Lidl French Wine Sale 2014

Apologies , it's been about two weeks since I bought the above wines in Lidl on the Grange road and I'm only putting this post up now. I've been drinking and blogging the wines I bought in the Dunnes French Wine sale. They were a mixed bag to be honest. These Lidl wines look good at least. As before, I have taken input from John Wilson in the Irish Times and Martin Moran in the Sunday Times.

Chateau du Carillon Fronsac 2010 - €12.99 (punt)
Took a chance on this, I've had mixed luck with Supermarket Bordeaux. Yowsa! I'm well happy with this wine. It took a couple of hours in the decanter but by the end it had developed into a full bodied, complex beast, with some impressive plummy fruit with a wicked long finish. I'm gonna buy more of this and lay some down in my "cellar". Great value as priced.

Domaine De la Combe Rasteau 2013 - €11.99 (punt)
Not bad. Very Grenachey.

Bourgogne Aligoté 2013 - €9.99 (recommended - JW)
This is good, not quite what I expected. It has plenty of zingy acidity and not too much buttery chardonnay stuff but I like it. Would work well with food.

Domaine Messire de Very Séguret 2013 - €12.99 (recommended - JW)
Thank you John. This is really nice. It started off as a pleasant wine; "gentle" herself opined and I concurred. After a while it developed some real depth, with a pinch of spice and a wicked, long, dry finish. JW described it as "powerful" - d'accord!

Saint-Joseph AOP 2011- €11.99 (recommended - MM)

Watch this space...

Redesign

As you may have noticed, I've done some work on the layout and design of the blog. While I liked the original template, it was getting tired of it and it was a little Web 1.0 I'd like to say I did a huge and complex redesign using all my techy skills but that would be a lie. Instead, all I did was choose a new template and update my blog list (I have removed some blogs that seem to have died and added a few new ones - please check them out). Let me know what you think of the redesign.

Now, on to business. I was down in Superquinn Blackrock yesterday buying some Friday fish, as is my wont, and looking for the elusive Santa Rita Floresta red. Alas, this was all gone but I did pick up a bottle of scrummy La Baume Viognier first sampled here. It's now at its full price of €10-79 but is still great value if you like creamy, peachy whites. Note: While the wine was lovely it so did not go with the delicious piece of Hake, fried in butter with a pepper and salt coating, expertly cooked by Herself.

On the red front the remains of the new world wine sale are still present but as I said before, it's mostly pile 'em high sell 'em cheap fruity plonk. The red above is what I took a punt on in the end. Pretty much all of the new World Pinot Noirs I've had (all inexpensive) have been fine; light and fruity but with obviously none of the complexity of their Burgundian cousins.

It was a Chilean Agustinos Reserve Pinot Noir 2008 Bio Bio - €9-99 in the sale. After an hour or so decanting, I poured and as expected is quite pale and light in the glass and on the nose didn't give much away. At first taste we knew this wasn't your standard new world cheapie. After the subtle cherry and jammy fruits, herself got caramel notes and I swear I got a hint of mint along with some surprising dryness at the finish. A pretty complex wine for the money and absolutely delicious, a bargain Burgundy I'd suggest except that I know shag-all about Burgundies. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.

Snappy Title Eludes me, Again

We have now had two of three wines I got in Dunnes last week, so:

Gerard Bertrand Tautavel 2006, I only had a glass of this (long story) and I liked it, but as I said before; 8 quid - Yes, 14 quid- No.

Artiga Garnacha 2007, I half heartedly liked this the last time, but I liked it more this time. It is well balanced, and has a lovely ChateauNeufDuPape'y spiciness, no surprise as Grenache is often the most common grape, and is super value at this price (€6-49).

Lastly - for Valentines Day I opened the second last bottle of my birthday stash a Domaine D'Ardhuy Corton Clos Du Roi Burgundy 2006. The lesson for me is that I don't drink enough good Burgundy, the good stuff that I have had has been fabulous, light years away from thin new World Pinot Noirs. I'll admit, this style of wine is not my usual style, I generally prefer big, in-your-face beefy wines, and this is not that. I'm going to quote a review that I found online rather then fail to do this wine justice, so, what he said...

"A gentle touch of wood spice frames the ripe, serious and brooding earthy and intensely animale dark berry fruit aromas that introduce the rich, powerful and palate drenching flavors that are textured, well-muscled and focused on the explosive finish. This is like a vinous bomb detonating on the palate and it’s hugely long."

I wrote the above earlier before venturing out to order the Porkbelly from The Market in Belarmine, whereupon I saw a very attractive label (now posted at left). It's a Villa Augusta Montepulciano D'Abruzzo, I think I used to have it in Millers Pizza. The label is rather fetching, if you know me and Herself, you'll see why I like it.

Next up - finding a wine to go with Porkbelly II - the Revenge.

Updates and some nice shiraz...

Hola amigos. Its been a while since I blogged at you, I don't have any excuse, I'm just lazy.

Anyhoo - I was in O'Briens on the weekend, I picked up a Protocolo for the happy couple to try but alas this was not a runner. I also picked up a delicious Chanson Macon Villages which went down better and is a frickin' steal on special at €9-99 (from €12-99).

Lastly, after a blind taste I was persuaded by my man Ramon to buy a bottle of the 2006 Bethany G6 Shiraz. As regular readers will know I have a curious and snobby relationship with Aussie Shiraz, I only like the expensive stuff. The cheap stuff I find too jammy and unrelenting.

