The Power of Suggestion

We spent the weekend hanging out in the garden - celebrating both the incredible weather and my husband's return from a trip to the US. Yesterday, one of our neighbours had people over, and we could hear them over the fences popping open bottles of champagne. The sound was too much for us, so out came the cold bottle of Ruinart NV from Majestic Wine that was in the fridge.

Our impression of this champagne hadn't changed much since the last time we drank it. It's a very nice champagne. The entire kitchen smelled of yeasty-goodness when the bottle was opened. It had a huge, clean, lemony flavour and plenty of bubbles. My husband said that he actually liked the champagne more than he remembered, until I reminded him of the price point issue - and greedy people that we are, we agreed that we would rather have two bottles of the Roger Legros that I had been drinking earlier in the week than one bottle of the Ruinart NV. And this is the problem with this champagne, it's just not special enough to justify the price.

Speaking of price, for those of you who don't read the FT, in this past weekend's edition, Jancis Robinson ranked her favourite summer wines. I thought her sparkling picks were entirely uninspiring and was very disappointed that the only sparkling wine she could recommend below the £40 price point was an English sparkler...she apparently doesn't read my blog!!

Easter Weekend 2010

Hooray, it's a 4-day weekend this weekend for people who work in offices. Being self-employed, I'll probably still wind up doing some work, but my hubby gets a nice break. To kick it off properly last night, we drank the last bottle of Canard-Duchene Grande Cuvee Charles VII that I ordered from Majestic.

We really enjoyed this wine, as we did the last time we drank it. What surprised me this time was that there is just a hint of vanilla on the finish, a really pleasing touch to what is otherwise a very clean champagne.

And I realised as I was sipping my bubbles that we were again eating a Thai green curry, something we tend to eat a lot now that pasta isn't my 'go-to' dish anymore. For those of you thinking, "boy do they order out a lot", I actually make this at home, having found a very nice, oil-free, green curry paste at Ocado. With chicken and plenty of veggies, it's actually pretty healthy! I recommend you try this as well as the champagne!!

Good Neighbours

Over the weekend, we had two sets of our neighbours over to celebrate our newly decorated sitting room. One had recommended the company who painted the room, the other is an artist from whom we bought a lovely painting to showcase in the room. We've been fortunate that they're such nice people - they're also adventurous drinkers so we thought we would serve them a bubbly that we like and that they might not have drunk, some Pelorus NV that we ordered through Ocado. One of the drinkers commented that while you could tell it was different from a champagne, it was a huge step-up from the kinds of cava you usually find in the UK and he had a hard time placing where the wine was from. For fun, we also opened the last bottle of Deutz that we had from our Majestic wine order. It was no comparison, the Pelorus was a much nicer New Zealand bubbly.

The best part was that I ordered enough of the Pelorus that we had some leftover to drink with our dinner the next evening, a very good match for our pork chops with mustard cream sauce!!

Hat Trick

On Sunday I was hanging out and watching The Wedding Planner (a movie I hate myself for liking) for the umpteenth time when my husband appeared in the sitting room with a glass of champagne in hand for me. We're a bit long on champagne at the moment and he figured we should enjoy it since it's there. I'm not going to argue with that!

He had put a bottle of Ruinart NV in the fridge. I have friends who like this brand and when I placed my order with Majestic, I thought I would try it to round out the case.

Let me start by saying that this is not a bad champagne. But for the price point (£45/bottle) it just isn't all that. It's nice enough, good acidity coming out with some nutty-lemony flavours. It has a very long finish. The bubbles are fine. But I would rather have two bottles of the Canard-Duchene that we drank on Saturday than one bottle of this - which would cost me the same amount.

The other thing that's caught my attention about this champagne - the box it was in was incredibly overengineered. And while I like to put a link to the maker in my blogs, the Ruinart website was also flashy (making it dreadfully slow) and impossible to navigate - too clever by half and incredibly frustrating, so I never actually found the information that I wanted and therefore can't be bothered to link to it. I feel like what I paid for wasn't necessarily a great champagne, but a huge marketing team that's built a brand. I don't feel the need to drink a name, I'd rather drink something interesting and that I really love.

