Summer is a great time for food-centered social activities. The weather is great for eating outdoors, meaning that people with small homes can utilize their yards or even local parks and invite as many of their friends and family as they want. I love hosting small get-togethers with friends. This year, my focus has been on brunch, because who doesn’t love a good mimosa in the morning? I also like to host wine and cheese tastings for my friends who love wine. Here’s how we set them up for maximum fun and class. Find a Theme When it comes to wine, you can pick a theme based on any number of factors. A few choices are: Country of origin Varietal Main taste profile (sweet, dry, etc) Colour If you build the theme around the wine, it’s easy to pick matching cheeses and music to accompany the night. If a region is involved, your theme can even affect your décor and outfits. Focus on the Pairings Of course you’re having a tasting to spend time with your friends, … [Read more...]
Guillaume Thomas (Maison Noir): A French harvest nomad follows his dream in New Zealand
Isabel Gilbert Palmer interviews a French man who has settled in Havenlock North, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand and who has just started to produce wine under the Maison Noir label. Like many in the food and wine world, he took a long time to find out what he wanted to do in life and after a life in music decided to work in the wine industry, studying winemaking and wine marketing and then becoming a harvest nomad to travel around the world. He finally settled in New Zealand, the place where he met his wife and had a daughter. Guillaume as the first New New Zealander in this series lets begin with.. So where are you from originally ? I was born and spent my childhood in a very small French village,there were only 12 homes, in La Vrignais in the Aigrefeuille-sur Maine, the Loire-Atlantique department of western France, in fact near the city of Nantes on the Atlantic coast, in Brittany. Its perhaps an assumption to say that because you were born in a historical wine growing … [Read more...]
Living in the Antipodes: New world wines, new New Zealanders and the new guard
History tells us that in the early 1800’s, French Missionaries, Brothers from the Order of Saint Mary, at the direction of France’s Pope Gregory XV1 in Lyon set sail for Nouvelle Zealandia, or Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) armed with their bibles, sacramental robes, rituals and seedling grape vines. Their destination, a collection of sparsely inhabited islands, (except for its indigenous race who named them) in the South Pacific. Here, these pioneering Marist Brothers chose Hawkes Bay, a Province in the North Island of their adopted country consisting of 1.4 million hectares on 350km of Pacific Ocean coastline, to settle. An eastern sea board and famous for being the first country in the world to see the sun rise on every new day, it climbs from sea level to several hundred metres inland to the Southern Hemisphere. Warm north-facing hillsides, its natural river valleys and terraces, offered them then and winemakers now a diversity of low vigour vineyard sites … [Read more...]
A blind wine tasting: France vs the rest of the world
There is nothing like a blind wine-tasting to get you out of your comfort zone. And if you do not know what wines are being served, it makes it all the more difficult particularly since you have no indication whether the organisers are pulling out any tricks to make it even more difficult. On a recent visit to Malta, we participated in a blind wine tasting with the theme being France vs the rest of the world. The event was organsed by R,W&R, Amateur Wine Appreciation Group at the Commando restaurant in the idyllic village of Mellieha in the Northern part of this Mediterranean island. At the end of the evening the outcome was a 2-2 draw between France vs Rest of the World. But as they say comparisons are odious and it was more about the fun of testing our palates and finding the wines we loved without any influence whatsoever. The only hints we received before the tasting - there would be four flights of three wines served. These would be Alsace wines, Oaked Chardonnay, … [Read more...]
A tour of Sicily through its wines
Goethe said in the 18th century that to have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything. Is that valid for Sicily's wine? And how do you take a tour of Sicily during a wine tasting? That was the question I tried to answer in a tasting of Sicilian wine that I presented recently. A tour of Sicily is by no means easy. Many refer to the largest island in the Mediterranean as a continent and you can see why when you are in the process of selecting the wines for such a tasting. You can approach Sicilian wine in many ways. Maybe the simplest approach would be to focus either on Mount Etna as a region on its own or else look at some of Sicily's indigenous grapes and showcase them specifically comparing the way the wineries work with the grapes and their terroir. But I wanted to take a different approach which was that of showcasing the different styles of wines that you can find and also challenge stereotypes. The … [Read more...]
