Wine Society Wine Tastings

Christmas trees outside provided a welcome and a free taste of c r e m a n t (sorry, auto correct tried to convert this to creamed. C r e m a n t is a sparkling white wine, not allowed to be called Champagne which is a French place name, and protected). This event was held n Stevenage but go to their website and you'll see they have paid for events all over Britain, sometimes in Europe, which despite the price are often sold out before I get to read the website. Luckily a member of my family is a member and takes me along, and gets news of events like the pre-Christmas tasting which is really hard to find on the website.

The Wine Society is a mutual society, a bit like the Co-op. It costs about £40 to join, and you get £20 back to spend on wines. Once or twice a year they have a free tasting of 10-20 of their wines. The Christmas tasting was free. If you can drive to Stevenage - or visit a friend or stay in a hotel overnight, it's a lot of fun. Some people drive all the way from the south coast of England or down from the Midlands.

A lot of people live in London and zoom up the motorway and back. One person has to be at the designated driver who knows how to taste and spit into a spittoon. If you are not drinking at all, or even if you are, the foods appear within an hour of the start of the tasting. It was from 4 pm to 6 pm, so not for those who work, unless you take time off work, hence a lot of white haired couples, plus a lot of young couples and solo beards.

The Christmas special foods are not on sale other times of year so it's a treat to try them and a chance to buy them. Everyone has different tastes. Others were enthusing about the pates, venison, rabbit, boar. (I'm a chicken liver pate person and none of the pates appealed to me.) But I was impressed by the cheddar cheese, and the honeycomb in chocolate, and the chocolates.

I loved the huge salted almonds. I've never seen such large almonds. The ones in supermarkets the world over are much smaller.

You can buy lots of novelties as gifts. Plum pudding (Christmas pudding), sticky toffee pudding, parkins (a northern biscuit - more details and recipes in Wikipedia and on other websites), tins.

Plus the expected wine glasses, bottle openers and novelties. Our purchase was the balls for cleaning the inside of a decanter or a wine bottle or plastic bottle you use for carrying small amounts of wine. (How does it work? You roll the balls about then empty them out.)

The Stevenage shop and tasting room has two Enomatic machines. The free tasting section is turned off during the free tastings. You don't need it since you are trying the half dozen or dozen wines they are offering and have in stock.

You can still use the paid for machine. The price for the teeny tastes is less than similar machines in shops in central London. The Wine Society has bin ends in a separate room of more expensive and unusual wines. But the vast majority in the main room start from bargain hunter or average person friendly prices.

For example, you might try a taste of a wine from the machine, at just 45p. Contrast that with a shop in Kensington, London, where you might pay £30 for a tasting of a wine costing hundreds of pounds which you would never otherwise get to taste. (I had a sip of one of those very expensive wines from somebody else's glass in central London, and it was wasted on me. The Wine Society is just right for me.)

Whilst I was there, I looked at some of the special sections. One was on English wine and rosé wine. The English wine I noticed was Three Choirs. Many people in Europe are surprised that England has even one vineyard or commercially produced wine.

The staff are all very helpful and knowledgeable. You can ask them anything you like. (Not, 'Are you married or single?'!) You can ask: 'Which food goes with this wine?')

More details from:
Thewinesociety.com

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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Free wine tasting at Majestic

On the corner of the road leading to the wonderfully art deco Ruislip Lido lakeside restaurant selling cheap meals and drinks is a branch of Majestic where you can try tasting some new wines and spirits for free.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Castle rebuilt and opened - New winery visit in Rioja, Spain

When I visited Rioja, Spain, I spent a week visiting wineries, starting with Lopez de Heredia, then La Rioja Alta and several others. We were unable to visit one of the wineries because it was being renovated. The good news is, now it's open again, after a grand rebuilding programme, restoring the castle, stone by stone.

Hurry!
Because the castle has been closed for over a year - is it more like three? - the tours are now booked up for the next three months. So, if you would like to visit the Rioja region of Northern Spain, either you must rush now to make a booking, or wait a long while until the backlog clears.

I met Pablo Gonzalez-Calvo of the Export Department who was visiting his buyers. The biggest surprise was that the grand r e s e r v a wines are not from the years specified by the region's wine governing body and imposed on the vineyard. The vineyard owners decide for themselves which is the best year for their crop, which year they will hold back or reserve the best wine to be aged in barrel and bottle, matured, mixed with other wines to get the perfect balance of flavour, aroma, and of course sold at a higher price because it is better wine, from the best year, and keeping it stored costs money and delay on profit from the investment. Pablo proudly says, "We decide!"

(Yes, I had to separate the letters of r e s e r v a because the English spell checker wants to turn the word to reserve. The r e s e r v a wines are of curse, reserved. Spanish is a lovely, easy, user-friendly language to learn. Just add or remove the a or o on a word and you can translate.)

What do you learn on a vineyard tour. On your first, second or third tour in your life, if you don't already know, you will learn that criantha is the basic or table wine and r e s e r v a is reserved and a grand reserved is even grander or more special. Each time you take a tour, one more fact goes into your brain and your understanding or wine making and wine labels increases, making buying a wine or choosing it in a restaurant has a greater chance of giving you what you enjoy and value for money. You can also spot a bargain, and, whether you like it or not, you will appreciate tasting or even just seeing something special or unusual.

