The Chignal Wine Discovery Group was established in September 2003. We meet on the 2nd Friday of the month at 8.00pm in the Village Hall, Chignal St James. Our aim is to explore different wines, to learn about the wines we drink and try something different that we might not ordinarily buy ourselves. We have a mixture of both visiting speakers and members from the group presenting wines. We usually taste 6 wines in an evening and enjoy cheese with the wine after the formal tasting has finished.
For more information, please contact: Dave Thomas – 01245 442474
We welcomed Jack Watts from Peter Watts Wines in Coggeshall in June, and learnt all about gooseneck barnacles!
These highly prized crustaceans are named Percebes in Spainish and come from the Galician coast in north west Spain. Customers there pay up to 200 euros per kilo for superb quality Percebes. This extraordinary price results from the extreme circumstances in which the rare barnacles are harvested from the rocky cliffs off the Galician coast.
This delicacy is typically served with Albarino wine, widely regarded as the finest white wine in Spain, and also produced in Galicia. We tasted a very good example of this wine called Linar de Vides Albarino, priced at £16.90.
Peter Watts Wines sells wine from around 500 small producers and they look for quirky, interesting wines. My other favourite was a red Tempranillo called Aliaga Tempranillo ‘Patricia’ from Navarra, costing £11.90 and named after the grower’s daughter. It was soft, fruity and delicious.
Jack talked to us about a couple of current trends in wine retailing. The rosé wine we tasted was so pale and this blush colour is much in demand at the moment here – although darker rosés are popular in Spain. He also mentioned that consumers are increasingly looking for somewhat lower alcohol wines.