This is a beautiful white wine from the Loire Valley in France. Made with 100% Chenin Blanc grapes, from an excellent winemaker named Nicolas Idiart. He runs Maison Idiart, which produces a number of top quality wines. Grapes are hand harvested from 20-30 year old vines, immediately pressed before they undergo spontaneous fermentation in steel tanks. It’s matured for 10 months on the lees. It’s rare to find a bottle like this, with the quality it represents and at this price. It’s a very clean and beautiful representation of what the grape can achieve in the Loire Valley. Easy to drink on its own and incredibly versatile to pair with food. It might just be this summer’s Best Buy! Tasting Notes
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June is soon here and hopefully warmer days. Nothing beats soaking up the sun with a great Rosé wine. This week we have gone for an absolute bargain that is also of the highest quality! We like German wines here in KulTour. Usually we go for the fresh and complex Rieslings that are just superb. But the Germans plant other grapes as well and with global warming the Pinot Noir-driven wines from Germany have become better and better. This week we have found our wine at a producer that is well known here in Norway, Leitz. They have several wines in the Vinmonopolet, mostly Rieslings and ranging in price from 150,- all the way up to almost 1000,- for their TBA. One common denominator for the wines of Leitz is good quality along the line and this also applies for their rosé made from Pinot Noir. And at a price of just 150,- NOK this is a real bargain! Tasting notes:![]() Leitz Rheingau Pinot Noir Rosé 2022 - 150,- kr Very pale rose colour. Citrus, strawberries and lime on the nose with hints of herbs. As always with Leitz, great acidity that gives good structure to the wine. Red apples and red berries in the mouth with great length. Just a great quality wine! This is a drink with friends wine, but will go well with white fish, salads and chicken. Hardanger is to Norway, what Champagne is to France. Apples do not get any better, anywhere in the world. The combination of soli, drainage, temperature, rainfall and sun exposure makes the fjords of Hardanger in a league of its own, when it comes to growing apples. There are several cider producers in Hardanger that crafts excellent cider. And sometimes legendary batches of liquid gold rises. A particularly good vintage, paired with a talented cider maker can be magical. Our pick of the week is just that. Three kinds of apples from Hardanger, Summered, Gravenstein and Aroma. Picked to perfection when perfectly ripe, bursting with sugars and acidity. They are then frozen before pressing. What you then get is a super concentrated nectar, with only a few drops from each apple. The end product is astonishing. While it’s naturally sweet, the unique acidity of the Hardanger apples balances it all out. The cider feels fresh and vibrant, with tremendous flavor and elegance. The cider will age for 500 years and more. So if you’re cool, buy a few bottles for future generations. Tasting Notes
The 17th of May is coming up and everyone is ironing their finest clothes getting ready for a day of celebration. A lot of people will open a fine bottle of wine, usually something sparkling, to help with the celebrations. We never say no to wine with bubbles! But this year we’re staying home, also with our choice of drink! Followers of this blog will know our deep love and admiration for the cider being produced in Norway now. We have visited one producer in Hardanger and had cider as a wine of the week several times. But such is the quality of the cider produced now that we have no problem recommending a home grown bottle instead of more famous bubbles from all over Europe. Enjoy 17. May and Gratulerer med dagen! Tasting notes:![]() Hardangergutane Vindpust Eplesider - Kr 179,90 This is a lovely and sharp cider. Very pleasant on the nose with red apples dominating. Nice and long in the mouth with great acidity balancing the cider. It really is like biting into a fresh green apple. So yummy! ![]() Åkre Gard Edel Sider - Kr 173,90 A little bit rounder on the nose than the one from Hardangergutane. Also has great acidity to balance the cider. Leans a little toward red apples in the mouth. Still it’s fresh and long and lovely. A pleasure to drink. Both these are great as an aperitif, but will also handle the traditional Norwegian Koldtbord without any problems. I brought a case of this rosé to a spring celebration at work last year. It also featured a few other rosés, but this was by far the most popular. My colleagues just loved the combination of rich summer flavors and the light easy drinking feel of the wine. And since it comes in a non typical rosé bottle, they probably wouldn’t have selected it themselves. The wine is produced by Thymiopoulos Vineyards in Greece and features 100% Xynomavro. It’s a fabulous red grape, native to the country and can remind you of the Italian Nebbiolo grape. It’s known for producing structured and flavorful red wines and in this case a great rosé. Grapes are specially selected from higher altitude vineyards and naturally fermented. Tasting notes
