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

Full English Breakfast in a Cocktail?

No shit Sherlock!

At Imbibe during The Battle of Britain Competition, I filmed the English team’s epic, trophy winning performance, consisting of Lyndon Higginson from the Liars Club, Jake Burger from the Portobello Star, and Bart Murphy from Hula. They made the extraordinary Full English Breakfast Mary, comprising of Lincolnshire sausage infused gin, a Yorkshire tea distillate, centrifuged Heinz beans juice, and crispy bacon for garnish. Insane, but wonderful, and perfectly delicious. 

Sorry about the shakey camera work. I was hosting the competition.

This is Levi. 

He is one Britain’s greatest session musicians and sound techs, having worked with such musical heroes of mine as Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, and David Byrne of Talking Heads, just to name a couple out of hundreds. In fact, he was on his way to a reunion gig of what is left of Thin Lizzy, with one of their old roadies. I don’t have a nice picture of him, due to his prolific nose bleed. I was assured that this was due to the Warfarin medication for his heart. Although he did concede that the ‘other medication’ that he used to take, might have been one of the contributing factors to him taking this one. 

Anyway, I digress. He isn’t the reason for this story. Levi is.

He was given an music industry ticket, a couple of days before, to watch THE blue riband event of the entire Olympic fortnight. Yes. You guessed it, the Men’s 100m Sprint final. Overlooking the finishing line. I mean imagine. Truly a once in a life time experience. 

He told me that he had cursed himself for forgetting to bring a proper camera, but, hey ho, he had his iPhone 4s.

He set himself up, using his rucksack to lean on, so that he would get THE perfect picture. The greatest picture that he might ever take. Of the 8 fastest men alive. Probably breaking an Olympic record. Usain, Yohan, Tyson, the drug cheat. All of them.

I, at this point, felt insanely jealous until he showed me the picture.

Wanna see it?

Ready?…..

OK.

This is it…

That of course is the arm of the man in front of him. 

Who is now dead.

It’s been 2 months and 3 days since my last confession. Sorry.

To tell you the truth, I’ve been busy. Very.

I have an agent. Well, a support team to be more accurate, who will provide me with administrative back-up, as well as social media support.

Allow me to introduce to you Sophie Sweerts de Landas, my events manager, administrative support and booker, and recent member of the English World Cup Lacrosse team.

…and Henry Dinkel, an autodidactic web ninja, cameraman, art director, and Knightsbridge dweller.

Go team Joe! Today The Oval. Tomorrow the world.

They can be contacted at sophie@joewadsack.com and henry@joewadsack.com respectively.

I’ve been travelling too. A lot as it happens. South Africa, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and a country I never thought I’d get to, and if I did, have hyped up so much in my mind that it couldn’t possibly live up to its billing. Portugal. During this time, I nearly fell in love with someone, fell out of love with someone else, and bally well decided to cheer up about things. I have to grin and bear the sad things. I didn’t see my two beautiful children throughout the entire summer holidays, and although it feels little better to share that fact, I hope that one day they will realise it was only for a more secure future for them and me.

A quick word on how each country made me feel .

South Africa

A country that is such a visceral assault on the senses that when I finally saw my first rainbow in ‘The Rainbow Nation’, it, compared to the turned-all-the-way-up-to-eleven nature of everything else in this incredible country, looked, well, grey.

Two new great wines. World class greatness.

Cartology White 2011 by the humbly charming Chris and Suzaan Arheit.

It’s fat in a lean way. It’s vigorous and explosive, in an elegant, laid-back way. It’s an impressionist painting by Canaletto. It’s like a demanding, high-maintenance woman that you know is worth the effort. To put it another way, my mate Nick says about his wife that he loves her so much that he could throw her through a plate glass window. Despite her complete loveliness, if she wasn’t so darned unpredictable and frustrating, they would never have lasted all these years. Trust me. You want to get a ring on the finger of this little madam.

Nick and I, on drinking the first out of the case earlier this week, had one of our rare collective wine epiphanies. Good job the Clos des Lambrays 2002 was the night after. No wine this good deserves to be out-shone by anything. Call Harrogate Fine Wines pronto if you want to have the slightest idea what I’m talking about.

 This is Nicholas Dymoke-Marr modelling said wine.

and

Porseleinberg Red 2010.

Isn’t that the sexiest label you’ve ever seen? The wine is breathtaking too.

So granitic it makes your teeth ache. If only gravel was this tasty. Carved from pure rock with nothing more than bare hands and a cherry stick, this is the wine equivalent of Mount Rushmore in North Dakota. When it arrives in the UK, it’s going to cost, ahem, £55 or thereabouts. Still undeniably worth it. Again Harrogate Fine Wines will have some.

Italy (or rather Piedmont.)

One of the great and rare privileges of the last few years is the going on a guided tour of one of my favourite wine regions, accompanied by my pal David Williams, and the towering inferno of Italian passion, David Berry Green. I have so much to say about this trip, but you’ll have to wait a little longer.

Two Wines? (Both from Berry Brothers and Rudd.)

In light of the fact that the other blogs will be concentrating on Nebbiolo, I thought I’d share with you a couple of wonderfully weird reds.)

Grignolino d’Asti 2010 Az. Agr. Laiolo Reginin

On the first night in Piemonte, England were playing Italy in the semi-finals of the European Cup. So we went back to Camp David, and Mr. Berry Green racked up eleven different grape varieties, and almost as many winemakers, to pair with each of the football players. The food was incredible, including a sea of incredible cheeses and petit fours at the end.

More about that another time, but check this out. Another sexy label. Boobs. Two of them. That’s twice as many as the Château Cadet Piola in St Emilion, although they look like falsies. This is a grape variety that I had never tried before. I was also assured that examples this good are rarer than literate bloggers.

So elegant. Fine boned like china. Wood spice and Marascha cherry with a dance that you wouldn’t feel on the back of your hand. Weightless and joyful. Absolutely perfect with the fabulous carne cruda being served.

Pictiures of the wonderful food…

Moscato d’Asti 2011 Cerutti

The sorbet course (no sorbet). If this wine doesn’t make you smile and instantly trigger your adrenal glands into a joyful, hyperactive overdrive, you’re almost certainly retarded. In which case, go away. I don’t want to speak to you. The most fun you can have for 15 euros. Legal or otherwise.

Portugal

Well, I‘m pleased to say that my first sight of the Douro Valley rendered me completely speechless, and, at one point, quite teary. Anyone who has ever met me will know that if I’d witnessed a mafia hit, I wouldn’t be able to shut about it, so this is a rare thing indeed. Also apart from meeting some great people and drinking great wines, I had the best seafood meal that I’ve ever had. So good, in fact, that I intend to go back to Oporto. On my birthday. For lunch. With Hamish Anderson. To do it all again. The restaurant? La Gavote. Talking to Jancis on my return, I hear her hubby’s a bit of a fan…

Two wines?  (There were many. More about this trip later.)

Soalheiro 2011 Vinho Verde

I believe that Dirk ‘The Guru’ Niepoort had a major say in the way that this wine is these days, especially the Primeiras Vinhas, which is a sort of ‘Pimp my Ride’ Alvarinho. I preferred the freshness, honesty and value of this wonderfully precise organic white. They don’t make much but it is an autumn sunset-coloured fuzzy apricot in a glass.

Quinta do Crasto 2010 Douro

This is a picture of their infinity pool on a rather gloomy day. And that’s the Douro stretching off into the distance. Cool huh? 

Oh, the wine? Sorry. Here’s the whole Crasto line up.

Just in the process of being released now, all, and I mean all, of the reds from this estate in 2010 were complete humdingers. The further up the tree you go, the more elegant power they manage to cram into the bottle. For the minor upgrade in price from the straight Crasto, this appears to me to offer the most bang for the buck. Smooth and slick, like a ripe Bordeaux Cru Bourgeois, this is astonishing value in my view. I can’t imagine anything more perfect with a roasted Dexter fore-rib than this red.

