Tuesday, 8 June 2010

2009 Alicante Bouchet
2009 White Frontignac
2008 Frugal Farmer

A glance at the Wine Purchases spreadsheet reveals we've had two deliveries from Rockford that failed to produce an entry since the previous posting. The first of those comprising half a dozen '09 Alicante Bouchet, and three each of the '09 White Frontignac and the '08 Frugal Farmer, was a December restock of fridge-friendly goodies to see us through the summer festive drinking season and a Southport excursion, and for various reasons the initial samplings of each wine failed to produce a written comment.

After a bottle or two has gone (and, no, I'm not talking in one session) you tend to forget that you still need to put something together for the web site. Short term memory loss, and all that.

There isn't, on the other hand (and I'm noticing this more and more as I go through the wine writing motions, too much new that you can say about wines that have etched themselves into a position where they're an automatic inclusion in a regular reorder, which is the case with the '09 Alicante Bouchet and White Frontignac.

They're both wines I want on hand in the wine rack and chilled down in the fridge and when I run out a reorder is an inevitable consequence of the dearth of two regular staples.

Rockford 2009 White Frontignac

As a firm fan of the spicy end of the flavour spectrum, I eat plenty of curry and chlli-laden dishes, and the sweetness lurking in the White Frontignac makes it an almost ideal style when something along those lines hits the table (as does the Pfeiffer The Carson Gewurztraminer) so I’m always going to be looking at having a bottle or six around the place. As with the others I’ve tried, 2009 White Frontignac ($15.50) goes down a treat in such circumstances, a touch of sweetness there, sure, but nothing approaching the cloying sugar levels you tend to find in sweet wines at the budget end of the spectrum (and yes, Crouchen Riesling, I’m looking right at you).

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