GETTING PISSED

Christmas is just about here. Luckily I've got the supplies in to get us through it - lots of wine.

We don't do trees, cards, decorations, letters, turkeys and all that other stuff.

We'll probably get pissed.

Listen to this:

GETTTING PISSED

THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER BEST THING

I was looking for a nice rose in the supermarket today and chose the Villa Maria 'White Label' Rose 2017 that I've had before and has been doing OK in awards accumulation. See:

BLOODY AWARDS

Happily it was on special so I bought a bottle thinking it would go well with the Summer fruits and vegetable salad I had planned for my dinner... see HERE

Next to the VM 'White Label' Rose was another Villa Maria rose I hadn't seen before - Villa Maria Cellar Selection Pinot Noir Rose 2017.

This was also on special, at the same price as the 'White Label' - $13.99. Knowing that Cellar Selection wines are usually a price point above the 'White Label' wines I bought a bottle to try.

Without doubt this is the big brother or big sister wine. It has a greater depth of fruit intensity and flavour. It has all of the summer fruits characters of strawberries and raspberries that you expect with a good rose but also has a clear and typical Marlborough cherry Pinot Noir character. 

I'm 'sold' on this wine and I'm going to look out for 'by the case' specials.

Tonight I had it for dinner with that Summer fruits and vegetable salad that The Food Curmudgeon prepared. Result - bloody marvellous.

CLEANSKINS (2)

It's CLEANSKINS 2 because some years ago I wrote a post Cleanskins:

CLEANSKINS

Not a lot has changed in regard to Cleanskins. The wine industries in Australia and New Zealand have vintage yield variations from year to year and supply demand changes which can lead to either gluts or shortages.

Cleanskins usually are the excess from wineries. From time to time wine producers have a surplus of some wines where their sales orders don't use up what they have in tanks and, with a new vintage looming they need to move the wine out quickly. When this happens the marketers worry about the bastardisation (erosion) of the retail price or perceived value and would prefer to hide the fact that their XYZ label is now (temporarily) cheaper. If the wine is already bottled with a label then the option is to use an on-line retailer and sell their wine that way (not to be on a retail shelf) and often advertised as a 'Mystery' wine. If the wine is bottled but not labelled or still in tank waiting to be bottled the temptation is to move it along as a cleanskin.

Not all cleanskin wine is ordinary. when I was in the industry I used to buy and sell cleanskins. Once I negotiated the purchase of a cleanskin wine from a winery that was in financial difficulty and needed cash flow. We put our label on it and submitted to a national wine show where it won gold medal and the trophy for its varietal. The producers were pissed off as if they had had the confidence (or the cashflow) to label it and submit it themselves to the show, the consumer interest in a trophy-winning wine would have meant they would gave got five times or more the return.

The problem is that sometimes the vintages are large and there is a lot of wine washing about and sometimes the vintage is small and wine is at a premium. Sometimes there is great demand for wine from a particular country of origin or region or wine type or varietal and sometimes the buyers and consumers move on to something else. The supply and demand ratio moves.

A winery can create a demand for their 'cleanskin' wine to the detriment of their (same wine) labelled product for which they should be able to sell at a higher price. The result is the creation of cleanskin 'brands'.

These 'cleanskins' since they are produced every year might as well be brands and often to all appearances are although they just list the varietal name.

When this happens the likelihood of the wine being an outstanding example that has only been sold as 'cleanskin' because the producer had too much of it to market under his own brand name becomes a lot less. To satisfy the demand for this cleanskin it is more likely that the producer  outsources bulk wine from elsewhere or even plans production early in the vintage year by growing high-cropping material that doesn't get all the important inputs normally associated with making good wine - why bother when you know that it's going to be sold cheaply as 'cleanskin'.


In summary, buying cleanskins is a bit of a lottery. Sometimes you could be getting a very good example of say a chardonnay at a knock down price or you could be getting a cheaply made chardonnay that, due to the low input manner of production is only worth what you are paying. It's buyer beware.

