3 April 2022
Right, so let’s dive straight in. Seeing as how I am caged in my flat like the rest of the fucking world, more or less unemployed, trying my hardest to remain active, sane, socially engaged, sober, and adult(ish) my choices of wine are limited. That said, had I a choice between a $4 South African from Lidl and Didier Dagueneau’s Silex (mind-boggling Savvy… from Pouilly Fumé) I might still start with the ZA savvy with a giant feline of sorts on the bottle, simply to show off what an unpretentious specimen I truly am.
In truth, it is not only when I am wearing a surgical mask, and slithering in the shadows during a global, bloody pandemic, that I can be found gleefully buying random cheap Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a bit of a hobby. These days Savvy is very popular, and therefore not as easy to find stocked. However, my local Lidl has a massive collection of dodgy private labels, and the only one that seems to be in stock lately is this Rosecreek South African from the Western Cape, and get this, bottled in Germany!!! I’m assuming a tankard arrives in some northern German port city, after a 9,000 mile trek from Cape Town, hauling massive bladders of wine to be bottled.
So, what is on offer here is pretty simple, the nose has just enough tropical berries, grapefruit, and green herbs to suggest sauvignon blanc, although there is an overripe green melon quality that can also be in Chardonnay from the southern hemisphere. It is definitely all about fruit and alcohol, despite only have 12.5 percent. There is little minerality to speak of, apart from that volcanic, almost smokiness that is not unusual in places like ZA and Chile. There is an underripe tartness, that screams cheap, and that tends to throw the wine out of balance, what with relatively medium acid, and little minerals, plus bold fruit and florals. Again, it’s not a great wine. It’s not a good wine, really. I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it. It’s basically any of a thousands pop songs written in the 90’s in the wake of grunge; trying and failing to be edgy, not as horrible as Creed or Nickelback, but as immemorable as everything by the Counting Crows.