I was lucky enough to be invited to Benares earlier this week, as a guest of Lenz Moser the Austrian winemaker via Bibendum Wines.
Amazing restaurant and the wines were quite spectacular too.
But what impressed us diners most was not the splendid delicacies of each course nor the 1970 Prinz von Hessen Winkeler Riesling, no what impressed the table to a near silence were the…face towels??
Check the video to see what I mean.
Here’s a quick video on the Innocent Bystander’s – slightly bubbly Pink Moscato 2009
It was full of aromas and had lots and lots of berry fruit just jumping out of the glass.
And by no means sickly, with bubbles and balanced acidity it just cleansed the palate.
Available at various online retailers – check wine-searcher and Harvey-Nics for about £5.99 – that’s a half-bottle, by the way.
innocent bystander pink moscato 2009
And there was also that axe guy…
Recently took a quick jaunt to Lisbon in the hope of becoming a better person, better soul and most importantly a better blogger, as I was attending the world-famous European Wine Bloggers Conference.
It was a three-day event, broken down in to a day of forums and seminars (all useful in their own way), some tastings and finally a tour day in a wine region, I went to Tejo to look at a cork forest.
Now, when people talk about cork forests it’s not like any forest you or I can imagine. It’s more like a few trees in a field, I was imagining some sort of highly dense forest with animals swinging from cork branch to cork branch but no, it’s just like an orchard.
The trip was jointly sponsored by Quinta Lagoalva and Amorim (a cork company).
So, how was I able to piss off a bull and get close to some guy with an axe??? Watch the video below to find out.
Alas, the bulls didn’t chase me, but I got in trouble with the corker farmer guys…this was the bull (sorry this link is weird after you click bull there, there is a small menu of links on the page, clink on “animals” – that’s the bull!) eyeing me up btw, mean looking fella.
This is the only photo I took. It's a naked cork tree. The bark (which is the cork) was recently harvested, the red colour is natural.
The whole affair was organised by the triad of Gabriella and Ryan Opaz (catavino.net) and Robert McIntosh (wineconversation.com) all I have to say to them is GREAT JOB!
What did I learn besides corks?
The thing I learnt , surprisingly enough, wasn’t how to best use Google to bring traffic to my site, nor tips on producing better videos for my Imbibe video stuff…no, the most ongoing subject matter of the whole event: bloggers shouldn’t accept samples! I kid you not, there seems to be a real big anti-accepting samples thing going on in the wine-blogging world. In fact, if I were to use this conference alone, I would think that bloggers are the most morally driven breed around.
Having worked in the trade for a while, I’ve just accepted samples as a way of life. And this any anti-sample thing was mentioned in pretty much every seminar I attended. I got so bored of hearing it that I ended up sending emails out to PR’s asking for samples to be sent to the most vocal of the anti-group.
The two main reasons why sample acceptance is supposedly bad seem to be: 1) said sample will sway said bloggers away from the pureness of the blog and 2) that once samples are accepted, bloggers are obligated to report on them despite not liking them. I am sure there are loads more but honestly my ears were bleeding so bad from the anti-sample’s shrill that I didn’t get them all down.
C’mon guys, really? I for one would like to put the record straight for spiltwine.com: WE ACCEPT ALL SAMPLES! If they don’t cut the mustard they won’t get written up, easy as that. Which leads nicely too…
Wine(s) of the week!
The Bibendum wine tasting was a few weeks back and here are a couple of wines I liked. (Note to other wine bloggers – please don’t chastise me, they weren’t samples but I tried them for free.)
Shampoo d'Anglais
Chapel Down, Primrose Hill, Brut Prestigre NV (Kent, England) £18.11
46% Reichensteiner, 36% Muller Thurgau, 18% Pinot Noir
It isn’t too bad a price for a non-Champers bubbly but hey, we gotta support our home-grown! Fresh nose of raw apricot and peaches and a little bit of biscuit, nice crisp palate with more stone fruits and some crisp citrus.
French stuff
Ch des Sarrins, Les Sarrins Blanc de Rolle 2007 (Provence, France) £17.25
100% Rolle
How do I manage to find the most expensive bottles in the room? This Southern French wine had loads of personality. The nose smelt of an unburnt matchstick (without the sulphur). Lots of melon flavours as well as some dried herbs with a sort of dirty, edgy palate that shined brightly against some of the highly polished NW wines on offer. Liked it a lot!
Had a quick visit to Latour’s winery in Aloxe Corton, breaking away from the tour I had a peak around the underground maze of a wine cellar.
more about “Lost in Latour“, posted with vodpod
It really was that dark! Had to take pictures with a super long exposure too.
This room was kept hidden from the Nazis during WWII. It was the size of large closet and boarded up from view. It holds the oldest wine in the cellar, some (of which there were few bottles) dated back to the 1860's.
Furry cellar walls. Actually it was really sticky and I had that stuff stuck on my finger for ages!
After the tour we had a massive tasting of Latour’s regions méconnues, basically the lesser known regions of Burgundy.
One of my favourites was Maranges, a pinot from the most southern tip of the Cotes de Beaune. It was very fragrant with some licorice and violets, medium body with some more of that licorice but also some spice and berries and a pleasant lingering finish. I just called up Latour UK and sadly the wine is unavailable here but have a look out for it in France.
Later this week I’ll finish up my on my Burgundy trip and should have a couple of videos up from tastings past. Ciao.
