A Couple More to Report

I've been negligent in my blogging, and finally clearing up the last two bottles that we're drunk that have been sitting by my sink waiting to be typed up. They were interesting, but I'm not sure I'd rush to drink either again.

The first was the Cuvee Fleurie from Jean Claude Mouzon, which I bought from the Champagne Warehouse. This is a 100% chardonnay champagne, but unlike any others that I've tried before. It had a lush melon taste, but with a sweetness that hit the mid-palate rather than the finish. It was surprising, when I drank it, I asked myself if I really tasted that sweetness, and didn't comprehend that I had until I offered my husband a top-up and he said "No, it was too sweet". You don't often get sweet in the middle. I didn't mind it so much, because it disappeared on swallowing, so I was left with this melon-y taste. But as my husband proved, this one isn't for everybody.

The second champagne to report on was Bertrand Gautherot's Blanc d'Argile, which I purchased from Green & Blue. Not only is this a biodynamic wine, but it is also low dosage. The best comparison I could make for this wine is that it tastes just like the 1990 Bruno Paillard NPU that I've had, but with much better bubbles. And considering the former costs in the £100's where the Blanc d'Argile was around the £50 mark, I know which I'd prefer!! This had that same oxidised taste of rich orchard fruits - something I really enjoyed, but just couldn't drink a lot of. Well worth the investment, though, if you want wonder-year flavour without the same price tag.

Heavy Going

We drank a sparkling wine that had intrigued me on Green & Blue's website - Mauzac Nature from Domaine les Tres Cantous. The 'mauzac' in the name is the variety of grape, another unusual one that I had not tried before. This wine was as interesting in the glass as it was in its making, which included organic grape farming and the use of local yeasts. The wine was a straw colour and densely opaque in the glass, smelling heavily of orchard fruit and still-fermenting yeast. It had a very heavy pear and honey flavour, topped up with yet more of the raw yeast. It had more bubbles than I expected, but they didn't last throughout the glass. This was not a sipping wine - it's not at all crisp or refreshing - and was such heavy going that I couldn't finish mine. My husband quite liked it with our food - broad bean and pea pasta, with crisp, lemony flavours - but agreed it wouldn't have been suitable as an aperitif. Thankfully he liked it enough to finish mine!

Over-Hyped

We had a bottle of prosecco that I ordered from Green & Blue, and it was so non-descript, so ho-hum, that I actually had to go back to their website to see what it was that attracted me. What they said about the Casa Coste Piane Valdobbiadene Prosecco was that the producers are meticulous about their fruit (so far, so good), that it is bone dry and full of mineral and restrained fruit (yes on the dry, restrained on the flavour), and "it would be a crime against all the Gods of Wine if you don’t try it at least once". Here's where they've gone too far for me, because this wine wasn't all that. It was almost completely flat (the bottle does say 'Frizzante...Naturalmente', so I was not expecting to be wow'ed by the bubbles) and no more special than any other prosecco that I drink by the glass when I'm out at a pub or at Borough Market. I found it disappointing - it was an OK wine, nothing horrible about it, but nothing that remarkable, either. I'm surprised by the rave review, which is echoed on some other websites.

Fizzy Pink

Last night, we opened a bottle of Mas de Daumas Gassac Rose Frizzant that I bought from Green & Blue. I have to be honest, I didn't have high hopes for this wine, which is a French sparkler (rather than a champagne) and we've had variable experiences with these. The fact that they called it 'frizzant' didn't bolster my confidence in its bubbles.

But it surprised me. It was definitely more fizzy than bubbly, but the fizz endured - it had a nice texture throughout. The scent and flavour were unusual - very much like the juice that I get when I macerate strawberries with a little bit of balsamic vinegar. But then this wine is mostly cabernet sauvignon (a grape they use in one of my favourite proseccos) with a little bit of petit manseng, so the slightly heavier, tangier flavour made sense.

In all, it was a pleasant wine. I don't know that I would hunt it down again, but as an experiment and to broaden my horizons, I was glad to have tried it.

