Ciao a tutti ..

We started the New Year at The Stones, just eight of us, so no extension to the table required although it may have given us a little more space and Geoff wouldn't have knocked the glass of red wine over.. first spill of the year. 'Apparently' not his fault the mat was in the way... I think not !


The Stones decided we would taste Italian wines to go with the tasty lasagna.. one white (bianco) & three reds (rosso) came under scrutiny. Well poured into glasses, swilled a bit & then down the hatch with a few mummers about cherries and tannins.. no seriously we did actually make a few notes.  Although on collecting the tasting notes we seem to doodle more than we write, I am thinking about a) having the doodles analysed  b) making a collage..


Bianco


A very light wine in colour taste & aroma, quite pleasant would be a good lazy afternoon in the sunshine wine, although you would end up more drunk than you would expect as it was, surprisingly 12.5%

Rosso


The three reds were all voted as drinkable with none particularly outstanding but isn't this generally the case with the cheaper Italian wines ??


As Mick said this is 'R' wine (ie. the hosts offering )

Gran Conti Rosso Del Molise Riserva 75Cl from Tesco £5.39 (half price offer)

The Blurb from Tesco website ~

This noble wine is crafted from a selection of the best Montepulciano and Aglianico grapes grown in the rolling hills of the Molise region of central Italy. The wine then achieves its 'Riserva' status following three years ageing, including time spent maturing in oak barrels and in bottle.

A generous and richly textured dry red wine. Made from a blend of Montepulciano and Aglianico grape varieties grown in the hilly Molise region of Central Italy, it exudes bramble fruit flavours and its richness is balanced by sweet spiced notes.

Naturally we agree, although we had, fruity, cherry, long finish & lots of tannin and no mention of spiced notes.

Then we had a Chianti (not in the wicker covering that you used to see in restaurants with a candle stuck in the top).


This Chianti and the previous wine both included Sangiovese grapes (who knows how you pronounce that.. not 'grape' but 'Sangiovese')


Typically Sangiovese grapes make medium to full-bodied wines with tannin structure ranging from medium-soft to firm. Dominate flavors associated with Sangiovese derived wines include: cherry, plum, strawberry, cinnamon and vanilla.


( We had dry, ordinary and harsh tannin)


There is often a herbaceous quality associated with Sangiovese wines. As for acidity levels, Sangiovese leans towards medium to high acidity content. The finish can range from elegant to bitter.

Italy's most commonly planted red grape varietal, boasting over a dozen distinct clones, is a thin-skinned grape that tends to linger longer on the vine, takes its time to mature. Central Italy, specifically the region of Tuscany, is the agricultural heartland of the Sangiovese grape. 


So now you know & can impress your friends..if your friends are impressed by that sort of thing !

The last Rosso was from Mafia country..Sicily.. so only good things to be said, don't want to end up in concrete under a motorway somewhere, do we .. although I hear its nice there for holidays, thats Sicily not under a motorway !


A nice enjoyable deep ruby red wine with spicy hints. Not sure where this wine was bought, in was in our wine rack, distinctive label, maybe someone recognises it ..

Like me you may not know much about wines from Sicily, so you can expand your knowledge now.

Sicily is one of the larger expanses of vineyards in Italy and has been probably been making wine as long as people have been making wine for. Sicily's full bodied, flavoursome and fruity wines are considered the best in the world. (By the Italians ??)

The vineyards are usually owned by large cooperatives, but the rise in modern technology have meant that smaller vineyards in prime locations by dedicated and passionate winemakers have began coming to the fore.

The main grape variety is the Sangiovese, which has over 10 clones, including the Prugnello and Brunello.

Well there you have it until next month, February, the month of love, Italian wines might have linked in well with that, but hay ho will have to think of another option..

As a passing note we have been challenged to possible a 'Wine Off' with a group from Folkestone..we had better brush up, not that we are competitive !

Thanks again for the photos Mark.

Tempo di mettere un tappo di sughero in esso

Bye x

PS I hope that says what I meant it to say !!!!

Party Time

Another year of wine club get togethers came to an end on Saturday evening, where has the time gone??  It doesn't seem like a year since Mick was throwing his wine over himself and a cream carpet...not forgetting the wall & Karens top ! 

Karen & Terry hosted a Christmas Party for their friends and all the wine club, lots of chatting, laughing, drinking & eating a nice way to finish & of course the hand out of Secret Santa presents !

