Little wine joke title, with Tavel a wine growing appellation in the Southern Rhone region of France that produces exclusively rosè wines (rather than one of my standard typos).

Title explanation out the way (I thought it was rather good, but J had pointed out that if I need to explain it it is a fail, so that is pretty much everyone of mine in her eyes), I think the Cardiff Wine Passport thought up (predominantly, as I understand it) by Jane Cook (AKA Hungry City Hippy) is a rather fine idea. Gets people to try wine (never a bad thing in the eyes of an oenophile like me) and at the same time supports wine selling local indies (again never a bad thing and crucial in these trying times).

The idea is beautiful in its simplicity (best things usually are), with £26 getting you a booklet that includes details of an eclectic  mix of indie venues in Cardiff.  Your passport entitles you to 6 glasses of wine (so just over £4 a pop, which in this day and age is some bargain), chosen (I dislike the word curated,  just a word for picked – I mean is non curated stuff just randomly pulled out of a hat blindfolded?) by each venue and set out in the passport. Each venue has a set number of glasses of said wine and you have a time window within which to use it. Venues stamp your passport when you use it in said venue (subject to timing restrictions as detailed in the passport).

We, of course, didn’t read ours properly and thus turned up at our intended first venue (Kindle) when it was closing. Luckily, there is plenty of choice, so it was off to another venue.

So here is a synopsis of how I used mine (after the initial Kindle misfire).

Bacareto

A perennially favour of mine when in town (rare these days), I love the mix of ciccetti and wine that is this place’s MO.

An interesting choice of wines, with me being a fan of both the Sicilian grillo and frappato wines on offer.

I failed to take a picture of the grillo, but it was a deep straw colour (you get the picture). Nice citrus notes, with a touch of ginger and a lovely refreshing acidity. Very gluggable stuff.

The frappato is particularly nice as a refreshing “summer, drunk sightly chilled” red.

Despite its lightness, there is plenty of fruit here, with cherry and plum as well as just a touch of spice in the mix. Great to glug with this place’s nibbly food.

The fritto cauliflower was the pick of a high-class field of nibbles.

Both wines (on the passport here) retail at around a tenner a bottle, so your £4 glass here is pretty good value.

To finish the food off, we added (at an extra cost) a glass of the Veneto neropasso (a nice, spicy, red) for me and one of their trademark spritz (not for me).

Always liked this bar and didn’t really need the excuse the passport gave me to visit.

Address:  13 Church St. Cardiff, CF10 1BG

Website: https://www.bacareto.co.uk/

Nighthawks

Another favourite haunt when I am in town, nighthawks is refreshingly unstuffy and is a place a scruff like me can happily frequently solo or in a group

Rather shamefully I forgot to take a picture of the wines that feature here on the passport.

I quite liked the Bulgarian white, which (as suggested) paired nicely with one of their toasties, as well as their very fine mackeral pâtè). Nice floral nose to this and zingy citrus on the palate.

I was less enamoured with the Esterico orange wine. I know it is ultra trendy and what all the cool kids are drinking (and according to some in the wine press, I am a centrist suburbanites for preferring “good old” rioja to it – why, don’t know 🤷), but I am still struggling to find an orange wine I actually like (which may – see link above –  make me somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan, it seems). The blend here was more cats fighting in a bag than a harmonious mix to my palate, but I am sure many will love it (good for you, if you do – bet you love kittens too).

I have never been remotely on trend, wine wise or in life in general, but I wonder how long this current “orange wine good” trend will last. Good to try new (well actually very old) things, if only to work out what you don’t like and I will be more than happy if I eventually find one to my tastes (the search goes on).

Neither of these wines are cheap retail (the orange is about £21 and the white between £15 and £18), so having them on the passport makes for great value.

We, of course, had food – love to eat when drinking wine (and at any other time if truth be told).

As you can see we didn’t stint.

Further wine and wine slushies (the latter not for me, but others seemed to enjoy) were had,

once we had consumed our passport wines. Interesting list here, from which I  supplemented my passport with a nice Aussie riesling.

