Ewan Lacey

With snow around the UK and the country echoing to the click and burr of central heating boilers being turned up, it can only mean one thing. Summer’s here! I went to taste some of ASDA’s summer collection last week and I’m pleased to tell you that even in inclement weather there are plenty of wines to distract you from the howling winds and thudding rain. If the summer ever does show up, they’ll taste even better.

ASDA Cava Rosado

FIZZ

Asda Cava Rosada NV, Spain £4.63

A fantastic, fun wine with plenty of fruit and charm; it’s a must for summer and will serve you well at a barbecue or as part of a picnic.

This is a wine that you could easily serve in a flute, but speaking from experience, it tastes almost as good supped from a paper cup.

I know this because after a long drive and a long battle with some camping equipment we used it to celebrate successfully pitching a tent and it was just the thing.

WHITE

Extra Special Viognier 2011, France £7.07

A little beauty: typical of its grape, this is a lovely wine and is perfect when you want something richly refreshing.

Extra Special Fiano

Extra Special Fiano 2011, Italy £6.98

This is a great wine to have waiting for you in the fridge after a long day at work; plenty of fresh and fruity flavours are balanced with a hint of savouriness that gives backbone to the wine.

I also loved the Lugana 2011, Italy £8.22 from the shores of Lake Garda, bright and lively with a lovely honeyed finish.

ASDA Petit Chablis 2010, France £7.27

A burst of fresh pear flavour mellows giving way to a softer almost milky taste. Indeed, there’s a very good range of wines from the Chablis region here: the ASDA Chablis and the Extra Special Chablis have heart and are worth every penny.

Regalia

Three Choirs Regalia 2011, England £7.30

Emblematic of the quality and value now available from English vineyards, this is a blend of 5 grape varieties which has been expertly assembled into a wonderfully vibrant wine.

This is certainly a fantastic choice for any patriotic celebrations you might have planned for this year – and there’s no shortage of those in 2012. There will, however, be another notable English wine hitting the shelves from May 31st which will be fabulous if you want to lend a bit more sparkle to proceedings. I can’t tell you what it is yet, it’s a secret!!

RED

The Original Malbec 2011, France £7.47

Meticulous wine making has brought out the softer side of the Malbec grape. There’s a lightness of touch here with juicy fruit flavours and a sweet warming touch of oak – more beauty than beast.

ASDA Sicilian Red NV, Italy £3.98

A very decent drop, savoury and simple with lots of character, good for a night in.

Noster Noblis, Priorat, 2007, Spain £9.98

This is a fabulous wine at a bite-your-hand-off price. Rich and full-flavoured with tastes that linger pleasantly and long in the mouth and the memory, at just under a tenner this is an absolute steal.

Tagus Creek Shiraz Trincadeira 2011, Portugal £5.98

This beautiful little wine has a lovely sweet character and points us towards the future when we’ll see an increasing number of Portuguese table wines.

There's Vodka in the Jar

Since hosting a vodka evening for the opening of the Russian Art and Architecture exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, I’ve got quite into vodka (in as civilised a way as possible, of course.)

You’ll be forgiven for thinking that all vodka tastes the same, after all the purpose behind all of the re-distilling and filtering when making it is to produce a spirit that is as clear and clean as possible.

However, there always remains an original essence of flavour, a hallmark of how it was made and what it was made from. For example, Polish vodkas made from potatoes will have a slight aroma of mashed spuds, an oily texture and will feel creamy on the palate, whilst other vodkas made from different grains will have different signature tastes. It’s a world of small, subtle differences, but they are significant, nonetheless.

My current vodka of choice is, Tovaritch! vodka. Tovaritch (meaning comrade or mate) is made near St Petersburg and benefits from the abundant supply of pure water in the area and this makes for a very fresh, bright drink: one that you could, if the urge took you, knock back on its own. I won’t go into tasting notes, but one thing I did clearly get, shimmering in the glass, was the faintest hint of fresh whole meal bread.

The vodka is very reasonably priced, at around £15 per bottle and will make a good addition to any drinks globe, cabinet or kitchen shelf. (www.tovaritch.com)

I did mention that I’d taken to it in a civilised way, and I’ll justify that by sharing some tips on infusing vodka, which is a far better way to enjoy vodka than drowning it in cola or swamping it with fruit juice.

