Effervescent rather than bubbly

Last night I tried a bottle of cava from the mixed case we ordered from Hedonism Wines. This was the Cordoniu ARS Collecta 2015 Blanc de Noirs Gran Reserva. I selected this bottle because I have had good luck in the past with Cordoniu cavas. They tend to be good value and usually very drinkable. The inclusion of a blanc de noir grape mixed with more traditional cava grapes sparked my interest, too. This particular bottle had a lovely flavor - light, crisp, and very "cava-y" with a note of spearmint that I associate with cava. Despite the cork being firmly stuck in the bottle and needing wrestling out, the bubbles themselves were disappointing, though. I'm actually hard-pressed to say this cava had bubbles - it was more effervescent/slightly fizzy, which is such a no-no for me. If you're not that keen on bubbly wines, this would be fine for you. If, like me, you like your bubbles bubbly, this is sadly not the wine.

Thank you, Pride Parade

It's been years since I posted...but I'm back where the blog started, in a country where the bubbles are interesting and the options plentiful. So, it's time to start tracking what we're drinking again. This weekend held unexpected surprises. We were trying to go shopping on Saturday, but needed to cross Piccadilly to get to the store. Little did we know there would be one million people in London for the Pride parade that took place on...Picadilly. GO PRIDE! But not so great for our shopping venture, as we couldn't get across the street and we were on a schedule. My brillant husband turned us back toward Hedonism Wines, a shop I had never visited. Fabulous place, incredible selection of bubbles. Instead of buying the tie that he needed, we ended up with a case of bubbles instead. As we were paying, I noticed their refrigerator case had half bottles of bubbles. While we can't remember whose idea this was, we decided to buy a half bottle of Mestres Visol cava to drink while we walked. Hey, it was Pride weekend, the two of us drinking cava out of the bottle while we walked up the street didn't attract the slightest bit of attention. We had high hopes, as the person who rang us up at the shop had told us that the Mestres brand was highly regarded in the world of cava. We didn't love it, though, as it was very heavy, with what I can only describe as an unclean taste. It had a little fizz to start, but didn't hold it's bubbles. I'm a little nervous, as we bought a bottle of the Mestres Rose in our case. Fingers crossed that we enjoy that one a little more. To make up for our disappointment, when we got home, we opened a bottle of Digby Leander Pink that I had purchased on sale at Waitrose for GBP24. We loved it. Crunchy, crisp red fruit, not at all sweet. Plentiful bubbles that lasted. I was pleased, as I knew nothing about the wine when I purchased it, and it was surprisingly good and great value for the price. Looking forward to trying more from this maker.

Lovely Cava

My cousin very kindly treated me to take-out sushi for dinner, so I pulled a bottle of cava from the fridge to drink with it. This was Naveran Dama Vintage 2009, a pricey bottle for a cava, at $25, but totally worth it. Surprisingly for a cava, this is predominantly chardonnay mixed with a little bit of parellada grapes. You can taste this in the flavor - this wine reminded me much more of a champagne than any other cava I've ever had. It was crisp and apple-y, with tiny bubbles and a very clean but fruity finish. It had great balance, very little sweetness, and no sour or tart notes. The bubbles of this wine weren't bad, either, a steady stream that was just starting to disappear at the end of my glass. This was very good with our sushi, and would be equally good on its own as an aperitif. I liked this a lot, it is my new favourite cava.

A Varied November

We drank a few new things in November.

For date night, I splurged and bought a bottle of Taittinger Brut Reserve that was on special offer at my new local wine shop. I have a soft spot for Taittinger, as it was the first champagne house I ever visited, well worth the tour! This champagne is a 40/60 blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, extremely well balanced and flavorful. It had loads of apple and vanilla and just a touch of honey, but no sweetness. The bubbles were very good and lasted. This was a nice champagne, and to get it around the £20 price point was well worth it.

Next up, a bottle of champagne that I bought on special offer from Waitrose, Bertrand de Bessac Cuvée du Marquis Brut. It won a silver award from Decanter in 2012, and I can see why. Again a Chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend, this was less well balanced than the Taittinger, but had rich apple flavor with a touch of citrus zest. The bubbles were OK, not great, but good enough for a wine I bought from the supermarket.

