Community Tasting Note

• scyrene wrote: 87 points

  September 7, 2019 - Unexpectedly dark - deepest gold, verging on orange. Sweet, creamy, but quite light nose, with caramel, orange peel, milk chocolate, and a fiery, spiritous burn. Rather fresher on the palate, good fruit up front, adequate acidity for the sweetness, but it rather falls apart after a moment; a bit dilute and bitter on the finish*. This is still very good value - at this price there are very few sweet wines, and if you compare it to, say, basic moscatel de Valencia it stands up okay. Perhaps it's been hanging around too long, stored improperly. It's not dead, but not everything it might have been. *Notably the wine improves with a bit of air, so I've bumped the score accordingly. [Natural cork; 12% abv; Marks & Spencer, £5/50cl].

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4 Comments

• MSheridan commented:

  9/9/19, 9:01 AM - Very useful not thanks and seems similar experience for me with this wine, particularly on the dilute finish.
  I only managed to pick up 2 remaining bottles so not the end of the world. Do you think the improvement with air might mean these could be better at a later date or just needs a while to breath before approaching ?
  I think the 2010 L'Anclaie that M&S used to stock may possibly be a better find if any appear on shelves.

• scyrene commented:

  9/9/19, 10:38 AM - I did wonder, and to be honest I'm not sure. In general I assume positive development with air shows potential for further aging, so maybe I was too harsh to begin with, but I don't have a lot of experience with this type of wine. At this price it's worth finding out though! My local branch had quite a few bottles, incidentally.

• MSheridan commented:

  9/11/19, 9:34 AM - likely to be even cheaper today if they still have any. M&S seems to be wiping out all their sticky/sherry/port stocks right now.
  Some lucky folks out there picking up some real bargains

• scyrene commented:

  9/14/19, 9:32 AM - Yeah, I got a 75cl bottle of Château Filhot 2009 for £5!

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