Let's choose the booze!

Let the wine sampling commence!

In the grand scheme of our planning, this weekend was one I’d been particularly looking forward to – tasting the wine for the big day.

Now, neither myself or my hubby-to-be are wine experts. We know when a wine isn’t right/tastes of vinegar and we have our firm favourites at our local pub and in the supermarket. And I'm certain my wine tastes have improved slightly since my days as an impoverished post-grad, when I would just locate a five quid bottle of pinot to swig while getting ready to go out.

Nowadays I actually read labels and consider regions, and enjoy matching a good red to a lamb dinner. I also avoid saying things like “just the house red” (aren’t I grown up!).

You see I do actually love the smells and tastes of wine, and I find the descriptions rather poetic. I love the berries, the oaks and the chocolates of reds and the crispy, zesty, vanillas and citruses of a decent white. I find it fascinating that so many different favours can come through a drink that’s simply made from a grape. But I'm buggered if I can remember which wine goes with what and which grape is good to drink when.

The problem is, I have the memory of a sieve and fail to write down the names of the decent wines we find. So you’ll often find me in our local wine emporium trying to explain to a very patient sales assistant that I’m looking for “that red wine with the picture of a bird on the label.”

Beyond that, my fiancé and I like a good Chilean Merlot. And there’s that Californian one that you can only seem to purchase in a Co-op. (That's the one with the bird on the label.) For our wedding we knew that we wanted a ‘session’ drink, (ie one that can be guzzled all day without getting to heavy/getting all vinegarish) and we needed something that would go nicely with our pork feast. We also fancied a New Zealand wine because we are honeymooning there and it’d be a nice touch. On top of all that, it needs to be on budget. So there you go Oz Clarke, nothing to worry about.

Armed with our shot-glass amount of wine knowledge, we trundled down to Majestic’s and plundered their free samples (We had no intention of getting a rose or champagne, but that’s what they had open on the tasting bench and hey, I needed to limber up my palate!) We then bumbled around looking confused and with the help of some enthusiastic staff, we picked out three reds and three whites that were in our budget and sort of sounded like wines we would pick.

That night, we settled down in front of some sort of Ant and Dec Saturday night fodder with our glasses and bottles lined up. At the time, it felt a bit of a waste to crack open six bottles just for us. But it turned out we needn’t have worried about that.

And what a very interesting experiment it turned out be. The differences in flavour and body were remarkable (ooh get me!) and it was surprisingly easy to see which ones would go the distance with a porky bap and some vigorous dancing. (What a romantic summing up of our special day eh?)

So the winning red is called Graham Beck Anthony’s Yard from South Africa. A third each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Spicy blackcurrant fruit dominates the nose, leading to a chunky chewy savoury fruit with a spicy finish. And I’d love to say I noticed all that myself, but sadly I didn’t. That’s just what it says on the Majestic website. Our own verdict was a bit more along the lines of “It’s nice and light but with a full flavour, I can easily drink it all day, and it tastes nice with this chicken pie so the pork should be fine.” Quote, unquote.

And for the white, we went for a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc called Vavasour from the Marlborough region. Now this was delicious. It displayed an expressive note of tropical fruit, melon and citrus, with underlying mineral notes on the palate. Said the label. And it really did!

Again, our conclusion was a little more simplistic – it was light, fruity, didn’t go all vinegary after two mouthfuls, and there’s a picture of a rooster on the label which ties in nicely with location of our marquee (next to Mom’s chicken coup).

Always important to get a nice looking label don’t you think?

Once decisions were reached, we polished off our favourites (well they were nice) and then just to double check we drank our way through the second choice too. My fiancé passed out before we could make in-roads into the third bottles, and I was so drunk I decided to stick Britney Spears on the stereo and rehearse my dance moves from the hen do. Surprisingly, I’d remembered most of them!

All in all, I'd say the wine tasting was a huge success.