John Radford's Blog

Jumping into Jersey

2010-02-24T09:23:00.001Z

21-Jan-10 - But there is, as they say, no rest for the wicked, and the following morning it was another flight, this time to Jersey on behalf of EAT JERSEY magazine. There were interviews with various of the island's gastronomes, including Sergio dos Santos, the sommelier at the Atlantic Hotel, Robert Jones, owner of the Castle Green gastropub, and Patrick Tweedie, the chef at The Oyster Box in St Brelade's Bay. This last is an amazing place with fantastic views out to sea, and was converted from an old café and gift shop in 2008. Oysters and other seafood are the main attraction, of course, but given my shellfish allergy I had a crack at the chicken, mushroom, pearl onion, smoked bacon and tarragon pie with rosemary sauté potatoes, which was simply superb - very much my kind of food.

I stayed the night at Longueville Manor, which is one my favourite places in the British Isles. It has 5/10 in the Good Food Guide, five red stars from the AA and four red towers in the Michelin Guide. The occasion was a celebration of a new book called A TASTE OF RELAIS & CHÂTEAUX, which features profiles and recipes from all 29 member hotels and restaurants in the UK and Ireland. We were hosted by Malcolm Lewis, who runs Longueville with his wife Patricia, and chef Andrew Baird cooked up the three recipes which are featured in the book: poached lobster tail and ham chowder, fillet of Angus beef with oxtail ravioli, and hazelnut sablé with chocolate and sesame ice-cream. The meal was, quite simply, sensational.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Noshing in Northern Ireland

2010-02-24T09:11:00.002Z

19-Jan-10 - Off to Belfast to speak to the Northern Ireland Wine & Spirit Institute. They're a very keen bunch, some trade, some enthusiasts and I've spoken to them before, albeit back in May-04. My host, Alastair Bell, picked me up from the airport and we had a very pleasant lunch at The Bay Tree Coffee Shop in Holywood, which was positively bustling, with everything from coffee and cake to local specialities (and quite a few very interesting wines by the glass - never had an Australian Nebbiolo before). It's an unpretentious place (2/10 in the Good Food Guide), run by chef-patronne Sue Farmer, and its proudest boast is that 'we make everything ourselves' - the cinnamon scones have been voted 'best in the UK' by the BMW guide. I can also vouch for the pork and scallion sausages and mash, but there are more ambitious dishes on the menu such as crab claws, guinea fowl and a Russian starter with smoked salmon, pickled mushrooms, beetroot salad and vodka. The clientèle is eclectic, from old dears having coffee and cake to whole families apparently having everything. I was particularly beguiled by a smart-looking young couple - late teens, maybe - having lunch at a table by the window. When they stood up to leave I saw that they were both wearing school uniform, and I thought how very civilised that was - out for a proper lunch and then back to school. And how very different from my own schooldays when a visit to the chip shop (strictly against the rules, of course) was considered the height of sophistication.

The tasting went well: wines of Castilla y León, for which I have a detailed PowerPoint presentation, and 12 wines, including some rarities which I'd discovered on my last couple of trips over there: the range from La Setera in Arribes (including their slightly-illegal Touriga Nacional) and also Otero in Benavente and finishing off with Pintia, the Vega Sicilia outpost in Toro. Interestingly, Sara Groves-Raines who, with her husband Patxi Martínez, runs La Setera, is originally from Northern Ireland, and one of the guests actually knew her family: a small world.

The event was held at Nick's Warehouse in Belfast old town. As the name implies it was formerly a whisky warehouse belonging to Bushmills, and had been virtually derelict for years. Today it's a very trendy eaterie run by Nick Price (who is the brother of Sue Farmer of the Bay Tree) and has 3/10 in the Good Food Guide. We had an early dinner before the event - the menu changes on a daily basis according to what's available - and I can vouch for the chicken with black pudding on chorizo and olive mash. The wine list is wide-ranging, and we had a bottle of Urban Merlot from Bodegas O.Fournier in Chile, a winery which we visited in 2008, thanks to the generosity of José-Manuel Ortega (12-Feb-08). All in all it was an excellent evening, topped off with a stay at the very comfortable La Mon Hotel and Country club. The service there is exemplary: I got back at around midnight and asked for a sandwich and a glass of house red. The receptionist brought them up to the room himself and I was delighted to note that the sandwiches were not only good and varied but also completely slime-free (no mayonnaise, pickle, mustard or other ghastly and unnecessary accoutrements)! I slept well and even had a light breakfast (something I seldom do) before getting an early-afternoon flight home. All in all it had been a very civilised and pleasant couple of days.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

John Radford's WineWire - Winter 09/10; and results?

2010-02-24T08:59:00.000Z

15-Jan-10 - It had been a very quiet start to the new year and I even managed to get my accounts done in the nick of time. I just don't know where 2009 went. We held over the publication of YES CHEF! Magazine until w/b the 19th, as the new UK and Ireland Michelin Guide was out on the 18th. As with earlier editions, however, the headline news was leaked on the previous Friday, so the weekend was spent in feverish attempts to contact those chefs who'd won or lost stars, get quotes from them, and put an article together. The rest of the magazine had already been printed, so we were able to get it out by Monday 25-Jan-10. It also includes the second edition of JOHN RADFORD'S WINEWIRE with an in-depth look at the wines of Navarra, some unusual items from California, and the usual gossip.

Results - In an earlier post I mentioned my 'exploding' car keys, and that I had written to Proton complaining about a bill for £300-plus. They did write back and said that the car is out of guarantee but, as a goodwill gesture, they'd refund the cost... Against the price of a brand-new Proton, which I can't possibly afford. Oh well, at least I tried, and I suppose it was pretty fair offer. And to fix the windscreen wipers cost £109.96 - roll on the next car, next month.

A better result from the Southern Railway, after my £50 taxi-ride home from Haywards Heath when the train broke down (18-Dec-09). They 'fessed up and sent me a cheque for the £50. I shall use them again!

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Christmas at The Eversley

2010-01-10T12:50:00.003Z

December, 2009 - James and Claire wanted Evie to spend her first Christmas at home, so they arranged to come down in the week between Christmas and New Year. As a result we had a relatively quiet weekend, although it didn't start well. On the Wednesday before Christmas Jill was going to the shops for some last minute essentials when her car-key 'self-destructed'. The plastic fob split in half and the electronic thingamajig inside flirted out, meaning that the key wouldn't start the car. In the event she used my key instead, but on examining hers, I saw that the metal blade of the key fits into a tiny socket in the fob, held in place by a screw, so that when the key is turned all the strain goes on to this small 'junction'. Anyway, it was too close to Christmas to do anything about it, and we're changing the car in March anyway, so I thought we would manage with one key between us.

James, Claire and Evie duly came down on the Monday after Christmas, and James went out to move our car so that they could park. As he inserted the key into the lock, exactly the same thing happened as had happened to Jill's key: it split apart, the thingamajig leapt out and, to make matters worse, the plastic fob came completely away from the blade, which was still in the ignition. It would neither turn nor be removed. We managed to release the handbrake and push the car forward successfully but, of course, the steering was locked so it could only move a few feet.

For the record, the car is a Proton Impian X, first registered on the 26th April, 2005, so coming up for five years old, and with about 26,000 miles from new. I bought it from the garage which had sold it new, and they've serviced it ever since, so it's been well looked-after. At this age, of course, everything is well out of guarantee, but as I put in my letter of complaint to Proton UK about the two keys 'self-destructing' within five days of each other: "I am no mathematician, but I think that random odds for this happening must be close to those for being hit by a meteorite or winning the national lottery".

As the car was neither driveable nor towable they had to send a truck to pick it up, and we got it back a week later with two new keys, along with a bill for £338.11. They keys are £76.38 plus VAT - a nice little earner for Proton, I'll warrant. They should receive my letter by the end of the week, and I'll record here what the outcome is. [See 15-Jan-10 above]

Anyway, once the car business was out of the way we got down to the serious business of Christmas. Jill always puts on a spread of nibbly bits (mostly prawny and crabby things) for when they arrive, and we somehow managed to get down a magnum of Jacquart Brut de Nominée, especially since I only had one glass (not much of a lover of fizzy wine, although the others made up for it, especially James).

We had decided not to do the present thing until the Tuesday morning, so the next stop was dinner. James loves to go rooting in my wine rack for dusty old bottles that he thinks I've forgotten about. Jill had prepared a couple of brace of spatchcock poussin and James dug out a bottle of Riberal Reserva 1996, from Bodegas Santa Eulalia in Ribera del Duero, which required very careful decanting. I wasn't sure how it would have survived (I've moved house twice since then) but, in the event, it was still there, and drinking splendidly: mature, aromatic and delicious, with just a hint of fading on the finish. I haven't got any more of that vintage but if I had I'd say it needs drinking up soon.

We did the presents on the Tuesday morning. Evie is, of course, much too young at 14 weeks to understand what it's all about, but she got the biggest 'stocking' of all, including a Winnie the Pooh which is almost the same size as she is. Claire has had to ask all their friends not to buy any more clothes for Evie as she now has an absolute wardrobe full, in all sizes up to a year old. I got a nice woolly jumper and, erm, well, I'll think of it in a minute. I never know what to buy for Jill and she never knows what to buy for me, so I gave her the bill for the car, and she gave it back to me.

We haven't bothered with turkey for many years, and Jill usually does a crispy duck - Peking style - which we all love and which she has perfected over the past 20 years until it's always absolutely spot-on, but this year she's developed a recipe for crispy lamb. She takes a shoulder of lamb, rolls it out and marinates it overnight with the same spices that she uses on the duck. It then goes into the oven until it's well and truly roasted - almost black - before being smashed up, again in the style of crispy duck. They like it Mongolian-style, rolled up in pancakes with cucumber, spring onion and hoy sin sauce (like the duck, again) but I prefer it Mediterranean style, with coarse salad inside a toasted pitta bread. In either case it disappeared very rapidly. We drank a bottle of Bruñal 2004, a gift from the importer (Besos wines of Chichester - 01-243-511-151), which was just as well, as it retails at about £85 a bottle. Bruñal is an obscure grape which only grows in one small plot in Pereña de la Ribera, in Arribes. The winemaker at Bodegas Ribera de Pelazas, Julio Gallo (no relation - he's actually Uruguayan) discovered the abandoned vines and decided to resurrect the vineyard, with a first vintage - of only 1,500 bottles - in 2003. I first tasted it at the London Wine Fair in 2006, and was astonished at the quality. The 2004 performed no less well with the crispy lamb: big, powerful fruit with balanced tannins and more than enough 'oomph' to cope with the food.

I'm a bit of a backslider when it comes to puddings, but Jill had got some crème brulée, which everyone loves. Indeed, James had bought her one of the blowlamp things which you use to caramelise the sugars (but guess what - it came out of the box 'fuel not included', and all the shops were shut). The family still enjoyed it, however, and James managed to find a really old, forgotten, dusty bottle at the bottom of the wine rack: 1969 Château Guiraud, Sauternes. Indeed, the dust was so thick that I had to scrape it off to read the label. I bought it during my first stint in the wine trade (1972-5) and I might have paid £1.80 for it, or thereabouts. It was actually a present for Jill, who has resolutely refused to open it until now, and I wondered whether it would have survived 40 years (and five house moves), especially since 1969 was not considered a very good year (which is probably why I could afford it).

In the event, the cork was encouragingly sound, and the wine decanted with surprisingly little sediment. In the glass it was perfumed, with no hint of oxidation, and on the palate it was undeniably faded but still retained some of the classic Sauternes magic - gentle, elegant sweetness and a lovely old-fashioned style. Another one to drink up, but what an experience 40 years on and from a pretty duff year... Although, of course, Guiraud is a Premier Cru.

The débris (well, some of it): Riberal '96, Bruñal '04 and Guiraud '69

As with Christmas, James and Claire wanted Evie to spend her first ever new year at home and, with more snow forecast they decided to head back on the Wednesday, and had a quiet journey - I think most people had stayed at home - punctuated by the regulation stop at the bikers' café at Box Hill (their bacon and egg baps are astonishing, but the coffee is so hot that you can't drink it until it's too late).

