February 2014. We are three couples who meet regularly to eat dinner together and taste wines, each calculated to match the various dishes we try. The evenings seldom finish without our having tried at least eight or nine wines, all of them of distinction, even the few that prove to be over the top!. All are tasted blind. On blind tastings, a French wine producer once said to me: “la dégustation à l’aveugle est un exercice en l’humilité.” I made him chuckle by replying: “”Yes, and sometimes an exercise in humiliation!”.
Dinner With Friends
Posted by Frank Ward on February 7, 2014
Posted in Mature wines, Oenophilia | Tagged: canterbury, château haut-brion, cvne, l'Evangile, léoville las cases, mourvèdre, Trimbach, vieux télégraphe, voerzio, von schubert, weinbach | Leave a Comment »
Tasting le Pin 1982 and 1998 with Andrew Jefford
Posted by Frank Ward on January 25, 2014
Jefford on Monday: Giffen, Veblen – and Wine
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/blogs/expert/584737/jefford-on-monday-giffen-veblen-and-wine#RuhZupV13i781HvU.99
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/blogs/expert/584737/jefford-on-monday-giffen-veblen-and-wine#RuhZupV13i781HvU.99
Jefford on Monday: Giffen, Veblen – and Wine
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/blogs/expert/584737/jefford-on-monday-giffen-veblen-and-wine#RuhZupV13i781HvU.99
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/blogs/expert/584737/jefford-on-monday-giffen-veblen-and-wine#RuhZupV13i781HvU.99
Andrew Jefford and Frank Ward have just tasted two great vintages of a Pomerol that’s achieved cult status : Château Le Pin.
As a foretaste of Andrew’s main article in the April “Decanter”, here’s his post in their online issue : Jefford on Monday : Giffen, Veblen – and Wine.
Andrew Jefford & Frank Ward, Le Pin tasting at Forres House.
Posted in Bordeaux, Mature wines | Tagged: Andrew Jefford, château le pin, Decanter, Frank Ward, jefford on monday | Leave a Comment »
Tasting the 2009 clarets with the Masters of Wine
Posted by Frank Ward on January 12, 2014
Posted in Bordeaux, Tasting notes | Tagged: 1986 Mouton Rothschild, 2009 clarets, First Growths, Masters of Wine | Leave a Comment »
The Nectar of the Gods: Frank Ward on investing in wine
Posted by Frank Ward on December 5, 2013
Posted in Oenophilia | Tagged: Andrew Jefford, Domaine Rousseau, Farn Vintners, Frank Ward, Hugh Johnson, in bond, investing in wine, Jancis Robinson, O.W. Loeb, Roberson, Robert Parker | Leave a Comment »
More Writers on Wine : Tolstoy, Strindberg, Hemingway
Posted by Frank Ward on August 16, 2013
Posted in Oenophilia | Tagged: A Moveable Feast, Among French Peasants, August Strindberg, Caucasus, chambertin, Charles Rousseau, chikhir, Ernest Hemingway, Hugh Johnson, Oenophilia, oysters, The Cossacks, Tolstoy | Leave a Comment »
PRE-PHYLLOXERA PUZZLE : An 1870 Overture
Posted by Frank Ward on June 10, 2013
June 2013. It was one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced at a blind tasting. True, I’d been given one piece of vital information just before sampling the wine, namely the vintage: 1870. A wine that was 143 years’ old. But that wasn’t much help. I’d never sampled a wine of quite that age before and didn’t really know what to look for. In addition, no clue had been given as to the region, or even country of origin (though one could be pretty sure it was French, our host being a great fan of that ucontry’s wines). fresh tasting notes on fabled wines, 3 great vintages of musigny vieilles vignes
Posted in Bordeaux, Mature wines, Tasting notes | Tagged: 1870, chanel, colin matthews, David Matthews, Ian Maxwell Campbell, john kolasa, madame de rohan, margaux, michael broadbent, nathaniel johnston, nicolas faith, prephylloxera, professor peynaud, rausan margaux, rauzan ségla, Shakespear, the great vintage wine book, thierry manoncourt, thomas jefferson | Leave a Comment »
Recent tastings
Posted by Frank Ward on January 31, 2013
January 2013. Nobody on earth – not the most brilliant scientist, not the richest billionaire – can instantly turn a young immature wine into a fully mature one. Only time can bring about this transformation. Sometimes the process can take an age (a good 60 years in the case of the obdurate, but ultimately great, 1926s!). The following bottles were purchased by me many years ago, within two or three years of the vintage in question, and then simply left to mature in my own 18th-century cellars or in Britain’s finest bonded warehouse, Octavian. All have been tasted within the last few months, to see if that long wait was justified… fresh tasting notes on fabled wines, 3 great vintages of musigny vieilles vignes
Posted in Tasting notes | Tagged: 1978 Château Margaux, 1978 Hermitage La Chapelle, 1990 Château Rayas, Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, Musigny Vieilles Vignes | Leave a Comment »
English cuisine today – Farewell to the “goo anglais”
Posted by Frank Ward on January 2, 2013
Posted in Gastronomy | Tagged: Alain Ducasse, Arthur Young, Brillat-Savarin, Elisabeth David, Food in England, French school, Gordon Ramsey, Hélène Darroze, Joel Robuchon, l'Assommoir, Len Deighton, Mrs Beeton, Philip Harben, Robert Carrier, Sorothy Hartley, the Square, Tolstoy, Winston Churchill, Zola | 1 Comment »
Two Great Writers Comment on Wine
Posted by Frank Ward on November 24, 2012
Posted in Oenophilia | Tagged: Bordeaux, La Parisienne, Oenophilia, phylloxera epidemic, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stendhal, Travels in the South of France, Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes | Leave a Comment »
Eating Out & Eating In
Posted by Frank Ward on September 18, 2012
Eating In & Eating Out. In which I describe some recent meals and vinous rarities and also have pleasure in publishing tasting notes on some 19th-century wines, written by David Matthews, the composer. One of Britain’s leading composers, David Matthews, has a house in Deal in southeast Kent (where I happen to live) and often comes down to the coast to work on his various compositions. In the course of his career he’s written seven symphonies, 12 string quartets, and all manner of other works, including a piece specially commissioned to mark the 90th birthday of the late Queen Mother.
Posted in Mature wines, Tasting notes | Tagged: 1975 Château Latour, 1991 Chambertin, 2004 Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Emile, Benjamin Britten, Château Faizeau vieilles vignes, David Matthews, Domaine Rousseau, pre-phylloxera wines, Renaud Rolland, Shakespear, sommelier, the Square | Leave a Comment »
Oeno-File, the Wine & Gastronomy Column 