Winetime's Wine Blog

Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe blanc 2006

2010-05-28T11:49:00.002+01:00

As Chateauneuf-du-Pape goes, the British market tends only to drink red, of which you can find countless (mediocre) examples in supermarkets and middle-of-the-road restaurant wine lists.

Vieux Telegraphe, owned by the Brunier family, certainly does not belong in this category. The red wine of this estate has achieved an almost cult like status amongst Chateauneuf lovers and this white is not to be sniffed at either. A most excellent example of how white Chateauneuf should taste.

The white Châteauneuf, sourced from the five hectares of white varieties, is dominated by Clairette and Grenache Blanc, which comprise 40% and 30% of the blend respectively, followed by Bourboulenc and Roussanne which contribute 15% each. This wine is, however, more likely to see some oak, with some varieties, 40% of the total, fermented en barrique, whilst the remainder is fermented in stainless steel. It is aged in both, then bottled at nine months of age.

Colour: Deep rich golden white, sign of the 9 month oak ageing

Nose: Great minerality on the nose - sign of the great terroir on which it's grown in the Southern Rhone, the La Crau plateau

Palate: An array of white fruit such as peaches and apricots and also of violets. Great perfumed wine. The texture is gras, which is fantastic and the low alcohol for a white Rhone (13.5%) augurs well for the smooth and creamy finish this wine has. Slight herby notes and good acidity despite its 4 years of age.

Meerlust 'Red' 2005

2010-05-28T11:20:00.002+01:00

The Meerlust estate is a world reknowned estate located in the Stellenbosch region of South Africa, famed for its excellent examples of Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinotage.
The Meerlust "Red" is a Bordeaux Blend of 69% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot and 12% Cabernet Franc, which has been matured in barrel for 18 months before bottling (40% new French oak, 60% second fill barrels)

Colour: Deep, purple, inky black. Intense
Nose: Intense aromas of blackcurrant and other black fruits with surprisingly enough quite a nose of blackcurrant leaves with slight herbaceous notes.
Palate: Again quite powerful aromas of black fruit, chief amongst which blackcurrant. The 14% alcohol is hardly noticeable; it shows the wine has been very well crafted. Long long lingering finish with coffee aromas on the aftertaste. Deep, powerful, long-lasting wine.

Veuve.A.Devaux Cuvée D de Devaux 2000

2010-02-24T14:44:00.002Z

Devaux champagne is based in Bar-sur-Seine, in the Aube departement (the south) of the Champagne region where a great deal of all Champagne's provisions of Pinot Noir are from. The Grand Réserve NV by Devaux is normally an 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay blend although this is more a 60/40%. The 2000 vintage was a decent year in Champagne, not the best, although far from the worst with little mildew and rot in the vineyards producing a quality wine. Not as hot as let's say 2003, which means that the champagnes still have a good adicity. This champagne is aged on its lees for much longer than most - 7 years (which is 4 years more than stipulated by French AOC law for a vintage champagne)

Robe: Pale golden colour, slight green. Still youthful for 10 years old.

Nose: Not a typical champagne - not overly yeasty or biscuity but citrusy and big aromas of mango and slight vanilla.

Palate: Slight acidity but not harsh, crushed lime on the tip of the tongue, gooseberries and physalis are also present on the aftertaste. This champagne is not yet in its prime although it is drinking very well, further ageing to smooth it out even further would not do any harm.

La Revue du Vin de France: 15.5/20 (although I'd give slightly more)

Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill Cuvée 1998

2010-02-22T23:32:00.003Z

Pol Roger, a champagne house based in Épernay, was a firm favourite of war-time British prime minister, Winston Churchill and this champagne was created in his honour. Family friends, Churchill named his racehorse "Odette Pol Roger" after the lady of the house and he insisted she accompany him to lunch whenever he was at the British Embassy in Paris. In honour of his life, every bottle of Pol Roger since his death has been bordered with a black ribbon. In 1975 the first vintage of the Sir Winston Churchill Cuvée was released according to Churchill's tastes although in reality this champagne will be quite different to his as he, undoubtedly, drank champagne with a very high Pinot Meunier content. The proportions of grapes used in this blend are not made public, however one can hazard a guess that at least 80% of the blend is red grapes, more likely Pinot Noir than Meunier seen as this champagne is made from 100% grand cru vineyards. It is also worth noting, that this cuvée is only available in the UK and in no other country in the world, France included.

