Monthly Archives: November 2011

Caviste Director of Private Sales Mark Bedford has highlighted some of his favourite wines for Autumn drinking.

Find out what wines are tickling Mark's taste-buds this Autumn here.

We were delighted to read this review by Sally Easton on her web site www.winewisdom.com.

We think Sally sums up much better than we could the new spirit and some of the recent changes at Caviste.

Please do give it a read when you have a moment. Best of all you'll fund that the Labastida Crianza Rioja that Sally reviews is in our Christmas Crackers festive promotion - and at 6 for £80 you save over £1.50 a bottle making now the perfect time to try this wine - and it's great with roast Turkey too!

('Christmas Crackers' promotion available in store only)

Tonight Caviste MD Ben Llewelyn is hosting a Rhône Master class at our Overton shop.

If the table setting is anything to go by it's going to be an illustrative as well as informative evening for all those attending...

Some epic red wines being served too!

Update 03.11.11, by Peter Gentilli (Caviste Overton manager)

Last night saw the 2^nd in the Caviste Master Class series focussing on the wines of the Northern Rhône.  MD Ben Llewelyn led the lucky tasters through a grand tour of famous appellations; Côte Rôtie, Cornas and Condrieu to name but a few. He also wowed the crowd with a hand drawn table sized map (from memory!) of the region which helped bring a sense of geography to the proceedings. The session started with a contrasting pair of whites, the beguiling 2008 Condrieu from Domaine Phillipe Faury in all of its floral beauty followed by a magnificent 18 year old Hermitage by JL Chave from the 1993 vintage which served to show white wines really can age well. Plenty of minerality, green apples and a little candied orange peel.

We then moved onto the grape variety the northern Rhône is really all about – Syrah. 2010 Syrah, Yves Cuilleron from the top of the Côte Rôtie hill was soft juicy, full of dark fruit, smokey bacon and black pepper. Following the river south, next stop was the biodynamic 2009 Crozes Hermitage, Domaine Bruyères -  a great vintage and lovely Crozes. The next 2 wines really showed off the granitic qualities of the area’s soils – 2008 Cornas Granite 60VV, Vincent Paris, so called because the vines are planted on a 60 degree slope and 2005 St Joseph Les Granits, Chapoutier, brimming with sweet leather, black pepper, mocha & dark chocolate and a finish that just went on and on. The penultimate wine of the evening took us back up the river. The 2004 Cote Rotie ‘La Turque’, Guigal from the Cote Brune was stunning, its 46 months in oak had given it plenty of time to develop into a silky, complex, brooding wine drinking beautifully on the evening but with the ability to age for many years to come – fabulous.

The intended final wine of the evening found us staring down at the village of Tain from the hill of Hermitage itself, 2005 Hermitage ‘La Chapelle’, Jaboulet -  one of the most sought after and revered wines of the appellation. Damsons, plums, leather, five spice, and a clean minerality tantalised the taste buds in a seemingly never ending array of flavours and aromas. Just when we thought it was all over, and purely for comparison’s sake, a 2002 Hermitage ‘Cuvee Emilie’, Remizières managed to sneak its way into the tasting just to prove that you can find excellent Hermitage for less than £100 a bottle. There was no unanimous agreement on the ‘wine of the evening’ which proves that wine is truly a subjective entity. A magnificently informative and entertaining Master Class, roll on the next one!