Gruner Veltliner

At one of our wine tasting evenings recently, we introduced the group to the Gruner Veltliner grape, which surprisingly enough, nobody had heard of before and none of them had tasted it either. It went down extremely well with them all - in fact it was their favourite wine of the evening. The one that we tasted was by Huber, their Alte Setzen 2006, from Traisental in Northern Austria. This then led to a discussion about visiting Austria, where one of my favourite places is the Wachau, where they also grow a lot of Gruner. I promised one of the group to let her know some more about when to visit and what the travel options are like. My friend in Austria gave me the following as a general guide... I also asked her to tell me about when the best time is to visit the Heurigen - which are small wine bars selling their own produced wine and other products such as home cured hams and sausages, and they are great fun to visit...


The best time to visit the Wachau .......... you have to remember that this is a very popular and well known stretch, in particular as there is a cycle path which goes from germany to Klosterneuburg and goes right along the Wachau. So in summer there are masses of cyclists. On the other hand, summer is weatherwise really good. Late spring and early autumn are the times I personally would prefer as chances are that weatherwise it is good . There is no problem getting there by train. Am attaching a link to the wachau train which is a local train which stops all along the various towns/villages. Although it is in German it does show fotos as well as routes etc which might be of use. If they really do decide to go there and have any questions just let me know. This is the link http://www.wachauerbahn.at/index Accommodation is not a problem as they are geared towards cyclists stopping for a night. If they were interested, they could also rent bikes and cycle through the wachau which is also wonderful (or so I have been told by german tourists !). As regards the Heurigen ..... they are open all year round but of course the nicest time is when you can sit outside so again, late spring to early autumn are best. As they all open for stretches of time dependent on the amount of wine they have there is always someone open.

So, maybe somewhere different for a wine trip sometime in the future??!

Sunny day in Dublin

Since the gazebo was finished a couple of months ago, it is amazing how quickly the various plants have established themselves! The downside is that it means even more places to maintain - and my family and friends are planning even more parties to be held out there!

These photographs of the back of my house were taken by a friend of a friend - Barbara Corsico - recently, on a break between showers of rain - summer in Dublin! I love her photos... and she really liked the strawberry shortbread that she and Jacqui ate with a cup of coffee - recipe came from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook. The shortbread base has both orange rind and semolina flour in it, which makes a very light and yet really tasty base. Instead of the double cream in Sarah Raven's recipe however, I used Greek Yoghurt, and then topped that with lots of strawberries - everyone agreed that the yoghurt was a better option, as it added a nice bit of tartness to the whole dish and took away the really guilty and heaviness of the cream option!

Pergola Party report...

Well, the week-end party to launch the pergola went really well - a great time was had by all! As a dry run for my sister's party in August it was mightily successful - even though it was anything but dry, as copious amounts of wine was consumed (nice Spanish Rueda (white) - Basa, and a Chilian Carmenere (red), along side some Macon Uzichy Chardonnay and some Chiant Classico). Things kicked off around 3pm, with most people getting here between then and 4.30. Last guests to leave the house toddled off around midnight - except for two who ended up spending the night with us and left around 5pm the next day!

On the food front, well - it was simple rather than complicated, with lots of antipasti and salads, roasted veg and tztaziki, with some great focaccia brought by my friend Dave and some lovely desserts brought by Mary and Reg - a magnificent meringue roulade and an equally lovely elderberry champagne fresh fruit jelly. My mother had also made some of her famous brown bread and she had brought flowers - as did a few others!

The impact of the pergola - or it really should be more accurately called a gazebo! - was all that it should have been. It added another dimension to the whole event, with it being used all evening until about 1pm, when we regrouped inside in the house. Tealights were lit around 9pm, and people sat outside telling stories and planning more evenings there - the next one, I was informed by one of my sisters and a really good friend of mine will be a musical evening - they are really into music with my friend having been part of a really good band at one stage called Tanglewood, and my sister taking part in various light opera and musicals in recent years...

As a rule of thumb, the one-bottle-of-wine per head worked well, and averaged out almost exactly right. I had lots of sparkling water, and also had some fresh fruit juices which when mixed with some sparkling water was a welcome option for people later on.

Charity Art Auction prize

A few weeks ago when I was at the Temple Bar Farmer's Market, I was talking to one of the lads JohnJo, who was telling me about a charity Art Auction that he was helping to run; I ended up buying a ticket, more for the charity cause (the Umbrella Foundation in Sudan - www.umbrellanepal.org) than with any sense that I might win a prize, as I never win prizes in draws. Anyway, the other evening, I got a call which turned out to be from JohnJo, and lo and behold, I had won first prize! It was a sculpture in bronze by Elizabeth Le Jeune, and the following evening I went off down to the house to collect my winnings. When I saw the piece that she had donated to the auction as a prize, it was lovely but I was struggling to see where I could put it in my house. She then told me that she would be prepared to either do me a special piece or for me to choose from her existing collection. I eventually chose a bronze bust of a young man, which I totally fell for, and which will get pride of place in the garden - a perfect solution! A picture of said sculpture will get posted soon, when I finally place it in its long-term home in the garden! Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get the collective wisdom of a crowd on where it should be placed when I have my garden party tomorrow... and the weather forecast is a bit dodgy!

BBQ Cooking Workshops

One of the services that The Tasting Room offers is a summer cooking workshop, with the BBQ as the centrepiece. They are the best fun to do, as everyone is immediately put into good humour at the prospect, and that translates into a bubble of enthusiasm on the day!

One of them that I ran recently, one of the invited attendees had decided that she wouldnt attend, as she had an exam coming up that she needed to do some work to prepare for it. Her daughter, in whose house the workshop was being held (that's the way we run them - in people's homes) and the other participants were about 15 minutes into the 4 hour workshop when she stopped me in my tracks and said that she had to ring her Mom and persuade her to come along for the rest of the day.

I paused while she rang her to say that she would always regret it if she didnt drop everything and come over, as everything that I had said we would be doing were all things that her mother would love! Her mother said back to her (I could hear the conversation!) - 'but you know that I dont really like BBQd food' - to which her daughter said - 'but you'll absolutely love this food'.

So, the Mom came over and we restarted the session. And the daughter was right - her Mom loved everything! She explained to me that she isnt a big red meat eater and the usual BBQ stuff was too meat-oriented. What I teach at my workshops is more about the marinades using fresh herbs and citrus flavours, lots of interested salads to accompany the other meats, ways to do potato dishes that really work with BBQs - well, we Irish love our spuds! - and of course how to time everything so that you have a nice series of dishes that complement each other!

I ended up spending 5 hours with the small group, at the end of which they had rung some of their friends inviting them over to help eat the food, beer and wine were brought in, and I left them to it! They were really delighted with the whole day, and so was I!