London Wine Week Part 2

So after a couple of days respite (not from drinking you understand, just from wine week...) I dragged another drinking companion along to a night of tasting mixed flights from around the globe. We started at the Freixenet stall in Devonshire Square. Alongside their Cavas was a new addition to the family - a Prosecco! The bottle is beautiful but I am not much of a fan of Prosecco (bucking the trend with the rest of the UK I know) so I stuck with their Spanish tipple produced in the traditional method.

We then had a quick stop at New Street Wine Shop for the same flight as my first night (but with me having both samples of red and swapping out my rose...)

Then off the English Wine and Spirits Company (which I have been to a fair few times) which confusingly also goes by the name The Wine Pantry. Here we tried 3 English Wines with cheeses. The cheese in particular was excellent, but I still haven't found an English red wine I enjoy. It's simply not hot enough here to give me anything more than a light bodied wine and that's just not what I enjoy in a red. However the whites were enjoyable enough, and I like to support English wine where I can...

 

The 1901 wine bar, part of the Andaz hotel was next up. It's a lovely bar, really elegant and right next to Liverpool Street Station. I tried 3 Rieslings here and they were a revelation. I normally avoid French/German/Austrian Rieslings often not really enjoying the off dry/floral taste. But these were super! From Pfluger in Pfalz, the 2nd largest wine growing region in Germany. If you get the chance to try any of these really reasonably priced delicious Rieslings, I would recommend you do.

We went back down to Devonshire Row, for our final of the evening: The Bull and Hide 

Here we had a flight from Hush Heath a Kentish producer based in Tonbridge. Enjoyable but again the red did nothing for me. I picked up a leaflet about the vineyard though, as it looked suitably lovely enough to visit over the summer...

 2 days of London Wine Week down, 1 to go...

London Wine Week Part 1

So here it is again. London Wine Week! The first night I went out I was with a red wine drinker, so this narrowed the field somewhat. After picking up our London Wine Week wristbands from Devonshire Square (which gave us access to 120 odd bars around town) we went straight to the Portuguese wine stall next door where we had 2 different flights of red. The premium flight was definitely worth £3 more and the best of these was the first wine I had - Julian Reynolds Reserva 2009. Delicious and just what I love from Portuguese reds - full body, high alcohol and sumptuous flavours!

We then went to the New Street Wine Shop, where I had a flight of three (white, rose and red) and my drinking chum had a glass of Argentian Malbec. This is a really nice wine shop and bar that we have visited before and the staff talked us through each of the wines in the flight. 

Then off to Iberica in Farringdon for 3 Tempranillos. The excellent wine waiter from last year was there again and talked us through what we were drinking. This was our favourite wine of the evening and it was made all the better by us ordering delicious tapas to go with it. The pork burgers and croquettas were particularly lovely. We also got a free aperitif of hazelnut liquer. It was like liquid biscotti! Absolutely delicious. 

We finished the evening in Vinoteca in Kings Cross. I really like the various Vinotecas around town, and was pleasantly surprised by the 3 house wines they gave us to try. They were much nicer than the price would suggest...

And home by 11pm! A very pleasant first evening for London Wine Week...

A Plethora of Wine Tastings

One of the great things about living in London is the amount of wine tastings that take place every week. I've been to a number of delicious wine tastings over the past few months. First up was a red wine tasting at Holborn Delicatessen (part of the Rosewood Hotel) led by their sommelier Michael Raebel. He gave us a number of small pots with various aromas in and asked us to guess what they were. This was a really good way of making us focus on smell rather than taste. I got all of them right apart from one. I thought I was getting burnt orange peel and actually it was prunes in armanac - close...! We tried 5 wines from Argentina with some meats and cheeses, as Michael talked us through each of them including some interesting facts about the buying process.

Another Davy's tasting event at Vitners' Hall - and it was a very busy affair. We had originally booked on the afternoon session, but were moved onto the evening session. It was incredibly crowded - the most busy I have seen a Davy's event. Rather full tummies from afternoon tea at The Savoy and the battles to get to each tasting table meant we didn't stay as long as perhaps we would have normally done. Still I managed to put in an order of 12 bottles of wine...

We had an interesting evening at Bedales in Borough Market. A lovely wine bar, we were seated upstairs with big platters of cheese and meat and the very knowledgeable staff member talked us through 6 bio-dynamic and organic wines. A really enjoyable evening but none of the wines particularly floated my boat, with the exception of the last one (a blended red) which at £40 a bottle was lovely but I have had nicer wines for cheaper...