01-Jan-10 - Our own new year weekend was as quiet as Christmas - indeed we didn't set foot outside the house until the 9th January to replenish urgently-needed stocks (whisky, Bourbon, brandy, milk, er, oh, and there wasn't a loaf to be had in the supermarket) and guess what. After scraping an inch of snow off the windscreen and getting the car going, the wipers went 'phut' and have not moved since. That'll be another 300 quid then... B****y Proton! [See 15-Jan-10 above]

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

December Travels, and Stranded by Snow

2010-01-03T08:09:00.000Z

December, 2009 - aside from the birthday thing (see a previous post) December was pretty quiet:

02-Dec-09 - a four-hour drive in the filthiest imaginable weather conditions (the rain was so heavy on the A34 we almost had to stop) took us to Whatley Manor, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire. Last year I had the great pleasure of travelling around northern Portugal with the chef, Martin Burge who, at that time, had a Michelin star. In January, 2009 he won his second star, and we were to have dinner and interview him about his food and the restaurant - the dinner was fab. Full details are in the January, 2010 issue of YES CHEF! Magazine, but I must give the hotel itself a mention:

The approach to Whatley Manor in darkness is a revelation: on an unlit, winding country road between Malmesbury and Easton Grey, lights appear in the trees ahead. Then stone buildings and, finally one of those brown and white tourism signs finally admits that you are approaching the hotel. A long driveway lit by axle-height pylons leads you to another stone building and two firmly-closed gates which look remarkably like the drawbridge to a mediaeval castle. A sign advises hotel guests to drive towards the gates 'which will open automatically', and they do, revealing an elegant, cobbled courtyard, herbaceous borders and a welcoming light at the main entrance. There are few, if any signs to say that this is a hotel, and that's the idea, says Eloise Gordon, from the marketing department. "We want it to feel like a private country house, which is what it was when it was built." When was that? Stone walls, leaded lights, Elizabethan pediments - 16th, 17th century? "Well, no, actually it was in the 1920s. It was converted into a hotel in the 1950s and an extra wing was added in the early 2000s", but you wouldn't know it to look at it. You really can't see the join.

The Courtyard at Whatley Manor. Pic.: www.whatleymanor.com

In daylight you can see the magnificent formal gardens and the river Avon which, even in winter, raise the spirits. If you're looking for a real romantic getaway, this is definitely it.

03-Dec-09 - From Whatley onward to Daventry in Northamptonshire, via Cirencester and Banbury: a pleasant drive through some lovely old towns and villages, and even some decent weather after the downpours of the previous day. The occasion was a gig for The Wine Adventure, which arranges corporate wine events, and this was the 'finale' for a sales conference. The group were enthusiastic and boisterous but did remarkably well in identifying the wines - indeed the overall individual winner who got all but one of the questions right, admitted publicly that he knew nothing about wine. I think he probably does now.

We were staying at the Premier Inn (very pleasant, no frills, excellent service), near to junction 16 on the M1, so the following morning we were able to call in and see James, Claire and Evie on our way home. A very pleasant three days (apart from the weather on day 1!).

08-Dec-09 - another very welcome late invitation arrived from La Rioja Calidad, which is the organisation which looks after all the DO products of La Rioja, including wine, of course. They asked me to conduct three evening tastings as part of a 'La Rioja Week' at the National Geographic store on Regent Street in London. I thought it a rather unusual venue, but in the event they were perfectly geared up for it, and the tastings were well-attended, and I was able to taste one or two wines from bodegas which I haven't visited, perhaps most notably Bodegas Tobía in San Asensio, whose range was impressive. They are on my list for a visit next time I'm in Rioja. The organisers were Jorge Portu from Rioja Calidad, and Juan Chavarri from the regional Ministry of Agriculture, who helped to field the more technical questions, and everything went like clockwork.

I'd never been to the store before and was amazed at the range of stuff they stock: not just maps, books and magazines but furniture, ethnic artefacts and specialist clothing. Most fascinating was the range of 'arctic-wear' in the basement, where there's even a freezer chamber with glass walls and a thermal-imaging screen, so you can try on your polar parka, go inside and see where the heat is leaking out - if any. I could have watched it for hours.

17-Dec-09 - the last 'away from home' job of the year was putting issue 12 of YES CHEF! Magazine to bed. Jill warned me that it was going to snow and I laughed: it never snows in Worthing, apart from a few feeble flakes. Before the train had even arrived, however, snow did start to fall... I changed trains at Clapham for Milton Keynes, as usual, by which time I'd seen some fairly substantial falls from the train window, and they got heavier the further north I went. The train was, nevertheless, more or less on time, and I got a cab to a bar where I'd arranged to meet a former colleague - Sam Jones, who'd been my deputy editor at YES CHEF! but was about to take up a new job with a magazine in London. The idea was that the publisher, Peter Marshall, would pick me up at 7:00 pm and take me over to Buckingham, where I'd stay the night prior to going into the office the following morning. In the event he'd flown in from Jersey to Birmingham and the flight was late, so we ended up running up a rather large bar bill while we waited. Eventually he did arrive and we decamped to the Brasserie Blanc on Avebury Boulevard - I can recommend the strog.

The drive back to Buckingham (about half an hour on a good day) was a bit slippery, although the snow had stopped falling. I was telling myself that it'd all be gone by tomorrow morning as I turned in at the Buckingham Hotel - very comfortable, warm, and free wifi, too.

18-Dec-09 - it snowed again overnight. Peter picked me up at 09:00 and we slipped and slithered towards the office. It's on an industrial estate so there's almost no through traffic, and it took us several attempts to get up the gentle slope to the office door, but we did it in the end. I knew that this one was going to be a long job, and had originally suggested that I should stay over a second night rather than risk having to cross London on a Friday evening, but as they day wore on and the internet weather news got worse and worse, I began to think I should just do what I could and leave as early as possible. Then things got worse still. Trains were cancelled, roads closed. There were no trains between Brighton and Worthing. I began to worry about the prospect of being stranded somewhere like Clapham Junction and freezing to death overnight, so I decided that I would have to stay over, after all. But we did get the job finished, by about 6:30 pm. They put me up, not at the Buckingham, but at the Villiers, in the centre of the town, and a charming old coaching inn. It looks very quaint from the outside but inside it's warm and welcoming, has a lift (alleluia) and wifi (but only in public areas). I was, however, exhausted, so I retired to the room which proved to be very spacious, warm, and comfortable, and sent out for room service (steak baguette, chips, bottle of house red - sorry, not very original) and had the best night's sleep I'd had for a week.

19-Dec-09 - no more snow, and the roads were pretty clear as I travelled back to MK in a taxi: an interesting thing, the cost. When I get a taxi from MK to Buckingham it costs around £25. The taxi in the other direction (admittedly a private-hire car rather than a hackney) was only £16. I must keep their number.

Anyway, the train was in, there were, apparently, no delays, and all seemed well. We arrived at Clapham on time, and there's about a 20-minute dwell for the Worthing train, which also arrived, more or less, on time. I was congratulating myself on good planning... Until we got to Haywards Heath. The 12-car train split into three 4-car sets, one fast to Eastbourne, one slow to Ore, and ours (at the back) for Worthing and Littlehampton. And then... Nothing happened. After a good bit of shilly-shallying the guard eventually told us that the front set had broken down (apparently nothing to do with the 'severe weather conditions') and so, of course, the middle and rear sets weren't going anywhere, and would we please get out and take the next train from the platform opposite. Trouble is, the next train (a Brighton service) had been cancelled, which meant that there were now passengers from 16 or even 20 carriages waiting for a connection, and it was quite possible that the incoming train might only have four carriages. The next (Brighton) service was diverted to one of the up platforms, which meant a trek down into the bowels of the station, and when I got down there amongst the flowing herd of fellow travellers I saw a welcome sight: 'Taxis'. So that was it: a taxi home cost me £50 and I've written to Southern to complain and ask for my money back. We shall see.

November travels - Scotland and Northern Navarra

2010-01-02T17:35:00.001Z

November, 2009 - Not such a busy month, travel wise, but a lot of work putting together the January issue of YES CHEF! Magazine.

06-Nov-09 - off to Glasgow by train for the Scottish Chefs' Conference and interviews with chefs around the city for a feature trying to establish the difference between the eating likes and dislikes of restaurant-goers in Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as a chat to Conference-organiser Willie Pike about the importance of the event for training young, up-and-coming chefs. You can read all about it in a future issue of the magazine. We stayed at the very pleasant Thistle Hotel on Cambridge Street, where the conference was being held, and attended the gala dinner on the night. The following day I caught the train for Milton Keynes via Crewe for a meeting the next day which was, as it happened, aborted, so I was able to stay overnight at the Jurys Inn (a room right next to the lift and an ice machine on every floor - very civilised) and get a mid-morning train the following day. There's a new(ish) Southern service direct from Milton Keynes to East Croydon, and if I change at Clapham Junction it's just two platforms for the direct Worthing train: no hauling across London by tube or taxi. And, yes, that's a fair amount of train travel but I actually prefer that: it's 6-7 hours in each direction between Worthing and Glasgow Central, but it means that I get 4-5 hours uninterrupted working time on the train from/to Euston which is extremely useful. My colleague Sue Prain flew up early on the morning of the Conference and back early the following morning - four airports in 24 hours - no thanks!

18-Nov-09 - an unexpected invitation to the far north of Navarra came through early in the month, and as I hadn't been on a 'proper' visit there since 2000 I jumped at it, especially when I learned that I would be the only person on the trip. They say that 'he travels fastest who travels alone', but the real advantage was that I was able to apologise in advance for my creaky joints and request that there would be no walking through vineyards, fermenting halls or barrel cellars. As a result I was able to squeeze in at east one extra visit each day, which was extremely useful. Unfortunately I had to fly from Heathrow Terminal 3 as no-one seems to fly from Gatwick to Bilbao any more, and a flight direct to Pamplona would have meant changing at (horror! Horror!) Madrid terminal 4, so there was no choice. Terminal 3 is possibly the most appalling human anthill of any airport in the UK but it does, at least have a Priority Pass lounge so I was able to secrete myself for an hour or so away from the madding crowds.

After that, everything was plain sailing, with a car to meet me at Bilbao and whisk me off to the Hotel Tres Reyes in Pamplona, which is very pleasant - I've stayed there before, but on this oaccasion I arrived at about 23:15 and, unfortunately, room service had finished and the restaurant was closed (in Spain? Yup) so I had to settle for a rather greasy plate of cold embutidos and a bottle of house red, which was disappointing, but the rest of the trip made up for it. I was hosted by Pilar García Granero and Jordi Vidal of the Consejo Regulador, and later by Conchi Biurrun, who I have known for many years and who is the manager of the Asociación Bodegas de Navarra. Indeed, she took me to dinner at a VERY trendy restaurant called Enekorri: long and thin with floor-to-ceiling wine-racks, and full of very trendy thirty-somethings with dangerously-expensive haircuts. We ate well and dined well into the night. The wines and visits which were part of the trip are covered in the January issue of JOHN RADFORD'S WINEWIRE, which is out in the first week of January, 2010.

Catching up - October - Jersey, Corsica, and an Exploding freezer

2010-01-02T15:31:00.002Z

October, 2009 - This is a round-up of what's been happening since the last time I was able to file some posts. It's been a very busy time and I'm still trying to catch up. So, very briefly:

12-Oct-09 - three excellent days in Jersey doing interviews for EAT JERSEY magazine, staying at the magnificent Longueville Manor in St Saviour, as the guest of the Lewis family, who celebrated 60 years at the Manor in 2009. Currently run by Malcolm and Patricia Lewis, the hotel is the only one on Jersey with five AA red stars and membership of Relais & Châteaux. I had a ground-floor room overlooking the lawns and swimming-pool and, even draped with autumn leaves, it was splendid. So was the food - dinner at the family's restaurant Suma's in Gorey, then lunch with the whole family at Longueville. An excellent few days.

Longueville Manor. Pic.: www.longuevillemanor.com

18-Oct-09 - off to Nice for the night, on my way to Corsica for yet another wine trip. There are no direct flights to the island, and flights from Gatwick to Nice are at odd times of the day, so I stayed overnight at the Campanile at Nice airport, which was very pleasant. My flight out the following morning was quite early, and I arrived in Bastia at 09:50. The trip was organised by UBIFRANCE, the French Embassy commercial office in London, and led by the enigmatically-named Pandora Mistry, whom I was to meet later. In the meantime, they'd sent a car to pick me up at the airport - it's about half an hour's drive from the town. The driver pointed out, as we drove along the coast, that you could see the islands of Elba and Monte Cristo on the horizon, although fog made them rather hazy. He also filled me in on some of the details of the Corsican language, which is neither French nor Italian but somewhere in between. The scenery can be hauntingly beautiful, as well.

A glimpse of the island's interior. Pic - UBIFRANCE

We were to stay at the Hotel Posta Vecchia, a charming olde-worlde peeling-stucco building on the seafront, in the colonial style. There was a lift, however, and the rooms were very warm and comfortable, with satellite TV and free wifi as well. Best not to judge by first impressions. The hotel only does bed and breakfast, and as lunchtime approached the very helpful receptionist directed me out on to the quayside, where there were 'lots of restaurants'. Which I'm sure there were, in the season but not, it seemed, in October. The seafront was festooned with framed canvas shelters which, presumably in the summer, are extensions of the local restaurants alive with the smell of freshly-cooked seafood and the sounds of enthusiastic visitors. But not today. Indeed, there were several large restaurants on the other side of the road, all of which seemed to be closed. And then, squeezed in between 'Chez Même' and 'O Moule' I discovered 'Les Zéphyrs', with a canvas-covered frontage and an open door. There was no-one inside but it appeared to be open, and I went in. At the rear were steep, outdoor steps leading down to what I took to be the kitchen, but no sign of life. A moment later a most charming lady appeared and confirmed that, yes, they were open, and she could do me a pizza and a pichet of the local red wine. Fortunately I love pizza, and was veritably starving, having had nothing since the previous night. The pizza proved to be the classic Italian, thin crust, pepperoni, ham, mushrooms and all that stuff, and it was so big that it overhung the plate. The wine was a simple, local red, served lightly chilled, and absolutely delicious. For this feast she charged me the princely sum of €15, after which I staggered back to the hotel for a siesta.

