Andover Wine Friends’ March tasting was designed to have some fun while tasting a range of sparkling wines blind. It certainly achieved the first aim. The blind tasting part showed some the difficulties of this game all too clearly: 1. Sparkling pink wines don’t give a lot away Apart from an occasional difference in colour
Sparkling wine in the dark Read More »
The birthday boy’s choice for this month’s themed Bring a Bottle club was Burgundy (good choice!), with a stipulation for more reds than whites. That is in fact how it worked out but not always for the best of reasons. Even if the wine is off it can serve some photographic purpose. Sadly two of
Highs and lows in Burgundy Read More »
Saturday night’s fine wine supper was a chance to reassess some of the best wines now coming out of New Zealand courtesy of a selection from the Wine Society. Most UK consumers associate Kiwi wine with its own super-vibrant style of Sauvignon Blanc – but there is much more to it than that. The evening
Best of New Zealand Read More »
Outside of the New World with its focus on the characteristic qualities of single grape varieties, Alsace has got to be the easiest wine to taste blind. Aromatic Gewurz, steely Riesling, more neutral but classy Pinot Gris and the odd glass of Pinot Noir (which has the decency to be red), this is going to
Fortified wines are a seriously undervalued category of quality wines. Somewhere we have bought the line that to be taken seriously wines must be dry (many fortifieds are also sweet) while proper concerns about alcohol consumption put a question mark against wines that can be around 20% in alcoholic strength. Vintage Port is the exception,
Wines of the extremes Read More »
February’s meeting of Andover Wine Friends was a spectacular lunch at The Harrow Inn, Little Bedwyn. They put on a great show for 17 of us, while running the front half of the restaurant as usual. I was seriously off duty – too much good food, company and excellent wines – so there are no
Art of fine living at the Harrow Read More »
With the whole world of wine to choose from, which three grape varieties would you group together for a focused red wine tasting where there is noticeable relationship between the varieties? The two Cabs and Merlot would be one obvious choice – but the range of styles around the world might lead to a loss
Pale, red and elegant Read More »
Saturday night’s Andover Wine Friends’ Fine Wine supper was remarkable by any standard, the main act being eight wines from Bordeaux from four vintages in the 1970s. The first thing to celebrate was the friendship and generosity of those who love wine. The eight wines all came from the cellar of one of our number
1970s Claret – old friends reunited Read More »
2003 – the season Everyone knows that 2003 was an exceptionally hot year in Europe. Janet and I spent a small part of that summer working in the large garden of friends and found ourselves having to adopt habits more typical of Mediterranean countries – get up early and work outside until late morning, have
The four colours of 2003 Dom Perignon Read More »
The Bring a Bottle Club was in a rather different format for its late January tasting, or rather a refinement of its format. We already have ‘BBC1’ which is ‘bring an interesting/good bottle of any sort’, while ‘BBC2’ has a theme, on this occasion, white Burgundy. The refinement was that one of our number offered