A weekend of wine and roses

We entertained our weekend visitors by taking them to gardens; and while they were off entertaining themselves, we tasted wine - and then after they'd gone home, we tasted more wine. That's the short version.

The Bears arrived in the small hours of Friday morning, so we had a bonus day with no particular plans, but not all that much energy to spare. We spent most of the morning wandering around the Botanic Garden, enjoying the sunshine and the shade, admiring random flowers, playing percussive music on the bamboo fencing, exclaiming at how things had changed since durham_rambler and I were last there in April.

On Saturday the Bears went into Newcastle to sing Sacred Harp music, and durham_rambler, desperance and I went to a blind wine tasting with our friends J & A. As before, each guest brought a cunningly disguised bottle, and we sat in the garden, eating nibbles and dips and bread and cheese and drank them on by one. I was pleased with my choice: the Tasmanian sauvignon which I decided not to mention in a recent post, just in case (J identified it as sauvignon straight off, which impressed me, but no-one guessed Tasmania) and the Montes Alpha merlot (a good trick, I thought, serving Chilean merlot to this discriminating gathering, and having it pass unrecognised, though greeted as a friend when its wrapping was removed), with a raise of the glass to helenraven. Two interesting bottles: A's southern Rhône, a reminder that Rhône doesn't have to be big and seriously structured, it can also be smooth and supple, all strawberries and black pepper; and Ramsay's caladoc, a grape variety I had not previously encountered (a modern cross between malbec and grenache) - I can't remember the producer, but somewhere in the Minervois.

Sunday was GirlBear's birthday treat, a visit to the Alnwick Garden. We had planned to do this last year, but been rained off; no risk of that this year. Another day of sunshine and wandering round gardens, amusing ourselves and each other by reading out the names of the roses. I enjoyed myself, and am glad to have visited the garden properly at last (I'd previously been there for book launches, and seen only the Poison Garden), but felt a little flat: compared with Durham's Botanic Gardens, Alnwick seems to have fewer, larger features - Durham felt more intricate, you were more likely to turn a corner and see something unexpected, while Alnwick put all its cards on the table at once. My favourite part, I think, was the Serpent Garden with the William Pye water sculptures. Then a quick visit to Barter Books, and the coastal route home.

Yesterday we had a sociable birthday breakfast, then the visitors departed, and we returned to work. In the evening we joined Helen Savage for a tasting of rosés, and sat at a long table outside in the sunshine - which doubled our enjoyment of the wines, they all looked so pretty with the sun glinting through the different shades of pink.