tales of a sommelier

My Favourite Grapes - Riesling

2009-09-09T13:05:00.005Z

Its almost something of a cliche, ask any sommelier what their favourite grape is and I can almost guarantee the answer will be either Riesling or Gruner Veltliner for the white. Its kind of a badge of honour, to distinguish the real sommeliers from the wannabe's. And if you press them as to why they named that grape, the answer will include such treasures as versability, diversity, compatability.

So I guess im going to stick to the cliche, because Riesling is one of my favourite white grapes. Im a sucker for the aromatic whites, and for me a good riesling fills all the criteria I look for. I do tend to prefer the drier styles typical of the new world, but I love the rich aromas it develops with maturity in the germanic style. I have a very dear friend who also loves riesling, and Im hoping to get her to bring me some Long Island Rieslings from New York when she comes home in december.

Two reasons I love riesling:
1) Dry River Craighall Riesling, Martinborough, New Zealand - Dr Neil McCallums Dry River winery has been making world class Riesling for a number of years. His wines are produced in tiny quantities, 2-3000 cases a year, and they frequently sell out their tiny allocations. The Craighall Riesling is a late harvest riesling that shows intense citrus/lime aromas on the nose in its youth, but with carefull cellaring develops the wonderfull secondary aromas of kerosene, candied peel and spicy notes. Its style could best be described as off dry, in its youth, the acidity keeps the sweetness at bay, but as it matures it gains an added richness and robust flavour. Truly a marvelous example of the potential of Riesling.

2) Max Ferdinand Richter "Brauneberger Juffer" Riesling Kabinnet, Mosel, Germany - with a 300 year history of winemaking, the Richter family can be sure that they know what they are doing. I think that this wine is a prime example of a good quality Mosel Kabinett riesling, juicy fruit sweetness upfront, well balanced acidity following leaving a crisp dry finish to the wine. Reasonably priced and with the potential to age well over a decade or so, these are an ideal addition to any wine cellar.

Henschke Keyneton "Euphonium" 2003

2009-08-01T22:15:00.002Z

The wines of Henschke always seem to have an intensity and richness that is much like an Aston Martin - sleek and elegant on the outside, but packing a fair punch underneath. Dense jammy red fruits, insane menthol aromas, with subtle hints of cedarwood and tobacco. A wonderfully long length (oh-er) and its not ridiculously expensive either.

Been on my holidays.

2009-07-27T22:13:00.000Z

Not been posting recently because i only got back from my holidays a few days ago and it been mad trying to catch up on everything.

Thanks!

2009-07-03T22:47:00.002Z

Many thanks to anyone who voted for me in the imbibe taste sommelier of the year awards, and thanks to anyone who voted for anyone else too! Im chuffed to bits that I was runner up to Andrea Briccarello from London (Bentleys Oyster Bar?) alongside Joris Beijn from 1901 at Andaz.

Something for the weekend?

2009-07-03T22:35:00.003Z

Ive started a new initiative in an effort to move some top-end burgundies. Only available on a friday and saturday night, we have two burgundies on offer at cost price plus vat. Yes we are giving away (virtually giving away) Grand Cru burgundy. (The figure is rounded up to the nearest pound, so quite literaly we are making pennies on some of these wines.)

This week we have a Batard-Montrachet from Blain Gagnard, 1999 at £60 and a Drouhin-Laroze Bonnes Mares 1997 also at £60. I sold two bottles of the latter tonight and I must say that the table got a steal of a deal. The wine had a rich feral character with violets, dark earth and red berries on the nose, with a rich underpinning of medium soft tannins. The length was quite astounding, with a rich warming, almost spicy finish to the wine. What a great value wine at £60 , its normally on the list at over £100.

I also sold three bottles of Drouhin-Laroze Chambertin Clos de Beze 1997 at considerably lower selling price than listed. This was a lot more elegant and refined than the Bonnes Mares, less animalistic, more softer red fruit flavours with less violet aromas and perhaps a touch of rosewater about the finish. The tannins were much softer than the BM as well, lighter on the palate, with quite a long finish, but perhaps a touch drier and cleaner.

So the next few months its open season on Grand Cru burgundy, come along, see what there is and make me an offer. If its sensible then you might just get yourself a great value burgundy with your meal!

Me Old Mucca!

2009-06-02T22:07:00.003Z

This morning I got a strange letter from one of our suppliers informing me that our trade rep - Noel was leaving the company effective tomorrow. It all seemed a bit strangely worded and it made we wonder a bit what was happening. Turns out hes being made redundant. I'll miss Noel, and wish him every success in whatever he turns his hand to when the festival season is over. I dont doubt that I will see him again in whatever capacity he ends up, and Im sure we will keep in touch through facebook!!

The strange thing about the whole affair is the way it seems to have been done. The company in question seems to be surviving the current financial state of affairs reasonable well. They have quite a strong portfolio of popular wines at the right price points. They have even managed to poach a MW from another company to join their board and buying team. So why have they laid off their sales team for the north of england. They dont have anyone covering from Scotland down to London. Now while I can accept that they probably dont have as much business in this part of the country as they do in London, surely the last thing you ought to do in a recession is lay off the folks who are knocking on doors drumming up your business. While times are hard, we may not be buying as much, but we are careful in what we buy. Getting a call from these guys alerting us to bin-ends, good deals on lower priced wines and highlighting some great deals that can be had will endear them to us more. Then when the good times come back, we will give our loyalty more so to those who kept in touch. We repay the faith. By getting rid of these guys, you risk losing the business through a lack of attention.

Well I understand from Noel that he plans to visit Peru and visit Macchu Picchu and follow the inca trail. Good luck buddy and keep in touch.

Support your sommelier.

2009-06-02T21:50:00.001Z

Imbibe magazine, the trade arm of Square Meal magazine, are holding a competition to recognise the talents of the sommeliers in this country. I ask you to do your bit to help support our role and vote for your favourite sommelier. It doesnt have to be me, although if you would like to use one of your votes for me that would be gratefully recieved!! Ive used mine to recognise some of the UK finest sommeliers - Laura Rhys- winner of this years Academy of Food and Wine Service Sommelier of the Year competition, Franck Gerome of Sharrow Bay - a jolly decent guy and very modest and my old pal Remi Fischer from Gleneagles. I urge you to use your three votes and promote the wealth of talent that is out there, encourage them and make them feel appreciated.

Link is https://squaremeal.wufoo.com/forms/taste-sommelier-award-sponsored-by-imbibe/

Thanks

Dalmore 40 year old whisky

2009-05-22T22:44:00.003Z

I was sat in the office earlier on, working on the wines for New Years Eve, when our F&B director asked me to join him in the drawing room. He was there meeting with a rep from Whyte & Mackay who was introducing a range of malts to him from Isle of Jura and Dalmore. Now Dalmore is a whisky that I havent really seen much of, except for a really rare and exclusive bottle of 50 year old that we had when I was at Gleneagles. A ludicrously expensive cut glass decanter with an eyewatering price (off the top of my head I think it was over £300 a glass). So it was interesting to see the range and have the opportunity to taste a few of them. The one that stood out was a 40 year old Dalmore. The sample was quite dark in colour, almost mahogany in tint with a most amazing nose of spicy chocolate. It reminded me of the hot chocolate that they make in Peru from Maya Gold chocolate bars - dark cocao, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, rich warming spices. The strange thing about the whisky was it was a cask strength one, coming in at a surprising 40%abv. The whisky was as smooth as a smooth thing on the palate, lingering spicy tones on the finish and the most amazing length. It kind of spoilt the rest of the tasting, because the flavours seemed to linger, even after trying three or four of the others.
Im not really a whisky drinker, in fact Im not a whisky drinker at all, but truthfully, I wouldnt be upset if someone gave me a glass of this.

The presentation of the whisky is quite superb, the bottle is quite plain and understated, with a metallic stags head emblem attached to it, and a very discreet label indicating what it is. It comes in a fabulously decadent leather trimmed box, with the usual tasting notes etc. By now you can probably imagine that the price is going to be somewhat scary. You would be right, it goes for over a £1000. So I wont be buying one for myself, but Id still like to list it.

Crappy Websites

2009-05-14T23:17:00.002Z

What is it with crappy websites for wines/wineries? As a sommelier I live for information - I want to know how the wine was made, was it steel fermented or barrel fermented, cultured yeasts or natural, has malo-lactic fermentation taken place or not, new oak or old oak, the list of questions goes on and on. Yet finding this information from websites is incredibly difficult. Ive just spent the last ten minutes waiting on a winery website loading an excruciatingly slow flash presentation that presented me with no option whatsoever to bypass it. And the end result after waiting so long, was that Im still no more knowledgable about the wine than I was before. I gave up trying to navigate the ridiculous menu that was more about being cutting edge and less about providing me with what I wanted - ie info.
Argghhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To any wineries/pr people etc who might still read this, or may well come across it, here are a few suggestions to keep you on the right path.
1) make your webiste easy to navigate. Sounds simple, but so many seem to get it wrong. Going back to a home page is one thing that is most often negected.
2) Flash is a pain in the arse to navigate, slow to load (Im working here on a dedicated high-speed networked system and its still dead slow, feel sorry for the poor suckers on crappy broadband packages!)
3) Provide pdf files of information on your wines, sommeliers love this!!!!!!
4) Dont try too hard to be the next Bonny Doon website - be creative but remember why people are visiting the site - to find out more about your wines.
5) WTF is up with the bullshit about having to be 18/21 to access the website??? You hosting hard-core pron or something? Since when did licenscing laws prevent access to information about alcohol? I dont get id'd when I buy a copy of Robert Parkers wine guide or the latest Decanter magazine. You can encourage responsable drinking by being more open about alcohol, teaching people about what it is, how it affects your body/behaviour etc, not hiding behind some ridiculous restrictive access.

Champagne

2009-04-24T21:40:00.004Z

Champagne is the one drink that seems to signify celebration, it makes most of its appearances at happy moments in our lives, engagements, weddings, birthdays, promotions, new jobs, new houses, lottery wins, the list is almost endless. And despite the best efforts of the champagne houses to convince us that champagne is a versatile wine that be served throughout a meal, it remains almost exclusively an aperitif, drunk before a meal.

Of course now that we seem to be stuck at the beginning of what could turn out to be a major financial econopocalypse there are fewer and fewer reasons to celebrate. The major champagne houses are starting to shit themselves, their caves sit full of wine, the orders from the UK have almost halved, and the next "batch" of NV is ready to be bottled. As last years vintage is ready to go to bottle, the cellarmasters are wondering where it will go, with their cellars backlogged with previous vintages no-one wants. Apparently one major house has decided to put the whole of the 2008 vintage into NV as they are sitting on a backlog of four vintages they cant sell. When you consider that by law, champagne must mature in the bottle for a period of 36 months, they are working on wines that will appear on the market in 2012.

Champagne is quite interesting in that they have the almost unique safety net of being allowed to blend the wines of multiple vintages together to create NV champagne. So in years when the weather conditions provide a challenging vintage they can blend away any challenges with reserve wines from other vintages to create a homogenised wine. Each house has its own style that defines it and for many people they will quite happy provide a loyal following. I personally prefer the more Pinot orientated styles of champagne - Pol Roger, Perrier-Jouet, Bolly and Im a sucker for a grower champagne too - Aubry, Egly-Ouriet and Jacquesson being amongst my absolute favourites. For NV I think one of the best is the Perrier-Jouet Brut, and I was fortunate enough to visit the house earlier this year and had an amazing vertical tasting of the Belle Epoque with the winemaker Herve Deschampes.

While at Perrier-Jouet we had quite an interesting discussion over dinner one night with Pierre-Aymeric du Cray, who holds the wonderful title of Marketing director for Pernod-Ricard/Perrier-Jouet. We were discussing the challenges of selling Vintage champagne over NV and what a customers perception of the differences were. From my own experiences, we find it quite difficult to sell vintage champagne unless it is a prestige cuvee - by which I would define a pc as Dom Perignon, Cristal, Belle Epoque, Krug, Comte de Champagne, Cuvee Louise etc. I know from speaking to my peers and colleagues in the industry that I am not alone in this. Many of them struggle to sell a vintage champagne outside of the top cuvees. Im not sure, but I am starting to believe it is down to the relative inconsistancy of the vintage compared to the individual house style. One bottle of PJ Grand Brut is pretty much the same as any other bottle of PJGB but there is a world of difference between a bottle of PJ 96 and 98. I dont think that your average customer can get their heads round that. But maybe im wrong, and its purely a price driven issue. It was an interesting discussion, alas one that alcohol and time have erased most of the salient points from my memory.

Recently I began to think about it again though. I must try and conduct some research amongst our customers and see what they come up with. Who knows maybe it could become the focus of my dissertation one day should I ever decide to go for the WSET diploma.

Champy, Beaune 1er Cru "les Greves" 1972

2009-04-23T01:28:00.000Z

By all accounts this wine should be bolloxed. I mean it is 37 years old, only a year younger than I am. Champy pere & cie are fairly consistent and reliable producers, but by no means at the top of the league. So it is fair to say that it kind of took us a bit by surprise to find out that the wine is simply stunning just now. And not just one random bottle. Weve knocked out over a dozen of these bad boys in the last three months, and we have yet to come across a stinker. The corks are really soft and crumbly, so it aint going to cellar for a great deal longer. Without a butlers thief, they are real bastards to remove from the bottle. Once pulled the wine is a very pale, almost rose hue with a rusty brown colour to the rim. The nose has a faint aroma of soft red fruit, mainly strawberries with some redcurrant too. But surprisingly the aromas grow, and develop strength over a period of minutes in the glass. There is a touch of brambly vegetation to the nose and a hint of blackcurrant leaf. With game birds, especially squab, its quite a lovely combination. Only 40 more bottles to shift now!!

This month I am loving....

2009-02-13T23:18:00.003Z

bin ends. We are in the process of streamlining the stock and using up all the odds and sods downstairs. In part it has enabled me to bring in my carafe idea, albeit on a smaller scale. Ive incorporated a page into the wine-list with a suggestion to complement the tasting menu by the 250ml carafe. Luckily, cheffie is playing along so far and has been designing a menu which is very conducive to me removing a lot of stock from the cellar. Unluckily, we are also running a special invitation menu at £45 for three course including coffee and petit fours, and bugger me if it isnt filling the restaurant through the week. The end result is that we are doing an average of 25 covers a night tuesday to thursday (full as usual friday and saturday) but everyone is taking the £45 menu. Its great to get all these bums on seats, especially during a recession, and even better is that is seems to be new faces for us. Hopefully we can convert some of them to new customers.

Hallmark Holidays

2009-02-13T17:46:00.004Z

Tomorrow marks the motherlode of Hallmark Holidays, St Valentines Day. My loathing of HH's is, I would think fairly evident. Quite hypocritical, Im sure you might think, given that I work somewhere that will benefit considerably from the "festivities" tomorrow. But there is a reason that I hate them, passionately. For tomorrow night (and indeed tonight) we will generally be full of people that wouldnt normally dine here. Normally that would be a good thing, after all it is exposing the restaurant to the potential customer of the future. But Hallmark Holidays bring a different sort of person out into restaurants. Over the last few days the phones have been ringing frantically with all sorts of people DESPERATE to secure a table tomorrow night. In some cases so desperate that they are willing to resort to threats, begging and all kinds of measures in order to get what they want (except of course the obvious one of being organised enough to get a table booked more than the day before!). I find it a sad reflection on the state of modern humanity that people rarely resort to niceness. If they cant get what they want they start namedropping (I know xx or Im best friends with Gerald - yes right!), or they threaten to go over your head ( I want to speak to the manager/owner/managing director/whatever).

As a restaurant, we love Hallmark Holidays because they give us a guaranteed fill. We are charging £180 per person for tomorrow night for a five course set menu with wines to complement, a red rose and small gift from Space NK for the lady. £360 per table. In a recession!! And yes we are full, with five relays. But it is fair to say that we wont see many of those faces back in the restaurant again until the next HH - Mothers Day. Happy Valentines!!

Lealtanza Rioja Reserva Dali Label 2004

2008-12-04T18:18:00.003Z

Many years ago I went through a phase of being really into art - impressionist (mostly monet), pop-art (lichtenstein and warhol) and of course the surrealist movement spearheaded by Dali. I kind of got into Dali by way of rave flyers, promotional leaflets for all night dance events, for which Dali was ideal material. Works like the persistance of memory and the great masturbator were frequently used for flyers due to their striking imagery and allusions to the underlying drug culture of the day. So when I was recently shown a wine labelled in homage to Dali I was quite interested.

Bodegas Altanza was one of the wineries visited on my recent visit to Rioja with Wines of Spain. It was the last of the wineries we were visiting and we werent sure what to expect really. We had seen the full spectrum of styles from the old school style of Remelluri, to the ultra-modern Baigorri and somewhere in the middle of those two extremes sat Altanza. The winery itself was pretty state of the art, lots of polished steel, temperature controlled tanks, a huge, clean barrel hall with loads of french oak barrels (including a few from Demptos!), with the odd transylvanian, russian and american oak barrels kicking around too, a throwback from when they experimented with different oaks to see what impact it would have on the wines. But when you taste their wines, there is a sense of tradition about them, they seem to sit in the middle of the two "camps" - fresh and fruity characters but structured and complex, with well integrated oak flavours and a touch of the raw meaty essense that I tend to find in old school rioja.

Twice now, Altanza has produced a wine of such complexity, intensity and sheer character, that they have felt it deserved a special treatment. So they decided to honour the great spanish artists, the first to be honoured was Miro, in 2001 followed three years later by Dali. The Miro was bottled in a dense, incredably heavy burgundy bottle, Dali is in a monsterously heavy bordeaux bottle. It is sold in packs of three, each bottle adorned with a label depicting one of Dali's lesser known works (the sheer cost of licensing the images from the Dali estate precludes using the more famous images, besides which the estate controls which images they are allowed to choose from). It would be fair to say that having tasted the wine, if it was given to me blind and I was asked to pair it with an artist, then I dont doubt that Dali would be my first choice. It is an intense experience, rich concentrated flavours seem to jumble across your palate - dark red soft fruits mixed with a touch of spice, vanilla and other oaky influenced flavours all with a definate savoury edge to them. The wine stays with you, working away at your brain, continually assaulting your tastebuds with flavour long after you have put the glass down. Its intense, much in the same was as standing underneath Dali's Christ of St John on the Cross, currently residing at the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow. Even as an athiest, the immenseness of the canvas (roughly a metre wide by two metres tall) and the perspective of the painting all seem to prey on you long after you have moved on to the next piece. It is easy to see why Dali was chosen for this wine.

Rioja - Palacios, Remelluri and de la Marquesa

2008-10-24T22:22:00.009Z

I was fortunate enough to be taken to Rioja at the beginning of the week for a brief visit. Organised by Wines of Spain and the Consejo Regulador DOCa Rioja a small group of sommeliers and wine buyers from the UK and one from Sweden were shown around six bodegas across Rioja.

I wasnt sure what to expect at first, when I saw the itinerary for the trip. I decided to not research the wineries in order to go with an open mind to them and not form any pre-judgements. Im glad that I did, for they each had something unique to offer, whether it be in their physical wineries and their methodology, or in their wines that we tasted, and after visiting six different bodegas and tasting something like 50 wines over the two days, its fair to say that its opened my eyes to Rioja as a wine and a region.

We started off with Bodegas Palacios in Laguardia. After being shown around the winery and its cellars, we were given a tasting of eight wines, all quite good, if rather average. The whites were certainly fresh and vibrant, and the reds all starting off with a slightly milky aroma - its the lactic acid our host proudly proclaimed, typical of tempranillo. From that we can deduce that their wines all undergo malo-lactic fermentation in the barrels. Off the six wineries we visited this was possibly the least inspiring, but it was interesting to see their perspective on the methods of production and it certainly is a winery with a long history.

From their we headed up to Labastida up in the Cantabria hills to visit Granja Nuestra Senora de Remelluri. This was certainly the most beautiful of the bodegas we visited.

Im a big fan of the white that they make, an amazing blend of about nine varieties - Garnacha Blanca, Malvasia, Moscatel, Marsanne, Rousanne, Viognier, Chardonnay and Viognier and finally Sauvignon. So I was really looking forward to this, and the good news was the sun was out, we were having lunch here and the reds were every bit as good as the white. They make four wines - the Blanco, a Reserva, a Gran Reserva and a Reserva Especial - the Coleccion Jaime Rodriguez, named in honour of the owner. All were astoundingly good, but for me the two standout wines were the blanco and the gran reserva. The gran reserva is a blend of 85% Tempranillo, 12% Garnacha and 3% Graciano, richly spiced and concentrated it seemed to last forever on the palate, its flavour greatly complementing the lamb chops grilled over a flame from vine trimmings. After a delicious lunch served in the winery, we took a stroll around the vineyards in the late summer sun, down to an ancient cemetary carved out of stone in the earlier life of the farm as part of an old monastery, the remains of which survive at the top of the mountain looming over us. Looking at the carved shapes in the stone, we got to thinking either the indiginous peoples were very small or the infant mortality rate was exceptionally high. They were tiny.

