European magic....

Yes, once again the Wine Club is taken to parts of the world where  wines are made and enjoyed but places unknown to us.  For this we are indebted to David Lloyd who once again gave a great talk and presentation. David has spoken to the Club three times now and each time the membership remembers his talk as being super good.  So it was last night when David took us into that area of Europe that we once knew as Eastern Europe.  Moldovia, Slovakia, Transalvania.  Not just the East of Europe but also Italy and the closest vineyard to our village here in Oxfordshire.

Many thanks David....

the consummate professional.


European magic

We talked about the magic of Europe's vintage - the oldest wine
evidence found so far is 8,000 years old from Georgia, Europe. Then we
talked about the magic of design, creativity and history.
Wine 1: Ryzink Rynsky (meaning Rhine Riesling) from winery at Krasna
Hora (this means beautiful mountain). The winery is on the slopes of
the old Poddvorov mountains in Czech Republic near Slovakian border.
Vineyard was originally founded in 13th C by Cistercian monks using
French grapes. Cost £13.50 a bottle (2015), available in UK from
London-based Basketpresswines.com
I chose a Czech wine to start given the number of milestones for the
Czech Republic in 2018, including 25 years since CR was founded
following the Velvet Divorce from Slovakia 1993, and 2018 is the
creation 100 years ago of an independent Czechoslavak nation.
Wine 2: 'Oxford Dry' from Oxford's nearest vineyard, Bothy Vineyard,
in Frilford Heath, which started in 1978 with German vines. Now it is
run by husband and wife team Richard and Sian Liwicki. Oxford Dry is a
crisp aromatic white, cost £9 from the vineyard and Appleton Stores.
Sculptures in the Vineyard will be held at the winery 8-23 September
2018.
We chose Oxford to talking about the importance of serving good wine.
Oxford's St Scholastica Day Riots in 1354 over poor wine being served
led to rioting for three days, with some historical accounts saying up
to 93 people were killed over this.
Wines 3 and Wine 4:
From Cricova Wine Caves in the Republic of Moldova. Over one million
bottles are stored here at any one time, in around 120 kms of caves.
8m bottles produced each year. Here, you not only see the amazing
quarried underground streets, but this is also home to the National
Collection, a museum of wine which houses the wines that Goering
amassed during WW2. A fascinating museum, with a signed note and photo
from Yuri Gagarin who comments it was harder to leave Cricova wine
caves than to leave space.
We tried a 2016 Feteasca Alba, white 12%, and a 14% red - Feteasca
Neagra. These wines are not normally available in the UK, but a huge
recommendation to go visit the caves.
Wine 5 - Bats Blood from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in
Romania. These mountains sit amidst Bran Castle, better known as
Dracula's Castle in Transylvania. Transylvania joined Romania exactly
100 years ago, and this Merlot wine (13.5%) is available from
batsblood.com at £10.95 a bottle. Beautifully presented, you can buy
this in a lovely display box - not the usual shape but actually in a
coffin - perfect for the dark magic of Europe! The wine is actually
produced by Hartley Smithers, Chief winemaker for Casella in
Australia, who spends part of his time in Romania.
Wine 6 at £12.99 a bottle is the Pipoli Anglianico Del Vulture, a
superb red with a distinctive taste produced from vineyards on the
slopes of Vesuvius, available from Eynsham Wine Celllars. The
Unexpected flavour complemented the book Unexpected Tales produced by
11 authors of OX29. Those at the wine club were encouraged to consider
writing for the 2018 Anthology of Short Stories, with a deadline of
30th June. All profits from the book go to Helen and Douglas House,
and more details are available from the Short Stories are fun website
https://martincmarais.wixsite.com/shortstoriesarefun

During the break between the reds and whites we had a fun but demanding quiz hosted by Martin Marais, as always the preparation for such things looks to be easy but we know that they take time and effort to work well and this worked very well. 

The reds were all very good, perhaps because of the contrast with the whites but all the wines went down very well, a straw poll of the wines listed the reds as being favourite. The Merlot and Syrah being particularly well received.

So David, I think you can look back on the night as being a great success, after the wines the members just wanted to sit and chat about the wines and the cheeses, all of which were bought from our local Waitrose. The selection of cheeses that have are always impressive, the Austrian cream cheese was the favourite but also the French cheese made with additional cream - those pesky French they do know their cheese!

