Campo Viejo Crianza Spain

Campo Viejo Rioja Crianza 2007

Well, here I am, your resident wine expert back again. The last two days I have been waiting for plumbers to fix a leaking toilet. Not worrying for me, but worrying for the kind folks downstairs whose bathroom ceiling has gone blue (I use bloo blocks). A couple of days off work, a royal wedding coming up, and no choice but to stay home and watch the walls. What do I do?

Drink wine!

I have had three bottles of this wine now, the first two I purchased from my local off licence (I call it the blue shop because its blue) for £8.99 each. Earlier today I had to pop out quickly to get some pea sticks for the garden and whilst I was out I popped into my local One Stop shop. I managed to pick up a bottle of the same wine for only £7.65. That might sound expensive to some, but Rioja’s are rarely cheap, in fact quite the opposite. £7-£9 is an absolute bargain, especially for a wine of this quality.

For all you snobs out there this wine does not come with a screw top, it comes with a cork, so best start digging your corkscrew out. Problem is, so many cheap and nasty wines these days come with a screw to. Now, I have nothing against screw top wines, in fact a lot of them are excellent quality and it makes it easier to get into. However, I don’t feel that a wine like this would be the same with a screw top.

After you have fathomed out your cork screw remover thing and got the cork out, you are left with a very boring looking bottle to be honest. A standard green glass bottle with a mustard yellow label. Nothing to wrote home about. But looks are deceiving.

The wine itself is a deep crimson colour, very smooth (unless you are a numpty and get bits of cork in it) and flows easily from the bottle into a (very) large glass. Upon drinking it you are taken into the world of fine wines. The taste is orgasmic, particularly for a wine of this price. I haven’t tasted a better wine since I had a glass of Chateau Neuf du Pape at £13 a glass.

This is a very fruity wine, containing a mix of all flavours from a nose of Cherry to delicate flavours of cranberry and redcurrant. This is a delicious wine to have either on its own (as I am having it now) or with pretty much any kind of food (except fish, I hate fish)

Yum. So good it gives me funny feelings……