We left Remelluri as a tv crew was setting up to film a celebrity chefs program as he strolled through the vineyards of Remelluri discussing ingredients and picking fruit. Our destination was the Bodegas de la MarquesA in Villabuena. This was a smaller, family run bodegas trading under the name of Valserrano in the UK. Now in the hands of two brothers, Pablo and Jaime de Simon, one the oenologist and the other in charge of marketing/sales. The winery was probably the smallest of the six that we visited, but had one of the largest ranges of wines to offer. Jaime, the oenologist, proudly makes use of many of the traditional varieties and as such they offer a range of single varietal wines - mazuelo and graciano which were both amazingly different from what one would expect. The Mazuelo had a dark inky colour with a strong violet character on the nose. There was a licorice root element to the finish and a rounded warm spicy end note. With a year in a mixture of mainly french oak, the wine has a well balanced oak influence - vanillin, cedarwood and nutmeg like flavours, and well drawn out silky smooth tannins.

The Graciano by comparison had a much more herbaceous character with dark black tea and green leafy aromas, a touch of roasted nuts and defined dark soft fruit flavours. The tannins seemed bolder than the mazuelo, a little harsher on the gums, but the length was longer, more intense and a touch smoky on the finish.

Then it was time to leave and move on to our next winery. This was such a cool winery I want to give it a seperate post.

Expectations.

2008-10-17T14:49:00.004Z

I got to thinking about some wines last night, wines that had exceeded my expectations and consequently became more prominant in my recommendations, and wines that had failed to meet my expectations and therefore been a disappointment. There have been all too many of the later over the years - one of the most prominant being Krug's Clos de Mesnil when I first tried it several years ago for a Krug Dinner that we hosted. It had been so exhalted and placed on such a big pedestal, that when I tried it, angels failed to sing praises on my tastebuds and I felt let down, and disappointed. I guess I was a bit niave about it too, because at the time I wasnt conscious of its cost. When I found out how exhorbitantly expensive it was that only added to the sense of disappointment. Anyway several years have passed and having recently had the chance to taste the new vintage of Clos de Mesnil Im glad to say that my opinion has been slightly revised.
Which kinds of leads to the point of this posting.
Last night we were host to the Champagne Academy's Northern Dinner. The last time we hosted the dinner was in 2005, and much has changed in the meantime. The Westminster suite has had a complete refurbishment, Ross has been through the Academy's program and is now an Old Boy, and weve all grown a few years older, a few inches wider and experienced many hundreds of wines in the time that passed. This years dinner was presided over by Krug - the current presidential house, with Lanson the incoming (and hence Vice-presidential) house and Veuve the departing (and also Vice-presidential) house. At one time they all fell under the LVMH stable, (for the four months that it took LVMH to strip Lanson of its premium vineyards before being sold to the Mora family.)but now only Krug and Veuve are stable mates, Lanson being a family owned business. And it is here that the expectations come into play, but before that I guess I ought to divulge the wines that we served.
The starter wine was Lansons Noble Cuvee Blanc de Blancs 1998. My expectation of this wine was quite low, because, well, it was Lanson. Thankfully, for me anyway, it exceded that expectation and was actually pretty good. Considering its youth it was pretty damned good, the acidity levels were high enough to suit the dish it was paired with (a crab meat press with cucumber jelly and caviar dentelle).
For the intermediate course we poured Krug Grande Cuvee. There were a lot of folks disappointed with this wine. I think it was because their expectations are higher than the wine could deliver. Krug is a league apart from most other champagnes - not only in price, but in every little thing that they do. They ferment the wines in french oak barrels. They vinify the parcels of wines individually. They mature the wines for six years on the lees (the mandated minimum is three years. Many houses do not mature beyond that minimum). This gives the wines an incredible richness of flavour, depth of character and a whopping price tag. But I guess it also sets them up to be knocked down.
The main course was paired with an Argentine Malbec from Terrazas de los Andes - LVMH's pet winery in South America.
The Cheese course was paired with a Veuve Clicquot La Grand Dame 1998. This was a bit of a disappointment for me. It didnt distinguish itself enough apart from Yellow Label to justify the price difference. I reckon it was too young, personally, Im assured that this wine comes into its element after about 10 years of additional ageing, so I would expect it to be reaching its peak from about 2015. But a few people raved about it, so it just goes to show its all horses for courses.
The meal concluded with the Krug Rose. I have mixed feelings about this wine. Having first tasted it when we served the Champagne Academy menu tasting back in July, I was impressed but un-enamoured of it. Then in August I had the chance to visit Krug and got to sample the rose with a dessert at lunch in the middle of the Clos de Mesnil Vineyard. The wine was divine, from the amazingly oxidized looking copper brown colour of the wine, to the rich densely flavoured nose with soft red fruit, floral tones and a touch of membrillo jelly, this was one serious, serious rose. We discovered from our hostess, that the bottle we were being served was probably in excess of 12 years old. So having spend 6 years maturing on the lees before it was disgorged and labeled, it then spent another six in the cellars of Krug before being served to us with lunch. I was hooked. I became determined to procure a few bottles and lavishly lay them down with strict instructions not to open until 2014! And then reality came home to roost, when I realised that Krug Rose isnt cheap. Now I realise that there are cost implications with Rose - there is a finite amount of red wine available to blend with the white to create the rose style of wines favoured in champagne. This scarcity often means that Rose champagnes cost a fair bit more than their white counterparts. But Krug Rose is extortionately expensive. Eyewateringly expensive. Way more expensive than DP Rose, and thats a rip to start with!! So, barring a lottery win, it aint going to happen. And that is why I think most people felt that the Krug Rose was a let down for them. Yes it was good, and yes it paired well with the dessert - an autumn carpaccio of orchard fruits with blackberry fool and coconut macaroon. But is it good value? I dont think so.
So our expectations obviously shape the way we percieve a wine. For me thats quite important. I sell wines by creating a link between the wine and the food. I make them more attractive to people by personalising them, creating something that the customer can relate to, giving them some little nugget of information that identifies that wine is some small way to something they can understand. And in doing so, I will often, perhaps unwittingly, raise their expections of the wines. Which means that if I get it wrong, the effect can be far more disasterous than it needs to be.

So much happening.

2008-10-10T22:58:00.002Z

Ive been neglecting my blog of late. There are a few reasons for this, some are personal, but the main reasons are a lack of inspiration, a lack of opportunity to some extent, but primarily I havent felt the need to vent as much, and that was one of the primary reasons I started the blog. It was a cheap alternative to psychotherapy.
I plan to try and do a lot more on the blog now. Not because i need to vent again, but I want to try and prepare an "escape plan". Much as i still love my job, Im slowly coming to a realisation that I dont want to do this for the next ten years or so of my life. I figure that I want to spend no more than three more years on the floor, and if my wife had her way it would be about three more months! But I have targets that I want to achieve before I can move forward to different pastures. I would seriously like to achieve the next step on the Court of Master Sommeliers program which would be to pass my advanced course. I would like to build on this blog, and maybe take the writing to another level, perhaps get some freelance articles done. After seeing this years winners for the AA winelist awards, I want to win that. Ive got the Hotel Cateys awards dinner coming up next month, and Ive been shortlisted again for the Food and Beverage Service award (fingers crossed!!). Then in January the Michelin Guide is released and we are all hoping that we will find ourselves promoted to Two michelin stars. God knows cheffie deserves it, the menu is as good as it has ever been, and I think the whole front of house team has put every effort in to ensure that we deliver the best possible experience to all our diners. So much happening, and I want to try and keep on top of it all and continue to grow in my knowledge and experiences.

Planeta Cometa 2007

2008-10-10T22:25:00.003Z

Last night was the second gourmet evening in the newly re-opened Simon Radley at the Chester Grosvenor (henceforth known as Radder's).We were showing the wines of Planeta, based in Menfi in Sicily. Unfortunately we couldnt get any of the Planeta's over, so Stephen, our account manager from Enotria played host for the evening. The evening was a great success, the guests were very happy with the food, the service and of course the wonderful wines. For me the highlight was the Cometa.
The Cometa is a 100% Fiano, a grape normally native to Campania on the mainland of Italy, but Planeta have taken it to their hearts and have produced this wonderfully aromatic - citrus and cream - almost fresh lemon curd, crisp wine that packs a punch of flavours including a herbal/floral finish that puts me in mind of a herbal tissane. This proved to be one of the more popular wines last night, but that was before people found out about the price. Its bloody expensive!! Id love to get some more in, but I doubt it would sell very well. Shame though cause it was a bloody good wine.

Andrew Will - Two Blondes Vineyard Blend, Yakima Valley, Washington 2005

2008-09-23T20:35:00.005Z

Ive been on the Andrew Will mailing list for a number of years, and despite never being able to order anything from it, it is a useful source of information about the region and vintage. In fact for the last three years or so, Ive been desperate to order something from it, but have had neither the money nor the American address to get it sent to. But that shouldnt have stopped me really, because for a number of years, Morris and Verdun have had a small selection of the wines on offer in the UK. And again lack of fiscal resources has stopped me. So earlier this year when I was trying to find a theme for a gourmet dinner to replace a rejected idea, I decided to try and put on a Pacific Northwest dinner. After all it is an area that I have a considerable interest in, it is also an area that you dont see very often coming up on wine-lists in this country, for reasons of which I would discover as I tried to source the wines for the dinner. I was pleasantly surprised when the boss said yes, and lo and behold we were doing a Pac-NW dinner.

Now when we plan these dinners I have a spreadsheet where I plot out the wines that I would like to show, and cost them all out, breaking it down into the usual consumption etc, finally arriving at a cost per person for the wines. From this we can calculate our selling price for the dinners by adding on how much the menu would be (£60) then working on a reduced margin we multiply out the cost giving us a selling price. This is where we hit our first hurdle. Browsing through my supplier catalogues it became evident that there were few Pac-NW wines available in the UK, and those that are are expensive. VERY expensive. So we were faced with the choice of doing a dinner for a relatively unknown region in this country for the princely sum of £160 per person. It doesnt take a genius to know that you wont sell many tables for that one. So we dropped the price down to £120 per person, which was just breaking even. And in the end, it was a very good evening with a total of 23 people there, a little less that I would have liked, but still a good atmosphere and really pleasant service.

Anyway the highlight of the reds for me was the Andrew Will Two Blondes Vineyard blend from the Yakima Valley in Washington. A bordeaux blend with 36% Cab Franc, 35% Cab Sauv and 29% Merlot it was bursting with blackberry flavour and cassis, with a touch of green vegetation at the back. This was served with a cannon of herdwick mutton on smoked aubergine with ewe's curd and olive praline. Everyone raved about it. Job done!

Didier Dagueneau RIP

2008-09-18T17:38:00.001Z

I found out this afternoon that Didier Dagueneau died yesterday afternoon in an accident. It seems he was in a paraglider that stalled and dropped to the earth, killing him and injuring one other person. He was only 52. A tragic loss for the wine world, and especially the Loire.

Visiting Krug - in the cellars.

2008-08-07T09:44:00.000Z

So with eyes like pissholes in the snow, I woke up a silly o clock in the morning, showered and made it down for a lovely breakfast in the morning. The sun was shining, the gardener was out raking the gardens and clearing up the corks we had fired off the balcony the previous night. Mine was the winner, out on the grass, while mark managed to hit the patio and penny barely made if further than the end of the balcony sill. After indulging on fresh croissants and pastries we were met at the front by our genial chauffer and whisked off to the maison. The Krug domaine is rather discretely placed off the main roads behind a set of imposing black gates. As we entered the courtyard the place was filled with oak barrels being washed down and soaked with water, preparing them for impending use.

We were told how the Maison came into being, the history of the family and their philosophy for champagne before being taken down into the cellars to see for ourselves.

We were in heaven, millions of bottles of Krug all stacked up where they wait patiently for six years to reach a level of maturity that Krug feels is essential to its being. We get the full tour of the cellars, walking past racks of bottles, the chalk boards written in a code identifying which wines they are. I keep my eyes peeled for the Clos d'Ambonnay, but fail to spot any, or its sister vineyard Clos de Mesnil. We did however find magnums of vintage 98 and even a few jeros. As we descend deeper beneath Riems we come to the vault holding the reserve wines. Specially designed double decker steel tanks hold the reserve wines going back to a 1996 Bouzy which we are told was the oldest wine blended in this years "batch" of Grande Cuvee. In six years time when the wine reaches the market, that component will be 20 years old! We struggle to get our heads round the idea that someone can select a blend of so many different vintage wines and somehow seem to know how it will turn out after six years of maturation. And while the main selection of the blend is done by a core team, that many other people at Krug are involved on the periphery.

While in the cellars we get the chance to watch their cellarmaster riddling the bottles, and Mark takes the opportunity to have a go himself.

As the cellar tour ended we wandered upstairs for a spot of elevenses - a cheeky wee (wee being the operative word) glass of Grande Cuvee before we departed for a tour of the vineyards, more specifically the vineyard of Clos de Mesnil.

Like a pilgrimage to Mecca - the visit to Krug. Day one.

2008-08-06T09:24:00.006Z

Ive had my pilgrimage, got to see two of the most precious vineyards in the whole of Champagne and Im one seriously happy camper!
Mark, Penny and myself flew out from Manchester on Monday afternoon after nearly two hours delay and were met at Charles de Gaule airport by a chauffer carrying a Krug sign - cool!! We were whisked from the airport in a swanky new merc to the Hotel Les Crayeres where we were staying overnight. After a quick shower we met down in the lounge for a crafty pre-prandial flute of something before heading into Riems to Brasserie Flo for something to eat. Being the beginning of August and actually sunny somewhere we got to eat outside on the terrace, although I think they stuck us in the tourist corner as we seemed to be surrounded by English people. Penny got the trip off to a good start with a cheeky little bottle of Ruinart Blanc de Blanc (despite our effort to get her off of choosing LVMH products she wouldnt budge!) Still cant complain, it is one of the best value Blanc de Blancs on the market., and a damned fine drop of fizz. We all started with something fishy, myself with 6 langos and Mark and Penny opted for the Hommard (Lobster) with fresh mayonnaise. We had all opted for the classic brasserie dish of Steak frites for out main course, although we underjudged the size of the meat a bit and all ended up a bit stuffed. That was washed down with a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvee, the richness of the wine coping admirably with the tender rare meat. Its a little know fact that Krug Grande Cuvee works magnificently well with Fish and chips!! Penny was now full to the gills and it was left to me and mark to sample the creme brulee. That was my mistake, finishing it was even worse. I was so full my stomach felt like it was going to burst. I havent felt that full ever! I couldnt even take another drink I was that full. So after a brief walk up the main road we settled down in a bar and I watched them two chugging G&T's while I slowly digested my dinner. Then we headed back to the hotel and onto Penny's balcony where we caned three bottles of champagne we had cleverly brought along, while playing silly drinking games and watching the stars. A bottle of Pol Roger Vintage 96, a bottle of Dom Perignon 99 and a rather disappointing bottle of Veuve Rose. Guess which one Penny brought! Penny also pitched in a bottle of Hennessy XO, but I knew when my limit had been reached and at 4:30am I sloped off to bed determined to get at least three hours of kip before the morning.

Krug minus 2

2008-08-01T16:42:00.001Z

Just two more days until I go to Krug. Well technically its three as we dont actually visit Krug until Tuesday morning, but by this time on Monday we will be in Riems at the Hotel Crayeres and I cant wait. Ive been looking forward to this jolly for six months. We have a tasting on tuesday at 10am followed by a tour of the Clos de Mesnil. Hopefully we can persuade them to take us to the Clos d'Ambonnay as well, before lunch and then returning home. Short and sweet. Then Im off for three weeks while the refurb happens and the Arkle is turned into Simon Radley at the Chester Grosvenor.

Losing an old friend.

2008-07-29T18:44:00.002Z

Tonight I lost my buddy, my companion for the past seven years. Weve shared some tough times, and some fun times, seen some great wines and many many good wines. And through all those bottles hes been there beside me, my faithful pulltap wine-knive. But tonight his spine snapped, and he lies at the bottom of my locker now, in two pieces. Im gutted, not least because it was a damned good wine-knife, but its been with me for so long. Originally it was black, but all those years of use have worn the blacking off of it and it is now a shiny metal colour. Luckily for me, I have plenty of back-up wine-knives, including a Laguiole given to me one night by an appreciative customer, but they just dont feel the same as my lucky black pulltap.

Providing Options

2008-07-26T15:41:00.002Z

I have an ambitious plan. Perhaps a touch too ambitious, but sod it, Im going to go ahead and do it anyway. I plan to offer 100 wines by the carafe. Yes thats One Hundred wines in a 350ml carafe. Im going to offer Dolcetto, Fiano, Txakoli, Viognier, Alvarinho and Albarino, Romorintin, Arinto, Loureiro, Nero d'Avola, Gewurztraminer, Semillon, and loads of obscure grapes, as well as the classic styles of wine - german riesling, alsace pinot blanc, loire sauvignon, beaujolais cru and many other wonderful wines, that people might be reluctant to spend for a full bottle. We're going to have some fun with the wine-list, give people the opportunity to try some new things, discover some new wines and explore some new regions. Now its up to the customers to think outside the box and take the chance to try something different.

En Primeur 2007

2008-07-08T23:05:00.003Z

The en primeur 2007 is nearly at an end. Pretty much all thats left to declare their prices is Petrus, and they usually wait until about the middle of July. We have bought quite a bit this year, about £15k altogether including two cases of Mouton for £5200. Weve mostly gone for the good stuff, Palmer, Ducru-Beaucaillou, Pichon-Lalande Comtesse, Rauzan Segla, La Fleur Petrus, La Grave a Pomerol and Cos d'Estournel. The 2007's arent going to be a keeping vintage by all accounts, at least according to the reporting from the mass of tasters, buyers and journalists who were part of the en primeur tastings earlier in the year. But perhaps thats a good thing. Certainly in most cases the prices were down on last year, still expensive, but as far as fine is concerned it seems to be a sellers market just now. Were just starting to see the 2005's arrive just now, Ive already had the Mouton, Lascombes and Pichon delivered, Im sure there will be more to come over the next few months.

Wines by the glass.

2008-07-03T21:13:00.002Z

With only the most terrible sense of timing imaginable, Im changing the wines we pour by the glass. As part of my proposed plan to widen the range of wines that we offer by the glass, the first stage is to change the wines on offer. Once they have bedded in, I plan to gradually offer a wide range of wines by the carafe - 250ml. Hopefully this will offer people a safer option to try some more esoteric grape varieties without risking too much. Things like Albarino, Txakoli, Arinto de Bucelas, Greco di Tufo, Mencia and many other wierd and wonderful varieties can now be explored without breaking the bank, and it should allow me much more fun when menu matching.

So here briefly is the run down on the new wines by the glass.

Whites -
Basserman Jordan, Estate Dry Riesling. Bone dry classic german riesling, of the sort that the UK has been missing out on for years.

Quinta da Murta, Vale da Murta Arinto. Crisp dry citrus notes with a tangy herbal finish make this the perfect partner to fish.

Chateau Lamothe de Haux, Cuvee Valentine Blanc, Lovely bordeaux blanc made in the town of Haux in the Premiere Cotes de Bordeaux. Made predominantly from Sauvignon Gris this has a richer flavour than most bordeaux blancs.

Il Cascinone, Belvedere Moscato d'Asti. Perfect summer sipper, light fruity, a touch fizzy and a dash of sweetness. Best of all, at only 5%abv, its not going to send you loopy!

Charles Schleret Gewurztraminer Reserve. Off dry, lovely aromatic white wine, tropical fruits and a touch of oilyness.

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon 2007. iconic savvy blanc that is just starting to develop towards its potential. As the acidity starts to balance down, the ripe lushness of the fruit is able to show. Well made, incredibly well marketed.

Pierre Bouree Bourgogne Blanc. From Louis and Bernard Vallet in Gevrey Chambertin, this is classic bourgogne blanc. Barrel fermented with natural yeasts in a mixture of new and second fill oak. This is the vintage that I was working on when I did the vendage there.

Pinks

Feudi di San Gregorio Ros'Aura Irpinia. Made from Aglianico grown in their vineyards in Taurasi, Peternopoli, Pietradefusi and Castelvetere, this is a fresh vibrant rose, wild alpine berries with a hint of sweet cherries. Pure summer indulgence.

Verdad Rose - made by Louise Saywer Lindquist (wife of Bob Lindquist of Qupe wines) this is a delicious blend of Grenache and Mourvedre from the Arroyo Grande Valley. Raspberry and strawberries with a hint of watermelon(?) and a slight nippy spicyness too. She makes a damned good Albarino too!!

Reds
Bodegas Palacios Remondo, La Vendimia, Rioja. Extra-ordinary rioja from Alvaro Palacios of l'Ermita fame. A 50/50 blend of Garnacha and Tempranillo this is their interpretation of a joven style, having spend a mere four months in second fill oak (mainly french) before being fined and bottled. Meant to be drunk young, this is quite expressive of blackberry jam, scrubby herbs and a touch of greengage.

Tabali Pinot Noir. From Chile's Limari Valley. Soft fruity red with typical pinot character - soft red fruits - raspberry and cherry with a touch of strawberry after time.

Ascheri Dolcetto d'Alba. 100% Dolcetto from the Nirane vineyard in Verduno. Small red berries with cherry fruit and a touch of violets on the nose. Smooth and silky on the palate.

Escudo Rojo. Mouton Rothschilds estate red from the Maipo in Chile. A bordeaux inspired blend of Cabernets Sauv and Franc, and Carmenere. (Im sure theres some syrah in there too, but there seems to be a lot of diverse information on the interwebs. Big chocolatey red fruit flavours, wrapped up in a nice bundle of oakyness.

Henry Dugat, Morgon Cote de Py. Beaujolais cru - bubblegummy soft red fruits with cherries and touch of smokyness.

Another Mouton Post.

