Another Wine Society treat – Sanchez Romate

 

Despite its recent renaissance, I'm always surprised that Sherry is not more popular. It offers amazing variety, complexity and largely amazing value. I have already posted on the the continuing quality of La Ina Fino – priced at £9.50 from The Wine Society including delivery. Today we looked at the Amontillado from Sanchez Romate – great value at £8.95 for the complexity it offers with an initial touch of sweetness, mouth-filling with an attractively austere finish. 

Possibly as exciting as Alexis Sanchez but at a tiny fraction of his price!   

Two fine bottles – 12 YO Oloroso + 2011 Saumur Champigny

 Williams & Humbert Collection Oloroso 12 YO

The Willliams & Humbert is a fine and complex oloroso – the half bottle sells for £8.99 in Waitrose. If I have a criticism it is that it lacks the austerity in the finish that I enjoy in a good dry Oloroso. However, this is easily outweighed by the pleasure of seeing good and interesting Sherries stocked in supermarkets. The half bottle proved to be an ideal size providing an apéro for three people.

 2011 Saumur-Champigny, La Folie, Château Yvonne 

Due to a near catastrophic failure in the provision's department this is the first Loire red we have enjoyed in 2017. Anyway the 2011 La Folie from Château Yvonne is a decidedly good start, having the softness and ready to drink character of the 2011s allied to a good concentration of black fruits. The 2011 highlights the fine work that Matthieu Vallée is doing at Yvonne. 

  Matthieu Vallée

Sainsbury's 25% off on 6+ wines – my Sherry amour!!

Sainsbury's have 25% off wines until 4th December if buy six or more bottles, which can be assorted. This offer includes their Sherries, so I have been cashing in on their excellent range of Taste the Difference 50cl bottles. All are sourced from the impeccable Emilio Lustau. I have been buying the Fino, Amontillado and Oloroso. These are a particularly good deal at the moment as the bottle price has been cut from the usual £8 to £7. Then take your 25% off, assuming you have invested in six or more and you end at just £5.25 a bottle. Stunning value! 

The Real Wine Fair and other treats this week

the Real Wine Fair: 17th and 18th April, Tobacco Dock

Now back from my Scottish sojourn, which included the memorable beach wedding on Colonsay, I'm now back in London and looking forward to a busy week of tastings.

The Real Wine Fair opens tomorrow with its public day. This year I am unable to make the Sunday but look forward to Monday but first a quick visit to the Thorman Hunt tasting in the city as they have a good list of Loire producers including Yannick Amirault and Château de Villeneuve. 

Tuesday sees the launch of a book on the wines of India as well as J&B's tasting, who again have some interesting wines on their list – including Lucien Crochet, Vincent Pinard and Jacky Blot. 

Thursday will be a day of fizz – a tasting of Bairrada (Portugal) sparkling wines made from grape variety – Baga – followed by Crémants from the Loire. 

There are several Crémant Loire producers showing at the event: Bouvet-Ladubay, Langlois-Chateau, Veuve-Amiot, La Guillaumerie and Domäne Vincendeau.    

The week closes with the Big Fortified Tasting, which is a highlight as the tasting year. I suspect as usual I will tend to major on the Sherries but I should also take a look at some Madeira.     

Liv Vincendeau

A young Crémant producer showing 

her wines in London this week.

   

Sunday brunch@Toasted, Lordship Lane SE22

 

Toasted: 36-38 Lordship Lane, London SE22

Green & Blue – the previous shop front of toasted

At lunchtime today we had brunch@toasted who have taken over the premises previously occupied by Green & Blue in Lordship Lane, London SE22. Toasted is the latest in the Terroirs group, which includes The Green Man & French Horn, and naturally features wines from Les Caves de Pyrène. Today is the first time that toasted has been open on a Sunday. It is clearly already getting good Sunday custom as by 1pm the sausages from The Butchery had sold out as had the Chanterelles. 

We had excellent black pudding on toast with a fried egg, while celebrating Sunday with a glass of Emilio Hidalgo Sherry each – CRM had the Amontillado Fino El Tresillo (£5.50 a glass), while I took the Oloroso Seco Gobernado (£3 a glass). Although the Oloroso was fine it was clearly outclassed by the finesse and complexity of the El Tresillo. Our highly enthusiastic Spanish waiter kindly gave us a small sample of the wonderful Hidalgo's La Panesa Fino.

