Christmas Morning

The very first gift that I opened on Christmas morning was waiting for me in the fridge - a bottle of Krug Clos du Mesnil 1990 (thank you!!). What a wonderful way to start Christmas day!! We popped the cork and sipped it while we opened the rest of our gifts. It remains one of my favourite champagnes, with flavours of nougat and toasted, buttered bread (perfect for breakfast!). It also had a fantastic amount of bubbles, which almost made me forget that this champagne is 20 years old. Surprisingly for me, it was the only champagne we drank on Christmas, but it's so good that it's hard to follow with anything else.

More Bubbles Please

A while back, Jancis Robinson wrote up her top sparkling picks for the holidays in the FT. One of her recommendations appealed to me - the Eric Rodez Cuvee des Grands Vintages - because the winemaker used to work at Krug. How can you go wrong with that?

I tracked a bottle down from Gauntley's, and opened it last night to go with the lemon-caper chicken with broccoli risotto that my husband made. It was a very good match with the food, the 60/40 pinot noir/chardonnay blend of the wine making it weighty enough for a meal. It has a wonderful toffee-apple aroma and taste, a big, full mouthful of flavour. There are two drawbacks, though. First, it goes sour just after you swallow it, although for only a second, and then leaves a lovely, honey finish. Second - NOT ENOUGH BUBBLES.

To all of the sparkling winemakers out there - if you're going to make a wine with bubbles, please make sure they last through the glass. And if you're writing about wine with bubbles, please tell your readers when the bubbles don't hold up. It's so disappointing to spend £40+ on a bottle of bubbly only to be drinking something practically still after 15 minutes.

I Should Have Listened...

There's an excellent wine expert at Selfridges - a young woman - who has helped me before and has a pretty good understanding of what I like. The last time I was there, I spotted a bottle of sparkling wine from Brazil, Miolo Millesime 2006, and had picked it up. When the lady at the shop saw me with it, she shook her head and told me she didn't think I would like it, as it would probably be two sweet and too floral for my taste. So I didn't buy it then.

But curiosity got the better of me, especially since I haven't had a Brazilian sparkling wine before. I was in Selfridges earlier this week, and since the bottle is only about £16, I couldn't help but buy it. And the wine expert (who wasn't there that day!) was right - while I didn't find the wine offensively sweet, it was mustily-floral, leaving a very heavy aftertaste in my mouth that I really didn't enjoy. I'm surprised that so many reviews of this wine on the internet think it's a fruity wine, because I wasn't getting any of that (part of me wonders, too, how many of the reviewers actually tasted it rather than just repeating the company schpiel about the flavours).

So, wonderful wine woman from Selfridges - hats off to you for being able to accurately describe the wine and for knowing that I wouldn't like it. Next time I won't be so driven by my curiosity and will only buy what you tell me to : )

Let it Snow...

My husband is supposed to be away this week with a friend of ours, so I stocked up on some bubbles to enjoy while I was home alone. But the snow scuppered their plans, the flights were cancelled, and they're now here with me, helping me tuck into my champagne stash.

On Monday, we popped open a bottle of Francoise Bedel's Entre Ciel Et Terre. It is a predominantly pinot meunier champagne, being a 72/14/14 split of pinot meunier, chardonnay, and pinot noir. I bought this on-line from Gauntley's, having gone there to buy something else, but recognising this bottle from a trip to Epernay last year. I can't remember if I actually drank this champagne when I was there since I didn't blog about it, but it had a very distinctive label that caught my eye. I will remember it now. It started off well, having a slight whiff and taste of brine that opened into more honey-and-apple flavours. But the bubbles didn't last through the glass, a big disappointment for me. I will have to pass the next time this bottle catches my eye.

