Clifton CC in York worth checking out then 
Looks quite dark for a palo cortado - more amontillado in colour?
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The SE, the Boss, the magnificent failure of dry January…
And the shoutout the guzzlers. Classic.
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A ‘brucie bonus’ as we like to call it over here.
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A bit the photograph, but Palo Cortado, to all intents and purposes, is a sort of Amontillado.
< ducks >
in case my friend César Saldaña, the Consejo Regulador, hears me say that. But it’s certainly true colour-wise.
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Having a little learning, which as we all know is a dangerous thing, I thought that the ‘palo’ in palo cortado meant ‘pale’. Looked it up and palo cortado means ‘short stick’. Shows you what I know ie bugger all 
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Indeed. A ‘palo’ is a stick, and ‘cortado’ is cut or crossed (an espresso coffee ‘cut’ with a dash of milk, à la macchiato, is a ‘café cortado’ in Spain.*)
The barrels (butts) of Fino sherry were/are marked with a Palo (stick or stroke in chalk), and the very best were/are cortado (making a cross) as showing the greatest potential for ageing beyond that. Hence the quality of PC, which is almost never sweetened. Other than that it is pretty-much an Amontillado, although the latter are more often sweetened and rarely of the same quality. Sweetening involves adding a brown component, which does usually make them darker, but not necessarily.
*even more confusingly, this is called a ‘noisette’ in France. Although not everywhere. And nothing to do with hazelnuts. Have a drink.
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£10 from Lidl - keep going there lately for their superb loose tomatoes which taste great even at this time of year.
Not bad at all:
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And loose grapes, apparently
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This may sound bizarre but I was in heaven chomping on their celery the other day - white/etiolated, no plastic wrapper just tasty as I remember it at my grandmother’s in the 70’s.
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in the context of a wine thread, yes, that does sound bizarre. 
Wine, cheese, celery, pickles, yum 
you had me at wine and cheese. you lost me at celery.
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Celery is the work of the devil
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it’s ok with peanut butter and raisins - at least that’s what I remember from when I was 6 years old…
other than that, it’s best in a soffritto - or mirepoix for you fancy Dans
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For your consumption, you have about the right amount of stock for aging them. I keep track of mine on an Exel spreadsheet that has most of the details I need for each wine and sorts them by the drinking window. It works well and I’ve only had a couple that were far too old and undrinkable.
It sorts first by the year the wine is ready for consumption and sorts second by the ‘drink by’ year, so the wines with a smaller drinking window are listed first, within that year.
We also enjoy whiskies, so we usually only drink about one bottle of wine a week. So, we don’t require as large a collection now. Love the hobby though, there’s just so much to learn about wine, and buying it is still an amazing pleasure. Pulling out a bottle you’ve been keeping for ten years, or twenty years (and had standing up for a few days), and easing the cork out and carafing it. It’s a real thrill, eh?
Non-wine and non-audio people think we’re nuts …
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Treating myself to a lovely Saint Émilion this evening - a 2018 Despagne-Rapin Les Piliers de Maison Blanche
Described as having “ripe aromas of blackberry and cassis, dark chocolate and earth, framed in oak. The palate shows deep blackberry liqueur with prune, spice, graphite and citrus. The finish is quite long with black fruits, mineral flavours and firm acidity.”
Superb.
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I’m continuing to try non-alcoholic wines, and last night I
had a bottle of this French pink sparkler, Nozeco, which I had never seen before. Very acceptable indeed!
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Sounds like a great album title.
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