That evening we were to meet the rest of the team, all of whom had arrived at different times, and the party included a couple of old chums: Andrew Hill from George Hill of Loughborough and Susan Hulme, a fellow member of the Circle of Wine Writers. Pandora took us to a restaurant called Le Bouchon, down by the old port where, to be honest, the food was a bit underwhelming: the crottin was very 'clarty' and escalope of veal turned out to be more of a burger, and slightly sweet. I didn't finish either. I did, however, enjoy the 2007 Domaine Pierre Rolle (Vermentino), Coteaux de Cap Corse, and the company was, of course, excellent.

The next two days were spent in visits and tastings, and these will be written up in detail in the spring, 2010 edition of JOHN RADFORD'S WINEWIRE.

Vineyards in Morsiglia, Haute-Corse. Pic.: UBIFRANCE

So, fast forward to Wednesday 21-Oct-09 and the Hotel Solemare in Bonifacio, a lovely place right by the harbour with views of boats bobbing about, lights and activity going on. Pandora had arranged another visit to a typical artisanale Corsican restaurant which was 'ten minutes walk' away (in other words probably a mile or more and up steep, cobbled streets) so in deference to my creaking joints I chickened out and asked at reception if there was a restaurant a bit nearer. There was indeed - right next door. The Restaurant du Centre Nautique has a fabulous dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the harbour. I dined in solitary splendour on fillet steak, Cap Corse wine, coffee and the local brandy (which is mind-boggling). The following morning several of my colleagues confirmed the marathon race-walk which had been the previous night's journey to the restaurant, and that the food had been, well, underwhelming again. Andrew had set out in the morning to retrace his steps but been defeated when he got to 'the hill'. "You would never have made it, John," he said. I was glad I hadn't tried.

Then it was off to the airport at Figari for flights home. Once again, we were all leaving at different times and it was my luck to be one of the latest flights (via Nice again) which meant some three hours at the airport. Figari is small and doesn't have a Priority Pass lounge, but it does have a large bar... Which was closed. I was, however, able to bash out a 1,000-word article on my laptop whilst waiting, so it wasn't completely wasted. Incidentally, I was interested to learn that one of my journalist colleagues was flying to Orly and taking the Eurostar home, which seemed a much better idea than my trip via Nice... Except that you still have to get across Paris to the Gare du Nord. And I was home in time for apéritifs.

A smashing, and beautifully-organised trip, however, and some eye-opening wines. Log back in in April for more details about that.

24-Oct-09 - freezer went on the blink, packed with food, so I had to dash out and buy a replacement, as the engineer couldn't come until the following Thursday. When he did it cost me £160 for some hi-tech piece of computer printed-circuit board which runs the system. Our old freezer lasted 17 years before it finally blew. The new one lasted only five. Still, that's progress for you.

Catching up (again!!)

2009-12-24T16:49:00.002Z

December, 2009 - Several people have complained that I don't update this blog often enough, and the reason has been that I've just been almightily busy, out of town, out of the country, out of my head... I've been to Jersey, Nice, Corsica, Glasgow, Navarra (featured in the January edition of John Radford's WineWire which will be published here next month), Dorset, Northamptonshire and been stranded in Buckingham by the snow after putting YES CHEF! Magazine issue number 12 to bed. Details of some of these exploits will appear on the blog in due course (and, no, I still haven't forgotten the second half of my trip to Catalunya last June). January is a quiet month and I should be able to catch up. But that's what I said about August. In the meantime just a couple of quick catch-ups:

01-Dec-09 - Another year, another birthday, and rather gratifyingly lots of birthday wishes from old chums, including many who used to listen to me on the BBC. It's now three years and nine months since the night of the long knives, and people still remember. I look back on those days as a golden age which, sadly, has been destroyed by incompetent management. I draw special attention to the work of Lesley Harvey, who is an artist and caricaturist (and former listener) from Seaford who used regularly to send in pictures of me and the team, and who has done a a lot of work for me: The Eversley is full of her caricatures of us and the family, and she came up trumps again with the following birthday œuvre:

You can see more of Lesley's work at www.lesleyharvey.co.uk

Heavenly Twins

2009-11-06T08:28:00.003Z

Some time back in the spring - the dates are bobbing about a bit, but I thought I'd like to share the cartoon, anyway. Earlier this year half a dozen regular DECANTER contributors were asked to choose their 'desert island wine': the one wine they could choose to drink happily for the rest of their lives if they had to. Quite a few people chose vintage Champagne, although they didn't reveal how they'd store it or chill it on a desert island. My own response was unequivocal and rooted in practicality:

There is no contest here. It would have to be a wine which goes with every kind of food, which could be enjoyed at any reasonable temperature, ambient or chilled, which wouldn't go 'off' and which didn't need kid-glove treatment to show at its best. I'm talking about the world's finest wine, of course: Sherry, and particularly a dry Amontillado. I'd have to select the cabeceo myself to make sure that it really was a solera-aged Fino and not the 'medium' blended stuff which masquerades under the name in so much of the UK trade, and I think something with an average age of about 15-20 years would hit the spot. As a child, from the age of about 12, I was allowed a very small glass of Sherry once a year on Christmas morning. It was probably to get me back to sleep, but the magic of those moments has never left me.

By chance, the charming Sarah Jane Evans, quite independently, chose exactly the same wine. The magazine decided to illustrate the piece not with our usual mugshots but with a cartoon, which Sarah Jane dubbed 'The Heavenly Twins'. I insist that I'm not that fat, although Jill says I am!

Cartoon by Chris Burke - www.chrisburke.org.uk

John Radford's WineWire - 1 - Autumn 2009

2009-11-05T16:01:00.001Z

01-Oct-09 - One of the reasons for the current drought on the blog regarding tastings, etc., is the birth of JOHN RADFORD'S WINE WIRE which, from this quarter, is being published as a supplement to YES CHEF! Magazine. Ever since we launched YC! (and it'll be three years next spring) I've felt that, as well as content relevant to chefs and restaurateurs it should also have something for sommeliers: new wines, new vintages, 'off the wall' stuff' and tastings of some of the many samples which find their way to The Eversley. The first issue is now out featuring Jadot Burgundy (the 2007 vintage and the 2003/4 revisited) as well as red German wines and other bits and pieces about what's happening in the wine world. The next issue will feature wines from Corsica, Navarra, California, Priorat and Australia and, well, anything else that crops up between now and deadline. To read the autumn, 2009 issue click here.

Autumn in the Rheinhessen

2009-11-05T15:56:00.002Z

03-06-Sep-09 - Things are getting a bit out of order at the moment thanks to pressure of work, so yet again the rest of the June trip to Catalunya has been delayed but it WILL appear in due course. In the meantime, going back before Sally and Wig's wedding I was lucky enough to go on a trip to the Rheinhessen, courtesy of the local generic body. I wasn't able to write about it before as elements of it were due to be published in YES CHEF! Magazine as well as CIRCLE UPDATE but time has moved on and the .pdf is now on file. It involves visits and tastings, particularly of Silvaner and Pinot Noir wines from the Rheinhessen - two grapes not really rated as recently as 10 years ago but now pulling their weight with a vengeance. Anyway, to read the full story, please click here. The 'Wine Supplement' mentioned in the text refers to John Radford's WineWire, for which see the following post.

A wonderful end to the Summer

2009-10-02T16:52:00.003+01:00

23-27-Sep-09 - The car doesn't often get a decent run out, but this was to be a four-day marathon covering about 500 miles and encompassing a really splendid weekend. We left The Eversley on Wednesday for the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, where Evie Alice was, we hoped, waiting for us. Unfortunately it was not to be, as she'd been taken into the neonatal unit for tests, and only parents (and not grandparents) are allowed in there. We did see James and Claire, however, who were in good spirits although they didn't know when the baby would be back on the ward, and James was living on sandwiches from the League of Friends.

Then it was off to Milton Keynes, where I was booked into the Jurys Inn for two nights, prior to going to Buckingham to put YES CHEF! Magazine issue 11 and John Radford's WineWire (issue 1) to bed - more about them later. We had dinner with my former deputy editor Sam Jones and her fiancé at the Living Room, next door to the hotel - she's their events manager. The food, I have to say, was a bit iffy but the company was good and the wine flowed - and we didn't have far to walk back.

Jurys Inn is a very comfortable place, set overlooking a square which must have a dozen bars and restaurants around its perimeter, and it's a long time since I stayed in the centre of the town. I mused that there were probably more eating places in that small area than there had been in the whole of MK when it was part of my radio patch, from 1994-1997.

The following day was press day and we managed to get through most of it, allowing for late delivery of pictures and, of course, the first edition of WineWire. I'd always felt that YES CHEF! Magazine didn't have enough about wine in it - it is, after all, aimed at Chefs - so this was an opportunity to do something for sommeliers as well. The first issue has a retasting of some of the 2003 and 2004 Burgundies from Louis Jadot, as well as an overview of how the 2007s are developing. There's also news about my eventful trip to the Rheinhessen and a mind-blowing tasting of German Pinot Noir wines at Vintners' Hall, put on by the Institute of Masters of Wine. And then there's a bit of gossip, news, and odds and ends about what's been happening in the wine world over the summer. I hope to be able to offer copies of it through this website in due course.

The following day we had a leisurely drive north to Cromford, in Derbyshire, where my niece was getting married. The M1 is horrendous at the moment (what do you mean 'at the moment'? Ed) between junctions 25 and 28 and we ended up taking the scenic route via Wessington and Tansey (with a brief stop for lunch at the Three Horseshoes in Wessington - double egg, chips and peas for £3.95!), and then through Matlock, which seems to have changed quite a bit since I was last there. My late mother ran the High Tor Hotel (Grade II listed) there for about 20 years - it's currently being converted into apartments, which is a pity but at least it's being looked after.

We were to meet up at Alison House Hotel in Cromford, just beyond the Arkwright factory, which is a charming 16-bedroom small country hotel with a lovely garden, and licensed for marriages. A bit of background: my niece Sally was paralysed from the waist down after a road accident at the age of 14 which killed her father, my brother-in-law. Some children would have given up, but she proved to be a fighter, went back to school, then university, got a degree, and now works for the local authority. Meanwhile her childhood sweetheart Will (known as Wig - they met at school aged 11) stuck by her and (although she denies this hotly) it is rumoured that he proposed to her several times before she accepted.

The wedding took place in an annexe to the hotel, and it was very emotional as Sally wheeled herself up the aisle and, of course, had to be given away by her elder brother. She looked radiant, however, and as we flooded out into the gardens the staff served canapés and Kir Royale. The weather was absolutely perfect, with bright sunshine and cloudless skies. The children (ages 3-7) ran riot all over the lawns and we dutifully lined up for the photographer, who had taken it into his head to line us all up and then run up two flights of stairs to photograph us from an upstairs window. Rather him than me.

The happy couple signing the register

The reception proper was in a marquee on the lawn, and was magnificent, with whole hams, barons of beef, poached salmon, plenty of wine, then cheese and Port. It was just wonderful to see so many people enjoying themselves. I have to confess that I retired for a siesta at about 7:00 pm, even though there was a barbecue to follow. Jill snuck out and bagged a couple of big steak baguettes and some salad and we had a midnight feast in the hotel room.

I've included this picture because somehow it encapsulates the whole wedding: lots of laughter, lots of sunshine and lots of lovely greensward for the children to enjoy. On the left is my great-nephew James (5 - and that's his mum, my niece Elisabeth in the foreground), in the middle is my great-nephew Ollie (3). They had a wonderful time.

The following morning Sally and Wig were packing to leave for their honeymoon in Lanzarote, and we set off southwards, not knowing what we were going to find - if anything - at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. James 'phoned at around 11:00 am, however, to say that Evie had finished all her tests and was back in her cot, next to Claire's bed. We weren't allowed in until visiting started at 15:00 but.. Well, there she was. I'm not going to get into all that grandparenty stuff about how lovely she is, but when she raised her arms, and unfolded her tiny fingers, and yawned, it was a wonder to behold. We unpacked all the presents that people had sent - mostly toys and baby clothes - left about 16:30 and headed south again.

At Last! Doting Grandparents get to see Evie Alice

Very often we like to stop at the bikers' café at Box Hill for a bun and a coffee on the way home, but there was a sign saying that the car-park was closing at 18:00 (which was the time we arrived) so, not willing to risk it, we decided to find a suitable road-house and, after some country-lane ramifications, ended up at the Shelley Arms in Broadbridge Heath. I can thoroughly recommend this place - a big garden with a children's play area and excellent bar food. We shall be going back.