Date of next meeting.  May 25th.

January, Italian wines, Toby Chiles, Seven Years


Christmas us now well and truly behind us, January is here and with it this year  some miserable weather.  It is said that mid-January is the worst time of the year for many, it's back to work, it's the Visa statement dropping with thud on the mat, it's dull days and grey skies.  So all the more pleasing to have a thriving Wine Club that have great speakers and lovely wine to look forward to.  Yes it's that time again -  the first meeting of The Wine Club.  This being the 7th year of the Wine Club operating. by now we are a cohesive group, we enjoy wines of course but we also enjoy each other's company, so no talk of credit cards or bad weather.

At the first meeting of 2018 we were all happy to hear, again, another impressive and thoughtful presentation from Toby Chiles.  Wine expert for sure, but also one with the ability to communicate to all, no matter how sophisticated or otherwise their knowledge of wines may be.

For this January meeting the subject was of Italian wines, both the 'old school' but also of the new kids on the block from the Italian wine industry.

We all love Italy, its food is just about the most popular of food types, we have taken to heart dishes like Mac-Cheese and Spag Bol although the Italians don't have either dish in the national repertoire.

All of our wines, and we had a dozen tastings, were well received, inevitably some preferred ones over others, but very little, noises of disapproval.  Just a maybe, not too sure, for the cocktail starter, a Spritz Apero, this is the mixer drink, Apero, that has rocketed in sales over the last two years and loved by many, but also still unknown by many, so maybe the mix of a sweet/bitter plus orange drink mixed with Prosecco was not to everyones immediate liking.  Not of the writer of this Blog though, a drink that will always remind me of the bars of Italy and the pleasures of sharing food and wine with friends after a quick Apero.

Toby, if you get to read this consider yourself booked for next January. The 25th please!

The wines were a mix of old and new, many available via Toby and his company, if you want to buy any of 'his' wines drop me and email and I will sort.

Toby, accompanied the wines with Italian staples, Parmesan, Olives and cured sausage.

I managed to get a few shots of members relaxing....

Sadly I seemed to have fallen into the trap of only photographing men, fear not ladies next month I will address the gender bias!

The coming season was announced, lots of good talks coming our way with the next being on April 6, David Lloyd will present on East European wines, more detail to follow on this.   Also more information will be with you shortly about the proposed visit to France and the Champagne House. as well as a joint venture with our local WI.

2018 looks like being a great year for the Wine Club, keep an eye on your email with more info to follow.

Bruce

If it's November it must be Christmas!

My oh my, how does the time fly, it seems a trice since last time these words hit the Blog, yes it  has been the November meeting of the Wine Cub and that also means that Christmas is just about upon us, at least that is how it feels.

This year we had the great foods, all brought by the wonderful members, so a big thank you for all the goodies, all were good, we all enjoyed the ultimate pot luck supper, not so much pot luck more a very lucky dip.

We all enjoyed the foods but we also enjoyed the competition, and this was no mean feat by Chris, a competion that was both a challenge for the individual but also gave rise to the winning table of competitors.

No less than 12 wines needed to be identified from a list provided, but this list contained many more than than just the wines of offer. No easy task but never the less one that the membership approached with enthusiasm.


What were the wines?

Here they are in all their glory.

And a very big that you to Chris for working very hard to come up with the concept and then all the wines and tasting notes...The wines:

MAJESTIC LOVES FIZZ^

MJESTIC LOVES SPANISH REDS^

and the stickies:

The date of the next meeting is to be JANUARY 26th,  guest speaker, Toby Childs

Staffordshire Wines. 

Impressive wines, presented with passion and skill  by members of the team from Halfpenny Green Wines.

Over the years  our Wine Club has a seen mix of speakers, members, wine merchants and wine experts  come to show us the wines they like.   Sometimes, just occasionally, we are privileged to have speakers that are also wine makers.  These are the people that have the passion that comes from devoting their working lives to the production of the very best wines that they are able to make.  So it was last night with members of the Halfpenny Green Vineyard

Here the link to the vineyard

Our speakers were Ben and Helen, they gave a great presentation taking us through the history and growth of the vineyard, and also the technique and methods needed to make good wine in the English climate.