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Richard (of RBB) used to look at cleanskins with disdain (see his comment in my earlier post CLEANSKIN above). Now he's strongly advocating the stuff.

I think that he's just got a taste for the cheap stuff now that he's retired.

WINE WITH BODY (PARTS)

Greetings to fellow members at THE CURMUDGEONS INCⓒ.
Sorry to hear about what that dick Baxter did. It's inexcusable to threaten people but beyond redemption to force inferior cleanskin wine on a person, particularly a friar who likes good wine.

My suggestion is to send Baxter and AJ Christmas presents of wine to appear as if they've been sent by admirers.

Here are my suggestions:

CHARDONNAY (again)

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT .....

I've written lots of posts about chardonnay over the years. I love the stuff and even when I tried to get away from it and drink Riesling I was pulled back:  See HERE

I'm drinking a glass of Tony Bish Fat n Sassy Hawkes Bay Chardonnay 2014 at the moment. This was left over from the weekend when The Old Girl was up here. This is a rich and delicious chardonnay and has opened up nicely after being uncapped on Saturday. I bought a case of this a while ago at a good price from an online retailer and wish I had more of it. This is a good example of the upper end of Hawkes Bay chardonnay being a heavy, high alcohol (14%) beautifully oaked wine that begs to be taken seriously.
I of course ignored that and we drank most of it while playing pool in the snooker room.

I've finished the Bish chardonnay ....... now that reminds me of one of my favourite albums (one that The Old Girl hates and I have to listen to on my own) - Bish Bosch by Scott Walker see HERE

......and have poured myself a glass of Selaks Buttery Chardonnay 2016. This is from a bottle also left over from the weekend. Again Hawkes Bay this is a lighter version (and cheaper). It's 13% alcohol but with excellent fruit. It's not as woody as the Bish but is beautifully balanced as I would expect from Brett Fullerton's winemaking team. I believe that this just picked up a gold medal in the New World wine awards so hope the price doesn't go up. I bought this at about $16 and it's well worth it. It's a 'slippery' wine meaning that it's too easy to drink and before you know it a half a bottle has gone .


Looking at the little list I made in that old post I'd only drop off: Sacred Hill orange label as they've buggered this up and gone with cheaper materials and; Selaks Winemakers Favourite as it doesn't exist anymore - probably now is the Buttery.
There's lots of good other Hawkes Bay chardonnays that I could add - not now though as I've got to put dinner in the oven (meat loaf and roast potatoes).


Cheers!

BLOODY AWARDS

I've been buying Villa Maria Hawkes Bay Rose 2017 in New World supermarkets for a couple of months now.  It's bloody nice and, when on special I'd stock up on the stuff. When I first spied it (I look out for new vintage release Rose wines as they are at their best when young) I ignored the big gold decal on the bottle which, when you read the lettering say's something like "NZ's most admired wine brand" or some bollocks like that - unworthy I think of Villa Maria and I wonder if Sir George is aware of what his marketers are doing.

This is the decal - ignore the sauvignon Blanc

This is the wine I've been buying


The wine is superb and fits any occasion or time of day.
I had mixed feelings when I learned that it just won a gold medal in the New World Wine Awards*.
It endorsed my appreciation of the wine but now every bugger will be wanting to drink it. My buying over recent years has been driven by finding excellent wines that 'every bugger' hasn't yet and, as sales volumes might be low the producers or retailers knock the price off.

This is what the NEW WORLD WINE AWARDS judges said about the wine:

Beautifully balanced with textural ripe strawberry flavours and a perfect acid and sugar balance. This Rose has drinkability by the glassful. A Gold medal last year and this year, and the wine is even better if that's possible. Perfect summer Rose to drink while enjoying an outdoor concert.

Yeah, OK and the

"Rose to drink while enjoying an outdoor concert."

comment matches my 'any occasion' comment so we agree on a couple of things.

*************************

Rose wine styles have been making a bit of a come back.

