The problem with having rarefied tastes…

… Is that people purchase shit wine and expect you to enjoy it. Last night I had the woeful experience of opening my aunt’s christmas present to me: Staton Hills Cabernet Sauvignon 1994 from Washington State. By arse it was disgusting. Very much a style of wine that one found at the four-to-six pound price bracket in the UK during the early to mid-nineties; it was especially noticeable with wines from South-Africa, but also many wines from New Zealand. I had really hoped never to try such a thing again. Mostly it was made with unripe grapes, that had spectacular yields, and the the wine was chapitalised to buggery. Enough sugar had been added to allow it to get to 13.5% rather than its natural 11%-ish. Because of this it had the strange, green-yet-chocolaty nose than this kind of filth always had. Age had done it no favours and, to be honest, I’d only opened it to make gravy from it. I must stand up for my lovely aunt, though, as she rang me the day after christmas and said she had opened two bottles on christmas day and they were both undrinkable. She was right.