It's pronounced 'B-A-R-G-A-I-N'

There's a great scene in the one of the Harry Palmer spy films where Harry opens a bottle of Portugese Dao and announces, in his best Micheal Caine voice, "It's pronounced Down". Until that scene, I think it's fair to say, not a lot of people knew that.

Rioja never seemed to cause pronunciation problems. It may not be exactly how they say it in situ, but for English speakers a very oaky wine called 'Ree-oak-aah' makes perfect sense.

Sainsbury's have this one on sale at the moment, down from £15.99 to just £8.00 a bottle.

£8 for a quality ten year old Gran Reserva is a serious bargain. It's only available in some stores so worth calling ahead to check they have it. The store on Glasgow's Crow Road had about 10 bottles left last night. I'm planning for there to be less tonight.

At times it seems beautifully mature. All cedary sweetness. Then a few swirls later and it's back in it's youth. Stroppy, brooding, slightly out of balance. Weird, but very enjoyable. You get two phases of a wine's maturity in the same glassful. Can wines have a late 'teenage' phase? Increasingly I'm aware that many things do...