Slovenia

Seeing as I went to film a business video for a client, I only tasted their wines. But I think they are very nice. Here, at Puklavec and Friends, is a virtually limitless resource of pristine, modern, white wines. Mitja, the Chief Winemaker, has celestial ambitions to produce the best Sauvignon Blanc in the world. Who’s to say that he won’t achieve that goal? His Sauvignons are already delicious, the best value of which is available in Waitrose at present. My pick is their premium, single-vineyard Sauvignon, La Gomila. It is a ripe luscious style of modern Sauvignon. Think Lenswood, or Shaw and Smith in Adelaide rather than Marlborough, New Zealand. Creamy, tropical and very very suave. The 2011 is a leap forward for me. I will hopefully be doing much more with these guys over the coming months. When the video is finished, it will be posted here.

That’s it for now, but I’m looking forward to discussing my travels in depth with you over the next few weeks. Watch this space…….

Yours faithfully,

Joe x

I had a barbecue this summer. Well a brai technically. I and other avid booze and food bloggers were invited by the marketing ninjas that are Jo Wehring and Claudia Brown, from Wines of South Africa. The venue was chosen as High Timber restaurant nestled at the north end of the Millenium Bridge in the City of London. It is owned and run by these lovely people - the irrepressible Neleen who pilots the restaurant, and Kathy and Gary Jordon of Jordan Estate in Stellenbosch who own it.

The beautiful view looking west down the Thame towards the Millennium bridge usually looks like this.

However, on the day, clearly through absolutely no fault of the High Timber restaurant itself, it looked like this. Ahhh. 20th of July in London. Thankfully, we were to eventually receive a week of nice weather soon after. 

All wasn’t lost for #braaiday however. The turnout was great as were some of the wines. 

We started with a couple of Pieter Ferriera’s stylish fizzes from Graham Beck, the Blanc de Blancs and his vintage rosé. Revisiting them with him at Cape Wine recently, has reminded me just how brilliant his straight NV Brut and Rosé are. I had half of the country waxing on about how amazing his top cuvées are, but for me, it’s his entry level stuff that shows real, elegance and balance. They are effortless to drink, and effortlessness is a key trait in some fine wines.

Here were my favourite wines of the lunch…

Right. First dish. Smoked Snoek (Sort of a Barracuda) with Pickled Cucumber.

Well, no actually. Even better, we had a beautiful creamed pâté of Arbroath Smokies

The Tierhoek Chenin Blanc 2009 paired with it was unusually and savoury, marmitey and nutty on its own, but had the perfect notes to go with this bacony, smokey pâté. The minerally framework of the wine is left behind like a mouthful of quartz. 

Le Geminus Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2010 next. God this was good. Most Bordeaux blends in South Africa, or indeed most hot New World countries, are too brash, bright and disjointed. Acidic, angular and full of alcoholic sweetness, like middle age spread. This wine is svelte, flowing, limpid and fine. Balanced and dancey like the ribbon of a rhythmic gymnast. The Secret? Surely it is the expert handling of the wine in used oak. Tell-tale signs of a well managed barrel-ferment are the subtle aromas of dill, and no cheesy, reduction and compression in the mouth like a song produced for radio. This is open, airy and beautiful. It’s violins and flutes, not Tinie Tempah.

Mike Ratcliffe made a late appearance with this quite delicious Chardonnay. I have been a fan of the Chards from this estate since the mid nineties when Norma, his mum was still making them. Of course, when I was a buyer at Waitrose we were knocking it out at £8, but its reputation has spread far and wide, and they have naturally dialed up increasing finesse over the past 15 years. Highly sought-after now, it was showing superbly well, with a fine, creamy warmth, checked by a fresh, soft lemony acidity. The underpinnig wood had a hint of honeycomb about, but not too much, like some of the screw-cappy reductive premium Chardonnays of New Zealand. (Drop a copper coin in the glass and this slightly off-putting Crunchie-Bar waxiness goes away, so all is not lost.) Delicious, and effortlessly easy to drink. Considering the gale blowing outside while we drank it, this was a welcomely autumnal drink on the day. 

WIne of the day has got to go to this fine specimen. Painted Wolf Black Pack Shiraz 2009. I don’t imagine it’s cheap, but it is proof that Shiraz selected from multiple sites and regions can offer layers of complexity, especially in their youth that a single vineyard often can’t. The reason why I loved this wine however, is the slug of chewy, clovey, chocolatey Mourvedre that has been added, and the fine framework of new and used French wood. Very very Rhôney red wine. These two crafty moves, allied to the remarkably measured alcohol level of just over 13.5%, have produced a wine that I would never had guessed was from South Africa. In the category of Southern Rhône reds, this is definitely a good thing. If you know anyone that still has some of this knocking about, I would strongly advise you to buy it. It would give Château Beaucastel a serious run for its money. (FYI I tried the 2010 vintage recently at Cape Wine, and it is a very different animal indeed. Is there Pinotage in it? I think there is. One I like less.)

The Largely, As Yet, Unrealised Potential Of The Great 2002 Champagne Vintage

I couldn’t be bothered to take pictures of each one, so I just thought I’d film them all.

Right. So. What’s a humble, shy, introvert son-of-a-chef like me doing picking over this stratospheric line-up of Champagne. A very large proportion of the greatest and the good are here, I’m sure you’ll agree. Well I was invited to come and taste them by my pal and all-round marketing talent Giles Cooper who heads up the PR and Marketing for England’s most successful and vibrant fine wine company, Bordeaux Index. All I can say, Giles, is thank you. Thank you very much. This was a rare opportunity indeed. Up there with tasting 2010 White Burgundy, or 2005 Bordeaux. 

It is simply impossible to get insight into the the true quality and potential of a vintage by reading someone else’s opinion. From my experience, every vintage of Champagne is starkly different from every other. I suppose what I am trying to say is that Champagne is more vintage sensitive than possibly any other wine on the planet. So, I will, using these smarty pants examples, try to achieve the unachievable and unlock the soul of what is arguably the best Champagne vintage of a lifetime for you the reader.

In order of the wines on the video clip, they are….

Pol Roger 2002 (60% Pinot Noir 40% Chardonnay) 

I’m struggling not to use expletives and hyperbolae already. I remember clearly thinking that if all the other wines are as beautifully expressive as this one, I was about to have an unforgettable afternoon. This wine was, as I know now, looking beautifully expressive and open, far more than most here. It was pure set honeycomb and Crunchie bars on the nose, with a clarity and vivid focus that only the very finest vintage champagnes ever possess. I noticed how floral, and perfectly ripe the Pinot Noir component was. The Pinot has also contributed considerably more breadth than I am used to seeing in Pol Roger’s wines. OK. That’s the first clue to the character of 2002 Champagnes. As I look down the list below, this is a vintage where, if possible, the houses have appeared to favour an increase in Pinot in the blends. That’s not to say that the Chardonnay’s no good. Christ. Quite the opposite, but for earlier drinking cuvées, Pinot Noir seems the only way to achieve that. All the Pinot dominant wines were considerably more forward and balanced, and ‘affinée’ than the tightly locked time bombs that are the Blanc de Blancs. Speaking of which…

Pol Roger 2002 Blanc de Blancs (100% Chardonnay)

It’s tight. Really really tight. “Toit like a toiger.” (Please refer to first Goldmember scene in Goldmember Austin Powers 3) I don’t remember a vintage of this wine that I didn’t prefer to the blend above. What does that tell me? Well, it reminds me of the chardonnay in previous vintages, like 1973, 1988 but with heroic levels of extract. These wines are so minerally that, they exhibit a chalky, almost granular texture. If I didn’t know better, I would say there is a degree of rusticity in these wines. It is, in fact, the opposite case. These wines are incredibly slow evolving and will attenuate, smooth out and develop perfume over the sinewy youthful fruit that they current possess. This is wonderful wine, but I wouldn’t tackle it yet. Classic, fine, tight and long. It will be a classic Pol Roger Blanc de Chardonnay, like '88 but with more weight combined and the perfumed elegance of the '86. 

