Fellow Wine Lovers,
Where to start this week? I think we’ll start with something relatively low key.
Some of you may have heard of a horse called Frankel. He’s been relatively successful so far, and has caused a somewhat unseasonal sell out at Ascot this weekend, where he will be running his last race. By all accounts he will then enter an entirely different training regime, lazing around in the fields, chatting up the ladies: bet he can’t wait!
Rolling Stones tickets are HOW MUCH!
Awesome Sauce
Now, I know we always deny sitting around tasting wine and shooting the breeze with our chums from the wine world, but sometimes it just has to be done.
On one such occasion, over the summer, we met a couple of very nice chaps, Tom and Paul, who are agents for a small champagne producer: Chassenay d’Arce. We tasted several of their wines (it’s work I’m telling you!) and filed them under ‘To Be Listed’.
Well, they are here (the Champagne, not Tom & Paul) and Awesome Sauce they are too…
Chassenay d’Arce Cuvée Première Brut – £33.99 – an appealing blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay which has a beautiful lemon/gold colour and a fine, vigorous mousse. Rich and elegant on the palate, with apple fruit, honey and spicy floral notes. In short, it’s delicious.
Chassenay d’Arce Blanc de Blancs 2004 – £40.99 – is a pure Chardonnay, matured on its lees for 5 years. Golden coloured, with a persistent fine mousse and pretty acacia and white fruit aromas. On the palate it is crisp and delicate with a lovely elegant tension between citrus and honey notes. Way more exciting than some of the more famous vintage champagnes knocking about.
If you need an excuse to drink some champagne, just ask, we have an extensive excuse list, from the sublime to the ridiculous!
Claret shelves restocked!!!
“I hover over the expensive Scotch and then the Armagnac, but finally settle on a glass of rich red claret. I put it near my nose and nearly pass out. It smells of old houses and aged wood and dark secrets, but also of hard, hot sunshine through ancient shutters and long, wicked afternoons in a four-poster bed. It’s not a wine, it’s a life, right there in the glass.” ― Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World
Cheese & Wine Evening
Is this Thursday, 25th October, at 8pm. As I type this there are 2 places left. You know you want to come, but have you just missed out?
Tasting This Weekend
We shall bring our Rhône extravaganza to a gentle close this weekend and open up Vignes du Prince Côtes du Rhône (£8.99) which is made by Celliers du Prince, the only co-op in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape area. When we tasted this wine with our chum Adrian, we thought ‘an inexpensive Rhône red from the Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyards, what’s not to like?’
We will also open Domaine de Coyeux’s Muscat de Beaumes de Venise (£11.99) if only because it’s ages since we opened a sticky. Don’t say we don’t spoil you!
And finally…
A happy birthday to Tarzan, who is 100 today.
Aaah aaah aah aah aah!!!