Dinner at the Xara Lodge on the 24th February

The February Qatra highlighted the second and third wines of some famous ‘supertuscan’ houses and these wines in my opinion did not disappoint. We did have one bottle that was off and this was discarded on being noticed and the diners affected had their wine replaced from a good bottle.

I and Nick were a bit surprised that the average vote was not a bit higher to be honest, especially since overall the supertuscan 2022s are considered very good, with some being good value while others not so much. These wines remain an interesting expression of Bordeaux blends from an ‘old world’ country. Today, such style of wines are produced in many regions of all European countries and also in the new world where the right combination of grapes can be produced.

The food vote was deservedly good and those at my table particularly gave good comments on the poached salmon and cod roulade which chef made more compatible with our full bodied reds by increasing the ‘umami’ element.

The white wine aperitif was the same we had during the January event and this was partly intentional to see if there will be consistency in the comments about it. The comments were very similar but the vote was a bit lower than January but not enough to be significant. I still think it is a very good value wine.

The other good value wine in my opinion was the Le Difese 2022 to which I gave the same top marks as the Serre Nuove 2022 which costs twice as much.

Iro