Wine blog

My tasting notes of fine wines I have enjoyed.

1998 Château Loudenne - Médoc

Sort of disappointing, this quaff. Nothing wrong but I had hoped for better though not the stratospheric grandeur of a great bottle of a nearby Château Haut-Brion. Nonetheless, Château Loudenne is one of the classic producers of the Médoc, the vineyards sloping gently down over gravelly ground to the banks of the Gironde Estuary.
As a child on family camping holidays, we used to visit this area between Saint-Yzans-de-Médoc and the better-known village of St. Estèphe both to buy wines for my Father’s cellar and to fly kites at the windy bank of the wide Gironde.
I can only imagine what vin-en-vrac my Father would have come back with for our campsite meals under the pine forests camped at Arcachon. Chateau Loudenne’s sea horse “hippocampe” graphic of that generation of marketing is a reminder of the Bassin d’Arcachon where the sea-horse thrive, one of several marine zoological curiosities of interest to my Father’s academic research at La Station biologique d’Arcachon in the 1960’s.

Château Loudenne - Médoc Cru Bourgeois

Read more: 1998 Château Loudenne - Médoc Cru Bourgeois

Denbies Hampshire English Sparkling Brut 2015 St Julien 2002, Château Pichon Longueville

The wines we enjoyed this weekend:
Denbies Hampshire English Sparkling Brut 2015
St Julien 2002, Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalonde, 33250 Pauillac
Terrazza d’Isula, Niellucciu Merlot 2017, Île de Beauté IGP (Corsica)

Read more: English Sparkling at sunset then Fine French Claret with dinner

2004 Saint Julien with roast pheasnt

Enjoying roast pheasant with this Grand vin de Bordeaux (Saint Julien AOC, Médoc). Here are my tasting notes.

Read more: 2004 Saint Julien - Grand vin de Bordeaux

Bleu de Queyras with Vin des Hautes Alpes IGP

Tasting the Vin des Hautes Alpes IGP wine in the thin air at more than 1600 m. in a mountain hotel in Cervières on the road to the Col d’Izoard, this is immediately a soft red wine for the mountains. A distinctive and slightly peppery taste reminiscent of the Swiss Valais or the new Austrian reds, this one is more tangy than a Mondeuse from Savoie. No great after-taste or bouquet but a refreshing and slightly tangy swig, standing up well to the locally-sourced soupe des ortilles, ie nettles. It tasted best with the local cheeses, Bleu de Queyras lightly scented with parsley and a soft goats cheese laden with fresh herbs.

Read more: Bleu de Queyras with Vin des Hautes Alpes IGP

Wild pigeon with Chateau Maurac, 2005

Chateau Maurac, 2005, a Cru Bourgeois from St. Seurin de Cadbourne, Haut-Médoc AOC, in Terry’s garden in Preston Park, Brighton to accompany wild pigeon he cooked for us pot-au-feu in a sauce made from myrtilles from Corsica, on a bed of celeriac with green vegetables. The redcurrant flavours of the fine claret complementing the myrtilles from the high mountains and the richness of the meat.
Still more than 25° even as the sun sets and so a fine ending to our August Bank Holiday weekend.