GIGONDAS NECTAR DU TERROIR 2003

Saturday night and i'm all alone again, I think to some, perhaps you might be thinking "Does this guy ever have a life?". Well, I fortunately do have a life, but also unfortunately, tonight's not gonna be the night. I'm pretty much stuck at home doing some ridiculous paper work and waiting for something to happen. In the meantime though, lets have a bottle of Nectar du Terroir from the Gigondas region of the Rhone Valley to cheer things up!

There's something which I've learnt is that Wine is a very emotional drink, meaning this : You can never feel unhappy or think unhappy thoughts while drinking wine! I don't know if this is true for you, but its definitely true for me! I doubt you can be thinking "Oh crap, tomorrow i have to endure another lousy day at work", instead perhaps your mind will switch to more enjoyable thoughts like "What do I feel like eating now?" or "So and So will love to have a taste ot this!"

Ok, back to the wine! This wine is a GIGONDAS NECTAR DU TERROIR 2003, so it has about 4 years of aging in the bottle, and coming from the Gigondas region, I think thats a pretty decent age from the 2003 year. This wine is a GSM and oaked with new French oak for 12 months, so I would expect some mellow oak flavors with good aged fruit characters.

APPEARANCE

Vibrant dark ruby with semi clear rims. Colour looks mature and tempting, good clarity.

NOSE

WOW. The first impression is its very meaty character, I get lovely bacon fat&raw meats. There is some lovely fruit characters with dominant grenache strawberries & liquor cherry, the mild spicy mid palate, liquorice & wild blackberries from syrah and some aged plummy fruits from the mourvedre.

PALATE

The aging has done it a lot of good. The fruits have mellowed down well and there is still a good level of acidity in the wine. Medium bodied and mouth feeling. A very subtle and decent finish, atypical of Aussie's tannic finish.

CONCLUSION

A premium wine that is SO damn good to taste now, and it is the right moment to drink!

BEING PENNY WISE POUND FOOLISH (WINE STYLE)



This is definitely not an ode to wines, as today I had a rather bad experience with restaurant house wines. The past trends in the Singapore F&B scene in these 5 years has shown that wines are experiencing an explosive & exponential popularity to the mass market (even Petrol stations are retailing wines!), and this has spilled over to the F&B scene where you are literally spoilt for choice in some restaurants, and even in the entry level cafes, you do get a choice of their house red & white wines. Now the question to all restaurant owners : "If you are committed to selling and providing wines to your customers in your fine restaurant, why settle for the cheapest, knowing fully well that 20% of your customers might leave with a bad taste in their mouth??"


Here's an industry secret i would like to expose :: for every housepour you buy in a restaurant, say $9.00/glass, the restaurant is unlikely to pay more than $16.00 per bottle. While $16.00 sounds like a decent wholesale price to pay, lets break it down from a wholesaler point of view:

Wine Cost : $3.00
Cork Cost : $0.20
Bottle Cost : $0.70
Labelling : $0.10
Alcohol tax : $7.20
GST : $0.70
Transport : $0.50
Storage : $0.10
Profit : $4.00
PRICE TAG : $16.00

EXPERIENCE : WORTHLESS...

So technically, for consumers, we are paying $9.00 for a glass of wine that is actually worth only $3.00 FOR A WHOLE BOTTLE! To cut the long story short, if we were to increase the cost of the wine itself by 100%($3 - $6), the price tag barely reaches $24.00 and we get double the quality!

Not that I'm discriminating against cheap wines, i've tried some REALLY decent & affordable wines (Tried an impressive Spanish wine that cost only 1.45€!!! but thats for another time to tell!).

But among the sea of wines out there, it really would be advisable to buy a slightly more expensive bottle of wine to get a far better wine experience & impression on your restaurant don't you think? I mean thats simply "Penny wise, pound foolish"!

I would like to leave you with a quote I found a long time ago which has shaped my wine buying ideals...

"Never buy the cheapest wine in any category, as its taste may discourage you from going on. The glass, corks, cartons, and labor are about the same for any wine, as are the ocean freight and taxes for imported wines. Consequently, if you spend a little more, you are likely to get a better wine, because the other costs remain fixed. Cheap wine will always be too expensive." --- Alex Bespaloff, New Signet Book of Wine, 1986

JACQUART CHAMPAGNE NV

Having a nice bottle of champagne alone in my room on a saturday evening, and tonight's victim is a bottle of Jacquart champagne from JUST WINE & SPIRITS. Its a decent bottle with a very attractive price tag for true champagnes, under S$60! With the pleasure of drinking most sparkling wines, the experience starts with the opening "pop" of the bottle and this bottle really gave a HUGE explosion, which i'm guessing has betrayed her youth..

Before i continue my drink, here's some information about sparkling wines in general. The question i've been asked many times..."HOW IS CHAMPAGNE MADE". Ok, there's quite a bit of confusion between "Champagne" and "Sparkling wine"...so what's the difference?

Technically, Champagne IS sparkling wines..but the only difference is that champagnes come from the AOC region of "Champagne" and they are the only legal region to officially call sparkling wines "Champagne. There's was this big issue some time back about poor "New World" sparkling wines destroying the branding of the "Champagne" so it became a rule that all others can only be called Sparkling wines.

Champagne consist of 3 varietals of grapes ; Chardonnay,Pinot Noir & the easier, fruitier and earliy marturing Pinot Meuneir, which is a relative of the famous Pinot Noir. Champagnes are in general made using a VERY traditional method which involves 4-5 pain staking methods instead of the cheaper "Carbonic" method and "Tank method", which brings the sparkles to the wines but provides none of the interest and characters from extended lees contact and from maturation.

ok, some short analysis before i go back and continue "Drinking stars".

APPEARANCE

A huge explosion of bubbles during the first 10mins of opening, but died off REALLY fast..right now its the occasional bubbles popping out. I believe this displays its youth age and somewhat betrays its average quality..

NOSE

A tangy citric nose with fresh lemon aromas, some petroleum & young olive oil hints but i believe that the champagne is too young and underdeveloped to fully express the subtle aromas. This is going to sound a little weird but i do get some fresh dates and tropical fruits...i'm guessing this is because of a majority blend from the Chardonnay. Sadly, its too fresh for my liking.

PALATE

A nice sparkle and some decent fruit characters...but hey! there's a LOT of sweetness in this..which is very disappointing...because it taste a little like cheap chardonnay when its warmer...but still its a pretty decent champagne.i've tasted worst for a lot more cash.

EVOLUTION/CONCLUSION

Not a bad champagne for a quiet drink, not a big dent on my pockets, so the experience is pretty good. but not a champagne for appreciation honestly, just a nice forgettable drink. Sorry to say...

ok thats all folks! take care.