Yesterday saw the announcement of the medal winners for the International Wine Challenge.

This year 9,358 wines were judged from 35 different countries, by 400 judges. The judges came from 19 different countries and included 33 Masters of Wine. 260 Gold medals were awarded, 1,129 wines won Silver medals and 1,839 wines won Bronze medals.

The top 3 medal winning nations remain the same as last year ? France, Australia and Italy. France scooped the most medals with a total tally of 635.  English wines continue to show improved form with 21 medals in 2007 up from 16 last year.

Of the UK Supermarkets Tesco stocks most medal winning wines whilst Sainsbury?s can claim the most Golds. Waitrose own-label wines won 3 Silver and 5 Bronze medals.

Here at Bottletalk HQ we’ll be sure to be trying a few of these award winners and letting you know what we think on the site.

Kopaonik is the largest Serbian ski resort. It is a popular place for domestic skiers and is becoming increasingly popular with foreign visitors. Although “Kopaonik” is actually a large mountain, the term usually refers to the area around the “Grand” hotel and the apartment complex “Sun?ani Vrhovi”. The area is small but contains quite a few hotels and private houses. It’s self contained, with shops, banks, a post office, etc. Apart from the restaurants in hotels, there are a few good restaurants around. In this article I’ll write about the restaurants I’ve visited this year, it might help you make the right choice (I didn’t have any tips at all…).

Etno club “Sunce”

This restaurant is located at the end of a quiet cool-de-sac, in the woods, a 5 minute walk from the Grand hotel. It looks very small from the outside, but it’s quite a spacious place. The atmosphere is great, fairly traditional, with two open fire places, a mixture of smaller and larger tables, a nice blend of loudness and privacy. The music wasn’t great, but that’s the easiest thing to change . The food was excellent and so was the service. They offer mainly Serbian dishes, if you’re not sure what to choose from the menu, the waiters will help you with their recommendations, you can trust them. The wine list includes wines from some of the better Serbian cellars, such as Radovanovi? and Aleksandrovi? (Topola). Go for Aleksandrovi?’s red or white Triumph, they are some of the best wines Serbia has to offer. Overall, it’s a great place, I’ll be back.

Food quality 5/5
Atmosphere 5/5
Service: 5/5
Price 3/5 (moderate, but excellent value)
Wine list 3/5 (Radovanovi?, Aleksandrovi?)

Na?a ku?a

This place reminds me of modern pubs-restaurants in Ireland. It has a large bar area in the center, with large tables around, a couple of two seater tables in the corner for some extra privacy and a cosy open fire in the front. Both the interior of the restaurant and the furniture are made of light coloured wood, and there are stripes of small red lights throughout. There’s also a big video beam that mainly shows snow scenes during the day. It is a place frequented by the younger crowd and is open quite late into the nigth (until 3am). They have a small but well-chosen menu (which is also extremely well designed) and it’s obvious they put a lot of effort to make it a bit different from other restaurants in the vicinty. The chef is excellent, and the food is great, so give “Na?a Ku?a” a try if you get tired from the Serbian cousine and are looking for some European tastes. It is one of the more expensive restaurants, with a full dinner for two with a bottle of wine and a dessert producing a bill of around 50 euros. The wine choice is not great, but they do have a few wines apart from the regular choice, we recommend the wines from the Terra Lazarica range.

Food quality 5/5
Atmosphere 4/5 (nice mix of modern and traditional, younger crowd)
Service: 4/5
Price 2/5 (expensive)
Wine list 2/5

Etno ku?a Studenica

If you’re on a lower budget looking for good quality Serbian food you should visit the etno restaurant Studenica. Pick one of the two tables on the far left to avoid looking at the interior of the kitchen and to avoid the local crowd on the right side. The place is clean, the food was great and the waiter was top-notch, but the problem with this place is that it has too much light, it is visited by the local crowd and generally the level of privacy is quite low.

Food quality 4/5
Atmosphere 2/5
Service: 4/5
Price 4/5 (relatively cheap, good value)
Wine list 1/5

Zvrk

This is a very popular restaurant located at the center of ski activities (the “baby slope”, ski lifts Karaman Greben and Pan?i?ev Vrh), just besides the Grand hotel. The restaurant has two levels, the upper one being more packed and colorful, the lower one containing a large center-located open fire place. This fire creates a very tempting smell outside the restaurant, which is the main reason you probably won’t resist getting into it. In general, it’s not a bad place, but there are much better choices around…

Food quality: 2/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Service: 3/5
Price: 3/5
Wine list: 1/5 (just the very basic Serbian wines)

Technorati Tags: Kopaonik, Serbia, Serbian Cousine, Restaurants Serbia

It may sound obvious to put a girl in blue jeans in an ad for wine (like, helLO, this is an advertisement for youths, duh), and therefore not that interesting, but for some reason it works. Sacre Bleu's frankly young-looking model, along with product placement at the hip Miami music venue The Fillmore, support of charitable organization Rock the Cause and funny winemaking videos from French Gustave (it's always nice to have a Frenchie in the mix), put the brand at the top of the wine-marketing-to-Millennials heap. Haven't tasted the wine yet, but seeing as it's coming from France's promising Languedoc, my bet is it's not half bad.

