I picked up a bottle of Mouton Cadet from Tesco for £8, 2023 vintage, and I’ll be honest, I was excited to open it. You see the word Mouton and your brain immediately jumps to Château Mouton Rothschild. First Growth, Pauillac, history, prestige. You expect something with presence. What I got instead was a very…
There’s something reassuring about picking up a bottle of Rioja Reserva. You sort of know where you’re going before you’ve even pulled the cork. And with Beronia 2020, that expectation is pretty much met but in a really tidy, well executed way. Straight away on the nose, this leans slightly savoury. Not in a heavy…
There are bottles that quietly expose a fairly sizeable hole in your wine knowledge. The Camigliano Brunello di Montalcino 2020 was very much that. I’d been looking forward to opening this. Brunello is one of those names that carries a bit of weight before you’ve even pulled the cork, and with my experience of Tuscan…
Sometimes a wine catches you off guard. Not because it’s rare or expensive, but because it quietly overdelivers in a way that is quite unbelievable given how much the producers are making on the wine to be able to produce. That’s exactly what’s happened here with a 2022 Pebble Lane Pinot Noir I picked up…
I set myself a bit of a mad challenge the other day. Find a red wine under £35 that ticks all three boxes. A 17+ from Jancis Robinson, a 95+ from Robert Parker and a 93+ from Wine Spectator. In my head, this was going to be one of those nice idea, doesn’t really happen…
A Benchmark Bottle With Something to Prove There’s always a bit of expectation when you open a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc. It’s one of those names that carries weight, especially with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. You almost go into it thinking you already know what you’re going to get. I opened this alongside a…
There are some wines you analyse, and there are some wines you just drink. This falls firmly into the second category. I came across the Mark West Pinot Noir when I fancied a bit of a change. I’d been leaning towards fuller, more structured reds recently, so dropping into Pinot Noir territory felt like a…
First Impressions I’d been meaning to try Greywacke for a while. It’s one of those bottles you keep hearing about, especially when people talk about proper New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. As soon as it was poured, you could tell this wasn’t your average supermarket Sauvignon. It just jumped out of the glass. In the Glass…
First Impressions This was the moment I relaxed on Christmas Eve. After a slightly shaky start with a Solear sherry that didnt land, we opened the Nyetimber and straight away, you could feel the shift, it was an excellent sparkler. In the Glass It’s got that Champagne feel to it, and I don’t say that…
There are some wines you drink and forget about. And then there are the ones where you stop mid sip and just thinkyep this is class. That’s exactly what happened when I opened Château Musar 2018. I’ve been chasing something for a while now, and I didn’t fully know how to describe it until this…