test please delete

[norrahe]

Afternoon all

[norrahe]

Morning all!

Finished work for the year!! Got a few more bits to tweak but that's it for 2014 and what a nice relaxing year it was.

More homebrew starting for next week - Hogs Back TEA again so should have about x96 500ml bottles ready for Xmas.

About to open a nice bottle of Californian Turning Leaf Pinot Noir 2012 to go with some chilli flavoured biltong - goes great together - and a good deal from Waitrose - £5.99. GF#1's brother gave me trade price on 4 bottles of Hornitos tequila. Will be having a few shots of those later this evening.

Been out on the bike - the gears are screwed since I fell of it so will have to get that fixed.

A few games of Five Nights At Freddys, bit of blogging, more vino, and start cooking the dinner for GF#1 then a marathon session of Homeland.

I won't buy anything new world for less than €15 a bottle. When I found out how the price of wine breaks down and that anything around the fiver mark the actual wine being used is of the lowest quality possible. The bottle, bottling process and tax take up most of the actual wine price.

So essentially you'll get juice from the crap grapes, matured in metal vats, with cheap oak woodchips steeped in it.

[norrahe]

Will be cooking the 28 day aged cote de boeuf tomorrow, 3 and a half hours sous vide at 50 Celsius and then quick sear on the egg.

The 21 day cloggy beef wasn't anything to write home about.

[NickFitz]

I have soup!

[hyperD]

I won't buy anything new world for less than €15 a bottle. When I found out how the price of wine breaks down and that anything around the fiver mark the actual wine being used is of the lowest quality possible. The bottle, bottling process and tax take up most of the actual wine price.

So essentially you'll get juice from the crap grapes, matured in metal vats, with cheap oak woodchips steeped in it.

You are right, and I generally buy more complex and interesting wines with nice meals because of the reasons you state.

But this stuff tastes really nice with spicy chilli biltong! I know, I know, I know, I can't explain it, it goes totally against the grain. Or grape. I realise it's a third off retail but the cheap blend goes very well with spicy meaty biltongy things.

And as long as I have an endless supply of biltong, I'll just have to let myself down and keep quaffing this cheeky interloper!

Nom nom nom, glug glug glug!

[mudskipper]

You can get some very nice cheaper wines - as long as they taste good for the purpose you're drinking them, then all's good.

[Bunk]

You can get some very nice cheaper wines - as long as they taste good for the purpose you're drinking them, then all's good.

I wouldn't drink any of those smelly wines we had if it wasn't for the fact that they went well with the food.

[hyperD]

I wouldn't drink any of those smelly wines we had if it wasn't for the fact that they went well with the food.

Yes, and wasn't that a weird experience! The natural wines that most people would chuck down the sink after opening and yet how fantastic they were with the fantastic food?

My homemade pinot grigio wine is a nice clear white wine but a bit funky when opening and having straight. I don't find it a particularly nice quaffing wine. But drinking it with Thai or Chinese it is really fantastic, so much so, that I'm out of bottles as so many family members have asked for it. It's still for all intents and purposes a cheap, poor quality wine, but improves in quantum leaps with spicy food.

This pinot noir is not great now that I've stopped eating the biltong.

However, I've had some top aged vintage wines that I could drink alone or with food, and there's no getting past the fact that they are simply in another class. The problem is, even as a freelancer, I couldn't afford these regularly that would be fitting according to my walter mitty-esque exorbitant dining lifestyle that I crave.

One doesn't open a bottle of Margaux 1996 to quaff while stuffing Cheesy Wotsits down ones throat without feeling a tang of guilt!

[mudskipper]

Talking of cheap but quaffable plonk, Laithwaites family and friends offer is up.

Friends and Family 2014

And free delivery if you order before end of Nov.

[mudskipper]

Yes, and wasn't that a weird experience! The natural wines that most people would chuck down the sink after opening and yet how fantastic they were with the fantastic food?

Still not convinced by the 'eggy' one - that should have been chucked down the sink IMO.