Author Archives: waywardwine

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About waywardwine

Follow Wayward Wine (WSET3) to tour the world's exciting vineyards, breweries, and distilleries, while discovering new drinks.

New Year Sparkling Wine: Champagne vs Cremant de Limoux and Loire

And so it ends not with a whimper but a bang. We cannot leave Paris without cracking a few more bottles of bubbly. No 191 day EU Austerity Drinking Tour could finish France without value Cremant or Champagne.

For a mere €15.00 we find true, actual, not Prosecco, Champagne from Champagne, France (specifically the village of Buxeuil in the region’s southern extreme). Grower André Diligent et Fils created this Brut: Continue reading

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Last Tango in Paris: Saint-Chinian red blend, Saint Joseph Syrah, and the Paris Opera

This is the end. Our seven month, thirteen country EU Austerity Drinking Tour finally, achingly, grinds to a halt. 188 days of tasting Europe’s best value wine, whiskey, and beer has trialed our sanity, budget, and marriage.

But today the SNCF takes us from Reims, Champagne to Paris: Continue reading

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Christmas Dinner with Penfolds 389 2012 South Australia

So this is Christmas, and my wife has baked a feast of field roast, potatoes, yams, carrots, mushrooms and cranberry sauce. We just happened to have a bottle of Penfolds 389: a nearly equal parts cabernet sauvignon and shiraz blend … Continue reading

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2002 Brut Lanson Champagne Vineyard Winery Review

Last Monday’s EU Austerity Drinking Tour post found Wayward Wine spelunking Taittinger’s Champagne caves (read here). Today, we visit Lanson, another of Reims’ iconic houses and an old favorite of ours and Queen Elizabeth II. Our hosts make us a … Continue reading

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Taittinger Champagne Caves

Wayward Wine’s tour of Champagne continues after last Monday’s post (read here).

Today we leave the frozen tundra of Reims above for the subterranean caves that turn wine into fizzy, magical Champagne.

Our hosts recommended we reserve a tour of the caves of
Taittinger: a producer we love. So we cross town, trudge uphill, and find the unassuming complex: Continue reading

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