SA SB

Partway through a mega-tasting of South African Sauvignon Blanc. I love Hugh Johnson's line about Sauvignon - 'it has a loud voice but not a musical one'. In short doses, it can be great, but en masse... New Zealand is probably the source of the shrillest wines. The annual NZ trade tasting used to have a huge table in the middle of the room along which all that year's Savvies (I loathe that term) were arrayed. By about wine 15, boredom had set in. By wine 30, you were beginning to feel somewhat jaded. By wine 50, the emotion was closer to despair, because you were less than halfway through the line-up. By the end, you'd rather rip your toenails off and eat them in a quiche than drink a glass of Sauvignon.

Rather than risk such fatigue, I'm doing these wines in short runs, ordered by vintage and alcohol levels. Just finished the 2007s, which range from bimbo/confected wines to what I call camels - as in tight as said beast's rear end in a sand storm. I've blogged about wines being released too early before - here were several that won't be in their stride for several months. It'll be interesting to see how I get on with the 2006s this afternoon. The stars of the 2007s are Quando, La Motte Pierneef, Raka, Cederberg, Elgin Vintners and Klein Constantia. What marks them out is that there is a little accompaniment to conceal their shrillness - I'd probably be sipping a glass of one of them now, were it not for the fact that I have to taste another 40 wines in a couple of hours. Wish me luck.

PS Just come across a wonderful headline for a wine article in an American paper -

Medley of flavors enlivens halibut

Now why do I find that funny....?

The Godfather Part IV - should I be laying down some Dom. Corleone?

‘I’ve just become a father/godfather – aren’t I supposed to stash away some wine or some port for the little sprog?’

I get asked a question like this a number of times a year, and I still haven’t settled on a definitive answer to the question. The wino in me says that anyone would be overwhelmed with gratitude to receive a couple of cases of something mature and tasty as they pass into adulthood. But then there’s another bit of me that says, ‘Whoa, whoa, hang on a minute, squire.’ It asks me what I would have done had my dad/godfather presented me with a dozen old bottles on my 18th birthday. Yes, I drank wine then, but I don’t think I’d have been too bothered which vintage it was from, as long as it didn’t taste of meths and make me go blind. I seriously doubt whether any would have been left even a week later.

It then starts asking me whether I wouldn’t be better off investing the £250, £1,000, £5,000, whatever sum I had in mind, until a much later date when it became clear whether or not little Janet/John (or Topsy/Tim, if you are slightly younger than me) actually enjoyed wine. If s/he didn’t, then I could buy something else. If s/he did, then I’d have a much larger kitty to play with. Yes, some wines do rise in value over time, but judging by past performance, hardly any will outpace the stockmarket, the price of housing, even a decent cash ISA.

And that’s before you take into account the rather important matter of whether you want to fork out several years rent to a specialist company for storage space in their temperature-controlled warehouse. For those of you in the fortunate position of having suitable space at home, the situation is still not perfect. You have to make sure little Johnny's inheritance is safe from prying hands, and not just those of devious adolescents. Many wine lovers have tales of how they opened that precious bottle of Château Eau de Singe in the wee small hours long after their taste buds and sensibility had retired to bed.

Another thing. Not everyone actually likes the taste of old wine – some do, some don’t. One person’s ‘wonderfully mellow’ is another’s ‘old cupboards’. If you do end up spending the kitty on wine, you can buy a bit of old stuff and some younger stuff too – few wines are better at age 18 than they were at age 8.

I guess that bottom line is that while I don’t want to put you completely off the idea of laying down wine for future generations, just don’t go mad.

Single bottle trauma

Wine is all about pleasure, right? OK, maybe that's a simplification, but the bottom line is that in a world where we don't have to drink wine to
a) get us in such a mood to attack marauding Goths
b) warm our cockles because we live in a central-heating-less yurt
c) warp our vision so that we will procreate with anything with a pierced navel

And yet... Andrew Bajorek who posted this on Tom Cannavan's wine pages forum is not the first worried wino to suffer from single bottle syndrome. I write as someone whose wine cellar consists of serious quantities of single bottles. Wine writers are often sent wines in two-bottle consignments (one of them may be corked), and we don't have the time/inclination/liver to polish off the extras.

But the question remains: you have only one bottle of a potentially very nice wine - how do you ensure that you drink it at its peak?

And the answer remains: there is no definitive answer.

