Joe Wadsack
Month
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Atari 2600 console. Tanks was my favourite game.
2. What piece of music makes you feel most happy?
Fascination by Alphabeat. (That’s not for the public domaine. A bit gay.) or Let’s get it on by Marvin Gaye.
3. Do you prefer the smell of freshly baked bread or thick melted chocolate?
Ooh very close call. Freshly baked sourdough would have it. Just.
4. What is your favourite sweet?
Lemon sherbets, rhubarb and custards, that sort of thing. I love sherbet and citrus.
5. What film do you always watch whenever you need cheering up?
Withnail and I. (This always my answer to a question about film.)
6. What flower evokes joy?
Peonies
7. What colour evokes excitement?
Red
8. What or who really gives you the giggles?
Jim Jeffries, the comic, or little children falling over in puddles.
This is apparently to tailor-make the experience for each diner. I really have no idea how they are going to use this extremely private information about myself, but I imagine that I might be sat next to Elton John.
Part 2 of this post tomorrow. Wish me luck. Or tell me to fuck off. I guess I deserve it.
But you’re not going. I am.
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.)
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 [email protected] and [email protected] 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
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.
(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.
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.
A very lovely young lady and self-confessed hedonist, Cordelia Rosa, asked me if I wanted to try something a little different. Rather excited by what the lovely Cordelia was proposing, I asked what? Exactly?
“Billecart Salmon Brut Sous Bois,” she said.
Mildly disappointed by this answer but still intrigued, I accepted. I’ll try anything once.
Let’s face it. If Billecart is going to release any new wines you want to know about it, right?
Well, early last year, they launched this new cuvée. Literally, “Dry Billecart Under Wood”.
But here’s the rub. The process of ageing wine in oak for champagne is far from new. What is new, though, is the amount of wood - and that you can TASTE IT.
So, I was with a few lovely people at the start of a tour of the Croatian wine district of Istria. It was after midnight in Rovinj and a relatively balmy 16 degrees at the beginning of March.
We had just tasted a lot of interesting Malvasias, some exquisite white truffle oil and met a woman called Dragana.
It was a good 30 to 40 minutes around the bay on foot back to our fancy new hotel, so I suggested a walk, seeing that the weather was so calm and pleasant. I felt sure in such a pretty harbour town that we would be able to find a couple of nice bars and a couple cold beers to settle us on the way home, so the plan was set. I was accompanied by Niamh Shields, food blogger and cook extraordinaire. Sure enough we found a couple of waterside bars to refresh the palate on the route back, and it felt like we had been walking for way longer that the half hour that we had predicted, although I suspect, considering our relative state of relaxation, that we were neither walking very fast or in a particularly straight line. Eventually the familiar shape of a large, well-appointed white hotel loomed large up the steep hill side in front of the glistening bay.
Thank god, I thought. I was ready for bed and looking forward to what the next day had in store for all of us, and was just pleased to see the hotel by this point. I suggested to Niamh that we could walk up the rear entrance to the hotel, saving us a tedious and tiring further 15 minutes of hill climbing before we would have arrived at the grand front entrance. Niamh agreed and we shuffled through the bushes, goods loading-bays and sunloungers until we arrived at a rather dense, high bush-fence. “This is it Niamh”, I said. The hotel pool should be just behind here. We were both spat out of the other side, rather inelegantly, by the hedge, to find ourselves confronted, sure enough, by a gorgeous, massive swimming pool.
Something gripped me. Not a security guard (as it was past 1.30am by now), but the crazy notion that this may be the only chance I get to say that I had had a swim at the hotel when I returned to Blighty, thereby ticking Box One of the list of most effective wine trip gloats. Niamh saw the crazy, glazed look in my eyes and said, “No you’re fecking not, you stupid feckin’ eeedjit.” My brain translated this into “Go on then, you loveable eccentric”, and I stripped off. Down to a pair of old docker boots and a pair of rather loud yellow chequed boxers. It was cold enough for nothing dangerous or publically obscene to happen, but not too cold to stop me so……
The man with the coolest name in the wine trade (you may be aware of the amazing shop making golf clubs in St. Andrews with the same name), the biggest heart (he loved everyone), and the rudest songs (anyone remember the lyrics to Craven ‘A’?) died yesterday.
