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Monday, 13 June 2011 16:14 |
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 June 2001, in the first edition of All At Sea, I wrote: “For our launch, we just have to follow nautical tradition and have some Champagne.”
Despite today’s economic woes, Champagne, or at least a good fi zz, is still essential for a launch party, birthday, weddings or race-winning celebration.
Prices have, of course, risen since 2001. Then we recommended Balls Bros Joseph Perrier at £18 a bottle - today listed at £30 - and a Calais wine run special ‘house’ Champagne from Beer & Wine (Majestic) that was £8 and is now £12.
Only part of the increase is higher grape costs. Much is due to fuel, duty and VAT increases. But all is not lost. Search around and Champagnes are still to be found at parity to 2001 prices.
Several supermarkets have Heidsieck Monopole at £20, good Champagne but not to be confused with Piper-Heidsieck, a new sponsor of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week. Their upper quality Piper-Heidsieck NV sells at £30 a bottle at Waitrose.
Waitrose’s own Brut at £17 a bottle was much liked by my tasting panel. An even better deal is Tesco’s case offer of the very respectable Nicolas Feuillatte at only £14.50 a bottle.
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707
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Monday, 09 May 2011 15:12 |
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 Vinho Verde is a delicious, some say unique, wine with a lovely aroma and slight pétillance that makes it distinctive and highly regarded, especially for summer drinking. Medium in alcohol, it’s excellent with food.
This delightful wine from Portugal is not often on the radar away from its home base in the Minho region to the north of Porto, even in Portugal itself.
The ‘Green Wine’ name refers to the young freshness of the wine, not the colour, although there may be a slight green tint to the white variety, possibly imagined.
There are reds, whites and rosés. The reds are full-bodied with intense colour and a give off a light rosy-red foam. The mini-head on the whites is lemony or straw coloured.
Vinhos Verdes are light, fresh and intended to be drunk within a year of bottling. At less than one bar of CO2 pressure, they do not quite qualify as semi-sparkling wines but the definite pétillance tingles the tongue.
The white Vinho Verde is very fresh, due its natural acidity, softened during fermentation, varying between 8.5 to 11 per cent abv and made from local grape varieties Loureiro, Arinto, Trajadura, Avessa and Azul.
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631
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Tuesday, 11 January 2011 11:37 |
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 I KNOW it’s January, not April 1, but English whisky exists.
It has been maturing in oak barrels since 2006 and since 2010 the first sales of legitimate English three-year-old whisky are happening.
And why not? There is Welsh, French, Irish, Scottish, so no reason not to have ‘English’. Well done the English Whisky Co of St George’s Distillery, Roudham, Norfolk, England, for having the enthusiasm to produce the first English whisky for over 100 years. Single malt that is, not blends –“not ever” – they say.
The founders have been in farming for hundreds of years and in 2005 James Nelstrop, then 60, with his son Andrew, set about creating a whisky distillery on their land.
“Norfolk barley is the best,” they say, “and local Breckland water is superb”.
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554
(3 votes, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Monday, 15 November 2010 12:05 |
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 SPECIAL feasts feature multi-course menus when the wines change to match each one, including the dessert.
‘Pudding’ wines are sweet and generally fortified with added brandy to raise the alcoholic level above 14 per cent abv.
The rule of thumb is the wine should be sweeter than the food it is served with. It is costly to make and pricey per bottle, so it’s mostly sold in 50 cl or 37.5 cl bottles, for sipping, not quaffing.
Typical grapes used are Muscat and Sémillon. The grapes are left late on the vine until they grow a mould called the ‘noble rot’, which generates flavour but is very risky as they have to be picked before the mould turns into ‘grey rot’, making the grape useless.
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451
(3 votes, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Friday, 13 August 2010 13:46 |
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 If you are sailing back from Brittany, where I hope you will have tasted Ar-Men bottle-conditioned ale (All at Sea June) you may perhaps make landfall at Falmouth or Fowey for Falmouth Week 7-14 August.
If you do, many local Cornish ales, which are also bottle-conditioned specialities, await you, seemingly indicating a revival of the genre over here. Plus real ciders on draught.
The St Austel brewery, founded 1851, owns 176 carefully nurtured pubs all over Cornwall, with one in every likely port of call and supplies all the main sailing clubs a cruising yachtsman will ever want to get to, plus two in St Mary’s on the Scilly Isles.
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