jamie goode's wine blog: Baths, and another Portuguese wine

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Baths, and another Portuguese wine

I love baths. There are few things more wonderful than putting the plug in, turning the taps, seeing a forceful cascade of hot water flow out, adjusting the temperature until it's just a little hotter than is comfortable, pouring a glass of fizz, opening a book, and getting in a slightly over-full bath.

I bathe every day (not with fizz, though, and not always with a book). It's just great. One of the decisions we made when we bought the house we are now living in was to spend money on the kitchen and the bathroom. We have a lovely deep bath and a 3 bar pump to help fill it quickly, and I'm glad we chose to do this. We also have a fantastic shower that cost as much as a second hand family car, but it's seldom used.

After a hard day's skiing, my legs are like jelly, and I'm looking forward to a bath. I've just opened another Portuguese red, and I'm really enjoying it. It's not a great wine, but it's delicious and relatively inexpensive, it tastes Portuguese, and it delivers just what you want from an everyday wine.

Vinha da Palha 2007 Estremadura, Portugal
The second label of Sandra Tavares' Quinta da Chocapalha, this is a blend of 60% Castelao and 40% Tinta Roriz. It's a deliciously bright, fresh red wine with a real Portuguese taste to it: slightly herby ripe plummy fruit with hints of mint and thyme on the nose, leading to a fresh, vibrant palate of ripe cherries and plums, with good acidity and a bit of spicy structure. It's not the world's most complex wine, but it's balanced, food friendly and delicious. 86/100

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3 Comments:

At 9:20 PM, Anonymous Alex Lake said...

Baths rock!

I see the new tough Jamie's at work with the points. We'll all have to readjust!

 
At 7:17 PM, Blogger Jamie said...

Hey, Alex, I decided to tighten up the points a couple of weeks back - but not dramatically.

I would much rather use a scale that uses a bigger range than the 100 point scale we are used to, but this would ignore the reality that RP's scale is the standard now, and it's the one most wine drinkers are calibrated to.

 
At 11:54 AM, Blogger Warren Edwardes said...

Jamie

On your points it would be useful to calibrate by reference to examples of your

80, 85, 90, 95 and 99 pointers

It would be interesting if a specified half of or a full dozen wines could be benchmarked by wine journalists - say members of the Circle of Wine Writers on the 100 point scale as it is the standard now.

 

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