2008-07-03T21:01:00.002Z

Two guys in the brasserie ask about Chateau Talbot. Currently we only have the 2005 in the cellar, which is way too young. So they ask me for a suggestion.
Suggestion no 1 - Reserve da la Comtesse 99, second wine of Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. I think its pretty good value for £67 on the list.
Not enough money they say, go higher. (Talbot would be around £75-90 on the list depending on the vintage)
Suggestion no 2 - Les Pagodes de Cos 1996, second wine of Cos d'Estournel. £95.
Still too little, they say, go higher.
Suggestion no 3 - Chateau Gruaud-Larose 1996 £130.
Nowhere near high enough they say, higher still.
Suggestion no 4 - Les Forts de Latour 1985 £280
At this point one of the fellas points to the wine underneath it, thats more like it, he bellows, well have that one there.

Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1988 £560.
The colour was a ruby red with a definite brick red tinge about the rim. On the nose it was vibrant, smoky with peppers, soft black fruits and a cedary almost tobacco finish. On the palate it was silky soft, the flavours of currants and brambles mixed with a woody spicyness and a touch of peppery salsa. It had a pretty long length to it, with the flavours gradually fading. My last bottle for now, but we are stocking up with some stock ex-chateau. I cant wait until its all here.

Smith Haut-Lafitte Blanc 1998

2008-06-28T15:55:00.004Z

I must say that I do like a good white bordeaux. The crisp freshness of Chateau La Freynelles bordeaux blanc is a marvelous summer sipper and great with a wide variety of food. But spend a lot more and the result is heaven in a glass. For me there is no better bordeaux blanc that Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc, and I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of cases of the 98 from a broking list the other week. Ive been itching to try it, and last night I got my chance. It has quite an aromatic nose, slightly more exotic that Mark was expecting with a defining aroma of dried apricots or peaches. I was getting a bit of dried white fruits, but perhaps more of golden sultanas. I didnt taste it as I had a funny slightly metallic taste in my mouth at the time. The customers loved it though, so thats what counts. Now I plan to sell the hell out of it tonight!!

The estate is one that wasnt really held in much regard in the wine industry, but that is all changing under the new owners the Cathaird family. They have invested heavily in the estate, including building a new 2000 barrel cellar and the heart of the estate is the Source des Caudalies Spa and hotel. For a short while I entertained the idea of maybe taking my better half there for a short weekend break over the october half terms break, but then I saw the prices. Perhaps not! Especially on my salary!!

Working on a new design.

2008-06-27T16:40:00.002Z

With the refurb approaching at an alarming rate, less than five weeks until we close now, we are trying to finalise the new design of the winelist. The current iteration has been in place for nearly two years now, and its time for a refresh. For a while now, Ive always fancied the idea of a landscape winelist, and it looks like this might well be the direction that we are heading in. In order to make the best use of the pages I want to present the winelist in two columns to a page. We are now working out the smaller details - font, font sizes, colours, paper type, weight and colour, not to mention the most important consideration of the lot - how do we present the wines. Currently we use the "old fashioned" concept of listing by country, with the commonly used convention of the old world first, new world second. In many ways I'm loath to move away from that format, because it is easy - both for me and the customers. But Im conscious that many people now choose their wines by style rather than country. So perhaps we ought to consider listing the whites first then the reds? Maybe by grape variety? Or we could use funky descriptive terms like Cowboy Ciao in Scottsdale Arizona (http://www.cowboyciao.com/wine.php) (though Im not sure the boss would like that one!!).
Its an area that Ive given a lot of thought to over the last few years and the conclusion that Ive pretty much reached is, although we like to think we are a modern restaurant, we have a very traditional outlook and a traditional wine cellar. So for now, I think we will stick with the "old fashioned" presentation of listing the wines by country with the old world first, but try to modernise it a little bit, by having narrative sections highlighting stunning examples of each grape variety - allowing folks to choose by grape if they wish. Id be interested to know what you think.

Maybe I made the wrong choice?

2008-06-25T00:08:00.002Z

Tonight was the Loire Gourmet dinner, and I must say that Im not really very happy about it. To start with I have a stinking cold, so I have generally been unable to smell anything other than the thick green snot that is cloging my aching sinus's (sinii?). Last year when we planned this calendar, I had costed the dinner based on a preliminary selection of the wines from Yapps list. I always try to overcost the dinners, that way Im allowing for any price increases, tax changes etc that come in to play, especially when you consider that these events are planned nearly a year in advance. In fact Im working on next years calendar now. About a month ago I first discussed the wines that I had considered showing with our account manager from Yapp, and we made a few tweaks, adding a new wine that they had sourced to the line-up and swapping out one of the reds that she felt wouldnt do justice to the evening. Now overall I was quite happy with the selection. We started out with a Cremant de Loire Rose which went down quite well with most of the folks. The first wine with the meal was a Muscadet, which overall got a good reaction, except from the "foodies", the folks who I know are quite into their food and wine. Part of me wonders whether this is a snobbery/perception issue, because certainly Muscadet had its boom in the eighties before becoming naff and unfashionable, not to mention that the market was flooded with some quite poor examples. Have the foodies dismissed it based on its history? It seemed to me that those people who were experiencing it for the first time really seemed to enjoy it. Who knows for sure.
We then went on to a Reuilly, which was possibly the most popular wine of the night. Much more aromatic and packed with flavour it certainly seemed to be going down well. The first red was a St Nicholas de Bourgeil which wasnt very well recieved when it was poured, but with the food (Lamb with spiced aubergine) everyone raved about it. The second red was a Menetou Rouge which we served slightly chilled (half an hour on ice, ten minutes off the ice) which it seemed people didnt get. We had some interesting debate about the temperature red wines should be served at. Again I wonder at the perception of temperature issue, and I feel that we did the right thing there, I was happy with the temperature it was served at. Then we come to the dilemma.
When we worked out the wines for tonight, I had a choice for the dessert wine of a Vouvray Molleux or a Jasnieres. I chose the Jasnieres as it was that bit more obscure and I thought it was something people wouldnt really get the chance to try. The variation between bottles was quite alarming, and Hannah wasnt very helpful when she said that the producer was a bit of a maverick who pretty much did his own thing and wasnt really bothered about the fact that there was so much variation. Nice to know AFTER it was poured!!! Perhaps it would have been more helpful to know BEFORE we chose the bloody wine!!! But then its always easy when you have 20/20 hindsight. Next time I shouldnt try and be the smartarse, and just stick to the conventional.

The good, the bad and the truly awful.

2008-06-20T17:11:00.003Z

Last night was Dining Club and as usual the choice of wines was mine to make. I plumped for a Puligny-Montrachet from Gerard Chavy for the intermediate course (I ought to have checked what I served last time, because that was a Puligny 97 too, although it was a different Lieu-dit and producer). The 1997 Puligny-Montrachet "les Folatieres" has always been good for me, but it is a wine that Ive neglected of late, and that has meant Ive missed its evolution from a cracking good burgundy into one that seems now to be in decline. Last night we had to open eight bottles to find five that were fit for service, and the variation between them was quite large. There were two bottles that were sublime - hazelnuts and vanilla on the nose with a citrussy finish, fresh and lively, three bottles were slightly duller on the nose, not quite as fresh but still rich and nutty with a slightly more buttery character, and the rest were quite horrible. The good ones had a golden yellow colour, with a clear watery rim, the bad ones were browning with a colour verging on amber. Now an attrition rate of approaching 50% is not good, and it was to get worse with the cheese wine. An 83 Bonnes Mares from Drouhin-Laroze. Their wines often have a more feral character, almost brettish, with good earthy tones and vibrant fruit in the background waiting to come forward. I knew it was on the mature side of life, but was quite surprised at the fragility of the wine, and the remarkably short space of time it took to tip over the edge into stewed fruit and then vinegar. It got the stage when we opened the bottles minutes before they were due to be served in order to ensure they were fit for consumption.
But the good news was the guests only got to see the good wines, and in the end they all really enjoyed them. Ive got until September now to sort out the next dinner!!

Mischa Estate Wines.

2008-06-14T16:55:00.003Z

Had an interesting tasting yesterday with Roger, one of our main suppliers and the winemaker and his fiancee from Mischa Estate down in Wellington South Africa. Now Ive been trying to do a bit more South African for a little while now, because I think there is a lot going on down there and the quality of wine coming out of South Africa seems to be getting better and better. Thankfully more of the farmers are moving away from the Co-ops and starting to produce their own fantastic wines. The big problem for both them and UK sommelier and customers is that at the moment many of these wines dont yet have a route to market. But that is changing and as time goes on, they will find UK importers knocking on their doors trying to get them to sell to them.

Now Andrew Barns looked more like an Aussie surfer dude than a South African winemaker, but there is no mistaking the accent. They started off by showing us their Viognier. On the nose it is recognisable Viognier - peaches and cream, a touch of floral character - white flowers and honeysuckle. There is a subtle hint of spice on the nose too, which put me in mind of a good aged Condrieu. On the palate it delivers the same fruity character, fresh and lighter than many viogniers, not at all thick and oily. The acidity is so well balanced that it finishes quite dryly and made me want to drink more. After the first spit, I didnt want to waste anymore and ended up swallowing it!! We liked this one so much, were going to list it by the glass.

We moved on to the reds next, looking first at the Eventide Cabernet 2006. There wasnt a single hint of smokyness that Mark would characterise as typical SA red. There was ample red fruit character - currants and blackberries with a spiced note of cinnamon and licorice root. The woody characters are there in a background support role, and as Andrew (the winemaker) put it, the fruit has to do the talking, not the barrel. The oak is to be used as the canvas over which the fruit character will paint the picture. I liked that, and its true, the oak presence (2nd, 3rd and sometimes 4th fill french oak) is very much in the shadows, letting the essense of the grapes be the dominant character. It had a great length and we like this one as well, enough to give it a listing.

We moved on to the Mischa Estate Cabernet 2003. Andrew explained that when they vinify the individual parcels of vines they select those that shine out for the Mischa label. This was his forth vintage, and it was easy to see the difference between the eventide and mischa wines. There was much more going on in the glass of the mischa cab, currants, cloves and cacoa, again the oak taking the backstage. On the palate the tannins were more structured, finer and there was more substance to the length and the finish. We really liked this one.

We finished off with the Mischa Shiraz, and again there was none of the typical smoky, burnt rubber character, instead there was vibrant berry fruit flavours, with hints of white pepper and maybe some cacoa too. I had commented that this was completely different to a Barossa style shiraz which hits you with the big menthol notes up front, when I went back to the glass and started to find small aromas of menthol. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but the menthol was restrained and fitted together nicely with the flavours. We liked this one too, enough to decide to list all the wines and explore the possibilities of doing a Gourmet Dinner with them next year.

A match made in heaven.

2008-06-02T23:24:00.002Z

For a retirement function tonight -

The dish - Herb poached fillet of Welsh Black beef, crispy corned fritters, new season morels and a pea and feve reduction.

The wine - Domaine de l'Arlot Nuits st Georges, 1er Cru Cuvee Jeune Vignes de Clos des Forets st Georges 1997.

On the nose the wine presents with a wonderfully ripe medley of flavours including ripe soft red fruits, forest floor, tobacco, earth, a gamey mushroom like aroma and a tantalising hint of spices. On the palate it is as soft as can be, silky smooth flavours of strawberries and ripe red cherry, with a slightly smoked finish. The wine together with the herb encrusted fillet was divine, the bay leaf and oregano mixed with the thyme seemed to bring out the gamey character of the wine. Everybody loved it, including those folks who wouldnt really call themselves wine drinkers. Good choice me!!

St Clair Pioneer Block 2 (Swamp Block) Sauvignon 2007.

2008-05-27T23:46:00.000Z

I took Kenny from Villeneuve Wines advice and took a case of the Pioneer Block 2 to replace the Block 7 that we had purchased earlier from a different supplier. I loved the block 7 because it had a really confectioned tropical fruit nose with strong citrus character, particularly lime and grapefruit. The block 2 however is way better.

St Clair release several different single vineyard sauvignons under the Pioneer Block line extension. Presumably when they vinify the individual parcels of vines they can identify certain vineyard parcels that stand out as exceptional wines, and I havent been disappointed with the two that Ive tried so far. Block 2 from the Swamp Vineyard, Im guessing the vineyard location was once a swamp, has everything the Block 7 had but with more finesse to it. The tropical fruit aromas are more restrained, not as aggresively in your face, but dominant none-the-less. There is more of a pink grapefruit character with lime and kiwi fruit flavours coming through too. The acidity seems more in harmony with the wine that Block 7, like a good soundtrack to a film, enhancing the flavours and aromas but not jarring out of place. The wine just seems to last forever on the palate, wicked long length with zesty fruit finish and an almost sherbetty dib-dab kind of spritz on the end, tickling the tip of my tongue. I only got the case last wednesday and already Im down to my last three bottles, its going out faster than a fast thing. But Im liking that because it has regenerated my interest in New Zealand again, I was getting bored of one dimensional kiwi savvys, all tropical fruit and no backbone. I miss the Dry River Savvy (R.I.P.) but theres a new daddy on the list, and Im going to sell the shit out of it!!!

oeneous geriophilia - Vallet freres Vosne Romanee "Malconsorts" 1952

2008-05-17T23:51:00.002Z

Wowsers, after last nights super young claret, comes tonights geriatric burgundy in the form of a 52 Vosne Romanee. I had been given the responsability of choosing the red between a 59 Bonnes Mares, a 52 Vosne or a 58 Romanee St Vivant. I chose the Vosne because it had the safest ullage level (equivalent to top shoulder in a burg bottle) whereas the other two were a rather alarming 2 to 3 inches short of the cork!!
The cork was covered in a bright red plume of mould, and coloured all the way through with red wine. I wasnt too hopeful of the wine. But it opened up really well, the nose was surprisingly complex still with a richly flavoured fruit layer and mature burgundy aromas - a combination of leather, dark tea, tobacco and earth with a slight hint of exotic truffle/mushroom. On the palate the wine was smooth and silky, soft red fruit flavours wrapped up with a hint of licorice root, mulberry and soft eastern spices. The length just kept on going and the finish was a touch spicy with a gamey edge. Unbelievably it kept on improving in the glass over time, and seemed to show no sign of fading over the next two hours. I was slightly gobsmacked and sad that it was my last bottle. I suspect that were I to ask Bernard for some more, I could get some if he had any, but I think that I would much rather go out on a high with that bottle. Just goes to show though, that you never can tell what its like till you pull the cork.

Oenoeous Pedophilia? 2004 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande.

2008-05-16T22:39:00.003Z

In an effort to live up to our marketing departments claims of a 1000 bins on the wine list, I was put in a position where Ive had to list some really quite young wines on the list. Particularly prominent amongst them are the 2003, 2004 and now 2005 clarets that we have in stock. They are causing me something of a dilemma. Do I keep them off the list until they are ready to drink (my prefered option) or do we list them and hope that people will perhaps have enough knowledge to realise that really the wines are not anywhere near ready to drink. Well I kind of lost the arguement and they ended up being listed. So now what do I do when a customer order the wine?
Well this is a situation that I faced tonight. A table of four, amongst them a fairly prominent young chef, with a michelin star to his name. Am I being tested to see if I will pick up on the fact that the wine is a bit on the young side, or perhaps the customer is a wine pedo, he likes his wine young, tannic and under-developed. Im not in the business of correcting customers, and I dont want to offend the guy who ordered the wine, so my tactic is to present the bottle and then offer this gem - " Bearing in mind the youth of the wine, I think it might be prudent to double decant the wine in order to open it up a little bit" The guy shrugs ok and somehow I still dont quite feel absolved of any responsability for serving something so strikingly young. It doesnt get much better when we open the wine and it comes across as green as a green thing. Tight on the nose with hints of fruit behind a shield of greenness that the green lantern might use. Decanting it seemed to release some fruit on the nose and make the wine seem a bit more expressive ( possibly more due to the warming influence of being decanted from a cellar cold bottle into a warm decanter). On the palate it was still fairly tight and unforgiving, the fruit tantalisingly close but still seemingly locked up in a tightly bound tannic structure than threatened to strip the enamel off my teeth.
I give it a swirl and pour it over into a second decanter, trying to give it as much motion as I can without it being spilt everywhere. The smell coming from the wine is truly delicious, generous red fruit character with a touch of green wood character, still raw and fresh. On the palate it seemed to have softened a little bit, but at least I still had about an hour in the decanter until it would be needed. It was going to need every possible minute to soften and open up enough.
Pichon is one of my favourite wines from Pauillac, if somewhat out of my budget. One of my top ten wines that Ive tried was the 89 Pichon Lalande when I was working at Amaryllis. This wine has the potential to be as good, but in about ten more years perhaps. Hopefully I will still have some left by then!

Passing of a Legend.

2008-05-16T22:37:00.002Z

The interwebs are blazing with the news that Robert Mondavi has passed away at the fairly ripe old age of 94. Few figures in the industry have been as influential and prominent as Robert Mondavi and his passing is truly a great loss to the wine industry as a whole. Condolences to his family.

Is there value to be had under £50?

2008-05-06T22:59:00.003Z

There is a comment that has been left on one of my earlier posts which has had me cogitating over the last few days. (http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7206779&postID=2556388373739861579&isPopup=true). Is there any value to be had on a restaurant winelist for less than £50. The short answer is not much. Let me explain why.
Generally most restaurants will operate using a standard margin, either gross profit or cost of sales. The two figures are related - a 30% cost of sales = 70% gross profit. In other words 30% of the selling price is represented by the cost of the item, therefore 70% is profit (gross profit because things like operating costs have yet to be removed). Now a restaurant with a large and extensive winelist ought to operate a floating margin, that is the margin will vary according to the cost of the bottle. Hence the most expensive wines are usually operating on the lowest gp/highest cost of sales. So at the bottom end of the wine list will be the house wine, which is the least value of all, as it carries the highest margin, figures of 80% are not uncommon. Then the middle of the list will sit with a slightly lower margin 70% and the wines at the very top of the list will sit with 50-60% gp. After all, you probably arent going to sell loads each month, so the impact on your gross profit will be negligable. So those wines under £50 are typically going to sit with a 70% margin, compared with slightly more expensive wines which will have a lower margin.

Now the Arkle wine list operates a floating margin, with the wines at the bottom of the list carrying the highest mark-ups, and those between £40 and £90 representing the best value for money. We have some cracking wines under £50 that have a slightly lower margin, because they are something out of the ordinary, something slightly special that were I to put the prescribed margin on it, would make it too expensive to try out. So there are some bargains to be found.

Bin 313 - Itsas Mendi - Txakoli from Bizkaiko Txakolina in the Basque region of Spain. An unusual aromatic white wine made from Hondorrabi Zuri. A reasonable inexpensive spanish white at £34.

Bin 391 Planeta - Cerasuolo di Vittoria, a Frappato, Nero d'Avola blend from the only DOCG vineyard in Sicily. Rich cherry fruit flavour with a beaujolais style lushness and accessability, a positive steal at £35.

Bin 411 Bodegas Fernandez Rivera - Dehesa La Granja, from the stable of Alejandro Fernandez, a crianza tempranillo from the tiny region of Zamora. His home estate. Dense brooding fruit, richly concentrated flavours with none of the sunburnt oaky characters associated with spanish reds. £37.

So there are some good value wines to be had, if you are prepared to spend a little bit of time to look at the list, or if you ask for my advice. At the end of the day, my job is to help you to find a wine that you will enjoy, at a price that you are comfortable with, to enhance your dining experience. Im not in the business to screwing people over, ripping them off or trying to flog them overly expensive wines. More often than not, I will recommend something under the customers budget. For after all, its all about establishing the rapport with the guests and encouraging them to return again.

Chateau Bauduc Rose.

2008-04-29T21:52:00.002Z

I got some disappointing news the other day from Angela at Bauduc. It seems that they have run out of the Rose 2006 and are in the awful position of having rejected the 2007 rose as unsuitable for bottling they are now without a rose until 2008 vintage is ready sometime in 2009. Now that puts us in a spot, it sells really well, we are about to enter summer, and hopefully the weather will be really hot, meaning we are potentially loosing out on a bit opportunity. My boss is pretty pissed off about it. I on the other hand am kind of proud of them. By rejecting the vintage they are showing a commitment to quality and a pride in their wines. Now I dont know what happens to the wine. Perhaps it gets blended into the red (though I doubt it, surely it would lighten the wine), maybe they will keep it for their personal consumption (again doubtful but likely) or perhaps they pour it away (costly!!) but whatever happens they have lost that revenue stream. All the time and effort in the vineyard growing the fruit, the time in the winery turning the fruit into wine, and the time in the tanks waiting, wasted. They arent Mouton-Rothschild or Lafite, they are a small family winery so thats got to hurt them financially. And the scary thing for them is that all those customers who would have bought their rose will now find an alternative. And perhaps they might not buy Bauduc rose again. So not only have they lost this years business, but potentially they have lost next years too.
They wont lose my business though, because I applaud their choice, their integrity and their courage to take the decision they did. Perhaps it might work in their favour, because if they had released a substandard rose then they definately would have lost business the following year. So unfortunately we wont have their delicious rose this summer, but that makes the anticipation of the 2008 vintage all the more delicious. Good luck to them.

(Gavin and Angela Quinneys wines can be found at Bauduc.com.)

