Wine Rambler Blog Posts
While the Wine Rambler homepage displays all new content in chronological order, the next two sections on our navigation menu break that content down into the two main categories: the individual wine reviews ('Wines') and our more general blog postings ("Ramblings'), as you find them listed on this page.
No thanks, I am really not that keen on Prosecco. Admittedly, this is an odd sentence to start a post on a Prosecco tasting. However, it describes the attitude I have had towards Prosecco for a long while, and for two reasons. First of all I have a long-standing dislike of sparkling drinks, an antipathy that, at least with regards to sparkling wine, it took several years of drinking Riesling with its high acidity to eventually overcome (have a look at the Wine Rambler's sparkling adventures). Second, I was socialised on alcohol in Munich. This put me off Prosecco because in Munich it is the drink of choice for a certain strata of hoity-toity, would-be posh/jet-set, would-be in-crowd snobs (the German word 'Schickimicki' is so much more precise) who make my toe nails stand up; in addition to that, Prosecco is so popular there that I was often given the cheapest plonk you can imagine because everyone wanted to serve Prosecco, even though they had neither money nor taste. So to sum up, I am definitely not the person you would want to invite to a dinner where only Prosecco is served.
Riccardo Prosecco
Luckily for me, the people from Azienda Agricola Riccardo were brave enough to do so nonetheless. And with surprising effects.
delivery of 2009 wines
This will be a source of great joy, especially as I hear so many good things about the 2009 vintage...
A present given to the Wine Rambler on Saturday
It has been a while since the Wine Rambler has hit the road, but a few weeks ago work called me to Rotterdam. I used the chance to attach a short holiday to explore the city. My voyage of exploration took me to the gigantic harbour, into museums and, mostly, along an impressive display of modern architecture. It also took me to what on the internet looked like a very interesting wine shop: De Gouden Ton. Just a short walk away from the city centre in a more quiet street lies a vinous gem that should excite all fans of exquisite wine.
What could be more idyllic, more innocent than enjoying a glass of wine with friends at a historic wine festival? At least as far as Germany is concerned, the history of wine festivals is not always as innocent as one might expect though. In our latest Guest Ramble, wine blogger and historian Peter Jakob, aka MarcoDatini looks into the Nazis' attempt to invent a national German wine tradition through the creation of the Festival of German Grape and Wine / Fest der deutschen Traube und des Weines. A highly recommended read (also available in German), especially as it approaches the topic of wine with a critical, historical perspective that is highly unusual in wine blogging. Enjoy, and learn.
Festival poster, Stadtarchiv Herne
This is our most unusual Guest Ramble so far - wine blogger and historian Peter Jakob, aka MarcoDatini, looks into the Nazi invention of German wine culture through the history of the Festival of German Grape and Wine. You can read the English version or have a look at the German original below. [read the full post...]
There is a shop in North London / They call the Sa-ham-plar / And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy / And God I know I'm one
So there is a shop in North London, and it sells wine. Now just that would not make it special, would it? What makes The Sampler special is not just that it is a cute shop with a dog, that they have a good selection of wine or that they organise tastings and other events. No it is, surprise surprise, the sampling. How many wine shops do you know where on any given day they let you taste a 1978 Mouton Rothschild, premier Austrian dessert wines, some of the top names in German Riesling or some of the finest the US has to offer? At the Sampler you can and it is much fun. And so we went, and had the fun and tasted the Mouton and I fear I shall be back for more.
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy / And God I know I'm one
Regular readers of the Wine Rambler will already know what it means when I say my friend Mike is coming down to Clapham: unusual beer and a few stories to go with it. Following up from our last beer tasting session, we had a lambic and a few more Belgian Trappist beers to take care of as well as a Bourbon-style beer contributed by guest taster Stuart. Join us for a tasting that has nothing to do with wine...
Among wine jokes, the one where someone says they don't like Chardonnay but love Chablis has to be one of the classics. Overused as it may be, I have actually met someone who during the course of an evening of drinking wine told me about how he had had a marvellous Chablis at a restaurant recently and that the only type of wine he really hated and never ever drank was Chardonnay.
Whatever you may think of this joke, you can argue that it reflects a popular perception of Chardonnay as very oaky, often over-oaked in fact, versus Chablis representing a light, elegant style of Chardonnay that is mostly untouched by oak. As this is a style of wine the Wine Rambler is really interested in, I was more than happy when I was recently invited to taste a flight of Chablis - in fact, the nominees of the 24th annual Chablis Wine contest run by the Burgundy Wine Board.
