There was a good turnout for the evening, although numbers were down due to illness, and in one case, nearly the whole table was absent due to Covid. We hope everyone is feeling much better at this stage.
Wayne had organised this evening on his own and had a bit of a shortbread competition with his wife – not mentioning who won!
The first half of the evening was simply tasting some of the wines and discussing the different grapes and countries these came from.
The second half of the evening was a taste and tipple scenario. We had shortbread, strawberries, cheese & crackers, and Christmas cake to sample after we had had our first taste of each wine. This was to see if our taste buds registered any meaningful changes to the taste and texture of the wines.
The wines we sampled were:
First half
- Lindauer Free ‘non-alcohol’ Brut was our surprise starter. It was made from Chardonnay and Pinot noir grapes and was poured blind. Whist some thought it was closer to a cider in taste and style, nobody guessed what this was correctly!
- Tosti Prosecco DOC form the Piedmont region in Italy
- Perelada Brut Reserva Carva NV –Spain
- Morton Estate Premium Brut – NZ
Second half
- Grant Burge Petite Bubbles Dry Sparkling – Australian
- Louis Bouillot Perle De Vigne Cremant De Bourgogne – French
Two more mysteries to go with the Christmas Cake to finish off – these were also both poured blind:
- Charles de Casnova Champagne – Reims, France
- 2017 Lindauer Vintage Series Brut Cuvee – NZ
Check out the Complete Guide to Sparkling Wines.
Simon Bell, the Representative for Colab Wine Merchants, presented a taste of Europe. There was a good turnout of 33 members and 3 guests. Everyone enjoyed the evening. It was a different style of meeting with lots of member interaction. Simon gave out larger glasses to demonstrate the difference using a large glass versus a small glass. It was an interesting evening with the tasting aimed for the layperson. There were 14 orders with a total of 96 bottles. Simon was pleased with the meeting and is keen to do another meeting. To revisit the wines included:q