This was the Deal of the Day wine from Marks & Sparks - shop price £15.39 per bottle less 50% on the web.

See previous post started by Ed.


Hmmnnn. The wine is ripe cherry and plums, some blackberry and a bit of mushroom, which is quite full, excellent colour as previously reported, and not over oaked at all. Good silky mouth feel, a bit short on acidity and grip though, but not too short for NW wine.


However, The wine is over sweet. Mel are they allowed to 'chaptalise' the pinot noir must in New Zealand ?

The Nanny Goat vineyard is on the 350 meter slopes in the coolest and most southerly part of Central Otago. So why is the wine over sweet ?

I can't reconcile this **sweetness with the savoury flavours (savoury as in Nuits St Geoges) the flavours are not in harmony, and are contradictory because they are quite prevalent and opposed to one and another.

This dichotomy may resolve itself with cellaring, as the wine dries and flavour becomes more integrated. I don't think I could work my way through 6 of them ........Do I return the whole order to M&S ? Knowing that it will not be resolved with cellaring.

Ed........Were other Deal of the Day wines unharmonious, rather than faulty

Anyone here Know Anything useful about evolving Central Otago Pinot Noir ?

** I like riper less dry Cote' d'Or....but this is much too much at the mo.

_________________
Duncan

That's really disappointing Duncan.

I haven't tried any of my M+S wines yet and was planning to leave the Nanny Goat Pinot for a while but will certainly try a bottle soon and report back.

Ed, you may still want to do just that. Although, please feed back your opinion as soon as you've tried.

I'm not going to return the wine. I did re-vist the bottle on Sunday night after 48 hours on the pantry floor - cool quarry tiles.

The wine had almost resolved itself - still a bit wine gummy, but the spice and savoury twist were harmonizing and strangley enough, the 'canderelle' was falling away. Yeah, it falls away even more if left in the glass while watching Taggard. Nose dissapointing versus Marsannay, more faint, 2004 Saint Romain rouge maybe ? Nowhere versus the Cru's

I found the wine quite nice with stuffed and very well seasonned red and yellow peppers with good quality oily and tasty salmon steaks from Waitrose that had been seared under the grille with loads of butter fresh dill, lemon slices and lashings of ground black pepper.

Please remember, I'm no NZ pinot noir analyst - I just know Cote d'Or. That canderelle hit might be a passing phase, and Mel's not saying anything ? to throw any light on the style.

Some folks seem to like the wine gum / boiled sweeties hit on 1st palate - I don't, not one little bit.

Let us know - Particularly your thoughts on first opening, after a good swirl of the glass, and before food. The wine could still come good, very good for the dosh after plenty of cellaring. We have to bear in mind that there is a load of rubbish out there for £7.50 a bottle.

The revolting canderell#~%>: if you didn't know what I meant
http://www.canderel.uk.com/static/index ... 4wodLW2__g

_________________
Duncan

Well, I agree 100% Duncan.

I drank a botle with friends last night, following on from a bottle of Spy Valley PN. That's a much lighter, gentle, strawberry fruited wine in much the same mould as Stoneleigh. There's more delicacy than that on offer from the cheaper Chilean offerings which usually scream HOT SUN at me.

The Nanny Goat is a different proposition - darker, with plums and damsons an an initial farmyard aroma but definitely an odd sweetness. This does subside to a degree with food but the wine just doesn't hang together. Certainly doesn't taste like a £16 wine. I have no idea if this is an age thing and the wine will magically integrate over the next year or so or not.

Yeah Ed, it seems, we are both going to have to wait and see or suffer the prospect. I think at least 2 years, may be 3 or more. I have (to a much lesser extent) been here before with over ripe Beaune 2003, it did cure itself after 5 years, and must be drunk in the next 2 years at its best....BUT Central Otago at half price .....? ? ? ? ? ?

I was hoping our resident mistress and MW undergraduate would throw some light on this matter ? And....... whether Central Otago wines were sometimes chaptalised, and then, when maturing, this dichotomy in flavour components, would evolve and dry-out to something which has plenty of dimension, is full and yet balanced.

One can appreciate though, why or at least how, a correct and mature CO could walk all over Malborough PN within defined price positioning bands

Judging from her silence........??

_________________
Duncan

I'm going to e mail M+S Duncan and ask to be put in touch with one of their wine people. If they sell the stuff there should be somebody sufficiently knowledgeable to communicate with.

I don't think the half price bit should be taken as a sign that the wine is substandard in some way - there's certainly nothing wrong with their Sherwood Estate PN