Saturday, May 30, 2015

May 2015 - Gilbert Winfield - History of Wine

An excellent and informative evening, working our way through the history of wine. Presented by Gilbert Winfield. The idea was to work our way back trhough the history of wine, looking at traditional grape varieties and/or historical wine methods
Starting, here in England with a sparkling wine – English fizz can now hold its head up in the world of wine with some superb offerings
Then moving to Santorini where the vines are trained as “basket vines” to minimise the effect of hot wind and sun. And then on through the eastern med, taking in Sicily, Turkey, Lebanon and finally to Georgia, which is generally reckoned to be the oldest wine culture in the world (Also Armenia as well) We finished off with a Lillet Blanc – made famous by the recent Bond film, a Vin Doux Naturelle from Bordeaux, which was quite a nice way to finish off

Chapel Down Sparkling Brut, Sussex, UK
Hatzidakis Assyrtico 2014, Santorini, Greece
Cos Pithos Rouge 2011, Etna, Sicily
Kalecik Karasi 2012, Vinkara, Turkey
Ch. Ksara Reserve du Couvent 2012, Beeka, Lebanon
Pheasant's Tears Mtsvane 2012, Khakheti, Georgia
Lillet Blanc, Vin Doux Naturelle

I'd be pushed to say any of the wines was “excellent”, but there is some good stuff in there, and it's always good to try these things. The Pheasant's Tears was “interesting” - its made in the ancient traditional way of “Kveri” - 400 litre amphorae, lined with beeswax, sunk into the ground. One of the bottles was a golden yellow, the other quite cloudy and tasted something like fermenting apple juice. According to Gilbert, it does often come out like that.

It was generally reckoned to be a very good evening.