Great day. God Spain rocks. If you had asked someone to line up 25 exciting Spanish white wines ten years ago, surely they wouldn’t have been able to manage it? Not like now, anyway. My close mate Norrell Robertson showed me a Garnacha Blanca at the Alliance stand that simply blew me away. A worked, rich, sinewy white grenache in the old skool Châteauneuf du Pape mould. It would behead a wild boar like a saracen’s scimitar at 20 paces. Serious power. Actually Giles Cook MW showed me some lovely stuff, a simply sublime 2004 Gran Reserva Rioja from Luis Cañas for one. I didn’t know that that estate could reach such heights. Rather nice to see a Gran Reserva of the right shape too. Not emaciated, and not juicy, but in that exact twilight zone in between, where fruit and classy oak fade effortlessly into one another. Good to see that mighty mouse, Telmo Rodriguez, is back at the helm of Remelluri, which has been a little wayward of late. Finally, they had a cheeky little Manzanilla, blended from parcels belonging to the Gutierrez Colosia, called Los Pecadillos ‘Furio’, which I couldn’t get enough of. Noticed Noël Young Wines sells it, as I imagine many astute independents will.

Went to see Steve Daniels at Hallgarten Druitt next. Well, it’s never ever boring with him, but this is a bit of a spanker (Pic below).

Alessandro Marchesan, a rather talented sommelier I know from Zuma and Roka Group, showed me this wine a couple of years ago (he’s involved), saying that it was a work in progress but he had high hopes. Well bugger me. I mean Trepat?!? This is a grape variety that is supposed to be paint to make white Cava pink. Who’d have expected such a bergamot, and rose hip-scented joy? It certainly has more elegance than you’d expect. Balance and follow-through is all there, and it’s insanely moreish, by way of a lip-smacking cherry sherbet palate. (Trepat Negra 2010, Cellar Molí dels Capellans). Retail’s about 18 quid, or drink it at Zuma for barely double that. Apparently.

I would refer you to Steve’s Navarran wines which are Bee OO TEE ful. Don’t be put off by the fact that the winery is called Ars. (The e is silent). 

A blinder from Les Caves de Pyrene. Creamy, alive, floral, and ridiculously drinkable. It is on by the glass at Quo Vadis (my local) too. Had this with my foster parents, Paola Tich and Mike Taylor when cooking my famous Asian Coleslaw, Sweet Chilli Chicken and Crispy Won Tons at their lovely home last week. Yummy yummy yummy, I’ve got love in my tummy. It has the seltzer quality of Godello, with all the heady meadow joy of the Treixadura, Loureiro and Albariño etc.

And finally, Daniel Lambert (a.k.a. The Westlander) has some truly exasperating new listings. New to me anyway.

Firstly, do not miss an opportunity to try his Priorats. My favourite, and, I believe his, is the mid-priced Galena 2007 from Domini de la Cartoixa. At 22 quid it sounds a wee bit on the steep side, bit it is so well-defined, so velvety, so herby and dripping with character, that I almost always recognise it. That sense of joyful familiarity is worth the ticket price alone. Like heroin I imagine.  

The chap below is quite something. It’s not often that I come across something brand new that’s so show-stoppingly, traffic-swervingly good from a region that I thought I knew quite well. (Reserva 2007 Bodega de la Emperatriz 14 earth pounds.)

I will leave it there as a natural segue onto the next mini blog, but I would urge you to look up his list on the web, if you want to try some peerless wines. Especially, don’t think of missing out on his Burgundy and Beaujolais line-up. Daniel’s one of those guys that if you tell him that his wines are amazing, he’ll counter with “I know.” Or if you say that’s shit, he’ll counter with “Fuck off.” In these areas, he’s usually right. 

Right. Back to the Rioja. This is the knackers. It is mostly Tempranillo.

Mostly.

It also has all the other essential herbs and spices that make a Rioja taste so damn well Rioja. Graciano, Garnacha, all that.  I equate it do Jersey Royal spuds. It doesn’t matter how good they are, or that, pound for pound, they cost the same as rump steak if they’re any good. You need salt pepper and a dollop of butter on them, don’tcha? Same here…

I always find myself every so slightly underwhelmed by a Rioja that is pure Tempranillo. It’s like that boring git at the end of a party that does an amazing impression of Alan Partridge. But it’s the only one he fucking knows. Over and over and..well, you get the drift.

Anyway Emperatriz Reserva 2007. Buy it. 14 quid. Daniel Lambert Wines. Somewhere miles away in a country called Wales, but he will deliver. So what did we eat with it? (France, at this stage, looks like they’re going to get a pasting, by the way.) Scroll down and see.

Pork Belly. Properly poached in a bain-marie first then roasted ever so slowly for 3 hours. Corr. This is the best cut of the best animal in the world to eat. Fergus Henderson is right. Now I know why that stuff on top is called crackling. One mouthful, and you need a trip to rehab to stop eating it. Smackling is now our preferred term. Especially when the super-talented Eleanor Smyly is cooking. (Thank you noodle-face. It was amazing.)

The end plate, with braised cabbage, perfect mash and roast carrots looked like this. Good god, I’ve got goosebumps looking at it again.

To finish, Ellie’s boyfriend, HongKongOllie provided us with home made rocky road ice cream to go with Ellie’s gargantuan pavlova. There is no picture. I was having a stroke at the time. Ahh Sundays……It was a draw. How nice.

I my capacity as tonight’s MC, and as it’s a charity after all, I thought I’d whet your appetite by leaking some of the auction lots. Companies! No point coming of you’re not going to be ‘benevolent’ on the night, and if you like your sport, bring the company checkbook! We have some amazing lots.

Any rugger fans remember last year’s record breaking attendance at the Saracens Quins final at Twickenham? They sold it out. 83,000 people watched it. Well, Octavian are donating a box for 8 with full hospitality for the next Saracens Harlequins clash at Twickers. Yes. Really. Crikey. What’s that worth.

Or maybe you like your footie? Two prime seats at the FA cup final with, you guessed it, full box hospitality, care of Pernod Ricard? My brother tried to get tickets to the (I know it’s a pony cup, but its still Wembley silver) Carling Cup Final, Liverpool vs Cardiff. Cheapest ticket he could get was £350. We’re still in it too!! Come on Kop fans. Dig deep.

Anyone for tennis? A couple of prime seat, all-access Men’s final tickets at Wimbledon up for grabs. You will be plied with Pastis and Riesling all day, courtesy of Pernod-Ricard. Again. Stretch. They know where the party’s at don’t they?!

It goes on…..

…Box and hospitality for 10 at the Newbury races at one of the best meets of the year. (Great course)…..

….Centre Box at the Royal Albert Hall for any of the BBC Proms (except the last night)…..

….Track day with Porsche’s own test driver, driving an ‘86, ‘96 aircooled 993 and 2012 edition 911, so you can see how the car has evolved. Awesome, non?…

…for those of you on slimmer budgets, The Dorchester has offered dinner for two in the Grill Room, surely one of the most underrated restaurants in the capital. (They famously spoil the winners too.)

It’s going to be a great great night. Please don’t let the Benevolent or the Auctioneer (me) down. See you later. Eek! Can’t wait!

Returning from visiting my darling kids in Skegness, I received a text from Ashika Mathews, glamour model and ex-buyer from Venus and Wine Rack. “I’m going to the Loeb tasting. Were you planning to go?” (She wasn’t really a glamour model.)

Well, I had a couple of hours to kill and I was minutes away from King’s Cross. Short of drinking a Pink Chihuahua at El Camion, I couldn’t think of a better way to occupy my time than to be drinking smart Burgundy and Riesling at the Westbury Hotel.  

Some of Loeb’s usual suspects were there, like Louis Michel, whose unoaked, uncluttered 2010 Chablis AC had a fluffy, snowy purity and terrific marble-like minerality under the fragrant apple fruit. Great value (£14ish?) 

However, this isn’t a comprehensive review of the tasting, rather more a collection of things I feel are worth saying.

So.

Let’s start with a nice young chap called Antoine. Antoine Gouges. This was his first trip to London on behalf of his family’s famous Nuits St. Georges wine estate. I understand from his cousin, Aurelia Gouges, the UK wine industry’s very own, very beautiful fairy godmother (and Antoine’s actual godmother) that he was ‘broken in’ at the Hollywood Road branch of Brinkleys later on that day by Loeb’s own wine assassin, Francis Murray.

Antoine was charming and knowledgeable. So he should be, and he was presenting an interesting and comprehensive range of Henri Gouges wines at the tasting. One particular wine though, the one down the page, I found most fascinating.

Unusually for a NSG producer, they make a few whites. I have tried their unusual, aged Pinot Blanc that is released from the estate, but not this wine before. Partly, I guess, because I don’t get invited to tastings like this very often, and partly because it was the most expensive wine in the room, at about a monkey a case. Trade. (Around £500 per dozen, to any foreigners reading this.) 

Well, why? And was it worth it? I guess the ‘why’ is because it is a WHITE 1er Cru Côtes de Nuits from a vineyard that most Burgundy nutters would consider to be hallowed RED wine ground. Judging by the number of white wines in this area of the region, the Côtes de Nuits is a white wine racist. Growers in Burgundy have told me many times that it’s simply because growing Chardonnay here is inappropriate, but this wine really proves them wrong.

I found this wine riveting. It’s over six years old, and it is invantile in development, but judging by its shape, this may just be down to the fact it comes from the Côtes de Nuits. It may be Chardonnay, but it is definitely from Nuit St Georges. The DNA is in every drop.

Now, for us wine nerds, we know that NSG, and even more specifically, Pierre and Christian at the Henri Gouges estate, make structured, super slowmo-evolving reds that need a decade, even in generously proportioned, hot years, to show their sexy side. (That’s Kristin Scott-Thomas sexy, by the way: they still don’t smile much even then.) These wines aren’t for people who like young bouncy and curvy. If you’re a Salma Hayek man, banish yourself to the Côtes de Beaune. There is nothing here for you. However, for every curve and flash of cleavage that a Côtes de Beaune white has, this one shows you some fine-boned décolletage, or a withering, sexy stare. It’s hard. Uncompromising. But beautiful. It feels like holding a lead-crystal glass egg, in the mouth. There’s not one tiny little flaw or edge or join, but at the same time its’s unyielding and pure. Crystalline. It’s weird to sense such ripeness and smoothness, but to remain so removed and disconnected from what’s inside. It’s verging on the sado-masochistic. Especially if you have just paid over £65 pounds for this hot date. Maybe the wine is telling me more about ‘me’ than ‘it’. Brilliant.

Perversely, two of Gouges’ more famous red wines were on show from the immensely accessible, soft and cuddly 2006 vintage. Soft and cuddly they weren’t, but they were far more friendly than any five year old Gouges wines that I have tried in recent times. They still need a good couple of hours in a carafe, but I found these wines to be detailed, articulate, immensely complex and vigorous. I’m sure that a seared Charolais entrecôte and some Pommes Sarladaises are all that are missing from a brilliant night in with the boys, apart from the forty odd quid it’ll cost you to buy them.

Next? Ah, yes. Champagne.

I’m not really up on my growers’ bubbles, but these were more than just a pleasant surprise. I think I’ve seen these wines before in restaurants dotted around the city, but I would have remembered if I had tried them before. The Brut was fine. Fireworks and rockets that go weeeee. But that was that. A chat in a pub, not full-blown sex. The next bottle, the Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru 2002 was empty, but in the interests of due diligence I felt duty bound to try the Brut Rosé.

