An excellent and
informative evening, working our way through the history of wine.
Presented by Gilbert Winfield. The idea was to work our way back
trhough the history of wine, looking at traditional grape varieties
and/or historical wine methods
Starting, here in
England with a sparkling wine – English fizz can now hold its head
up in the world of wine with some superb offerings
Then moving to
Santorini where the vines are trained as “basket vines” to
minimise the effect of hot wind and sun. And then on through the
eastern med, taking in Sicily, Turkey, Lebanon and finally to
Georgia, which is generally reckoned to be the oldest wine culture in
the world (Also Armenia as well) We finished off with a Lillet Blanc
– made famous by the recent Bond film, a Vin Doux Naturelle from
Bordeaux, which was quite a nice way to finish off
Chapel Down Sparkling
Brut, Sussex, UK
I'd be pushed to say
any of the wines was “excellent”, but there is some good stuff in
there, and it's always good to try these things. The Pheasant's Tears
was “interesting” - its made in the ancient traditional way of
“Kveri” - 400 litre amphorae, lined with beeswax, sunk into the
ground. One of the bottles was a golden yellow, the other quite
cloudy and tasted something like fermenting apple juice. According
to Gilbert, it does often come out like that.
It was generally
reckoned to be a very good evening.
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