01438 741177         thewinesociety.com

LIVE FROM 8PM: #TWSTaste: Flavours of Spain and Portugal, Thursday 19th August, 8-9pm

Drinks Chat
,
#1

Good afternoon/evening everyone :smiley:

Welcome to tonight’s LIVE virtual tasting of Spain and Portugal!

If you’re new to The Community and need help with how to use the forum for the tasting and what the tasting involves, have a read of our guide 'How To - Take part in our virtual #TWSTaste events

We’ve chosen two wines to our range for this tasting, a Spanish wine and a Portuguese wine from our currently Italy, Spain, Portugal offer, and we’d love you to join us as we taste them together.

The two wines we’ll be trying are:

Spain

Vallobera Crianza, Rioja 2018

Portugal

Niepoort Rotulo Branco Dao 2019

Note: We had initially planned to feature the Quinta do Escudial Reserva, Dão 2015, but unfortunately this wine will not be arriving in stock with us until after the tasting. If you have pre-ordered this wine and would still like to taste it, please feel free to send us your tasting notes at the end of this topic).

Who’s on hand to help tonight

We have some staff attending tonight, so please feel free to use the below usernames and tag any of us if you need a hand (and if you’re new to The Community, please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have!)

@Kelly - Community Co-ordinator
@laura - Community Manager
@MrLaura - one of our wine advisers in Member Services

Here’s how things will work:

  1. We’ll post a poll to see who’s here - please let us know, and feel free to say hi and start chatting before we start.
  2. To begin, we’ll invite you all to pour a glass, have a swirl and take in the aromas, and post your thoughts and first impressions. Take your time and have a good swirl and sniff.
  3. We’ll then taste the wines together, one by one and ask you to share your own tasting note. Do add any additional food matches and/or your thoughts on how well the wine is drinking now, and how much longer it might age. Anything goes, and there are no wrong answers!
  4. After this, we’ll possibly have time to ask for your mark out of 10, favourite wine of the two or final thoughts.

And after that, if you want to continue chatting about the wines then please do!

We hope to see you tonight for this virtual tasting! :smiley: Feel free to start chatting below and we’ll get going officially at 8pm.

NEW #TWSTaste Virtual Wine Tasting: Spain and Portugal, Thursday 19th August, 8-9pm
#2

Bumping this ready for later - hope to see you there!

1 Like
#3

Evening all…
Be careful opening the Vallobera; mine had a soft cork which broke, had to resort to the long screwpull. Anyway all safely decanted now ! :wine_glass:

1 Like
#4

Excellent advice, Paul! I’ll tell @MrLaura to be careful.

#6

Welcome to tonight’s Flavours of Spain and Portugal #TWSTaste!

We’ll start this tasting by opening the Niepoort Rotulo Branco Dao 2019 - if you’ve got your wine ready then give it a sniff and share your first thoughts!

#7

Mrs CC: I’m getting pear drops, lemon and a faint hint of thyme

1 Like
#8

Yes, pear drops here as well!

#9

Ooh yes, definite pear drops! And some peach - it’s quite a juicy nose!

#10

Lots of pear drops! There’s some citrus fruit and something subtly floral. Not leaping out of the glass. Bit of honey in there too!

#11

It looks like it’s just us tonight so shall we give it a taste? :smiley:

#12

It’s been a while since I’ve had a Niepoort wine but I remember being blown away by a tasting with the amazing Dirk Niepoort at London Wine Fair a few years ago.

#13

Let’s give it a taste! Does it match the nose?

#14

I don’t actually think I’ve ever had any still wines from Niepoort. Lovely Ports though!

#15

Quite fruity. We had some earlier with pasta and I think it was too cold then.

1 Like
#16

There’s something I can’t quite put my finger on with the palate. Nectarine maybe? It’s got a lovely freshness to it, but there’s been some lees ageing, and there’s an almond note on the finish.

1 Like
#17

Oooh, what kind of pasta did you have? Did it pair well?

#18

Mrs CC: it was Tesco finest ravioli beef with mushrooms - nice pasta, but the wine was too cold really so it wasn’t bad but I think a bit warmer and it would have been better.

1 Like
#19

Mrs CC: on the tasting front, I got a strong hint of pineapple before a citrus finish,

1 Like
#20

Ah, lovely! And yes I think, although lovely chilled, I’m getting more from it now that it’s warmed up ever so slightly…

1 Like
#21

Speaking of pasta, any other food matches or suggestions?