Well it's that time of year when we are to expect my opera-singing b-i-l and his (Mrs H's) doting but decrepit parents. His country house is near Chaource in France and he knows a lot about wine, certainly by my standards. He'll be clutching a grimy champagne bottle or two with the parchment labels stuck on wobbly by some geriatric French dipsomaniac and telling us all how he's found a case or two of this special vintage bubbly.
With a lot of faffing with the tea towel and adopting a faintly ridiculous stance, he'll edge out the cork and pour the champagne on Christmas day and everyone will say how delicious and special this particular vintage is and agree that there is nutmeg and raspberry and fennel in there and that the vines were grown on the sunny side of the hill blah blah blah.
Except me. Am I alone in thinking that champagne isn't particularly special; just fizzy white wine? I'll be surreptitiously passing my glass to Mrs H and cracking a tinny of Old Speckled Hen or similar at the first opportunity.
What am I missing ?
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I prefer Cava to any Champagne I've ever tasted.
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If only you'd taken to music in your youth H. Then you could get your own back by playing him your Black Sabbath, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeath LPs at great volume.
Muffled that piano yet?
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>>What am I missing?
Toasty overtones, yoghurt, yeast, biscuits. And as it ages the green disappears and a deeper and darker yellow appears.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Edited to add, having seen PP's post that I'm a huge fan of supermarket own brand (but not Woolworths Value champagne (no joke)). Buy their OB vintage, and keep it five years, and you'll have champagne better than anybody else. Even keep it 12 months if you can - all champagne is sold too young.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 17 Dec 10 at 15:22
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>> Black Sabbath,
Erm is that to do with the Army shutting the nearest Catholic church at Marne barracks recently so Mrs H and the Altar Boy have to go 6 miles away to worship ?
>> Muffled that piano yet?
>>
No but the cats are doing their best. 5 decaying birds of various sorts stashed behind the panel above the pedals. There was some discussion in the H household about the source of the smell
>> I suggest you get some practise in and then offer to indulge in sabrage.
Good grief that looks risky!
Interesting that many of you prefer supermarket offerings to the real deal.
>> Decent beer for a start if you drink it out of tin:-)
I have never drunk beer out of a tin since my youth when I believe some miserable git spiked my drink after his g/f spent a good part of the evening talking to me. Woke up in a strange house in Kirkstall, Leeds with my Triumph 2000 being stopped from rolling backwards downhill by the lamp post in the open driver's door. Shameful :-(
The Speckled Hen is OK if decanted into a Pint sleeve.
Last edited by: hawkeye on Fri 17 Dec 10 at 19:42
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I don't much care for champagne and I am no expert; however, in widely publicised "blind" tastings of champagne, supermarket own brands have had 3 in the top 10. Slight tangent; I recently watched a programme about food colouring and e numbers. Some red wine experts were invited to taste a number of bottles and came out with all the guff about long finish (I wish!) lingering aftertaste of black cherries and tobacco etc. What they didn't know was that they were drinking white wine with colouring to make it red! In summary, price and age is not necessarily a good indicator of taste or value. Find what you like and drink it, if it happens to be Tesco's Finest, luck you and lucky wallet
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"What am I missing ?" Nowt! :-)
John
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Yes Champagne is just the region the Fizzy White wine comes from
Nothing Special in it – apart from its fizzy and more expensive than its still counterpart.
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I have just copied this from the Decanter magazine - December 2002!!!!. However, I think the principle is still valid.
Forget the Bollinger this Christmas and go for decent supermarket fizz – top labels have been trounced by cheaper brands at an expert blind tasting.
According to Which? magazine, the organ of the highly-respected UK Consumers' Association, the best-tasting Champagne on the shelves at the moment is Tesco Brut NV at £12.99 (€20.37). That's followed by Champagne H Blin Brut at £18.99 (€29.78).
In the blind tasting organised by the magazine, Mumm Cordon Rouge (£19.49/€30.56), Veuve Clicquot (£23.99/€37.62), Bollinger (£27.99/€43.89), Moet & Chandon (£20.47/€32.10), and Oeil de Perdrix (£17.49/€27.43) all came much lower in the list, although all were in the top 20.
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Just look at those exchange rates.
Pat
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Taitinger only. Otherwise gin.
Gin tastes better, lasts longer and kills more germs...Mine's a quadruple with ice and Scweppes tonic.
One bottle of Taitinger costs more than 2 bottles of Bombay Sapphire so very bad value...
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>> One bottle of Taitinger costs more than 2 bottles of Bombay Sapphire so very bad
>> value...
