Welcome back to everyone, I hope you all had a good summer break and now back to the hard part of life in Upton – drinking wine. Mike Collins hosted the first meeting with a cheap and cheerful look at wine for under £6, quite a challenge with the strength of the pound. The first wine was a tickle your taste buds number, to aide us through the annual general meeting. A sparkling wine from Hungary, not know for its frivolity! But this wine hit the mark Chapel Hill Sparkling Chardonnay-Pinot Noir Brut 12%, light and enjoyable, (Waitrose) and has good credits as it won a Silver Wine Medal at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London.
This was followed by a very good Riesling from the banks of Bio Bio river in Chile 13.5% high alcoholic content for a Riesling, I really enjoyed this, available from the wine society.
The reds were as interesting as ever, starting with a French full red from the wine society, very robust at 13.5%, a good little all rounder, swiftly followed by the wine society’s Montepulciano D’Abruzzo 13% was also interesting from a vineyard on the Italian Adriatic, half way down the boot bit of Italy, and then the Daddy of them all Icarus Gravity Shiraz, Maclaren Vale at 14.5% you need to be grateful for the earths gravity pull to keep you near the ground and too much of this and you may float off and come down with a bump, again from the wine society.
Next month is a little different as Kevin and myself, (must have been a little light headed when I volunteered for this) are looking at lesser known grape variety’s hope to see you, book early as it is on the 13th of October.
Chris Traynor