Great place to enjoy a glass of wine this, with or without a Cardiff Wine Passport.

Address: 47 – 49 Castle Arcade, Cardiff, CF10 1BW.

Website: https://www.nighthawksbar.co.uk/

Vermut

Another perennial favourite of mine (or is that wine), with my love of all things Spanish, which delivers on the booze and food front in spades.

The passport here offered something a little bit different with white and red vermuts (a fortified wine, spiked with botanicals)

If you haven’t tried vermut (the drink) give it a go, lovely complexity to this drink which made for a perfect pick me up on our Sunday visit.

Food wise, I love Vermut’s array of canned fish

and this ventresca is just top notch stuff. A diamond as against the “zirconium” supermarket canned stuff we get here in the UK.

We, of course, kept the party going post our passport offering and had a bottle of a very pleasant Priorat.

Address: 2 Guildhall Place, Cardiff, CF10 1EB

Website: http://curadobar.com/vermut/

Bar 44

Bar 44’s lunch time offer of 3 tapas and a drink for £20 is a rather fine way to have a late lunch/early dinner (with it handily available from 12.00 until 17.30 on both  Thursdays and Fridays).

With a glass of booze included (I had the in-house Uva 44 Manzanilla – lovely example of one of my favourite wine genres) and our wine passports, we could double up on the booze front.

After languishing in the doldrums for eons, with only wine geeks like me taking much interest, white rioja is on the march again in the UK (with it increasingly seen on wine lists). This may be to do with the increasing diversity of styles on offer, with fresher and lighter wines than the old style (much as I love them, but they can be an acquired taste), big oaky, numbers.

Bar 44 has always been a beacon of quality in terms of Spanish wines (and in general if truth be told)

and the white rioja here is a lovely fresh number (seeing no oak and having a splash of sauvignon blanc in the mix on top of the viura). 

Nice aromas of elderflower, freshly cut grass and honeysuckle, combined well with crisp acidity.

On the food front, with 3 of us, we could endulged somewhat in a wide spread of what was on offer.

Cracking stuff as always and a bargain with a glass of booze thrown in. The passport white rioja worked particularly well with the veggie dishes we ordered.

Can’t go wrong with Bar 44. Never anything less than outstanding.

Address: 14 – 23 Westgate St. Cardiff, CF10 1DD

Website: https://grupo44.co.uk/bar44/cardiff/

Parallel

After being somewhat less than enamoured with the Parallel “Chef’s menu” concept, I was keen to give this place another go with just a glass of wine and a couple of small plates.

Their inclusion on the wine passport, with an interesting sounding Kosovan Riesling was just what I need to give the place a second go.

A riper riesling, I would say, with out being sweet. I got more stone fruits than citrus (and certainly none of the advertised lemon meringue pie) and apple and less acidity than you often find in a riesling.

A bit different, but nothing wrong with that.

Very nice, with the suggested pairing of leek and cheese croquettes,

as well as their Asian spice heavy fried chicken.

Where it really excelled, however, was with the sea bass cerviche (much better than the mackerel one on my previous visit).

This visit has somewhat redeemed the place in my eyes  Much better as a glass of wine and a couple of nibbles sort of place.

Address: 11 High St, Cardiff, CF10 1BB

Website: https://pasturerestaurant.com/locations/parallel-cardiff/

The verdict

As a wine and food lover, I think the wine passport is great. Encouraging people to try new wines as part of a cracking crawl supporting indies in Cardiff can never be a bad thing in my eyes. Fills the indies  coffers, hopefully,  and your bellies by ordering food and more wine once you have done your passport wine.

Do wonder if a suburb addition could be on the cards. So if you are in Llandaff/ Victoria Park area, a trip to Moura or Nook  , Winesandvines in Llandaff North  or, if Whitchurch, nipping into Glass of Bandol before a bus/ train/cab into the city centre to finish it off.

I didn’t quite make the full six (out of Country, so I ceded my last stamp to J), but is always the next passport.

Details

Worth looking out for the next issue of the passport with detail (when announced) on their website :

https://www.cardiffwinepassport.co.uk/