Hello again
Well, it has been a busy couple of months since the last edition of All Things Local and I have been reflecting on Word on Wine which I have been writing now for three years. Due to work pressures, I have decided to step down from writing this column.
As I write, the sun is shining through my study window, so I decided to put a bottle of Chablis in the fridge to chill, ready for sitting in the garden at the weekend with friends, enjoying a cool glass of wine.
My thought for this month is… is Chablis overrated?
At a recent Kilburn Wine Circle we had a speaker presenting a variety of Burgundy wines, one of which was Chablis. Now I don’t know about you, but I have always found the French way of labelling wine somewhat challenging, as it rarely tells me on the label what grape is in the bottle. However, they are beginning to recognise that us Brits like to know what we are buying and are increasingly realising they need to let us know so that we can make an informed decision on which wine to buy.
The Chablis we tried was crisp and fresh and from the most northerly tip of the Burgundy region, and as a result the grapes grow in a slightly cooler climate. This gives the Chardonnay grape from that area a fresher, crisper taste; more so than a Chardonnay grown in more southerly areas, where the heat generally makes the grapes more sweet, rather than acidic and the wines taste heavier.
On my earlier question about Chablis, having tasted this wine at Wine Circle, I don’t think this one is overrated…so let’s see what you think!
Brand: Louis Jadot
Type: Chablis
Region: Burgundy
Year: 2008
Grape: Chardonnay
Alcohol Strength: 12.5%
Style: Crisp, dry, elegant white
Flavour: Clean, fresh, light-bodied and rich in flavour
Price: £12.99
Available: www.everywine.co.uk
Ideal with Shellfish, smoked salmon and light meals
Anne Kennedy - Kilburn Wine Circle.
Showing posts with label wine review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine review. Show all posts
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Word on Wine By Anne Kennedy
Hello again
We recently spent a long weekend away with friends in Leyburn, Yorkshire to recharge our batteries and celebrate our wedding anniversary. We booked into a couple of very nice restaurants while we were there and an incident at one of them reminded us of a fundamental principle when ordering wine in a restaurant.
Our friend ordered a bottle of South African Chenin Blanc off the wine list. When the waiter brought the wine, he opened it, poured it in our glasses and put it in an ice bucket. Considering this was a very good restaurant, I was a little surprised he had not asked us to taste it prior to pouring, but they were very busy that evening.
When we tasted the wine we were very surprised, as it was sweet. I didn’t say anything, as I didn’t want to offend my friend and Chenin Blanc can sometimes be sweet. I just thought I would save mine for the desert course instead.
Fortunately, my friend also noticed and so we then looked a little closer at the bottle. We discovered it was a late harvest Sauvignon Blanc - the waiter had brought us the wrong wine completely. When we mentioned it, he apologised and went to get us the correct wine and we could see where the mistake was made, as the labels on both bottles looked almost identical. Unfortunately, he took the wrong one away (even though we’d all had a sip of it!)
The moral of the story is always check the label before the wine is opened and taste the wine before agreeing to accept it. You’re not a wine snob – but just making sure it’s what you’re paying for. This tasting is not to check if you like the wine, but to see if the wine is tainted, or corked. If it is corked, it will smell like moldy newspaper, wet dog, damp cloth or damp basement; the wine's native aromas are reduced significantly.
Nowadays many wines are being served in screw cap bottles which means there is less risk of the wine being tainted after it is bottled, hence why the screw cap is becoming more commonly used by producers.
The Chenin Blanc we had in Leyburn, was in fact a very nice wine, so I have selected a Chenin Blanc for you to try this month - not from South Africa, but from New Zealand. This is not a widely grown grape down there, so it was interesting to try.
Brand: Esk Valley
Type: Vineyard Selection
Region: Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Year: 2008
Grape: Chenin Blanc
Alcohol Strength: 14%
Style – White
Bouquet – Delightful fresh nose of crisp melon and softer tropical fruits
Flavour - Honey, quince and stone-fruit with a mineral-like acidity. The palate is full with a touch of residual sugar balancing the acidity
Price: £7.99, H Smith, Ashbourne.
Ideal with seafood, Asian and Indian-style dishes
Catch a great wine review in every edition of All Things Local - the Community Magazine for Kilburn, Belper and Ripley, Derbyshire.
We recently spent a long weekend away with friends in Leyburn, Yorkshire to recharge our batteries and celebrate our wedding anniversary. We booked into a couple of very nice restaurants while we were there and an incident at one of them reminded us of a fundamental principle when ordering wine in a restaurant.
Our friend ordered a bottle of South African Chenin Blanc off the wine list. When the waiter brought the wine, he opened it, poured it in our glasses and put it in an ice bucket. Considering this was a very good restaurant, I was a little surprised he had not asked us to taste it prior to pouring, but they were very busy that evening.