I brought this home, we drank half on Saturday and I brought it down to the out-laws on Sunday and everyone loved it. Its big and fruity, yes, but complex, full bodied and wonderful. Its currently reduced from €17-39 to €12-95 so go try some.

Herself had a birthday also this weekend we ventured to Ananda in Dundrum with June, BigNose and BigHead. Haven't been for about a year but goddamn the food is good. Expensive but good. We necked some delicious Hugel Gewurztraminer with our food, which I think was a good match.

Next: I'm still trying to get to my nearest Aldi which I think is in Churchtown to see what it has to offer.

Saturday Night Fever

There's a joke, of sorts in the title. You see, June didn't get a Thanksgiving dinner this year so we offered to do a little Turkey and I added a sweetner with the offer to open my birthday Montrachet and that sealed the deal. We started with it:

Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Clos Saint-Jean 2005 - delicious, minerally, a little bit biscuity. As my ol' papa once told me "White Burgundy & Red Bordeaux" was the way to go so, following that maxim, next up was a Bordeaux give to me by Rigo for my Birthday.

Chateau Belgrave - Haut Medoc 2004 - This was an extremely nice claret. I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened this, I had thought this would be a decent tipple, drinking well now and for another few years. As it happened this turned out to be a cracker, a very big, fruity beast, don't know where to get it but I'd buy more if I could.

At this point June's bug re-asserted itself and she has to retire for the evening, which was doubly unfortunate for her as she had brought along a wine I'd given her for her birthday and which we had already decanted, and so myself and Herself had to drink it.

d'Arenberg Sticks and Stones 2004 - A very unusual blend of grapes here; Tempranillo, Grenache, and Souzao (description here), the last grape I'd never even heard of. I opened and decanted this at 7 o'clock, it took until about 9-30 before this wine really opened up. It didn't help that the wine was a little cool from June's "cellar". Initially this was a touch sharp and acidic, but by the time 9-30 rolled around it had morphed into a complex , warm, rich beauty. Sorry June, I'll buy you another bottle.

Much fun in Powerscourt.

After six wonderful years, or something, myself and Herself decided to splash out and go to Gordon Ramsay in the Ritz Carlton in Powerscourt and also spend the night there. Normally such an undertaking would be prohibitively expensive but with a little help from an elder brother (Cheers Ro!), we were able to get a very good deal. Note: this post is quite a "foodie" post so if that offends you - leave now.

Our wine adventures started earlier than expected when, after a little snafu with our room, we were presented with a complementary bottle of red and some chocolates (see above). The red was a Beaune Premier Cru - Les Bressandes 2006 from Domaine Pavelot. As I mentioned here I haven't a huge amount of experience with Pinot Noirs and Burgundies in particular.

However the moment we opened this we knew it was something special, it was an order of magnitude nicer than the NZ Pinot Noir. It was fruitier than I expected, and it had more body than expected, lots of complexity and a big finish. After savouring most of this bottle we made our way to Gordon Ramsay where we opted for the Prestige menu as described here.

I'm going to document it here as that link may change.

• pre Amuse bouche nibbles - Yum.
• Amuse bouche - (Mackerel) - Also Yum
• Pressed foie gras with Waldorf salad and spiced bread * - Hmmm
• East coast lobster and salmon ravioli with lemongrass sauce ** - Divine
• Sea bream with confît leeks and cauliflower velouté - Yes
• Roast Connemara Hill lamb, ‘boulangère’ potatoes, rosemary jus *** - Double Yes OR
• Assiette of Hereford beef with green asparagus,girolles and hollandaise sauce - More please
• Pre dessert (Triple layer fruit thing in a glass) - Lovely
• Pear Williams baba - Very Full at this stage but Yes
• Petit Fours & Coffee - No Room left at all now.
• Two slices of special Happy Anniversary cake courtesy of our hosts - lucky I'm not petite.

We also opted for the Prestige wine package where the Sommelier choses wines for each course (as denoted by stars).

* Gewuerztraminer, Meyer-Fonné, Alsace, France. A moderately sweet wine (not as sweet as a Sauternes) but delicious with this course.

** Chablis Vincent Sauvestre, Burgundy, France. We had this with the Ravioli and the Bream. An understated wine, minerally, refined and delicious.

*** Dievole Broccato 2006 (?) Italy. My first real Super Tuscan. A big inky, oaky wine with some lively fruit that went really well with the lamb(Herself) and especially well with the beef (me). I suspect this has a lot of aging in it and would be dynamite in 4/5 years.

At this point we got chatting to our lovely Somellier Nicole, she happened to have a couple of other bottles from this producer open and she generously gave us a tasting of the Vendemmia, a Chianto Classico and the Novecento, a Chianti Classico Riserva. The first of these was lovely but the Riserva was a corker. Alas, these are not currently available in the 26 counties.

All in all - a cracking experience with a level of service that I have not seen in a long time. Friendly, efficient, knowledgeable and helpful without being intrusive plus a food/wine experience second to none. My (very limited) experience of Michelin Star level food says that you should go for the tasting menu if you can afford it, you get lots of different foods in managable portions, and usually what the kitchen does best.

**Update - Just realised I never reviewed the Carianne below after drinking it on Friday. The micro review is - NO. Drinkable, but very average, not worth a tenner. Drinking the Fitou now - review to follow.