The Wine Society of India (WSI) sends out some pretty fun mixed boxes of wines. We decided to play inspector and see just how good is good so recently, we intercepted one such box, hijacked it at gunpoint, brought it home, and then made it reveal whatever it was hiding. The wines were released back to WSI once they paid the ransom amount.It took us a good part of 2 hours to go about our task and an easy majority of this time was utilised trying to open those foolproof 8-on-the-Richter-scale earthquake-resistant packaging boxes! Here are tasting notes:
2010 Casalino della Venezie – Pinot Grigio – Veneto, ITALY (White):
Light bright hue. Fresh fruit-forward intense nose with hints of green peels, and floral touches. Dry smooth mouthfeel with tart apples, ripe gooseberries, mineral and crunchy acidity on the palate. What makes a good Pinot Grigio is absence of primary fruit but a nice mineral linger and this wine exhibited good varietal character. Could pair well with lightly dressed salads and aglio e olio pastas.
2010 New Eden – Chardonnay + Viognier – Eden Valley, AUSTRALIA (White):
Intense bright straw colour with hints of green. Appealing burst of fresh ripe white + green fruits with crisp minerality. Dry palate with fruity sweetnes of honey-dew melons, guava, tad grassy, well balanced with light body and crisp high acidity. What we enjoyed especially was the lemony Chardonnay layered over the floral-butteriness of the Viognier. A good fun wine with an Aussie accent. Try it with fried fish dishes and mildy flavoured chicken numbers.
2009 Amberton – Cabernet Sauvignon – South Australia, AUSTRALIA (Red):
Deep ruby appearance showing some evolution in the bottle. Light aromas with red fruits and cherries along with some mild spices leading from the front. Touches of rhubarb, plum jam, and cloves were also noticed. Dry palate with sweet jammy fruits, hint of sap, plums, cherries, sweet tobacco, and cassis. A good drinking wine best enjoyed now. The wine, although intense, isn’t intimidating. A simple example of a Cab from Down Under, great for a drink in the evening and then to carry over to the dinner table.
2009 Bouchard Aine & Fils – Pinot Noir Reserve – Burgundy, FRANCE (Red):
Medium ruby colour with fading rims. Nose prominent with red fruits, earthy, and hint floral notes. Will benefit from being poured into a caraffe. Dry, light-bodied, jammy + juicy wine with beetroot and sour cherry notes. Tannins are drinking smooth and fade softly. Serve it pleasantly cool. This is an elegant wine, almost feminine in its appeal but then it has a soft yet persuasively persistent tannic lining. Very feline.
To sum up, if you are a WSI member then you do well friend. For the price they charge for their shipments, and more specifically in the case of this particular shipment, we do feel that it is justified, especially when one accounts for the fact that the wines turn up at your doorstep in a box that could survive a nuclear (or is it nucular?) attack. The wine buyers there are doing a good job as also the logistics team. We were happy with our haul this time. Just goes to show that WSI, is, after all, the only legitimate run-by-trained-professionals wine club in the country worth its salt, or in this case, wine bottles.