Today marks five years since my partner moved to England. If view of all of the wonderful times we have had together we decided to celebrate with something damned good. Champagne Cuvée Nicolas-François 1996, Billecart-Salmon A luxuriant nose of ripe red apple fruit with the merest hint of cold cocoa. This smells quite youthful and [...]
I’m not feeling too happy today and wine is not a cheap substitute for happiness it is an expensive pre-requiste for happiness: I’ve opened another bottle. Volnay Premier Cru 2001, Domaine de Montille It is really very pale in colour. A bright nose of cherries and strawberries. This smells quite beautiful. The palate has really [...]
I don’t drink that much Chianti, indeed I can only really think of three producers whose wines I buy out of choice. This one is my favourite. What a name it has got, though. Berardenga Rancia Chianti Classico Riserva 1999, Felsina A soft nose of maturing red fruit. Still smells quite lively, though, and its [...]
I cooked a chili last night. This is a really simple thing to make, but it is a rich, satisfying meal. You can also cook enough so that there is some left for lunch the next day. Key ingredients in a nice, but I am sure completely non-traditional, chili are: Streaky bacon; quite a lot [...]
Someone asked in a comment, this seems an ideal thing to turn into a cheap blog entry. Good internet/mail-order companies include: Stone, Vine and Sun (Mmmm… they’ve got Cathiard), Lea and Sandeman (they’ve got shops in London), Howard Ripley (a great list with good German stuff too, good for en primeurs, sadly not much depth [...]
Two wines opened at the neighbours place of a Sunday afternoon. We were bored and wanted something nice. These are really quite nice. Morey-Saint-Denis 2001, Domaine Dujac Silky, complex fruit nose. It has a lot of soft earth and rich complexity. This is lovely. On the palate there is a vigorous amount of tannin, but [...]
In response to my post someone commented that Burgundy at the bottom of the pile is not as good as Bordeaux for the same money. I couldn’t agree less. I think Burgundy is a bargain relative to Bordeaux. Some wines I’ve had recently demonstrate this very clearly. Today I popped a bottle of Domaine Arlaud [...]
Trimbach make some great Rieslings. They don’t do malolactic fermentation to soften the acid and ferment them dry so they can be quite austere and rigorous. Given plenty of time in the cellar they can become really charming and lovely. Being a late harvest wine has helped with the charm factor in this wine. Riesling [...]
We have popped another half bottle of ; it is really terribly good. It has great elegance and refinement despite still being a bit closed. It is really silky and concentrated. This is lovely Burgundy. We’ve only got one more half left, alas. I should say we opened this because the 1704″]Santa Duc Gigondas Prestige [...]
One of the problems with Zind-Humbrecht wine is that you can never really know before you taste them what they are going to be like. Olivier Humbrecht has stated putting an indication of sweetness on the labels, but so far this seems to be quite a fanciful scale with little grounding in reality. The wines [...]
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