Italian PM has a pop at British wine...

[Pavilionaire]

I've heard good things about sparkling white from Nyetimber, and might get some for the house.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Just won a bottle of wine in the SW raffle. Chilean, not Italian cats piss!

 

[Icy Gull]

and it's from Sussex too.

Presumably because of the hours of sunshine, most English wines will be from the South?

I will try that with interest, if I see it when shopping.

 

[Dave the OAP]

It is all about opinion since we are talking taste. But people that know far more about good wine than you and I rate some English wine. We'll never grow it in the quantity of other more famous wine parts of the world, old and new, but that has little bearing on quality.

Dave - please tell me the English wines you have had, just this past year will do.

I had some from Ditchlin Vinyard, some from a Vinyard down near Bridgewater where my mum lives and some bought for me at work from Berkshire.

the Ditchlin one was white and horrible, the Bridgewater one was rose and was ok after 5 glasses, and the Berkshire one was truly nauseus.

As you say its all about taste. unfortunately if I am looking to spend the sort of money Englsh wine costs i know that I will get a decent Aussie or SA wine.

 

[looney]

Sooner we leave the EU the better.

 

[Bozza]

unfortunately if I am looking to spend the sort of money Englsh wine costs i know that I will get a decent Aussie or SA wine.

I think this is the most relevant part, along with your earlier posts on this thread. Most wine drinkers in the UK will get their wine from UK supermarkets and will jump at the "Was £7.99 now £3.99" special offers cos if it was £8 a bottle it must be good, right?

Your UK wine buyer is very price sensitive and will generally want at least a penny change from their fiver for a bottle of plonk and they have a lot of choice at that pricepoint, especially with the numerous 'special' offers that the supermarkets thrust at us. This sort of site will probably help you out on your wine buying:

http://www.fixtureferrets.co.uk/search.asp?EiCategory=Wines+&+Champagne

(BTW, you'd be hard pushed to beat the current Tesco Chablis at £3.99 from £7.99)

 

[Grendel]

You could do a lot worse than the Ridgeview Sparkling:

http://www.ridgeview.co.uk/htmls/Press Release Yarden July05 Mardi.htm

and it's from Sussex too.

If that's that vineyard in Ditchling, I concur.

 

[Dave the OAP]

you are probably right.

I wouldn't regard myself as a wine nazi, i just tend to buy what i like which tends to be M&S wine at the moment.

we belonged to the Sunday Times Wine Club and got to have 12 bottles of all sorts of wine from all over the world....before then all we drank was French! Now we only drink Sancerre, Chablis, Quincy or Vouvray from France.

 

[zefarelly]

there are a few very good English whites and the odd sparkling too

a lot of old world wine is over priced, New World stuff tends to fall into the 'good drinking plonk' category at around a fiver a bottle, but it doesn't keep, whereas for similar money you can buy French wines which are average, but do keep and definitely improve.

the better Aussies are expensive, like with anything you get what you pay for.

at the end of the day, regardless of price, you like what you like, but saying English wine is crap is a bit 'Les Bhien' ie you don't know what the f*** your talking about.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

What the hell does Berlusconi think he's up to?

Try to pass off Cabernet Sauvignon as "fine Italian wine" is a disgrace.

I used to live in Montalcino, near Siena - which, as any connoisseur knows, is the home of the mighty Brunello di Montalcino, the very best Italian wine that has ever been created.

It's made entirely out of Sangiovese grapes and not a hint of the upstart Cabernet Sauvignon, which owes its introduction into Tuscan wine production to the sort of dodgy multi-national companies that Berlusconi is so fond of climbing into bed with.

Berlusconi knows full well that Brunello di Montalcino is the best - about three years ago he actually tried to buy a vineyard that produces the stuff. But he was driven out of Montalcino by the locals, who made it very clear that they couldn't stomach the thought of the little crook moving into their beautiful neighbourhood.

So he gets his own back, by sending Goran Persson a selection of Italian wine that deliberately fails to include the best of the bunch.

What a disgraceful insult to the good citizens of Montalcino.



Set alongside this, the insult he aims at English winemakers is as nothing.

For what it's worth, though, Breaky Bottom is indeed a fine wine - grown and bottled in the real AONB near Falmer, incidentally. We should be proud of it.

 

[Dave the OAP]

That looks like a perfect place for a football stdium?


NOW THE IS AN ANOB IF I EVER SAW ONE

 

[Bozza]

If you click through to Tesco from the little ad at the top of each NSC page you will see that Tesco have started their online sale.

Included in this, bargain hunters, is a case of 6 bottles of French gold medal winning Muscadet for £12. Yes - that is £2 per bottle.

 

[zefarelly]

theres plenty of Shit Italian wine out there while we're on the subject, some of It I wouldn't even use as screen wash.

You'll have to go some to beat a good Barollo or Barbera though

 

[London Calling]

We do some good white wines, I agree out reds are average.

Interestingly with global warming, the Downs will become an ideal place for "Champagne". With the Champagne region becomiing increasingly unsuitable.

So in the future we could be the dog bollocks for champers

 

[Dave the OAP]

but we are not allowed to call it Champagne are we? that is the region in france.

there was a hell of a kerfuffle about this a few years ago.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Only WOMEN and GAYS drink wine.

REAL MEN drink manly drinks like FOSTERS or BUDWEISER.:rescott:

 

[Gwylan]

Only WOMEN and GAYS drink wine.

REAL MEN drink manly drinks like FOSTERS or BUDWEISER.:rescott:

Bollocks they do. Real men drink Harveys. FACT

 

[H block]

They are doing a 12% Belgium beer in the Evening Star at the moment. Does one sip it like a nice Chablis or quaff it like a pint of HSB.

British wine is normally fermented from imported musts and so is normally absolute rubbish but if the bottle says ``E nglish wine`` then that is quite a different matter amd some are really quite nice but nearly always more expensive that their European couterparts.This country is best suited to the Germanic grape types which are not ones I would drink by choice but that does not make them bad.If you like ``Blue Nun`` well...................

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Bollocks they do. Real men drink Harveys. FACT

Bristol Cream Sherry?

I think not.

 

[enigma]

For the idiots talking about how Italy switched sides in the war, I think you'll find that a lot of people were against Mussolini in the first place, and unlike Hitler he wasnt democratically elected. So it wasnt exactly a change of heart. The strength of the communist party after the war in Italy shows the level of opposition to Mussolini.

Funny how the French never get any flak for their support of the Germans.