Beautiful Beaujolais, Chateau des Jacques, 2010, Louis Jadot, made in the area called Moulin-a-Vent, named after a windmill. This is a serious wine with serious character. It is every bit as potent as top-draw Burgundy so prepare to be entertained.

Chateau des jacques

We served this with a very rare fillet steak from the butcher, and a green bean salad with a dollop of Dijon mustard. The nose on the wine was ripe plums with a whiff of cherry and something deeper, almost flinty, rich warm and complex. It could easily pass as Burgundy; this point was proved when my Instagram post attracted the following comment: “Drunk it last Thursday. Strong pinot Noir. Very good.”

The tight tannic structure indicate that this is a wine that can lay down for a while and keep developing. With the rare fillet and oily salad, it was perfect. The fruit was a perfect match and the tannin cleared the palate ready for the next fork of food. Really enjoyable and at £15.99 it is a real bargain.

Moulin a Vent, Chateau des Jacques 2010 - Sainsbury £15.99

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Last week a picture was posted on Twitter of vines in Shabo, a large estate that lies to the west of Odesa on southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. The image seemed benign at face value but the reality, of course, is that the city of Odesa has been bracing itself for attack by Russian forces. 

 

As COVID-19 conspires with the grimmest of winds and rain to force a societal retreat behind our own front doors, the word ennui springs to mind. The muddle of displeasure is pierced when Natalia hands me a large bulbous glass of a liquid I do not recognise.

 

 

Britain’s lamentable exit

On the eve of Britain’s official departure from the EU, my partner and I decided to explore a small town on the Italian Riviera where thewintry cold doesn’t feel so much like cold war bite.

I had warned my significant other that I would be having an inverse departure party, a release of the sanity valve if you like!

 

Sitting inside the ancient castle walls inside the town of Soave, a short drive from Verona in northern Italy, the unique slightly almond aroma of the indigenous grape, Garganega, rises gently from my glass. The castle sprawls up the side of an extinct volcano that gives the region its variant soil structures that mark out the better quality of Soave wines.

 

Tanisha Townsend decided to move to Paris 4 years ago after regularly passing through the city en route to the world’s most famous vineyards. In fact, it was about 2 years ago at the Printemps de Champagne Bouzy Rouge tasting in Reims that I saw (who we shall now refer to as) GirlMeetsGlass chirpily speaking to her web followers on Snapchat.

 

The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the final resting place of Saint James, rises out of the landscape, infested with antiquity. The rambling steep streets give way to shafts of dramatic light, emblazoned chapels, and tightly packed tapas bars, dusty, as old novels pressed together in antiquarian bookshops.

 

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