Phwoarr….. Juicy, creamy strawberry and cranberry fool flavours, with a moreish tang of dried orange peel and sourdough. Oops! Sorry about that. Sounded like a wanker there for a moment.  Anyway. I want to drink this now. It’s 23.07, so anything would do, but I tasted it at 3p.m. on a Monday, and couldn’t imagine a more attractive bistro pink fizz with which to enjoy the early shards of Spring sun. I can’t remember the exact price, but if you shop around the indies, it wouldn’t be much more than £30.

Having enjoyed the mouthful that I’d had so much, I re-entered the fray to have a crack at the newly opened Blanc de Blancs. Damn glad I did. Most people are probably aware how sexy the 2002 is in Champagne, but this was quite a surprise. I like BdeB one of two ways. Wiry and austere, or generous of bosom. From a vintage of such piercing acidity and youthful power (yes, still) as 2002, I was expecting the former. What I got was both. It is immediate, and tight initially, but the flavours melt, as the dosage of sweetness becomes more apparent, leaving a very, very full-flavoured yeasty, tropically ripe mouthful. After one of my extremely rare nights of excess, I discovered that the combination of marmite on toast and fresh pineapple juice can cure any hangover. Actually, it might even cure cancer. This is that.

Q.E.D. This is the Holy Grail drink. Just imagine. It is a world-class mature Blanc de Blancs Champagne from one of the greatest ever vintages, and it is also a hangover-purging morning after pill. If it could actually be made into a pill, it would outsell Viagra. Whatever that is. About £40… The wine. Not Viagra.

Ahh. Chateau Reynon. My ex prof, Monsieur Dubordieu, from the L’Institut d’Oenologie in Bordeaux owns this one.

In the 70’s, along with Brian Croser and Len Evans (Yes, them. At Ch. Rahoul, I believe), he was partly responsible for discovering the effective use of ‘skin contact’ on Sauvignon Blanc, hence discovering ‘New World Sauvignon Blanc’. So, if you wondered whether it was the Kiwis or the French who used it first, it wasn’t either. It was the Aussies. In France.

Thankfully Denis Dubordieu doesn’t go overboard with the ‘Macération Pelliculaire’ like Go West with a mixing desk, but lets his very old Sauvignon Blanc do the talking. Some of his vines are over 130 years old. No shit. It is ripe, herbaceous, ever-so -slightly honeysuckled, with lovely textural ripples of tannin stitched through it.

This is a snip at £13.50

If you’re a lover of great German Riesling, you may well already have OW Loeb on speed dial, but here at thos tasting were just a couple of humdingers from their selection. The label on the right should be familiar to you. This is JJ Prüm.

Here’s a tip to buying Prüm. Buy anything from this estate. Any ripeness level, any vintage. That’s it. If it’s six years old or older, then it’s time to see how it’s getting on. If you drink it any younger than that, you’re an idiot.

I once tasted a 1949 Spätlese from this estate, and it was oh so perfumed, and divinely fresh. (Despite urban legend, I am not 82 years old. This was quite recently.) Take heed, and don’t store it next to the cooker in the kitchen. Unless you are thinking of drinking it in the first 5 years. (Idiot. Weren’t you listening?)

The wine on the left, is Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Kabinett 2008 from Carl von Schubert. The label’s worth the £18 quid alone, and, buy way of the extra two years, and the more bohemian texture, and wonderfully open floral fragrance, teethchatteringly stoney bite, it kicked Prüm’s arse. One of the greatest wines to ever touch my lips was the 1990 Auslese from this same vineyard. I shudder to think what that would set me back today. I’m guessing a long way north of a hundred quid.

And finally this. Truly grand wine. Precise and athletic. Like a Lotus. The car, not the flower. Would love to try it couple of years older.

Trade secret of the day…..

These old Muscadet Estates are making some of the finest wine bargains in France. If you like Chablis and Pouilly Fumé and you drink Picpoul de Pinet, pissed, with your friends down the pub, pleeeeeeease revisit Muscadet Sèvre et Maine. You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are missing.

And oh. Nine quid. 

Did I mention Pink Chihuahuas earlier?…….

If you haven’t heard of Dick Bradsell, then look him up on Wikipedia. He has done as much as any single person in this country to create the globally enviable, almost unparalleled, cocktail scene that most of us enjoy, and a few take for granted, in this great city of ours. He was most probably best known as the head bartender at the eponymously named Dick’s Bar in the now extinct, Atlantic Bar and Grill.

However, his influence stretches far wider than that, having invented such world-famous cocktails as The Pharmaceutical Stimulant (a.k.a. the Espresso Martini), The Bramble, and The Treacle, an innovative rum-based take on arguably the greatest cocktail of all, The Old-Fashioned. 

Well? Where is he now, and why am donating some time to telling you about him?  

Three Words. The. Pink. Chihuahua.

Dick now runs a most magnificently casual bar underneath a really very good, Baja/Mexican restaurant called El Camion (formerly known as El Camino. See what they did there?) in London’s Soho. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it. You certainly wouldn’t know that it was open until 3 a.m. most nights, way after the restaurant has shut. If the beautiful, striking, body-pierced door hostess Polly lets you in, that is. 

Look, I’m obsessed, with the house cocktail. It is simply delicious. On several levels. It has depth, balance, texture, and it even looks sexy. It’s as though someone has made a cosmpolitan with a few dashes of blood. It’s sexy the way that crimson underwear is sexy. It looks so naughty.

Well, here is the drink, being served by Mr. Bradsell himself.

What’s in it, I hear you cry?…..

Well, I’ve watched them make a few, and I think I’ve got it..

25ml of fresh lime juice

25ml of fresh pomegranate juice

15ml of orgeat (almond) syrup

50ml of Olmeca Silver tequila (or some similar high-quality 100% agave brand)

A dash of egg whites

Shake all the above into a martini glass, and garnish with a wedge of lime. Simples.

I strongly recommend that you order a plate of their delicious shredded pork nachos from upstairs, to soak up the booze too. Once you’ve had a couple of PCs, go on to these. Tommy’s Margaritas made with Tapatio Reposado. 

Now that’s how I roll….

After that lot, so will you.

OK. Confession time. Most of my dinners and associated glamorous wines usually belong to someone else. In the words of Steven Segal in The Seige, “I’m just the cook.” I don’t mind saying that I’m good at it though. So I should be. My dad was a bit of a cook himself. Egon Ronay Chef of the Year, Michelin and Egon Ronay stars, Head chef at Quaglinos when he was 24, and Chef de Cuisine at The Chewton Glen at 27 blah blah blah..Yeah. He pretty much did it all, and left me with a couple of very serious handicaps.

1) I am not a cheap date.

2) Nobody will cook for me.

Well, that’s not strictly true, but it does mean that I’ll probably have to date a chef.

My dearest friend Eleanor Smyly (mentioned in previous blogs) is a blistering cook, and one other friend, namely Victoria Kirsty Moore, author, journalist, and resident wino at The Daily Telegraph, is so fussy about what she puts in her mouth that she has pretty high standards in the kitchen too. In fact, I love her cooking, especially when in her considerable comfort zone of Italian—influenced nosh.

She has been very generous over the past few years with her own food and wine when I haven’t been able to eat as well is would normally like, and my birthday last week was no exception.

I was planning to cook one of my favourite starters, a mouclade soup, as mussels are very much in best of season, when VM reminded me that in her fridge was an entire tinned lobe of foie gras that she brought back at considerable personal cost some years ago, after holidaying with some of her best friends, the amazing Sasha and George Smart. They are like a beautiful, young Joan Collins married to an opera-singing Nigel Havers, and have two of the most charismatic and beautiful children that I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. The (excellently named) Joe even has a cocktail named after him by his godmother, the aforementioned Victoria Moore, and Olga will no doubt be as strong and as beautiful as her mother. She is a carbon copy, it seems.

Anyway, Victoria went to Aveyron. Got busted coming back through Luton. Had a weight under her kindle. Now, she worked out that it would be handy karma for her to get it back, so she gave the geezer in customs a bit of a wink and smile. Seems that he was a pretty low-temperatured dude, the customs officer, so he gave it back.

(Couldn’t help this bit. Withnail and I is the best film ever made. Fact.)

Now, we only have a limited time to let’s move on four years to last Tuesday. Below, in the first photograph is the vintage liver, holding court next to three very handsome and viable suitors. Out of shot is a plate of grilled Poîlane Sourdough Toast. Naturally.

Warburtons would not do in this scenario.

So.

Welcome to the Olympic finals of the Foie Gras tasting. The liver in question was only a nipper at the last Olympics, so let’s see what it has to offer this time round…

First up to bat is Château Jolys Jurançon, Cuvée Jean 2008 (£13.99 from Waitrose)

The smart money would probably be on this being the finest match, because Gascony, where it’s from, is home turf for a whole lot of those poor ducks and geese.

Well it isn’t so sweet that it hurts the teeth, but it has a firm crystalline sweetness of lemon verbena and barley sugar. It is surprisingly linear in the mouth too. MW tasting students take heed. Although the flavours may ‘remind’ you of Sauternes, it is ANYTHING BUT the shape of a botrytised Semillon. Also, is that botrytis that you can taste? Really? Isn’t it just very very sunny? No vinegar spice? At all?

Right. Let’s see.

Smells like Sauternes. A bit. But no noble rot.

Tastes like Recioto di Soave. Sort of,

and

Has the shape of a piercing, sweet Loire Chenin Blanc.

This is the photofit description of a Jurançon. I love this wine. But only with a slather of sweet meaty fat on the dry, hard, salty toast. In fact, I’m not even sure if I could drink this on its own.

It’s the way the this wine’s orangy sharpness washes and cleanses the mouth and teeth after every bite of this smooth oily chilled paste, and replaces it with a Werthers Original that makes me smile.

Back of the net. A perfect match.

Round 2….

Les Lions de Suduiraut 2009 Sauternes (£14.99 for 37.5cl from Averys)

Grrrrrr. Meaoow. Nmnmnm. This is absolutely and utterly delicious wine. It is allegedly a newer, lighter style of Sauternes from this estate, designed to appeal to a younger audience. Presumably with cash to burn. Or perhaps ‘younger’ means under 70?

Anyway. I recognise its youthful, Cream Brûlée and apricot swagger. Château Suduiraut is not only one of my favourite Châteaux in Sauternes, but one of my favourite wines in Bordeaux. I tend to migrate towards Coutet and Climens, and, on a slightly lighter budget, the ever improving Château Liot. The attentive amongst you will notice that they are all from Barsac. Blame my dad. He liked them too, and that’s what I was weened on in my dad’s restaurants. With Dutch apple pie. A bit of a treat for a thirteen year old, to be fair. However, Suduiraut is unmistakeably a thoroughbred Sauternes that never gets old. It has a purity and transparency that the more golden, bitter-caramel wines of Barsac don’t have. It’s like Cognac versus Armagnac. Maybe it has slightly less upstairs, but boy does it look good in a suit. If you want to taste greatness for not much money, try and hunt down the Chateau Suduiraut 1982. In no way a universal success in the region, this vintage of this wine is extraordinary, and at its peak now. While I’m at it, the same thing happened at Chateau Climens in 1991. It is better than the Yquem of the same vintage. Five times better. They picked before the rains opened, and it is fucking amazing.

