Anyways to the wine and no offence I hope taken with the above James, your experience has mirrored mine.
It’s a really good rose wine. The acidity is really balanced, it’s not so high that all you can do is cough and suggest how well the wine will age!
It’s something you don’t notice on its own. A connecting spine of acidity carrying through the initial fruit and prolonging that finish. The fruit is good. All so well proportioned. Doing what you ask of rose, very well in all departments.
Not yet fully evolved in complexity terms I feel. Some more bottle time to bring out those extra notes and nose, to compete with Thymiopolous Rose 2007 or Sylvain Pataille’s Fleur de Pinot etc
Both really good in their own ways. Attentive readers will have noticed the hermitage as my Christmas wine over the last couple of years, bought EP back in the day. It’s still good - smooth and silky now but very much more leather and spice than fruits.
The dao is one I’ve bought from Aldi for a few years.This is quite rustic (or maybe I have become more choosy) but it packs a punch and is more savoury than you might expect, not just a fruit bomb. I do think it shows again that Aldi does really well at this kind of price point.
To Mrs JamesB’s bemusement I am now sitting in front of eurovision and quite into it.
Sadly this is one of those occasions where expectations outweighted the outcome. Absolutely no complaints, very nice but all to acidic and subdued IMO (for what that’s worth). Website claims 6 months lees ageing but I can’t get on board with that, too sharp with almost no leesy i.e., creamy/smooth notes (leesy, did I invent a new word). I would have loved this at £12-£15 but £25 two years ago seems a bit much.
Glad to be back, so you may all have to put up with my posts on a more regular basis, sorry!!!
…a Cotes-du-Rhone ‘Le Caillou’ 2021, Le Clos du Caillou.
Not a stereotypical CdR, that’s for sure, with its tannin free, easy to enjoy, red berry and red cherry aromas and flavour. In many ways, as recently mentioned here, it was more reminiscent of a decent basic Beaujolais in style, albeit one with a grenache dominant flavour profile. An interesting and well made ( carbonic maceration ? ) wine that was spot on with the food and thoroughly enjoyed.
Upping the ante somewhat, with my thanks and gratitude to @Rafa for generously providing it
This tonight with a guinea fowl and mushroom risotto…
…a Langhe Pinot Nero 2019, Gian Luca Colombo. For starters, the beautifully pale colour invites a deep sniff. Which didn’t disappoint with its floral aromas, red cherry and raspberry fruit, some oak derived spice and a touch of savoury sous bois. Similar notes on the fresh, vibrant and complex palate with very good depth of flavour for an essentially light bodied wine. Refreshing acidity provides an elegant structure to the sourly ripe red fruit flavours and gentle tannins some food friendly grip. All in all, a thoroughly satisfying example of its type and, by some distance, the best I’ve had from Piedmont.
Just what you want from a Kabinett, with plenty of zesty lemon fruit, acidity, a bit of sweetness but a dryish finish. Very moreish, just as well it comes in at only 8.5%
Have also tried before and thought was rubbish! However I wouldn’t write off California Pinot, I’ve had some stunning ones from TWS - the exhibition Sonoma was brilliant, and Sandhi La Cote. Au Bon Climat as well. Admittedly all of these are pricier than the B&B range but well worth the extra.
Can you wait a few weeks as most of them are only just coming up? We tend to be three weeks or so behind you folk down south! I’m hoping they’ll look okay as many got hit by frost just as their young leaves were opening up and got a bit damaged. Never had that happen before; just unfortunate timing I guess!
Having been disappointed by a couple of bottles of the 2015 I picked up recently (slightly flat, short and a little hollow) I was slightly concerned as I have a case of 12 to get through.
I shouldn’t have worried. It was cracking. Very deep and dark in the glass, bursting with black fruit on the nose and palate. Spice, and maybe a hint of liquorice. Nicely balanced so it drinks slightly less full bodied than you might expect.
Sure it’s not the longest or most complex, but this is excellent value and drinking superbly right now. So mush so a second might have been opened later…
Of the rieslings, our love for the classique is well documented here, and the 2019 keeps up the standard - perhaps a little plusher than some vintages, but still great tension and minerality. Belzbrunnen 2017 showed more on the petrol side, and a slightly fuller profile, without the zest of the classique. Drinking the GC Kessler HW 2019 was, for sure, vinfanticide, but it was actually really great already - poised, coiled power, and long life ahead of it. GC Saering Cuvée Cécile is heading towards VT in terms of sugar, though no huge botrytis - just a lovely lemon meringue pie of a wine.
The 2015 classique gewurz only comes in at 8g/l residual sugar, and so is technically dry, and it’s one of those gewurzs that is more about the pepper and spice than about flowers or tropical fruit. GC Saering 2018 was also light on RS for a Grand Cru at just 18g/l. Again, a real emphasis on the spicy side of the grape, and that does make it an easier wine to pair with food. Jean-Pierre Dirler says it’s his personal favourite of their GC gewurzs. GC Kitterlé 2015 is into the territory of dessert wines, and had more botrytis and acidity, and less sugar than the 2016. People were a bit divided about which of the two they preferred, and it’s a hard call - the 2016, while sweeter, had a lightness from the florality of the grapes, but the 2015 had the acidity to cut the sugar. Not that any was left of either, by the end…
Mrs B just returned from a weekend away and told us about her experience of shopping in Bath - she was served a glass of Pimms at closing time!
This put me in the mood after a frazzling day at a football tournament with daughter. However, we don’t have strawberries or lemonade so I had to improvise.
If you want a Pimm’s with a bit more kick than the bottled stuff just mix gin, triple sec and red vermouth.
I won’t give proportions as half the fun lies in experimenting.
Thanks again, and should add, it just got better with air and that every glass was better than the one before. And a relatively guilt free pleasure at 12.5% alcohol too
Looking forward to the Pinot from around the World zoom this week but noticed with a little trepidation that the Californian representative has received a couple of dodgy reviews.
The tasting pack turned up yesterday and are safely stowed away. Looks like a great variety of PNs and very true to the theme pretty much spans the globe.
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