Barone Ricasoli: A visit to the oldest winery in Italy and the one which created the Chianti Classico
The Brolio Castle in the heart of Chianti Classico between the communes of Gaiole in Chianti and Castelnuovo Berardenga is an imposing castle dating back to the middle ages. It houses the oldest winery in Italy, Barone Ricasoli and the second oldest in the world. Although I had already visited the castle some years back, the children on a recent trip to the area wanted to visit the castle given we were in the area. The largest winery in the Chianti Classico area, it was in this castle that the Baron Bettino Ricasoli invented the Chianti Formula in 1872. Francesco Ricasoli, Bettino's great-grandson who has been at the helm of the family business since 1993 says that 'the research we do today has almost one thousand years behind it'. You get a sense of history the minute you step in the grounds of the castle. This is one of the oldest standing family businesses in the world. The first stones of Brolio Castle date back to the middle ages. The castle passed into the … [Read more...]
Supermarket wines: A blind tasting 15 years later
They say a day is a long time in politics, but in the world of wine, going back 10 years could easily be the equivalent. There have been so many changes in the world of food and wine that it is interesting to sometimes take a step back and reflect on developments that have taken place. A wine club I am member of, last week organised a very intriguing tasting. It was one which was not only philosophically challenging but also aimed at eliminating any possible misconceptions or preconceptions that one could have. 13 years ago, before I was even a member of this wine club or had even moved to Brussels, the club would once a year organise a supermarket wine tasting and recommend wines that could be cellared. Before you jump to any conclusions about the club, it should be said that the tastings organised by this club are exceptional and have taken us on some great journeys around the world of wine. But in the past, in a bid to attract new members, and at a time when wine was maybe … [Read more...]
10 Chianti Classico producers you should know
There is no question that when it comes to Italian wines, Tuscany and Piedmont are among the favourite regions of wine connoisseurs. The wines of Tuscany like the region are special and there is a lot to write about but in this post we would like to place the spotlight on the Chianti Classico, which is a region within the Chianti region between the Tuscan cities of Florence and Siena. Most wine lovers will know a Chianti wine but few will actually be able to name producers from the Chianti region. Older consumers might also remember a squat bottle which used to be enclosed in a straw basket but this is only used by very few producers now. For many years, Chianti had a bad name and was associated with cheap Italian wine but when made by great producers this is a wine that has character and is exceptionally good value for money especially when compared to the pricier Super Tuscans, Brunello di Montalcino or the Nobile di Montepulciano. It was Baron Bettino Ricasoli who … [Read more...]
From journalism to winemaking – the story of Clos de L’Obac
The wines of Clos De L'Obac don't need any introduction among lovers of Spanish wines. These wines are known for their balance and elegance and have great ageing potential. I recently caught up with Guillem Pastrana at a tasting organised by Belgian importer of Spanish wines La Buena Vida. He is the son of former journalist Carles Pastrana and his wife, a Barcelona enologist Mariona Jarque who embarked on their life adventure devoting their professional and family future on a project to recover the wines of El Priorat and to make these wines internationally recognised. 30 years later, you can easily say that they have succeeded in their mission to make their wines internationally known. The wines are exported to over 40 countries to the extent that Guillem says they are no longer looking to expand. Guillem explained the philosophy of the winery. "At the age of 34, my father, who was a journalist in Spain, wanted a change in his life. He decided, together with my mother, to … [Read more...]
Albert Jané (Acustic Celler): ‘Great wines are made in the vineyard’
Albert Jané is a passionate winemaker who is considered to be one of the pioneers of the D.O. Montsant region, in Spain. Coming from a winemaking family in the heart of Penedes, Albert had full confidence in the Do Montsant regionI had the pleasure of meeting him recently at a wine tasting event organised by La Buena Vida. The name of the winery ‘Acustic’ reflects not only the style of wine but also Albert’s philosophy of winemaking. He told Food and Wine Gazette that he likes to make great wines from exceptional vineyards. “It is the grapes and the weather conditions which express the history and reflection of a region and not the winemaker. I firmly believe that wine is made in the vineyard not by the winemaker,” he tells me. “Wine is pleasure, emotion and passion,” he tells me. “When you take a good bottle of wine and listen to what it tells you, it gives you a similar feeling to music. That is why I have used ‘acustic’ for the winery. “I like to think of my wines as being … [Read more...]