As much as drinking this is like being wrapped in a light fluffy duvet of meringue and caramel, it just too broad, too sweet and not honed enough to perform the same trick that the Jurançon pulled off earlier. The wine is nearly great, and shows off its provence and the credentials of the fantastic 2009 vintage, but save it for birthday cake.

(Sing this while simultaneously waving one straight arm above your head like a homey.)

“Would wine in the tall bottle please stand up, please stand up, please stand up.”

Pray silence for the one and only, Hugel 2001 Gewürztraminer Vendanges Tardives.

This is flipping delicious. This is, without question, the smartest and ‘greatest’ wine here. I’m quite sure the Suduiraut will give it a really good run for its money in ten years or so, but thank you, darling Victoria, for opening this on my birthday. Absolutely devastated that I forgot to taste it again later. What a waste. It is an asian-spiced ‘apple and lychee’ tini, with hints of turkish delight, bergamot and jasmine. It is so soft, it’s barely there, floating away on a cloud of soft floaty balloons of acacia scent. Right. There you go. ‘Wine wank’ over. But what wine. It needs a slice of Chaumes. Not foie gras. If you ever need proof that great wine and great food, a great meal does not necessarily make, this is it. It is a bloody car crash with the liver. Not enough acidity and all that soft texture means that the foie gras just stays stuck to the mouth, and the feral notes in the wines make this expensive tin of meat joy taste like nothing more than old raw liver. Thanks, but no thanks.

So, wines 1, 2 and 3 crossed the finishing line in the following order. 1, 2 and 3.

Main blog over.

Afterwards, I cooked one of Victoria’s favourites, Tournedos Sterimberg, a thick slice of angas fillet with a crust of dijon mustard and posh peppercorns, with a creamy, mellow sauce of sautéed fresh green peppercorns and more mustard. Enough of it to fill a paddling pool, and dive into it with a big pile of shoestring fries and a bitter chicory salad.

I’m not going to go into it now, but this dish has magical powers. Contrary to popular belief, mustard has the magical ability to soften and polymerise tannin in the hardest of young, punchy, gutsy wines. It’s a trick that I use to make bring feisty young wines into line quite often. Ally this with a wine that already has savoury and peppery characteristics, like, say, a St. Joseph, and alchemy is created. However,….

….this rather incredible wine was so young that I fear that we commited infanticide. I’m still crying inside about it. I really wished that I had put it in a decanter hours before. It was tight-lipped, sinewy and had all the charm of Mike Tyson before a fight. It had only just begun to show sparks of St. Josephness when I had to leave at 11. It had been open for 3 hours. I orginally bought it for Victoria’s Christmas present two years ago, and it just wasn’t ready. Sorry Miss Moore. My bad. I dearly hope that it tasted magnificent the next day. Must remember to ask VKM.

Long live Chave. Far too bloody long, it would seem.

Mmmm. Forgot how lovely this pilsener is. Having lamb, spinach and lime pickle sandwiches with my brother in sunny Hampshire, drinking this delicious dry hoppy beer. Almost identical, saaz hops and lemon fragrance that the legendary Swingtop Grolsch has. Bought from the Naked Grape in Four Marks for about two quid. Very refreshing. Cheers. Christ the budget is dull….

I’ll tell you why. Three or so weeks ago, I wanted to cook something special for my friends Paola and Mike to thank them for generously letting me stay with them for a while. I needed pork chops, and good quality chicken thighs. I went to the Askew Road Ginger Pig, on a busy Saturday morning. I’d heard good things about this particular butcher’s chain, and had bought some lovely beef from their concession at Borough Market before. In front of me was a glass counter filled to the top with beautiful looking plump chickens. Some bright yellow Poulet de Bresse, some ‘Black Legs’, my favourite, and what looked a bit like Label Anglais chickens, which appeared to have been aged for a few days, and had the tell-tale pyramidal chest shape of a Cornish Red chicken. So. No shortage of choice then. I asked the butcher whether he had three large thighs I could buy. He said no. Me: “Hang on, you’ve got about a hundred weight of dead hens and a knife. Why not?” Butcher: “Well we expected to sell a lot of chicken breasts so, we prepared that lot.” *pointing at pile of quite nice breasts*. Me: “Well, I assume the chickens had legs originally. Where are they?” Butcher: “Dunno.” Me: “What do you mean, dunno?” Butcher: “In pies, I think. Over there.” *now waving his knife in the general direction of the hot counter* Me: “But I specifically need thighs. Good ones, with the skin on. That’s why I’m here.” Butcher: “Well, that’s a shame, because, as I’ve already told you, we’ve run out.” Me: “Why can’t you sell me three from those?” *pointing at his mountain of chickens* Butcher: “It’s not really worth my while, you see. Can’t you use skinless breasts? I mean what’s the recipe?” Me: “No, disrespect, but I know what I’m doing, and no, I can’t. Why? Are you offering me a bit of discount?” Butcher: “No.” Me: “What do you expect me to do? Go to Tesco Metro next door?!” Butcher: “Or the co-op up the road. They might have some too.” I left in disbelief. An award-winning butcher that recommends that I go to the next door supermarket for my chicken, I don’t need. Especially, after I had just bought £20 of rare breed pork chops from him. First and last time.

Monday the 12th and all is quiet. I have arrived back to our great city of London from the Lincolnshire Riviera (Skegness). The sun is shining, and the weather is sweet, yeah.  

I have just been to a lovely Loeb tasting (see previous blog), and I am waiting in Soho for my good friend Richard Siddle. Hungry, but as poor as the clothes on my back and the change in my pocket, I feel that I must eat. It’s 5 p.m.

I’ve tasted 50 wines, and I haven’t had as much as an apple today. Que faire?…

Well, I’ll tell you what I did. As it was my birthday (nearly), and I was on my own, I sat outside Café Bohème on Old Compton Street, and ordered Ham and Cheese Croquettes, a starter portion of Salade Niçoise and a glass of white. Saumur, I think.

Here they are (beer’s not mine).

It was EXACTLY what I wanted. Generous, tasty and very filling. The salty, fishy tuna salad, the Beurre Echiré on baguette, and deliciously hot, crisp cages of crumb, filled with unctuous creamy béchamel and shards of ham. Flipping marvellous. Not the best meal I’ve ever had, but I’m going back soon. The starter salad (but look at the size of it) was £7 and four cigar-sized croquettes were £5. I know for those reading this blog in Lincolnshire, this is equivalent to the weekly shop, but I reckon that this was one of the best value snacks I’ve ever had in Soho. Keep up the bon travail guys.    

Now.

Richard Siddle was receiving a very important guest, Meliza Jalbert, Export Director of Hope Family Wines in California. She had looked after Richard, Oz Clarke and Tim Atkin MW, amongst others, on a recent trip out there, and Mr. Siddle felt that it would be courteous, if nothing else, to return the favour. Miss Jalbert had heard that I was around, and said that she had enjoyed my company the last time we met (naturally), and Richard suggested that I should join them. I suggested my club, Quo Vadis, for eats and civilised drinkies, especially in light of the fact that the wonderfully lyrical Jeremy Lee is now heading up the kitchen there. 

Here is a picture of her on the evening. As you can see, she politely dressed in a manner in keeping with the seriousness that we all take our food and wine.  

This is her in her work clothes.

Anyway, I felt honoured and privileged to have the following gentlemen also present, who, it transpired, generously bought me supper and gave me my only birthday card. (Thank you all. It was an absolutely brilliant evening.) 

Jack Lewens, my dear friend, and Wine Director for Hart Group restaurants, had rotored himself on for the evening, even though it was a Monday, (because I was coming, I like to think anyway). For those who don’t know him, here he is on a morning stroll.

Also with us was Charles ‘Chuckie” Cramer, Californian wine importer extraordinaire, fellow IWC judge, and all round seriously fun guy. Here he is below. 

Although he need no introduction, Richard Siddle is Editor of our trade’s most serious wine journal, Harpers Wine and Spirits Trade Review. Here he is enjoying a cheeky little mojito with me in Cape Town a few years ago. He supports Liverpool, is wonderfully generous and supportive as a mate, and is one of the funniest men that I have ever had the privilege to meet.

And the final lovely surprise of the evening was the presence of Peter McCombie MW, a world class palate, with a highly-functional brain, and also a wicked sense of humour. Here he is, in his library.  

Shit, no. That’s Willie Lebus. This is Peter.

Right, for starters we had these. 

La Gitana Manzanilla ‘En Rama’ from Hidalgo

Domain Léon Boesch ‘Luss’ Riesling 2008 from Westhalten in the Alsace

Nikolaihoff Gruner Veltliner ‘Hefeabzug’ 2009 Wachau, Austria

The sherry is a joy. A complete joy. If I didn’t have a soft spot for Javier Hidalgo’s La Gitana, and even more so for La Pastrana already, I would have fallen in love with his wines all over again. It has an extra roast hazelnut and grapefruit dimension that leaves your mouth screaming for some ‘umami’ savoury to join the party.

Enter Jeremy’s Crab Soup.

Sorry. I accidentally deleted the picture that I took, but it was a little white terrine of pure, weaponised crab consommé. Sheer lip-coating, bisquey energy. It was incredibly light in texture and easy on the stomach, despite it’s flavour, and would have made a great magic potion in Lord of the Rings.

The Alsace Riesling was a real surprise. I often, too often, find French Rieslings far too ‘worked’ and fashioned. Evidence of old barrels, rich leesy textures, sometimes sugary, sometimes not sugary enough, hints of botrytis, the list is endless. But what I don’t get from Alsace often enough is the pure single-voiced, Rotring-pen precision that I want from this, the most honest of all wine grapes. Well, this biodynamic fella came up with the goods. It has an almost lemon and mustard dressing, shiver-down-the-neck tightness, that opens up to show a delicious crab apple and lime fruitiness. Long and as straight as an arrow. Delightful.

The Nikolaihof Grüner Veltliner ‘09 was delicious. Christine Nikolaihof, surely one of Austria’s best winemakers, apparently describes this as her 11 a.m. cuvée. It worked just as well at nine in the evening. Jack, pictured below out of his training shorts and being London’s most dapper sommelier, had kept back a few bottles of this sublime vintage for special friends and customers. That would be us. Grateful I was too. Beautiful, textural evolution and hints of quince and Charentais melon, on top of a back drop of white pepper and lime flower. (Ooh. Get me.)

With main courses en route, Peter asked for the perfectly formed wine list. (Honestly, I know of few other smallish wine lists that are so beautifully balanced, and so full of unusual jewels and food-friendly accompaniments.) The prices have recently been reduced, which is great news for all, as well as one reason why this restaurant is packed on a Monday night.

The other is the food. Jeremy appears to be militantly seasonal. If he uses a vegetable out of season, it appears, as it would a century ago, pickled or dried. Refreshingly old skool and zeitgeisty at the same time I think.

I love his food, but I have dined here with two women previously, only to discover that they both found ordering supper very difficult. “It’s a very male-oriented menu.” said one. “I don’t know what to order”. The other claimed that “It is all a bit gamey-offaly. unless you’re into fish, and I don’t like to order fish when I go out.” I didn’t think so, but she had difficulties being happy with her choices too, so ordered sirloin and chips. Although it turned out to be delicious (carved off a large sirloin on the bone, old skool), she felt cheated of a more exciting dining experience.

