WIne Century Club

This is a fun idea I was introduced to by one of our speakers back in May (I think)
Its an online thing www.winecentury.com
 for people who have tried 100 different wine grape varieties, and others interested in the concept. Includes membership information and event listings.
They have a liist of varieties you can download with perhaps 300 varieties on there (I should count them)

So I set off in May, used the backlog of wine society wines since January and have got to about 60 right now. It starts getting tough past about 50, once you've done  Syrah, Chardonnay etc....
I'm going ot try giving monthly updates:
In the last month (August) I've been to the alps, so added

Roussette de Savoie
Jacquere (Apremont)
Mondeuse

Plus

Pinot Meiniure (Champagne - on the way to the Alps)
Godello - Portuguese (our August tasting)
Emir - Kavakidere Turkish Fizz from my wife's aunt (we may have given it to her!).
Catarratto - My daughter
Avesso - Portuguese (our August tasting)
Albariño -  Portuguese (our August tasting)

Total now 67 varieties. 

August 2016 - Oakley Wines, Portugal

This month we had Nick Oakley of Oakley Wine Agencies (www.oakleywineagencies.co.ok) who is sometimes known as “Mr Portugal” in the trade. OK so he is my brother, and I'm biased, but it was still a great evening.

Nick brought along a selection of wines, all easily available to the general public.

We had 40 – 42 people along, pretty much a full house, so the noise grew throughout the evening

He brought along:

• Morrison’s Signature Douro white. 12.5% £8.00 - Pretty decent.
• Cazas Novas Vinho Verde (Avesso) – The Wine Society. 12.5% £7.45. Also pretty decent
• Xastra Godello, Bierzo, Spain – Adnams & The Merchants Vintners group. 13.5%. £9.50. Didn't like it. Rather acid for me.
• Casal de Ventozela Alvarinho, Minho, Portugal – Majestic. 13% £8.99. Good. 
   
• Xastra Mencia, Bierzo, Spain – Adnams & The Merchants Vintners group. 13.5% £9.50
• Asda Extra Special Dão 13%. £5.50. A real steal. Very good at this price
• Ramos Reserva, Alentejo (Majestic) 14%. £6.99. Also a real steal. Very good at this price
• Morrison’s Signature Douro red. 13.5% £8. Decent enough.

For me, the best VFM were:

White - Cazas Novas Vinho Verde

Red - Asda Extra Special Dão AND Ramos Reserva, Alentejo (Majestic)

The Ramos is a lot better than the Dao, I have drunk a lot of it (have to keep the family in business!) and I would recommend it to anyone.

July 2016. Laithwaites Wine Quiz

An excellent evening presented by Adam from the Beaconsfield Laithwaites

Well, I'm always hesitant about things like wine quizzes, as they can easily deteriorate into "which was the best St Emilion Vintage" type questions. Which are no fun.

This wans't one of those - in fact very cleverly done. It was split into 2 parts - one was a printed out sheet with about 15 wine questions which we could complete as the evening went on on, the second bit was a lot more fun.

The normal 8 wines were presented, blind - teatowel round the bottle. For each wine, 3 "Truth or Bluff" envelopes were handed out. Each of the 3 envelopes had a plausible description of the wine "I am a Viognier from Souther France etc..etc... " type of thing. And we had to guess the true wine/description. 

 Our overall accuracy rate was maybe 75%, reasonable, but not great, as there were a couple of jokers in there.**...    

The wines were:

Cremant de Bourgogne: Prince de Dulphey Brut Reserve - £14.99

Leitz Eins Zwei Dry: Riesling Rheingau** - £14.99

Stellenrust Heritage Collection (South Africa) Chenin Blanc 2015. £10.49

Dog Point (New Zealand) Sauvignon Blanc 2015 -£19.99

Jean Leon (Spain, Penendes) 3055 Merlot 2011** £12.79

Massivo Nero D'Avola 2015 - £7.19

Textbook Rack'n'Roll (USA) Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 - £18.40

Peter Lehmann The Pastors Son Shiraz 2014 - £12.79

** These were real wild cards. The Riesling tasted like no other German Riesling I've ever had.. and the Spaninsh Merlot – plenty of head scratching

And for the quiz – a prize of a decent bottle of fizz was eventually won by someone with an excellent 85% or so score

Adam also kindly brought along a decent red and white to go into the raffle.

A very good evening all round.