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Tasting notes
May. 23rd, 2009 09:02 pmLocal wine merchant Michael Jobling has the extremely civilised habit of organising regular tastings: a couple of times a year they get together a number of their suppliers, book the upper gallery of the Biscuit Factory and invite the customers in. You pay a tenner a head and wander from table to table, sampling the wines and chatting with the importers - and, by the end of the evening, the other customers, too. If you order a case at the end of the evening, the price is reduced by a tenner, and if you don't, it's not a high price to pay for all you can drink of some very nice wines.
We were there on Thursday evening, and we did end up ordering a case, though not of the wines I had expected. : no rosé, which was a disappointment, as I had noticed that Casa Silva (warning: very eleborate web site, plays music), would be present. This is a Chilean winery whose wines were our favourites last time we were at one of these tastings; this year they were not showing the rosé, and the carmenere was fruitier and less structured than I remembered it. On the other hand, I had completely forgotten how much I had liked the Don Cristobal Argentine verdelho, so it was good to be reminded of that, and order a couple of bottles.
The stand-out wine of the evening for me was - no, I'm not going to say, because I might want to serve it at a blind tasting to someone who might be reading this. I might not, but I'd like to keep my options open. There was also a rather wonderful rosé which wasn't on the list, but I think it's this one, the palest tawny pink, delicate, dry and fresh and beyond my means. I also liked a classic New Zealand sauvignon, all the rich tartness of gooseberry fool.
I love this game, that you can compare wine to anything you like, and nobody will take offence: I told one importer that her macabeo tasted of nut brittle - (your mileage may vary - tasting notes on the web say citrus and banana, but I got nut brittle, what can I say? And liked it, and have ordered some). Then again, I said that I found one wine "very approachable", and the supplier was all apologies: yes, it was rather, but never mind, let's move on to this one, which was better...
Noted for future reference, the organic Côtes du Rhône of Domaine Saladin (web site coming soon, allegedly). In the meanwhile, there's some information here, including a photo of Elisabeth Saladin, who introduced us to her wines on Thursday. We tasted three reds, all of which I liked: but since we buy a fair amount of Rhône in bond from the Wine Society, we weren't really in the market for more. I wish now I'd tasted her white (I'd skipped it, as white Rhône tends to be heavy on marsanne, which tastes to me of glue, and not in a good way - but discovered rather too late that this one was mainly viognier). Well, next time we're in the Ardèche...
I also regretted missing a couple of Italian reds; which only goes to show that there really was more wine on offer than I could drink.
We were there on Thursday evening, and we did end up ordering a case, though not of the wines I had expected. : no rosé, which was a disappointment, as I had noticed that Casa Silva (warning: very eleborate web site, plays music), would be present. This is a Chilean winery whose wines were our favourites last time we were at one of these tastings; this year they were not showing the rosé, and the carmenere was fruitier and less structured than I remembered it. On the other hand, I had completely forgotten how much I had liked the Don Cristobal Argentine verdelho, so it was good to be reminded of that, and order a couple of bottles.
The stand-out wine of the evening for me was - no, I'm not going to say, because I might want to serve it at a blind tasting to someone who might be reading this. I might not, but I'd like to keep my options open. There was also a rather wonderful rosé which wasn't on the list, but I think it's this one, the palest tawny pink, delicate, dry and fresh and beyond my means. I also liked a classic New Zealand sauvignon, all the rich tartness of gooseberry fool.
I love this game, that you can compare wine to anything you like, and nobody will take offence: I told one importer that her macabeo tasted of nut brittle - (your mileage may vary - tasting notes on the web say citrus and banana, but I got nut brittle, what can I say? And liked it, and have ordered some). Then again, I said that I found one wine "very approachable", and the supplier was all apologies: yes, it was rather, but never mind, let's move on to this one, which was better...
Noted for future reference, the organic Côtes du Rhône of Domaine Saladin (web site coming soon, allegedly). In the meanwhile, there's some information here, including a photo of Elisabeth Saladin, who introduced us to her wines on Thursday. We tasted three reds, all of which I liked: but since we buy a fair amount of Rhône in bond from the Wine Society, we weren't really in the market for more. I wish now I'd tasted her white (I'd skipped it, as white Rhône tends to be heavy on marsanne, which tastes to me of glue, and not in a good way - but discovered rather too late that this one was mainly viognier). Well, next time we're in the Ardèche...
I also regretted missing a couple of Italian reds; which only goes to show that there really was more wine on offer than I could drink.
