Wineshark weekly - 18 March 2012

This week I had my sparkling wine examination. All the three were rose sparkling, something I was not familiar. In my life so far I had only tasted one in fact. But fortunately it seems that I have guessed two of them correctly, with only the White Zinfandel sparkling (something I didn't know exist...) that I got wrong. The theory part of the exam was not too difficult, though I don't know whether I got all the points written. Hope the results will turn out better than I expect.

Now moving into the still wines part, the most difficult in the 6 papers. There are so many things to read and memorize, I have set a study plan, and with the amount of contents, I have to start now and do everyday, but it will still take me up to end Dec to finish all. The first part is Bordeaux and I am now also organizing some tastings with my friends for getting familiar with the wines.

Talking about wine I went to a Guigal tasting organized by ASC last week. The wines tasted were nice, and even though the best from their Cote Rotie like La Turque was not available, I did taste some good ones like Condrieu La Doriane 2009, Saint-Joseph Vignes de l'Hopsice 2007 and Cote Rotie Chateau d'Ampuis 2007. I also ordered a box set of them from the event.

My colleagues were saying that I was going to a lot of expensive restaurants. So this week I tried something different, the traditional wanton noodle. The shop I went was Ho Hung Kee in Causeway Bay. The signature is the Wanton Noodle, and obviously I ordered one. The noodle was chewy, and the soup was simply delicious. You can see that they have put the shrimp eggs into it. But of course the wanton is the star, having the right size and perfect proportion of pork and shrimp, wrapped in thin dough.

Apart from the wanton noodle, also ordered the Stir Fry Pork Rice Noodle. The rice noodle (or ho fan) was not gel together, and you can clearly separate individual stripes, showing the skill of the chef in cooking. The other dish was the Boiled Pig Liver and Kidney. There was not any smell that normally you will find on the kidney/liver, and it was just at the right level to maintain the crispiness without any feeling that it was not cooked properly. Again, the skills of the chef did show. Overall it cost $200, very expensive for the type of things we ordered but the quality was really good. Definitely worth to try!

I also cooked something yesterday. The first was a Prawn on Toast and the second was Chicken a la King. Even though the prawn on toast was good, problem is that eating too much can easily cause you a sore throat, because it is deep fried. The chicken was tasty also, and my wife actually packed some for her lunchbox to bring back to office on Mon. Detailed recipes are available in my blog.

This week I started to plan for my Sep wine tour. A preliminary itinerary was prepared though the cost was quite high and I need to further fine-tune. But there are good spots to go to. I am still considering whether after going to Burgundy and Alsace should I go to Bordeaux or Germany. Since I had been to Bordeaux before, I prefer actually going to Germany, especially with my friend still working there. I will share the final itinerary here once I fix it...

On the wine, I bought a bottle of Argentina Torrontes, from Bodega Tamari. That will be for one of my coming tasting. But I am also happy to add another premium into my top 100 collection: Krug Clos du Mesnil 1998, as a self-congratulation for finishing the exam. I promised myself that if I got a good grade, I will also buy another premium champagne like Salon or Bollinger VV Francaises.

Finally, to share with you the wines I tasted this week:

Acceptable quality mid-range Bordeaux, second wine of Chateau Kirwan, with a deep ruby colour and reasonably intense, youthful nose of blackberry, blackcurrant, plum, liquorice, cloves, smoke and violet. Fairly high in acidity, with a medium level tannin, bitter yet fine-grained. Medium in body, with a fairly light palate of blackberry, plum, liquorice, smoke and cedar. Finishing with a fairly short length, the wine is of fair complexity on nose though simple on palate, but still in good balance overall. Ready to drink now but can benefit from further ageing of 1-2 years.

Good quality mid-range Bordeaux red, second wine of Chateau Marquis de Terme, with fairly deep ruby colour and garnet rims. On the nose, it exhibits fairly intense and complex aromas of blackberry, plum, cedar, liquorice, savory, cigarbox and chocolate. Medium in acidity, with well-integrated and fine-grained tannin, the wine is of medium body and having reasonable intensity of blackberry, plum, chocolate, savory and smoke flavors, finishing with a reasonable length. Good balance overall, with a well-defined structure. Ready to drink now and can benefit from further ageing of another 2-3 years.

Good quality Bordeaux, second wine of Chateau d’Issan, with fairly intense ruby colour. On the nose, it has reasonably intense and developing aromas of blackberry, plum, smoke, liquorice, oak and hints of savory. Medium in acidity, with ripe and fine-grained tannin, the wine is of medium body and showing reasonably intense flavors of blackberry, plum, cedar, smoke and liquorice. Finishing with a reasonable length, the wine is not particularly complex, but still in good balance. Ready to drink now and can benefit from further ageing of another 2-3 years.

Good quality Bordeaux red, second wine of Chateau Montrose, with a deep ruby colour, a reasonably intense and developing nose of blackberry, plum, oak, smoke, liquorice, blackcurrant and leather. Medium in acidity, the high level of tannin is well-integrated and grippy. Medium in body, the palate shows reasonably intense flavors of blackberry, plum, liquorice, toast and smoke. Finishing with a reasonable length, the development of maturity characters on the nose is a good supplement to the good fruit ripeness. Overall in good balance. Ready to drink now but can benefit from further ageing of another 2-3 years.

Enough for this week, need to prepare to go to cooking class. See you all next week!