SPECTATOR WINE CLUB
A sip for the rich and a sop for the poor
Auberon Waugh
It is fitting that the 100th offer of the Spectator Wine Club since its launching in November 1982, should return to Avery's of Bristol for a Grand Christmas offer. We started at Avery's, originally drawn by the excellence of their sturdy old burgundies, and have returned to them, usually several times a year, ever since. In eight years, the pattern of wine consumption has changed. This year, we offer only one burgundy( °). It is a beautiful wine, and chosen with acclaim as being outstandingly the best among nine very good and usually rather grander-sounding burgundies which we tasted.
Instead, we have wine from four conti- nents. Even Australia was not able to squeeze through our strict marking systems this time - a terrible example of the havoc caused by bad government and greedy growers. The first two wines, from Chile, are quite easily the bargains of the season. Last year's Undurraga Sauvignon Blanc struck me as crude, flat, oxidised and tanky. This year's(1) is utterly delicious: fresh, clean, fragrant with a slight and very welcome prickle when I tasted it, a revela- tion at £3.15 - a price at which it is very hard to find good white wine except for a few Australian Rhine Rieslings. This wine is a brilliant aperitif or party drink for anyone planning to entertain inexpensively over the Christmas season. There is really no excuse for serving even young people the disgusting riesling-style Eurowine in two-litre bottles while this delicious sauvig- non is available so cheap.
Undurraga's Cabernet Sauvignon 1987(2), also at £3.15, is another faultless wine, with an overpowering cabernet sauvignon smell and a great mouthful of cabernet sauvignon fruit. This is a really excellent claret at the sort of price you pay for mulling wine. Next, another surprise. Although the 1985 Château de la Begude (rouge)t31 is unmistakably a Provençal wine, and £4.95 is not cheap by the standards of the C6tes de Provence, it beat all the wines from Bordeaux quite handsomely on the price/ quality reckoning, and is ready to drink now. I do not know what grapes were used, but it has the meaty, earthish smell of a Bandol, suggesting the presence of mour- vedre , with a mass of Provencal spices, miles removed from the cinsault and gre- nache of the cotes du Rhone. I suspect there is quite a bit of cabernet and syrah, but the result is unmistakably Provencal, a splendid, lively wine which every serious cellar should include.
Next two whites. The Klein Constantia Sauvignon(4) comes from one of the oldest vineyards in the Cape, where wine has been made since 1685. At last, they seem to be getting it right. This is at the opposite end of the sauvignon spectrum to the Undurraga - definitely for drinking with meals, a fat, rather than a thin aristocrat at £5.49. At 13° it might even be mistaken for a chardonnay, but either way it is a thoroughly grand wine, with its lovely deep sewery smell, and one of which the whole African continent can be proud. The Rutherford Hill Knoll Chardonnay(5) is a typically rich, proper Californian chardon- nay turning to melon with a tiny sting in the finish which makes you want to drink more, and more, and more. It was a big struggle to get this wine under £6, at which price it comfortably beat all competition from France, Australia and New Zealand.
Now the Burgundy°). Never has my own point been so triumphantly proved that you cannot judge a burgundy by its name, its year, or by anything except what is in the bottle. Santenay, at the extreme south- ern end of the Cote d'Or, almost in the Chalonnaise, is not particularly famous for the depth of its wines, and the year 1982 is generally characterised by over- production, pallor and thin taste. This Clos de Tavannes from Remoissenet is a corker, a real heavyweight, infinitely to be prefer- red to scores of premiers crus and many grands crus which are household names. The price of £15 a bottle is horrid but irreducible - it took a great struggle to get it down from £16. All I can promise is that you will have a good burgundy at the price - ready to drink now, and with many years' life in it.
I can't and won't apologise for the price of the Avery's Special Cuvee champagne(7). At £11.25 it is a much better buy than any of the heavily advertised grands marques. We must simply decide whether we are going to go on drinking champagne or not. Neither the former colonies, nor any other part of the Third World, can begin to fill the gap. Those who are going to persevere, or who have daughters of marriageable age, would be well advised to buy 20 cases and lay them down. Avery's Special Cuvee develops wonderfully with a little bottle age, and I dread to think what will happen to cham- pagne prices in the months and years ahead. If the stock appears to be shrinking, it might persuade prospective sons-in-law to get a move on. The wine is as lovely as ever. The Muscat de Rivesaltes(8) is once again pure heaven as liquefied muscatel at £6.75 a pound up on last year's price, I am sorry to say. The next three beverages are chiefly designed for those who are aiming for the mixed cases — 'A'" works out at £5.83 the bottle, 'B'(13) at £8.86. The Investiture Vintage Character(9) has a burned smell and tastes agreeably of mulberries, for those who were too improvident to lay down the real thing. I am not a serious whisky(10) drinker, but the one Scotsman on the panel gave a yelp of delight. I very much liked Avery's 10-year-old armagnac(11) as something cleaner, dryer and oakier than many of the overrated, over-priced older examples. Happy Christ- mas drinking. All the wines are lovely, although I wish the burgundy could have been cheaper, and the port is really a sop for the poor. But it is much too good to be added to methylated spirit.
Previous page
