Chateau Brown 2009: Tasty but 14.5% alcohol is too much

14.5% phew. Tasty though.

Call me a bluff old traditionalist, as Blackadder once said, but 14.5% alcohol, is too much for any red wine, except perhaps a dessert wine, however it tastes.

Chateau Brown 2009 is good but way too alcoholic even for that very forward year.

It has good balanced minerality, it's peppery, with huge dark fruit typical of 2009.

Fans of full-bodied American wine and fans of Parker will love this. It has more Merlot than Cabernet Sauvignon, which I am always a little dubious about.

It's also dark, inky and full of blackcurrent and cassis, Some reviewers said chocolate, and I kind of see what they meant.

Its slightly tannic but not overly so, and tastes like it should be drunk fairy young.

Chris Kissack, AKA the Wine Doctor, really rates this 2009 but oddly fails to mention the very high alcohol content.

I would give this a 15 or perhaps a 16, if I did ratings, which I of course do not. Who am I do so?

In conclusion, it's tasty but too strong to be a real gem, even at around £20 per bottle.

For a big(ish) tasty wine, I'd suggest instead a Saint-Estephe instead, Chateau Pickard perhaps, at this price range.

Cantelys 1999: Bargain vintage Pessac

I'd seen mixed reviews of this wine and was undecided about buying it.

In the end I picked up a Magnum from FromVineYardsDirect.com for pre-Christmas drinking with the family.

Not a huge risk at around £45 for a magnum.

On opening I was distinctively unimpressed. But increasingly I'm learning not to judge a wine until its been open for several hours, preferably 24.

Upon opening this Pessac was closed, flat and unremarkable. There was no sign that its been 13 years in vat, barrel and bottle.

A day later however, and those classic Graves notes come out.

It's age begins to show itself, it opens up and the finish lengthens.

Good fruit, great peppery characteristics, it's got some personality about it, after 24 hours in a wide bottomed decanter.

By no means an extraordinary wine, for just over £20 a bottle equivalent, it's a decent entry level aged Pessac.

For a dinner party where you don't want to spend over £50, it's a decent bet.

Cantelys has been said to have hugely improved over the last decade, so it may well be worth checking out later vintages.

Bel Air Lagrave 1989: Bargain vintage drinking

I picked up an end of line bottle of this, the 1989 Bel Air Lagrave, back in April in Vienna.

I paid about 20-30 Euros for it. No more.

For the money it's really excellent value if you like aged Bordeaux wines from the Graves.

I thought it was drinking perfectly. Plenty of spicy black fruit left, (typical Graves in that regard) but with that forest floor / mushroom ageing thing, that adds so much to aged Bordeaux wines.

The Telegraph website here in the UK has it for £34 a bottle.

I'm not sure you can get a 23 year old Bordeaux wine that's drinking so well at a better price, even in the inflated UK market.

If there is, I'd love to hear about it. I just bought a magnum of Cantelys 1999 for about £45. That might qualify but it's so much younger the comparison wouldn't be fair I suppose. I will report back on the Cantelys in due course.

It's hard to keep up with who is still in, or out of, the Cru Bourgeois classification these days/each year. But this is a little gem that deserves to be there if the other years are anything like this one.

Chateau de Chantegrive 2000: A lovely bargain from the Graves

Back in 2003 Parker said of this wine: "The excellent 2000 displays aromas of scorched earth, ripe black cherry and currant fruit, tobacco, and cigar smoke. Ripe, medium-bodied, soft, and attractive, it will be drinkable young and last until 2012."

He gave it an 88. I'd give it an 86 personally. But what do I know?

It's certainly still going strong. A friend of mine had this bottle direct from the Chateau and had it well stored for a number of years.

It saw light of day this week, and whilst I didn't get the scorched earth part, the black cherry and hint of smoke, with a certain softness, means it is well worth a try.

It's not so easy to get though, according to wine-searcher.

However, if you can pick it up for less than £20-25, it qualifies as a bit of gem. It has aged well so far.

Cantemerle 2000: A good buy, but only at the right price

I tried the 2000 for I think, the first time last night with a friend.

We overpaid for it, in London's Planet of the Grapes wine bar (fair enough in a way; they have to make a living).

They charge £60 for it. Wine websites have it for around £40.

Fine and Rare has it for £32, before tax.

At the price we paid, I was a little disappointed.

The aged fruit taste was wonderful, and there was a hint of minerality and some lovely complexity, but it just didn't stick to the palate as I would have liked.

If you can get this for £30-40 a bottle, and can let it breathe (which may have been our problem, as it only got 30 minutes of breathing before we drank half of it), then I'd say it's worth it.

I'll keep an eye out for a bargain case of this. But at the plus £50 price range, when you can get a 2003 Gloria St Julien at less than £50, I'd say one could do a little better in terms of value elsewhere.