I’m just engaged in a little exchange of text messages with a chum. He asks if he should buy 2005 Jamet Cote-Rotie for £20 a bottle. Brilliant wine at an extremely keen price; I told him to snap them up. He then asked about 2004 and I said that was a bit less interesting but worth a few bottles.

Then it occurred to me that there is absolutely no interesting Claret for £20 a bottle, certainly nothing as thrillingly, mind-bendingly delicious as Jamet 05 or even 04. Yet, those money-grabbing Bordelais who sell their tedious shite for £20 will be producing epic quantities of wine from their large estates, far more than Jamet will make from his tiny patches of Cote-Rotie, and have vastly lower production costs as well. Bordeaux is over-priced and dull; buying it only serves to further line the pockets of people who have too much money to start with.

I was given this bottle to prove that 'Claret can be very good'. Now, as I have said before, I hate Claret. This makes me wonder why someone would give me something they know I'll hate. Do they, perhaps, hate me? Do they want me to suffer? It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so bad.

Chateau Gloria 1971
The nose is quite Cabernet flavoured, it also smells quite a lot of cabbage. It has quite a pronounced vinegar aroma, which is a tad distracting. That being said, the nose is not so bad; there is some fruit, a degree of cedar-wood complexity. Not so bad. The palate, on the other hand, is bloody awful. It is dried-out and tough, with a really nasty vinegary finish. It tastes absolutely disgusting. This demonstrates all I hate about old Claret; it is dry, fruitless, acetic, and downright nasty. I hate it. Sorry, anonymous donor, but this is really horrible. The finish is worth torrents of abuse I am not capable of spewing. No. And I really mean No.

Sorry I have not been posting notes of late. I have been violently ill which has made drinking wine a lot less possible. Yesterday and today I seem to be feeling a bit better so hopefully I will have an excuse to pop something good soon.

To make up for the gap I present an audio rant about Claret that I recorded when I last got particularly worked up about wines I hate. It only lasts a minute so it is not too intolerable. The audio file is here.

I only own one bottle of Claret, I hate the stuff. Red Bordeaux is simply dull unless it is fabulously expensive, and most of them are still crap. After this I am not going to buy another bottle of red Bordeaux.

Domaine de Chevalier 1995
Oh god, I fucking hate crappy fucking Claret. Yeah, yeah, it smells of blackcurrant and cedarwood, bit dirty. Piss boring. Palate dry and austere, not much fruit. Just what is the point? I really don't see it. I find this stuff actively unpleasant, and I feel ashamed of myself for having purchased it at a knock-down price eight-odd years ago.

I only own one bottle of red Bordeaux and I have decided that is all I am ever going to own. Even if I become fabulously rich I am never going to buy another bottle of Claret.

Why? It is simply that Claret rarely interests me. The bottles I have had that I have found interesting have all been mind-bendingly expensive (generally supplied by friends) and I just don't feel the need to spend that much money on wine, even if I had that much money. As good as something like La Mission Haut-Brion 1975 is, can it really be worth six hundred pounds a bottle? Never six hundred pounds of my money, that is for sure.

More affordable Claret I find to be dull. They lack charm, interest and excitement. Yes, they may be balanced, elegant and intellectual, but loveliness is a character usually absent. I like wine to be an intellectual pleasure, but I also want to feel happy when I have a glass of it. Red Bordeaux is perilously short on hedonistic pleasure.

Even when mid-range Claret is made in a modern (dare I say Parkerised?)-style it is simply a big, tannic wine, it doesn't gain any charm. These wines might be riper than more minimalist Clarets, but they are not any easier to drink and still lack that all-important loveliness-factor.

Cheap Claret is, of course, utterly undrinkable. Hard, miserable and tannic, often thin and fruitless. When I have worked for various wine merchants I have always had uncharitable thoughts about people when they have asked for a sub-ten pound bottle of Bordeaux; the wine will not simply lack pleasure but be actively nasty. Cheap Claret is not even worth buying for the sake of getting drunk.

My distaste for Claret will not prevent me from drinking bottles provided by others, I cannot dictate what other people want to open, but I am simply not going to buy another bottle of red Bordeaux in my life. I'll drink the single bottle I own when I take it out of the cellar this summer (and find it charmless); after that my wine collection will be forever Claret free. Good.

Restaurant Rekondo had a rather large and rather good wine list. Sadly, the Burgundy we wanted was out of stock so for a change we ordered a bottle of Bordeaux. I don't know what came over us.

Riesling Zöbinger Heiligenstein Cuvée Lyra 2000, Brundlmeyer
A rich, peachy nose with creamy minerality and a subtle white pepper character. It doesn't smell too much like an Austrian wine. The palate is quite big with plenty of ripe fruit, but perfectly balanced by good acidity and a mineral tang. This is a nice bottle of wine.

Château Montrose 1988
A restrained, elegant nose of blackcurrants and earth. This smells very serious. The palate is harmonious and quite seductive for claret. The tannic structure is not too aggressive. A classic, refined Bordeaux that is mature and ready to drink. I still don't really see the point of Cabernet based on this, though.

Well, not that over-priced red-stuff. Anyone who buys red Bordeaux either has no taste or should lend me a tenner. The wine:

La Tour Blanche 1990 1er Cru Classe Sauternes:
Lawks, what a nose! I can smell the Sauvignon Blanc and one hell of a lot of botrytis. Certainly very rich, but loads of fresh acidity. Fruit is very apricotty. This is incredibly long. I am typing this with three friends, they suggest this wine is variously; reeking of mould (botrytis, that is), having a coconut aftertaste and apricot brandy character. It has good peaches and cream tones. I think this is great, and at £35 a bottle it was a bargain. Sauternes is not my favourite kind of sweet wine, but this just oozes loveliness.

That was one hell of a good wine at a damned keen price. Nice change to taste top class Sauternes when sober.