When we tasted the wine we were very surprised, as it was sweet. I didn’t say anything, as I didn’t want to offend my friend and Chenin Blanc can sometimes be sweet. I just thought I would save mine for the desert course instead.
Fortunately, my friend also noticed and so we then looked a little closer at the bottle. We discovered it was a late harvest Sauvignon Blanc - the waiter had brought us the wrong wine completely. When we mentioned it, he apologised and went to get us the correct wine and we could see where the mistake was made, as the labels on both bottles looked almost identical. Unfortunately, he took the wrong one away (even though we’d all had a sip of it!)
The moral of the story is always check the label before the wine is opened and taste the wine before agreeing to accept it. You’re not a wine snob – but just making sure it’s what you’re paying for. This tasting is not to check if you like the wine, but to see if the wine is tainted, or corked. If it is corked, it will smell like moldy newspaper, wet dog, damp cloth or damp basement; the wine's native aromas are reduced significantly.
Nowadays many wines are being served in screw cap bottles which means there is less risk of the wine being tainted after it is bottled, hence why the screw cap is becoming more commonly used by producers.
The Chenin Blanc we had in Leyburn, was in fact a very nice wine, so I have selected a Chenin Blanc for you to try this month - not from South Africa, but from New Zealand. This is not a widely grown grape down there, so it was interesting to try.
Brand: Esk Valley
Type: Vineyard Selection
Region: Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
Year: 2008
Grape: Chenin Blanc
Alcohol Strength: 14%
Style – White
Bouquet – Delightful fresh nose of crisp melon and softer tropical fruits
Flavour - Honey, quince and stone-fruit with a mineral-like acidity. The palate is full with a touch of residual sugar balancing the acidity
Price: £7.99, H Smith, Ashbourne.
Ideal with seafood, Asian and Indian-style dishes
Catch a great wine review in every edition of All Things Local - the Community Magazine for Kilburn, Belper and Ripley, Derbyshire.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Bodegas Ramon Bilbao - wine review
From the pen of Anne Kennedy - Kilburn Wine Circle
I am currently sitting in my study, looking out on the frozen snow lying on the drive, reflecting back on the festive activities and wondering what the new decade will bring.
December has been an exciting month, seeing a lot of social activity with friends and family. This of course included trying many different wines. At Kilburn Wine Circle we were celebrating the club’s 30th anniversary in December, so decided to have a fine wine evening. When we were discussing the event earlier in the year, the committee had a debate about what makes for a ‘fine’ wine and all agreed that it is the more unusual and frequently more expensive wines. As a result, this was what we tasted at our celebration evening.
We had a very enjoyable meeting, but evenings like this reinforce for me that it is more important to enjoy the wine, than for it to be a well known brand or an expensive wine. It is all about your own personal taste, so by developing your knowledge about wines it helps you to decide what grapes, countries, brands etc you do or don’t like and as a result make better wine choices when shopping.
There are many books available to give you more information about wines and wine merchants will frequently have wine available to try. We had a visit to Red Zebra on Iron Gate in Derby, which is now open as a Wine Bar; this gives you the opportunity to try different wines in more social surroundings. We also had a visit to Majestic Wine Warehouse on Ashbourne Road, Derby, before Christmas and had the opportunity to try the six wines they had on display.
We brought a number of wines from Majestic, one of them being the wine I will tell you about this month, as I particularly enjoyed this one over the festive season.
Brand: Bodegas Ramon Bilbao
Type: Single Vineyard, Rioja
Region: Haro, Spain
Year: 2007
Grape: Tempranillo and Garnacha
Alcohol Strength: 13.5%
Style: Medium bodied red
Bouquet: Intensely fruity bouquet, reminiscent of ripe cherries and strawberries
Flavour: Rich, velvety and complex, well structured with a long and pleasant finish.
Price: £7.99 (£6.49 when buying two bottles), Majestic Wine. (NB. Majestic have a policy of a minimum sale of six bottles. These can be different wines).
This wine is ideal with red meats, stews or cheese.
I am currently sitting in my study, looking out on the frozen snow lying on the drive, reflecting back on the festive activities and wondering what the new decade will bring.
December has been an exciting month, seeing a lot of social activity with friends and family. This of course included trying many different wines. At Kilburn Wine Circle we were celebrating the club’s 30th anniversary in December, so decided to have a fine wine evening. When we were discussing the event earlier in the year, the committee had a debate about what makes for a ‘fine’ wine and all agreed that it is the more unusual and frequently more expensive wines. As a result, this was what we tasted at our celebration evening.
We had a very enjoyable meeting, but evenings like this reinforce for me that it is more important to enjoy the wine, than for it to be a well known brand or an expensive wine. It is all about your own personal taste, so by developing your knowledge about wines it helps you to decide what grapes, countries, brands etc you do or don’t like and as a result make better wine choices when shopping.
