Travel

the saturday saunter…

By billn on November 09, 2020 #travel pics

In the deep of the Berner Oberland, with magnificent, if misty, views of the mountains – a modest 10km walk in just under 2 hours…
A fabulous day out…

weekend stuff

By billn on November 02, 2020 #degustation#travel pics

After returning from France, the weather was lovely on Friday & Saturday, so after multiple chores on Friday, we chose a walk for Saturday in the beautiful Emmental – which is on our doorstep. All thoughts of confinement were bannished here in the Swiss countryside!

The trees and houses, set on top of hills, are like a slightly more rustic Tuscany – but with better mountains for a backdrop 🙂 We chose a 10.5 km route of Landiswil – Aspiegg – Löchlibad – Tanne – back to Landiswil – it could have 9.5 km if we’d done it properly!

Returning to home, there was wine – hooray! There was also a wholely unnecessary amount of mess and work to extract a broken cork, but at least once we got at the wine, the effort was to be rewarded!

Way back when, I opined in these pages that if 2005 had been only an average vintage, then 2006 might have some chance to compete with 2002 for the best vintage of the decade. I also thought some 2006s to be the equal of their counterparts from 2005 – and here, in action, was a great example of that:

As for the new week before us, I’m asking myself if all is really lost in terms of domaine visits in November – we shall see…

weekend 01 Nov 2020

2016 Moreau-Naudin, Chablis 1er Montmains
I love the wines from this producer but I really wasn’t sure what to make of this wine. Of-course, I expected concentration given the amount of frost suffered in this vintage, but I didn’t really expect such ripeness too. Fine acidity, but hard to find the minerality. Excellently tasty wine but you might have been hard-pressed to guess that it came from Chablis – and Montmains is such a cool (temperature!) terroir too.
Rebuy – Maybe

2006 Camille Giroud, Gevrey-Chambertin En Champs
Singing on all levels – bar one – that damn cork!
Now that’s a great nose of clarity, depth and width – slightly cushioned and a great invitation. In the mouth too, here is a simply delicious wine of very good concentration, red-cherry fruit and just enough freshness that the wine gives you no reason to think about ‘balance.’ Layered finishing whilst always showing good energy. With a little help, I had to drink nearly all of it on the first day. A glass remained for day two when it showed no additional development – good or bad – only a suggestion of barrel that I didn’t see on day one. That’s a great villages wine and a textbook example of a great 2006.
Rebuy -Yes

these hills are made for walking – & even jogging!

By billn on July 29, 2020 #travel pics

Left or right?
Left or right?

All countries seem to be recommending taking your holidays at ‘home’ this year – and I’ve seen images of terrible queues in the Swiss mountains in the last couple of weeks, but it seems that we found a beautiful and only modestly visited area: Guarda in the Swiss Engadin. Back now – so I must finish my June Report for publishing before the month-end:

Images only with my ‘phone:’

back…

By billn on August 01, 2019 #travel

From a short break in Piemonte, but later today comes an even shorter break, in Beaune.

We arrive in heavy thunder, lightning, rain and hail – but then it was over – seemingly the hail not hitting any of the vines. We made no Piedmontese domaine visits, just a tour of some better-known locations – and of course, there was the eating! In a very short summary; I loved Novello and La Morra. Barolo was nice but almost a disappointment after La Morra. Of course, Turin was more than interesting. Alba gets many compliments though perhaps we didn’t find the best parts – it certainly has a nice shopping street in the centre, but Asti, once you get through the suburbs and into the centre, is on a grander scale which I found much more impressive.

Interesting that in Asti, it seems hardly possible to find ‘Spumante’ in good wine-shops. They sell Moscato-Asti though – only about 5-6% alcohol and sweet – but no bubbles!

Finally, it was absolutely the best decision to take the ‘St.Bernard Pass’ instead of the tunnel for our return – simply spectacular – there was too much cloud for this ‘detour’on our way to Italy.

a day out in the (swiss) vines…

By billn on June 02, 2019 #travel

You don’t get to take a boat-trip to see the vines in Burgundy – well, not often anyway!

The ferry from Biel (Bienne) to Twann and then 2.5 hours walk back to Biel through the grape route – the hillside vines that run down to the Bielersee (Lac de Bienne). Topping out with 29°C – the first time this year.

out to lunch…

By billn on May 31, 2019 #travel

It’s something of a long-weekend in Switzerland, so I was forced out of the house – to eat freshly caught lake fish. Okay, ‘forced’ is an exaggeration – It’s my most favourite lunch and lunch place!

€9 coffee, €40 brunch – then back to beaune for pizza…

By billn on December 20, 2018 #travel pics

Wednesday was a rainy day, so we decided to hop on the train to Monaco – only €2.30 on the train – I decided that there must be some nice hotels or casinos where we could drink a coffee and pretend to be Mr and Mrs Bond – indeed there are – but the rain was firing down which made the experience sub-optimal!

Today we quit our AirBnB early for Beaune – but with a stop for brunch in St.Tropez – a mere €40 in the Café de Paris – lovely, creamily scrambled eggs though! Out of season there are still very big boats here, but the feeling is smaller, cosier and certainly prettier than much of the Côte d’Azur. Then we headed back to Beaune and real life – i.e. a pizza after 740 km in front of the steering wheel…
 

Burgundy Report

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