Last night, the guys were drinking martinis while I opened a bottle of Ridgeview Merret Bloomsbury 2008 that I bought from Ocado. This maker has been racking up awards, including beating several big-name champagne houses to be named best sparkling wine of the year by Decanter magazine. The Bloomsbury is a chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot meunier blend and I can see why the maker is winning awards. The wine had a clean floral aroma - a little bit like freesias - followed by a very pleasing grapefuit taste. It also had loads of bubbles, and it will be interesting to see how they hold up in the capped bottle in the fridge. Unlike some of the other English sparklers that I've had, this one wasn't distinctive because it had a strong or unusual taste. This one was much more polished and I think I would be hard-pressed to distinguish it from a French champagne. We'll have to include a bottle in our next blind tastings! I'm looking forward to trying more from this maker, and considering the bottles are in the low-£20 range, they won't break the bank.

First Batch

I finally, finally made my first batch of Christmas cookies yesterday - spiced prune drops and cranberry-pistachio biscotti. Since we sampled them after dinner, we opened the other bottle of Vilmart champagne that I ordered from Berry Brothers, the Grand Cellier, a 70/30 split of chardonnay and pinot noir. It was a nice-enough champagne, but a let-down from the description on the Berry Brothers website, which says that it tastes of praline and hazelnuts. It doesn't. It has more of a zesty floral nose, which turns into a slightly-sweet apple flavour. It doesn't have any of the richness that I expected, and was actually quite acidic in my stomach. At £35/bottle, I wouldn't buy this again, there are nicer sparklers out there and for better prices.

Birthday Bubbles

I had a great birthday yesterday, finished off with cake made by my husband and a very special bottle of cava from Bedales - Privat Opus Evolution gran reserva brut nature. I was fortunate enough to have tasted from this range of cava at the shop and really loved it, and my friend very kindly gave me a bottle (thank you!). Not only is the packaging spectacular, but the cava is unlike any other I've tried before. It has a rich, dried fruit aroma, tasting of candied figs (but without being too sweet) and toasted hazelnuts. It was perfect with my cake, although you could just drink it on its own.

This cava also has amazing bubbles - so much so that they almost mask the flavour. When I tried this at Bedales, we decanted it so that we could really appreciate the taste without getting distracted by the bubbles. I shouldn't admit this, but despite my friend's instructions to decant, I drank mine straight from the bottle because I really like the bubbles. But to get the best from this cava, you might want to decant and drink it at a slightly warmer temperature than other sparkling wines - you really want to enjoy all of the amazing richness in this cava.

Bedales has a limited number of bottles, I recommend you buy it before they run out!!

Indulgent

My husband has had business dinners the last couple of nights, leaving me to eat on my own. I often can't be bothered to cook for myself, but as you're well aware if you've been reading this blog, I will open champagne for myself : )

So last night was a bit of indulgence...my bowl of honey-nut Cheerios was accompanied by a glass of Billecart-Salmon rose. I can just see some of you, shaking your heads in horror.

But since the bottle's sitting capped in the fridge and since I just finished some drawings for my gardening homework, I'll have to have another glass tonight. Not sure yet what I'll be eating with it...hopefully something better than cereal.

Welcome Home

I was away last week, and came home to find that the order I had placed with Berry Brothers finally arrived while I was gone. This was good news because I had ordered two bottles of champagne along with the item I really wanted to make up the amount required for free delivery. It was bad news in that I had placed the order so that I could bring a gift to a friend of mine in the US but the order didn't come until after I left. For future reference, when Berry Brothers says '3-6 days' for delivery, they really mean 6+ days.

But it was nice to sit down at the end of the day after a red-eye flight, unpacking, running several errands, and then working all afternoon, to a lovely glass of champagne. I had ordered the Grand Cellier D'Or 2004 made by Vilmart & Co, thinking that I had not tried Vilmart before. I was wrong - my husband reminded me that we had actually tried other champagnes by this maker several years ago and liked them. This one was very good - a blend of 70% chardonnay and 30% pinot noir. It was too cold when I opened it, so all I could smell and taste was sour lemon. Things got much better as the champagne warmed, though, with lots of creamy yeast coming through, and the sourness disappearing. It was delicious and very well balanced, excellent as a sipping champagne.