Have you ever watched a football match where the result went against the run of play? Or fancied a bird whose face was constructed from the Pam Ayres book of beauty? Or eaten something like a Seekh Kebab that looks like a dog turd but tastes bloody lovely?
I’ve sacked Mybloglog. What is the point when Facebook (you see, no need to provide a hyperlink) is taking over every social interaction on the web. I like to think that LinkedIn looks after business interaction, but Facebook’s success in the social space has undoubtedly been due to its open platform.
So Man City’s UEFA dream survives after clinging by the loosest of threads for 90 minutes plus extra time and penalties.
I never supported the appointment of Mark Hughes. However, I have held my tongue whilst others have defended him. Apologists are fine, but with the budget he has, I think the fans deserve more.
I’m not having much luck with my latest Burgundies from the Wine Society. This one would have cost £24.25 if it had not been included in a cheapo Burgundy bin end case. The 2004 is available at £28.50 – maybe that is a better bet now?
The 2001 I opened the other evening was slightly oxidised but there was clear evidence of a super wine under the dull acidity.
Apple and blackberry, raspberry and ginger. It tipped a good nod to Pinot Noir with the smell you get when you chuck damp leaves on a fire. It wasn’t so badly oxidised as to make it undrinkable but a £25 Nuit St-Georges like this should have had me in ecstasy rather than objectivity. Shame.
Some gadgets are adorable and some are practical. None are both.
My iPhone is adorable but lacks practicality on so many levels. It is missing some very basic technical features like cut and paste.  I keep dropping it because it is too smooth to hold. It always looks like it’s been pawed by a jello wrestling dog that has just walked across a skid pan.
Jo le taxi (aka wine delivery driver) this week brought me a small but intriguing parcel I ordered en primeur over a year ago.
The reason I was interested in this wine was threefold…
1) it was by Paul Jaboulet Ainé
2) it was from Beaumes-de-Venise, a well known sweet white wine area but this was a red Grenache/Syrah
3) it was pretty cheap!
As taste sensations go, there is little to beat a hunk of well seasoned Argentinian beef, chargrilled and accompanied by a glass of decent Malbec. Chewing on the salty, aged and bloody meat causes a tingling in your gums as if a bovine mouthwash.   This then undergoes some kind of chemical reaction with the deep, moody, spicy wine that leaves you digesting the meal for a whole week. Sharp pangs – taste reminders – keep haunting you like salivating ghosts of taste past that make you press your teeth together in muscle memory.
As Argentinian steakhouses go, The Gaucho Grill takes the biscuit. Not only for great steaks with superb ghost potential, but also for awesome (by which I mean sky high) wine prices. Markups of over 300% are commonplace. That is four times the retail price and presumably they pay the importer much less! Is there a venue which matches the steak quality and authenticity, but where the only fleecing is associated with an occasional lamb chop?
In Leeds, a place I dine all too rarely these days, River Plate has appeared on the site once known as the Calls Grill. The menu looked pretty similar to Gaucho but, to be frank, the wine list looked cheap!
I was at Sam’s Chop House in Manchester earlier this week. Pat and Martin were kind enough to chip in and buy me a decent bottle of wine in memory of my birthday. One from the year of my birth and reduced by an impressive £50 from the normal price.
Riojanas Monte Real Reserva 1964 had a dodgy cork, took an age to decant and was served too warm for me (about 23 degrees – I would serve at 18). But it is probably the oldest wine I have ever drunk, so I was intrigued.
As I stare at the bottle and write this, I have no idea how much the wine costs, nor how well reputed it is. I have not read the label on the back and I have no record where I got it from (presumably a present then).
It is always interesting to attempt to not be swayed by a label, but given a Château Lafite 1787 and an Echo Falls Merlot in each other’s bottles would I notice? I might rate the sickly lifestyle brand, with almost certainly the British & Commonwealth record for slowest and most annoying website ever, the best wine. Maybe I am a Label Mabel. A brand junkie. Or just a marketing and packaging enthusiast?
My prejudices say this wine is cheap. The colour is dark and much too purple. The taste is jammy. Specifically blackcurrant with a wipe of strawberry. There is also something tangy and sharp. But actually I quite like it. At 13.5% not as blockbusting super-jammo as I feared. Yes, quite tasty. I think it would compare favourably to a £7.50 Chilean Cabernet.
So how much is it then? Off to Google. Tesco.com have it for £6.17 a bottle (in cases of 6). That sounds fair. Bit better than a cheapy, not in the same class as a 10 quider but drinkable with the right food – in this case Marmite on white toast is the perfect match.
I was going to title this post “Give me a Thai five”. There are at least that many restaurants of the genre in Manchester. I love Chaopharaya, the offshoot of the Leeds original. But that only opened recently. The longest serving Thai dates from 1985.
Stumble It!