Category Archives: wine

I blame anna

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in friends, wine, work

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i blame anna

I set off on Monday afternoon to meet up with my friend Anna Mayer for a tapita. She had just arrived in town for a short stay and I hadn’t seen her in ages. So we started off with a vermouth cocktail at Palabra de Bar, near my house. But I should have known by that mischievous look on Anna’s face that the day would take a turn or three.

i blame anna (2)

After our lovely vermouth cocktails we were walking towards the centre of town and the skies suddenly opened. We ended up taking shelter at Casa Antonio Los Caracoles. As Anna pointed out – it was destiny! Snails are now in season and there is no better place in town to try them.

i blame anna (6)

But since women can’t live on snails alone, we ordered a few other tapitas. Which we needed to fortify ourselves because…

i blame anna (3)

…just before we met up, Anna had been invited to a Rías Baixas wine tasting event at the Hotel Alfonso XIII and this ended up including me. Thrilled! So after our hearty tapas lunch we headed over to the event.

i blame anna (4)Here’s Anna and I seriously tasting seriously lovely wines. But I should’ve either sat closer or brought my glasses because I couldn’t read the powerpoint thingy.

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Long story short…. after the wine tasting there was a “salon de vinos” with I don’t remember how many bodegas offering their delicious wines and then one thing led to another. By this time Anna had gone home, and I stayed on with other friends, going out for tapas later on, and even later rolling home around 1 am (!!), about twelve hours after I’d left the house. I blame Anna.  😉

blue wine

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by in weird, wine

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blue wine

I remember reading lately about how some wine experts couldn’t tell the difference between white and red wine during a blind tasting. Not sure if that’s true, but colour does influence how we taste things. Take this blue chardonnay by Marqués de Alcantara. The other day a barman in Jerez was very insistent about me trying it, so what the heck, I gave it a go. But although it actually tasted okay I decided I didn’t want to drink a whole glass of it. Somehow the colour and taste just didn’t go together in my mind. Weird, eh?

catador nº 10

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in andalucia, sevilla, wine

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catador

It was an honour to be invited to this week’s 1st Province of Seville Wine Awards as one of the 10 judges. Our task was to blind taste 14 white and 16 red wines from various bodegas in the province and rate them. I was catador (taster) nº 10. Then our points were counted and the awards were given. The winners were…

Best white: El Mirlo Blanco 2015, Bodega Tierra Savia
Best red: Cocolubis 2013, Bodega La Margarita

catador 10

More on the event coming up soon on the Azahar Sevilla blog.

tío pepe en rama 2016

18 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in sevilla, sherry, spain, wine

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en rama 16

So exactly a week after having to miss the presentation of Tío Pepe en Rama 2016 (because of this!) I found myself having a post-shopping pre-dinner glass of wine up at Gourmet Experience and my pal Silvia stopped by. Silvia not only runs the place at GE but her father Antonio Flores (AKA the winemaker poet) is the master wine blender at Gonzalez Byass and is also the guy responsible for Tío Pepe en Rama. Turns out Silvia missed the presentation too (she was only able to stop by for a quick hello before it all got going) and she insisted I try a glass. And well, it was damn fine. Thank you Silvia!

Tío Pepe en Rama 2016 was first selected in October from 100 of the best casks from two of the oldest Tío Pepe soleras, Rebollo and Constancia, and finally bottled (16,000 in total) in April from the top 60 out of those initial 100 casks.

A wild unfiltered wine, with all its yeast and organic contribution. Yellow, pale, golden tones, cloudy (yeast in suspension). The nose is pure albariza, salinity, nuts, bakery aromas. Tasty, intense, long, salty and slightly bitter finish. Or as Antonio would say… el sol de Andalucía embotellado (bottled Andalusian sunshine).