Made by Ara.

Lovely. No excess sweetness and no pith just a huge capsicum hit.

Long finish too. Absurd for the price.

So...is this the first from their new wine-maker?
That compost was 'orrid.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

http://www.arawines.com/our_wines/bankhouse

Slightly commercial looking website but the wine is nice. No fruit.....just green pepper.

An unusual twist but nice.

Yep, that's it. Found it under "our people"...thought it rang a bell.

http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/519447/damian-martin-devastated-by-ara-departure

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Oh dear !

Stumble across a nice wine for little money and along comes the man from Tate and Lyle.

Back to St Clair.

Bugger !

Changes at ARA. Good link Ba.

It is clear that Damian Martin, their wine maker and vineyard operations manager, has been shafted by the marketing men. Their CEO possibly had no choice during the MSB glut, and new financiers Todd Corp since 2008 were probably pushing.

Why were we drinking the 2008 ARA composite MSB on a marketing clear-out in February 2011 ? This very light cuvee' was composty and stale, and from the style, it was evident that it was never going to be a keeper !
Clearly the marketing guys should have cleared out all stocks of this cuvee' by then, instead of distress selling the remains of a deteriorating wine in the UK, and destoying the marque !

Things work differently in the boardroom, the taste of the wine may not be uppermost in their minds ! Perhaps the marketing top doggy did get he bullet, Damian Martin may be the only casualty though, if the wine goes mainstream, some of us will vote with our wallets, but what difference would that make to volume !
If the wine follows some of the better Montana styles with Jeff Clarke on the helm, who knows ?

Does Maintream mean Tate & Lyle at the bulk cheap end ? It has meant just that in recent years !

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Duncan

None at the locals so tried Chepstow. None there either.

Decided to go for a thrash up to St. Briavel's and Monmouth...got completely humiliated by a Caterham 7. Damn thing cornered like it was on rails.

Wants one.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Bottle no 3 tonight.

Bottle one was lovely. The sub £10 find of the year for me. Bottle 2 was a bit light and sweet like a dodgy bottle of JE 2010. Bottle 3 is like bottle 1.

I probably won't use the word bottle quite so much in future posts.

Got one of these too.

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tribs