Drouhin-Laroze Clos de Vougeot 1992

2008-04-29T21:42:00.002Z

Served last night for an exclusive use function. We had a bit of a drama at about 4pm when i discovered that the two cases we had of this wine both had different vintages in them, eight bottles of 1992 and twelve bottles of 1997. To make matters worse the bottle of 92 we opened to check it was rank, really nasty. Things were starting to look grim when the 97 wasnt any better. Plan C was 9 magnums of 95, but then as luck would have it, I found 12 bottles of the 92 racked up in the cellar and a quick check opening them revealed them to be quite glorious. It seemed we'd fluked upon the duffer when we checked them.
The nose was quite feral, musky at first with woody notes, earthy mushrooms followed by fruits, a mixture of prunes, figs and stone fruits. They were taking on a stewed character, but the wine still showed some backbone. On the palate the red fruit flavours were more dominant with elements of the musky earth notes still showing through and a softly silky finish. The flavours seemed to linger on the palate for an age, which was quite pleasant.
The wine went down a treat, all in we opened 20 bottles, and managed to get 18 pourable bottles which were lapped up by the customers. I confess to being slightly anxious when I recommended it as they usually have Claret, but next year will be more confidant to recommend a good burgundy. We cut them a deal on the wine, only charging £100 a bottle (it ought to be on the list at £160 a bottle) so I think everyone was a winner.

AA wine list of year award.

2008-04-29T21:39:00.002Z

It would seem that we have been shortlisted for the AA wine-list of the year award. Fingers crossed. Actually we had a meeting this afternoon to discuss the current state of the wine-list and how we want to progress it from here. I have lots of ideas that I want to develop for it, its all a case of planning and checking out whats selling, what works with the menu and building on those core elements. So Ive got a lot of work to do on it.

Alvaro Palacios Finca Dofi 2005

2008-04-19T23:26:00.001Z

Sold a bottle tonight to someone who was going to spend just £50 on a bottle, but I guess my enthusiasm won them over. I think the wine is still a bit young, but with decanting it opened out quite nicely and seemed to grow into the glass a bit.

The vineyards are in Gratallops in Priorato, sitting in an area no-one except Alvaro thought manageable. At an altitude of about 290 metres above sea level, the soil is a punishing layer of slate which Alvaro works over with a mule and tiller. Despite the seemingly unhospitable nature of the region, the vines have an average age of about 50 years (between 18 and 100 years old). The blend is a mixture of approximately 60% Garnacha, with the remainder being split of Cabernet Sauv, Merlot, Carinena and a touch of Syrah.

The colour is a deep lustrous purple colour with a fresh purple rim. On the nose it displays a complex range of aromas with garrigue herbs being fairly dominant, then dried stone fruit, spices, warming tobacco notes and a touch of cinnamon all vie for attention. As the wine settles in the glass it seems to rejuvinate the fruit and the aromas become more red berry, cherry like than dried fruits. There is no sense of oxidation that often shows in Spanish reds. On the palate it presents the same fruit and secondary flavours with the tannins coming together quite smoothly, despite its youth. This is a wine that would definately benifit from at least another five years in the cellar, but given the opportunity to be decanted an hour or so before dinner, actually is very drinkable. This was a lovely complement to a dish of venison with a juniper reduction and choucroute canneloni.

Krug Clos d'Ambonnay 1995

2008-04-17T23:28:00.005Z

This year Krug are releasing a new cuvee, a blanc de noirs, which is already causing a stir on the wine market. The 1995 Krug Clos d'Ambonnay is on track to become the world's most expensive bottle of wine on release, with a retail price tag of between £1500 and £2000. That puts it slightly beyond the realms of DRC La Romanee Conti, Petrus and Le Pin. A microscopic 14 barrels of the wine were produced, and it is estimated that a mere 2,000 bottles will be available upon its release sometime in May. A few lucky Krug collectors were given a VIP tour and tasting and were offered the opportunity to purchase two cases (12 bottles) of the wine at £12000 per case in bond. Needless to say they all took the golden opportunity and one case has already seeped onto the secondary market being sold at auction in Las Vegas for a mammoth $26000.

I first heard about the wine in February when we were visited by Charles-Edouard from LVMH who is the Krug Brand manager. We were planning the Krug gourmet dinner that we are having in December and it was then that he dropped the information that Krug would be releasing a brand new wine later in the year. He teasingly offered us the run down on the wine and we were generously offered an allocation. The mere thought of a blanc de noirs from Krug set my want glands into overdrive and I knew that I wanted to list it, no matter how much it cost. I knew the prices of the Krug Collection and their crowning glory the Clos de Mesnil were expensive, but cost be damned I wanted it. All I had to do was persuade my GM that we needed it and that I could sell it at some stage. So imagine my surprise when coming in to work earlier today to discover that an order has been placed and confirmed for 3, yes three bottles of Clos d'Ambonnay 1995. I had to pinch myself! Then I found out the price. Stunned is about the only way to describe it. The Krug Clos d'Ambonnay is now going to be the most expensive wine on our wine-list at around £4000 a bottle (we sold the £5000 La Romanee Conti 1985 at the weekend!). With May races coming up Im desperate to sell a bottle so that I might hopefully get the chance to taste it. But one thing is for sure, with articles in the Financial Times and all the hype surrounding its release, the first vintage is going to be an instant collectors item, and when that happens the prices can start getting very silly indeed.

Monopoly

2008-04-15T12:54:00.003Z

Ive been off for a couple of weeks while I visited my folks in Oslo (my old man works for the Foreign Office). Had a great time just chillin and visiting a few museums. We didnt eat out much because its very expensive in Oslo and I would hazard a guess to say in the rest of Norway as well. Sales tax equates to about 25% (compared to 17.5% in the UK) so thats surely a part of it. Whilst on a trip to the local supermarket with my mum, we passed the Vinmonopolet which is the state off-license. Like the rest of the Scandanavian countries Norway operates a state controlled liquor monopoly. Folks can buy beer from the supermarkets but anything stronger must be bought through the Vinmonopolet. So me being me, we had a quick shuftie around. I must say that the selection was quite poor compared to what is on offer here in the UK. The range was heavily favoured to Europe, with a supermarket selection of Aussie and American wines (ie huge conglomerated brands - Hardys, Gallo, Lindemans, etc etc). The prices seemed quite steep, on a par with what I charge in the restaurant, so thats a reasonably steep price for a retail outlet. When you consider that being a monopoly they should have quite some purchase power I kind of found it really strange. I wonder if there is a reason the booze is so expensive, perhaps anyone from Norway might be able to answer.

Sommelier of the year 2008

2008-04-04T17:54:00.004Z

Well wednesday was the finals of the Heidsieck Champagne Sommelier of the Year competition organised by the Academy of Food and wine service. Im grateful to the hotel for flying me back from Oslo in order to compete.

Well the day started at about 10am in the rather lovely atrium of the Royal Society of Medicine. We kick started the competition with a very challenging questionaire and blind tasting of five wines. The quiz was hard, very very hard. I could see peoples faces drop as they opened it up an saw the first page. The first question was an easy one just to set us up , then bam!! Naming the DO's of the Balearic islands, naming the regions of greece that four wineries were situated in, eastern european regions and which countries they were in, were all some of the more challenging questions. In fact Gerrard Basset MS, MW, who wrote the questions acknowledged that the quiz was very challenging and more in line with the european and world championship level that ever before. The blind tasting was quite straightforward, and in some respects the training i had been doing with mark had paid off. The first wine i was only a bit off on the vintage, the second white i was way off the ball, the third wine i got pretty much on the ball, the fourth i swithered between italy of spain and in the end plumped for spain (should have gone for italy, my bad!) and the last wine i only got the grape variety right, everything else was off the mark.
The last part of the morning was the quick fire question - two minutes to answer, which wasnt anywhere near enought time. The question was - how would you go about organising a wine dinner? There was a lot to cover and it seemed like i had only got started when my time was up. Everyone else said the same thing. And that was the morning over. We enjoyed lunch, some champagne and waited to find out which three competitiors would be competing in the afternoons finals.

So it was that we were all lined up on stage in front of an audience of about 150 people as they introduced us all and we were given our certificates by Jeremy Rata, current chairman of the Academy. Then one by one we were eliminated until there were three candidates left - Isa Bal from the Fat Duck, Gearoid Devaney from Tom Aikins and Cyril Thevenet from Hotel du Vin. In truth I felt a sense of relief that I wouldnt be competing in the final, but at the same time slight disappointment. The finals were about to begin.

The final consists of four tasks. The first task is the restaurant scenario. The stage is set up as a restaurant with two tables. The candidate is given his briefing which is to serve the table of two guests a bottle of Vega Sicilia Unico Especial Reserva (alas not a real one, they used a bottle of Craggy Range red, i couldnt see which one). Then the other table will enter the restaurant and chose the cheese menu. You are expected to deal with them and help them select their wines to complement their choice. So this is a test of how you handle yourself in a restaurant scenario. The guests are previous winners, so they know how you feel and what you are going through. In order to make it completely fair they are given a script to follow. The judges are looking at how you handle the guests, your service skills - decanting, upselling oportunities, drinks knowledge, attitude, wine knowledge and food matching skills. All of this must be done in under ten minutes. Cyril was first and I must say that his performance was very polished, and set the bar quite high. Gearoid was second and was also very good, if a bit more relaxed and Isa, for me, caught a few of the opportunities that the other two missed.
Task two was a blind tasting - five beverages, the first of which had to be described in detail and then a matching food dish to be suggested. The other four beverages only had to be identified. All three handled this quite well, although we later found out only Isa identified them all correctly.
Task three was correcting the mistakes on a menu. This was the hardest task of the three as the time allowed was quite short, and they all seemed to waste time reading out each wine in order. There were ten mistakes and I think that I myself managed to find about six.
Task four was wine and food matching. The candidates are given a table of six guests with a selected menu, an unlimited budget and limo organised to take them home. They have to make recommendations of sparkling wines to meet the guests requirements. The only rule is that they can only use wines from the same country no more than twice.
The fifth and final task was the champagne pour. The candidates are given a magnum of champagne and sixteen glasses, they have to pour all the glasses to equal measures, emptying the bottle. They cant go back to a glass once they finish it. This is really hard when you dont know which glasses you are going to be using. In the end Gearoid was the only one who managed to pour sixteen glasses, even if they werent all the same level.

The competition was over, it was time to retire to Chandos House for the reception, and await the results. Much champagne flowed and eventually the winner was announced. Gearoid took first place, Isa came in second and Cyril placed third. Well done to them all. So with my two magnums in hand, me and Ian set off for some food to line our stomachs. A great experience, and its made me determined to give it a good shot for next year.

Stiff Competition

2008-03-25T13:04:00.003Z

Over the weekend I managed to track down a list of who has made it through to the Sommelier of the Year semi's being held on the 2nd April. Whats hardly surprising is the number of Hotel du Vin guys, past and present, that have qualified. The list reads like a who's who of British Sommelierie, and Im kind of humbled that my name is on it.

Benjamin Wolf - Summerlodge - Regional Winner
Yohann Jousselin - Hotel du Vin Winchester - Regional Winner
Andrew Connor - Lanesborough - Regional Winner
David Borwick - Jesmond Dene - Regional Winner
Garry Clark (me!!) - The Chester Grosvenor and Spa - Regional Winner

Then the highest qualifying runners up -
Isa Bal - The Fat Duck
Remi Cousin - HdV York
Laura Rhys - Hotel Terravina (Gerrard Basset's new hotel)
Franck Gerome - Sharrow Bay
Ian McEvoy - Bishopstrow House
Francois Bourde - HdV Birmingham
Nicolas Charriere - HdV Tunbridge Wells
Jan Konetzi - Maze, London

And of course last years runners up who gain automatic qualification -
Gearoid Devanay - Tom Aikins
Cyril Thevenet - HdV group sommelier

Some pretty hardcore guys and girls to go up against. Training is going reasonably well at the moment, there has been some improvement in my blind tasting, but still I must learn to trust my instincts and not try and make the rest of the assesments "fit" a conclusion. Just trying to brush up on my knowledge by taking as many past papers as possible in the remaining week before the competition.

Wish me luck!

La Conseillante 1989

2008-03-23T00:37:00.002Z

First time Id tried it, but it has been recommended to me by many previous customers all of which seem to like big expensive claret.

The colour was a deep purple core with a slightly redder rim. On the nose the aromas were very plummy, mulberry fruit, totally different to the Margaux. I would have to say that the nose was quite youthful, certainly not what I would have expected from a wine that is about 18 years old. On the palate there was certainly bags of fruit flavour, again plummy, mulberry, almost mixed fruit jammy kind of flavours. But wrapped around those flavours was a layer of earthy tones- cedar wood and tobacco, almost musky - like an eighties "macho" aftershave. On the palate it is a smooth as the proverbial babys bottom, soft silky tannins wrapped around the flavours of ripe victoria plums and greengages with the underlying essense of a fine cuban cigar. Over time this really opened up nicely. Pricey at £600 a bottle, but bloody good, I must seek out another bottle.

Chateau Margaux 1983

2008-03-23T00:22:00.002Z

Sold as a pair of wines with a La Conseillante 1989.

The colour was a deep cerise core with a slightly browning rim. On the nose the wine had a marvelous medley of aromas, predominantly forest fruits with cassis, a slightly vegetal tone and quite strong aromas of cedar wood, dark earth and mature tobacco. On the palate the wine was more red fruit flavours, soft and elegant with fine tannins, and a great long length which seemed to finish with smokier earthy tones. Very very good.

In Training.

2008-03-16T00:45:00.004Z

Well having qualified for the semi-finals of the Sommelier of the Year competition I have decided to give it my best shot. As it falls in the middle of my holiday, the hotel has very generously paid for my flights back from Oslo in order to compete on the 2nd April. So Mark and I have arranged a training schedule to try and improve on my blind tasting skills. Each day he has been selecting four wines, two reds and two whites to try and test me, and yesterday we looked at spirits as well.
There is a knack to blind tasting that involves looking at all the clues available and then making a series of judgements to help you arrive at a logical and sensible conclusion. I have discovered that often my first instinct is quite close, but I must teach myself to follow the pattern of observations, to gather all the available clues and then make that informed judgement. Sometimes it is easy to try and make the clues fit the wine that I think it might be, and hence ignore the clues that are there.
So far my success rate in training isnt great, but Ive got over a week to go, so hopefully there will be some improvement before the semi's.
I also found out yesterday that my mate Ian from Bishopstrow house has got through, so at least there will be one friendly face there.

Domaine de la Tour Vieille, Collioure "puig oriol" 2005

2008-03-15T00:23:00.002Z

Served as part of the Wines of Southern France gourmet evening last night. Simon paired a lovely little date, raisin and mature cheddar "burger" with this as the cheese course. It was following a 2000 Domaine de Trevaillon, so I was slightly dubious as to whether it would have the strength to follow it, but it coped really well and drew a lot of positive comments.

The wine is a blend of mostly grenache (70%) with rest being syrah. The town of Collioure nestles on the cusp of the Spanish border in the heart of the Basque region of France and it seems to have a very Spanish influence to its flavours. The wine exhibits strong bramble fruit flavours with a savoury influence, quite sun baked in character. The alcohol sits at 14.5% and it is quite evident on the nose with a prickly tingling on the old nostril hairs, but on the palate the wine is perfectly balanced, the medium tannins holding the flavours together and seemingly keeping the alcohol in check. The length is quite long with summery black berry flavours giving way to an almost savoury garrigue-y herbal finish of thyme and peppercorns. While it certainly worked quite well with the cheese, this would be a cracker of a wine for something like a roasted leg of lamb with plenty of rosemary and thyme. While as an 05 it was certainly drinkable it would definately benefit from a year or two of slumber in the cellar.

Bodegas Borsao, Tres Picos Garnacha 2006

2008-03-14T22:37:00.003Z

Coming from the Campo de Borja D.O. region, this is a relatively new winery comprising of three co-operatives in the region amounting to some 600 growers!! The Campo de Borja is slightly southeast of Rioja, getting into the foothills of the Moncayo mountain. In fact the name of the wine - Tres Picos roughly translates as three mountains.

This is a deep purple inky wine, with an amazing nose of almost candied fruits - wham bars and vimto and a dense undertone of something feral. On the palate it starts with a slight spritz, almost a touch fizzy, which combined with the confectioned fruity flavours could almost convince you you are drinking fizzy vimto. But then after you swallow, the wine finishes with the most amazingly intense flavour of chocolate coated coffee beans. The length is phenominal!!!!! I am seriously loving this wine!! So much awsum!!!

Academy of Food and Wine Service Sommelier of the Year competition.

2008-03-10T21:34:00.001Z

I was down in Birmingham today for the Sommelier of the Year competition, formerly known as the Trophy Ruinart Sommelier Competition. Ruinart pulled out of Sponsorship late last year leaving the competition hanging a bit by a thread. However it seems the Academy has managed to secure new sponsorship from Heidsieck Champagnes - Piper and Charles. So having sent of my completed questionaire earlier last month, I was notified that I had qualified for the regional final held at the Birmingham Malmaison. So braving the impending hurricane force winds I travelled down to Birmingham on Sunday night to get rested up and ready for the competition on Monday morning.
This is the third time that Ive competed in the competition, each time that Ive entered Ive qualified for the regional final, but last year as I had fallen down the stairs a week earlier and knackered my back I was unable to compete. The competition consists of a questionaire - about 30 questions and a blind tasting of four wines. For each wine the aim is to identify the grape variety, the country and region of origin and the vintage. Finally you must declare whether there is any oak influence to the wine. The last part of the first round is a verbal question in which you are given a scenario to which you must give a verbal answer in under two minutes. This year the scenario was how would you promote the sales of dessert wines in the restaurant.
After lunch we filed into the room to have our photos taken and be given our bottle of champagne for getting this far. Then the moment we were waiting for - we find out who will be competing this afternoon for the place at the national final. The top three scoring candidates complete a practical challenge in the afternoon with the highest perfoming candidate being selected as the regional winner. Well bugger me I wasnt one of the three top scoring candidates! Gobsmacked!! Some of those questions this morning were bloody hard, and although I didnt score well with the first wine, I reckon that I didnt fair too badly in the blind tasting. So after drawing numbered corks to determine the order of competition I drew last, so retired to the lobby to wait anxiously my turn. Eventually it was my turn, and while I had been sat there waiting I tried to remember watching the three candidates competing when i last attended two years ago. As I stood there nervously awaiting my briefing I tried to relax and just enjoy the experience. My brief was quite a good one, I had a table of four who were attending a conference on Health and safety and were having lunch before driving home. Their menu was a starter of Leek and seafood terrine and then a main course of Venison with pan roasted potatoes and wild mushrooms before a light dessert. I suggested a Loire White - something like a Menetou Salon, around about 13% alcohol - a small glass perhaps then another Loire wine - a Chinon again around 12% alcohol. Then they start testing your ability to think on your feet and they throw you a few curveballs. One guest doesnt drink red wines, he will have a dessert instead what would i suggest - Moscato d'Asti from Italy, light fruity, slightly fizzy and only 5% abv. Then another guest tells me he doesnt drink, but he wants to have something more than water, what would I suggest with the Venison. Its a bit more challenging that one, but I went with something like a Virgin mary - spicy tommy juice. Part one over, the next task is the service of a bottle of red wine. Here you have to decant the bottle of wine as if you were serving in a restaurant. The key element here is that you are decanting the bottle in front of the guest, so it is a good idea to engage them in some conversation. Tell them what you are doing, why you are doing it. Aparently I was the only candidate to do this. Finally you are given a bottle of champagne, and eight glasses and asked to pour the eight glasses. The key to this part is to open the bottle safely, then pour evenly and consistently. Perfect is pouring eight equal glasses with nothing left in the bottle. The next best thing is to have a teeny tiny bit left in the bottle. Disaster is only pouring seven or less and running out.
Competition over we retired to the lobby to await the deliberations. As we each debriefed ourselves and the audience gave us their opinions the stress of the situation bleeds away nicely. A good cup of tea helps immensely as well!! Once they had tallied all the scores we were called back in and given the results in reverse order.
3rd Place went to Francois from the Hotel de Vin in Brum.
2nd Place to Guillaume(?) from Hotel de Vin in York
1st place was yours truly!! Double Gobsmacked!!

So I got a glass trophy, two magnums of champagne and I get to compete in London at the National Finals. Id best get studying!!

DRC La Tache 1988

2008-02-29T23:27:00.002Z

On the nose the overall character is raspberry with quite a feral edge to it, there is something distinctly animal about it, more than just earthy. Its a very complex nose, evolving over minutes and half hours to take on a deeper earthy character- black soil with tobacco and hints of vegetal rotting - think deciduous forest floor - mushroom and decay.
On the palate it has a definate red fruit character, an intertwined blend of cassis, redcurrant and morello cherry with quite a savoury, almost leaf-like finish. The surprising element about the wine is the strength of acidity remaining, very cleansing making the wine feel remarkably youthfull despite its 19 years of age. Really stunningly good wine, almost wasted on its purchaser (no actually truly wasted on its purchaser, and I mean that in a totally non disrespectful way, but the dude was half cut and only drank about a glass and a half, leaving the rest to us), shame it was the last one.

And on the subject of DRC, we got the news this afternoon that we didnt recieve any this year in our allocation, which is a bit of a disappointment, given our long term purchase history of the wine. I appreciate it can be difficult deciding allocations, especially when the wines are produced in such small quantities and demand is becoming stratospheric especially with emerging new markets who are cash rich and eager to appropriate the "right" labels, but it would seem that loyalty is a dying commodity, as it doesnt pay the bills.

An expensive mistake?

