Wine Tasting Riviera . Wine Events Riviera . Fine Wine Works » Wine Tasting Dinner

Love the Loire

Helen Brotherton — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:38:44 +0000

In between teaching on our WSET® Wine Courses this month, I’ve been busy dreaming up themes and ideas for our forthcoming programme of Gourmet Dinners and Food & Wine Matching events. I suppose being forced to open several bottles from each region with one’s students (we do spit, actually!!) constantly refreshes the memory as to what wonders there are out there to be sipped and studied. The region closest to home that has really made me sit up and be impressed, has been the amazingly diverse Loire valley here in France.

It perfectly wends its way westwards from the very
heartland of central France, giving us elegant Sancerre’s through a dazzling array of fizz’s, white’s, red’s
and pink wines, from searingly bone dry to lusciously and intensely sweet and honeyed. I know my students were all taken aback and seriously stupefied to discover the versatility and variety of Loire wines.

So I’ve opted to take this as my theme for our 1st dinner on the 12th March. Numbers are limited as we will be having a cosy indoor evening with a log fire blazing rather than our more extensive Summer events out on the Terrace overlooking the Med! We shall no doubt kick off with one of the many top notch sparkling wines from the region – made in the same way as Champagne (i.e. Traditional Method) a delicately creamy Saumur will be offered to whet the appetite whilst I entertain with some facts and figures about our chosen region. I’m hoping to track down some Smoked Eel for a pre-dinner nibble I
have in mind….. We shall then glide through a starter of Oysters with Spinach & Beurre Blanc alongside a perky, yeasty and intensely savoury Muscadet Sevre et Maine sur lie. You cannot think of the Loire without marvelling at the array of amazing goat’s cheeses so I shall conjure up a voluptuous Twice-baked Goat’s Cheese Soufflé with a Carrot and Sweet Vouvray wine sauce. The archetypal partner with high acid goat’s cheese is a wine similarly high in acidity (the mouth watering tingly sensation you
experience with some particularly crisp wines gives an indication that there is plenty of refreshing acidity). So we shall travel along to the far East of this great wine country and tackle a really excellent Sauvignon Blanc – a Pouilly Fumé from the producer Laporte – we tried the Les Duchesses PF on the Advanced course last week and it knocked many a pricier wine into a cocked hat, as they say!

The centre piece of the evening is probably going to be my take on Coq au Vin with a Loire twist – think tasty Guinea Fowl with a deep Red Wine Sauce – I’ll be introducing the much under valued but immensely subtle red wines of the region here: I’ve long been a fan of the silky, raspberry fruited Chinon’s and St Nicholas de Bourgeuil wines made from Cabernet Franc. But I’m still toying between that and another Fish course to illustrate how certain lightish red wines can work with fish….hmmm, Loire Perch in a Chinon Sauce, perhaps? The finale will be a delicious Pear Tarte Tatin, which if I can lay my paws on the pear species, Belles Angevines (from Anjou) will be absolutely authentic of the Loire – apparently the buttery squidgy caramelised pastry pud, the Tatin is believed to originate from the
area. Also, orchard fruits are text book collaborators in the food & wine matching world for the honeyed apple character of the great sweet wines for the Loire. Here Chenin Blanc comes into its own and I shall be unearthing either a Coteaux du Layon, a Montlouis or a Bonnezaux to meet the challenge.

And so with drooling lips I ask you to check out our Forthcoming Events page for more details and how to book for this fine Dinner experience –at 60€ per person all inclusive, this is a real must!
Look forward to seeing you in March!

Helen Brotherton
08.02.10

Our first FWW Summer!

Helen Brotherton — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:31:08 +0000

Yachting, Trotting, Wining & Dining, Drinking & Thinking – our first FWW Summer! The Brotherton Family Hotel has now closed its doors for the season! All visitors and friends who have descended on us over the last three months have now gone back to the UK. The last batch left this morning, a good two hours later than planned so yet another FWW working day goes pear-shaped! However, even though we have had Thomas the Tank Engine to trip over, Shrek on DVD just as we need to make a phone call, a bathroom full of Strawberry Bubblebath and Plastic Sharks and a fridge full of Kinder Chocolate and Winnie the Pooh Yoghurt, we HAVE managed a pretty busy and exciting Summer workwise!

We’ve done lots of Wine Tasting Events: our own Fun Wine 4 Women concept has been very successful; we re-vamped our Food & Wine Matching Masterclass into a full blown 10 course Degustation Extravaganza Gourmet Dinner – you seriously have to skip lunch to get the most out of one of these! Plus we’ve run some Private Tutored Tastings on board a couple of Yachts and run Wine Tasting Challenges at various Summer Fetes, Charity Fundraisers and the International Club’s big Summer Event – the “We Are The World Party”.

Also, having sworn never to get back into her Chef’s gear, Helen has found herself catering for all sorts of Events and Tastings, big and small – have you any idea how hot a kitchen here on the Riviera can get in July and August???? The trick is to get up at around 5am and tackle pastry and other “oven” work, in the relative cool of the day – chopping can be done later when the temperature hits the mid 30’s!

