Yes, I know. I was supposed to post about the great freezer cook up - and I will, really I will, but the notes I took were atrocious (though I thought at the time they were great) and I’ve been very distracted by work (of which more below).

But I had to get this in - the J.D. Gross range of speciality chocolates are back at Lidl. Oh happy, happy day for chocoholics everywhere! The range has been expanded too, with several new ones alongside old favorites, including some very interesting looking fruit flavoured ones, which I haven’t tried yet.

As a lover of really, really dark chocolate I went first for the three bars pictured here, each of which cost €1.59 for 100g and all of which were sampled by a small group of chocolate lovers after dinner this evening.

Let’s take them from left to right.

San Martin 77% with Cocoa Nibs

This bar is studded with tiny nibs of roast cocoa bean, which give it a slightly coffeeish flavour. The chocolate is rich and smooth with a flavour that is deep but not bitter. When you bite on one of the cocoa nibs it’s like a small intensely chocolaty explosion in your mouth - sounds odd, but it’s very good!

This one was got the thumbs up from everyone.

I had one little niggle about chocolate from San Martin, which is, according to the package, in the north of Peru, close to the source of the Amazon. I just wondered were they growing their cocoa on areas of cleared rain forest, but it seems not. Apparantly this was an area where for generations a very different crop was widely grown - coca - but that has been pretty much entirely stamped out. So that’s good then.

Ambanja 72% with Red Pepper

Certainly different, this chocolate from Madagascar was not to everyone’s taste. I’ve had plain chocolate from Madagascar before and liked it - it has a naturally slightly fruity taste that’s very distinctive and very pleasant.

For some reason this bar has more of a minty flavour that the spicy one you’d expect from red pepper. Not entirely unpleasant, but sort of strange. The pieces of red pepper are quite large and a nibble that includes one is very different from one that doesn’t. I preferred the bits without.

I wasn’t really sold on it, but for one person it was the big hit of the three, so it really is a very personal thing. It’s certainly worth trying, if only for the novelty value.

Arriba Superier 81%

This is one for those who like their chocolate really dark - and I loved it! Arriba Superier from Ecuador is a king among cocoa beans and the quality tells in this bar. It is very intense and rich in flavour, but still smooth, with a sort of earthy taste.

If you are not a real dark chocolate lover though, it may be too much, as some found it this evening. But it would definitely be a fantastic bar for cooking and that that price no more expensive than the disgusting stuff often sold for that purpose.

This was the winner for me. It’s also very low in carbs for those for whom such things matter - even if you scoffed a whole bar at one sitting (which is unlikely, with chocolate this intense a couple of squares would satisfy most people) it would only be 22g of carb.

So, work. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks working with the slave driver outrageously talented Sabrina Dent on the Curious Wines website which launched yesterday, in good time for you to go along and pick up a case or two of festive wines for Christmas.

I was, to be honest, too concerned with making the site work up to now to pay all that much attention to what was actually available there, but I took some time to have a good look at the wines themselves to-day. There really is some excellent value there and some very interesting looking wines - some made from grapes I’ve never even heard of but would love to try. Do have a look.

And I promise I’ll beat the freezer stuff into submission in the next few days!

Tags: Chocolate, Christmas, Wine
Posted in Chocolate, Wine | 11 Comments »

I said when I started posting these reviews that I’d post the lowest rated ones first, but that wasn’t quite true.

This Argentinian Syrah was the lowest rated wine of the evening, but it came not from Lidl but from Superquinn’s under €6 range. When I bought it I asked for a recommendation from this range and this was the one picked out for me.

I admit that I sort of expected this wine to perform quite strongly, in general I’ve found Superquinn is a really good place to buy wine, but I dread to think what the others in their budget range are like if this is the best.

The pity is that it started really well. On the appearance front things looked good, a nice deep colour and a rich appearance, though some people thought it a little cloudy.

It held up when it came to aroma too, with most finding it pleasantly if not outstandingly aromatic with some spiciness (pepper was mentioned) and a nice fruitiness. At this point things were looking very good.

But it totally failed to deliver when tasting started.

Words like hard, astringent and harsh were used, but most people simply found it dull and unpleasant. Comments such as “lacks any kick”, “this is really lame” and “thin and horrible” were typical, though perhaps one comment summed it up like no other: “if this wine was an American woman, it’d be a size 0″.

The wine scored really very low on taste  - there were 1’s and 2’s - and was the only wine of the evening that nobody said they would buy again.

In discussing this wine a couple of people commented on the let down on tasting, given it’s definite promise prior to that, and suggested it might well be that it could improve with age and was too young rather than simply bad.

