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Well I can’t see the weekend thread and I’ve already started my weekend about an hour ago!
For fizzy Friday this week, a champagne which was a gift from a friend for my husband’s birthday but we’re drinking to celebrate my new job offer. Yay!
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Congrats on the job offer!
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Congratulations! Good start to your weekend
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Had the 2019 of this last night. It was the perfect partner to fish and chips.
Have looked out wine for tonight but not tried it yet.
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Finally this afternoon I tackled a task I’d been avoiding for a good while, and then decided to open probably my last bottle of Rustenberg John X Merriman 2013.
Big waft on opening of blackberry, blackcurrant, mulberry, liquorice, menthol/camphor. Similar on the palate, very smooth, with fresh acidity and a long and gently dry tannic finish. I like this a lot. Drinking it happily with some salt and black pepper crisps while considering what to cook.
Edit: meant to add it’s 14.5% but the alcohol is hardly noticeable, it’s just very full of flavour.
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Inspired by @Winestwit on the Rioja thread (and really not rubbing it in, promise 
) tonight with Barnsley Chop and lentil stew…
2010 is a ‘shooting fish in a barrel’ vintage in Rioja (and with global warming taking a grip, the last great traditional one perhaps?) and LdH don’t disappoint with this bargain basement iteration - dark and red fruits, always closer to dried or preserved than fresh, a cigar box spiciness (though no new wood gets anywhere near it) and an astonishing level of concentration for a £12 wine. It isn’t supposed for ageing, but I am going to try to ration my remaining 15 over the next 5 years, maybe decade.
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The first time I read that I thought the wine was the task you’d been avoiding…
Somewhat at random I opened my one and only of these
At first sip I was regretting it, but it’s been getting better through the glass. If anyone else is drinking one of these young I think it could benefit from a decant. But as I get to the bottom of the glass it’s really coming into focus, with restrained floral notes and a steely spine.
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First glass or last glass?
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First (quite a slow one - that’s easier when you don’t particularly like the first sip.
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Right so @Tannatastic has got me thinking about what I will open this weekend, I’d already opened this delicious Italian red so I’ll raid my Rioja stash at some point this weekend.
Every time I drink this I’m immediately reminded of @Templeton review from last summer
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Socially distanced delivery of some homemade bathtub gin by good friends yesterday meant that tonight’s apero was sorted. Interesting, and also good drinking but I wouldn’t guess it was gin at all. Definitely a flavoured vodka, looking unfortunately like a sample one might deliver to the surgery! Thank god it tastes a lot better than that!
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Congrats!
One of my favourites champagne producers 
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Valentine’s Day on Sunday, so what will you Casanovas - of either gender - be sharing? For us it will be the last of a decent Beaune, picked up in France three years ago and still enjoyable but, so far as this household is concerned, the last of its kind.
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Take away curry tonight accompanied by this Watervale Riesling from the Clare Valley. The winemaker is Tom Barry.
Very pale, almost colourless. Hints of green. Intense nose. Lime, lemon and honey. Hints of kerosene. Light palate. High acidity. Citrus. Lemon, lime and grapefruit. Mineral. As it warms in the mouth, there are hints of honey. Medium finish. Cut through curry sauce nicely.
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May I ask where you got this from?
We enjoyed this with the main course of the Peruvian foodbox detailed on the foodbox thread.
Maybe not a perfect match for short rib, but I really enjoyed it - savoury, deeply perfumed and moreish.
(This was the tuna ceviche starter which was eminently more photogenic )
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My plans for tonight’s meal were slightly derailed when I arrived at the fishmonger this morning, and he had some very nice looking red mullet of a good size - quite unusual for him, so I just had to buy. I filleted and pan-fried them, and served them with grilled courgettes, a harissa-spiced tomato sauce made with the browned bones, and parsley purée. We drank Dirler-Cadé Riesling, 2016.
It’s a lovely, pure expression of the grape, and I’ve said it before, but I think it’s as good as it gets for a generic AOC Alsace Riesling. Clean as a whistle, citrussy and flinty, dry, but with just the slightest edge of sugar to fill it out. I think that @MarkC posted a note recently describing it as spring water infused with essence of riesling, and I can’t better that.
Chinese food tomorrow for Chinese New Year. Happy Weekend!
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We’ve also polished off most of a bottle of this tonight - currently on offer @ Waitrose:
It’s a regular buy for me when on this discount.
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Veggie Chilli, baked potatoes and this. Great wine for a cold evening, mostly polished off by my other half, I was feeling a little off colour, but could pick up nice garrigue aromas on top of the dark fruit. Good freshness, do like old vine Carignan. Very young and double decanted to open it up.
Still under a tenner, a good buy.
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