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all.

Time to stick a cork in it.

Bye S x

Dark & Complex..

Dark & complex really sums up the Bordeaux wines we tried on Satuday evening except for the white one, for obvious reasons !   In fact the white was so light many of us thought it was water, the taste didn't offer much more, there were hints of melon & citrus in this Sauvignon but really quite disappointing, however it was still voted as okay, it came in 3rd of 5.  Sorry getting ahead of myself here...

Lets begin again, hosted by Jacqui & Nick 10 of us made the long dark trip out into the sticks through the road works and diversions.. (Yes, of course it was worth it !) there we met our hosts and their two guests Kenton and Sandrine, who we found out was French so we expected great things from her !

If our notes are correct all the wines were from the Left Bank of Bordeaux, see previous Blog if you wonder why I am mentioning it... talking of the theme for the evening, a few slapped wrists for those that didn't read the detailed brief Jacqui sent out, naughty, naughty and maybe if more had, some of you would have done better in the surprise quiz on Bordeaux wines !  I am feeling smug here, as I came first with my wine tasting buddy for the evening Lemsip.

So to re-cap, we started with the white mentioned above then we hit the red, number 2 & 6 were the same wine, for once most of us managed to find them very similar in tasting & aromas. Chateau David from Sainsbury £6.49 The grapes are the traditional Bordeaux selection of Merlot, Cabernet Franc & Cabernet Sauvignon. A nice deep coloured wine, summer fruit flavours with structure & complexity...don't you just love that about French wine so often missing in those ever popular New World offerings. The bottle says, well actually the bottle doesn't say because a bottle can not talk, although some of you might have heard the odd bottle calling "drink me drink me", opps sorry side track again...

The high point of the evening apart from the handmade chocolates(we'll get to those later)was a bottle of Margaux, not an actual big bucks Margaux, we thought it must be an Aunt Margaux or something, well that was Kentons suggestion, anyway, bought from a wine merchant in Canterbury by Sandrine, your expectations are already high I can tell... Well rightly so, this was a pricey wine for our group, it came in at £23, I have to say & most will agree it was worth every penny!

So a little about the VERY nice Bordeaux, La Bastide Dauzac Margaux 2007 ~ Basics first, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot & Cabernet Franc This wine had an attractive aromas, tastes of sweet black fruit with some tannin, complexity with a smoothness an overall success.

Chateau Dauzac was once regarded as one of the 'lost chateaux' of the Medoc. Over recent years the rather unknown Dauzac has seen significant change thanks to new ownership of Andre Lurton Who has managed the property since 1992. Dauzac is gaining a reputation for good quality wine. I would buy this again, not for everyday, maybe when one hosts the odd dinner!

So does this mean the French do actually know something(more than us) about wine ?!?! The whole of France was represented by Sandrine in our eyes, as you can tell..

I think this proves once again than it pays to spend more on French wine to get the good ones.

The other highlight to the evening was the yummy(technical food term) handmade chocolates, Sandrine makes them, she has a shop in Canterbury.. All in all I think we can say that Sandrine is more than welcome to join us again, she can bring Kenton too!

Sandrine also explained how locals would buy wine, you take along your big container to be filled with wine, return home where you would decant it yourself into bottles and seal them for future use..she remembers having bottling sessions. She told it better than me, but I'm sure you can picture it. Someone did say it was similar to us making homemade wine and beer from kits.. I think not!

So to sum up Bordeaux wines, it's an extensive region & up until a few years ago made more wine than Australia. The best examples are keenly sought after and among the worlds finest wines.

What you will notice when buying Bordeaux under £10 is that most of it comes from The Gironde Department in South West France, these are generally basic Bordeaux wines that are best drunk young, that doesn't mean drinking for young people !

One final note, this wine club was selected for Marks love of Bordeaux wine (Mark of the tiny pumpkin fame) the ironic thing was he only scored 3 out of 10 in the quiz with Linda helping him.. He skimmed the email Jacqui sent, so hadn't brushed up on his Bordeaux knowledge, had no idea of the concept or theme of the evening. (Jolly poor show I say) I suppose at the end of the day, like most of us he just likes to drink it not talk about it!

Time to stick a cork in it.

Bye S x

PS Going to make pumpkin soup this weekend with my pumpkin

Fireworks !