Bombay saphire? Peasant. Try some Tanqueray export.
If you want a white, thinner lighter sparkling white that's not too dry or swet, go for Italian prosecco.
Or as Mappy says, the decidedly more yellow aged champagne. Buy it cheaper in the summer and keep it for 18 months.
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I used to like the Prosecco sold in LIDL's (had a bit of string holding the cork in). They don't seem to do it now.
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>>Bombay saphire? Peasant. Try some Tanqueray export.
I like Tanqueray but Bombay has a subtle flavour.. but as you don't do subtle :-)
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Peasants!
Tanqueray No 10 is the only gin in this house!
As always
Last edited by: Mark on Fri 17 Dec 10 at 19:40
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>> Bombay saphire? Peasant. Try some Tanqueray export.
Seconded. Tanqueray Special Dry is my candidate for Favourite Gin Ever.
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I suggest you get some practise in and then offer to indulge in sabrage.
If he is a true Francophile he should have been using this method for the last few years, if nothing else it will impress in inlaws!
www.sabre-a-champagne.eu/method.php
I wait for Mike H to add the practical tips.
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We couldn't often afford champagne when I was in the RAF but when we could we often opened it this way with our very expensive Wilkinson swords!
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Oh, I don't know, it has its uses with the ladies - in a sort of Terry-Thomas way :-)
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Lidl do still do their Maria Trevirgine (Sp wrong) Prosecco in a green bottle with an orange label. Sadly it's £4.99 these days; two years ago is was £3.50, £2.50 when on special offer. Love it! (Also improves with being kept for a year.)
Edited to add, Tanqueray is my favourite gin, VERY closely followed by Lidl's more expensive (7.99 rather than 7.79) gin, in green bottles - which I think is almost as good as Tanqueray save only for the strength and a fraction the price.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 17 Dec 10 at 16:46
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I have to admit I like Champagne and other similarly produced fermented in the bottle, fizzy wines. A good Cava or Prosecco is also just as good in my opinion. And some new world Australian Pinon Noir's are good too.
At this time of year there are some quite decent Champagne's available. Although the bottle is on the cheap side (small indentation to the bottom of the bottle), Aldi has an okay Champagne (for us) at £10 a bottle. Tesco are doing a less than half price deal on Champagne (would have to go to the cellar to check the name) at £10 a bottle. And it's a good one (for us) again.
But normally I'd buy supermarket own. My wife prefers demi-sec from Tesco to the usual dry Champagnes. But likes the Aldi one mentioned above.
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"What am I missing "
Decent beer for a start if you drink it out of tin:-)
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Ill just have ginger ale please :-)
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>> "What am I missing "
>>
>> Decent beer for a start if you drink it out of tin:-)
>>
Well said young sir... At least drink the bottled version... and avoid plastic glasses like the plague while you're at it... they are nearly, but not quite as bad as cans... Now there's even a canned version of Leffe... aaargh!
I must admit that I'm not a fan of wine, but this year we stayed at a small 800 year old vineyard in the Moselle valley and brought several bottles of their "brew" back with us... I have to say it was the best wine I've ever tasted... and much nicer than the stuff we got when we stayed in the Champagne region...
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>> this year we stayed
>> at a small 800 year old vineyard in the Moselle valley and brought several bottles
>> of their "brew" back with us... I have to say it was the best wine
>> I've ever tasted... and much nicer than the stuff we got when we stayed in
>> the Champagne region...
A few decades ago I bought some Moselle wine produce in Luxembourg, and it was gorgeous. The cheap stuff I also bought was so so. I am damned if I can distinguish the good from the bad here. Maybe they export the carp.
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Spot on Leif! They export the ghastly Bereich Nierstein, Black Tower and Blue Nun - you can't buy them in Germany
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no-one drunk that since 1980! The day that schooner inns died out and got upbranded to Berni Inns.
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They may not have drunk it but it is still on sale! Sainsburys for one stock Black Tower
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I'm of the opinion that there is an awful lot of pretentious nonsense surrounding wine. I have had some very nice wine, but I will be damned if I can determine which is good from the label. I do think there is good wine, that merits the hyperbole. But I think there is so much fluff and nonsense, and that the buying public (including myself) are largely ignorant. To be honest, a good beer, or a good non commercial cider is much nicer than 90% of wines. A lovely scrumpy does me a treat. I had some cider in south Devon a few years back that was utterly gorgeous. That is not surprising as we are not really a wine producing country, and tax makes it so expensive that it is hard to learn to distinguish the good from the bad.