I have to concede, therefore, that Quo Vadis isn’t all things to all people, but it is to me. I would like to see more changes on the menu more often through each season, but I have only eaten delicious things here. But ladies in question, and Jancis Robinson on a recent tweet, loved the roast salsify in a parmesan crust. Mmm. Who wouldn’t. 

Peter, after cackling devilishly with Jack over potential blind offerings to try out on the rest of us, chose this. Peter asked what I thought it was and did I like it. I inhaled the black cherry and warm earth aromas from the glass and swirled the unctuously silky liquid around the glass and then my mouth.

Prrrrrr. Lovely sweet sour red fruits coated in a jacket of suede and dried mediterranean herbs. I proclaimed Tuscany. Chianti or Brunello. Probably 2004. Then Jack and Peter gaffawed, “Well there’s only one Rufina Chianti on the list! It had to be this one!” Pre-supposing that I had ruled out the dozens of odd bottles that Italianophile Jack had down stairs, and that in my pissed state, I had manage to read and remember every wine on his hundred and fifty strong list in the five minutes I had to browse it, they may well have been right. Come on?! Credit where credits due, fellas! And I hadn’t said Rufina Chianti yet. Or Selvapiana Bucerchiale.

*But I was going to.* 

It is, and both Mr Peter McEmdoubleyou and Jack ‘Bjørn from Abba’ Lewens clearly agree, one of the true bargains in Tuscany. It is surely capable of thrashing the hide off wines way more than twice its price. Thank you Peter. Brilliant choice.

Finally, Vietti Dolcetto d’Alba 2009. 

Guys, what a brilliant way to finish a meal. Hats off to you all. 

Rose petals, black cherries, and blueberries, with a tight, savoury Italian twang of Slavonian oak underneath, like a dash of Aperol bitters. It was damn near perfect, and a light joyous match with our expertly chosen English cheeseboard. Sorry. I can’t remember what they were. I was wankered.

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me…..

It all began at 8.15 outside Turnham Green Tube Station. That’s not strictly true, actually, because at this point, I had been up for 24 hours, having stayed with a friend who had received some devastating news. So, it’s fair to say that I was a little stressed and feeling ‘up against it’ at the prospect of cooking a four course ‘investors’ lunch for a friend, his business partner, and three of their business associates. Now these guys like their food. They can afford to eat in the finest restaurants in the world, and do. Furthermore, as you will see from the pictures, they like the odd drop of something nice.

Miles Davis (yeah I know, but he’s much more of a Sonny Rollins man), asked me to cook around a magnum of Château Lynch Bages 2000. Yes, I know that too. Miles and his business partner Will Beck run two wine investment funds, and on account of owning 300 cases of the stuff, he fancied seeing how it was getting on, while throwing a lunch to thank some of his contacts and friends. Bud Cuchet from Fine & Rare was there, as was Joss Fowler from Berry Brothers and Mark Roberts from Decorum Vintners. I’m unlikely to meet a better group of new friends with whom to share what became an unforgettable lunch. So we did all the shopping in 30 minutes flat. If you live anywhere near Turnham Green Terrace, you can want for nothing there. If you don’t mind being shrugged at by grumpy, feral-looking fishmongers and glib deli owners, then all you could want as an epicurean is within 20 square yards of each other. A great greengrocer and a terrific butcher (Mackens) and all our shopping was done. Battle was set to commence, and I gingerly removed Miles’ knives from the block, and with shaking hands began to sharpen them for the work ahead.

First job was to get the beef and Madeira jus on the go. It was going to require at least three hours to reduce. More on that later. Next to do: the Pommes Dauphoinoise, remembering the five golden rules.

1) Poach the potatoes in the cream until almost cooked before layering in the oven dish (the starch in the spuds, thickens and combines with the cream, to create the béchamel consistency you need).

2) Not too much nutmeg, but always some.

3) Season layer by layer.

4) Only grease the dish with a garlic clove. That’s all it needs.

5) NEVER bloody EVER put cheese in it.

Look at these beasties! I have upped the contrast on the picture, so you can see that gorgeous marbling of fat in the loins. Mmmm, veal chop….. *makes Homer Simpson noises*. I seasoned them generously on both sides, then set them in an oven dish for later.

Before I knew it, three hours had whistled past and the front doorbell rang. Well, here we go…

First glass of wine of the day was……

Very nice, silky soft, and ever-so-slightly toasty. I DO like ‘99 as a Champagne vintage. As guests began to arrive, I prepared two of my favourite canapés. Miles told me that he had Michael Winner around for supper one evening, who declared that a canapé must taste delicious and be able to be eaten with one hand, with no mess. Otherwise it’s crap. Harsh but fair. With these thoughts ringing in my head, I did my best not to balls things up.

Canapé No 1

Duxelles of Field Mushrooms and Fresh Marjoram on Poilâne toast with Black Fig.

The name’s a mouthful even if the food isn’t.

It was.

Canapé No. 2 

Chorizo Picante on a Wild Rocket Mayonnaise with Caramelised Red Onions.

Created in homage to the Brindisa Borough Market staple, this went down rather well.

So well, in fact, that we had to open another bottle of Dom Perignon.

Good start.

Miles Davis plated up some delicious finocchiona (fennel seed salami) with a salad of olive oil, fennel seeds and very finely sliced fennel bulb. I didn’t dare ask if anyone didn’t like fennel. As it turned out, everyone enjoyed this intercourse immensely. With it we drank two whites blind, one after the other. First one was a real surprise….

Excuse the picture. I forgot to photograph the actual bottle, as it was served blind, and the vintage we actually had was 2002. Joss, who brought it, reckoned that the vines were as young as three or four years old, which made the wine all the more astonishing. Yes it tasted mature, but without the remotest hint of oxidation. It was a rich gold colour with oak notes that had completely assimilated into the wine, with a silky, warm ripely- textured, fruity flavour that tightened up into a savoury, dry aftertaste. Like ‘03 Meursault.

Many of the boys around the table were leaning in that sort of direction. Something about it’s curvaceousness led me to set up base camp in the New World, but Santa Maria, California was the last thing on my mind. I was more in the Victorian Aussie Chardonnay mind set. Buttery malic Coldstream Hill Reserve, maybe?. Well, go figure. Jim Clendenen clearly still has the touch, down at Au Bon Climat. This was the last bottle of a case that Joss bought some time ago. Moral of the story? Californian Chardonnay can age beautifully in the mid-term without turning into vanilla ice cream. A real eye-opener.

We still had fennel salami to eat and we were still a bit thirsty (yes, we were). Miles and Dog (Mark Roberts) went underground in search of another interesting bottle of white. Here’s what we were served. Blind again. Beck immediately thought exactly what I was thinking. Grand Cru Chablis. Bound to be. But Miles declared the vintage, and we started thinking ‘in that case, it could be….’

You see, we weren’t that far out. Firstly, the mineralic, laser-etched acidity of a lot of the best 2007 Côte d’Or whites remind me of Chablis quite a lot. Secondly, this is Ramonet people! His wines evolve more slowly than Arctic moss. It has the polish of a 2009 Grand Cru Chablis, just with more power and velocity. It is pure, aloof and sleek. Imagine a bottle of Les Preuses ‘09 in an ice bucket, going past on the Eurostar. Tasting the drop in the bottom of the glass an hour later showed me how much this wine has to give in the future. I think Miles has a few more bottles of this wonderful wine to watch over the next ten years. It certainly would be a shame if some of it wasn’t kept that long.

It went rather well with my next course. Gougons of Dover sole, served on a roast cauliflower and nutmeg mash with a Vadauvan Beurre blanc. (Sorry about the rabbit food. Presentation purposes only.)

Ever had Vadauvan before?

I was introduced to it while hosting a cooking demonstration with the meticulous, talented and passionate Brett Graham from the Ledbury. It is what Frogs call ‘curry’, but originates from Sri Lanka. It is exactly what Michelin-starred restaurants want. All the curry spice without an iota of heat. It is made from roasting cumin, turmeric, fenugreek and cardamom seeds, cooked with lots of onion, garlic, then dried in a low oven, then ground into a powder. It is cuddly, subtle and devine. (You’ll be pleased to know that The Spice Shop in Notting Hill is now selling a very good one, so you don’t have to make your Knightsbridge pied à terre smell like a Bradford balti house anymore.)

Recently, I recreated, exactly I might add, one of Brett’s signature menu dishes. It was for a dinner party that Miles and his wife Jane attended. This was the dish. Ok. Brett’s is slightly better. Then again, he has his own kitchen. It is…

Crayfish Tails, Vadauvan butter on Broccoli Stem, Sourdough Toast and Natural Yoghurt

(Sorry. Photography was the best I could salvage as it was all served under candlelight.)

Mr. Davis rather liked this, to my glee, and commandeered my stash of Vadauvan, which I put to use in the beurre blanc above.

Right. Anyone for red?

I mean, just bloody look at it! Then look at the main course below.

Roast Veal T-Bone with a Dijon Mustard Crust, Pommes Dauphinoise, and Sautéed Savoy Cabbage with (drum role please) a little bit of Madeira and Herb Jus.

Now. Before I get into the wine, my single biggest triumph of the day was making the gravy. No! I mean jus.

I reduced nearly two litres (a quart) of top quality beef stock and a third of a bottle of incredible 10-year-old Barbeito Malvasia Madeira from Fortnum and Mason down to ten tablespoons of jus.

Meat eaters’ heroin.

The red wines were wonderful. But to summarise, these are the ones that I found riveting - and why.

Echezeaux 2003 Domaine Dujac

We were spoilt by two 2003 wines from the painfully popular and giddily expensive estate of Dujac. The first was a 1er Cru Gevrey Chambertin ‘Aux Combottes’ which was big, brusque and firm. It had all the poise of a rhinoceros on ice skates. Look, it had phenomenal flavour, lots of simmering complexity, but was 14,5% abv and you could feel it. Burly, but it was trying. Like a second row forward, getting down on one knee to propose.

The Echezeaux though. Phwoarr. It was 13% abv, nearly two percent lower than the Gevrey. (Eh? Couldn’t work that out.) It had a simply head-reeling perfume of violets, Maraschino cherry and every smell in a dry autumnal forest. In the mouth it slid past the teeth, stopped, clicked its fingers like a VIP on the guest list, then headed down into the club below.

That first mouthful. My god! I mentally wanted to turn round and follow its beautifully scented shoulders as it glid past. Where did she go? I at least wanted to take a look at her arse is she sashayed down the velvet stairs. She was no fool, but she was beautiful. It was a wine that simply stopped me talking in my tracks. Yeah, that’s right. Me. Talking.

Château Lynch Bages 2000 (magnum)

Now this is a one. A main point to this lunch was that Miles has a lot of this wine, and wanted expert opinion from his esteemed friends on how we thought it was getting on. I learned an awful lot from listening to the expertise around the table, but a couple of things were accepted as a given by the end of it.

1) It’s not an easy drink. Not yet anyway.

2) It is a blockbuster wine. Big, chewy, glossy, but a little atypical, especially considering how other LBs tasted when they were this age; 82,85,89, 96. All the very epotheosis of Pauillac.

3)This isn’t obviously Pauillac. It was more St. Julien meets Haut Médoc. Exotic, broad and earthy. After seven hours and a double decant, we just started to see glimmers of evolution and complex, pencily, blueberry and redcurrant notes.

