The Lion and Lamb

Every year my local pub back in the UK, the Lion and Lamb in Milton Cambridge, hosts their annual wine tasting. Now this is not a wine bar in the classical sense, it’s a gourmet pub. However the proprietors, Lawrence and Sally, are true wine lovers like me, so it’s a good excuse for them to try out a load of wines and they’re pretty damn good at choosing tasty ones 😁.

For a month prior to the tasting Lawrence scours the local supermarkets, leaving no stone unturned, to find the best wine deals on offer. We appreciate his dedication when we are presented with no less than 10 wines (4 white, 4 red, 1 sparkling, 1 port) along with a four course meal for a very reasonably priced £45 (which is a bloody miracle by Cambridge standards where a glass of wine will set you back £7-£8).

The idea behind the tasting is to give the customers a choice of supermarket wines to get in for Christmas. However for me it’s an opportunity to catch up on the wine world outside of Spain, because as much as I love Spanish wines sometimes it’s nice to have some variety. And for the rest of the gang that joins me on this annual wine fest it’s just a really fun night.

Even Santa joined us this year because the wines are that good.

So over the next couple of weeks I will go through each of the wines tried, but as a summary I got our table to vote on their favourite white and favourite red:

White Wine Vote

Sauvignon Blanc – 2

Chardonnay – 1

Pinot Gris – 1

Viogner – 2

Red Wine Vote

Pinot Noir – 1

Malbec – 0

Rioja – 1

Shiraz – 2