Robe: Peachy, straw with brown reflets (often a sign of tiredness but nothing of the sort)

Nose: Musty, well-aged, notes of oak ageing, strangely reminiscent of old red burgundy, forest floor

Palate: Extremely good length, different to any champagne I've ever tasted, oozes class, well balanced, candied fruit, christmas cake, mocha and coffee notes, deep and intense, big Pinot fruit.

Maybe one of the best champagnes ever produced!

Krug NV

2010-02-22T23:23:00.002Z

Krug, was until not long ago a family run business in Reims, before it was bought out by LVMH (along with Veuve Clicquot and the rest). The family still control winemaking in the business however and quality has not slipped in the slightest. The exact proportion of grapes in the blend are never confirmed - although one can easily taste that there is a high percentage of chardonnay there, most likely from grand cru sites such as Avize or Cramant (hence the chalky minerality in the wine). First fermentation in practised in oak fûts and/or foudres as well as the Malo where needed. Henri Krug blocks the malo on a lot of his older wines as he believes the malo will naturally take place in bottle over the course of its long ageing.

Robe: Deep golden, far far deeper than most, well aged.

Nose: Hazelnuts, beurre noisette, big extremely ripe exotic fruit

Palate: Sparkling Corton-Charlemagne, big rich, fat chardonnay cut through only by the bubbles. Not as steely as a blanc de blancs but well rounded and structured. Big, big Chardonnay!

Dom Pérignon 2000

2010-02-22T23:14:00.002Z

Dom Périgon is a champagne produced my Moet et Chandon (supposedly from grapes around the Abbaye de Hautvilliers although this is almost certainly impossible seen as Moet produced hundreds of thousands of cases of Dom Pé).

It is named after Dom Pierre Pérignon, the supposed inventor of champagne who after tasting the sparkling wine reportedly said "I'm drinking stars". We, of course, now know that Dom Pérignon was not the first person to produce champagne and it was, despite the outrage of the French, first produced by an Englishman! Despite the fact this isn't by any stretch of the imagine a rare champagne (hundreds of thousands of cases are produced annually) good marketing strageries with the help of Claudia Schiffer and Karl Lagerfeld demand a premium of over £100 a bottle.

Robe: Light, strawish with green reflets

Nose: Ripe exotic fruit, mango, with a slight earthiness

Palate: White flowers, white peach, very slight autolysis, quite acidic and quite short length.

La Revue du Vin de France summed this champagne up by saying that it isn't a regular Dom Pé, where you'd expected big, rich, toasty, yeasty flavours and if you were to take off the three 000's from the vintage, it would lose half its charm. 16/20 RVF

Louis Roederer Cristal 2002

2010-02-22T23:03:00.004Z

Cristal is the premium cuvée by Louis Roederer, a champagne house based in Reims. It was first produced for the Russian Tsars and strangely enough is the only champagne bottle I know that has no punt! This champagne is from the excellent 2002 vintage where weather conditions were perfect and there was minimal rot in the vineyards. This produced ripe grapes of fine maturity and champagnes with a fantastic potential for ageing. The best vintage since 2000 with the exception of 2009 (which when released should be exceptional).

Robe: Golden, paille, lucious yet clear.

Nose: Maderized in a positive sense - the goût anglais that the French rave about so much. Honeyed with a certain pepperiness, most certainly from the 60% Pinot Noir in the blend.

Palate: Slight menthal notes, sugared almonds with coffee notes. Unfortunately not much length despite the fact that this champagne has been aged for (at least) 5 years.

La Revue du Vin de France: 19/20

Langmeil GWH Viognier 2008

2009-11-14T19:30:00.002Z

The Langmeil winery is based in the Barossa Valley and is famous for its full-bodied, intense and strangely named reds amongst which, "Hangin' Snakes" and "Orphan Bank". The Langmeil winery is also home to the oldest Shiraz vine in the world. This white is named the GWH (Great White Hope). Langmeil hoped to find a great white, one to rival the great whites of the world i.e. Condrieu and of the like. Although this wine may not have the raffinity of a great Condrieu, it certainly has a lot of potential. The great thing about these Australian wines is that one doesn't have to do a lot of thinking whilst drinking. On the nose, one can immediately tell that this is a straight Viognier, aromas of peaches, white flowers with subtle notes of green apple. On the palate, we find a great creaminess, often associated with Viognier, it's like drinking apricots with fresh cream. Does that sound too sweet? Don't worry, the acidity cuts right through that to created a well balanced wine! Like the white Côtes du Rhône we tried a week or two ago, this is a credit-crunch alternative to Condrieu and one definately worth trying.

