I’m always excited to receive a Your Sommelier wine box! Three different bottles of French wine, straight from the vineyard.
This is the Discovery Box, £36 per month including postage. The box arrives via courier, and is extremely well packed. You get three bottles in each box, and slightly to my surprise, this month is three bottles of red.
This month’s selection comes from the Southern Rhône Valley. On top of the box you can see the information card with the regional overview.
Each bottle comes with its own information card. Unlike my last box there were no bonus recipe cards, but they still include food pairings.
This Ventoux 2017 Domaine Brunely was an open-and-drink bottle. Immediate impression was that the colour was incredibly dark, much more than it appears in the picture. It had a moderately fruity smell, but the initial taste was not at all fruity. In fact, I found the flavour oddly savory, especially given the first sniff. On the second and third day of being opened the savory taste receded and the fruity flavours came though. However the flavour overall was rather dense.
The next red was a Nemusa 2016 Domaine de la Patience, and required opening an hour before drinking. This wine tasted and smelled pleasantly fruity, though I found the very end of the taste had a definitely savory twist. This was unexpected but surprisingly delicious. Rather like the previous red, the flavours developed the next day. This ended up being rather easy to drink!
Finally, Domaine des Pasquiers 2016. I had to wait two whole hours after opening to try it! There was a great difference in smell upon opening and after the two hour wait. It developed a delicious rich fruitiness. As to taste, it was remarkably spicy as well as fruity. I must confess I took a tiny sip when it was first opened, and it was infinitely better after the tortuous, but necessary, wait.
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I had one reservation about this month’s box: I wasn’t convinced about having three bottles of red wine in summer. In hot weather I definitely gravitate towards white and rosé, as for the most part red feels a bit too heavy.
My favourite wine was definitely the Nemusa; it opened up beautifully on the second day, and I really enjoyed the flavour. The Ventoux was the one I was least drawn to. I think in cold weather it would have been warming and satisfying, but as it was I found it rather too dense for casual drinking. All three wines each took a few days for me to finish, as more than one glass of red in warm weather is too much for me. (Of course, that’s probably no bad thing!) I would love to try them again in November, when it’s getting cold and damp, as I think they would be perfect for keeping out the winter chill.
Aside from my seasonal doubts, it was still interesting to observe the differences in flavour. Three reds allow comparisons to be made in a way that is not possible with a mixed box. Having wine that requires advance opening means I have to be a lot more organized, which has the effect of making me think more about what I’m drinking.
This is a far cry from the supermarket wine experience, which is basically a medicinal glass after a long day and Little C is in bed. Here is wine to consider and enjoy, and the learning aspect is a lovely bonus.
Cheers!
(Damn, I still haven’t gotten around to buying a new corkscrew.)
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Thanks for reading! You can see what was in other Your Sommelier boxes here.
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A different version of this review was first published on allsubscriptionboxes.co.uk
