A Busy Day - Wine+ and Lindfield
03-Feb-09 - And surprisingly trouble free, given the rather gleeful abandonment of the railway timetable by the Southern Railway Company. My gig at Wine+ was scheduled for 15:30, so ordinarily I would have taken the 12:06 and arrived at Olympia about 14:00, but the National Rail website was very vague and the helpline was busy, so I decided to go earlier, just in case. It was as well. At the station the destination boards were all in neutral, and the ticket office said that it was taking about three and a half hours to get to London. A member of the station staff did come out and explain what was happening, however: after the disruption of Monday all the trains and train crews were in the wrong places, and, of course, it takes time to get them back where they're supposed to be. But there was a train on the way - the slow train to Brighton, stopping at every station - and then change for the London train at Brighton. There were continuing announcements about 'severe weather conditions' as I sat in the sun looking across the tracks, where not a shred of snow or ice was to be seen. Oh well.
To cut a long story short we eventually arrived in Brighton 42 minutes later (after a ten-minute wait for a platform in the New England tunnel), to find that the London train had been delayed and so was still in the station. I hopped on gratefully and was delighted to find that an attractive young gel with the drinks trolley was able to dispense much-needed central heating against the 'severe weather conditions'. We arrived at Victoria about 13:50, with a total journey time of 2h15 which, whilst not as good as the usual 1h20-ish, was better than I had been promised. I had originally planned to jump ship (train) at Clapham Junction and get a cab from there, but given the 'extreme weather conditions' and the fact that there are only about four spaces on the taxi rank at CLJ I decided to go to VIC instead, where there are two ranks plus the Buckingham Palace Road 'hole in the wall'. I arrived at Olympia at about a quarter past two to find the event in full swing. There were some grumbles: a few of the exhibitors were still struggling to get there, and a few more were complaining that they'd expected more visitors, but it was early days (Wine+ runs for two days) and needless to say the tube wasn't running between Earl's Court and Olympia (a really big help!) until later in the afternoon.
The event was, however, a masterpiece of organisation, and for my particular gig a tremendous vote of thanks to the lovely Beatriz Blázquez of Wines From Spain. On Thursday last I was told that I had to source the wines for the tasting, that they had to come from exhibitors, and that the tasting list was needed for the following day. I 'phoned a couple of exhibitors who were quite happy to donate one of the wines, but not all four. I realised that this could turn into several days' work, which we hadn't got. So I 'phoned Beatriz and, within 24 hours, she had arranged the wines, the delivery and everything. In addition, on the day she came up with 40 miniatures of La Guita Manzanilla, which I'd requested but which hadn't been on the exhibitors' list until the last minute.
Me, and Chris Cooper on the right
So, it was all going terribly well. I was co-presenting with Chris Cooper, head sommelier at St Alban on Regent Street, and the tasting theatre had 42 seats, which we filled. Sue Prain from YES CHEF! Came along with the banner for the mag (we were sponsoring the tasting) and we got under way on time - we only had 30 minutes to get through the five wines. The title was 'Challenging Pairings' and we'd chosen three canapés which might be deemed 'difficult' to match with a particular wine: chorizo, sweet potato bhaji, and chilli prawn, and five wines to see if they matched. These were they:
2007 Louro Godello, Rafael Palacios, DO Valdeorras - Georges Barbier of London (georgesbarbier@f2s.com): this is a very delicate, dry white, and many of the tasters liked it with the bhaji, and several liked it with all three, although Chris and I did think the chilli prawn overpowered it a bit. A lovely wine, nonetheless.
La Guita Manzanilla, Grupo Estévez, Berkmann wines - our last-minute arrival in miniatures (delivered by the fabulously attractive Clare Leech) wasn't properly chilled but we were grateful to have it. I've always advocated chilled Manzanilla with spicy foods, and it did the business for me with the chilli prawn. Indeed, several people thought it went with everything, and we couldn't disagree.
2007 Antea, Marqués de Cáceres, DOCa Rioja, Doudet & Major (01-730-821-744) - this is barrel-fermented Viura with a little Malvasía Riojana, and I chose it because of the extra richness (not sweetness) it has on the mid-palate thanks to several months on the lees. It was excellent with the chilli prawn but perhaps upstaged the bhaji in the spice department.