Louis Roederer Cristal 2002 (55% Pinot Noir 45% Chardonnay)

This is Cristal. It is exactly that. What I am trying to say is that if you’ve had a great vintage of Cristal before, and this is definitely one of them, you can tell straight away that this is indeed what it says it is, as if it was showing you its passport. Everything about it screams Cristal, in a broad-strokes, Rolf Harris “Can you tell what it is yet?” way. Not many wines in the world are as distinctive as Krug and Cristal. I think it was Max Schubert, the legendary creator of Penfold Bin 95 Grange Hermitage (as it was known back then) that said that greatness is only half about the quality. He said that a wine could be perfect without being truly great. It was equally important for the wine to be different. Well, love it or loath, and it’s not my favourite, Cristal is both brilliantly screwed together, and utterly unique and non-derivative. So, for those of you who don’t know what it is about Cristal that sets it apart, I shall attempt to describe it. Baking bread. Sourdough in particular. It has the smell, when released, that always reminds me of sourdough minutes after being but in the oven. There’s a hint of molasses and orange rind too. In fact, to me, Cristal always remind me of Jamaican gingerbread. That broad orange citrus aroma, with a malty, mid-bake ginger loaf and digestives. Now, this wine is a decade old and still has all of these characters. It is clearly unready. At the Roederer Awards last year, I tasted a glass of the 2004 with the competition winners, and that loaf was fully formed and ready to come out. Rich, succulent and crusty. I was suprised how unusually forward and delicious it was, in fact. This wine, perhaps of all Champagnes, needs the longest time in bottle before it can be drunk with maximum enjoyment. The 2002 is a true vin-de-garde, and I imagine will repay cellaring for at least another 5 years. I know many wine-makers in Champagne will wholeheartedly disagree with me, but this is a wine that I only love with a minimum of 10 years on cork, and this one has 3 years to go. Like quite a few of these wines, I now see why Bordeaux Index might have invested heavily in this vintage. Watch the price on this wine rise over the next half decade. 

Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 2002 (100% Chardonnay)

Ahh. My darling Comtes. This cuvée has been on truly sizzling form since the late eighties. It is, if I have to declare my hand, the wine above all wines that I would select to drink when or if I ever choose to remarry, if I lose a dear loved one or if my children have something to celebrate. It wouldn’t, however be suitable for celebrating a lottery win, no matter how much it was for. It is far far too classy for anything as vulgar as that. This is a very very long-lived wine with perfect balance, and if you catch it at it’s apogee, it has a truly intoxicating scent. I recently had it served to me blind at a wine dinner with Roger and Sue at The Harrow in Little Bedwyn. No one got the vintage right (It was 1998) but it was the first wine of the evening, and it was the best. Perfect even. There was warm sun. I had beautiful company, and I couldn’t have wanted for anything more delicate, poised and fine. After tasting over a hundred wines, it was that first mouthful of wine that I was still thinking of. I also drank the 2000 with a dear dear friend on her birthday last year. It was also utterly sublime,  and so open and supple, in line with the vintage, that we drank it with relish through every course of our Skye Gyngall lunch at Petersham Nurseries. So? How does this vintage compare? Well way back at the beginning of the year, I had my first taste of it the Harper’s Champagne Symposium, and wrote it up in the third of three blog posts I did covering the event.

I said

“It smells of acacia, magnolia flowers, vanilla orchid and lime blossom. The wine arm-wrestles with your tongue at the moment, but is already showing incredible finesse. Can’t wait to taste it for a proper appraisal in a year or two. I think I would buy one to drink Christmas 2013" 

I think that I got it about right, but having tasted it again here, I would extend that cellering time until the year after. 2014 is more sensible. This wine is very young, and has so much more to give. To think that most of it has already been consumed… It’s tantamount to infanticide. Yup, I would be buying wines like this all day long if I could afford to.

Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque 2002 (50% Pinot Noir 46% Chardonnay 4% Pinot Meunier)

I loved this on first taste a couple of years ago. On first impressions, it really appeared to struggle amongst this celestial competition, but it was rich, majestically structured, fruity, but maybe just a little simple. That doesn’t bother me too much, because flavours this clean and robust at ten years old suggest that it’s not going to run out of steam anytime soon, and it will naturally gain complexity in the bottle.  Many people see the bottle and imagine this wine is for the feint of heart. It’s not. It is rounded, full, broad and very long. 

Dom Ruinart 2002 (100% Chardonnay) 

I drank my first glass of Dom Ruinart last year at an unbelievably high-brow art and antique exhibition at the Chelsea Old Hospital, called The Masterpiece, an event where one can buy a whole range of things that I personally couldn’t do without, such as a Edwardian rococo snooker table, a papal forgery or a Mark XIV Supermarine Spitfire. I mean how do people cope? I tasted the 1998, 1996 and the 1993 in magnum. My life changed. Dom Ruinart is the king to Taittinger Comtes’ queen. Equal in quality and precision, it appears to take a much more Matador-like stance. It has such poise and muscle tone. This wine was the first time I have ever drunk a Dom Ruinart that was so blantantly unready. Having said that, there is a monolithic majesty, a latent raw power, like a Lamborghini at idle. It doesn’t so much purr, rather growl like a young panther. It had such chalky energy that I was, well, frightened by it. It was doughy in a tighter way than the Cristal but equally unevolved, with chards of quartz and marble in it. Five years at the very least, before I would approach this again, I reckon. Crikey. I will take a long shot and say that this will be the best wine here in a decade or so. Bloody incredible. I felt humbled is if drinking liquid Kryptonite.

Dom Perignon 2002 (55% Pinot Noir 45% Chardonnay)

I have been moaning jealously to everyone I know this year, because it appeared that everyone I know had tried this wine apart form me. I tried the 2003 Dom and wasn’t blown away. It was maybe a good effort for the vintage, which isn’t something that you ever should have to say of a luxury item like Dom Perignon. However, this is truly delicious. I don’t remember Dom P ever having this much Pinot Noir in it (It is almost always Chardonnay dominant), which takes us back to the first paragraph of this post. Furthermore, considering the tightness of the 2002 vintage per se, and the elegance of the classic Dom Perignon style, this is a truly unusual release. Firstly, it is firing on almost all cylinders already. Whether that is to say that it’s peaking early or whether it will increase in excitement until it goes supernova, I can’t quite tell. I wouldn’t bet against the latter. All I can say is that this is the best relatively young Dom Perignon for drinking in decades. It’s already like a sky full of fireworks, but with all the finesse of a Darjeeling-filled bone china tea cup, with a slice of Amalfi lemon. 

Philliponnat Clos des Goisses 2002 (65% Pinot Noir 35% Chardonnay)

This is a wine that I had on my honeymoon. It was the amazing 1988 vintage in a famous restaurant on the Champs-Elysées called the Ledoyen. It was the one truly memorable thing, apart from the astonishing period décor, that I could say about the lunch, apart from the price. This wine went down very well at the tasting, but I felt it was lacking a little of the finesse that most of the other wines showed, and was distinctly shorter on the palate. Mind you, most of the wines in this tasting had extraordinary length, so maybe it is just relative. It was massively proportioned, rounded, riper and showed a kernally quality that I didn’t go a bundle about. It’s either showing adolescence and needs more time, or it just wasn’t for me.

Bollinger Grande Année 2002 (60% Pinot Noir 40% Chardonnay) 

When you compare the price of this wine and what it delivers to all the other wines in the tasting, this is not only clearly a work of art in its own right, but an unspeakable bargain. It’s like drinking Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It’s orchestral in size, 1920s mahogany in setting, and full of swooping, fruity clarinets and dueling Steinways. A mouthful of glorious richness and freshness at the same time. If you don’t know what the fuss is about with Bollinger, then drink this. If you still don’t, then bugger off and leave it for the ones that do. 2002 Grande Année? The best in my lifetime. It’s better than '85, '90, and '96 and it will outlive them all. This is a wine of genius at a price that, while not cheap, belies it’s true pedigree. Sheer class and a wine drinkers wine. A bit like drinking sparkling Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos of a similar age, I’d imagine.  What a way to finish.

I’m exhausted now. I think I might have a lie down after that.

Christ.

I’ve never been this excited about a dinner. Ever. The invitation is like a Wonka Golden Ticket…

I don’t know what to expect. At all. 