A cop out? No. Think about music. Think about food. think about cars. Do we all go for the same thing? No. And it's the same with wine. And even if you have two people who like wines from the Rhone, or Santorini, or Maipo, you will hardly ever get them to agree on a precise time when a wine is 'ready'. Some like grippy tannins and upfront fruit. Others prefer something more mellow and evolved. The important thing is that no one is wrong in preferring wines at whatever stage of development they are at.

My advice for for single bottle owners? By all means check out what other online drinkers are saying about wines. But if you're still in two minds, open them on a Friday night. If it's ready, you can drink it there and then. If it's not, chances are that it will be starting to shine on Saturday.

Extremely lost in translation

Nothing too wine-y today - gearing up to taste dozens of South African Sauvignons next week, but today's a day when I should be writing and hoping that editors don't ring up saying 'Where's my article on ___?'

But while I'm here, my sister has packed many jobs into her 40-something years, one of which was translating from French and Italian into England. She was always moaning about ambitious companies that would spend heaps on marketing and then blow it all by skimping on translation. I've just happened across a web site for a hotel that illustrates in truly surreal fashion just what she was talking about. Enjoy...

The ten commandments of the wine cellar

1) Thou shalt not kill. If you’re planning to keep wine at home for anything more than a couple of years, you need to give serious thought to where and how it is stored, otherwise you could ruin it. More of that in a future post, but for now, it’s the do’s and don’t’s of cellar etiquette.

2) Never buy a wine you don’t like. Try to taste any wine you’re thinking of buying in quantity, even if it has the pundits raving. If it doesn’t hit the right spots, then just say ‘no’.

3) Don’t buy too much. Resist wine merchants’ ‘vintage of the century’ propaganda, and buy in sensible quantities. Otherwise you’re going to run short of a) space, b) money for other pleasures, and c) lifetime in which to polish off your stash. Similarly...

4) Stock-take. If you’re drinking mostly Burgundy and buying mostly Bordeaux, you’ll eventually encounter stock flow problems. Every six months, check your supplies and adjust your drinking/purchasing patterns accordingly.

5) There will always be another vintage. You missed out on the superb 2005 clarets/Burgundies/whatever (strike out as applicable). But guess what? The 2001 clarets/2002 Burgundies/2003 whatever were also rather good. No vintage is unmissable.

6) Don’t forget those whites. Red wines are generally more cellar-worthy than whites. However white wines from several cooler regions around the world don’t object to bottle age, and many Sauternes, Burgundies and northern Rhône whites, plus Rieslings from almost anywhere, positively thrive on it. If in doubt, ...

7) Experiment. Ten year old Muscadet, twenty year old Beaujolais, thirty year old semi-sweet Loire rosé... Yes, I’ve had them all, and found some not just ‘interesting’, but actively enjoyable. Strange things happen to wine over time, not all of them positive, but you should reserve a small corner in the cellar for experimental purposes. However...

8) Too soon is better than too late. Not all wines can survive twenty years in the cellar, and most will be fading at age 5. So don’t resist that urge to pull the corks on bottles whose progress you’re interested in. If the wine seems too young, just jiggle it about in a decanter for a while and it’ll probably come out of its shell. However, if it’s too old, you’re stuffed. More salad dressing anyone?

9) It’s there to be drunk. Some wines in your cellar may accrue in value. Resist the temptation to sell them. You hear some people say, ‘Ooh, this wine’s gone up so much in price, I really can’t afford to drink it.’ You never hear them say, ‘Ooh, this house costs so much now, I really can’t afford to live here.’ You made a fortunate investment, now enjoy it.

10) Give and it will be given to you (Luke 6:38). Your precious hoard is there to be shared, even with wine plebs. So offer Lieb-loving Auntie Mabel a taste of grand cru Burgundy, and don’t wince too obviously if cousin Kevin mixes your 1990 Barolo with Red Bull. Just mutter under your breath, ‘Serendipity, serendipity,...’ then patiently await the day when one of them wins the lottery and develops a passion for pricey Pomerol.

Too much, too young

I confess, this lunchtime, I had a glass of Pinot Grigio. I know, I know, I'm supposed to talk about wine here rather than Pinot Grigio. A press release came through a couple of months ago from a company suggesting that the southern Italian grape Fiano might be 'the next Pinot Grigio'. Sent them a note saying something like, 'What, you mean bland, with a pretty label, but girlies love it?'

