Upcoming – Cuban cigars & Caribbean Rum at the Bluebird

Patio of the Bluebird

It’s that time of year again. That’s right, it’s time for the Bluebird’s summertime cigar extravaganza! Last year, Penny, manager of the Wine Cellar at the Bluebird put on a fantastic evening of fine aged Cognac and Cuban cigars (read about last year’s event here). It was held in the lovely patio of the Bluebird restaurant and was a great success and a lot of fun!

This year, Penny has pulled out all the stops and is featuring Caribbean rum along with one of my favourite cigars, the Partagas series D no. 2. The event will kick off with a rum cocktail on arrival followed by a tasting of 4 premium rums:

Chairman's Rum

Chairman’s Reserve Golden Rum from St. Lucia, one of the leading golden rum distillers from the Windward Island of St.Lucia, the distillery was founded in 1932 by the Barnard family. It’s a double distilled pot still and column still rum for a refined and smooth lash…

Elements 8 Rum is another St. Lucian, this one made up of 8 distinct elements blended together to create this super premium rum from a family that’s been producing rum for over 120 years.

Trois Rivieres Rum, this one hails from the nearby island of Matinique, this is a smooth, fruity rum aged in oak barrels, sounds promising!

And lastly, the Diplomatico Rum, a slight change of place for this one,whilst we’re still in the Caribbean, we’ve now moved onto Venezuela which is known for their quality rums. This one comes from Destilerias Unidas which has been producing top of the line rum for 45 years.

All the rums will be paired with Galler ‘Elements’ Chocolates which are exceptional Belgium choccies developed by Jean Galler and his team of chocolatiers.

oooh, very Caribbean!

We’ll also be able to puff on a freshly rolled Partagas throughout the evening. Light snacks will also be included, which you’ll be able to munch on whilst watching the live demonstration of the fine art of cigar rolling.

So, 5 rums, fine chocolates, one Cuban cigar and light snacks in the inviting and cosy patio of The Bluebird, all for 35 quid, can’t think of a better way to spend a summer’s eve. I almost forgot to mention that there will also be Cigar, Rum and Chocolate hampers for sale that evening. 

1 bottle Chairman’s rum

1 bottle Mauny Cane Syrup

1 box Galler ‘Volcanic’ chocolates

Pack of 3 Partagas series D NO 2 CIGARS

Cigar cutter and matches

Bluebird Conran Ashtray

All beautifully presented for £49

Quick recap:

Where: The Court Yard at Bluebird

When: Monday 20^th July 2009

Time:6:45pm

Ticket price:£35

Contact Penny at The Wine Cellar at the Bluebird for more info and to buy your tickets

0207 5591130, email: pennyj@danddlondon

See you there!!

barrels o'rum

Millton Vineyards, pioneering biodynamic NZ wines

Wine glass nametags!

The Winesleuth has finally gotten a new job!! Yay!!!  I’m so glad to be moving on and my new job is with the natural  (and local) wine bar, Artisan and Vine. I met Kathryn (first post here) back in February and was so impressed by her enthusiasm and passion (see video here) for natural and local (read English) wines that I started hanging around A&V, even taking a trip with Kathryn to Davenport Vineyards (video here) this past March. And now I’ve joined A&V to be able to work with all those amazing, interesting natural wines.  

Trafalgar roundabout from on high

So earlier this week, I found myself at the top of New Zealand House on Haymarket, enjoying the views of London – London Eye on one side, Buck House on the other with  Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in between. It really makes you realize how closely packed everything is in London. Now you might be wondering, what the hell was the Winesleuth doing up in the penthouse of NZ House? Why, at a winetasting of course, deciding what new wines to add to the A&V list. They were of course natural and biodynamic wines, this batch from New Zealand with winemaker, James Millton of Millton Vineyards, Gisbourne, NZ, in attendance and hosted by the good folks of Vintage Roots, one of the UK’s leading organic wine specialists.

Bio certified

James and Annie Millton were one of the pioneers of natural, biodynamic wine production in the Southern Hemisphere, establishing their vineyard on the banks of the Te Arai River near Gisbourne on the North Island of New Zealand. The Millton philosophy is to produce wine traditionally using biodynamic techniques. They adhere to the original biodynmic principles as laid out by Dr Rudolf Stiener in 1924 and all the wines are certified biodynamic and have the “Bio-gro”organic trademark and grower number on the back of the bottle.