Krug have partnered with wunderkind Nuño Mendes to create the ultimate feel-good dinner. It’s ridiculously exclusive too. So exclusive, that I nearly turned it down because I literally have nothing to wear…

If you think a pop-up restaurant at the internationally swanky 85 Swaines Lane that is only open for four days, and has only 16 seats (at £440 a pair) isn’t swanky enough, look at the questionnaire that they sent me…

(For comedy value, I have included my answers as I wrote them.)

1. What was your favourite game or toy when you were growing up?

So. A few weeks on, from one of the most decadent evenings I’ve ever had the pleasure of being invited to. What was it like? Glad you asked…

What I am asking myself is what was it for? Why was it staged? If it was to create an indelible memory of the Krug brand about which I shall be talking for years to come, well, bravo. That is certainly the true. Then again, Krug has such extraordinary brand swagger already, isn’t it more the fact that if it turned out not to be bling enough, then there was more risk of doing harm to this celestial credibility? I imagine that this is the case for every event involving hyper brands like this. Surely it’s up there with Piaget watches, Bentley cars, John Lobb shoes and Riva boats? (Yes. One of each please.)

Was it a success? I don’t know. I imagine it was, but I am still trying to put my finger on what exactly the point of this ‘pop-up’ was. (Yuk. Horrid expression.) Let me explain what happened first, what we ate, drank, and how it went down. Warning. This bit is likely to sound a bit sucky and gloaty. Hell, if I can’t gloat now, I don’t know when I ever will.

The Ride

Pardon the vernacular, this was not a limousine, or executive transport, but a limo. One of those Men-in-Black Chrysler hot-rods that I see London gangsters riding around in. You know. The type that rappers drive, if their jewelry comes from H. Samuel, not Bulgari. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not looking down on my ‘ride’. Any free ride makes me feel important. It was just that I was all ‘Krug’ed up mentally, and had psyched myself up with a couple of Langtons (smooth gangsta gin) and tonic, so anything less than a Maybach driven by a Playmate of the Year was a slight disappointment. Actually I have always wanted to know what these pimp-mobiles were like. Well, now I can report that It is massive, menacing and goes like the clappers. The driver was wearing shades. It was dark. I asked if we could put some tunes on. I chose some vintage LL Cool J from my ‘pod’. Going back to Cali? Unh. I don’t think so… 

We then cruised across London, from South West to North East in the middle of rush hour. At 12 miles per hour.

If this hour-long crawl through London was planned by Krug, or it’s PR company, it was genius. Me in the back, tinted windows down a couple of inches, hip-hop blaring, wheels rolling slow enough to plow the road like some sort of urban tractor, being chauffeured by Shaft himself… I lost count of the amount of times that people tried to peer in. I felt very special. The only thing I was missing was a pair of holstered Colts 45s and an Armani dinner jacket. I was the daddy.

I arrived outside a three storey black building, with a discreet entrance that reminded me of the door to Milk and Honey in Soho. It was so unassuming, that you would walk straight past it, not knowing the extreme decadence that was being planned inside.

It was frosty, dark, eerie and very quiet and to my left were row upon row of wonky headstones. Oh my god. I was in a Michael Jackson video. The big faceless black door began to creek open very slowly and then…

“Way hay! Alright chief? Look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

It was my good friend Richard Siddle. Editor of out trade bible, Harpers Wine and Spirit Gazette.

“Phew! You gave me quite a scare. Eerie isn’t it mate?”

I discreetly returned my switchblade back to my ticket pocket. No harm done.

The Venue

Two minutes inside and I already felt like I had been invited to a Bafta after-show party. The stairs were littered with autumn leaves and there was a faint hint of bonfire smoke in the air, intentionally I don’t know. Considering the planning that went into everything else, probably. Obviously a seasonal theme had been chosen, and it felt nice. I popped out for a ciggie. (Yeah, I know. It doesn’t happen very often these days.)

This place is extraordinary. Look it up on t'internet. It’s wonderfully open space with state of the art Meridian active floorstander sound speakers on one floor and B&W Nautilus Speakers on the next. If you’re an audiophile nerd like me, you’d push the girl with the tray of fizz out of the way and off the balcony too get a earful of these puppies. Then I suddenly realised… The evening’s entertainment had actually already begun. Out of these dark pillars of sonic Nirvana beamed crystal-clear axe-wielding of the Keith Richards variety. The Stones’ classic Gimme Shelter was playing. One guest I didn’t know suddenly looked excited and proclaimed (while bits of breadcrumb and chicken skin shrapnelled out from between her teeth) that this was her favourite song. Ever.

Now if you venture back to the blogpost before this one, you will see that we were all asked what our favourite ditty was in an extensive questionnaire. Jamie Goode looked at me, and I at him. “Joe. Have they played yours yet?” Judging by the look on his face, he was just praying that the next guitar he was about to hear was going to be Angus Young’s Epiphone Les Paul Custom playing Back in Black. (AC/DC. Keep up.) And no.

I hadn’t heard my favourite ever song of all time ever. Yet…

But weirdly, this portentious thought about how the answers to our collective questions would shape the evening really kicked the evening off. Eek! How exciting. Time for a bit of KFC (Krug Following Canapé.)

Behind us, and in full view of us was flavour-of-the-month culinary wunderkind Nuño Mendes. I don’t deny it. If there was no wine, no limo, and no friends, the chance to try his food would have been excuse enough for me to come along and check this evening out. As it turned out, I was standing next to some of the nicest chaps and chapesses in our business, and a couple of proper friends, drinking iconic bubbles, while still affecting a ‘hip-hop limp’ from the gansta ride up here. Life was sweet. 

So. What was for dinner?

The Food

There were three canapés in all, but in all the excitement (and people who know me are probably aware that I’m not the broody silent type when in any state of arousal) I only remembered to snap one of them.

Breadcrumbed Pine Nut Ice Cream on Pressed Chicken Skin

Of course it was. What else?

It was impossible to hold, cold and strangely textured. Despite that, it really did wash down bizarrely well with a large glass of Krug Grande Cuvée.

Now hang on.

Before I go on and start pretending to be luddite and apparently insensitive to the extreme effort, meticulous detail and fine culinary skill in the meal that I ate here, I want to say one thing.

At dinners like this, the wine is an ingredient. In every way; an intrinsic ingredient to the food, and an ingredient to the stage within the evening it which it is being served, and a catalyst to the conversation around the table. Every perceived success or failure at every point in the evening is all about the timing and choice of the wine. It’s most probabaly why most of us are here. This was never meant to be a regular night out at a restaurant. You are not choosing your own meal, your own wine, or even your own pace and mood for the evening. These have all been chosen for you. (At £440 for a pair of tickets, the appeal for such an evening is even limited to couples. No single tickets were sold. But, you see, even spending this evening with someone you care about was a mandatory criterion for the evening.)

Not all the food was perfect, to me anyway. Some of it could even have been described as patchy, but it was all head-crushingly thought-provoking and some of it was close to god. Being that the whole experience was the subjective vision of only two people, Olivier Krug and Nuño Mendes, this is quite irrelevent. One most allow oneself to be guided through a journey like this without prejudice to see if one emotionally connects with their point of view. I was determined to have a whale of a time. Krug Institue of Happiness? Alright. We’ll bloody well give it a go…

Cured Lobster, Spring Onion and Consommé with Spruce Bark

It looked astonishing, tasted astonishing, and showed real balance, nuance and understanding of the less obvious flavours from these complex ingredients. The wine choice, which I will describe in more detail below, was wide of the mark however. I wasn’t completely sure how the wine was actually performing on the day, and sensed that there was a possible temperature issue, the food being slightly too cold, and the wine slightly too warm, bringing everything a little out of focus. Am I being picky? Most definitely, but sometimes trying food wine combinations with tolerances this fine, can just slip when relocated to another venue with different surroundings and equipment.

Halibut with Seaweed Sofrito and a Seafood Rice Broth

Bloody hell, this was amazing. It looked like art, and tasted so measured, multi-layered and in tune with the brightness, balance and umami of the wine, I was lost for words. (Yes. Lost for words.)  Perfect.

