SPECTATOR WINE CLUB
Christmas glory for you
Auberon Waugh
hristmas is a time when we are supposed to think about the poor, so after long and careful thought I have decided to include a cheapie in this year's bumper Christmas offer from Avery's. The Domaine de Baudare 1985(1) is a red yin de pays from the Comte Tolosan, north of Toulouse, although to my way of tasting it might have come from a long way to the south-east. At £2.75 the bottle Avery's are tremendously proud of it, and their judg- ment was shared by all the young people on the panel, one of whom declared approvingly that it tasted of Christmas cake. Everybody liked it for its strength, its fruit (preponderantly gamay, apparently, although I would not have guessed) and its cheapness. It is the sort of wine I would have drunk for a year when I was younger and poorer. A pretty ruby colour, with masses of taste, it is ideal for circumstances in which wine would be drunk in great quantity. Partly for that reason, I am excluding it from the sample case (8). The Rouge Homme Shiraz Cabernet 1985(2) at £4.95 adds knobs to everything I have ever written about these wonderful Coonawarra reds. It can be opened ten days before drinking, if you like, and the rich blackcurrant stew will be unaffected. I am not saying you can stand a spoon up in It — in fact it might be unwise to try — but for those who enjoy concentrated fruit and massive taste it is a truly excellent exam- ple. Purists would say it needs strong food steak au poivre, perhaps but I think they are wrong. It would go brilliantly with cold turkey, and remove the need for Cumberland sauce. Not a wine for every- day drinking, perhaps — you might turn into a pigeon — but a glorious surprise whenever you bring it up. Another advan- tage is that you can keep the corks and suspend them from your favourite hat. Now for the mature burgundies. Avery's have found two large parcels of mature Wine and produced them at a price which will cause gasps from anyone who has been following the burgundy story in re- cent years. To sum it up, new burgundy looks and tastes like cherryade and costs a bomb; old burgundy is unprocurable. Of these two, the Seigneurie de Posanges 19670) is very old indeed. It has the beautiful unique taste of Old English bur- gundy (despite being bottled in France by Remoissenet) but its slightly dusty smell betrays that it really needs drinking now. A product of the old burgundy system where- by over-production was declassified, it is almost certainly composed of single vineyard and premier crus from a year which, although overshadowed by 1966 and 1969, produced some excellent wines. Now it is beginning to fade but it has a lovely taste and it is a glorious thing to be able to offer a 21-year-old burgundy for
under £10. Open immediately before drinking.
The Seigneurie, as I say,' stands up well on its own. It does not stand up well beside Remoissenet's 1978 Santeriay", a magnifi- cent wine which has just reached its peak with masses of life in it despite a slight browning in the colour. Although once again bottled in France, this is OEB at its most refined. There are those who com- plain that burgundy, even at. its best, is one-dimensional but so, I imagine, is Heaven. The token female on this year's panel said it would make her very yielding. I regard it as something approaching a miracle to have found a large parcel of this splendid wine to offer at £12 the bottle. A Christmas of Santenay 1978 is unlikely to be forgotten and will never be repeated. Now for the whites. I have never offered a muscadet before and would not offer the MarqUis de-Goulaine if I did not find it exceptional. A dry, intense, short wine it has all the pebbly characteristics for which muscadet is famous -but which so often retreat into a mixture of salt, acid and near-tastelessness. This wine is full and pleasing. Even if it is not spectacularly cheap at £4.56 the bottle, it is the best I haVe yet found.
Nothing could be more different than the Rutherford Hill Chardonnay(6) with its colonial smell of honey and straw, its rich, full and dreamy taste of expensive white burgundy. At under £5 the bottle, it confirms what I wrote about California two months ago. It is a seriously good wine at an extraordinarily reasonable price.
Finally the champagne. Avery's Special Cuvee(71 needs no introduction to Specta- tor readers. It seems to have been getting better every year, and has the great quality that if one does not drink it all immediate- ly, it improves by the month when laid down. Out of Avery's great love for Spectator readers — or possibly because I brutally demanded it — we can still offer this delicious wine at £8.29 the bottle, which is a laughable price when compared to the £12–£14 being asked for inferior, heavily-advertised brands. It is as elegant, clean and nutty as ever. Perhaps it is my imagination which finds it even more ele- gant, cleaner and nuttier, but then I may be influenced by the unworthy thought of all the money I am saving.
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