TN: A Blast from the Past from Oddbins

The UK chain Oddbins were responsible for a lot of my early wine education. At the start of the 90’s you could buy top Austalian wine for very good prices and they had a few special shops that sold small amounts of high end stuff. They also pulled off a number of deals with wine makers and managed to get “special wines” eg 1993 Penfolds Cellar Selection Shiraz. In those days they used to have a price list that featured drawings by Ralph Steadman. Ralph was popular and I remember that they actually used his drawings on some of their own wines. Not seen a bottle for years, but 2 weeks ago I was at a friends house in Belgium and I helped him take some wine down to the cellar. Most of the wine in the cellar was supermarket stuff, but in the bottom corner of 1 rack I found this, which had been brought over from the UK many years ago

1989 Cataclysm Paso Robles Cabernet, made for Oddbins by J. Lohr
On the back of the label there is a story that the grapes were harvested on the day of the 1989 San Fransisco earthquake and that the vines were hauled up soon afterwards as they never got over the shock - they were replaced by Merlot. Its only 12% in alcohol and fairly light in colour, but with no bricking. Quite a complex wine with a cigar box nose, plenty of raspberry fruit and a touch of cold tea, which indicates age to me. Its moderately intense and has the feel of a fine old claret, just passed its premium drinking window. I doubt very much the makers expected this wine to be kept so long, but its lasted well and its both interesting and fun. Still 1 left in Brads cellar and I hope he drinks it up this summer. Yum. 88pts

Thanks for sharing, Cameron!!

I love the idea of using Ralph Steadman’s art in a wine shop’s advertisements and such. Your story is certainly a unique one!

I frequented Oddbins when I lived in London. That pre-dated my interest in wine, so I didn’t pay much attention to what they stocked. Pretty cool that they had Cali Cabs all the way back then.

On another note, I’m a huge fan of Steadman as well. Love the stuff he did for Flying Dog brewery (and, in keeping with the UK theme, loved that I could find Flying Dog’s beer in the UK when I lived there. It’s what I would drink when I got homesick and missed the US).

If you google ‘Ralph steadman cataclysm’ then you can see a picture of the bottle.

The most famous wine I remember from that period was Cardinal Zin from Bonney Doon. He also did The Folly for Montes, but I think that was a lot later.

Thanks for a nice little bit of history.

If it wasn’t clear, I suspect that suggesting a connection between the earthquake and the conversion to merlot is a joke. That was the heyday of merlot … until Sideways was released and all the merlot was budded over to pinot.

Forgot about the Merlot craze back then…Even us Brits sometimes forget to spot British humour sometime.