Yay - 5pm, starting my first topic! 
Now to work out what to open. Maybe a Boizel Brut half to start with. …
Edit - an Andechs Weissbier it is, I’m thirsty. Clearly the best beer on the planet and I’m not prepared to argue. Yes, biased, no, don’t care.
Is the weissbier available in the UK?
Alas, I do not know - I’m German by birth (haven’t lived there since the early 90s though - Italy, UK, Australia instead) but my family is still there - so when I visit, I always chuck a couple of those lovely hard plastic cases with 20 returnable bottles into the car to bring back across - at a Euro a bottle for fabulous beer, what’s not to love. The empty bottles go back home in their cases on the next trip to be swapped for full ones. Andechs don’t make bad beer (haven’t tried the 0% one, mind) - their Weissbier, Dunkelweizen, Helles, Doppelbock etc all superb.
Thanks for kicking things off this weekend Stephan 
This here tonight with a fried sockeye salmon fillet, a beansprout and veg stir-fry, and soybean noodles liberally coated with sesame oil…
https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/rainer-wess-marriage-gemischter-satz-2021-kremstal
My first ever Gemischter Satz, in this instance, an unfiltered, spontaneously fermented, field blend of neuberger ( also a first ), muskateller and sauvignon blanc. Must say, it’s really pressing my buttons too.
A fresh and inviting nose that’s hard to pin down, creamy, spicy, citrussy and honeyed will have to suffice. Similar impressions on the fresh, dry and rounded palate with a lovely lees-y texture. There’s an impressive synergy between the three grapes too as none of them dominate the flavour profile. All in all, a really interesting wine that’s far too easy to knock back. My only complaint is that it should come in a litre bottle !
It was also an excellent match to my simple, but tasty, dinner and would be to many other dishes in a similar style. Er, as it’s still available and now in the bin-end sale, three more bottles will be ordered tomorrow 
Edit - I love the smile inducing label too ( t-shirt please ).
Edit (2) - floral, grassy notes, along with yeast and malt, became apparent with air and as it increased in temperature.
An evening of Waitrose 25% off purchases. An aperitif of Williams and Humbert Alegria Manzanilla - a cheap half bottle that’s even cheaper on offer.
Accompanying an arroz negro we’re enjoying a Palacio Fefinanes Albariño which has everything you want from a decent Albariño. Fantastic value at the discounted price.
I’ve had a few of these now, and for the price and its idiosyncrasy, I find it a sensational wine - a really interesting flavour profile as you say. I find it works really well indeed with slightly spicy food, especially Chinese / Thai. And in our house, that’s a useful and unusual wine indeed. It even survived and strut its stuff well with some Korean food a while back [a spicy bibimbap]. That’s a first on me, I must say!
This is just so elegant, even my wife liked it (and she stopped drinking still wines).
A nice touch of acidity underlying some fabulous fruit.
Had it as an aperitif with octopus in cadeirada sauce from Vasco da Gama canneries.
Château Brillette 2009 (apparently cost €18.35 in 2012).
You have far more first hand experience of these things than I do, but have to concur, as there was a fair dollop of gochujang paste in my dish tonight and the wine worked perfectly with it !
@NW3Andre - good to get your notes on that wine. We haven’t got round to visiting Christophe Mittnacht yet - he and his cousin Marc split Mittnacht Frères in half about 5 years ago, so that will be his first vintage. Marc and his family have kept the old domaine name, and we’ve kept buying their wines, but we’ve been meaning to visit Christophe , and this just adds another push.
This evening I cooked fennel-brined cod, with a potato cake, spinach, dulse, tomato, and a shrimp sauce. We drank Kientzler, Riesling Grand Cru Geisberg, 2015.
I’m warming to my task of drinking 2015 Grand Crus, and this, too, is ripe and ready to go. Always long and mineral, this has a breadth and roundness to the palate that’s a contrast to its more usual vertical, saline, restrained power. Very happy to drink - equally happy to leave my bottles of 2013 for longer.
Have a good weekend!
That’s dangerous 
Yeah I know from over doing it in the past so I added some honey, soy sauce and, er, tomato puree to the culturally inappropriate sauce to mellow the flavour somewhat 
Your meal looked, and no doubt tasted, stunning BTW 
Delicious Muscadet from the great HN sale. Beautiful label and the wine is clean and crisp. The Muscadet is well vinified and the almost 4 years of bottle age has given it extra depth. I think this is a great pair for seafood.
We had this with a large pack of black truffle crisps from Spain.
https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/xinomavro-naoussa-dalamara-2020-organic
My first chance to taste it despite buying earlier vintages. Awesome wine. What a mic drop of expectation vs delivery (was thinking it may be too cerebral appreciation)
What a lovely nose. Floral, herbal, strawberry, tomato (faint)
Superb for the price. Ethereal, fine tannins. Strawberry, raspberry fruits. So approachable despite being young. Near transparent colour.
Superb wine. Eclipsing my previous Greek red favourite Thymiopoulos Earth & Sky Xinomavro
Final(ish, maybe?) day of my Birthday/week(/month?) celebrations. Brat in Shoreditch.
I’ve wanted to eat here for ages, but it was really difficult to get a table, then there was a pandemic, so I’ve finally made it. Basque themed “low slow over burning wood” restaurant has clearly become a destination, large numbers of languages being spoken, very odd mix of dress (some very glammed up, but also the first time I’ve seen a backwards baseball cap in a starred restaurant). The tables are all packed close together to give it a San Sebastien-esque benches feel (although they’re still all single tables and chairs), so your dining experience is very much impacted by what the people sat next to you are like. We lost big. “ultra-misogynistic crypto bros doing shots” is not who you want to be sharing a table with for a nice dinner! (I’d like to say that the East Asian couple the other side of us were lovely, and exactly who you do want to be sat next to in this situation).
The food was excellent though! From the Spider Crab on toast through the the Basque Burnt Cheesecake, everything was perfectly cooked and delicious. For a basque restaurant that prides itself on its fish the (generally very good and not too unreasonable in the mark-up) wine list was very “London Somm” lacked much in the way of Spanish white esoterica.
I did manage to find some though. We had a bottle of (the very “London Somm”) Suertes del Marques Vidonia 2021.
Old vine Listan Blanco (so Palamino Fino in sherry), from Tenerife. Really lovely wine, and possibly the best vintage of it I’ve had. Clear with struck match, peach, citrus and almond, elegant and minerally texture with an every so slight hint of wax on the finish. Very very classy and went fantastically well with the seafood. I’m hesitant to say Burgundian, but it’s definitely got the price of one these days!
Last night a bottle of Brézème Rouge, Domaine de Bréseyme 2018 to go with a short rack of lamb, pink in the middle - the meat, not the drink. Very full flavoured and almost like a Cornas though not quite up to that standard. Slight development during the meal but essentially excellent all of the time. Enjoyed by Mrs K who described it as mellow.
Our Friday night tipple was…
The Chardonnay is a local favourite and flies under the radar. Delicious rich citrus finish dry .
The Woodlands needs no intro - delivers on all levels in spades…
Gewürztraminer Jülg 2021 last night - possibly the first non-Alsace example I have tried.
This was a lovely wine - plenty of Gewürz character about it, but not overdone. Have to say I have always enjoyed the TWS bottle from Cave de Turkheim, but prior attempts to trade up have never quite hit the spot for me - somehow just too much / a bit flabby.
At £13.50 from TWS, this is exactly what I am looking for - fantastic as a standalone glass, and also wonderful with Thai green curry.
“I’m warming to my task of drinking 2015 Grand Crus”
It’s a tough job but somebody…
01438 741177
