SPECTATOR WINE CLUB
Avery mixed bag to see us into June, with wines from Italy, Portugal and Chile, as well as France, collected by that in- domitable Master of Wine and traveller, Mr David Stevens, for his Oxford ware- house. I have chosen them from his enor- mous and exotic range chiefly for their cheapness, as I do not think this is a time of year to buy expensive wine.
Portugal's fizzy white vinho verde has a bad name among serious wine drinkers in this country, but if one can forget that this Gazela(1) is an exceptionally good example of a normally rather nasty wine, and concentrate on the wine itself, then we are left with something wonderfully fresh and surprisingly full. It is dry without being sharp, and has none of the residual sugar tastes which normally spoil this wine. It would be a wonderful drink at a summer's evening party for young people in frilly clothes, and I propose to use it on exactly such an occasion.
Next a red Portuguese wine. Dao is the area which makes most of Portugal's best table wine, all of it branded. Grao Vasco(2) is singled out by Hugh Johnson as one of the best brands of Dao, and Garrafeira implies that this wine comes from the merchant's private reserve. Seems odd to be able to buy it for £2.95, in that case. The colour is slightly paler than one would expect from the smell, which is rich and full of incense. The taste is very nearly the taste of a grand old wine but it ends too short and dry to carry total conviction. It is really a wine for those who like the grand old wine taste but can't afford it. If this goes down well with the punters, I shall try more Portuguese wines and even have an entire offer devoted to them, as they seem to me to be stupendously cheap for age and quality. But one cannot and must not expect total perfection at £2.95 delivered. The Chilean cabernet sauvignon — Vina Linderos 1983(3) — from ungrafted, pre- phylloxera grapes costs 50p more. Some may remember the Linderos '79 I offered about three years ago. Anybody with some left in the cellar should go and taste it now. It really is a most excellent wine. This wine already has an exciting and lovely nose, and it is full of rich tastes — highly aromatic, with the tiniest touch of farm- yard still there. On the strength of dis- covering how excellent the '79 had be- come, I laid down a huge quantity of the '82, which is more backward than the '83, but this wine should really be kept for a year or two, if possible, Nobody could possibly fail to see the quality in it (there may be one or two complaints about the Garrafeira) but many will be reluctant to lay down anything from Chile. It can be drunk with pleasure now but, as I say, it would be a dreadful shame to do so. It
Tasteful Oxford bags
Auberon Waugh
comes from twenty-two miles south of Santiago, and is a first-class wine at £3.45 or any other price.
Next, a joker. If we were not all such snobs, we would drink masses of this Moscato d'Asti(4): a waterish white colour, with masses of mousse, it tastes of nothing but the muscatel dessert grape. It goes eight times better with wedding cake than the dry champagnes we always serve (which it does not try to copy, having a conventional and almost irremovable cork with none of the paraphernalia of wire and gold foil). It is a delicious fizzy drink, with none of the cloying, over-alcoholic prop- erties of most dessert muscat and would certainly be a huge success with all the old retainers, downstairs and outdoors staff who attend weddings — as indeed it would be with all of us, if we were not such snobs. Having said which, I do not think I quite dare to serve it at a wedding I am giving in June, but I despise myself for this. At half the price of champagne (£3.85 the bottle) it would cause more pleasure to at least half the guests. I served it to a Women's Institute outing to Combe Florey and they went wild.
Not many people will go for the Domaine de Trevallon 1984(5) at £5.25 and I must admit it seems pretty odd now: deep black red, shot with blue, smells and tastes of yoghurt, huge concentration of not very high-class tastes, rich in tannin and card- board . . . it is an amazing wine which must be kept at least five years, perferably ten, by which time I solemnly predict that this new, small property at Les Baux en Prov- ence will be famous. Its growing fame in France is reflected in the price. If I cannot personally guarantee it will be a beautiful wine (in the way that I can guarantee the Chilean Linderos) that is my natural timid- ity. All the experts say it will be terrific.
Finally a ruby-coloured burgundy from Auxey-Duresses(6) which is not cheap but seems to me to be better than any other burgundy of 1982 at this sort of price. The Chevaliers of the Tastevin agreed with me when they chose to honour it in 1985, Its colour, as I say, is pale, like all the 1982 burgundies, but it struck me as an utterly delicious wine which drinks well now but will keep for years. The price of £7.50 is diabolical, but you can't get this wonderful pinot taste any cheaper, and it is several classes above the Coulanges-la-Vineuse which everyone raved about last summer.
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