Festive Wines
By Peter Grogan
My first wine piece for this upstanding organ back in 2000 was about Jim Murphy’s excellent Clissold Wines on Church Street, and a return visit could be considered overdue.
I don’t know the ins and the outs of the ownership of the place – and I don’t ask – but Jim still presides much of the time and is as happy to make recommendations and representations as he’s ever been. Try stopping him. I thought I’d let him make the running this time and suggest some wines to take us through the card for a festive lunch.
‘Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends’, goes the old saying and, aperitif-wise, a glass or two of Champagne J. Bourgeois is good enough for the very best of your buddies. Made by the second-largest producer in the region, the co-operative Marne et Champagne Diffusion – which owns the Lanson brand – it’s something of a snip at £12.99, and has body, balance and zesty finesse that belie the price. You could serve it to a duchess – including my old one, who liked it a lot and she knows a thing or two about shampoo.
When I ran ABCXYZ Pinot Grigio from Italy’s Veneto region past her, the wine snob in me had already cold-shouldered it the minute I’d clocked it was non-vintage. ‘Mmmm, nicely floral. Honeysuckle’, mused Mrs G. ‘You’d want to be on a terraza somewhere, really’. ‘You’ve got me going now, Mrs G’, I said, and, yes, there were flowery bits, and some nougat and also some real oomph to it. At £3.99 (or a giveaway £21 for 6) it’s perfect for a party and there’s no need to even ponder whether it’s P.B.S.*
Whether it’s turkey or tofu for the main event, something bold, spicy and warming is the order of the day. Châteauneuf du Pape Promenade des Papes 2005 (£11.99 or £20 for two bottles) is made in rather a new-fangled, early-drinking style for this venerable appellation, but it still manages to tick a lot of the boxes. Its purply colour is a reflection of its relative youth, but the ‘legs’ running down the inside of the glass long after you’ve put it down reflect its substance.
Illustrious wine merchants Hicks and Don – who are neither hicks nor dons, but Master of Wine, to a man – say they ‘have seldom seen a better wine from the area’ of Ste. Croix du Mont (across the river from Sauternes) than Château les Arroucats ‘Cuvée Virginie’ 2003 (£9.99). From a terrific vintage for sweet white Bordeaux – more pale gold than white, in reality – this has a strikingly untamed, aromatic nose, and bags of tightly wound acidity and tangy grapefruit and honey on the palate. It’d be fascinating to see what it will turn into in a few years’ time, and I’m intending to find out by sticking a few bottles in the cellar down at Mrs G the Elder’s in Royal Tunbridge Wells. I’ll keep you posted.
*Think pearls and porkers ...
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