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.

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.

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.