|
|
Post by peterob on Jul 29, 2025 7:07:29 GMT
Was 2024 a year for 'dry' wines? Or is global warming to blame? I suppose it could be my taste buds are getting sensitive to dryness in wines, but I don't really think that's the case. I don't want a sweet wine, just a pleasantly moderate one. Although there are good years and poor years for wine I'd have thought that the main effect would be price - in a poor year the yield of grapes giving the desired quality result would be less, fewer bottles made and hence the cost per bottle increases. Many wines for the mass market are made deliberately syrupy because that's what people seem to want. I was quite surprised to find, when I lived in Brussels where they are quite fussy about wine, that whites were very much more expensive than reds in the shops, basically no-one would buy the kind of stuff we have on sale in the UK. When I got back I was quite shocked that I could no longer find a reasonably priced red. I'd got used to even a basic supermarket carrying a choice of maybe 200+ French red wines, fewer whites. No international "brands", all individual makers and bottled at the chateau, although some not from France. I was quite surprised at the news coverage a couple of months ago about a strike at one of the three bottling plants that served the UK supermarket wine trade. Most of it comes in by tanker and is bottled, labelled and screw-capped in the UK. |
|
|
|
Post by geoffr on Jul 29, 2025 7:18:30 GMT
In combination with cold nights, isn't it? That was the bit I couldn’t remember |
|
|
|
Post by geoffr on Jul 29, 2025 7:21:23 GMT
Was 2024 a year for 'dry' wines? Or is global warming to blame? I suppose it could be my taste buds are getting sensitive to dryness in wines, but I don't really think that's the case. I don't want a sweet wine, just a pleasantly moderate one. Although there are good years and poor years for wine I'd have thought that the main effect would be price - in a poor year the yield of grapes giving the desired quality result would be less, fewer bottles made and hence the cost per bottle increases. Many wines for the mass market are made deliberately syrupy because that's what people seem to want. I was quite surprised to find, when I lived in Brussels where they are quite fussy about wine, that whites were very much more expensive than reds in the shops, basically no-one would buy the kind of stuff we have on sale in the UK. When I got back I was quite shocked that I could no longer find a reasonably priced red. I'd got used to even a basic supermarket carrying a choice of maybe 200+ French red wines, fewer whites. No international "brands", all individual makers and bottled at the chateau, although some not from France. I was quite surprised at the news coverage a couple of months ago about a strike at one of the three bottling plants that served the UK supermarket wine trade. Most of it comes in by tanker and is bottled, labelled and screw-capped in the UK. If you read the label on the bottle it says it was bottled inthe UK |
|
|
|
Post by John Farrell on Jul 29, 2025 7:39:05 GMT
In the supermarket I frequent here, cheaper wines are "brand names" - Jacobs Creek, Selaks etc. They name the grape variety and growing region on the bottle. It's only more expensive wines, like Central Otago Pinots Noir, that will have a vineyard name on them.
|
|
|
|
Post by spinno on Jul 29, 2025 10:17:12 GMT
Only 108 days to my real birthday As opposed to your 21st? my new birthday... 10/6/2019 when I came/brought back to life...rather morbid but would have needed a certificate to prove extinction, and then another to prove new beginning...one day it'll all be possible |
|
|
|
Post by willien on Jul 29, 2025 10:45:26 GMT
my new birthday... 10/6/2019 when I came/brought back to life...rather morbid but would have needed a certificate to prove extinction, and then another to prove new beginning...one day it'll all be possible Your own personal renaissance.  |
|
|
|
Post by daves on Jul 29, 2025 12:35:49 GMT
my new birthday... 10/6/2019 when I came/brought back to life...rather morbid but would have needed a certificate to prove extinction, and then another to prove new beginning...one day it'll all be possible *Sigh* if I ever get as far as *that* surgery... you know what I'm talking about. |
|
|
|
Post by kate on Aug 6, 2025 19:37:34 GMT
Spooky that the book I'm currently reading involves a possible plot to create a miniature dirty bomb. Strange feeling that I'm reading this on the day Hiroshima was bombed in 1945.
It made me go to my dad's diary and all he said was Japan has capitulated (hopefully) and prays it is all over.
|
|
|
|
Post by MJB on Aug 7, 2025 18:36:49 GMT
I've been in Wales for 5 weeks and I still haven't seen a Red Kite locally. I've live within 5 miles of the sea and gulls are a rare sight. Even when sat with a bag of chips on Tenby seafront the gulls aren't being a nuisance, not like the English gulls that'll rob you blind.
|
|
|
|
Post by willien on Aug 7, 2025 18:48:20 GMT
I've been in Wales for 5 weeks and I still haven't seen a Red Kite locally. I've live within 5 miles of the sea and gulls are a rare sight. Even when sat with a bag of chips on Tenby seafront the gulls aren't being a nuisance, not like the English gulls that'll rob you blind. So, one WGYGs and one RTBC? |
|