Most producers are now making one or two styles under their various brands and labels and there are a lot to choose from.
The trick is in selecting a good one that isn't 'lolly-water' nor an old tired, brown-looking one. Roses are best drunk young so new release 2017 wines - from say September onwards are generally at their best until mid 2018. The provenance of the brand is useful to know (e.g. the Villa Maria PB 2016 went gold as well) and once you find a favourite it pays to check it out each year. There are so  many now though that it pays to check out some other brands and styles and, in case the Villa Maria becomes unaffordable - other prices.

*Asterisk and italics because this is a supermarket chains wine awards.

BEGGARS CAN'T BE CHOOSERS

I've mentioned many times the advantages of blending wines at home. Her Indoors and I even do this at restaurants and at other people's homes but get funny looks though.

Today I opened a bottle of wine I procured through Blackmarket wines. It was The Doctors 2013 Arneis.

I'd bought a case (6) of these at a ridiculously cheap price - $8.95 a bottle for $20+ wine and it was delivered yesterday. The wine is dry but stacked full of flavours that just need more bottle age to emerge. It's not stunning drinking now but, given time will develop nicely. I went on-line to buy another case but it is all sold out. Bummer.

Now anyone reading this who has read some of my earlier posts will recall that I've been a bit scathing about arneis and 'emerging' varietals in New Zealand. Well, scathing is a gentle way of putting it as I admit I've been downright vitriolic. See here:

NEW BREEDS OR MONGRELS

Or here:

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Or here:

HERE WE GO ....AGAIN

and, generally I stand by what I've said but - needs must.

I'm not earning as I was before and not being given free wine like before and have to -gasp- buy wine! I seek out all my favourite varietals, styles and brands but make my choice based on price - hence shopping on-line at Blackmarket and other sites. Really good bargains amongst the varietals I principally favour like Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling are becoming fewer and farther between so I'm forced to look at other offerings for day to day quaffing.

I bought the case of arneis for a few reasons:

• The Doctors is a trusted brand made by Forrest Wines
• The accolades were really good (5 stars) from trusted reviewers
• The price was outstanding

Re the price ($8.95 down from low to mid twenties) supports my theory that these new varietals are a waste of winemaking and marketing resource - professionally speaking, but on a personal level I'm very pleased. The wine as expected is very dry which falls outside of popular drinking styles. The depth of fruit and flavour is there though and time will bring them out. Being a 2013 wine it's already 4 years in bottle and still has a long way to go but bank managers see things differently and have probably advised the winemaker to 'move it along sir'. Their loss my (and all of those other greedy bastards out there) gain.

As I said I tried to buy another case but it was sold out. I'll keep a watch though because I doubt if the 2014 vintage will fare any better commercially speaking.

Thinking about this and the austere nature of the wine I took an opened bottle of Riesling out of the fridge - Gale Force 2016 Marlborough Riesling:

This is a low alcohol, slightly sweet wine with lovely flavours that I also bought a case (6) from Blackmarket. The price? $9.95 a bottle. A bargain.

I mixed some of the arneis with the riesling - by increments until I got the blend right and the result was a fresh and flavoursome wine - way more flavoursome and serious than a pinot gris or sauvignon blanc at, for the price I paid, a much lesser price than good examples of those other varietals

***********************

I had already decided that my 'dinner' this evening was going to be apple sponge.

I had three apples in the fridge that needed to be eaten and, as I'd damaged my leg yesterday, didn't feel like going to the supermarket for fresh provisions. Using the reliable Edmonds Cook Book as a base I whipped up an apple sponge with the addition of raisins, a cinnamon stick and Grand Marnier.

Delicious. It went perfectly with the arneis/riesling blend.

CHEATS, CROOKS AND TRICKSTERS (PART 1)

I've decided to do a series on scammers and other disreputable people I've come across in the wine industry over the many years of my career in it. I've also met many (many more) nice and reputable people as well and will do a parallel series on these. This is the first on the scammers.

I buy a lot of my wine from on-line sites where producers choose to move along excess quantities of good product at greatly reduced prices to avoid the risk of damaging the price perception by having them discounted on retailers shelves. Often the product is superb and bargains can be had but it pays to have a bit of knowledge on wine styles and regions and to do a bit of research before buying.
The bargains are becoming fewer however as the on-line sites are being used to not only quit over-stocked product but as a sales and marketing channel to move along volume of anything. I'll write about some of these in the future. This post is about a particularly nasty scam that I discovered.

