Wine and Cheese

Time to actually blog again, and hopefully in a more interesting way! The other day I, my fiancée, and four very good friends decided to have a wine and cheese evening. It had been brewing for some time, as we had somewhat evolved into a dining (and singing) club over the previous few months. For a bit of variety we decided to replace dinner with canapés, and focus more on the wines.

I therefore, armed with a reasonable budget, went to the excellent and highly recommended Oxford Wine Company. We had decided to use this opportunity to learn a bit more about French red wine, and to also see if we could actually tell the difference between reasonably cheap wine (£20 per bottle), and more expensive wine (£45 per bottle). In the end, we purchase 3.5 bottles of wine, as follows:

1. Saint-Aubin 1er Cru ‘Le Charmois’, Château de Chassagne Montrachet (2006)

This wine is a Burgundy (a Pinot Noir from the Burgundy region), and was the lightest in colour and depth of the three red wines purchased. We all agreed that this wine was an excellent way to start the evening.

2. Château Jean Voisin, St. Émilion Grand Cru (2002)

This wine was a real treat. The tannins were first very noticeable, but after about 20 minutes of sitting in the glass and warming slightly, they dropped off revealing an exquisitely smooth wine, which went excellently with our varieties of cheese (see picture) and the end of the canapés. The primary grape here is merlot, with some cabernet sauvignon in the blend, typical of “Right Bank” Bordeaux appellations.

3. Château Dufort Vivens, 2ème Grand Cru Classé, Margaux

This wine was the most expensive of the three, and the oldest, being a 1995 vintage. This is a left-bank wine being a mixture of the same two grape varieties as the St émilion above, but this time with a higher proportion of cabernet sauvignon. This wine was really very very good, with a huge complexity of flavours throughout. The problem we found was that this actually made it harder to drink than the less complex St émilion. This is a wine I’d definitely want to try again, but this time with some tasting guidance and the ability to take some tasting notes. Wines of this style typically age very well (some only reach their best after several decades) and this was evident here.

4. 37.5cl Château Coutet, 1er Cru Classé, Barsac (1998)

A dessert wine to finish with, and only a mouthful each. This was a typical dessert wine with a thick syrupy colour and taste, but surprisingly refreshing. For a dessert wine, this is actually quite an early drinker (only 13 years old) and proved this by being very drinkable on the day!

The Cheeses

Just for the record, the cheeses consumed were a mature cheddar, some gruyère, manchego and some particularly excellent stilton.

I’d drink all the wines again, but the one I’ve bought another bottle of so far was wine no. 2, which will be excellent on its own, or with some Easter lamb!

Graeme Swann became the first England off-spinner to take ten wickets in a match since Jim Laker took 19 over 50 years ago, although I still think England would have been better off picking two spinners for this match; poor Swanny had to toil through nearly 80 overs throughout the game, that’s nearly two days of solid bowling. Back in England in the summer though, where turning pitches are less common, he has to be the first choice spinner, and probably first name on the team-sheet. It’s been an amazing start to a test career.

The next match that begins on Saturday will hopefully be a good contest. It would be good to see Bangladesh bat first and to set England a challenging target. England still look as though they have the potential for a top-order collapse with inexperienced batsmen towards the top of the order, and a middle-order slowly working its way into some form.

Meanwhile in the IPL, still no sign of the “mongoose” from Matthew Hayden, but some excellent big-hitting from Dhoni today livened up proceedings somewhat!

My colleague is, however, on another engagement today, and so it’s one of those evenings where the only real option is to do a bit of work, put on the snooker, and order room service, which is terribly decadent and lazy, but I think better than sitting alone in a restaurant looking a little bit silly. I may be wrong though!

One of the plus sides of this job is that at the weekend I get to see my family, who are also of the Northern persuasion, living just over the Pennines in Yorkshire, so I’ll call in and see them tomorrow evening, before heading back to Oxford for the long weekend, and to meet up with an old friend – Simon MacHale of quasimodal fame no less – to show him what May Day in Oxford has to offer!

Another benefit of work related travel is that my hotel this time has a lovely pool, jacuzzi and sauna, so I’m feeling pretty chilled out this evening!

Looking out over the bow

My friend Helen lives on a houseboat, which is convenient, since like a snail she can take her home with her. The other weekend she decided to use the boat to get to a wedding, and requested some company/help returning home the day after. I dutifully took my car to Moulsford, a beautiful village just south of Wallingford, and joined her on a lovely sunny day for the 18 mile trip back to Oxford. Since it is an upstream journey, and there are four locks, this would take us the next 6 hours.

Fortunately, the sun was shining, and Helen had organised various suitable items for lunch – sandwiches, wine, chilled beer – and so we gently pootled up river at at least 3.5 miles an hour (when the current wasn’t too strong). The nice thing about a mode of transport which really can’t get above 5 miles per hour is that it is perfectly acceptable form to have a small glass of wine whilst driving it.

The remains of lunch - which included Strawberries and cream

Upstream locks make for particular fun; since you are entering from the bottom of the lock, the lock sides are often well above you! For two of the four locks, the sides were reachable by a reasonable leap from the roof of the moving boat in order to get ropes around the bollards. For the other two, we needed to aim for the steps at the centres of the lock. In one case this involved what was effectively a race between my ability to get up the steps (which faced downstream) in the opposite direction of travel to the boat, whilst getting to the top before i ran out of rope length and got yanked back down them – I just made it.

Travelling through oxfordshire on the Thames really makes you appreciate the beauty of the area – Oxfordshire is not renowned for exciting landscapes, but there are many beautiful ones, often containing old and rather large houses! There are also several beautiful bridges – for the railway to London and roads too.

So, in all I had a fantastic day, and when I eventually got a lift back home, it was in a convertible MG too. Fab fun, fab company, fab day!

A view from the river

Small traffic jam as we approach the bridge under the main line to London Paddington

The beautiful road bridge at Clifton Hampden

The Thames at Moulsford

Two particular favourites:

1. The etiquette related to taking seats. Usually I get a train which starts at Oxford, and there are always plenty of seats. Obviously the table seats tend to fill first, since if you want to work on a laptop these are the only seats with enough space to work comfortably. This isn’t particularly interesting. What interests me, as a scientist, is how people fill up the rest of the seats (which are usually in twos). A commuter train is full of people travelling alone, and unless one has to, very rarely do two people sit together – just like electrons in atoms (see my chemistry pages). As the train fills, however, and people need to join someone, there is very much a gender split – women sit with women, and men with men. Surely the average businessman is not so threatening that a woman travelling alone would need to avoid sharing a seat with one? Or has our current culture brought us to the stage where we tend to trust no-one? I hope not.

2. This is a much less serious point, but is a terrible reflection on the pressures of life. At busy times, there are fast trains from Reading to London Paddington every 3-5 minutes, so why, every day, do people come barging through those getting off the train, down to the platform, and then claw at the locked doors as the train is trying to pull out, when they could just walk to the next platform, and get the following train, which is often already arriving at the station. I see this everyday – what is there to gain? What’s the point. We all have busy lives, but surely 5 minutes delay in your journey won’t affect you too much, and besides, if it’s that important, get up five minutes earlier. Besides, it’s dangerous, moving train, lots of people, crowded platform – accident waiting to happen.