The Parcel Series Shiraz, Margaret River

When a wine writer of Victoria Moore’s stature says in the Telegraph that a shiraz is “rather fabulous value”, it’s like a spicy red rag to a bull like me. I’m always wary of descending to CJ’s pricepoint – see posts below for some of the vile territory into which I have been lured – but a bargain is surely a bargain. However, being Majestic, you have to buy two bottles in order to get a discount, so just to reassure myself, and avoid ending up with a second unopened, undrinkable bottle, I thought I should check out the Majestic website before plunging ahead.

The website told me a couple of interesting things; first, that The Parcel Series Shiraz is actually a blend with 7% Grenache. I wonder why they don’t say this on the label? After all, a Shiraz/Grenache blend suggests complexity, shifts it into the more intriguing territory of, say, the Shiraz/Viognier we wrote about. And there’s certainly room on the label, although its understated style does appeal to my refined sensibility. (CJ appears to feel robbed of some artistic and architectural experience when labels fail to illustrate in Victorian drypoint the chateau where it is bottled; however, as we shall see, in this case that brief would be somewhat challenging.)

But the second, ridiculous thing the website says is this: “The producer recommends drinking with braised pork belly with seared scallops and a white bean mousse.”

What an absurdly singular recommendation. It’s rather like a car manufacturer saying, “The maker recommends this car for driving along the A406, turning left on to the Finchley Road.”

I could understand if I was in a restaurant, if I had just ordered the said braised pork belly with seared scallops and a white bean mousse, and the waiter said, “May I recommend the Parcel Series Shiraz to go with that?” But unusually, my Affianced and I were not having that particular dish at home last Friday. We happened to be having a steak and kidney pudding. Sod it, I thought, caution to the wind – I’ll take my chances with The Parcel Series.

The label says it is “from the vineyards of Margaret River”. This might lead some to ask, “Who?” Is she the “producer” with the peculiarly sophisticated kitchen? Unfortunately, the correct question is “Where?” (I know CJ’s question is already “How much?” but we’ll come on to that.) This wine is grown in Margaret River, a renowned region of Australia, according to the back label. But it is actually bottled, not in Margaret River, not by any Ms River, nor indeed by any river at all, but by W1507 UK. A name, I’m sure, which infrequently troubles Hugh Johnson’s lips.

My World Wine Encyclopedia is surprisingly silent on the history of W1507 UK. Indeed, the only other product I could find related to it was a boxed shiraz at Asda. which, at £10 for 225ml, or £3.11 a bottle, is clearly more in CJ’s territory than mine. Or for that matter Hugh Johnson’s.

So this “parcel” of wine – what a lovely, romantic euphemism – is bulk-imported and bottled here. Not mis en bouteille au chateau, then. Perhaps the subsequent process was not conducive to the label illustrator’s art. But “parcel” sounds so much more attractive than “tank”, doesn’t it?

The other thing they have on the back label is this bizarre graphic (above), barring a lady, who happens to be pregnant, drinking out of a beer glass. Now, I am acutely aware of CJ’s concerns about drinking receptacles, but if this is a campaign to stop people swilling fine wine out of pint mugs, I’m all for it.

Sadly, I suspect that this is actually some kind of campaign to stop those who are pregnant from drinking. Well, blame it on my gender if you must, but like half the population, this does not actually trouble me. What about those drink-related concerns which do? Why not put a graphic of a car on here instead, with a line through it, to bar drink-driving? A raddled looking kidney, warning against overindulgence? Or barring an off-balance, argumentative-looking chap wielding a bottle in a threatening manner?

Fortunately however, I am not barred from drinking The Parcel Series. So I can reveal that, even without the ideal food, this is really a very decent wine. It’s got a rich, blackberry nose, and a full-bodied, slightly spicy and aromatic flavour – but not too heavy; clean, not cloying. It doesn’t have the weight of so much New World shiraz. Yes, it’s predominantly single note, like any varietal, but am I fooling myself into thinking the fruitiness of the Grenache is adding something interesting? And it’s reduced from £7.49 to £5.99 when you buy two bottles.