All the wines on the extensive list can either be drunk or the premises or bought to take away.

Will certainly be returning!

   

Emilio Hidalgo's exceptional La Panesa Fino

£35 to take away or £59 to drink in

Parts of toasted 

View out to Lordship Lane 

Wine from the tank including Muscadet from Joseph Landron 

Two views of Jo Landron@The Green Man & French Horn 

January 2013

The Big Fortified Tasting 2013: some amazing Sherries

A venenciado serving the 2012 Tio Pepe En Rama@BFT

The Big Fortified Tasting has swiftly become established as one of the most interesting and exciting tastings on the annual London circuit. On arrival today visitors were offered a glass of the just launched 2012 Tio Pepe En Rama – a wonderful way to start an exploration of the superb range of Sherries on view with some of the small producers being particularly exciting. The 2012 Tio Pepe En Rama is expected to retail at around £14.99.    

Wonderfully fresh but intense: 2012 Tio Pepe En Rama 

There were, of course, lots of other styles of fortified wines to taste but I preferred to concentrate on the Sherries and there are only so many fortified wines that you can taste before feeling distinctly light headed.   

A glass or two, or three, of Sherry

Being rather fond of Sherry, one of the most under-rated and good-value wines, we don't need much of an excuse to raid the shelves of our local wine suppliers. Over the last few evenings we have sampled three delightful examples thinking about the recent and very sad passing of John Radford, a lover of all things Spanish and a great sherry enthusiast. We hope he would approve.

The first was a long-standing favourite Fino from Gonzales Byas, Tio Pepe. Pale-coloured, lovely fresh nose, wonderfully crisp and refreshing and long on the palate. A joy of an aperitif and just right to pep up the appetite.

The second, a Dry Oloroso, one of the Waitrose range of Lustau sherries, was a lovely dark bronze that shone in the glass. A bit of peach and apricot on the nose, then rich dried fig and prune on the palate ending with burnt caramel flavours but without the sweetness.  A lovely long dry finish.

The third, another from the Waitrose Lustau range, a Dry Amontillado. Slightly paler than the Oloroso but lovely rich nose and palate. Nutty with a touch of caramel, this had terrific length and a wonderfully austere dry finish. 

The Tio Pepe at £9.99 from Sainsbury's and the Waitrose Sherries at £8.99 each are stunning value. Difficult to find any other wine of such quality for under £10.

All three were superb but we both voted the Dry Amontillado as our overall favourite.  Glad we have some left for this evening!

Excellent meal@Sweet Melindas, Edinburgh

Sherries from Gutiérrez Colosía on the opening page of the wine list at Sweet Melindas

Almost the moment we received an email telling us that we would be eating at Sweet Melindas, a restaurant specialising in fish, during our short stop-over in Edinburgh, we got a text from friends who were enjoying a meal at the restaurant and recommending it to us. 

So when we sat down at our table on Saturday night we had high expectations. Any concerns I might I have had were immediately still when I opened the wine list to find that the first page was devoted to three Sherries from Bodegas Gutiérrez Colosía (http://www.gutierrez-colosia.com/). Gutiérrez Colosía, which was established in 1838, is not a bodega I have come across before, so I was delighted to be able to try the wines and even more to see a restaurant that has the cojones to lead with wines from Jerez, even if they are more fashionable than they were. 

Three Sherries were listed: a fino, an amontillado and a Pedro Ximenez. They are offered either by the glass (125ml) or by the carafe (250 ml). The carafe is a really good idea not only is it proportionally slightly cheaper (Fino: £4.20 a glass/ carafe £8.20/ Amontillado: £5.80 a glass/ carafe £11.30). As there were four of us we choose a carafe of fino and one of amontillado. The amontillado was particularly good and complex. 

2011 Grüner Veltliner Terrassen Federspiel, Domaine Wachau

The food lived up to this bright start, especially my perfectly cooked scallops, crab pasta dish. After the two Sherries we drank quite a floral but crisp 2011 Grüner Veltliner from Domaine Wachau that matched our fish dishes very well. 

When, at the end of the meal, I said how good it was to see a restaurant promoting Sherry, we were told that they were looking to add an Oloroso but they didn't think the one from Gutiérrez Colosía was good enough, so they were looking elsewhere. Clearly at Sweet Melindas they do take great care with our wine list.