Cork & Bottle Wine Bar

Slowly falling in love with this wine bar – it’s unpretentious, has a really good wine list and serves a variety of decent priced, well-tasting food. It’s not really what you expect from a wine bar located in one of London’s most notorious tourist places. I don’t know if it’s because you have to order everything in the bar or the fact that it’s located right next to a sex shop in a basement, but somehow you can get a table at this place on a Saturday evening without too much hassle.

The wine is good and they have a good selection on glass that actually changes fairly often (don't ask how I happen to know this...). Further, the staff is knowledgeable and they will let you taste before deciding on what to drink (only the wines on glass though). So many, many Linda points for the Cork & Bottle at Leicester Square!

Cork & Bottle Wine Bar
44-46 Cranbourn Street
Leicester Square
London, WC2H 7AN
Telephone: 0871 3328201

Pink pleasures

I am a big believer in enjoying whatever wine you like whenever you like so when people argue that pinks are to be enjoyed only in summer, I don’t really agree. However, I must confess that I had my first glass of rosé (in 2007 that is) this past week and it was really good!
There are many different styles of rosé wines made from a wide variety of grapes varieties. I like bone dry and very delicate rosé wines and the one below was just gorgeous!

Les Champs Clos 2005 Sancerre rosé, Loire, France
A pale pink coloured wine showing fragrant red berry aromas. Bone dry on the palate with delicate strawberry notes and a soft finish. We enjoyed it with freshly cooked crab and it worked really well.

This wine is made in the village of Sancerre in the Loire Valley. Sancerre is mostly famous for their whites made from sauvignon blanc, however there is a small production of rosé and red wines here and they are always made from pinot noir – hence the price. (wines carrying the name Sancerre on the label have to be made from either sauvignon blanc or pinot noir grapes – it’s the law!) This wine is available from Nicholas (plenty of locations in London), £11.99

Austria tasting

Just a quick update to give all of you who came to Anna’s birthday party and the tasting of Austrian wines the names and prices of the wines we tried. They appear below in the order we tasted them. It was great to get so much feedback on the wines and hear everyone’s opinions about them! For those of you who liked Austrian wines, I’ll be tasting a lot more from this country and will keep you updated on fun and yummy wines! As always keep me updated on what you are drinking and any questions about wine or wine and food matching just post a comment or email me!

Felsner Grüner Veltliner Moosburgerin 2005 Kremstal, Austria (about £8 at Waitrose)

Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Berg-Vogelsang 2005, Kamptal, Austria (about £12.50 at Waitrose)

Feiler-Artinger Umriss Blaufränkisch Rust, Burgenland 2003/04 (about £14 at Handford wines – see link to their website, they have two shops in central London and are well worth a visit!)