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We had a great time yesterday at my sister’s place, where a sizeable contingent of family gathered to celebrate the royal wedding. I was initially not intending to watch the spectacle, but it turned out to be quite gripping – a day of real emotion. We celebrated with Champagne – beginning with a magnum of Drappier [...]
I’ve not tasted a lot of Gosset since a remarkable vertical tasting of their wines back in 2002. So it was nice to drink this rather good Champagne, the 1999 Grand Millésime. It’s a serious effort, made in quite a distinctive style. Champagne Gosset Grande Millésime 1999 Much has been written about a scientific ‘study’ by psychologist Richard Wiseman which showed that people can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine. (See, for example, this report this report in The Guardian and this report in the Telegaph.) But, in this world of soundbyte news reporting, it’s just the headline message that is [...] Today we were back to normal April weather after a little taste of summer. For the Easter holiday weekend we enjoyed consecutive sunny days with temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s C. It has been blissful. My back-garden vines are flourishing. Pictured above is a vine that could be either Bacchus or Pinot Noir. I won’t know [...] I really like this. It’s a Morgon from Julien Sunier, who has been making his own wines only since 2008. He farms three hectares in Morgon, Regnie and Fleurie, working organically. Winemaking is traditional. This wine still tastes absolutely delicious two days after opening, so I reckon it has the potential to develop for a few [...] Easter Sunday treat. The latest release of Bollinger’s wonderful RD, which stands for ‘recently disgorged’. In this case, the wine had been on its lees until January this year. This helps the Champagne to develop in a really elegant way, and it’s instructive to try this wine alongside the Grande Annee 1999, which will have [...] New Zealand reds are fast becoming their most exciting wines. Here’s a good one from a producer I visited a few years back, and it’s not overly expensive, at just over a tenner. And it’s lovely. Esk Valley Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2008 Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand We really should be drinking more German Riesling. It’s fantastic. Nowhere else quite does Riesling like Germany, even though I am partial to expressions of this variety from Austria, Alsace, New Zealand and Australia. Here are two that I have enjoyed today – both from the Rheingau. We are experiencing unseasonally warm weather here in the [...] So, my two week stint at the Intenational Wine Challenge (IWC) is almost over. Tomorrow is the last day of judging of the nine, and it has been a great experience. You’d think that tasting 100 wines/day for nine consecutive working days would be a frightening prospect. And I’ll admit it: when I first signed up [...] It was only a few weeks ago that I was one of the small international team judging the new South African Top 100 competition. It was a competition that begin amid controversy: a lot of noses had been put out of joint, most notably Michael Fridjohn, who runs an existing wine competition (see this legal challenge [...] |
 This is the blog of wine journalist Jamie Goode, online since 2001. Feel free to nose around; your comments are welcomed.
 
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