The shock of the new vs the tried and tested

I’ve been wondering about readers of this column recently.  It’s well reported that our appetite for consuming cookery programs on TV and buying cookery books to adorn our shelves is not a reflection of an increase in actual cooking in the UK.  We seem content to ogle Paul Hollywood as he expertly kneads brioche dough, or gaze longingly at Nigella as she coos over her billowy pillows of meringue or whatever – then find we don’t have time to cook anything ourselves. 

Do you read this, with a passing interest in the content (“Oh, tasting wine from Turkey this week.”) and then revert to your regular tipple of Pinot Grigio/New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or Rioja next time you buy wine?  It’s not at all a criticism, I am genuinely interested to know if anyone out there is really encouraged to try something new by anything that I might write about. 

This is probably prompted by my own efforts to get out of a culinary rut (yes, by buying a couple of new cookery books) and making the food I dish up for my family less predictable – and (gasp) less reliant on meat.  I’ve been scouring the shelves of the supermarket in sections that I normally eschew as fit only for cranks who think they have “intolerances” to everything,  in search of new wave grains:  farro, quinoa, bulgur, giant couscous, Camargue red rice - all have been given shelf space in my food cupboards.  Some have even made it to the table, with mixed reactions from the rest of the family.  However, I am still (at this early stage at least) optimistic that we will find some new dishes that we all take to our hearts. 

Enough about my own domestic preoccupations, and onto what should be the primary concern of this column.  At this time of year, you are no doubt expecting wine recommendations for alfresco dining.  Has anyone EVER actually said that outside the world of journalism?  “Hello darling, I thought we’d dine al fresco this evening.”  Your other half would think you’d hit the Prosecco early doors.    

No matter, here are some recommendations for summer drinking (indoors or out) that I hope might encourage you to depart from the tried and tested and to strike out in search of glasses new.  

Grüner Veltliner

If you count yourself a Sauvignon Blanc fan, then I urge you to seek out this grape.  It’s a speciality of Austria and has plenty of zingy and zesty grapefruit-tinged fruit, with often more body and personality than many Sauvignon Blancs.  You might be interested to know that New Zealand wine growers have taken up the variety and are starting to produce their own versions.  It’s still early days, but look out for Kiwi Grüner in years to come. 

Laurenz V. Forbidden Grüner 2011, £11.99 from morrisonscellar.com

This is a hugely unfashionable style – light, fresh, a bit of natural sweetness and with low alcohol (11%).  But this is exactly the sort of wine that, if it’s put in your hand, I bet many of you would enjoy.  Bursting with fresh lime and grapefruit, and yes, a touch of sweetness, but the finish is clean as a whistle thanks to a bright streak of acidity.  This will cheer up even the greyest summer’s day.

 Domäne Wachau “Terraces” Grüner Veltliner 2011 - £9.99 from Waitrose

Drier and higher in alcohol, this is a satisfyingly tangy and refreshing wine, which has nothing skinny about it – perfect for what passes for summer weather nowadays.

 

Australian Riesling

Here I go again:  Riesling, Riesling, Riesling.  Will I never tire of banging on about this variety?  The short answer is no – not until I’ve convinced you all to love it as much as I do. 

If the idea of sweet Riesling is too scary, then stick with Aussie versions which are reliably dry. 

Plantagenet Great Southern Riesling 2010 - £13.50 from The Wine Society, £13.99 from morrisonscellar.com

I served this blind at a tasting recently (see what you Riesling haters have made me resort to) and many people loved the wine but were convinced it couldn’t be Riesling, which they were sure would be sweet and nasty and not bursting with zesty, waxy  lime fruit and resolutely dry.  Most guests thought it was Sauvignon Blanc (not sure whether to laugh or cry about that).  Need I say more?

 

Paulett’s Riesling, Polish Hill River, Clare Valley - £13.74 or £10.99 if you buy 2 bottles at Majestic

Despite the mangled name (is it from a river or a hill, it can’t be both) I have long admired this wine for its classic Clare Valley Riesling style – elegant lime and lime blossom fruit.

