Confessions of a Wino

Scalini Fedeli is such a high end Italian, it could be the Silvio Berlusconi of restaurants. As I walk in, I imagine Wall St bankers taking their prey to be softened up with an expensive Chianti before mugging them for an eye-watering commission.

I reckon the waiting staff are in on the act.  They look impressively like Spatz Domino’s henchmen. I wouldn’t dare send anything back. Having said that, ruthlessly efficient and courteous. One of the themes of NYC service that has changed since my last visit 18 months ago (and one small part of me regrets this) is the tolerance, politeness, and friendliness you can nowadays expect even in the diners and delis.  Is there an economic down cycle or something?

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I pity these crazy foo’s?  That’s certainly not the order I would put them in.  And Confessions of a Wino would definitely not be in my top ten of UK wine blogs.  Laughable. I am not even trying to make money out of my site.

No wonder I get so many pesky (usually trite) press releases. I ain’t getting on no airplane with these guys!

Feel free to send me more samples though.  My neighbours keep asking about the parties, and I do occasionally write up wines if they are interesting in some way.

Got no more time fo da jibba jabba.

Avoiding ugly tasting shite like Echo Falls, where do we look for a cheap, but decent, red wine?  South America is one place to focus on, where even the big brands can taste excellent.  The next place to look is probably the south of France.

This Languedoc came from the Wine Society at £5.50.  So, it fulfils the “cheap” requirement.  When first opened, bitter damsons clogged my cheeks forcing a Vito Corleone face-pull.  Not wanting a horse’s head on my pillow, I allowed it to warm and drank on.  It developed nicely in a vanilla and cherry compote frenzy.

It is always going to taste a little cheap , D’Oh!…It is!  But it goes incredibly well with hummus (other spellings are available) and pitta bread, and it is much more fashionable to be seen with than the branded wines from the US and Australia.

Mooching through Sainsbury looking for the perfect wine to match my experimental dish of pork chop with thyme, garlic and mustard, depression was setting in. Supermarkets only seem to stock lowest common denominator wines these days.  No experimentation, no originality, no joy.

I plumped for this Central Otago Pinot Noir at £9.99. A price point which, in riot torn Salford, apparently requires a security tag. How many bottles of wine can you actually smuggle out in your underpants? And how many rioters would actually dare to choose a Kiwi Pinot?

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Even with one trouser leg rolled up, £32 is more than I usually spend on a bottle of wine.  About 4 times my average price – how outrageous!  What coaxed my bank manager to clear funds for this bottle from the Wine Society?

Maybe it was a tasting at the Freemason’s Hall in Manchester, where the signal to gain entry was not the usual hand contortions that portray a shadow shaped like an Esther Rantzen vegetable, but a mere Wine Society membership card.

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I once returned 5 badly corked bottles of Luis Cañas to the Sunday Times Wine Club, one by one.  The poor call centre staff, on seeing my number, started greeting me with “your usual complaint, Mr Bathgate?”.  They had a point.  I had only ordered half a case.  But, fair play to them, they refunded every bottle.

And that meant that ordering Luis Cañas again was not scary, not even from the same merchant.

Mind you, I still opened this bottle with a little trepidation, as my Tesco pizza frazzled in the oven.  It cost me about £20 after all, having arrived as part of a President’s Cellar selection from the STWC.

At first it was a shade bitter but, no worries.  After a bit of air, all the smoothness of the 18 months of oak ageing came through and the wine revealed its fruity, mellow underbelly.  A Spanish wine that tastes more like a Bordeaux and yet goes marvellously with spicy pizza?  That has to be worth £20.

It’s hard not to feel charmed by Olena Zabornikova.   Walking into her restaurant is like visiting a lovable but slightly dotty aunt.   The entrance draws you in from a quirky and quiet part of university town, and once you work out how to avoid being snared by a Spar supermarket, it is like walking through a time portal.  To be blunt, the decor is old fashioned.   The tables laid in the style of a 1960’s Inter-City train, and the dishes in which the food is served give the impression of having been collected over many years from Portobello Market.   And just as you sit there admiring the old pictures and Russian relics, the volume of the Eastern Europop is racked up and mirror balls reflect the disco lights, discolouring your dining partner’s face and turning the room into a cross between Peristroika and Studio 54.   Apparently there is live music here at weekends, news of which has entered St. Petersburg high up on my list of weekend “must-dos in Manchester”.

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