I’d suggest you are making something out of nothing. It was simply a throwaway comment about Mateus Rosé being fit only as windscreen wash, based on experience of many years ago. It wasn’t a serious appraisal of Sogrape, which I’d not heard of until your post. I have no view of the company or their wines.
Anyway, the Beaujolais rosé was very nice indeed.
Opened last night but drinking most of it tonight with a beef, courgette and onion broth to accompany the tennis.
It’s tasty, if thin, wine with little body but mellow tannins. I thought it might be past it’s best but no signs of collapse or bricking. Perhaps I’ll have cheese rather than summer pudding later.
Oh alright … sorry for getting defensive. We find the current Mateus to be a cheap, happy wine that we drink very chilled on a hot day … straight out of the fridge, which I rarely do with white wines. I’m sure the Beaujolais was excellent, and do enjoy the many more local wines you’ll be able to try on your holiday.
To avoid any controversy…… a white wine, made from white grapes! You don’t see Aligoté that much but it’s delicious. Less dry than Chardonnay, full of flavour and easy to drink. It will go nicely with a salad Niçoise. Now I just need to finish the French dressing.
Perhaps the varietal mix is mostly Merlot which would present as a lighter body. Normally the majority of Merlot grapes are grown on the right bank, of course, but there are a few left bank producers that make a wine from mostly, or all, Merlot (Chateau Clarke is one). Usually though, the French bottles don’t say anything about varietals used, just the region/appellation, n’est ce pas?
Beaumont is normally 50:50 Cab Sauv and Merlot. Bottle sounds a bit odd as Beaumont normally good vfm and punches above weight
I believe we had a 2010 Beaumont about 5 years back and it was very nice, so possibly as @Camphuw suggested, it may be slightly over-aged for the 2011 vintage.
Naff or otherwise back then, Mateus is linked to quite fond memories for me as it was probably an early British ‘wine experience’ for the masses who had probably never tried the stuff (apart from cheese and wine events perhaps?) and I vividly recall having a small glass with Sunday lunch from time to time in the late 70s/early 80s - an early taste of alcohol with food before I would have been legally able to buy a pint of beer in the pub.
There’s also a touch of nostalgia for the elderly - Mrs AC’s mother was delighted to get a 1/4 bottle or similar for Christmas during the pandemic when visitors weren’t allowed.
It’s decidedly chilly tonight, that broth sounds very warming!
FYI @david1111 and @crispyduck (and others) I have just checked my records; TWS suggests that I should have finished drinking this wine last year, and that it was made up of 1% petit verdot, 46% merlot and 53% cab sav. But I don’t have any tasting notes from when I last drank it in 2020.
It’s definitely a wine to drink with food, even now with half a bottle left I find it lacks fruit but not flavour. Just as well as I have half a case left. I had misplaced the wine, fortunately it came to light the other week when I was reorganising my cellar.
@Alley_Cat The broth was the result of roasting a small joint of topside of beef on top of onions in a chicken brick at 80 C. A mistake on my behalf as I prefer my beef rare. However, the juices made the tasty broth, along with a courgette from the garden.
You’d better get drinking!!
That’s pretty typical of Beaumont, usually just over 50% CS. It’s a wonderful “Englishman’s claret”, great value, but from a vintage like 2011 a decade is probably its lifespan. I spotted a 6 pack of the 2011 at a very keen price a few weeks ago and decided against it for that reason.
I rather liked the Bay City Rollers in the 70s but tastes change, hopefully for the better.
I’ve had the same thing happen a few times now, tho thankfully I usually only buy 3 bottles at a time unless it’s on a sale price. At that point, it becomes a ‘with food only’ wine and we thoroughly enjoy it despite the lack of fruit and the slightly alcohol-forward taste. The tannins have usually softened well by then and it’s quite smooth as the tannins aren’t required for balance any more by then.
A sommelier may call it ‘flabby’, but then, they would most likely call me flabby as well.
A friend was kind enough to provide a few bottles of this with supper on Saturday. Pretty decent. So was the wine. Deceptively light in the glass, minerally flavours and at 14.5%, packing the kind of alcoholic punch that has me thinking, Senior Management Only.
A lovely experience, though not so much my head on Sunday morning. Naturally this was attributed to our friend’s homemade limoncello.
Quite, we’ve been increasingly lucky to enjoy more and more fares from across the world and our tastes have changed mostly for the better since the 70s. I’d suggest we had some pretty poor homegrown beverages in the UK at the time too. Allbright bitter anyone?
What’s in the jar if it’s not too off topic?
Brussel sprouts?
The ideal accompaniment for fine claret.
My guess is walnuts but let’s see.
3 points to that man! It is indeed walnuts. A neighbour on our allotments asked if we would like some but little did we know what a faff they are!