We got home about 20:00, thoroughly exhausted, and had a couple of large ones before turning in. The following afternoon (Monday) James 'phoned to say that they'd been given the go-ahead to take Evie home, and she was safely tucked up in her own little cot. On the whole, apart from the endless driving, it had been a perfect few days.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Tarragona - Day 2 (am)

2009-09-23T07:25:00.003+01:00

11-Jun-09 - The day did not start well. The wifi which I had used the previous night had decided that it didn't exist. Indeed, later in the day I took the laptop downstairs to close proximity with the transmitter, and it still insisted that there were no wireless networks available, even though my colleagues were cheerfully surfing away across the table. It confirmed my suspicion that computers are neurotic creatures which sometimes, and for reasons they refuse to explain, decide that they're not going to do something they have done quite happily before, or are going to start doing something they've never done before, and you can get stuffed.

DOQ PRIORAT

I first met Álvaro Palacios in 1996, at which time his winery was housed in a disused theatre in the village of Gratallops. We tasted what was then Clos (now Finca) Dofi, and he took me to see the 45º slope that is l'Ermita. I was bowled over by the wines and devoted a whole chapter of the Oz Clarke Wine Guide for 1997 to them.

Since then I've met Álvaro many times, at the family winery in Alfaro, Rioja, at trade events and we have occasionally shared a platform at conferences in Spain. I had not, however, visited his 'new' winery which is on the outskirts of Gratallops. Needless to say he designed it himself and it gleams with all the latest technology. The tasting room is light and airy and, after a quick tour, we settled down to some serious sampling.

Patricia Langton doing some serious sampling; Álvaro Palacios, right.

2007 Camins del Priorat - 50/40/10 Cariñena/Garnacha/Cabernet-Sauvignon and Syrah - 8 months Fr. This is Álvaro's new 'entry level' wine retailing at €12-14 in Spain: bright purple with rich, concentrated, damsony fruit on the nose, big structure, power and tannins on the palate, but the balance is right and this should be a stunner for Christmas. 17/20

2007 Las Terrasses - 50/50 Cariñena/Garnacha - 12 months Fr. This is made from bought-in grapes, but Palacios pays well over the odds for grapes from old vines so his contract growers give only of their best: purple, spicy, spiky, brambly fruit on the nose, with very crisp tannic 'grip' on the foretaste, 'locked in' fruit on the mid and a long, musky finish. Needs another year (at least). The 2006 sells for £20-22 in the UK. 17/20

2007 Gratallops - Garnacha/Cabernet-Sauvignon - the first 'village' wine: purple, soft, perfumed fruit with Cabernet prominent on the nose, very clean, crisp fruit on the foretaste with some complexity and well-integrated fruit on the mid. Fresh acidity and a long finish. 17/20

2007 L'Ermita - made from 70-80-year-old Garnacha cropping at 9 hl/ha. Purple, lovely rich, perfume with complex aromatics, rich on the foretaste with fab structure and a long, musky, finish. Needs five years - the 2006 sells in the UK for around £420. 19/20

2008 L'Ermita (cask sample) - dark purple, big, spiky, brambly spices on the nose, this reminded me of the first tank sample I'd tasted back in 1996: wonderful complexity, endless structure, perfumed fruit. Fab. Needs 10 years. 19½/20

There were a couple of funny moments: Rebecca ('La Jovenissima') said that she'd like to sit down after tasting l'Ermita, such had been the experience, and I asked Álvaro whether it was true that he and Peter Sisseck (of Pingus fame) were vying with each other to make the most expensive wine of Spain. "I had dinner with him last night" said Álvaro. "I think I'm still ahead!" Pingus is listed in the UK at around £399.

'La Jovenissima', limbering up for l'Ermita

DO TERRA ALTA

And then, for something completely different, the DO Terra Alta, one of the least-known wine areas of Catalunya. The capital is Gandesa, about 70 km west of Reus and 50 km south-west of Gratallops, which has some wonderful modernista buildings, including the local co-op, which was designed by César Martinell, a pupil of Gaudí.

The Gandesa co-op building. In need of a lick of paint when this was taken.
Pic.: Gandesa website

We were not to visit the co-op, however (although we did drive by it) as the Consejo Regulador had arranged a generic tasting for us at its offices in the town centre. I was particularly looking forward to this as my last visit to this area was a long time ago and bedevilled by time constraints as I only had one day there and had to get to Barcelona airport later on, so only managed three bodega visits (including the Gandesa co-op and Bàrbara Forés - see below). The opportunity to taste a dozen wines from 12 different wineries all in one go was very welcome, and we were efficiently served by the lovely Raquel Estrada.

Raquel Estrada pouring for the DO... And modelling the latest in skimpy denim tops.

The general style hereabouts is pretty middle-of-the-road: the countryside is dotted with co-ops, many of which are still a bit old-fashioned and sleepy ( I remember visiting one which still sold its wine in bulk from one of those old 'petrol pump' dispensers with a clock-face, to families who turned up with their own five-litre containers) but, as everywhere in Spain, there are a few bodegas doing something different, and in some cases spectacularly so. There's a lot of work being done with such as Syrah, Cab and Merlot, but the traditional Garnatxa (as it's spelled here) also showed promise. The usual criteria apply:

2008 Vinyes del Grau Syrah, Josep Vicens - 14.5% abv, €6 retail - I liked this - big rich, oily peppery on the nose and palate with loads of fruit on the mid and a potentially blockbusting finish. 17/20

2005 Torremadrina Selecció, Tarroné - Garnatxa/Syrah/Cabernet-Sauvignon/Merlot - 14% abv, 8 months oak, €14.95 retail - that old-fashioned hot, spicy, 'sawdusty' Garnacha dominates on the nose, very austere on the foretaste but there is good complexity and structure, as well as spicy fruit fighting to get out. Good length. 17/20

2005 Via Edetana Negre, Edetària - 33/33/33 Garnacha/Garnacha Peluda/Cariñena - 14% abv, 12 months Fr, €12 retail - very nice subtle soft dark fruit on the nose, some austere tannins on the palate but the structure is there and the fruit is working well. Long, hot, spicy finish. 18/20

2005 l'Avi Arrufi, Piñol - Garnacha/Syrah/Cabernet-Sauvignon/Merlot - 14% abv, 15 months, €17.40 retail. This has been one of the few 'classics' from Terra Alta for several years: purple, some rich, 'hidden' fruit on the nose which bursts into life on the palate with big spicy ripeness and a long, golden finish. Excellent. 18/20

Traditional Sweet Wines

2007 Edetària Dolç, Edetària - Garnacha/Cabernet-Sauvignon - 15% abv, 8 months Fr, €12.50 retail (50cl) - dark purple, lovely dark, rich 'fruitcake' nose, classic tannic 'grip' on the foretaste and some real structure on the mid, and long, long, long. 17/20

2007 Merian Dolç, Tarroné - Garnacha - 3 months Fr, €8.25 retail (50cl) - very dark purple, lovely perfumed 'hi-end' fruit nose, lovely fresh clean uncloying sweetness on the mid but still with a gentle tannic 'grip'. 18/20

1928 (solera) Covilalba Ranci - Garnacha Blanca - 19% abv, €20 retail. This is the Vilalba co-op's flagship ranci, the most traditional style all the way along Spain's north-east coast. Walnut, rich, soft, long 'dry Oloroso' on the nose, but more like an old Amontillado on the palate, nutty, perfectly mature and excellent. 18/20

I am always depressed when I taste these wonderful, old-fashioned wines, that they're virtually impossible to sell in the UK market - people simply don't know what they are. Fortunately, however, from Alella in the north to Terra Alta in the south they are still being made, and local people (and visitors such as I) continue to enjoy them.

Our next visit was just around the corner to Bàrbara Forés. I'd particularly asked to go there because I'd been before and the winery is an agreeable, handsome old family house (built by the architect Ramon Salas Ricomà), in a city street and on several levels, but also because of its history. Bàrbara Forés (1825-1905) was a winemaking pioneer of the nineteenth-century, and her son, Rafael Ferrer, followed in her footsteps, and even bottled wine (which was rare at the turn of the 20th century). Bàrbara's great-great-granddaughter María-Carmen Ferrer and her husband Manuel Sanmartín did the restoration work and put the bodega back to work in 1994 with the help of José-Luís Pérez of Clos Martinet (whose daughter Sara we shall meet in two days' time). The wines, I remembered, had shown great potential and this was confirmed by the tasting:

Tasting at Bàrbara Forés - María-Carmen Ferrer third from left

White Wines

2007 Bàrbara Forés Blanco - 90/10 Garnacha Blanca/Viognier with 18-20 hours' maceration - 13.5% abv, €7.90 retail - very pale straw, Garnacha Blanca power on the nose with some Viognier perfume. On the palate a bit austere but with fresh fruit and good acidity and weight, steely dry on the finish with a hint of bitter almonds. Lovely. 17/20

2005 Bàrbara Forés Blanco barrel-fermented with batonaje - Garnacha Blanca (60-y-o vines) - 14% abv - full straw, rich, smoky Garnacha Blanca aromas, and a lovely structure with complex 'savoury' fruit with a minerally character. Some austerity on the finish but long. 17/20

2007 Bàrbara Forés Blanco barrel-fermented with batonaje - as above - pale straw, that 'mineral' character again on the nose, big, mouth-filling fruit, some austerity but good balance and lovely freshness and cleanliness leading to a long finish. 17/20

Red Wines

2004 Coma d'en Pou - Garnacha/Cabernet-Sauvignon - 14-16 months Fr - 14% abv, older vintages retail at €18-€20 - This is a single-vineyard wine: dark purple, real, rich, deep, dark fruit with subtle 'chocolatey' hints on the nose, rich, structured, complex, and lovely fruit on the mid, tannins kick in but in balance, and the length shows real class. 17/20

2005 Coma d'en Pou - as above - bigger spice but still rich deep, dark fruit on the nose, and big fruit on the palate along with big tannins and an equally big finish. This will be a blockbuster. 18/20
Traditional Sweet Wine

2006 Vi Dolç Natural - Garnacha Blanca - 13.5% abv, 16 months - Also from the Coma d'en Pou vineyard: pale walnut in colour, soft, gentle, aromatic sweetness on the nose, carrying through to the palate. This is simply long, generous and delicious. 17/20

And, on a self-referential note, they had a copy of THE NEW SPAIN in their library, and asked me to sign it.

DO MONTSANT

It's about an hour's drive from Gandesa to Cornudella de Montsant, which is 33 km north-west of Reus, where we were to visit Cingles Blaus ('blue cliffs' after the Montsant rockface). The bodega is new but housed in ancient stone buildings in a kind of 'farmstead' down an unmade road, with a pleasant courtyard and an even more pleasant 'lounge bar' well supplied with cold beer, which was much in demand after a hard morning's work. We were hosted by Jordi Busquets, a member of one of the owning families (the winemaker, Eloi Milà is a member of the other family), and served coca, the savoury Catalan cake which is made with different toppings according to the time of year and the saints' days.

Cingles Blaus - the road to the winery

While the others went off to look at the steel tanks I had another beer and examined the 'QR (Quick Response) Code' which adorns the labels of the wines. This a matrix of dots unique to each wine (or any other product - it was originally developed for tracking motor parts in Japan), rather like a barcode but, according to the blurb, 'more glamorous' and favoured by designers because of its graphic potential. The idea is that you download an application into your mobile 'phone and then you can take a picture of the Code. This will then trigger a text message giving you information about the product, possibly including a web address and, if the 'phone has internet access, a click-through to the website for more information. So you could be sitting at a restaurant table drinking a bottle of wine, want to know more about it, and be looking at the winery's website in a matter of moments. Clever, eh?

One of the QR Codes from Cingles Blaus

But back to the tasting: outside in the courtyard they were barbecuing huge fillets of beef for lunch, and when my compatriots returned we tasted through the range:

2007 Octubre - 40/40/20 Garnacha/Cariñena/Syrah, 4½ months Romanian - 13% abv, €8 retail. Purple/ruby with soft, smoky rich subtle aromas, and excellent balance on the foretaste with fruit well-integrated - clean, soft tannins on the finish. Delicious. 17/20

2006 Mas de las Moreras - 50/20/30 Cariñena/Garnacha/Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot Syrah, 12-15 months oak - 14% abv, €12 retail. Purple/ruby with lotsa fruit perfume on the nose. Another very nicely assimilated palate, with musky tannins well under control, and a good, right mid and length. 17/20

2004 Cingles Blaus Selecció - Garnacha/Syrah, 13½ months new oak - about €20 retail. Ruby, with big smoky, dark subtle fruit on the nose and another beautifully balanced palate - the tannins are still a little prominent on the mid, but there is great potential here. 18/20

2002 Cingles Blaus Dolç - Garnacha Gris, 18 months French - 15% abv, about €25 retail. This is a passito wine, the grapes allowed to dry inside the winery for four months to concentrate the juice and encourage Botrytis, and fermentation is stopped at 15%. Pale gold, some Botrytis evident on the nose and also the palate - a very gentle but rich sweetness but not cloying. Lovely 'golden' finish. 18/20

And then it was upstairs for lunch at a long table - huge fillet steaks, chips and coarsely-chopped salad with the remains of the tasting wines. A splendid repast, indeed.

Grand-daughter!

