Wordchester Valley Culver Hill White 2022

 This wine is from the Cotswolds from a vineyard and winery near Stroud, and fine wine it is too. Usually I am not too impressed by English table wines, but this one is different. The wine is estate produce with grapes picked in their own vineyards. It is produced from a blend of Bacchus, Ortega and Pinot Blanc grapes. Although it bears no relation to the grape blends of the Loire Valley, for me it is reminiscent. The wine is dry on the palate and smells and tastes of green fruits including a scent of apples. We drank it with fish in the company of my niece and her husband. All of us were impressed by the quality of the wine, the taste of which lingered quite long on the palate. We drank the wine while dining at the Bear Hotel on Redborough common perched on a hill which overlooks the Stroud valley and the river Severn below. Our whole meal was excellent; we ate by the fireside in the main bar with a large fire, which kept out the cold from outside. The restaurant staff had no objection to us choosing to eat in the main bar rather than the official restaurant. The menu was the same. The Bear did not have single or double Gloucester cheese on the menu which was a bit disappointing as it is a local cheese  made from Gloucester cattle. Nevermind the local wine made up for the missing cheese. Luckily my tasting buds are beginning to recover, so I was able to tell that the wine had its own distinct taster, which is the hallmark of a vey good wine. If ever you are in the area it is worth looking up the vineyard to buy and drink  a bottle or two to consume with good food. The wine is quite expensive but it is worth trying if only to see that some English wines are very well produced and taste good. I recommend it thoroughly 

https://www.woodchestervalleyvineyard.co.uk/shop/culver-hill

Pommard 2011 Premier Cru Bourgogne Rouge.

 A friend of mine bought this wine in France, and it is a blend of  premier cru wines from the appellation. Luckily, my sense of taste seems to be returning after taking some strong antibiotics for a chest abscess.

We drank this wine, with friends, at Christmas 2024 with pheasant. My wife and I and our friends agreed that the wine went down very well with the game and tasted just as a premier cru wine should on the palate. The wine was recognisably superior and a level above standard Bourgogne Rouge, and it ought to be given the price at over Euro 60 for a bottle. The wine had aged well and did not taste too strongly of oak but it tasted and smelt very good. The tannins had softened and the wine was of medium body and dry on the palate. The taste lingered for a long time. It had all the hallmarks of a very good wine. 

Now that I have got Type 2 diabetes I am limited very much so on how much alcohol I can consume, even though I am not taking insulin.  This means that I cannot enjoy wine in the quantities that I used to. I am now limiting myself to a couple of small glasses of wine a week. My wife and I have decided that it is not worth opening an expensive bottle when we have to save the wine for two or three days by using vacuum seals and pumps, we are, therefore, only going to open a decent bottle when we have company. This means that I cannot write about the wines that I love so often or drink them. I was thinking of not continuing with the blog , but there are still issues to write about when I can find time between exercise routines to keep my blood glucose levels done. I wish everyone a happy and fruitful New Year, and good health. 

Château Briot red 2019

A friend of ours gave me this wine. It is prize winning Bordeaux red from the Entre-Deux-Mers region. It represents exceptional value for money . Unfortunately, my sense of taste has not comeback fully, and perhaps it never will. On a recent trip to France I noticed that I could taste Champagne and other white wines much better, and was just about able to assure myself that the sparkling wine was not Prosecco , not that my family in France, who are all from the Champagne area, would dish up anything else. That was as far as my taste buds would allow.

My wife tasted the Château Briot and agreed that it was a typical example of Bordeaux red and  a superior one. Perhaps she should start writing this blog, in her own name, to save me from continuing embarrassment. 

https://www.vinatis.co.uk/65547-chateau-briot-2019?r=bing_uk&ids=shopping&msclkid=6a7e530581481d15de6635f6695577da

St Nicholas Abbey Barbados 20 year old rum and my sense of taste

 We have a friend who regularly goes to Barbados for a holiday. The other day we joined him and his wife at their place for a meal. At the end of a delicious meal our friend got out a bottle of St Nicholas Abbey rum which had spent 20 years in the cask. As I am now a diabetic, I have to limit my alcohol consumption especially after two small glasses of wine with a meal. I asked him to pour a minuscule of this most expensive liquor so that I could smell and taste a little. This rum is very expensive in London, and a bottle of this superior 20 year old will set you back over £500. It is cheaper in Barbados but still remains expensive.

