The Sampler

So don't tell me you haven't ever been to The Sampler?! It's one of my favourite places to take both locals and out of towners for a bit of a different evening. My dad and I (and once my brother too!) have also enjoyed a few Saturday afternoons sharing the delights of the shop.

There are 2 of them in London - South Kensington and Islington. My favourite is on Upper Street in  Islington, mainly because it's much nearer my home!

Gorgeous fridges full of lovely whites...

The Sampler are primarily wine shops that also let you sample up to 80 white, red and rose wines at any one time. You pay for what you try based on a sample size of 25ml, 50ml or 75ml. The price of your sample depends on the price of the bottle, so a £60 bottle of wine would cost £2, £4 or £6 depending on the size of your sample. They use inert gas to keep the wine fresh and use the Enomatic system (fancy fancy fridges!).

They have a really wide variety with wines from across the world divided up by grape. This is particularly fascinating as you can try Riesling from 3 different countries one after the other, and really get a sense of how different climates and earth affect the grapes and ultimately the wine.

So of course this means that you can try before you buy, but more importantly for me, you can try things you wouldn't normally, including some rather old/expensive/fine wines. The most expensive I have seen on display is £200!

Guess who snagged the large glass for red...

So next time you are in either area, go in, greet the friendly staff, get a sample card, pop £20 on it and go wild in the aisles! Then you can buy a bottle or a couple of bottles to take home with you.

Get some friends together and pretend you know what you are doing...

Don't choose a wine by it's label (but this one is rather beautiful!)

Everything you need to know about the colours of wine in one handy poster!

Love me the Enomatic system...

For more information and opening times go to: http://www.thesampler.co.uk/

New wine tasting - Pedro Ximenez

Popping into a pleasant wine and cocktail bar on Upper Street in Islington before meeting some friends, I tried my first glass of Pedro Ximenez. Known for being a great grape for creating Sherry, in this instance it was a glass of very dry, rather too crisp almost tasteless Chilean white.
For me it had little depth, flavour or nose, and I can only assume that it gets much better as it ages on the vine and gets sweeter and sweeter...

Not one I will be trying again!

Dry, light high altitude vineyards deliver a crisp, fresh wine with peach nose

Trying English wine and pairing wine with food...

On Friday I went back to the English Wine and Spirits Company in Devonshire Row (a 2 minute walk from Liverpool St station). It's a lovely little shop/small wine bar, that as the name suggests specialises in English wine and spirits. They sell wine by the glass and the bottle, and if you want to choose one of their wines to drink on the premises, that's fine, you just pay corkage on it.

English wine is becoming more and more popular, with our sparkling wine in particular winning numerous awards around the world. There is (according to the assistant) currently little red that isn't light or medium bodied, so I knew that wasn't going to float my boat at all.

Arriving a little earlier than my partner in crime for the evening, I asked the assistant what they had that I would fancy, giving her a steer on the kind of thing I like and that I wasn't in the mood for sparkling.

She came back with a taster of a lovely dry white wine from Devon. It was a Bacchus 2013 from Sharpham. It was lovely! Citrussy and fresh, it is a grape that has been made from 3 varieties, the only one I recognised being Riesling. As lovely as it was, it was £11 per glass which I thought was rather steep! With the exception of Champagne, I haven't ever paid that much money for a glass of wine.
So note to self - ask the price before agreeing on the wine! It would have been cheaper for us to drink a bottle than 2 glasses which was very frustrating!

After our rather expensive glasses of wine, we went round the corner to the Cinnamon Kitchen, sister restaurant to one of my favourite restaurants in London, The Cinnamon Club (at time of visiting closed for refurbishment).

With an 8 course tasting menu to delight us, and remembering what I learnt on my course about spicy food, I went with a very reasonably priced wine that unfortunately I can't remember the name of. Annoyingly when I went to look it up on the website to write this blog, they don't have their wine list up there! 

So you will just have to trust me that it was floral and off dry so very good with spicy food, and my dining companion was suitably impressed by my knowledge of what to pick.

100% Boom!

So I got my result for my WSET level 1 exam this week, and I am very pleased to report that I got 100%!

I don't remember getting a perfect score in an exam or test for a very long time, so it was very pleasing. The exam was multiple choice, which of course made it easier, but I was still rather chuffed.

So I got a certificate and a lapel badge in the post. Presumably the badge is to wear out in public when I want to show off my wine knowledge...?!

Bring on level 2 in October...

A couple of new wine tastings...@ The Boot and Flogger

On Saturday I spend some time round Southwark and Bermondsey taking photos of architecture and interesting things that took my fancy.

I took my friend down to The Boot and Flogger just round the corner from the Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre. It's a Davys wine bar, and it is a lovely place that's just far enough off the beaten track to be a peaceful place for a drink. And they are serious about their wine...

