Ustar novels?! What a crap business idea. Selling tacky story line novels and doing a 'find and replace' in some text editor, then spending a couple of pounds getting it bound up and posted to the paying dummy. Anybody who buys this shit must be off there head!

After a hectic week last week with well over 20 litres of wine consumed and many wasted, i feel the GLUT IS ON!.

Tonight I have been wading through the fridge and have disposed of two opened but hardly touched bottles of good red. I have put one sauv blanc in the meal and still feel that there is more mileage to cover.

There is too. This evening my dearest and I are indulging in James Brown and vino (I got soul and I'm SUPER BAD --- SUPERBAD BROTHER!). There needs to be more drunk and the rest of the week is leading to nothing but more super consumption. I'll be screaming in this corner during the week... if I can crawl here!!!

This day, we look toward Spain for hope and bestowment upon our tables of serious alternatives to Ostwaliun Dross!

And today it was given... from the Ribero Del Duero, to Rioja through to Alborino and to the broader Le Mancha... yes, it was given! A wonderful tasting with some modern spanish flavours and some old.

The big brand that hit the table was Campo Viejo who sent in their Cava Gran Reserver and also the Rioja Gran Reserver. Both wines were very good. The Cava was pleasant surprise as it was expected to take layers of skin off the mouth but... here this... at £6.99 it was a bargain that knocked the woolly knee-creepers off Champagnes from the £10-15 price points. So note that... Campo Viejo (available from Sainsbury's, Odd bins, Cost Co) is a worthwhile purchase for a bit of mouth cleansing fizz! It was interesting though that their prize piece, the Rioja Gran rioja, in traditional wire dress, was not really so impressive. It was good but it wasn't great. we had a brief chat about how it would stand up against a Muga and it was clearly stated by my colleague that it didn't stand a furkin chance!

On the other hand the Enoa Reserva, 2001 from the Ribero Del Duero was the days champion. It was deep ruby in colour, extremely complex nose and producing all the desirous qualities that a good wine should. Aroma's of vanillin mixed with dark berry fruits... it made one long for meats... were conjured. Tipped onto the palatte, I have to say I sensed the intensity.. immediately I was seized by memories... was it Spain? Long lunches, or maybe something more profound... yes, that's it, it had all the composed intensity of Caravaggio's 'The Martyrdom of St Ursula'. This was quality wine that made an announcement... that spoke with depth of character.. with sweetness of oak and alas a lining of sorrow in that the bottle was finite and not last forever... should one turn to the church? My trusted colleague suggested that we might pitch it against an Alion but, as good as this is and how much i want to drink it again and again... could it possibly stand up? Room for another post here methinks!

Now late at night, I lean hunched over this machine and sip from the spanish cup. A country, once feared for hostile gestures towards our British shores, now has designs of seduction and enticements that entice us more.

In a necessary move yesterday evening, my comrade was forced to open a 20 year old magnum of Rioja reserver. What a splendid choice this turned out to be... SPLENDID! The wine poured from the aged bottle and started the journey that took it from the glass to our mouths and through passages warm and welcoming to our bellies!

On opening the taste of dark berries was abundant but 30 minutes to an hour later this switched to a deep rich plummy flavour with velvety tannins. Hmmm, the memory wears well with me! The changing nose is also worth mentioning as this changed completely from rich summer fruits to a more mushroomy aroma. This was certainly one of the better Rioja's I have tasted of late and I intend to taste more.

Bring forth si vous plait!

Yikes! Batten down the hatches, put rubber sealant around your doors and windows... the Australian Wine Glut is here to stay for a further two years! The aggression between producers is peaking as they force their wares into the UK market place. I'm beginning to feel like foi gras on the run!

Myself and a few others are leading a small rebellion. We expect to be crushed like sour rapes in a press of wrath. Our small resistance will go down in history as a lonely stand against a lake of mediocrity... the last warcry. I expect I shall be played in the dramatised film by someone like Tom Cruise or Sean Bean. An underground love scene will be woven into the fabric of the story... I'll get to snog Angelina Jolie (playing the troubled Chud!) in the back cupboard as we experience serious poisonous wine seepage. Anyway, I digress...

The wine glut in Australia is to continue for a further two years - TWO YEARS - meaning more wines flooding our already saturated market! God help us. Pull the plug on this misery Lord, or at least send us a second Noah so that we might sail across this intrepid sea to a far off land!

More on this anon.

Thus spake I! What a couple of days. I've been supping away in slow but meaningless contemplation and was about to give the ghost when the bell rang and it was my dearly beloved with a more than pained expression on her glorious boat race. "THE WINE... IT'S IN THE CAR!" Sensing the urgency I seized my coat, my senses and shoes and headed for the boot of the car.

And there it was. 8 cases to add to my current glut! "Delve deep" the spirits sang, and so I did, so I have and so I am (slightly Irish in tone there!). These are S. African wines. Not Oldey worldy, I know. I must apologise in part for a degree of hypocrisy but can take some solace that these wines are emulating certain characteristics from the mother continent but sadly those that they do not it is not for want of trying.

The wine this evening is a Pinotage, dark berries on the nose that pervade through onto the palate (I like ballsy wine talk) and skip through the breathing passages leaving an aura of high ground pleasure. One thing to note from pinotage is the immediate peppery sensation that I have had on a couple of occasions. I am only two glasses in. My better half is out this evening, a necessary dispatch. She is at the view of Zoe's art work opening. Forgetting for a moment that these are age old friends, this is a chance to lig, and with free cocktails (a liggers dream) she could hardly be held back. This leaves me here sombre and woeful, tasting vino and writing sweet nothings to the spirit world (There are something like a million blogs a day created. This has meant that Google has teamed up with the Vatican to raise the dead of centuries just to create an audience for a multitude of whining bloggers - (LOOK AT ME I'M PUNNING!))... anyway, this vino is certainly hitting the spot!

I better stop. I could be hunted... did you know that the feds have teamed up with MI6 and the cast of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' arresting drunk bloggers under the terrorist act? You didn't? ... Well you do now!

Good night to you and long may you rest!

The Oz Wine Show - biased? Methinks so!

This is a good site but I often feel that the "news" section is a bit biased towards nice 'n' bright things from Australia and a even a little pandering to US listeners who obviously are tuning in their droves. My guess is that as an Oz wine show they have the interests of the Oz wine industry in mind and do not want to cause any upset whilst exports are so strong. I think one news report stated that French wine producers are converting good Fine wine into fuel for cars. Try mentioning this to a few growers in France and they'd laugh you out of the country (or burn you at the stake, re: Joan of Arc, or cut your head off, re: Robes Pierre). Now, I am not French and I don't fill up my car with surplus claret and I would like a little less propaganda based news shite posted on our beloved blogwaves. As a drinker of many world wines and a great lover of French wines, I think the hype over australian produce is largely just that... hype!

Read more at www.ozwineshow.com/

Okay, here it is. I've decided to start my blog in order to object to the huge amount crap fruit juice that seems to have pervaded the British wine selling retailers. You go into any off-license and you are confronted by shelf after shelf of same same alcoholic fruit juice.

The main producer of this sh*t are the Australians, who, with massive investment in marketing have conned the whole British drinking masses (of which there are MASSES) in consuming this. The whole effect is a numbing of taste and the creation of tribe of people who think they know how to walk into a shop and buy decent wine. They simply don't. They are being force fed a con.

After attending many tastings and drinking plenty of good wine, I am now on a quest to seek out and shoot down the purveyors of mediocrity. While I'm at it I shall singing the wild praises of the better, so-called, "Old world" wines and championing their return to eminence... that which they deserve.