Wines and Champagnes. Vineyard Weddings.
For fine wines, wedding wines, champagnes, vineyards, new world wines, classic reds, italian whites, try our wine specialists below for advice. We hope to have regular updates from the Vinyards and growers themselves in due course. Have you considered the fine sparkling english whites? Sussex is home to some of the finest growing soils and climates available in England, and this developing trade and specialism is a growth area. Some Vineyards also serve as wedding venues too, so what could be finer than holding your Wedding or party at the growers vineyard itself?
Elwood Wines, Sussex. Wedding wine advice, recommendations and suggestions coming very soon.
Wine news. Well, just when you thought perhaps things couldn't be more odd, BBC reports, amongst others, that Lunar influences can impair or alter a wines taste, or is it that Lunar activity alters the tasters and not the wines? Nobody really know's but hey, when did anyone ever let that stand in the way of a good story! Personally I think it is the latter, that humans are more inclined to changes of Lunar activities. Even if human kind had only been drinking wines for 2000 years, surely during each lifecycle someone would have noticed or noted that changes occurr with changing Lunar activitiy, over this course of time. Perhaps it is just a subtle way to persuade us to buy the same wines each month? Anyway, so the story goes;
'Supermarkets are arranging wine tasting sessions around "good" and "bad" days as dictated by the lunar calendar. So does the Moon really change the taste of wine? A German great-grandmother called Maria Thun is wielding huge influence on the British wine industry, having kept a diary of tastings sincethe 1950's'
Now I am sorry but, one persons subjective diary is hardly the stuff of rigorous science, the push and pull of intellectual testing and rigour, thesis and anti-thesis, is it? I think it is what some simply refer to as Bad Science. Our advice? Steer clear of supermarkets for wines. Use an independent seller, try tasting events, and listen to others obviously, get some advice, it is well worth it. Supermarkets offer such a narrow and uninspiring choice of wines the shelves are quite depressing. Anyone who has grown their own tomatoes, for example, will instinctively know what I mean when considering quality and supermarkets. The tomatoes look great, good rich colour, no bruising, firm skins. But do they tast like tomatoes? Nope, they simply taste of disapointment....mass produced rubbish. As suppliers get squeezed for ever larger retail profits so the quality on offer takes yet another nosedive, do they not realise they are slowly but surely killing the goose laying their own golden eggs? Quite simply the insipid and soul destroying 'products' of the supermarkets are just too dire to consider for my hard earned. And if that makes me a snob then I am proud to be one. :)
This is turining into an unintentional blog. Verging on a rant! However, in all seriousness, why on earth do we rely on such rubbish when there are a whole world of choices out there? Have we lost an ability to be discerning, simply purchasing what we are sold in the shops? Even on a budget, as most of us in 2009 are, do you want something decent for the money you spend or are you going to keep tolerating the dreadful durge in the supermarket? We can do better. Much, much better. And if we do not raise our own expectations then there is little or no impetus for the supermarkets to sell us anything but rubbish.
Of course there is an argument for finding a reliable wine or two, but for goodness' sake let's dare to step outside the comfort zone and risk a bad wine once in a while, and reduce that risk with a little education. Otherwise, all those superb wines you have not yet tried in life will simply pass you by. I had the good fortune to enjoy a wine tasting recently and I was amazed that the 12 whites I tried were fantastic, and, had finances permitted I would have ordered a case of each because they were simply superb. Each white being the best I had tasted in years and with the added bonus of simply tasting like your favourite summers night ever. So if you do not know where to begin, as most really dont you are certainly not alone, speak to our friends at Elwoods. Karl and Tracy can put you on the right track to some top drawer wines and at a suprisingly good price too. www.ElwoodWines.co.uk
