Category: Wine Blog
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Visiting old friends in Castilla y León
During the Circle of Wine Writers’ trip to Castilla y Le ón earlier this year we visited modern bodegas in newly demarcated, promoted wine regions in this beautiful part of northern Spain. There was one exception, however, to all this modernity: Bodegas Otero in Benavente, a wine business that was created in 1906 by the…
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All the Nines: Ninety Nine and others
One evening in February we invited four friends, all wine lovers, to a dinner with the theme of drinking wines from vintages ending in ‘nine’. Guests were invited, and we arranged between us what wines we would bring from our cellars – as you can imagine with older vintages more reds were available so we…
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Boutinot at the Tower of London
To the Armouries at the Tower of London for the Boutinot tasting. I enjoy this venue as there is a lot of space as well as daylight. The layout was good, with the cheap and cheerful (ie house wines) on one long table by the entrance; then spanning the room were tables with wines from…
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How To #1 – Open a Bottle of Sparkling Wine
1. Grasp bottle firmly and hold at 45⁰ pointing away from you, aiming at no-one. 2. Still holding the bottle firmly, grip the cork and twist it to remove. Please, no loud popping – so infra-dig. 3. Pour slowly and carefully. 4. Enjoy, with moderation of course. © The Wine Maestro & Wine Travel Guides
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Our Christmas dinner
Wink had bought me a seasonal cookbook, Elizabeth David’s Christmas. Compiled by Jill Norman, ED’s longstanding editor, from articles and recipes for a book which never reached fruition in this great author’s lifetime. As with all her books it makes a very good read as well as having lots of good recipes. We had decided…
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Christmas 2008
It was great to be back at Chalet Balaena where the snow was deep and crisp and even – a positive start to the ski season. Chalet Balaena Chalet Balaena with the mountain towering behind… … and the chapel in the old village, just down the road from us. While Wink took her new tenant,…
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Seyssel
We were off on a little wine tour, this time to Clairette de Die, when we broke our journey in Seyssel, yet another vineyard area on the Rhône. Seyssel is just outside the Savoie and is known in the UK for its bottle-fermented sparkling wines, especially Varichon et Clerc Royal Seyssel (more about this later).…
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Savoie – Chautagne
At last the weather was sunny and we were off to visit more of La France Profonde – La Chautagne. Chautagne is one of the 20 or so small areas in the AOC region of Savoie: there are about 1800ha of vines scattered hither and thither in Savoie where the altitude and slopes allow for…
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To the Jura
We were on our way to the Mosel to do some riesling. What, you’ve never riesled? You should try it – it’s a lot of fun! Anyway, as we would be driving through the Jura (one of Wink’s particular wine regions – she writes about it in Wine Report as well as on her website,…
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Uruguay Tasting for Prostate UK at the Hoop Stock
Responding well to my treatment for prostate cancer, I have been very interested in the funding of research into this illness that is carried out by the charity Prostate UK. For a while now I have wanted to organise a wine tasting for this organisation so I was very grateful when my partner, Wink Lorch,…