Oeno-File, the Wine & Gastronomy Column

by Frank Ward

Posts Tagged ‘Champagne’

New World Wines – Old World Terroir

Posted by Frank Ward on March 27, 2017

March 2017. Simpson’s Wine Estate is a totally new property created, here in the old world, in the purest spirit of the new world. The location: Barham in Kent, “the garden of England”. Three 10-hectare plots of land were chosen where no vines had ever grown before; a winery was created within the shell of an old barn, complete with offices and a (projected) tasting room; and Kent-based fruit pickers were induced to transfer their fruit-sensitized fingers from apples and pears to the more fragile fruits of the vine. [….]

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Champagne – The most aural of wines

Posted by Frank Ward on April 25, 2016

AvatarApril 2016. The pressure inside a bottle of champagne, we’re told, is about the same as that inside the tyre of a London bus. Champagne, like all wines, starts out as fermenting juice, suffused with bubbles. But – unlike still wines – it retains those bubbles, cherishing them even. Over time, by mysterious alchemy, they’re refined, reduced to near-invisibility (the smaller the bubbles the finer the champagne), before being gently incorporated into the flavour and texture of the wine. That thrilling energy, trapped inside the bottle, can sometimes persist for [….]

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