Confessions of a Wino

What happened to global warming?  I write this on Sunday morning in Manchester, and it’s another rainy July day.  We’ve just had the coldest June since 1999, but we are still smiling.  Dunkirk spirit eh?

Although it is cold and wet, I sense that we have had much less rain than last year’s “summer”, the one that kept every reservoir in Britain at mid winter levels, and hosepipe bans a fond memory of childhood days.

We Brits are famous for talking about the weather too much, but our islands are prone to such regular and rapid changes, that it actually makes interesting conversation.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
The sun has got his hat on, shout hip, hip, hooray!

Literary references all, proving my case that weather is interesting because of its variety and inherently unexpected nature.  In that sense perhaps it is a lot like wine, another subject I talk about too much.

I was so impressed by Landelia Malbec that it is still recommended on my favourites page.  Recently, I went back to the Virgin website to top up my stocks but the cupboard was bare.  However, my search threw up another wine by Landelia, this one a Cab Sauv from 2005.

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Another weekend in London and another opportunity to knock off a “trophy” restaurant – this one from the effing Gordon Ramsay stable.  If you swear by food as much as I do, then you start to appreciate that London is really the place in the UK to do fine dining.  There simply isn’t the demand for it in Manchester, for example.  Not one Michelin star in the city!  Sure, there are plenty of good eateries, but the overall experience is just better in London, and surprisingly, not always that much more expensive.

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When in dining mode, I am a grazer.  I like to sample a range of flavours, and try new things as often as possible.  Chinese banquets are great.   I like my Indian food to be served on as many plates as possible so I can play culinary Russian roulette with my taste buds.  A spot of lime pickle on a spoonful of Vindaloo is like walking your tongue across hot coals, but this is far superior to pavement slabs of bland meat.

The ultimate grazer’s delight is a combination of three words:  Spain, seafood and tapas.  I think I may have found my mecca, ironically just to the west of the railway station in Fuengirola, Costa del Sol.  This place is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten in and almost certainly the best value.

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What has this got to do with wine?  You may recall I was kindly invited to see the Foo Fighters by one of the stadium sponsors, so I did manage to grab a few glasses but I am afraid I didn’t take any notice of the bottles.

So, for those of you who are Foo fans out there I thought I might post a few pics and vids.  Those of you more into classical music and sip of Chablis could move to the next post while I indulge myself in a small diversion.

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Confessions of a Wino is sad to announce the passing of the last bottle of Château Gris in my combine harvester.  Specifically it was passed about two hours after I drank it.

This 1999 Pinot Noir was part of the first case of wine I ever bought en primeur.  A 1er cru Nuit St Georges I think it cost about £25 per bottle, which is at the top end of my range and reflective of the sometimes cheeky prices the Bourgogne domaines think they can get away with, for often variable wines.

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I used to love the Sunday Times Wine Club regular cases.  I still admire their marketing and I still order plenty of wine from them.  I just think that, once a member for a couple of years or so, one is better placed to select wines personally, than take the pre-mixed cases.  Having said that, the mixed cases are by far the best value.  What a dilemma.

I reconcile this dilemma by continuing my subscription to a single mixed case programme.  The “President’s Cellar” delivers 6 bottles every six months at about £20 a cork.  It does encourage me to try new wines occasionally.  Generally the wines are for drinking, rather than laying down, and just occasionally they are not from Bordeaux or Burgundy.

This is how I acquired this St Joseph Rhône Ranger – I don’t know whether it is still available.  The 2003 is still on the website at £16.91 per bottle.  I have no idea whether this represents any better value than the 2001.

Made from 100% Syrah (I think) and aged in 50% new oak and 50% older oak casks, the 2001 is subtle with no strong aromas.  The taste is spicy and fruity.  Black pepper, fresh mint leaf and basil, with some bilberry, fig and peach.

Intense and concentrated flavour, it lasts forever in the mouth and is superb with rump steak.  But, then it should be for the price!

Does hay fever stop you enjoying wine?  I’ve suffered since I was a teenager, not desperately badly, but some years are worse than others.  Sneezing is easy.  It’s the itchy eyes and the variety of streaming facial liquids that really irritate.

Normally I get it early, I look like a tear-jerk long before May is out, whether I have cast a clout or not.  This year has been great, so far.  I write this late June and have hardly seen a symptom.  But today I have a mild dose.  I keep anti-histamine tablets in reserve, in case of emergency.  I am a hypochondriac in many senses but I dislike medicine and avoid it as a policy….except when things get really bad.  I have taken no prisoners, er pills, this year but I was tempted tonight.

I poured a glass of Alamos Malbec and took a sniff.  Snchoooooooorrrrrrggggghhhhhh!  No smell.  Just a loud nasal fart.

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A trip to Bournemouth last year resulted in me bringing home the best red wine I ever drank, a 1982 Camensac.

Browsing through Majestic the other day, I spotted the 1996 vintage at £19.99.  Only one course of action was available to me, and for once, my bank manager obliged.

It felt right to open this on the anniversary of the barbecue that saw the 1982’s fifteen minutes of fame (and I was surprised that it lasted 15 minutes, so cherished was it by the St Helens massive).

This 1996 Haut-Médoc, at 12 years old, is surely drinking well by now?  I was surprised at the amount of tannins still attacking my upper gums, but, consumed contemporaneously with simply barbecued lamb chops, it was excellent.  Liquorice, blackcurrant, cedar and parsnip – yum.  15 minutes later, it was gone.  With only one bottle in my basket, we had to wave goodbye to the French nobility and make friends with an impudent teenager from the New World.

I am no expert in these matters but I sense that Château Camensac 1996 will keep a good while longer and I shall probably pop back to Majestic for another couple of bottles to squirrel away in my combine harvester.

I’ve tried a few Chilean Carmenères now, and there is an emerging theme.  If I could can the essence of a real wood and coal fire pumping smoke out of an English country chimney in 1974…..it’s a vivid memory jogger!

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If Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, named this his favourite restaurant, and Adrian Gill, erstwhile restaurant critic of the Sunday Times, also raves about the place (albeit that he is presumably on a retainer for writing about the history of most of the major restos in Caprice Holdings Ltd), then any self respecting wino has to visit.  Sunday lunch is just the perfect time to eat oysters, and my rocks were from Malden.  I am embarrassed, though, to admit I had to ask the waiter to explain that Essex is where these crustacea were reared.  I am such a northern oik!

The service at Scott’s is obviously superb, highly professional and (unusually) English.  However, our waiter was having an off day.  I had to ask three times for my wine to be topped up.  You may be thinking “lazy so and so” but I would have had to walk about 300 yards to get to my bottle of Pouilly Fumé from where they parked it.  Talking of which can you spot our car in the photo below?

No I can’t see it either.

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