2008-02-20T09:45:00.003Z

I was alerted to an article in the New York times a few weeks ago by their food critic Frank Bruni. The crux of the article was a letter Mr Bruni had recieved from a gentleman who had been dining at one of New Yorks upmarket restaurants. In the letter the gent tells Mr Bruni of an experience where as part of a group dining out, one of the guests ordered (inadvertantly apparently) a rather expensive bottle or red wine - Screaming Eagle no less, with a price tag of $2000. The price of the wine wasnt raised until the bill came, upon which the party were rather surprised. That said they paid their bill, left a tip and left, never to return again. Now the diners primary issue with the experience was that at no point after the wine was ordered were the group made aware of the expense of the wine, and they felt that the restaurant had an obligation to highlight the cost before it was served. The article has attracted a huge number of comments online (http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/the-answer-man-a-mistake-on-wine/) - mine included! So are they right, should the restaurant have made an issue about the cost of the wine? Heres my thoughts on the matter.

As a sommelier we have a ritual that we like to run through when someone orders a bottle of wine, any wine whether it is £15 or £5000. The first is to verbally repeat back the order to the guest to confirm that we have not misheard or misunderstood. Thats the first check. Then we will retrieve the bottle from our stock, we will check that the wine and the vintage match the wine-list - doesnt always happen but thats why we check. If the vintage doesnt match we will notify the guest that the vintage has changed and offer them the opportunity to accept or change the wine. The wine is then presented to the person who ordered it, the name of the wine and the vintage being specially highlighted verbally. This is the third check. It is incumbent then to the guest to confirm the wine is indeed the wine they ordered. Once they have accepted the wine, then the "contract" is sealed, they have agreed to it it has undergone three checks and they are obliged to pay for it. We would then open the wine and check the condition of it, if it is fine we take it back to the guest and offer them a sample. This is check number five. All being well we would now serve the wine and the customers would enjoy it. Should they wish to order another bottle, the process is pretty much repeated verbatim. At the end of their meal when they ask for the bill, we print out their bill, it is then checked by the sommelier, the head waiter and sometimes the restaurant manager before it is given to the guest to check. At this point all being well they will check their bill and pay before leaving to wherever they may be going. So there are quite a few checkpoints along the way before any nasty surprises come with the bill. But despite that, I have to say that I had customers who when they have recieved the bill have had an unpleasant surprise (although nowhere near the two grand for the screaming eagle.). Who is at fault? My view is that they are at fault as long as we have followed the prescribed proceedures. If they have chosen to ignore me when I repeat back their order and when I present the wine then really they havent got a leg to stand on. But this being the hospitality industry, we will try to reach an amicable solution to the situation, which sometimes might mean we suck it up, sometimes it might mean you suck it up! The moral of the story boys and girls is to check very carefully what you are ordering, especially in restaurants with very expensive wine-lists.

WBW 42 - Just Seven Words

2008-02-13T17:54:00.003Z

Andrew of Spitoon has come up with a blinding idea for this months edition of WBW - describing a wine in just seven words. (http://www.spittoon.biz/wbw_42_just_seven_words.html). In these abreviated days of txtspk and slang, I suppose it is becoming more common to shorten everything. Personally I think there are times when it is useful, Im not sure that describing wine is one of them, but then again I have seen many wine reviews that run towards the verbal diarrhea so I happy to give it a shot.
The wine that I have selected is Planeta Cerasuelo di Vittoria 2006, which unless I am mistaken is Sicily's only D.O.C.G. wine. The wine is a blend of two native varieties - Nero d'Avola and Frappato. So seven words -
Reminds me of Vimto and Wham bars.
or
Tastes like summer berries and ginger beer.

For those that dont know what a Wham bar is, it was a sweet very popular in the eighties. A flat chewy bar with rainbow drops of cystalised sugar and popping candy on the top of it. The flavour was a mixed fruit flavour that had hints of red berries and rhubarb. They used to cost about 10p each and were so chewy they had the power to extract fillings!! I havent seen one for years but you can get them from A Quarter of (http://www.aquarterof.co.uk/wham-bars-p-363.html).

Well that was quite easy really, good theme Andrew and Im looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

"We are facing a perfect storm"

2008-02-12T18:16:00.000Z

That was a quote directly from one of our main suppliers this afternoon as we discussed the impending price increases. Some of our suppliers have already sent us the bad news, and my god, some of it terrible. We are facing increases of upto £1 a bottle, and this is before the Chancellor drops whatever bombshell he plans to next month. The rumours are that there could be an increase of as much as 30p on a bottle of wine!!!
Now price increases are almost inevitable. Transport costs alone have risen astronomically over the last twelve months, couple that with the exchange rate against the Euro and Australian dollar and the news is gloomy. But also add in the fact that glass is getting more expensive, cork is becoming astronomical, labour costs have risen dramatically and the huge increases become expected. Perhaps we have been spoilt by a tidal wave of cheap wine, brought to our shores by Tesco, Sainsburys et al. All I know is that wine-drinkers are going to suffer soon in their wallets, as the costs go through the roof. Shortages of fruit in champagne are said to be driving the price higher, the drought in parts of Australia has seriously affected production there and is also driving prices up. Were doomed Im telling you!

Australia Day Tasting

2008-02-08T23:52:00.000Z

Danny and I went up to Edinburgh over the weekend to attend the Australia Day tasting at Our Dynamic Earth. We spend the sunday night in Glasgow, where I tried to find some of my old haunts (unsuccessfully, most of them it would seem have changed, closed or even been demolished) and ended up a bit pissed in Subway scoffing a 12" meatball sub at about midnight (on a sunday!!!!!). We drove over on monday morning after a quick detour to stock up on Square Sausage (a scottish delicacy!) then proceeded to take nearly twice as long to find the bloody place, once we were in Edinburgh, as it took to drive over from Glasgow!! But eventually we got there and we got down to some tasting.

The new venue was quite good, lots of natural light, plenty of space, and a circular layout which seems to make the place bigger on first impression. We started out with the whites, and managed to taste a few good whites on the Alliance wines stand with Giles their MW. The Tassie rieslings and Pinot Gris' were pretty good and may be worth a few listings. Further round the room we spend a bit of time with Francis from OW Loeb who was there with Phil Sexton from Giant Steps. Phil is an interesting character, a brewer by trade they started making wine in the Margaret River with a winery called Devils Lair and a beer called Little Creatures. When they sold up, they moved over to the Yarra valley where they set up Giant Steps and Innocent Bystander. The two labels share many outstanding qualities but their defining characters would be that Innocent Bystander wines are winemaker wines, whereas Giant Steps wines are Vineyard wines. By that I mean that IB wines are the product of winemaker "manipulation" in the winery to create consistent products - good well made wines that use cultured yeasts to produce certain characteristics in the wines. Whereas the GS wines are the products of the fruit grown in the vineyard. Minimum intervention, wild yeast fermentation, they will show marked differences from vineyard to vineyard, vintage to vintage. For me the two standout wines where the Giant Steps Sexton Vineyard Chardonnay and the Tarraford Vineyard Pinot, both showing really complex layers of flavours, with soft fruits layered with defining earthy characteristics. Then we had the muscat!!! OMFG it was divine!!!!!!! Cheeky little half bottles of heaven - light, slightly sticky, just sweet enough with a hint of petillance. The guests are gonna love this one. Phil and his marketing guy were there telling us the first vintage they made of this they made some 600 cases. It sold out. The second vintage they made about 40000 cases, it also sold out. The next vintage comes of the vines in about three weeks. They are planning on making some 600000 cases of it, and it looks like it is already all sold out. It should be on the shelves about five weeks after the harvest, which is a pretty impressive turnaround.
By now we'd done about all the whites we were interested in and so we cycled round again and hit the reds. We spent some time again with the Giant Steps guys before we moved on over to the Cult and Boutique stall and spend a bit of time there with the guys. They had some fabulous big reds, including a stonking grenache, with a seriously wallet unfriendly price!!! But they had a few wines that Im interested in, so hopefully we will be able to do something with them.

Overall it was quite a productive day, I got to see a few old friends and faces, and despite the dominance of the supermarket brands, there were some great little wines there and I reckon that a few will end up on the list over the next few months. We had several hundred miles to go home, so after a brief dinner at the nearby Pizza Express we headed home. Not a bad little jolly.

Back to .......

2008-01-28T23:48:00.000Z

This week marks my last week as a cellar monkey, for officially from next week, I return to the Arkle full-time.

Imbibe Magazine - Sommelier Wine Awards

2008-01-21T22:09:00.000Z

I was in London today for the second tasting of the Sommelier Wine Awards organised by Imbibe magazine. It was a really good experience, and in some ways showed me that I have a long way to go if I want to pass the tasting part of my Court of Master Sommeliers Advanced course.

The tasting was held in the private dining room of Delfina on the Bermondsey Road, out in what I will assume is quite a trendy up and coming area of London. The room itself was pretty big and very white and blank, which I suppose is ideal if you are selling it as a space. We were organised into four groups - each group having a team leader who role was just to co-ordinate the proceedings and prod us along. There were seven of us in the group, and we tasted five flights of between ten and twenty wines.
The first flight was white burgs and the prices ranged from £5-50. I felt out of my league at first as I tasted my way through each wine, trying to jot down some notes and then rating each wine with a yes, no or maybe. I started out looking at the wine from the point of view that I was tasting it with a view to listing it here. So I looked at the whole range of factors - the style, quality and overall balance of the wine, but was the price right. It isnt as easy as it sounds. Once we had all tasted our way through the wines we then discussed which wines we felt would make it through to the next stage. There were some wines that we almost all agreed with, there were some that we didnt, but overall it was fairly well balanced with some active debate promoting or demoting the merit of disputed wines.
I must admit that by the end of the afternoon I struggled through the last two flights - Italian reds - other and Rhone. The last three wines were quite hellish really, I felt like I wanted to chuck! But overall the experience was a really good one, I got to meet a few really interesting contacts, and its an experience that I would love to expand on a bit over the next year or so, hopefully gaining myself and consequently the hotel a slightly higher profile.

Falling short of expectations.

2008-01-17T21:46:00.000Z

January it would seem is becoming the month for re-evaluating things. In the post-christmas carnage that is the sales season, we are gradually slowing down, and now we look back on the xmas festivities with a critical eye to see where we can improve, what changes are needed and believe it or not, begin to put together our 2008 package.
For me, Ive re-evaluating the stock, taking a look at certain wines that for some reason or another have failed to meet expectations, that havent delivered what was expected of them. We had quite a few over xmas, mostly burgs, roughly half white and half red. It is something of a disappointment when you open a bottle that really ought to be pretty good, to find it lacking, falling short, just missing the mark. It puts me in a difficult position, especially if I have "sold" the customer on selecting this wine. On the one hand, such is wine, thats the gamble you take, but on the other hand, our whole raison d'etre is customer satisfaction. Now while I dont believe all that bullshit that the customer is always right, I do believe that our purpose is to create a satisfying environment where the customers can enjoy their meal to the fullest extent. And these days wine is an integral part of that experience. So when chef has gone to the effort to source the best produce, expertly prepared it, delicately presented it, then it really deserves the best wine to complement it. So how to handle such a scenario?
Ultimately it is all down to balancing everyones needs. It boils down to communicating with the customer, gauging their response to the wine and in the end it may involve adding a "sommeliers discount" to the wine to make it a more reasonable value. There are a few wines on the list that are relative steals because I feel that they just arent shining in the way that they ought to and so Ive underpriced them a bit to compensate. So get shopping, read the list and you might be getting a bargain you werent expecting.

Wine Blog Wednesday 41 - Friuli Wines.

2008-01-16T20:31:00.000Z

For this edition of Wine Blog Wednesday, hosted by Jack and Joanne at Fork and Bottle (http://www.forkandbottle.com/wine/wblogwed/wbw_friuli_white_wines.htm)
I had hoped to find something a bit more exciting to write about than the wine that I eventually settled for. I say settled for, because I couldnt find anything better or more interesting to use, so I went back to the wine Im going to write about as an only resort. Now Italy is something of an achilles heel for me, its a region that Ive never really had much affinity for, and so Ive really struggled to get to know it very well. In the past, Ive never really had the imperative to get to know it, and so it has always languished somewhat in my knowledge, with occasional reminders that I really ought to be doing more about it. Working in Scotland for many years, there was never a great need to study the Italian wines as, surrounded by so many phenominal restaurants (Italian of course!) with amazing wine-lists chock full of the very best Italian wines (because the owner is cousin to.., uncle of.., nephew of... etc etc they are all related!!) there really was no point in even attempting to compete with them. As long as you had the required Chianti, the occasional supertuscan - Sassicaia, Tignanello, Ornellaia, Pergole Torte and perhaps a cheeky wee Orvieto then you had all your bases covered. And so it is that Ive been able to "get away with it" so to speak. Now I want to try and correct that, I need to focus on Italy, certainly if I want to progress further within the Court of Master Sommeliers, and I do, but more importantly because it is a weak area in my knowledge, and my pride in what i do requires that I action that. So I plan to invest some time, lots of money on books - Gamberro Rosso Guide, Vino Italiano (which happens to be the book on this month newly started wine bloggers book club) and Im hoping to track down an old copy of Burton Andersons Wine Atlas of Italy (currently about £150 on Abebooks.co.uk). Call it a new years resolution if you will. Anyway, thats kind of why I was hoping to find something a bit better than the wine Ive ended up with, but despite looking, I failed in my quest, which is why the wine Im going to blog about is: Angoris Pinot Grigio from Isonzo del Fruili.

Now over the last year, Pinot Grigio seems to have been the must drink white wine in the UK. Over 2007 we shifted over 2,000 bottles of the stuff, compared to 4,000 bottles of the "house" white. Ive never really understood the appeal, personally, because I find Pinot Grigio generally to be thin, insipid and just completely lacking, and hence I kind of came to the conclusion that it was drunk by people who felt they ought to be drinking wine, but in actual fact DIDNT LIKE wine. By the time it is chilled down, you are drinking what seems like vaguely alcoholic water. There just isnt any flavour there!! Yet when you compare it to something like an Alsace Pinot Gris they are chalk and cheese - despite being made from the same grape! Now maybe its the fermenting tanks - often huge ancient oak barrels in Alsace compared to huge stainless steel tanks in Italy. Maybe its something else. I dont know for sure, but I know that I just dont get it. But the customers are obviously seeing something Ive maybe missed so heres my chance to give it a shot and see.
The Angoris estate can trace its history back over 300 years. Its original owners were the noble Locatelli family, and over the last three hundred years it has swapped hands three times, lately to the Locatelli family (not sure if they are related) in the late 60's. Their vineyards are quite extensive and the Pinot Grigio comes from vineyards in the heart of the Isonzo del Fruili D.o.C region. A few years ago they changed their packaging to a more streamlined bordeaux style bottle which I must say looks very good. So whats it like? The colour is quite a pale lemon, bright and clear with a watery rim. On the nose there really isnt very much, a hint of light white flowers, some citrus fruit and thats about it. Even at cellar temp the nose doesnt really pick up. On the palate there is more flavour than the aromas, but not much. Again citrus seems quite dominant with lemons and a touch of grapefruit - possibly ruby grapefruit. There isnt much length to the wine, the flavours seem to dissapate very soon, but i guess that is why people tend to scoop it down and drink another bottle!! This wine would retail for about £9, and I think I would be a bit disappointed paying that. I have to say it was a bit better than I had expected it to be, but it hasnt really changed my opinion of Pinot Grigio especially. Perhaps Im being a wine snob, but I really cant see why we sell so much of this, but as long as the customers are loving it, then maybe I am missing something.

Re-opening.

2008-01-10T22:58:00.000Z

The Arkle re-opens tomorrow night after a brief January break. Normally we would be closed for three weeks, but due to the potential refurb in August, they are opening early this January. There is still a lot to do before tomorrow night. I need to reprint the entire wine-list having de-listed something like twenty bins over the festive season. Over the course of January there are another 40 bins to be added to the list as well. And now is the time that I start planning our purchasing for the year as well. I put together a shopping list for the wines that we want to buy come April, assuming weve achieved our fiscal targets, which we seem to be ontrack to doing. So its all guns blazing for now, and we look to have a busy weekend ahead of us.

Three tiers of Burgundy

2008-01-04T19:55:00.000Z

Today I had a cellar tour with two lovely young Americans, over experiencing our city. Friends of Becca's they had come over for a short holiday, and knowing Billy's interest in wine, and the fact that he is about to open up a wine bar in Delaware(?), Becca offered them a cellar tour with me. Having met them the previous evening in Bar Lounge and spent some time chatting to Billy about wine I decided to prepare a small tasting for them. Billy is really knowledgeable about American wines, so I decided to go for something that he probably wont come across too much of over in Delaware - Red Burgundy. I set up a three tier tasting of Burgundy to illustrate a little bit the diversity of the region and the three tiers of "quality" - Village wine, Premier Cru and Grand Cru.

Tier One - Village wine - Pierre Bouree Gevrey Chambertin 2005.
I first tasted this when I went to Vallet freres for the harvest in 2006. Bernard took us round the cellars and this was one of the wines tasted from barrels. Yields were quite low that year and the quality was good. The wine was young, quite richly flavoured with dark red fruit some greenness around the edge and the tannins were quite agressive still. Vallet tend to ferment with whole stalks and favour manual pigeage upto twice a day for the first ten days. They have some good holdings in Gevrey, including a monopole vineyard - the Clos de la Justice. Good wine, bit young, will develop quite nicely.

Tier Two - Premier Cru - Domaine de l'Arlot, Nuits St Georges, Cuvee Jeaune Vignes du Clos des Forets St Georges 1er Cru 1993.
Becca's favourite - this is much more mature - the rim has started to develop the brick red colours while the core of the wine still maintains its purple quality. On the nose it is softer, more soft red fruit flavours with quite a defined earthyness and a touch of animal like character. There are more defined layers to this wine, each sniff brings something else, each mouthful brings more flavour. I have to say I really really like this wine. Considering that it comes from the younger vines, Id love to taste the straight Clos des Forets next to it, to get an idea of the difference that a more mature vine can make.

Top Tier - Domaine Drouhin-Laroze, Musigny Grand Cru 1997.
Mine and Billy's Favourite. Not quite as mature as the Nuits, but definately much more going on in the wine. This takes more getting into, and it didnt really help that it was served at cellar temp. This was the wine we served at NYE with the main course and the feedback then was amazing. It showed a huge amount of bottle variation on NYE, each of the dozen bottles opened showing differently. This one had a much more feral character than either of the two other wines, the fruit seemingly hidden under several layers. There is a slightly smokey touch to this wine, and a much earthier nose - black compost type of aroma. But once the smokyness dies down, then the fruit is more prominent. There is definately a flavour of dark cherries there, but also a good dose of tobacco, aged tobacco particularly. Im totally loving this wine, although I think it would definately benefit from a) a few more years cellarage b) something to eat with it!!.

So that pretty much covered the tasting.

A year in wine pt1

2008-01-02T19:38:00.000Z

With xmas approaching quickly, then hogmanay I thought i would have a quick look back at some of the wines that have made their mark on me this year. About this time of the year Tom Cannavan has his readers picks of 2007, where visitors to his site (http://www.wine-pages.com/) pick the wines that made 2007 memorable for them. Ive submitted my wines and Tom tells me he's hoping to have them online by the 2nd or 3rd of January. Its quite hard to look back on twelve months and pick out just eight wines. So I thought that I would have a look back on the year from my perspective and trace some of the memorable moments.

Duds - its been quite a heavy year for dud wines here. Partly that is due to the fact that after having new racking fitted we brought about two hundred bins onto the wine-list, wines that we had sitting in our holding stores until it was ready. As we were soon to discover, with many of them we had held them too long. Weve lost something in the region of £3k worth of wines this year, a huge value, that comes straight off the bottom line. Of those a good few were to TCA, but in many cases, especially the older white burgs, it was oxidation that was the cause of destruction. A situation that was highlighted earlier in the year by Clive Coates in an article in Decanter magazine. We were especially hard hit it top end whites from the late eighties to nineties, from names such as Sauzet, Ramonet, Blain-Gagnard, Tollot-Beaut, Chanson, Leflaive, Chavy, Rollin the list goes on. It hurt, to see wines that really ought to be in their prime, completely bolloxed.
Other noteworthy duds include an 81 Petrus - lifeless and dull, two magnums of Drouhin-Laroze Bonnes Mares 1990 - damned corks had fallen into the bottle and only a horrendous plug of mould was preventing the wine from leaking out. The corks subsequently were extracted from the bottles and found to have shrivelled up to the width of a large crayon.

Highlights - many many highlights this year. It has been a year of some truly great wines. A 96 Henschke Hill of Grace tasted at Pacos leaving do, a xmas gift from Mr B. A 1986 Dujac Chambolle outstandingly soft and elegant, with vibrant soft red fruit on the nose. So many different bottles of DRC - La Tache 88, Richebourg 88 tasted together, La Tache 98 and Romanee St Vivant 98 also tasted together, and numerous bottles in between. Some cracking clarets too - including a stunning 85 Forts de Latour, second wine of Chateau Latour which has been cross posted to Chateau Petrogasm!!

Fizz - weve had quite an interesting year with Fizz this year. In January we formally ended our 18 year relationship with Ruinart when Taittinger became our new house champagne. The changeover was difficult for customers and staff alike, Ruinart Rose was a hard act to follow, and now a year after the change we still get comments lamenting the Rose being changed. The Brut has however been quite well recieved. We had several successful gourmet dinners focussing on Fizz, starting with the grower fizz dinner at the beginning of the year which turned out very well, Taittinger was "introduced" at their first gourmet as our house pour in September and we finished with de Venoge, a dinner that was excellent, the wines were amazing and the response was amongst the most positive we have recieved! In a somewhat ironic twist it turns out that de Venoge was the house champagne 20+ years ago when Mr Slater first came to the Grosvenor.