About 5 years ago I saw a wine promoted on one of the sites I buy from that looked particularly attractive. It was advertised as a Hawkes Bay Syrah from the prestigious Gimblett Gravels area (the best for red wine in Hawkes Bay and which commands higher than normal prices). The advertised price was stated to be seriously below 'normal retail' and as I wanted some Syrah I bought it without doing proper 'due diligence'.
When the wine arrived and I cut the capsule and pulled to cork on a bottle I immediately noticed that the vintage, the region, and the vineyard name printed on the bottle was all different from what was stated on the label. I contacted the winemaker (from the on-line site I purchased the wine from) and spoke with him on the phone and via e-mail. Some of the e-mail correspondence is copied below.

I have removed the name of the winemaker, the name of the wine, the name of the original winemaker, the name of the real region and the name of the real vineyard/producer as I did not follow this up with a formal complaint to the official bodies:

(Actual e-mail copy)

Me to the winemaker selling the wine on an on-line site.

"I purchased XXX Gimblett Gravels Syrah 2009 On opening cork says 2010 YYYY (name of producer) from ZZZ (a South Island wine region) This is very serious. Contact me ASAP"

Reply from winemaker

"Good morning Peter and thanks for your e-mail. Congratulations on spotting the discrepancy with the cork. You are only the second person to spot this. The Hawkes Bay winery has deliberately used a different cork so it makes it even more difficult for someone to discover where the wine is from. As it is has only recently been bottled they also used a 2010 cork to make it even more difficult. At the end of the day, it’s what’s inside the bottle that counts and I’m sure you have discovered it is an extremely nice Syrah.Hope that answers your questions. Cheers"                

My response 

"Sorry I don't buy that. How can a Hawkes Bay Winery put (South Island region) on a cork and put a different vintage on it. I suggest that you come up with a better explanation that is not so flippant or I will take this further."

I then, using the information on the cork which had the name of the South Island wine producer, contacted the owner by phone and then e-mail: 

My email to the original winemaker  

"Hi YYY Tell me about the 2010 Syrah from ZZZ As you know I bought XXX "2009 Hawkes Bay Gimblett Rd Syrah" through (the on-line site) Its not Gimblett Gravels. The cork says 2010 YYY from ZZZ so is it yours? I have been speaking with (the winemaker at the on-line site) and told him the seriousness of it. I said that if I didn't get a proper explanation I was going to refer it to NZWine. At first he gave me some gobbledy goop about the winery deliberately using a different cork so it makes it difficult for someone to discover where the wine is from and that the 2010 cork used to maker it even more difficult.I told him this was garbage. I think he now knows the seriousness - that he bought cleanskins of the 2010 ZZZ Syrah from you and labelled up as 2009 Hawkes Bay Gimblett Gravels. I think they get shot in China for doing that if caught. He says he only sold 14 cases and has pulled the listing. He apologises and said it was a genuine mistake (for some reason). If this is correct and there was no deliberate intention to mislead then I won't take it to NZWine or elsewhere. If this is not the case then I have no option but to do so. The wine has obvious green edges and certainly doesn't taste like a HB 2009 wine so there's that. I have 5 bottles left from the 6 I bought. Are they worth keeping? Regards, Peter"

The South Island winemaker's email response

"Wow peter , this doesn't look good at all, definitely my wine I have sold him cleanskins recently , with labelled cork (and I told him of it) but had no idea of his own labelling 'adventures' - in fact I looked at his website and couldn't see a (South Island) Syrah so thought he must be flicking it on by some other method.  I will call him and see what he is doing As for the wine, its obviously not HB but is quite reasonable - (Retail chain) in Auckland just had it in a May promo for Syrahs, (Wine magazine) mag had it as wine of the month too and it has got a few honourable mentions from various wine folk. Not as good as my 2011 which is killer stuff if I do say so - you need some of that. I'll give you a call once Ive spoken to (name of the on-line wine site). If you're up for a coffee that would be great - later in the week?? - obviously haven't seen you in a bit but would be good to chat. cheers"

*************

After my e-mails and conversation with the rogue winemaker in which I requested that he pull all advertising and promotion of the wine I took it no further. I kept an eye on the on-line wine site to make sure this happened and didn't see the wine again.

