Birmingham Foodie Festival: Joie de Vin

So, you’ve heard about my fab time at the Birmingham Foodie Festival, and now let’s look in a little more detail at some of the lovely people I met there. First and foremost, I have to bring to your attention Joie de Vin.

Absolutely lovely people importing the finest French wines from small producers. Chatting to them I could feel like they had passion and commitment to the wine they were bringing to our island nation. As we are now, in splendid isolation. What more do you want?

Patrimoine

Anyway, we tried a few wines from these guys and they were all of a uniformly good quality. My favourite was the Domaine La Toupie, Fine Fleur 2014. This was left in small barrels which gives a noticeable oak flavour, so beautifully rounded with a slight vanilla. 8 out of 10 for me.

In addition, we also tried the Patrimoine chenin blanc sec which had great tropical fruit on the nose and then delivered crisp acid complemented with a complementary rounded oak flavour and still those tropical notes. Again this is a small producer, making just 4 x 400l barrels. Very worthy of a 7 out of 10.

It’s also worth noting the Domaine Salmon muscadet that they recommended, more oaky goodness (you can tell they were recommending within my palate) and another 7 out of 10. Check them out. People like this need our continuing support in the economic climate. Passionate, local but with a taste of the best France has to offer.