The Wine Appreciation Group

Leader:  Annie Scotney - wine@ashbyu3a.co.uk -

WINE APPRECIATION GROUP

The objective of the group is to widen the members’ experience of wines and all matters pertaining to wines. Annie Scotney is the leader of the group and coordinates meetings. We are currently tasting a choice of wines bought by a different member each month, usually with some theme to connect them. Those present at the tasting share the cost.

If you are interested in joining us please contact Annie at wine@ashbyu3a.co.uk.

We currently meet on the third Wednesday of the month at 7pm.

20th August

This month we almost had a full house with 8 of us sitting round Annie’s kitchen table. To give them something to get their tastebuds around, Mike presented ‘6 summer wines’. Unfortunately the weather had turned cooler that week so the hope of tasting them on a hot summer evening had passed.

Nonetheless we persevered! Starting with a well-chilled white wine new to all from a district in NW Spain that none of us had heard of. Baron Amarillo Godello 2024 Bierzo. Spain 13.5% from Aldi at £7.99. Godello is the grape. Bierzo is the region near Leon in NW Spain. This proved to be a rather nice dry, slightly lemony wine being youthful and fresh whilst having complex flavours. That’s unusual. Would be nice as an aperitif or with seafood. Despite it being the 1st wine of the night when people are reluctant to score too highly, not knowing what comes next, it averaged 7.8/10 including one 9.

Next up was a rosé highly recommended by Helen McGinn on BBC’s Saturday Morning Kitchen, Arc du Soleil 2024 Sable de Camargue Famille Perrin. France 12.5% Tesco £9.50. Unfortunately we weren't impressed. It wasn’t overly dry or overly sweet, but it didn’t really have much flavour at all. Most disappointed. It only scored 6.2/10.

And so on to the reds starting with a lightly chilled Beaujolais La Burgondie 2023 France. 12.5% alcohol from Tesco at £9.00. This was a very typical Beaujolais with flavours of raspberries, strawberries and redcurrants. Quite light but an intense flavour. Chilling it was good but it would have been better still on a hot day. Never mind, we all liked it and it scored 7.4

Fourth came a Pinot Noir. Errazuriz Estate Reserva 2024 Chile 13% from Tesco £9.50.

This was a much beefier wine which is unexpected for Pinot Noir, which is normally a bit lighter. Quite well oaked despite the label saying it was lightly-oaked. Still plenty of fruit flavour and well-rounded finish. It would be better with food than drunk by itself. Rather nice, it scored 7.9

Fifth was a Tesco Finest Primitivo IGT Terre d’Abruzzo IGT 2023 Italy 13.5% costing £8.50. This is not what some would call a summer wine but it comes from Abruzzo in southern Italy which is a pretty warm part of the world in summer so it should cope with our climate. Despite being inky-black this was actually lighter tasting than the Chilean Pinot Noir as it had less tannin but it still had the flavours of plums and black berries. We reckoned it would go very well with pizzas and tomato-based stews as you might expect but also with burgers and almost anything from the BBQ. It scored exactly the same as the Pinot at 7.9

Lastly came another odd-ball wine. Like the very first, it was Spanish and bought from Aldi.

Tempranillo-Bobal Toro Loco, Utiel-Requena Superior 2023 Spain 12.5% at £5.29. This had won a Gold Medal at the Berlin Wine Trophy 2024 and was quite heavily discounted from about £8. It comes from Requena which is about 40 miles inland from Valencia and is supposed to be ideal for tapas and grilled meats, however it split the room, 2 liked it, 2 very much didn’t. It had a slightly odd aftertaste and certainly wasn’t as pleasant as the previous reds and it only averaged 7.2. A little disappointing.

Our wine of the night was the white Baron Amarillo Godello from NW Spain. Mainly because it was very pleasant but it was also so unexpected coming from a wine area we’d never heard off. A good find.

We were a little unlucky with the wine-buying as on the very day of our tasting Tesco dropped their prices by 25% for 6 or more wines. Mike bought the wines the day before!

Next month John will be serving up a selection of Rieslings. That should be interesting.