So. There I was. On my way home from quite an eventful but ultimately unfulfilling evening in Soho.
On the N207 to be exact.
“There are people on this bus that don’t appear that keen to go to bed.” I thought.
Hey. It’s London. More accurately, Notting Hill Gate. At 3.45 a.m.
A chap, staggers down the stairs, mistiming a jolt on the brakes from the driver.
“Oi, you wanker. You stood on my foot!” D&G waistcoat. Sharp Prada Shoes. Eyes like saucers. Blonde, trim, chippy.
“It wasn’t my fault! Don’t stand at the bottom of the bloody stairs!” Nice Indian gentleman. En guard and ready for anything.
“‘Ave you done any time inside?” says young Mr. Prada shoes.
“Yes! More than you could ever dream of! More than your age! Don’t look at me! Don’t touch me!”
Prada raises his well-threaded (now I’m guessing Essex) eye-brows. “
"Well then. Either apologise, or turn around so I can do you in the ’*@£$’.” That last word was muffled. I wasn’t enitrely sure what he actually said. But its not for blog browsing at breakfast.
The atmosphere is tense. There’s a Mexican stand-off. A hush on the packed bus. The two gents in question and myself are all standing near the exit doors.
Then I see the nearly full moon’s smiley face look down on me, through the nearest window, filling me with calm philosophical power. I drink it in like a PacMan eats those big yellow biscuit things. I look at the two paused angry young men, ready to crash together like a Six Nations front row. Then it dawned on me. The solution.
“Calm down girls.” I said. “ I went to public school and I used to bum people like you for breakfast.”
Ten seconds of very pregnant air.
Prada looks at me with his cobalt cuff-links for eyes, and they begin to shrivel.
He gaffaws. Other fellow laughs. The whole bottom deck laughs.
Then both combatants leave the bus, amicably.
Ahh.
The power of comedy.
A well-timed ironic line kicks the shit out of a fronting, coked-up young buck and all the cage-fighting muscle he can muster.
Take note.
Goodnight children.
This is Fred.
He is a West Highland Terrier and will be 16 years old in June. His carers, my friends, are very loving and giving people. They put up with his shit and they put up with mine.
Paola (@sipswooshspit) and Mike (@brandtaylor) have been more than generous with their time recently, letting me stay here rather a lot, and helping me set up my blog. Actually, that’s not strictly true. They did it all, allowing me to drivel on without hindrance to you, my reader.
So. If you have enjoyed my first tentative steps up into the blogosphere then thank them, not me.
They like Westies. In fact, Fred has a mate belonging to Paola’s mum called Max. He comes around quite often.
This is the hardest pose you’re ever likely to see of two Westies. They think they’re hard too, but they are very nearly the softest, most affectionate dogs that you are ever likely to meet.
Fred at the back and Max at the front.
Like the Krays.
It all began at 8.15 outside Turnham Green Tube Station. That’s not strictly true, actually, because at this point, I had been up for 24 hours, having stayed with a friend who had received some devastating news. So, it’s fair to say that I was a little stressed and feeling ‘up against it’ at the prospect of cooking a four course 'investors’ lunch for a friend, his business partner, and three of their business associates. Now these guys like their food. They can afford to eat in the finest restaurants in the world, and do. Furthermore, as you will see from the pictures, they like the odd drop of something nice.