2007 Cuatro Pasas, Martín Códax, DO Bierzo, Liberty Wines - this is a very young Mencía with a great deal of fresh acidity and crisp fruit, and was one of the favourites with the chorizo, although we all thought it was still a bit young for the job. Promises extremely well.
2002 Valenciso Reserva, DOCa Rioja, Boutinot - this is, of course, a classic match with all kinds of tapas and was sublime with the chorizo. I asked Chris about recommending a wine such as this with chilli prawns (or any kind of fish) and he said that it all depends on the customer: one of a sommelier's talents has to be that 'mental telepathy' to suss out just how adventurous he or she is prepared to be. The general consensus was that this wine was the best overall for the food pairings, although at £15-16 it was also the most expensive.
After the tasting I popped round to see a few old chums (including Tim Stanley-Clarke on the Viniportugal stand) before grabbing a cab and heading south.
A full house (click to enlarge)
I got lucky with the train back, as well. I only needed to get to Haywards Heath so I could take a Brighton, Eastbourne or Littlehampton train and, in the event, there was a Brighton service on platform 17, leaving in ten minutes. I clambered aboard the rearmost coach (it was a 12-coach train and absolutely packed, of course) and grabbed a seat in first class. For once, the guard announced that the seats were declassified due to overcrowding, so no surcharge to pay.
I was met at HHE by David Macmillan of the Mid-Sussex Wine Society at about 18:30 and, being early, we repaired to the Red Lion on the High Street in Lindfield, a few hundred yards away from the King Edward Hall, where the tasting was to take place. I don't know if you're familiar with Lindfield but it's one of those beautiful, (almost) unspoilt villages with which Sussex is so blessed: a real High Street with real shops, several pubs, and two or three decent restaurants as well, an avenue of lime trees (looking a bit brutal as they'd just been pollarded) and some lovely old buildings. The Red Lion is a proper pub (no idiot teenagers drinking alcopops) and they do an excellent post-15:00 meal deal: steak or lamb or gammon with chips and peas, and a glass of wine for £5.99 all in. I had the gammon and pushed the boat out a bit (at David's expense) with a couple of extra glasses of wine and portion of béarnaise sauce (surely the king of sauces, except maybe for pepper. Have I said this before?). An observation: as I was asking for another glass, a man passing by bent to pick up a £20 note from the floor and put it on the bar. "Looks like somebody's dropped this" he said, as he went out. I handed it to the barmaid who thought I was using it to pay for the drinks. "It's not mine", I said, "it was dropped on the floor. Somebody'll probably come to claim it." She put it on one side and charged the drinks to David's tab (thanks David!). Civilisation or what?
The tasting started at 20:00 and they'd left it to me what to choose. I went for Spanish as I can do a tasting without notes and, in any case, everybody (except wine snobs) loves Spanish wine. This was what we had (all from Majestic because they deliver):
1) 2007 Martín Códax Albariño, DO Rías Baixas - £8.49 - This was just about the favourite wine of the tasting. Afterwards there was about three-quarters of a bottle left and everybody wanted another taste. I use it as my 'benchmark' Albariño: when I taste other examples I ask myself "is this better or not as good as Martín Códax?" Lovely, fresh, peachy fruit.
2) 2007 La Serrana Tempranillo, VdlT Castilla y León - £3.39 - I chose this purely on price. It's a simple, gluggable, everyday red with absolutely no pretensions. Made by a co-operative and for general drinking. No-one's going to write a book about it but I did recommend it in SPAIN magazine a couple of months ago as a great barbecue wine.
3) 2006 Corona de Aragón, Grandes Bodegas y Viñedos, DO Cariñena - £6.49 - made by a holding company representing no less than five bodegas in the DO (and the biggest joint venture in Aragón), this is a pure Syrah aged in American oak, big, spicy and delicious.
There was a break here for the raffle. I bought two strips of tickets but didn't win anything (story of my life).
4) 2006 Vilosell, Tomás Cusiné, DO Costers del Segre - £8.99 - They weren't too keen on the stripy label, thinking it looked a bit old fashioned, but the wine (Tempranillo/Cabernet-Sauvignon) showed well, with a lot of fruit: strawbery/raspberry from the Tempranillo and blackcurrant from the Cab. Delicious.
