harrymonk

Having a dinner party on sat any ideas on wine
white
red

Luan Pra bang

White 1986-9 montrachet premier cru or a Mersault perhaps a sauternes depending on what the food is.
A nice Sancerre or Chablis has a broad appeal.

Red St Emillion , Barolo, Barbera or a Margaux with a few years behind it. Or get a Fleurie if you need a nice wine that every one is guaranteed to like make sure you have a few botles though as fleurie gets drunk quickly.

GCollier

Depends how much you want to spend.

For white I would recommend Villa Maria 'Reserve' Sauvignon Blanc from NZ - it retails at about £12/bottle and is absolutely superb. http://www.oddbins.com/products/Prod....asp?sku=48832 I'll drink this in preference to just about anything, even a number of French Grand Cru's which I often find to be of indifferent quality and not worth the price tag.

For desert wine you can't beat a nice Sauterne, but that will cost you about £30 for a half bottle.

I don't go a bundle on red, but a barolo is generally inoffensive.

Gary.

Old_Fart

I'm with Gary on the white, NZ sauvignons are great tasting and reliable, whereas french can exhibit too much individual character(to put it politely) and so divide opinion greatly. On reds I find barolo can be extremely volatile in taste terms, and they are relatively low production so high price.
Penfolds bin 389 is around £15 and is a very 'big' wine (aussie blend), most Croze-Hermitage around the £11 mark are good to excellent, recently been drinking lots of Paul Jaboulet and it's damn fine (waitrose £12).
Zinfandel, the Ravenswood vintners blend (tesco etc) is around £8 a bottle, very jammy, most people can drink it, though can be a bit 'porty' for some.
If you want matching bottles for the red and white then Tim Adams Shiraz and either Sauvignon Blanc or Clare Valley Riesling (Tesco's again) are brilliant - but you have to ignore the fact they are screw tops (which is very hard for some). The Shiraz is £10 a bottle and has been on most wine critics top 100 wines each year for the past 4 or so years (I cried when they went from cork to screwcap though LOL) Riesling is lovely as a reception and starter wine...come a long way from Blue Nun
Rgds
C

Daz34

Melini Chianti from Sainsburys is a very palatable red & only £5.99 a bottle

Cupramax

All these wine experts and no-one asks what food your serving

Daz34

Never spoil a good wine with food or company

TelBoy

Blue Nun, Black Tower or Matteus Rose. Can't go wrong.

GCollier

Or if you really want to impress, something from http://www.bumwine.com/

RussBoy

The best wine I have ever tasted (and I've tasted a few..) is without doubt: Faustino Reserve Rioja. It's the only wine I know with confidence that if you blindfold me and give me 4 different wines that'll I'll be able to pick out that one. They do it in different qualities but I can't honestly tell the difference between the £7 bottle from Oddbins and the £13 bottle. Faustino also do a pretty nice Rose' (great on hot days outside) and a nice white if chilled adequately. You might have guessed I'm a Spanish wine lover BTW... These cost about £3 a bottle in the Spanish supermarkets...


Russ

GCollier

I'm sure the poster can decide what would best suit his dishes after investigating the wine recommendations he gets.

It's personal taste to a large extent anyway...I downed a bottle of Gewurtztraminner with an excellent steak in a top-notch restaurant once and it made a nice if rather unorthodox combination!

Gary.

PCatWork

Please, it's Mateus.

SJ_Skyline

liebfraumilch

harrymonk

Wild mushroom consume

Roast Duck with rassberry comp

Chocolate mouse

Paul

Jap2Scrap

Lambrini or Lambrusco. Can't go wrong

TelBoy

Russ, with respect, you ARE joking, right?? The VII is *very* ordinary - if you can't tell that apart from the I then just buy the VII and be happy with all the money you're saving. Are you sure you're giving it enough time to breathe??

ScoobyDoo555

2nd this - only get the gran reserva. much nicer


Dan

mr & mrs carlos uk300

white zinvandel

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Wolf Blass Cabernet Merlot or the Wolf Blass Cabernet Sauvignon, would go noce with that, I got 6 bottles from Asda last week for £25, the right price if bought seprately is £48.
Cheers
Colin

Chip Sengravy

wine is rank, get Stella

richiewong

Bella Brusco, Concord or a 2l bottle of White Lightening should get the party going

Failing that you can't go wrong with a Chateauneuf du Pape

druddle

I always go for Australian. If you can get Western its very good, as well as anything from the Hunter Valley in the East.

Try and find Cassegrain reds and whites, they are awesome. Unwins near Fulham Palace Road have loads of it.

Dave

RussBoy

You're supposed to let it breathe??

Seriously though - you've never met my wife have you? I only need to remove the cork and she can smell the alcohol from another room - the cork doesn't even make it off the corkscrew before the bottle is finished!!!

On a serious note, it probably is the cheapie one I genuinely do like - most Red's leave a bit of a tang in my mouth - this one doesn't. It's quite smooth and certainly not that distinquinishable from the more expensive bottles... Though I must admit I do normally wake up with 'the bellyache' the next morning...

An Australian friend of my wife reckons that to tell a decent bottle of wine you look at how deep the 'indent' is underneath - the deeper the indent the better the quality of the wine as a rule. With me, it's if it has (or doesn't) have a screwcap and/or if the strength is over 13%...


Russ

Lee247

Jacob's Creek Chardonnay, lovely

GCollier

Tell your mate to check out a bottle of Cristal - that doesn't have an indent and is rather tasty - though too expensive to drink on all but very special occasions.

And don't pre-judge wine by the presence of a screw cap. It's a superior method of sealing a bottle than a cork, and some excellent wines now come with a screw cap.

Gary.

Mal K

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from NZ, the best IMO.

Luan Pra bang

Lauront Perrier Rose or Billecart salmon rose

Wild mushroom consume Meursault-Charmes 1er cru

Roast Duck with rassberry comp Barbera d'Alba

Chocolate mouse depends what alchohol is in the mousse but I find dessert wines disgusting so would have to say go back to the rose champagnes




I can supply all of the above before saturday btw

carl

They do VII? I've only ever had V and I. Do they do the numbers in between?

Pbr

Elysium black muscat is the perfect partner for chocolate desserts.

carl

You could do a lot worse than getting www.virginwines.com to mix you a case...

Had a couple of cases from there, and only a few (IMHO) duff bottles, which they'll refund if you like.