For six quid (CJ!!) this is an ideal kitchen wine, which would accompany an enormous range of food, way beyond the single dish recommended by the producers. Indeed, I finished off the bottle on the second night with a chicken, chorizo and chickpea combination. I’m not saying it was the ideal match of food and wine – I’m just bragging about our cooking.

And eschewed as it must be by pregnant women, there will clearly be enough to go round the drunk drivers, alcoholics and belligerent amongst us all.

PK

Terlato & Chapoutier Shiraz/Viognier 2007

When you have sunk to the bottom, you can only go up. Even Sediment, when agitated or disturbed, will rise. In a bid to remind my palate, not to mention CJ, of what wine is all about – and having sunk to the depths of the cheapest wine I have ever knowingly drunk – I decided to find a good, complex bottle of wine which I might actually enjoy. An interesting wine.

As an aide-memoire to what decent wine is about, I’ve been re-reading Simon Hoggart’s book Life’s too short to drink bad wine. Well, not on the Sediment blog, it’s not, old chum. Not my life, anyway.

But in between making me obscenely jealous of the wines he has tasted, Hoggart also offers advice, including the following: “If you have an independent merchant near you,” he writes, “or a good well-run branch of a chain – the sort that trains its staff and keeps them – make friends.”

Now, from my parents to my business partner, people throughout my life have exhorted me to “make friends”, usually with the complete failure resulting in a sandpit fight. Or its adult equivalent.

Nor can I say that I am “friends” with any other shopkeepers. I have been to our local paint shop several times, but I am still treated as a stranger. Mind you, I have never gone in with what I suspect might be a memorable request for "an interesting paint"...

Nevertheless, I thought I would try out Simon Hoggart’s principle in order to purchase a wine which, in both senses, was not bad. So I entered my local branch of Oddbins with the lazy gait of the flaneur who has nowhere better to be, and an ingratiating grin.

The assistant certainly looked as if he was trained – unlike the staff in my cornershop, he had clearly been taught that his job description was best fulfilled behind the counter, and not outside having a smoke. Nor was he glumly perusing his P45. ("Ah no mate, interesting wine comes in next week - but I'm afraid I'm off to work up the road, in the paint shop...") All systems go, then.

I explained that I was looking for something of a treat, something complex I could drink by itself. He asked what kind of thing I liked, and I said I really liked old clarets with a backbone, like St Estephes. He immediately offered me a 2002 Medoc, which frankly smacked of the obvious rather than the interesting. Then he proposed a Tuscan, a much more stimulating idea.

I said “Hmm…??” in a quizzical manner, meant to suggest, “Perhaps you have something even more interesting hidden away for your friends?”. Clearly this was misinterpreted as “Can I spend a little more?” It led to the offer of an extremely expensive mature Rioja.

It was actually me who suggested the Terlato & Capoutier Shiraz/Viognier. I had seen this mentioned on an American website, as one of the best value wines of the year. (Not cheapest, but best value, a distinction lost on certain wine writers.) And I was intrigued by whether comfortable Australian Shiraz had been lifted into something a bit more complex by a great French winemaker.

“Ah, now that is an interesting wine,” he agreed. He went on to say that it was an unoaked Shiraz, which meant you could drink it younger, and that the Viognier added primarily to the nose.

Reasonable guidance - but what makes this wine interesting to me is the union between one of the great old winemaking names of the Rhone, and an enthusiast from the New World. Like that duet between Bing Crosby and David Bowie. (Well, that was a bit ropey, actually, but you get my point.) What happens when the traditional skills of France meet the modern, affordable produce of Australia?

He suggested opening it an hour before drinking – and added that “opening” really meant pouring it into something like a glass, with greater surface area. All of which was extremely good advice.

As he wished me an enjoyable evening, I liked to think that our exchange had gone beyond the merely fiscal. I couldn’t say he’d become my friend – but perhaps, and who can blame him, he was a little wary of the unctuous grin.

