 've should all have tried once, at very least', d Nearly everybody will have tr'e example, from Max Cognard-Talnau 01 motoring tBourgueilhrough t honcee Loire. o r twice e tswhen a u excellent substitute for Beaujolais at about theearrl; price, and is my own idea of the Pfects summer wine — infinitely preferable to neighbour at Chinon, which as often as n0" in my experience, is quite sour and !last!: People say that Bourgueil tastes of rasPheis ries, although goodness knows why. "r,ist e Nicholas de Bourgueil, was found for and by Chloe Woodhead, of Wineheads, ancie strikes me as quite excellent. It is °land chiefly from the Cabernet Franc grape' a",s has a characteristically zingy taste of grao'r and herbs which everyone who likes wine summer summer will find delicious. This is easily.tf"e; most elegant of the summer wines on °1„0 and will remain my own choice, but it is good pretending it is tremendously cheap for a Loire wine at £4 a bottle. Uhl °,,d tunately the French seem to have discove.r,. its excellence long before the English c1.11:e But I am convinced that nobody will be 01 to find a better example any cheaper.
'The GLC rule now is that you can't ° °ft the underground unless you're smoking'
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