Beaune "Cent-Vignes" - Madeline Boillot 1979

2009-11-09T21:44:00.002Z

Fancying a little tasting of old vintages ending in '9', first this little Burgundy and then an Alsacian Gewurztraminer.

The Boillot family is based in Volnay, on Burgundy's Côte d'Or (Beaune) with Lucien Boillot still producing fine wine. The first of the two Beaunes '79 I drunk was produced by Michel Boillot and the second by Madeline Boillot (although they were to smell and taste the exact same wine). Drinking red Beaune, one is always aware of the fact that the wines here aren't as full bodied nor as 'chewy' as those of the prestigious Côte de Nuits but that shouldn't put you off. This wine, once opened and decanted (there was quite a bit of sediment) smelt as fresh as the day it was put in bottle. One would never have imagined that this wine is 30 years old. Full, young red cherries and vibrant redcurrants aromas are abundant on the nose and a light, pepperiness on the palate. A youthful red, pinot robe in the first glass. However, after a little time in the decanter we see the wine ageing slowly. This wine looks now much more like a mature Burgundy, that almost brick red colour as if a dash of ink has been injected into it. Much more like mature Burgundy on both the nose and palate as well, with elegant yet rustics notes of the farmyards and undergrowth emerge from the glass. A wine, which is far lighter than its northerly neighbours, i.e. Échézaux or any Chambertin yet with ripe, elegant flavours galore. I think this wine is too delicate to pair with any food yet to drink by itself, it was a delight. A great shame that I only had the two bottles...

Hugel Gewurztraminer SGN 1989

2009-11-09T21:10:00.003Z

Hugel, as any fan of Alsacian wine knows, produce consistently fine wine across their huge range of wines. They produce wines from all the main Alsacian grapes, Rieseling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer etc. The Hugel family are also big players in the two main debates taking place in Alsace at the moment: the amount of grand cru vineyards in Alsace (some of which do not deserve such merit) and the lack of sweetness rating on the labels (i.e. sec, demi-sec, doux), not to mention that Hugel believe that generic Alsace should always be dry.

On that note however, this wine by Hugel is incredibly sweet. A 'SGN' (séléction des grains nobles) is the sweetest classification of wine in Alsace. 1989 was a fantastic vintage for SGN wines and favoured the Gewurztraminer grape particularly well. This is the reason for which, this wine has aged so unbelievably well.

On the nose this wine has lychee notes with very slight turkish delight and ginger aromas. Even on the nose, one can perceive that the acidity is still present in the wine, cutting through that big residual sugar level. On the palate, one is overwhelmed by the grapefruit. It really is like cutting open a (pink) grapefruit and spooning out the juice. It is great to have the freshness and acidity of the wine still present after 20 years and this makes for a well balanced, well structured wine. At 14%, one would immediately think that this wine may be too alcoholic but to be quite honest the alcohol is very hard to spot. One could be forgiven for thinking that the ABV was far lower than it actually is (around the 11% mark wouldn't surprise me!)

Once again, a very nice wine, if only I'd had some foie gras with it....

Le Dôme Vertical

2009-11-05T10:55:00.007Z

Tasted 03/11/09

Le Dôme is a 3ha single vineyard (grand cru) in Saint-Emilion, situated next door to the acclaimed Château Angélus, owned by Jonathan Malthus of Château Teyssier. The vines were planted in the 1950's on sandy soil over a ironstone layer (crasse de fer). High proportion of old vine Cabernet Franc in the blend, 75% in some instances, the rest being Merlot.

Le Dôme 2004

75% Cabernet Franc. 25% Merlot. 14%abv.

Robe: Dark, black cherry, deep intensity.

Nose: Leather, mulberry, almost gravelly, slightly green with gamey and earthy aromas.

Palate: Noticable acidity, despite the full fruit, again leather on the palate.

Many of the tasters complained of a full 'attack' on the palate, which lingered into nothingness. I, on the otherhand, found effectively a full attack, no middle ground but quite a nice length. Questions were raised as to the longevity of this wine. I, personally, believe that this wine is a bit of a dark horse and will age for longer than expected, the noticable acidity in relation to the residual sugar and fruit augurs well for the future. 15/20

Le Dôme 2003

74% Cabernet Franc, 26% Merlot. 13.%abv.

