A brief report from the London Wine and Spirit Trade Fair

The Elitist Review editorial team took a visit to the London Wine and Spirits Trade Fair last Thursday. Here we are:

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In that picture we are drinking tasting Taylor’s 1985, which was quite delicious. Very soft, mature and accessible, I thought. Mentzendorff also had some Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas 2001 which was terribly impressive, quite fiery though. The Henriques and Henriques Madeiras slipped down an absolute treat, the 15 year old Bual and Malmsey especially. Bollinger is always good, although I was not so impressed with the 2000 vintage, seemed a touch diffuse. There were some wonderful Hidalgo wines on offer including an intriguing 1986 vintage-dated Oloroso sherry which I got the last slug of and thought was just great.

Over at the Liberty Wines stand it was good to try the most recent offerings from Jaboulet. They had a new winemaker for the 2006 vintage and I though the Crozes Thalabert 2006 was particularly good; a real return to quality. Their new labels were bloody awful, though. 2008 Grosset Polish Hill Riesling was frighteningly acidic, but serious Riesling. Cepparello 2005 was there, bottled in a screwcap which pleased me. It was a touch austere, though.

On the German wine institute stand we tried some good stuff. Dr Loosen 2008s seemed hilariously acidic, but with good fruit. Indeed, this seemed very much the story of the 2008 vintage in Germany, acidic but fruity. Some Leitz 07s were drinking very well (apart from Ein Zwei Dry which was bloody awful) and an 04 from them had survived better than I would expect from Leitz. Donnhoff 07s were totally wonderful and an 05 Oberhauser Brucke Auslese warped my mind even further with its loveliness.

Daniel dropped by a wine stand he thought suited him:

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Weight Watcher’s wine, what a vile idea.

On the spirits side I tried some surprisingly drinkable sparkling vodka, some terribly nice pre-mixed cocktails from New Zealand, some properly good vodka about which an interesting film is being made (good stuff that Zorokovich, I was impressed) and some absinthe:

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My final piece of hilarity for the day was that a couple of people came up to me at various points and told me how much they liked Elitist Review and that they were regular readers. I was highly amused and thought it was good for the ego.

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A large picture of me will do in the ego department too.

Many thanks to Jeff for the pictures.

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