Sunday 20 March 2011

Singles

This month six of us made the journey out into the sticks to our hosts Jacqui & Nick where a warm welcome awaited. The brief this month was any wine of choice but it had to be a single grape not a blend..simple enough you would think... Three couples managed it! So no matter how Mark tried to manipulate the voting his wine still couldn't wine..not that it did anyway...


We started with an excellent Sauvignon Blanc from Malborough New Zealand called Kono so very pale almost looked like water, strong water though at 13%, we think it was bought from John Lewis, the couple who selected this wine from their 'special cupboard' are not sure. This was the favourite wine of the evening with five votes. Think it might be a nightmare to track down, did a quick search on google & came up with nothing !




We followed this up with ours a white Grenache again very drinkable, pale gold in colour creamy white peach aroma with a citrusy edge. taste was smooth and lemony with a hint of melon. 12% Angove White Grenache from Laithwaites. Goes well with Light meals and Thai green curry, the heat brings out the fruitiness, so would be good to try that sometime. These first two wines would be excellent for summertime.


The third wine was a different tasting wine from France,  The Marsanne grape - from Northern Rhone - Jacqui said it reminded her of sauternes - it was from M& S and was 10.49 ( or thereabouts - got 10% off as 3 bottles of wine) This was the least popular wine of the evening just not our cup of tea... Talking of tea, supposed to be wine tasting, he's drinking tea..(pic to follow)


The final wine was from The Cotes du Rhone, the home of Chateauneuf du Pape, although initially it sucked all the moisture from your month until you got used to it, so even though this wine didn't count as it was a blend of Grenache, Shiraz & others... We did manage to finish it off. This wine was voted the favourite by three of the 'experts'.


Grenache is used to make a white chateauneuf and it's said "that this is the best white wine we are not drinking" so might need to track some down.


Food was Greek based (anyone guess why) yummy and followed up by Jacqui and her famous fruit platter (pic below)


Our professional photographer is slow today in sending in his photos from the evening including the one of himself. Update.. problem with iphone...modern technology! ~ ahh piccys here now, see below..


Evening went well, we generally thought it was good to try some different wines and learn a little about each of them. Expecting power point presentations next time.


No hangover today,you can tell we have matured (slightly) as the evening didn't finish too late and we didn't completely drain every bottle..as we would have done a few years ago. those were the days.


As often is the way the boys ended crashed on the sofas... looking like the Blues Brothers as they tried on the 3D glasses to watch a movie, Nick latest gadget !


Amazing no spilt wine, drawing on tablecloths, no broken chairs or tables..


Time to stick a cork in it.


Bye S.

1 comment:

George Wroblewski said...

If you are looking for Kono Sauvignon Blanc, we do stock it.