BYOBB May'10

I have been blessed with a very thoughtful and helpful circle of friends. They're the sort of people who, when you invite them over, always ask what they can bring, and will even call you on the day to make sure there's nothing you missed that they can't pick up on the way over. I always want to tell them something useful to bring, but a lot of the time, I just can't think of anything.

Then I had this idea during the year of bubbles. It was rather forward, really. But I thought, why not invite a group of people over for some fantastic food and ask each family-group, up-front, to bring their own bottle of bubbly that we can open and try during the meal? Thus, the Bring Your Own Bottle Of Bubbly - BYOBB (TM)- event was established.

The ground rule has always been that what you bring doesn't have to be expensive or name brand, just a wine with bubbles that interests or excites you. The first year (2008), we were a group of about 10 people, and tried everything from cava to English sparkling wine to Billecart-Salmon rose. We didn't really rank it, just drank and ate a lot, and had a very nice afternoon.

Last year, we stepped things up a notch. We had about 16 people over, and we decided to blind-taste and rank everything we drank. It was a bit too big, to be honest, and because I didn't blog about it, I shamefully can't remember all of the different wines that we drank. I do remember that the favourites of the day were vintage Krug and Ruinart, with a surprisingly strong showing from Biddenden, an English sparkling wine.

This year, the BYOBB board decided that we needed to get back to a smaller group and do some serious (blind) tasting of non-vintage bubbles. And while we unfortunately were missing two guests due to illness, Mother Nature smiled on the six of us who got together on Sunday as we sat in the garden in the glorious sunshine!!

To start, I had been asked by The Champagne Warehouse to taste a bottle of Charles Ellner Brut Integral, a zero dosage champagne. This was a good aperitif, as the flavour of the wine was not very strong but held up to the mango gazpacho and prosciutto/melon/rocket rolls that I had made. Any stronger food and this champagne would be a bit lost, though. I was a little disappointed with the bubbles of this champagne (a common complaint for me throughout the day). This champagne scored an even mix of 4s and 5s out of 10 (10 being the best you've ever drunk, 1 being undrinkable), with a total score of 27/60.

As we were waiting for late arrivals, we moved on to the Philizot et Fils numero 2, a surprise entrant that my husband threw into the mix, as he was wondering what other people would make of this champagne. Thankfully, this bottle was nothing like the first one we opened and lacked the strong ground pepper flavour that made it hard to drink. One of our friends liked it more than the rest of the group, saying that it was fresh and flavoursome. Scores ranged from 4 to 7 out of 10, with a total score of 28/60.

The next bottle we opened was the Philizot et Fils numero 1. We served it with a spinach, chorizo, and potato tortilla and whipped salt cod with bread and crackers. Everyone agreed that this was a light, fresh champagne and marks moved up to 6s and 7s out of 10, with a total score of 41/60.

While I was in the kitchen preparing the next dish, a grapefruit, avocado, and pomegranite salad topped with lemon-marinated shrimp, my husband came in with the next glass of champagne, saying "this is just your thing". It turned out to be Billecart-Salmon brut blanc de blancs, a crisp, yeasty, wonderful champagne (even blind-tasting, my husband knows what I'll like). This was the top-scorer of the day, earning all 7s and 8s, with a total score of 47/60.

The final bottle was opened over our dual desserts of apple and rhubarb crumble and chocolate pate with chocolate-hazelnut shortbread. This wine was a puzzler - it was the only one that had enough bubbles for me. It had intense aromas and a depth of flavour. It defintely wasn't French, but none of us could place it, or identify the kind of grapes. It turned out to be a Russian sparkling wine from Abrau-Dyurso, which is a blend of some traditional champagne grapes and other grapes like riesling. Because it was such an unusual and interesting wine, it scored 5s and 6s, with a total score of 34/60.

It was a little surprising to me that our top two bubbles were French blanc de blancs, but I guess nothing beats a well-made and fresh sparkler on a hot summer day!