2009-09-22T08:49:00.003+01:00

22-Sep-09 - I seem to have fallen a long way behind with this blog. Normally August is so quiet that I can catch up with my backlog of work, but for some reason this year it's been just as busy as any other month. The rest of the Catalan trip will be appearing here when I can find time to do it, but I have to post today to say that at 16:05 on Sunday 20-Sep-09 we became grandparents. Evie Alice Radford weighed in at 9lbs 6oz (4.25 kg) and mother Claire and baby doing well. We're going up to see them tomorrow. No doubt there will be photographs!

Tarragona - Day 1

2009-08-27T09:15:00.004+01:00

10-Jun-09 - So where is Torroja del Priorat (pop. 143)? Well, it's about 35 km west of Reus in the most mountainous part of Priorat, with spectacular scenery, wild hairpin bends, fabulous llicorella soils and ancient plantations of Garnacha and Cariñena (which they have to call Samsó to avoid confusion with the DO Cariñena although, this being Spain, not everybody takes any notice of the regulation). The village itself is kind of stacked, higgledy-piggledy up the hillside (most villages in Priorat seem to be in the same style) and we were lodged at the hotel Cal Compte on the Carrer Major, another grand old building in course of restoration by Anna Figueres and Joaquim Calvo, a bookish couple who have made it their life's work to return the old house to its former splendour.

The Carrer Major - too narrow for the minibus to get down. The big door on the left is the hotel entrance.

The trip was to culminate in the Reus Wine Festival and was sponsored by the Reus Chamber of Commerce. The UK/Ireland end had been arranged by Gerald Lawson-Tancred of Hispanic Consulting (see posts passim) and he very kindly carried my large bag up the four flights of stairs to my room: there is a lift but it hasn't been commissioned yet. The house has a terrace where my fellow-travellers were having lunch and I was invited to join them, although, of course, I had lunched extremely well at Cavas Vilarnau, so I merely nibbled at a pan con tomate and had a glass of wine.

One advantage of a fourth-floor room - wonderful views

My fellow travellers were Clive Platman (Birmingham Post), Andrew Catchpole (freelance, formerly of Harper's), Helen Savage (The Journal - Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Ernie Whalley (Sunday Independent, Ireland), Patricia Langton (freelance, formerly of OLN) and Rebecca Gibb (freelance, formerly of Harper's and 2006 Young Wine Writer of the Year). We were expertly hosted by Rachel Ritchie, who is English but has lived in these parts for many years, and acts as a tourist guide for visitors - she appears to know the region, and everyone in it, like the back of her hand .

Our first visit was that evening, to Mas Doix in Poboleda. The village is so close to Torroja that you can see it from the road above, but the terrain means a 13km drive around those endless hairpins - fab scenery, though: wild, untamed slopes, with those grey stone, pantiled villages clinging for dear life to the mountainsides. The winery is very small and we were hosted by the winemaker, Ramon Llagostera, scion of one of the two families which own the company, who farms 30 ha of vineyards, but only crops at 500-1,000 kg/ha (against the legal maximum of 6,000). We tasted four of his wines, all of which were excellent:

2006 Salanques (the bodega's 'second wine') - 65/20/15 Garnacha/Cariñena/Cabernet and Merlot - 12 months French. Dark purple with lovely big, concentrated, dark fruit on the nose and big extraction, power and fruit on the palate. The fruit breaks through the tannins on mid and leaves a musky finish. Needs 1-2 years. 17/20

2006 Doix - 50/50 Garnacha/Cariñena - 12 months French. Dark purple again with rich, warm 'rubbery' fruit and dark chocolate on the nose. Big, 'chewy' musky fruit on the palate but with fresh acidity. Austere on the finish: this needs time, too. 17/20

2003 Doix - as above - so this is how it will develop: perfumed summer fruit starting to emerge along with some wood-oil on the nose. Big tannins on the palate are starting to mellow out, with concentration and power on the mid and a musky-fruit finish. 18/20

1999 Doix - as above but with 3% Merlot - This is the one we were waiting for: big, dark, gamey, powerful and yet elegant on the nose. Rich and powerful on the palate, still some tannins working but the structure is coming together well. Long, long finish. This still has plenty of life left in it. 18½/20

This was an excellent introduction to the region - classic Priorat style and quality.

Then it was back to the hotel for a pre-dinner generic tasting, for which our schedule had allowed 30 minutes, and we were a little taken aback to discover that they'd laid out 80 wines for us on the upstairs terrace, arranged by village, which I thought was a little odd. The tasting was hosted by Jordi Vidal from the Scala Dei winery, and he explained the 'village' bit. There are moves afoot to put the village name on the labels, on the basis that some villages are, quite naturally, more favoured than others. You'll remember in the old days the Rhône used to do something similar with such as Côtes du Rhône-Chusclan and Côtes du Rhône-Gigondas before the villages got their own appellations. So, expect to see such as Priorat-Gratallops, Priorat-Cims de Porrera, etc. in the future. Not everyone is happy about this development, especially as many bodegas own small, scattered plots of vines which may be in several villages, so it tends to work in favour of those with larger plots. My personal view is that it's frankly unnecessary. In my lectures and presentations I have enough trouble explaining to people where and what Priorat is, without delving into the individual villages. We shall see.

80 wines arranged by village - and half an hour to taste them!

Onward, then, to the tasting. There was no means by which I was going to get through 80 wines, and I decided that this was a rare opportunity try some Priorat white wines, which are hard to find outside the region. The grape is predominantly old-vines Garnacha Blanca and the style tends to have the same structured power as the reds. There were only half a dozen, and only two worth a mention:

2008 Les Brugueres, Scala Dei - 14% abv, made without malolactic - pale straw, hints of herby fruit on the nose but a lovely fresh acidity on the palate, a strong 'meaty' fruit on the mid and a long 'savoury' finish. 17/20

Roureda Llicorella, Cellers Unió - 14% abv, barrel-fermented with 7 months on the lees - This one didn't really make the cut but I mention it as it's made with 100% PX, of which you don't see a lot in Catalunya: on the nose it really does have that Priorat rich, savoury fruit, but it's much softer on the palate, very pleasant and with a long, soft finish. 16/20

Then it was on to the reds, and in general terms I was quite surprised to see so many fairly ordinary wines - well made, good quality, but a lot of 15/20 and I recalled something that Steven Spurrier said when we had a dispute over a wine at the DECANTER World Wine Awards: "Priorat can do much better than this". It is sad but true that every region in the world which makes truly great wine also makes truly dismal wine (think Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy) and whilst these were not in any way dismal, they weren't what I have come to expect from Priorat. With some of them it seemed that the winemaker had been trying too hard to get the legendary Priorat concentration, and in so doing sacrified the hallmark Priorat elegance. As I wasn't able to taste more than a dozen or so I think I'll draw a veil over the exact details: it would hardly be fair to single a producer out with such a small sample.

During the tasting some of us were interviewed by Reus Digital, the regional internet magazine (it's in Catalan) and I had to smile at the description the writer gave of Rebecca Gibb. Having established that she is one of the youngest MW students in the world the writer of the article dubbed her 'La Jovenissima'.

Dinner was a leisurely affair and we cheerfully finished off our favourite bottles with it, before hiking up those four flights of stairs. I had the regulation bottle of 'duty-free' stashed away so there was time for a couple of large ones while I picked up my e-mail (free wifi, by the way - excellent!) before turning in.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Cava and Tarragona - Day 3

2009-08-18T07:24:00.007+01:00

Cavas Vilarnau. Pic. - GB

10-Jun-09 - Just one visit this morning, to Cavas Vilarnau, part of the González Byass (GB) empire, also in Sant Sadurní. The company was founded in 1948, bought by GB in 1982, and the present bodega was completed in 2004: spankingly modern, surrounded by immaculate vineyards and gardens. Most of the grape (120,000 ha) come from plantations around 800 metres ("for higher acidity") and they're picked overnight (from mid-August for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir) and delivered to the winery at 06:00. They, too make still wines, but Cava is 95% of production.

We were treated to a tour of the complex, hosted by winemaker Sara Vela, who, although heavily pregnant, cheerfully escorted us around in the fierce heat - she gave birth to a baby boy, Adrià, two weeks later. I was fortunate in that they are geared up for parties of visitors of all abilities, and they have their own canopied milk-float, to which I acceded gratefully.

Sara Vela amongst the vines.

The installations are, as you'd expect, ultra modern, and include an art gallery with a cinema screen showing an introduction to the winery.

During the vineyard tour Sara brought bunches of the immature grapes to show the various stages of development at this time of year, and explained that night-harvested grapes come into the winery at 15-17ºC, having been hand-selected in the vineyard, and are then chilled to 8-10ºC before a further hand-selection on the sorting tables.

Left to right: Chardonnay, Macabeo, Xarel·lo, Parrelada. This picture was taken on the 10th June. Harvest started with the Chardonnay on the 13th August - 64 days later

The winery has a pleasant dining/tasting room and terrace, and a quite a few GB bigwigs were there, including Chief Executive Mauricio González, as they'd been having a board meeting for Viñas del Vero (DO Somontano), another recent acquisition.

After a reception on the terrace we tasted through the range. These were my top 4:

Vilarnau Reserva Brut Nature - 50/35/15 Macabeo/Parellada/Chardonnay, 2 years on the lees - fresh, herby 'chalky' subtle and complex on the nose, very clean Chardonnay fruit apparent on the foretaste but blends into the mix on mid, with a 'steely-dry' finish. Excellent. 17/20

2007 Vilarnau Brut - 55/40/5 Macabeo/Parellada/Xarel·lo, 2½ years on the lees - some 'meaty' fruit and a hint of richness on the nose, classic Cava style on the palate, big, structured, complex with a clean finish. Delicious. 17/20

Vilarnau Rosé Brut - 90/10 Trepat/Pinot Noir, 18 months on the lees - soft, fragrant potpourri on the nose (Pinot Noir influence) with good, ripe, red summer fruits on the palate: clean, fresh, delicious. 17/20

2008 Vilarnau Pinot Noir Rosé, 18 hours' maceration - dark pink, very 'hi-end' fruit on the nose (ketones?), but spicy, spiky Pinot Noir fruit on the palate, fresh acidity and some real potential even if it is a little austere at the moment. 17/20

Most fascinating, perhaps, were two 'experimental' wines:

2007 Vilarnau PD was 'made by journalists': GB invited them to select the individual cuvées (Macabeo/Parellada/Xarel·lo) and put together the final wine - soft, chalky with a hint of smoke on the nose, clean, fresh gluggable and very pleasant on the palate but with no great character. I gave it 15/20

2003 Vilarnau Método Ancestral is a Chardonnay made by stopping fermentation, bottling, and then allowing the fermentation to continue, in the method pioneered in southern France in mediæval times. It results in a lower-strength wine with some residual sweetness - big, rich, tasty-oaky, smoky, brioche and fruitcake on the nose, slightly 'twangy' fruit on the foretaste, but some underlying richness, and good length. Not for me, I'm afraid, but a wonderful opportunity to try something different.

And then it was time for lunch - we went back on to the terrace to work our way through the Cavas we'd tasted, while the table was relaid, and returned to a sumptuous spread, along with the winery's still wines: Cabernet-Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Xarel·lo (this last was particularly good. I am becoming an aficionado of Xarel·lo).

Vilarnau at sunset. Pic. - GB

Then it was carriages at 15:30. The others were off back to Barcelona airport to catch their flights, but I was heading south to Tarragona. I had offered to get the train (there's a good connection from Sant Sadurní via Barcelona Sants to Reus), but the Institut very generously provided a car to take me the 120 km to Torroja del Priorat. Very civilised, but then, this is Cava country (have I said this before?).

Cava and Tarragona - Day 2

2009-08-17T11:42:00.005+01:00

09-Jun-09 - I don't usually do breakfast (if I start eating that early in the morning my stomach tends to 'wake up' and start demanding food throughout the day. My usual desayuno in Spain is a cafe con leche and a large brandy, perhaps with a pincho of tortilla if I'm feeling really extravagant) but the spread was so appetising that I did have a nibule before we departed for our first visit.

This was to Recaredo, which is at the forefront of the Xarel·lo revolution (see posts passim), and we started out with the inevitable tasting (in this case of the 2005 - jolly good) in the vineyard under a bower of vines. We were hosted by Ton Mata Moliner, the grandson of Josep María Capellades, who founded the company in 1924.

Ton Mata in the 'sacristy'

Back in the cellar we were conducted into the 'sacristy' behind locked iron gates where (we were told) the best vintages mature. The cellarmaster obligingly disgorged a couple of examples of the finest for us on the spot, which we tasted, of course, without any licor de expedición.

1999 100% Xarel·lo, 5% fermented in old barrels, This could eventually come to market at about €95 a bottle retail in Spain - a very gentle mousse with a warm, ripe nose, noticeable autolysis, the same warmth on the mid with a 'meaty' style and real premium characteristics, complexity and structure: delicious, excellent. 18½/20

1984 40/60 Xarel·lo/Macabeo. The cork broke twice even in expert hands, so the wine was cloudy when poured as the sediment mixed in, reminding us what sparkling wine looked like before Mme Clicquot invented remuage. The nose had a powerful aroma of lees, understandably, but the palate had an enormous, 'savoury' fruit style and quite amazingly fresh acidity. The lees came back on the finish, but the wine was still fresh after 25 years.

