Wine - taking stock

It's soon time for our annual holiday to France which will of course include a visit to Calais Wine, Majestic Wine, Pidou and Auchan to replenish our wine cellar.

Our favourites and must buys are:

Cheverney --- Touraine Sauvignon Blanc --- Cellier de Dauphin --- Gamay

We do like the Ca'Lunghetta range at Calais Wine and Robertsons from Majestic but we're always open to new finds.

But we do enjoy other wines from elsewhere - earlier this week we had a chilli con carne dinner with a lovely bottle of Domaine de la Contrie - Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil which we bought from S H Jones. It's a lovely Loire Valley red.

 A light Cabernet Franc red with a deep purple colour
- raspberry and blackcurrant fruit bouquet and palette.

Our good friends joined us for dinner again last night and as it has been so warm lately I decided on light courses. Our menu was:

goats cheese and beetroot salad with rustic bread and olives

chicken, pork and chorizo meat wrapped in iceberg lettuce,

served with chutneys and air fryer chips

summer fruit pavlova

To start our meal off we opened a bottle of the very very good Freixenet Cava - although I generally prefer french bubbles I do enjoy this Spanish fizz. I was very lucky in winning a case with Tesco Wine  Community earlier in the month so our cellar is well stocked.

Freixenet - thanks to Tesco

Freixenet is full of light bubbles - all racing to the top of the glass with great speed. 

In the glass - a golden yellow with glistening highlights with an array of small and light bubbles which ascended with speed.

On the nose - light fruit, apples and pears, Hubby thought of Pear Drops.

On the palette - bubbles dissolved away rather like sherbet, a light fruity taste with a crisp dryness hitting the roof of your mouth.

To accompany our meal we had a lovely white Viognier our friends brought with them from their holiday in Spain and a bottle of Willunga 100 -Cabenet Shiraz 2010 - another from SH Jones when we went to the Matthew Jukes Tasting Evening.

The Willunga was a beautiful red with a deep nose of dark plums, cherries and a hint of spice. The flavour is very rich with more berries bursting through. There is just a hint of tannin with an subtle oaked finish.

All in all it was a lovely evening of excellent wine, good food and it was such a change to sit outside until quite late with a Nespresso coffee and Amaretto.