Somes year back I was given a bottle of champagne for working late at work, and about 10 years later I drunk it. It was very nice indeed. Was it worth the price? Not really. Old Speckled Hen floats my boat any day.
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I prefer beer as well... Though I do have a preference for the Belgian Trappist and Abbey beers... Though some brewpub beer we had in Hann Munden (where we stayed before we went to the Mosselle!) was very nice...
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>> Though I do have a preference for the Belgian Trappist
>> and Abbey beers...
Those monks must be permanently out of their boxes. The beer is lovely.
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Whatever happened to Hirondelle?
How did the advert go? There's nothing like a good bottle of Hirondelle?
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Hirondelle?
Before MY time...
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>>Whatever happened to Hirondelle?
I remember it well. Is the equally popular Lutomer Laski Reisling still around?
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I too like that Belgian beer, Leffe blonde (draught) for preference, but I can swallow a couple of fat fizzy Duvels although they are too strong.
See hobbyhorse? We do have something in common.
As for champagne, it has carved itself an enviable niche as the no. 1 celebratory tipple, for occasions when people say damn the cost and spend a lot of money. That doesn't mean it isn't sometimes worth the money though.
It should have a lot of very small bubbles, not a few big ones. And my personal preference is for something that isn't acid or sweet. Is 'nutty' the word? A lot depends on the state of your palate and nose at the time. If you drink rather a lot and follow it with one too many not-small-enough cognacs you will feel very carp indeed the next day, and serve you right.
Budget or run-of-the-mill NV can be very nice. But to be as sure as possible of getting something delectable you have to pay through the nose and then some. You can distract yourself from the wounded state of your bank balance by repeating:
'I'm not a prole, me. No way mate. I got class wiv a capital K.'
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>> I too like that Belgian beer, Leffe blonde (draught) for preference, but I can swallow
>> a couple of fat fizzy Duvels although they are too strong.
We will have to organise a C4P meet in Brighton. There is a bar down there that has over 50 Belgian beers. YOu get a passport to stamp for each one.
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I would be up for that, not been to Brighton for years but loved the place. It summed up just how Blackpool should do it. We ended up going to this beach club which played nothing but the Smiths and Oasis all night which was rather bizzare too.
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>> C4P meet in Brighton.
I could be up for that. It isn't all that far. Not during the blizzards though.
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>> We will have to organise a C4P meet in Brighton. There is a bar down
>> there that has over 50 Belgian beers. YOu get a passport to stamp for each
>> one.
>>
Which one's that, then? Having grown up round there and living about 16 miles away now, I thought I knew just about all the decent watering-holes thereabouts.
Anyone working in Central London and liking their Belgian pop would do well to go try the Dovetail in Jerusalem Passage, EC1, just off Clerkenwell Road. They reckoned they're about the only place in the UK that sells Pauwel Kwak on draught, although sadly they can't serve it in the proper stirrup-cup glass on draught, as the glass doesn't have the measure on it. Everything gotta have rules [sigh]...
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Leffe is great but most bars here will only sell it in half measures. Still half a Leffe is a lot more enjoyable than a pint of Fosters or Carling.
Got some Polish stuff and Export in the fridge for tonight. Drinking alone sad times.
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Hirondelle...
There was an 80s campaign, maybe a last ditch try to revive the brand, "...about as likely as a duff bottle of Hirondelle" which the posters for can be found by Googling.
It said Hedges and Butler on the bottle. Owned by Bass Charrington, whose Toby Inns challenged the Bernis in the 1960s, maybe 70s, it's all a blur now!. Hirondelle, red, white, rose and sweet white varieties, were I suppose the house wines of the Tony Inns. I used to think the white was OK (maybe it was) but that might just have been that I preferred it to the Laski riesling!
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 18 Dec 10 at 11:45
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>> Those monks must be permanently out of their boxes. The beer is lovely.
>>
Seconded.
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"Those monks must be permanently out of their boxes"
You won't see many monks at the huge InBev brewery in Leuven where it brewed alongside Stella Artois on an industrial scale.
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Marston's Pedigree this week.
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Fullers, especially London Pride, does it for me
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I tend to drink London Pride when I am in London, a few places sell it in Manchester but it is more expensive here.
I have loads of great bars on in my local suburb selling all the European fine ales but sadly I rarely get to go out here anymore. I have no local friends so it is always the city centre rock bars which sell nothing but the Fosters crap.
I miss real beer.
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>> Fullers, especially London Pride, does it for me
>>
+1 on that.... ESB's my favourite.
