Boys, do you mind being quoted, albeit anon:

In search of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

During the wonderful and exciting weather of the last couple of weeks there have been a few cancelled appointments, a lot of school hours lost and some casualties. One of these is my Sauvignon Blanc article, since few samples made it to Stroud and the panel was largely snowed in. So, in the absence of either, I decided to call on the professionals. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (or MSB) is discussed more on the Quaffers Offers forum (www.QuaffersOffers.co.uk/QOforum) than any other wine and Jackson’s Estate is probably the favourite.

The forum members take their knowledge of MSB to an obsessive and, some might say, compulsive level and really it would be rude of you not to read the posts of a band of blokes whose knowledge is so sharp.

One poster, Mr D, describes JE 2007 as “consistent, with a certain depth and purity and good length rarely found in sub £10 MSB” but Mr G found it “not quite back to it's very best (other vintages) but still very good. Light medium body but with concentrated flavour of blackcurrant leaf and nettles”. Mrs D, who doesn’t post, and probably has quite a lot to put up with, thought that the JE 07, once it had been opened for 22 hours, was "the nicest white she’d drunk for a very long time" and asked Mr D to keep it for the weekends – perhaps Mrs D doesn’t drink during the week. When supplies moved on to the 2008 all hell broke loose because the consensus was that 2007 was great and 2008 was lacking, so the boys were scouring the country for stray stocks of 2007. The wine used to be £8.99 and is now generally £7.99 but there were bitter, quite bitchy, posts when someone managed to pick it up for £6.99.

The boys then started photographing their good buys, particularly those with reduced stickers showing very, very low prices. There was much bargain envy and sticker porn. There were groups of four and six asterisks and some considering moving to downmarket areas just to catch the bargains. You see, sometimes managers of, say, Tesco in a really rough area, make the mistake of stocking Jackson’s Estate, Grey Ghost, which is £14.99. Well, there’s no chance in hell that it’s going to sell, so they reduce it to a silly price and the savvy wine obsessive hoovers it up and then brags about it online. If you live in Cirencester or Cheltenham, you’ll be unaware of this phenomenon.

Of course, these MSB fans don’t all have the same taste in wine. When some of the boys were phoning round looking for the 2007, Mr S was very pleased with the 2008 and proclaimed the “oaky creamy nuances and blackcurrant leaf flavours of the 08” to be more his thing.

To be fair, or as the boys say, tbf, they’ve all tried all the MSB available in all the recent vintages and are now forced to play with serving temperature, bottle age and opening times. They can also send out SOS calls to the group – Mr B recently posted “Maj have NO Ned...no '08, and no '09...all gone!!!” There wasn’t a dry eye on the forum.

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mel

Very entertaining not to mention cheeky although I notice GK escaped the sarcastic abuse.

I think you're in love.

Mrs D, who doesn’t post, and probably has quite a lot to put up with

OMG - There is a telepathic conspiracy in the making Women and their intuition ! It is scary....

How on earth did you manage to condense MSB banter, sparring and serious analysis down to a few measily paragraphs, ha ha ha.

Roll with it Mel - no probs here. I sincerely hope my dear Misses does not see that quote.

NY's Resolution ...... time to stop knocking the system.

Mrs Goose - wonders whether Mr G will ever stop stock piling MSB ? Or thinking about anything else in the whole wide world, other than acquiring different sauvignon blanc

I'm not quite sure how GK escapes through the net, we have to assume that his condition is just about treatable

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Duncan

Who am I in love with?

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mel

GK of course.

Although, I must warn you, his parsnips are far smaller than he lets on and he has an odd banana obsession. Last year in the brief but glorious Indian summer he took to painting his todger yellow and hiding in the banana rack of his local greengrocers.

Two nuns and the vicar's wife haven't spoken since.

That said, I hear Jeremy the local boy scout leader, whenever he pops in for his winter vedge, gets quite wistful for those long lost days of late summer.

I feel sure there's a Mrs GK and I ABSOLUTELY could NOT be in love with a married man, even one with such ability with wine label pictures.

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mel

BTW, I live in a very nice area

As for my parsnips, they are of ample proportion, thank you. Mrs GK can vouch for that.

Also, I have no more of a problem with plagiarism than I have with receiving free wine.

glad to hear it.

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mel