Champagne Days

Last weekend was a busy one, my eldest son was receiving his First Communion and we had a full house. There are times when you walk into your Cellar and say hang the expense,only the best will do. On the Saturday evening, I finished up the last of my Chateau Mademoiselle de Tracy.

This is a classic Pouilly Fume from the Loire, full of Gooseberries and Pineapple Cube Sweets on the nose. The taste is full of crunchy green apples and lemon zest, perfect for this warm evening.

With Pudding and Cheese, we opened a bottle of Sauternes, that came from Chateau Bastor-Lamontagne. The wine is predominantly made up of Semillion grape that has been infected with botrytis. This concentrates the flavour.

The straw gold Sauternes had the smell of burnt sugar, pear and vanilla pods. The taste of oranges and cloves initially, are followed by poached pear and Mucavado sugar. A perfect finish to the evening, if the evening had finished there. The homemade Sloa Gin came out and was polished off fairly promptly.

On the following day, our party were packed into a single pew for the service, thank goodness we had all bonded the night before.

 After a beautiful service, we headed home and started the first bottle, of what was to be a case of Champagne. The Champagne was bought from First Class Products and came from Leroux - Mineau.

The Rosé and Vintage Champagne are especially good. Tom Ellis, the Director of the company, quite literally provides a First Class Product. As the Champagne flowed, toasts were made and the weather held, it turned into another perfect day .