Wine blog
My tasting notes of fine wines I have enjoyed.
Comparing three bottles of fizz for our Easter entertainment; all are made by the tertiary fermentation method, the méthode champenoise.
Conegliano Prosecco Superiore DOC 2024. Brut. 10.5%
Light. Not overly dry. Bit melon bit vanilla. The label suggests apricots but that wasn’t our impression.
Different and more refined than Valdobiane Superiore DOC. Principal varietal Glera. Bottle from a UK supermarket.
We enjoyed our bottle with sauté chicken breast in a beetroot sauce to a recipe by Keith Floyd.
Crémant de Limoux AOC (Pierre Chanau) 2023. Brut. 12.5%
Plentiful fine bubbles. Light but we struggled to specify a fruit taste analogy: slightly vanilla, not apricot, not star-fruit or melon. so fruity but not any fruit we could think of. Enjoyable - Crémant de Limoux is a long-time favourite following stays in Carcassonne and around. We enjoyed this bottle with our salad for Easter Bank Holiday Monday. Principal varietals: Chardonnay, Chenin and Pinot Noir. Personal import.
Sekt: Reisling Brut 2019 (Von Buhl, traditionelle Flaschengärung). Brut. 12.5%
Strong and insistent bubbles. We enjoyed this with poached plaice on Good Friday, the strong flavour of the fish matching the strong flavour of the wine. It resolved to apple or pear flavour; a texture not unlike perry. Principal varietal Reisling. The bottle glassware was by far the most sturdy of the three. Ordered online.
i Filari is a light red wine from Langhe, a village in the hills above the River Pô to the east of the more famous wine village of Barolo. The name of the Nebbiolo varietal translates literally to “from the clouds” and indeed those hills are often swathed in mist out of the summer season, though rarely affected by frost. So i Filari is wine from the clouds.
Opening the bottle of i Filari, the cork is branded with Barbanera Vini SRL, one of the large wine conglomerates based in Asti. An immediate aroma of red cherries, even without pouring the wine.
Vinha da Urze (2023) - Douro DOC
Casa Agricola Aboredo Madeira SA. Almendra Portugal.
I chose this Urze red wine of the 2023 vintage to accompany a beef filet Tournedos at a steak restaurant in Funchal (Madeira) which works with a farm in the Portugese Azores. Douro DOC is one of Portugal’s premier wine classifications, this assemblage combines the strength and finesse of the two most common varietals of Touriga along with the Portuguese version of the ubiquitous Iberian varietal, Tempranillo. The ageing in oak would be expected to soften the wine but marks it down from being in the top league of Douro wines.
Gavi DOCC is an elegant white wine from Piedmonte; Santo Stefano Belbo is a village in the Langhe hills between Torino and Cuneo in north east Italy. No surprise there was a selection of bottles of Gavi DOCC from different producers on the wine shelves in the border town of Oulx, Piedmonte, which we visited from Briançon (France) last year.
The 2023 wine poured with a light colour back in Brighton. A bright and airy nose that says “Fresh”. On a first sip: a dominant taste of lemon with faint notes of melon. Perhaps very slightly tart but pleasing, intense, rounded and not bitter. And a long after-taste which veered more to melon than lemon.
Gavi wine is traditionally served with fish dishes, Terry had cooked L’orata all’acqua pazza (Sea Bream), for which the Gavi was a fine complement, the wine is robust enough to partner with fresh dill and fresh fennel, also lemon, of the traditional recipe.
Ladilafé is a mœlleux wine from one of the vineyards which are re-establishing quality wine production in the Cirque de Cilaos on Réunion Island, the French département in the Indian Ocean. Therefore this wine is from the southernmost vineyards of France. Surprisingly - for a Mascarene island known for its vanilla production - the wine has little or no “vanilla” flavour, instead a clear and prominent apricot nose and taste, maybe slight melon. Lightly sweet, more a demi-sec, a refreshing swig and a lowish alcohol content at 12%.
Read more: Ladilafé du Chai de Cilaos - vin de l’Île de la Réunion
