Saturday 26 May 2012

Friday Night is Curry Night



The weekend got off to a great start, coaching the under 9s at Cricket. There was a great feeling of fun and learning on the field and the children responded well. "Lovely neighbour" bought me a pint of Hooky (the local beer) from the club house. I enjoyed sitting out side the club house and watching the cricket with friends on this warm evening.


A cycle through town and I was with more friends, it should be pointed out that I had invited myself round. Wine was opened and the take away was laid out and passed around.


The rosé comes from Bordeaux and is known as a Clairet. It has it's own appellation too.The word Clairet is the French for clear and this is where our word Claret comes from. Two centuries ago all clarets were clairets and they proved very popular with the English.

Clairets are made from blends of the most common grapes used in this region. This wine is made up of 70% merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc. The contact with the skin is the main difference. With rosé, it is a matter of hours contact, were as with Clairet It is a couple of days. 
This wine is a bubblegum to cherry pink.  The taste is crisp and juicy too, with wild strawberries, white peach and under ripe raspberries. 


We were also drinking a Chilean Merlot that is on offer at Sainsburys at the moment. It is Called Vina Maipo Reserva and comes from the Aconcagua region in Central Chile.
The wine is full of dark cherries and white pepper, with a dark chocolate edge, well worth the money. It went very well with the hot spices in the curry, particularly the lamb dishes.
At the end of the evening, we planned to either go to the seaside or have a BBQ at home.
I feel like the weekend is turning into a very English version of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Princes song Summertime .




Tuesday 22 May 2012

Jam and Jerusalem



Last night, I was invited to give a wine tasting for West Oxfordshire Women's Institute or W.O.W.I. for short.
I have to say that I thought things were going slightly pear shaped, when handbags started to open and bottles of wine were taken out and drunk during the notices!

I'd chosen wines which were good representations of the country they came from, and all could be bought through NortonWine Cellar.  I'm pleased to say the evening went very well despite it being a little daunting walking into a room full of women who look like they know what it's all about!

I was pleased to have opened the Cote Du Rhone a couple of hours beforehand - it had improved really well, as I know it would and gave us an opportunity to talk 'leaving it to breathe'. 

The evening finished with cheese and a chat, they didn't even sing Jerusalem but we did head to the pub afterwards.



Sunday 20 May 2012

A Spanish Cab

This evening for dinner, we are trying out a wine from the North of Spain. It is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, which is unusual for this area. The wine comes from the Torres stables and is called "Mas La Plana" , 2007 vintage.

The wine is a deep garnet colour, the strong legs on the glass show a high alcohol content. The nose is a blend of dark Cherries, tar and Cassis.  There are huge cherry compote flavours on the initial taste, these settle to include Cinnamon sticks, figs and black currant. Black currant  drops dominates in the middle and are joined with toast, which comes from the new oak used in fermentation.
I felt there was a slight hint of orange blossom on the finish. Great with the Sunday Roast!

Saturday 19 May 2012

Chateau Musar 2004

The new 2004 Chateau Musar is now available in the shops. This is a truly special wine from the Lebanon. It is like no other wine, although in the past I have put it up against a right bank Bordeaux.
It is full of Eastern promise, but above all the vintages vary year on year.

I remember once at a wine fair, visiting the Lebanese stall and talking at length about Musar,with the stall holder. We touched on our favourite vintages for a while and then I brought up 1999.

I said it was awful, with too much burnt rubber on the nose and continued that I had refused to invest in that year. The stall runner agreed, saying that his uncle Serge Hochar, had put too much Cinsault into the blend that year and the wine had been kept in barrel for an extra six weeks. 
Serge Hochar, it must be pointed out, is the estate manager at Musar and his father set the vineyard up.
I apologised for any offence I had given to his family and quickly made my excuses to leave.


The 2004 doesn't have this problem at all. The nose is full of sawn wood, fig and dried apricots. The cassis  starts to come out too. The flavour is very much smoked wood, cherries, Cinnamon and liquorice. The wine has smacks of roast beef from a good butcher.

It is worth noting that the vintages are only released, when the previous one has been sold. The wine seems to be aged in barrel, for longer.

I still have 1998 ,2000, 2001, 2003 in the cellar. 1996 has just been finished and I think it was getting very tired towards the end of the case. 2004 is worth a punt and I look forward very much to 2005.

