So much happening.

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.

Maybe I made the wrong choice?

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.

Gourmet 2008 - brainstorming.

Ive got to have some ideas for nexy years gourmet calendar. So in some form of brainstorming session, I thought I might throw out some ideas on here and see if anything looks any good "in the wild". Maybe get some feedback too?!?

Idea 1)
Wines of the Loire Valley - taking a more general look at a region rather than a specific producer. Obviously look at the expected wines - Sancerre, Pouilly Fume, but perhaps squeeze in something unexpected - Muscadet, Cour Cheverny, St Nicholas de Bourgeuil, Chinon who knows. Only certainty - I want to show something from Didier Dagauneau.

Idea 2)
Wines of Languedoc-Roussillon - after WBW 33 Its got my interest piqued again. Mind you, the negative side is that Ive got chuff all from their on my list at the moment apart from a quaint but uninspiring Picpoul.

Idea 3)
Wine and Chocolate evening - One for the ladies I suspect, but how cool would it be to do something like this? Im not sure cheffie would get behind it though, so I suspect this might die a death on the drawing board.

Idea 4)
Wines of the Pacific Northwest. I would love to do this one, but I know I would struggle with it. First- it is becoming nigh on impossible to find a decent range of wines from Oregon, Washington and British Columbia in the UK. What few are available all come with hefty prices, meaning this isnt going to be a cheap evening. I expect it would end up nearer the £150 per ticket, which of course is going to put people off. Im still going to persevere with this one thought.

Idea 5)
Decadence Evening - an evening off pure indulgence - Foie Gras - Jurancon from Didier Dagueneau - Caviar - Dom Perignon Champagne - Veal - Grand Cru white burgundy - Estate reared Welsh Black beef - First Growth Claret - you get the idea. Finishing with chocolate and gold truffles and obscenely expensive cognac! Be prepared to pay!!

And thats about as far as I go idea wise. We try to follow new directions and avoid repeating ourselves, but there are only so many ideas to be had.

Being Environmentally Friendly.

Eco-credentials are the new black. Everyone is ardently declaring their good intentions in saving the environment. Email sigs now have the obligatory admonishment not to print out unneccessary emails, companies are looking at their carbon footprints and in some cases taking measures to "offset" or compensate for it. But what can a hotel do, or a restaurant?

Recycling is a start - we recycle glass and cardboard - obviously we use loads of glass - wine bottles, beer bottles, soft drink bottles and hundreds upon hundreds of mineral water bottles. Which brings me to an interesting point. In America, particularly San Fransisco and New York there has been a big trend recently towards shunning mineral water in favour of Tap Water. America has had this obsession with a particular brand of water - Fiji Water, suposedly one of the purest and cleanest mineral waters available. But a recent article in Fast Company magazine shows that environmentally Fiji water is perhaps the most unfriendly product. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/117/features-message-in-a-bottle.html. (thanks to http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/02/what_it_takes_to_bri.html) It makes for some quite scary reading really. But it doesnt just apply to mineral water.

One of the big awareness issues of the moment is the number of "food miles" that your ingredients have travelled to get to your kitchen. Now for many restaurants that use local produce this is quite low and hence environmentally friendly. But if your restaurant is serving asparagus in March it is highly likely it has been flown in from Peru. And here we come to a crucial issue in menu design and planning. In order to be environmentally friendly as a restaurant, you must first support your local producers, but you must also change your menu more frequently to use local seasonal produce. British Asparagus is only in season for some six weeks, so to truly promote your green credentials it ought to only be on the menu for about the same length of time. The British Strawberry season is similarly short - particularly when June has been as wet it we have had, yet customers expect strawberries and cream with their afternoon teas all year round. This means we are serving Israeli, Dutch, Spanish, Peruvian, and any other country that grows them to meet a demand. And here we meet the crucial dillema that restauranteurs face - be green or keep your customers happy. Maybe we are going to have to be a bit forceful and hope that our efforts at being green will deflate any complaints (not likely!) This is only the beginning really. As a restaurant we consume a huge amount of resources - electricity, gas, heating - a huge bugbear of mine is when a single customer sits down and within ten seconds starts demanding the heating turned up because they are cold, never mind the other twenty people sat in the restaurant who are fine. As the heating is located in the basement and takes a good half hour to heat up the restaurant (its a big room!) I reckon that is uses loads of energy to heat up the retaurant by one degree. When does it become bad customer service to try and conserve energy and resources?

At the moment the industry is playing at being environmentally friendly, not for lack of will on our part- but mainly through lack of support from customers. We can be more environmentally responsable, but we need the customers to back us up and perhaps change their expectations. But as many people will soon strive to change their livestyles to become more eco-friendly then they will change their expectations of the services they use - shops, restaurants, hotels etc. But by then it will probably be too little, too late.

Week Two AP (After Paco)

Well two weeks have now passed since Paco left, and on the whole we are getting by pretty well. Things are very different now, Andre is making a lot of changes, trying new approaches, trying new things. Thats neither good, nor bad, but its different. Some work, some dont. We had our first Gourmet dinner without the old team, and it went pretty well, especially when you think that just about everyone there, except for me and Danny were fairly new to them.

