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...

Dessert and Fortified Wine at home

So a friend came over for dinner but we decided to skip starter, have a small main of carbonara and focus on two desserts and cheese. 

This was so we could enjoy a couple of dessert wines and a couple of Ports.

We had a Szent Tamas, Tokaji with a pecan pie and ice cream. It was lovely, but I think I probably could have kept it much longer (it was 2011). Honeyed sweet deliciousness.

With the apple crumble (and more ice cream!) we had a Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley, Domaine des Forges. It was a lovely, not dissimilar to the Tokaji and apparently can age for between 15-20 years.  

Stilton, brie, Austrian smoked and some aged red Leicester drunk with a 20 year old Tawny Port (from Marthas) and then a Reserve Ruby Port from Quinta de la Rosa

Both were pleasant and worked well with the cheese although I think I have to finish the Tawny and may have had it open a bit too long. 

Definitely want to pop into Quinta de la Rosa when I visit the Douro in a couple of months...

A bottle of Italian Merlot and the end of a bottle of Corbiere made for a very nice evening's drinking...and eating

Portuguese Wine Tasting

Having gone to Portugal in May 2016 and been forced to drink much of the local wine due to the wettest May for 50 years, I was excited to go to a Portuguese Wine Tasting at Harry's bar in the city to get my hands on some more Touriga Nacional. The event actually took place before Christmas and I wrote this post at the time, but just never put it up!

I persuaded a fellow big red lover to join me, and we walked into the bar just a little bit more excited than we should be for a Tuesday evening (we might have had a couple of small beverages en route). The event was run by husband and wife team (Steven and Michelle) who own the Portuguese Vinhos website. We were introduced to a couple of light ports mixed with soda and some fruit as an aperitif. The red was definitely more to my taste than the white, but I could see how they were trying to get port to appeal to a younger audience. It's probably a nice drink in the heat of the summer sun in Portugal...

The evening started off by Steven telling us a little bit about the main growing regions of the country, which was a great reminder of what I learnt when I was out there. They then introduced a lady from the Martha Port company, who took us through what ports her family had been making for the past 4 generations.

Then we moved onto the best bit, the tasting. My partner in crime for the evening is not a massive fan of white or pink, so the Vinho Verde was off the menu for us. This wasn’t really an issue for me, as I think green wine is best enjoyed sitting in the sun in Portugal (or any other hot climate for that matter). So we started with some lesser bodied reds (makes them sound like a bird) before moving onto the main event for me – various blends of Touriga.

We really enjoyed a number of the fuller bodied reds (particularly those from the Douro), and the Rocha Rosa (2011 and 2012) was very quaffable and a good price at £12 a bottle. Between us we made up an order for a case of reds for the Christmas season (and I have managed to hold a couple back for these long winter months!)

We saved the best for last with the Port tasting. We know what we like so didn't waste any time on young Ruby Port, and instead went straight for a 20 year old and a 40 year old tawny port. I’ve never had a 40 year old anything before, so the taste and aroma really was something special. But at £55 for a bottle it was a  bit steep for my tastes. Instead the pair of us purchased a bottle of the 20 year old Tawny – a treat for Christmas.

If you haven't tried Portuguese wine, I really recommend you do. I have enjoyed everything I have tasted with Touriga Nacional in its blend. 

Visit: Portuguese Vinhos

The Wine Show

Belated Happy New Year!

I didn't realise it had been so long since I last posted. I do have a number of wine tales from the past few months and I will get them up on here as soon as my workload allows...

But I wanted to quickly share that The Wine Show is being repeated on ITV at the moment. I didn't catch it last year when it was first aired, but it is a very enjoyable magazine style show with actors Matthew Rhys and Matthew Goode, and wine expert Joe Fattorini.

Based in a lovely villa in Italy, Joe helps the actors understand more about wine and many of the gadgets that are on sale. They also go various field trips around the world trying wines in some fabulous locations.

Light hearted and informative. Check it out: The Wine Show