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Each year Hay Festival gives half a dozen bottles of wine to contributors as payment, I hasten to add I did not add to the prognostications of the assembled, but I thought it would be a kind of contribution to review the wines. On first inspection they do not look a promising lot. A bottle of Macon is the only name I recognise, the rest being denominated only by grape. I thought I would add a review to the thread as I drink them, to consider them a a group and beginning with;

Gritos Estate Malbec 2013

This is not bad, a good smoky nose, a reasonably tumultuous palate with herbs and fruit. A big brute which is rather sharp here and there but, having drunk a fair few Malbecs lately, is a serious wine. Not as good as the Catena (Waitrose £12.99 and 25% off a present) but better than anything I found in Sainsbury with Malbec on the label. I suppose I have to come up with some literary allusion now. Hemingway, it's like Hemingway, those of you who remember my view on Hemingway will be able to correctly identify my numerical score; 85 points.

Edit; Daniel must be dead, so I have decided that I must take one of the m's out of 'Hemingway' myself.

I look forward to the literary comparisons for the rest of the wines. A much more cultured alternative to CSD's vinous anthropomorphisms.