 

English fizz

The grape varieties may be nothing new, usually consisting of the classic Champagne trio of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, but the style is English all the way.  Our home-produced sparkling wines have yet again shown their quality by bagging medals at the major international wine competitions this year. 

Gusbourne Estate – wines from £24.99 to £29.99 online at gusbourne.com and some independents

This newish producer in Kent managed to take home gold medals in each of the “big 3” competitions (International Wine Challenge, Decanter World Wine Awards and the International Wine and Spirit Competition) this year – a stunning achievement.

 

Ridgeview Bloomsbury 2010 - £24.99 from Waitrose

For my money Ridgeview are the most consistent producer of high quality English sparkling wine across their range, though they failed to bag any medals at the big three competitions.  Like Spurs, there may be no silverware in the trophy cabinet this year, but they are undoubtedly a class act.

 However, I do have to beware that I don’t push this experimentation with the new too far.  As my husband remarked the other day, when faced with yet another new dish for supper:  “It’s just like wine, we’re never allowed to have the same thing twice.”  Sigh.  Oh go on, crack open the bottle of Oyster Bay.

Do wine and music mix?

If you tune in to Classic fm on a Sunday afternoon between now and Christmas your ears will be massaged by the unmistakeable and mellifluous tones of Simon Callow (he of Four Weddings fame) as he embarks on a musical travelogue. The plummy voiced actor and writer (I specify, lest there be any confusion with the high-waisted trouser wearing creator of X Factor, Simon Cowell) plays a selection of classical music tunes, focusing on a particular part of the world each week.

Thanks for the tip, you're thinking, but what, prey, is the connection with wine? At points along his musical journey, Simon Callow makes mention of a suitable glass of wine to have to hand as you listen to the music. Laithwaite's, the wine merchant, is the sponsor of the programme, dubbed Tasting Notes, and listeners can order a taste-along case of wines mentioned in the programme.

Last week listeners travelled, virtually, through Hungary and enjoyed some of the best known pieces of music to emerge from that country, with a recommendation of a glass of a Laithwaite's Hungarian Pinot Grigio to accompany them. In the second half of the program Simon moved on to a tour of Spain, a glass of Navarra rosé in hand.

The thinking behind the show's format is that listening to an appropriate piece of music can enhance the experience of drinking a particular glass of wine – and a glass of wine can certainly enhance one's listening pleasure. What of the science of it? Well, there isn't any really, but there is no arguing with music's ability to alter our consciousness; to heighten the senses. I know that certain songs have the ability to transport me to a certain time and place from my past. And if drinking wine isn't in some way altering our consciousness, then we must be doing it wrong.

Classical music and wine is all very well, but what if you're a bit more low brow and popular culture in your tastes? I have to confess to being something of a classical music numpty; my collection comprising the predictable mixture of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Mozart's Requiem and a couple of operas.

Listening to Classic fm this week, however, has inspired me to try out my version of music and wine matching, but based on my own musical tastes.

There are myriad theories about how to match wines with food: from matching the flavours and “weight” of the dishes you are eating with your wine selection, to using the wine instead to create a contrast and to somehow “cut through” the food flavours, and many more in between. I've taken inspiration from this clearly unscientific approach to come up with my own wine and music matches.

If you are listening to Coldplay (and I understand that some people do) and wish to embrace the idea of matching the feel of the music to the wine, then you might pair the banal ubiquity of Chris Martin and his merry men with a corresponding wine. And nothing says banal ubiquity in wine terms like Pinot Grigio. However, the two together sound like a recipe for narcolepsy, so it might be safer instead to choose a wine that will act as an antidote to the whale music and go for something bracing, zesty and full of life – a bone dry Clare Valley Riesling from Australia springs to mind.

Drinking anything with a sparkle, but most especially Champagne, betokens celebration. But sometimes you don't have anything to celebrate particularly, but fancy the Champagne anyway. For such an occasion, the jaunty nihilism of The Smiths' “There is a light that never goes out” feels right:

If a double-decker bus crashes into us,

to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.

