AS I pretend to watch very little daytime television, I’m not sure if the catchphrase ‘try before you buy’ is still current, but if it’s right for house purchases it’s surely even more appropriate for wine.
There’s nothing quite like the chance not only to taste a wine before you splash out on a bottle, but to try it in comparison with a few other wines – or maybe 79 more, if you have enough stamina.
That happy, if potentially bewildering, prospect is offered to local wine lovers as one of the star events of the EAT! Newcastle Gateshead Festival next weekend.
It’s organised by the ever-enterprising Newcastle Wine School and involves no fewer than nine leading wine merchants, including many of the region’s best independent wine shops and importers.
They’ll gather in the Civic Centre on Sunday afternoon (12.30pm to 4pm) and tickets cost a very reasonable £20 – or £30 if you buy two. Mind you, they sold out well in advance of the event last year, so get your skates on if you want to go. Full details are on the EAT! website (www.eatnewcastlegateshead.com) or the Newcastle Wine School site (www.newcastlewineschool.com).
In addition to the very best of local newcomers, Carruthers & Kent, and much-loved, longer-established merchants like Michael Jobling, the Newcastle Wine Festival has drawn major national players Majestic and Waitrose. Other contributors are Porto Vino (Portuguese wine importers), Proteas Wines (South Africa specialists), Fenwick, Spanish Select (a new business) and quality French wine importers, Tyne Wines. And in addition, the Wine and Spirit Education Trust will be there with news of more opportunities to learn more about wine.
It should be a great afternoon and an opportunity not just to taste wine, but to talk, in a relaxed way, to folk who are passionate about it – without the faintest whiff of wine snobbery. And if you feel up to it, you can even try your hand at a ‘guess the wine competition.’
Although all wine lovers will have been desperately sorry to have seen Oddbins disappear from the high street and Threshers before them, it’s good to see that the gaping hole left by their demise is being filled locally by a host of excellent local businesses – and there are at least half a dozen more not represented at the Wine Festival. They offer an ever wider choice of fine wines at affordable prices.
Wine pops up in other fringe events during this year’s EAT! festival. On Saturday night, June 18, the hugely engaging and knowledgeable Portuguese wine importer Marta Mateus, will be showing a number of her superb wines as part of a gastronomic dinner organised in conjunction with The Next Big Event at Victoria Road Hall, Hebburn. It begins at 7pm and tickets cost £40. Marta will match wine with four courses cooked by head chef Sarah Clemson. The EAT! festival website tells you how to book.
The previous evening, Friday June 17, there’s a wine tasting at St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle: Bread and Wine People at 7pm. I’ve been roped in to present a personal selection of eight wines and there’ll be a goodly selection of local artisan breads, meats and Northumbrian cheeses to try too. I gather tickets for this event are also selling rather fast – maybe because it costs just £12.50. Full details are on the EAT! website.
Regular readers may have cottoned on that I’m particularly fascinated by organic wine and I’m always delighted to push fairtrade wine at every possible opportunity. All the wines I’ll show will fall into one or other camp – and some into both, but my main aim in choosing them has been to find wines that taste really good and which are a little bit out of the ordinary. And to keep it as local as possible, they’ll all be supplied by shops in our region.
The EAT! festival gets better each year and I’m thrilled that wine has such a big part in it, but it’s worth remembering that there are a huge number of exciting wine events, courses and tastings that go on throughout the year.
The Newcastle Wine School is a great place to start. Their impressively wide range of events caters for beginners and wine buffs alike. Advintage offer wine tours each year (this year it’s Tuscany) and regular courses in the region www.advintagewine.co.uk.
My own company Vine Visit Ltd, offers quite a number of wine holidays each year and a full and varied programme of tastings, courses and wine dinners, www.vinevisit.com. On June 16 at 6.30pm, for example, we have a tasting of wines made from some terrific local Spanish grape varieties, with dinner at the Northern Counties Club in Hood Street, Newcastle.
Seaham Hall, Eslington Villa, The Lion and Lamb at Horsley, Matfen Hall and Blackfriars Restaurant all have food and wine events in their programmes over the next few months – and I’m certain there are others too. Rothbury Wines has a lively Wine Club and there are at least three other well-supported and long-established local Wine tasting Societies in the region.
We’ll do our best to keep you informed!
WINE OF THE WEEK
Santa Marta Rosé 2010, DOC Douro £7.49 Marta Vine (www.martavine.co.uk)
As deliciously a fruity summer rosé as you could hope to find: after a smell of ripe red fruits with wild herbs, the juice explodes in the mouth, initially sweet, intensely strawberry, then a dry finish. Perfect for a summer al fresco buffet.
WINE EXTRAS
As well as my wine of the week, I’ve just tasted a few more of Marta Mateus’s latest additions to her well-chosen list. My favourite is a superb, special-occasion red from the Douro Valley: Portal Colheita 2008 (£10.49). It has plenty of spicy black fruit, with a lovely balance between fruit, acidity and (ripe) tannins – a complex, satisfying wine that brilliantly avoids the over-alcoholic kick of some Douro reds.
The same firm make very good port. Try their 10-year-old Tawny (£20.49), slightly chilled for a surprisingly refreshing summer tipple. Fruity in a raisiny way and quite spicy, the sweetness is balanced by fresh acidity and leads into a lingering flavour of dried fruits.
Marta, who’s based at Heddon-on-the-Wall, will deliver locally: www.martavine.co.uk or 01661 854533.