01438 741177
Good point. I completely missed that.
Edit: the bottling code links to several wines, some with an obvious JC Mas connection, some not.
Ha ha!! Completely missed it! Silly old me 
1 Like
Monday
I made chilli sin carne served with pita bread and grabbed this old friend from the kitchen ready rack.
2020 Beyerskloof Pinotage (South Africa, Western Cape)
Tuesday
I made Puttanesca Sauce in which I stirred Penne and served it with mixed salad and Mrs M’s favourite, the no-brainer ™
2020 Casa Vinicola Roxan The Wine Society’s Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (Italy, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo)
Reliable drinking pleasure, as always. And while Mrs M played Bridge on-line I watched the new All Quiet on the Western Front movie on Prime.
Wednesday
To London to present a South African tasting to 48 members of Nat West Wine Society in the most pleasant Little Ship Club on River Thames. All wines were sourced from TWS as I could get them delivered to the club in advance. There were nine wines per flight - three white and six red, which were
Land of Hope
Reserve Chenin Blanc 2021
Wine of Origin Stellenbosch 12%
Alheit Vineyards
Cartology 2020
Wine of Origin Western Cape
Vergelegen
Reserve Semillon 2019
Wine of Origin Stellenbosch
Newton Johnson Vineyards
Pinot Noir 2020
Wine of Origin Upper Hemel en Aarde Valley
Bellevue Estate
Pinotage 2018
Estate Wine of Origin Stellenbosch
Kanonkop Estate
Pinotage 2019
Estate Wine of Origin Simonsberg-Stellenbosch
Simonsig
Frans Malan Cape Blend 2017
Wine of Origin Stellenbosch
Pinotage 66%, Cabernet Sauvignon 28%, Merlot 6%
Delheim Estate
Grand Reserve 2018
Estate Wine of Origin Stellenbosch
Cabernet Sauvignon 63%, Petite Verdot 19%, Cabernet Franc 12%, Merlot 6%,
Boekenhoutskloof
The Chocolate Block 2020
Wine of Origin Swartland
Syrah 73%; Grenache 11%; Cinsaut 8%; Cabernet Sauvignon 7%; Viognier 1%
Because I was talking, I didn’t have more than a sip from two of three wines and when we finished, I could do with a drink. But - for various reasons - we finished late, and the Thameslink train home was a slow all-stopper so we didn’t get to the New Gulshan till 22:00. Their wine list was uninformative but we ordered a ‘Medoc’ which was priced the same as a ‘Bordeaux’ and were pleasantly surprised to get this 2018 Chateau bottled Cru Bourgeois
2018 Château Les Trois Manoirs (France, Bordeaux, Médoc)
Thursday
It was my turn to present a wine tasting to my U3A wine tasting group. It had been suggested by our leader that I give a tasting of aged wines but the trouble with those is that you don’t know until opening whether they are drinkable and enjoyable. So I called the tasting New & Old and started with six wines from M&S’s Found range of rare varieties, followed by three old wines with back-ups for them. The wines were
Cramele Recas
Feteasca Regala 2021
Romania
Domas Vini
Ribolla Gialla 2021
IGT Venizia Giula, Italy
Cantine Settesol
Nerello Capuccio 2020
IGT Terre Siciliane,
Ferdinand Mayr
Zweigelt 2021
Qualitatswein Aus Niederosterreich, Austria
Donzilia Copeto
Alicante Bouschet 2021
DOC Alentjo, Portugal
Belinda Kleinig at Bodegas Eguia
Mazuelo 2019
DOC Rioja, Spain
Carvalho, Ribeiro & Ferreira
Baraida 1980
Garrafeira, Portugal
Probably blend dominated by Baga with Castelao & Tinta Pinheira
Chateau Musar
1988
Lebanon
Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault, Carignan
Cavendish Manor
Muller-Thurgau 1974
England, Suffolk
The last wine was the second and last bottle of this wine. I’d opened the other bottle in February and it tasted like a fortified sweetie, see my post about it here, but this didn’t have the same sweetness. I’d wrapped the bottle and challenged attendees to guess the cultivar, country and vintage. I didn’t expect anyone to come close, but the point was to taste it with an open mind. It was a shame this wine wasn’t good as the previous bottle.
The Barraida was well past it. The Musar still had life - and I was told the same vintage recently sold at auction for £269 but this has leaked and there was a large ullage so I didn’t expect much from it. On the M&S wines, the first white got most white votes and the Rioja won overall. Most Riojas are a Tempranillo blend. Mazuelo, known in France as Carignan, is one of the varieties allowed in the blend but there’s only 3% of it planted in Rioja so getting a 100% Mazuelo is very rare and was the reason it is in the Found range. And costing only £8.
There were only eight of us, two had to get up early for a long trip so were moderating their drinking so I had a good pour of each wine.
Such fun!
24 Likes
I had a few bottles of the 2004 which I drank 2010-12; it didn’t offer much even then.
also from Aldi? Marina O’Loughlin, The Sunday Time restaurant critic*, tested them recently and gave them a thumbs up!
*sob sob - she’s just quit! Last Sunday’s no-holds barred review of Gordon Ramseys Street Burger is her last. I’ve been reading her reviews for 5 years in ST and then for year before when she was at the Guardian. Only A A Gill was better.
6 Likes
That’s good to know Peterm! I shall avoid Cissac in future.
You weren’t the only one, and it seems somehow appropriate that people would NOT notice the ‘signature’ bottles in the circumstances.
1 Like
From Waitose in this instance 