OK. It’s a magnum, but on this showing, I wouldn’t open another one for at least ten years, and in bottle for another five. My conclusion is that it will eventually shake off its tannin, lose its puppy fat and be a sublime wine. However, it could outlive the legendary 1961. It is a bold claim, but this will be drinking well, in magnum on its fiftieth birthday. The last Pauillac I had that tasted this embryonic was Latour ‘66 nearly 20 years ago.

CVNE Viña Real 1962 Rioja

My god. What a drink.

It was the perfect thing to drink with the Madeira jus-soaked veal chop. Absolutely bloody perfect. I really hope that I get to taste this wine again one day. It was very Burgundian in its delivery. Like a mature, Pommard that hasn’t given up living, just arguing. It had incredible youth in colour, being a vibrant plum and brick red.

The sixties were truly magnificent for the reputation of Rioja, but I wasn’t expecting this to be up there with the ’64s and ’68s that I have been so fortunate to try from Castillo Ygay and Vega Sicilia (to mention the two most memorable). It was though. Thank you Joss Fowler. Mr. Timothy Atkin MW, if you’re reading this, see if you can get one. It has all the vigour of a guitar-playing wine critic. You’d get on. The same age and everything. x

Château Climens 1er Cru Barsac-Sauternes 1989

Apologies for not taking a snap of the cheese board. On it was St. Marcellin, Aged Gruyères, Epoisses de Bourgogne, and Gorgonzola Dolcificado.

But what would we have done without this? Gasp! It had phenomenal aromas of hedgerow cow parsley, dill, caramel, barley sugar, confit pear, marrons glacées. It just went on and on…

Better, as two others also agreed, than Yquem ‘89. Perfect with the Gorgonzola. Which was nice.

There were so many more brillliant wines, generously opened by my host and the other guests. Must mention Côte Rôtie 2006 René Rostaing, an extraordinary 2005 Côtes du Rhône that Miles paid less than £13 for from Rayas estates, and the devine Madiera from Tim French at Fortnums, which is still available for less than thirty quid a half litre.

After that, we went to the Roebuck in Chiswick High Road, and I had four pints of Sharps Pilsener and half a packet of Camels Lights. Oh, and a Sipsmith and Fevertree.

Why not?

Thanks everyone.

This is Fred.

He is a West Highland Terrier and will be 16 years old in June. His carers, my friends, are very loving and giving people. They put up with his shit and they put up with mine.

Paola (@sipswooshspit) and Mike (@brandtaylor) have been more than generous with their time recently, letting me stay here rather a lot, and helping me set up my blog. Actually, that’s not strictly true. They did it all, allowing me to drivel on without hindrance to you, my reader.

So. If you have enjoyed my first tentative steps up into the blogosphere then thank them, not me.

They like Westies. In fact, Fred has a mate belonging to Paola’s mum called Max. He comes around quite often.

This is the hardest pose you’re ever likely to see of two Westies. They think they’re hard too, but they are very nearly the softest, most affectionate dogs that you are ever likely to meet.

Fred at the back and Max at the front. 

Like the Krays.

Mike and Paola have looked after me as well as they have looked after their own frail, cantankerous, but at the same time lovely dog. Which is a huge compliment. Fred and I have become brothers of a sort.

Now, I don’t want to drag up that old nonsense about owners looking like their pets, but….

A friend of mine, one of the few who can follow a recipe properly, has cooked this for me twice before. I asked of I could plagiarise it, and I was informed with some relief that  it was a River Café cookbook recipe. With no family secrets revealed I went ahead and prepared these lovely little things.

Quails. Available at any Waitrose for about £3 each, and probably less in a competent butcher. 

Now this is so simple, a policeman could do it. You will need…

Five tablespoons of flakey sea salt (Shut up. You don’t have to eat them everyday), and Five tablespoons of chopped sage leaves, the younger and smaller the better.

Mash ‘em up in a mortar and pestle, then stuff the birds from arsehole to t’beak, carefully rubbing over every part of the skin and legs. All you have to do then is to drizzle them liberally in olive oil and pop them in the oven at 200 Fahrenheit for half an hour.

Then, eat them with your fingers, with a side order of crunchy, lemony, mustardy fennel-bulb salad.

I know that sounds a long time in the oven, but as Mike said,” This is like KFC for grown ups. I can’t stop licking my fingers” High praise indeed.

See below.

We weren’t done yet, and we were still quite thirsty. He’d we had something salty? Quite. So we reached into Paola’s stash and brought out a bottle of this.

I’m sure some of you remember when Bodegas Bilbainas was a laughing stock. Great vineyards. Thin, stripped, pissy, stringy wines.

Jesus, what a turn around! Since Arthur O’Connor, the Rainman of wine, (honestly, with grapes in his hands, he’s like an autistic savant) arrived at Gruppo Codorniu, every wine is, at the very least, better than competent and at best, world class. This was such a delicious wine.

Not as good as the Sesti, but it’s a Rioja Crianza from a trickily cool vintage that is currently on offer at a hardly credible £7.99 a bottle of you buy two or more in Majestic. 

So. There I was. On my way home from quite an eventful but ultimately unfulfilling evening in Soho.

On the N207 to be exact.

“There are people on this bus that don’t appear that keen to go to bed.” I thought.

Hey. It’s London. More accurately, Notting Hill Gate. At 3.45 a.m.

A chap, staggers down the stairs, mistiming a jolt on the brakes from the driver.

“Oi, you wanker. You stood on my foot!” D&G waistcoat. Sharp Prada Shoes. Eyes like saucers. Blonde, trim, chippy.

“It wasn’t my fault! Don’t stand at the bottom of the bloody stairs!” Nice Indian gentleman. En guard and ready for anything.

“‘Ave you done any time inside?” says young Mr. Prada shoes.

“Yes! More than you could ever dream of! More than your age! Don’t look at me! Don’t touch me!”

Prada raises his well-threaded (now I’m guessing Essex) eye-brows. “

“Well then. Either apologise, or turn around so I can do you in the ‘*@£$’.” That last word was muffled. I wasn’t enitrely sure what he actually said. But its not for blog browsing at breakfast.

The atmosphere is tense. There’s a Mexican stand-off. A hush on the packed bus. The two gents in question and myself are all standing near the exit doors. 

Then I see the nearly full moon’s smiley face look down on me, through the nearest window, filling me with calm philosophical power. I drink it in like a PacMan eats those big yellow biscuit things. I look at the two paused angry young men, ready to crash together like a Six Nations front row. Then it dawned on me. The solution. 

“Calm down girls.” I said. ” I went to public school and I used to bum people like you for breakfast.”

Ten seconds of very pregnant air. 

Prada looks at me with his cobalt cuff-links for eyes, and they begin to shrivel.

He gaffaws. Other fellow laughs. The whole bottom deck laughs. 

Then both combatants leave the bus, amicably. 

Ahh.

The power of comedy.

A well-timed ironic line kicks the shit out of a fronting, coked-up young buck and all the cage-fighting muscle he can muster.

Take note.

Goodnight children.

After brunch at the wonderful Randall and Aubin in Brewers street, Soho, where the peerless Belvedere Vodka had a launch party for their newly launched Bloody Mary infusion, I headed to Quo Vadis to experiment with it a little more. Although a superbly conceived and crafted infusion, the strong, rooty horseradish undertow had me reaching for tequila type drinks, and I felt its benefits were better served in other ways. But to start with, James Estes (or Jimmy Kane to his pop groupies), and Zdanek Kastenek, Head Bar Manager helping me create three new drinks with it during a slack Tuesday afternoon.

This is the Bucking Mule. Cucumber and mint, muddled into 35ml of Belvedere Bloody Mary and 5/10 ml of passionfruit syrup and 10ml of lime juice. Shaken then topped up with ginger beer. Cucumber garnish.

The man with the coolest name in the wine trade (you may be aware of the amazing shop making golf clubs in St. Andrews with the same name), the biggest heart (he loved everyone), and the rudest songs (anyone remember the lyrics to Craven ‘A’?) died yesterday.

He was the warmest of intelligent men who was as colourful as his worn-out shiny jackets. He was passionate about sport, progressive rock, horror films, food and wine. He leaves behind his life long best friend and wife, Alex, and he never really got over the death of Herbie, his retired racing greyhound, who he was convinced was human. (See below.) By the way. He was.

He was an alumni of Cheltenham Boys College, where he realised that there are so few remaining texts written in classical Greek, that he had read them all, cover to cover by the time he took his ‘A’ Levels. Armed with this realisation, he decide to read Greek at  UCL, where, in his own words, he learned to “drink in Greek, play cricket and hockey in Greek, but little else”. He achieved a 1st, just as he predicted he would.  

I loved you man. Funny, eccentric, unpredictable, always positive, always there when I needed you. You’re going to leave a huge vacuum in my heart. Words can’t describe how sad I feel. I am in pieces. Keep the prog alive, and say hi to Herb for me. I won’t be able to listen to Rush or Marillion again without thinking about you, missing you, wanting to toast you.

I will tell everyone about you, because they don’t make Auchterlonies anymore, which, quite frankly, sucks. I’ll carry on being nice on our behalf. There’s honour in nice. People forget that.

I’ll always remember us drinking outside the Sloaney Pony, naked, with Alex, singing rugby songs, after our first International Wine Challenge in 1996, when we were young enough to think that, after last orders, that was perfectly reasonable behaviour.

Caspar, old fellow, I still have the odd interesting night out without you. One such evening happened last week in Croatia, and in homage to one of the  most colourful and big hearted people I ever had the pleasure to meet, my next post, old bean, will be dedicated to you. I know you would have approved.

As I can no longer tell you what happened, I will share it with everyone else.

Good bye, lovely boy. xxxxx

Here’s one of your favourites for old times sake.

OK Caspar? After three. One. Two. Three. (Anyone else reading this, feel free to sing along.)

Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street
From my window I’m staring while my coffee grows cold
Look over there! Where?
There’s a lady that I used to know
She’s married now or engaged or something
so I am told

Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me
Theres something going wrong around here…round here

Tonights the night when I go to all the parties down my street
I wash my hair and I kid myself I look real smooth
Look over there! Where? 
Here comes Amy with her new boyfriend
They say that looks don’t count for much
and so there goes your proof

Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me
Theres something going wrong around here…around here

But if looks could kill
There’s a man there whos more down as dead
Cause I’ve had my fill
Listen you, take your hands from her head
I get so mean around this scene

Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me
Theres something going wrong around here…around here

Something going wrong around here
Something going wrong around here
Something going wrong around.

So, I was with a few lovely people at the start of a tour of the Croatian wine district of Istria. It was after midnight in Rovinj and a relatively balmy 16 degrees at the beginning of March.

We had just tasted a lot of interesting Malvasias, some exquisite white truffle oil and met a woman called Dragana.

It was a good 30 to 40 minutes around the bay on foot back to our fancy new hotel, so I suggested a walk, seeing that the weather was so calm and pleasant. I felt sure in such a pretty harbour town that we would be able to find a couple of nice bars and a couple cold beers to settle us on the way home, so the plan was set. I was accompanied by Niamh Shields, food blogger and cook extraordinaire. Sure enough we found a couple of waterside bars to refresh the palate on the route back, and it felt like we had been walking for way longer that the half hour that we had predicted, although I suspect, considering our relative state of relaxation, that we were neither walking very fast or in a particularly straight line. Eventually the familiar shape of a large, well-appointed white hotel loomed large up the steep hill side in front of the glistening bay.

