To close out the bank holiday weekend, my husband and I opened one of the other bottles of 2004 champagne that I received as part of my allocation of champagne from Maison Lenique through 3-D Wines. This one was a vintage 2004 - made from the very best grapes that year.
For a change, we didn't serve food with this champagne, we simply popped the cork and sipped it as we relaxed into the end of the evening. It had many of the characteristics of the 2003 from Maison Lenique that we've been drinking - green apple on the nose, and lots of clean, fruity flavour. I'm impressed with this maker, as his wines are completely in-line with the style of champagne that I really like.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Monday, 25 May 2009
Happy Birthday to Me
Ok, so it isn't anywhere near my birthday. But, the birthday gift that my husband bought for me last year - an allocation of champagne from Maison Lenique through 3-D Wines - finally arrived. Hooray!! The hard part now will be making it last...
I ordered two different varieties of 2004 champagne. We tried the first one yesterday - the 2004 grand cru blanc de blancs, as we sat outside nibbling on some tapas of chorizo, olives, pickles, and chips with salsa/homemade guacamole. To-date, we've been drinking the 2003 version of this wine, and we were surprised how different the 2004 is. (We'll be doing a side-by-side tasting with some friends in June, so I'll hold off on too many details.) The 2004 has a wonderful, softly citrus nose, with a slight grapefruit scent. It's toasty and yeasty to drink, and has a long, more-ish finish.
This is a gorgeous wine, one that I'm going to enjoy serving over and over again. What a fantastic gift (thank you)!!
I ordered two different varieties of 2004 champagne. We tried the first one yesterday - the 2004 grand cru blanc de blancs, as we sat outside nibbling on some tapas of chorizo, olives, pickles, and chips with salsa/homemade guacamole. To-date, we've been drinking the 2003 version of this wine, and we were surprised how different the 2004 is. (We'll be doing a side-by-side tasting with some friends in June, so I'll hold off on too many details.) The 2004 has a wonderful, softly citrus nose, with a slight grapefruit scent. It's toasty and yeasty to drink, and has a long, more-ish finish.
This is a gorgeous wine, one that I'm going to enjoy serving over and over again. What a fantastic gift (thank you)!!
Cocktails Anyone?
While we were stocking up on sparkling wines during our recent trip to Majestic Wine, we decided that along with some of the pricier (albeit good deal) wines, we would try a couple of the real bargains. One of them caught our eye - the Undurraga Brut from the Maipo Valley in Chile. It was around £11 for two bottles, and since we had tried and liked a sparkling wine from this region before, we thought we couldn't lose on this one.
Saturday was a beautiful day, and we were grilling steaks for dinner. Since the Undurraga is a chardonnay/pinot noir blend, we thought we'd open it with our meal. It was incredibly bubbly, but smelled like sweet grape soda - not a great start. Then we tried it. Nothing. I sipped again, and my husband asked me what I thought. Still nothing. It tasted of absolutely nothing. A big bottle of alcoholic bubbles.
So, we got our mixers out - blackberry liquer for him, passion fruit puree for me - and made 'champagne cocktails'. This is the perfect wine for this, because the bubbles lasted all the way to the end of my glass, despite having diluted the wine. And, there's no reason to preserve the flavour of the wine (since there isn't any), so you can mix it with just about anything.
We've got a second bottle - any good recommendations for cocktails out there?
Saturday was a beautiful day, and we were grilling steaks for dinner. Since the Undurraga is a chardonnay/pinot noir blend, we thought we'd open it with our meal. It was incredibly bubbly, but smelled like sweet grape soda - not a great start. Then we tried it. Nothing. I sipped again, and my husband asked me what I thought. Still nothing. It tasted of absolutely nothing. A big bottle of alcoholic bubbles.
So, we got our mixers out - blackberry liquer for him, passion fruit puree for me - and made 'champagne cocktails'. This is the perfect wine for this, because the bubbles lasted all the way to the end of my glass, despite having diluted the wine. And, there's no reason to preserve the flavour of the wine (since there isn't any), so you can mix it with just about anything.
We've got a second bottle - any good recommendations for cocktails out there?
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
A Nice Surprise
Majestic Wine has been having special offers on champagnes and sparkling wines recently, so my husband and I went there to see if we could find enough interesting or good bottles at the right price to buy in the quantity that Majestic requires. While we didn't have any problem filling our quota, we were stumped by one of the wines on offer - Greenpoint's Brut Rose, a chardonnay/pinot noir blend. It goes back to our being reverse wine snobs. Techically, Greenpoint is a Moet & Chandon wine. While we always know in our heads that it will probably be very nice, in our hearts we think that we should buy something from a smaller maker because it will be more interesting.
The price point sold us, though and we bought two bottles for around £22.
I'm not sure why, but out of all of the different bottles we bought, the Greepoint was the first thing my husband put in the fridge when we got home. So on Friday, having had a long and busy week, and having agreed that we'd order in some curry for dinner, we popped it open while we relaxed and waited for our food.
What a nice surprise! Out of all of the bubbles we've drunk recently, and despite this being a rose, on opening, this was the yeastiest wine we've had in a long time. As it warmed up, the summer berry flavours took over, with a very strong raspberry coming through. Not only was this a great sipper, but it stood up well to our curry, not a small feat for a sparkling wine. Oh, and I can't forget to mention, this had great bubbles!
Ordinarily, a single bottle of this would cost about the same as a vintage Pelorus. My husband and I decided that at that price, we might prefer to sip on the Pelorus. But the Greenpoint was pretty unbeatable with strongly-flavoured food, so I would definitely purchase and serve it again. I'm glad we have another bottle tucked away!