Along with thanking my friends for bringing their wines and for spending the afternoon drinking, eating, and ranking with us, I do have to thank my 'corporate sponsors':

Billecart-Salmon, for providing glasses, chilling buckets, and aprons and
The Champagne Warehouse for providing the tasting bottle and some tasting notecards.

We'll be repeating this tasting with the same wines later in the year, and it will be interesting to see if and how our opinions of these wines change with time!

TGIF

It's been a long week, culminating in having to take the dog back to the vet yesterday for x-rays. Thankfully, nothing nefarious appeared and we're able to take her off some of her medicines - a cause for celebration so I put a bottle of champagne from The Champagne Warehouse in the fridge.

This one was Thierry Triolet Brut, a 60/40 split of chardonnay and pinot noir. It smelled of freshly grated lemon zest, a good start! It had the freshness of a blanc de blancs, but the pinot noir gave it a depth and richness that blanc de blancs lack. The taste was apples and butter, which stood up well to my comfort food meal of homemade, wheat-free mac and cheese with bacon.

My first glass wasn't cold enough, so there was some sweetness on the finish. But after popping the bottle in the freezer for a bit, the sweetness disappeared but the finish then stumped us. I put forward a play-doh taste to my husband (come on, you know you tried it when you were a kid). He disagreed with that, and offered up salty, but said that wasn't quite the right word. We agreed on briney, the good, fresh kind of taste you get when you lick your lips after you've swum in the ocean.

It's that kind of champagne, reminiscent of everything that's good about the summer.

Date Night - May 10

Sunday was date night, except since it was the weekend, we made it date day. We had lunch at the pub that we tried to eat dinner at last month, and were very glad we did!

My husband was drinking beer, so I won't report on his meal. I, on the other hand, started my meal with a glass of prosecco, De Stefani gran cuvee extra dry, to go with my starter of gambas, mussels, and clams with chickpeas and chorizo. It was a great pairing, the prosecco offering lots of bubbles and sour apples to offset the tomato-y spiciness of my food. It's been a while since I've drunk prosecco, and I forget how nice they can be.

With my main course of pea, broad bean, mint and goat cheese risotto (very more-ish!) I switched over to a glass of the pub's house champagne. I have no idea what brand it was, but again, it was a very good match with the food, offering a richness that the prosecco lacked and that the cheese in the risotto needed.

I thought I was finished with the bubbles at that point, but later in the day, my husband popped open a bottle of the Philizot & Fils numero 3 that we got from 3-D Wines - my bubbly habits seem to have worn off on him!! I had a glass of that to finish off what was a very relaxing afternoon, and am looking forward to closing out the bottle later tonight with dinner.

Birthday Cheers

We went to a lovely birthday party last night - great people and fantastic mojitos, which I learned how to make. Unfortunately, because the dog is still not well, we had to leave early, but we did enjoy the evening out.

My husband decided he deserved one more glass of something to unwind before bed, though, and I heard a cork pop in the kitchen while I was watching The Mentalist. He very kindly poured me a glass and we toasted the birthday boy before he headed upstairs. With one sip, I knew it was good, perfection in a glass. And of course, it was Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose, one of our favourite champagnes. I'm really looking forward to finishing off the opened bottle later today...

numero 2, part 2

Wanting to give the brut numero 2 from Philizot & Fils a fair chance, I tried some again last night with my favourite stand-by dinner, home-made Thai green curry. I wish I could say that the food really helped this champagne, but it was still overwhelming with ground pepper flavour. I kept looking for something else, some more depth, or something on the finish, but was left disappointed. This champagne is really hard work to drink.

Now I'm simply hoping that we got a bad bottle, that the next bottle we open will be different. This is the risk of buying multiple bottles of something you haven't tried before.

Do get in touch, though, if this champagne sounds like your kind of thing, as I'll be surprised if we make it through the other three bottles...

1-2-3

By Sunday, the dog was doing much better, so my husband and I decided to do a tasting of some new champagne that we got through 3-D Wines. They were offering a mixed case of champagne from Philizot & Fils which sounded interesting, as they make low dosage champagnes. We tried all three that came in the case to compare and contrast the differences.

