Wine blog
My tasting notes of fine wines I have enjoyed.
Vinha da Urze (2023) - Douro DOC
Casa Agricola Aboredo Madeira SA. Almendra Portugal.
I chose this Urze red wine of the 2023 vintage to accompany a beef filet Tournedos at a steak restaurant in Funchal (Madeira) which works with a farm in the Portugese Azores. Douro DOC is one of Portugal’s premier wine classifications, this assemblage combines the strength and finesse of the two most common varietals of Touriga along with the Portuguese version of the ubiquitous Iberian varietal, Tempranillo. The ageing in oak would be expected to soften the wine but marks it down from being in the top league of Douro wines.
Gavi DOCC is an elegant white wine from Piedmonte; Santo Stefano Belbo is a village in the Langhe hills between Torino and Cuneo in north east Italy. No surprise there was a selection of bottles of Gavi DOCC from different producers on the wine shelves in the border town of Oulx, Piedmonte, which we visited from Briançon (France) last year.
The 2023 wine poured with a light colour back in Brighton. A bright and airy nose that says “Fresh”. On a first sip: a dominant taste of lemon with faint notes of melon. Perhaps very slightly tart but pleasing, intense, rounded and not bitter. And a long after-taste which veered more to melon than lemon.
Gavi wine is traditionally served with fish dishes, Terry had cooked L’orata all’acqua pazza (Sea Bream), for which the Gavi was a fine complement, the wine is robust enough to partner with fresh dill and fresh fennel, also lemon, of the traditional recipe.
Ladilafé is a mœlleux wine from one of the vineyards which are re-establishing quality wine production in the Cirque de Cilaos on Réunion Island, the French département in the Indian Ocean. Therefore this wine is from the southernmost vineyards of France. Surprisingly - for a Mascarene island known for its vanilla production - the wine has little or no “vanilla” flavour, instead a clear and prominent apricot nose and taste, maybe slight melon. Lightly sweet, more a demi-sec, a refreshing swig and a lowish alcohol content at 12%.
Read more: Ladilafé du Chai de Cilaos - vin de l’Île de la Réunion
Cockburn’s 1983 Vintage Port and Saint Julien AOC 2004 Ulysse Cazabonne (Margaux)
Two fine bottles for Christmas and New Year just past. The Cockburn’s 1983 port had somehow lasted in the dusty depths of my cellar. Its time had come last year but we’d had a bad year and didn’t feel like celebrating. So its cork came out this time round. The port wine poured ruby red in to the glass; our first impressions of taste were honey and mead, there was a nutty, almost liquorice flavour as well, which lasted long after the swallow. And a deep warmth as the port wine was absorbed.
Read more: 1983 port and 2004 claret - festive drinking 2024
Reisling Brut 2019 (Von Buhl, traditionelle Flaschengärung) and Riccardo Muti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the großer musikvereinssaal, Vienna, Austria.
Enjoying the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day 2025 concert with Sekt and Stollen. I’ve followed this event for many years through the relays by ORF, the Austrian broadcaster, but haven’t yet secured tickets to the New Year event through the public ballot.
I wanted to try to replicate the event as much as possible in Sussex. It seems the traditional tipple in the interval is sekt. Terry baked us a stollen to his own recipe, he is guided by stollen we’ve enjoyed home-baked by friends in Westerwald and from Lubig Bäckerei in Bonn.
Sekt is unusual out of Germanic lands so this bottle was an import from Deidesheim in Rheinland as I couldn’t find one from an Austria producer. The grape is Reisling, traditional for sekt from that region.