OK. Confession time. Most of my dinners and associated glamorous wines usually belong to someone else. In the words of Steven Segal in The Seige, “I’m just the cook.” I don’t mind saying that I’m good at it though. So I should be. My dad was a bit of a cook himself. Egon Ronay Chef of the Year, Michelin and Egon Ronay stars, Head chef at Quaglinos when he was 24, and Chef de Cuisine at The Chewton Glen at 27 blah blah blah..Yeah. He pretty much did it all, and left me with a couple of very serious handicaps.
1) I am not a cheap date.
2) Nobody will cook for me.
Well, that’s not strictly true, but it does mean that I’ll probably have to date a chef.
If you haven’t heard of Dick Bradsell, then look him up on Wikipedia. He has done as much as any single person in this country to create the globally enviable, almost unparalleled, cocktail scene that most of us enjoy, and a few take for granted, in this great city of ours. He was most probably best known as the head bartender at the eponymously named Dick’s Bar in the now extinct, Atlantic Bar and Grill.
However, his influence stretches far wider than that, having invented such world-famous cocktails as The Pharmaceutical Stimulant (a.k.a. the Espresso Martini), The Bramble, and The Treacle, an innovative rum-based take on arguably the greatest cocktail of all, The Old-Fashioned.
Well? Where is he now, and why am donating some time to telling you about him?
Three Words. The. Pink. Chihuahua.
Returning from visiting my darling kids in Skegness, I received a text from Ashika Mathews, glamour model and ex-buyer from Venus and Wine Rack. “I’m going to the Loeb tasting. Were you planning to go?” (She wasn’t really a glamour model.)
Well, I had a couple of hours to kill and I was minutes away from King’s Cross. Short of drinking a Pink Chihuahua at El Camion, I couldn’t think of a better way to occupy my time than to be drinking smart Burgundy and Riesling at the Westbury Hotel.
Some of Loeb’s usual suspects were there, like Louis Michel, whose unoaked, uncluttered 2010 Chablis AC had a fluffy, snowy purity and terrific marble-like minerality under the fragrant apple fruit. Great value (£14ish?)
However, this isn’t a comprehensive review of the tasting, rather more a collection of things I feel are worth saying.
I my capacity as tonight’s MC, and as it’s a charity after all, I thought I’d whet your appetite by leaking some of the auction lots. Companies! No point coming of you’re not going to be ‘benevolent’ on the night, and if you like your sport, bring the company checkbook! We have some amazing lots.
Any rugger fans remember last year’s record breaking attendance at the Saracens Quins final at Twickenham? They sold it out. 83,000 people watched it. Well, Octavian are donating a box for 8 with full hospitality for the next Saracens Harlequins clash at Twickers. Yes. Really. Crikey. What’s that worth.
Or maybe you like your footie? Two prime seats at the FA cup final with, you guessed it, full box hospitality, care of Pernod Ricard? My brother tried to get tickets to the (I know it’s a pony cup, but its still Wembley silver) Carling Cup Final, Liverpool vs Cardiff. Cheapest ticket he could get was £350. We’re still in it too!! Come on Kop fans. Dig deep.
Anyone for tennis? A couple of prime seat, all-access Men’s final tickets at Wimbledon up for grabs. You will be plied with Pastis and Riesling all day, courtesy of Pernod-Ricard. Again. Stretch. They know where the party’s at don’t they?!
It goes on…..
…Box and hospitality for 10 at the Newbury races at one of the best meets of the year. (Great course)…..
….Centre Box at the Royal Albert Hall for any of the BBC Proms (except the last night)…..
….Track day with Porsche’s own test driver, driving an '86, '96 aircooled 993 and 2012 edition 911, so you can see how the car has evolved. Awesome, non?…
…for those of you on slimmer budgets, The Dorchester has offered dinner for two in the Grill Room, surely one of the most underrated restaurants in the capital. (They famously spoil the winners too.)
It’s going to be a great great night. Please don’t let the Benevolent or the Auctioneer (me) down. See you later. Eek! Can’t wait!
Right. Back to the Rioja. This is the knackers. It is mostly Tempranillo.
Mostly.
