David Barber's Wine List

Wines

Beaujolais Nouveau 2003 wines are reviewed on a separate page.

Although I've been drinking wine for a while now, I didn't really do it seriously until 2001. But it's a fun little hobby, and you really do find some good wines at low prices. I am most assuredly not someone who saves wines for years and years - the statistics that say 80% of wines are consumed within 24 hours of purchase points directly towards me.

By country:

France

Because we were used to drinking red wines from Italy, it was suggested we start with the Southern French wines of the Cotes du Rhone. This was a great bet, and we've had lots of fun exploring the region's varieties and vineyards. It's been rumoured that 2003 will be an amazing year for French wines because of the heat wave, and I'm quite looking forward to drinking quite a number of them.

I finally managed to track down a wine region map of France and a map of the wines of the Rhone Valley

Domaine du Grand Prieur - Cotes du Rhone - 2001 - This one ran us about $7 / bottle, and was pretty tasty. A bit fuller than the Italian wines we're used to, and definitely more alchoholic
Cellier des Dauphins - Cotes du Rhone - 2002 - We had this fall of 2003, and it was a very tasty wine. Nice and spicy, with excellent flavor. We also had the rose (same year, same winemakers) which was quite nice - not at all what you expect from a rose this one was spicy like the red.
Montalcour - Cotes du Rhone - 2002 - We had this fall of 2003, and it was a very tasty wine. Nothing particularly special.
Domaine des Correges - Cotes du Rhone - 2002 - We had this fall of 2003. I bought this wine because it won awards in France, and it was quite good. As with most Cotes du Rhone, spicy and somewhat sharp.
Louis Bernard - Cotes du Rhone - 2002 - We had this fall of 2003. Good wine. Not as nice as the bottle, perhaps, but a solid Cotes du Rhone.
Domaine de Panisse - Chateauneuf du Pape - 1999 - The first wine to make my 'Oh my God! Drink this!' list. Fruity (in a way that none of the wines I'd drank before had prepared me for) and full. Simply amazing. Ours was $15 / bottle. Amusingly, a few days later we bought a 1996 Domaine de Panisse Chateauneuf du Pape, and all the fruits were gone. It was still good, but I thought it had lost its magic.
la Scčne - Chateauneuf du Pape - 1999 - We drank this early in 2004, and although it didn't have all the fruit one might hope for (I actually expected this to some degree, since it was a '99), it did have something I didn't expect - chocolate. The unmistakeable flavour of chocolate. We haven't had a wine before that was so clearly chocolate influenced, so I would recommend finding a bottle of this ASAP.
Chateau Cabrieres - Chateauneuf du Pape - 2001 - We had this fall 2003, with spicy food, and I was afraid we had spent too much. It was an excellent wine, but the fruit simply didn't seem to be there. Then we had it with cheese and all the fruit I had been hoping for came out to say hello. Excellent, fruity and full!
Plan Pegau - Selectionne par Laurence Feraud - Lot: 2001 - according to our friends at Cheese Cheese Cheese, this is a bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape, which didn't go through all the hoops to be labelled such. It certainly has the complicated flavor of a chateauneuf, but for a 2001 (the lot number -is- the vintage in this case) it wasn't as fruity as I'd expected. Still, at $15 / bottle one cannot complain too much.
Vieilli en Futs de Chiene - Gaillac - 2001 - We had this fall of 2003. A nice full red, not as spicy as the Cote du Rhone and not as complex as the Chateauneuf. Good fruits. An excellent mid-priced bottle of wine.
Domaine de la Batardiere - Muscadet - Sevre et Maine - 2001 (drank autumn 2003) - This wine wins my vote hands down for the vineyard name, but the wine itself didn't grab me so much. It's a dry wine, but it was a little pungent, a little sharp. Probably worth trying yourself, because I might just dislike Mucadet in general.
*Italy* Fontella - Sangiovese - Puglia - couldn't find a year on the bottle, but probably 2000-ish. This wine had struck out with me before we drank any, because of the plastic cork (see my writings for more info). However, it was an interesting wine, in that we both described it as 'mellow'. It was tasty enough, without having that sharp taste that usually hits your mouth right as you first take a sip. Overall cheap and drinkable. Villa Cieri - ganaiolo - Sangiovese terre di chieti - 2000 - this one was marked down, and I'm afraid there was a reason - sharp. It was a drinkable sangiovese, but it hits your mouth like a freight train. Amusingly, after sitting a couple of days it softened up considerably. So maybe it just needed to breathe.
Gabbiano - Chianti - 2001 - drinkable, inexpensive. I like chianti, as rule. This one's nothing special.
Sortesele - Pinot Grigio - 2002 - We had this in the fall, 2003, and although it was crisp and refreshing, as one expects a Pinot Grigio to be, it wasn't as amazing as some I've had. Still an excellent wine, just not as absolutely crisp as I like my Pinot Grigio to be.
*Germany* I'm sure Germany has some good wines, but everything I've ran across is so darned sweet. If you like sweet wines, I mean really sweet, grab a Gewurztraminer or a Liebfraumilch.
*Australia* Lindeman's - Almost anything - I have to admit - I'm a sucker for Lindeman's wines. Cheap and tasty, great for random anything.
*South Africa* Langeberg - Souvignon Blanc - 2003 - We got this because it was the first 2003 I saw (this was in the Fall of 2003). Of course, South Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere so the wines come out at a different time. I'd love to say there was something to recommend this wine, but nothing leaps to mind.

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