Robe: Black cherry, doesn't have the colour spectrum of the 2004 but still very intense.

Nose: Very new world style nose, crushed black fruit, big jammy characteristics, not a typical Bordeaux.

Palate: Much more approachable than the 2004 due to the high fruit and sugar levels in comparison to the relavitely low acidity levels. Never-the-less, the wine gave suprisingly high tannins. Heatwave year in 2003, this heat has effectively killed the defined taste of the terroir and this wine could be, therefore, quite easily mistaken for something else.

All the tasters at the event, bar myself, found the 2003 superior to the 2004. Once again, doubts were raised as to the life expectancy of such a wine and as expected, as with a lot of the 2003, because of the heat, these wines were surely collapse in the not too distant future. This wine is however exactly the style of wine that the vast majority of consumers are wanting to drink. Big, highly extracted fruit-driven wines, reminiscent of those of the new world. 14/20

Le Dôme 2001

74% Cabernet Franc, 26% Merlot. 13%abv.

Robe: Much more typical Bordeaux robe. Slight maturity visible.

Nose: Typical Bordeaux, smokey and woody - one can tell that wine has been aged in French oak - despite the oakiness not being too overpowering. Almost minty nose afterwards.

Palate: Very supple wine with little tannin. However, the wine is incredibly well structured and the most nicely balanced of all the wines tasted thusfar. Enough crushed black fruits on the palate, with hints of white pepper and liquorice notes afterwards.

The whole tasting panel was divided between this and the 1999 as their favourite wine of the day. This for me, was the best, due to the fact that the wine was so well balanced and had aged remarkably well. Needless to say, however, there wasn't much in it. 18/20

Le Dôme 1999

Robe: Intense, typical Bordeaux once again, purplelish with faint signs of brick red.

Nose: Leather like the '04 with a certain flintiness. It is perceivable that that '04 is a younger version of this wine.

Palate: Excellent Bordeaux, unbelievably well aged, mushroomy and earthy like a fully-extracted Côte de Nuits Burgundy. Meaty wine. Still has youth on its side as well.

A great wine made from not the most textbook of vintages. We were most suprised to see such youthful characteristics in a wine with 10 years worth of ageing behind it. This bodes extremely well for the future. This is a wine, which will certainly outlive the 2003 if not the other two vintages as well. 17/20

Domaine Saint-Dominique, Côtes du Rhône Blanc 2006

2009-11-02T09:08:00.002Z

This lovely little wine is a new line of ours at Winetime so we'd thought we'd give it a try.

Domaine St-Dominique is a great producer located in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, quite close to the world reknowned Château de Beaucastel. This is a Côtes du Rhône Blanc made from Viogner and Clairette grape varieties. Viogner has been brought to the limelight via the supreme wines of Condrieu but Clairette remains still a fairly unknown grape vareity despite its ability to add a certain finesse to wines.

To look at the wine, we see the famed paille colour, like golden straw. Nice fatty wine.The wine on the nose gives of plentiful aromas of fresh, ripe peaches and we also have violets in exuberence. Once tasted, lashings of peaches and apricots on the palate. A dry wine with the undercover sweetness of the fruit also perceivable. The flavours are knitted together well and the wine was very well balanced in terms of fattiness and acidity.

This is a poor man's Condrieu - yet not in the least bit inferior. A class wine!

Mâcon Villages 2006 - Joseph Drouhin

2009-10-22T15:59:00.004+01:00

Well after the Pinotage (I didn't drink it all-don't worry) I had to see what else I had in the wine rack/fridge. Luckily in the fridge was one of my favourite everyday drinking whites - this little Mâcon-Villages by Joseph Drouhin.

For those in the know - Drouhin is a very large négociant in Beaune, on Burgundy's Côte d'Or. The range of wines from this very famous producer is immense and the price/quality ratio is without competition in my opinion.

Drinking the wine chilled but not too cold - the nose reveals aromas of white flowers and slight hints of cashew nuts. On the palate we find a rich wine, nutty but not too overpowering.

One would expect a big, opulent Chardonnay packed with butter and hazelnuts as one would normally get from a Meursault or Chassagne-Montrachet. The Mâcon has this to a certain extent but not too much, which renders the wine far easier to drink. A class wine.

Ghost Tree Pinotage 2005

2009-10-22T13:11:00.005+01:00

Pinotage is a grape variety, which one only finds in South Africa. It is a hybrid of Pinot Noir and Cinsault. Not normally a great fan of pinotage, I thought I'd give this one a shot - just to give myself a bit of a change from the European wines that I normally drink.

