I Drink, therefore I Run

So it is often said...but did I agree? Today I agree. I have been drinking very well of late. A bit too much wine bought about 5 years ago - needs drinking up! So I am a bit spoiled in that respect. I just opened a bottle of Barbera. Not badly made, just cheap. About €0.25 a bottle I reckon. But by gosh you do notice that it is chemical, confected and lacking in any depth. So I swiftly opened a good (not great, just good) bottle of Verdicchio. Order is restored..

Sunday brought my first race in a long time - the first since the London Marathon in April. I had originally decided to aim for as many of the races in the Hampshire league as possible - and then promptly failed by missing the first one (fair point - because we were on holiday for a week!). I was also aware that my running has been a bit goal-less in recent months, so there was something about sticking to what I had said I would do - and if nothing else, we'd know where the fitness levels really stood... ..and the answer was, most satisfyingly, pretty good! The Victory 5 is a flat-as-a-pancake race from the track at the Mountbatten sports centre in Portsmouth, up to IBM, and then back to finish on the track. Just under 1000 runners, with some really fast Johnnies at the front end. I started well enough, then had to pul in to the side of the track after only 100m to tie my shoelaces - and experienced the pain of the field rushing by me! I rejoined and spent the next 2 minutes weav...

Just a short post, from a lovely 5 days at Champneys. Lots of exercise, and a goodly amount of rest. I am delighted to confirm that this place has moved firmly from a health FARM to a health SPA - which is code for 'a bit less stern and Swedish, and you can have wine with dinner'. So, the (half) bottle of choice has been the very appropriately named fish wine, Sancerre Blanc, Armand Salmon, 2008. Not as cutting and pungently grassy as some, this has a great balance of richness and freshness, and a lovely fresh length of flavour. Really very nice indeed. A quick search on the inter-web brings this up as £12.40 from Fine Wines Direct. Now, back to the Spinning classes..then a wrap..then fit ball..then a massage..is this supposed to be restful??

Some weekends are definitely more focused on the gentle pleasures of life, and this one fits the bill very nicely. It started very well with finishing work on Friday, in the sure and certain contemplation of a week off, that was not going to involve rushing towards Gatwick. A short break in the UK beckoned, with 5 days at Champneys. Wine will not be the priority there, for sure, so I determined that until we went, it should be good stuff all the way. Marvellous!  In order to prepare fully for the exercise and health-fest that Champneys will be, on Saturday we went with Carol and Huw to have a champagne tea at Chewton Glen (Taittinger as well, not just House stuff!), which had been a birthday gift for Janet. The day was just what you want for this kind of thing - warm, but not too hot, the slow laziness of a September afternoon. After a glorious opener with the obligatory cucumber and salmon sandwichettes (no crusts, of course!) the ante in the calorie-fest was upped, moving in...

Something to spice up a Friday evening from the cellar. The supper was only a simple pasta, yet I did not feel like a Rhone or Italian wine. I came across a single bottle of Chorey Les Beaune 2006, Tollot-Beaut , that I think I got from a mixed case from the wine society. I first tried the 2002 of this wine with David Allen, at the Rose Bowl, and so I was pleasantly inclined to this wine. And so it proved to be. Chorey Les Beaune is definitely one of the 'less-well known' parts of Burgundy, and certainly a place for the value seeker who finds a producer committed to quality.  Frequently the wine is simply called Côte de Beaune Villages as that is what customers recognise. It was just what I was looking for on this sort of a night. The bottle itself is a marvel, with a very thin, swan-like neck, and I have not seen any other producers using a similar one. Anyway, the wine was just right. Slightly smoky on the nose (curious?) and with good strawberry fruit flavours...

What a great wine for a summer's evening. A good vinho verde such as this one, Quinta de Azevedo  2010 (£6.99, Waitrose) , is fresh, crisp, light and totally refreshing. It partners any light chicken or fish dish so well, and, being only 11.5% alcohol, doesn't give you a head the next morning! It is slightly chalky in style, and its youth shows in a bit of spritz. Vinho Verde is Portuguese, from the Minho region in the far north of the country, and  the name literally means "Green Wine" (red or white), referring to its youthful freshness.  The region is characterized by its many small growers, so the wine offered above is from Sogrape, the large wine producer. So, it is unique, a protected denomination, and you get a chance to talk about obscure grape varieties such as Loureiro and Arinto... The 2010 in particular has received good press, and won a number of medals, so I cannot claim an original find. That said, it is still worthy of a recommendation in a...

Back at work on Monday, from the two superlative weeks in Le Marche, and I remembered that I had agreed to run a tasting for 12 of the team at work. One of the guys had managed to organise a room in a local hotel, so we had a suitable venue for a bit of 'oenophilic activity'. I had billed the tasting as 'the best from John's cellar', and so I picked a representative selection of the great wines of the world, most with a bit of bottle age as well, and thus not that is widely available. One of my 'fears' when presenting a selection of high quality wines is that you can get a bit blasé about what you are paying for. So, by way of setting the tone, and also to establish the 'quality factor', we kicked off with an unexceptional bottle of Campo Viejo Rioja , a fiver from Asda. Not a bad wine, however, once you take tax off, it is a £2.50 bottle. This allowed me then to talk about what you get when you do 'choose up the list' - lower yields, gra...