This weekend the wine club will be hosted by Nick & Jacqui the choice is Bordeaux with a nod towards the Gunpowder Plot.
The brief from Jacqui ~

The story of Guy Fawkes and the plot to displace Protestant rule by blowing up The Houses of Parliament is a well known tale. In a nod towards the classic story of bonfire night and the struggle between the left and the right wings( we did Halloween early so why not do Bonfire Night late!)let us take the opportunity to  educate( can hear you all laughing now - since when did we learn much at our monthly meetings other than what fun a group of people can have with a few wrapped bottles of wine!) ourselves using the contrast between wines from the Left and the Right Banks of Bordeaux.

As a very broad generalization, Cabernet Sauvignon (Bordeaux's second-most planted grape variety) dominates the blend in red wines produced in the Médoc and the rest of the left bank of the Gironde estuary. Typical top-quality Chateaux blends are 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc & 15% Merlot. This is typically referred to as the "Bordeaux Blend."

 Merlot (Bordeaux's most-planted grape variety) and to a lesser extent Cabernet Franc (Third most planted variety) tend to predominate in Saint-Émilion, Pomerol and the other right bank appellations. These Right Bank blends from top-quality Chateaux are typically 70% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc & 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.

If you can't quite remember the Gunpowder Plot from your school days, ( some while ago for most of us), click the link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/gunpowder_robinson_01.shtml

Doubles

Doubles ? ?You are thinking, aren't doubles normally associated with spirits.. Well yes they are and no we didn't do double tastings of the wine, well some of us did.. say no more ! We did unknowingly have two bottles the same but more about that later.

Doubles, we had two Karens, Jackie and Jacqui and two Terrys then the two events, wine tasting and the big pumpkin competition.

Let's start with the Pumpkins, plenty of excitement as couples produced the pumpkins that they had been growing all summer, although I am not quite sure how some could be excited with their offering, just joking you all did very well..

There were three good sized ones all quite similar, we were quite proud of those, there were two smaller but again similar in size, then there was Marks cutie one, so small that it didn't register on the scales, imagine the laughter, yes we are a cruel and a harsh bunch that take no prisoners when it comes to competition...we had to get out the small kitchen scales to get it to register the 10oz, it's not all bad though it did have the best colour a deep orange.

The three of us with what we thought were good size pumpkins were feeling quite smug..then... Terry and Karen arrive, the car is reversed up to the house to unload...not a sign to inspire confidence in us.. They produced or should I say Terry had grown a whopper, we all thought he would however we didn't expect it to be quite so large.. 3st 4lb 2oz ! It did as expected cause a great deal of excitement..so Terry cleaned up with the prizes for weight and girth.

We did have a couple of other prizes, pumpkin most like it's owner went to Mick..a little rough around the edges (we love you all the same!) the prize for the most enthusiastic went to Mark, he really did deserve it, his pumpkin just didn't deserve him!

Here's how we did:

Terry and Karen. 3st 4lb 2oz. 55"

Nick and Jacqui. 12lb 8oz. 34"

Geoff and I. 11lb 2oz. 31"

7lb 4oz. 32". Bit of a light weight for it's size

Karen and Mick. 4lb. 25"

Terry and Jackie 3lb. 22"

Mark and Linda. 10oz. 12". They say it's not the winning but the taking part!

This cutie was probably most talked about, described as cute, sexy, pocket size, travel size, boob size (well some peoples) or were we all just trying to make Mark feel better after we laughed at the weigh in..funny, Linda had managed to disassociate (is that a word? If not it sounds as if it should be) herself from the little orange offering.

It was fun now onto the wine..

So let's start with the wines, we started with Sparkling wine (after all we can't call it champagne can we) from Chapel Down winery in Kent. A Pinot Noir Chardonnay 12.5% £24.99 ~ A light sparkling wine with pronounced red fruit character and rounded, honey notes on the palate and some of us felt a hint of apple. Fizzy in the mouth but little fizz in the glass and no mousse.

Now those paying attention will notice the strange order of wines as we go through.. I am unusually spoilt for choice with so many notes this time, don't know what came over us...

We then had a Merlot from Turner Road 2009 13.5% Deep ruby red, aromas of jammy plum and that old favourite 'wellie boots'. Hints of toasty oak, red cherries.