The price point sold us, though and we bought two bottles for around £22.
I'm not sure why, but out of all of the different bottles we bought, the Greepoint was the first thing my husband put in the fridge when we got home. So on Friday, having had a long and busy week, and having agreed that we'd order in some curry for dinner, we popped it open while we relaxed and waited for our food.
What a nice surprise! Out of all of the bubbles we've drunk recently, and despite this being a rose, on opening, this was the yeastiest wine we've had in a long time. As it warmed up, the summer berry flavours took over, with a very strong raspberry coming through. Not only was this a great sipper, but it stood up well to our curry, not a small feat for a sparkling wine. Oh, and I can't forget to mention, this had great bubbles!
Ordinarily, a single bottle of this would cost about the same as a vintage Pelorus. My husband and I decided that at that price, we might prefer to sip on the Pelorus. But the Greenpoint was pretty unbeatable with strongly-flavoured food, so I would definitely purchase and serve it again. I'm glad we have another bottle tucked away!
Monday, 11 May 2009
Dulwich Artists' Open House
This weekend was the start of the Artists' Open House event in Dulwich, which will also run next weekend. We spent the weekend exploring our extended neighbourhood with our dog and a guidebook, popping in to see the artists that interested us. Our walking tour took us past one of our favourite local wine shops in East Dulwich, Green & Blue, so we stopped in to see what they had that was interesting. As always, their selection was different and fun, and we picked up a bottle of bubbly.
This one was the Rose d'Assemblage from Bereche et Fils, a pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay blend. While we hadn't tried this winemaker before, we were intrigued by the fact that they're an organic/biodynamic maker. We tend to like wines made in this fashion, especially since they tend to be low- or zero-dosage, which tends to increase the wine-like flavours in the champagne.
We were very excited with this wine. The huge amount of bubbles just exploded flavour into my mouth - wonderful red berries, without any sweetness or bitterness. It was very drinkable, with and without food (we trialled it with our usual grilled steak, which was a perfectly good match for the wine) and went down pretty quickly.
Green & Blue had another champagne in stock by this maker, and I'll definitely be picking it up the next time we're in that neighbourhood!
This one was the Rose d'Assemblage from Bereche et Fils, a pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay blend. While we hadn't tried this winemaker before, we were intrigued by the fact that they're an organic/biodynamic maker. We tend to like wines made in this fashion, especially since they tend to be low- or zero-dosage, which tends to increase the wine-like flavours in the champagne.
We were very excited with this wine. The huge amount of bubbles just exploded flavour into my mouth - wonderful red berries, without any sweetness or bitterness. It was very drinkable, with and without food (we trialled it with our usual grilled steak, which was a perfectly good match for the wine) and went down pretty quickly.
Green & Blue had another champagne in stock by this maker, and I'll definitely be picking it up the next time we're in that neighbourhood!
Bank Holiday Sunday
We had a pretty busy bank holiday weekend last week, especially since we had invited some friends for lunch on Monday. We decided to spend the last bits of Sunday relaxing, with a very light meal and a bottle of champagne we picked up at one of our locals.
We had asked the shopkeeper to recommend something that would be in the style we tend to like - good bubbles, very dry, and a yeasty/biscuity flavour. He recommended a bottle of blanc de blanc from a maker I had not seen before, Fluteau.
We had high hopes on opening the bottle. Bubbles galore and a toasty aroma. Then we tried it. None of the toasty flavour came through on drinking, rather presenting us with a slightly sour lemon taste. The touch of sourness disappeared with our food, though, especially with my smoked salmon and creme fraiche. It was a bit of a surprise, not what we were expecting, but perfectly fine when served with food.
At this price point (£20-30), I think there are better, all-around champagnes that you could buy (like the Quartet from Roederer, which you can actually find a bit cheaper). But we always do enjoy trying something new and different...and this fit the bill.
We had asked the shopkeeper to recommend something that would be in the style we tend to like - good bubbles, very dry, and a yeasty/biscuity flavour. He recommended a bottle of blanc de blanc from a maker I had not seen before, Fluteau.
We had high hopes on opening the bottle. Bubbles galore and a toasty aroma. Then we tried it. None of the toasty flavour came through on drinking, rather presenting us with a slightly sour lemon taste. The touch of sourness disappeared with our food, though, especially with my smoked salmon and creme fraiche. It was a bit of a surprise, not what we were expecting, but perfectly fine when served with food.
At this price point (£20-30), I think there are better, all-around champagnes that you could buy (like the Quartet from Roederer, which you can actually find a bit cheaper). But we always do enjoy trying something new and different...and this fit the bill.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
May Day 2009
Friday was the perfect first day of May - warm, sunny, and mild - completely atypical weather for the start of a bank holiday weekend. While we weren't planning anything special for the day, my husband had managed to come from home from work at a reasonable hour and I had picked up some fresh scallops to wrap with prosciutto and throw on the grill for dinner.
The weather just warranted a bottle of something special, so we opened a bottle of my Maison Lenique. It was perfect with the scallops, offering a clean, lemony bite to go with the creamy seafood and salty ham. We continue to marvel at how much we like this wine, and how nice it is to always have a cold bottle of something so delicious on-hand for when the mood (and the weather) strikes!
The weather just warranted a bottle of something special, so we opened a bottle of my Maison Lenique. It was perfect with the scallops, offering a clean, lemony bite to go with the creamy seafood and salty ham. We continue to marvel at how much we like this wine, and how nice it is to always have a cold bottle of something so delicious on-hand for when the mood (and the weather) strikes!
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