Terrible Wine: Faustino I Gran Reserva Rioja 1996

When I think of Rioja, I always picture this bottle in my mind.

The classic wired body and clouded glass. I have fond memories of this wine, I seem to remember that the 1981 was excellent. So, did the memories flood back…?

The wine is made by Bodegas Faustino in Northern Spain. The vineyard has been arount since 1861 when Eleuterio Martinez Arzok moved to Oyon and bought a palace and vineyards from the Marques del Puerto. Faustino I was first launched on 1960 along with Faustino V, VII and Don Faustino.

I remember rioja’s as being quite high in tannin’s rather than the “soft, silky, mellow” mentioned on the back. I drank it with a nice Ox Tail stew, good strong meaty flavour. My tasting notes said…

Urgh, bad bottle? No, but not great. Tannins, but also maybe sour? Not smooth at all.

I disliked it so much I drank very little. What did it taste like the next day?

Nope, just as bad

Oh dear, that was not good. The wine had no smoothness at all and had a distinctly sour aftertaste. I hosestly thought it could have been a bad bottle but it wasn’t quite bad enough. I’ve given bad wine a second chance before but at over £10 a bottle someone would have to send me a bottle for free!! With decent reds from the New World available at <£10 it’s only a matter of time before disappointing Old World reds like this one die out. One Star.

Faustino I Gran Reserva Rioja 1996

Grape: Tempranillo 85%, Graciano 10%, Mazuelo 5%
Alcohol: 13%
Guide Price: ~£14 (Sainsburys)
I bought this wine at: Sainsbury’s (instore)
ITs Food Rating: One star

Great Summer of Rosé 2007: Mateus Rosé

Welcome to our final wine in the Great Summer of Rosé 2007. The sixth wine is… Mateus Rosé!

Ah… Now those of you who have been following the Great Summer of Rosé 2007 will have been expecting the final wine to be Turning Leaf Shiraz Rosé 2005. I did have a bottle of this. I did actually drink the bottle. But… for some reason I took no photo’s or wrote any tasting notes.

So, a last minute replacement is the “king of rosé”, Mateus. Like a lot of people in the UK when you think of rosé you think of Mateus. It was very popular in the 80’s and early 90’s before the New World wines invaded and educated us about decent, easy to understand wines. Now it seems it’s a bit of a joke, a bad retro wine joked about with other wines like Blue Nun and Black Tower. So is it that bad?

I have to admit I had fairly fond memories about Mateus, a bit like Vino Verde. A wine you have a craving for every now and again but don’t drink on a regular basis.

Sogrape (who own Mateus) tell us in the tasting notes…

Mateus Rosé is a rosé with a very appealing and bright hue. On the whole, it is a fresh and seductive wine with
fine and intense bouquet and all the joviality of young wines. In the mouth, it is a well-balanced and tempting
wine, brilliantly complemented by a soft and slightly fizzy finish.

Well, first of all it was more expensive than I remember. I had £3.99 in mind but it cost almost £4.99 putting it in the same bracket as the rest of our contenders. The cork is very small and challenged my Screwpull Corkscrew. They warn you on the bottle not to use a gas or air pump as the wine is semi-sparkling.

What did my tasting notes say?

“Oh… Fizzier than I remember, also more dry, not as sweet, not much fruit, nasty aftertaste, I wonder if there’s any other wine in the house…”

Hmmm. Not good, this really was disappointing. I had kinda thought that I may prefer this to the others but I was VERY wrong! I did not enjoy this wine and seeing as it’s in the same price as the other rosé’s I’ve been tasting I can’t let my old “favourite” (!) win. Overpriced, overly fizzy and no fun.

Mateus Rosé

Grape: Baga, Rufete, Tinta Barroca and Touriga Franca and more!
Alcohol: 11%
Guide Price: <£4.99 (currently £4.13 online for a half case)
I bought this wine at: Tesco’s (instore)
ITs Food Rating: One Star

Bad Wine: Hardy’s Varietal Range Merlot 2005

(Sorry for the bad photo, my trusty Nokia N80 seems to have let me down on this occasion.)

Bad wine, don’t you just hate it? I’ve often said that you can’t buy a bad New World wine these days, especially an Australian Merlot. Seems like I was wrong.

Okay I know the bottle of Hardy’s Varietal Range Merlot 2005 I picked up isn’t “premium” but it should have been a decent glug. Should, it wasn’t. A harsh tasting excuse for a Merlot. Really, this wine isn’t worth wasting a full review on. It tasted bad with and without food and was completely disappointing.

I expect more from Hardy’s. One star.

Hardy’s Varietal Range Merlot 2005

Grape: Merlot
Alcohol: 13.5%
Guide Price: <£5
I bought this wine at: Sainsbury’s (instore)
ITs Food Rating: One star

Wine Ratings

Quickly following on from my latest wine review is the news that I’ve started the revamp of my reviews. All the wines I review will all be rated on a colour coded (red/white) 5 star scale where 1 star is very bad and 5 stars is great.

So far the revamped scores look like this…

Tempus Two Pewter Merlot 2004

The Lucky Country Shiraz/Cabernet 2004

Cloudy Bay Te Koko 2002

Hardys Stamp Riesling Gewurztraminer 2005

Peter Lehman Barossa Clancy’s 2003

There will be more reviews to come very soon (even though I’m off the booze for a month)!

Bad Wine: Update

Yes, the 2nd bottle of Tempus Two Pewter Merlot 2004 was just as bad as the first. What a disappointment. In my opinion save your money and try a different New World Merlot, there are loads of great ones out there. Try dipping into the excellent wines of Chile or the up and coming Argentina. I even had a Uruguayan one at the Fat Duck a few months ago.

I’ll have to stick with my initial rating of one star I’m afraid. Yeurgh!