AFAIK there is still no replacement on the horizon. We are still looking. Its interesting that before the departures we were all kept up to date with what was happening, told it was all going to be alright, and promised that there would be plenty of backup when we needed it. Now that Paco, Greg, Walter and Anna have gone, things seem quite silent. Its sort of good that we are being left to get on with things, but at the same time it feels kind of lonesome. Time moves on, and for now all is well. We all miss them and hope that they are all settling in to their new lives.

Regions to be cheerful.

We have quite a classically organised list here. After all the Arkle is supposed to be a classical french style menu, with a modern english twist. But with over 600 bins it makes more sense to have then organised by origin. I like it like that because at the moment a lot of people seem to make their choices by country of origin more than anything else. South America and South Africa are quite popular at the moment, and if I get my way they will expand considerably on our list.

Now for all out quality I dont think that you can beat the old world. Especially France and Spain, but also Italy and Germany. Nowhere in the world is there such complexity of flavour and such defined structure in the wines. But with few exceptions they are terrible value for money. Bordeaux prices are verging on the ridiculous, and Burgundy is going the same way. Spain is starting to get more expensive too, but at the moment there is a lot of value for money to be found in the lesser known regions - Ribera del Duero, Priorato, Toro, and many others if you can find them. In the new world you have the two heavyweights of USA (California) and Australia. California represents shockingly bad value for money. With the exchange rate working in our favour at last, the wines ought to be cheaper, but incredibly they are still rising in price. Now this is mostly due to market economics - there is such a strong domestic market for the wines at home, they have no reason or need to export, and consequently they can charge whatever they want. For me Californias big problem in the UK market is the two extremes of wine. At the bottom of the market you have the floods of Gallo, Sutter Home, Blossom Hill and other mass produced "bottom-feeders". At the other end of the market you have blockbusters - cult names like Harlan Estate, Opus One, Screaming Eagle, Peter Micheal, all three figure wines. But like a donut theres nothing in the middle. It might surprise you to know there is much more to the American wine market. Oregon, Washington State, New York, in fact just about every single state (Alaska is, I think, the only state that doesnt produce wine) makes wine. But again, due to small volume production and strong domestic consumption, these wines dont make it over the pond. Canada has a booming wine industry, mostly around two provinces - British Columbia and Ontario. The problem with sourcing them is more to do with State monopoly of supply I think than anything else, but again low volume, high domestic demand will prevent them being exported in any great quantity.



Down under you have Australia and New Zealand. I love their wines, the diversity, the quality, the funky names, the intensity of flavours, whats not to love. But Im getting a little bit bored. Australia has the same situation as California regarding the two polar extremes of wines available, but their position is slightly better than Californias. I must say its getting harder to find the new boutique wines from Aus. The wines that I started out with, used to be boutique, they used to be quite limited and exclusive, but over time their fame has spread, their volumes have increased and now they are a bit more widespread than they used to be. New Zealand conversely is suffering from the reverse. Due to two consecutive low harvests quantities of many wines are seriously depleted and many of the better wines are becoming more limited. This is great, if you are lucky enough to secure an allocation. Although the other side effect of this is making the prices jump up, and lets face it New Zealand was never cheap in the first place.



So where does that leave? Well I reckon it leaves the best till last. South Africa and South America. Starting with South Africa, theres been a huge amount of change over the last five years. For me, looking through merchants wine lists, its great to finally see many of them listing more South African wines. And better wines - not that mass produced co-operative wine that the supermarkets are all knocking out. There is still a long way to go, but as many of the farmer realise that they have more to gain by turning their own fruit into wine than selling it to the co-ops, then we will start to see many more wines appearing. Of course that isnt to say that they will all be blockbusters, but from little acorns mighty oaks grow, and given the right materials, development, marketing and listings, the opportunities are there. There is a huge amount of investment into developing wine regions - and not just financial investment. Old world winemakers are turning their sights to the potential of countries like South Africa, Chile, Argentina, where the resources are available, but they lack the knowledge, skills or equipment to do the job properly. Pichon-Lalande have recently released their new South African venture Glenelly Hills to good reviews from Jancis et all. And the convenient timing of the southern hemisphere harvest allows the winemakers to complete two vintages per year - Nico van Der Merwe from Saxenburg has been doing this for a number of years at Capion in the south of France and Saxenburg, not to mention his own range of wines - Mas Nicholas and Robert Alexander.

For Value for Money, undoubtably the best place to look just now is Chile and Argentina. Two countries with a long viticultural history, it is really the last twenty years that have seen their wine industry explode onto our shelves. (Helped in no small measure, Im sure, by exploiting the weak currency of the region). As they have become better at correctly identifying the grape varieties we are starting to see two grape varieties gaining dominance in the region - Malbec and Carmenere. Malbec has almost been written off in France, relegated to a bulking out grape in Bordeaux and producing the inky black Cahors, otherwise a neglected variety. In Argentina it has found its new glory. Densely packed fruit flavours with a rich floral violet character and an almost feral gameyness about it. You can almost imagine the Gauchos swigging it from the bottle as they grill a huge chunk of blood red meat over an open fire. Carmenere is another neglected Bordeaux variety (odd isnt it that the two now dominant varieties originated in Bordeaux, yet grapes were introduced into South America by the Spanish!!), now flourishing in Chile where it produces a minty cassis flavoured red, tannic but quite elegant. I think we are only just beginning to see what they have to offer us in terms of style and quality, and as long as they continue to offer great value for money, these countries will remain high on our shopping lists.