Wine of the Month – Albali Caliza

This month’s reviews were brought to you courtesy of Caliza (‘barrel aged’), a lush cabernet sauvignon and tempranillo blend from Spanish wine company, Viña Albali. A smooth and medium bodied wine made from selected cabernet sauvignon and tempranillo grapes from the Castile La Mancha region, Caliza displays a mild strawberry with a hint of cherry flavour, which has been aged in oak for several months, adding a lovely, well, ‘oaky’ finish.

Established in 1952, Félix Solís (the parent company of the Viña Albali brand) grow their grapes in harsh climatic conditions (up to 40C in summer and as low as -15C in winter).


If it’s simple and mildly flavoured accompaniment with my movie watching last night is anything to go by, it works quite well with dark and moody David Fincher thrillers like Se7en (the oaky, tannin finish is wonderfully complemented by Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones and the washed-out colour palette) and, providing your housemate doesn’t make you flick over halfway through to The Sin Eater (heathen!), Lamberto Bava’s Argento-produced Demons.

The light cherry undertones may also compliment anything with Edwige Fenech in it – such as Mario Bava’s 5 Dolls for an August Moon or the uber-trashy Strip Nude for Your Killer… Enjoy responsibly.


"You're absolutely right! I DO detect light cherry undertones. Hic."

Popular posts from this blog

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

Image
Dir. Andy de Emmony After placing his senile wife in a care home, retired astronomer James Parkin (John Hurt) heads for the coast to revisit their ‘old haunts’, including the now out-of-season hotel they honeymooned in. By day he is stalked along the windswept beaches by a spectral figure dressed in white, and by night he is terrorised by strange sounds and someone, or something, attempting to enter his room… In the 2000s BBC4 attempted to reignite the old Ghost Story at Christmas tradition by adapting MR James’s A View from a Hill (2005) and Number 13 (2006). This series was seemingly short lived though, as their next outing wasn’t until 2010, and an unusual reinterpretation of James’s classic chiller Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad . While de Emmony’s direction captures the atmosphere and tone of James very well, this film differs significantly from other adaptations, including Jonathan Miller’s supremely unsettling 1968 take . Neil Cross’s screenplay only incorpo
Read more

Caveat (2020)

Image
Isaac, a brooding drifter suffering from memory loss, agrees to look after Olga, the niece of his acquaintance Moe. A troubled woman prone to bouts of catatonia, Olga lives in an old, ramshackle house on an isolated island in the middle of a dark lake. Isaac agrees to wear a chained harness that prevents him from going into certain rooms. He gradually comes to learn of the unsettling history of the house and the unquiet dead it harbours within its walls... Written and directed by Damian McCarthy,  Caveat  is steeped in the Gothic tradition. With distinct echoes of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is ripe with a lingering atmosphere of morbidity and decay. McCarthy's screenplay toys with themes such as psychological rot, dark family secrets, and the aftermath of unspeakable violence and cruelty. The story unfolds within the creepy confines of the lonely, mouldy house, with myriad forbidden rooms, hidden passageways and concealed bloody secrets. The house itself is cut off from civili
Read more

Otherworldly Encounters on Halloween

Image
Oíche Shamhna shona duit. To celebrate All Hallow’s Eve, my dear friend Marie – a writer and folklorist based in Missouri - has put together a podcast exploring first-hand paranormal experiences that took place on Halloween. The stories and accounts are shared from r/Paranormal , The Fairy Census , and the Dúchas Schools Collection (part of the National Folklore Collection UCD Digitization Project).  Between the stories, one of which is read by yours truly, Marie explores some of the history and folklore surrounding the traditions of Halloween, or Samhein, as it was known in Ireland where it originates from. An important festival in the ancient Celtic calendar to mark the end of summer, Samhein (Irish for November), is the night when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead becomes thinnest, allowing souls of the deceased to pass through into our world and roam freely. The night we call Halloween in English, is Oíche Shamhna: literally Samhain (November) Eve. To listen t
Read more