Regular readers of this blog will know that blind tasting is a mug’s game. But just occasionally a logical approach will lead to a surprisingly good result, even when you don’t know what the wines are. Faced with three wines and a general rubric that these three are all made from one variety or are
Blind tasting: some method in the madness Read More »
Is Rioja having an identity crisis? For the average wine buyer staring at a supermarket shelf, this might seem a daft question. This famous region from Atlantic-influenced northern Spain continues to be a source of inexpensive, sound, flavourful wines. Even at this level, there is a style issue: if you want a red that is
Rioja, modernist or old school? Read More »
After the excitement of the old Palo Cortado sherry, I choose to compare these two excellent wines from the Tuscan Maremma. On your left is the top wine of the tiny Massa Vecchia, near Massa Marittima, mostly Sangiovese with some Alicante, from the single vineyard, La Querciola. On your right, you have the riserva of
Maremman Christmas – La Parrina goes head to head with Massa Vecchia Read More »
Can any wine compare with the intensity and sheer excitement of great Sherry? Now there’s a question which we could spend a lot of time debating … but frankly on Christmas Eve we are not going to! This is just a brilliant drink. The pleasure begins the moment you pour a small amount into a
Christmas begins here Read More »
Last Saturday’s fine wine supper started as a tour of Eastern Europe. The idea was to give a quick overview of the exciting things that are happening in Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria and many more places. It did deliver on that as the bottle shots and the list below testify. We did our tour of the,
Hot foot from visiting 30 wine regions for her major revision of Christie’s Encylopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine, Essi Avellan MW introduces 16 traditional-method sparkling wines. What she showed was how many places – including some very surprising locations – where the high quality sparkling wine is being made. Please excuse any minor errors –
Essi’s sparkling world tour Read More »
The Rhône valley has been our wine region of choice in 2013. Overton’s blind tasting group has chosen it no fewer than four times in the last year. Clearly we can’t get enough of it as this week’s tasting – north and south, white and red – was a great success. As it turned out
This year’s European Wine Bloggers Conference was held in Logroño, Rioja, in late October. The most exciting part of it for me was the chance to visit some great regions which are all new to me. In the course of three days, and thanks largely to the sponsorship of Araex, a group of independent Spanish
Lighting tour of Northern Spain Read More »
While generally I much prefer my Apple machines and multi-functional iPhone, writing for a WordPress website is simplest if you use one of Microsoft’s suite of programmes – Windows Live Writer. It pains me to say that it handles pictures beautifully, inserts tables at the drop of a hat, resizes photographs within tables and allows
Apple v Microsoft – the last frontier? Read More »
The November ‘bring any bottle you like’ version of Overton’s blind tasting group produced three categories of wines – bankers (wines you had a chance of spotting), ‘on a good day’ (if the force is with you) and ‘you have got to be joking’. Plus one in the ‘mission impossible’ class as well. Most quality
Bankers to the impossible Read More »