The wines of Côte d’Or, Burgundy
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 »
It’s tough being Chardonnay – on the one hand, you are so popular that you have become a girl’s name; on the other hand, people have tired of you and have moved on to Pinot Grigio and even Moscato. But once you get into quality wines, the real appeal of the grape to the drinker
Chameleon Chardonnay Read More »
Perhaps not surprisingly in mid-August, we had a rather reduced BBC 1 – just seven wines to try to identify and, more importantly, to enjoy. Looking back over the wines, of these seven only three were ‘should have got that’ wines. The others were impossibly difficult or just a bit odd as was one of
Review of Benjamin Lewin MW, In search of Pinot Noir, Vendange Press, Dover, 2011 I picked up this book with real excitement on two counts. First, as a self confessed Pinotfile (both Noir and Gris, happy with Blanc too) I was thrilled to find a full length, substantial treatment of this great grape variety. Second,
Finding the holy grail? Benjamin Lewin’s In search of Pinot Noir Read More »
Saturday’s Andover Wine Friends’ fine wine supper was based on a six-bottle case sold by the Wine Society as ‘World Class Pinot Noir’. The marketing worked perfectly – I duly bought the case and we enjoyed the wines. It was very good value at just under £140. But ‘world class’? I don’t think so. In
Pinot Noir – home and away 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 »
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
Burgundy en primeur week in London gives a chance to taste the 16 month-old wines which have been bottled specially for this purpose – see the previous post; this post focuses on the wines. As Burgundy is a relatively northern location for wine growing, there is big vintage variation due to the weather conditions in
Burgundy 2010 – a first view Read More »
The first full working week of January is a highlight of the English wine trade’s year. If you have the stamina you can spend every hour of the working week tasting the new season’s wines. Jancis Robinson complained and celebrated the fact that her team of three would be aiming to taste and write a
En primeur – spotting potential Read More »
That there is a competitive streak among many men is hardly an earth-shattering observation. Wine tasting can be social, relaxed, erudite and many other things but it also can be competitive. Ben Llewellyn, MD of Caviste set up Thursday evening’s tasting as a competition – between two of Europe’s best established and prestigious regions. Burgundy
Burgundy v Piedmont Read More »