Well Happy Easter everyone. Hope the long weekend’s treating you all well and you got the time to get in a bottle or two of Chenin Blanc. I managed to get in three of the bottles either side of getting completely soaked during the first cricket match of the season. You’ve got to love the start of the British summer!
I started off earlier this week with the Rachel’s from Majestic Wine when my folks popped into town for my birthday. It was only Tuesday night so I hadn’t actually thought about what to eat it with. We had some homemade salmon pate and tapenade in the fridge so thought sod it, we’ll have a try. Mango, honey, apricot, and nectarine flavours, verging on slightly off dry which gave the impression of slightly less acidity. It’s medium bodied, ah maybe a touch more, and quite a nice creamy, almost nutty finish. It didn’t go great with the pate though. A definite food pairing fail! The wine gets a good 6/10.
After realizing that I’d have to step the food pairing game up I got a bit of help from Zinfandel Steen on twitter who pointed me in the direction of a broccoli and goat’s cheese tart. Normally I’m a full on carnivore at the weekends but given this tart recipe I found was laced with half a pint of double cream I thought that’s a fair substitute!
The Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference was first up. Again the main flavours here were apricot, mango, and peach, but this time it was most definitely dry in style, which meant the natural acidity of the wine was very clear. The body was again the high end of medium, with a citrusy zing and a hint of nuttiness in the finish. Really smooth to drink. The missus and I really liked this one. 7/10
Last up for the week was the Groote Post from Spirited Wines. It’s definitely not one of the more celebrated wines that they stock, but I kind of wanted that to be the point of this week. I wanted it to be about base case Chenin Blanc. The flavours on this one were more gooseberry, pineapple, maybe some green apple. On the palate it was still fruity but with a bit of white pepper and smokiness too. One drawback I guess was that it just wasn’t quite balanced. I think you could taste the alcohol a bit too much and the finish was pretty acidic. Still, for the money, a good option. 5/10
The real winner of the week was the broccoli and goats’ cheese tart. Really, really easy to do and loads of variations on the internet to have a look through. As expected it was the richness of the tart that made it a great match for what were fairly full on wines in terms of body and flavour. Maybe this vegetarian thing might be worth a try every now and again!
Cheers
Other posts in NWTW Week 15:
#NWTW Week 15: Chenin Blanc from South Africa
#NWTW Week 15: We’ve Done An Intro to SA Before, But Here’s A Recap…
#NWTW Week 15: What’s South African Chenin Blanc Going To Taste Like?
