Following last month’s highly successful tasting on Bordeaux varieties in search of sunshine, this month’s fine wine supper focused on the Rhône varieties. In fact, this turned out to be too big a subject matter, but we had such great wines from the northern Rhône that it became a matter of ‘home and away’. The
Rhône varieties – home and away Read More »
Saturday’s fine wine supper featured Staete Landt, the high-quality Marlborough, New Zealand, estate, run by a Dutch couple, Ruud Maasdam and Dorien Vermaas. The name is the one given to this land by the Dutch explorer Tasman in 1642 – though apparently he did not actually land on it and it was Dutch geographers who
Staete Landt–European style in NZ? Read More »
Guest post: Rob As regular readers of this blog know, the BBC has seen a recent trend of the rise of the “joker”, as some members of the group have sought to test our blind tasting skills by the ever more unusual offering. Did last Tuesday 21st August meeting see the start of the fightback
At last some wines we recognise! Read More »
As stated many times on this blog, exposing yourself to trial by blind tasting is a mug’s game. My worst moment was failing to identify the grape variety of an Alsace Grand Cru Gewurztraminer. After I knew what it was its typical rose water and lychees aromas were as obvious as it gets. And yes
Blind tasting improbability index Read More »
Asking the owner of an independent wine shop to choose just six wines to show off his wines is definitely mission impossible. If the shop is a creation of one person, he or she has spent hundreds of hours and selfless tasted probably thousands of wines to pick the stock … and then they have
Mission impossible Read More »
Blind tasting of random wines again … I think the best thing is to group the wines by type, clarity after the event being so much easier to achieve than at the time. So off we go with a, er, peculiarity: It’s definitely red, it’s sparkling, it’s slightly sweet … it’s not Shiraz, it’s lighter
Blind tasting oddities? Read More »
The relative merits of buying everyday wines from the supermarket or from an independent wine merchant in the UK are worth rehearsing. As I see it, they are: Supermarket Strengths Weaknesses Huge buying power Little or no knowledgeable service at the point of sale Can offer good value obsessed with 2-for-1 offers, many of which
Supermarket v. Independent Read More »