SPECTATOR MINI-BAR OFFER
Simon Hoggart
THE SPECTATOR Mini-Bar is experimental, and this month's experiment is to see what happens when we offer four superb wines, all discounted, and all sold exclusively by Lay & Wheeler, one of our most popular merchants, These are not cheap wines, but they are remarkable.
There is a vast range of Riojas, some OK, some excellent, and some, like this Murua 1997, exceptional. It's rich, almost meaty, and the familiar oak and vanilla tang of Rioja are overlaid by darker, more powerful flavours. If you're a Rioja fan, you'll love it. If you're not, you'll be converted but only to the best, which may prove ultimately expensive. An 11 per cent discount brings the price to £10.50.
Similarly a lot of second-rate wine is sold as Chateauneuf-du-Pape; not this one . For the price, the 1997 Domaine la Roquette" is a terrific bargain. It has the familiar heady, perfumed taste, but the Syrah grape gives it a lovely smoky undertone, and the Grenache makes it jammy and plump and fruity. How L&W can cut it by 17 per cent to £11.95, I do not claim to know.
Henschke is a 100-year-old family winery in the Barossa Valley, making some of Australia's finest wine in minute quantities. Their most famous product — reckoned, with Penfold Grange, one of the two best wines in the antipodes — is called Hill of Grace. Since that retails here for £114.95, we're not offering it this month. But the Keyneton Estate 1999', made of Shiraz. Cabernet and Merlot, is very much the same kind of wine. I think it's fabulous: rich, with deep flavours of cedar, blackberries, forest fruits and even the hint of eucalyptus that you find in the best Oz Shiraz. It is utterly delicious now, but will keep for a very long time. With nearly ten per cent discount, it's only £14.50.
Finally, a tremendous treat. Condrieu is a very small appellation in the southern Rhone, making almost legendary wines from the Viognier grape. Viognier is now grown around the world, but this is its home. You'll almost never see Condrieu in a supermarket or chain; specialist merchants acquire tiny parcels of it. So it's all the more amazing that L&W is offering this Les Ravines 2000' at just £19.95, a £2 saving, It's velvety, unctuous, perfumed, and so packed with gorgeous flavours that you'll want to sip it very slowly indeed. Tremendous.
Delivery is free within mainland UK.
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