Or if the thought of a violent death, even when accompanied by so much jolly, jangly guitar, is too much of a downer, then a more conventional music choice might be Badly Drawn Boy's up-beat “All Possibilities”.

Is there a style of music that harmonises naturally with red wines, which are surely what most of us crave at this dark and cold time of the year? For me the rich velvet tones of Nina Simone suggest a glass of something red and robust. Nina spent her final years in the south of France, so a drop of complex, rich and powerful Châteauneuf-du-Pape would be a fitting candidate.

There are of course, many songs which mention wine and drinking which suggest an obvious link between music and wine. Popular though singing about drinking may be, it is not without its pitfalls. Joni Mitchell's boast that:

I could drink a case of you

And still be on my feet

on her classic album, Blue, would surely fall foul nowadays of sensible drinking guidelines. Perhaps she should have gone on to specify that she meant a case of alcohol free beer. Likewise the popular Cockney sing-along “Roll out the barrel” might need to be modified along the lines of:

Roll out the barrel

We'll have a barrel of fun.

Roll out the barrel

We've got the blues on the run.

Just 2 units for women

And 3-4 for the men.

No binge drinking from the barrel

For the gang's all here.

And Ricky Martin, in Livin' la Vida Loca describes the song's temptress thus:

She never drinks the water and makes you order French Champagne.

French Champagne? Does he not know that the body charged with protecting the Champagne name spends many Euros every year to ensure we only ever apply it to sparkling wine made in the approved method within the designated Champagne region in France? Ricky, you may be an expert on Latin-tinged pop, but when it comes to understanding the French Appellation Contrôlée system, you have A LOT to learn.

Simon Callow's Tasting Notes programme runs until 23^rd December on Sunday afternoons from 3-5pm.

Awards! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing?

With apologies to Edwin Starr’s “War”.

Wine awards that is.  The summer of sport may have come to an end, but have no fear, for the wine awards season is now in full swing, with the winners awarded their own bronze, silver and gold medals in the major competitions.

But does it really make sense to judge wines and award them medals, just like Olympic athletes?  It’s not as if they’ve done something remarkable, like run really fast or thrown something a long way is it?

Awards are useful for a couple of things.  Firstly, pointing you towards a new wine that you haven’t tried before; and, conversely, confirming your already positive impression of a wine.  There’s nothing like having your own valued opinions confirmed by others for making you feel good.

And which competitions should you trust?  Some bottles are festooned with medals awarded in competitions that you have never heard of – do they really mean something? 

Australia, for example, has a well-established system of wine shows across their vast country.  Some well-performing wines can emerge from them looking like much-decorated army veterans, with rows of medals adorning the bottle.  In that country there is a strict training system for show judges, which is particularly hot on ensuring consistency of judging and on penalising any kind of wine fault.  So you can be sure that no wine that does well in Australia will be less than squeaky clean – whether your tastes coincide with Australian palates is less clear cut.

The Annual Wines of Argentina Awards, which have run since 2007, ensure they have a mixture of nationalities in their judging panel, which must surely make sense when export markets are so key for any major wine producing nation.  I am less keen on their policy of choosing one particular section of the wine business to judge each year – this time it was winemakers.  A more consistent and balanced set of results comes out of a mix, not just of nationalities, but background and experience.  Wine writers (ahem), educators, sommeliers, members of the wine trade – they all have something to bring to a judging panel.

Which brings me to the “big 3” of the UK wine awards jungle – the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), the International Wine Challenge (IWC) and the International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC).  Each year, tens of thousands of wines are entered into these competitions and, around now, bottles with gold, silver and bronze medals proliferate on wine merchant and supermarket shelves.

I am a judge for both the IWC and IWSC, so can talk with confidence about the professional approach and rigour of these two.  Their judging procedures differ slightly – and DWWA differs again – but it’s interesting to see how, year in, year out, certain wines perform consistently well across the competitions.  This shows that, however the process might differ, the end results can be surprisingly similar – and quality will out.  And, let me stress, judges never get to know the identity of the bottles they are judging, beyond an indication of the wine’s origin and grape variety/ies.

