Author Archives: Jack Shamash

Old wines in interesting bottles at Winerack

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Borgo Magredo - great wine in an attractive flask

Borgo Magredo – great wine in an attractive flask

The big wine retailer Conviviality, which includes Bargain Booze and Wine Rack, is offering a series of wines which are veering towards the unusual.

Their autumn wine tasting, held last week (7 September 2016) had a wide variety of wines from unlikely countries. A Slovenian 2015 Gomilla Sauvignon Blanc (£10.99) was being offered alongside a Chinese2015 Chateau Changyu Moser XV Cabernet Sauvignon (£10.99). The Slovenian wine was light and fruity. The Chinese wine was slightly too dry for my palate, but it is the sort of thing that guests would be keen to try..

There are some really pretty flask-shaped wine bottles from Italy. The 2015 Fruliano Borgo Magedo, Friuli Grave was fruity and slightly floral with notes of grapefruit. It’s a nice wine and – it might sound a bit shallow – but when you are having a dinner party, it’s nice to have something on the table that looks interesting.

It’s worth checking out the South African wines. There are some good chenin blancs and I particularly rated the Julien Schaal Mountain Vineyards Chardonnay (£13.99) – light and slightly fruity with citrus tones. A nice thing to drink with fish, chicken breasts or just by itself.

And there are even wines with celebrity links. The 2016 MT Pinot Noir Rose (£10.99), is made by McGuigan/John Torode. John Torode is the Australian celebrity chef who does Masterchef and looks severe when contestants burn the apple crumble. Pinot noir is more normally used for Burgundy style wines and it is found in rose Champagnes. So this is a slightly unusual wine, but it would go well with prawns or a tuna salad and it is reasonably priced.

Gomila Exclusive sauvignon blanc

An exciting Slovenian cabernet sauvignon

London Wine Week – May 23-29

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Wines at Bishopsgate

Over the next few days London will become a paradise for wine lovers. London Wine Week (LWW), which lasts from 23 to 29 May, will be based in around 125 venues – mainly bars and pubs – around London.

Wine lovers have to buy an LWW wristband for £10. Equipped with this, they can go into a large number of bars and buy a ‘flight of wines’ – ie an exciting selection – for a mere £5. Many of the bars will be offering free snacks to show how the wines pair with different types of food.

In addition Aldi will be setting up a display in Shoreditch, at which they will offer masterclasses and taster sessions, to help people understand the wide variety of wines now available. This is completely free. As Aldi is building up quite a name for itself as a supplier of high quality but reasonably priced wines, this should be worth a look.

Super Luxury at the London Motor Show

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IMG_0114When I got to the London Motor Show, I started rummaging around in my pockets. No, I couldn’t afford the £600,000 for the Speedback GT by David Brown or the £250,000 for the Noble supercar. I realised that I would have to go back home in exactly the same way as I’d arrived: by public transport.

The London Motor Show is a great opportunity to see some wonderful cars. It’s a relatively small event – not like the major shows at Geneva and Frankfurt where the display halls are filled with hundreds upon hundreds of cars and where all the major manufacturers are out in force.

IMG_0119The London show probably has only 150 cars, but it’s cheap to visit (£10) and it has some exciting new offerings and plenty of people desperate to talk to motoring aficionados (or petrol-heads as they’re often known) and discuss specifications, engine sizes and prices. If you like cars, it’s a good place to be.

There were relatively few small family cars – the show seems to be more about recreational driving and the luxury end of the market. However there were some nice offerings. Ford was unveiling its new luxury 4 wheel drive car – The Edge (top left). And MG, -now making cars in Shanghai, unveiled the new GS – another luxury 4 wheel drive. Both of these – aimed unashamedly at the luxury urban driver – attracted a lot of attention. Ford and MG have yet to set a price for these cars.

IMG_0117A couple of attractive smaller cars, were turning heads at the event. The Alfa Romeo Spyder (above) is a light sports car that in its various incarnations has been in production for around 50 years. The new Spyder C4 has a carbon fibre body and a top speed of 160mph. The top of the range model has a price tag of almost £70,000. It’s ideal for people who’ve just been through a messy divorce, sold the family house and want to recapture their youth.

Rather more interesting is the Fiat Abarth 695 (above right), which looks like an ordinary Fiat 500, except that its souped-up engine can go at 143mph and it has a price tag of £33,000. It’s a stylish piece of engineering.