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In 1980, Barbara and Jim Richards were living in Midland, Texas, and began thinking about a second home. They had an interest in wine and started looking for some property in the Napa Valley to build a home and plant a small vineyard. They realized their dream in 1983 when they found a property located five miles west of St. Helena and over 2,000 feet above the Valley floor near the top of Spring Mountain. Vineyard exposure is generally east with many variations, and the soils are derived from the Sonoma volcanics and from Franciscan sandstone. Total acreage is 20 acres with 15 acres planted.

In 1985, after clearing, ripping, and terracing about ten acres, they planted 3,555 bench graft Merlot vines, and 945 Cabernet Sauvignon vines. By 1987, the Richards? recognized their previous absentee landlord role was insufficient to monitor the vines. So, Barbara came to manage things from January through harvest, while Jim would come to help when he could get away from his business as a petroleum geologist. Their first small harvest was sold to Conn Creek Winery. In 1988, they planted another 2,300 Merlot vines in their last five acres of vineyard.

The early ?90s were momentous for the Richards?. By 1993, Barb and Jim had moved into their new home in the vineyard, and Pride Mountain Winery released a 1991 Merlot, made from their grapes blended with Pride?s Cabernet Sauvignon fruit. The Richards? agreed to sell their grapes to the Prides beginning in 1994 and their wine maker, Bob Foley, agreed to make wine from part of the grapes into Paloma Merlot for the Richards? new label, debuting their Merlot-based blend in 1996. Also, Barb and Jim decided to plant a block of Syrah to see how it would do, and by 1996, they started making the wine commercially as well. Unfortunately, they?ve since pulled up the small Syrah vineyard, and replanted with Cabernet Sauvignon.

In 2000, the Richard?s finally decided to construct their own winery on the property. A few years later, their son Sheldon joined them in the business, and to this date the Richards? Paloma Merlot still stands as one of the enduring benchmarks of the variety in California, and indeed the world.

Join us as we talk with Barbara Richards about Paloma ? their early years, and what it was like to basically become pioneers on Spring Mountain, and well as Merlot?s place in Napa Valley.

For more info on Paloma Vineyard: www.palomavineyard.com

Sponsor- Gold Medal Wine Club: www.goldmedalwineclub.com

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Sainsburys Taste the Difference Sancerre 2004 £8.54 has a round, fruity, open nose with a touch of minerality and a clean freshness. The good, underlying fruit with its tantalising honeycomb edges was somewhat hidden by the very high acidity on the palate. So I thought perhaps what it needed was some cheese to round it out...

First up Organic Wensleydale. This crumbly white is more texture than flavour but did fill out the wine and brought forward the fruit -peachy aromatics. The lightness of the almost cottage cheese texture really complemented the delicacy of the wine. There was a hint of a salty tang too.

Then Woolsery, http://www.woolserycheese.co.uk , this is a medium hard goat's cheese from Dorset and is so tasty. It was the best in combination with the wine too. The slightly salty creaminess perfectly cut the acidity of the wine down to size. The cheese had a decent level of acidity to it as well. It was grassy and had a goaty note but was not overly pungent. Great stuff.

Next up Vintage Gouda, the label didn't give a year or age though - perhaps this is cheese parlance that someone can enlightenment me about? This had a wonderful flavour, nutty, earthy, hay aromas, very fruity in fact. It is a dense and creamy cheese which cancelled out the acidity in the wine altogether and made it seem almost flabby! Not quite right together.

Finally Doux de Montagne, very like a Spanish Manchego with its subtle flavour and rubbery texture. It tasted slightly soured too but in a good way. The wine overwhelmed this cheese though and it had very little impact when tasted together.

Spelunking anyone? I feel like a spelunker when I where that headlamp. I’m filling the last barrels for the 2008 vintage in this photo. It certainly was a long one for us, and I’m glad it is over. Wine quality overall seems very good. The whites are delicate and fragrant, and the reds show good varietal character so far.

I know most folks think of harvest as grapes being harvested and received, but the real work for us goes far beyond receiving grapes.  It can be a very physically wearing time, and the end of it all is, frankly, welcome.  We can resume our normal lives and actually get the weekends off.  We aren’t off the hook entirely, though, as the wines and barrels need to be monitored.  We check for the progress of malo-lactic fermentation, check on any wines that may have gone to barrel slightly sweet, and monitor any increase in volatile fermentation.  Barrels also need to be topped, additions made, white wines stirred, and all the equipment needs to be cleaned, repaired if needed, and put away.
Here’s a photo from a few weeks ago that I like.This is a picture of a red fermentor after we have drained most of the wine and before we have started shoveling the skins out of the tank and into the presses. The open space underneath is a stainless steel filter which, among other things, helps us to drain the tank.