Oooh La La - Champagne Edition
The Ooh La La Edition is a true celebration of good times and good products.
Perfectly paired, this is the ultimate night in with artisan products and tasting notes. You’re going to love it!
We founded The Deli Society sitting around a table of wine, cheese and charcuterie with our family.
We were having such a good time and we thought we could use our many years of connections across different producers in the UK and Europe to bring those good times to other households.
This box is the epitome of that and we hope you love it
Salut,
Josh & Harry
#totasteistotravel
Wine Tasting
How to taste wine
The first step of assessing wine is looking at it
Wine snobs like to talk about the legs of wine. In all honestly, this is a bit of a waste of time.
The wine legs (or tears of the wine as the French refer to them) can give an indication of the alcoholic content of the wine. But it’s so difficult to be accurate with a reading from legs,
So we say just read the label!
For appearance, we only ever find it useful to note something if the colour is completely out of the ordinary i.e. it’s a really dark rose
The next step is to smell your wine.
Swirl the wine in the glass. Looks poncy but does release some aromas, and helps it not just smell like alcohol.
Broadly, smells can be broken into three categories.
Primary Aromas: grape-derivative and include fruits,
herbs, and floral notes.
Secondary Aromas: from winemaking practices and easiest to find in white wine. Examples include beer, cheese rind, or nuts.
Tertiary Aromas: from aging in bottle or oak. Normally savoury. Examples include roasted nuts, spices, vanilla, autumn leaves, tobacco, and leather.
Start broad. Is it fruity?
Red wine? Think of red, blue, and black fruits.
White wine? Think of citrus, orchard, or tropical fruits.
Once you’ve identified a scent such as citrus, you can now think if it’s more apple than lemon or more orange than lime.
This is all pretty personal to your own nose.
The same principle can be applied to floral and herb scents, but in our opinion, not many people can tell you the specific scent of geranium.
If you can detect herbs or floral notes, it’s a great start.
Wine Tasting
How To Taste Wine
Finally you get to actually taste the wine. Funnily enough though, tasting is predominantly to detect the structure of the wine.
Body: Think how differently skimmed milk, full-fat milk and cream coat the mouth.
Acidic: How much does it make your mouth drool?
Tannin: An annoying word but an easy one to detect. Imagine sucking on a teabag and how dry it would leave your mouth.
That’s tannin.
Dry or sweet? Tannin can trick you to think there’s no sweetness in a wine. Stick the tip of your tongue in as the best detector of sugar (probably not the done thing to do in a restaurant).
The final part of tasting a wine, is to come to a conclusion about it.
What type of wine did you just have and did you like it?
Was it too acidic or just a bit meh?
If you’ve just tried, for example, a Barolo, log that experience with that wine in your mind so that the next time you have a Barolo, you have a foundation of knowledge to judge it against.
The only way to really educate yourself is to drink more. Poor us.
Wine
Georges Lacombe Grande Cuvee Brut NV Champagne
ABV: 12.5%
Grape: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier
Country and Region: France, Champagne
Winemaking: Traditional
This wine is aged for 24-36 months in their cellars, which starts to give this champagne a nice warm toasty flavour.
Tasting notes of Toast, Brioche and Peach.
We think it is this that makes this Champagne special. You’re not paying for a big brand name or a fancy looking label. This champagne is an honest reflection of a dedication to craft. It’s a superb example of a great champagne, and it’s at an affordable price too which of course we love!
Sweetness (dry to sweet) 1-5: 2
Acidity (low to high) 1-5: 2
Tannin (low to high) 1-5: 1
Body (light to full) 1-5: 2.5
Producer
Georges Lacombe Estate
100% ownership of the company means Francis Tribaut is totally independent in decision-making.
He is the vineyard Manager of the Estate and personally manages the supply of grapes from partner wine growers.
Champagne Georges LACOMBE is fortunate enough to source from 80 hectares of grapes including in the grand crus and premier crus areas. A part of our vineyard is located on the hillsides of the Aÿ village. Some vine plots are amongst the oldest of the Champagne region.
50% of the vineyard is planted with pinot noir grapes from the Montage de Reims area and from the Bar Séquanais area. 30% of chardonnay grapes come from the Côte des Blancs and from the area of Epernay. Finally, Pinot Meunier grapes represent 20% of our grapes
Cheese 1
Brie de Meaux
Age: 6 – 8 weeks
Country + Region: France, Meaux
Milk Type: Cows
Pasteurised: No
Strength Of Cheese: 2
Style Of Cheese: Soft Ripened
Texture: 2
Our Brie is made in our own workshop in the Eastern Paris Basin, known for its rich soils and large fields. It takes 25 litres of cow’s milk to make one Brie.
It is matured for 6 to 8 weeks, and turned regularly to prevent it from “sinking” in the middle and to develop an even, velvety rind.