This was followed by shock horror a Pinot Noir, needless to say it proved only mildly popular with only one person marking it over a six but nice enough to leave an empty bottle at the end of the evening. Quite smooth and ripe cherry flavour. Redwood Creek 12.5% 2009 however this was the best wrapped bottle of the evening our guests Terry and Jackie got ten out of ten for the beautiful handmade Indian paper they used.

A Ruby Cabernet 2010 12.5% from Marks and Spencer, juicy red colour and jammy aroma, fresh and fruity taste with a clean fresh finish with maybe a hint of smokiness and a bit more tannin than some of the others.

Now things go a bit array and we have a white, I think in all the excitement with the various pumpkins arriving, (obviously not by themselves) 'people' forgot to mention their wine was a white and should for one thing have gone in the fridge and followed the sparkling. However, it faired quite well, Miwok Ridge Sauvignon Blanc 2010 12.5% Fresh and crisp, aromas of citrus fruit plenty of grapefruit and lemon flavors, this wine came in second.

I have to point out that Geoff needs a lesson in wine swirling, he was far too enthusiastic and sploshed it (I am sure thats a wine term) over my new trousers, lucky it was a white lucky they weren't Ralph Lauren trousers (from experience never wear anything too good to our wine club if you do someone will always pour wine over you, they will of course say it's an accident but who knows).. not that I have any RL trousers in case you wondered, maybe you didn't, oopps starting to go on a tangent as usual!

So after the surprise of a white appearing amid the reds, low and behold another white, not only that it turned out to be a double, exactly the same as the one before..can you explain this (I am sure Lawrence could if he had been there)at least half the group thought it was a Chardonnay completely different in colour and taste, it was identical same year etc .... So how do you account for that and the scores on the doors were very different for the two...I suppose it could just mean most of us STILL are rubbish at wine tasting, no there must be another explanation.

We finished the tasting with the winning wine of the evening, Karen M said we would never guess the grape and guess what, we didn't, I don't think we have had it before, some smartie pants will probably correct me on this fact. A very smooth deep purple Petit Verdot 2010 13.5% aromas of raspberry and ripe blueberry, flavors of liquorice and subtle spice with well balanced tannins. This wine was the most popular by far.

Oh just one other thing can our guest Terry let me have the breakdown of his special 'codes' on the tasting sheet... All numbers no words ! The only thing I can make out he voted his own wine the best...

It was as always loud, great fun and good to be with friends.

Time to stick a cork in it.

Bye S x

The picture of the debris following an evening of wine tasting, actually the picture doesn't quite capture the extent of the carnage !

Pumkins

The Pumpkin Competion final is only 11 days away...

Who will have the biggest ?

G'day

A week late with the blog this month, I have been so busy catching up, I know you feel sorry for me.. But don't I have been chilling out in the South of France for a couple of weeks. I have to say it's a bit pricey down there EXCEPT for the wine( thank goodness ) a nice Bordeaux pitched in under a fiver... Shame we flew otherwise I would have brought a few cases home.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand, this months wine tasting. Australian was the hosts choice for September, always drinkable. Just seven of us at the get together so we tasted three and a half bottles, where does the half come from you ask.. That was Terry as he was half a couple this month he brought a half bottle of delicious dessert wine, well not half a bottle of dessert wine but half bottle size if you see what I mean, more about that wine later.

First off was a Verdelho 2009 12.5% smooth fresh tropical fruits and vibrant the bottle however had been over wrapped so it took a while to see what the label looked like !

Second up was a Semillion aromas of gooseberry, melon and floral notes. Quite a subtle wine.

Third a Shiraz which caught us all out, no-one recognized it as a Shiraz, the tasting notes combined for this wine come out as a fruity little tart!! Made me smile anyway..

We liked all these wines we couldn't pick a clear winner from them.

Then we tried The dessert wine, a clear winner by far but the question is does it count, or does it matter, it was a Semillion 2005 10% smooth smooth smooth, a must buy. Someone did suggest the it would be yummy poured over good vanilla ice cream, now there's a thought.

Seven at this meeting as I said above, three tasting sheets filled in and four who all agreed that blank was best !

Next month the Pumpkin Competion comes to a head, who will have the biggest, who will have the heaviest, some people were being very cool and not disclosing details of their progress. Pumkins were discussed at one point at the same time Mark text to say stop talking about his...just how did he know that when he was miles away ?? Spooky...

Time to stick a cork in it.

Bye S x