Dining In Style

While our sitting room was being finished, we had most of its furniture and artwork in the dining room which has meant that we've been eating off of our laps since the beginning of the year. But everything is back in the sitting room, so we were able to eat in the dining room again last night. A cause for celebration, worthy of our last bottle of Canard-Duchene 2004 Brut Millesime from Majestic.

We liked it just as much as we did the last time we drank it. It has a very yeasty nose, and a really pleasant apples-and-toast flavour. It stood up to the red Thai duck curry we had for dinner, and then was a pleasant sipper while we cleaned up the dishes and chilled out after dinner. Good flavour, good bubbles, a very nice champagne.

Going For Gold

I have to be honest - I haven't watched much of the Olympics this year. The late viewing and poor selection of events just didn't add up for me. I mean, really, how much curling can you watch in the wee hours?

But the BBC pulled through for me with men's ice hockey (shame they couldn't have shown the women's hockey, too!). And we were lined up properly last night for the gold medal match between the USA and Canada with a big tray of nachos with guacamole and, in true patriotic spirit, our last bottle of Roederer Estate's Quartet from Majestic.

The wine, as always, was impeccable. Our team's performance, unfortunately, was not, and the Canadians took home a well-deserved gold medal. It left me wondering if the Canadians make any decent sparkling wines, something I'll have to look into!

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.

I'm Not Supposed to Tell You This...

Last year, a friend of mine introduced me to the champagnes of Canard-Duchene. He rates them highly but doesn't want word to get out about how good they are, driving up prices. But we tried them again as part of our mixed case from Majestic and they were lovely, so I have to write about them...

On Sunday, we were hanging out, watching movies and eating popcorn, so we opened up a bottle of the 2004 Brut Millesime. Like the 2002 version that we tried last year, this was very drinkable - fruity and fresh, a good go-with-everything champagne.

Yesterday, I made wheat-free blueberry pancakes for dinner, and my husband, spotting the bottle of Grande Cuvee Charles VII that was in the fridge, asked if we could drink that along with them. Like I'm going to say 'no'!? This wine was gorgeous, very crisp-tart with a nice balance of citrus and yeastiness. It had everything that I like in a champagne, including thousands of teeny tiny bubbles that just didn't stop. I got this at only £25/bottle, and I think that was an incredible bargain! It also went surprising well with the pancakes, and I'm very much looking forward to it as a regular accompaniment with breakfast in bed on special occasions.

A Sweet Accompaniment

On our recent visit to Majestic Wine, my husband selected a bottle of champagne that I ordinarily would not have bought - the demi-sec Carte Blanche from Louis Roederer. I'm not a big fan of sweet champagnes, but he was keen to try it, so we put a bottle into our mixed case.

We drank it on Saturday with a flavour-ful red Thai chicken curry and it was a surprisingly good pairing. The champagne had a clean, fruity-sweetness to it - tasting of very ripe fall fruits like apples and pears - and lots of bubbles so that the sweetness didn't cling to the palate for too long. While I don't think I could just sip this wine on its own, it was a great match with the mild spice and coconut of the curry. I was amazed that I liked it as much as I did. Well done to my husband for insisting we try a bottle.

Not My Birthday, But...

It was my husband's birthday yesterday, and the festivities of course involved some bubbles. We opted for a lovely red wine to go with our meal of rum and black pepper steak - but he always has apple pie for dessert on his birthday, and loves to have some champagne with it.

He chose a bottle of 2002 Vintage Veuve Clicquot that we purchased at Majestic Wine. We've drunk a variety of different champagnes from this maker before and always enjoyed them, although to be honest, most of the bottles were gifts rather than bottles we'd bought for ourselves. We were looking forward to trying this vintage champage, which we'd not had before.

My husband said that it went well with his apple pie, but we had a hard time really pinning down what this champagne was about. It was a little yeasty at the start, citrus-sour in the middle with just a touch of green apple (and yet somehow, also a mild sweetness), and with a smooth but short-ish finish. The bubbles were OK. We finally agreed that this is a greatest-common-denominator champagne. It's drinkable, but not special or unique. Everyone who drinks it can find something to like about it. But it wasn't what we've come to expect from a vintage champagne.

An Unmemorable Rose

We have to stop making the lemon-caper chicken to serve with champagne. The last time we did, we got a dud bottle. On Saturday, we thought we'd try it again, and had a wine that was totally unmemorable, not really worthy of the lovely meal.

