Tinpot Hut Steam Wharf Road Syrah 2008, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand (£14.99 Tesco) As with many Hawkes Bay Syrahs, this starts well with lovely aromas of clove, pepper and vanilla, but then you wonder whether there is enough fruit to prop up the aromas. Here, there is – blackberries, plums […]
Victoria
Errázuriz Aconcagua Costa Single Vineyard Syrah 2010, Chile (£19.99 Averys) Full bodied style, quite aromatic with notes of sage-tinted sausage meat and lavender, but there’s that tell-tale reduced blackcurrant pastille feel, and the finish is rather dry and lacking charm. B Wakefield Jaraman Shiraz 2009, Clare Valley/McLaren Vale, Australia (£16.99 […]
Wine Tasting Video: Syrah/Shiraz from Chile, Australia & New Zealand
Samuel Tinon Tokaji Szamorodni 2004, Hungary (£24.99 per 500 ml Hungarian Wine Society) Lovely combination of richness and pithy restraint, with honeyed barley sugar, raisin, nougat and vanilla flavours pepped up by orange-peel-rich marmalade acidity, sweet but so fresh, complete and confident. S+ Lyrarakis Malvasia of Crete NV, Greece (£17.75 […]
Wine Tasting Video: Tokaji, Greek Malvasia, Rutherglen Muscat
Hush Heath Skye’s English Chardonnay 2010, Kent, England (£20 hushheath.com) Clean, bright style wine some Chablisque flinty notes, piercing citrus and apple fruit, a touch of nuttiness and a salty mineral tang. B(+) Ocean Eight Verve Chardonnay 2010, Mornington Peninsula, Australia (~£25 Hallowed Ground) Pure precise style, lightly cooked apple […]
Wine Tasting Video: Chardonnay – Chablis, England, Mornington Peninsula and ...
Tesco Finest* Picpoul de Pinet 2010, Languedoc, France (£7.29 Tesco) Fresh clean style with a bracing marine tang, combines a fleshy peachiness with firmer, tauter apple and citrus flavours, and a leafy finish. B+ Crego e Monaguillo Godello 2011, Monterrei, Spain (£7.95 Saddleworth Wine Vault) Vigorous youngster, initially the pear, […]
Wine Tasting Video: Assorted Whites – Picpoul, Godello, Weissburgunder, Marsanne
Villa Maria Cellar Selection Syrah 2008, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand (£13.99 Oddbins, Wine Rack, nzhouseofwine.co.uk) Fragrant and elegant to start with, showing touches of pepper (white & black), berry and plum, but then a slightly thoddy vanilla edge intrudes, and there’s just this feeling of incompleteness, as if it would […]