To paraphrase E M Forster, two cheers for wine competitions.  They may not be perfect, but they are the best we’ve got.

Here’s a selection of wines I’ve tasted recently, or have long admired, and which have done well in competition this year.

Tilimuqui Fairtrade Torrontés 2011 – Argentina, £7.99 (but currently £5.99) a bottle from Waitrose

IWSC Silver – and Gold at the Wines of Argentina Awards

Sadly this 2011 vintage seems to be out of stock across most of Waitrose, though you might be lucky in your particular branch.  However, the 2012 is just as delightful – Fairtrade and organic, it is great value for money at full price and a steal at £5.99.  Torrontés flavours will not please everyone, with their tangerine peel and floral aromas, but give this a go if you’re feeling adventurous.

Amalaya White 2011 – Argentina, £7.65 a bottle from slurp.co.uk and other independents

DWWA International Trophy for dry aromatic wine under £10

I have to say I don’t like Decanter’s separation of wines into under £10 and over £10 for judging purposes:  a gold medal should be a gold medal, whatever the price.  The Decanter approach leads to a two-tier system where some golds are better than others.

That said, this is a cracking wine, made mostly from Argentina’s signature Torrontés grape, whose vibrant aromas are tamed with the addition of a little Riesling.  Dry, but intensely aromatic with hints of lychee, grapefruit and lime.  Drink on its own or with prawny things.

Plantagenet Great Southern Chardonnay 2010 – Australia, £16.05 from slurp.co.uk and other independents

IWC Gold, DWWA Silver

Plantagenet is a winery whose name crops up reliably across the major competitions.  This Chardonnay has great concentration of ripe but elegant fruit with nicely done oak to complement.  Also look out for their Riesling and Shiraz.

Cien y Pico “Doble Pasta” 2009 – Spain, £11.49 case rate at The Wine Reserve in Cobham

IWC Gold – also Trophy in the Sommelier Wine Awards

The best of old and new Spain in a bottle.  Full-on, ink-dark, brooding fruit from low-yielding ancient Garnacha vines, but clean and fresh too and bottled under screwcap.

Mount Horrocks Cordon Cut Riesling 2011 – Australia, £19.95 from slurp.co.uk and other independents

IWC and DWWA trophy

A year in which this wine didn’t score at least a gold medal in a major competition would be a shocker.  This Michael Phelps of a wine is an intense delight for the senses.  Lusciously sweet and piercingly bright Riesling from the Clare Valley, its flavours are concentrated by literally cutting through the vine’s canes in order to cut off the water supply as the grapes ripen.

Lustau East India Oloroso Sherry – Spain, £9.75 from Waitrose

IWSC Silver

The Lustau name is always a guarantee of quality when it comes to sherry.  Sweet, dark, sticky, figgy, nutty.  So unfashionable, yet so delicious and something to warm anyone’s cockles over the coming months. 

Will you be an eagle - or Eddie the Eagle?

The whiff of Catherine wheels, rockets and bonfires in the night air has faded. Children have long since consumed their body weight in Hallowe'en (trick or) treats. The last hurrahs of Autumn have passed and now we stand at the top of a precipitous slope, like an alpine ski jumper, nervously adjusting our goggles as we contemplate that impossibly steep and slippery descent which leads inexorably to...Christmas.

We all hope for a steady run as we hop on to the festive ski jump: crowded, stuffy shops successfully negotiated, presents bought, no-one forgotten, meals planned, wrapping paper remembered. If we get it all right it will culminate in a graceful landing on the big day itself, having overcome the seemingly impossible.

That's the dream. The nightmare is a wobbly start to our descent: online ordering deadlines missed, the things you wanted sold out, or maybe you haven't got any good ideas to start with; somehow, ordering the turkey slipped your mind.....

The nightmare result is less like an eagle soaring effortlessly through the sky, and more like Eddie the Eagle.

