The Editor and I travelled into The Big Smoke to meet Swedish wine writer Erica Landin in Hawksmoor Spitalfields earlier today. She seemed impressed by our capacity to eat, the general pricing policies of London and the specific pricing policy of Hawksmoor. Fair enough. Erica’s experience of wine journalism in Sweden is somewhat different to [...]
On Sunday we had great fun hosting Guy Dennis and his fiancée Marie-Pierre. It was great that Guy had found a partner so charming and generally lovely. Shame only one of the other four things Guy brought along was any good. The meal was a great success (once again) for the meat of Woodlands Jersey [...]
Being fairly new to the Winchester area it is good to make new friends. Consequently, on Monday night we enjoyed going the The Old Forge in Otterbourne to go drinking with Stone, Vine and Sun’s Simon Taylor and Gordon Coates. They are the local serious wine merchant and based upon what we enjoyed together I [...]
Once again it was our pleasure to host Peter Sidebotham (of Hand-Picked Burgundy) and Peter Palmer (the Black Sea wanderer) at Elitistreview Towers. We drank quite mind-bogglingly well, but I was a tad dejected that three weeks off the sauce whilst in hospital has done my historically epic tolerance no favours at all. I was [...]
Unless you know the producer and vintage of a Cote-Rotie before you pop it, you can often be surprised by the variation in styles they show. Some are heavy and dense, some light and refined. Some can be as Bretty as a farmyard whilst others clean as a whistle. My preference is for the clean, [...]
I love Domaine du Colombier’s Northern Rhone wines – not only are they brilliant examples of their appellations they are also extremely reasonably priced. When one is on a nutcase income that helps a lot. Clearly, the red and white Hermitage wines are the things to get if you have (a not excessive amount of) [...]
I suppose this is a bit off of me, the poor chap does need a rest after all those years of hard work, but I was so disconsolate when I learned that 2005 was Jean Lionnet’s final vintage before he retired and sold off his vineyards. His prestige cuvee Cornas, Domaine de Rochepertuis, was one [...]
When you pop a few bottles with your chums just for random drinking you don’t always expect them all to deliver superior, serious drinking value. I did very well tonight with those I opened. Indeed, some of them dished out quality of such coruscating brilliance I don’t think I’ll be able to experience them in [...]
Part two of my report on the Ile d’Amour larks is about the red wines. Edward has a bit of a thing for Claret, which my long-term reader will know I view as over-priced, over-hyped and just so god-damned dreary. But I liked the two he popped (hmmmm… liked? Perhaps ‘endured with a smile’). The [...]
The wines popped last night were clearly in a stage that provided much pleasure as we drank them. That being said I feel there would be no risk putting them, even the relatively humble Saint-Joseph, in the cellar for a reasonable period of time. I don’t drink sweet white Bordeaux that often but, , it [...]
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