Sundays can be days when you want to leave the wine in the cellar, especially because Saturday evenings can be pretty… “rough”. But if the right people come together, there’s no reason not to pull out the corkscrew. And even more so, those happen to be the days when you’re most relaxed and savour the wine as you should! A recent Sunday was such a day – we ended up drinking 3 bottles of red wine from 3 different countries.
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Finally a real blind tasting again. The last times we’ve been quite lax with our club’s rules I have to admit ;), but this evening all bottles were covered and then randomly numbered (and eventually re-mixed another time) so no bias was possible in our judgments. For this sum-up I kept the order of the tasting of course, just in case you wonder why vintages are so mixed up here. The theme was Tuscany, which includes of course the vast Chianti region, but also other famous appellation like Brunello di Montalcino for example. Generally the wines are made with the Sangiovese grape, but are most frequently combined in Cuvées with other varietals. Ok this should be enough theory! We were thirsty!
It is always an occasion for great discoveries when Oskar announces he will come by and bring some wine. This time it was even more the case since he brought 4 bottles of old vintage wine and my knowledge about old wine is very limited, so I had an opportunity to learn a lot.
Domaine les Veilles 1979, Saint Ferdinand, Côtes du Rhône
Once poured in a glass you can see light brown shades on the brim witnessing the age of the wine. Nevertheless this Côtes du Rhône is still young on the palate. You can still taste the fire and wildness of a southern French wine in terms of alcohol. On the other hand 27 years have made this wine a very burgundy stile round wine with little tannins and perfect balance. You can smell and taste red fruits but there is no fruit attribute or flavour which someone could distinct in particular except maybe a little earthy taste. A nice discovery! Read the rest of this entry »
