A little tipple!

This evening after work, I accompanied my parents to a Wine Tasting at a Majestic branch in Northampton. Sophie was going to come with us as well, but she wasn't feeling well again so she stayed at home.

It took us half an hour to make the journey into town because of the rush hour traffic and when we arrived there weren't that many customers milling about. I have to say the event wasn't terribly well organised as the man who was supposed to be welcoming us and giving us a glass of Rose was on the phone. This meant we wandered over to a table with a member of staff who was giving out tasting samples of a Pimms-type drink, beer and cider. I was a bit confused as I thought it was a wine tasting but we enjoyed three of the drinks nonetheless! Someone rushed over and gave us a tasting sheet and then we moved on to another table with a man pushing Cava and two different Riojas. I vainly searched for the wine on my tasting sheet but couldn't find them!

We had a sip of a Rioja Crianza but it was too dry for me, although Dad said he liked it. We finally started on the wine tasting after having a quick look around the wines on offer and enjoyed a sip of a Rose wine. The two tasting tables were right at the back of the shop and there was a crowd of people milling about in front of them, making it very difficult to actually get any wine! If it were me organising the tasting I would have had a long table to make it easier for people to look at the bottles and actually have a tasting! But perhaps it was deliberate as we only tasted four other wines, two whites and two delicious reds: a Pinot Noir from the south of France and a Shiraz from Australia. I bought two bottles of each, plus a Californian Zinfandel and a Viognier from South Africa.

I was a little disappointed that the choice of Californian wines wasn't better (and some of them were very expensive!) but overall I thought the choice of wines on offer was great. As it was a tasting event there was a 10% discount on the wines I bought so I thought that was a great bargain!

When I arrived home, Sophie felt a lot better so that was a relief. Next time she's definitely coming with me!