The trick with infusing is to strike a balance, whereby you can still taste the vodka – and remain aware that it’s powerful stuff – and also have the joy of an aromatic, sharpening and invigorating drink.

Fruit Infusions

Berries are excellent for this – blueberry and raspberry – but pomegranate seeds and citrus fruit also work well.

Roughly chop the fruit and pop into a jug. Add a little sugar, if you have a sweet tooth and then top with vodka. Cover and leave in the fridge for three days and then pour the infusion back into the vodka bottle. Separate the solid material as best you can – a funnel and coffee filter papers will help.

Sweets, Spices and Green Stuff

Crushed, boiled sweets will dissolve in vodka giving you an effortless, delicious infusion. My favourite are glacier mints.

Spices like cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla and cloves will all infuse a beautiful flavour in a matter of days. For something really special, add a little honey too.

Cucumber and dill work really well in vodka, as do other green things like mint, basil and rosemary.

Warning!!

Make sure that you drink plenty of water alongside!

I’m welcoming a guest post today from Jane Pople, of Amara (www.amara.co.uk) Amara is the online destination for luxury home brands and from my personal experience, beyond having a great range, they are also fantastic when it comes to service and delivery.

I hope you enjoy what Jane’s written, I certainly have picked up a new top tip!

Cheers

Decanters

Many of us who enjoy fine wine will have a collection of decanters along with our treasured wine glasses. But many of us don’t really understand the importance of why we decant wine and the difference it makes to the all important taste and flavour.

Technically speaking, the act of decanting is the technique of slowly removing a wine from its sediment whilst allowing the wine to breathe. It is often reserved for use on older wines and ports, which tend to contain sediments that can cause the wine to be bitter in taste. However, young wines also benefit from decanting which also increases oxygenation, and reveals more complexity and open up aromas and flavours.

Escargot, the snail shaped decanter

It is recommended that bottles are left to stand upright at least 24 hours before decanting, giving ample time for any sediment to settle. For older wines, fifteen years and over a few days of standing is recommended, and for wine over forty years it is best to leave for even longer to let the sediment really have time to settle.

Some wine connoisseurs will only use cheesecloth or a wire mesh in a funnel when pouring into the decanter, but as long as you pour in a continuous stream then this should be sufficient.  When choosing a decanter go for a high quality design, Riedel and William Yeoward Crystal produce many exquisite styles. Keep decanters stored carefully, and always remove all dust and any spots that may have occurred from being in a cupboard. Care for your decanters with water, never use strong detergents, and soapy water can be difficult to remove properly due to the shapes of many decanters.

A top tip for cleaning tricky designs is to use a mixture of crushed ice and coarse salt, which will remove any residual wine without leaving behind any aroma of its own.

So… as someone who writes about wine, what on earth do I know about tea? Not much is the answer. Despite drinking around six cups a day, I must admit, that for me, tea was something that pretty much came out of a tea bag. That was until I had my eyes opened last week.

The Modern Pantry

Epiphany is too strong a word, but at afternoon tea at the excellent Modern Pantry chef Anna Hansen MBE created some fantastic, delicious treats to accompany the wonderful teas of Lalani and Co (www.lalaniandco.com)

Before sharing what I learned, let me just say that afternoon tea is an overlooked treat. The menu that Anna prepared was divine, mixing the light and savoury with some special sweet decadence, and it all looked great too.

When partnered with the cakes and sandwiches these teas showed how well they match food. We were tasting the tea from Riedel glasses which showed off all the nuances in flavour excellently. Before you put down your mug in disgust, these were the stemless glasses, so it was nowhere near as pretentious as it might sound. It worked.

Did You Know?

LaKyrsiew Tea Garden

All tea comes from the leaves of the camellia plant. I had no idea. We’ve got a camellia in our garden; little did I know that its relatives are responsible for the most popular hot drink in the world. The camellia that I know has been bred to produce flowers, for others their destiny is to make tea.