Eddie, lest you have forgotten, was a British downhill skier who had failed to qualify for the British Olympic ski-ing team. He alighted on the clever tactic of switching to ski jumping, where he was assured of qualification, as there were no other British competitors.

Eddie thereby found himself representing his country at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, but was woefully under-financed and under-prepared - at one point financing himself as a part-time plasterer while training in Finland. Matters were not helped by the fact that he suffered from such poor sight that he needed to wear glasses to jump – which fogged up in the cold conditions. Dubbed “Mr Magoo”, he resembled, not an eagle, but something more akin to a penguin which had been launched unexpectedly into the air, and then crash-landed and scrambled onto the ice. Eddie denied that he was scared of heights – but he did admit to being scared of jumping.

Despite this unpromising start, Eddie, undaunted, won international acclaim for his pluck and determination to compete. Unfortunately that was all he won, as he came last in both of the ski jump events – and thus the legend of Eddie the Eagle was born.

I may not have much to offer to help you with the myriad of organisational tasks that need to be accomplished between now and the end of December – but in matters vinous I can be of assistance. Over the next couple of columns I'll be making specific recommendations on which wines to have on hand for the variety of social occasions that the festive season brings, along with my top tips for a glittering Christmas.

So as far as what on earth to buy for the spouse who has everything, or that sourpuss in-law who never seems happy, no matter how much money and effort you expend – I'll have to leave you to your own devices. However, if you can start by welcoming all your guests with a glass of something cold and sparkling and flashing a winning smile, then any other imperfections will surely be forgiven. Just don't forget to order the turkey.

In the meantime, here are some wines deserving of your attention. This week's wine recommendations are not specifically Christmassy, but are designed to soothe and delight over the colder, longer evenings between now and December.

Bordière Nord Marsanne Viognier 2010 - £6.99 (or buy 2 for £5.99 each) at Majestic

Marsanne and Viognier are traditional grapes of the Rhône Valley, but have been transplanted here to the warmer Languedoc by the mercurial Alain Grignon. This is a great value winter weight white with bags of unoaked tropical-tinged peachy fruit, combined with a herbal twist courtesy of the Marsanne. Full-tasting and warming – great as a party wine, but the trace of herbal bitterness makes it food-friendly too.

Domaines Schlumberger Riesling Grand Cru Saering 2007 - £18.95 from slurp.co.uk

I'm not going to beat around the bush. It's time wine drinkers got over their unfounded fears of Riesling, and especially of Riesling in these tall “flute” shape bottles. This is a fantastic wine from Alsace, in northeastern France, and it's DRY. Winemakers who can grow it love Riesling, the wine trade loves Riesling, I love Riesling – please put a stop to all my banging on and try some!

This sprightly wine has lots of lime with a hint of peach and even a little orange rind on the nose. The palate is dry, with a lip-smacking mineral tang and the limey flavours really linger. It's quite weighty and with a citrus pith bitterness too – really should be had with food and it was great with a chicken risotto. Very good and totally, deliciously moreish.

M&S Crozes-Hermitage 2008 - £10.99 from M&S

This 100% Syrah from the northern Rhône valley is made for M&S by the quality-minded Cave de Tain Co-operative and is exactly the kind of red wine you want to relax with at this time of year. The nose has loads of black fruit, along with some herbs and spices. The palate has more of that lovely brambly fruit with a real black pepper kick. Have it with a winter casserole – or just by the fire, with slippers.

Trouble downunder?

Flood, fire and for some the worst of all - the brimstone of losing the Ashes to the Poms. It’s enough to test the spirits of even the hardiest outbackers of Oz. Australians are fiercely proud (in a laid back sort of way) of their country and their achievements and there is no doubt that their pioneering spirit will prevail against the recent catastrophes visited upon them. It’s a testament to their can-do attitude that Australia has embarked on a wide ranging media campaign extolling the many wonders of their land down under, making it clear that they are still ready to welcome the world’s tourists.