It also has all the other essential herbs and spices that make a Rioja taste so damn well Rioja. Graciano, Garnacha, all that. I equate it do Jersey Royal spuds. It doesn’t matter how good they are, or that, pound for pound, they cost the same as rump steak if they’re any good. You need salt pepper and a dollop of butter on them, don'tcha? Same here…
Great day. God Spain rocks. If you had asked someone to line up 25 exciting Spanish white wines ten years ago, surely they wouldn’t have been able to manage it? Not like now, anyway. My close mate Norrell Robertson showed me a Garnacha Blanca at the Alliance stand that simply blew me away. A worked, rich, sinewy white grenache in the old skool Châteauneuf du Pape mould. It would behead a wild boar like a saracen’s scimitar at 20 paces. Serious power. Actually Giles Cook MW showed me some lovely stuff, a simply sublime 2004 Gran Reserva Rioja from Luis Cañas for one. I didn’t know that that estate could reach such heights. Rather nice to see a Gran Reserva of the right shape too. Not emaciated, and not juicy, but in that exact twilight zone in between, where fruit and classy oak fade effortlessly into one another. Good to see that mighty mouse, Telmo Rodriguez, is back at the helm of Remelluri, which has been a little wayward of late. Finally, they had a cheeky little Manzanilla, blended from parcels belonging to the Gutierrez Colosia, called Los Pecadillos ‘Furio’, which I couldn’t get enough of. Noticed Noël Young Wines sells it, as I imagine many astute independents will.
So. For those who wanted to know what was good to drink at the Champagne Summit, here is an informal list. But first, a warning.
This next paragragh might create the impression that I’m a little eccentric. I am writing it, because I want to try to explain why I write notes and describe wine the way I do.
People that have really known me over the past 20 years in the wine trade will know that I never write complete tasting notes. Not for myself anyway. I have a pretty good memory for wine and as long as I have a couple of words to go on, I can remember everything that matters to me about the experience that I had with the wine in question. And that goes for every wine that I’ve ever had. You may be asking why? Why don’t I write more detail? Well, I suppose that I’m different to many. I do see the colour, acid, tannin, fragrance and all that nonsense, but I rather think that writing it down spoils the emotional response that I get from the wine. A bit like seeing the grand canyon through a viewfinder. I create a little memory out of each and every taste. This isn’t done by remembering the essential facts, but by remembering everything else. I can remember a wine that I tasted twenty years ago, and recreate that same taste in my mouth. The actual sensations. This is because for each one, I remember not exactly how the wine tasted, but how it made me feel, who I was with, what I was eating, and maybe even what was the weather like. Somehow I can always then fill in the rest. I take a good look at the label, then I take a good look at the wine. In the same way as I’d try to remember a picture of someone. So, for each wine, I am basically remembering two detailed shapes. That’s it. Was it long and flat? What colour was it? Was it fuzzy, soft, hard? Just like remembering the label. If I tried to remember if it had high tannin, low alcohol, deep garnet hues, French oak, etc… I mean ALL that, I’d never remember all the wines that I can.
In other words, my mind categorises wines as ‘makes me happy’ or 'fucking weird’, not 'alcoholic’ or 'tart’. I mean how fucking boring would that be?
I am constantly fascinated by how people actually see wine in their minds. Viscerally. Please let me know if you have thought about this. I am genuinely interested to know. Right, well this is probably the most self-absorbed and indulgent thing that I have ever written, but there it is. Hopefully I’ll only have to do it once.
In light of these facts, here is how I remembered the rest of the day. Here we go.
Down the right and side of the room were a few 'focus’ tables, selections of wines, categorised by style so that you could compare like for like, and do it without standing in front of the brand’s representative, or worse still, winemaker, and tell them that their wine wasn’t all that. That is a happy place. Down the left hand side were the brands’ own tables, with a selection of their offer. I did the focus tables first, so that if there were wines that I didn’t much like, I could say that I had already tried it, when later standing in front of the brand representative at their own table.