To shake things up a bit, I moved down market with an under £10 bottle of Codorniu cava. This maker is really good value, I think they make a pretty good cava. This one was the three traditional cava varieties, macabeo, xarel-lo, and parellada grapes. It had a very grape-y flavor, just a touch of sour at the finish, and decent bubbles. Not the best wine ever, but very drinkable and nothing to complain about.

Finally, I found myself in Prague at the end of the month and was tempted by their Bohemia Sekt Brut. I bought a half bottle at the airport to drink with my husband, who found it far too acidic for his liking. I didn't half mind its very dry and fruity flavor combined with surprisingly good bubbles. But I couldn't drink a lot of it. Honestly, it was far better by the glass at the restaurant in Prague where I first encountered it, served alongside the hefty, saucy, meaty food.

This Won an Award?

We tried the last of the bottles that I bought from Ocado - a rose cava from Marques de Monistrol. I was surprised to see that this wine had won a silver in the 2011 International Wine & Spirit competition, as I didn't think it was even worth the £10 I paid for it. It had the slightest fragrance of strawberry, but no flavour whatsoever and almost no bubbles, just a tiny bit of fizz. Perhaps for the very fainthearted, this is an award-winning wine - but I just don't get it.

Two More From Ocado

We tried two more bottles from the bargain case of six that I bought at Ocado.

The first was a bit of a surprise - Cuveee Royale cremant de limoux, a chardonnay, pinot noir, and chenin blanc blend. This had great bubbles and a big hit of ginger on the finish. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, but the flavours were not quite what I wanted from a sparkler.

The next was Waitrose own-label brut cava, a blend of macabeo, parellada, and xarel-lo grapes. This wine was a bit of nothing, all fizzy bubbles, a bit of grape-y flavour, and very drink-able. With the discount from Ocado, I paid less than £7 for this bottle of wine, which is really a huge bargain. It's not going to 'wow' anyone who drinks it, but if you need decent bubbles on a budget, this is one to buy.

Two Very Different Pinot Noirs

We had two bottles of bubbles during the week. The first was part of my Fizz Club case from the Champagne Warehouse, the latest release of 1+1=3 brut nature pinot noir. This was a juicy, berry-flavoured cava with a gorgeous, deep pink colour. Very yummy, although the bubbles weren't quite as good as the last batch of this cava that we drank.

The second bottle that we opened was the 2006 Cubitt Reserve from Denbies. This was also a pinot noir-based sparkler, but couldn't have been more different from the cava. To start, it wasn't a rose. Where the cava was full of berries, this was grape-y, like the kind of grape flavour you get in lollipops and bubble gum as a kid. The grape turns into grapefruit on the finish, with a nice acidity.

The only similarity came in the bubbles, which provided lots of fizz on opening, but didn't last through the glass. Disappointing for me, as I do love my bubbles.

Blissful Rain

I was so excited that it rained yesterday - not just because my garden so desperately needed it, but because I have had builders working on the outside of the house and even though they're incredibly considerate, it was wonderful to have the house to myself yesterday when they stopped work because of the weather. I was able to get into my kitchen and cook a proper dinner - turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Yummy.

We accompanied it with one of my favourite cavas, 1+1=3 Brut Rose Seleccion from the Champagne Warehouse. The colour of this wine still amazes me, it is just so beautiful. The wine was great with the food, too, its fruity flavour but incredible dryness perfectly offsetting the creaminess of the potatoes and the herbs in the meatloaf. I need to buy more of this wine, it will be great to have on-hand all summer.

That Was Cava?

We drank an interesting cava yesterday - the Brut Nature from 1+1=3, which I got from the Champagne Warehouse. We've had this before and really liked it with food because of the complexity of its flavour. I didn't really get as much of a chance to appreciate it last time, though, because we had guests and I was concentrating on cooking. This time, I got to focus on and properly admire the cava - starting with its goat cheese scent, a grassy, creamy, slightly smoky aroma. This carried through into the flavour with the creaminess balanced by a grapefruit acidity. This cava wasn't like the sterotypical cava, it was much fuller and more challenging to the palate. I still think it's not a light sipper, definitely a 'go-with-food' wine.

