Last weekend we had the good fortune to visit the Tully family in Jersey. Whilst Edward Tully and I ran the Oxford University blind tasting team we tasted quite a lot of wine together; indeed, in one academic year over three thousand different ones. Student life was not always a trial. Our last trip to [...]
Given my title for this post I want to make it abundantly clear that my violent illness had nothing to do with lovely Richard and his brilliant cooking. Sometimes my insanity expresses itself in physical terms and I was inordinately unhappy that the trek across London messed with my mind so much that more spew [...]
My chum James had been looking after his young son for the past few days without the aid of his enchanting wife Katie. He managed so admirably a bit of diverting entertainment was certainly deserved. To provide this Peter, Daniel and I trekked out to Clapham for a little blind-tasting session and some rather nice [...]
Last night the Elitistreview team hosted Peter from Hand-Picked Burgundy and ‘The Kid’ Peter of international consulting fame; we drank extraordinarily well. The only let-down of the night was that a bottle of Lafon Volnay Clos des Chenes was totally corked. I really love Lafon reds so this was a pain, but HPB Peter had [...]
I scored a bunch of 2009 Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling Kabinetts and I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast them. Peter was in Town so he came along as did first-time visitor to casa Strange Guy Dennis. He said he likes this site, which clearly marks him out as a chap of style and [...]
It seems Hawksmoor is our favourite restaurant in London at the moment; it is certainly London’s best meat restaurant. They indubitably delivered the goods when celebrating Non-Stinky Jeff’s birthday, providing wonderful bits of grilled animal. I recommend Tamworth belly ribs followed by a hilariously rare sirloin steak with two fried eggs, bone marrow and macaroni [...]
Last week a select few of the wine taster illuminati who were at Oxford contemporaneously with me travelled from far-flung corners of the world to meet at Hawksmoor for quality meat, fine wine and, it seemed, a rather large amount of discussion about being a father to a young child. Even though I felt deeply [...]
Daniel’s mother is visiting and we have opened a really good bottle of fizz. To be honest, I’m quite surprised how totally fantastic it is. Vintage Champagne 1996, Alfred Gratien This has a powerful cocoa nose, but there is a lot of sophisticated fruit there as well. This certainly smells big, but there is some [...]
Today marks the eighth anniversary of the partner and I moving in together; eight wild but happy years. Seems a good excuse for fine Champagne. Grand Annee Brut 1996, Bollinger There is a lot of cold cocoa on the nose, hints of meat and digestive biscuits as well. It is a big, powerful nose with [...]
Sorry to my international reader, but these Champagnes seemed such bargains I had to alert my UK reader. Cedric Bouchard has made some of the best Champagnes I’ve had. , I was stunned by its complexity and purity of expression. It cheered me up no end when I was ludicrously insane. I had for the [...]
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