At a tasting, you discover what you enjoy more. Either it is worthwhile, depending on your budget, to have the better wines whenever you can, or on special occasions, or when one is given away for free at a tasting. Alternatively you may decide some or all of the more expensive wines are not worth the money, so no need to hanker after them. You can then be confident that the cheaper wines are better value and quite good enough for you.

Eton Vintners
 I was invited to a tasting of his wines at a shop called Eton Vintners which is just around the corner from Windsor castle which we passed on the way home. (Windsor and Eton are adjacent. The bridge over the river Thames connects them. Windsor, famous for the castle where flags show if the royal family is resident, and Eton famous for the school.) If you are in England and plan to visit the area of Windsor, get on the Eton Vintners mailing list and go to one of the tastings. They have a discount scheme for regular buyers.

He had brought along several bottles for us to taste and told us all about each wine. We had some bread and cheese and a rather gristly salami to go with it. I and my teeth and tongue all preferred the bread and cheese.

The Marques de Murrieta Website
The website can be read in English, or Spanish. It has sections on the history, visits and buying wine.
I loved their description of the founder. I particularly liked the later quotation:

“To invite a person into your house is to take charge of his happiness as long as he is under your roof”.

Brillat-Savarin, French gastronome

A few translations:
Calvo - Spanish surname from the Middle Ages, originally meaning bald.
Crianza - basic or table wine which can be drunk young (pronounced criantha)
Gonzalez - Spanish surname meaning son of Gonzalo. Second most common surname in Spain after Garcia.
Marqués - Spanish for Marquis (not to be confused with the French word marque which means brand)
Pablo - Paul
r e s e r v a - reserve or reserved for ageing in the barrel and later longer in the bottle

More information on the wines and this new opportunity to taste and buy at the castle where you can do a tour from:
Marques de Murrieta
Estates and Wines
marquesdemurrieta.com
pazolbarrantes.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Moscato Wine From Austrlalia - if there visit the vineyard

What's Moscato? Is it the musket grape, my favourite, a guarantee of a great sweet dessert wine to go with my pudding and coffee? The wine looks pink and it tastes deliciously sweet - very more-ish. I'm watching my wine intake, because it's lunch time, I might drive later, and I would like to stay awake the rest of the day and, besides that, I am on a diet. All wine contains calories and sweet wine even more so. The words Innocent Bystander are embossed on the glass of the half bottle. Yes, it's a half bottle. On the back label it says375ml. That's half a bottle. Next to that information, before that, is the news that it's only 5.5% vol (alcohol). That's more than some beer but less than most wine.

In small letters above the word Moscato the label on the front of my bottle says Victoria 2013.

This wine is made from Gordo and Black Muskat 'from the old vine Muscat vineyards situated along Victoria's Murray River' says the label on the back.

Having decided I like the wine, my next question is, can I visit the vineyard for tea and tasting, or lunch and tasting and shopping for souvenirs?

Yes. According to the website, they serve food, organise wine tastings, and sell tee-shirts for men and women. If you are outside Australia you can get on their mailing list for news. If you are in Australia and have made a purchase you can get even more offers. 

If you want to visit the vineyard, it's north east of Melbourne. More about Healesville and Melbourne Cemetery in my next post.

Innocent Bystander
336 Maroondah Hwy
Healesville
Victoria 3777
Australia
www.innocentbystander.com.au

Imported (to the UK) by

Liberty Wines

London SW4 6LY

UK

www.libertywines.co.uk

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and author. See books of comic poetry and quotations in Lulu.com.
Angela Lansbury B A Hons, a former English teacher and tutor, also gives talks and workshops, speech-training and speeches. 

Chocolate Tasting & Making

Here's more I just read a leaflet I picked up in the rococo chocolate shop about tastings and chocolate making classes for adults and children. The cheapest, and good value, are the £35 per child one hour sessions in which children create a chocolate bar in the kitchen and design a wrapper for their bar. (I don't rate the Educational workshop at £15 when you learn about chocolate but don't seem to get to try any.) The adult sessions start at Chocolate tasting for beginners, 50 minutes, in which you taste single origin bars and award winning truffles.  (And how much chocolate could you buy for the same money?) At only £35 for 50 minutes there's Blindfold tasting, Chocolate For The Senses. at 365 per person there's Truffle Rolling, 75 minutes, . Create your unique truffle, rolling, dipping and coating.
   I was tempted to ask for this for my next birthday, in the next month. However, I watched a macaroon making demo at the BBC food show and can't remember a word, nor have I tried making macaroons since. Chocolate, surely you just melt it and stick it in a mould for Easter?  I think I'll just try to resist the urge to buy and eat more chocolate, until my next visit to the Rococo shop.
More information from them
blog.rococochocolates.com/events

PS Anybody who wants to buy me or make me chocolates - I like white chocolate (which tastes creamy and I hope keeps my teeth white).