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April
2005 - I haven't gone away you know. Just found it impossible for a
while there to write up notes and a diary and earn a living, look after
family, repair the house and the hundred and one things that take up my
time.
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Mon April
25th 2005
International Wine Challenge London. Barbican centre in London feels
like a car ferry when inside. Very low ceiling covered with pipes and
conduits and a balcony over a car deck or rather an exhibition space that
is covered in bottles. About 9000+ entries and 6 bottles of each. It looks
amazing.
Tasters are a mixed bunch but seem of a
higher standard than when I did this first some years ago. I'm designated
a super juror and we taste the wines a second time after a panel has
looked at them and can move them up or down in ranking if another SJ
agrees. While doing a flight of Chateauneuf-du-papes I taste a wine that I
would not want to step in. it has the sort of fecal aromas Hanson was
taking about in his famous quote about Burgundy. I want to downgrade it
but Simon Woods and Owen Bird want to give it a medal and insist it goes
through to the medal taste off! I'm amazed as this isn't so much barnyard
as open sewer. Clearly there is no accounting for taste. Hopefully it will
pass under my nose again and I'll crap on it, as it were.
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Friday
April 22nd 2005
Mitchell & Sons 200th Anniversary Dinner at Trinity college. Ireland's
oldest wine retailer celebrated in style. Champagne reception with
Montaudon NV - pretty good but shame we can't buy it for €15 as I've seen
it in French supermarkets. First course served with Denis Race Chablis 1er
Cru Montmains 2002. I hadn't come across Race's wines before Mitchells took them on
but there are consistently very good and at times excellent.
Ch d'Angludet 1995 from magnums was less
impressive than hoped and had big bottle variation. Dessert wine was their
Gold Graves Supèrieures 2001, which is always much better than you think
it should be from an unheralded appellation. Worst
thing about the evening was the water. I'd forgotten but at a previous
dinner here the tap water was all but undrinkable and it still is. It
tastes as if is badly corked. Two winemakers have told me that what I'm
tasting is geosmin. There seem to be many possible causes but pond algae
in the water source is one. Google it for more info. Everybody got a
goody bag with an engraved Riedel 'O' series wine tumbler. I was delighted
as I think they are fab and even managed to pick up a spare somebody had
decided to leave behind!
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Wednesday April 20th 2005
Excellent dinner at my sister's with an old friend visiting from the USA. Lynch
Bages 1995 and E & E Black Pepper Shiraz 1999 should be
stellar wines but maybe they were outshone by the company as they seemed
merely very good.
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Wednesday
April 13th 2005
Taste finest New England sparkling wine I've ever had. OK then Westport
Rivers Cuvée Maximilian 1991 is the only New England sparkling
wine I've ever tried. It's imported by Falcon wines on Achill Island.
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Tuesday April 12th 2005
A busy day of tastings with 3 to go to. First is Superquinn New World sale
preview.. They have as yet never actually invited me to a tasting before
and didn't to this one. maybe their PR is bad or maybe I upset somebody
but they let me in nevertheless! A mixed bag of wines. Star turn is Veranda
from Casablanca in Chile. look out for their Pinot
Noir 2002 in particular which will sell for €8.99, down from
an RSP of €12.59 when the sale starts on May 11th. it's good at the
higher price but stunning at the lower one.
Also at the tasting is a women from RTE
radio making a series about taste. John Wilson, Michael Donlon and I
oblige by making pouring, gargling and spitting noises and saying how much
we love wine.
Woodford Borne tasting is busy but little
grabs my attention except the Bollinger vintage
97. Gorgeous wine but still only a show of the amazing 96 tasted
last year.
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Sunday
April 9th 2005
Two firsts. Broke my newly acquired Riedel Montrachet glass the first
time I tried to clean it despite very very carefully following instructions
given on Friday by Georg Riedel at his lecture. Thankfully the stemless
'O' series withstand daily use and the dishwasher without mishap.
Second first was a chardonnay from
Westport, M.A. and no, I had no idea they made any drinkable wine there.
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Saturday
April 8th 2005
Taste a Maltese wine for first time in about 7or 8 years. Not bad it's
a Chardonnay/ Ghirgentina 2003 called Medina by
Delicato. That G
grape is a complete new one to me and not in any reference book I checked!
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Friday
April 8th 2005
Culley Riesling
2004, Marlborough, NZ (88/100) from simply wines.ie goes
down a treat on the wine slot on the Moncreiff show, all citrus and
mineral and very refreshing. Latter at the National food show Paul Dubsky
is showing his Austrian wines and very drinkable they are too particularly
a groovy Grü V from Fritz Saloman at only €10.89.
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Thurs.
April 7th 2005
Georg Riedel visits Dublin and
gives a talk and tasting at the RDS member's library. About 100 people have
paid €100 each for the gig which isn't so bad considering they all get
to take home three giant Sommelier range glasses with a retail value of
€175.
I'd never seen him before although I had
done a form of the taste test with Mitchells, Riedel's agent before.
Frankly it's freaky that the wines are so different in different glasses.
it feels as if the articulate, dapper, charming and smooth talking Mr.
Riedel has hypnotized us all and somebody soon will bark like a dog
or burst into tears. Quite amazing. They really do make the most of a wine
and you'd be crazy not to get some if you spend more than €10 on a
bottle of wine with any regularity.
The downside is the self doubt it
induces. Is any note I've ever written of any value after this, if the
wine wasn't in the appropriate glass? Help!
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| Previous
Months |
| November
2003 - tasting cru classé claret with
the striped shirts in London. |
| October
2003 - managed to miss several tasting but still heard the best
tasting note on a wine in ages - 'A protestant wine' from an Alsace
producer + a wine dinner with the political heavyweights. |
| September
2003 - An Post ban bottles of wine! Barricades in Belfast and
Chileans massing in Dublin. |
| July and
August 2003 - Eating lunch through gritted teeth. |
| June 03 -
Searson's tasting, dinner with Adam Wynn of Mountadam, Dinner with Noel
Pinguet of Huet Vouvray and of course the madness and glamour of vinexpo. |
| 12
- 31st May 03 - Fear and Loathing in London, Sopexa Rhone Tasting, Cheers and Auswines |
| 1 - 11th May 03 - MW
50th anniversary tour of Bordeaux |
| April '03
- M & S & Burgundy in London |
| March 03
- Mitchells and Chapoutier. |
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