Thank god, I thought. I was ready for bed and looking forward to what the next day had in store for all of us, and was just pleased to see the hotel by this point. I suggested to Niamh that we could walk up the rear entrance to the hotel, saving us a tedious and tiring further 15 minutes of hill climbing before we would have arrived at the grand front entrance. Niamh agreed and we shuffled through the bushes, goods loading-bays and sunloungers until we arrived at a rather dense, high bush-fence. “This is it Niamh”, I said. The hotel pool should be just behind here. We were both spat out of the other side, rather inelegantly, by the hedge, to find ourselves confronted, sure enough, by a gorgeous, massive swimming pool.

Something gripped me. Not a security guard (as it was past 1.30am by now), but the crazy notion that this may be the only chance I get to say that I had had a swim at the hotel when I returned to Blighty, thereby ticking Box One of the list of most effective wine trip gloats. Niamh saw the crazy, glazed look in my eyes and said, “No you’re fecking not, you stupid feckin’ eeedjit.” My brain translated this into “Go on then, you loveable eccentric”, and I stripped off. Down to a pair of old docker boots and a pair of rather loud yellow chequed boxers. It was cold enough for nothing dangerous or publically obscene to happen, but not too cold to stop me so……

Pitter patter pitter patter grunt! Leap! Splashhhh!

A dive of low difficulty tarriff, but worth at least 5.8 for style and grace.

2 seconds went by.

Then my head appeared, and I said…..

“Fff. Fff. Ccc. Ccc. Fffuuu.. Cuu. Fu.. Jesus!”

Niamh, my reluctant spectator, pointed out the obvious. “You know that they probably haven’t cleaned or heated that pool since last September, don’t cha?”

I climbed out of the pool like a very large but nimble red squirrel climbing up a wellingtonia on Brownsea Island.

“Now can we go inside, ya mad drunken eedjit?” asked Niamh. I was very glad that she was almost as drunk as me, because she didn’t object too much when I suggested that I had done all the hard work, was probably acclimatised to the chill, and that I wanted to go back in.

Her reponse to this was to cross her arms and to expel air through her teeth in a lip flapping fashion, while pointing up to all the suite balconies above us, where a mix of German, Croat, and Italian protestations could be heard, from several people in dressing gowns. Mostly men. (Shit. I thought. The hotel looked quite empty when we checked in several hours ago. My bad.) Nonetheless, I turned round on the canter, like a show-jumping horse taking another crack at the double fence, then broke into gallop and gave it everything I had.

There was a moment right at the top of the launch where I was a perfect sphere of masculinity. I piked, straightened and pointed. In like a dagger I went, and glid straight to the bottom of the pool without so much as a handful of surface froth.

2 seconds went by.

Then my head appeared, and I said…..

“Fff. Fff. Ccc. Ccc. Fffuuu.. Cuu. Fu.. Jesus!”

“Right.” said Niamh. “That’s enough. Let’s get out of here before ‘that lot’ call the security.”

By this time I had more spectators than the Olympic swimming team, so decided to exit discreetly through the back door into the foyer, dripping wet, with all my clothes and my boots in my hands and make a dash for the lifts.

As we entered, I noticed the significant hubub of wedding goers, all smoking, and drinking gins and tonics. The murmur rapidly died down to a shocked silence. There were rows upon rows of eyes staring at me.

Fuck. Where did these people come from? There’s had to be a hundred of them. I was basically naked, wet, and less than completely steady on my sodden feet on the acres of marble between me and the lifts. I was strangely unfazed by all of this, as I had had a dream like this before many times as a child, and had long since got over the embarrassment. Quite nice to know that it wasn’t deep seated insecurity about my physical appearance, but simply an accurate case of déjà vu.

So I turned to find Niamh. She looked a little less comfortable with the sitution than me, and she suddenly bolted for the lift buttons. I sauntered over behind her as nonchalantly as I could, slip-slopping in my bare feet, leaving a precariously slippery trail behind me, like the Silver Surfer. This, I thought, was the least of my worries.

After what felt like five minutes, the doors opened, more slowly than dawn breaking, to reveal two very well-heeled couples and their pile of Louis Vuitton valises, no dubt on their way up to their suite from their parked Bentley in the basement. A walked in with Niamh, and gave them a smiling welcoming nod. No need to make their first impression of this hotel a hostile one. After all, this clearly wasn’t the hotel’s fault. Eventually we reached floor 3.

“Ah. This is my stop. Goodnight. Have a lovely stay.” Shit! What was I doing? I was clearly over-compensating. I mean I didn’t work there. Obviously. More worrying was that I was embarrassed about what I had just said, and seemingly not about absolutely everything else.

I was next to room 301. All had sea rooms, and they appeared to be sequentially ordered up one side of the corridor to room 335. My room. About 100 metres down. Past four twenty-something Croatian trustafarians having a smoke in the floor lobby half way down. I sucked in my sizeable gut, and walked past, clothes in hand, and just said “Evening ladies” as I walked past.

They burst out laughing. Why wouldn’t they?

They craned their necks out of their seats to watch me walk the last forty or so yards to room 335. I took my room keycard out of my jeans, and breathed a massive sigh of relief. I swiped it at the lock on the door. The lock. On the door. This is a door with a lock. I am holding a credit card. Fuck, I thought.

I am in the wrong hotel.

I sauntered back past my giggling groupies, and pressed the button for the lift. I didn’t occur to me at this point that I should have put my clothes back on, no matter how wet I was, because three of the girls were pointing at my moobs.

The lift doors opened.

Ah.

Five more potential friends faced me out of the lift. At this point I had decided to whistle The Girl from Ipanema, by Astrud Gilberto. Clearly no one in the lift had seen The Blues Brothers.

As the doors opened, we were confronted by at least five of those yellow and black hazard placards and one really pissed off janitor. With a mop.

I flip-flopped across the newly dry marble floor, to be confronted by a beautiful petite blonde receptionist, bent double, crying with laughter (Apparently she saw the whole thing unfold, even on the CCTV.) Also standing there was Trevor Long, our tour guide, former band manager, legendary raconteur, and Croatian wine importer.

“Trev! How on earth did you fucking find me?!”

“Mate, I used to manage the Stranglers. We used to find Hugh Cornwell in cupboards…….”

Love you Caspar. Hope you can read this. Sleep well.

A very lovely young lady and self-confessed hedonist, Cordelia Rosa, asked me if I wanted to try something a little different. Rather excited by what the lovely Cordelia was proposing, I asked what? Exactly?

“Billecart Salmon Brut Sous Bois,” she said. 

Mildly disappointed by this answer but still intrigued, I accepted. I’ll try anything once.

Let’s face it. If Billecart is going to release any new wines you want to know about it, right?

Well, early last year, they launched this new cuvée. Literally, “Dry Billecart Under Wood”.

But here’s the rub. The process of ageing wine in oak for champagne is far from new.  What is new, though, is the amount of wood - and that you can TASTE IT. 

Wood-conditioning on champagne base wines can have all sorts of effects. Take Bollinger for example. All its base wines are fermented in old demi-muid 600 litre barrels. Just imagine how savage that champagne would be if didn’t have the benefit of a bit of old oak French polish. Harder, though, is finding an example of a champagne house or producteur-récoltant who intentionally makes both a wood-conditioned, and totally unwooded, cuvée.

The best comparison that comes immediately to mind, is the difference between Taittinger Prélude Grand Cru and Taittinger Les Folies de la Marquetterie. They are both created to the same signature house style, are both approximately 50/50 Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and have both been aged for about five years before release. The one technical difference is that half of the Chardonnay base wines (so roughly a quarter of the final blend) in Les Folies is fermented and aged in small old barrels. What difference does it make? Well I strongly urge you to do the £130 odd experiment yourself, but the flavours bleed into each other just a little more. Everything is a little more romantic and less technical. More Renoir, less Canaletto. More a seduction of the heart and less a game for the mind. For the record I love them both, a lot, but one really cannot tell that either has actually been influenced by the flavour of wood. This is (almost) true for Bollinger too, despite its dashing fresh vigour. But what of Billecart Salmon Sous Bois then? 

It is new and innovative in one clear respect. It is actually making a virtue out of the fact that this wine looks, smells and tastes as if it was aged in oak. There is no escaping from it, this wine is loud and proud about its oak origins. 

OK. So? What do I think? Well it’s a bit slutty, and in your face. It has very glossy red lipstick, golden Gucci sunglasses on, you can hear it across the restaurant, and it is no stranger to a wonder bra. One size too small. On its own, it is simply too much. It stands there and gets in the way of any conversation that you might be having. It is vinous and a touch varnishy on the nose, with peanut, orgeat and quite clear vanilla ice cream notes. The palate is satisfyingly tight and compact, with a rich, penetrative, resinous quality that coats the mouth, well no, almost paints the mouth with vanilla essence, savoury yeasty notes of charred sourdough toast (not in itself necessarily a bad thing). The oak flavour is subtle at first, but it creeps up on you steadily and slowly. You can’t avoid it. You know when you are pouring honey onto something with a spoon, and you think, “That’s enough”, but then you panic because it continues its onslaught, ribboning everywhere until there’s just too much, and the whole kitchen is a mess? The oak’s like that.

However, it wouldn’t be so obvious if it wasn’t champagne we were talking about. It’s the tight acid that makes the resinous wood component stick out so, but it is what it is. Maybe I am just not giving it enough of a chance, but with all the wonderful diversity and variety that champagne as a wine has to offer, this one sits outside my comfort zone.  

Now, let’s take a moment to clear our minds, and be just a little less staid, and hackneyed about what we have here.

This is what I did when trying this wine with Paola and Mike, one Sunday brunch not too long ago. Guess what? I realise that it reminded me of the first time that I tried a dry oloroso sherry. Not that it tastes anything like a sherry, but trying this for the first time, expecting tastes that I am familiar with, I found myself with the same unease of feeling out in the dark. Do I understand this? Do I like this? I mean at all? Am I not letting myself see the joy in it? Then it hit me.

It’s a food wine. Plain and simple.

Like my first oloroso, I couldn’t see the Sous Bois as a drink, but I immediately saw images of bellota ham, anchovies on toast and pan con tomate flash before my eyes. Like all weird things to eat, like blue cheese or oysters you have to get used to it. Now, all I want is to be buried in a vat of palo cortado, so who knows?

Now I remember as a student, I discovered that Bolly goes with omelettes. Shit, Bolly goes with nearly everything. Dad’s fiftieth, mags of Bolly, battered wings of skate, and beef dripping chips. Oh yes.

So Paola and Mike took their weekly constitutional down to the allotment and brought back some killer greens and some very fresh eggs from the butcher. There was some decent cheddar in the fridge, so we did what any normal food-obsessed soak would do, and we made this. 

It was bloody fantastic. Mike and Paola have made brunches into a globally recognised martial art, but this was something very special. The secret ingredient? Billecart Salmon Sous Bois. Suddenly all the planets were in alignment, the sun came out, and the world started making sense again. Drinking the champagne with this particular food did something that I have noticed many times. The eggs, or more accurately the fining properties of the albumen in the egg, literally took the waxy resinous out of the wine’s texture. The cheese polymerised the edginess of the wood tannin, and suddenly you had a sleek, silky drink. Fine, sexy and perfectly doable. 