What does this mean? In a nut shell it encompasses “…growing the grapes without the use of herbicides, insecticides, systemic fungicides or soluble fertilisers. It also incorporates the use of special herbal preparations and teas as well as a deep understanding of the complex cosmic rhythms which affect these daily activities…” This can mean anything from fermented seaweed used as a tonic on the vines, making and applying teas of ”…equisetum, stinging nettle and valerian plants to help bring in the major nutrients…”, to doing battonage only during the lunar cycle and racking the red wines twice a year according to the solstice. James believes that doing away with the “unnatural” or chemical approach works best to bring out the true purity and essense of the wine. He believes that they are “…merely the caretakers of the fruits of their labour…”and that the soil and climate are the main reasons why they are able to produce such fantastic wines. Their philosophy is “…Before a wine can be great, it must first be true…”

Biodynamic sky chart

We also tried the 2008 Millton Opou Riesling, a lively, fresh new world riesling, made in the spatlese style which means it was off-dry. I loved it, the full, lush fruit really showing off, loads of honeysuckle and passionfruit on the nose and palate but driven by a pulsating acidity that kept the wine from becoming just another lazy mouthful. Kathryn was not a big fan because she likes bone dry wines but I could imagine sitting outside on a hot day with this ice cold drink in hand. Everything I want in a riesling, I think we should put that one on the list.

the malbec

 The star of the show had to be for both of us the Te Arai 2005 Malbec. As soon as Kathryn put the glass up to her nose she exclaimed, “This smells just like home!” Home being the suburbs of Sydney, and it’s true, the nose was an explosion of eucalyptus. The notes of eucalyptus combining with a minty, herbal lightness dancing around the rim of the glass. And it was for good reason that there was all that eucalyptus floating about, the vineyard is surrounded by a grove of eucalyptus trees. On tasting, the wine was soft and minty with lush, raspberry red fruits and plums swishing around my tongue and a hint of sweet cinnamon,  with and a nice long toasty finish. A very morish wine, lovely tannins keeping the wine a bit frisky depite it’s age, already 5 years old, I could see this wine still going on for a few more years. It was still fresh and fruity with no secondary characteristics coming through just yet. A fabuluous mouthful and nothing like the heavy, fruity driven Malbecs of Argentina. If you’re looking for a Malbec with some finesse and elegance, then this one should be put top of the list.

I was very impressed by the quality of these biodynamic and natural wines coming from Millton’s vineyards. He has shown that despite the early years of scorn, biodynamic grapegrowing practices really do pay off in the end, not just for the environment but also for our drinking enjoyment. The Millton Vineyard wines showing such intensity and purity of fruit, letting nature show off what she can do if left to her own devices which makes them excellent examples of what is being done in the biodynamic world of grape growing and wine making.

The world of biodynamic wines and winemaking is an adventure that I’m really excited to be embarking upon with Artisan and Vine and I’ll be sure to try and report on as many obscure and interesting varietals as I can along the way as well as the winemakers who make the wine.

I still haven’t replaced my stolen camera so please excuse the Blackberry pics!

 

some sunnyflowers to brighten up the tasting

Matsu – sounds japanese but it’s Spanish (w/video)

I found one other video from the London International Wine Fair which I just have to post because I really liked the wine and Ricardo Arramberi Perez was such a lovely fellow.

It’s another tinta de toro. That’s tempranillo masquerading as yet another varietal from the west of Spain. I wrote about tinta de toro in a previous post so won’t bore you with too many details but you can click here if you want to read the original post. I met Ricardo at the Catavino Spanish and Portuguese tasting that they hosted at the Westbridge Pub in Battersea during the LIWF. Charley McVeigh was also a very charming host and came up with a delicious array of cheeses. Unfortunately, I lost all the photos when my laptop was stolen so you’ll just have to take my word for it!

Anyway, here is a quick tasting of  the 2006 Matsu, a wine made from tinta de toro. Ricardo and his family are originally from Rioja but now they’re in the province of Zamora, producing wine from the D.O. Toro. Check out the video to find out what I thought of it and a bit of history from Ricardo….salud!

more English wine -Chapel Down visit and lunch

Driving along the road we passed an old WW II airfield complete with light aircraft swooping by overhead. “You know when you watch those old WW II movies with stock shots of an English field and airbase with the subtitle, ‘Somewhere in England?’ Well, this is where they got that footage, ” said Frazer Thompson, my rather informative and charming host from Chapel Down Winery. We were on our way to the vineyard just outside the town of Headcorn in deepest Kent when we passed the airfield.