The wine itself was absolutely delicious, a description I am thrilled to be able to employ within the Sediment blog. First I gave it an hour in a claret decanter. The nose is cedary but creamy, and the wine has the richness, the spicy warmth of a Cote-Rotie; but with the weight reduced by the absence of oak, and the little lift of the Viognier (a grape I associate with appley white wines), it just sings off the back of the palate. There’s a lighter, fruity note of summer about it, rather than the autumn and winter I associate with Shiraz. If I have any criticism, it’s that the absence of the oak meant I missed having something to tether the wine down, and make it a slower drink – but perhaps that’s my justification (if any were needed) for polishing off the bottle in a single session.

This was everything I wanted – a reminder of how enjoyable wine can be, and a genuinely interesting treat. And as to my burgeoning friendship with the chap in Oddbins, I will try and remember to report if I go back whether he remembers me, or ushers me outside to avoid upsetting other customers.

PK

Del Gaudio Veneto Sauvignon / Sicilia Syrah

Part of the supposed appeal

of Shoreditch, where my office

is located, is the way in which

trendiness and down-to-earth

character (ie poverty) now sit

cheek by jowl. Sir Terence

Conran's boutique hotel/restaurant Boundary is but yards from “gentlemen’s venue” The White Horse. The fashionable bar and restaurant Boho Mexica is flanked by a “market sundriesman” (ie wholesaler of tat for Petticoat Lane). And cheek by jowl with Hawksmoor, one of the best (and certainly not one of the cheapest) steak restaurants in London, we find Wine Bargains of Spitalfields (which, needless to say, does not have a website).

It’s a scruffy little place, painted a disheartening red, with the usual depressing combo of selling wine along with confectionery. I’m sure Mary Portas is a stranger to the retailing principle of picking up a Lion bar along with your claret. But from this unpromising welcome, I was heartened to see that social mobility is alive and rising on Commercial Street.

For on the shelves of Wine Bargains, I was shocked to find some top flight Burgundy at £96 a bottle. £96! I didn’t even know those little yellow stickers could be printed with prices like that. Why, why is a rundown offie selling wine like that? Perhaps Hawksmoor are doing Bring A Bottle nights? Perhaps Tracey, Gilbert and George need somewhere local to pop into for a serious red?

Sadly, I am not in the market for £96 wine. I am forced to the jowl, as it were, rather than the cheek. But while the Echezeaux is up there on the top shelf, down on the floor was a little basket of bargains, like street urchins beside the bankers.

On a Friday lunchtime, the basket was irresistible. Surely, if Wine Bargains knows about its wine – and sadly it knows enough not to flog first rate Burgundy at Echo Falls prices – then surely even their cheapest should be worth trying. A selection of Del Gaudio Italian wines at just £2.99 a bottle, or two for £5, and while the producer’s name did not resonate like the great negociants, this was something for the weekend sir, one red, one white and Bob’s your uncle. Or Roberto.

So on Friday evening, it was the Veneto Sauvignon. I was intrigued by the back label description, which said, somewhat surprisingly, that this was a wine “with an intense Aromas (sic) of bell pepper and tomato leaf”. In fact, it possessed very little flavour – of bell peppers, tomato leaves or indeed anything at all. The removal of the screw cap, like the opening of a jar of instant coffee, released completely misleading fragrances; once poured, this was a bland, flavourless and hardly noticeable wine. Son No 1 claimed he could have drunk the whole bottle in 15 minutes, but frankly, against a second-year undergraduate, that is hardly a sensible wager. I couldn’t wait until Sunday for the red.

No, I mean, I really couldn’t wait until Sunday for the red. A Sicilian Syrah, rich and spicy, seemed the ideal accompaniment for Cumberland sausages on Saturday night. And had this been a rich and spicy Syrah, all would have been well. But again, this wine too tasted of virtually nothing. Bland, flavourless and insubstantial, none of which I would have said applied to syrah, a cheap bottle of which will normally cut through your sinuses like Oil of Olbas.

But let’s not quibble, given the warmth of Sicily and the splendour of the Veneto, about whether either of these wines are “indicazione geografica tipica”, as the label says. After all, what would be typical of the geographical region of Shoreditch – the classy Echezeaux at £96, or the shallow Del Gaudio at two for a fiver? Lacking a further £93.50 per bottle to spend, I am loath to pass judgement.

PK