WART award for the Three Acres
The serving temperature of wine is so important to its enjoyment that 250 members joined a Facebook group dedicated to the subject. As the owner of said page, I appoint myself Chief Evangelist and poster boy for raising awareness of the Wine at Right Temperature (WART) campaign. Part of my duties include throwing brickbats at restaurants who serve red wine from the top of the Pizza Oven and white wine from the liquid nitrogen cask. A happier task is to publicise places where thought and care is put into wine service. For example, I recently dined at 44 The Calls in Leeds where they were delighted (possibly even relieved) that I asked for my Catena Alta at cellar temperature. Not as delighted as I was to drink it.
Another good Yorkshire experience occurred last Sunday at The Three Acres in Shelley. I ordered a bottle of Jaboulet-Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle, 2001, a legend of a wine – rich and fruity flavours of nutmeg, cinnamon, apple and hints of Indian and Chinese spices – intoxicating but never overpowering, it is a wine that makes you go oooh – but I digress. This is supposed to be about temperature. Oh, I should add that the price was £107.95, which maybe sounds a lot, but compared to an average retail price in the UK of about £75, is amongst the most reasonable of restaurant markups (another of my bugbears) I have ever seen. Compared to central London restaurants, where 200% and upwards is added, it is great to see wine prices inflated by less than 50% out here in the provinces.
The 3 Acres is a venerable Yorkshire gastro-pub and exactly the sort of place where posh but wine-ignorant guffawing is heard in every nook and cranny, whilst the car park looks like a Range Rover dealership. On a previous visit, I had asked for my red wine to be chilled and got a look of which Paddington Bear, on news of the prohibition of marmalade, would have been proud. This time the conversation was a little uncertain at first, but it turns out that The Three Acres had been storing this rather special wine for “quite a while” in carefully controlled conditions and decanted it at about 15 degrees. Perfect, and made it worth the huge bill (it was a celebration after all).
So a mega WART award to The Three Acres. The gong is in the post.
Oh, probably worth mentioning that the atmosphere is very cosy and the food served for Sunday lunch was superb too. Here’s some Yorkshire Bully. Might as well spend all your BFH, though, as no buses run through these remote parts. Not on a Sunday, anyway.
The 3 Acres Inn & Restaurant
Roydhouse, Shelley
Nr Huddersfield
West Yorkshire
HD8 8LR
W: www.3acres.com
E : info@3acres.com
T : +44 (0) 1484 602606
F : +44 (0) 1484 608411
May 1st, 2012 at 10:27 pm
congratulations (whatever the occasion was) and well done for such a great deal … must say that the description has me enthralled and wish I could try it some time.
Hurrah for WART 🙂
May 3rd, 2012 at 8:43 am
My first thought was what recession, and then obviously at that price a complete stab and steal operation.Well done.But did they serve it in Riedels ?
Reminds of paying £120 for an ’85 Lynch Bages at Galvin.
Also that beef looks fantastic, but then you are in Yorkshire.Restaurant duly noted.
May 3rd, 2012 at 9:00 am
Robert – thanks – really do try it – despite other commentators’ views I found it distinctly different from Bordeaux. Very original flavours and just mouthfuls of joy.
Manners – no, not Riedels, but a decent large bowl red wine that I thought was bang on for size and shape for such a Lordy wine. They do tend to focus the wine a bit lower down the slopes, so to speak, so glassware is not overly sophisticated. But you should definitely visit.
Wow – £120 for an 85 Lynch-Bages… When was that, 1987? 🙂