The first, the brut numero 1, was 100% chardonnay. It was a very drinkable champagne, light and fruity with good bubbles, and a good start to the tasting, although not a very interesting or memorable champagne.

The second, the brut numero 2, was a mix of pinot noir and pinot meunier. It smelled and tasted like freshly ground pepper, which made it interesting, but was slightly off-putting. This champagne is not a sipper and should be served with food, so we decided to put it back in the fridge to try again with a meal. This champagne we will remember, although I'm still not sure I really like it...

The third, the brut numero 3, was a mix of pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay. It smelled like fresh olive oil and tasted of honeysuckle, an unusual but very nice combination. This was easily our favourite of the three champagnes!

Lifting our Spirits

As I sit writing this in London, I am actually supposed to be at a wedding in Germany. Unfortunately, our dog got quite ill on Thursday, to the point where she wasn't eating, drinking, or walking. She is thankfully doing a bit better now, but needless to say, it's been a roller coaster of a 48 hours.

Knowing we wouldn't be travelling, my husband decided to go to work yesterday. He's a star, he also picked up ingredients for dinner on the way home, since our kitchen is mostly empty in anticipation of us being away. He cooked an amazing meal of prosciutto-wrapped chicken with pasta tossed with tapenade and fresh mozzarella.

While we weren't really feeling like 'celebrating', there is always a bottle of cold champagne in the fridge, and we decided that nothing makes life feel better than a glass of champagne. So we opened the last bottle that we ordered from the Champagne Warehouse, which was Roger Legros Cuvee Speciale, a 60/40 blend of pinot noir and chardonnay.

What a great idea this was...the champagne had the freshest smell with loads of green apples and mint on the nose. It immediately lifted our spirits, and was just as refreshing to drink. A pleasantly sour apple flavour dominated this champagne, with just a touch of oaky vanilla on the finish, and lots of bubbles. We were totally surprised by the flavour, as the Champagne Warehouse provides tasting notes with their champagne, and they think that this wine 'delivers ripe berry flavours'. I thought maybe they had sent us the wrong bottle, but no, we just taste very different things in this champagne.

I could drink a lot of this champagne, especially if it's perfectly chilled on a hot summer day. It was just what we needed last night...and we toasted to our dog's speedy recover and to the bride and groom whose wedding we'll miss.

May Day 2010

We had some friends over for lunch yesterday, coinciding with the start of the bank holiday weekend, a very nice way to kick-off a three-day weekend. We had planned to eat out in the garden, and managed to stay ahead of the rain for most of the meal.

As an aperitif, we served Gruet Brut along with some homemade spiced nuts. My husband and I had tried the blanc de blanc by this maker in the US two years ago - it had caught our attention because the wine is made in New Mexico, and we were surprised by how good it was for what is not a well-known wine-making region. The Brut was also nice, good bubbles and some crisp citrus fruit flavours, but not a long finish.

Following that, we opened a bottle of Bruno Paillard NPU 1990 to go with our starter of mango and avocado salad with passion fruit dressing. My husband gave me this champagne for Christmas last year - it's a low-dosage champage from a wonder year. You could see the age of the wine from its dark, honey-ish colour and could taste it in the depth of its flavour, full of orchard fruit and bits of woody vanilla that lingered in your mouth. I'm glad we shared this bottle with friends as it's not something you come across often, but well worth drinking.

We moved to some gorgeous white burgundy wines for our grilled lobster and cheese courses, and then back to champagne with our dessert of almond, fig, and chocolate cake accompanied by sugared figs. With this, we had a bottle of Taittinger Brut Reserve that one of our friends had brought over, which was a perfect match to the figgy dessert with its fresh vanilla and biscuit flavours and classic, fine bubbles. Funnily enough, over our dessert we learned that we had both visited the Taittinger vineyards when we took separate trips to the Champagne region and really enjoyed the tour both for what we learned and also for the hospitality and good-naturedness of the winemakers - a hot tip if you're heading to that area!