Fellow Wine Lovers,
“That’s pretty potent. Not the cork. Your after-shave. Strong enough to bury anything. But the wine is quite excellent. Although for such a grand meal, I would have expected a claret.”
“ Of course. But unfortunately, our cellars have run out of clarets.”
“ Mouton Rothschild is a claret. And I’ve smelt that after-shave before, and both times I smelled a rat.”
Oh yes, he’s back. The man they call Bond, James Bond. Skyfall premiered on Tuesday night, Wayne lent Bear Grylls his special Saturday night strides, the red carpet groaned beneath celebrities ranked from A to Z, and they all drank Heineken and Martinis into the wee hours. Hopefully only the Martinis were shaken, otherwise it could have been a touch messy…
But, as you see from the opening quote from Diamonds Are Forever, times have changed a bit for Mr Bond. Clever wordplay about First Growth Claret has given way to, well, lager. WKD, Magner’s, Hooch – get those cheque books ready, there’s a new film due in a couple of years.
Doesn’t mean to say we won’t go and watch the film though!
Otherwise the week has carried on in its own sweet way. Some brilliant results in the Champions League, Malaga beating AC Milan, Olympiakos beating Montpellier and Borussia Dortmund beating Real Madrid – not sure if any English teams were playing though, perhaps not…
Cycling is still taking a battering, the Kick it Out anti-racism t-shirt standoff seems to be getting more polarised on a daily basis, and two Olympic medallists lose their medals sometime between midnight and five in the morning – if you know you’re going out late, dancing and perhaps even carousing a little, maybe don’t take the most valuable thing you own with you, chaps?
“Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something.”
Loving these Bond quotes, managing to waste many hours ‘perfecting’ the accents!
Anyway, I suppose I best talk about wine now. As an opener, you can have red wine with fish, Pinot Noir with tuna is a common favourite, but perhaps not the bottle of Chianti to go with Sole that Bond is referring to.
We finished our wine course this week, 6 weeks of vinous discovery rounded off with a foray into the world of fizz.
As ever Moutard Grande Cuvée (£26.49) was highly acclaimed, as was our new vintage Champagne, Chassenay d’Arce 2004 (£33.99). From the non-champagne side the dry Mayerling Crémant d’Alsace Rose (£15.49) and the Mas Macia Cava Brut (£9.89) both showed that there is oodles of quality to be enjoyed outside the realms of Champagne, and the Emeri Sparkling Shiraz (£13.49) became everyone’s guilty pleasure. We’ve also formulated a strategy for ‘a day of bubbles’ starting at breakfast and finishing after dinner, but this is still Top Secret, I’m afraid.
So what shall we taste this weekend? Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2011, Marlborough, New Zealand (£16.99) and Domaine des Pierres Blanches 2008, Faugères, France (£9.99), simply put.
Greywacke is the pet project of former Cloudy Bay winemaker, Kevin Judd. When I say former, he was the winemaker for 25 years from its birth until his last vintage in 2009. In 2009 he decided that the Cloudy Bay world was not enough, and that he should set up his own label and thus Greywacke was born. Universally acclaimed with near Universal Exports, this is a golden opportunity to taste what all the fuss is about!
The Domaine des Pierres Blanches is one of the wines that we fell in love with at a southern French tasting earlier in the year. Grenache, Carignan, Syrah, Mourvedre from the hills above Beziers, just east of St Chinian, this has dark fruits, herby spice character and a rich mouthfeel. Faugères Eyes only….
That is probably enough bad wordplay for this week, I must apologise, please don’t unsubscribe, I think you’re all Thunderball!
Halloween next week, trick or treating, ghostly pumpkins, scary skeletons, enough to scare the Living Daylights….
Park Vintners Will Return!