The wine in the glass had a deep reddish purple colour, reminiscent of an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon. Nice aromas of plums on the nose. Quite a jammy wine to be honest. On the palate however, this wasn't my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a bad wine, just not my wine. A little too sweet in the mouth for my liking (probably the reason for which I'm not the greatest fan of Pinotage!) Apparently there is only 2.8g/l of residual sugar, but I'm convinced that there's more. One of the sweetest reds I've had (excluding the likes of some German Dornfelder or Greek Xinomavro).

I could imagine this wine would go well with a nice duck breast fillet and the distinct level of sweetness would certainly provide a bit of warmth on a cold Sunday. Give it a try, see what you think and let me know!

Banyuls - Michel Chapoutier 2007

2009-10-20T10:58:00.007+01:00

Michel Chapoutier is a well known and reputed wine maker from the Rhône valley - many probably know him for his Châteauneuf-du-Pape or his remarkable Condrieu, I dare say few know him for this little wine.

Banyuls is the most southerly appellation in France, down in the Languedoc-Roussillon where the heat beats down over many months of glorious sunshine on the little grenache grapes, which produce this wine.

This is a Vin doux naturel (or VDN - Natural Sweet Wine) not dissimilar to the wines of Rivesaltes. At 16%, I was expecting a slight headache the next day, which I didn't get - so that's a plus point in my book.

The wine has a stewed raisin nose with slight aromas of Pedró Ximinès sherry and once tasted dark chocolate notes leap onto the tongue and coat it in a layer of coffee and almonds. Mmm Mmm.

With the winter days closing in and with the last few days of ice-cool white wine drinking coming to an end (although a bottle of Meursault may find itself sat next to the Christmas Turkey), these deep, intense reds are what is in order to keep the cold at bay!

Keith

3 Stones Riesling

2009-10-19T09:55:00.004+01:00

3 Stones Riesling 2007

Coming from New Zealand's North Island, from Hawke's Bay to be exact - this wine was a great surprise upon opening. Riesling is, as we all know, one of the all time great grapes of both Alsace and Germany and to be honest, I didn't expect much to come from this specimen, especially having recently had some very fine Alsacien nectar.

First of all it makes a great apéritif as the wine is only 11% (due to the cool New Zealand climate) - well done in my opinion, we need more wines like this. On the nose, a huge surprise - nice oily, diesel aromas spring from the glass (Riedel Riesling of course), aromas, which one would normally associate with well aged German or Alsacian wines and not from a 2 year old Kiwi one (and definately not from one, which costs half the price of a lot of the aforementioned wines). In the mouth we have a nice gras texture, that almost fatty sensation one gets from a fine chardonnay for example. Notes of crushed lime are evident on the palate - the back label really doesn't lie. It was like a vinous Caprihinia on the tongue. There was also a certain acidity there , which counterbalanced the gras feeling very well, the fattiness also cloaking to a certain extent the acidity - a very well balanced wine.

It's true to say that Riesling has, in a fashion, fallen out of wine drinker's vogue, which is a great shame. The profilic aussie winemaker, Mr Wolf Blass recently told Decanter magazine, that he thinks Australian wine makers should concentrate on Riesling instead of producing wines from every other possible grape variety under the sun. I'd be more than happy to taste some of these wines providing they were as good as this one.

Keith

Morgon - Domaine Charles Jenny

2009-10-16T21:22:00.005+01:00

Morgon - Côte de Py - Domaine Charles Jenny

For years Beaujolais has had a bad reputation over recent years, what with Georges Duboeuf, the so-called 'King of Beaujolais' dragging down the already quite down-trodden reputation of the wines of the Beaujolais by selling inferior quality wine and trying to fool his loyal clients into buying shoddy versions of his once great cuvées and with the annual release of the not-all-too-great-beaujolais-nouveau. This particular wine comes from the Beaujolais Cru 'Morgon', perhaps the greatest and most certainly the longest-lived of all of the ten crus beaujolais and from the Côte de Py area of Morgon, perhaps the greatest area of this appellation. A surprisingly rich, dense wine, which one wouldn't normally associate with the wines of this region, nor of the Gamay grape variety, the grape, which makes up 100% of this wine.