What were the best wines from the focus tables?
Laurent Perrier Brut. £36.99
It has a firm polish that gives a serious 'don’t fuck with me’ impression. Almost marble hard, but generous in size, almost like a 'super cava’. High pH, soapy characteristics, with a rich lilly, vanilla, and lemon scent. To be honest I was a lot more impressed than I was attracted to it. I wouldn’t buy it, but I know plenty who would. Horses for courses.
Taittinger Brut Réserve NV £37.99
Mmmm. I respect this Champagne house practically above any other. Unbelievably consistent. Don’t think I’ve ever tasted a less than delicious bottle in 15 years. There’s a bit of personal bias thrown in too, because I love the style so bloody much. Light, like poached meringue, with a deft, fine mousse. It seems young, like a playful teenager, dancing barefoot at a summer party. A soft almost see-through delicacy, like sheer stockings. Very moreish. Hard to just taste. Wants taking outside and drinking.
Moët et Chandon Imperial £32.49
I don’t remember a better balanced, vibrant and poised glass of this, the world’s favourite. For year’s I have been extoling its well judged middle-road brilliance, while always 'side-bar'ing a preference to drink something else. Yes, it’s easy. Yes it’s uncomplicated, but there’s enough swagger to justify the price, and it is the absolute choice for a cocktail bartender, because it IS so well-judged. Not too expressive, but not bland either. I found myself thinking that if I had my own bar, I would sell this by the glass, simply because it is perfect for champagne cocktails, thereby reducing expensive ullage to a mimimum.
Champagne Moutard Grande Cuvée NV £24.99
Well, hell’s bells, this is alright! Moutard has always had a bit of a reputation as the value conscious connoisseurs favourite. Hard not to see why. Supermarket price, but vigorous, creamy, and mouthfilling. There is a little bit of the punchy drunk underneath, with some interesting herbacous and grassy aromas, but this would be nicely talked back to the bar stool with a plate of good smoked salmon. Very nice indeed and full of character.
Laurent-Perrier Vintage 2002 £43.99
The best LP vintage I’ve had in a very long while. Not as 'In Your Face’ and bullish as the NV, and for a relatively minor price upgrade, flipping delicious. Will age on cork beautifully for at at least 5 years. Sleek, firm, minerally wine, with an unmistakeably modern style to it.
Taittinger Brut 2005 £51
Wow. Absolutely bloody delicious. Creamy, while breezy fresh, with hints of summer flowers, lemon curd and a juicy ginger-thin biscuit undertow, which tails off for ages. Smashing, but, as the price suggests, pay peanuts get monkeys.
Champagne Moutard 6 Cépages 2005 £38.99
A weird little fish this one, and as the name states, it’s made from 6 different grape varieties. No. Don’t expect me to tell you what they are. Don’t really care, but I love what they have done to the texture and shape of the wine. Like instruments in an orchestra, they have created extra textures and layers that weren’t there. It is tightly packed but substantial. Like a French scrum. When you put it in your mouth, its rich chewy flavours have sharp, penetrative bite, but also a momentum, a steady change of flavours. Powerful stuff. Not like a scrum then, like a bobsleigh team……
Champagne de Castelnau Vintage 2000 £30.99
If there was one discovery for me at this summit it’s this brand right here. Although this isn’t the finest, most silky champagne that I’ve ever tasted, it does truly punch above its weight. Tastes like a 2005, but has a youthful, adolescent power, as if it’s about to reach puberty and do something grown up. For the money, it’s a helluva lot of fizz. Tight, creamy, and biscuity, with an almost pomegranate-like tart freshness.
While I’m on the subject, Champagne de Castelnau is apparently the second largest co-operative in Champagne, grinding out 9 million quality conscious bottles a year. It was Keith Isaacs MW, and old acquaintance, who greeted me at their table. There was quite an array of wines on show. Granted, their regular non-vintage brut wasn’t my favourite, but four supermarkets can’t be wrong, as Castelnau is now making it for them. However, there were a few wines that really grabbed me….
