Category Archives: Uncategorized

A simple supper

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Not much time to post this stuff at the moment, but I had a great evening last night on my (eventual) arrival to Logroño in La Rioja.

[I must say that Vueling are not in my good books at the moment, and I hear similar stories from a lot of people. It's a shame, but maybe best stick with EasyJet!]

Anyway, I met up with some friends in a restaurant called El Portalon and I shared their "chuleton" with a number of bottles of great Rioja wine.

The steak is a massive hunk of rib beef served with the outside fat beautifully charred to a soft creaminess, but virtually raw inside and presented on a HOT plate so you cook it to taste at the table. Beef, oil, salt. Simple. Effective!

The wines were: 

Viña Tondonia Reserva 2000 (the mature, classical style from a not particularly great vintage and not showing the depth of flavour I associate with this wine),
Roda 1 2004 (a much more modern style, concentrated, lots of soft tannin and extraction, but still incredibly young),
Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva 2001 (a fabulous, rich, layered and still youthful wine).

A great experiment I suggest you all try whenever you possibly can – and best tried by coming to Logroño yourselves! 

🙂

Posted via email from thirstforwine experiences

Reaching out from the wine bubble

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In the beginning there’s an idea. That idea creates a comment. That comment spawns a reaction, and eventually a conversation emerges. All is well with the world, and the idea spreads.

Bubble fun

After a while, the subjects have all been agreed, the channels of communication established, and the terms of reference accepted. The conversation gains lots of participants, but the range of the discussion doesn’t evolve.

Welcome to the bubble!

The wine bubble is already here! Fruit laden wine reviews. Points scoring. Winery histories, with “passionate” winemakers, “carefully selected” grapes, vineyards in “unique terroirs” and their “hand made” wines. There is a lot yet to be documented and recorded, and yet how much of it is new, and how much of it means anything to those who are on the sidelines of the conversation, or outside the bubble?

The wine conversation inside the bubble is necessary. We need enthusiastic analysis of the hundreds of thousands of wineries and literally millions of individual wines. However, we musn’t kid ourselves that any of this is really relevant to the ‘real’ world – the average wine consumer, or further still, the non-consumer.

I’d like to try and reach out, dedicate a part of the effort on my reinvigorated blog, The Wine Conversation, to exploring wine BEYOND the bubble.

What does wine mean to those who inhabit very different bubbles (after all, we all belong to various bubbles of some sort)? Film buffs. Knitters. History experts. Music fans. Photographers. Sports fans.
Gardeners. Travel writers. In short, to most of our friends who do not quite (yet) understand our fascination with all things vinous?

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but saved it for the new blog (good excuse!). I hope to go out and speak to these non-wine bloggers about wine, and see what it REALLY means to them. Should be fun!

The majority will be my thoughts on wine, in particular wine marketing and wine innovations. I’ll try and find new and interesting places where the wine conversation may have reached. I will also rant and rave against mindless legislation and bureaucratic idiocies, but I hope you’ll indulge me in this.

If there are things you think ought to be explored here, do leave me a comment or send me an email – I will do my utmost to respond.

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