Imagine my surprise when I sipped this rum; it did not taste foul and tasted very good, my sense of taste was coming back. My sense of smell had also improved enormously and I was able to smell cinnamon, apples, oranges and spices just as the producer described. I was delighted.

https://stnicholasabbey.com/Rum/Our-Rums/

https://lochsofwhisky.com//st-nicholas-abbey-20-year-old-barbados-single-cask-rum-1659?msclkid=e92a758531911dfd572a1350abce1d26

This was the best rum I have ever tasted , not that I have sampled many. My friend also produced the remnants of other bottles that he had brought back.. The twenty year old tasted and smelt by far the best. We both agreed that the 23 year which is much more expensive, was inferior to the 20 year old. A 15 year old bottle came close and so did a 12 year old. It just goes to show how important branding is when deciding the price of a spirit or a wine. The age of the drink does not always mean that an older "vintage" will taste better. Spirits do not improve in the bottle with age unlike wine. If you age a wine for too long it can ruin the taste no matter what the brand is or how expensive it is.  This was a marvellous tasting session even though I had to sip minuscule amounts of the rums.

I was relieved that my sense of taste is returning, and  now I can just about appreciate white wine.

Last night my wife and I shared half a bottle of Château Lanessan 2015 red. I could recognise that it was a Bordeaux but I could not go much further than that in assessing the quality or provenance of the wine. I still have a long way to go and I fear that my sense of taste will never return to normal. Hopefully, my fears are unfounded, as the full taste of wine is such a pleasure for me.

Sense of taste agin

 I am just about able, now, to appreciate red wine now that I have stopped taking antibiotics for a month.  However , I won't be winning any wine tasting prizes. White wine still tastes awful to me. Also to complicate matters I contracted diabetes at around the same time as my chest complaint. I don't know whether the two complaints have exacerbated one another: some doctors think yes and others think no,  The diabetes means that I have to limit what I drink to one glass of wine with food, which is no big deal for me, as I rarely used to drink more than a 250ml glass of wine per sitting especially in my latter years. However, the days of drinking half a bottle on rare occasions are gone.

 Whenever, I went to a wine-tasting I always used to spit out the wine after sampling it. Hopefully, my sense of taste will come back fully and I shall be able to taste and recognise all good wines and do plenty more spitting.

It is surprising how bad it is to lose your sense of taste: I almost lost it completely when I contracted Covid19, but it came back very quickly. In some respects a heavily modified sense of taste is worse, as some foods and wine taste foul especially foods like smoked fish and some fruits. The fruitiness of wine is covered up by a horrible bitter taste. I hope that I never have to take antibiotics again, but they did save my life if not my sense of taste. The quality of your life is considerably reduced when you become "taste blind", and I don't wish this on anyone.

Sense of taste coming back but slowly

 My sense of taste is coming back after I stopped taking Antibiotics for my chest complaint. I can just about perceive red wine as being pleasant. The other day, in a café, I drank a glass of Italian Sangiovese, but I could not appreciate the full taste of the wine. I could not identify where the wine came from. I could smell the wine as being pleasant but my taste buds made the wine taste a little bit bitter. White wine tastes foul for me now including my favorite tipple: Champagne. 

The other day some friends came around for lunch; my friend, Rob, likes a glass of whisky; so I poured him a shot of the Bowmore. I joined him  by filling my glass with one millilitre of this golden treasure. I could taste the whisky properly even though it was diluted with water; so I thought there were some hopes. Later we opened a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé: it taste so foul that I could not bear to drink it ,even a small glass.

I have been assured by others , who have been in the same position, that my sense of taste will eventually return. I am now a type 2 diabetic, but I can still drink red and white wines as they have little or no carbohydrate content.  I have to be careful, however, not to consume too much alcohol, but this does not bother me, and it never did even though I over-indulged occasionally. I can no longer over-indulge, but I have the will power to control myself. I wouldn't care at all if I never drank sprits again. I would not be too disappointed if I could not drink beer ever again, although I would miss a pint of the best draught ale. I would ,however, be bitterly disappointed if my sense of taste never came back sufficiently, so that I can enjoy a glass of good wine and identify, some of the time, where it comes from, either France, Spain or elsewhere. I am keeping my fingers crossed for an eventual recovery. 

I've lost my sense of taste, this is a desperate situation for me

 Recently I have contracted two illnesses, one of which landed me in hospital. I was hospitalised because of an abscess on my lung which lead to a pleural effusion which after weeks of antibiotics has not fully cleared. I also contracted type 2  diabetes. Both conditions are affecting one another. The antibiotics have played havoc with my sense of taste; strawberries taste both bitter and sweet, anything with a bit of salt such as smoked salmon tastes exceptionally salty, the taste of wine is ruined. Because of the diabetes I have decided not to drink much alcohol until I can manage my blood glucose easily. It's a good job I am not an alcoholic so there was no cold turkey.  I don't know what to do, as writing a wine blog is more or less useless until I get my sense of taste back, but I might just stick to writing about major issues.

We are having guests a the weekend for the first time in weeks. I shall share quater glass of champagne with them and a very small glass of red in the vain hope that  that the red will taste half decent.

I shall report back, but I do not hold out much hope until I am well finished with antibiotics.