Sweeties and Stickies - its been a bit of a poor year really in dessert wines. Sales dipped off quite drastically over the summer, and while they have recouped slightly, they are no-where near what they used to be. However what we seem to have lost out in dessert wine sales, has been recouped in Port sales, a category that seems to have had a small revival. We have tanned though half a dozen cases of vintage ports in the last few months, including a rather tasty 1994 Quinta do Noval. But using all of that has allowed me to bring out the 1997 Quinta do Vesuvio, which I got to try for the first time a few weeks ago - majorly delicious!!! And yes it is a touch young, but after a nights rest in a decanter it is marvelous, besides Im only bringing out one case for now, the other three can have a few more years in the cellar.

les jardins de babylon, jurancon moelleux par didier dagueneau.

2007-12-26T22:26:00.000Z

Ive been saving this one for a while, since it was given to me by mr b earlier in the year. The bottle looks amazing, its 500ml with a label of what looks like a llama in mosaic. The nose is amazing honeyed with tropical fruit and quite a floral finish. The palate is rich, incredibly luscious again honeyed very sweet. It has great length the flavours growing in the mouth. Very very good.

Wine Blog Wednesday 40 - Petite Sirah

2007-12-12T22:17:00.000Z

I had to do some real digging to be able to participate in this edition. Sonadora of Wannabe Wino has chosen a corker of a theme, and the wine Ive chosen to represent the theme today is a particularly special wine for me. Sonadora's theme is Petite Sirah (Syrah or however else it is usually spelt) and her post detailing the theme can be found at http://wannabewino.blogspot.com/2007/11/announcing-wine-blogging-wednesday-40.html

The wine Ive chosen is one that I came across almost by accident many years ago. I was trawling through a broking list, as was my want at the time, in order to find little parcels of obscure wines to flesh out my wine-list. I came across a case of six bottles of Ridge Vineyards York Creek Petite Sirah. Now I had read a lot about Ridge in the American wine magazines that I had taken to buying in order to expand my knowledge of wines. I knew that they were famous for their Zinfandels - notably the Geyserville and Lytton Springs (ok I know technically they are vineyard blends comprised mostly of Zin with a few other grapes chucked in for good measure). So here was something completely new to me, and the likelyhood was that it was something relatively unknown. It was! From that first small parcel I fell in love with Ridge Vineyards wines, from the Dynamite Creek to the Santa Cruz, Lytton to the Independance School, Geyserville to the Bridgehead, the names and the grapes just entranced me - zinfandel, carignane, mataro, petite sirah, grenache, cabernet franc, petit verdot and of course cab sauv and chardonnay. From their utalitarian labels, brimming with information, harvest details, location of the vineyards, residual sugar levels, acidity levels etc etc. Not that they were easy to get, I had to content myself with buying from brokers selling small parcels, often grey market stock - european mainly. I also had my first humbling moment as a sommelier with a Ridge wine. I had only been a commis sommelier for about three weeks, and it was my first week flying solo after the departure of the head sommelier. We had a regular guest at the restaurant come in with a party of ten, celebrating a family birthday. He asked me several questions about the Lytton Springs we had on the list, and rather foolishly I tried to bluff the answers. Turned out he knew the answers to the questions and it was a form of initiation, a way of him "measuring" me. I failed miserably, and then spend the whole evening on the back foot, desperately trying to get back on top of the situation. But it taught me an important lesson, not to try and bullshit the customer. Now if I get a tough question I dont know the answer too, I 'fess up and usually avoid any aggro. Then the first opportunity I get I make sure that I find out the answer. The next time that I saw Mr R booked in, I made sure that I studied all about the Ridge Lytton Springs and the Geyserville and several other wines that I had heard him talking about during his last visit. It took me months of effort, but in the end I won him around, and once I figured out his weakness (he was an avid parker point chaser) then I gained control of the relationship and started steering his choices towards the latest 97 point + wines.

Anyways as usual I digress. The wine that Ive chosen is my last bottle of Ridge York Creek Petite Sirah 1995. I was kind of dubious about its durability, but reading the back label, it seems that Paul Draper felt it would benefit from 5-10 years of further development when it was bottled in 1997. So it is now 10 years since it was bottled and if PD's notes were correct then this ought to be at the peak of its life. Reading the notes further it seems that 95 was a challenging year. Unseasonal weather during spring delayed the onset of growth in the vines and when the vines were eventually in bloom rainstorms seriously reduced the yields by damaging the flowers. The end result was a significantly reduced yield (1-2 tons/acre compared to at least twice that), but as we all know that usually in that situation the vine seems to make up for the reduced yield by producing exceptionally concentrated fruit. Long periods of warm summer weather culminated in one of the latest harvests recorded at Ridge with the final blocks of fruit coming in on the 16th November. The wines are usually fermented by block with a portion of the fruit undergoing whole berry fermentation to add fruit character to the wines. The rest are fermented under the cap of grape skins with the juice being pumped over twice daily to extract tannins and flavour without the excessively bitter tannins often found in the seeds. Then it goes into american oak for about a year and a half aging, about 20% into new oak. Paul Drapers tasting note concludes that the wine exhibits an intense berry fruit character with typical black pepper flavours.

So what is it like now? The colour is a deep purple core with a rim that has definate browning, reddening to it. On the nose the aromas are quite well mixed, the berry fruits still quite evident but with more mature aromas too. There is blackberry and an almost plum like aroma with licoriceroot and almost cocoa flavours mixed in there. There is also quite a feral character - not quite leather but some form of animal hide like aroma, slightly smoky and a touch spicy - perhaps cloves and other exotic middle eastern spices. On the palate the black pepper character seems to be more obvious, but the main elements are the fruit flavours - black plums and brambles with coconutty oak character and a touch of tobacco - think aged cuban cigar. The finish carries a slightly smoky edge which if im honest im not too keen on, and there seems to be something almost "dirty" at the end, slightly fungal/foresty/black soil like. But apart from that it is absolutely bloody amazing wine, the tragedy is that this represents my last bottle of the Ridge "obscure" varietal wines that I love so much. My last bottle of the Bridgehead Mataro was consummed some years ago, and they ripped it all up due to viral contamination, so it is never to be replaced. I havent seen the York Creek Petite Sirah on the UK market for a number of years now, it seems they are playing safe over here with the two "Zins" and the frankly disappointing Monte Bello. Ive been trying to get hold of some of their ATP wines for a number of years, but they just dont have enough to spare. We actually did a Ridge Gourmet a couple of years ago, and while the Zins and the Chardonnay were amazing, the biggest disappointment was the Monte Bello which was an anticlimax after all Ive heard about it. For me Ridge will always be about the underdog, the obscure varieties that made me fall in love with their wines. I just hope that I can find some more to keep up the magic.

Short and Sweet.

2007-12-08T17:54:00.000Z

For the next three weeks, Im going to try and keep posting, but they are going to have to be short and sweet, as were quite busy. Very busy, very very busy. In fact theres a million other things I ought to be doing instead of this. Like the orders, updating the wine-list to remove all the amazing wines weve finished over the last three days, changing the cognac list to remove the 1810 and 1802 cognacs that weve finished over the last few days, so gotta dash, and I promise I will try and post more.

Les Forts de Latour 1985

2007-12-08T17:21:00.000Z

Les forts is the second wine of Chateau Latour, and its a wine Ive always wanted to try. Its pretty difficult to get hold of, presumable a dual issue of quantity released (small) and demand (high), but I managed to grab two bottles from a broking list earlier this year when I got a bit of money to spend on mature claret.

The colour was fantastic - cerise turning brick red, with a lovely reddish-brown rim. On the nose the aroma that stood out for me was one of smoked red peppers - think Tex-mex food. Not one that I was expecting at all, especially from a decent claret. But the flavours were wonderful. Soft and elegant red fruit character with elegant soft tannins, finely woven flavours of oak - tobacco and hints of bourbon vanilla. The finish was exceptionally long and seemed to add different elements to the flavours. It wasnt cheap - its listed at £255 a bottle on the list, which isnt much more that what I paid for it, but I feel it was worth every penny and more. Next year Im going to try and hunt down some more!

(Image from Joy from Cooking blog - http://megpug.blogspot.com/)

In a homage to Chateau Petrogasm this is the image that I reckon would sum up the dish.

Les Grands Vins de Bourgogne - Gourmet Dinner

2007-12-06T18:39:00.000Z

Last night was the finale to the 2007 Gourmet calendar our Burgundy Dinner. Ive been anxiously anticipating this event for a while now, and apart from a few traumas with numbers the preparation seemed to go quite smoothly. We ended up with 51 covers last night, which if memory serves me equals our largest gourmet to date the Krug Dinner we did back in 2005. Last night did however set two new records - most numbers of glasses on the table per setting (seven per person) and latest finish (2:30am).

We started the evening with a champagne, after all at £210 per person we couldnt really expect everyone to drink Cremant de Bourgogne!! Keeping with the Burgundian theme however we started with Jacques Selosse Initiale NV. Winemaker Anselme Selosse trained in Burgundy and he has brought the style and techniques of Burgundy to Champagne. A fervent believer in Terrior and practicing Biodynamic agriculture Anselme vinifies each of his grand cru vineyards seperately in small oak barriques. Weekly battonage and malo-lactic fermentation give the wines a richness of character and depth of flavour almost unknown in champagne. These are almost like sparkling Montrachets!! Needless to say the rich style of his wines isnt to everyones palate and some folks found it a challenge - particularly those fans of more pinot dominated champagnes. We got the last 18 bottles of this, and now have to wait until next year for some more!!

The first course wine was a Meursault-Charmes from Domaine Roulot. Now I'll confess that Im not the biggest fan of Meursault. Im not keen on the floral, perfume character that some meursault has. This wine showed huge bottle variation, so much so that we had to do a cheeky little "assemblage" with some of the bottles to try and even it out a little. It was also quite reductive, with a slightly cheesey aroma (they're squeezy, they're cheesey theyre squeezy cheesy peas.)But the decanting seemed to take care of that and the result was quite a nutty style, almost approaching a Puligny style of white. Roulots holdings are at the Puligny end of Meursault so perhaps there is something in that. The wine was paired with an artichoke veloute (aka wine-killer soup) with smoked flaked cod. It actually worked quite well, although the wine wasnt that popular with about 40% of the room.

The intermediate was a paella of rabbit with clams and chorizo and that was paired with Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet "Clavoillons" 2002. OMG a match made in heaven. The puligny was divine - rich buttery nose with a soft vanilla aroma, reminding me of my grannys victoria sponge mix! The feedback was fantastic, it seemed that everyone loved this wine.

Main course was paired with Jean-Jacques Confurons Clos Vougeot 1999. Out of a case of twelve we had one casualty to TCA, the third lost bottle of the night (three more to come!!). This was fabulous - rich in fruit with an understated earthyness, fine tannins and an elegant finish. This wine became the star of the night, everyone raved about it.

The main attraction was served with the cheese course - two different Domaine de la Romanee Conti wines - both from the same vintage. The first was a Romanee-St-Vivant - elegant and feminine in style it was slightly shy to start slowly giving up its fruit to reveal soft graceful berry flavours with none of the earthyness of the more masculine DRC's. The acidity seemed to be sharper and more defined and the tannins were very smooth and understated. The second was a bit more brutish - La Tache - big earthy notes with more defined oak structure to the flavours with the black cherry flavours coming out towards the end, almost like a black forest gateaux. It was a shame that we were only able to serve a mere mouthful as I had six bottles of each wine to pour over 50 people. But the opportunity to taste such wines comes up so infrequently and to be able to taste two different wines side by side is even rarer so I dont think the guests begrudged us the size of the measures.

We had to cheat a bit at the end, as we struggled to source a dessert style wine from Burgundy. I know there are a few late harvest chardonnays, mainly from the Maconnais but I was unable to secure a sample, much less the quantity we desired, and bearing in mind the price of the evening, we felt it might be best to chuck in a cheeky wee Sauternes to finish the night off. Last year we got such a good response to the Chateau Coutet at the Moutnon dinner that I thought, why not get Coutet on again, however this time we went for a younger vintage 2001. H, the pastry chef came up with an excellent Mandarin based dessert which was divine with the wine.

And that was it, the end of 2007 Gourmet calendar. All we had to do was to wash and polish 357 Riedel Cristal glasses, by hand and we could go home. By 2am the final glasses were being polished and re-boxed until next time, and then what had been a long, but very satisfying day had come to an end. The feedback has been great, and now Ive got to come up with an idea to end next years calendar on an even bigger high. Suggestions on a postcard please!!

WBW 39 Silver Burgundy

2007-11-16T18:14:00.000Z

Im a bit behind on this posting, so Im going to keep it short and sweet. The wine is a Givry from a producer that Ive had an affinity for, for a while now, Jean-Marc Boillot. Boillot used to be the winemaker at Olivier Leflaive, and being the grandson of Ettiene Sauzet to boot, you just know theres good pedigree there. Its a 96 which is starting to give me some cause for concern, the attrition rate on this wine is now upto one in three bottles which means that Im losing a third of the stock. But those bottles that arent oxidised beyond salvage are showing marvelous nutty character with rich buttery flavours and a stoney fruit character that is edging on the sultana. The wine is getting a touch flabby, well it is 11 years old, and I think the oak flavours are now starting to appear out of balance, but with the right dish, this is a lovely wine, and its not going to break the bank either. Currently sitting on our winelist at £33 thats not bad going when you think that Im losing one bottle in every three I open.

Thanks to the Brooklyn Guy for the great topic http://brooklynguyloveswine.blogspot.com/2007/10/wbw-39-announced-silver-burgundy.html
and Im looking forward to reading what others have found.

Its not the winning its the taking part that counts.

2007-11-15T15:35:00.000Z

Without sounding too cliched and patronising, that was how I felt on Tuesday night at the first Hotel Catey awards dinner down in London. I had been nominated for an award in the Food and Beverage service category, so I was down in the big smoke for a swanky dinner at a posh hotel with the better half in tow. After a few dramas trying to secure a room for the night (turns out London is fully booked this week with World Travel Market going on at Excell) we had managed to get a room organised at the Hilton Metropole on Edgeware Road. I got dressed up in my kilt, the wife looked fabulous in a black cocktail dress and we set off to meet Penta at the Hilton Park Lane where the Awards were being held in the Grand Ballroom. There were more than 600 people there, packed like sardines into the foyer slurping on Taittinger Champagne until the troupe of toastmasters called us through to dinner. After a lovely dinner the entertainment started with a Two Ronnies style newsketch with David Morgan-Hewitt from the Goring and Peter Hancock of Pride of Britain. They were very funny, although the joke about JWS seemed to fall a bit flat. After a short comfort break, Ardal o'Hanlon came on to compere the evening.

When it came to my category, my stomach was turning somersaults, i didnt expect to win, lets face it John Campbell got his second star this year, but I was still nervous. In the end I was right about who won, but Im happy that I got through to the last four. Worrying over it was time to get pished!! Which we did remarkable well actually, I dont have much recollection of the end of the evening, although I do remember chatting to Andrew Mackenzie of the Vineyard at Stockcross and Johnnie Walker, ex Andrew Fairlies and now the head wine buyer for the Malmaison Group. We even bumped into Justin Llewelyn, Mr Taittinger who is always good for a laugh.

I had a great time and am grateful to all those who put me forward and endorsed my nomination. And in the words of Mrs B, my hovercraft is indeed full of eels.

A Pair of 88's.

2007-11-11T02:40:00.000Z

When you boil it down to simplistic terms, then virtually nothing separates them. The occupy the same commune of Flagy-Echezeaux, The same viticulturalist, winemaker, facilities, everything. Admittedly between them lies the vineyards of La Grand Rue (monopole of Francois Lamarche) and La Romanee Conti, but one is La Tache, and the other is Richebourg, the domaine is Domaine de la Romanee Conti and the vintage is 88. Tasted as a pair sold to Mr B, one of our favourite regulars.

The 88 Richebourg was opened first. When I plucked them from the cellar, it was quite noticeable how thinner the bottle was compared to the more current releases. The wine itself had a tighter nose than I was expecting for the age of it, the fruit was quite shy at first, but thinking about it, it was possibly due to the temp as much as the wine, after all winter is drawing in, and the cellar temp is closer to 12degrees now. Once the fruit started showing it was restrained, under-ripe raspberries and berry fruits, with hardly any other aromas to show. On the palate it was green, very tight and mouth puckeringly sour to start with, but it soon loosened up a bit and the berry fruit flavours became a bit more defined. I was quite surprised by the tightness of the wine, after all it's nearly out of its teens, I guess I was expecting more earthy notes, leathery, tobacco etc. Considering the price (even the cost price never mind the list price!) I was expecting more wow, but what I got was probably more [meh] than anything else.

Onto bottle number two. Expectations considerably lowered by the experience of bottle number one, I was blown away by this bottle. The nose hit you the minute the cork left the bottle, ripe wild strawberries with black earth, tobacco and a touch of mushroom woodyness. Fan-bloody-tastic!!! The colour was remarkable clear, although there was a fine suspension starting to show, the rim a glorious brick red colour against a cerise core. On the palate it was elegant, soft supple tannins gliding across the flavours of strawberries and raspberry. Divine. Needless to say this bottle got served second, in order to lift the first one.

Were doing another vertical of DRC on the upcoming Burgundy dinner on the 5th December with a pair of 98's Romanee St Vivant and La Tache. I pray that the 98 La Tache is halfway as good as the 88, and the night ought to be a winner.

Speaking of winners, Im off down to London on Tuesday for the Hotel Cateys Awards dinner, where Im in the running for an award under the Food and Beverage Service Category. Im up against some good competition, so we shall have to see how I fare, but I understand that there were over a hundred nominations in that category, and I made it to the final four, so thats a massive achievement in itself.

Domaine A - Tasting Tazzie!

2007-11-10T00:56:00.000Z

One of my favourite account managers dropped in to see me the other day with the export sales manager from Domaine A wines. Domaine A are based in Campania Tasmania. Now just now Tazzie has got some seriously good ju-ju, getting loads of good press from the likes of James Halliday as the region to look out for. Go back about five years or more and the only Tazzie wine you would find would be Pipers Brook, which under the stewardship of Dr Andrew Pirie produced some cracking wines, including an eponymous sparkler which was fantastic. Now Pirie has moved on to new pastures in Tasmania, but loads of new wineries are now available in the UK, the likes of Tamar Ridge, Ninth island (2nd wine of Pipers), Devils Corner, Pirie, Jansz, Bay of Fires and of course Domaine A.

Now Id been fortunate enough to taste the Lady A Fume Blanc from Domaine A a few months earlier with Noel. Somehow he had been sent a sample bottle (considering that the UK allocation is about ten cases (of six) samples are exceptionally rare!!) and diamond geezer that he is, he wanted to taste it with me. Now Id hate to have this wine in a blind tasting, because Id swear blind it was Bordeaux Blanc, and good bordeaux blanc at that. Which is kind of amazing really, because apparently it was "created" to be in the style of Pavillion Blanc, which the owner Mme Althaus adores. The nose just doesnt present like a new world wine at all, the fruit is restrained, in balance with the flavours of the oak, a touch of smokyness, richness that just grows in the glass. The wine has complexity, many different layers that slowly reveal themselves over time. This is a wine to enjoy slowly, with food, and great friends. It is also best enjoyed at cellar temp, not chilled to death!! Were it now for the fact that the wine has only been made for about five or six vintages it would probably be in the top ten wines in the Langtons Classification, which is Australias premier classification for wines.

Paul also brought along a couple of reds to show us. We tasted the 2003 Pinot first. Again I would have hated to get this in a blind tasting. Morello cherries with a touch of spice competing with eucalyptus notes would probably steered me to barossa shiraz, all that was missing was the black pepper. This is a big pinot, quite weighty, but bloody good, if a little bit on the scary expensive side. Next up we tasted two different vintages of the Cabernet. First up was the 98, brambles and tobacco, very slight hints of eucalypt, but not as dominant. The wine was a deep purple colour, with the rim showing no discernable signs of maturity. I couldnt believe this was the 98, the nose was so fresh, vibrant, and on the palate it was the same. The fruit was vigorous, vibrant so fresh. It seemed so young. The 2000 had more black fruit character, and a touch more eucalypt on the nose, although the seamless integration of fruit and oak seemed to blank out the menthol characters on the palate. The wine is aged in 100% new french oak, which is bloody expensive in Oz. That quite possibly contributes to the scary prices, which puts them into the top end of double figures, barely scraping away from three figures on the wine-list. But if someone asked me, I would wholeheartedly say they were worth it.

Im hoping to do a gourmet dinner with Paul next year and showcase the wines of Domaine A, because they are fantastically good, and I get the feeling that in years to come they will be considerably harder to get, as their popularity grows. Danny was so impressed with the white that in the three days since the tasting he has gone and sold four bottles. Ive only got two left, and if I beg I might be able to get another six!! That will have to do me until next year!!

de Venoge Gourmet evening.

2007-11-07T10:27:00.000Z

Last night I was delighted to have Eric Maillot from de Venoge champagne come and present his wines to our gourmet evening. We had a great turnout of new faces and some old friends, and a great time was had by all.

