And here we are again, welcome to the first week of July - goodness knows where the time goes. Up here in God’s own county it’s your typical English summer - cloudy with patches of blue, garden growing nicely but needs a fair bit of watering.
Broad beans are lovely this year - finally found a variety which grows well & isn’t TOO ‘beany’ if you know what I mean. WITKIEM MANITA. Have outwitted the blackbirds by picking the cherries early to ripen indoors. Cherry jam this weekend.
This year in the raised bed I’m growing French beans & various kales, interplanted with a catch crop of lettuces & foxgloves which I haven’t the heart to pull up.
Greenhouse tomatoes are coming on well, the ‘earlies’ BLOODY BUTCHER are looking promising, grown these before and I highly recommend. The heirloom variety ‘CHARLIE CHAPLIN’ isn’t setting fruit, no idea why. Definitively need to start feeding the toms.
This evening, a bit posh for a Tuesday (with Italian breaded pork chops) - I thought a white Burgundy would be nice. Naturally it’s o.o.s. now - always a good sign.
Nose is vintage champagne, quite yeasty, a (slight) touch of oak? - heading towards the Mersault spectrum as opposed to mineral / Chablis. In the glass the legs are remarkable - last wine I saw with this much glycerin was a PX sherry. Palate is rich and rounded, yellow flowers / evening primrose, just enough acidity to balance. Dare I say it but this isn’t a quaffing wine, it’s for small measures in a large glass. Tonight with a pork chop, I reckon it would be spot on with Dover sole & beurre blanc.
The smell and taste of Vermentino from this part of Sardinia always transports me back to a fantastic holiday in the Costa Smeralda six years ago. I fell in love with this grape - its minerality and citrus intensity and this particular bottle is yet another perfect time machine
Pale lemon hue, the nose is delicate and beautiful with notes of grapefruit, white peaches, honey and fennel. There’s a whiff of narcissus there, and a lees-y, yeasty note too. Quite intense on the palate it is brimming with energy and verve.
There’s citrus freshness (lemon, lime, grapefruit), herbal savouriness (fennel, dill) as well as rounder notes of stone fruit and honey. It has a fantastic texture on the palate, balancing heft and delicacy so well! The long finish combines saline notes with the tingling minerality Vermentino from Gallura often delivers.
Scallops, chorizo and beans for dinner, which I reckon would go really nicely with this gem. Must go back to Sardinia…!
She’s-not-called-Mrs-Pig has been She’s-not-called-Mrs-Pig for 8 years yesterday.
We’re officially celebrating at the weekend, but we decided to go out last night too, because why not? Wright Brothers in Battersea Powerstation was the venue. Oysters and Champagne was the plan. Piper Rose. Bleaugh, Too fizzy, bland and with a rather sour artificial sour apple aftertaste. The oysters were very good though (St Clair, Gillardeau and an Irish one I can’t remember the name of).
Not wanting to stop there (especially after the frankly unpleasant champagne), we ordered a roast shellfish platter (oysters, scallops, mussels, prawns and carabineros)and a bottle of Schloss Johnannisberg Trocken Bronze Capsule 2020. This was as good as the champagne was bad. Classic Riesling. Lemon zest, green apples on the nose joined by tropical fruits and the huge bags of acidity and clean dryness you’d expect. Special. I do not drink enough Riesling.
I’ve posted about this previously but it was such a good match with dinner I felt compelled to do so again ( with thanks to @NickFoster for the initial heads up on the 2020 )…
Succinctly described by TWS in their notes. Mine are more long winded. A light spritz, crisply fresh and vibrant on the nose and palate, not a million miles away from a young riesling, with lemon, lime and green apple fruit and a floral note on both. A beautifully refreshing wine that was a great match to dinner.
Apologies for the revolting pic of my part eaten dinner and the, er, table setting but the meal was so enjoyable I couldn’t help myself ! I knocked up Thomasina Miers’ recipe for chargrilled mackerel with a lemony new potato salad ( from The Guardian 27/6/22 )…
…which blew me away with its freshness of flavour and lift, thanks to the olive oil, basil, capers, chargrilled lemon and red chilli dressing on both. The pic on the website, where they used fillets, is far prettier BTW !
Thanks ! Credit to Waitrose for providing the beautifully fresh fish and the cooking instructions in the recipe ( 2 to 3 minutes each side on a smoking hot griddle ).
I’ll be cooking the same again later but with a rainbow trout BTW !
Fans of white Rioja who haven’t been tempted by the Allende on the list really should. Lots of oak but wonderfully balanced. In a really good place right now but plenty of time left in it.
The Nieport Douro was the best Portuguese red, and also the most expensive. Didn’t like the Barrida at all but the Alantejo was a well priced fruit and spice autumnal sipper.
Other personal highlights from regions I’m less familiar with would be the Society’s Corsican Rose (and I’m not much of a rose drinker), the Nomas Assyrtiko (don’t serve too cold and it’s a lovely fresh citrusy yet textured white) and the Mencia from Bierzo (this would have benefitted from a slight chill but fruity mid-weight with decent freshness).
I’ve been buying this on the 25% off deals for some time now, always really enjoying it; but this vintage seems the best of the lot to date yet, I certainly think. Intense but kept-nicely-in-check white fruit, a delicate lick of orange blossom, a lovely dense unctuous mouth-feel, and, especially when decanted a while / once on the second / ff session/s, a really lovely deep but delicate minerally-almost-citrussy thing going on it seems to me; maybe a bit of a slightly tannic grip too, though that may be my imagination. Certainly develops a real weightiness to it though.
I’ve never had a Condrieu or such like yet, and so can’t compare it to much; but to my tastes, this is a whole lot of quality wine for the price, I certainly think.
I’m waiting for a good moment soon to crack open a 2019 Villard Contours de Deponcins, which popped up briefly on the WS site a month or two back, and am really interested to see how that compares and to start getting a better feel for Viognier. I also snagged a case of the 2020 of same in the recent 2020 Rhone EP too, and I have, buried away somewhere in the wine fridge, an actual Condrieu too - 2 x 2017 Domaine Pichons, which also popped up briefly on the WS site a month or two back at what seemed a [pleasingly!] silly price for a Condrieu. So I can see Viognier becoming a more frequent wine for me soon. And on the basis of the Laurent Miquel Vérité, I’m certainly looking forwards to getting know Viognier much better :~}
and was in the process of having “taken two for the team”, as it were, and I find the thread has been obliterated. Is this the Monitor Police at work ? Where has it gone ?
Solely for altruistic motives I was going to report the effect of taking two in advance of supping most of this…
simply because this wine is about the most delicious in my possession and the temptation is always to have more than I should… it went with spicy Cromer crab cakes, and home grown new spuds, courgettes and cauliflower…
followed by a left-over half of this, with some Norfolk new season cherries, cashel blue and biscuits.
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