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Today was Hayward Bros. En Primeur Bordeaux 2012 tasting. The showing normally signals the close of the En Primeur showing season in Oxford for Bordeaux.
It is great because, the young wines have changed so much since even last week.
Last week's star appellation in my opinion, was Pomerol. This week the Pomerol wines tasted a touch sour and less rounded.
Robert Hayward and Bryan Taylor put on a great tasting at Teddy Hall. The special offer wines were followed by the 2012 cask samples of Bordeaux's finest. There were plenty of samples yet to be tried this season. Some of my favourites like Batailley,a fifth growth from Pauillac and big guns like Chateau Lynch Moussas and Chateau Cantemerle which had, up until now, been missing.

There were also previously unshown wines, like Anthony Barton's Mauvesin-Barton from Moulis, this last wine stood out as being very good value for money. It had good dark fruit mixed with cherries, figs, tar and a cognac like finish.

After trying Chateau Beausejour Becot, a 1er Grand Cru Classe from St Emillion and the  last of the En Primeur clarets from 2011, my palate was exhausted.  Further more the wine had stained both my hands and teeth, the latter making me look like a cast member of the Musical " Les Mis".

Lunch was accompanied by a glass of Beaumet Non Vintage Champagne. I have to confess to not being such a fan of this years En primeur whites showing and so I quickly moved on to the last section - Sauternes.

2011 Sauternes are looking very good, the price is low and the quality very high. These wines will start drinking in around six years from now, achieving full potential in ten years and then being good for a few more after this. The Doisy Vedrines second growth stood out on a pound for pound basis.
On the whole, a great day out.


Tuesday 8 May 2012

It was a red letter day today! The first showing of the 2011 Bordeaux En Primeur - wine tasting in Oxford, with Charles Taylor Wines. It is like the glorious 12th, but for Oenophiles. As usual Charles Taylor MW was showing some fantastic wines this year. It is agreed that his knowledge of Burgundy wines is second to none and Bordeaux is pretty tops too.

His En Primeur showing always seems to be the first in Oxford, so when you get there, you are desperate to get your teeth into the new vintage. Etiquette dictates that you must wade through the "interesting" pink and dry white Bordeaux wines.
I look at them as practise wines, like a warm up before a bike ride. They are an obstacle that needs clearing.

If you do plum straight for the new reds, you get guided back to the beginning by one of the growers. The growers are on hand to answer questions about their wines, but also act as unofficial ushers, for people who have not yet earned the right to the prize.
2009 & 2010 were such great Bordeaux vintages that this year could only result in a "filler year".

A filler year is one that fills the space while you wait for the good years to come of age.
Without going in to too much detail, Pomerol stood out particularly well.
The left bank's were very jammy with plenty of cherry and little blackcurrant fruit.
Sauternes and Barsac were very good too, with the prices being held or lowered this year.

The roast beef lunch and 2006 claret were a great finish to a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Charles was kind enough to give me a  signed copy of his new book "The Great Domaines of Burgundy". If only red letter could sell days like these.

Monday 7 May 2012

Saturday saw us take to the woods , to build a bivouac using timber laying around the forest. The kids learnt new skills and loved the freedom the wood provided. Our new friend Adam, who organised the trip, plans to sleep out here overnight.
It turned in to a proper Swallows and Amazons' day, when the kids went on to make their own burgers, with chillies?

With my Catering background, I was charged with the task of making a campfire and a cup of tea. When the hour seemed appropriate, we opened up a bottle of McGuigan's Estate Shiraz from South Australia. The pepper and blackcurrant flavours worked well with the chili lamb burgers and the flame griddled sausages.

After a game of Frisbee, it was time to douse the fire, pack up and go home. I think we all slept better from not having to do it in the bivouac.

Thursday 3 May 2012

This week finds me organising my Parish Priest's Wine Cellar. A task that I had been putting off for nearly three years. Once they know you are into wine, people are always keen to show you the wine they have spent a life-time collecting. Whether this is because they are seeking approval or want to know that they got the bargain of the century, I don't know.

I am as bad, every time two history teachers from my secondary school days come and see me, I never fail to get drawn into an historic debate. Why I don't learn, I will never know.

So after Mass this week, we both descended into the cellar and started unpacking box after box of carefully wrapped wine bottles.
It was like being back in a sweet shop, with such a selection.
Sadly some wines were past their prime, others looked perfectly aged, it was a pleasure to sort them out.
Father very kindly gave me two bottles from the south of France.

The Chateau Des Sarrins, 2005, a Rosè  from Provence, was a wonderful treat. It was predominantly made from Cinsault grapes 50%, Grenach 35% and the balance  Syrah and Mourvèdre. It was a beautiful rose petal pink. I found intresting , because Cinsault is rarly the dominant grape in blends.

The second bottle was called "Rolle" from the same year and vineyard, sadly it was not at its best and had taken on sherry qualities