The show has very little by way of catering facilities: you can’t get much more than a coffee. But it is in Battersea Park, which is very beautiful, has a great view of the river and is just a short walk from the Kings Road in Chelsea, which has no shortage of great places to eat. When I visited, the organisers believed that the show would be completely sold out, so do check before you go.

Stylish Gins at Wine Rack

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It may often be thought of as ‘mother’s ruin’, but these days gin is becoming very popular – and not just with mums. A lot of stylish bars and pubs with a young and trendy clientele have entire racks full of different gins.

Wine Rack and Bargain Booze had their Spring tasting yesterday. And the most exciting thing was the range of superb gins. The two chains – they are part of the same organisation – sell around 140 different varieties of gin. And many of them have unusual flavours.

Gin is a neutral spirit – made from potatoes or grain or apples or just about anything which can be fermented – flavoured with juniper berries. In addition to the juniper it can have just about any other type of flavour. So gins can be quite distinctive.

The Slingsby London Dry Gin (£39.99) is flavoured with rhubarb, tea and jasmine, which makes it pleasantly smooth with a soft aroma. Chase Gin (£39.99) made in Herefordshire is distilled from apples, giving it a freshness on the palate, and is flavoured with just a hint of orange zest and liquorice.

Gins on offer at Winerack

Gins on offer at Winerack

 

Obviously not every drink will appeal to everyone. Brocks Intensely Smooth Gin (£35.99) is flavoured with blueberries and blackberries, but I felt that this made it somewhat medicinal in taste. But I particularly enjoyed the Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin made in Germany (£39.99 for 50cl). This is flavoured with sage and verbena and ginger, and I thought it was delicious.

With so many different types of gin, it would be lovely to work your way through the lot, although if you want to get through all 140 varieties, you’ll need deep pockets and a strong liver.

Gardening Fun for the Kids

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The Children's Garden

The Children’s Garden

There are two ways of getting your children into the garden and away from their Xboxes and Playstations. Either you can lock them outside and ignore their frenzied screams, or you can buy them a book like this.

The Children’s Garden is written with parents in mind. it has lots of great ideas and projects, so that youngsters can actually enjoy their time in the great oudoors. You can have a lot of great fun, with very little money if you do simple things such as pond-dipping or going on bug hunts to uncover beetles and woodlice and other creepy crawlies

The book has chapters devoted to simple things such as growing vegetables, including potatoes and spring onions, which can all be done in just about any container. And it makes the very valid point that children are more likely to eat things that they’ve grown themselves. And they can have lots of fun growing flowers from seed such as nasturtiums and sunflowers – which are really great because they are completely edible so even if the seeds end up in a toddler’s mouth, they won’t do any harm.

This book is a handy size – not too big – and has lots of great pictures. And if you want to inspire your child with a lifelong love of gardens and gardening, this is a great place to start.

The Children’s Garden by Matthew Appleby is published by Frances Lincoln, £14.99

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Great Spring wines at Aldi

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IMG_2465Over the last two or three years, the wine department at Aldi has become a bit like a wonderful toyshop for wine lovers. There are lots of great things, and they’re all nicely priced and lots of fun. Yesterday I went along to the Spring tasting to see what new goodies were on offer.

The tasting was held in the Skyloft on top of Millbank Tower, just down the road from the Houses of Parliament. Ranged along the walls were a surprisingly diverse selection of high quality wines.

As most wine fans will know, Aldi has an excellent range called ‘The Exquisite Selection’. These are really good wines, most of which cost just over a fiver. And they make genuinely good drinking. If you’re thinking of stocking up for a party or just want to buy a few nice bottles to drink over dinner, Aldi is a good place to come. Moreover Aldi has recently started selling wines online, so they can be delivered to your door.

The Exquisite Collection now boasts a Blanquette de Limoux (£7.99), which is a lightly sparkling wine – very fresh and with great flavours of citrus and pears. This is a real treat and if you’ve got any celebrations coming up, it’s a very good alternative to Champagne. As far as Champagnes go, Aldi has some great bargains. The rose Veuve Monsigny Pink Champagne Brut has lovely flavours of cherry and citrus. At £13.99. it’s worth buying for Mother’s Day. More conventionally, there is also Veuve Monsigny Champagne Brut (£10.99). This is a great tasting wine, not too much acidity and a gentle grain of bubbles. If you’re having a wedding or christening, then stock up!

