Confessions of a Wino

Raymond Blanc, founder of high profile restaurant with rooms, Le Manoir aux quat’saisons, and currently starring in the latest culinary reality TV show from the BBC, The Restaurant, has another business interest, a chain of eateries.

I showed up at Brasserie Blanc in Manchester only to discover that Monsieur Blanc has not visited the place in two years.  The brasserie looked unloved and was almost completely empty.  Would this be a culinary delight, or should Raymond come and close his own restaurant?

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Good evening credit crunchers, how are your bank shares doing?  Yes I know, mine too.  With the sole exception of HSBC.  With a much higher than average capital ratio, HSBC shares have risen 4% this year, whilst other banks (e.g RBS, HBOS) have tanked to one fifth of their recent value, and my old mate, Mr Bradford is owned by the British Government whilst erstwhile Mr Bingley has emigrated to Santander in Spain.  Luckily I sold B & B at about £2 while the credit crunch was a mere cream cracker.  They traded at 20 pence on the day they were nationalised.  I would have sold all my shares, but which bank could you trust your cash with?

It is not just banks, all capital expenditure has been frozen at a corporate and personal level.  How many people do you know buying a new car at the moment?  A new phone?  A new TV?  Heating oil?  Food?  Chateau Latour?  Nope.  The world is frozen with fear and we are riding an apocalyptic stallion of self fulfilling prophecy into a deep depression.

And if you want to dig yourself out of a depression, you will need cheap alcohol as your spade.  You could do worse than trying to cheer yourself up with this New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, at £8.95 from the Wine Society, a mere fraction of the price of the Cloudy Bay you used to drink in better times.

Auntsfield Long Cow 2007 is pale, grassy and full of cats’ piss.  (For the keen grammatinarianisticians amongst you, the pungency is such that I think there was more than one cat).  The acidity, though, is good and there is plenty of white fruit.

For the few remaining bulls amongst you, if your bank shares are still heading south, (and you can no longer sell them short), why not take a long position on this cow?

I’ve been all over this big wide world and I’ve tried all kinds of Pinot Noir, but I never get bored of trying a new one.  I am going to learn about a new grape soon, but I will always drink PNs whenever I see an interesting one.

I discovered very late in my virtual journey that Oregon is an excellent source of this varietal.  Lemelson Six Vineyards Oregon Pinot Noir 2005 came from the Wine Society (£12.50).

I smelt plums and wet cardboard, but the taste turned out to be more cherry.  A decent wine, but not spectacular value.  I would save up a few more groats and go for the glorious Thea’s Selection (from the same Vineyard and equally available in the UK from the Wine Society at about £19.)

I have just arrived back in the UK after a short sojourn in the north of Italy.  Driving home from the airport, a Tesco visit was necessary to restock mundane stuff like orange juice and milk, and meaningless luxuries like food.  But I couldn’t resist checking out the wine shelves for few essentials.

In Italy I tried to sample a few local wines, Piemonte being the nearest wine region.  I had a couple of bottles of Grignolino, for example, the common feature of which was a slightly unpleasant salty after taste.  I know what you are thinking ladies – let’s go no further.

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Which came first?  The unlikely family name of Christophe Bonvin, or the bon vin he produces?

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In the interests of fairness, as there are other ristoranti at the top of Mottarone, and because Italian bureaucracy once again trumped my plan to visit Locarno today, we decided to try route M3 from Baveno up to Mottarone, where we found Albergo Ristorante Eden.

Yesterday we took route L1 from nearby Stresa to the same summit, a 1300m climb.  Today was the same altitude ascent but via an up and down ridge that followed a bracing 700m rise to Mt Camoscio where we were rewarded with a view of heaven, well clouds to be precise.

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I am in Stresa where the scenery is incredible, Lago Maggiore is awesome and much bigger than I expected, but it’s damn near impossible to hire a mountain bike.  Rather than rough mountain terrain, Italian bureaucracy is the obstacle.

So, with only Shanks’ pony available, we headed up the hill to Mottarone, a majestic 1491m above sea level making this a near 1300m climb – a decent half day walk.  Mottarone turns out to be a small ski resort with 7 lifts and about 28km of ski runs – they look mostly blue and red, although on 1 October they are all green.

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I am in Switzerland for a couple of days mountain air which coincides with the deer shooting season, so Edith tells me, anyway.  Edith is the patron of Chez Edith, a charming chalet style restaurant in Nendaz.

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I’m always on the lookout for a bargain but I have had my fingers burnt a few times when trying to shave a few pennies off my sparkling wine budget.  The closest I have come to success is Freixenet Cava (although some maintain that this is only good for washing the dog).  Freixenet retails at less than £6 at places like Costco and Tesco which I think is a bargain….until I spotted an Italian mare at less than a fiver on Tesco’s sparkling shelves!

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Multi-talented Morgan Meunier arrived at our table after the meal, presumably looking for a round of applause for his culinary artistry.  “Was everything OK?” he wondered.  Super.  “Was there anything specific we particularly liked?”.  The seabass with crayfish and tarragon ravioli and lobster velouté was my favourite, but why were all his dishes so bloody complicated?

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