What Was Your Most Recent Bottle of Wine?

[vinteuil]

So I've probably given my explanation for the French custom (correct!) to have the cheese course after the main course and not after the pudding as many in Angleterre would have it. If push comes to shove the same good red wine can be served for a main course and the cheese, but for the pudding a sweet dessert wine is required. Impossible to alternate red, dessert, red again. I'm not sure that a pudding wine is much of a thing in the UK. .

... well, there are other ways to finish a meal. At traditional English dinners you might have after the main courses - pudding, followed by cheese, followed by a savoury (devils on horseback, scotch woodcock &c), followed by port & nuts, followed by coffee & digestifs. I have been at university meals and elsewhere which followed that pattern.

At the British Embassy in Paris the diplomatic niceties were solved by having the cheese and puddings brought to the table at the same time, leaving the guests to decide whether they wanted to follow British or French customs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoury_(dish)

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[french frank]

Went to lunch a few days ago at an old University friend’s, and hugely enjoyed this excellent viognier from t’Coop:

I've seen that one in our Coopy. Thanks for the tip.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks to the Wine Society I have found a useful succedaneum : from the Languedoc, their Domaine du Bosc, cabernet franc, 2012 at £6.50 [page 45 of April/July list].

Domaine du Bosc also produce a most attractive viognier, at £6.75 [page 101 from the list].

Yes the du Bosc wines are a bit of alright.

Went to lunch a few days ago at an old University friend’s, and hugely enjoyed this excellent viognier from t’Coop:



Really delicious

[french frank]

* EDIT - yes, I was banging on about this in 2018

In conversation avec moi!

So I've probably given my explanation for the French custom (correct!) to have the cheese course after the main course and not after the pudding as many in Angleterre would have it. If push comes to shove the same good red wine can be served for a main course and the cheese, but for the pudding a sweet dessert wine is required. Impossible to alternate red, dessert, red again. I'm not sure that a pudding wine is much of a thing in the UK. Or even wine-drinking judging by my observations in restaurants (which cannot here be described ).

[Ein Heldenleben]

[QUOTE=vinteuil;854474]... o yes. As I may have mentioned before (? *) - I find it interesting reading writers such as Brillat-Savarin and Grimod de La Reynière, where the expectation would be that you would be served a vin de table, a plonk, almost as a thirst-quencher - and then, when something special arrived, there would be a totally different 'fine wine' to be savoured as an experience in itself. We have largely lost this distinction, and tend to have the same level of wine throughout a meal

* EDIT - yes, I was banging on about this in 2018 -


I reckon this is the way to do it ..

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.[a] 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”


In the good wine category I agree the Baron de Gers Picpoul from Sainsbury’s is good.
This is better but pricier
Domaine Roquemolière
Réserve Roquemolière Picpoul de Pinet ( about a tenner .
Good Sauvignons Villa Maria and Oyster Bay - again about a tenner
Sainsbury’s Organic isn’t bad - only 6.50
Their house Sauvignon at 4.50 is just about ok….

[Barbirollians]

I prefer good Muscadet to Picpoul de Pinet in the refreshing dry white category.

[vinteuil]

Absolument! But as we have discussed before, there is wine and wine. If I'm eating something which seems to me to be of particular delicacy and delight I will drink something more special. But for the everyday wine it's vin de table and Spanish dry at £3.80 a bottle falls into that category.

... o yes. As I may have mentioned before (? *) - I find it interesting reading writers such as Brillat-Savarin and Grimod de La Reynière, where the expectation would be that you would be served a vin de table, a plonk, almost as a thirst-quencher - and then, when something special arrived, there would be a totally different 'fine wine' to be savoured as an experience in itself. We have largely lost this distinction, and tend to have the same level of wine throughout a meal

* EDIT - yes, I was banging on about this in 2018 -

... what I find interesting, is that when you read earlier writers on food and wine (I'm thinking of Brillat-Savarin and Grimod de La Reynière) the assumption was that you wd have two types of wine - a cheap'n'cheerful quaffing wine to slake thirst / accompany food - and then, quite separately, a 'serious' wine that was to be sniffed and savoured as an experience in itself, but drunk in relatively small quantities. I think this is a useful approach...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Anthelme_Brillat-Savarin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Balthazar_Laurent_Grimod_de_La_Reyni%C3%A8re

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[french frank]

... I never mentioned 'a bottle'

