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"Chablis on foot" part 1: Chablis Wine Awards
As a gentle warm-up to more in-depth reflections and my pick of wines and wineries from a recent tour in and around Chablis land (including a day's cellar hopping on foot, as is easy to do in Chablis...
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Wine Education Service NI courses & tastings update
Further to this Wine Education Service courses & tastings March update: "There are four Wine Education Service NI events scheduled in Belfast city centre over the next few weeks, tutored by RMJ..."...
View ArticleSouth Africa: Grenache
As an enhanced little update to this peppery piece posted last October:South Africa part 2: "unusual" reds (well, some of them...)Here are a couple of Cape Grenache reds worth mentioning, discovered at...
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Bordeaux: "under a tenner... mostly."
With the prices of top Bordeaux reds spiraling ever upwards (except for the 2012 vintage perhaps, which the trade and critics are expressing misgivings about quality-wise) making these wines for...
View ArticleWorld Malbec Day
Further to this blurb just posted on FrenchMediterraneanWine.com: It's tomorrow folks, Wed 17 April, and I'll be busy at an Argentina tasting in Dublin sampling as many Malbecs as I can no doubt...
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New Zealand: Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer
New Zealand winemakers are well known for their lively expressive Sauvignon Blanc wines and Chardonnays too made in different styles (fresh & fruity, rich and toasty, somewhere in between...). So...
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Spain: a trio of Rioja
Rioja is one of those (fairly) endlessly fascinating wine "topics" yet sometimes a bit of a minefield too, as there are a lot of Rioja wines out there at all sorts of prices and it's not always clear...
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New Zealand: Pinot Noir
I've said the odd kind thing about Pinot Noir from New Zealand before (goes to archive page with links to previous post featuring Pinots from Seresin, Borthwick Estate, Wither Hills and Mount Edward);...
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Wine Education Service NI events May & June
The next tastings and courses running in Belfast city centre are:ESSENTIAL WINE TASTING course - £125 for 5 sessions on Tuesdays 19.00 to 21.00 starting 28 May to 25 June. More info on this five...
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Cider: Duché de Longueville 'Gros Oeillet', Normandy
Another post in my occasional series on quality ciders that have crossed my apple-strewn path (see link at the bottom for more), which brings us to the curious Gros Oeillet variety mentioned in the...
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"Chablis on foot" part 2: Droin, Chablisienne, Long-Depaquit, Fèvre
The first instalment of this mouthwatering Chablis mini-series can be found here: "Chablis on foot" part 1: Chablis Wine Awards. This time, join me on a little walking and tasting tour around Chablis...
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Chablis part 3: Geoffroy, Moreau, Séguinot-Bordet and more
"On-foot" has been regrettably dropped from 'Chablis: final destination 3...', as predictably more efficient transport was required this time to spread the net a little wider. See "Chablis on foot"...
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Wine tour: Verona & Veneto weekend
Piazza Bra and Arena, Verona amphitheatreThe latest 'wine weekend', this time going to northern Italy in the autumn, has just been slotted into wine travel company Wine Voyages' increasingly busy...
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France: Alsace - Eblin-Fuchs
Domaine Eblin-Fuchs lies on seductively rolling slopes around the village of Zellenberg (where the cellar is), between Ribeauvillé and Riquewihr and not far from Colmar, which is one of the region's...
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Wine Education Service NI autumn/winter program
The next wave of wine tastings and courses scheduled from late September to April next year in Belfast city centre (and run by RMJ) are as follows:Essential Wine Tasting course - £125 for 5...
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Spain: Quaderna Vía, Navarra
From organicwines.ieBodegas y Vinedos Quaderna Vía organically run estate winery, whose name seems to have something to do with Mediaeval poetry (guessing a bit from my limited grasp of Spanish: there...
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Italy: whites and reds "of the moment", south & north
Three Sicilian whites, a red from Puglia and one from Trentino to be precise, all hot off the shelf from Marks, Lidl and Asda. I've mentioned a certain fondness for white wines from Sicily before...
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France: Alsace - Domaine Martin Schaetzel
The Martin Schaetzel wine estate spreads over 20 hectares (50 acres) of vineyards in the Ammerschwihr area, including several highly rated Grand Cru sites, and has been certified organic since 1998 as...
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Spain: Loxarel - Catalunya
Based at their Can Mayol estate near Vilobí del Penedès in the hills just to the north of Vilafranca (about 40-50 km west of Barcelona), the Mitjans family produces, following organic and biodynamic...
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Pink Port and Amarone: a couple of "headbangers of the moment"
I don't usually recommend wines based purely on alcohol content - and I'm not really going to this time either - yet the alcohol is an intrinsic part of these two totally different wines (but 'still...
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