Photo by Roger Overall
Recently I posted a piece about Eiswein and a small planned tasting in Glanmire.
Well it was a grand evening. We tasted 3 different dessert wines. First up was the the Ernst Bretz Bechtolsheimer Sonnenberg Huxelrebe Beerenauslese followed by the Bockheimer Grafenstuck Eiswein. We finished up with the lovely Dexheimer Sonnenberg Scheurebe Eiswein. They were all quite different (not all dessert wines taste the same !). We all had our favourite and some were liked more than others. Ironically, the least expensive one, the Beerenauslese was probably the most popular one on the night.
Photo by Roger Overall
It summed up for me all that is right about wine. I would like to think that the wines contributed to the overall event but it was only a part of the evening. It was also about lively conversation on a wide variety of subjects ranging from Spike Milligan meeting Harry Seacombe to red moleskin books used by Picasso to the best applications for the iPhone and everything else in between. Thats what happens when you share a glass with a writer / poet and an award winning photographer. I was in position three in the creativity stakes for sure but such was the quality of the company, it did not matter
Roger Overall was kind enough to bring along some lovely high quality chocolate while Paul O Mahony (perhaps a distant relation ?) provided the venue and a wonderful selection of cheeses and cakes. It was interesting to try the wines with them. The food / wine matching had variable results, proving what the experts say. Wines must be as sweet or sweeter than the food. The salty element of the cheese contrasted with the sweetness of the wines to perfection. The chocolate (excellent quality – yum) and eiswein did not match well, but that was as expected. Chocolate is very difficult to pair with wine and so it proved to be the case here. A Vin Doux Natural (something like a fortified Grenache Noir) or a Vintage Port would work better. It was an interesting exercise in itself I thought. Some of the cakes worked perfectly well with the wines while the chocolate based cake again did not work. It was delicious on its own though. Yummmmm.
Photo by Roger Overall
One of the real true pleasures of wine for me is sharing. It was lovely to share wines with interesting people and engaging conversation. We spoke of wine but it never dominated the proceedings. Thats as it should be. Nobody likes a wine bore ! When I think of all the wonderful bottles of wine I have tasted, they have one thing in common. I’ve shared them with good people, great fun and lovely food.
I hope that this is the case when you have your next glass of wine