On the nose we find a very flowery, perfumed wine - fragrant notes of irises and violets and once tasted, dark cherries and a slight pepperiness spring onto the palate. We tasted this wine ever so slightly chilled in order to firm up the tannins and we were glad to find a wine with a low ABV. Well 13% is low nowadays with Australian and Chilean blockbuster reds packing a huge 15% ABV in some instances.

This wine could easily substitute for a light Burgundy, one from the Côte Chalonnaise rather than those of the Côte d'Or or the big, chewy wines of the Côte des Nuits, a light Mercurey, perhaps. A nice wine, easy to drink, easy to open a second bottle....and a third....

Keith

Champagne Tasting.....

2009-10-13T10:07:00.000+01:00

Under the doom and gloom of the financial crisis and after reading the front page of The Telegraph, which kindly lets us know that we're all 3 days from catching some sort of incurable flu...I thought a little Champagne tasting may be in order....if bubbles can't fix a problem, what can?

We tasted 3 champagnes: Ayala Blanc de Blancs 2002, Veuve.A.Devaux Blanc de Noirs NV and Louis Roederer's Carte Blanche Demi-Sec, also NV.

Ayala Blanc de Blancs 2002: Ayala is a champagne house, which was founded in 1860, but which has been recently bought by Bollinger (also based in the village of Ay, (pronounced 'ai-ee') and hence the name AYala). This is Pinot Noir country yet this prestige cuvée is 100% Chardonnay. And strangely enough, Ayala doesn't think to put the words 'Grand Cru' on its label despite the fact that all the Chardonnay grapes for this wine are of Grand Cru status (50% from Mesnil-sur-Oger, 25% Cramant and 25% from Chouilly). This is, therefore, a very serious wine from a very serious vintage.
A very pale robe with a slight lemon hue with an almond and brioche nose. A fine persistant trail of bubbles also mark this champagne. On the palate, the Champagne shows less acidity than expected, almost creamy - undoubtedly through the malolactic fermentation not being blocked and it has good length in the mouth. A rich and opulent chardonnay with the steeliness of a decent Burgundy. Puligny-Montrachet with bubbles!

Veuve.A.Devaux Blanc de Noirs N.V:
Moving completely to the other end of the champagne spectrum this time with a 100% Pinot Noir Champagne. Veuve.A.Devaux is a champagne house founded in 1846 (originally where Perrier-Jouët now stands) but now based in the Aube, the most southern area of Champagne, in Bar-sur-Seine. The Aube is a huge supplier of Pinot Noir to the larger champagne houses in the more northerly Marne, Veuve Clicquot and Piper-Heidsieck to name but a couple, so it goes without saying that the black grapes here are second to none.
On the nose a typical Aubois Pinot Noir nose with red berries, bitter black cherries and aniseed.
On the palate, a big round, yeasty wine as one would expect with minty notes towards the end and almost a powered sugar sensation on the tip of your tongue despite the low 11g/l dosage.
Excellent.

Louis Roederer Carte Blanche Demi-Sec NV:
From the great Champagne house in the Marne from whom we have Cristal, Roederer is one of the few grandes marques who produce such a quality medium-sweet cuvée. We used this as a dessert, almost a digéstif towards the end of the evening and rightly so seeing as it has a huge 45g/l of residual sugar thanks to the dosage. A powerful, intense wine. On the nose we find apples and pears followed by a liquid pear-drop sensation on the palate. Caramalised quince flavours were also dominant through the lightly frothy mousse. This could quite easily substitute a medium sherry as a Christmas mid-morning drink and would work quite well with a tart fruit dessert.

Champagne tasting over but more to come, I can assure you.
Santé,
Keith

Future Events....

2009-10-10T14:54:00.003+01:00

It was good to see so many of you at our annual wine tasting at the Longland's Hotel on Saturday, 3rd October.

This is the start of our run-up to Christmas with the introduction of our new offers and selected tastings for loyalty scheme members.

Here is a taster of what we have planned for the festive season:

* 5th December - Bollinger Champagne Tasting, Special Cuvée, Bollinger Rose and Bollinger Grande Année 1999 -

FREE to loyalty scheme members, £10 to non-associates.

* 12th & 19th December - Loyalty scheme members have the chance to try free of charge:

12th December - Corton grand cru, 2000, Hospices de Beaune, Cuvée Docteur Peste by Jaffelin

19th December - Château Batailley grand cru classé, Pauillac, 2001

We will, also, post a weekly blog in order to inform you of the wines we have been drinking - including tasting notes etc.

We look forward to seeing you in the very near future.

The Winetime Team