Christmas day always sees the plucking of unusual combinations; turkey and cranberry sauce for instance - not something you'd have everyday (I'm guessing) but when married in a yule tide duet, all is well. And this wine is definitely one of those marriages. I personally have been playing it safe for a while - ordinarily I steer away from Californian wines for the sheer reason that the best Californian Syrahs and the like cost a packet and the lesser price better known ones (I mention no brands for the sake of my wallet's fear of lawsuits) taste bitter and soupy.
As I walked down the wine aisle in Trinity Walk Sainsbury's in Wakefield - not dissimilar to Bill Murray's baby steps in 'What about Bob?' - two things became apparent. Firstly, when shopping two nights before Christmas Day, you begin to understand the frustration of residents in ex-communist countries. All of a sudden your desire to have what you want, turns into 'whats available?'. It's quite humbling in a way - a pain in the arse, but humbling. The second thing is, surplus products that happen to be on adverts. Your Jacobs Creek, Echo Falls (okay I mentioned it) and other televised populars sit euphoric and plentiful whereas the fewer ones are both ignored and elitist in their paltry number. This is where I come to my senses and think - 'Whats available?' instead of 'What am I safe with?'. I reach out and pick three bottles for the Christmas festivities.
The Apothic jumps out at me. I look left, look right - nobody's watching me. The label screams at me like a black metal album - which to me sounds pretty good. Very Gothic. I have another unruly code of eating cheese with everything - especially wine. Today s cheese was a Mexican cheddar packed with shreded spices. At first I thought that might impact on the highlights of this wine and unfairly imepde all the notes I'm supposed to be looking for, but really didnt make much of a difference. It was all good. The wine packs massive tones of berries and vanilla. I guess there's a faint of chocolate in there too but its a lagoon of a wine - its so deep in colour there could be all sorts in there. It's like blackcurrant jam for adults. If that's not your thing, steer clear - you really won't be happy. But if you're like me and like your colours deep and your flavours bouncy; this one has your name all over it. Merry Christmas.
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