Drinking the world
Apr. 25th, 2019 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustA birthday message from helenraven reads "I trust you are (will be) drinking something equal to the occasion." How right she is: we saved the serious drinking for the day after my birthday, when we went to a tasting organised by Market Hall Wines. They are a newish addition to the indoor market, where all the best shops are, and their stock is intriguing but pricey: so £10 a head for an opportunity to learn more seemed like a good deal. (Also, an excuse to visit the Claypath Deli, where I have never been before, which is silly).
It was a very unstructured tasting: bottles arranged by producer on tables round the edges of the room and come in, have a glass, help yourself, here's the fizz... Lists and clipboards arrived later, and I have some notes, but I wasn't very methodical to begin with and grew less so as the evening went on. What I particularly remember:
On the way home, I remarked todurham_rambler that I'd half been expecting to run into a couple we know who live on that side of town and go to wine tastings. "The thing that surprised me," he said, "was that we didn't see anyone we knew." Durham: not as small as you thought.
helenraven reads "I trust you are (will be) drinking something equal to the occasion." How right she is: we saved the serious drinking for the day after my birthday, when we went to a tasting organised by Market Hall Wines. They are a newish addition to the indoor market, where all the best shops are, and their stock is intriguing but pricey: so £10 a head for an opportunity to learn more seemed like a good deal. (Also, an excuse to visit the Claypath Deli, where I have never been before, which is silly).It was a very unstructured tasting: bottles arranged by producer on tables round the edges of the room and come in, have a glass, help yourself, here's the fizz... Lists and clipboards arrived later, and I have some notes, but I wasn't very methodical to begin with and grew less so as the evening went on. What I particularly remember:
- That first glass of fizz, Folios de Baco Uivo, introduced as rosé, but I wouldn't have known - I suspect it's more an acknowledgment that it's 100% pinot noir than a description of its colour. Elegant, subtle bubbles (the website says there is no dosage): champagne is wasted on me, but I thought this would make an excellent substitute (and at £21, at a very fair price for champagne.
- There are two kinds of riesling. There's the kind which is vinified to amplify what it is polite to call the 'mineral' qualities of the grape: I rashly took a sip of Peter Lehmann's Eden Valley riesling and got a mouthful of kerosene. This is a legitimate, even a laudable quality in riesling, but I don't enjoy it. I wish they'd put a prominent warning on the label.
- Then there's the other kind, fresh lemony acidity and smooth fruit: for example the riesling from Kanaan Winery, in the East Helan Mountain area of China. Somebody described this as "Mosel-style", and while it was richer than the wine we bought in Trier, it could easily have been French. Similarly, their cabernet sauvignon (I think it was the Pretty Pony) could have been claret, and very nice claret, too. But possibly not fifty pounds a bottle nice, even factoring in the rarity value.
- Why settle for an international style wine, when you could have something utterly distinctive? At a similar price (actually, slightly less) you could have wine from one of the world's earliest wine producing countries, Armenia. I particularly liked the white 'Voskì', a blend of indigenous varieties Voskèak and Garandmak, grown at altitude and on their own root stocks (I tasted pineapple freshness and the sort of toasty edge I associate with oak, though not, apparently, in this case). The red was less memorable, but I'd happily revisit both, if the opportunity arose.
- I'm having trouble identifying the two wines from Bodega Garzon, in Uruguay: the viognier could be the one shown (it was pleasant, but rather bland), but I don't see the tannat / merlot blend we tasted. This was enjoyable, the merlot rounding out the tannat: but do I really want my tannat to be tamed in this way?
- There was more: more that we tasted and more that we never reached. But eventually we settled down within easy reach of the bottle of Montes Late Harvest gewurztraminer and refused to be lured away.
On the way home, I remarked to
durham_rambler that I'd half been expecting to run into a couple we know who live on that side of town and go to wine tastings. "The thing that surprised me," he said, "was that we didn't see anyone we knew." Durham: not as small as you thought.