However, here was a Pinot Grigio that actually had a little personality. The wine was the Swan Bay 2007 from Scotchmans Hill in Victoria, Australia (set to be £7.50-£8 from the Wine Society). It had that waxy walnut and apple edge of good examples, and was more buxom than most.

But... Now I realise that wineries need cash flow, but I'm getting tired of tasting wines that have been released while they're still in nappies. And I'm not talking here about nobby clarets that need a decade or so in order to work out what the fuss is all about. I'm talking about normal, everyday wines that need a few months in bottle to calm down. the Swan Bay has all the makings of decent wine, but it's for drinking at Christmas and beyond, not while it's still sucking its thumb.

Don't blame the winemakers. I've had conversations with several in places as far apart as Austria and South Africa who despair of the 'youngest is best' mentality which has people demanding the latest vintage almost as soon as its finished fermenting. No, it's typically their bosses who cajole them into getting the stuff out of the cellars ASAP - and sometimes encourage them to tweak the winemaking to make the wine more forward.

Try this experiment. See if you can find both the 2007 and 2006 vintages of a cheapish southern hemisphere white. Try them side by side - bet you prefer the older one.

Rioja, but not as we know it

There are three empty bottles in front of me. Did I drink the contents of them all? No. Did I drink a glass of any of them? No. But I tasted them several times to see if I could work out what the $*$! United Wineries were thinking of when they created the Marques de Concordia Extreme, sorry, Extrême range.

Not that a normal person would have been able to tell the difference between the three wines. To my admittedly short-sighted eyes, the front labels and capsules are identical, while the back labels are almost identical bar the bottle number and the alcohol level. If the helpful Scott Burton of PR company Cube hadn't stuck on stickers saying which was the Cabernet Sauvignon (13.5% alcohol), which the Merlot (14%) and which the Syrah (14.5%), I'd have had to go off taste. I think I'd have got them right - the Cabernet was leafy and blackcurranty, the Merlot softer and plummier, while the Syrah had flavours of spicy chocolate and berries. But what did they have to do with Rioja? Not much, apart from the thumbprint of American oak. Maybe the overripe 2003 vintage should take some of the blame. Certainly there was very little acidity, plus a fair degree of brett. And they're £13...

Give them a miss and spend your money either on proper Rioja or on better examples of the three varietals from elsewhere. Current faves for the three grapes are Falernia Syrah from Chile (see here), Mas de Daumas Gassac's intriguing Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé Frizant Vin Mousseux (£10.99 Caves de Pyrene, Green & Blue) and - shit, I can't think of a Merlot I like. Let's see what's on the sample rack....

OK, back with a glass of Casa Lapostolle's Cuvée Alexandre 2005 Merlot (I'm sure this used to be mostly Carmenere, but the label says its only 15%). Wine writers aren't supposed to be biased, but my son is called Alex and the wine is usually a bit of a banker. And it doesn't let me down. It's classic Chile, rich, earthy, packed with blackcurrants, big but not too pumped up. The wrong wine for a summer evening, but still pretty good, and with a refreshing tang to the finish that was all too obviously absent in the Concordia Riojas. Wouldn't be surprised to see it blossoming in the next 24 hours.

Socks and Rocks

Click here to be astounded, offended, confounded by Gary Vay-ner-chuk on the Conan O'Brien show in the US.

Not sure whether Jancis Robinson's socks wouldn't be more like pretty floral English wine than feral Fixin...

Glass Act

Being a) clumsy and b) an enthusiastic wine drinker, I'm always in the market for decent cheap glasses. I will never call them stemware - does anyone call mugs handleware? I've been the proud owner of several Riedel glasses and I've smashed most of them, usually when shaking the last drips out after washing them and catching the rim on the tap. Grrrr.... But now I'm the proud owner of six glasses that from a distance could pass for the Riedel Chianti glass, which is one of the best all-rounders in the extensive range. Closer up, the thicker glass and variable thickness tell you it's not the real thing, but it's still a decent shaped and sized vessel. And while a six pack from Riedel will set you back at least £50 - and much much more if you go for the Sommeliers range - this particular sextet was just a fiver. That's 83.3p per glass. A bargain. If you're quick, and you live near a branch of Au Naturale, you might still find some in stock.