Back to Borough Market

I had to go to Borough Market again on Friday - to buy shrimp for dinner and some meat for a meal I made this weekend. As usual, to reward myself for braving the crowds, I stopped into Bedales to see what bubbles they had. I chose a Brut Reserva Rose cava from Joan Sarda, thinking that it might complement the orange sauce I made with the shrimp. This wine is a 50/50 mix of grenache and monastrell grapes - an unusual combination for a sparkling wine.

The shrimp were delicious, the cava less so. I was surprised when my husband said he liked it. When I asked why he said it was because it actually had some flavour, unlike so many rose wines and cavas. But to me, the flavour was completely unbalanced. The cava hit the front of the tongue with an overpowering sweetness, and then milliseconds later hit the back of the tongue with an unpleasant sour taste that lingered. I just didn't like it. This was not a 'sip in the garden as an aperitif' sort of cava - it needed food to mask the sweet/sour dichotomy, and even then, the sour finish predominated.

A little disappointing from Bedales...but I have to say that I didn't ask for advice while I was there and, since they know my taste, they perhaps might have pointed me to something different.

Cava and Colombian Food

On Saturday, some friends came over to teach me how to cook Colombian food. We had a great afternoon, and I really appreciated the thought they put into their lesson and the time they spent teaching me their home cuisine. We made ajiaco, a hearty potato and chicken based soup, arepas, which are grilled cornmeal dumplings that can be filled with cheese, meat, or vegetables, and plaintains stuffed with guava paste and cheese. All of it was delicious, and I'm so excited to have some new recipes to play with.

When we finished cooking, we sat down together to eat. My husband had already poured us glasses of Cava Brut Nature from 1+1=3 that I ordered from the Champagne Warehouse. This cava is predominantly Xarel-lo grapes mixed with a bit of chardonnay. I was impressed at what a good match with the food it was, as cava has the stereotype of being a summer aperitif. This cava had wonderful rich flavours of toast and nuts with the dishes we had, and I was pretty sad when my glass was empty.

That sadness was short-lived. As I was cleaning the kitchen, I discovered that my husband had saved me a little of the cava to try without the food! I quickly finished the dishes, and settled on the sofa with my half-glass of cava. It had very strong citrus aromas that carried through in the taste. Without the food, though, the cava was surprisingly bitter, tasting of grapefruit pith. I preferred this cava with food, I wouldn't serve it on its own.

This was the last bottle of 1+1=3 from my mixed case from the Champagne Warehouse, and overall I've been really pleased with what we've had!

Date Night - Jan 11

Since 'Date Night' fell on a Sunday, we spent the whole day doing fun things together and trying to make the most of a mild day. We also had our eye on the bottle of 1+1=3 pinot noir cava brut reserve that was in the fridge from the Champagne Warehouse. Since their tasting notes recommended it with ham, cheese, pizza, or pasta, we waited to eat a late lunch, then ordered in some nibbles and pizzas.

Like the rose we had just drunk from 1+1=3, the pinot noir was a beautiful, deep red colour tinged with a bit of pinky-orange, another very pretty wine. It smelled of raspberries and ripe plums - I didn't get too much of the floral scents that are described on the bottle. The flavour was a total surprise. It was completely dry and very rich, with just a touch of cranberry along with the other dark berry flavours, perfect with the tomato-acidity of the pizza. It also had very good bubbles throughout.

This was a completely different wine to the rose, but just as satisfying. For anyone who is sceptical about cava, this is the one to try - it's totally unlike all of the horrible stereotypes that cava has. This cava is a 'wine with bubbles', if I hadn't known it was cava I would have had a hard time placing where it was from.

Pretty in Pink

I received a mixed case of bubbles from the Champagne Warehouse yesterday and, as one does, I immediately put a bottle in the fridge - especially as I was keen to try the new range of cava that I ordered. My husband was pleased to see it when he got home, as we had an intense night of catching up on taped episodes of Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother in front of us.

