Category — Fortified Wines

The Channel 4 sponsored Taste festival comes to Edinburgh (The Meadows) from 29 May - 1 June 2008, offering visitors a great opportunity to taste fine foods and wines available in the region.

Imagine a picnic in a park. Now multiply it by thousands of people. Invite all the best restaurants in the area to contribute the food, and discerning vintners to bring the bottles. Make sure some of the guests are famous chefs happy to help out with cooking hints, and organise live music to eat and drink by. This is a Taste Festival.

Amongst the wine-related exhibits will be the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine, Portobello’s Fine Wine Co, New Zealand’s Jackson Estate Winery, Champagne merchants Lovely Bubbly, highly-rated Scottish Merchant Valvona & Crolla,Bordeaux Wines, Wines of Chile, Faustino Rioja

Being in Scotland there is also a Food & Whisky School!

For more info and tickets see www.channel4.com

Cooden Cellars is an independent wine merchant established by Colin Barnes and Ian Jarman in 1997. In May 2001 we opened our retail shop in the Grand Hotel Buildings, Compton Street, Eastbourne. They were awarded Independent Merchant of the Year 2007 as well as Regional Wine Merchant of the Year in the IWC Awards for the last three years, in 2003 and 2004 as runner-up and in 2005 outright.

For those not lucky enough to live within the bounds of Eastbourne they maintain a very functional and informative website. Registered users can login and leave their own tasting notes. The only thing that is lacking are images of the wine bottles (perhaps they should engage this budding photographer?)

The range is excellent across the board - lots of interesting wines from Argentina and Australia, New Zealand and Portugal are particularly interesting with several wines we are yet to discover. Regular offers, a regularly updated blog section and a decent range of spirits plus a regular payment wine club complete the picture. Perhaps the perfect wine merchant?

Had enough of wrestling with the sellotape, wrapping paper and ribbon?

Why not think outside the box this Christmas with a selection of beautiful gift cartons from Graham’s and Warre’s ports?

Graham’s LBV is ideal for whiling away an evening with friends. This blend of wood matured wine from a single vintage has been matured in a wooden barrel for four to six years before filtering and bottling. It’s the only wood matured LBV to have won a gold medal in the world’s most prestigious wine competition: the International Wine Challenge, so you can be sure it’s a real crowd pleaser too.

If it’s versatility you’re after, Warre’s Otima 10 year old is perfect for serving with all sorts of seasonal goodies – particularly when served chilled. This finely crafted award-winning tawny has a light delicate palate, notes of dried fruits on the nose and subtle caramel finish. What’s more, the elegant bottle looks great on the dinner table too.

For really special occasions, Warre’s bottle matured LBV is the next best thing to vintage port. Having won six gold medals at the International Wine Challenge and seven at the International Wine and Sprit Competition; it’s broken all the records. Plus, because it’s been bottled unfiltered, it has unique aging potential. The flavours and aromas will improve over time in the bottle.

Warre’s Otima 10 year old. RRP £10.99, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Waitrose
Graham’s LBV, RRP £11.99, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Waitrose
Warre’s Traditional LBV, RRP £16.49 Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Oddbins

Coincidentally as I was reading Vermouth by Gerard Noel an email from DrinkOn highlighted the Lillet brand of Vermouth, a brand I was unaware of previously -

As 007 fever sweeps the country, (the new Bond gets 10/10 from Drinkon, and not just because of those trunks, either) we thought you might like to know more about our favourite secret agent’s preferred drinks. The cocktail requested by James Bond in Casino Royale, true to the 1953 Ian Fleming novel, is called a Vesper. Named after the beautiful double agent Vesper Lynd with whom Bond falls in love, the Vesper is made as follows:

3 measures Gordon’s gin
1 measure vodka
½ measure Lillet Blanc vermouth
Shake with ice and strain into a deep champagne goblet, or martini glass, and serve with a large thin slice of lemon peel.

According to Vermouth the Lillet vermouth is quite distinctive. Produced in France from Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes (Italian Vermouths use a base of Moscato) from vineyards in Bordeaux and, like the regions wines, the blend changes depending on the years harvest. A red version is also made but from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.

Lillet Blanc Vermouth is listed by DrinkOn at £14.75. Lillet Rouge is also £14.75.

Mad About Sherry? No, me neither - I don’t mind the odd drop of the sweeter styles and I KNOW that tapas is perfect with a dry but I don’t recall the last time I brought a bottle or reviewed any on Spittoon.

I am not the only one; sales are in decline and have been for many years (an annual 5% drop according to AC Nielsen). But there are aficionados, lovers of Almacenista’s (very small producers, family run bodegas in the main), vintage dated sherries (there are a few) and aged-dated rarities.

MadAboutSherry.com is the home to one such sherry lover, Gavin Holt of Witham Wines in Lincoln, who describes the style as the ” greatest and most underrated wine in the world”.

Witham Wines lists pages of different sherries which must rank them as one of the top sherry retailers in the UK; they manage a Sherry Club (6 bottles of sherry a month for £57 inc delivery) and host regular tastings. For background knowledge the Mad About pages is a useful collation of all things sherry.