essex wine report

Sorry this is a week old. I forgot to post it. Must be getting old or just drank too much.

On Saturday, we decided to make a run to Aleksander winery out there in Ruthven. It’s the closest to tso, yet she thinks that Mastronardi may actually be closer, but reality is that I can find Aleksander, so that’s major to me.

The people there are really nice and we enjoy their wine. It’s also neat that they were known to a particular winery on the bench. Maybe that’s because their daughter went to the wine making program (can’t pronounce the real term nor try to spell it) at Brock.

Tried several of their wines so here goes:

riesling: crisp and very fruity– nice summer one and similar in style to the local rieslings. I bought a couple of bottles and I do like it

late harvest riesling: this one is more my style as it has the fruitiness of the grapes and a little sweetness to round it out– man I must be getting old as I like a little sweetness. bought 2

chardonnay: the un-oaked is rather nice –again you can taste the fruit and without the oak, it is rather enjoyable bought 1 for tso

barrique chardonnay: here we have age and oak. A nice golden color and the taste just sneaks up on you. It’s a little dear so I didn’t buy any but the sample got better every sip. They have balanced the oak very well so don’t think its like one of those Australians where I feel like a beaver.

raspberry: fruity fruity fruity really nice and I like it. Had to get another

cassis: extremely nice and fruity — essence of the fruit

peach: much the same and I got some for my mum

I didn’t sample the reds, as it was really hot so I will report on them at another time.

If you are out in Ruthven give them a try as they are nice and produce a very good product at a fair price.

It is awful outside. As I write this its ~ 95 out and humid. This type of weather is unacceptable to me but I remember days like this as a child so nothing is new. It actually seems cooler as I remember a yearly 100+ stretch and we didn’t have ac back then. No I’m not that old. AC came out in the sixties but were huge and very expensive. I remember our first one. It was 220v took two people to lift and was noisy. Now a 10k btu unit is so light I can move it easily - how times have changed.

This sort of weather causes me to change my eating patterns. Pasta- no effin way am I going to boil 5 gallons of water in the kitchen. Bbq - nope too hot outside. Beef-you are kidding. Salads, Lebanese food, lunchmeat fit the bill as there is no heat involved.

I actually hate salads so bitter greens, vinegar, oil just don’t go well with wine to me. I make my own dressing so its oil and vinegar based. So no creamy stuff to ease out the vinegar and I like those bitter greens so it looks like mineral water here.

Lebanese food. Now I love this stuff. I really owe the man who owned Byblos Donair by the university. I credit his food for getting me thru as it was sooo good. Hummus, taboulli, baba whatever is all so good and just works in this heat. Does that got anything to do with the heat in Lebanon. Well I haven’t been there so I don’t know but I think the sales of skis aren’t high there. Now I’ve had some wine from the Bekaa Valley and it was quite good, but a red today just doesn’t work for me. Olive oil, grape leaves, parsley, chick peas: hmmm, I have to go for my favorite— vinho verde. Now you can’t say that Portuguese and Lebanese food is similar but they both feature a lot of  olive oil and fresh things and besides both are hot so it may work. Vinho verde is the cinderella of the wine world. Cheap cheerful slightly bubbly and it just cuts thru oil for me. I just love it and best part is that the cheaper ones taste better to my pallet,

Now with the Italian cold cuts and cheese well one has to bow to reality. I can’t think of any white that can keep up with a hot calabrese or even a good prociutto. There I will have to have a red but I have a box of sanagiovese in my wine fridge so that’ll be it. I’ll just chill it a little more than usual and put on a Felini movie. Yup that will do. Well they do keep showing seria a footie on the tube and as the out come was decided in advance watching old games wouldn’t be that bad.

In these troubled times we all have to improvise. But that’s the fun. Don’t take out the wine book and go by some ‘expert’s’ view on what goes with what. Its what tastes good to you. I was drinking gamay noir with salmon years ago when ‘it wasn’t’ done (at least nobody told me so I thought I was  a rebel) but it worked for me. Face it, would you rather drink a nice Chianti with fish rather than 2 buck chuck? I mean the whole idea is to enjoy