Autumnal

Nope, not the weather, but the champagne we drank last night - Roger Legros Millesime 2002, a chardonnay/pinot noir mix which I bought from the Champagne Warehouse. This was such a nice champagne!It smelled like the perfect autumn day in an orchard, with fallen apples and fresh-cut hay, a slightly oxidised aroma, but in the way that a good sweet wine smells. There was no sweetness to this wine though, just lots of rich apple with some biscuit on the finish. The bubbles were excellent, too. I was very surprised to see this priced at less than £30 on the Champagne Warehouse website, it was a lot of quality for a very reasonable price!!

Late...

My husband is late. We knew he might be late tonight, as he was meeting some friends for drinks at the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society. He told me he would try to get home at a reasonable hour to have a pre-dinner drink with me and then some pasta, but he's not here. He did call to say that he would be home shortly, so I have turned the 'everything in the fridge' pasta that I had started into baked ziti by mixing everything together in a baking dish, coating it with a generous helping of grated mozzarella (so much for my healthy meal), and popping it into the oven. Then I poured myself his pre-dinner drink (since I had already finished mine) and came up to the computer. I really should be finishing off the gardening paper that I started this afteroon, but he'll be home in 10 minutes, which is not enough time.

So I'll report on the pre-dinner drinks instead - kindly provided by the Champagne Warehouse (thank you!) - Roger Legros Rose, a pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay blend. It has a lovely aroma, full of ripe plums. On first sip, I was really surpised by this champagne. For a rose, it's got a hefty berry taste, not sweet strawberries and raspberries, but rich blackberries and cranberries. This leaves just a slightly bitter note on the finish, not unpleasant, but it's noticeable for just a moment. This champagne also has a consistent and fine stream of bubbles!

The tasting notes say that this is a good wine with summer salads like watermelon and feta or with non-chocolate desserts. I could defintely see those pairings working, and they would probably eliminate that touch of bitterness. I'll be ordering another bottle when watermelon is in season, as I do have a good watermelon, feta, and mint recipe that I've been keen to try.

Another nice champagne from Roger Legros. I'll have to try to visit them if I ever get back to the Champagne region.

A Triple Zero

We went to lunch with some friends on Sunday at Bar Baloud. The plan was to arrive a little early for a drink and then head to our table to sample the burgers for which the restaurant is known. I had heard this before we arrived, but the prices of the drinks were shocking - upwards of £12 for cocktails, the same price range as the burgers!! I cast my eye over the wine list, and was pleased to find a champagne I'd not tried before listed by the glass for around £9. So I ordered that - the Montlouis Petillant Triple Zero from Domaine de la Taille aux Loups.

This champagne is officially 'triple zero' because there are three stages in the champagne-making process where a maker could add sugar but this maker does not. I rate this champagne a triple zero because it 1) was unpleasantly bitter - smelling and tasting of not-quite-ripe greengages 2) had no finish whatsoever and 3) had no bubbles even though my glass came from a just-opened-before-my-eyes bottle. An absolute disappointment, particularly after the pleasure we'd had on Saturday with the Billecart-Salmon extra brut.

Three things saved the day. Our friends are great company, and we had a very nice afternoon with them. The burgers were mouthwateringly good, and I'm saying this as someone who's not a huge hamburger-eater. The Piggie Burger, topped with BBQ pulled pork and green chilli mayo hit all of the right spots. And, on top of that, when we got home we had 3/4 of a bottle of Roger Legros Cuvee Speciale to finish.

Will Work for Bubbles

I've been doing some garden design work for some friends, which is great practice for me as I'm undertaking my coursework. On Saturday, they very kindly assembled and gave me a case of champagne to thank me for my efforts. This was totally unnecessary as I'm not really comfortable charging anything for my gardening work with my still-amateur status - but very much appreciated (thank you!). And so I put one of the bottles in the refrigerator for Saturday evening - Billecart-Salmon extra brut - a zero dosage blend of pinot meunier, pinot noir, and chardonnay.

I love this champagne, it is totally my kind of champagne. It smelled like toast and grapefruit (or 'pamplemousse' as my friends say). It had the cleanest, richest, most refreshing taste with lots of citrus but no sourness or bitterness. The finish lasted forever and left us wanting more.

And the bubbles...perfect, round, plentiful bubbles!! The bubbles are my gold-standard for what a champagne should be.