We start on a bottle of white from the Languedoc region (where I am going in September). It was Chemin de la Serre, and was a blend of Viognier and Marsanne. I'm not a massive fan of Viognier, and I often find it too floral in both nose and taste. However this wasn't too floral for myself or my friend's taste. It tasted of stone fruits and was pleasant enough, although I won't be rushing to buy it when in France! ABV was 12.5%.

We then switched to a red and got a medium bodied Merlot from South Africa. I liked this more than the white, and the berry flavours were soft, but I probably should have gone for a full bodied red. I think it could have done with ageing a bit longer personally. ABV was 14%.

After our tasting I took some photos of all the old wine mementos scattered throughout this fascinating pub. If you are ever in the London Bridge area I suggest you take a gander...

2nd and final day of my wine course - with exam!!!

So this was the second week of my WSET level 1 wine course. I'd really enjoyed week one and walked with a spring in my step in the warmth of July sun to Bermondsey Street for more learning. Actually I am lying a bit, as I had a particularly tough personal training session at the gym on Friday, so I pretty much hobbled like an old lady to the course with my glutes and quads both on fire...

We got straight into the tasting at 10.30am, and I realised I don't think I had drunk wine at that time before (with of course the exception of champagne at Christmas and other celebratory breakfasts).

We had 6 wines to taste: 3 whites and 3 reds.
With an exam looming a couple of hours later I thought I better do 'proper' tasting, and spat all of them out. The wines we tried (in order) were:

• Pasqua Pinot Grigio RRP £5.99
• Montes Alpha Chardonnay Special Cuvee RRP £12.99
• Joseph Drouhin Laforest Bourgogne Pinot Noir RRP£11.49
• Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva Tenuta Tignanello RRP £22.99
• Grant Burge The Vigneron Barossa Shiraz RRP £11.49
• Chateua Laville Sauternes RRP £34.99

This was very much about identifying characteristics of the wine and looking more at the depth of colour etc and how they were different from each other.

And then onto the really fun bit! We got a plate of various foods and then tried the same wines we had before to see what went with what and what was horrid with what and what to avoid with what!

We tasted Savoury (known as Umami). For this we tasted dried MSG. You can see why Pringles are so addictive as this stuff is added to them (along with a lot of Asian food)! This is an enemy of wine making it more dry, more bitter, more acidic and less sweet and fruity. Nothing tasted that great with this.

The second tastes (to counteract the Umami) were Salty and Acid. For this we tasted salt and lemon - This made the wines that were horrid with Umami taste much better again!

Sweet was some caramel wafers and sweet is another enemy of wine - making the wine take on the negative characteristics that Umami gives it. The best thing to do with a dessert is to give it an equally sweet wine.

Fatty/oily we ate some rather nice mature cheddar. Best to pair this with wines of high level acidity to but through the fat (a good thing to remember here is a glass of orange juice cutting through your full English breakfast!)

Then chili (which was a delayed hit from a chili cracker). Alcohol intensifies the heat in a chili and so best to go with a wine that is light in alcohol, fruity with some sweetness - think Reisling. Although to be honest I would probably go beer with hot food such as an Indian!

This was a really interesting part of the course, and it made me really appreciate what Sommeliers do when they match wine with whole plates of food! It was pretty easy seeing what went with what with just one food, but imagine a plate with 10 different ingredients on it...

Then onto the exam. It was multiple choice and run under strict exam controls. I have taken an exam like that for a good few years. I got 30 out of 30 on my mock paper, but will have to wait a couple of weeks to see how I have got on in the real thing.

Overall I really enjoyed the course. I thought it was going to be more basic than it was, so was pleasantly surprised at the level of detail, particularly in the food and wine pairing part of the course. The trainer was good and had to rein in our enthusiasm for going above level 1 a number of times!

I'm now planning on booking for the next level course (2) in October. That one is going to be for 9 evenings...Gulp! (and slurp!)

New wine tasting - Abbesse Sauvignon Blanc

So I haven't had a lot of luck with French SB in the past. Some I have had have just been horrid! But this is very pleasant and perfect for the hot summer days we have been promised this week in the UK.

The Abbesse SB is crisp (is there an SB out there that isn't crisp?) medium bodied, and more citrussy than it's NZ cousins - more lemon and grapefruit than limey.Tasting notes say grass and gooseberry although I didn't get a huge amount of that (and was pleased I didn't). But still, a lovely blend and overall feels like a sophisticated drop from the Loire Valley.

Perfect to take round to someone's for a light Sunday lunch (which is exactly what I did).
I got it in my case of 12 mixed SB from around the world, so it was £7.99 per bottle (RRP £8.99).

If you are interested in finding out more about this wine, go to the Laithwaites website: http://www.laithwaites.co.uk/product/Abbesse-Sauvignon-Blanc-2014/29773