That's Better

We celebrated my husband's birthday yesterday, and he had asked me to pull a 'good bottle' of bubbles out of the assortment we had in the house. I knew exactly which to choose - Larmandier-Bernier Blanc de Blancs that came from Green & Blue. After the previous day's fiasco with the Champalou, I wanted to serve him a wine that we hadn't tried before, but from a maker that we trust and like.

This one was just right for the evening - a low dosage champagne whose cork exploded into my hand with a surprising and celebratory 'POP'. It smelled just like the apple pie my husband was eating, tart apples and buttery pastry. The green apple carried through in the flavour, complemented by a clean, chalky finish, a lovely, more-ish flavour. The bubbles were plentiful on pouring but didn't last long in the glass, which meant we kept having to top up our glasses to refresh the bubbles. This bottle didn't last long, and was enjoyed immensely.

Ick!

I made a huge mistake. I bought a bottle of Champalou Brut from Green & Blue based on the description on their website:

"We implore you not to think of this as a cheap alternative to champagne but as a gorgeously scented, honeyed quince and apple flavoured wine"

I trusted them. I tend to think that Green & Blue is the kind of place where they've actually tried the wine and bought it because it was good and written about it from their experiences, rather than just flog it off with the maker's PR. In this case, I think I was wrong. How could anyone, anywhere, who knows even the minute-est thing about wine write that Champalou is any kind of alternative to champagne?

First off, it smelled like a used Band-Aid, damp and plastic-y. It tasted like how some grandmothers smell, sweet, a little floral, and slightly musty. Mercifully, it had no finish. And the bubbles...not even worth mentioning. It improved when we drank it with some really salty cheeses, but not by much. It wasn't anywhere close to champagne, I wouldn't even compare this to some of the worst cavas that I've drunk.

Right off, my husband, who didn't know what this was, asked if it was from Vouvray. He knew from the first sip that it was a wine typical of that area. In his words - "they bottle it sweet, and it's a crapshoot from there how it turns out". So if you like that kind of wine, then Champalou is for you. If you're looking for a cheap alternative to champagne, try some of the cavas or proseccos that I've liked, they'll be safer bets!

Home Sweet Home

I had a very brief trip to the US this past weekend, and as much as I enjoyed it, there's nothing like coming back to my own home - especially when my husband has made the effort to track down a champagne we'd not tried before! My husband greeted me with a chilled bottle of Agrapart & Fils Les 7 Crus that he had bought at Green & Blue. This is a blanc de blancs wine, named "7 crus" because the grapes come from the seven villages that are in the Cote de Blancs. This winemaker is also known for a more natural and lower dosage winemaking style, with this particular bottle having a 7 g/l dosage.

I firstly have to comment on the bubbles of this champagne, as they were the best I've had in recent memory. A consistent, fine, fizzy stream, whooshing up from the bottom of the glass. For this reason alone, I was ready to like this champagne! But on top of the bubbles, it was a remarkably good wine. It smelled of a light balsamic vinegar, with a fruity acidity on the nose. It had a clean citrus taste, with just a touch of pith-bitterness on the finish. This champagne went down quickly and it's definitely a do-over. Kudos to my husband for picking it up!

Not My Thing

When I made my last order at Green & Blue, I added a few things to the case that I wouldn't ordinarily order, just to stretch my boundaries. We drank one of them last night, a 2006 Petillant Naturel from Thierry Puzelat. This is a Loire valley sparkling wine made from a grape I had never heard of before, menu pineau. The 'naturel' in the name indicates that the maker uses very low amounts of sulphur in the wine-making process. It is also a low dosage wine.

I wish I could say I loved it, but I didn't. The amber-coloured liquid had a dense, apple and honey flavour, more like a cider than a wine. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with that, but it's not really what I want in a sparkling wine. It also had just a touch of stinky socks on the finish, I wasn't sure I liked that, but it was fleeting. What really disappointed the most were the bubbles. The wine is, at best, effervescent on pouring, and the bubbles quickly disappeared altogether, leaving just the heavy flavour behind. While this was interesting to try once, it really wasn't my thing. But since it was only around £15 for the bottle, I didn't break the bank with my experiment.

