Tis the season to be merry…

The Christmas holidays are upon us.  The Wine Detective will be on holidays until the New Year when I shall reveal my Wines of the Month. Meantime, I wish you all the merriest of Christmases and happiest of New Years.

Here’s hoping you have some fine wines lined up for your holidays. I’ve been ‘practising’ hard for the merriment this month.  At The Yeatman Christmas Experience, then at our good friends’ Peter & Paul’s annual Christmas lunch – the perfect excuse to raid the cellar for some fine fortifieds (pictured).  The Fonseca is drinking beautifully now, with gorgeous sweet fruit still.

As for the next couple of days, it will be Champagne cocktails at mine on Christmas Eve, Anselmo Mendes Contacto with fish pie and Quinta do Noval Colheita Tawny 1995 for salted caramel chocolate torte.

For the big day I’ve dug up an elegant Chateauneuf du Pape (2000 Clos du Papes) and a more recent acquisition, Cirillo Vincent Grenache 2013 for the turkey eaters.  Me and t’other half will enjoy a bottle of Quinta dos Carvalhais Reserva Especial Branco NV (2013 bottling) with our wild mushroom and ricotta filo parcels with a Madeira sauce.  Yum.

And, back to cellar excavations, I’ve been unusually (incredibly!) patient, conscientiously waiting until this year to open the Peter Lehmann Vintage Fortified AD 2016.  I bought it back in the day when I worked at Oddbins.  The reference to AD 2016 is the winemaker’s recommended coming of age.

My last bottle of Arras Grand Vintage 2005 is earmarked for New Year’s Eve – a nice reminder of my recent travels to Tasmania when I tasted the creamy 2007.  My next purchase?  Looks like that’s one New Year’s resolution sorted!

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