Showing posts with label barbera d'asti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barbera d'asti. Show all posts

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

Drinking Wine


House sitting in Wales just now. It's a bit like squatting with permission. I'd recommend it to anyone, provided the house is a good 'un. Fortunately this one is, although since it belongs to my parents, I couldn't really say anything else.

Of course, it's not all fun and games. Besides lying around in the sunshine wondering... what to eat?... to barbecue or not to barbecue?... whether to have a pre-dinner pint of Bass in the Bridge End garden?... whether it's perhaps best to go for that pint then carry on wondering about all the other stuff?... there are 'responsibilities' too.

In between chasing blackbirds off the figs, it's the little things that niggle when the big things are far away. "Help yourself to our drinking wine", shouted Dad as they headed off to Russia.

Is there any other kind of wine? Ornamental wine? Strictly for external use only wine? I'm guessing he meant 'everyday' wine. So last night, after a hard days wondering, I popped the cork on an interesting looking number from, what appeared to be, the 'drinking' section.

Lovely bouquet of smokey blackberries and a really sensual, fleshy taste. Delicious, so delicious in fact that doubt started to creep in...I decided to take a closer look.

That could be the mark left from a hand corked bottle. Which would mean a very small scale production. Rare, hard to get...

Okay, 30 year old vines, 18 months in small oak barrels and a further 6 months aging in bottle before release. None of that comes cheap... oops. I have resolved to spend today worrying about it...


Cascina Cavolpi Barbera d'Asti Superiore: £ No Idea.

Monday, 1 March 2010

One for the price of two


I came up with a great plan recently. Drink less, drink better. Instead of two wines for £5.99 drink one at £11.99. Benefiting both pleasure and health. Cunning... or so I thought. This was my first venture.

Unfortunately it is utterly, totally delicious, I can't stop drinking it and at £10.99 a bottle it's costing me a fortune. Beguilingly complex wine with a gorgeous texture that's almost waxy. It smells like being inside a top notch Italian deli... salami, icing sugar, honey, lemon, nuts... panatone? On the palette it's a bit like when the runny centre of a boiled sweet bursts. Best drunk not too cold. My extensive experiments have determined ten minutes in the freezer box to be about perfect.

After picking up my latest bottle I was dithering over which red to buy. A very upright older gentleman turned to me and said in a thick French accent, "Zis one is a very good bottle of wine, it iz delicious for the money". What the hell, I'm of an age where acting on the suggestions of older strangers is no longer so much of a concern...

When a Frenchman recommends an Italian's wine you know it must be good. It was, exceedingly good for £7.99. Possibly not to everyone's taste... quite structured, with a piercing smell that reminded me of proper cider, the stuff where the farmers bung in the odd carcass with the fermenting apples to help "flavour it up a bit see".
I was thinking while drinking it, why is a Frenchman a Frenchman but an Italian just an Italian?


Both wines came from Waitrose:
Verdicchio di Matelica (not quite Metalica): £10.99
Barbera D'Asti Superiore, I Tre Vescovi: £7.99