An Evening of Historic Wines Dinner, Thursday 21st November 2024
Dinners
Join us for one of our fine dining evenings. A perfect way to find out more about a specific wine region or style, or to simply relax over a more leisurely affair absorbing the knowledge of your expert host over several courses of the finest food and wine.
Food will be prepared in-house by our fantastic team, with Head Chef Stewart Turner at the helm; while our range of wine specialists will guide you through the glass in your hand.
When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
Book
Description
Spend an evening with fine wine specialist Nick Kemball, discovering some of the most historic and influential wines ever made and the stories behind them. From vineyards with thousands of years of heritage, to modern producers that have revolutionised the wine industry, this promises to be both delicious and fascinating in equal measure!
To begin, we will taste a Riesling from Pewsey Vale, the very first Riesling vineyard planted in Australia in the mid-19th century. Following this, we will have a fabulous comparative flight of Chardonnays, the first from the fabled hill of Corton, specifically the portion planted at the behest of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne in the 8th century. This will feature alongside a Chardonnay from the highly-acclaimed Sanford and Benedict Chardonnay, one of the first to be planted in Santa Barbara County.
With our main course, we will serve a trio of red wines, including Cask 23 from Stag’s Leap, the winery that famously secured top honours at the 1976 Judgment of Paris. This will be served alongside the unique Historical XIX Century Wine from Château Palmer, which emulates the 19th-century practice of cross-regional blending, and the modern-day great Penfold’s Grange, served from magnum, with over two decades of maturity.
To finish, guests will enjoy a bottle of the South African dessert wine, Vin de Constance, a favourite of historical figures such as Louis XVI, Napoleon, and Thomas Jefferson.
Our Executive Chef, Stewart Turner, will carefully put together an indulgent four-course meal, designed to pair with and showcase these wines in their very best light.
Wines to be tasted:
Apéritif: Nyetimber, Blanc de Blancs, Brut, Sussex, England
2016 Pewsey Vale, The Contours Riesling, Museum Reserve, Eden Valley, Australia
2020 Corton-Charlemagne, Grand Cru, Domaine Bouchard Père & Fils, Burgundy
2017 Racines, Sanford & Benedict Chardonnay, Santa Rita Hills, California, USA
2016 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Cask 23, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California, USA
Historical XIX Century Wine, Château Palmer, Bordeaux
2003 Penfolds, Grange, Bin 95, Australia
2019 Klein Constantia, Vin de Constance, Constantia, South Africa
Dress code: smart casual
Event details
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