Since then, I have been wondering about all the other things that I would want to drink this with. Wild mushroom risotto? Arbroath smokies in cream with wild rice? Cheese leek and ham soufflé? Crab gratin? Oh yes. I’d have a lot of bloody fun trying. So, when I told Paola and Mike the price, £65 by the way, they were shocked to say the least, but in the right, fairly narrow context, I think it’s fantastic.

I can imagine it making a very interesting addition to a Menu Gastronomique, but, on its own, Cordelia or no Cordelia, there’s only so much wood that I can handle. 

The International Wine Challenge has a new home at Lords Cricket Ground.

Here is a little video I made on the first judging day of the first week of IWC 2012, to show you what it looks like. 

One of the must-go-to tastings of the year is Cliff Roberson’s annual press tasting.

Last week was no exception, but rather than writing some laboured, plodding review going around all 150 wines, I took pictures of the ones that really interested me. There was some seriously Cool for Cats kit. Starting with this…

Françis Egly is famously quiet and a man of few words, but he clearly does his shouting through the medium of booze. This, here, is a truly grand wine. There was a vintage and a rosé cuvée available for tasting too, but this was the one for me. Talking of grand, it’s nearly all Grand Cru fruit, apart from a necessary little smidge of Pinot Meunier of the very best Premier Cru plots in Vrigny. It is extraordinary stuff, and fiercely deserves its superstar reputation. It may well be the best NV wine in Champagne, and I’m sure there are those who would agree with me. Weirdly it takes on the same, ‘don’t mess with me, legs-akimbo, move and I’ll shoot’ stance as Krug in a way. It certainly mimics the freshness, tightness and poise. It is its owner in a bottle in some ways. One character that all truly great artisanal wines have is the notion that if it’s not your cup of tea, it is actually your fault. This is like that. Unwaivering in its self-belief, with a perfectly-cut French plaid sports jacket and steel underpants. If you get Champagne, and you like pure, but extremely powerful Pinot-driven wines, then this will be the best £50 you ever spent.   

Well, I remember tweeting about Domaine Didier Daguenau wines this time last year. The great genius, and almost irrefutably the finest craftsman of Sauvignon Blanc in the world, died in 2008 in a microlite accident. Rather morbidly his pre-death wines now fetch more money, as if he was a deceased painter. I suppose he is in some way, but his wines, in his absence, continue to show exceptional poise, pant-wettingly tight acid structures, and a paradoxical texture of silk. The concentration of the ’08s was incredible, and the wines had so much vigour, so much chi, that they were almost undrinkable on release,  whereas the warmer, more generous conditions of the 2009 vintage have given us something different. If I want laser-tight, hi-res precision and perfect shut-lines, then François Cotat’s Mont Damnés Sancerre is, in my mind, the finest unoaked Sauvignon in the world. If you want a wine that is utterly unconventional, impossibly-nuanced, and dripping with wave upon waive of nectarine and apricot bliss, then maybe you should try this. Everyone should. Just once. If you don’t mind shelling out £61 for a Pouilly Fumé. Of course you do.

I rather like the 07 White Burgundies. In the same way I find it attractive in some women when they hardly ever smile. Just smoulder. 2007 smoulders. When the smile eventually comes, it’s so fantastic that you can’t suppress your own, no matter how hard you try. This is also Meursault, and I have often found myself struggling with Meursault, because they are so worthy. I find a lot of Meursault, especially in big warm vintages, a bit too laboured and worthy. That’s rather a sweeping statement I know, but I’ve recently discovered that I tight Meursault in high acid vintages. When I was remembering this wine in the tasting, I actually thought it was a Chablis. For me, that’s a good thing. This all seashells, crisp green apples, unripe mangoes and wet wet chalk up the wazoo. I’m not particularly familiar with this domaine, but having tasted this old-vine beauty, I intend to get friendlier with it. £33.

Here we are back to one of my favourite hobbies, namely telling everyone that 2003 Burgundies are often way better than they get credit for, while Bordeaux 2003 is largely a load of old shit. I remember my father telling me how delicious and ageworthy 1976 burgundies were. All I remember of 1976 was being sick in the Homers County Primary School class sink with heat stroke. Ah, the glamour of Windsor…. Now 2003 is very similiar on paper to 1976, which is one of the reasons why I’m so interested. A bit of an experiment. Some of them are defying earlier concerns that they would evolve fast then die. This wine is youthful and a pure delight. My dear friend Nick Dymoke Marr opened an other-worldy bottle of Arnoux Echezeaux 2002 at Christmas. It still had way way to go, but this chap is drinking beeeooooutifully. Good for a further 5 to 10 years, it was silkier than most Nuits that I’ve had. 40 quid. So I wonder whether 1976 did age as well as dad said. Mmmm….

Shit! As luck would have it…… Ta da!

(Apparently Roberson have bought a fair slice of this.)

I just couldn’t believe it. It’s not some strange curio that’s a bit knackered but you could see what it had been, like some sort of weird Audrey-Hepburn-meets-the-Golden-Girls Brundlefly. It is, and remains, unbelievably fresh. Bright red with a little bit of brick-rim evolution, but come on, I was six when this was made. Silky smooth, fluffy and balanced like Volnay should be, with enough acidity and a moreish Burgundian bite. Sure. It’s not one for the cellar but boy this is a bargain. Whack this in your mates’ blind-tastings and watch them squirm. £66. Yes that’s right. £66. 

Julian Sounier knows what he is doing, doesn’t he? Predictably, they are all delicious. If I had to pick one, the Morgon 2009. However, rather less predictably,….

…here is a Régnié that I liked. Since turning Cru Classé in 1988, I’ve often wondered the hell why. I can usually find stellar Beaujolais-Villages that rips most Régnié to shreds, Julian Sounier’s for one. However this block of 80 year old Gamay from the ridge along the fabled Côte du Py is a differen proposition. It’s made by Charly Thevenet, the son of the legendary Morgon producer Jean Paul Thevenet, and he worked for the legendary natural producer Marcel Lapierre for years as an apprentice winemaker. Can’t go wrong really, and he didn’t. Bright, precise and granitic with classic 2010 flair. Gorgeous and a true bargain, even at £19.  

And finally. Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Why is it that usually I only like this stuff in the vintages that everybody else avoids? I leerved 2004 Ch9dPape and this wine is bang on. It’s à point, fragrant, supersmooth, with just a slight ripple of dry pumice stones strewn on the path. Just before this wine there was a ripsnorter of a 2010 Côtes du Rhône from Usseglio too. Ladies and Gentlemen, it there’s one exciting vintage in the Southern Rhone, it’s 2010. Delicious as it was, for £16.95, why have an egg when you can have the whole chicken? The 2004 Châteuneuf is a gorgeous, hardly comprehensible £25.

There were lots and lots more wines that I could have waxed on about, like the astonishing Californian Chardonnay 2009 from Ramey, but I’ve said enough.

Oh, and there was a mini-vertical of Chateau d’Yquem. 

Where were you?

(First posted on Harpers Online on 14th May 2012 at http://www.harpers.co.uk/news/news-headlines/12166-joe-wadsack-my-take-on-marks-a-spencers-new-middle-east-wine-range-.html) 

Lemonia, the most family-friendly, plate-smashy, authentic Greek restaurant in all of London was the venue for Marks & Spencer’s latest press tasting on Friday.

It wasn’t entirely evident why, until, in their private dining room upstairs, I was confronted with over a dozen new wine listings from the Eastern Mediterranean. So, a lovely Mezze to look forward to for lunch in the lovely company of Hazel Macrae, senior press officer, and the two people responsible for running the project, winemaker, Belinda Kleinig, and wine buyer, Emma Dawson.

So what was their brief? Emma told us that by any standards, it was very simple. Choose as many or as few wines needed to illustrate the interest and the growth in consumer interest in Levant and Eastern Mediterranean cuisine and culture - or something like that.

Well, for Belinda and Emma, the magic number of wines is 15. These new wines have been sourced from Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Turkey, and the Lebanon. Clearly this is a bold move, indeed typically so, from a supermarket buying team that were the first to bring us fine multi-regional blends of German wine, good own-label German Pinot Noir, and things like Nerello Mascaclese from Sicily.

Nice to see that the recession hadn’t spoiled their creative juices.

I found myself tasting with a split mind on the subject. A part of me was thinking how, in respect to the trade, and what I know about these wine regions and their potential, do I think they have they done with sourcing and making these new cuvées, and the other half of my brain was wondering as an uneducated consumer, how would I react to this new, possibly confusing line-up, and which would I most likely choose?

Well, honestly I found the wines to be a mixed bag. There are no bad wines here, not technically anyway, but there are definitely wines that I personally wouldn’t choose to drink. Compared to the ones that I would, I think I am looking at a 50 50 split. Some of the wines are just too expensive, I imagine, for the average customer to take a blind punt on, but in fairness these are the most cult in the line up too and no doubt cost the most to source.

Istrian Malvasia for one, or Malvasia Istarska (that won’t put them off at all, will it?) is experiencing a but of a global gold rush, being the hippest thing since English fizz. £12.49 is what this one will cost the customer, and while it ticks the boxes, it didn’t quite show the “terrarossa-derived terroir” that it claimed in the notes.

Don’t shoot me, but I believe the best examples are those not planted entirely on their fabled red soils either. They are making a virtue of it, clearly because it is what they have.

Other Istrian producers have shown me wines that makes it clear to me that one way to seriously pimp your Malvasia is to blend it across soils, where for the same price it shows vastly more mineral complexity and texture, two things after all that the variety is famous for.

Although, there are on-line specialists selling better wines for this sort of money, it is a sound if not stunning effort.

The wines I was most interested in are the ones that I knew most or least about. It was great to see a Santorini-sourced Assyrtiko, surely a variety that will conquer the world some day. It was a typical example at a fair price. At 10.49 it showed the focus, fragrance, precision and volcanic undertow that explains the surge in popularity of Santorini whites over the past 10
years.

Another Croatian wine, this time from Slavonia, nearer the capital of Zagreb is the first commercial own-label release of a Grasevina in the UK. The Croatians have done a very good early job of reinventing this variety, formally known as Welchriesling, but I think that it is limited in its fine wine scope, and I would have been happier to find a cheaper one at this quality level.

With interesting things happening with a Tsunami of decent Laski Rizling (basically the same variety) now being made in Slovenia, I predict prices might have to come down.

Anfora Trio, the red from Turkey was the cheapest wine at £7.49 and actually, when all is said and done is the one that I liked the most. Drinking this is how I imagine it’s like to be given a massage from a hairy-forearmed Turkish masseur.

It was smooth in a rough sort of way, if that makes any sense. It was supremely tasty with our Kleftiko later on too. Perfect gourmet kebab fodder and a lot of wine for the money.

While on the subject of Turkish wine, perhaps the most surprising turn up for me was liking the Turkish Sauvignon Blanc the most too. At a cool £9.99, it wasn’t all precision, thiols and pyrazenes, but boy did it have character. It had the texture and presence of the pith of a lemon. It was crying out for wild mountains herbs, dill and maybe some sweet barbecued shellfish protein.

And that’s what we got. It was as delicious with our mezze, and was as at home with with taramasalata as it was with salt cod and dill croquettes.