No, so you wouldn't have to post twice a day as your Most Recent Bottle of Wine would not change twice a day [/QUOTE]

I raise a glass to the inventor of the vacuvin

Absolument! But as we have discussed before, there is wine and wine. If I'm eating something which seems to me to be of particular delicacy and delight I will drink something more special. But for the everyday wine it's vin de table and Spanish dry at £3.80 a bottle falls into that category. There are people who buy a wine because it's reasonably expensive and therefore 'must be good', and those who will not buy a wine because it's too cheap. My rule is to try it and judge for yourself. My Spanish dry at ABV 10% suits me fine for lighter meals. I haven't yet discovered a similar red wine (the rule 'pay a lot for a white wine but cheaper red wines are fine' is one I ignore). As (I believe) I've said before, a lemonade bottle filled with local red in Nîmes market for 45p hits the mark for an al fresco picnic of bread, cheese, ham and fruit.

[vinteuil]

Do you really consume a bottle twice daily?

... I never mentioned 'a bottle'

I raise a glass to the inventor of the vacuvin

And I am not usually a solitary drinker - such bottles as may be on the table are available to whoever is partaking of the meal...





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[french frank]

... no.

But I drink wine every day.

Moi aussi, but as I only eat once a day (apart from a breakfast of muesli and fresh fruit) and that at lunch time it might also be boring if somewhat less so. As I tend to limit myself to one glass with an occasional fill-up, a bottle lasts me a few days

Do you really consume a bottle twice daily?

[vinteuil]

Has this forum gone teetotal ?
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... no.

But I drink wine every day. It wd be boring for me and others if I recounted on a twice-daily basis what I had been consuming

(tho' I wd make an exception for Perec : Tentative d'inventaire des aliments liquides et solides que j'ai ingurgité au cours de l'année mil neuf cent soixante-quatorze

http://escarbille.free.fr/vme/?txt=tia

https://advdesign2017.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/perec-attempt-at-inventory.pdf

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[Petrushka]

Waitrose have some excellent wines and my favourite for a while now has been the Domaine Huber Grüner Veltliner, a wonderful Austrian white that goes particularly well with anything fish or chicken based. Another fine white I frequently buy is a Mosel white, the oddly named Grey Slate Riesling

Summer drinking for me is the delicious Mirabeau en Provence Classic Rose which I currently have on the go.

I'm afraid that red wine gives me bad indigestion and a headache though I can usually get away it if I stick to a light red like Chianti or Beaujolais

[french frank]

Has this forum gone teetotal ?

No, but it tends to be mentioned on the What are you cooking? thread

At a similar price level, my current white vin de table is the Baron de Guers Picpoul de Pinet (2019)

Referred to in the above mentioned cooking thread: a favourite from our serious wine merchant is the Château de la Mirande Picpoul de Pinet (2019), though at £11.50 it's not a vin de table. Actual last consumed (yesterday) was an Egri Bikavér (2018) which I pay the restaurant price for, but at £14 with discount for a regular customer from the Hungarian caff where I order takeaways I'm not sure how much it would be at supermarket prices. Goes well with the spicy pickles of Hungarian food but I haven't seen any Bull's Blood in the Coop for some years. Not in the fine wine category.

[Barbirollians]

At a similar price level, my current white vin de table is the Baron de Guers Picpoul de Pinet (2019), Sainsburys etc for around £7. Classic French Dry White. Best well chilled. For a treat, getting away from my usual devotions to Sancerre or Pouilly Fumé and Loire Valley generally, I take the more expensive Vieilles Vignes Chablis (2019), around £15-£17. All excellent with salads, fettuccine carbonara and so on...

Poor Chablis can be wretched and I still avoid Spanish or Californian varieties after past experiences, but this Chablis is a true classic. Of broadly similar French regional sources, I love a good Pouilly Fuissé, but fine examples do tend to be expensive. The Sainsburys 2019 is fine, but the 2014 and 2017 were exceptional; I was sorry when they stopped appearing on the shelves.

2014 and 2017 were very good years for white burgundy especially the former.

[Belgrove]

A blend of the Öküzgözü Bogazkere grapes, indigenous to Turkey, can be sought out by the adventurous. Medium bodied, with the aroma and taste of cherry with a red-current edge. Slightly rustic and good value, ideal for Levantine inspired fare for lunch in the garden. An Auxey Duresses - apple, almond and a flinty quality - proved the ideal accompaniment to Dover Sole last weekend.