The Caskaway

My Tasting Notes

Beer
Red Wines
Fortified Wines

White Wines

Riesling

Riesling grapes produce wines that range from bone-dry to exceptionally sweet all with a trademark kick of mouth-watering acidity. From its origins in Germany, the Moselle and Rhine Valleys to cool climate areas of Australia, New Zealand, and Oregon, USA Riesling is capable of producing incredibly elegant, long-lasting beautiful wines.

Chardonnay

Chardonnay is the world’s most popular white wine grape and one of the most versatile with a huge variety of flavours and styles. These can be attributed to where it is grown and how it is treated by the winemaker it can range from crisp and bone dry with flavours of green apple and citrus through to ripe apricots and tropical fruits and lots of vanilla and butter if heavily oaked.

Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc is hugely popular in South Africa and is now the most planted variety in the country. It is also the grape variety behind the French wine Vouvray and is grown extensively in the Loire Valley. It can produce everything from sparkling to sweet wines with flavours of pear, honeysuckle, marmalade, and hints of ginger spice.

Disclaimer – Unless otherwise indicated I pay for all of the reviewed drinks

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Welcome to The Caskaway

Personal, subjective and in no way definitive but I hope The Caskaway reveals a little of the passion I have for wine and beer. I’m no expert but I love to learn and wanted to share my knowledge and discoveries with all my drink writing in one convenient place. Why am I doing this when there is so much information out there already? Well, if one person reads and tries something new, I will call that a win.

There are honest tasting notes that you might hopefully find helpful, entertaining and maybe even instructive. Some posts try to help with the confusing and often obscure specialist terminology and language in both the beer and wine worlds and yes, there is a lot! Finally, there are links to all of my favourite recipes made using wine and beer (see below), and finally some expanded reviews of great pubs and other bits and pieces.

Formerly a full-time chef and publican, I’ve worked for two breweries, an award-winning Jersey based wine merchants and now try to write and broadcast about food and drink for local and national media including What’s Brewing and BBC Local Radio.