Final mention in dispatches has to go to Lebanon. Everyone seems to be talking about Lebanese wine at the moment, but I remain pretty much unconvinced. The examples here, if they are representative, and with the might of Marks and Spencer buying team behind it, it would be really odd if they weren’t, were a bit so what.

The white Domaine des Tourelles 2011 at £8.99 was on the verge of flabby, but had an interesting rich brown apple quality. Like drinking a dry but buttery Egremont Russet Tarte Tatin.

The Château Ksara sourced red, I did not like. The oak was laboured, rustic and far too heavy on the toast, with a diactyl buttery character that will no doubt get tougher, not softer with age. Mind you Emma Dawson’s mum loved it, reminding me that this game really is horses for courses.

However, the Cadet de Ka 2008 for £8.99 was better. Much more stylish, and it wore its bottle age with pride. Dare I say it, it was like claret from a very hot year, say 2003. For a claret that would be a criticism, but for Lebanese red, that is most definitely a compliment.

And drinking it later on top of Primrose Hill, in the sun, out of a paper coffee cup (thanks for the take-out, Hazel), it ended up being downright delicious, full of swirling tar, leather and cedar.

Sorry about the cringing pun, but hopefully it caught your attention. I feel very remiss that I haven’t glorified these guys before, but on the realisation that I can write what I like, and devote an entire rant to one wine merchant, something that no editor of a newspaper or TV producer would ever let me do, here goes.

So. A fucking great huge ‘big up’ to two of the louchest, most charming, astute and hard working boys in the business. I give you Jason Yapp and Tom Ashworth, who are….(drum roll….the amazing Yapp brothers! Ta da!

Many people, of course, will remember the single-minded pioneering that Jason’s father Robin was rightly noted for during the seventies and eighties, almost single-handedly putting Loire and Rhône (yes the Rhône) on this country’s wine drinking map. Prices have gone up a bit since the Yapps came to town. I remember experiencing some of my formative wine epiphanies in the hands of Robin and my father who were firm friends, including a magnum of Chave Hermitage ‘82 at my fathers gastropub for £50, during an evening where Robin convinced my dad to cook seven kilograms of lambs bollocks for a group of wealthy bankers from Lyon.

When together, Robin and Karl formed both sides of the same highly-evolved, but deeply twisted gold sovereign of mischief, humour and intellect. Opposites but equals. And they use to get into a lot of trouble. I remember them supposedly once going for a cheeky lunch and reappearing days later in the same clothes. Imagine some sort of platonic sixties power couple made up of Oliver Reed and Richard Harris, with a bit of Karl Lagerfeld thrown in. Not dissimilar. In short Jason and I, growing up, had unique role models, and from time to time ended up having a whisky or two together over the snooker table at Château Yapp, a converted brewery in Mere, in Wiltshire. We share similar traits, some bad, mostly good, but he is a forceful, endearing, effortlessly witty man, the likes of which this industry will lose altogether if it continues to put profit before talent. I imagine that like me, he feels that on some level we are both members of a dying breed. On the rare occassion that we meet up, conversation swiftly turns to who the trade should be nurturing for the years to come. Who’s doing this for a job, and who’s living it through every pore and enriching the gene pool. You know. The Emily O’Hares and Gabriel Savages of this world. (Sorry. I could have chosen from a reasonable list of blokes too, but they first came to mind because they are better looking than the rest of you. I know Jason would approve.) His partner, brother and slightly better half is the inimitable Tom Ashworth. I have known him far less long, but am please to say that I now count him as a friend, having met during my darkest, post-apocalyptic seperation years through a mutual friend Josh Reid, a true giant amongst men, usually to be found running things at the Marquis of Westminster in Pimlico.

Right. That’s the soppy bit, but what want to tell you about, is the characterful, left-beam buying and slick marketing of their business. You won’t find many more entertaining wine lists to read, and it heartens me that they clearly value and nurture their supplier relationships. They don’t select only the best wines in the best vintages, but fully commit to the business relationships that they have developed, in some cases over decades. For this reason, they continue to curate an embarrassment of riches, such as Jean-Louis Chave, Alain Graillot, Georges Vernay in the Rhône and André Vatan, Jean Teiller and Fréderic Fillatreau in the Loire.

Here is a brief review of the highlights of their recent trade tasting at Medcalf, in Exmouth Market. NONE of their wines are ever truly boring, and every wine at this tasting was a love or hate. For the purposes of this post, I have merely chosen the wines that come up to the exacting standards of whether I would actually buy these wines for myself. There were plenty of other wines that I would buy for others, knowing that their omission from this list may be purely a matter of style, not quality.

All prices are per bottle, Ex. Vat.

Whites…

Château Ligré 2011 Chinon Blanc £12.50 

I could say this several times in this list, but my perception of the 2011 vintage is that despite the advancements in wines science, the Loire can’t hide the fact that 2011 appears to be, to me anyway, the most difficult vintage here since at least 1994, maybe even 1984. I have tasted many many samples from my favourite producers, and the vast majority have been very disappointing. However, the Yappsters have gone a long way to prove the old adage that there are no such thing as bad vintages, just bad wines. This wine is atypical of the Loire in general, but certainly of Chinon and Chenin Blanc in particular. In a vintage like 2009, one would expect a top-heavy thickly-textured, punchy, polished wine, not unlike a creamy young Pouilly Fuissé or Macon with a crab-appley kiss. Here though you have the anti Chinon. It is young, with chin-dimples, short blonde hair, and it’s dipping it’s finger in a bag of sherbet. Painfully cute wine, with an irresistable appletini smack of the lips on the finish. The summer starts here. Gimme goats curd and pea shoots.

Domaine de L’Idylle Vieille Vigne 2011 Savoie £10.95

Jacquère anyone? Look I am no expert on this variety. Very few are, but this wine was like a mushroom infused vodka sour. Skeletal, crisp and it fizzles across the palate like a rifle bullet, with subtle but profound aftershocks of fine lees ageing. Brilliantly summery. Again. Like the last one was.

Menetou Salon Blanc 2011 Domaine Teiller £13.50

This was one of the wines of the year for me last year, not forgetting the otherworldly 2010 rosé from these guys too. This is substantially better than any Sancerres I’ve tasted from this vintage so far, but then again, it doesn’t taste like Sancerre, because it’s not. It has a feather-light mouthfeel, with the lightest of grip, like pixies dancing on your tongue. The vegetal, chlorophyll hit right in the finish, if anything, makes the wine more interesting.

Château Canorgue Blanc 2011 Côtes de Luberon £13.50

This wine has balls, and all the texture you could wish for. Grenache Blanc and Clairette together creates a textural alchemy. This is the libatory equivalent of a 6 tog duvet, and just as all that soft cuddliness threatens to float away, you get your big toe caught around a button at the bottom. Just enough grip to remind you that it’s got those balls I was talking about.

Terrasses de l’Empire Condrieu 2010 Georges Vernay £39.75

What can I say? There are many ‘viogniers’ in the world, but very few that actually reflect the unique magic of this variety. Vernay sets the benchmark for the ephemeral, see-through, all-enveloping Condrieu. For me, oak rarely has a place in this conversation, and Georges doesn’t sully his progeny with something so base as tree. This wine is divine. Like little golden apricot clouds above Primrose Hill in autumn. Phenomenal elegance.

Rose….

Sancerre Rosé Maulin Bèle 2011 André Vatan £14.75 

Considering the vintage, this is rich complex, deft and gorgeous. Savoury and brightly fruity at the same time. Nuff said.

Clos Sainte Magdeleine Rosé 2011 Cassis £18.25

This is the best rosé I’ve had this year. So it bloody should be for the price. Darker in colour than Côtes de Provence rosé but has it’s cushion, fused with the alcoholic savoury high of the best Rhône rosé. Tavel meets Bandol. Fucking yum.

La Forcadière Domaine Maby Rosé 2011 Tavel £12.50

Finally. The first smile-on-my-face Tavel for a long while. Almos a red wine. Tannic, textural, and chewy. Full of wild strawberries and cherry. Long.

Red or dead……

Château Ligré Rouge 2010 Chinon £12.25

More like it. Potent, visceral, young, firm and granitic. Superb if still evolving, but will sigh and soften over the next 3 to 4 years. Rabelais would be proud. 

Domaine Les Filles de Septembre 2011 Côtes de Thongue £8.95

A lovely refreshing blueberry and cranberry mouthful. Full of juice. Simple but toothsome, mouth filling and delicious. Functions like it should. Like John Arne Riise used to, before Liverpool sold him.

Sartène Rouge Domaine Saparale 2010 Vin de Corse £13.75

Loud and charismatic with layers of subtlety. Like Jason. A friend asked me whether I thought this wine was ‘too Jason’. It isn’t. It’s just right, and epitomises the kind of wines that you can’t get anywhere else. Beans and suede at the back and Asian spices over the top. The best Corsican red I’ve ever had.

Domaine de Richeaume Tradition 2010 Côtes de Provence £16.95

This is the monkey’s nuts. I’ve wrestled with this wine over the years but the thick wall of chewy chocolate, glög and baked fruit of this year’s edition is framed by soft buttered praline oak notes, which for once sing harmony, rather than lead, to the clear and present danger of this mighty red. Wine to drink while listening to the Prodigy.

Domane St Gayan 2007 Gigondas £15.95

Well, this wine just came up to me and asked if I liked it. A wine that takes control. Bramble jam and dry smokey black cardamom and spice. Quite gorgeous, and humbly priced. Who needs Cornas? (I do, but rillettes with this would be equally brutally sexy.)

Le Vieux Donjon 2009 Chateauneuf du Pape £29.95

BOOM! There it is, yo! Creamy, dried raspberry, and tongue-sucking pumice stone perfection. Never had a bad bottle of this, young or old, and this might be the best. Monolithic and beautiful. The label is just a photograph of a medieval prison. How apt.

Domaine de Trevallon 2001 Coteaux des Baux £49.00

On my 21st birthday, I asked my mum what wine I could have in my parents’ pub, and she said “Anything. Just don’t take the piss.” I chose Bin 666. Which was my first mouthful of this extraordinary wine. Poised and eloquent, even in the 1984 vintage. I drank it in 1991. Sometimes, with these classics, you completely forget that only thing missing between your cheque book and a sublime gustatory experience is time. Great vintage, a modern classic and consolidated memories of happiness. Smells like old school Burgundy, and drinks like world class Bandol. Near perfect.

Domaine Pieretti 2011 Muscat de Cap Corse £21.00

I’m not used to shelling out this kind of dough on Vin Doux Naturel Muscat when there are so many dessert-wine bargains made this way, but I am convinced. It is a scimitar to the senses. Broad and precise. Manuka honey, cinnamon and fresh juicy grapes all in one. A good way to be beheaded.

Champagne 1er Cru Rosé NV Dumangin et Fils £32.00

Wasn’t sure about this on first mouthful. It was desiccatingly dry and unyielding. By the time I had walked though the restaurant to sit down for onglet, I was in love. Savoury, dry cherries, wild strawberries and a dense, toothsome tang. Couldn’t get enough of it, in fact, which was probably the reason why the pub quiz went so badly….. Insane value in an insane world. One of my drinks of the summer.

Thank you Tom. Thank you Jason. The wine trade would be far less habitable without you.

Best,

Joey (Son of Karl) xxx