While we were at Majestic Wine, we picked up a bottle of Perrier-Jouet Blason Rose. We were excited about this wine, as we've drunk champagne from this maker before and it's been good. There's a lot of positive marketing about this particular champagne, too, saying it's 'powerful' and full of berry fruits.

But it was only OK. Definitely not powerful. A little sour at the finish. And like many rose wines in general, not a very distinctive flavour. The most disappointing part for me was that the bubbles are so fine that you can see them in the glass, but you can't feel them in your mouth - way too subtle for my taste.

I'm glad we only bought one bottle of this wine - we paid a premium for the brand, and I'll only remember the wine because I've blogged about it. I wouldn't look forward to drinking more of it.

Quartet for Two

My husband had a very brief holiday this weekend. To get him into a more relaxed state of mind when he arrived home on Thursday evening, we opened a bottle of Quartet from the Roederer Estate, a wine we had drunk before and really enjoyed. It was a warm, sunny evening, and we sipped it while we grilled some pork chops, which we ate with mustard mash and grilled, fresh English asparagus.

We still really like this wine. This time around, though, it had a sweetness we didn't remember. We couldn't decide if we had missed it the first time around, or perhaps if this producer isn't consistent from batch to batch. I'm leaning toward the latter, as I tend not to like sweet bubbles, and think I would have caught the sweetness the first time around. We have another bottle in the house, part of our cache from Majestic Wine, so we'll see if the sweetness re-appears in that one.

Cocktails Anyone?

While we were stocking up on sparkling wines during our recent trip to Majestic Wine, we decided that along with some of the pricier (albeit good deal) wines, we would try a couple of the real bargains. One of them caught our eye - the Undurraga Brut from the Maipo Valley in Chile. It was around £11 for two bottles, and since we had tried and liked a sparkling wine from this region before, we thought we couldn't lose on this one.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and we were grilling steaks for dinner. Since the Undurraga is a chardonnay/pinot noir blend, we thought we'd open it with our meal. It was incredibly bubbly, but smelled like sweet grape soda - not a great start. Then we tried it. Nothing. I sipped again, and my husband asked me what I thought. Still nothing. It tasted of absolutely nothing. A big bottle of alcoholic bubbles.

So, we got our mixers out - blackberry liquer for him, passion fruit puree for me - and made 'champagne cocktails'. This is the perfect wine for this, because the bubbles lasted all the way to the end of my glass, despite having diluted the wine. And, there's no reason to preserve the flavour of the wine (since there isn't any), so you can mix it with just about anything.

We've got a second bottle - any good recommendations for cocktails out there?

A Nice Surprise

Majestic Wine has been having special offers on champagnes and sparkling wines recently, so my husband and I went there to see if we could find enough interesting or good bottles at the right price to buy in the quantity that Majestic requires. While we didn't have any problem filling our quota, we were stumped by one of the wines on offer - Greenpoint's Brut Rose, a chardonnay/pinot noir blend. It goes back to our being reverse wine snobs. Techically, Greenpoint is a Moet & Chandon wine. While we always know in our heads that it will probably be very nice, in our hearts we think that we should buy something from a smaller maker because it will be more interesting.

The price point sold us, though and we bought two bottles for around £22.

I'm not sure why, but out of all of the different bottles we bought, the Greepoint was the first thing my husband put in the fridge when we got home. So on Friday, having had a long and busy week, and having agreed that we'd order in some curry for dinner, we popped it open while we relaxed and waited for our food.

What a nice surprise! Out of all of the bubbles we've drunk recently, and despite this being a rose, on opening, this was the yeastiest wine we've had in a long time. As it warmed up, the summer berry flavours took over, with a very strong raspberry coming through. Not only was this a great sipper, but it stood up well to our curry, not a small feat for a sparkling wine. Oh, and I can't forget to mention, this had great bubbles!

Ordinarily, a single bottle of this would cost about the same as a vintage Pelorus. My husband and I decided that at that price, we might prefer to sip on the Pelorus. But the Greenpoint was pretty unbeatable with strongly-flavoured food, so I would definitely purchase and serve it again. I'm glad we have another bottle tucked away!