Finally, after ten months of blogging, someone has recognised me. I called my wife straight away to tell her; she was excited at first until she realised I wasn’t talking about a job offer. Only slightly deflated, I pondered texting my mother before deciding against – it’s a generation thing, she wouldn’t understand.
The man who helped me break my duck was new friend, Ken, from 1601 Off Licence in Kinsale. I was buying a vernaccia for my Monday night Diploma tasting group and he slyly asked “So, will we be seeing it up on Grapes of Sloth?” If I’d been quicker I would have replied “It depends on how much you discount it by.”
I was too overcome by my moment of fame though, so I just laughed and made chit-chat as I considered my new life wearing dark sunglasses and fake moustache.
Back out on the street I tried to tell if passers-by looked like they recognised me too. One or two seemed to be looking quizzically at me alright, but I was staring at them. As soon as I got online, then, I checked Yahoo’s searches of the day but I was nowhere to be seen in the top ten – and who’s Daryl Johnson?
Okay, maybe hold the shades.
That night I took the vernaccia to the tasting in Rochestown.
*Teruzzi & Puthod, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, 2008 (12.5%) €16 – Very dry and plump, with (I thought) flavours of yellow apple and papaya. Others in the group detected … stone, minerals, bitter green olive, nut, honeysuckle, aniseed, fennel, and honey. 85/100 (my score).
The reaction was generally positive, with just 2/7 tasters casting aspersions on the wine. Unkind comment of the night came from one of these, who described it as “watered-down Pernod”.
This particular vernaccia is imported by Karwig wines and, as it happened, there was a Karwig rep at the tasting. Though he was unable to recognise his own wine, he at least gave it a glowing report, which is better than the vice-versa scenario.
We also tasted an unpleasantly green and hard Chablis from Supervalu that is reduced to a tenner for Christmas – watch out for it, so you can avoid it. My favourite white was a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (O’Donovans) that most tasters were able to peg as New World Sauv Blanc but all thought from a much warmer region (I thought it Californian). One guy called it “clumsy” – tough crowd.
The reds received a better reception. There was a brace from Puglia in the south of Italy, one from vineyards cooled by altitude, the other from the hotter lowlands, and it was instructive to note the differences between these. Guigal’s 2003 Chateaneuf du Pape was too funky for me but others loved it – farmyard, “ripped spearmint”, red liquorice, cedar, oregano.
Best red was a Minervois (which I was pleased to guess as “a very good Languedoc”), redolent of healthy, ripe blackcurrant, black cherry, plum and smokey bacon. I didn’t catch its price, producer, vintage, or where it’s sold – hopefully you’ll still be able to find it.
By the way, in the picture of the Vernaccia you can just see a red curry in the background. I mention it as it’s made with my home-grown red chillis, a fact of which I’m disproportionately proud. These are also pictured, here , back at the veraison stage. Veraison is the point at which fruits change to their end colour, indicating incipient ripeness. It’s a commonly-used viticultural term. Actually, Veraison was the original name for this blog but I surveyed 1000 close friends and Grapes of Sloth won at a canter.