I should have made an issue of this I know as this kind of 'cowboy' activity brings our wine industry into disrepute but I was working in the industry at the time and didn't want any embarrassment to come the way of the company I was working for. I keep an eye on this winemaker as he is a regular producer of New Zealand wines but am not aware of any recent transgressions. Hopefully this threat of exposure gave him a bit of a shock. Hopefully.

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WINE FOR O.A.P.s

I like Chardonnay. It's been my white wine of choice for my wine-drinking lifetime (which is a lot of years I can tell you).

I've flirted with other varietals both professionally and socially and can easily identify a Viognier or a Sauvignon Gris in a blind line-up but always return to Chardonnay. It's the best.

Chardonnay (White Burgundy) used to be called the 'Queen' of wines in the old lexicography of wine appreciation (Pinot Noir or Burgundy was the 'King').

In recent years the commercial popularity of wine accompanied by a democratisation of wine drinking and wine appreciation has raised the 'second-tier' white wines like Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Viognier etc. to a point where good old Chardonnay has been nudged out.

One of the problems with the promotion of the 'second-tier' is that on average the cost of production of Chardonnay or at least good Chardonnay has gone up. Reduced plantings and volumes of chardonnay grapes means that costs cannot be amortised as much as before. Also, with the growth in popularity of wine and the dominance of supermarkets in selling it, wine producers are now making wine from the bottom up rather than top down.

OK, what do I mean by that?

In the past the norm was for a producer or brand owner to make the best possible wine they could that represented their region and carried their name. In making this the best bunches of grapes were selected and in final selection before bottling the best parcels of wine were chosen - volume depending on market conditions and demand. This left a lot (the bulk) of grapes and made-wine left over from the top selection which was used, on a tier basis, to fill second labels, third labels and then budget offerings. The beauty of this 'system' was that the lower offerings were generally pretty smart wines that had a lot of the expensive inputs (grape selection, barrel fermentation and ageing, oak usage etc) that the top wines had, especially the second-tier labels.

In recent years the demand for cheaper bottled and labelled wines has increased (there was always a demand for cheaper, everyday wine but this was usually sold in unlabelled packaging or in bulk). This has resulted in the wine giant companies who make their money from supplying supermarkets with millions of cases of fancy-labelled plonk. The wineries factories are set up to churn out this stuff like beer production. To further meet demand quicker growing varietals like Pinot Gris and sauvignon Blanc have been promoted and cheaper growing regions like Chile, Eastern Europe and China have gained in size if not reputation.

As a consequence the model has been tipped upside down - wineries primarily produce cheap wine to meet new market demands and, if they wish to have higher tier brands and labels they have to start from scratch. While it's easy to produce a lesser quality and cheaper wine from a base of really good and expensive wine (blending, stretching, barrel and tank selection etc.) the reverse cannot be done you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear you can't make a quality wine from a cheap wine base.

Wineries and wine companies that want to make a good wine on top of the commercial wines necessary for their continued survival - in our case here - a Chardonnay - have to make the choice right from the beginning to have a dual process going. Of course smaller wineries can still do the top down approach but the volumes produced of the second and third tier labels are not great and are hard to find although I still look out for them on internet wine sites and ex-winery sales.

The bigger wineries who dominate the industry and populate the wine shelves (nearly 80% of retail wine around the world is sold through supermarkets and the very large format stores) who choose to still produce top quality brands and labels (for PR reasons essentially to gain wine-writer support and successes in wine competitions) don't need to employ the trickle-down method with these wines and generally, unless bullied by the supermarket customer or have made a mistake in production planning, price the wines according to the expensive inputs they have used.

Whew!

So what does this mean for me as a recent old age Pensioner and you my readers reader?

