Hi.

Thought being somewhat new to the whole wine drinking game I thought I would take it up for a bit of fun and share with you my experience for your amusement.

The sense of excitement about buying a bottle of 2001 Pereus D’Aligino Merlot was tangible. It is not so often that I spend so much on a single bottle of wine, indeed, many a time I have bought a whole box for the amount I was to have spent on this particular wine. But I felt I should buy a decent bottle of wine if I am to contribute a review to this wonderful site.

So, armed with my handy copy of ‘Old McGraw’s guide to our wine’, which has the curious subtitle of ‘we gave them government, infrastructure and the game of cricket and how do they repay us… cheap plonk!’, I set about my task.

The list of wines available to the complete novice was awe inspiring so it was just as well I had my Old McGraw with me. Old McGraw himself must be quite some character given his descriptions of the various wines from around the world, albeit all ex-colonies in one shape or another. I noted with interest that although Old does state they are all ex-colonies he appears to have included France. I would have thought this an oversight of history on Old’s part but he is quite insistent if not impassioned that we ‘beat their arses’ on several occasions and therefore this is good enough reason to include them.

I strolled, in a literary sense, through the tranquil wine growing regions of Napa Valley, Coonawarra, Marlborough and of course Little Karoo where apparently ‘you can still detect the blood of the fifty five gallant infantry men who died protecting this god forsaken land from the cunning and cowardly enemies of the British Empire.’

Although a friend of mine did point out that the ‘massacre’ as described in the book was somewhat inaccurate as apparently, according to military records, there was no sign of an actual enemy being involved. Indeed one of the locals was said to have been a witness to a drunken brawl involving this particular unit as they sat around a camp fire smoking a variety of local dried plants leaves.

The witness had noted, he was not aware any of the leaves actually being smoked… could be smoked, but what did he know he was just some dumbass local who knew nothing. Still, the British authorities took great pity on this gentleman and by way of thanks for his evidence of this event he was placed in a special camp to aid his education. One can only hope he went on to great things this young chap.

It was here, in this section of the book I found the wine I was looking for. The much heralded Pereus D’Aligino Merlot. The description of the wine sounded exquisite, ‘like drinking from the fountain of youth the sensations of overripe pomegarnite crushed by the delicate feet of a hermaphrodite from Corfu’ sent a tingle down my spine albeit I didn’t actually fully understand, but the sense that the wine had actually been made by real human feet crushing grapes was exhilarating. Yes, this was the wine for me!

Apparently 2001 was not this wines best year, but it was marked as within my price range so that settled it.

The Old McGraw rating system stated ‘many wines connisewers (sic), or pretentious snobs as I like to call them, mark wine with a dry-sweet or Light-Full Body rating, whereas I urge my audience to stick to the much more important hic rating system. Ranging from 1-5, where one hic is something you would wash socks in unless you were then going to recant the wine and take it to a party of somebody you don’t really like and five hics is so good sometimes when you wake up you are actually blind for several hours.’

Ah, good Old McGraw, now that’s a rating system I could get to grips with. There was also his ‘vomit scale’ but I found this a little more difficult to understand as it related to actual distance and colouration which McGraw himself stated was somewhat difficult for the average wino to get to grips with.

So, armed with my handy guide and the certain knowledge of what I wanted to buy, off I set to my local Tesco’s. This was not quite what I had expected but there were clear instructions in the guide telling me that Tesco had managed to secure the full 2001 harvest from the Pereus family at very favourable rates. Once again McGraw goes into the kind of detail you would not expect of other guides. He explains how, having mislaid one wine buyer in the region Tesco sent a second buyer with his own security detail to secure the best possible deal from the poor migrant farmers. All this for the hard working British housewives who ‘only wanted to quaff a few glasses of wine after a hard day at the local dole office and then having had to fill out fifteen different claims for benefits under a variety of names.’ Ah, indeed, that could be very taxing indeed!

On first glance I was unable to find this delicate little ‘five hiccer’ in amongst the neatly stacked wine boxes and had to ask one of the knowledgeable ‘Tesco Sommelier’ for some assistance. Jon, was certainly more knowledgeable than his youthful pimple infested face let on. With hands in pockets and a terrible cold he looked somewhat wretched as he indicated to a section of wines in bottles in the adjoining aisle. Aha… at last… real wine. This was what I had been looking for, I could almost sense the taste the pomegranates, mind you, if truth be told, I am not entirely sure what a pomegranate is, let alone what it tastes like. But it sounds delicious.

The moment of destiny arrived. Here it was, the 2001 Pereus D’Aligino Merlot and luck was certainly on my side. The wine had been reduced making it even more of a bargain. I raced through the checkout and thence to home, placing the wine carefully on the kitchen worktop. I read with interest the amazing detail on the back of the bottle including how the wine is actually ‘reduced’ in the native country and then carefully transported via special wine lorries to a England where, once again, the concentrate is pumped full of natural English water and rehydrated to its natural state. Amazing, I never realised the wine industry was so complex, no wonder these bottles cost so much having to use this new fangled technology.

It was not until later that evening, having followed Old McGraw’s guide to decanting that I sat down with my evening meal with this ‘cheeky little Merlot’. The decanting process was very good fun and apparently necessary to bring the best from the wine. I did not have the requisite ‘pint glass’ as described by the guide so used my plastic measuring jug instead. With great care and with the sense of anticipation palpable, I poured the first glass from the measuring jug into my mug, clearly a mug was not ideal, but until reading the guide had not realised glass was the preferred vessel for drinking wine.

The wine was exquisite. The pomegranates certainly bit into the tongue and left a fascinating after taste that I had not really experienced since school when I accidentally swallowed some methylated spirits, but this I was sure was ‘the experience’. The sensation of heat was readily discernible as the bright red liquid cascaded down my throat and the distinct smell of burning hair as described in the guide was readily discernible, so much so I had to pay my own head just to make sure I was not on fire. In fact, I had not even had to think about this as beating ones head appeared to be a natural reaction to the delicate wine.

Yes, I would definitely recommend this wine to anybody. It is a shame the fish’n’chip supper must have been a little off though as the nausea I felt for the next three days somewhat dampened the whole experience. But you must hurry, I believe the 2001 vintage is somewhat limited now following the Tesco special offer. And don’t forget to pick up your own copy of Old McGraw too, it is an invaluable guide to the niceties of wine drinking for the average ‘wino’.

Hoping you have a sense of humour as always (albeit humour is subjective) Yours… Mr Creosote (nephalion@yahoo.com)

* Please see Eddie’s comments on this article.