From Carvery Merlot to Bordeaux Complexity: Finding My Wine Sweet Spot

From Carvery Merlot to Bordeaux: Finding My Sweet Spot

A very unexpected start

This wasn’t meant to be a “wine night”.

We ended up in Toby Carvery, and I ordered a glass of Casillero del Diablo Merlot without thinking too much about it.

And do you know what it was actually really good.

Straight away you get that blackcurrant on the nose, nothing complicated, just clean and inviting. In the glass it followed through exactly how you’d hope. Cassis, soft, a little bit of spice on the finish, no harsh edges at all.

It’s not trying to be clever, and maybe that’s the point. It just works.

Then things got serious

Later that evening I opened a bottle of Moulin de la Lagune 2016.

At first, not much was happening. It felt quite closed, almost like it didn’t want to give anything away. But after an hour or so, it completely changed.

All of a sudden it opened up into something much more interesting.

Leather, tobacco, that kind of old library smell you can’t really describe properly until you experience it. There was a bit of smoked vanilla in there as well, and everything felt layered rather than obvious.

It’s the kind of wine that makes you slow down a bit.

But where did the fruit go?

This is the bit that stuck with me.

There was hardly any fruit there.

Not in a bad way, just gone. Or at least pushed right into the background.

And it made me think back to the Lafite 2011 and the Tignanello 2014 I tried recently. Both of those had all the complexity you’d expect, but the fruit was still very much alive.

With this, it had moved on.

Some wines keep that fruit running all the way through their life. Others evolve into something more savoury and let the fruit fall away.

Neither is right or wrong, but they land very differently when you’re drinking them.

What I actually enjoy

That one glass probably taught me more than a lot of bottles have.

I don’t want something that’s just fruit. That gets boring quickly.

But I also don’t think I’m ready for wines where the fruit has completely stepped aside and you’re left with just leather and tobacco.

I need both.

Something where the fruit is still there, but there’s a bit going on underneath. Something that feels balanced rather than extreme in either direction.

Where I am right now

This felt like a bit of a turning point.

Not because I found the best wine I’ve ever had, but because I’ve started to understand what I’m actually looking for.

Something with fruit, but not too much.
Something with complexity, but not at the expense of enjoyment.

Somewhere in the middle.

That’s the sweet spot.

And that’s what I’ll be chasing from here.