I was fortunate enough to be taken out to de Venoge by Ed from Boutinot in my first year here at the Grosvenor, and it was a very enjoyable two days. We drove over from Paris having flown there from Liverpool. Once there we were given a tour of the cellars by Eric, and a practical demonstration of how they used to disgorge the wines in the olden days. Eric disgorged a bottle of 1978 which we then tasted sans dosage. From what I can remember it was amazingly fresh, with strong autolytic character - bread, digestive biscuit notes, very austere, bone dry but still fairly acidic. We all felt that it would have been better with some dosage. I then was given the opportunity to disgorge a bottle, which I think I did quite well actually!! We were then all given a taste and asked if we thought it was younger or older than the 78. I was the only one to say older, which it was, and it turned out to be a 71, my birthyear!! So when I was planning the dinner, I wanted to show the 71, but alas they only had a few bottles, not enough to serve 45 people. I found out last night, that this is probably the last time anyone will get the chance to taste the 78 now as de Venoge has so little left, they will reserve it for themselves.

So we started the evening with de Venoge Cordon Bleu served from Jeroboam and magnums. I had hoped to serve the whole aperitif from Jero's but we couldnt secure enough to do it, so we had three jeros and four mags. There was a slight taste difference between the jeros and mags, the mags had a slightly smokier, flinty edge to them, whereas the jeros seemed much more rounded and elegant. Eric felt it was possibly that as the larger bottles sell less frequently they tend to have a longer cellar age on them, meaning that the base vintage would have been older as well. This was unanimously enjoyed by everyone, and I think it was the only wine everyone liked.

First course was paired with the 2000 Blanc de Blancs, 100% Chardonnay. I quite liked this one, crisp green apples (granny smiths) with slight yeasty flavours showing, very fresh with crisp acidity and clean finish. Very good.

We served their new cuvee the Louis XV for the intermediate course. This wine replaced the Grand Vins des Princes. It is named in honour of Louis XV who decreed that only the wines from Champagne may be transported in bottles, effectively creating the opportunity to make the wines sparkling. Without his decree, Dom Ruinart and Perignon would never have been able to make their innovations and champagne as we know it may never have existed. The wine is bottled in a clear decanter shaped bottle, that came about when Joseph de Venoge wanted something special to present his wines in when he was entertaining guests. The wine itself was a golden amber colour with a rich honeyed nose, very reminiscent of a good white burgundy - a nutty beurre noisette kind of aroma. I think this was one of the best wines of the night, it should have gone really well with the lacquered ribs with five spice and steamed scallop with shoots and sesame.

We poured a 92 Latricieres from Drouhin Laroze for the main, because the boss likes to have some red, and it kind of breaks up the champagnes a bit.

The cheese course was paired with magnums of 1978 Blanc de Blancs. Very very arid, steely dry with a slightly smoky nose and sharp citrus notes on the palate. The dosage worked out at just less than 1g per litre, very very dry, but with the taleggio, salami and truffle "pizza" it worked exceptionally well, even if the cheese reeked to high heavens (I had to leave the restaurant it smelt so bad!!).

The night drew to a close with the NV Rose with dessert, an ile flotant (floating island) - vanilla poached meringue with lemon posset and raspberries. YUM!!

An enjoyable night was had by all, and Eric and Ed managed to charm their way round the room. Talking to guests the next morning, I think its fair to say that de Venoge has a few more fans!!

Today I am mostly brain dead.

2007-11-07T10:24:00.000Z

After a mammoth 17 hour shift yesterday, and a craptastic five hours of sleep I am in a state of zombie today wandering around trying to remember what it is that I am doing. If I can stay awake long enough Im going to post a few tasting notes from last nights de Venoge champagne gourmet evening. The wines were spot on last night and chef's menu really worked well with the wines, everyone was very very happy last night.

Nuits St Georges "Cuvee Jeune Vignes de Clos de Forets" Premier Cru 1993

2007-11-03T23:22:00.000Z

Tasted at Corks Out on Thursday as part of our newly formed wine club. The wine had a slight haze to it, hardly surprising as it had been bounced around on the walk down to Corks out, and Domaine de l'Arlot dont filter or fine their wines. The core was a deep ruby red colour with the rim showing signs of maturation as the colour was more brown than red. On the nose it was a bit tight at first, opening out to a classic red burgundy nose - earth, forest floor, morello cherry, a touch of soft red berries and generous hints of tobacco. On the palate it was smooth, with fine tannins, still holding firm, surprisingly still with good acidity, and more youthful than it ought to be. Nigel and Peter were both suitably impressed, as they ought to be!!

Our next meeting is on the 20th November and the theme is Piedmont wines. Must get searching.

For £700 it ought to be better than "Yes its ok"

2007-11-03T22:54:00.000Z

Danny was in an ultra-motivated mood yesterday, which was great. All we had to do was aim him at a customer and then fire him off, and he went off like an exocet wallet seeking missile. The first table to fall prey to this was Table 1, a random looking couple, in their mid to late fifties. The guy asks Danny if theres anything interesting in Pomerol he knows. Danny being who he is, naturally dives straight into Petrus ( I must teach him about la Conseillante and Le Pin!!), and persuades the geezer to go for an 81 Petrus at £700 a bottle.

Now the price seems quite low (for Petrus), and really its because 81 wasnt a great vintage, some communes seemed to fare better than others, Pomerol being one of those. But having said that, Im beginning to think that this wine has seen better days. The nose had quite profound aromas of tobacco, mushroomy earth then I started to sense the dark stone fruit aromas, slightly figgy, plums almost prunes and a faint hint of dates - sticky toffee pudding without the caramel. On the palate the flavours followed pretty much the aroma profile with less fruit seemingly evident than i was expecting. If Id forked out £700 for this, I think I would be quite disappointed, Id be wanting "WOW!, OMG!" not "Its ok". But you see here lies one of my dilemmas. This could be a fluke, a dud bottle that just hasnt kept, and my last bottle could be outstanding. There is just no way to tell until you pull the cork

Finding inspiration

2007-11-01T17:46:00.000Z

Ive not been posting as much as I would like to recently, and part of the reason is down to time. In the past I always used to blog at the end of a shift. Call it venting, therapy whatever, but it used to let me get my shit together before i went home, and i always found it gave me a better nights sleep. When I used to work at Gleneagles I found the drive home did the same thing. Considering that I lived in Glasgow, 51 miles away, I had about 35-40 minutes of drive to clear my head of work and get back into civilian life. It meant that I didnt have work thoughts in my head when I went to bed, and usually meant that I got a better nights kip.
When I started the blog, I was using it as a replacement for the drive, by writing the stuff down, it got it out of my head and meant when I got home I could go to bed without all this stuff going round my brain. It let me clear some frustrations from the previous shift, which more than once got me into hot water with the boss(es). I learnt to temper down what i vented a bit, saving it as a draft and revisiting it the next morning to tone it down some. But I also used it to try and help me remember those wines I felt ought to be remembered. I was tasting anything upto twenty wines in a night, and some were worthy of further attention, so I blogged them. But now Im tasting much less that I was, and im finding it harder to get the inspiration nevermind the time to post. Tonight Im off to the first meeting of a wine "club" that Peter from Corks Out and I are hoping to get off the ground in Chester. A gathering of a bunch of guys and hopefully a few girls too, who are interested in wine, probably work with wine and want to taste some good wines in a friendly, peer group scenario. Im taking a "probably" knackered old bin-end Nuits along, so hopefully I will get a chance to post about it later.

James and Oz big wine adventure

2007-10-17T11:58:00.000Z

One advantage of my new working hours is that I get to actually watch many of the programs that customers used to talk to me about. One such program is the new series of James & Oz's wine adventures, this time set in the sunny climes of California. I only got to see one episode of the first series, set in France, but I quite liked what I saw. I also enjoyed last nights episode and will be sure to watch the whole series.

Judging Waiters

2007-10-15T21:01:00.000Z

Ive just got back from London where Ive been judging the finals of the young waiter young chef competition. It was quite an amazing experience really, and I was only judging!! I cant imagine the feeling of the contestants, who, judging by the number of shaking hands, were quite nervous at the start of the event.

Organised by Jeremy Rata, ex Devonshire Arms and now ensconsed at the DeVere Brighton Grand, and Stephen Mannock from Darlington College, the event comprised of a whole days testing, split into two parts. Part one took place in the morning and consisted of a series of interviews and tasks such as correcting mistakes on a menu, and a wine list, an interview with Peter Birnie, Chief Inspector for the AA and Joe Durrant the last winner of the event. The afternoon portion of the competition was a practical event. The competitors had been paired with a chef, who had compiled a menu based on a basket of known ingredients, and then a mystery basket to be given on the day. So by liaising with the chef, the waiters had to get an understanding of the menu they would be serving to their table. They had to lay up their table using their choice of materials to hand and including their own floral centre-piece. Then their guests arrived and they had the task of serving them pre-lunch drinks and canapes then bringing them through to their tables and serving their lunch and wines. We were to judge them on a variety of tasks and criteria and award them a score of 1 to 4, one being poor, two being the average, three being a bit beyond average and four being excellent.

As we did this, I can to think about how I am judged by customers on a daily basis. What criteria do they measure me by? I find it especially pertinent just now, as Im up for a Hotel Catey for Food and Wine Service. Now Im not sure how they determine who will win, and by what criteria it is assessed. Now the assessments have probably already taken place, I find out at the award ceremony on the 13th November if I win (fingers crossed!!).

In an effort to ensure impartiality and to try and create and even scoring system, each judge was allocated one waiter. They were then paired up with the idea being that each judge would cross-reference their scoring with their partner and try to reach concensus. Then each pair would cross-reference with their neighbouring pair and so on. The eventual result was that we were pretty much all scoring in the same way. So at the end of the event we all sat down and discussed out scoring and three winners emerged. The eventual winner was pretty much clear winner - his score was a good few points ahead of the rest. The number two scoring candidate was felt, while they were technically good, there was just something missing from their service, it was clinical and lacking in personality, whereas the third scoring candidate had a much more personable style of service and we all felt we would much rather be served by number three than number two, so we switched their positions around.

So it was an enjoyable day, and I think i was quite surprised to look back on it and think that I actually learnt a few things that day myself, besides which it was a great networking experience.

After Paco, where we are now.

2007-10-13T22:44:00.000Z

Its been nearly six months since Paco left. Hard to believe, so much seems to have happened since then. The place is almost unrecognisable now, we've re-arranged the furniture in the Library, the table layout has changed in the restaurant, the staff are all different, and many of the regulars have now gone elsewhere. About a month ago our new manager Mark started, and he seems to be settling in quite well. The honeymoon period is over and the pressure is now on to meet various challenges we face going into the second half of the financial year. Obviously with chrimbo coming up we are getting busier and busier, and its kind of scary to think that in 73 days time, father xmas will be magically coming down our chimneys and leavings tons of loot under our trees. Then six days after that, its hogmanay, time to get absolutely trolleyed on bubbles (and thats just the staff Im talking about!!!) before snogging the arse off some random stranger on the dancefloor (I wish!!).

Pacos coming back in a couple of weeks to visit us, the hotel closes for a couple of weeks for a short holiday, so it will be good to see him again, as well as Greg and Anna. I wonder what they will think of the changes?

Wine Blog Wednesday 38 - Portugal.

2007-10-11T09:08:00.000Z

My how quickly a month goes by. So much has happened in the last month, that my posting rate has declined slightly, but Im going to try and post more frequently this month. What better way to start than with our monthly on-line festival of wine that is Wine Blog Wednesday.

Ryan and Gabrielle Opaz of Catavino have selected a theme, that is very close to their hearts, vineously and of course geographically. I really like the geography themed WBW because they encourage us to explore new regions and Im sure in many cases unfamilar regions. Now most peoples experience of Portugese wines will be limited to the occasional glass of port after dinner (and many of them will consequently blame the horrendous hangover the following morning to that single glass of port!!).

The wine Ive selected for this WBW is Quinta dos Roques Reserva 1999 from Dao. Its a Denominacao de Origem Controlada, which is the highest quality rating in Portugal. Quinta dos Roques is a relatively new estate, the vineyards were replanted in the 80's and they made their own wine from then. It is a curious blend of traditional grapes and wines, made in a modern winery, to a fairly modern style. Ive always considered the wines of Portugal to be very rustic, more food orientated than drinking on their own kind of wines, but I think that reflects the whole cultural impact of wine and cuisine that you find on the continent, and that seems to be missing from the new world.

The Reserva is a blend (as it would seem most Portugese reds are), predominantly Touriga Nacional, with a bit of Tinta Roriz and Tinta Cao, some Alfrocheiro and a dash of Jaen. All thats missing is the high alcohol content and it could probably pass off as a half decent port! The fruit comes from a single vineyard, the Peach Tree (Pessegueiro) vineyard. It spent about 14 months in barrel before being bottled.

On the nose it has spicy dark fruit aromas, it kind of reminds me a bit of xmas pudding, you have a touch of spice to it, raisins, cherries, there are even hints of chocolate here too. There is something almost feral in there too, cant quite pin it down, but it isnt off putting. From the nose I would have to say that I think this wine has seen better days, dont get me wrong its still drinkable, but I reckon its glory days were maybe a year or two ago.
On the palate the dark fruit comes through bathed in spices, more cinnamon with hints of ginger spices too. The tannins are still quite firm, and the wine follows through with a rich chocolatey finish which almost contradicts my earlier thoughts about being past its prime. I dont think this is the kind of wine to drink on its own. It needs food. But it isnt going to complement my ham and cheese sandwich very well, this needs something a bit meatier. I would serve this with something like the pork belly, rubbed in spices and glazed with honey. Some green beans and crushed new potatoes would finish that off nicely. As the wine sits with an ABV of 12.5%, its not going to send you senseless either. Overall Im quite happy with the wine, given the choice I would have prefered a slightly younger vintage, but this older bottle has actually distinguised itself well. Ive got 9 bottles left kicking around the cellar, so maybe I ought to re-list it as a curiousity, perhaps the sommeliers selection for the month.

Many thanks to Ryan and Gabrielle for the great theme, cant wait for next months theme, and I must make the effort to keep on blogging!

Mouton Rothschild 2006 Barrel Sample.

2007-10-08T22:01:00.000Z

Tasted as part of the tour of Mouton Rothschild with Edouard Thouvenot. The wine has seen just less than a year in oak, yet it really was quite stunning. It is only the second time that I have tasted wine from barrel before it is ready (the first was at Vallet freres in Gevrey). It was hard to judge it really, because it still has a number of years to go before it would be considered "drinkable", but damn if it wasnt exceptionally drinkable. There was lots of forward fruit flavours - cassis, brambles and other berry fruit. I even thought I was getting a hit of blueberry. But then the earthier tones came forward, tobacco, chocolate and just a touch of something more animal in origin. The tannins werent soft, but they werent aggressive either, coating the mouth in quite a pleasant manner. I suspect that the acidity of the wine was probably helping to keep that in check. Now there is still at least 6 months more oak ageing to go before it will be sent off for bottling, and then they told us theu believe it will require five years or more of cellaring to approach its drinking period. But I didnt want to leave this wine, in fact I actually held everyone up slightly in my efforts to finish my glass. I didnt spit this one out, oh no!!!

It was tasted alongside samples of Clerc-Milon and d'Armailhac, and not for the first time, have I found the former to be quite green and moody, while the d'Armailhac was much more fruity and approachable. I could have quite happily sat down to a bottle of either the d'Armailhac or the Mouton, but would have gone without had the Clerc-Milon been placed in front of me. I find it strange that all three share everything together, winery, vineyards, fruit, winemaker, oak barrels, cellar etc, yet the Clerc-Milon, to me, is almost completely alien to the other two. There obviously is something different in the way it is made, but I possibly wasnt listening to that part of the tour!!

Mouton Rothschild 1989 en Magnum

2007-10-05T17:33:00.000Z

Tasted as part of a plethora of wines at Chateau Mouton Rothschild on the vendageurs trip. All the stock came from the cellars underneath the chateau, kept in immaculate condition.

The wine was poured from the bottle, whether it had been double decanted was hard to tell, but there was no evidence of sediment, so I would surmise that it probably was. The nose was pleasantly earthy, with tobacco and forest floor aromas, undertones of berry fruits, ripe and succulent. On the palate, the berry flavours were quite evident along with the tobacco/cedar/humidor like flavours coming from the oak. The tannins were soft and elegant, and the wine had a pleasantly long length, the flavours gently disappearing from the mouth. I reckon I must have had about four or five glasses of this wine, it was simply divine!!!

Dinner at Chateau Mouton Rothschild

2007-09-29T22:18:00.000Z

We were collected by coach from the hotel and driven to the Chateau to arrive promptly at 9pm. As we were early, we had to sit and wait behind the chai (cellars) of Clerc-Milon, Mouton's sister estate (Classified 5th Growth Pauillac). Apparently when the invite says 9pm, you are required to turn up at 9pm, not 8:58 or 9:01, but 9:00pm on the nail. Sods law, as we sat there and waited it started to rain a bit, and as we pulled up to the gates of the Chateau people were there with umbrellas to escort us up to the door.

We were dining in what used to be the barns where the animals were quartered, until Baron Phillipe had it converted into a grand barrel cellar and his living quarters. Apparently he did not wish to live in the Chateau, so he lived out his life in the converted barn. We were shown into a magnificent room, small but decorated with art works recovered from a great French liner, and proudly displayed. An aperitif of Pol Roger was served with canapes of nik-naks and bugles (yes the crisps!!! how bizarre!!), before being called through to dinner in the dining room next to the grand chai.

The grand chai was a revelation of its time, built in the 1920 its massive room is completely unsupported by pillars, a masterpiece of engineering at the time. At its capacity it can accomodate over a thousand barrels of wine, and as we dined the barrel hall was virtually empty, the new barrels for the 2007 vintage only starting to arrive over the next month.

As we split off to our tables the meal was served. We started with a starter of Salmon in Aspic, with red pepper and peppercorns. This was paired with the white wine of Mouton Rothschild - Aile d'Argent. The predominantly semillon blend with its rich smokyness paired well with the picquant spicyness of the pepper and the big chunks of mi-cuit salmon hunkering in the aspic. I think the vintage was 2004, but it may have been 2005, whatever it was really fabulous. The rolled out the red wines then, starting with the Baron d'Arques, Mouton's Languedoc red, followed by the d'Armailhac 1995 which continues to impress me with its solid structure and richness of flavour. Its amazing that this is still only a fifth growth, as for me it puts many third growths to shame. Then it was time for the big boy. Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1989 en magnum. OMG it was good. Rich, earthy nose with dominant flavours of red fruit, tobacco, cedarwood humidor aromas all intertwinned. I must have sunk nearly half a magnum of this one, it was marvelous. This was all paired off with a cutlet of lamb, from a local farm, rolled in cepes and wrapped in crepinette, served with minted new peas (mushy!!) and caramelised baby onions with a rich red wine reduction. It was divine! Cheese was a selection of camembert and some mimolette, followed by dessert of fig fool, with the figs coming fresh from trees around the estate.

As coffee was served, Xavier de Eizaguire, Executive Director of Sales & Marketing gave a quick speech. He told us our yield for the day, how much fruit we had picked, and he seemed to be genuinely impressed with the quantity. We had been harvesting parcel 105, a 1.5 hectare plot of merlot noir grafted onto Vitis Riparia. The plot contained around 9,202 vines. We had harvested 950 cachets (grey plastic tubs) with an average weight of 12kg each, to provide a total yield of 11,400kg of fruit. He told us this was the equivalent of 875 cases of wine or 10,500 bottles. Now considering that Merlot constitutes around 12% of the blend, we can expect that the fruit we picked will be present in around 87,500 bottles of Mouton Rothschild or its second wine Le Petit Mouton. Not that bad really for a days graft. We were then all presented with certificates from the Chateau declaring us Vendageurs d'Honneur de Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

The evening drew to a close just after 1am and we all headed back to the hotel, with our certificates and a large poster depicting all the labels from 1945 to 2004. The poor Americans/Canadians had to leave at 5am to catch a flight home, but for the rest of us, we could look forward to a slight lie in before being collected again at 10am for a visit round the Chateau and a tasting of the 2006 barrel samples. For some of us thought, the hour long journey back to the hotel was time to catch forty winks.

Aw bless!!

Easy pickings? I think not!!!!

2007-09-28T23:35:00.000Z

After what seemed like a milliseconds sleep, the alarm went off and the second day of our visit to Mouton was about to begin. After a traditional french breakfast of croissants and pastries we were collected at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am in the morning. The sun hadnt even got up by then!! Edouard met us at the hotel and drove us to the chateau where the vendageurs were gathering. The "tourists" were given a separate parcel of vines, parcel 105 which was all merlot. We were all given a quick briefing, then assigned our row of vines and off we went.

We soon discovered what back-breaking work it is. The vines come up to the middle of your chest, roughly four foot tall. The grapes we are interested in are those below the top supporting wire, so generally from three and a half feet down to the ground basically. So harvesting the grapes involved bending either the back (not a clever idea) or more often the knees, which soon started playing havoc with the backs of everyones legs. We all had a little trolley with two of the grey tubs pictured above, which we filled then returned to the tractor to swap our full tubs for two empty ones. Each tub holds roughly 12 kilos of grapes. While in the vineyard we were to try and remove as much "pouritoure" or mould as possible. Once the trailer was full with fruit then it returned to the chateau where the fruit would undergo a triage before being de-stemmed then a second triage before going into the vats.

The fruit looked to be in quite good condition, there was very little mould, some bunches were starting to raisin a bit, but we were told by the "foreman" that this was a good sign and the juice would be more concentrated. At first we were all working quite quickly, moving through the row snipping the fruit from the vines and making numerous journeys backwards and forwards to the trailer. But after about an hour or so, the novelty soon started to wear off, knees were creaking, backs were starting to twinge, fingers were being cut and scratched. We stopped for a break, and they set up a picnic table with a range of pastries, mini baguettes filled with ham and cheese or saucisson, coffee, tea, water, beer and several bottles of Mouton Cadet. Luckily the weather held out, and although overcast it stayed dry, and several times the sun poked through, gradually encouraging everyone to shed layers of clothing until t-shirts remained.