Whenever I find a pub with that stuff on cask, I consider it my sovereign duty to remain there until such time as I have assisted the landlord in selling as much of it as I can consume.... sometimes much to Mrs. H's displeasure!
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Can't enjoy Fuller's now. The local is a Fuller's pub, and I think I've become more or less allergic to it through years of exposure. I do love a Timothy Taylor's, Golden Best or Bitter is fine, the Landlord's too strong. Batham's Bitter I adore.
Champagne I find unsatisfying. Not brought up to it of course, I was given Mather's black beer and lemonade as a sprog (and enjoyed it).
This will be my knockout red wine treat this Christmas -
www.oddbins.com/product-details/domus-aurea-cabernet-sauvignon
and of course one to go with the figgy pudding. Costco do a lovely Sauternes in halves, I can only justify it at Christmas though.
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Draught Pedigree is an excellent beer but it has to be kept in tip top condition. Poorly kept it can rapidly develop a bad egg smell.
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>> Draught Pedigree is an excellent beer
Poorly kept it can rapidly develop a bad egg smell.
>>
Theakston's XB produces similar from me.... shame 'cos it's not a bad beer to drink. :-(
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Never been a big Theakston's fan, but had to be dragged away from the White Bear in Masham after a couple of XBs! I might have to reconsider.
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>> Draught Pedigree is an excellent beer but it has to be kept in tip top
>> condition. Poorly kept it can rapidly develop a bad egg smell.
>>
Most of the Burton ales are like that. though. Proper draught Worthy more than about 50 miles from Burton tastes like slop, unless meticulously kept.
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I'm afraid its a long time since Worthington Draught was brewed in Burton on Trent.
Brand is owned by Brains and brewed in Cardiff.
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>> I'm afraid its a long time since Worthington Draught was brewed in Burton on Trent.
>>
>> Brand is owned by Brains and brewed in Cardiff.
Bet they still Burtonise the water though to get the authentic whiff and keep the drinkers regular.
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I think all brewers of bitter or pale ales burtonise the water.
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>> I'm afraid its a long time since Worthington Draught was brewed in Burton on Trent.
>>
Last time I had any must have been getting on 15 years ago, so that would be about right.
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I like it well enough but it (Pedigree) almost always smells at least a bit sulphurous to me. And here's the apparent explanation -
"In the early 19th century, pale ale was being successfully brewed in London. In 1822, the method had been copied by the Burton upon Trent brewer Samuel Allsopp, who got a more hoppy tasting version of the beer because of the sulphate-rich local water. The clean, crisp, bitter flavour of beer brewed by Allsopp in Burton became very popular and by 1888 there were 31 breweries in the town supplying demand for Burton Ale. The characteristic whiff of sulphur indicating the presence of sulphate ions became known as the "Burton snatch"
from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewing_methods
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I'm on the Pedigree atm Martin...A quid at Lidl. Bought another 20 on Monday.
A nice, tasty beer....very drinkable.
Leffe in bottles is freely available round here from various Delis. We have a small Belgian deli/cafe, just round the corner from Ratto and they do, or did, a few different Belgians.
Ted
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Bombay Sapphire's out of favour in these parts, because the recycle people refuse to handle the blue glass bottles! They leave 'em on your front lawn with the empty recycling container..!
NZ are starting to give fizzy wine making a crack, on the back of their success with pinot noir and sauvignon blancs. Mumm even grow a few vines out here! Best champagne-impersonator is a delightful fizz called Deutz with a black and red label - not sure if it exports to the UK?
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>>....a delightful fizz called Deutz with a black and red label - not sure if it exports to the UK?
>>
about £12.99 from a couple of the major wine shops.
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See you have some taste, then, AC!! ;-)
I'm trying to figure how anyone who admits to drinking Leffe could possibly even consider drinking the yellow fizzy drinking water such as Fosters... once you've tasted real lager such as Belgian, German or Czech there's just no taste in the Aussie stuff... Could you please explain, Rattle?!
Plenty of the Trappist beers are still "home" produced btw, not all are produced in big breweries. CAMRA do beer guides for Beligium, Germany and Czech Republic if anyone's interested!
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once you've tasted real lager such as Belgian, German or Czech
Well some of it is good but Stella, or Heineken is no better than Fosters. Personally not a great lager fan and prefer traditionally brewed British beers. We have such a huge variety in the UK and to my mind beer is a hugely underrated product.
I'm doing all I can to support the industry.
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I'm with you CGN. In a bar with nothing proper I'll take a Beck's or Warsteiner, otherwise it's unpasteurised brown beer for me.
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>> Well some of it is good but Stella, or Heineken is no better than Fosters.
