Shot of wine?

So today, day 18, it was our turn to relax, taste various wines and enjoy food that other people had been slaving away on all day. Sounds perfect to me! We all turned up at 11, after having a lovely lie-in. The team of Donna, Margaret, Jose, Amy and Jonny were working in the kitchen and looked rather stressed, probably how we looked to them yesterday! So, Matt was telling us all about wines today. We began with white wines. Matt tested us on recognising smells. We had ten little bottles of certain essences/flavours and had to decipher what each one was. Some were flowers, some were not. It's very difficult to tell what something is, just by sniffing it. I was pretty rubbish at it. I only got two out of ten right! Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a cold and today it was well timed for when I actually needed to use my nose! After a lot of guessing, Matt told us the answers. It made so much sense once we knew what it was as we sniffed it. Obviously. The bottles had all sorts of smells in them, including grapefruit, butterscotch, vanillan oak, melon and peach. Then it was on to trying the vino. Two glasses before lunch? Yes please!We tried various whites, including a Montelciego Rioja Blanco, Paua Bay Sauvignon Blanc and a Siegel Reisling. The Reisling was my favourite of them all. Quite sweet, so I don't know if it would be to everyone's taste, but I prefer sweeter wines. Then, just in time, before the wine went totally to our heads, the risottos came out for lunch.

Their task for the risotto was the s

ame as ours yesterday. This one was Margaret's which was very pretty and I appreciated the thought that had gone into it and the parmesan crisp on top, but it was a little stodgy and it shouldn't have been able to stand up in the ring. It was my favourite out of all of the risottos and quite creative, using red wine, giving it a lovely colour. I enjoyed all of the risottos. Many of them used goats' cheese in them which gave them a lovely creamy flavour. We had no idea whose food was whose, just as the tasters had no idea yesterday. We all debated together what comments to give and what to score them. We scored each dish out of five for presentation, taste and creativity. I tried to give constructive criticism, some points to improve on and what I liked about the food.

Throughout the day, we had flavoured breads. We had three focaccias, a spiced bread and a brown bread with tomatoes. My favourite of the breads was Amy's bread which was the only one to give us a dip of olive oil and balsamic dip which I appreciated. It was a shame though, as some of the breads came out straight from the oven and so were steaming hot, which isn't good for your digestion. But they were all tasty.

Then it was time for the starters, using scallops as the main ingredient. There were some with bacon and garlic, some with a basil pesto which was unusual but tasty and some with a saffron sauce. Jonny's was my favourite. He made scallops with parisian potatoes, crispy bacon and a lemon butter. It was quite delicious.

After the starter, it was time to change to red wine. We had another sniff test, this time of red wine elements. I got none out of ten right. Whoops! I assure you that it was rather difficult to tell what each one was. Then we tried some red wines. I much prefer white wine to red, but there were a few that I could definitely drink rather easily. This particular one, chateau La Roca from France was very smooth and velvety. Mmm. There is just so much to learn about wine. Grape growers keep crossing grapes to make new varieties. I'm going to give you a little quiz now, to see how much you know about wine. I shall reveal the answers tomorrow!

1. How many varieties of wine grapes exist in the world today?

a. 1-99 b. 100-200 c. 1,000-2,000 d. over 10,000

2. Approximately how many grapes does it take to make a standard bottle of wine?

a. 100 b. 300 c. 600 d.1,000

3. Who is the world's largest producer of wine?

a. France b. America c. Australia d. Italy

Main course time, where the chefs had to use rump of lamb. I would have liked to have seen some braising of the lamb, but everyone had roasted it. It was all very yummy. My favourite was Donna's. She had made some delicious duck fat roasted rosemary potatoes which were amazing. The sauce with it was fantastic too.

Last, but not least, it was pudding time. I think that this was the best course collectively. There was a chocolate and walnut cake, chocolate pot with a white chocolate and cointreau sauce and some fabulous orange biscuits, mocha ice cream, white chocolate and lemon tart with white chocolate sauce, chocolate and cointreau mousse and chocolate brownies. My favourite was again, Donna's amazing chocolate pot. The orange biscuits tasted so good and had a wonderful orangey fragrant flavour and the sauce was amazing. Mmm mmm mmm!

So then it was time for Joe to give us some feedback on all of us. We also got all of our score cards from the tasters back to see how we were scored and give us some constructive criticism. Just as I thought, my risotto was undercooked, my rosti wasn't crispy enough, my bread needed a bit more oomph, but my chilli jam seemed to be good. Not sure if anyone noticed my secret ingredient?! Apparently my pork was well seasoned, my calamari was good and my pudding went down well. Joe said that my presentation was really good throughout and I had some good flavours. Then Joe and Matt announced a winner from the two days from our scores. The winner would win a bottle of champagne. All of our scores were totted up and...it was very close, but it turns out that I won!! I couldn't quite believe it actually. I thought that some of my mistakes would have cost me, but apparently not enough. I'm so pleased! And very proud of everyone else. It has been a wonderful couple of days and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Tomorrow is Mediterranean day. Tapas for lunch, anyone?