(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Oh Yes, yet another post inspired by my tens of thousands of archive photos. The silver lining on my current situation of limited mobility is that I have been able to use some of my recovery time sitting sorting out a lot of various photographs and in doing so I have rediscovered many a photo that I had simply forgotten about.
I especially wanted to post the photos of these bottles so that I could have an handy on-line reference and memory jogger for when we intended to visit this area of the Netherlands again, and to spread the news of a “find” that very pleasantly surprised us whilst out on a day trip.
Himself wanted to revisit one of the places he lived in as a child. His father had been a minister of the Church and was posted in various areas of the Netherlands during his working life so Himself and the rest of his siblings were frequently (and oft reluctantly) uprooted from their childhood haunts as the family moved around.
One of Himself’s favourite homes had been in Zeeland, and so early one frosty winter’s Saturday morning a few years back we bundled the kids into the car and set out for a day trip to the island of Zuid Beverland in Zeeland.
After doing some touristy sightseeing, we stopped off at a little cafe place for lunch and I spotted a shelf that sported some locally made products. The pots of chutney, jams and honey, along with a little selection of cheeses didn’t hold any surprises at all, good solid general local fare.
But on the shelf was something that did surprise me… …a local wine! (at this point this was the first and only Dutch wine I had ever seen, In my ignorance I didn’t even think that the Dutch made wine at all!)
It also drew out the curiosity of Himself, so we bought a few bottles out of interest to see it would be like. Each bottle cost +- Euro 6,–
As far as I can see, they used the same label for the main part of the bottles and switched around the top ( neck) label because that one denotes the variety of grape inside. Both are whites… (um, I wonder if many people actually notice that a grape of a red variety is illustrated on bottles of white wine? )
The first bottle is : Zuid Beveland Johanniter white. The wine is soft and sweet, but not overpoweringly so therefore even though I prefer red wine, I liked this white very much indeed.
Himself’s opinion: not a very outspoken wine, but for a Dutch wine it’s rather good and if we were in the area again I’d have no problem to buy it again.
The second bottle : Zuid Beverland Phoenix white. We opened this one later and were delighted to find it to be just as good as the Johanniter bottle.
These wines have opened our eyes to the fact that there might be more of these interesting Dutch wines available in the Netherlands. We have already decided that if we are in the Zuid Beverland again, we will come back to buy some more of these to stock up at home because they certainly didn’t disappoint.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