Chapel Down herb garden

It’s always nice to get out of the city and appreciate nature in all it’s beauty and I couldn’t have picked a better place to spend an early summers day then the “garden of England” as Kent is so often referred to. And rightly so, the land is perfectly suited to grow everything from apples to strawberries and Kent is the centrepoint of hop production for real English ale. I’d read stories of East Enders descending on Kent in the summer to pick the hops (amongst other things – *wink*) during the first half of the 20th century but only had a hazy idea of where that was in relation to London. And now, here I was, smack dab in the middle of all those lovely hops, I swear I could smell them in the air.

the vines

But I wasn’t there for ale, I was there for the wines of Chapel Down. Their Tenterden vineyard is sitting on some great wine producing land. The soils of the area are clay with sandy bottom layers which provide excellent drainage as well as the even better chalky limestone soils. Those two soil types make for excellent grapegrowing potential and Chapel Down amongst others is taking full advantage of nature’s gifts. Kent is located along the famed Kimmeridgian ridge which is a shallow sea that has now been lifted above sea level and provides the limestone soils that Champagne is famous for, which allow it to produce it’s distinctive sparkling wines as well as being responsible for the white cliffs of Dover. The thinking goes, if the soil is similar and the climate is similar, wouldn’t the wines be of similar quality? I’ve had English sparkling wines previously and I have to say that many, especially ones produced in Kent, do not disappoint and some have even bested the French (although they are loathe to admit it) in international competitions.

I had been invited to lunch and a tour of the winery along with Christopher Parker and his lovely wife, Janina, of New Horizon Wines, importers of Virginia wines to the UK. Chapel Down is working on promoting the cross cultural ties that Kent has with the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, in particular the original Jamestown settlers who came from Kent and settled Viginia back in the 1600’s. Chapel Down are considering adding the wines of Virginia to their wine list. Judging on what I sampled at the London International Wine Fair I think that is an excellent idea.

Richard Phillips Restaurant, up the stairs

We lunched at Chapel Down’s restaurant, Richard Phillips at Chapel Down. The menu was a modern British and each course was paired with a wine recommendation. What was refreshing was that not all the wines recommended were Chapel Down wines. They had a diverse selection of wines, Dinastia Vivanco, Friendly Gruner Veltliner and even Cloudy Bay’s Te Koko, how did they know I love all those wines? It was like my personal wine list, the Winesleuth’s gotta love it!

lunchtime scallops

We let Frazer chose the wines and he went with a tasting of the Chapel Down wines to go with our lunch. I had diver scallops with a pea and mint risotto to start and pan fried sea trout as  a main. The Bacchus ‘08 was first up, fresh gingery nose, powerful notes of early summer grass, elderflower and gooseberry zooming up my nostrils. More juicy gooseberries on the palate, if you want to know what gooseberry tastes like, this is it, pure and clean, lively but  lush.

vineyard directions

beautiful pinot noir leaf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was really enjoying it until we got to the  Bacchus Reserve ‘07, even better!  This one was made from a single vineyard, the Lamberhurst estate, and had been picked 10 days later then the rest of the crop. Full bodied with a bit of residual sugar but excellently balanced with just enough acidity to keep it from turning into a flabby gus.  An excellent foil for the scallops, the fruitiness of the wine standing out against the silky, plump perfectly seared scallops.

dessert

Since it’s summer, we had to try the Chapel Down Rosé with our meal. Their rosé is made from free run pinot noir juice. But not just pinot noir, there’s also schönberger, rondo, regent, huxelrebbe and bacchus in there. They don’t mix the wine, just the juice and let it all ferment together to produce their strawberry coloured wine. I’d taken it to the EWBC last year where it got very good reviews and this year’s vintage was even better. A nose of very ripe strawberries with a streak of herby minerality running through it, fresh and juicy, redcurrant, red fruit profile, very drinkable!

triage line

Dessert wine was the best, a late harvest wine, the Chapel Down Nectar ‘07. A delicate wine with a lifty floral nose, elderflower garden in the glass. It was sweet and light, I wouldn’t call it a stickie more like a light and lovely libation. Easily could have had it as an aperitif  at only 8.5 percent alcohol but still showing 53 g/ltr sugar. It wasn’t terribly complex but had bosch pear and elderflower flavours and a nice long finish. It really began to sing when the chocolate fondant was served up. It may seem like everyone has got chocolate fondant on the menu but this one was exceptional, the intense dark chocolate flavours not hidden behind too much sugar, a fabulous balancing act of a dessert and the Nectar was exceptional, working in harmony with the chocolate, a taste explosion, soooo good, cleansing my palate and getting me ready for another mouthful. Yummy stuff!

the triage doser

Afterwards we had a stroll around the vineyard and had a look at the triage (the dose of base wine, sugar and yeast that starts the second fermentation) that was going on that day as well as bottles being riddled and a wander amongst  the vines. All in all, a great way to spend the day. I’m looking forward to visiting again and sampling the Virginia wines that will hopefully be on the menu soon.

yeast to be riddled out