As I mentioned in my other post for this month, I do most of my blog writing at Avenue HQ in Leeds. And at the end of May, we jointly organised a wine tasting event.
So thanks to Avenue HQ for hosting the event space and the lovely food that they provided.
It complemented the wine really well, and a great evening was had by all.
More people came than I expected so I was a bit short of wine.
So thanks to Barclays for supplying some extra bottles. Gave me some to taste that I had not tasted before. I do not know the price of those, but will try to find out from them.
I put sheets down for people to write notes down. This was one of the scoring sheets that is in my blog post about hosting wine tasting events.
I did get some feedback from this, but people were enjoying the evening too much to write down too many comments. And I did not want to ruin the evening by hassling people to write notes. So some comments to come from written notes, but mainly general feedback from people were saying.
Onto the wines
I wanted to go white, then a rosé and then some reds, so started with my favourite a Muscadet Sèvre et Maine.
Clos de Beauregard
- €4.99 from Auchan
I was not familiar with this wine before I starting buying wine in France, but it has now become one of my favourites. There are two that are equally good, this one and Domaine Michel David (read about it here). Both only €4.99. There are some that are even cheaper, but I don’t think they are as good, so I always buy one of these two.
Light, crisp and refreshing dry white. My go to summer white.
This was liked a lot. A woman, who only really likes reds thought it was great. She kept looking at the bottle to note down the name.
Written comments included ‘Great value, crisp, lingering finish, not acidic. Would go well with fish, chicken, creamy pasta, crab linguine.
Chateau Reillanne
- €6.40 from Auchan
This is my favourite rosé, read about it here.
Again, this was really liked by all. Written comments included ‘Dry, light hints of strawberry, full and fruity, ‘really enjoyed that Paul’ and would go well with duck salad, breadsticks, and Eton mess? (That one wouldn’t have occurred to me, but always interesting to see what people say).
Cabernet Sauvignon
- €2.65 from Auchan
There will be a post about the cheaper Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons that are available at the Auchan and Intermarché supermarkets, but I thought that this was a good one, so bought 12 bottles on my last visit.
I wanted to know opinions of this as it was such a low cost wine. The overall reaction took me back. People really liked it a lot. When I told them the price, they were just blown away. They could not believe that you could get such good wine at such a low price.
Written comments included ‘ridiculous value’ and would go well with venison meatballs and spaghetti Bolognese.
I could not find any written comments on the last two, so either I lost them or by this time people were enjoying the food and the evening too much to bother making notes. And I was not going to force them.
Versant Royal
- €4.39 from Auchan
This was also really enjoyed by all and went down well with the food provided. Seeing the bottle with the writing ‘Bordeaux Superior’ they assumed that it would be expensive.
Like the Auchan Cabernet Sauvignon, people were amazed at price. Interestingly, some still preferred the cheaper ‘Cab Sauv’
As you know, this is my favourite of the cheaper Bordeaux that I have tried so far. Read about it here.
Plan de Dieu
- €6.90 from Auchan
This is the only one that I had not bought back from Boulogne before. I took a bit of a gamble and bought back a box of six of these on my last visit. I had tried one bottle of this at home a few days before. I wanted to make sure that it was good enough to bring. I really liked it. And for most, it overtook the Cabernet Sauvignon as the best red, and the best overall wine. Not surprising as it was the most expensive wine I had brought.
An excellent wine, I will be buying another box of (or more) of this one on my next visit to Boulogne.
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