It was bloody hard work picking the fruit, and I think we were all glad when the foreman starting directing those who had finished their rows to help others finish theirs before we headed back to the chateau for lunch.

Lunch was a big affair, held in the tractor sheds, huge rows of tressle tables laid out with plates, baguettes and cutlery. Once everyone was seated, you could see there was a right mixture of people gathered for the harvest - students, travelling peoples, locals, farmers, young and old. Then an army of wifes and girlfriend of staff all swarmed into the room dispensing a starter of ham and cornichons, before the main course of green beans and steak, grilled on massive barbeques in the back yard of the chateau. A small wedge of cheese and an apple completed the repasse and was all washed down with a little quarter bottle of Mouton Cadet Merlot. Edouard told us the 1/4 bottles were introduced this year after a horrific crash involving a vendageur who had overindulged in the wine over lunch.

Lunch over we returned to our parcel of merlot to continue picking, our pace by now slowed considerably as Im sure we all dreamt longingly of the hot shower awaiting us back at our hotel. After a couple of hours it must have been obvious to the foreman that our hearts were no longer in it, as the professional pickers were moved over from their parcel to finish ours off. As we boarded the bus to return to the hotel, all talk was of hot showers, jacuzzi's and massages at the spa. I drifted off to sleep and woke up just before we got back to the hotel, where we were to prepare for an evenings meal at Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

Mouton Visit day one.

2007-09-28T16:56:00.000Z

I got back, late last night, from my little three day visit to Bordeaux. I had a fantastic time, and it's given me an added perspective of what they do there.

On Tuesday we met up at Gatwick airport for the flight to Bordeaux. We flew posh - British Airways, Im more used to flying Easyjet or Ryanair, so that was quite nice. There was four of us altogether - Edward from Rules Restaurant in London, Daria from Pied a Terre also in London, Lara from John E. Fells, the UK agents for the Rothschild wines and of course myself. We were met at Merignac Airport by Edouard Thouvenot from Baron Phillipe de Rothschild, who is the Export Director responsable for the UK. We were taken to our hotel, the Golf de Medoc to refresh ourselves then into Bordeaux for dinner.

We dined at le Pavillon des Boulevards, a lovely restaurant just off the beaten track in the older part of the city. Lara and I dined from the A la Carte menu while Daria, Edward and Edouard dined from the ten course menu surprise. I had a fantastic starter of langoustines which came in two parts. The first part was a small bowl with half a dozen langos split with some julienne of carrot and baby rocket. Over this was poured a hot stock of sauternes with ginger and spices, which "cooked" the langos. It was really delicious. The second part was a quartet of langos with an apple cream sauce and was lovely. I actually thought it was my main course and was completely confused when my main course actually followed. The main course was lobster with vanilla mash and sauternes sauce. It was divine, and the 2004 Aile d'Argent we had for the starter just set it off perfectly. By this time Edward and Daria were starting to flag and they were only on the seventh of ten courses. I nearly killed myself with my dessert which was a fanned pear with caramel mousse and spun sugar. The spun sugar pierced my tongue and it started to swell a bit nearly choking me, but soon when down when I applied wine to it (a 2004 medoc Mouton Reserve). By now we were all getting a bit tired and frankly a bit concerned that Edouard would be driving us back to the hotel having watched him sinking a fair few glasses of wine. Luckily he had arranged a taxi for us, and as he lived only a block or two away he planned to walk home. We slunked off to our rooms and prepared for an early start.

Im going to Mouton!!

2007-09-19T13:28:00.000Z

Im getting all excited now, because next week Im going to Mouton Rothschild!! Its only a short three day trip, but Im really looking forward to it. I fly from Gatwick on tuesday morning then we are staying at Mouton for two nights. Wednesday morning we are due to be picking in the vineyards before touring round the estates in the afternoon. Im hoping to borrow the hotels digital camera for a couple of days to capture some of the action.

Wine Blog Wednesday 37 pt 2 - Verdad Ibarra-Young Vineyard Albarino, Santa Ynez, California

2007-09-13T09:27:00.000Z

This was a sample obtained from Morris and Verdin earlier in the year. I was intrigued when I learnt that someone in California was growing and producing Albarino. Ive known for a few years that Randall Grahm, of Bonny Doon, was growing it but as yet no-one had actually made the wines available. As we sell quite a bit of the Spanish Albarino I thought it would be really cool to have a new world alternative for those folks that feel a bit more adventurous.

The wine is made by Louisa Sawyer Lindquist, wife of Bob Lindquist of Qupe Wines. Between them they planted two small parcels of Albarino in the Ibarra-Young Vineyard in Californias Santa Ynez Valley. Its farmed along Biodynamic principles. The grapes are harvested in parcels and then vinified, 75% undergoes a long cold fermentation in steel tanks, allowing the fruit and aromatic aromas to really develop and create a richly perfumed wine. The remaining 25% is fermented in neutral wood to add some depth to the flavours.

So whats it like? I must say if I was given this blind I would probably come to the conclusion it was Viognier, the nose has really dominant peachy flavours with white flowers and an aroma that I can only describe as tarte aux abricots - custard tarte with apricots and almonds/frangipane. Im expecting it to be sweeter than it turns out. On the palate it more closely resembles the Spanish Albarino, there is no salty tang on the finish, but again the almond/marzipane flavour follows on from the stone fruit - peaches and apricots. There is a slight spicy savouryness too. I LOVE this wine - so much awsum

So Much Awsum!!

Wine Blog Wednesday 37 - Go Native.

2007-09-12T17:24:00.000Z

Tyler at Dr Vino has come up with a cracker of a theme (http://drvino.com/2007/08/16/go-native-wine-blogging-wednesday-37-indigenous-grape-varieties/).

I think I may well have blogged about this wine before but what the hell, im sure its a different vintage. Im going to a wine that I really love - its white and it comes from Spain. Paco, our old restaurant manager, used to sell loads of this because it was where he was from.

Pazo de Senorans, Albarino, Rias Baixas, Spain, 2006

This is a really classy example of the grape, pale lemony yellow colour with a light watery rim, on the nose there is quite a mixture of flavours - citrus - lime fruit, and pomelo - floral - white flowers - stone fruit - peaches and nectarine. Sounds daft but I think I can also smell the sea - a slightly salty tang. On the palate the wine is very crisp and dry with full bracing acidity, light to medium bodied, no tannins present. The flavours come across similarly to the nose - the stone fruit playing a more dominant role on the palate than on the nose. There is definately a slightly salty tang to the finish, and I think thats why it works so well with seafood. If you look at the region where this grape comes from it is all coastal vineyards, hugging the rugged coastline of Spain. This is just gorgeous with a fresh seafood paella - the floral character in the wine and the saffron in the paella seem inter-twined. Its not cheap, it retails over £14, sitting on our wine-list at about £35.

If I can dig it out later at home Ill post another Albarino, this time from California from Louise Sawyer Lindquist, wife of Bob Lindquist of Qupe.

Glenmorangie "New World" becomes reality.

2007-09-12T16:52:00.000Z

Had a tasting today with Eddie Ludlow, the brand ambassador for Glenmorangie and Penny, our lovely Moet-Hennessy account manager. The purpose was to introduce us to the newly re-branded Glenmorangie range in our capacity as Glenmorangie Embassy in the North-West. As you may come to see in the next few months Glenmorangie has undergone a complete transformation, new bottles, new labels and a re-structuring of the line extensions. Gone are the old wood finish ranges and in are three "new" incarnations - Lasanta - which replaces the Sherry wood finish, Quinta Ruban - which replaces the port wood and Nectar d'Or which replaces the 15yo Sauternes wood. The Madiera wood has been abandoned. The 10yo has been re-designed and is now called the Original. Dr Bill Lumsden, Glenmorangie's Master Blender, has also adapted the "blend" of the 10yo to incorporate more of the Artisan cask whisky into the mix, giving the whisky a slightly creamier mouthfeel and a certain richness.

The changes dont end there, the Extra Mature range (Lasanta, Quinta and Nectar) are all sporting a slightly higher ABV (46% up from 43%), they are all non-chill filtered now as well, meaning the whiskies have an added richness and textural body. This is a measure of appeasement to whisky afficianados. Im sure, to make ammends for the drastic redesign of the bottles. Gone are the traditional bottles, and in are more flared, almost cognac like bottles, giving the range an added sexyness that Im sure they hope will make it appeal to a younger, hipper generation of drinkers. In all the products are designed to create a new deluxe market - an area that owners LVMH are well familiar with. Whether this is a good thing, or spells the beginning of the end for the malt category remains to be seen.

Now Im not a whisky drinker, although there are more and more that I am finding myself comfortable with. The highlight of the tasting for me however was the 1990 Single Cask whisky, which isnt part of the new line up, but a very limited bottle that will be made available to Embassies exclusively. Coming from Bourbon cask 5932 it was specially selected by Dr Bill to be bottled for a very limited release of only 288 bottles. Coming in at a whopping 54.7% abv this is bottled directly from the cask without any form of treatment or dilution. It was absolutely fantastic - quite light on the nose, no nose-tingling alcohol, which was quite surprising. On the palate it had a bit of a burn at first, but it finishes with a really smooth fresh mint leaf flavour that was soft and clean. When I added a small drop of water to it, the flavours really opened out. Im going to try and get my hands on a bottle for myself, but its not cheap (apparently only three specialist outlets have access and retail is £100+). Strings will have to be pulled!

Domaine St Gayan Gigondas 2003

2007-09-08T21:12:00.000Z

One of a bevvy of new wines that we recently listed from Yapp brothers. This had a fantastically purple colour to it, with a slightly lighter rim than the core. On the nose there was a rich medley of berries, damsons and an aroma that had me thinking of a nice piece of medium rare fillet (well maybe I was just hungry!). There are hints of spices in there too, including (pink?) peppercorns and allspice. Mostly Grenache, with a dash of syrah, a drop of mourvedre and a teeny, tiny drip of cinsault (1%), its fermented in old concrete vats before its aged for at least a year in second fill french oak. Apparently its a huge favourite of a certain Mr Robert Parker Jnr, but dont let that put you off!!

Mountford Estate Pinot Noir 2004, Waipara New Zealand.

2007-09-08T16:44:00.000Z

At first glance it looks like a fairly typical example of a kiwi pinot. Admittedly the label is quite understated for a kiwi red, almost a cross between a burgundy and a modern claret label, with a large "watermarked" M forming the backdrop to the lettering. It comes with a cork, which is becoming increasingly rarer from New Zealand, but that is really where its unremarkableness ends. For this is no ordinary wine, this is something quite special and quite unique, for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that the winemaker, C.P. Lin is blind.

Mountford's vineyards were planted in 1991 with the first vintage being made in 1995. In 98 they built a small winery at the base of the gently sloping limestone hills. Their 15 acres (approx 3 hectares) of vineyard is planted to an eclectic mix of burgundy clones and mutations of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which viticulturalist Gerald Atkinson says best complement the burgundian nature of the soil and climate. The various parcels of vines are all harvested individually and vinified seperately before being brought together by CP Lin to create some of the most finely tuned, well balanced wines outside of Burgundy. These are fairly big wines for Pinot, de-stemmed fruit, open fermented and then cold macerated for upto a week before spending 16 months in french oak (extortionately expensive in New Zealand) upto a third of it new oak gives these wines some serious backbone. The fruit is bright and very forward - black cherry, a touch of wild strawberry and a hint of damsen fruit. On the palate the same dark fruit flavours abound, all nicely drawn together with fine tannic structure and a touch of sharpness to finish the wine off. It wasnt cheap, hells bells, but then what Kiwi pinots are? But you have to admire the abilities of a blind winemaker to bring all the various components of that blend together in such a harmonious package. They do say that when somebody loses a sense such as sight, that the other senses become more attuned to compensate for the missing sense. It is said that CP Lins sense of smell and taste is so refined that he came to the attention of Mountfords owner at a small restaurant. CP is said to have announced to his table that he could smell a Monte Cristo no 5 being smoked, the very brand of cigar that Michael Eaton happened to be smoking at a nearby table. As they got to talking Michael realised he was in the company of someone with extra-ordinary talent. As they supposedly tasted the previous vintages of Mountford CP apparently told him the wines were crap, and why. He was offered the job of improving them and the rest as they say is history. Ive only tasted one vintage, and I have to say that Im hooked. This is definately a keeper, and once I have a bit of spare cash, Im buying a case for myself!! Production is quite limited, and from what I hear from NZ the 2005 vintage was so small that it I doubt it will be exported.

Michael Jackson, the Beerhunter, dies at home.

2007-09-01T15:45:00.000Z

Last night after work I came across a sad piece of news, that Michael Jackson, the acclaimed beverage journalist and author had been found dead at his home in London. Whilst primarily known for his works on beer, Jackson was also a keen whisky drinker, and is credited with the development of Diageo's Classic Malt range. I was fortunate enough to meet him once when I was working at the Malmaison in Glasgow. He had come in from filming somewhere (presumably at BBC Glasgows studios) with none other that Oz Clarke. While Oz came across as very stand offish with the staff, Michael was very charming, and I had an interesting and educational chat with him about our range of malt whiskies. I had read somewhere that one of his biggest regrets was not getting the Ardbeg included in the Classic Malt range, but at the time is was owned by somebody else and Diageo were unwilling to purchase another mothballed distillery on Islay when they already owned three distilleries (? Lagavulin, Port Ellen and Caol Ila?). But I guess that Diageo's loss is Glenmorangie's gain. I dont claim to know Michael Jackson, but in my brief encounter with him he came across as intensely passionate about both beers and whisky, immensely knowledgable about them both, and keen to spread both the passion and his experiences. The beverage industry has truly lost a giant this week.

Ive not stopped!

2007-08-31T17:19:00.000Z

Apologies for the lack of posting this last week, but several things have kind of gotten in the way. Last sunday was stocktake, which always brings its own joys, but to cap it off, it was my pal Mikeys stag night that night, and we were on a jolly boys outing to Manc to the comedy club. A jolly good night was had by all, and copious amounts of beer and rum were consumed. I only managed to get two rounds in, so I must try harder at the wedding in a few weeks time.

Things are also getting hectic here with the immenent launch of the newly refurbished function suite. I had a sneak preview the other night and a day later with Cheffie. Its very easy to see where the £3.5 million went!! Its a totally new environment and its going to look spectacular when its all completely finished (today!!!!).

The calendar is looking pretty busy over the next three months in the lead up to xmas (only 116 days to go now boys and girls!!). Im off to Mouton Rothschild later in the month for a picking visit. The Academy of Food and Wine service awards are also later in the month, and Ive applied for a travel scholarship to California. So fingers crossed for that one!

Its quite quiet tonight, considering its a races day, but we shall see what happens. Hopefully I will get something to post about later.

David Duband Vosne Romanee 1998 vs Drouhin-Laroze Gevrey Chambertin 1995

2007-08-23T13:19:00.000Z

We had a little taste off yesterday to determine which wine we will be pouring at the upcoming dinner to launch the new Westminster Suite. After spunking £3.5 million on the refurbishment, the boss has invited loads of VIPs to a dinner to unveil the new room and show it off (well why not!!), so the wine has to be good. Hence the taste off with the two options for the red wine. Luckily Cheffie was wanting to knock together a dish to see how it looked on his spiffy new plates.

The dish - Slow poached fillet of Welsh Black beef with a mushroom ravioli and herb reduction.

The wines had come from the Keg room, part of our holding stock - wines that we are keeping until they are ready for drinking. I know what you're thinking though - surely the 95 is ready by now - and yes it is. But Ive got about a dozen Gevreys on the list and when one gets finished the 95 would be the next to get listed. Both wines were brought up from the cellar five minutes before the tasting.

The Vosne Romanee was quite aromatic on the nose with Parma Violets and Cherries - more Griottine cherry I think, and a really animal earthyness about it. On the palate I was getting a touch of pear drops - ethyl acetate - not really enough to class it as a fault, but enough to lower my enjoyment of the wine. It went quite well with the meat, and the flavours seemed to complement it quite well, although I felt the herbyness of the reduction overtook the flavours of the wine a bit.

The Gevrey was interesting. Despite coming from the same part of the cellar as the Vosne, it was considerably colder, and hence there wasnt really much on the nose. But what it lacked in aroma, it more than made up for on the palate. Despite being the elder of the wines, there was quite a bit more fruit present on the palate, with soft red fruit flavours, raspberry and alpine strawberries, with a touch of spice - not quite cinnamon, but a warming bark-like spicyness. Perhaps nutmeg? For me this worked really well with the dish, the flavours of the wine melded beautifully with the medium rare meat and the herb reduction seemed to add an extra dimension to the wine. It was served "chambre" and I personally felt it was perfect. But it is a risky wine to serve to 120 people, and the odds of getting the temperature that spot on are slim to non-existent, so perhaps the Vosne Romanee is the sensible option. That seems to be the route we are taking anyway.

Nektar des Gotten - Schloss Johannisberger Grunlack Riesling Spatlese 1975er

2007-08-21T22:13:00.000Z

Wow that title really trips off the tongue doesnt it! We dont really sell a great deal of German wine. It has a bad image. Generally people only drink it when they want something a bit sweeter. But they are ignoring a world of wonderfully dry rieslings, like the Georg Breuer Riesling Sauvage we used to have by the glass. Admittedly that sold quite well, but unfortunately Heinrich Breuer felt the UK market didnt appreciate the wines enough, and moved all his stock to the American market which seems to be lapping it up at the moment. Anyways Im getting sidetracked, because this wine is far from dry. Spatlese is the second level on the Qualitatswein mit Pradikat quality ladder, which in Germany is dictated by the sugar levels of the musts. Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, (Eiswein), Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA for short) - dry to toothshockingly sweet. Now TBA's are generally later harvested, so the grapes are almost like shrivelled raisins when they are harvested. The resulting juice is low in water and exceptionally high in sugars. The fermentation is really slow, as long as a year in some cases, and the yields are so miniscule that the prices for these rare treasures is truly eyewatering so they usually come in half bottles. Damn, getting sidetracked again.

The colour is a rich golden amber, hardly surprising as its 31 years old. On the nose it is rich, honeyed with tropical fruit like aromas - papaya, mango and the ubiquitous melon. One the palate it is quite sweet, very unctuous, there is a slight hint of acidity still holding the wine together, but the overwhelming experience for me was the sweetness (think three spoons of sugar in your tea sweet {I take one!}). The tropical fruit flavours still come through quite well, but there is a hint of something slightly floral too, perhaps a honeysuckle, with a touch of ginger - in some ways it reminded me of a herbal tea loaded with sugar. The customers loved it, but unfortunately that was the last bottle.

Update - managed to find their website and was quite amazed to discover the winery can trace its history back to 768AD. Now thats really old world!!
(http://www.schloss-johannisberg.com)

St Supery Cabernet Sauvignon 2000

2007-08-18T17:25:00.000Z

I profess up front that I love this wine! I prefer their white - the Dollarhide Ranch Sauvignon, but as a runner up the Napa Cab is a good wine to settle for. The reason that I love this wine, is that it is one of the half dozen wineries that we visited on my honeymoon, and of them, this one was the best tour. We must have liked it, because we ended up buying several bottles of the Sauvignon which we then lugged home with us in our luggage. That was my first encounter with St Supery.

Some years later I was working at Amaryllis and I managed to track down five cases of Sauvignon Blanc that one of our suppliers had been sitting on for some time, unable to flog it. I remember that it must have been around about 2001 and the vintage of the wine was 1996, by happy co-incidence the same vintage that we had brought back from California many years earlier on our honeymoon. He was grateful enough to shift it that I got a stunning price for it, I was over the moon to find it, and it turns out it was showing spectacularly well at the time too. I sold those five cases in a matter of weeks and they ordered some more for me. Then the stock ran dry and I couldnt get it any more.

A few years later Im trying to find it again, I get to emailing the winery in Napa and a very helpful lady called Ann Feely puts me in touch with their newly appointed distributors in the UK. I happened to meet the guy at the California tasting later that month and we chatted, I tasted the current range and he agreed to pop up to see me and introduce some more of his wines. Over a year passed before Adrian popped in one day introducing himself as the rep that was going to cover this region for Ivini. He didnt have good news though. St Supery had gotten greedy and had virtually doubled the price of the wine. Now it wasnt cheap to start with, but now facing a huge rise in price, it was quite frankly unsellable. The only consoling factor was they wanted rid of the stock they had, so we got a cracking deal on the Cabernet (alas they had no Sauvignon). We took five cases and now Ive got just under a dozen bottles left.

The first bottle I opened for the guests was corked. Badly corked. Foul, stinky wine. I cant remember the last time I had one that foul. The second was a beaut. Ripe curranty fruit on the nose with an elegant undernote of cedarwood and tobacco that I alway feel reminds me of a well kept humidor ( how I miss that now that we are non-smoking!). There was a touch of green herby aroma, possibly blackcurrant leaf. On the palate the tannins are softening nicely and the wine has loads of upfront fruit, again currants and brambles with a touch of plum and even a hint of mintyness. The finish is nice and spicy with warming exotic spices and tobacco, with a lingering length. Its on the list at £45, which for a Napa Cab is pretty damned good. Ill be sorry to see it go when I sell the last one.

Sharing the thunder

2007-08-16T09:59:00.000Z

If youve never seen the internet legend that is Gary Vaynerchuk, I cant think of a better clip to introduce him.

And for the record, that sure isnt how I trained my palate!!