We’ve had some days of fine weather and then suddenly and abruptly have changed to winter again - you know typically Norwegian spring. But as the eternal optimists that we are, we have started to look for the summer wines and think we have found a little gem from Italy. The Umani Ronchi winery was established in the 50s in the heart of the Verdicchio appellation and produces a large range of red, white and sparkling wines. They are proud to show off the best of the Marche and Abruzzo regions and this week's wine is both affordable and of great quality. Umani Ronchi I Sassi Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore or just I Sassi for short, is made from 100% Verdicchio grapes, picked from different plots in the heart of Cupramontana. The wine fermented in 10-15 days in steel tanks and then five months maturing on lees. Tasting notes:![]() Umani Ronchi I Sassi Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore 2021 - 179,90 kr Young and fruity on the nose, with hints of white flowers, peach and herbs. Good acidity gives the wine fine structure. In the mouth I get ripe yellow apples with hints of lime. This will go great with shellfish, all kinds of white fish, especially grilled. It also drinks nice all alone. We continue our love for Argentinian wines with this beautiful Malbec. Bodega Colomé has been making quality wines in the remote Calchaquí Valley since 1831. It’s the oldest winery in the country and one of the most highly regarded. They’ve focused on high altitude wines, with their highest vineyards peaking over 3000 meters above sea level. High altitude grapes develop thicker skin which in turn protects the fruit and produces more antioxidants. All of these factors result in a deep, vibrant, aromatic wine Our pick of the week is their estate Malbec. A spicy, rich and complex wine. Excellent with food, brilliant alone and a bargain. Tasting Notes
After the easter holidays everybody’s back to business as usual but fortunately at least the weather is looking up. The sun shone all over the country last week and has continued this week and we don’t need much to celebrate here at KulTour so we’ve picked up one of our favorite sparkling wines to pop this weekend. We visited the Bouillot winery back in 2016 and got to see their impressive winery up close. You can see the episode here: Since this has been our go to sparkling under 200,- NOK. It’s now priced at 199,90 so it’s just under the 200 now, but still worth it. So everyone should grab a bottle and go out in the spring sun. Tasting notes:![]() Louis Bouillot Crémant de Bourgogne Perle de Vigne Grand Réserve - 199,90 kr Very nice mousse. Lemon, lime and hints of a bakery on the nose. Long and fresh with great bubbles. Great and refreshing! It’s rare for a rosé wine to get 90 points, but our pick of the week deserves every single point. Simpson Wine Estate is situated outside the town of Canterbury, as far South East as you can get in England. Run by a couple with years of experience in the French wine industry, they’ve achieved remarkable results in England. They do excellent reds, whites and sparkling wines. All with impressive quality. We just tasted their Railway hill rosé, and it’s a stunner. 100% Pinot Noir, hand picked, whole cluster pressed and fermented in steel tanks. This is the essence of a British summer day. Tasting Notes
Easter is here and for some that means heading for the mountains and the last skiing of this season. For others it’s enjoying some peace and quiet at home.Either way good food and drink is usually at the table and this week's recommendation.is a perfect match to your easter meat of choice. For most people Bordeaux is a classic wine to go with beef. The problem have often been that the good Bordeaux-wines need age to be right to drink and not many people have the place or the patience to store wines for the time that a Bordeaux need. Fortunately Vinmonopolet have started selling good wines from Bordeaux with some age and at a very good price as well. The Chateau Lafitte-Tramier has been around for a few years now and it’s the 2010 vintage that you will find in the shops. Tasting notes:![]() Ch. Lafitte-Tramier 2010 - 309,90 kr Pencil shavings, leather couch, red bell peppers on the nose, exactly what you want from a Bordeaux. Fine and silky tannins in the mouth, the wine is drinking very nice now. Red pepper, mushroom and hints of red berries in the mouth. Worked like a charm with beef and bernaise! |
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