Aged Pigeon Buried under Fallen Autumn Leaves

This was an extraordinary plate of food too. The pigeon was just the comfortable side of gamey for me, a line that, when pushed, gets the best out of the flavour and the texture of this tricky game bird. It was in a shallow grave of crisp shards of dried consommé and dessicated wild mushrooms. The colours were something else. The savoury tang of the crisps, and the sweet, heavily meaty depth of flavour in the pigeon breast tasted truly delicious with a mouthful of the Krug Rosé (more later on) but strangely awkward without it. Like I said, this was a dish made with the wine as one of its ingredients, giving them unique and astonishing synergy. I had half of my adjacent diner’s plate too, so felt compelled to ask for a refill of my glass. Once or twice.

The Return to the Beginning, Happy Memories of Home (Milk Pudding)

Nope. Didn’t quite get this. It was cleverly made, sure. But it was a milk pudding done three ways. It was soothing and light in texture, while rich in flavour, and made for a slightly cheesy punchline. The joke clearly lay in the name of the dish. Maybe it’s a lot funnier in Portuguese.

The Booze

Krug Grande Cuvée in bottle and then in magnum to start. As a close friend reminded me, one whose palate I completely trust, there are times when even the best wines don’t go. She said that she had opened a bottle of Krug having returned from a very long trip at the end of months of work stress, hard work and studying. She felt that she deserved an extra-special treat. Horror of horrors, she couldn’t drink it. Flat didn’t like it. It was aggressive, compact, disjointed, unbalanced and argumentative. “This is it.”, she thought. She was going to give up wine for good. Surely it must be her? She’d finally cracked. If she didn’t want a glass of Krug, what next?

I told her that it may well have been her. Opening Krug when you’re tired is like playing The Prodigy at breakfast. It’s too bloody much in every way. There’s nothing wrong with the song. It’s just not for breakfast. 

I was once given a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvée by the legendary front of house at  Maison Krug, Cathou Seydoux to celebrate the birth of my son. She said “Don’t make it the first drink of the day, unless you have it with food.” “What with?” I asked. “Chicken Curry” she replied. I kept it for several months until Christmas morning when I decided to drink it with my wife and mother-in-law.

I had one mouthful, which took several very uncomfortable seconds to wrestle down. How could this be? This is singularly the most anticipated mouthful of wine of the entire year. I’d dreamt about it. Mmm, Krug and presents, I had pondered.

Nope. Undrinkable. 

Luckily, I put it in the fridge and forgot about it, rather than throw it away.

Later on, after the whole turkey and sprouts family summit meeting, I went to the kitchen to look for something refreshing and non gout-inducing after all that Christmas pud, red wine and port. There it was! The Krug. I thought 'what the hell’ and took a swig. 

My god. It was truly magnificent. Incandescent in it’s brightness, electric in it’s precision and like duvet around the soul. Complete, orchestral, and vigorous. When I poured myself a glass, the surface looked positively turbulent. A jacuzzi for borrowers. Krug is the most energetic wine in the world. Vinous perputual motion. So much life that you could probably run an XBox off it, if you had the right cabling.

By the way, I never did ask my friend what she thought of her bottle of Krug the next day. (Let me know if you’re reading this.)

At Swaines Lane that night the several glasses that I drank were just so. (although the first bottle had appeared strangely flat. These things happen. Was probably a dirty glass.)  

With the lobster dish, we were served Krug Vintage 1998. I discovered that Olivier Krug’s daughter was born a day after mine in this year. I never thought that this might be an option for a wine to share with my darling Jemima on her 18th, but there is no doubt that, with proper cellaring, this wine would still be very special in 2016. This was a moment that I shall savour with Olivier for a long time.

Stylistically, this wine was typically rich, but with atypically less acidity on the palate compared to others that I have tried. It also had a phenomenally malty finish that left me wondering whether I would have thought it pink if I’d had tasted it completely blind. Grand indeed, but Mendelssohn not Beethoven. Not quite poetic enough.

With the hailbut dish, we were served the Krug Vintage 2000. It. Was. Fantastic. It had a aromas of freshly cut white mushrooms with vivid russet apple fruit flavours and bite of lemon and sorrel. The whole thing was so complete. Neat, round and balanced but full of buzz and vitality. So much so, it span in your mouth like a frisbee. Clearly a great wine to drink now but, along with the wonderful Comtes de Champagne from Taittinger, head and shoulders above any other Champagnes that I have had in this vintage.

And finally, a wine that I had never had before. Krug Rosé. Very few people have, I suppose. At over £200 retail for a bottle, the generous pours that I gladly received virtually covered the cost of the ticket on its own. We were encouraged to drink, not sip, which put a completely different spin on the experience. Rather than sipping it nervously, I drank it in mouthfuls, like the world’s first sparkling Chambolle Musigny. Boy it was a delight, with the succulent, tender red pigeon flesh and twangy savoury mushroom flavours, and the soft strawberry and cherry fool fruit of the Champagne. I don’t think that I have ever had a food and wine match quite like it. The Krug made me eat and the pigeon made me drink. Seperately, very cerebral. Together, moreish to the point of gluttony. My, what a decadent thing!

The Company

Evenings like should always be about making friends and memories. I was pleased to see some of my pals, and also to meet people properly that I’d briefly met or heard so much about.

Of the former, there was Jamie Goode, Olly Smith and Richard Siddle, and of the latter there was Lucy Shaw, Chris Mercer and of course Olivier Krug himself. (Forgive me if I missed anyone!)  

At some point during course two, all the Krug that I had consumed thus far passed through my blood brain barrier. Despite all attempts to remain calm, composed and civilised, my brain tuned into the chord sequences floating from the piano above the chatter. The musical score seemed to drip down the walls like code in The Matrix. “They are finally playing my song!” I thought, and mid-conversation with Miss Shaw, as if I was being controlled by someone else, I zombied over to the side of the Steinway grand, and demanded that the pianist start the song again. 

Oh thank god that Jamie Goode was there to document what happened next…

Just click on the link.

However, if you are squeamish, look away now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amSsLZdkgyw&feature=share&list=PL7g-hEt_xm3RjjzGdR2q21jK3h9UQsmRc

The Verdict

Friends. It’s about friends. The Krug Institute of Happiness, even with it’s amazing dazzle, still wouldn’t have worked without a few people that you’d want to spend New Year’s Eve with, and a guaranteed ride home.

Well I was with some of my closest friends and fellow Liverpool supporters and Krug had swapped my ride home for the finest car in the world, a brand new S Class Mercedes. And a tuckshop bag full of lemon sherbets.

Wow. They know how to throw a party.

I offered Chris and Richard a lift home in my sweet ride, as they both lived nearby. We got chatting, and despite having had one or two glasses of Krug previously, we concluded that there was life in the evening yet.

We went back to Richard’s house, and played loads more deeply nostalgic music.

The Smiths for me.

Japan, China Crisis, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Heaven 17 and OMD for Richard. 

During this orchestra of angels, I consumed Richard’s entire Christmas quota of satsumas and we all drank shots of Belvedere Vodka. (What? After all that Krug? “What thugs!” I hear you cry?) 

Oh lighten up. It’s from the same company. And FYI, it’s bloody good vodka. The best even. Besides, what do you follow Krug with anyway?

At this point, with a ludicrous smile on each of our faces, The Krug Institute of Happiness closed for business.

Well done Olivier, LVMH (UK) and Phipps PR.

Even if it wasn’t the whole story, you gave it one hell of a start.

A truly unforgettable night. Thank you to everyone concerned.

A quick one. I have just answered the front door to a postman, holding a plastic bag full of dirty liquid, powdered green glass and wet cardboard. It was addressed to me.

I was rather perplexed to why someone would send me something that looked like a glass Mojito.

On further inspection of the package, I discovered a sender address, a silver Special Delivery sticker, and something scrawled on the zip-lok bag in which the contents of the original package were placed.

The writing said,”Received in broken condition.” I rather doubt it. Certainly not in this condition.