The Wine Training courses for Yachts have, naturally, taken a break over the Summer, as crews have been busy with their Summer Med season. However, lesson planning and preparations for forthcoming Autumn courses have been ongoing. Oh, and wine sourcing for the Courses too! If anyone can find me a modern Greek red from Naoussa or Nemea here in the South of France in time for my Advanced course in November, I’d be very interested to hear from you!

Marketing plans for our Vilmart champagne are also blossoming nicely (take a look at our sexy new Vilmart Champagne page here on the website!) and we will be working with the Riviera Times to showcase the Champagne at the Monaco Yacht Show later in September. More of that anon!

Our new Winefinder Consultancy Service idea is still in its infancy but more of how that will work when we return from holiday. Yes, we at FWW are taking a very short break to address the now desperate state of affairs that means there is far too much Riesling in my blood stream and a trip to Germany’s wine regions is well overdue! I’m sure we will have tales to tell on our return – so watch this space, as they say.

Helen Brotherton – 28th August 2009

Gourmet Dinner - 10 courses and 8 wines!

Helen Brotherton

Wine Tasting Dinner Event in Antibes

Helen Brotherton — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:27:42 +0000

I think it’s fair to say that we are still reeling from the success of our 1st Wine Tasting Dinner, held at the fabulous “La Forge” restaurant in Antibes last Wednesday the 22nd April!

The day started pretty well too, with a meeting with the CEO and Winemaker of our chosen FWW Champagne, Vilmart & Cie. Laurent Champ happened to be holidaying nearby in Juan les Pins, so it was a chance to meet and explore how our businesses could work together. Once we’d explained in more detail about our Wine Tasting Events, the Wine Training for Yacht Crew and our small (but perfectly formed) Wine List we have now launched for clients here on the Côte d’Azur, he realised that we could be the gateway into the market on the Riviera that he doesn’t yet have. Vilmart export more than they sell in France, hence their cult following in the UK and USA (see previous BLOG for more details about this gorgeous fizz!)

So, the Dinner itself! We’d “sold” the idea of a fun wine tasting dinner to a selection of people, some through business contacts, some because they were involved in various Clubs & Associations here on the Riviera and some because we believed they just loved and adored wine. We quickly filled the places available, and alas, even had to turn a couple of folk away a few days before. The event was all
pre-booked and pre-paid and the room upstairs at La Forge being quite intimate we had no choice but to close reservations a couple of days before the event.The idea was to launch our new Wine List by tasting through a selection of the new International wines and also to showcase some of the Wine Games & Challenges and general Wine Entertainment that we can offer to groups and corporate & private clients. So we kicked off the evening with glasses of Vilmart Grande Réserve Champagne and once the guests were assembled, I took the opportunity to explain a little of the mystery and magic of Vilmart and what makes it so unusual. After a more general welcome from Nigel,
the guests were seated and the first White wine was served – “blind”! The idea was to challenge the guests to a sort of “Call My Bluff” game (we call it “Call My Quaff!) and to have us, the experts, describe 3 x different possible white wines that they could have in their glass and to leave them sniffing and swirling before deciding which of the experts “description” was correct and which were bluffs! Thus our Los Arbolitos Sauvignon Blanc from Chile was introduced – with only about a 1/3 of the room guessing correctly but unanimously enjoying the grassy yet tropical Sauvignon! Out came the Moules Farcies – juicy and garlicky and perfect with the crisp, clean fruit flavours of the Chilean white.

The next challenge was a “Guess the Grape” – I gave a brief “Idiots Guide Wine Tasting” and the main classic Grape Varieties and what to look for in terms of smell & taste, accompanied by a handout and then Didier, our charming and unbelievably cool and efficient waiter for the night, poured not just one, but two glasses of different Red wines for the guests to guess. A stonkingly good value 2nd wine Bordeaux (l’Oratoire de Chasse Spleen 2004 – so mostly Cabernet Sauvignon) and a smoothly seductive Rioja (Bodega Muriel Rioja Reserva 2001 – so Tempranillo the grape here) foxed all but a few of the assembled but all agreed that the magnificent Lamb dish that accompanied it was delicious. I think on a show of hands afterwards the Rioja just nudged it as the best match! Dessert was a royally rich Crème Brûlée – I’d also asked for some Roquefort cheese to be brought out as well so I could explain how our marvellous little “sweetie”, the Sauternes “look alike”, Ste Croix du Mont, works SOO well with salty blue cheese yet also complements a creamy dessert. Having explained the marvels of “noble rot” to make sweet wines, the guests tucked in. We then had a fast and frenzied round of “Vin Triv” – our Wine Trivia Quiz which brought out everyone’s competitive natures and got, well frankly, quite heated! After a “sudden death” tie-breaker, we had a winner and yes, Maurice Hardaker, our champion for the evening across all the challenges, was duly presented with a bottle of Vilmart Champagne.

What a night! The noise level in the room as people chatted, networked and socialised; the corresponding hush of intense concentration as wines were nosed, swirled, sipped and explored; and the admittedly rather gratifying applause and thanks at the end of the evening gives me a sneaking suspicion that it was rather a success!

Helen Brotherton