Hand-disgorging the 1984

Then it was on to tasting the current vintages:

2002 Brut de Brut Gran Reserva (72/28 Macabeo/Xarel·lo), 71 months on the lees - good central mousse with a soft 'chalky' nose and hints of autolysis: good, mouth-filling fizz with a hint of liquorice, perhaps a bit light on the finish (but it is 7 years old). 17/20

2001 Reserva Particular 40/60 Xarel·lo/Macabeo - some autolysis and a smoky richness on the nose, but with big, powerful fruit on the palate, lotsa extract and complexity, big structure but still fresh. 18/20

"Price is a real challenge", commented Ton, "our cheapest wines are in the €13-€15 bracket, and at this level people don't really understand them." Such are the tasks facing those who are trying to promote the concept of truly premium Cava, but the bird is on the wing.

Tasting at Recaredo

One of the great advantages of visiting Cava country is that so many of the houses are clustered around Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, so there are no long-drawn-out journeys between them. Gramona is less than a kilometre from Recaredo and we arrived in good time. We were hosted by Ana López Lindon, the export director, and were to have lunch with Xavier Gramona, the fifth generation of the family. The winemaker is Xavier's cousin Jaume Gramona, and, in common with most Cava producers, the company makes still wines as well as sparkling. But this is an oversimplification: Jaume wanted to make an ice-wine but, of course, frost is not a regular visitor to the vineyards of Barcelona, so he developed a technique for taking late-harvest grapes and partially freezing them in the tank to extract the concentrated juice. This is Vi de Gel, and he makes a Gewurztraminer and a Riesling-Muscat. He also has a traditional solera making rancio-type wines, which are not sold but offered to family, friends and visitors to the winery.

One of the manicured vineyards

But that was not why we were here: after a brief tour of the vineyards we went into the winery. The cellars are large and rambling, and mercifully provided with a lift and, after the usual tour, we had the tasting, with Xavier. The tasting room is an airy, top floor affair with a glass wall and a terrace beyond where we were able to watch them laying up for lunch as we tasted. These were the highlights:

Gramona cellars - Ana in the background

2001 Celler Batlle Gran Reserva, 70/30 X/M, 7 years on the lees - some subtle autolysis on the nose with considerable complexity; the palate has the same complexity, structure and length, and that trademark Gramona freshness. 17/20

2000 Celler Batlle Gran Reserva, 70/30 X/M, 6 years on the lees - rich, biscuity with soft autolysis, more complexity and notable richness on the mid, very long, spicy finish. Excellent. 18/20

1998 Celler Batlle Gran Reserva - some bright, citrussy fruit with a hint of autolysis on the nose, and big, gamey, spicy mid and finish, but it still seems to be developing, even after all this time. 18/20

1997 Celler Batlle Gran Reserva - a mix of citrus and autolysis plus a hint of oxidation on the nose, but vibrant fruit on the foretaste fading to richness on the mid, with a gamey finish. Needs drinking up but splendid. 18/20

These were some of the finest wines we tasted on the trip - although they sell in Spain from about €40 to over €100 - and I had the opportunity to speak to Xavier about them before lunch.

"Only a family company can afford to make wines to age for 10 to 15 years." Yes but, what's the secret? "The land, the grape, the winemaker..." Fairly obvious, but, of course, "the Xarel·lo is now recovering from its reputation as a 'difficult' grape" since growers stopped leaving it on the vine too long in the hope of higher sugar-content. "Once we have grapes of the quality we want, the rest is a matter of time on the lees, and autolysis. By the time the wine is disgorged the primary aromas will have been superseded. The lactic characteristics are no longer the product of fermentation, but from the yeast. That's what gives the wine those 'toasty' aromas that we want. The autolysis of the yeast provides the ultimate complexity, and it takes years, not months." And Cava with food? "The wine has to have the weight to match with food. Young wines are too light, maturity is everything. Our aim is to make a 10-year wine which still refreshes. Something, for example, you could drink with wasabi."

Hard-working tasting (1): Xavier in silhouette, the terrace beyond

So, then it was in to lunch, or rather out to lunch on the terrace, on a lovely June afternoon. We had a light, summer meal of cheese, salad chicken, and the usual suspects and drank the Gewurztraminer Vi de Gel (astonishingly light and delicious) Gramona Chardonnay and Xarel·lo still wines, and what was left of the Cavas from the tasting. We finished off with the solera wine - amazingly nutty and almost like an old Oloroso Sherry. It was a privilege to taste this range and, perhaps, the most educational visit of the trip: a family firm refusing to 'dumb down' its Cavas to meet price points, Sadly, as yet, they are not easy to find in the UK.

Then it was back to the hotel with a full three hours for siesta and shower (and a couple of large ones) before dinner in the hotel at 21:15. Why don't more trip organisers build in this kind of relaxing break? Very civilised, but then, we are in Cava country.

Hard-working tasting (2)

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Cava and Tarragona - Day 1

2009-08-16T16:45:00.006+01:00

08-Jun-09 - Primary school joke:

Teacher: (looking for the word 'collision') What do we call it when two things come together unexpectedly". Small boy: "Twins!"

I was reminded of this when, for the second time this year (the other was Madrid/Zamora, see posts of 30-Mar-09), I was invited on two trips which, milagroso, did not overlap, cancelling out one of them, but dovetailed into a single week very conveniently. The first (Mon-Tue-Wed) was to visit some Cava bodegas in the province of Barcelona which are pushing forward with premium wines (in the £20+ bracket), and the second (Thu-Fri-Sat) was to the province of Tarragona, with visits and tastings in/from the DDOO Priorat, Montsant, Terra Alta, Conca de Barberà and Tarragona.

The Institut del Cava had arranged the first trip, and their representatives in the UK, Threepipe had sent the invitation. My last visit to Cava-country was in 2005, but things change there so fast (as, indeed, all over Spain) that I welcomed the opportunity to have a look at what's making the running in 2009.

It was a very civilised start to the day, with a car at 08:00 to Gatwick for a 10:55 Easyjet flight to Barcelona. The Priority Pass card came into its own again with a vengeance, and this time I didn't need the milk-float but managed to creak along to the gate under my own steam, which was encouraging.

On arrival we were met by Sheena Campbell-Royle of SCRrrpp in Barcelona (she's English but has lived in Spain for more than 25 years) which handles generic PR for the Institut, and her sidekick Nadja Borovac, a multi-lingual graduate of Berkeley University in California. They were to accompany us variously throughout the trip, as well as the drop-dead gorgeous María del Mar Torres, who is the Director of the Institut del Cava.

My fellow travellers were Julie Arkell (freelance - currently Chairman of the Circle of Wine Writers), still walking with a stick after crocking her ankle falling over a dog - two years ago; Sarah Jane Evans (see posts passim); Claire Dodd of The Publican; Hannah Howard of World Drinks Report; and Alex Frith from Threepipe. Claire Dodd was arriving on a later flight so naturally I headed for the bar, and who should I meet on the way but the delightful Eleonora Scholes (a fellow member of the CWW, and see posts on the Cognac trip 23-Sep-08 to 26-Sep-08) who was on her way to join a different press trip, to Somontano. Claire's flight was, inevitably, delayed, so we got down a couple of very cold beers before it was time to leave.

We were duly whisked off to the hotel Cal Ruget in Vilobi del Penedès. This is a beautifully-restored old farmhouse, about half a kilometre from the nearest paved road, through a vineyard and then electric gates. It's run by Florian Porsche and his wife Verónica Grimal (she's Catalan, he's German) and has a very elegant style, with a swimming pool, an outside terrace for dining, pleasant gardens and free wifi, so, although it didn't offer my usual saunter down the local calle to find a sleazy bar in my spare time, it did offer everything else.

The elegant former farmhouse that is Cal Ruget. Picture www.calrugetbiohotel.com

Or, indeed, not quite. My room was separate from the main building - a lovely self-contained affair with floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking the swimming pool and, beguilingly, a child's classroom slate in the window with my name on it. Unfortunately the wifi did not stretch this far, so I was reduced to using the O2 dongle at a frightening £3 a meg. How do they get away with it? We retired to the terrace for tapas before departing for our first visit.

Raventós i Blanc - main winery

Raventos i Blanc sits opposite the gates of its palatial 'parent' Codorníu, but Josep-María Raventós left to create his own winery in 1986 - now run by his son Manuel - and the very modern installation sits within its own 90 ha of vines, beautifully landscaped and immaculately managed. The main building centres on a 500-year-old oak tree which, sadly, was blown over in a storm last winter. It's still there, leaning at a precipitous angle, awaiting its ultimate fate.

The old oak tree - laid low after half a millennium

We had a brief trip to the vineyards to see the different terroirs and microclimates and taste a couple of wines - they grow the 'big three' Cava grapes (Macabeo, Xarel·lo and Parellada - MXP) as well as some Chardonnay and (since 2000) Pinot Noir. Manuel Raventós explained that his main pricing position is in the 'high' but not 'expensive' bracket (€13-15 retail in Spain), but that he has ambitions to create a 'super-premium' wine to retail at around €100 in Spain. He's aiming at the high-end on-trade, where Gran Reserva Cava (only 2% of all production) is gaining increasing listings. As a special service to clients, they disgorge on demand and print the date on the cap, which is very brave. I only wish we could persuade the producers of Fino and Manzanilla in Jerez to do the same.

We tasted the wines blind, which is most unusual for a bodega visit, and the highlights were these:

2006 L'Hereu (60% Macabeo, the rest XP) - crisp, green fruit and fresh acidity on the nose, bone-dry palate with good fresh fruit on mid and a citrus finish, Excellent. 17/20

2006 Raventós i Blanc Rosado (Monastrell) - gris in the glass, spiky, spicy fruit with a light, delicate perfume on the nose, some warmth and riper, red fruits on the mid and a nice, warm length. 17/20

In the tasting room

Then it was a leisurely dinner in the boardroom - a book-lined library-style room, with antique furniture and a magnificent spread with a selection of the bodega's still wines: very civilised indeed.

Dinner!

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

La Palma - Days 4-5

2009-08-14T21:05:00.002+01:00

30-May-09 - The final meeting took place in the morning, with all of the tasting panel asked to do a small presentation on their overall impressions of the tasting. Then it was time to present the prizes, hear the closing speeches, and the afternoon was free in advance of a farewell dinner for all the delegates, in the restaurant. I retired to my room to type up my notes (aka have a couple of large ones and a siesta).

Part of the tasting panel on the final day. Jürgen Mathäß (check shirt) is second from left

The dinner was very much a cut above what we'd had previously in the main restaurant: crema de calabacín y yogourth griego; solomillo del cerdo al gusto; and a mousse de gofio (a Canary classic) en teja de almendra con miel de La Palma. We drank 2008 El Nispero Albillo, Bodegas Eufrosina Pérez Rodríguez, 2008 Vega Norte Rosado, Bodegas Noroeste de La Palma (Negramoll) and the red 2008 Teneguía 2-0-0-1, Bodegas Teneguía (Negramoll plus other varieties). By now I had note-taker's cramp, but they were all very well matched to the food: a fitting ending to a very educational trip.

31-May-09 - Then it was back home - car to the south airport, where I arrived at about 14:30 for a 19:45 flight. Thank goodness (again) for Priority Pass! I was flying back with Monarch and expected a rather better service than from Easyjet, but there was little to choose between them. I did however, manage to get a seat with an empty seat next-door, so I was able to get the table down for something to eat, and drink. The flight was due in at 23:45 but arrive a bit late, so I managed to get another lift on the milk-float and got into arrivals about 00:30. My car was waiting and I was home for 01:15 - completely knackered, but a very worthwhile exercise. The following morning I woke up coughing, spluttering, with a sore throat and aching limbs, convinced that I had inhaled swine 'flu on the flight. Fortunately, this proved not to be the case.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

La Palma - Days 2-3

2009-08-14T21:04:00.004+01:00

28-May-09 - The temperature at sea-level was in the low 30s, and I arrived at the bus for the first session in shirtsleeves. The driver looked at me curiously and asked if I had a jacket. I said I hadn't. She frowned: "I think it might be rather cold where we're going. I suggest you go and get one." It then transpired that the first tasting session was to be held in the conference room of the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, perched on the rim of the volcanic crater at the very top of the island, at an altitude of about 2,500 m. It's only 88 km but once you get away from the populated areas it's solid hairpin bends up very steep slopes through towering pine forests, and it took us more than 2 hours. I found myself wishing that they'd hired a bus with a loo but, this being Spain, the driver pulled over after an hour and a half so that everybody could get out and have a fag. My needs were more urgent, and fortunately there was another (empty) minibus nearby where I was able invoke the Victorian Hansom Cab act (offside rear wheel subsection) while the rest scrutinised a 'you are here' map, and we subsequently had a group photograph taken.

In spite of the altitude (we were well above the clouds) it was very comfortably warm at the observatory, and I didn't need the jacket. One of the most fascinating moments came as we approached the administration buildings, when I noticed what appeared to be a giant mural by the roadside. As we got closer, it became clear that it was, in fact a concave mirror about 2 metres across and, as we passed, its reflections moved and rotated like a giant kaleidoscope.

