Wine Blog Wednesday 41 - Friuli Wines.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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"

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

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

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

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.