Champagne de Castelnau Brut Rosé NV £28.99
The rosé is delicious, and bright, fizzing along like a bright pink firework. It is 25% Chardonnay, 24% Pinot Noir, and a whopping 51% Pinot Meunier, giving the core of this wine a quite wonderful cranberry and sour cherry lift. It as much more satisfying and complete than I was expecting, considering its competitive price.
Champagne de Castelnau Blanc de Blancs 1999 £31.99
A beautifully made and atypically soft, ripe, round and cuddly. The 1999 produced some terrific Chardonnay, and this well-priced, immediate, vital, biscuity winter aperitif shows it.
There was a table of their mixed variety vintage cuvées too, with the Chardonnay driven 2004 and 2002 most impressing me. Dosage is unashamedly high at around 11g/l, but that only adds to the appeal for me, as I am sure that they would be a hit with the casual, Champagne-by-the-glass drinker. And at a shade over £30 for a whole bottle, they’re a genuine bargain….
I’ll leave the posh stuff for the final part, where I will talk about the Moët et Chandon vertical that I went to taste in the first place, and some rather swanky bottles from Taittinger, Pommery and Laurent-Perrier that must, in the interests of doing a thorough job, be mentioned in dispatches……
Thank you my darling. Your words are very encouraging too. I have just published the third and final part. I think it’s the weirdest, and hopefully funniest part. Please let me know what you think….. xx
As I started saying in pt. 1 of this blog, I came to the Montcalm Hotel to taste a vertical of Moët et Chandon Grand Millesime. For all you Moët snobs out there, their vintage offerings are some of the most dramatic and colourful expressions of Champagne that you can buy. Having said that, you have to be prepared to put your money where your mouth is if you want to buy some of the more sublime, rarer offerings, as you will see. (Watch the prices rise as you read down.) Well, it is Champagne. A luxury commodity. No change there. The tasting went something like this…..
I received an invitation to the Harpers Champagne Summit some months ago, but it was the promise of tasting some old re-releases of Moët et Chandon that convinced me to go. I’m glad I did. The day was full of discussions and masterclasses, celebrating all aspects of Champagne as a brand, a money making opportunity, and as an essential addition to the restaurant wine list.
I only really went to taste the numerous Champagnes put on show, but suffice it to say that Harpers had scheduled a genuinely excellent day of events, complementing perfectly The International Sparkling WIne Symposium at the end of last year, which, I feel, judging from the itinerary (I couldn’t go this year), had a focused science and winemaking slant. The Harpers event was aimed more at the restaurant and the consumer. They don’t appear to step on each other’s toes. Which is nice.
This tiny brewery near my brother’s house, by my old home town of Alton deserves notice. There are a few pubs in London, like Parsons Green’s legendary White Horse where you might see a bit if this in London, and they now bottle some of their ales, sensitively pasteurised at a moderate carbonation. My brother introduced me to Alton Pride, fff’s most well known ale a few years ago. It achieved CAMRA Champion Ale on 2008 too, exposing this little brasserie to the world. They make a whole range of different styles, some seasonal, but often named after legendary songs of the modern music era. I am very partial to their seasonal strong pale ale, Stairway to Heaven, although there is probably some auto-suggestion. Because the Zeppelin is sacred. I can only say that it is a worthy homage in the Taylor’s Landlord mould. Which brings me onto the beer in my glass in front of me. Rock Lobster. If I’d seen it before trying it, I would have walked away. It is a nut brown, ruby style ale, with a clean buttery texture, with a lovely twist of malt sweets and cocoa powder on the back palate, and a flipping delicious, brewery bright, orange and cranberry hop bite. The hops definitely drive the appeal of this beer for me. Hoppy like Brakespear Best but rich like Ruddles County in the old days. Almost hinting towards Fullers London Porter.