Some of the observatory buildings on the edge of the crater

Cars parked above the clouds

Once inside there were more photographs before we got down to business. There were 35 wines, all Malvasía of course, 1 sparkler (surprisingly good), 15 dry, 2 semiseco and 17 sweet (the traditional 'Canary-Sack', famous since Shakespeare's time). We were marking on the 100-point scale but I have converted them to the 20-point scale. There were far too many to post a full list here. If you'd like to see the full list please e-mail me. My top scores (perhaps predictably) were all in the 'sweet' sector. These all got 19/20:

At 2,500 metres

2006 Mozaga, Montana Clara, DO Lanzarote - lovely, mature, honeyed, rich fruit, subtle and complex on the nose, rich, perfumed fruit and excellent balance on the mid with good acidity and a long, clean finish. Excellent.

2008 Testamento Esencia, Cumbres de Abona, DO Abona - big, soft subtle spicy fruit on the nose, clean acidity cutting the richness on the palate, fresh fruit on the mid and a long, golden finish.

2005 Tamanca, Tamanca, DO La Palma - almost Oloroso-style fruit with dark, subtle hints on the nose, and more 'Oloroso' on the palate, but with fresher fruit and good acidity, leading to a long clear finish. Excellent.

1997 Canari, El Grifo, DO Lanzarote - that Oloroso style again, with dark, nutty flavours and the beginnings of a bit of aldehyde, but the fruit leaps from the glass on the palate and the acidity is still fresh.

29-May-09 - At sea level

Day 2 of the event was held at the hotel complex, with a further 32 wines but (and here's the scary bit), the organisers had taken the top 10 wines from the previous day and inserted them into the tasting on the second, but we didn't know which they were. More on this in a minute. In the meantime, here are the 19/20 wines from day 2:

Malvasía Old Reserve 10-year-old, Barbeito (?), DOC Madeira (?) - another Oloroso style with caramel on the nose, and a rich, warm caramel/nutty mid: "Oloroso, but with fruit".

1990 Blandy's Malvasía, Blandy's, DOC Madeira - some aldehyde masking a dark, nutty fruit on the nose, lovely rich dark style but still with fresh acidity, excellent length.

Malmsey 15-year-old, Henriques & Henriques , DOC Madeira - dark, aromatic Amontillado-style nose, also on the palate with dark, warm delicious fruit and nicely balanced acidity. Excellent.

Interestingly, the wine that won 'best in show' across the board was a 1933 Malvasía from Justinho in Madeira. My tasting note was: big Oloroso-style maturity, power and richness on the nose but with aldehydes apparent, enormous power, spice and richness on the palate with a dry finish in a semi-rancio style. I gave it 18/20.

Now the scary bit: as I mentioned, they snuck the top 10 from day 1 (at 2,500 m) amongst the wines from day 2, and I cross-referenced my marks for those wines on each tasting. The average disparity was 3% higher at sea level, with a maximum difference of 14% and a minimum of 0%. Does this mean that the palate really does change according to altitude? I begin to understand the challenges faced by panels tasting wines for airlines.

But the tasting confirmed my thoughts that these are excellent wines, and deserve a wider profile. The problem seems to be that the dry wines suffer from the logistical nightmare of getting them to the mainland before they can be distributed, with its obvious cost add-ons. The sweet wines, fabulous though many of them are, have simply gone out of fashion. It's very sad.

Anyway, after the sea-level tasting we were taken to lunch at the seaside: the Kiosco La Zamora is a modest set of low buildings on a promontory sticking out into the sea at La Zamora, about 2 km up the coast from the hotel. We sat on the terrace under an open-sided canopy. Over the wall on the north side was a sheer drop to the volcanic black, sandy beach below, and in front of us was, well, my kind of food: plain-grilled fish of the day (alfonsiño on this occasion), locally-caught shrimps and lapas (limpets - not for me, unfortunately), and the classic papas arrugadas, which I love. We drank the 2008 Pedregal from Bodegas Tamanca (60/40 Bujariego/Albillo) which was splendid with the fish, and the red was a Negramoll called T!on (not sure if I've got the orthography quite right with that one) from Bodegas Carlos Fernández, which is a tiny two-man band in Breñas - it was excellent but the Pedregal was better with the fish. We finished off with tiny tumblers of 2005 Zeus Dulce from Bodegas Llanovid, the largest co-op on the island. Made from Negramoll, it was truly sublime.

The black sandy beach as seen from Kiosko La Zamora

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Head in the Clouds, feet in the sea - La Palma Day 1

2009-08-14T17:30:00.004+01:00

27-31-May-09 - The invitation came from Jürgen Mathäß, a German journalist and fellow member of FIJEV: the organisers of the Third International Symposium on Malvasía, which was held on the island of La Palma in the Canaries were looking for three teams of three tasters, one from La Palma, one from the mainland and one made up of international journalists, of which I was to be one.

My first thought was about getting there: the original proposal was London>Madrid>Gran Canaria>La Palma but I shuddered at the thought of changing 'planes twice, especially as one of them was at Madrid terminal 4, one of my least favourite places in the universe. I did some research and ascertained that there are no direct flights to La Palma except from the other islands, so I asked if I could fly to Tenerife and thence to La Palma. The only slight issue was that, of course, international flights go to Tenerife South, and local flights go from Tenerife North, which is about 45 minutes' drive away. The organisers, however, were happy to arrange a car in both directions, so I set forth with a will.

The flight out was with Easyjet and the car came to pick me up at 04:45 to allow for an 07:40 check-in, for flight at 07:40 (does any other country in the world actually observe this absurd 2-hour check-in pantomime? Thank goodness, as always, for Priority Pass: freshly-made coffee, croissants and a large brandy to fortify the blood). As I was getting over an attack of gout I asked for a lift on the milk-float thing, and this proved propitious: instead of the mad scramble for seats I was allowed on first, and managed to get an excellent seat (1F) right at the front with extra legroom and a pop-out table that I could actually use. This was important as the flight to Tenerife is 4h15 and I'd need something to eat (admittedly, at Easyjet prices, but there was no choice).

Another car was waiting at Tenerife south and delivered me promptly to the north airport which doesn't have a lounge but does have a very pleasant bar in which to while away the wait. The flight from Tenerife to La Palma takes 30 minutes in an ATR-72 turboprop, and the cabin service was a joy to behold. It takes about 10 minutes to reach cruising altitude and about the same time to descend, so the two stewardesses had about 10 minutes to do their stuff. As soon as the seat-belt light was switched off, they sprang into action: to the back of the 'plane, wheel a trolley to the front of the 'plane, move towards the back, with the front girl dispensing a chocolate wafer biscuit and a napkin, and the second a glass of water. Then back to the front with a plastic bag for the waste, then back to the front for the descent. It was a choreographed performance.

I arrived at La Palma at 17:30 and got the shuttle to the hotel. The venue for the Malvasía event was La Palma Princess on the coast near Fuencaliente: one of those sprawling 'resort' hotels (in fact, two hotels on one campus) with separate blocks for the rooms, 12 (count 'em) swimming pools and a full programme of sporting and other events for the energetic. We arrived in the evening of Wednesday, 27th May in time for dinner, and this was a self-service (and apparently almost 24-hour) affair in a vast restaurant on the upper level. There seemed to be no limit to the number of times you could go back and refill your plate but if I tell you that once was enough for me, you can imagine that apart from the fresh salads and fruit, the quality of food was, well, more motorway service area that 4-star hotel. There was no wifi in the rooms (but there was in the conference centre) and no room service which is, I suppose, understandable in a complex with two dozen different blocks of rooms. But 4-star???

La Palma Princess - main concourse

High concourse - looking westward out to sea

Anyway, that wasn't why we were there. The programme for the event seemed a bit heavyweight, with seminars on such as 'Influence of timing and intensity of basal leaf removal on aromatic composition of cv. Istrian Malvasía wines', with delegates from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Baltic states. But I was relieved to learn that the tasting panel was not expected to attend these sessions, but to do two tasting concours, one on the Thursday and one on the Friday, with a final 'judge-off' on the Saturday.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

CWW Trip to the 'Alternative' Castilla y León

2009-07-31T08:56:00.002+01:00

16-Mar-09 to 20-Mar-09 - Yes, I know it's ages ago but I've only just got the .pdf. This was a fab trip with wonderful visits and excellent company. Indeed, now that the Circle Update has been published it seems simpler to link to the article in that rather than to rewrite the whole thing. Click here.

LIWF day 2 and the Ritz (well, Langan's)

2009-05-16T16:17:00.002+01:00

13-May-09 - The day did not start well. I had told the client that I'd be at the Masterclass Theatre inside the LIWF by 09:30 in time for my presentation at 10:15, and duly checked out of the hotel at 09:00, asking them to call me a cab, which they did. Guests are identified by their room number (mine was 329) and there's usually about a ten-minute wait, so I waited outside laden with shoulder bag and wheelie bag. After about ten minutes a car arrived, and I was astonished to see a group of people starting to get into the car. The driver asked for the room number and, apparently, theirs was 239. He obviously couldn't tell the difference and drove off. The receptionist came out very apologetically and said that it had, indeed, been my taxi, but there was another on the way. In the event it was the same driver who apologised profusely for the mistake... But he still charged me the full £8.

So I got to Ex-Hell twenty minutes late and had to make my way the three miles down the central concourse to the theatre (right at the back of the hall, natch) to prepare for the presentation. Fortunately, all was well under control and I was able to set up a suitable high stool behind the lectern, load the presentation, check for any last-minute typos (there's always at least one). Nora and the team of organisers were sorting out the wines and I was ready to roll, which gave me the opportunity to go to the loo before we began. One block down, across the concourse and into the stairwell and... What's this? A lift! Miracle of miracles. At the lower level I still had to fight through several (single) doors to get to the Gents, but it was a start...

The presentation went very well, and was a sell-out: the theatre holds about 50 people but Nora told me that 65 had signed up to come, so I think a few latecomers were disappointed. The presentation was part of a campaign organised by the Bilbao Chamber of Commerce specifically to promote Rioja wines from the Alavesa (Basque Country), which has only 21% of the Rioja wineland but 56% of the bodegas, most of which are small and family owned. It has the highest (up to 600m) and northernmost vineyards in Rioja, and I nicknamed it 'Tempranillo Heaven' because of the Basque love for their wines young, fresh and fruity. They're not all jóvenes, however, as we were to discover:

2007 3 de Olano, Bodegas García de Olana, Paganos - Temp, minimal oak, 14% abv
This has just the barest touch of oak to smooth out the green tannins and a lovely fresh mid-palate. It could probably do with another six months in bottle.

2001 Izarbe, Bodegas Larchago, Lapuebla de Labarca - Temp, 24 months Fr. 13.5% abv
This is a classy wine with some maturity, just coming into its peak drinking period and showing impressive fruit/oak balance but with that classic Alavesa delicacy.

2003 Fincas de Ganuza, Bodegas Remírez de Ganuza, Samaniego - Temp/Grac/Viur&Malv 95/5/5, 23 months new, 14% abv
Masterly winemaking from a master of the craft, and from a year that wasn't considered to be particularly brilliant, too. Great extraction and lovely warm fruit balanced with the tannins, and great generosity on the length. Drinking now.

2005 Ángel Santamaría Vendimia Seleccionada, Bodegas Santamaría López, Laguardia - Temp, 12 months Fr. 13.5% abv
This was an outstanding year and although this wine is still pretty tight in the fruit department it is beginning to drink (in front of the 2004s - see below) and showing some real class. Given another couple of years this should become a classic of the genre.

2004 Casado Morales Reserva, Bodegas Casado Morales, Lapuebla de Labarca - Temp, 20 months new Fr. 13.8% abv
This was another excellent year and we felt that this wine had so much going for it that it would be a pity to drink it yet, even though it's older than the 2005. Wonderful structure, power and complexity all locked in by the tannins. Three years.

2004 Zuazo Gastón Reserva, Bodegas Zuazo Gastón, Oyón - Temp/Maz/Grac 90/5/5, 20 months Fr. 13% abv
And this is another excellent example of the year, also needing more time to give of its best. The addition of Mazuelo and Graciano here gives an 'edge' to the structure, matching the 'perfume' of the Tempranillo and toasty oak. Note the slightly lower strength, too - that's another clue to the Alavesa style.

A selection of lovely wines, indeed. I wish them very well in their on-going campaign.

I'd had a call the previous night to meet the publisher of YES CHEF! Magazine in the West End to discuss features in the next issue and so had to get round and shake a few hands (and have the odd glass) before dashing off to get a cab to The Ritz. According to Google maps it's 8 miles and should take about 31 minutes. Hmm... This does not seem to take into account the fact that half of London's streets seem to be under roadworks at the moment. In the event it took just under an hour, including about 20 minutes on Lower Thames Street where two lanes become one and we covered just a few hundred yards, and racked up a fare of £38.60.