Bad news I'm afraid.

The type of Chardonnays I like to drink are the top-tier ones: made from ideally bunch selection grapes from low-yielding vineyards; barrel fermented in new oak; barrel aged in a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barrels and held back for 18 months before release.
Montrachet would be a good choice.

Try and find this for under $500 a bottle

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find the second-tier wines that have been made like this and even the third-tier wines (that might have had a percentage of the real stuff in the blend) are not a patch on what they once were. The canny big wine companies now market ordinary shit with sub-branding like "Reserve', 'Selection' etc. that means bugger-all.

I've written in the past about brands like Selaks that had Selaks Reserve Chardonnay which was a pretty good and fair-priced drop. Unfortunately no longer. The wonderful Selaks Founders Reserve Chardonnay seems to have disappeared from supermarket shelves - hopefully it hasn't been discontinued. I bought a bottle of Selaks Reserve Chardonnay 2015 for $12 the other day (not the Founder's Reserve) and guess what? It was very very ordinary and a pale imitation of the wine under this label of a couple of years ago. To try and be fair to Selaks I then bought a bottle of Montana Reserve Chardonnay 2016 for $13. It was very ordinary.

Bummer!

I'll still look out for deals on the top wines but I fear that these will be few and far between.
I'll have to change my wine drinking choices. Not to Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris which to me is just lolly-water, but to Riesling and Gewurztraminer which fortunately New Zealand makes some of the best examples in the world and, at least at this time they are very affordable.

CONFUSED? I AM.

I bought some Matahiwi Estate Chardonnay on-line a while ago and then forgot about it. That was prescient.

Last night I dug one out of the cellar, chilled it, opened it, tasted it and gasped. Not at its outstanding quality as I'm sure the on-line seller raved about inducing me to buy a case, but at its ordinariness bordering on awfulness.

The wine is lean, woody and tart.

The leanness is from poor fruit. The woodiness is not nice vanillin oak but that varnishy, splintery and bitter character that comes from being too long exposed to cheap wood staves or planks. The tartness is not refreshing but that bitter lemon character from lemon skins.

Intrigued as to why I bought this and not having to hand the blurb that the on-line seller had used I read the back label.

Now I must say here that over the years I've written many back labels. On most occasions this has been a sincere attempt to inform the buyer about how the wine was crafted and what the winemaker considers are the primary elements of the wine's aroma and taste. On other occasions it's been a marketing exercise where the descriptions used bear little relationship to the actual wine. The 2015 Matahiwi Estate Chardonnay is definitely a case of the latter. This is what I found:

"Sourced from two vineyards in Hawkes Bay, this chardonnay has lovely nectarine and melon fruit with a spicy oak nose. Ripe citrus with a nutty creaminess and a toasty oak finish".

Well, I don't know what hallucinogenics the writer of that was on and if he/she was drinking chardonnay at the time it wasn't the 2015 Matahiwi Estate. It sounds more like a Te Mata Elston or something from the Sacred Hill stable.

My view of wine labels is that the best use of them is for the diner left at the table at a restaurant has something to read when his/her partner nips off to the toilet. I can't really think of another use. Now that smartphones are in almost everyone's pockets the abandoned diner has no shortage of things to read and listen to thereby making the back label completely redundant apart from the legal mandatories like name of producer, name of wine, alcohol and additives.



Nevertheless after I'd recovered from the blatant lie by the winemaker or the marketing person I read the other crap that was written.

"The Phoenix has long been seen as a symbol of renewal. The Matahiwi Phoenix symbolises the rebirth of winemaking in the northern Wairarapa after the period of prohibition in the early 1900's (sic). New Zealand wine pioneers recognised the region as an ideal environment for grape growing, as did Alastair Scott when he returned from London to his homeland in 1998 to establish Matahiwi Estate. Matahiwi is a place recognised by Maori as a windy and exposed area sheltered by the high mountainous Tararua ranges to the west. These wines, produced by winemaker Jane Cooper, show just how the Wairarapa has earned a reputation for producing some of the best wines in the world."