In search of gentleness

I've been writing a piece for Wine & Spirit on small (less than 10,000 cases) producers, and as is often my wont, the deadline is somewhere in the distant past. So this morning, I set the alarm for 5:30, got up early and had polished it off by 9. A good job too, as I'd promised the editor I'd eat a copy of the Argentine supplement that came with the August issue if he didn't have it by first thing.

Then I went back to bed for a couple of hours, woke up just as the rest of the family was setting off up to Pots & Pans, and decided I'd have an early lunch rather than a late breakfast. Having written 1500 words by 9am, I felt just a bit smug and figured I deserved a glass of wine. A trawl through the sample rack revealed five wines with screwcaps, so feeling lazy, I thought I'd just try these. Any half-decent wine writer never has a shortage of wine to taste, but usually they're not always the wines you want to drink. Expressed mathematically...

A = Enthusiasm of PR Company OR Budget of Marketing Depertment
B = Quality

A x B is a constant

So there I was, lunch ready to go, but unable to find a wine I wanted to drink. Yes, all five were OK, but there's a cheesy old adage that says 'Life is too short to drink bad wine' and like many cheesy old adages, it's true. I didn't mind tasting these wines, and if someone had given me a glass of any of them at a party or over dinner, I'd have drunk it. But given the choice, I wanted something more stimulating. I ended up pulling the cork on a more ambitious Portuguese red, Quinta da Romaneira from the Douro. I can't fault its concentration, nor its complexity. But a nice gentle lunchtime quaffer? Dans mes rêves...

Wine films

I wish I'd thought of that... Just had a press release from UK supermarket Morrisons for the Casillero del Diablo Reserva Privada headed 'The Devil Wears Privada'. Good one whoever thought that up, and curses that I didn't include it in the wine films I did for Wine & Spirit magazine last year, which featured some of the following...

The Savennières Itch

Something About Maury

Friuli Madly Deeply

Nyetimber on Elm Street (with Freddie Krug)

Ruedas of the Lost Ark

A Bridge Too Far Niente/A Ridge Too Far

Some Like it Huet

Coteaux du Layon The Pig Farmer

Rebel without a Cos

La Tâche aux Folles

Women on the Verget of a Nervous Breakdown

Carillon Camping

The Good, the Bad and the Ugni

Borba the Greek

Nevers Say Nevers Again

I’m Alright Dujac

When Harry Met Skalli

And so on...

Sekts and the City, sorry, Syrah

Consumer tastings keep me sane. Well not so much sane as in touch with how normal people think - that's 'normal' as in those who don't spend all day spitting into buckets and sinks (note to self to post soon about spittoon nightmares). For pro spitters, it's all too easy to forget that many folk go for immediate impact in wines, rather than looking for life beyond the first few sniffs and sips. For example, I was tasting with a group of locals last night, and we tried two Chilean Syrahs. The Viña Falernia Syrah 2005 from the northerly but chilly Elqui Valley (£5.95 Tanners) was lovely gentle fragrant wine, more like Crozes Hermitage than anything from the New World. Yum, and a bargain to boot. Then came the Pangea 2004 from Apalta (£25-£30 Harrods, Roberson), which is a joint venture between Viña Ventisquero and Aussie Shiraz maestro John Duval, the ex-Penfolds winemaker. This was much more a bruiser, albeit a classy bruiser, with the rich oily texture and roasted notes you find in many Californian Syrahs. Both very tasty wines, and I expected a split panel, but no, virtually everyone preferred the brawn of the Pangea to the more subtle charms of the Falernia.

But the surprise of the evening for many was a German Sekt, the Solter Rheingau Riesling Brut 2004 (~£13 The Winebarn). I can count the number of times I've ever enjoyed Sekt on one hand and still have enough digits left to pick both nostrils. And Riesling with bubbles can be just OTT. But this was a very tasty, punchy wine, full of fruit but not too aggressively so, and with fresh acidity to keep your mouth clean. Not as good as 1996 Krug, but a fraction of the price

Scoring - or why I don't like wine by numbers

I’ve always had problems scoring – wines, that is. I remember going to a tasting years ago of Setúbal, the Portuguese fortified Muscat, when I was experimenting with the 100-point scale. It was when I gave a wine 120 points that I realised it wasn’t for me. Nowadays, I don’t score wines, I give them medals. So S = silver, S+ = buy me a beer and you might talk me up to gold, while S- = probably a bronze, but I’m feeling benevolent, and so on. I have a trophy category above gold medals, for when my socks have been well and truly blown off (except in summer, when I sometimes wear sandals, but without socks. On these occasions, trophy wines undo my sandals, pour iced water over my throbbing feet, and offer me a pisco sour).