5) 2004 Castillo El Destaca Crianza, DO Ribera del Duero - £6.49 but they've sold out - which is not surprising. This is another co-op wine but beautifully made and wonderful value for money: very popular on the night.
6) 2002 Castillo Establés Reserva, DO La Mancha - £4.49 - I was a bit miffed about this because my wine club has just sent me six bottles at about £8 a time. I must have a word with them. But the wine was nicely mature (we were tasting in vintage order rather than price order), warm, ripe and drinking well.
They all went down very well, and they were a very enthusiastic bunch. The society had laid on a taxi to take me home at 22:15 (which was just as well as, apparently, the last southbound train from HHE had left at 21:00) and I was home by just after 23:00 and getting stuck into a large KyB. A good day.
To cut a long story short we eventually arrived in Brighton 42 minutes later (after a ten-minute wait for a platform in the New England tunnel), to find that the London train had been delayed and so was still in the station. I hopped on gratefully and was delighted to find that an attractive young gel with the drinks trolley was able to dispense much-needed central heating against the 'severe weather conditions'. We arrived at Victoria about 13:50, with a total journey time of 2h15 which, whilst not as good as the usual 1h20-ish, was better than I had been promised. I had originally planned to jump ship (train) at Clapham Junction and get a cab from there, but given the 'extreme weather conditions' and the fact that there are only about four spaces on the taxi rank at CLJ I decided to go to VIC instead, where there are two ranks plus the Buckingham Palace Road 'hole in the wall'. I arrived at Olympia at about a quarter past two to find the event in full swing. There were some grumbles: a few of the exhibitors were still struggling to get there, and a few more were complaining that they'd expected more visitors, but it was early days (Wine+ runs for two days) and needless to say the tube wasn't running between Earl's Court and Olympia (a really big help!) until later in the afternoon.
The event was, however, a masterpiece of organisation, and for my particular gig a tremendous vote of thanks to the lovely Beatriz Blázquez of Wines From Spain. On Thursday last I was told that I had to source the wines for the tasting, that they had to come from exhibitors, and that the tasting list was needed for the following day. I 'phoned a couple of exhibitors who were quite happy to donate one of the wines, but not all four. I realised that this could turn into several days' work, which we hadn't got. So I 'phoned Beatriz and, within 24 hours, she had arranged the wines, the delivery and everything. In addition, on the day she came up with 40 miniatures of La Guita Manzanilla, which I'd requested but which hadn't been on the exhibitors' list until the last minute.
Me, and Chris Cooper on the right2007 Louro Godello, Rafael Palacios, DO Valdeorras - Georges Barbier of London (georgesbarbier@f2s.com): this is a very delicate, dry white, and many of the tasters liked it with the bhaji, and several liked it with all three, although Chris and I did think the chilli prawn overpowered it a bit. A lovely wine, nonetheless.
La Guita Manzanilla, Grupo Estévez, Berkmann wines - our last-minute arrival in miniatures (delivered by the fabulously attractive Clare Leech) wasn't properly chilled but we were grateful to have it. I've always advocated chilled Manzanilla with spicy foods, and it did the business for me with the chilli prawn. Indeed, several people thought it went with everything, and we couldn't disagree.
2007 Antea, Marqués de Cáceres, DOCa Rioja, Doudet & Major (01-730-821-744) - this is barrel-fermented Viura with a little Malvasía Riojana, and I chose it because of the extra richness (not sweetness) it has on the mid-palate thanks to several months on the lees. It was excellent with the chilli prawn but perhaps upstaged the bhaji in the spice department.
2007 Cuatro Pasas, Martín Códax, DO Bierzo, Liberty Wines - this is a very young Mencía with a great deal of fresh acidity and crisp fruit, and was one of the favourites with the chorizo, although we all thought it was still a bit young for the job. Promises extremely well.
2002 Valenciso Reserva, DOCa Rioja, Boutinot - this is, of course, a classic match with all kinds of tapas and was sublime with the chorizo. I asked Chris about recommending a wine such as this with chilli prawns (or any kind of fish) and he said that it all depends on the customer: one of a sommelier's talents has to be that 'mental telepathy' to suss out just how adventurous he or she is prepared to be. The general consensus was that this wine was the best overall for the food pairings, although at £15-16 it was also the most expensive.
