Fine New Zealand Pinot Noir is often more boozy than Burgundy but with a similar tannin and acidity profile. Escarpment 2009, made by the brilliant Larry McKenna, provides a really fun and highly enjoyable example of the style. I must admit to leaning a bit in favour of Larry’s wines. He came to Oxford when [...]
This will be a brief report, but I hope to capture the brilliance of the occasion that was lunch with Keith Prothero. Not only is he a lovely fellow, but all his friends are too, and all share exquisite taste in food and drink. Best lunch I’ve had in ages – well done Nigel P-M [...]
Sometimes you fancy something different, happens to us all, and so you shop outside your normal parameters. Of course, this is a path fraught with danger and the peril of heinous suffering. We all do it anyway. The Albarino was the only white wine, beyond Sherry, I have found I could reliably manage to tolerate [...]
I’ll come clean, when I find that a Riesling has low alcohol and is bottled with a bit of residual sugar I am a real sucker for it. I buy a bottle enthusiastically and hope it’ll deliver even a small fraction of the thrilling, nervy tension of wines made in the home of this style, [...]
Sometimes one forgets how fortunate one is. Editor Daniel pointed out this bottle of dry Tokaji in Fortnum and Mason and asked if it was worth buying as he had never tried one. “You’ve never tried dry Tokaji!” I said with such incredulity he could have just said that ex-PM Gordon Brown was a really [...]
Before the slight unpleasantness of Christmas day I wrote a . I promised tasting notes would follow – finally they do. When the Elitistreview team tasted these wines we found ourselves thinking that, at the price points they go for, Masi Tupungato delivered wines of a high degree of sophistication and made with great attention [...]
Recently a Master of Wine friend said he wanted to try more Argentinian Malbec. As a classical drinker I though this a tad odd, until I recalled my first experience with fine Argentinian wine. As long-time readers will know, I’ve been in loony bins far too often. Once, on an escorted trip outside, I spotted [...]
Yesterday I had the great pleasure to dine at Hawksmoor, London’s best meat restaurant, in the company of some engaging and entertaining chaps. Many thanks to Guy Dennis for organising it; it was lovely to see you and Paul Day again and distinctly jolly to make the acquaintance of Nigel Platts-Martin, a restauranteur with a [...]
Last night I was very happy to host a fellow wine blogger (Torsten from Winerambler) and my old chum ‘The Kid’ Peter for a Riesling and Pinot Noir-themed tasting. We drank copiously and terribly well. The wines were served blind which heightened our critical faculties. Even the English wine was good (immensely unbelievable as that [...]
Last night I organised a little blind tasting for some friends. I thought nothing could charm them more than some red Burgundy. I served them in a flight of two then a flight of three, with the order of the wines in each flight randomised. Some of the wines were notably better than others. The [...]
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