This bottle disappeared far too quickly, even though my husband and I savoured every sip. My husband, cheeky-chappy that he is, suggested that we open the other bottle of champagne that was in our fridge, so that we could compare another champagne that we like to it. He knew I wouldn't say 'no' to that.

So he popped open the Roger Legros Cuvee Speciale from the Champagne Warehouse and we had a glass each. I have to say, I was a little nervous, because I've really liked this champagne in the past and didn't want it ruined because it couldn't stand up to the Billecart-Salmon. I'm relieved to report that, while it's definitely not in the same league as the Billecart-Salmon, it was still a very good champagne.

I should point out that there's no pinot meunier in the Roger Legros and that it's not a low or zero dosage champagne, so we weren't at all comparing like-for-like. These differences are very evident, with the Roger Legros having a much mintier nose, a lighter flavour, and a sweetness that I never noticed before when I'd drunk it on its own. My husband commented that while the Billecart-Salmon was 'toasty' the Roger Legros was more 'biscuity'. The Roger Legros was also far less structured than the Billecart-Salmon, it wasn't as crisp and lacked the amazing finish. While it couldn't quite compete with a bigger player, the Roger Legros still ranks among the top of their price range.

I'm now really starting to understand what you get with some of these bigger name producers...and why it's worth the price differential.

Still a Star

I've been sipping a bottle of Roger Legros Cuvee Speciale from the Champagne Warehouse for the past few nights and really enjoying it in the surprisingly hot weather we've been having. I'm always pleased when a champagne I've had before and liked lives up to the memory!! And this one actually surpassed it - having far more bubbles than I'd remembered, which even held up over a few days in the opened and capped bottle. If you haven't tried this champagne, you really should, it's exceptionally good, especially for the price (less than £25/bottle).

Lifting our Spirits

As I sit writing this in London, I am actually supposed to be at a wedding in Germany. Unfortunately, our dog got quite ill on Thursday, to the point where she wasn't eating, drinking, or walking. She is thankfully doing a bit better now, but needless to say, it's been a roller coaster of a 48 hours.

Knowing we wouldn't be travelling, my husband decided to go to work yesterday. He's a star, he also picked up ingredients for dinner on the way home, since our kitchen is mostly empty in anticipation of us being away. He cooked an amazing meal of prosciutto-wrapped chicken with pasta tossed with tapenade and fresh mozzarella.

While we weren't really feeling like 'celebrating', there is always a bottle of cold champagne in the fridge, and we decided that nothing makes life feel better than a glass of champagne. So we opened the last bottle that we ordered from the Champagne Warehouse, which was Roger Legros Cuvee Speciale, a 60/40 blend of pinot noir and chardonnay.

What a great idea this was...the champagne had the freshest smell with loads of green apples and mint on the nose. It immediately lifted our spirits, and was just as refreshing to drink. A pleasantly sour apple flavour dominated this champagne, with just a touch of oaky vanilla on the finish, and lots of bubbles. We were totally surprised by the flavour, as the Champagne Warehouse provides tasting notes with their champagne, and they think that this wine 'delivers ripe berry flavours'. I thought maybe they had sent us the wrong bottle, but no, we just taste very different things in this champagne.

I could drink a lot of this champagne, especially if it's perfectly chilled on a hot summer day. It was just what we needed last night...and we toasted to our dog's speedy recover and to the bride and groom whose wedding we'll miss.

New Sitting Room

After six years in our house, we finally had our sitting room painted. The decorators did a great job - the room now looks exactly as I'd envisaged it in my head for so long. So last night, having moved most of the furniture back into the room, we decided to have some champagne along with our chicken/bacon/green bean/parmesan soup.

I had a bottle of Roger Legros Extra Brut chilling in the fridge, one of the bottles from my Champagne Warehouse order, so we opened that. I'd been looking forward to opening this bottle, as it's a low-dosage champagne and I suspected that I would really like it. And I did. Even though it's 100% chardonnay, it's definitely not a blanc de blancs style of champagne, it is much more a 'wine with bubbles'. The tasting notes that came with the bottle said it would have citrus and lychee flavours, which it did. But to me, a better description of this champagne is that it is like a very fresh, very mild goat cheese. It has a soft acidity balanced with a touch of creaminess, a bone-dry mouth feel, and a gently grassy-green finish that lasts.

The only thing that slightly disappointed were the bubbles. They were very fine and plentiful on first pouring, but didn't last long in the glass - you have to drink this one quickly!

My husband thinks that anyone who likes to drink white Burgundy would especially like this champagne, so do give it a try!