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:’
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…
Azure is the colour – of-course! Sunday bought plenty of rain – as will tomorrow – but yesterday and today we were out and about. Nice – what to say, I simply loved. Today we hopped into Italy – Ventimiglia – a super market and an old town not for those with a bad head for heights. Considering the weather forecast, I think that tomorrow I may mainly be typing…
I’ve mainly been catching up on some Mâcon samples for this week’s publication of the July report, but something rouge still managed to slip past our lips…
2014 Sophie & Guillaume Joncy, Côte de Brouilly La Trad’ Nature
Red wax-topped. Plenty of colour. Hmm, a nose of depth, in a faintly lactic, ‘natural,’ style – call it sauvage – but not only is this still a lovely invitation, with extended aeration the nose becomes more pure cherry-fruited. Good volume – round and really mouth-filling – with a fine texture. A bottle that empties at quite a rate – super-tasty wine!
And a little Canton Bern wanderings from the weekend:
The weather was set fair on Saturday – so it’s been too long that we were absent from Alsace.
A little time in Colmar for tarte flambé was deemed appropriate, likewise cakes and Kugelhopf buying in Ribeauville. Our evening was set-fair with said (actually a little dry) salted-Kugelhopf, some chunks of sbrinz and something old and appropriate from the cellar. The latter, despite being caramel-coloured and relatively dry, showed no sherry-style oxidative notes. Lovely!
I think it’s important never to be under-wined. For that reason, given 7 of us, I thought 3 magnums plus two bottles should have been enough – but it seems we were a sober lot – one bottle of white was only half drunk – though it was anyway time for the reds – and there was plenty of wine left in the first red magnum too when we called time. The 81 Corton Rognets will have to wait for another venue!
Gilles & Romain Collet Cremant de Bourgogne Brut
Other bottles recently drunk at home have been based on the 2015 Chablis vintage, this, however, is based on the 2014 vintage. From memory there’s no less sweetness than those bottles. Everybody – including me – said ‘yum!’ Delicious, and inexpensive too.
Rebuy – Yes
The 1999 Sylvie Spielmann, Engelgarten Riesling had a very young colour and lots of freshness. Quite complex and a little creamy in the finish – it would have benefited from a little extra concentration – light but not inconsequential. Tasty wine. The 2014 St.Urbans-Hof, Piesporter Goldtropfchen had much more concentration and depth of flavour – it was much the sweeter of these two wines too. Very delicious wine.
2002 des Varoilles, Gevrey-Chambertin 1er La Romanée
The first from a pack of 3 magnums.
Rather a smoky nose – there are vestiges of oak on the palate too – I assume that this was significantly marked by its elevage when younger. Now it retains those accents, but has freshness, width and an attractive complexity. Not earth-shattering wine by any means, but a more than adequate wine – the small glasses didn’t help matters, but when you are away from home, you can’t control everything! Good.
Rebuy – Maybe
Despite being a resident of Bern for a few years now, I was never in the Munster – you really get to feel the history as you look over the wooden pews with the crests of families that have used those seats for generation – and you can see where the old crest has been replaced with a new one as the ‘owners’ of those seats change over the generations – but not the seats themselves! A couple of pics from the Alpine Museum of Bern too – one, of the Jungfrau was captivating in the viewfinder of my phone – completely 3D!
After publishing my February report, it was off to the Valais for a Friday on skis (Belalp) then Saturday, just a quick train ride away, in Domodossola (Italy) for a little market action, pasta buying and lunch. I’m ashamed to say that I missed the last 3 ski-seasons, and only hit the slopes right at the end of this one too – perfect weather/visibility and snow – I only had my boots to complain about! There were wines over the weekend too, but more on those tomorrow 🙂
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