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
This meeting of Overton’s blind tasting group should have been a so-called ‘BBC 2’, that is on a theme, in this case, sparkling wine. But we postponed that for another day and so had a completely random tasting, each person bringing a bottle of their choice. And my, was it difficult … or were we
Blind tasting bulls-eye? Read More »
What does a top winemaker do in his, as it were, spare time? After he has supervised the creation and blending of large volumes of good to high quality Cava and mid-range to premium red wines … what does his mind turn to? Producing tiny quantities of a new, experimental wine which changes every year.
Delfi’s playground Read More »
It may come as something of a surprise but South America is the second highest wine-producing continent, after Europe. It has some strong home markets (especially Argentina) and big exports from Argentina to north America and from Chile to the UK. But does it offer something distinctive? Do each of the main producing countries have
Signature grapes of South America Read More »
If seven people were independently to choose a bottle of quality wine from their own collections and bring them to a blind tasting what is the chance of them bringing similar wines? That two people brought Chardonnay was perhaps not surprising, even if both examples were from the new world. But in the same tasting,
Chardonnay and Chinon … twice? Read More »
The summer of 2003 in the UK has gone down in the British collective memory as famously hot – to be compared to 1976. While Mediterranean Europe has had other hot summers recently, we have not and so the memory of 2003 has grown rather than receded. Janet and I remember house sitting in that
Most commuters live a routine and humdrum existence. The times of trains are anchors in ours lives. Mine is the 7:35 from Andover, for Rob, occasional guest blogger on this website, it is the same train but for him it is the 7:49 from Overton. People read their newspapers, books and electronic devices. Some work
Tipple of choice on the 7:35? Read More »
Andover Wine Friends’ May tasting was led by Torquil Jack of Carte du Vin … on the basis of his explorations on two wheels of the byways of France and Spain. Torquil and Marion have turned a hobby into an early retirement business, importing wines from small family wineries, mostly unavailable elsewhere in the UK.
The Overton BBC followed up its recent north and south Rhône tasting with a white Rhône evening. But we started with a very welcome interloper brought by one member who generously contributed a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvée Brut to start the evening off. Some rules are made to be broken! It’s not from the
The noble Riesling grape variety is probably German in origin. According to Wine grapes, the name has many German synonyms and may be mentioned as far back as 1435. Certainly the variety is suited to Germany’s cold winters, hot summers and long dry early autumns. With its hard wood and late budding, it is equipped