#wineWednesday and a fruit day. After a day of writing about perceived wine faults for Wine Cellar Club, I was ready to enjoy a glass in the evening.

I'd had a couple of days without drop and fancied something nice.

I opened nice Italian Pinot Nero that had been on the rack a few months. It was to be the first time of using my new Pinot Noir Riedel glasses for the correct grape.

Flat, dull, lacking in fruit. Clear signs of cork taint and, a very unpleasant glassful.

I briefly toyed with the idea that the musty smell would pass, but in the end, poured it down the sink, after 10 minutes of wishing it were different.

Life's too short to drink bad wine.

With Mr Purple Teeth away, I opted to open a Cune Reserva Rioja I had bought during the Waitrose fine wine event. The wine is currently reduced by 25% so I figured I could add a bottle to my next shop if it was as good as I'd remembered.

I'd most recently had the Gran Reserva from Cune.

The horror, the horror.

I removed the foil emblazoned with the 91 Parker Point rating to reveal a black mouldy cork. I feared the worst.

After 4 months without a corked wine, would I have 2 in one night?

In my role as associate judge at last week's International Wine Challenge, I had come across a few corked wines, including one which went on to be nominated for a Gold medal after a new bottle was opened.

Good quality is no guarantee against cork taint. Where there is cork there is a chance.

However, this was clearly a storage issue. The outside of the cork was filthy, but appearances can be deceptive.

I delicately removed the cork, and cleaned with some kitchen towel around the rim of the bottle.

I poured.

No trace of taint. Phew!

I'm not sure that the wine is in perfect condition however. I'd struggle to award it the 91 points that Parker did (which would be an IWC silver). It is a good reserva style Rioja and I would probably have judged it as bronze.

It won't go down the sink, and my fruit day is saved.

Once again, appearances can be deceptive. The Pinot cork looked perfect but the wine was undrinkable.

Remember, it's worth tasting to be on the safe side.

Now it's time I enjoyed the rest of the glass and relaxed rather than writing any more.

Cheers!

Written & published via an iPhone while drinking the wine - apologies for any poor formatting or typos which I'll correct when I get to a PC

I consider myself to be a wine fan rather than a wine snob.  However, there are some things I do get snooty about.  
There are plenty of things more annoying than drinking wine from a poor quality glass, but they are irrelevant here.  This is a wine blog after all, not an insight into the traumas of modern life.

For me, the importance of good glass ware was brought into sharp focus on a trip to The Half Moon in Putney, to see one of my favourite live bands, Ezio. (Self indulgent youtube clip of Ezio music with my own photos below). 

We enjoyed a rather fine rib eye along with a wonderful glass of  Shiraz, McHenry Hohnen 2012 from the Margaret River area in Western Australia.  At £9.30 for a large glass, I was happy to pay it.  The glass was "ok" but the wine was a lot more.  
And then it came time to go into the gig.  The wine was comforting, so I opted for a second glass.  I was given a thick plastic wine "glass" to hold this incredible fruit bomb.  And suddenly it was not £9.30 well spent at all.  It was a stark reminder of why I now seldom drink wine when I'm in pubs and clubs - even the good stuff failed to deliver.

And so, I was drawn to consider my own glass collection.  I've written here about aspects of wine service including Riedel glasses before, and while i don't use them "every time", they have become integral to my enjoyment of the finer wines.

Yet, most of mine came "free" as part of tastings. It was time to put my money where my mouth was.  So as well as restocking my standard stemmed white tasting glasses, I indulged in some of the (not that new really) stemless O range, since it's true to say that we have recently suffered from the indignity of knocking over and smashing a glass or two...

Wanting to give myself as much scope as possible, but without investing in the whole range (we have a very tiny kitchen), I opted for the Pinot/Nebbiolo glass.  This may seem a little odd since I can't recall ever bringing a Barolo home, and Mr Purple Teeth has an aversion to pale Pinot Noir.  However, it looked like a sensory experience of a glass, and different enough to the standard white tasting glasses, that I might just taste the difference.

In order to give the glasses their inaugural taste, I opted for a bottle that's lain on my wine rack for longer than it ought.
I'm the first to preach that good wine is to be enjoyed, and that a kitchen wine rack is no place to store good wine, so while a bottle like this could have kept a little longer, I was slightly fearful that it may have been a little tired. 
My memory says I purchased it some years ago from The Wine Society for about £28.  I can only find this vintage now for £66 a bottle at Hennings - so perhaps it was a little extravagant for a Tuesday night. But, you only live once. Younger vintages are more widely available and around half the price (check out my Amazon link below).

The 2007 Lytton Springs Proprietary Red (71% Zinfandel, 22% Petite Sirah, and 7% Carignan; 14.5% abv) had a Robert Parker Score of 92 and Purple Teeth score of ALERT THE DENTIST.  

It was a wine to fall in love with.  Stunning round velvety tannin felt incredible in the large glass.  The "regular" white wine glass full was amazing, but we soon realised that we'd be making our second pours into the larger stemless glasses and caressing them gently as the wine deserved.

It's a full bodied, rich and indulgent wine, that felt fresh and young despite it's poor resting place for the previous several years. The acidity was still singing and the almost baked raspberry and boysenberry fruits flooded the mouth.  The addition of Carignan and Petite Syrah make the wine more spicy than some overly jammy Zinfandels and add ageing potential too.  This one packed a punch of vanilla and baking spice, as well as some hints of charcoal. It was the end of conversation. Our focus went onto the wine.  Mr Purple Teeth could not be drawn to comment.

