What Was Your Most Recent Bottle of Wine?

[gradus]

Aldi has some inexpensive and enjoyable Portuguese and Greek white wines all around £6 to £8 pounds.

[Pulcinella]

Aldi has some inexpensive and enjoyable Portuguese and Greek white wines all around £6 to £8 pounds.

Good grief!
Their Spanish Toro Loco here, often at £3.99.
12 bottles bought this morning.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/toro-loco-superior/p/040728020610200

[cloughie]

Good grief!
Their Spanish Toro Loco here, often at £3.99.
12 bottles bought this morning.


https://www.aldi.co.uk/toro-loco-sup...40728020610200

Their Estevez Chilean Pinot Noir at a similar price is very quaffable too.

Laurent Miquel Vendanges Nocturnes Cinsault/Syrah Rosé From Waitrose is a lovely pale dry rose from the Languedoc - £8.99 normal price but was on offer a few weeks ago at £6.99 - I think as good as many a more expensive Provence rose.

[Keraulophone]

There was a scandal some years ago about anti-freeze in the wines, wasn't there? Our family just rose to the level of a table wine sold under the label of Hirondelle…

Blue Nun, Black Tower, Le Piat de Beaujolais, Le Piat d’Or, Mateus Rosé, Bull’s Blood…. memories from the ‘70s and ‘80s that are best forgotten. Beaujolais has since become an excellent buy for those who like lighter red styles, especially the village crus such as Moulin-à-Vent (which can age to resemble pinot noir).

As for anti-freeze in wine, after the scandal hit in mid-1985, Austria couldn’t sell any more wine and 27 million litres of the suspect liquid had to be disposed of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal

Currently on fam hols inland from Split, Croatia, but am yet to find a bottle of local wine which I would call half-decent; have had to resort to Tuscan reds and Portuguese Vinho Verde whites form the local German supermarket.

[french frank]

Good grief!
Their Spanish Toro Loco here, often at £3.99.
12 bottles bought this morning.

Careful now. You're getting down to my level. When Coop Spanish White was at £4 a bottle, if I got a member's offer of 75p off any Coop wine, one bottle ran in at £2.95. Just as good as now that it's £4.10p. From the sublime to the cor blimey, this thread, I know!

[Belgrove]

Côte Rôtie is sometimes described as ‘ethereal’, which may suggest blandness or a lack of imagination to describe the scents and tastes. The colour of the 2012 Ch de Montlys is dark maroon in the glass, but with a pale brick-red rim, betraying that it’s getting on a bit. It’s perfumed, heady with dark fruits, black cherry, damsons, slightly peppery, and then a fleeting hint of violets, then liquorice - so certainly complex, perhaps ‘ephemeral’ rather than ethereal, it shifts. The first taste is silky. The tannins that provide structure and depth have been integrated, mellowed and softened with age into a smooth, rich mouthfeel. And the dark fruits on the nose are there on the palate too, and they persist. Although it’s a dry wine, it has a sweet juiciness and freshness that belies its age - it’s elegant and deeply satisfying. So not a whopping blockbuster Syrah in the Australian mode that ends up dominating a meal, but rather a very classy supporting actor that slyly steals the show. The grouse, although delicious, is essentially an excuse to consume industrial quantities of bread sauce; but with such a wine it’s a heavenly match.

[smittims]

Yesterday I opened a 2014 Margaux, from my dwindling stock of this vintage.

[Keraulophone]

a 2014 Margaux

One of the 21 classed growths? It couldn't have been Ch. Margaux - that would have been infanticide.

[Sir Velo]

Pescatarian friends relax their regime when it comes to that delicious summer dish, vitello tonnato

Presumably, concern with animal suffering is not at the root of their dietary observances?

[HighlandDougie]

One of the 21 classed growths? It couldn't have been Ch. Margaux - that would have been infanticide.

If Chateau Margaux, currently to be had here in la belle France from one merchant as a bargain offer at 495,00€ per bottle. Yum! Ma favorite (but not, alas, at that price).

The one slightly posh claret I still possess - 1990 Cos d'Estournel bought en primeur - is still, as they say, "drinking well" but the few remaining bottles will be the last classed growth I ever have as it's all become just a touch too expensive to be afforded on a pension.

[Belgrove]

Presumably, concern with animal suffering is not at the root of their dietary observances?

Indeed it is. My UK supplier provides organically reared rose veal, the animals having a free-range outdoor life. If one eats cheese and drinks milk, then one must face the issue of dealing with excess male calves.

[Sir Velo]

Indeed it is. My UK supplier provides organically reared rose veal, the animals having a free-range outdoor life. If one eats cheese and drinks milk, then one must face the issue of dealing with excess male calves.

My point was rather that your friends cannot claim to so grandiose a title as "pescatarian" when, in essence, they're people who prefer fish but will eat meat as and when their palates are titillated.

[Belgrove]

My point was rather that your friends cannot claim to so grandiose a title as "pescatarian" when, in essence, they're people who prefer fish but will eat meat as and when their palates are titillated.

Your original point suggested that the rearing of the animals was inhumane and I gave reasons why, to the best of my knowledge, that is not the case. How my friends choose to refer to themselves is entirely a matter for them.

[Belgrove]

A tasty, herby mushroom medley topped a sweetcorn polenta, enriched with a little feta, required something Italian to wash it down. A 2017 Filetta di Lamole is a chianti produced by Fontodi. It comes from a beautiful and sheltered single vineyard that we visited a while back, located at an unusually high elevation in the Tuscan hills, surrounded by woods where wild boar roam. It’s noticeably different from the winery’s principal wine (which is also very good), being more elegant yet weighty. The Filetta is dark garnet in colour with a heady aroma of cherries and a tantalising back-note of violets. Its tannins have softened to provide a firm, slightly leathery backbone to the sour cherry and plum flavoured fruit. Delicious paired with food, especially the earthy mushrooms, soft cheese (and probably wild boar) but certainly too tannic for drinking on its own. At its peak now and worth seeking out if you can.

[smittims]

I've always been a disciple rather of Malcolm Gluck, who insisted that shopping around in cheap wines often produced pleasant and surprises of lasting satisfaction, than of Oz Clarke, who famously said that if you spend less than £50 on a bottle of wine (amd this was over 20 years ago) you're wasting your money (and how the wine retailers must have loved him for saying that).

I've been a claret drinker for many years but coming home by rail a few months ago I asked if they had any red wine and I was shown a can of Argentine Malbec. I was pleasantly surprised , and I expect I will enjoy more in my remaining years. Maybe after 40 years it's time to forgive them for invading the Falkland Islands.

My 'last' bottle of wine was Pinot Grigio; my current one Cotes de Gascogne, both from ALDI.