There are a couple of new additions to the Exquisite range. The Rias Baixas Albarino (£5.99) is a superb Spanish white with a distinctive peach flavour. It makes a great change from the usual sauvignon blancs and has a classy bottle, which will impress your friends.

Perhaps most interestingly, Aldi has now started producing what it describes as ‘The Lot series’. These are slightly higher class wines, which cost around a tenner. They have pretty, little labels, which I found a bit hard to read, but they are very decorative. And the wines are only being made in limited numbers. Aldi claim that they are good enough to lay down for a few years – most wines tend to lose their flavour if you leave them in the cellar for more than a year or so.

I really liked the Lot Series Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc(£9.99), which had flavours of nectarine and cashew nut. I tried the Lot Series Minervois La Liviniere (£9.99) which is made with Syrah and Grenache grapes. A nice well balanced with a lot of spice on the palate – and it probably would benefit from two or three years in cellar to soften the tannins.

Find out more about food and wine on Jack Shamash’s blog

Four exciting Riojas for winter

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rioja,Vina real

Riojas from Vina Real

The picture above shows two empty bottles of Rioja sitting on my desk. The reason why they are empty is that we drank the lot over Christmas – and very good they were too!

Rioja is one of the classic wines of Spain. Made primarily from Tempranillo grapes, it has a strong, rich flavour of berries and a slightly leathery smell. It is a wonderful robust wine, and just the thing to drink in the evening, when there is a slight chill in the air. It can be drunk by itself – preferably in front of a log fire – or it can accompany strong beef stews or slices of Jamon Iberico, Manchego cheese and rich olives. It’s a macho wine from the land of bullfighters!

I was fortunate enough to be sent four bottles of wine from Vina Real. They represent a wide range of Riojas, so I thought it would be fun to compare them.

The first one was a Vina Real Rosada. (£11.05) from Majestic. This is unconventional – a rose wine made with 15 per cent tempranillo and 85 per cent viura – a white grape grown extensively in the Rioja region. I wasn’t greatly impressed with this one. It was a brave experiment, but I thought the flavour was just a bit thin and it didn’t suit the Rioja style of wine.

The Vina Real Crianza 2011 (£11.60 Lea and Sandeman) was a much better buy. Crianza has to be aged for at least two years old. This had lovely rich flavours of plum and vanilla. We drank it with meatballs and rice and loved it!

The Vina Real Rioja Reserva 2010 is only available from independent outlets, price £18.95. A Rioja Reserva has to be at least three years old. This means that the tannins have softened, so it’s not so sharp. It is gentler on the palate. This was sumptuously fruity, nicely oaked and had a long finish.

Best of all was the Vina Real Gran Reserva (£28.85 Majestic). A Rioja Gran Reserva has to be least five years old. This one had lovely scents of candied fruit and coffee. Save this one for wine aficionados, who can really appreciate it! All in all, a great selection and worth hunting out.

Great Christmas wines for a fiver

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four quality wines

Very cheap and very good

Anyone wanting to buy good wines this Christmas is in for a treat. There’s a bit of a price war at the cheaper end of the market. Aldi has been selling its very excellent ‘Exquisite Collection’ wines for just over a fiver and recently announced that it would be selling its wines on the internet, for home delivery. All of this has created consternation among the other retailers.

Asda has responded by putting some excellent wines on sale at a fiver and labelled them as ‘Extra Special Selection’. I bought about a dozen bottles yesterday and I can tell you that the ones I opened are excellent.Most of them are well known varieties  such as Chardonnay – slightly floral and citrus – Sauvignon Blanc- flavours of tropical fruits. but there are one or two more unusual varieties such as Viognier and Fiano – which is from Sicily and has undertones of lemon and rosemary. They are superb wines and the sort of thing you might normally expect to pay about £8 or £9 for.

As part of the range there is a pouilly fume, which is a classy sauvignon blanc, which has a slightly flinty flavour. This cost £10.75 and was a decent wine and reasonably priced. It’s a well known wine, so it’s a good thing to impress your friends.

In the middle of the photo is a slightly smaller bottle. This is a bottle of sauternes, which was also a fiver. This is a dessert wine and very reasonably priced. It’s a lovely thing in the house to have over Christmas. It has a lovely, slightly resinous flavour of dried fruit. Serve it in small glasses and offer it to friends who come around. In Italy they drink it with biscotta or a slice of panetonne. But it would be equally nice with a mince pie.