The blurb then goes on to describe the chardonnay in the bottle.

What the fuck?
I'm a marketer and used to all sorts of advertising and marketing bullshit but this is incredible.
Apart from the dodgy grammar and incorrect use of punctuation these are some of the outtakes for me:

• What the hell is the use of the phoenix for? Apart from being a good logo/badge device for the front label why is it there? Is it because disgruntled wine drinkers burned down the first winery after tasting the wines?

• How can a place be windy and exposed at the same time as sheltered?

• After all that rubbish about Wairarapa producing 'some of the best wines in the world' the writer goes straight on to say that this chardonnay was 'Sourced from two vineyards in Hawkes Bay'.

So, my impressions?

Unimpressed by the wine.

Flabbergasted at the verbosity of the wine description.

Appalled at the poor editing and allowing a Hawkes Bay chardonnay to be introduced as the epitome of Wairarapa winemaking.

VILLAGE IDIOT

I've wittered on in the past about the benefits of blending wines especially if one of them is a bit below par.

Last night when I collected Her Indoors (H.I.) from the bus station we went to a local wine bar/restaurant before heading home.
I had the ever reliable Trinity Hill Chardonnay (one of the basic ones but still damned good for the price) and H.I. had a Central Otago Pinot Gris. I won't name the brand but it was bloody awful which made its price:quality = value equation way below par. This wine was made from unripe fruit a fact which the winemaker was evidently aware as he/she poured in bags of Chelsea's finest during processing. See here:  

       CHELSEA MORNING   

 The result was a sharp and thin wine with an unpleasant sweet finish. Frankly I thought that we had got over this sort of winemaking but there you go. If it had been a bag-in-the-box wine or one of those that Robert from Moera buys for $6.99 at his local supermarket I would kind of accept it, but this was priced like all the other Central Otago wines. Expensive and overpriced.

Anyway, H.I. is pretty good at tasting wines and she said "taste this" as she passed her glass over to me. This of course immediately made me suspicious as if she had a glass of Taittinger Compte, Roederer Crystal or a Montrachet of any vintage there'd be no way in hell that I'd be able to get a sip of it so I cautiously accepted the glass and came to the conclusion of which I've already bored informed you.

She then hailed the wine waiter-type guy and, from the list, ordered a decent Marlborough Riesling (Te Whare Ra I think) and proceeded to blend the two together. The result although not being brilliant certainly made the C.O. wine drinkable.

Tonight I'm enjoying a glass or two of chardonnay.
This is good for a few reasons: firstly because as I've been ill since before Christmas I haven't been drinking any alcohol; secondly as I did some good work today I feel that I've earned it: and, thirdly I've made a blending discovery.

We had family staying with us during Christmas and New year. They like good wines and brought a few treats up with them. As I wasn't drinking I didn't really take too much notice of the wines that were opened and consumed.
Today H.I. pulled out a bottle from the wine fridge. It was a Kumeu River Village chardonnay 2015.

It seemed full when lying down in the stack but had been opened and only one glass used from it.
We deduced that Chris, one of the guests had opened it, consumed a glass of it and then forgot about it. We tried it and the fruit quality is certainly there but it was a bit sharp with a poor finish. This wine has been open for more than 3 weeks. There weren't any overt oxidative characters but it was a little but 'flat'.

Recently I bought a case of Smoking Loon 2014 chardonnay on the web. It was promoted as a '98 point winning wine' which means that it should be almost perfect. The 98 points were awarded by a Californian wine competition so I guess has to be looked at sceptically. See here:



WHAT'S THE POINT?




But the wine is good. It is rich and buttery and almost 'thick' compared to the usual Hawkes Bay chardonnays I drink.
On tasting the Kumeu River wine I didn't want to chuck it just because it had been open (albeit refrigerated) for such a long time, so blended it with a bottle of the Smoking Loon that was in the fridge.
The result is stunning. It is easily the best chardonnay (blend) that I've drunk for quite some time.
I'm now thinking about buying some bottles of Kumeu River Village chardonnay 2015 to open simultaneously with every bottle of Smoking Loon I open.