As the cheese ages, the rind develops red or brown patches. It has a creamy meltingly-soft texture, a pungent aroma and rich and buttery flavours, with notes of mushroom and truffle. Although most people are familiar with the Brie, they may be surprised by the strength and depth of this Brie, as it is made from raw milk. This is the real Brie, the one that is known as the “King of Cheeses”.
The Bries-de-Saint-Rémy workshop is located on the bank of the Grand Morin River, in St Rémy-de-la-Vanne, in the heart of this historic cheese area.
The bloomy rind cheeses of the area, formerly protected by abbeys from different Briardes cities (Meaux, Melun, Nangis, Montereau, Coulommiers), are currently produced in one workshop taking into account the peculiarity of every one of them.
A historical and favourable prairie inhabited by people trained to make cheese and pay great attention to product quality and traceability : there was little to be re-launched in this workshop that makes the most of this Briard country’s treasures.
Cheese 2
Saint Marcellin
Age: 4 – 5 weeks
Country + Region: France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Milk Type: Cow
Pasteurised: No
Strength Of Cheese: 3
Style Of Cheese: Soft-ripened
Texture: 2
Matured for 4 to 5 weeks, it has delicate milky flavours.
Our Saint Marcellin is a farmhouse production: the cattle graze on the farm and are fed with locally produced fodder in winter, giving the milk rich, buttery and vegetal flavours.
Beneath the delicate bloomy rind, there is a glossy white cheese with a meltingly-soft texture and creamy, slightly tangy and savoury flavours. It is both simple and delicious.
The Fromagerie de l’Étoile du Vercors works with nearly 70 dairy producers in the area, including about fifty under IGP for the production of Saint-Marcellin IGP.
Cheese 3
Lincolnshire Poacher
Age: 14 – 16 Months
Country + Region: United Kingdom, Lincolnshire
Milk Type: Cow
Pasteurised: No
Strength Of Cheese: 3
Style Of Cheese: Hard
Vegetarian: No
Texture: 5
Making the cheese is an unusual blend of art and science. Getting the right temperatures and acidities throughout the process is vital.
The cheese maker also needs to have a really good feel for the curd because it is this, that determines when the whey is drained off. This is critical for getting the right texture and our distinctive flavour.
Unpasteurised (raw) milk from the afternoon milking is held in a bulk tank and kept at chill temperature overnight. In the morning the cold milk from the previous evening’s milking is piped into the cheese vat and to it, the warm morning milk is added directly from the milking parlour. Initially starter culture is introduced to turn the milk sugars (lactose) to lactic acid. Then traditional animal rennet is introduced to the milk (1 litre to 5000 litres of milk) to separate the curds from the whey, after which the milk is heated to a temperature of about 41°C.
Once the curd has set into a junket, it is cut with knives until it is the size of a pea. The vat is then stirred for about an hour until the individual bits of curd are about the size of a grain of wheat.
The whey is then drained off to leave a mat of curd at the bottom of the vat. This is cut and piled in to blocks three times (cheddaring) and then milled into chip sized pieces.
Salt is then added and mixed in by hand (very hard work!). The cheese moulds are then filled with 20kg of salted mixed curd and pressed for 36 hours.
- Supreme Champion at the 1996/7 British Cheese Awards
- Best British Cheese at the World Cheese Awards in 2001/2
- Gold Medals at the British Cheese Awards 2003/4 for both Lincolnshire Poacher and Smoked Lincolnshire Poacher
Charcuterie
Saucisson Sec with Truffle
The Deli Society partners with artisan producers that put animal welfare first.
Country & Region: France, Villefranche de Rouergue
Our famous truffle saucisson!
Produced by a partner in France that has been making Saucissons as a family for 60 years. This saucisson sec has been produced to traditional standards with higher animal welfare pork and infused with chunks of truffle for a truly delectable flavour. Bon appetit!
Italian Trio
The Deli Society partners with artisan producers that put animal welfare first.
Country & Region: Italy, Parma
Prosciutto di Parma is special for lots of reasons. It can only be produced from the hind legs of specially selected heritage breed pigs raised to the highest standards, on which they are monitored, inspected, traced and approved by the Consorzio.
Producers can only be located around Parma, within the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, where the mountain air is unique and gives a sweet, dry and aromatic flavour to the hanging hams.
The Coppa is obtained from the neck fillet, cured for at least two months, which develops subtle but unique characteristics.
Salame Brianza is another safeguarded recipe, controlled by a consortium to ensure its quality. Wine, pepper and garlic create this truly moreish salami.
Accompaniments
Colombian Dark Chocolate
We have partnered with COCO Chocolatier to provide you with the very best artisan chocolate.
Challenging industry norms, COCO Chocolatier begin the making of the chocolate at origin before passionately transforming it in Edinburgh, Scotland. As a result, more wealth remains within developing economies.