The Allies (Wine Alliance) Have Landed. September 4, 2010

Ireland’s latest new kid on the block is Wine Alliance, run by ex-Karwigs man, Maurice O’Mahony. The company started trading in August and has trained its crosshairs on the retail sector. As you read, Maurice is out on the road schmoozing and disbursing samples to all and sundry. He is a friend of mine so when you meet him be sure to give him coffee and offer to list all his wines.

Featured below are two inexpensive (RRP €8.99) Portuguese wines from Wine Alliance. For some reason, the cooperative (which Jamie Goode says is Portugal’s best) has dispensed with its own language in the colour description on the labels. The white one uses “blanco” (Spanish for white) instead of the Portuguese ‘branco’; while the red one – giving two fingers to all of Iberia this time – opts for ‘rosso’ (Italian for red) and not Portugal’s own “tinto”. Hardly a pan european scandal, but interesting for any language-on-labels savants out there.

Still on the labels, which are winningly bright and colourful (see picture), I must comment on the brand name – Stella. What do you think when you read it? That refreshingly expensive beer? The mild-mannered heroine from “A Streetcar Named Desire”, or the ice queen from “Great Expectations”?

Despite these literary and lagerly links – and the word’s innocent Latin roots (it means ‘star’) – if you say ‘Stella’ in Cork city people are more likely to think of chavs as it is the local slang term for a “common young woman”, one who finds large earrings fashionable and who may be quite comfortable wearing pyjamas out grocery shopping.

Anyway, I’ve reflected on this and I’ve decided that the name will, if anything, increase sales of the wine in the Cork area. It will be far more memorable for Corkonians than, for example, Quinta-da-blahblah. In fact, if either of the Evening Echo or The People’s Republic of Cork were to get hold of this I think the thing could really blow up.

So between their purdy colours, easy-to-pronounce, memorable names (with their latent viral potential), good pricing, and positive organoleptic profiles, I think either of these wines would be very strong additions to an off-licence’s range.
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1. Stella Blanco, Dry Muscat, 2009 (exclusive to Wine Alliance): Outgoing nose of fresh grapes and tropical fruit salad. Totally dry, medium bodied, plump, with melon, more juicy fresh fruit and musk. Gorgeous stuff. Ideal aperitif material or as something to quench the heat of a takeaway curry. 88/100

2. Stella Rosso, Syrah-Castelao, 2008 (exclusive to Wine Alliance): Garnet, fresh, dry red with baked black cherry, pepper, liquorice, all leavened by a tangy, saline streak. Light but hugely flavoursome and characterful wine. Brilliant advertisement for Portugal. 89/100

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Wine notes: The two wines come from Setubal, a peninsula just south-east of Lisbon. The famous wine here is fortified ‘Moscatel de Setubal’, made from Muscat de Alexandria – the very same sad variety I have on my own decking. Castelao makes up one half of Wine Alliance’s rosso and, needless to say, it has a thousand synonyms – including periquita, castelao frances, and trincadeira. Cultivated throughout most of southern Portugal, it is the country’s most widely planted variety.

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