What? Monday already…? Hard to tell on holiday. Could be any day, really
Anyway, first night in Santiago de Compostela - what a beautiful, if slightly nuts, city! Many restaurants were closed tonight, but we found a friendly unpretentious place specialising in Bierzo fayre/wine. We shared a delightful bottle of 2016 Pétalos. This Mencia could easily have masqueraded as an excellent Chinon; it had a wonderful nose of violets, black cherries, fresh soil after the rain and graphite. Very concentrated on the palate, the fruit/floral/earthy/periodic table notes all blended together in perfect harmony. This is what good wine is all about! We looked wistfully at the bottle when it was finished…
Whatever you are drinking this week, hope it gives you as much pleasure!
This Shiraz was very much enjoyed with, of all things, beef in black bean sauce. Not in a full throttle style, or necessarily one for long aging, just lots of juicily ripe fruit gum flavours with some crunchy acidity and discrete tannins to support. Dangerously drinkable and well worth the entry fee ( £14.50 ). I now wish I’d bought another couple of bottles…
That’s good to hear. Looking forward to the upcoming Fine Wine List even more now. Although, and as always, it will be received with equal parts anticipation and dread !
This has to be one of our favourite beers of all time. It’s not for the meek and mild! 16% deals with them! It’s full of boozy, dark rich fruit cake flavours with a wonderfully thick, creamy mouthfeel.
I think I can safely say we probably have the only bottles in the UK! It’s interesting that the original beer from which this eisbock is made is not that flavoursome but something spectacular happens when it hits the freezer! We have 2 more bottles left then fingers crossed they’ve made some more for our visit in January!
Eisbock is the concentration of a beer by freezing it and taking off the unfrozen remains.
Barleywine is more about rebrewing the mash or blending beers of different strength.
Ah okay, quite a different beast then. It’s effectively a form of distilling by freezing. I thought it sounded a little strong to be fermented directly. Interesting!
tasting menu lunch at Gauthier Soho yesterday, food spectacular as always.
2012 Lanessan with the duck stood out, and always enjoy the Banyuls with their bitter chocolate dessert
Does anyone else have the curse of staring at 100+ bottles and not being able to pick one out to drink?
I’ve settled for one of these…
…it was el cheapo in Lidl and I’ve got no real reason to stash away such a light vintage. In fact, I positively need to make space so I can start taking some goodies out of reserves over the next year.
As per last month, not a great Potensac but for the money a good, smoky, savoury, slightly rustic claret
It’s not a bad wine but if I’d drunk it blind I never would have guessed it was a Rioja. Modern style I suppose. Very little structure to it, little in the way of tannin, slightly smoky and cedary. Blind I would have put it down as a simple Bordeaux designed to be drunk young maybe. Pale in colour and bit thin in the mouth. It was just under £10 so can’t really complain but I think there’s much better out there in the same price range; a Ribera del Duero maybe.
Thus was lovely with simply baked hake. Quite weighty on the palate but with nice fruit and the usual Italian food friendly acidity. Don’t know a great deal about Pecorino as a grape but this is a clear re-buy.
Picked this up at Waitrose when they had a 25% offer and paid £11.25 for the 2015 Drouhin Rully. Pretty decent Pinot at the price point , light, but ripe, fragrant and floral.
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