It was sent by my good pal Ulrich Hoffman, fellow IWC judge and winemaker at Burgess Hill in Kent. Those of you who have met him, will know that he is far from stupid and he is German. Parcels always arrive as if packaged and built at an Audi factory. I don’t imagine he lobbed the bottle at the post office screen, then paid £15 to deliver it. Anyway, do you know how hard it is to actually break a sparkling wine bottle these days. I mean they bounce of ships’ hulls, for christ sake!

Now let’s finish on the Special Delivery label shall we? What, exactly, does Special Delivery mean? It appears that it means that if a parcel survives the usual gauntlet of the Royal Mail distribution system, one should drink the contents to celebrate. If not, one can then claim back on the contents insurance, and have it delivered by a proper fucking courier.

I’m glad Uli didn’t send it by regular post. I imagine they would have rung the doorbell then shot it through the letterbox with a cannon.

“Harpers Editor eats World’s Best Breakfast.”

Prior to heading off on a field campaign to corner all the West of England drinks scoops in one day, with Angela Mount, Madeleine Waters, Bryony Wright, and a guy called Matthew Clark, apparently, Richard Siddle sat down to Joe Wadsack’s now famous, Mount Lofty Bacon and Caper stack.

“I didn’t want it to end chief. It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever eaten.” said experienced breakfast-eating Scouser.

joewadsack:

Poached eggs, laid last night, on top of a stack of smoked back bacon and crispy polish toast, with a dressing of watercress, capers, Dijon mustard, tomato, olive and rice vinegar. Twist of pepper, and Bob’s your Uncle.

Joe is the Breakfast King.

You spend months tasting wines, without finding a bargain, then three come along at once.

Like buses.

I have been trying to find a bargain basement wine to recommend for a little while now and it’s been a fairly fruitless exercise (pardon the pun). I suppose in my advancing years, I have been reluctant to accept that the wine ‘sweet spot’ these days is closer to £10 than £5 before, and that I expect someone will appear with a £2.99 Côtes de Thongue that’s going to hit the spot.

Well. OK. Obviously those days are gone.

It doesn’t help that the old £2.99 price point is now the £4.99 price point, and wine has always been made to squeeze under that particular limbo pole. The inherently poor value of the £4.99 price pinch combined with the the fact that it is now the entry for any drinkable wine has meant that the chasm in quality between £5 and £9 is more enormous than ever before.

So, I thank the lucky stars that there are any wines worth having anywhere near a fiver.

Friends of mine have ben asking me if I would cook for them, and give a wine tasting where they might learn something and have fun at the same time. Well the fun was provided by the heroic consumption of wine on the evening, and the topic I choose was how to manipulate the taste of wine by food pairing. There are lot of trade secrets here, but the use of oil, chilli, mustard, vinegar, herbs and mushrooms were discussed at great length. I went to Waitrose for the food ingredients, and had a cursory look around the Waitrose wine department. I needed some cooking wine and a couple of entry level wines with which to demostrate some of the food wine pairings. 

I bought a bottle of El Guia 2011, a Spanish Garnacha at £3.99. Not on offer. That’s retail.

The second wine was called Rich and Intense Italian Red. No. I’m not kidding. A multi-varietal blend from Puglia at £4.99. Retail.

I have to say it. I struggled at Waitrose’s last press tasting. Literally hundreds of wines, beers and spirits to taste, and I struggled to pick two dozen wines that I wanted to put under my stairs. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the day. I did struggle. Started to lose faith even. It was as if Auntie Jean Lewis had forgotten that it was my birthday. 

Anyway. The wines were both good. Actually unbelievably good.

The Garnacha was, well Garnacha. Simple, but dry (a good thing) and full of raspberry fruit. When I look at what the cheaper Aussie and American brands try to achieve at almost double the retail price of this wine, I feel obliged to tell the world quite how good this is.There isn’t a half-price promotion out there that has the honesty and purity that this confident glugger gives. You know what I mean. I’m talking about the aisle ends filled with Hardy’s Crest or some such gruel-in-a-bottle, claiming to save you a fiver every time you buy one, but when opened, rather than tasting like a reward, feels more like a punishment.

The Italian one? Well it was a little more deceptive. It tasted like it had had a smidge of botox in the form of a little sugar left at the end of the fermentation. At the Waitrose press tasting in late Autumn, I thought that this wine was distinctly boxy and contrived, but it has settled into itself far better than I had expected. I used it very effectively in a red wine, chicory and mushroom risotto, but that’s unfairly putting it down. It has Italian tannins, Italian twang, and dare I say it, Italian flair. For a fiver.

It is the wine equivalent of a Fiat Panda.

Earlier that day, I spent yesterday morning helping to groom a very nice chestnut coloured horse called Marmalade in a field near Oxshott. 

Horses are nice. Never been round them much in my life, apart from the odd New Forest pony that I managed to hit on my brother’s Raleigh Chopper. Those cattle-grids can be darned slippery. 

Is this relevant? Not really. Well, only slightly.

Have you notice that horses smell of brett? They smell of pure clean, almost pleasant feral pheromones. Is this why girls like ponies so much?  Or is this why people who go hunting like claret so much? 

Anyway, I reckon that if I spent a day horse-riding, I would be incapable of giving Gruaud Larose1990 such a hard time. I’ll get back to you on that.

Anyway the last wine I want to officially RAVE about IS a claret. And I hadn’t been anywhere near a horse. Not a four legged one anyway. Bristol has a fair number of the two legged variety.

I visited the West Country a couple of weeks ago, with my good friend Sir Richard Siddle of Harpers. We visited a newly opened shop in Clifton, Bristol, owned by Susan McCraith MW, Aidan Bell, and Richard Davis. All old friends of mine. 

I saw a couple of obscene bargains in the shop. I mean XXX rated frosted shop window obscene.

and…

Well, you can’t take bargains like this on face value. How can you? It sounds like the sort of thing that an unscrupulous supermarket would do. Well,…

It had a fragrant, deep mossy Merlot aroma, with flecks of graphite. Deep, deep crimson red, plenty of soft suedy tannins, and a clean herby finish, licked with hints of vanilla. Yup. I’d pay £11 for that. Get in t'Internet! They still have some. 

The Californian Syrah, if anything was an even bigger bargain, if you like that sort of thing. Fragrant, layered, and not jammy in anyway. Mature, but clean, with a velvety finish of mulberry and thyme. 

Right that’s enough proper wine guff for now. 

PS. If you live in Skegness and want to drink well cheaply, it’s Tesco Finest Côtes Catalanes Carignan all day long.

Seven quid with a smile on your face.

Martin Luther King onced proclaimed,” Never succomb to the temptation of bitterness.”

And here was me, thinking that Campari was quite zeitgeisty in sixties America, if Madmen is anything to go by.

I love bitterness, and most of my close friends love bitterness too. Let’s be honest. As we get older, bitterness becomes the new sweet.

I wonder, increasingly, if there is a correlation between enjoying bitter drinks and harboring bitterness and regret as one advances through life’s rich pageant. Take two examples.

1) Old men in Yorkshire near Masham.

2) Me.

I have found a spot in my beloved Soho where I can indulge my sour-faced fetish, without having to barge past better-looking, trendy hipsters and endure eardrum tearing techno in some of the busier bars around the area. I am sure this will change, because I can’t see how the formula of this place can fail. (Famous last words.)

I am talking about Mele e Pere.

http://www.meleepere.co.uk

For those of you who frequent Soho, and have been to my other field office over the road, namely The Pink Chihuahua, you have probably walked past it over a dozen times, thinking, “What on earth is that?”

It looks like a shop that sells Murano paperweights. That’s all there is in the window. Behind them, and the floor to ceiling glass front, a bar- two feet long, one beer pump, and a couple of tables.

Oh. And a set of stairs.

Look I don’t speak Italian, but apparently the clue’s in the name. A name so cunning that you could put a dress on it and call it cockney.

So what is down the ‘Apples and Pears’?

I am not a guy that has been to Italy even half as often as I have wished, but the gleaming copper bar, the pretty Italian Aperol prints and all the pretty vaulted dining alcoves feel Italian to me. There’s a stylish measured calm.

