1 x B de B Pouilly Fuisse 2012 £5.62 1 x Ara single vineyard 2012 MSB also £5.62 4 X Chateau de Mazerac, Lussac St Emillion 2011, £33.36 a bit of a punt
I argued Black Friday stock clearance with the wine supervisor and got the prices I was prepared to pay for dusty clearance shelves. But . . . but then took back three of the right bank clarets as I discovered rather quickly from the Wine Society website when I got back, that this right bank cuvee' was probably unoaked. Duh ! On tasting, totally unoaked, that deliberate avoidance of proper detail that these web sites employ was confirmed - the fruit was ok, nothing more.
On returning the Ch. Mazerac, I bought 6 x Villa Maria Taylors Pass 2014 for £51.00, this price with vouchers, there was an instore £6 off when spending £40 voucher that my Misses kindly gave me.
Sadly, at the mo, **I do not rate the VMTP 2014, and have come to a very similar conclusion to other NZ wine writers who publish the awards and tasting events. My feeling is this - Because 2014 was a huge and heathy crop, during an usually temperate summer with plenty of light rain in the Awatere valley, that none of the growers could be bothered to prune down the rampant canopy, and expose the sun to the grapes. Therefore all mechanically harvested MSB, without any intervention will be on a general middle of the road plateau. Nothing very interesting, nothing to complain about, nothing to excite you. Saint Clair did some intervention in the vineyards, and that is why they won some awards, and why you pay £20 before discounts. A sad result for wine lovers, a cash cow for the growers. The small Awatere sea side crop in 2012, was the Taylors Pass to buy - and it was very good indeed.
I will drink VMTP 2014 with fish dishes next summer. At the mo, the primary profile is citrussy and a bit sherbet, grapefruit the next day, (no secondary tropical stone fruit of any note, but some chalk minerality) it will cut through a decent fish dinner, and is dry enough to cleanse the palate - it may improve though, so I keep in the cellar.
** See update below.
_________________ Duncan
Last edited by Duncan on Thu Dec 03, 2015 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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