But a rating of B, S+, G(-) and so on next to a wine looks a bit pathetic, so here are my alternative wine categorisations. Firstly…

Plant Pot Wines – As in find the nearest, and tip it in. NBM – Nil By Mouth – is an equivalent. My friend Charles Metcalfe has AE – auto-eject. In other words, totally dreadful wines. You won’t find too many of these around today. A good thing? I’m not so sure. There’s a part of me that says I’d rather come across a totally crap wine than some of the wines in the next tier up – which is…

Waiting Room Wines – Or Accountant Wines, or Argos Wines, or Nail Bar Wines. Wines that make the word ‘bland’ seem dynamic. Wines that you are not aware of having swallowed. Wines that, thinking of the previous category, would make your plant pot sprout second-hand plastic flowers. Drinkable, but instantly forgettable. Let’s move on, although not necessarily to something better…

Heartless Tart Wines – If anything, these are worse than Waiting Room Wines. You can forget a Waiting Room Wine, but there’s no escaping a Heartless Tart. These are wines that have been manufactured by Robo-winemaker to a recipe rather than being allowed to develop in a more natural state. Instead of overdressing, there’s overoaking. Instead of cosmetic surgery, there’s overripeness. Instead of too much make-up, there’s incongruous sweetness and alcohol. Such wines come at all price levels. Ban them from your table, and go instead for…

Breakfast Wines – Not that I’m advocating drinking wine while John Humphries is still heckling politicians. The idea here is that, just as a good breakfast should be honest and wholesome, but without supplying the culinary heights of the day, so a breakfast wine should be a good drink – wet, alcoholic, tasty and drinkable, but not central to the proceedings. If you want something more assertive, head for...

Proper Wines – Let’s take ‘wet, alcoholic, tasty and drinkable’ and ratchet it up to the next level. Here, personality comes into play. Stuff ripeness, stuff oak, stuff alcohol, these are wines that rise above winemaking styles and really express a sense of place and, at times, a sense of wildness. Can wine get any better? Well yes, it can…

Wedding Wines – My wedding day remains the best day of my life. Someone told me that they never saw me without a smile on my face, and that’s the sort of wine, we’re talking about here. Wedding Wines should be magnificent, munificent, just wonderful and wonderful. They sound like the ultimate wines. And yet…

Yeah But No But Wines – Is Sushi better than Tapas? Is Machu Picchu better than the Taj Mahal? Is Beethoven better than Eminem? There’s no right answer. These are controversial wines, wines that will have some people drooling, while others will put them in the Plant Pot category. Greatness doesn’t necessarily mean universal appreciation.

So there you have it. Chances that these categories will gain universal approval are slim, but they’re a darn sight more interesting than 85 points or four and a half stars. So, any suggestions for examples of each type? Or of how you grade wines?

Carmen Electra - not.

I'll say it straight out - Carmenère is NOT the future of Chilean wine. 'Santa Rita's focus on exceptional primium Chilean wines moves to a new level with the UK launch of the new Santa Rita Pehuén Carmenère.' A bottle of Pehuén arrived, all £24.99's worth of it, and I tried it over the weekend. It starts off rich, oily and concentrated, lush and packed with flavours of berries, coffee beans and brown sugar. Great to taste, but to drink... Sadly, it's another of those wines that are just too big. I poured a glass for over dinner (ribeye steak, so something fairly macho), but ended up after a couple of sips pouring it back into the decanter and drinking the ever excellent Torres Gran Sangre de Toro (a third the price). The following day, I shoved a glass of the Pehuén under Jill's precise and pretty nose - 'Tia Maria?!?' Quite bizarrely, it had gone into a blobby liqueur-like state, with the oak jutting out and any crispness and freshness completely subsumed by ripeness and coarseness. This from a company whose Casa Real is one of Chile's finest Cabernets.

So what should the Chileans do with Carmenère? Blend it. Just as that other obscure Bordeaux grape, Petit Verdot, predominantly Carmenère wines are just too much of a good thing. Another Santa Rita wine, Triple C - Cab Sauv + Cab Franc + Carmenère - shows the right approach. Carmenère's role is to be seasoning, not the main course.

(would love it if Hardy's - Constellation - were to plant Carmenère in Australia and blend it with Shiraz, then they could do a wine called Carmen Eileen....)

