The Wine Society is holding a wine tasting event Feb 13 2016 in Stevenage. They are offering tasting of eight sweet wines with a little sweet food to match each one. The price is £55 which sounds a lot, yet they are already sold out.
Yes, this event is already sold out but other events are available throughout the year, walk around wine tasting, seated tasting events and full dinners. You need to become a member of the Wine Society (£40 a year but you get £20 off your first wine order) or to go along with a member. If you join you receive a copy of their newspaper with features about wine as well as regular emails about events and the annual catalogues of wines to buy and bits and pieces for yourself or gifts, such as tea towels, aprons, wine glasses, bottle openers, cheese and crackers and seasonal novelties such as chocolates and Xmas cakes and puddings.
I love sweet wines and here's my research into how to remember which is which.
Pudding Wines
REISLING
A popular half sweet wine is Riesling.
GEWURTZTRAMINER
The German name means spicy.
HUNGARIAN TOKAI or TOKAY
This is likely to be a dry red unless the bottle says aszul (sweet).
Fortified wines include PORT from Portugal.
Finally, the sweetest, my favourite, most expensive often a tall thin bottle, half bottle, almost candle shape, often from the USA or Canada or New Zealand.
What's it all about?
When the grapes are picked. The longer you leave the grapes the sweeter they become, like all fruit, which starts sharp early in the season.
Cabinet -grapes picked in August, just for your (kitchen) cabinet
Spatlese - spat is late, l e s e means left (on the vine), S for Spat and S for September
Auslese - imagine an O shape handwrite A, October ' left out later
Beerenauslese = 4th category, longer four syllable word, B for better, picked in November
Trockenbeerenauslese - T r o c k dry, not dry wine but dry like a raisin, extra sweet, seven syllables. Finally
Ice wine - distinctive bottle, very sweet, pricey.
The most syrup
Bad enter too - Eiswein is overtaken in sweetness.
Here's a memory aid:
Kebab Shops Are Bad To Eat.
is a well known genomic, slightly misleading because Trockenbeerenauslese is sweeter than Iceman.
Kabinet, S p a t l e s e, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Eiswein (same initial letters).
This doesn't sound very politically correct, nor do I find it memorable. Words starting with the letter
K are are: Kettle, Kin, Kinky, Kinship, Kip, Kirsch, kind, kiss, kite, Kiwi, Koala,
Koalas snatch all bags to eat. Goals search all bags to eat.
K S A B E T or KSABIT.
Koalas such at big eucalyptus trees.
Koalas squat/sit /swing at big eucalyptus trees.
The Wine Society
Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, SG1 2BT.
TheWineSociety.com
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher and author.
Yes, this event is already sold out but other events are available throughout the year, walk around wine tasting, seated tasting events and full dinners. You need to become a member of the Wine Society (£40 a year but you get £20 off your first wine order) or to go along with a member. If you join you receive a copy of their newspaper with features about wine as well as regular emails about events and the annual catalogues of wines to buy and bits and pieces for yourself or gifts, such as tea towels, aprons, wine glasses, bottle openers, cheese and crackers and seasonal novelties such as chocolates and Xmas cakes and puddings.
I love sweet wines and here's my research into how to remember which is which.
Pudding Wines
REISLING
A popular half sweet wine is Riesling.
GEWURTZTRAMINER
The German name means spicy.
HUNGARIAN TOKAI or TOKAY
This is likely to be a dry red unless the bottle says aszul (sweet).
Fortified wines include PORT from Portugal.
Finally, the sweetest, my favourite, most expensive often a tall thin bottle, half bottle, almost candle shape, often from the USA or Canada or New Zealand.
What's it all about?
When the grapes are picked. The longer you leave the grapes the sweeter they become, like all fruit, which starts sharp early in the season.
Cabinet -grapes picked in August, just for your (kitchen) cabinet
Spatlese - spat is late, l e s e means left (on the vine), S for Spat and S for September
Auslese - imagine an O shape handwrite A, October ' left out later
Beerenauslese = 4th category, longer four syllable word, B for better, picked in November
Trockenbeerenauslese - T r o c k dry, not dry wine but dry like a raisin, extra sweet, seven syllables. Finally
Ice wine - distinctive bottle, very sweet, pricey.
The most syrup
Bad enter too - Eiswein is overtaken in sweetness.
Here's a memory aid:
Kebab Shops Are Bad To Eat.
is a well known genomic, slightly misleading because Trockenbeerenauslese is sweeter than Iceman.
Kabinet, S p a t l e s e, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Eiswein (same initial letters).
This doesn't sound very politically correct, nor do I find it memorable. Words starting with the letter
K are are: Kettle, Kin, Kinky, Kinship, Kip, Kirsch, kind, kiss, kite, Kiwi, Koala,
Koalas snatch all bags to eat. Goals search all bags to eat.
K S A B E T or KSABIT.
Koalas such at big eucalyptus trees.
Koalas squat/sit /swing at big eucalyptus trees.
The Wine Society
Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, SG1 2BT.
TheWineSociety.com
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher and author.
