GASS The Gentlemen's Ale Sampling Society 1982-2017 35 YEARS OF BEERS
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TUESDAY 2nd FEBRUARY
TUTORED WINE TASTING organiser - Brian
At The Roffen Club A three course meal and 10 different wines to taste
Hosted by Tim Fletcher of Rodney Fletcher Vintners
A good turnout despite several members being away skiing and on holidays. We even had a guest, Mike Saffery. The format of the evening was that we enjoyed a dinner while at the same time tasting 10 wines. Yup, the evening went as you might expect.
We started with a "SPARKLING OR CHAMPAGNE?" with Champagne verses a Cremant d'Alsace, we could tell the difference, but only just. Then, with the Pate starter, we went into "PINOT OR PINOT" to try and decide between a Pinot Grigio, a Pinot Blanc, and a Pinot Gris, much more difficult. With the main course of Beef Stroganoff, we had "SYRAH OR SHIRAZ?" and worked our way through Franschoek Cellar Syrah, Cranwick Estate Shiraz, and a truly lovely Gigondas 2006 Bertrand Stehelin. With the cheese we tried "RUBY OR LBV?" with Delaforce Fine Ruby Reserve Port and Taylors Late Vintage. Now that is a WINE tasting!
Tim did a great job of explaining each wine and the regions, we obviously ignored him and simply talked about whatever took our fancy. Tim persevered, we simply talked louder, Tim took the gentlemanly route of then talking only to those who were actually listening, so they talked to the person next to them, Tim then talked mainly to Nick, sadly without realising that by this time Nick was totalled and could not himself talk at all, otherwise he would have been talking to someone. Tim was politeness, tolerance and erudite knowledge all rolled into one, we were just us. Shame really.
On the bright side we drank loads.
On the dark side - does one of our number dye their hair? At the end of the meeting, for reasons that were not immediately obvious, suddenly a pack of baying tricologists leapt on poor Phil C, accusing him of dying his barnet, he denied it, a sample was cut, and is currently in the CSI labs undergoing analysis, watch this space.
There was due to be a meeting to lay out a programme of meetings in 2010. Sadly, once again this did not happen so you only have yourselves to blame that the next meeting after the Handbell Ringing is going to be March and it is TEN PIN BOWLING! Maidstone is the venue, Tony is the man.
If you want decent meetings for the rest of the year - GET OFF YOUR ARSES - they don't arrange themselves.
Look at the meetings page for some more details and ideas.
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