Smile, while you still have your teeth...

Tasting thousands of wines each year is a treat, a thrill, a blast. But it does have its problems. First of all, it gets you drunk. You're not supposed to say that, but Steven Spurrier, he of the the (in)famous 1976 Paris tasting when Californian wines trounced the French opposition, estimates that in tasting season, he has two bottles of wine per day. Those folk who intend to drive after any tasting of more than 20 wines - they're just daft.

But another hazard involves the mouth. Red wines leave you with a Draculine grin, with purple lips, black tongue and teeth a dubious shade of grey-y crimson. While this means that you never have a problem getting a seat on the Tube - one grimace, and the commuters flee - it isn't exactly the most endearing of appearances.

So what do you do about it? Some people brush their teeth straight after the tasting - no, No, NO!!! That is, not unless you want to strip off all that enamel that the wine has kindly softened, and leave your teeth even more vulnerable. Do not brush for at least a couple of hours, Instead, chew some gum and produce some acid-neutralising saliva. You'll look like a chav for a bit, but you'll still have your gnashers.

And if you have any teeth that 'sing' when anything too cold/too hot/too whatever hits them, then invest in some Colgate Fluorigard Gel-Kam. It's a fluoride paste that you smear on your teeth after brushing, swish around for a minute or so and then spit out without rinsing (you should never rinse after brushing anyway). I've just reordered my supplies from Smiles Unlimited in Appledore. My dentist commended me last week for my excellent oral hygiene - her comment now appears on my CV.

A final suggestion. Get a tongue scraper. Mine's a metal contraption that I use whenever my tongue feels furred up - the gunk you get off is disturbing, but your mouth feels (and smells) a whole lot better for it.

So long, farewella, Stella - it's the age of Hermitage

I have a great sister called Stella (Google "Stella Woods" for more info). Sadly, she's on her way back home to Melbourne after a month or so of our wonderful weather, and tonight, it's our last evening en famille. If I can't pull out some nice bottles at such a time, why bother keeping them? So we're on 1985 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle and 1985 Penfolds Grange Hermitage - OK pedants, it's labelled simply Grange, but still says Grange Hermitage (as it was long known) on the cork. Just decanted them, and of course had a sip. The Jaboulet is in its confident middle age, sleek, juicy, full of stories, grey round the temples, but still fit to party. The Grange is still growing up, and retains some of its youthful swagger - it greets you with a firm oaky handshake, and doesn't let go. Both taste great now, and should be even better later - will report back....

Later... A family split. Both wines wonderfully tasty. I was among those who sided with the more fragrant feral charms of the Jaboulet, while Stella led the Grange camp. For me, the Grange was just a little too obvious, full of character, packed with flavour but loud rather than passionate. The Jaboulet just kept giving more on each sniff. Reminded me of tasting, no, drinking the hallowed 1961 from magnum (thank you, David Dugdale). My ungenerous side would describe it as one of those wines that I would have preferred to share with fewer people. But a fitting end to Stella's visit.

Top of the Pops?

Not sure what I think of Pommery Pink's new label. Is it so kitsch as to be acceptable, or just out and out naff? Comments from women - surely the intended audience - I've asked haven't been exactly positive. The wine itself is no great shakes, but then again flavour doesn't really have a great deal of influence on wine sales - the words Tail and Yellow spring to mind... Put it this way, there's usually little problem in finishing bottles of Champagne here, but this was opened on Sunday, and there's still half of it left. If you've never cleaned a loo with Champagne, you haven't lived. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I remember some particularly foul fizz that I used instead of Toilet Duck - stubborn stains had no chance against the onslaught of crap flavours and bubbles.

Glug, glug, pass the Krug

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to Krug's UK PR Patricia Parnell for the bottle of the 1996 that landed (gently) on my doorstep last week. What she didn't know was that yesterday was our wedding anniversary. So with the kids in bed, we popped the cork and settled down for the evening (no, we didn't go out for a meal as we'd done that the lunchtime before, at the Devonshire Arms in Bolton Abbey, and the evening before, at the Angel at Hetton - yum yum on both fronts, and both excel at wine).

Anyway, 1996 Krug. First up, it's a great vintage, chock full of flavour, alcohol and extract, and with a wealth of acidity to add further backbone. I have some magnums of 1996 Lanson somewhere in the cellar, and every time I think of which I've thought of opening one, I've remembered a comment by Tom Stevenson - 'Like gargling with razor blades at the moment, this is the most definitive and the best-value 1996 on the market.'

