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No-one knows wine better than the author and critic Simon Woods, a former editor of the Which Wine Guide and Financial Times wine columnist. Here he picks five of the very best Click to view Top 5 Wine.
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Best For Impressing (1998 Certan Giraud Pomerol) |
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 If you want to impress the boss and boost your chances of being pencilled in for promotion or a decent bonus, the 1998 Château Certan Giraud, Pomerol Classic Bordeaux is the one to go for. It's from a great vintage, oozing class, and promising much for the future to those who can resist the drinking it right away.
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While we now drink wines from dozens of countries around the world, the bottles that come out to make our mark with bosses/clients/anyone-else-we’d-like-to-impress still tend to be white Burgundy and red Bordeaux.
Maybe if your boss is a more enlightened soul, you might consider substituting wines from the Best For Dinner Parties category in place of these. Otherwise the safest bets are the classics of the fine wine world.
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 And Certan Giraud 1998 is quite delicious. It comes from Pomerol, one of the smallest districts of Bordeaux, and source for many people of the best Merlot-based wines in the world. Forget wimpy Merlots; here the grape achieves plummy excellence, offering svelte, sexy black fruit flavours wrapped up in a tobacco-and-cedar overcoat. The best wines need a little time to relax into their bottles, but this beauty (from an excellent vintage) is now approaching the "wow" zone. Decant it a couple of hours before serving so it will show at its best (see Tip below).
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As A Complement ... |
The Albert Bichot Meursault, Domaine du Pavillon 2004 is an excellent white counterpart. White Burgundy may be made from Chardonnay, but it has little in common with the bog-standard, kiss-me-kwik Chardonnays that have abused the reputation of this noble grape.
This is the real McCoy, tense and vibrant, young yet not immature, ripe yet refreshing with a core of nutty, almost savoury fruit flavours, and a delicate finish. I’d also recommend decanting this, although it has to be said that a jug-full of white wine does look a bit like a medical sample, so you may want to pour it back into the bottle before serving. |
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| Tip |
 There are two reasons for decanting wine. Firstly to pour the clear wine off any sludge that has accumulated over several years in bottle. For the technophiles, the sludge occurs when chains of molecules of natural colour compounds, tannins and other natural substances from the grape skins join together to form heavier chains and precipitate out. The second reason to decant is to make the wine taste better. Have you ever had a bottle of wine and thought the last glass tasted much better than the first? It’s because the wine has had time to react with air, to – in wine-speak – open up, to show more of its true soul. Decanting the wine in advance means that wine opens up before you get round to having that first glass. |
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TYPICAL PRICES -
1998 Certan Giraud Pomerol £32.00 /$60.00
Domaine du Pavillon 2004 £17.99/$35.00
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