After the tasting I popped round to see a few old chums (including Tim Stanley-Clarke on the Viniportugal stand) before grabbing a cab and heading south.
A full house (click to enlarge)I got lucky with the train back, as well. I only needed to get to Haywards Heath so I could take a Brighton, Eastbourne or Littlehampton train and, in the event, there was a Brighton service on platform 17, leaving in ten minutes. I clambered aboard the rearmost coach (it was a 12-coach train and absolutely packed, of course) and grabbed a seat in first class. For once, the guard announced that the seats were declassified due to overcrowding, so no surcharge to pay.
I was met at HHE by David Macmillan of the Mid-Sussex Wine Society at about 18:30 and, being early, we repaired to the Red Lion on the High Street in Lindfield, a few hundred yards away from the King Edward Hall, where the tasting was to take place. I don't know if you're familiar with Lindfield but it's one of those beautiful, (almost) unspoilt villages with which Sussex is so blessed: a real High Street with real shops, several pubs, and two or three decent restaurants as well, an avenue of lime trees (looking a bit brutal as they'd just been pollarded) and some lovely old buildings. The Red Lion is a proper pub (no idiot teenagers drinking alcopops) and they do an excellent post-15:00 meal deal: steak or lamb or gammon with chips and peas, and a glass of wine for £5.99 all in. I had the gammon and pushed the boat out a bit (at David's expense) with a couple of extra glasses of wine and portion of béarnaise sauce (surely the king of sauces, except maybe for pepper. Have I said this before?). An observation: as I was asking for another glass, a man passing by bent to pick up a £20 note from the floor and put it on the bar. "Looks like somebody's dropped this" he said, as he went out. I handed it to the barmaid who thought I was using it to pay for the drinks. "It's not mine", I said, "it was dropped on the floor. Somebody'll probably come to claim it." She put it on one side and charged the drinks to David's tab (thanks David!). Civilisation or what?
The tasting started at 20:00 and they'd left it to me what to choose. I went for Spanish as I can do a tasting without notes and, in any case, everybody (except wine snobs) loves Spanish wine. This was what we had (all from Majestic because they deliver):
1) 2007 Martín Códax Albariño, DO Rías Baixas - £8.49 - This was just about the favourite wine of the tasting. Afterwards there was about three-quarters of a bottle left and everybody wanted another taste. I use it as my 'benchmark' Albariño: when I taste other examples I ask myself "is this better or not as good as Martín Códax?" Lovely, fresh, peachy fruit.
2) 2007 La Serrana Tempranillo, VdlT Castilla y León - £3.39 - I chose this purely on price. It's a simple, gluggable, everyday red with absolutely no pretensions. Made by a co-operative and for general drinking. No-one's going to write a book about it but I did recommend it in SPAIN magazine a couple of months ago as a great barbecue wine.
3) 2006 Corona de Aragón, Grandes Bodegas y Viñedos, DO Cariñena - £6.49 - made by a holding company representing no less than five bodegas in the DO (and the biggest joint venture in Aragón), this is a pure Syrah aged in American oak, big, spicy and delicious.
There was a break here for the raffle. I bought two strips of tickets but didn't win anything (story of my life).
4) 2006 Vilosell, Tomás Cusiné, DO Costers del Segre - £8.99 - They weren't too keen on the stripy label, thinking it looked a bit old fashioned, but the wine (Tempranillo/Cabernet-Sauvignon) showed well, with a lot of fruit: strawbery/raspberry from the Tempranillo and blackcurrant from the Cab. Delicious.
5) 2004 Castillo El Destaca Crianza, DO Ribera del Duero - £6.49 but they've sold out - which is not surprising. This is another co-op wine but beautifully made and wonderful value for money: very popular on the night.
6) 2002 Castillo Establés Reserva, DO La Mancha - £4.49 - I was a bit miffed about this because my wine club has just sent me six bottles at about £8 a time. I must have a word with them. But the wine was nicely mature (we were tasting in vintage order rather than price order), warm, ripe and drinking well.
They all went down very well, and they were a very enthusiastic bunch. The society had laid on a taxi to take me home at 22:15 (which was just as well as, apparently, the last southbound train from HHE had left at 21:00) and I was home by just after 23:00 and getting stuck into a large KyB. A good day.
posted by John Radford at
17:33
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home