A quick witted cricket critic. 

They say the weekend starts on Friday and they’re not wrong. Having had a work event in the diary for quite some time, I took Wednesday and Thursday as ‘wine free’ days in preparation.

Along came Friday and most of Zazzle (the company I work for) piled into a bus and headed North for Leeds to see our colleagues at Stickyeyes. The day was organised so that we did some sporting things in the afternoon and once that was out of the way, tucked into a BBQ, a free bar (shudders) and some seriously impressive karaoke (shout out to Stuart and Mark.)

I started my tipples with a few glasses of rosé, moved onto Prosecco and then there’s a blur of rum, gin, something called a Bramble and then there was some tequila and some jägerbombs and then the best bbq chicken kebab ever…

I, of course, still took the wine tasting seriously and even took some arty photos of the glass of Prosecco in front of this bizarre structure that was supposed to be a lion but definitely looks like a boxing hare in my opinion.

Saturday night back in the relative safety of Rutland and I was regretting my offer to host a BBQ in the lovely sunny weather Ketton was putting on show. To get myself out of the alcohol induced stupor I was in I bribed my sister into coming for a long hack (that’s a horse ride around the countryside) with me where we stopped to get delicious ice-cream in Fineshade woods. I then jumped on the next horse (Robbie) and schooled him for a bit and I was back to my relatively normal self.

I’d ordered a box of wines from Twelve Green Bottles and so was really looking forward to trying their Prosecco and rosé with a starter of Gambas Pil-Pil (my all-time favourite starter) some scrumptious barbecued meats and a big healthy, much needed, green salad.

There’s no rest for the wicked and Sunday involved a very last-minute barbecue too. I was visiting a friend who has just got back from following the Lions tour in New Zealand. He’s got a bit podgy so I’d suggested burning some of it off over a game of tennis, caring friend that I am. Wimbledon is on the TV and I cannot resist tennis at this time of year, bloody love it, and I can’t wait to work my way through Will Lyons Wimbledon Wines he suggested in The Sunday Times Magazine over the weekend. Tennis invariably involved various gins and wine too but I completely forgot to keep track of what they were – terrible blogger.

Reviews and arty photography coming up:

Rosé D’Anjou

Gamay-Grolleau 2015

France, 11%

This was one of the house rosés on offer in The Tetley in Leeds. The lady behind the bar offered the obligatory ‘sweet or dry’ option and I said sweet and then had this really quite dry rosé handed to me, normal protocol. This is going to sound really bad, but it tasted like Echo Falls…it was drinkable but just not my sort of thing at all.

Treviso Ponte Prosecco

Veneto, Italy 11%

This is quite a popular pub Prosecco and I think it’s perfect for the job. Very refreshing, quite dry but that good sort of dry that makes you want to drink more and more and more. This was also in The Tetley in Leeds and I believe at certain points of the day it’s only a cheerful £3 a glass.

Riptide

White Zinfandel 9.5%

(If I’d taken more notice of the 9.5% I probably wouldn’t have bought it)

California 2015

I was suckered into buying this because I really liked the label plus it reminded me of that Vance Joy track I love that goes; ‘lady, running down to the riptide, taken away to the dark side, I wanna be your left hand man.’

Anyway – my first half glass was straight out of the fridge and it wasn’t really cold enough to give it the best taste. So, second few glasses were with the addition of ice and it was most enjoyable after that and perfect for the barbecue we were having. It’s only £6.95 a bottle from Twelve Green Bottles so not bad at all really if you’re having lots of people over.

Prosecco Val d’Oca

Rive di Colderfaldo DOCG

Valdobbiadene 11%

Italy

I added this to my box because it looked unusual and was an ok price of £13.49 for a bottle. Twelve Green Bottles suggested that it leaves ‘a mineral note on the palate.’ Well, by mineral I think they must mean mineral water because it’s pretty much tasteless after the first tease. I don’t know whether my tongue had died from the night before but it honestly doesn’t really taste of anything. As you sip, the orange blossom notes are nice to smell and it promises a floral bouquet of delicious fizzy Prosecco. But it’s a bit like waiting for a sneeze, you get all worked up and nothing comes of it, one is most disappointed.

Don’t let me put you off though, this Prosecco won a gold medal at the International Wine Challenge scoring 89/100 and my sister loved it.