Christmas has come upon me fast and hard with little regard for my feelings or my advanced senses of spacial awareness. No, in fact this mass of much or nothing has washed over in successive meals, toys, toys and meals and many a combination of salutatory drinks.

Not wanting to sound down hearted, I am far from it, for I'm sat by a warm fire in a rural Cornish bolt hole with the wines of my choosing at close call, and those of my familial host readily advancing. We're planning a scour of the Cornish environs for food and wine that starts tomorrow. St Kew Inn in St Kew is tomorrow for lunch. An old favourite and one that should be on everyone's list of Britain's top ten pub list. That followed by the Three Mackerel in Falmouth. Great seafood with the namesake being an obvious choice. I'll likely be starting with half a dozen Duchy's and a bottle of SB from somewhere pleasant.

The wines chosen especially for this sojourn are also enticing me:

The Marques De Vargas, 2003 from Rioja in magnum format – should be lipliciously spectacular!

Erial, 2007, Bodegas Epifanio Rivera from Ribera Del Duero- faves in the stemless Riedel's !!

Chateau Peymartin, Saint Julian, 2004 in magnum – licking and puckering

Clos Floridene, Graves, 2004 – fingers crossed for decent fruit to balance the inevitable terrior!

There were more but there are now few whites:

The Dr Wagner Riesling, Mosel, from Waitrose – finished and beautiful

Saint Veran, Les Morats, 2008 – Pouilly Fuisse style which is my secret private passion (love me tender, love me taste!)

Diemersdal Chardonnay 2008, S Africa – this was bought for the New Years Eve tasting to compare with the St Veran. I opened a bottle tonight and three of us at the table loved it (the others were not drinking it).

Other wines than have sneaked over the precipice this Christmas have been the 2005 Muga Reserve, various Grand Cru St Emilion (they seem to be everywhere) typically destined by low price and abundance of production to be good quaffing wines, and lots of sparkly wines – so varied they warrant another post.

As this week draws on then it is everyone's duty who is able, to succour the wines at hand and in someway report back how good or bad they are. Hopefully next year will be the year of cross suggested wines! All wines were obtained from Majestic Borough (about to close her doors to the public), Jeroboams.co.uk and Waitrose.

Much love..

 

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Climate change podcast

Last week a picture was posted on Twitter of vines in Shabo, a large estate that lies to the west of Odesa on southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. The image seemed benign at face value but the reality, of course, is that the city of Odesa has been bracing itself for attack by Russian forces. 

 

As COVID-19 conspires with the grimmest of winds and rain to force a societal retreat behind our own front doors, the word ennui springs to mind. The muddle of displeasure is pierced when Natalia hands me a large bulbous glass of a liquid I do not recognise.

 

 

Britain’s lamentable exit

On the eve of Britain’s official departure from the EU, my partner and I decided to explore a small town on the Italian Riviera where thewintry cold doesn’t feel so much like cold war bite.

I had warned my significant other that I would be having an inverse departure party, a release of the sanity valve if you like!

 

Sitting inside the ancient castle walls inside the town of Soave, a short drive from Verona in northern Italy, the unique slightly almond aroma of the indigenous grape, Garganega, rises gently from my glass. The castle sprawls up the side of an extinct volcano that gives the region its variant soil structures that mark out the better quality of Soave wines.

 

Tanisha Townsend decided to move to Paris 4 years ago after regularly passing through the city en route to the world’s most famous vineyards. In fact, it was about 2 years ago at the Printemps de Champagne Bouzy Rouge tasting in Reims that I saw (who we shall now refer to as) GirlMeetsGlass chirpily speaking to her web followers on Snapchat.

 

The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the final resting place of Saint James, rises out of the landscape, infested with antiquity. The rambling steep streets give way to shafts of dramatic light, emblazoned chapels, and tightly packed tapas bars, dusty, as old novels pressed together in antiquarian bookshops.

 

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