At the Ritz, however, there was another challenge. I wasn't allowed beyond the foyer without a jacket and tie and, having been away from home, I didn't have one and, in any case, (unless it's for a VERY special occasion), I simply don't patronise places that dictate how I'm allowed to dress. Eventually the publisher, photographer and freelancer arrived and disappeared down to the kitchen for the interview. The publisher resurfaced (also sans tie) so we decided to go across the road to Langan's instead. I had the fish and chips with mushy peas and tomato sauce, and he had the beef casserole 'daily special'. We managed to get to speak to chef-proprietor Richard Shepherd and fix up an interview at a later date and the meal was excellent - although not cheap. Yes, I know, it's the West End and what do you expect to pay, and it was very good. But watch out if you want to save money by asking for wine by the glass: the house wine is seven quid a glass. I look forward to going back and interviewing Richard, however. I'll probably invest in a bottle. I think it'll be cheaper

I popped into Marks & Sparks across the road for a revivifying bottle of (medicinal) brandy (their own-label is only about a tenner and quite palatable) and then it was a cab back to Victoria for the 15:17, revitalising snifter on the train, and home by five o'clock in time for early apéritifs. But, absolutely knackered. A busy and useful three days, but exhausting. Next week is quieter. I hope.

LIWF day 1

2009-05-16T13:11:00.002+01:00

12-May-09 - LIWF first day: the local cab service provide a BMW 7-series with blacked-out windows and vast leather-upholstered seats. It was very comfortable but not cheap at £8 for a five-minute ride. Excel was as awful as ever: no lifts from street level to the concourse and a three-mile walk to the Press Office (which is always at the far end) to sign in; two flights of stairs down to the loos etc. etc., but I've done this all before. This was my post of 21-May-09:

My only beef about this event is the location: ExCel in East London, aka the outer spiral arm of the galaxy. When it was at Olympia I could get there in just over an hour and a half
- two trains door-to-door. Now it's four trains and anything up to three hours, including the Central line sardine-tin packed with Canary Wharf workers and the 'will I live long enough to get there' wait for the DLR from Canning Town and then the million-mile walk (no lifts, endless stairs) to the main entrance. Why on earth they can't simply lay on a shuttle bus from London Bridge I really don't know. But then, I really don't know how there can be so many design faults in a new building. Take the loos for example. (1) they're down two flights of stairs. (2) They're accessed by single rather than double doors, so you stand there for ever waiting for a stream of people to come in or out. And (3) after YEARS of bad examples there STILL aren't enough cubicles in the ladies', which means queues outside the (single) door. Have they learned nothing from the past mistakes of public buildings? Answers on a postcard (clue - it has two letters and begins with 'n').

Nothing has changed, except that even more people seem to be sharing my views. If this is a 21st-century venue for a major world capital city why is there no direct train from central London? Why are there no lifts from the station platform or the taxi rank to the main concourse? And how long before someone out of the enormous crush of people getting out of the tiny DLR carriages on to the tiny DLR platform falls into the path of an oncoming train? It's just a disgrace, and they're building a whole new extension on to the thing to make it even more horrendous. They never learn. Come on, Boris!!

The fair itself, however, is comprehensive and, frankly, a 'must visit' for anyone in the business. My plan was just to spend the morning there today having a quick look round to get my bearings, meet the people from the Rioja Alavesa campaign to get the final brief for my presentation tomorrow morning, and perhaps have a glass with a couple of old friends, a bite of lunch and back to the hotel to finalise the PowerPoint presentation, and it worked well. I bumped into Reg Ward, the man who introduced me to Mario Sandoval, my co-author of COOK ESPAÑA, DRINK ESPAÑA!, and he was working with Giles Cook at Alliance Wines. They're just launching a range called 'Los Pecadillos' based on the seven deadly sins. 'Envy' is a Verdejo/Sauvignon from Rueda, 'Sloth' is a rosado Garnacha from Campo de Borja, 'Lust' is a Graciano/Garnacha from Navarra and 'Pride' is a Rioja. That's as far as they've got - Gluttony (probably a PX), Avarice and Wrath are still in the pipeline, but all are pegged to retail between about £6.50 and £10. The wines were all good, especially 'Lust' which, although it was only a tank sample of the 2008 vintage, was showing well.

Next up I spotted old chum Graham Hines, looking astonishingly robust and in good health. He was originally the director of the Sherry Institute but had to leave through ill health and went through several rather serious operations. I've seen him a few times since his 'retirement' but not looking as well as this, nor, indeed, as pleased with himself now that he's back in harness (this time as a freelance) promoting Sherry. This is excellent news, indeed, as the last PR agency to handle the Sherry account appeared to be quartered on another planet, given the contact they had with me in spite of many e-mails and 'phone calls. We may expect an upsurge in interest, perhaps, at last.

Also present were several refugees from the CWW dinner the previous night, some of whom looked as if they'd stayed rather later than they should have but, of course, the work has to be done. I introduced myself to the lovely Nora Goitia from the Bilbao Chamber of Commerce, who was masterminding the Rioja Alavesa presentation the following day. We worked our way through the PowerPoint presentation and discussed how to approach the subject, and I took the final copy away with me to add in the last details. Then it was down to the Press Office, sign in, pick up e-mails and head back towards the main entrance, some several miles away. On the way I shared a salt and vinegar crisp with Jo Maclean of Codorníu, who was having lunch on the main concourse. She very kindly sent me a range of new vintages from most of the Codorníu properties a few weeks ago, and I was fascinated by a red and white branded 'The Spanish Quarter'. They're Vino de Mesa with grape variety and vintage date under the new EU regulations, which don't actually come in until July but hey, this is Spain. I have the empty bottles on my desk and I will be writing about them when I get time, honest.

There are bars, kiosks and restaurants all along the main concourse but it's busy and noisy and crowded and besides, I had formulated a cunning plan. Between the main entrance and the railway station is the Fox bar, which has an upstairs café-bar and a downstairs café-bar... And a lift. Better yet, the downstairs bar has an exit directly to the taxi-rank, which is a bonus. So, I ensconced myself downstairs with a plate of bangers and spring-onion mash with red onion gravy, and a pint of Guinness (sometimes only Guinness will do) which was not only very good but very reasonable at a tenner all in.

Then it was back to the Travelodge, an hour's siesta, and to work on the PowerPoint for tomorrow morning. This was completed by about 18:00, after which I sauntered down to the cafeteria for a Thai Green Curry and a modest Sauvignon Blanc from the Vin de Pays de Gascogne whilst reading through the local Docklands freesheet.

I know what they're trying to do at Docklands, and the architecture is occasionally magnificent, but somehow it's still seems to be an attempt at civilisation bolted on to a wasteland. Huge office buildings and towers of yuppie flats are still going up, but there doesn't appear to be anybody there, nobody walking down the streets in the evening, no atmosphere. There are trendy bars and cafés but they all feel a bit ad hoc, and there must be shops, newsagents, perhaps even post offices somewhere, but I didn't see them. It feels 'empty' somehow. Like a human-scale toytown, a bit like Milton Keynes. I admire what the planners have tried to do there but MK has been going for more than 40 years and it's still a soulless place, with minimal atmosphere and deserted streets once everyone's got home from work. Maybe Docklands will develop its own character in the next 40 years, but there's not much sign of it yet.

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com

Speeches, Meetings, Tasting and Dining

2009-05-16T12:33:00.003+01:00

11-May-09 - It was blowing a gale at Splash Point for the handover, and although the sun was bright and the sea sparkled, it was absolutely freezing... Or maybe I should have worn a jacket. The background here is rather odd. Back in 1999 I was playing Baron Hardup (typecast again!) in Horsham, and so was away from home a lot over the Christmas period (this did not go down well at the Eversley, but you gotta go where the action is). One night just before Christmas there was a violent storm and quite a bit of debris was scattered along the seafront. James was staying with us over the holiday period and was out walking his dog the morning after the storm when he found a notice, lying in the street, obviously having been blown there from somewhere. It read 'WORTHING BOROUGH COUNCIL - STAND RESERVED FOR THE DELIVERY OF SERMONS AND PUBLIC SPEECHES' which he thought was amusingly old-fashioned. We were relatively new to Worthing at that time and I had a vague idea that I'd seen it somewhere before, but couldn't remember where, but I intended to take it to the town hall once the world got back to normal after Christmas. Anyway, it gave us some amusement over the holiday period, after which he went home and I went back to Horsham for the rest of the panto run, which was about ten days. By the time I was back home the notice had been put away somewhere and I had completely forgotten about it.

And so it remained until about two weeks ago, when one of the local papers mentioned that the sign had been at Splash Point and had disappeared 'ten or fifteen years ago'. This jogged my memory, and a quick scout round the house revealed the sign, still intact if a little battered by the storm which dislodged it, behind the sofa in the guest bedroom. I wrote to the paper, and they arranged a handover to Keith Mercer, leader of the borough council, with a reporter and photographer from the Brighton Argus and an astonishingly pretty girl from the council called Linda who had, it transpired, been trying to find the sign for at least a year. Anyway, they took the pictures and did the interview and, apparently, a new 'pulpit' of some kind is being designed to rehouse it close to its original spot... Nine and a half years after it 'disappeared'.

Then it was off to London on the 11:06 for the 'prequel' to the London International Wine Fair (LIWF). A note about the Electrostars (Class 377) which are run by the Southern Railway on this route - when they were introduced in 2002 they seemed to offer a level of comfort and ride which were streets ahead of the old slamdoor stock which they replaced, but on this journey the train jerked, bobbed and lurched all over the place like a fairground ride. Perhaps after seven years and who-knows-how-many-million miles it's time for new suspension.

But back to the day before the LIWF. The Circle of Wine Writers has a committee meeting, then the AGM and our annual dinner on this day each year, on the basis that members from distant parts will be in London ready for the fair the following three days. And, indeed, so it proved, including a seminar on matching wine and charcuterie (terrine, saucisson sec, duck rillette and jamón de Teruel) by Fiona Beckett, with some fascinating wines (including La Gitana Manzanilla which, of course, went with everything, and a fabulous Malvasía Canary wine from El Grifo on Lanzarote which everyone loved but which, sadly, almost no-one can sell). The other wines were a St.-Tropez rosé (good with the ham); Assyrtiko Hatzidakis (went well with everything); Riesling Weingut Christmann, Pfalz (excellent with the terrine); Chapel Hill Verdelho (good with the duck); Lambrusco Reggiano Concerto (er... Better all by itself); Marcillac Cuvée Lairis (corky - both bottles); Morgon, Jean Poillard (good with the duck); and Isabel estate Pinot Noir from NZ (just a very lovely wine).

The dinner was at the same venue - Terroirs in William IV Street - and was a sell-out, and what a great pleasure to see so many old chums, It did remind me (yet again) that the Circle contains a lot of very affable and companionable people with whom it's always a pleasure to share an event. The restaurant has had rave reviews and was packed on the night (a Monday night in the middle of a recession ) which is very good news, but the food was, well, patchy. We started with panzanella which was pleasant enough, and then Lincolnshire smoked eel with a celeriac remoulade. The combination of two cold dishes was a little challenging for me, I have to say. Next up was new season's asparagus with Hollandaise sauce - perhaps one of the greatest combinations in gastronomy. Except that the asparagus was pale and floppy and barely warm, as was the sauce. Snails, bacon, garlic and parsley came on a crouton and were practically cremated, and porchetta and salsa verde which was delicious but, again, barely warm. It's probably not fair to judge a restaurant on a set meal cooked for a private event, and I may have to go again to see what the food's really like. I did also suggest that they might consider putting in a lift: from street level to the sub-basement dining room involves 48 stairs although, interestingly, they have a fire-exit directly into the Charing Cross Underground Station, which would seem to offer a range of possibilities.

The wine theme of the evening was 'island wines' and we tasted wines from Crete, the Canaries, Long Island (NY), Ontario, and Kangaroo Island amongst others - a really eclectic selection.

I left before the cheese as I had a long haul to docklands. Finding a taxi-driver who knows where anything is east of Tower Bridge seems to be impossible. Last year I stayed at the hotel attached to West Ham United at Upton Park, and hailed a black cab in Tower Place. The driver appeared never to have heard of either West Ham or Upton park, drove round in circles, tied to palm me off on another cab and finally arrived after an hour or so with forty quid on the meter. This time I asked the restaurant to call me a mini-cab (on the basis that they charge a fixed fee rather than on the meter) and specifically asked for a driver who knew docklands. The (statuesque and very attractive) girl on the front desk duly sorted it out and I was on my way by 21:45. According to Google maps the distance between Terroirs restaurant and the Docklands Travelodge is 6.1 miles and should take 21 minutes - perhaps rather less at this time of night? But no. After going through the security gate at Canary Wharf three times, asking directions twice and trying to drop me off at the Holiday Inn, the driver eventually stopped, got his AtoZ out and, after a few further false starts, finally got me to the hotel at 22:30. Oddly enough he had a satnav in the car but didn't use it. He did, however, only charge me £22.50 which, for a London cab is about par for the course. But I sink into despair whenever I have to come to Docklands. In the daytime you can use the Jubilee Line or the DLR, but late at night the chances of getting a short-distance taxi are minimal. Please, please, please can they move the LIWF back to Olympia?

To sponsor a weblink or picture for any post, please contact john@johnradford.com