Wine blog
My tasting notes of fine wines I have enjoyed.
Château Cissac was a favourite of my family but it became difficult to obtain, the last of the 1980s bottles has long since gone. However a box of the 2003 vintage became available en primeur and now it’s ready to enjoy.
The wine pours as a dark red colour, an intense cherry red. Initially a low nose even when served well at room temperature. First impression in the mouth was very dry and tannic. As the wine adjusted in the glass the nose became much more prominent and wonderfully evocative of family dinners long ago.
The bottle lasted well as it aired, there was a bit of sediment for sure but the taste in the mouth lasted long after the swig was finished. A real pleasure to enjoy with Terry’s dish of roast rolled pork loin joint covered in Dijon mustard and honey with copious herbs fresh from his garden, accompanied with butterbeans and balsamic reduction.
Margaux has always been one of the more distinctive Bordeaux villages and finding this branded bottle in a Marseille supermarket has been a discovery. Dry, classic dark cherry taste with a persuasive and persistent nose; the dry wine was a fine complement to Magret de canard with a semi-sweet fig sauce, chef Terry’s final presentation for us here at home in Marseille. Maybe a wine that is peaking too early to be in the top class but cost-effective and worthy of the Margaux appellation. A product of Maison Bouey of Ambarès F3340.
The other bottle on our table, the 51, has filtered table water from the Alps.
Three wines from a small area of the Côtes du Rhône Villages wine region (CDRV). All three are widely-available in French supermarkets. We can picture these vineyards as we stayed exactly here in Séguret in June this year. All are overlooked by the Dentelles de Montmirail. Famously, the soil and exposure changes significantly within this small area. The Plan de Dieu is a huge area of the alluvial plain planted with vines throughout, the area around Séguret is slightly higher and slopes more. Sablet is the smallest area of these three, Les Vignerons du Gravillas is a well-regarded and progressive small cave just outside Sablet village making wines to sell under various local appellations.
Read more: Séguret - Sablet - Plan de Dieu: a trio of Côtes du Rhône Villages wines
We found this rosato wine very acceptable with our summer salad in Terry’s garden in Preston Park, Brighton. Slightly tangy, slightly bitter so interestingly complex and nothing like a French Tavel. Overall impression to us was apricot although the label claims wild strawberries. It’s a mass-market wine available on many supermarket wine shelves in the UK.
A personal import from Corsica - I brought this bottle back from Marseille. Tasting it in Brighton with Terry’s Petits Farcis, the wine immediately recalled that hot night in Sartène exactly four Saturdays ago. The wine is surprisingly light in colour in the glass, tannic but not harsh. We made the dominant taste raspberry and not blackberry, which was a surprise for a red wine from France. The Nielluccio grape varietal’s common heritage with the Sangiovese was more apparent in the neutral situation back in England than the bottle of the same wine that I tasted in Marseille.
