Confessions of a Wino

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?

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I wonder what went through Claudio’s mind when I asked how warm the wine was.  I reached out my hand to touch the bottle.  Claudio winced.  Another stupid and ignorant Englishman?  Even worse than an ignorant Scotsman.  I grinned.  The bottle was cool.  Claudio nodded approvingly.  He had served the Primitivo Da Castello di Puglia at the recommended 16-18 degrees.  Probably even cooler actually, which suited the wine rather well.  Sweet flavours of cherries, cherry lips and bubble gum collided with the not unexpected tannic youth of the Italian stallion.

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You may be sick of me carping on about wine temperature, or you may be a staunch supporter of my unfortunately acronymed WART campaign.  Personally I am getting ever more fed up of the ignorance of British bar and restaurant staff bringing me Beaujolais from the wine oven and Chablis from the beer freezer.

But what worries me more is the attitude I get when I ask for a red wine to be chilled.  Replies range from the polite but sardonic “That’s a red wine, sir, it should be served at room temperature” to the downright rude and sneering “You’re wrong, sir, it should be served warm”.

As it is Christmas, I dug out one of last year’s presents, a wine thermometer.  It is quite enlightening to read the instructions and I hope I am not breaching copyright by reproducing them verbatim.

The single most important factor of serving wine at its optimum is the temperature.  The enclosed thermometer will give you an exact reading for you to follow on our guide and eliminate the need for guesswork.  We recommend you serve wine one degree lower than the guide indicates to compensate for the wine glass warming up to room temperature.

16-17°C – Vintage red wines when mature Bordeaux type
15-16°C – Vintage Burgundy type
14-16°C – High quality or vintage red wines still young
14-16°C – Vintage dry white wines
11-12°C – Light fruity or young red wines
10-12°C – Dry and young white wines
10-12°C – New or young red wines
10-12°C – Very fruity rosé wines
8-10°C – Light or local white wines
7-8°C – Champagne or sparkling wine
5-6°C – Sweet or aromatic wines

Whilst you may quibble about some of the individual detail, and I could find a case to change one or two recommendations by a degree or two, the range of recommended temperatures is valid.  When you consider that most restos serve all red wines at 25 degrees and all white wines at 5 degrees Celsius, it is clear there is some education required out there.

By the way, if you don’t own a thermometer, about an hour in my fridge gets a wine down to about 15-16°C.

Now I have had my rant I can get back to the Xmas festivities and a particularly feisty yet lithesome bottle of Riesling.  Can I take this opportunity of wishing you all the highest compliments of the season.  May your food be warm and tasty, and your wine chilled and dandy.

I hardly dare review a Spanish wine after my admonishment at the hands of Lorenza, but I had already purchased this on my way home from Spain in July.  There is not much to do at Malaga airport other than mooch around the “duty free” shop, and €16.30 doesn’t sound like a lot for a Gran Reserva.

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When dining out, one well known restaurant critic makes a point of asking how the tips are distributed, always leaving cash, and encourages readers to do the same.  So I dutifully asked the MO of one waiter at the Cornerhouse Grill and was stunned by his response.

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And now for something completely different.  I picked a few bottles up at the Leeds branch of Majestic recently (before the fire), including this Montes Pinot Noir for £7.99.  I wasn’t looking for the Spanish Inquisition, and fortunately I didn’t need my Hungarian phrase book.

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What’s in a name?  Or the way it is pronounced?  Or the way it is presented?  Hyacinth Bucket was famous for re-packaging her married name as “Bouquet”.  Snob residents of Burnage in Manchester (pronounced burnidge since 1478) are heard to mutter that they come from Burnaaaarj (as the French would pronounce it).

Long ago, the Cockburn family must have realised that their own name needed a bit of thought.  Who is going to buy a bottle of port from a company that sounds like a naked barbecue incident?  And so they became Coeburn by pronunciation.

193 years later, and change is on the agenda again, as Cockburn’s have decided to repackage port to make it more trendy, more appealing to the contemporary drinker, more relevant to the modern dinner table, and perhaps more attractive to the Buckets of the world.

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We met Jeffo and (pregnant) Michele in Didsbury (Manchester) for Sunday lunch.  Jeffo knows these parts well and had tasted his “best lamb ever” at a place on Burton Road – Rhubarb.

It was small and well packed with tables, but pretty full of happy looking customers.  A bistro type atmosphere but with the warming sense that you are visiting old friends.

We rejected the Sunday lunch special menu in favour of the à la carte.  We were only there for one dish, “is the rump of spring lamb on?” Jeff enquired and was advised that we could order anything from the menu.  So we ordered lamb all round.

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I’ve been on a crusade recently, to try to persuade the public that white wine is almost always served too cold, whilst red wine is almost always too warm.  I have appealed to restaurateurs and bar owners to join my Wine At Right Temperature (WART) campaign, but every single one has responded that they are merely reflecting public demand and, in any case, displaying my helpful acronym in the window of their premises is hardly likely to invite custom.

This is a bit like saying that the media is a reflection of society, when most sane people admit that it plays a leading role in many circumstances, and as a minimum is quick to jump on any bandwagon as soon as it looks like there is any public support.  Take the current credit crunch.  The media, including respected sources like the BBC, are constantly talking the economy into a recession.  Soon enough, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

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I met Rob McIntosh in Manchester, the night before the UEFA Cup Final (Rangers lost 2-0).  Piccadilly Gardens was packed and all the pubs were overflowing with friendly but very pissed Glaswegians.  Fortunately, the Scots had not found the Northern Quarter, an eclectic mix of trendy, funky, bohemian bars, clubs, clothes shops and arty establishments.  Rob had spotted the old fish market earlier and a bar/resto on the other side of High Street confusingly named The Northern Quarter.

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