Behind the bar is undoubtedly the largest range of vermouths, bitters and aperitivos in London, along with the charming and brilliantly competent Ed Scothern, Head Sommelier.

Now. I wasn’t here prinicipally for the food, but as my crush on bitter Italian cocktails was being met with one perfectly balanced cocktail after another, I started to notice how terrific the bar food is. Gorgeous, succulent deep-fried stuffed green olives, feather-light, clean and crispy calamari and a plank, piled high with that Pontiff of salami, finocchiona, and the most delicious deep fried gnocchi bread.

The prices, considering that we were in a W1 Postcode, are barely believable. If you go between 4 and 7, you can get a very large, expertly crafted Martinez, a mountain of salami and a groaning plate of squid for about a twenty quid. Seriously.

I don’t know why I didn’t take pictures of the bar snacks that I ate, but I truly wish that I had. I have a sneeky feeling that describing them with an M&S voiceover won’t do their appeal any harm. Go and check it out for yourself.

Actually, I took one picture. This is a traffic-stopping white vermouth sorbet with Caramelised Blood Orange and Aperol Syrup…

Can you feel that?…. Can you?

None of these delicious things are the reason why I was attracted to this place. What did stir my interest was this.

Homemade Vermouth.

They steep all their ingredients seperately and blend them all together themselves.

They get through about ten litres of each a week, and I can totally see why.

I don’t want to wax on about the different components that make vermouth what it is, nor do I want to spoil the surprise. Go and ask Ed yourself. They are incredible. Seriously. I don’t imagine it’ll ever be as good as my first time, but I have fallen in love with this place. The food coming out of the kitchen looks as precise as the drinks, and judging by their glowing reviews, all the national restaurant critics can’t be wrong at the same time. They also do amazing party rates too. Mmm. Too late for my birthday, I wonder?

To drink?

I asked for a classic wet Martini, 3 to 1, with a twist.

With my gin.

(Didn’t I tell you? Yes. I am a fully paid up spirit brand owner. How cool is that? And the gin is designed to be used in exactly this kind of environment.)

Let me introduce to you….

http://www.langtonsgin.co.uk

The martini was fresh, articulate and bright, void of any of those nasty oxidised tones you often find in some bottle vermouth, with a palate of silk and lemony tannic bite on the finish.

Here’s a delicious Negroni made with their red vermouth too. Handsome innit? Berried and bright, reeking of cranberries, gentian and wormwood.

Ok That’s enough.

Go. To. Mele e Pere.

That’s all I have to say.

There are some wines, I imagine, even the most well-connected journalists and wine writers hanker to try. This is no doubt true, even for the likes of Neal Martin, and Tim Atkin MW.

We watch them tweeting and writing about the celestial great and the good at some of the most extraordinary wine events, restaurants, even countries. But I bet there are wines that even Neal wishes he knew better.

For us mere mortals, our lists are long. For me? Never tasted Lafite. Never had Haut Brion (Actually twice. Blind. Once with a cold in a job interview.) Never had a glass of Margaux, and don’t even get me started on Domaine de la Romanée-Conti… I mean who cares anyway, huh? (I do…)

Also, we become increasingly well aware that in this day and age, we are exponentially less likely to ever see them. You have to suck in hard and let it go. It’s as hard as letting go of that one love of your life, that didn’t love you back. A part of you thinks, “I could have made an honest wine of her. I could. She’ll regret it one day. I would have been the best taster she ever had.” But you just have to let go.

Then you lower your standards. At the risk of getting hurt again, you go to one Australian and Chilean wine tasting after another (although I’m told that there are a few sirens there too. Oh wherefore art thou, Wendouree?)

It’s so you can regain sobriety and poise, rather than throwing yourself at the next Barbaresco you can find and declaring mad passionate love to it. Looking down the barrel of a top Chilean Cabernet, you most probably say to yourself, “It’s nice, but I’m in control. I’m never going to love this wine as much as it wants me. Besides, I’m on the rebound.” It feels safe. You’re never going to wish for something out of your reach again. Look, I’m not stupid. My infatuation with ‘her’, Miss Margaux Leadbetter, almost certainly has an allure that’s part celeb and status, but am I not good enough for a wine like that?

Then it happens. You are invited to a killer party, with a room so full of hot wines that you chance your arm once more.

This happened to me very recently. Just as I thought that I would NEVER try one of my dream wines again, my old pal Richard Bampfield MW invited me to a blending seminar with Pierre-Olivier Clouet, Gérant Technique at Château Cheval Blanc.

Crikey! Thanks Richard! This was better than writing a contact description for me on My Single Friend. I mean a room full of White Horses? I couldn’t fail to find my future bride, surely.

Did I have any previous with this Keira Knightly lookalike? Well I did meet her once. It was 1997, she was still in bed, and had no make-up on. (It was a 1996 barrel-sample.) She was pure, gentle, beautifully elegant, but it felt wrong to like this nubile, crimson glass of wine as much as I did, but I knew what she was going to become. Standing in front of her dad, Pierre Lurton, I blushed. (Maybe Stanley Kubrick could have directed ‘Sideways II, A new dawn…’)

I had also read the late great Edmund Penning-Rowsell’s effusions on this legendary wine estate. It was his favourite Bordeaux and he once described it as the Nuits St. Georges of the right-bank. What was I to do? This wasn’t the first time I had begun to fall for someone by what they looked like in print. Penning-Rowsell’s descriptions of this wine read like love-letters. Now here I was, going to the family Christmas party.

It was quite a large gathering in an historic building near Tower Hill. I sat at right at the front with half a dozen Riedel Bordeaux glasses in front of me. The point of the whole exercise was to listen to Pierre-Oliver explaining, in reasonably layman’s terms, the various vineyard parcels that they have at Cheval Blanc, why they were special and how they decided to blend their latest offering, the 2012.

P-O was incredibly open. Not the honesty I have come to expect from Bordeaux royalty. He allowed us to taste sub blends of each grape variety planted on each soil type. Unusually, Cheval Blanc has no limestone plots, something that I feel really defines St. Emilion for me. St. Emilion has a sunny smile, reminiscent of Barbaresco to Pomerol’s Barolo. Cheval Blanc is definitely Barolo. No sunny summer linen suits here. Cheval Blanc wears a well-cut charcoal pin-stripe.

I imagined, after the slightly less favourable reports of the vintage that this whole exercise was some kind of ruse to flatter their actions in 2012. Far from it. We were allowed to make our own decisions about whether we liked the cuvées, and they have clearly made a very nice wine. A very nice claret actually.

Now, that is a description that I find almost impossible to attach to the über-ripe, alcoholic wines made in 2009 and 2010. Sure, they are silky, sexy and flattering in their youth, but I can’t help thinking that they will all exhibit premature middle-aged spread when they finally reach their late twenties. (Yep. Mea culpa. I do not count them as classic vintages in the same way that 1990, 2000 and 2005 and even 2001 clearly are. You will see. You will all see…)

So what did we try apart from that? Well there is one sample that will stay with me forever. Having tasted a myriad of 2012 components, we were treated to finished, bottled library samples of the final blend of the 2001 Cabernet Franc and Merlot components before they were put together to make Le Grand Vin.

Next to me was my good friend Ben Llewelyn, patron of Carte Blanche Wines, a fine taster indeed. When we both reached the Cabernet Franc component, we stopped, looked at each other and silently mouthed the word ‘Phwoarrr’, before almost collapsing in minor euphoric hysterics. We spent the rest of the tasting giggling inanely. That’s him in the bottom right hand corner.

With his usual economy of words, he said, “I’d drink that.” So would I, I thought, before reminding him that they only bottle two cases of this, making it one of the rarest ‘1^st Growth’ bottlings in the history of Bordeaux. However it was singularly the finest Cabernet Franc I have ever tasted. It was svelte, dense, floral (I finally got to see what this ‘violets’ malarky in top Bordeaux is all about.), minerally (like licking unfired china), very very long, packed from arse-hole to beak with damson and black cherry. Completely, utterly divine. Of course it was. It was worth a million billion pounds. But it’s always nice to have your benchmark raised.