Amazingly the Wine Club has never had an evening devoted to English Wine, there can be no excuse for this, you would have to live on Mars not to be aware of the number of vineyards in the country and the number of wines winning accolades for quality, this particularly so with wines with bubbles.  So it would be logical to start the tasting with 'fizz' . Not just a fizz  though, two in fact, a white and rosé.

The first two wines, served with salty food, yes and we had to push the boat out here and accompany with salty crisps, well that is one recommendation, I suspect a cheese would be better, but the wines, both crisp and pointing up the difference often seen with an English wine.  The lack of sun can give a more acid wine.  With the fizz this was no bad thing but one that would need to become used to.  Of the two the Rosé was the preferred.

Now two whites.  Not just white wine but very pleasing white wines and wines made from grapes that we are not used to. A result in a clean and different taste.  Both very satisfactory and worth seeking out.

The Rosé wine was another hit with many, as readers will know rosé has become the wine of choice for many in the last year or two, and here was an English rosé, well named English Rose, this wine showed the crispness and acidity present in the English wine.  The feeling was mixed about the wine, for some not quite hitting the spot but for the others  a very good example of the wine type. 

The evening has a break here, and on this night a amusing quiz hopelessly run in the loosest possible way by the Club's organiser, very amusing and not taken too seriously.

The first red of the night was an extremely smooth red wine, a wine that could be easily be drunk as an aperitif or with fish or cheese based foods.  Very impressive and well priced.  Currently available from Marks and Spencer.

The last wine of the evening a stickie, oh my how lovely these sweet wines are, served with chocolate on this evening, just a lovely combo and super wine very reasonably priced and very good.

A number of members wished to buy wines, we will be emailing further info on this. 

AOB   Members may want to note the date of the next meeting and the year end meeting and as such a social evening, further details will follow, the date:   November 24th

It's Washington but not DC

What a fascinating thing wine is, produced all over the world and in the US produced in all the states of that nation.  Washington State has a production of 17 million cases of wine worth an estimated 2 billion dollars.

With a climate that can be like a european climate it is little surprise then that the wines from the state are so good and welcomed by the European palate.

With so much wine produced you would think that we would be able to taste such wine easily but no, the good folk of Washington State also like to drink the wine  and so very little gets exported to the UK. How lucky we are then to have a Seattle born member who travels to the States on a regular basis and is willing to bring wines back for us to enjoy.

A very big THANK YOU to Greg, a great speaker, a true believer of the outstanding wines of Washington State and someone who's enthusiasm and knowlege allowed us all to try and taste wines that are simply not available in the UK.

Not only wines though, in addition to wine the food matching was very good, something of a first were the Duck Rolls to accompany the Riesling, all in all excellent for which another big THANK YOU to AMY.

As mentioned most Washington State wines are not available in the UK, but one certainly is, both from the Eynsham wine merchant and also M&S, The wine is the Kung Fu Girl.

The State produces more Riesling than any other white wine, so one can expect good things and this wine, with the amazing label will not disappoint.


The other Riesling of the evening was the Chateau Ste Michelle.  Both wines were of the classic Riesling type, that hint of tarmac on the nose followed by the great Riesling taste.

The last of the whites was the Semillion, for the all the world you could be forgiven for thinking this wine came from France, but no, quite firmly from the US.

After the whites a quiz, the trivia questions were found to be more than trivia to us but great fun all the same.  The usual competitive membership rose to the occasion with the winner being Mat,

Mat chose as his prize, what was for most the best red, possible the best wine of the evening, a Bordeaux blend, with promises that it could be cellared for a further 20 years, although it's hard to imagine being able to resist for that length of time such a smooth and good wine. Mellow, with great fruit tastes.

But I am ahead of myself here, the first wine was the Syrah, again a classic Syrah peppery taste, great for the BBQ.

That last wine was the most expensive but not the best to most people's opinion.  The wines, broadly speaking, increased in cost as the evening progresses, the last one had the intriguing name of Ethos, a lovely wine yes, and another example of solid wine production and quality from the US.

Another great evening, we are indebted to Greg and Amy, many thanks.

The next meeting will be on the evening of September 29th.  More details to follow.