I agree that the mass produced stuff is carp, but I was referrring to the more specialised stuff which he admitted to drinking... There's just no comparison in quality!
>> Personally not a great lager fan and prefer traditionally brewed British beers.
I agree we have a wide variety of Ales and I love Cask beer, but due to 70s delights such as Grunehalle (sp?), etc, many people actually think that the British Brewed Lager such as Stella, Heinekin, etc, is actually what real lager tastes like... heaven forbid!
Trouble is many people just drink it in as much quantity as they can without bothering about the taste... I suppose CAMRA was one of the first Consumer Organisations to actually care about the taste and condition of their drink!
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I believe CAMRA had it origins in the 1970 when the big brewers wanted to abolish cask conditioned ales altogether in favour of keg which has a much longer shelf life - Watneys were in the vanguard with their Red Revolution and their notorious Red Barrel Keg.
CAMRA have been one of the most effective consumer groups in the UK - the local Norwich branch is very well supported and they organise one of the best beer festivals in the UK.
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Best value champagne IMHO is Sainsbury's Blanc de Noir. It is usually about £15 but for the same price as this budget wine you could get an outstanding still white - which would make it a far better deal I think.
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Chablis every time for me. Can't be doing with fizz. Girl's drink.
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Marston's Pedigree, Courage Director's (when available), or any full bodied red wine for me.
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In order of preference...
Duval, Warsteiner, Leffe (which my local has on draught, but will only serve 1/2 pints due to strength!!)
but much of the time I drink cider in pubs. Too much!
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>> Leffe (which my local has on draught, but will only serve 1/2 pints
>> due to strength!!)
>>
I've never understood this. Some of the strong English ales are about the same abv (6.6). Yet you can get those in measures of a pint or so. And big bottles of Leffe, Duvel and Kwak are all 750 ml.
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>> >>will only serve 1/2 pints
>> >> due to strength!!)
>> >>
>>
>> I've never understood this.
I wonder if its more to stop the silly twits for drinking it like they would their fosters... bit stronger than that! Anyway beer like that is supposed to be drunk to taste and appreciate, rather like Real Ale. Not chuck it down your neck as quickly as possible like the keg lagers and bitters which have little or no taste anyway...
Last edited by: hobby on Sat 18 Dec 10 at 12:17
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>> I wonder if its more to stop the silly twits for drinking it like they
>> would their fosters... bit stronger than that!
That's got to be it, hasn't it? Although the price would put some of them off, I suppose. Plus they wouldn't be able to deal with the concept of a beer with ACTUAL FLAVOUR...
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Hawkeye>>Interesting that many of you prefer supermarket offerings to the real deal.
It IS the real deal. The only thing it lacks is the big label (with big associated marketing costs. Sponsoring F1 isn't cheap, you know...)
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What wouldn't I give for a pint of London Pride or Pedigree right now?
Not that I could get out to the bar at the moment...
The only time I've ever been poisoned by a drink it was a restaurant owner's 'special' champagne. Luckily he's a friend so I wasn't paying for it.
My French neighbour, who is the area wine expert and has, in the past, written for supermarket wine catalogues, doesn't do champagne any more, so neither do I. He goes for bubbly from the Loire valley, often Saumur. I prefer Cremant or Blanquette de Limoux (a nice little town in the deep south). Both about 4 euros a bottle, around the same as Cava.
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>> I prefer Cremant or Blanquette de Limoux
Yes MH... the same champagne can vary considerably from year to year, sometimes leading to disappointment. And bad champagne can be very disagreeable. I failed to say in my earlier post that Cremant de Bourgogne has never let me down. It costs more than 4 euros but usually comes in below 7 quid.
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"It is the real deal"
Unlike the great chateaux of Bordeaux and the great Domaines of Burgundy which grow their own grapes on their own land, the champagne houses buy in their grapes from grape growers. So each year it's made from grapes from a different vine.
Supermarket champagne is made by a champagne house, and then bottled for Tescos, say.
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Fizzy wine is vile!
SWMBO likes cava from LIDL - Arestal at under 2 euros a bottle. UGH!
Even decent cava or "proper" champage is carp.
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>> Fizzy wine is vile!
>> SWMBO likes cava from LIDL - Arestal at under 2 euros a bottle. UGH!
>> Even decent cava or "proper" champage is carp.
>>
>>
Absolutely.. Champagne is for peasants.
BTW did I hear an echo?
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>> BTW did I hear an echo?
>>
You sure it wasn't tumbleweed?
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Champagne, the great pretender ? - Alanovich
