Confessions of a Wino

Take a red bell pepper, half it then add a dash of fresh lime juice and cook over an oak smoked barbecue.  Then serve it with some fresh berry fruits.  This rather specific and hyper-pretentious description of Grand-Puy-Lacoste came to me as I finished off the bottle with my brain somewhat the worse for wear.

I bought two Bordeaux wines en primeur from the 2003 vintage.  I have already posted about Château du Tetre from Margaux.  The other was Grand-Puy-Lacoste from Pauillac.

The wines are said to be more robust in Pauillac.  Personally I love the subtlety of Margaux.  However, Pauillac is one of the (if not THE) most respected wine regions in the world so I must take it seriously.

A very promising wine.  Maybe just needs some more time in the bottle.  I think 2003 was a good year so I may seek out some cheaper wines from this vintage.  Especially now that everyone is falling over themselves to spend every penny they possess on 2005…

Breakfast is the new lunch?  Well if you listen to the critics, it seems that they are falling over themselves to review the “breakfast experience”.

I like breakfast.  My favourite breakfast ever is bacon with poached eggs, washed down by Earl Grey tea.

So in my search for a great English breakfast in London I tried to book the Wolseley only to find no space at the inn – not even for a celebrity like me!

So we plumped for Simpsons-in-the-Strand which has been serving Londoners English breakfasts since before my forefathers’ forefathers slaughtered their first pig.

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Louis XVI (seize – geddit?)  CostCo’s last chance.  A number of variable experiences with wine from CostCo have led me to wonder whether to bring down the guillotine (gee-yo-teen) on their wine department.

So tasting this 2004 Louis Jadot Cotes de Beaune-Villages at £6.79 plus VAT was it going to be the best of times or the worst of times?  Was I going to be the Sydney Carton of wine, or the Charles Darnay?

CostCo is known for high quality products at rock bottom prices and this works well for consumer electronics, Red Bull, or San Pellegrino for example.  But wine buyers need a bit more nous than getting the lowest possible price.

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In the interests of fairness in my search for the best cheap Malbec I unearthed this little number at Tesco.

Now you might presume that Anubis comes from Egypt but in fact it is from Middle Earth (aka Argentina).  I can prove this is the case because I discovered that Susana Balbo (aka Balbo Baggins) had a hand in making this wine.

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“Put a Yorkshireman in charge of an Italian restaurant???” I said.  “Next, you will be telling me a Swede is being appointed as England Football coach!”

So it came to pass that my predictions for the year 2001 were (as ever) way off the mark, since Martin Pickles bought the Flying Pizza in Leeds and……….well let’s not discuss the other appointment.

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Now, we already know that the Spanish football team is ever the under-achiever.  Possibly only England can compare to their dismal lack of success when matched against national expectation.  But what are they like at making wine?  In a wine competition, I suspect the English would contrive to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.  However, I think Spanish wine is pretty good on average, and maybe they finally have a sport to excel at.

Firstly let me clear up the fact that I am about to review a wine that claims it is from Spain but many would say it is made in Catalunia.  Without getting into Iberian politics perhaps I’ll move on to this rather nice Cava (pronounced more like cava in cavalier than “carver” as most people seem to say).  But that’s not the only pronunciation problem here since the Cava is named Freixenet and as best as I can establish that is pronounced like Fresher-net.

Still, I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition when I asked for the wine at my local Co-op supermarket. Read the rest of this entry »

My second favourite film of all time is “The Italian Job” – I mean the original one with Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill et al.  So this barmy April weather had me on the balcony humming “On days like these” by Matt Munro and that got me thinking “hold on lads, I’ve just had a great idea!” and searched my collection of Pinkos for an Italian Job.

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Now I don’t want to be accused of bias.  I buy wine from all over the place, but to be honest Tesco is normally bottom of my list despite it being the location of choice for most of our grocery shopping.

So in the interests of giving it a fair hearing, I recently purchased a couple of sample bottles, the first of which I will review here.

£6.99 for a Grüner Veltliner seems a good deal.  Tesco’s offering was “Singing” Grüner Veltliner from Laurenz und Sophie.

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Southampton Row is a funny old street.  Well funny yes, but mostly old.  It looks like it is stuck in a time warp from the 1960’s and 70’s.

However, there are one or two secret places I know where you can find food amongst the best value in London.  One of them is Old Amalfi.  An unremarkable establishment with tacky decor and no expense wasted on fine table linen or other unimportant items.

However, the food is terrific!

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When I turned 18 we did a sort of lad’s rite of passage thing.  Some guys did sickly things like inhaling a whole cigar.  Others did amateur self harm (but not on Iggy Pop’s scale).

The idea I most admired was the guy who ate a whole pot of jam.  This doesn’t sound very rock and roll does it?!  But have you ever tried it?  The first spoonful is delicious but by the time you are half way through the jar, it is getting sickly to the point of making you gip.  In that sense it’s a bit like drinking an Aussie Shiraz.

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