Wine has, of course, been a key ingredient in Australia’s winning ways since the 1980s, when their “sunshine in a glass” was a breath of fresh air (or should that be sip of cool wine) for UK wine drinkers. It’s hard now to conjure up the excitement that these new arrivals caused at the time: varietal labelling! No funny foreign-sounding and unpronounceable wine regions! Back labels, telling you something about the wine – in English! It must have felt like a little bit of wine heaven had fallen to earth.

However, where the successful lead, others follow and those first Australians were soon joined by a host of “me too” crowd-pleasing wines. Argentina, Chile, South Africa, even those upstart fellow Antipodeans with their “cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush” sauvignon blancs. In order to stay ahead, you’ve got to innovate and indeed many Australian winemakers in the intervening years have been working hard to produce individual, expressive wines that taste of where they come from. This has been great for drinkers who are prepared to pay a little more and who want to move on from the fruit bomb styles of those early hits.

Unfortunately, the UK wine market has been dominated by the pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap big brands – you know the ones we mean. The 3 for £10, the BOGOFs, the was £7.99 now £3.99 wines. They serve a purpose, but exciting and elegant they are not.

Australia now finds itself in the unenviable position of having to scrap with the other discounters at the bottom end of the wine mass market and losing share as a result. The double whammy is that we are also somewhat reluctant to spend more on Australian wines, because of the cheap and cheerful image that deep discounting promotes. Over ten quid for an Aussie shiraz? Shome mishtake surely?

If we would all be prepared to spend a little more on a bottle from downunder, oh the delights that await. And, yes, we’re always banging on about this – but it’s true. Fixed costs on a bottle of wine (duty, VAT, shipping etc) mean that there are literally pennies left to spend on the actual wine itself if we pay around £4 in the supermarket. Up the bottle price to £8 or £10 and the winemaker has more like pounds to spend on putting something decent in the bottle. You know it makes sense.

Regionality is a big buzz word in Australia right now. In a country the size of Europe, so it should be. A chardonnay grown in the Margaret River in Western Australia is not going to taste the same as one grown hundreds of miles away in the Adelaide Hills.

Here are some of our favourite Aussies du jour that show just a hint of what this subcontinent of wine can do:

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Riesling 2010 - £9.99 at Tesco.com and Tesco Wine Club

Jacob’s Creek we hear you screech! Yeah but, no but. Yes, it’s Jacob’s Creek, but it’s part of their new regional reserves range (and try saying that after a glass of Riesling). The fruit for this wine hails from the Eden Valley zone of the Barossa region – a noted hotspot for cool-climate loving Riesling. And don’t worry that it might be sweet – this is bone dry, with hints of lime blossom and citrus acidity that make it a great friend to fish.

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Shiraz 2007 - £9.99 at Tesco.com and Tesco Wine Club

Oh well, in for a penny… This shiraz is from the warmer part of the Barossa, responsible for the most distinctly Australian tasting shirazes, which develop a whiff of saddle leather as they age – which is a good thing, honest. Let this youngster seduce you with its aromas of fruitcake and plum, hint of chocolate and soft, ripe tannins – definitely a red meat wine.

Shaw & Smith Sauvignon Blanc 2009 - £11.99, Taurus Wines (Bramley)

Not a gooseberry bush (or indeed a cat) in sight, this sauvignon from the Adelaide Hills near, well, Adelaide, is full of understated herbaceous and floral appeal. A class act.

Cullen Sauvignon/Semillon 2009 - £19.99, the Guildford Wine Company (Shalford)

Margaret River in Western Australia makes fantastic red Bordeaux blends as well as world class chardonnay. But we’ve chosen this distinctively Australian blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon, made by Vanya Cullen from her biodynamically farmed vineyards. The zip and pungency of the sauvignon is given added weight and depth and a certain limey punch by the semillon. This delicious and lively wine is perfect for spring.

We’re not often in the position of feeling sympathy for the Aussies – so go on, raise a glass of one of these delicious wines and show your solidarity. Howzat!