Icono wine (by Sideral)

We've been drinking this Icono 2002 wine bought at Delhaize last yearlast friday and as I am preparing a talk about Chilenian wines I tried to dive a big deeper into the background of this wine.

When buying the wine we did recognize this Sideral as a wine that we already bought at Mondovino a few years back, although this is a completely different ballgame at about 3x the price of this Icono.

Apparently the company that produces these wines, Viña Altaïr (originally Vina Totihue), is a joint venture between Vina San Pedro and Chateau Dassault (a Grand Cru Classe in Saint Emillion).

Their website only mentions the Sideral wine and an apparently even better (Parker score at least) Altair wine that I haven't seen in Belgium yet. If anyone can explain me what this Icono wine actually is or where I can find more information, drop me a note. (Chances are that it is specially made for Delhaize though)

So far for the background, when drinking this wine you'll see it starts to show some age (2002 is already 7 years ago), both in the colour and the smell (some forest wood and jammy). But the small of cassis (from the Cabernet Sauvignon no doubt) is really still spectacular (and nice).
Qua taste it is a typical wine that we like and drink most often: high alcohol, full taste, some tannines, etc.

Chateau Cantenac - Saint Emilion Grand Cru

Today we opened a bottle of Chateau Cantenac which is classified as a Saint Emilion Grand Cru. This wine was part of a set of 6 bottles that we got when we were 10 years married and was in fact the start of a real wine cellar in our basement.

At the time this 'Grand Cru' was seen as a real sign of superb quality, but having done some reading on the classification system in Saint Emilion I now know that Grand Cru is not that special, Grand Cru Classe is what starts getting special attention in wine circles.

Having said all that: the 2002 vintage (or millisime as they call it in France) is, although not classified as such between the super years of 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 still really good: Very soft taninnes and still containing a lot of fruit with enough body to fit with the excellent porc roast we cooked up.

S de Siran

Last week when visiting some friends they showed me their collection of 'special' wines that they kept for special occasions. One of the bottles was the "S de Siran 1998" which we drank that same evening.

The "S de Siran" is the 2nd wine of the Chateau Siran estate in the Margaux region of Bordeaux.

According to the website this 2nd wine is best enjoyed between 5 and 7 years after the vintage year, and indeed the wine was maybe a little bit over the top, but it was still highly enjoyable.
There was quite some sediment in the bottle, but luckily it stuck to the bottle and was not floating around in the wine.

Think wine is expensive in Sweden ?

Do you think wine is expensive in Sweden ? Think again ...

Last week we visited our family that lives near Göteborg for the next 2.5 years. When visiting the system bolaget in Mölnlycke we bought a bottle of 2008 Casillero del Diablo Carmenere which cost us 70 SEK. In Delhaize in Belgium this wine is 6.99€, which is 0,13€ more expensive at the time of checking :-)

About the wine: this is an excellent example of where a commericial wine from a big bodega in Chili, Concha y Toro in this case, can give very good quality for a very reasonable price. This was a full bodied wine with the necessary taninnes and enough sourness to be well balanced, which is quite an achievement considering the Carmenere grape and the fact that wine is only 1 year old (maybe two when considering the fact that Chili is in the other hemisphere)