That may be true, but it’s not much consolation to those who pop into a supermarket looking for something inexpensive and drinkable. I seriously doubt that those who maintain cellars are shopping for cheap wine in Superquinn or indeed in Lidl.

Price: €5.49

Score: 9

Tags: Superquinn, Syrah, Wine, Wine Tasting
Posted in Wine | 2 Comments »

This Australian Cabernet Sauvignon was the hit of the evening, in fact it was universally liked and was the bottle that everyone wanted to return to when the tasting phase of the evening was over (we fortunately had two).

It started strongly, with a nice appearance, deep colour and good clarity that saw it get full marks for appearance almost across the board. The aroma too met with general flavour, some even calling it powerful.

The words most used to describe it were woody, spicy and smoky, and there was definite fruit with berries being the most mentioned.

So far so good, but it was when we began to taste that the compliments really started to flow.

Granted we had tasted a couple of the less well liked wines before this one, so it may have been partly relief at finally finding one that passed muster, but comments like “very smooth and flavourful wine”, “really very good, excellent finish” and ” the more I drink the more I want” showed that there was definite enthusiasm.

It was the only wine of the evening that scored a 100% would buy rating and interestingly most of the tasters said they believed this was not a Lidl wine, the highest number for any of the wines we tasted.

In the discussion after tasting there was general agreement that this was a bottle you could happily take with you when going to dinner somewhere - even to fussy friends! - and there was even some talk of stocking up for Christmas.

So, definitely one to try.

Price: €6.99 (though it was at a special price of €6.49 when bought for our tasting)

Score: 17

One person gave this a score of 19 and the lowest rating it got was a very respectable 15.

Tags: Cabernet Sauvignon, Wine, Wine Tasting
Posted in Wine | 2 Comments »

Of the three white wines we tasted this Chenin Blanc from the Eastern Cape in South Africa was not only the most liked but also the cheapest.

It had a nice pale yellow/straw colour in the glass though was perhaps a touch hazy. There was general agreement that it had a good and quite inviting aroma, variously described as honeyed or lemony, with definite fruit.

As for the taste, it was medium dry and though not very powerfully flavoured had a nice fruitiness and a pleasant crispness, although one person described it as “a little too acidic for me”.

There was unanimity that it was nicely fruity but less agreement when it came to deciding just what that fruit was, with apple and melon the most mentioned but some tasting pear.

The comments on this wine ranged from lukewarm - “goes down easy enough” and “nothing to dislike” - to more enthusiastic “easy drinking but with good character” and “light and fruity, I really like this”.

All but one of the tasters said they would definitely buy this wine, with the final person saying he might.

Price: €4.99

Score: 15

The scores for this wine were particularly uniform, ranging only from 14 to 16, which means that even those who were less enthused by it in their comments gave it quite high scores.

Tags: Chenin Blanc, Wine, Wine Tasting
Posted in Wine | 5 Comments »

From the north of Italy, this Pinot Grigio is apparently a very popular Lidl wine but it didn’t fare that well with our group of tasters. It wasn’t that anyone particularly hated it, more that it really didn’t taste of very much at all and so people could find little to like.

In the glass it was very pale and clear, what some described as “watery” but then Pinot Grigio tends not to have a strong colour.

However people really began to struggle when it came to aroma, finding it difficult to discern anything much at all. Most described it as weak or neutral, with only a couple feeling it had any fruit at all on the nose and none able to identify what fruit.

Comments on taste had a recurrent theme, ranging from “lacks body” and “not much to it” to “this is the lightest wine I’ve ever tasted”.  Only a few could find anything worth commenting on in the flavour, though “slightly lemony” and “quite smooth” was about as good as it got.

One person probably summed up how everyone else felt with the terse question “is this wine?”. Yes, it was that bland.

Although my own opinions are purely personal (given that I was filling the glasses and therefore not tasting blind) I thought that this insipid offering made the German Pinot Grigio previously reviewed, and which costs exactly the same, seem in retrospect like a wine filled with character and flavour.

But where there was little to like there was apparently not much to dislike either - surprisingly most people would consider buying this wine, in fact a majority said they definitely would.

When asked about this seeming contradiction the responses were along the lines that when buying cheap wine it’s a bonus to find that it’s drinkable at all and that while this wine didn’t have a lot going on nobody was going to be repelled by it either.

Price: €6.99

Score: 12

Tags: Pinot Grigio, Wine, Wine Tasting
Posted in Wine | 1 Comment »