Pocket Vintages - wine vintage charts and wine information

Planet of the Grapes Special Offers April 08

I received this from the POTG team today:

Two cracking white wine offers today - one from the new world, one from the old...

Dog Point - Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2006 - SAVE £30 per case!

The Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc has been one of our best selling white wines over the last few years and we have managed to negotiate a great price for a 50 case parcel of the wine direct from New Zealand. This means that we can knock a massive £30 off the price of a case of 12 bottles, from £162.00 (£13.50 per bottle) down to just £132.00, (£11 per bottle). This brilliant estate is run by two guys who used to work for Cloudy Bay before it was sold to LVMH. The fruit is of the highest quality and has all the pungeant aromas you would expect from a Kiwi Sauvignon with a lovely crisp elegant palate. At the normal price it is a great wine but at the offer price it is a steal!

Adegas Galegas - Bouza Grande, O Candado 2005 - save £36 per case!

Our old world offering comes from Galicia in the far Northwest corner of Spain. This cool climate region is famed for its fantastic seafood and the rather delicious local grape, Albarino, that goes so well with gambas etc...The Bouza Grande from Adegas Galegas is a blend of grapes with small amounts of the indigenous varieties Loureiro and Treixadura being added to the Albarino, giving the wine lovely weight and texture to go with the pineapple and grapefruit flavours. The finish is dry and minerally and is crying out for those shripms to be thrown on the barbie! The new vintage has arrived in the country so we have managed to get a deal on the last of the 2005 - the price comes down from £12 per bottle to just £9 per bottle i.e. £108 per case, and we have just 10 cases available.

Chusclan 2004 Cotes du Rhone Villages

Another prize winner, at the 2005 Rhone wine awards and another big red - this time packing 14% alcohol.  This means that if you polish off a bottle of it you'll be using up about 12 of your 21 weekly alcohol units.

I can't tell you how much it costs because it was a gift from some friends coming round for dinner, but I drank it over the weekend and was very satisfied with it.

Open it up a few hours before you want to drink it, because it is tannic and chunky and will require some oxidisation.  But it is still smooth and fruity and perfect with roast lamb in my opinion.  I actually tried it with shepherd's pie and it went down a treat.

7/10

Chateau de Gaudou 2003

This big and boisterous Cahors was a silver medal winner at the South West France wine challenge in 2004.  It packs 13.5% alcohol and is everything you expect from a Cahors, except a big less tanniny (probably why it won something).

Normally I avoid Cahors because they tend to be fairly rough, but if you're after a working red wine then this is as good as any.  I think I bought it locally in France so probably only paid a few euros for it.  If you see it and it costs under £6 a bottle then buy it, otherwise I wouldn't bother.

6/10