Back home in Yorkshire after ten weeks away in Sri Lanka eating mainly fish and drinking only beer and Black Label, I have been relishing the Reds – both meat and wine. Even wines I did not care for very much like Rockford’s Moppa Hills 1999 tasted pretty good. Pontet-Canet 2002 was sublime. A bottle…
I had dinner with an old friend in Colombo yesterday who has the most remarkable cellar of over 4000 bottles – Rheingau Rieslings from Tony Jost, Frescobaldi‘s Brunello, Ornellaia, Sasacaia, Hill of Grace, Grange etc. Untill his new air-cnditioned cellar is ready, he keeps the wine in 25 Eurocaves!
I had dinner at Van Zeller’s in Harrogate yesterday. The food was good without being great. The wine list was uninspiring and the markup was ridiculous. I have no problem with restaurants charging a fair price for good food but a 300 – 400% mark up for grape juice they did not ferment is immoral.
I had my first game of the season the other day. A good friend who shoots on Sundays brought me a few partridges and a grouse. They were roasted wrapped in bacon and served with Anna Potatoes and red cabbage. Ployez-Jacquemart 1996 en magnum set the scene for the Josmeyer Alsace Grand Cru Hengst 1997,…
What wines should any good cellar contain? By cellar I mean a collection of wines either in an underground cave or a simple wine rack in the kitchen or under the stairs. These days who has a cave anyway? If wine is best enjoyed with food, it follows that ones cellar should be stocked with…
I have been storing my wine in the cellars under my office at 86 Station parade in Harrogate for a quarter of century. In ten days time, the property will be sold and over the last three months, I have been moving my wine to its new home, a few cases at a time. Today,…
There are many things good about the tasting dinners at Harrogate’s Rudding Park, introduced last August. The idea seemed to be to offer discerning wine lovers an opportunity to drink quality wine with good food at reasonable cost in elegant surroundings. Rudding offered all this and more. One year on, things have changed, and it…
I met Etienne Hugel in Harrogate on Wednesday. We drank coffee and mineral water and talked about wine and food and mistresses. Etienne said he would return to Harrogate in May to host a Hugel Tasting Dinner for us at Rudding Park. We will sip chilled Muscat on the terrace and drink Riesling Classic 2007…
Seven days in the great vineyards of Burgundy.
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