John’s November 2010 Wine of the Month



Great Riesling with Thai Hot & Sour Soup

 It was touch and go until the last few days which wine I would be recommending you this month; we had some nice wines introduced to us by Ian at our November tasting, then later in the month I got to taste some excellent classic French reds, but in the end they were pipped at the post by an old favourite of mine – Philippe Zincks Grand Cru Eichberg Alsace Riesling 2008 from Majestic. This is a very classy, very dry, nice bodied and very citrussy Riesling and, I have to say, very much to my taste. Some of you will have tasted the 2007 at our Alsace wine tasting dinner in Tongham Village hall and I seem to remember we served the 2006 at a tasting at Farnborough Hill School some years ago. It seems to be a classic each year. This wine can be obtained at Majestic Wine (there is a branch in Farnham with very helpful and knowledgeable staff) for £12.99 or £11.99 if you buy at least 2 bottles of it.



Remember to get wines for those seasonal winter ingredients

 As we are coming into December I think it would be an excellent pairing for some of this month’s seasonal ingredients such as Oysters, Mussels, Clams, Scallops,Sea Bass or Smoked Salmon. For more information on seasonal ingredients go to this excellent website  http://www.britishlarder.co.uk/recipe/winter-seasonal-british-ingredients-and-produce  Perhaps, this wine would even go with sprouts! 

Not a cheap wine this month but I’d rather have one bottle of this than 2 or 3 bottles of plonk. I once went to a talk, many moons ago, by Oz Clark and I remember him saying … if II could leave you with one message tonight it would be drink less but better quality wines. Great advice! And by the way this Riesling (the 2007 version) was one of Oz’s top ten wines in his book last year and the 2008 is at least as good. I scored this wine 16.5/20.