Young Krug - and 11 years old is still very young for this wine - is as backward as vintage Lanson, so I was anticipating something a little bracing. And yes, that bracing acidity runs through the 1996 like piano wire. But around it are curled so many different characters that emerged over the evening - nuts, brioche, pineapple, citrus, green apple, herbs, flowers, butter, even chocolate. It just kept giving more on every sniff - at one point, I even thought of decanting it. A stunning wine then, years, decades even, from its peak, but still a joy to savour. Around £145 per bottle.

Beep Beep! Chile coming through!

The latest raft of stats from wine stats maestros AC Nielsen shows that exports to the UK of Chilean wine have overtaken those of Spain. Since Chile reopened its UK office in 2002, headed by the snappy dressing, dubious dancing Michael Cox, the long thin country has enjoyed a steady rise in fortunes, and on two fronts. Firstly wine quality. There are still a lot of ho-hum bottles to be found, but the Chileans have managed to insert some passion into their wines. Sauvignon is the white trump card, Cabernet Sauvignon remains the class act for reds, but Syrah, Carmenere and even Pinot Noir are looking increasingly impressive. But there's also the marketing. With so-so domestic consumption, Chile needs to export, but before the Wines of Chile office was set up, the campaign in the UK was rather lacklustre. Where Cox & Co have been particularly successful is in convincing both on and off trades that there's more to Chile than cheap and cheerful, with the consequence that sales in the £5-£10 bracket have risen by 26% in the last year.

Where does this leave Spain? On the wine front, the country has never been more exciting. Established regions like Rioja and Ribera del Duero are shedding the shackles of the past, and making more and more world-class wine. Meanwhile less famous regions (Bierzo, Rueda, Cigales, Campo de Borja, Jumilla etc) have discovered how to make characterful, tasty wine, usually from local grapes, but with a healthy amount of competition from some foreign imports. But when it comes to marketing... For example, Ribera del Duero is currently running an ad campaign (see inside back cover of July Decanter) of two snogging pre-Raphaelites with the strapline 'Rounded in the mouth'. Puh-lease. It may make the Madrileños rush out for a bottle of Vega Sicilia, but it doesn't quite translate to Scunthorpe.

It's the same with virtually all the major European countries. Too much bureaucracy, too many meetings, too many vested interests and - it has to be said - still too much shit wine make the promotion of the country a nightmare. What make matters worse is that the promotional effort is often done by those whose roots are too close to home, and don't have the grounding in the relevant export market. Cox has told the Chileans truths that they didn't want to hear, but they've followed his advice and Chile is now reaping the benefit. Australia underwent similar treatment when Hazel Murphy headed up their UK office in the 80s and 90s. Is Spain hombre enough to give someone free rein to attempt a similar makeover job?

Cape of Good Hope - as long as it's white

Bit of a hoo-haa brewing about South African red wines, with Jancis Robinson and Tim Atkin both saying they lag behind the whites, and unsurprisingly many – from the Cape, but also from elsewhere – disagreeing. Yes, there are some great SA reds but there are also some extremely clumsy wines. Evidence on the tasting table this weekend is Le Riche 2003 Cabernet, Waterkloof Circumstance Merlot 2005 and Clos Malverne Auret 2004. All are ambitious wines, selling for £10+, yet having tried them all a number of times over the course of 48 hours, at no point have I ever felt like actually drinking as much as a glass of any of them. I try to give ‘big’ wines a chance to calm down, and for extra layers to emerge, but in all three instances, I’ve been disappointed. The Circumstance Sauvignon Blanc 2006 however has shed its initial gawky green-peppery reticence and become a very nice drink – it’s fuelling this post.

It’s often said that South Africa sits at a halfway house between the New and Old Worlds of wine, the idea being that the wines offer New World ripeness with Old Word finesse. And in some cases they do. But I’d take the Old World comparison a stage further. With the New World you know with a reasonable degree of certainty what to expect. A sweeping statement, I know, but if the wine list just says Australian Shiraz or Chilean Cabernet or New Zealand Sauvignon, there’s a fair chance that it will be at least drinkable. However, if that same list featured a Stellenbosch red from a producer I’d never heard of, then just as with Burgundy, Tuscany, the Mosel, Rioja, etc, I’d approach it with a fair degree of caution.