Champagne Days

Last weekend was a busy one, my eldest son was receiving his First Communion and we had a full house. There are times when you walk into your Cellar and say hang the expense,only the best will do. On the Saturday evening, I finished up the last of my Chateau Mademoiselle de Tracy.

This is a classic Pouilly Fume from the Loire, full of Gooseberries and Pineapple Cube Sweets on the nose. The taste is full of crunchy green apples and lemon zest, perfect for this warm evening.

With Pudding and Cheese, we opened a bottle of Sauternes, that came from Chateau Bastor-Lamontagne. The wine is predominantly made up of Semillion grape that has been infected with botrytis. This concentrates the flavour.

The straw gold Sauternes had the smell of burnt sugar, pear and vanilla pods. The taste of oranges and cloves initially, are followed by poached pear and Mucavado sugar. A perfect finish to the evening, if the evening had finished there. The homemade Sloa Gin came out and was polished off fairly promptly.

On the following day, our party were packed into a single pew for the service, thank goodness we had all bonded the night before.

 After a beautiful service, we headed home and started the first bottle, of what was to be a case of Champagne. The Champagne was bought from First Class Products and came from Leroux - Mineau.

The Rosé and Vintage Champagne are especially good. Tom Ellis, the Director of the company, quite literally provides a First Class Product. As the Champagne flowed, toasts were made and the weather held, it turned into another perfect day .

St Urbans, the patron saint of winemakers

This evening was a trip down memory lane, through wine. We had a bottle of St Urbanshof, Leiwener Laurentinslay, 2007 from the Mosel valley.

I was very lucky to go on a wine tour with a group of London Sommeliers that was organised by the Winebarn . My friend Iris, who is Director of the company, led us on a tour around the South West wine regions of Germany..

One stop was at the St Urbanshof vineyard and winery, where we were entertained by the Weis family.
Nick Weis took us on a tour of just some of the parcels of land that he grows vines on.

They all seemed to have stunning views of the Mosel river, that meanders effortlessly through the scenery.  Back to the winery for a tasting, my highlight of which was the Leiwener Laurentinslay.
It takes it's name from the chapel near the vineyard, dedicated to St Lawrence.

The wine continues to evolve with different flavours coming through. This time, the 2007 had pineapple, flint, apricot and very ripe mango on the nose. The flavour was lime, pineapple juice, honey and dried lemon rind. There was toast and a hint of liquorice on the finish.

A beautiful wine and a fine example of some of the great wine coming out of Germany now.

Give them a go and you may have golden memories like mine.

Argie-Bargi

Jubilee long weekend started in style, with a beautiful bottle of Malbec from the Andes in Argentina.
One of the few things that us Brits and Argentina can agree on these days, is that they can grow Malbec.

The glass has a gorgeous malt whisky aroma, even some feet away. There are exotic spices and sandalwood on the nose too. The wine carries a certain Latin heat, with flavours of plums and honeyed fig coming through. The latter taste turns more to dark cherries, with a hint of tobacco on the finish.

The wine is Colome, 2008 and is made by the Hess Family Estate. It went perfectly with our lamb burgers and was definitely fit for a Queen.