We opened the 1+1=3 Brut Rose Seleccion, a blend of Trepat, Garnacha, and Pinot Noir grapes, to sip while we watched. Now, I know I'm not supposed to judge wines solely on their colour, but I have to say this was the most beautiful wine I have ever drunk. It was intense, glowing, and ruby red, the kind of colour you want to see in your best crystal rather than the regular old glasses we were using. It was a visually stunning wine, something you could appreciate for its beauty alone. On top of that, it smelled like a mix of wild strawberries and mint, like the perfect summer dessert. This cava was impressive even before I began to drink!

The flavours were fantastic, too. The wild berries continued along with a bit of sour cherry and a dry but ever-so-slighty-sweet finish. My husband and I decided it's the kind of sweet you get with an Italian soda - the juicy-fruity-refreshing kind of sweet - as opposed to the teeth-aching, 'how many tablespoons of sugar are in this' kind of sweet you get with an American soda.

The cava was more fizzy than bubbly, but the fizz lasted throughout so it was OK.

It's tempting to say this is the kind of thing you would drink (and drink lots of!) as an aperitif on a hot summer day. But to be honest, it was perfect last night, following a day of grey and rain at the end of a very long work-week. It cheered us up, it reminded us that the freshness of spring is ahead. So don't shelve it for the summer, enjoy it now!!

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!!

A Two-Bottle Weekend

We had a lot of stuff to do around the house this weekend and we also had a couple of bottles of bubbly in the fridge, so we weren't shy with it.

After a full day of chores on Saturday, I made an easy dinner of Thai green curry which we served with one of our favourites - the Quartet from Roeder Estate, which I had purchased as part of our mixed case from Majestic. Compared to the other wines we've been drinking lately, the Quartet was a little sweeter than I had remembered on first opening, but this was nicely balanced by the curry. As always, this one didn't disappoint.

I had ordered some groceries to be delivered from Ocado on Saturday evening, and to get my order up to the minimum I had added in a bottle of Castillo Perelada Cava Reserva. It's been a while since I've had a good cava - while I freely drink them in Spain, I always worry about how sweet they're going to be when I see them in the UK so tend to avoid them here. This particular cava is a blend of macabeo, xarel-lo, and parellada grapes, the first two of which I quite enjoy as still wines, so I thought I'd give this cava a go.

We opened it as we were unwinding at the end of the day on Sunday. It tasted a bit like a lemon drop candy - slightly lemon-tart but also slightly sweet on the finish - not great but I could live with it. What was more disappointing were the bubbles, which started strong but had no staying power, so my glass was flat before I finished it. At less than £10 for a bottle it was a good experiment and it reminded me to be more adventurous when it comes to buying cava.

Italy vs Spain

It wasn't meant to be an international competition, but there you go.

Friday was supposed to be my day off. My one day to hang out and relax, head to Borough Market for a quick shop, eat something nice for lunch, and then sip something sparkling in the afternoon - just because I could. The day before, I found a bottle of prosecco for just under £10 at one of my locals from the Istituto Enologico Italiano, so I was all ready.

Except the prosecco was horrible. Not a dud, like my recent bottle of champagne, but actually nasty, awful, pure-alcohol-tasting, almost-flat wine. It was so bad, I poured it down the sink - not even worthy to use for cooking.

My husband is a star, though. Sensing my disappointment when I met him at the train station later that day, he stopped at another of our locals and picked out a bottle of cava from Codorniu - also for less than £10. This was their Reserva Raventos, a blend of chardonnay, macabeo, and xarello that they released for their 125th anniversary in 1997.

We drank it on Sunday with melt-in-your-mouth roasted pork belly that my husband cooked. The cava was spectacular, and totally made up for my disappointment on Friday. The wine tasted like fresh-baked-bread and had more than enough bubbles for my super-sparkling preference. Had I tasted it blind, I would have thought it was champagne, and a more expensive one, at that.

I often overlook cavas when I'm out looking for bubbles, mostly because I have this preconceived (and incorrect) notion that they tend to be sweet. I've had a lot of very nice cavas, though, and will have to keep them higher up on my shopping list from now on.