Wine Club

Lucky old plutocrats

Auberon Waugh

Ais normal for the traditional bumper Christmas offer from Avery's — on which we have been working all year — I shall go through the paupers' mixed case first, then, with a short break for the wine which can be found in neither, Joblot's amazing Givry from an unfashionable year (No. 10), the plutocrats' mixed case.

Prices are slightly up on 1991, for instance, when paupers paid £75.44 (£6.29 per bottle) for their mixed case against this year's £6.45, but only for the paupers. Plutocrats, who paid f174.24 (114.52 per bottle) in 1991, need pay only £10.54 the bottle this year. Paupers must blame government policy,

AUTUMN WINE AND FOOD

which is to maintain low interest rates at a cost of allowing the pound to sink. But they have some lovely wines, and plutocrats can thank their lucky stars that expensive wines have actually come down in price - such as Avery's brilliant 1989 Bicentenary Cham- pagne (by over £20 the case), even as it has acquired an extra year's bottle age. They will appreciate that this magnificent prestige cuvee is given away at £16.65 - less than many widely advertised non-vintage cham- pagnes.

So now for a quick gallop through the 13 wines on offer, all of which are very good and all (except the champagnes) new. It is

just a question of deciding which you will like most. The paupers kick off with a chardonnay from Corsica(1), of all places, bottled by the enterprising Alsatian bottler Francis Dulac, who also gives them a caber- net from the Languedoc(6). The chardonnay is a good, full wine at £3.49, nothing diffi- cult or nasty, no oil or rancid butter or rot- ten wood. Everybody will like it, even if no one faints with pleasure. The Romanche Sauvignon(2) from Languedoc (or Pays d'Oc as they cutely call it nowadays) has a good sauvignon nose, clean fresh taste, nothing sharp, a nice fruity wine in an elegant bottle at £4.15. For reds, the paupers kick off with Dulac's Cabernet Sauvignon(6) from the same region. I do not know whether it is any relation to the wondrous cabernet sauvignon of J.P.Chenet, also from the Pays d'Oc, bottled in beautiful wonky 18th-cen- tury-style flasks, which I raved about in the summer, but its bottle is more ordinary and its price all of 26 pence cheaper. It has no tannin, no complexity, but plenty of bounce: a light, lively wine, good syrupy smell and plummy taste, at the wonderful price of £3.49 the bottle. Excellent for the young or for bulk consumers of any age.

For the fuller, richer taste, we have Tyrrells Old Winery Cabemet/Merlot 1991(7), from South Eastern Australia, 80 per cent cabernet to 20 per cent merlot. Murray Tyrrell claims to have achieved complexity in this lovely, smooth, fat wine by a touch of unspecified oak maturation, but what I get from it is good, rich, elegant, concentrated fruit with no complexity at all - perfect Christmas drinking at a very reasonable £5.99.

Just as reasonably priced, but rather more expensive, is Delaunay's 1990 Sante- nay at £9.58(9). We tasted four Santenays, at prices going up to £22 the bottle, in our search for a reasonably priced burgundy, and this was easily the best: bright, clean, pure young burgundy taste, fine pinot smell, all is right and nothing wrong. This vintage wipes the floor with the 1978s and is generally recognised as the best since 252 BC, which few now remember.

The paupers' case is completed by tIv° bottles of Avery's Special Cuvee cham- pagne(12) at the same price as ever, and probably a little more bottle age. This has been my favourite everyday drinking cham- pagne for almost as long as I can remember and, at under £12 the bottle, seems to get better every year. Now for the odd man out. Joblot's Clos de la Servoisine Givry premier cru(w) cannot be included among the mixed cases because Avery's were able to secure only 70 cases in all. It comes from a suspect year and goes to prove my point that with Burgundy it is often a mistake to pay too much attention to anything written on the label. I am old fashioned enough to think £11.35 quite a tough price for a Givry, but this is a truly delicious wine.

Deep, dark, old-style, heavy, with the tiniest touch of farmyard, tasting about tea years older than its age, it is unmistakably one of the stars of the offer. If I praise it up any more it will mean that more people are disappointed when they eventually get . round to placing an order. But Joblot a major discovery. Now for the plutocrats. South Africa has a long tradition for good, inexpensive, drY chenin blancs, but is only now getting

WINE & FOOD

round to doing clever things with the sauvi- gnon grape. This rather pale beverage from the Fairview Estate in Paarl(3) may seem an odd choice for the rich man's Christmas, but it has a good strong smell and full, pleasant taste which makes one wonder why the Loire has been so backward in blending its two classic white grapes. At £4.59, no rich man need be ashamed of offering it.

Bachelier's 1993 Petit Chablis(4) is includ- ed for the benefit of refugees from the colonial chardonnay taste. At £6.99, it pro- vides the fresh, appley experience with a faint touch of wild flowers (don't ask me which) which proper Chablis buffs crave over the burgundian tastes of grand cru wines from heavier years. To be drunk at once. Those who are not frightened of colonial tastes will go for Tyrrells Old Winery Chardonnay5) at £5.99. A clean, strong, dry example, with no hint of cardboard, Petrol, butter or any other colonial secre- tions, it has enough residual sugar to make it excellent as an aperitif as well as a table wine.

For reds, the plutocrats have a seriously good 1990 Bourgeois Margaux — Château Cantelaude — at £9 the bottle(11). A beauti- ful dark red colour, this wine, like most 1990 clarets, is glorious to drink now with hot meat, but in six or eight years' time it will be of dewcierne cru Medoc standard. Those who can keep anything left after Christmas should do so.

Finally, a horribly expensive but excellent Beaune Marconnets(12) 1982 from Remoissenet at £20 the bottle. This is a faultless burgundy in the heavyweight style, perfect for drinking now, caught in the Prime of its maturity. As burgundy becomes less and less affordable, these two wines — Joblot's Givry(10) and Remoissenet's Mar- cuimets(ii) may offer a last opportunity to taste the wine as it used to be. Delaunay's Santenay(9) is a splendid exam- ple of the new-style burgundy, but those who want to learn what it used to taste like should run to numbers 10 and 11 on the list.

There is nothing more to be said about Avery's Bicentennial Champagne of 1989. If we can disregard those eccentrics who actually prefer the flat, biscuity taste of old champagne which has madeirised and gone off and those who consciously prefer the heavy, pint noir taste, then I would say that the Bicentennial is as good as any of thegreat prestige cuvees, from Dom Perignon to Crystal and back again. As I say, the price of £16.65 the bottle is a Joke.

I may have seemed to concentrate on the mixed cases, but the truth is that there are 13 different wines to choose from, all of them good, most of them excellent.