Back to France

Last night, my husband cooked pasta for me for dinner, which was a great treat. We decided to open the bottle on the 'champagne shelf' to go with it - Bereche et Fils Brut Reserve, which I had acquired from Green & Blue. This wine is a balanced mix of the traditional champagne grapes, chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier, but does not undergo malolactic fermentation like most champagnes.

We had high hopes for this wine, as we've drunk champagnes from this maker before. We weren't disappointed. The champagne smelled of uncooked bread dough and tasted slightly of this at the start. The finish was long and lovely - crisp, juicy grapefruit. The bubbles were teeny-tiny, but there were lots of them and they lasted. My husband commented that it was nice to "drink French again" as this champagne was such a different experience to the Italian and Spanish wines we had in the past two days - much cleaner, more balanced, yeastier, weightier. We loved it!

Bereche et Fils say on their website that this is their 'signature' champagne and I can see why. That said, I'm now keen to track down a bottle of their zero dosage Extra Brut Reserve...

The Bubbles Lasted

I'm happy to report that we finished the Cremant d'Alsace by Dirler last night (with the rest of the apple pie) and the bubbles held up overnight in the fridge. As I mentioned in my last post, they're definitely small, fizzy bubbles rather than great big, popping bubbles, but they were there through the end of the bottle. I'll have to start trying some more cremants now that I know they won't all let me down on the fizz factor.

Still Celebrating

On Sunday, to continue our anniversary celebration, we went to lunch at one of our favourite restaurants, Ransome's Dock. You'll be surprised to hear that we didn't have any bubbles there, instead ordering a wonderful gruner veltliner from Austria and an unusal Spanish red wine made with mencia grapes. As always, we had a fantastic meal and walked away from the restaurant feeling stuffed and completely spoiled.

But we had fresh apple pie at home, and having skipped dinner, we ate pieces of that before bedtime with a glass of bubbles. To challenge me, my husband had bought Cremant d'Alsace by Dirler while he was at Green & Blue. I never, ever buy cremant wines because I am positive that they're not going to have enough bubbles. And to be honest, it's not really fair to the French sparkling wine makers, because I will buy cavas and proseccos knowing that they're not likely to have enough bubbles, either. My husband knows I tend to like Alsatian wines, so he decided to make me try this, a blend of pinot gris, pinot noir, and auxerrois grapes. The cremant was perfect with the pie having lots of soft apple and pear flavours. It had plenty of fizz, too, not big bubbles, but enough effervescence through the glass to keep it interesting. I'm curious to see how the capped bottle holds up overnight...

17 Years

Saturday was our actual anniversary, and despite a few showers in the afternoon, it was a lovely autumn day. We drove the dog out 'to the country' (in reality, 20 miles away from home, with most of the drive being through South London and Croydon) to go to a farm shop and garden centre that my husband found on-line. We bought apples and pumpkins and British cheese and meat, a lovely way to while away the afternoon.

When we got home I made pie with the apples. While I was baking, we nibbled on the cheese that we had bought and finished the bottle of Maison Lenique 2005 that we had opened the night before, a very good combination, and cosy with the scent of apples and cinnamon in the kitchen.

From there, we took the dog for her walk and then settled in for the evening with some movies and pizza and more chocolate cake - and a bottle of Larmandier-Bernier Terre de Vertus that my husband had picked up from Green & Blue. We've had this champagne before and really liked it. It's a zero dosage blanc de blancs that has lots of lime and mineral flavours - completely different from the Maison Lenique that we had been drinking earlier, but every bit as good. This is one of those champagnes that we call a 'wine with bubbles', as it would be just as drinkable if it were a still wine. It was a lovely treat, something a bit different for our special day.

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!