There are many books available to give you more information about wines and wine merchants will frequently have wine available to try. We had a visit to Red Zebra on Iron Gate in Derby, which is now open as a Wine Bar; this gives you the opportunity to try different wines in more social surroundings. We also had a visit to Majestic Wine Warehouse on Ashbourne Road, Derby, before Christmas and had the opportunity to try the six wines they had on display.
We brought a number of wines from Majestic, one of them being the wine I will tell you about this month, as I particularly enjoyed this one over the festive season.
Brand: Bodegas Ramon Bilbao
Type: Single Vineyard, Rioja
Region: Haro, Spain
Year: 2007
Grape: Tempranillo and Garnacha
Alcohol Strength: 13.5%
Style: Medium bodied red
Bouquet: Intensely fruity bouquet, reminiscent of ripe cherries and strawberries
Flavour: Rich, velvety and complex, well structured with a long and pleasant finish.
Price: £7.99 (£6.49 when buying two bottles), Majestic Wine. (NB. Majestic have a policy of a minimum sale of six bottles. These can be different wines).
This wine is ideal with red meats, stews or cheese.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Some Issue 8 Updates you may have missed
Hi and welcome back to the All Things Local Blog - All Things Local:- the Community Magazine for the Kilburn and Belper areas in Derbyshire, UK.
We've been busy out and about distributing Issue 8 (August/September 2008 edition) whilst our web designer has been busy updating those regular features in the magazine that have their own slot on our website.
We're just waiting for the Issue 8 disc back from the printers to bring you Issue 8 in full, page by page, but in the meantime, why not enjoy these Issue 8 regulars now available online at http://www.allthingslocal.co.uk
A Day in the Life - Issue 8 features Paul Winfield - the projectionist at the Ritz Cinema, Belper, who talks us through some of the films he's looking forward to seeing at The Ritz during August and September.
Recipe Page - Issue 8 recipe is Panacotta with Roasted Strawberries, Orange and Vanilla from the head chef at the Fox and Hounds, Coxbench.
Word on WIne - Issue 8 has a review of Marsannay 2004/2006 Louis Latour, Burgundy by Chair of Kilburn Wine Circle - Anne Kennedy.
Sam's Column - Sam, our school correspondent writes his last article for All Things Local as he prepares for sixth form. Here, he looks back over an eventful year.
Upbeat - Our new Police Community Support Officer - John Midgley, together with his colleague Paula Johnson report back for All Things Local readers.
and our fantastic new regular columns...
It's a Dogs Life - Scrambles the Cairn Terrier - possibly one of the most unusual correspondents we've ever had talks about that thing humans call agility training.
Life with V - New columnist Valerie Spencer Becks from Belper, takes time off from her wedding cakes to give her take on the latest mobile phones.... if only you could call someone on them!
Friendship Blooms - Pat Whetton - teaching assistant at Kilburn Junior School gets nominated by Nicola Wainwright.
plus... competition winners from Issue 7 updated, Community contacts and What's on all updated.
We've been busy out and about distributing Issue 8 (August/September 2008 edition) whilst our web designer has been busy updating those regular features in the magazine that have their own slot on our website.
We're just waiting for the Issue 8 disc back from the printers to bring you Issue 8 in full, page by page, but in the meantime, why not enjoy these Issue 8 regulars now available online at http://www.allthingslocal.co.uk
A Day in the Life - Issue 8 features Paul Winfield - the projectionist at the Ritz Cinema, Belper, who talks us through some of the films he's looking forward to seeing at The Ritz during August and September.
Recipe Page - Issue 8 recipe is Panacotta with Roasted Strawberries, Orange and Vanilla from the head chef at the Fox and Hounds, Coxbench.
Word on WIne - Issue 8 has a review of Marsannay 2004/2006 Louis Latour, Burgundy by Chair of Kilburn Wine Circle - Anne Kennedy.
Sam's Column - Sam, our school correspondent writes his last article for All Things Local as he prepares for sixth form. Here, he looks back over an eventful year.
Upbeat - Our new Police Community Support Officer - John Midgley, together with his colleague Paula Johnson report back for All Things Local readers.
and our fantastic new regular columns...
It's a Dogs Life - Scrambles the Cairn Terrier - possibly one of the most unusual correspondents we've ever had talks about that thing humans call agility training.
Life with V - New columnist Valerie Spencer Becks from Belper, takes time off from her wedding cakes to give her take on the latest mobile phones.... if only you could call someone on them!
Friendship Blooms - Pat Whetton - teaching assistant at Kilburn Junior School gets nominated by Nicola Wainwright.
plus... competition winners from Issue 7 updated, Community contacts and What's on all updated.
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