jamie goode's wine blog: Real wine tasting

Monday, April 30, 2007

Real wine tasting

A thrilling tasting today, held by Les Caves de Pyrene at the Delfina Gallery near Bermondsey Street. The theme of the tasting was 'real wine', and these are the sorts of wines that make you realise what it was that made you excited about wine in the first place. No, not absurd Californian Cabernets with 99900 points and a price tag to make you weep, containg long-hang-time dead, saggy fruit tricked up by new oak, and delivered in a heavy bottle with a big punt. These were wines with a sense of place, honestly made and sensibly priced, presented by people with calluses on their hands.

Pictured is Olivier Pithon from the eponymously named Roussillon domaine, which he began in 2001. Other standouts include the fantastic wines of Domaine Gramenon, Domaine des Roches Neuves from Samur, Emanuelle Houillon's Arbois wines, Domaine Ganevat from the Jura, Arrtxea's Irouleguys, Clos du Gravillas from the Languedoc, and this still leaves a load more I have to go back for tomorrow.

The wines were all showing pretty well today. Is that because of the atmospheric conditions? Or because it's a root day (no, I mean in the biodynamic sense, not the Australian one...)? Doug Wregg told me that all the supermarkets hold their tastings on root days (or shoot days...I may have got this mixed up) because although hardly any of them would contemplate stocking a biodynamic wine, they recognize that wines taste better on these days.

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5 Comments:

At 8:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As a small correction there - M&S sells at least three Biodynamic wines, and a fair few 'lutte raisonée' as well

JMac

 
At 7:47 PM, Anonymous Gianpaolo said...

I recently discovered the value of some French wines thanks to Les Caves de Pyrene.
Many people in Italy are convinced that the only good French wines are those that command high prices, top names in Bordeaux and Burgundy. Well, unfortunately we don't have good stockists like Les Caves, and that would also be good to keep up the level of our wines, and understand that the reality and the clichés are two very distant things.

 
At 4:10 AM, Blogger Marcus said...

These wines of the Languedoc-Roussillon are the theme of Wine Blogging Wednesday #33, which I am busy preparing for May 16.

 
At 3:49 PM, Anonymous Tina said...

You can have a wine tasting party in your own home with www.tastoria.com in the U.S., or www.virtualwine.co.uk in the U.K. It's fun! You can order your wine pack for each event online and have it delivered to your home. Then invite your friends over. The next event is Friday, June 22. The theme is all about summer and grilled food pairings. You can be interactive with the expert wine panel through the chat room, where you can ask and be anwered, live over the broadcast. Try it. It's educational AND entertaining!

 
At 11:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Found a great link to a wine course, which is free and online:

Complete Wine Course

 

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