However, every Morcombe needs its Wise, and once the supple, joyful, mouth-drenching Merlot component had been added, ilt was bottled. That was our next sample, and my first ever chance to taste the complete article. Château Cheval Blanc 2001. I even like saying it out loud. Almost as much as I don’t like saying Château Troplong-Mondot 2003.

It was a miracle. I haven’t had many Bordeaux epiphanies, but this was one of them. To recall, there’s Haut Bailly and Lynch Bages 1985, Pichon Lalande 1983, and 1989, Clerc Milon 1990, La Lagune 1982, but, in a lifetime of drinking not many others. Knowing that this is going to get better for some time to come, I would maybe like to own a bottle of this one day. It’s a relative bargain at £200 odd, compared to the trillion quid the 100 Parker-rated 2000 is selling for. I mean how much better, if at all, can it be?

We then finished with the 2004 and 2010 Grand Vins (as well as tasting their little sisters, Les Petits Chevaux) In the 2004 there was a slight meanness and shade that I have seen in some wines in the right bank in that vintage that was largely absent in any of the Médocs that I have enjoyed.

And then there was the 2010. Yup. High extract. High Alcohol (although not as high as some), viscous, turbid, and, well, 'excessible’. All things I hate in Bordeaux reds.

Bordeaux should never be over-the-top, and this isn’t as brazen as some, but knowing the price, I would rather drink Inglenook or Phelps Insignia from the Napa, or Penley Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra. I just don’t see the magic. Everyone else does, so no problem there.

I left without a bride, but I was charged. Girded, masculated, as if I had just left Stringfellows after consuming a magnum of Tat. As it were.

What was I to do? I was reminded of the feeling of emptiness that I was experienced prior to the tasting.

Oh, if only the story ended there…

Wandering aimlessly through the streets of London thinking over and over about that beautiful glamorous woman. Oh how she seduced me, then left me feeling empty. Forgotten. Is it even worth tasting wine that good, if you think that was as good as it was ever going to get? I high that high is bound to be followed by a drop. 

The very next week, after the annual New Zealand wine tasting at Lords (Nautilus Brut. How good?) I quickly squeezed into a press tasting by my good friend Richard Dudley Craig, a man who, when it comes to food and wine, knows where his towel is (RIP Douglas Adams. x)

Richard as done pretty much every job in the restaurant biz, from chefing in Michelin starred kitchens, to serving wine to writing about it.

He had invited me to dinner at the Gavroche with some ‘pretty sprauntzy wines’ to use his words. What kind of idiot double-books dinner at the Gavroche? I went to taste vermouth instead. (See previous post about Mele e Pere.) 

Anyway. back to Richard. He now sells the stuff. He’s one of a rare breed of people whose passion for wine is so over-flowing that he just had to get onto his own soap box and preach the gospel his way. He truly believes in his wines. I believe in him. He sells wines that are unquestionably delicious, but some of his flock have no more chance of selling in an ordinary wine outlet than my mother’s grandfather clock has of becoming the next prime minister. Dudley & De Fleury WInes reminds me of Les Caves de Pyrène, back in the day in Guildford, when Eric Nairoo bought wine just because they were great. No more, no less. You know. The days when their wines smelled of fruit, not the burnt ruins of Pompeii. When pleasure superseded provenance.

He is brave. He makes brave buying decisions. But he is selling the stuff. Look at the excellent lists around London displaying his wines, The Harwood Arms in Fulham for one. His list of cult wines is comprehensive from countless Southern French rising stars to Vin Jaune in the Savoie to Romarantin from Cours-Cheverny.

http://www.dudleydefleury.com

Now if you think I am abusing the opportunity to spread the word about Richard’s portfolio by putting Cheval Blanc at the top of my post, you’d be right. But it is justified for two simple reasons.

1) If businesses like his can’t succeed, no one should.

and

2) He opened these.

Oh godddd!!!!

Where do I start?

1995

Truly delicious, but with such exalted company, I am pleased that I tasted it first. Rich roasted plum and mocha notes on the nose with hints of a dark slatey underpinning, keeping the enthusaism in check. Very tasty, but with that slight over-exuberance that I associate with right-bank wines of the vintage. Not finesse personified, but I think there is a wiser wine still to come in five more years.  

1998

Well bugger me. I for one love this vintage in the right bank, and have had many astonishing wines, including the otherworldly Trotanoy '98 which was grand, exotic, if a little Parkerish, and the profound, unbelievably well tailored, elegantly mannered Vieux Chateau Certan '98. Ok, so where does this come? Mm. It is grand, very grand even. 'Gigantesque’ would be an appropriate French word. Despite its sheer size, though, it is pliable, revealing, like a large dark velvet curtain on a grand stage, with endless folds revealing different nuances as it moves. Sublime. It really could actually be the best wine here. As is the way, if I had given scores, they wouldn’t have reflected that. There are two higher scoring wines, for sure, but this is the one I might want to grow old with. Marriage material. Reminds me of someone.

1990

Sadly this one was corked….

Despite the packaging fault, if this had been the only Cheval Blanc here, I would have been inclined to pour it and drink it anyway. Corked? Certainly. Still interesting? God, yes. It had an underlying crunch and purity that spoke with the same clipped correctness, confidence and charm as some of the grand left back stars. Major General Pichon Baron 1990, or Household Cavalry Captain Clerc Milon 1990 (God that wine is underrated.) Maybe in light of the texture stripping TCA, this wine would otherwise have been very plush, but I cannot see how this wine ultimately could have been better than the previous one. Certainly in the right bank I rate 1998 and 1990 equally highly. This backs that up.

Two left. 

2000

I have, we all have, read extensively about the might of this vintage. Despite such fantastic vintages as 1996 and 1998, there can be no doubt that the millennium vintage holds the title of the most revered and sought-after vintage since 1990. Personally, putting aside the fact there are only great wines, not great vintages, I certainly put 1990 up there as the greatest overall year for Bordeaux wines since 1961. Frankly, I simply haven’t drunk enough 1982s in my life to disprove this, but that’s my bad, not anyone else’s. Boo hoo me.

I have also heard a lot of Bordeaux experts claim that 2000 was maybe too highly-rated, and the sheer romance of a millennium vintage skewed the perception of the vintage. (It would be quite nice to compare the Margaux 1900 with the Margaux 2000 though, wouldn’t it?)  Well I can give you my incredibly limited take on this now. I had tasted a magnum of Lynch Bages 2000 last year, which was embryonically young despite other peoples opinion of it being an early maturer or simple in any way. A good investment, no doubt and a wine that won’t reveal its true Lynchyness and focus for another ten years or so, in magnum anyway. The only question mark over this for me, is whether it is fine enough. The 1982, 1985 and 1989 all had a lacy quality that the 2000 Lynch Bages doesn’t currently possess.

How about Cheval Blanc 2000? Parker gave it a perfect score. I mean what twaddle. Doesn’t giving a 100/100 score mean that you are 100% certain that you have already tasted the best wine in your life? It makes me sad just thinking about it.

However, (I grumble under my breath) I can confidently reveal that he was right. Having tasted the 2001 a week ago (See the last post.), I was wondering how much better, if at all, this wine could be.

The answer is a little more complex than a yes or no. but this is the finest textured young Bordeaux red wine I have ever put in my mouth. Also, it has perfect balance, allied with tidal power. In my head I have an image of a 2-Door Bentley Mulliner GT balanced on the end of a broom, on top of David Blaine’s head. It’s not possible, is it? Well it was there. In my mouth I didn’t imagine it. This wine was a total head fuck.

The more complex answer is that the 2001 is actually more interesting at the moment, showing more faces of its cube at once. Talking about prices would ruin this whole post, as I am only writing it because I didn’t have to pay for any of these wine. However, at today’s prices, you can enjoy four bottles, possibly even five of the 2001 for the cost of just one 2000. Your choice. It most certainly isn’t mine.

1982

Yeah. Quite nice.

Ask me about it sometime, if you want.

Sorry about the delay on my Bordeaux Report. The IWC and other things have rather got in the way…. I shall endeavour to post something tonight. Don’t worry. I have plenty to say, trust me…