A couple of Isralis and a stinky gigondas (A simple twist of fate)

I tasted three things today. Two appeared on my desk, rather opportunely while I was selling some Lynch Bages 1990 and Ducru 2000 to a couple of gregarious, and rather large Israelis. Both bottles were from the Judean Valley in Israel and therefor a far cry from my usual staples of Burgundy, Piedmont, the Rhone and Bordeaux.

Or were they?

Both were noted and remarked upon quite effaciously by my two errant guests who spied the labels as they were disappearing upstairs and couldn't help themselves from commenting on what they told me where two of Israels finest offerings. They should know; one of them was the chef and owner of the Tel Aviv version of our own Waterside Inn. Quite a claim.

I don't profess to knowing anything at all about Israeli wine. I've tasted a couple - Musar and Messiah from the Bekar valley- each time finding them somewhat brash; not dissimilar to young Mas Daumas Gassac. But preconceptions can be, and often are, wrong. Very wrong, as I found out when I dug a bottle of 1995 Daumas Gassac out of the cellar on Boxing day and showed it blind to my family (who's cellar it is). No one got it. No one really got close. It was an elegant yet somehow brawny wine. Classique, yet with a sense of muscle that put it quite out of reach of Bordeaux proper. It was idiosyncratically superb. I digress somewhat, but the point is that counting, or discounting your chicks, bottles or even books before you've allowed them to mature can be disadvantageous to both your cellar and your pride.

Anyway these two wines fell in a zone I hadn't tasted before. They were, Castel Grand Vin 2005 and Secrez, Shiraz 2004 (not entirely sure of this last name - will check and revert!) Both showed quite pronounced oak on the nose, the Shiraz parading it better with it's warm climate black currant cassis fruit. In fact it was quite attractive in a modern way. Definitely not Rhone, but neither was Australian. Somewhere in between. The palate of the Shiraz, whilst quite refined, left one searching for commitment. Reserved and almost reticent it was curiously bereft of place. And to my dismay held just a hint of saccharine sweetness that I find so distressing and unappetising in so many New World wines. It was as if they had blended two very nice wines, one French and one from the New World, and just by misfortune had chosen the bits that didn't quite go together.

Castel on the other hand I did not go for at all on the nose. Somewhat old and a touch musty it had that curiously dusty type of fruit that lesser old wines achieve when they are basically over the hill. And it was replete with a cloak of oak. The palate however, I liked. It reminded me of a hunk of ancient timber cut from the tree and laid to rest on a forest floor with a skirt of rather sun-warmed forest berries. It was both generous and staid. Neither a bordeaux (whose varietal make up in grapes it apes), nor a big, slathering Napa valley cab. Nor did it have the sweet cassis essence of an Aussie Mclaren vale cabernet. It was somehow old and young at once. Not unlike the Gaza strip, a newcomer in an old guise, struggling to find it's identity.

The closest approximation I can find is to an old style South African wine but with a more modern take on winemaking. Picture spices and souks clad in the fine tayloring of a Bordeaux left bank monsieur.

They were certainly interesting. Each held a flame to one of the great regions. Each offered something different, but neither surpassed their inspirations.

I tasted one final thing with my two neighbours over drinks. Their combined age came to 164. Mine less than a quatre. But we drank a bottle of Crawford River Sauvignon Semillon 2004. It's quite invincible this wine. It flat refuses to age, each bottle throwing out aromatic cut grass flavours, fine definition and Aussie charm. A great apperative.

The gigondas, Domaine du Cayron 2004 was a stinky little shit when I opened the cork. Bretty and awkward on the nose it nonetheless gave lovely grenache sweet sun-soaked fruit on the palate and plenty of acidity to keep it's rev counter up. Three hours later with some lamb and cumin meatballs, river cafe tomato sauce and some spag it had thrown off this stink and become a spicy, sappy, actually quite gorgeous mouthful of southern rhone fruit. Stirrups and orange peel, clove and cracked black pepper, sloes and damsens. Delicious. Had I opened it for friends I might not have served it. As it is, having waited four hours (and bear in mind this is a £9 bottle), it's a real overachiever.

Never count those chicks before you're sure. You never know what a simple twist of fate might throw up (that's Dylan, and I flat out love that tune)