It was over too soon.

The verdict on the glassware continues to be that it's worthy of the investment and it even improves less extravagant wines, adding a visceral pleasure with every sip.

I'd love to hear what you enjoy drinking out of, and what you're drinking at the moment.  

Cheers!

Ever since I started to do a bit of work for a local wine merchant, and a friend of mine set up her own wine sales business, I've felt kind of dirty whenever I've bought wine in the supermarket.
While it's true that the best wines are going to be found elsewhere, most people now seem to get their wine from a supermarket at least some of the time.  Aside from the convenience of not having to buy a certain number of bottles, there is a lot of choice. And, I did start this blog to help you drink better wine, wherever you buy it from.

So, today, I admit, I feel dirty.  But in a good way.  I have vowed never to buy supermarket wine at the normal price again.  If they're going to lure us with offers, they've shown me that they're overcharging most of the time.  So here's my pick of the Waitrose Fine Wine sale.  25% off until the 7th of April.  

Today's dirt is brought to you by The Hedonist.  

There's nothing quite like a hug from an old friend, and while I first became addicted with the £8.99 vintage 2008, we're now looking at a regular price of £13.99, so it's no longer drunk quite as often as it was when first discovered.  Back at £10.49 with the discount, it's well worth chucking a few bottles in the trolley.  In fact, I even wrote to The Hedonist about becoming  brand ambassador.  After all, my i-phone cover is the Shiraz label.  I'd love to taste more of the range, so I hope, as they promised, it will be arriving soon.
In Waitrose today, I helped another customer find it, and she tried to tell me what a nice wine it was.  "Honey, you're preaching to the choir", I chuckled, as I showed her my phone.
I've reviewed it several times before, so I won't dwell here, but if you want to read more, it's here.  Trust me - you want to try this now. I've featured it from the beginning of the blog.
It's not available in my local branch, but I've previously enjoyed the d'Arenberg The Hermit Crab blend of Viognier and Marsanne.  These white Rhone varietals get sympathetic treatment down under and their Dead Arm Shiraz is legendary - however, it's sadly excluded in the current offer, so at £27.99, I won't be popping a bottle any time soon. 

BraZin Lodi Zinfandel has again featured at Chateau Purple Teeth more than once.  There's no better zone for Zin than Lodi (unless you want to spend serious money on Ridge wines - and that's a whole new blog post).  Zinfandel sometimes suffers from an association with the sickly pink "white zinfandel."  There is a lot more to this grape as a red wine, and it's a great alternative for fans of super ripe Malbec.  Again, down to £9.74 this is worth a try if you've not had it before.  I will be enjoying it with some sticky ribs.

Moving to Argentina, I will not be able to resist popping in a bottle each of Catena Chardonnay and Catena Malbec.  Both of these wines make regular appearances at Chateau Purple Teeth.  Find out why by reading about them in my previous blogs.  Both are currently reduced to £9.74, and I'm clearly not the only fan as both are now out of stock on-line. If you can find it, though, it's definitely worth stocking up on some of the Malbec (or the Norton's Reserve down to £8.24) to celebrate the upcoming Malbec World Day on 17th April.  You might also try Michel Rolland's Clos de Los Siete (down from £15 to £11.99), it blends Malbec with Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah and packs a real punch.

If you're more of a fan of Chile, try the Cono Sur 20 Barrels.  It seems to be out of stock online, but you might find it in your local branch.  I've had it a couple of times and reviewed it here.  A finer Pinot Noir is hard to find at it's discounted price of £14.99.  We don't often stretch to more than that for this grape as Mr Purple Teeth so often decides he won't like it just by looking at it's paler colour.  This one passed his test, and I really enjoyed it too.

If I were to place an order on line, I'd be quite tempted to add in a bottle of Feiler-Artinger Blaufränkisch which is down to £8.46.  I've drunk quite a lot of this varietal recently under it's Hungarian guise, Kekfrankos, when in Budapest.  Australia presents good versions and this is usually a hit with those who don't like heavy tannin in their reds.  I'd also more than likely throw in a Cune Rioja Reserva, again, down to £9.74 from £12.99.  If you like Reserva style Riojas (read more about this in my Rioja blog here) you'll find it hard to beat this one for quality and value.

The bargain of the week, however has to be the over £200 a bottle saving (yes, friends, that's the discount!) on a bottle of Château d'Yquem, Sauternes Premier Grand Cru for "just" £637.50.  I'm sure it's amazing, but I can't see me popping a bottle in the basket to blog about unless blogging suddenly gets way more lucrative! Dessert wine fans could do worse than pick up a bottle of Chateau Jolys Cuvee Jean instead. (It's down £2 at £9.99 till the 14th).  The Petit Manseng grape provides incredible scented floral and tropical fruit flavours and the sweetness rating is the same.  We can always dream about the Yquem whilst sipping it.

I've spotted a few other intriguing wines, from varietals I've not tried.  If they're worth a punt, I'll let you know before the next 25% off round at your local supermarket.  I'd love to hear which wines you stock up on whenever there's a sale on.  Meanwhile, I'll leave you with the most popular post from my Facebook Page in rather a long time.

Happy Easter Drinking. Cheers!