Category: Paul

Eating in La Tasca in Cambridge the other day provided me with the opportunity to try a 2001 Rioja, which is a region of Spain where they use a blend of grapes to create their red wines. In this case, it was made from tempranillo and granacha grapes and...

Yesterday, I hosted a barbecue in my little courtyard at the back of my Cambridge townhouse. Despite rain most of the day and the promise of storms, the weather held off, as prayed for, precisely during the predetermined hours of the party. I thought I’d make the wine interesting and the...

Instead of the usual grand setting of a Cambridge college’s private room, this tasting was done in Cambridge Wine Merchant’s local shop on King’s Parade. It was very tempting to whisk a bottle off the well-stocked shelves, open it and pretend it was part of the tasting, but I...

Another Bordeaux tasting, by O W Loeb, with surprisingly few repeats from previous ones. It was held in Pembroke College’s beautiful Old Library, with a magnificently ornate plaster ceiling, featuring cherubs fishing for birds, amongst other strange things. My favourite of the day was the Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion, from the...

A lot of people at tastings spit the wine into a bucket. I shudder at the sight of this terrible waste and savour every drop that passes my lips, the favourite of Friday’s C G Bull & Taylor tasting being a Spanish Rioja called Lealtanza Crianza from 2001. Offered...

Yesterday I attended a tasting of Bordeaux-region wines organized by Hayward Bros (Wines) Ltd. The venue was the beautifully panelled Knox Shaw room of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University. A small selection of whites preceded the vast selection of reds. I then finished the tasting with a champagne and...