With Davide.
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Believe it or not I forgot to chuck the Asda wine out and after about 48 hours it’s actually lost all the harshness and is actually drinkable!
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That bottle takes me back. We had started to sell Tinto Pesquera but it was a fairly slow mover, right up until Robert Parker raved about it and then we couldn’t get enough to keep up with demand. My own view was that it was a nice enough bottle for a tenner.
How is it nowadays?
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Interesting:
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Fairly sure that it was a Majestic stalwart?
This Pesquera was Crianza 2016 and probably a tenner in 2017 or 2018 if bought at the right channel, but this morning I paid euro 29 at my local, trusted shop in Milan.
The wine is excellent even for this price, but we enjoyed the Peschera even more because Davide and I have a connection with it since 1997, the year we started construction at Compostilla, a power station in northwest Spain.
I truly traveled in time this afternoon when I tasted my first glass. A very special wine to us.
Around Pesquera del Duero you also have many other amazing things happening: Alión, Protos, Peñafiel… Visiting Pesquera is a very nice trip that I recommend.
What year you were importing Pesquera in UK, Richard?
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We weren’t importing. I think it was brought in by Fields, but can’t exactly recall now. That would have been around the late ‘80s.
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My last bottle of this this evening (2016, Fixin). Very nice. Probably would have got better in the coming years if I’d had the patience…, but lovely now. Not the best known of the Burgundy communes, but highly recommended. Served with a very simple open steak sandwich. Lovely.
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Back to post summer socialising and the first of our regular Wine and food gatherings.
Started with a glass of Crement.
The food of choice was a simple Shepherds Pie infused with a glass and half of Grahams 2017 Late Bottled Vintage.
With the food, we started with 2020 Cotes Du Jura. Pino Noir, which was very light in taste, a little thin with the food. It was fun to try as I have only tried the White from Jura.
A much more wholesome and dense dry red wine was the Moroder,2017 Conera Reserva from a small vineyard in the region of Marche, Italy, between Ancona and Perugia.
At the end of the evening we opened a new Port, which had been recommended to our friend by a specialist Portuguese Wine shop in Copenhagen. The 20 year old Tawny from Quinta Da Vevesa was very balanced with a mixture of honey, molasses, notes of walnut and other nuts…extremely pleasant to drink and a new Quinta for us.
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Chinon wine (France). Cabernet Franc grape red wine.
From Eric Sourdais vineyard (no website). The 2021 is very, very, drinkable, even on its own, but excellent with food. It is bone dry, young, light, and unlikely to keep more than perhaps a year - but at €3.75 a bottle (or €2.60 per litre if bought bag-in-box!) that is immaterial!
His 2020 Fût de chêne wine, benefitting from oak storage, is more refined and will last longer, though the oak is quite pronounced, perhaps a tad too much so. (€4.75 a bottle)
He also does a rather good sparkling rosé, traditional (Champagne) method - mousse not as fine as a good Champ, and not quite dry though described as brut. Very quaffable, at a ridiculous €4.75 a bottle!!!
I suspect Eric Sourdais mainly serves the local populace, expecially with his bag-in-boxes (also a white and rosé, that I haven’t tried).
Very different are the wines from a near neighbour smaller producer, Patrick Lambert (does have a website). His cheapest, Cuvée les Deuzelles at about €8 a bottle isn’t as good as ES’s much cheaper wine. However his next one up, from older vines, is really rather sophisticated (€10.something a bottle), better to my taste than ES’s top one.
PL does several others, and I tried the Cuvée Ame d’Autau: also from 2018, but from still older vines, at something like €14 a bottle. A slight level up to me, with slightly more prominent oakiness.
On balance I’ll be taking home a good few of ES’s cheap 2021, probably bag in box as I suspect it’ll only last a year anyway, plus a few of his 2020 Fût de chêne, and a few of PL’s Vielles vignes, 2018, all adding up to the 18L limit for one pf us, together with the 9L fizz limit for one of us with his sparkling rosé
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Trying further South in a few days
I’m not even sure I can pronounce Viognier myself, although I did practise In the occasional wine shop in Crete.
Your concerts have just got even more enticing.
I did come across a more complex Viognier before we left Crete:
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Very true. Our liquor control board in Ontario spends much time distracting buyers from the fact that most of the wines on their shelves need a few years of age to become properly palatable. Customers are buying Cab Sauvs or Amarones etc., that were bottled 2 or 3 hears earlier, and take them home and drink them. Thay must be ghastly.
I rarely drink a wine that is !ess than 6 or 7 years old. I have a revolving collection of very basic, inexpensive, but decent wines that we will have on a Tuesday or whatever, so that the better wines can age though.
I bought a 2008 Patrizi Barolo in 2014, that 3 or 4 people on CellarTracker were disparaging in 2017. But they just drank it too soon. We just drank it last week and it was delicious.
This of course doesn’t always go my way, as I have also overaged some wines that had peaked 2 or 3 years earlier. But usually I get it right.
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Wine has become so popular in recent decades that most people including myself probably don’t have the requisite skills, let alone patience or space to ‘cellar’ wines. It would take several years to build up a good stock of well-aged wines to begin with but I suppose you have to start somewhere. The impatience then probably leads to an assumption of more expensive is likely to be better, but not if drunk too early.
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Pics from my post yesterday, that didn’t ipload properly (I can’t edit the post itself)
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It didn’t this time, perhaps one at a time ?
best wishes
Ian
I can see them if I’m horizontal 
I shall aspire to that!
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I have wine cabinet that is 24" x 30" x 6 1/2 feet high and it holds just under 200 bottles. Covid was murder on my wine collection, so I only bave about 120 bottles now. It does take about 4 years for me to gather 120 if I’m taking the time to research and buy affordable wines that will age well.
I really enjoy searching out good values, so patience isn’t an issue. This could be compared to the vinyl fans on the forum.
Between varietals, producers, vintage seasons, and some believable reviewers, choosing good value wines to age is not very difficult if one has interest in the hobby; much like this audio hobby really.
Over a 4 year period, 30 bottles a year wouldn’t be too dear for most Naim owners, but only if they have an interest in aging wines. You just need to stay out of them for the 4 years to build the initial collection.
As wine collections go though, 120, or even the 250 bottles I used to have, is a very small wine cellar, but I prefer it that way as wine is not my only hobby.
Anyway, just my take on it …
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Think covid was responsible for wiping out most peoples wine cellar. Did huge damage to mine which I’ll struggle to rebuild.
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