One of the real puzzles of new world winemaking is how one estate or region can produce varietal wines which only flourish in completely different areas in Europe. To take extreme examples, no one in the northern Rhône attempts to grow Chardonnay, far less Riesling; similarly, the Bordelais are not ‘having a go’ with Syrah
How ‘natural’ is natural? Wine buyers are normally caught between two extremes. On the one hand, supermarkets and bars are mainly stocked with wines made on an industrial scale, to a formula tested in the market. These wines may well have some character, but they are treated like any other volume product. A major consideration
How natural is natural? Read More »
I love writing pieces for this website but just occasionally it is good to have another voice, somebody else takes on a tasting. So here is the view of Tim Pierce, owner of GrapeExpectations, on the giro d’Italia which I led with his wines. It was a real pleasure to be in Longparish, just outside
Longparish’s Italian tour Read More »
Some of us had the pleasure of an excellent Spanish tasting last week, climaxing in the 68-year old PX which I commented on in the preceding post. But we had already agreed that the next blind tasting would be on the voluminous subject of ‘Spain’. Could we keep up the very high standard? Yes, we
What exactly would you expect from a near 70-year-old sherry? Bodegas Toro Albala, Don PX Seleccion, 17%, 1946 was bottled in September 2011. So that is 65 years in a cask! It would be interesting to work out how much has been lost to the angels over its long life in oak. As we are
Youthful 68 year old Read More »
Two red wines showing some age are served side by side in a blind tasting. As wine ages it become increasingly difficult to age it accurately. If it is genuinely old, say more than 20 years, you feel quite good if you get the right decade, unless you know your vintages extremely well. The first
Valbuena 1985 twice: what’s the chance? Read More »
One of the highlights of any wine tour is to stand at the edge of a great vineyard – preferably on a lovely sunny day – and then taste the wines. Here are the pictures taken as the light faded on a chilly but sunny early spring day in March 2014: The Bichot part of
Thanks to the generosity of Maison Albert Bichot, Beaune, a group of wine students have the chance to taste several flights of white Burgundy. What is special about the range of wine is that the producer is the same and within the two main flights the wines are from the same vintages. So we have
Albert Bichot’s white Burgundy Read More »
Recently, because of studying for wine exams, I have had to concentrate on tasting mainstream, commercial wines. If it isn’t ‘widely available and commercially important’ sadly it isn’t high on my current list of priorities. This is a complete volte-face for me. Normally, I would seek out the local varieties and ignore the Cabernets, Chardonnays
The Italian road less travelled Read More »
Andover Wine Friends’ fine wine supper for February 2014 set itself a modest challenge. When trios of related wines are tasted without knowing their identities, can a mixed group of tasters tell which is the best quality? and, further, did the group know what the wines were? The answers were, on the whole, encouraging! What
Rising to the quality challenge Read More »