Report on our January Tongham Taster’s Get-Together

Italian themed food by Steve

Our first event of the New Year was hosted by Steve and Hazel and had an Italian theme both in terms of the wine and food. Steve had home-baked some authentic Ciabatta bread and also some pizza dough for lovely mini pizzas. Along with some olive oil, fresh tomato dips and the usual crudités this provided the food for our fun evening of wine tasting. We had four wines from Northern Italy where Steve had travelled extensively in his salesman days and two from Sicily. As usual we tasted all of the wines blind but prior to each one Steve regaled us with a story about how he had been introduced to each one.

As usual we conducted our extensive testing of each wine by looking at it, sniffing it and tasting it for taste, body, balance, length and general quaffability. For the evening there were nine of us and eight submitted their detailed score which are quoted below for each wine in the order John E, Jane, Ian, John S, Sheila, Steve S, Clive, Steve W. So how did Steve’s wine choice fare under this intense scrutiny and which ones fared the best?

1. Valdo Prosecco Extra Dry Marco Oro – Sainsbury – £7.99
Six of our nine tasters voted this their best wine of the evening. Jane thought it represented bubbly kisses in a bottle. Clive could detect Bramley apples, Ian thought it had good body and length whilst John S found a hint of liquorice. It had quite a strong initial fizz but with small bubbles. This was the second month in a row that the team had liked one of Sainsbury’s Prosecco range. Scores on the doors out of 20 were 14, 18, 14.5, 15, 16, 15, 17, 12.

2. Canti Merlot 2009, Sicilia – Tesco - £6.29
Three of our tasters voted this their best wine of the evening and another five the runner-up. The grape variety confused us for a while until John came up with Merlot. Jane thought it had an aroma of Chocolate and Cherries whilst Ian got childhood memories of Hero Black Cherry jam. Steve S thought this a very good wine but for Steve W who had bought the wine it was the opposite of what he had been expecting.. It certainly was a dry red. Scores were 15.5, 17, 14, 16, 14, 14.5, 17, 14.

3. Pinot Grigio Forte Alte 2010 Dolomiti – Waitrose – £5.32
With the top two wines being the clear favourites, the Pinot Grigio came next as four voted it their bronze medal winner. It had a lovely peachy and floral aroma but some of the team thought it lacked a little acidity. Scores were 11-, 13, 13.5, 14, 9, 10, 15, 12. Probably a safe choice for Pinot Grigio lovers.

4. La Gioiosa Pinot Grigio Blush Veneto 2009 – Tesco – £6.99
This wine got one person’s silver medal and two person’s bronze medals but it got a very mixed reaction overall. For Hazel it was a warm your body BBQ wine and Clive thought it very quaffable. The team was split on whether the fruit aromas were syrupy strawberry or galia melon. Scores for this wine were 11.5-, 7, 7.5, 15, 11, 9, 14, 12. So it seems this is wine which  people react to very differently.

5. Tesco’s Finest Gavi - £7.99
Made with Cortese grapes Gavi is the in white wine at the moment and two of the team had as their third best wine of the evening and another 5 their fourth best wine. This was a great looking and very clear wine which proved itself a good wine to pair with food. After much debate we decided that the principle taste was elderflower with a marmalade bouquet. John E said he liked the extra acidity compared to the Pinot Grigio white. Wine scoring went 11.5+, 12, 11, 10, 9, 10, 11, 9. An unexceptional but safe wine.

6. Inycon Nero D’Avola Frappato 2009 Sicilia – Waitrose – 6.49
Although the Sicilian Merlot did very well, the Sicilian wine made with the local Nero D’Avola grapes did less well. Although one person had it as their bronze medal winner, a resounding five had it as their least favourite wine of the evening. The reason for this was that, although it has a great start when you put it in your mouth, it disappeared to nothing almost immediately and had no linger. It had quite a lot of tannin and appeared to need food. A very purple wine, the aromas were of tobacco, nutmeg, coffee and dark chocolate. Due to the poor length the scores were 7.5+, 10, 10, 9.5, 9, 10.5, 8, 9.

Thus nearly ended a really good evening that was probably one of our best Tongham Tasters yet. Some of us then started tasting the Olive Oil and Tesco’s Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain got a big thumbs-up – very green in colour and fruity in taste. Great for dipping bread into and very reasonably priced. Then the conversation went totally off food and wine altogether.

John S volunteered to provide the wine for our April evening and we might expect some South African wines to creep in then. However, next in the firing line is Clive who is buying for our next event on Thursday February 17th. The evening cost our 9 participants just £5.48 each, which as we all put £10 in the pot, leaves us a growing kitty for something special later in the year. If you want to have a fun wine tasting evening for a maximum of £10, do join us at one of future events:

Thursday 17th February – Clive’s wines
Thursday 10th March – Steve S’s wines
Thursday 14th April – John S’s wines

If you want to join in the fun, just email us at tonghamtaster@gmail.com. We really welcome new members. If you want more details, request them by email or ring John on 07717 876743.

Thanks to everyone for turning up in a month when, supposedly, three of us are not drinking!