![]() Today, Bernard Audoy – son of Cecile Weber (a distant cousin of the original Weber owners) and the late François Audoy – is in the driving seat, assisted by his mother and brothers. By 1860 the estate was again changing hands – several times (including seizure by the Compagnie Algerienne Bank) until it came in 1922 to the Weber family. Madame Labory’s death sparked off a string of court cases over inheritance – a rumpus which ended in a disputed take-over in 1847 by Louis Gaspard d’Estournel: he sold on within a decade to Charles Martyns, an English banker. He was followed by his son Hyacinthe (who, it’s said, won the estate in an inheritance lottery following Gaston senior’s death) and later by Hyacinthe’s daughter Marie-Sany who became Madame Labory. Instant pot beef stew with sweet potato butternut squash and carrots and a nice glass of Rumpus 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon. after having no power for so many days its nice to actually have a good home cooked meal. But long before Labory, the owner in the 18th century was Pierre Gaston. Instant pot beef stew with sweet potato butternut squash and carrots and a nice glass of Rumpus 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon. From François-Armand Labory, came the second part of the estate name. As such, to prevent me from getting too rusty (yesterday I forgot how to spell ‘seven’), I might use this time and this space to blether on about anything nice (or not) that I’m drinking at home, and the WSET Level 2 seemed like a good place to start.Historians say the Cos, here and at neighbouring Cos d’Estournel, evolved from early French for ‘hill of stones’ or, more simply, ‘hilly’. Secondly, writing about restaurants – which is what I usually do on these pages – is a tad tricksy at the moment given that they’re all closed. ![]() (And, people of YWS, if you ever fancy putting on the Level 3 in the Haifax-Bradford vicinity, do let me know.) From an individual blend of two-thirds merlot, a fifth cabernet sauvignon with the balance split between petit verdot and carmenère, this is a delicious, dark and full-flavoured wine. If, like many, you’ve upped the wine intake over these last few weeks then getting to know more about what you’re pouring down your neck is surely a good thing to do, and Yorkshire Wine School a top-notch bunch to do it with.Įven in lockdown there are plenty of courses on offer, so go here for a gander. Rich, vigorous and ripe Saint-Emilion from the Vauthier family, owners of Château Ausone. I mention all this for a couple of reasons. I lost the accompanying badge soon after fate’s way, perhaps, of telling me off for waltzing into an exam without having paid sufficient attention to the grape varieties of the southern Rhone. My certificate landed a couple of weeks later announcing a result of 78% – a Pass with Merit – for which I was relieved more than pleased. ![]() During post-exam beers there was much self-flagellation to be witnessed – mostly my own – as notes were consulted and mistakes realised that, by now, were too late to be corrected. The latter part of the third day was taken up by a multiple-choice exam, into which several curve balls had been thrown just to check that we’d really been paying attention over the last few weekends. I’d soon perfected my “he knows what he’s on about” glass swirl, even if I didn’t actually know what I was on about, and for a while afterwards I ran the risk of fostering an expensive Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon habit. FOUNDER’S STATEMENTMy passion for wine had its roots in my art school years when I worked in the vineyards of New York’s Hudson Valley. There was stuff about mountains and sea-breeze, oak barrels and steel tanks, and how a glass of champagne goes very nicely with fish and chips. We got to know our Barolos from our Barberas, our Chablis from our Chateauneuf, and about how the French really have a thing about soil. Led by the ebullient Laura, who got the pace of each day bang on, we learnt how to give wine a proper going over through sight and smell before necking the stuff, and what all the pesky waffle on the label means. The WSET Level 2 does require a fair bit of enjoyable graft. Those three days, however, weren’t just a wine-fuelled jolly (although use of the spittoons did dwindle by about 11am on the first day), and nor, despite numerous samples, was this simply a “wine-tasting” course. This, to quote Martine McCutcheon, was My Moment. If I passed, I’d have a certificate to wave in people’s faces and prove to all that the hard yards of drinking under the guise of study had been for a Good Reason. I’d gone back to school, or, to be precise, Yorkshire Wine School – a really good kind of school – to undertake the WSET Level 2. In 2017 I spent three Saturdays on the bounce holed up in a basement meeting room of a Leeds hotel.Įach week, fuelled by a morning sharpener from La Bottega Milanese, I‘d stagger in bleary-eyed from the night before and stagger out again seven hours later, booze-levels replenished and with a strong urge for a kebab and bed, ideally eating the former while laying in the latter.
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