Drop it like it’s hot.
They’re on Twitter and Facebook. Show them your support.
I asked Twitter this morning what it would spend on a bottle of wine. My old mate and former colleague Howard Winn asked if it was to drink or invest? This made me realise how irresponsible it is to sell a wine for more than you’d pay for it as a drink. It reminded me of house prices. No house in London is worth more than about a quarter of its face value, in bricks and mortar terms. It only sells at that price because someone believes that it will be worth more when it is sold on. This inherently devalues the money and currency one uses to buy it. Isn’t this how the credit crunch happened in the first place? By giving everything unrealistically high cash value, the cash itself became valueless. Ditto for ‘collectable’ wines. They have a true value, and an opportunistic value. If we support the wine investment business by buying wines priced opportunistically to sell on, we are, in our own little way, harming the economy for personal gain. Buy wine and drink it. Buy wine, cellar it and drink it. Buy wine, cellar it and swap it. But for fuck sake stop spending three times the true price for a wine hoping you’ll get five in a few years time. The wines aren’t getting more valuable, the pound is getting less.
I am sitting here at a table that I have sat at a few times before, but it feels different this time. You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this, but I’ve had excuses to be here. Number 1, they have Sky Sports 3D, making it the regular for watching 6 Nations and Liverpool FC games when I lived up the road. Secondly, it is the most convenient place to meet my brother before his commute home. Granted, I could have taken better advantage of the latter over the last two years, but that’s why I’m here this time. Indeed I am joining him on the joyful Friday commute back to Hampshire to see my niece. Back to the Slug. They’ve done it up. Not so as to scare away the midday train station regulars and assorted transients of Battersea, but I am surprised by the general standard of punter in here today. Now that I’m looking around, I notice other things. It’s Friday next to the busiest train station in Britain and the floor is clean. And the tables. (Get’s up to have a gander) And the bar. Right, a quick look through the kitchen hatch. Clean and Odourless. What on earth the fuck is going on? My bro arrives in time to insult me for drinking a glass of white wine “like a girl”. Which brings me on to the next point. I can’t see a beer that I’d actually enjoy drinking, especially now Peroni has turned to piss, but this place offers up a few really reasonably-priced glasses of wine. I am drinking the more than tolerable (there have been better vintages) Kleine Zalze Chenin Blanc. There’s a strong Constellation presence (rarely promising) but they’ve managed to pick wheat from the chaff. There’s a delicious line-up of proper fizz at seductive prices, and despite this pub being full, I have enough space to swing a giraffe. I’m coming back.
Footnote. My sister in law couldn’t join us because she ripped her cruciate on New Years Eve, dancing to Jump Around by House of Pain. The irony.
All regions have exceptions that prove the rule. Even Bordeaux. I agree that there are bargains - Deyrem-Valentin 08, Cambon La Pelouse 05, Labégorce-Zédé 04 to name a few, even the odd Cru Classé, like Durfort-Vivens or Pedesclaux 2004. But, no one can hope to justify the price increases experienced since 2005.
Just to completely and utterly bury myself in shit, I would like to state for the record that I don’t rate either 2009 or 2010 very highly. 2009 are generally over-ripe. and the 2010 won’t in my opinion age. Not in the way virtually everyone else thinks.
When the winemaker left Margaux to work at Rubicon Estate in the Napa, I imagine it was because he didn’t like the way wine making is going in Bordeaux, and wanted to make less ripe wines with finer tannins and lower alcohols.
If you want ripe, fruit-soaked, tannic blockbusters, why are you looking at Bordeaux at all? Buy Penley Estate Reserve Coonawarra Cab, or Leeuwin Art Series, Phelps Insignia, Ridge Montebello Cab. The list is long. If you like claret at all, then vote with your wallets and drink the delicious, reasonably priced, silky, ‘clarety’ 2001s, 2004s and 2008s. From where I’m standing they are consistently more delicious.