Tea grown in India and Nepal can be picked at almost anytime throughout the growing season, March – November. The tea produced will depend on when it’s picked. I didn’t know that the same bush will give black tea – the kind we’re most familiar with – at certain times of the year and is best for green tea and white tea at others.

If green tea and black tea come from exactly the same plant, then how do they end up tasting so differently? The answer lies in oxidisation. Green tea leaves are heated to stop any oxidisation and to fix their colour. Black tea is allowed to dry out, wilt and oxidise. The processing, thereafter, is different too, but we’ve had enough information.

Tea

Turning to the direct experience of drinking great tea, it struck me that this is possibly the world’s most affordable luxury. For much less than you’d pay for a tea bag dunked in water at your local coffee shop, you can have a cuppa brewed from the best pickings from the best organic tea gardens chosen at the best time.

Tasting these teas, you can’t help but to think about wine: complex flavours integrated in a drink that’s enjoyable and easy to understand. The green tea was so juicy I’d have sworn that someone had squeezed a passion fruit into the blend (they hadn’t.) The black tea was so noble with fine notes of caramel and raspberry, so sweet and soft you’d never need to add any milk or sugar.

Having been suitably impressed, by the first round of teas, I was again surprised by the next infusions grown in a different tea garden. It was evident that geography plays a huge part in the taste of what’s in your cup and it makes sense when you think about.

The final discovery (and please don’t think I was sitting all afternoon with a shocked look on my face) was the feeling I had after drinking the tea. I felt very relaxed and, well, kind of high. I recommend it!

I will be hosting the Interview Stage at the BBC Good Food Show Spring at Glow, Bluewater in Kent on April 13^th and 14^th.

I’m looking forward to interviewing MasterChef 2011 champion Tim Anderson, Michelin starred chef extraordinaire Richard Phillips, Great British Bake Off winner Jo Wheatley, The Fabulous Baker Brothers Henry and Tom Herbert, wonderful wine expert Olly Smith, Celebrity MasterChef winner Lisa Faulkner and meeting for the first time the MasterChef Champion 2012 live on stage.

It’s going to be fun.

Beyond that there will be some great sessions in the Supertheatre with some of our favourite TV chefs and foodies including James Martin, Gino D’Acampo, John Torode, Gregg Wallace, Gennaro Contaldo and Olly Smith.

Having been a part of The Wine Show and MasterChef live, I know I’ll be having a great time there and hope you do too.

For further details and to buy tickets visit the BBC Good Food Show website:

http://www.bbcgoodfoodshowspring.com/interview-stage

Cheers!

My friend is a novelist and asked me to suggest some wines for his book launch at the end of the month. He gave me a fairly prosaic brief: cheap white wines that I can get hold of easily and no bubbles. In short, he wants a party wine.

When you’re looking for a party wine, the Goldilocks principal applies. You’re looking for something that’s not too this way or that. With whites, you want something refreshing, but not acidic; something with a good weight of fruit, but not over the top.

Let’s face it; we’ve all been to parties where the wine served wasn’t good. Some whites can be as sharp as battery acid, with one sip promising heart burn if you drink anymore. Others can be fat, faked, shapeless and guaranteed to bring on a hangover.

I decided that on my way back from work, I’d stop off at the supermarket (Sainsbury’s) and make some suggestions.

Sauvignon blanc can be a really good choice; I suggested Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference (TTD) Sauvignon de Touraine (£7.99 down to £5.99) it’s a crowd pleaser with plenty of zip balanced with a good weight of fruit. Another area producing good value Sauvignons is Chile and the well-known brands are producing some great examples; the TTD Chilean Sauvignon is good too and at £4.49, down from £5.99, is even harder to resist.

One of my favourite branded wines for an occasion is Vina Sol by Torres. It’s such a crisp, beautiful, simple wine and is good year in, year out always good value at £6.99.

Moving from Spain to Italy I like the TTD Verdicchio (£6.99 down to £5.24) and also the TTD Gavi (£8.29) both of these wines really come into their own if you’re serving a little food. They are wonderfully aromatic wines that start with a burst of fruit which mellows to reveal their noble, savoury side.

If your party budget is a little higher, or you want the extra confidence that buying from a well-known region brings, then TTD Chablis (£8.99) is a very decent buy. It’s classic offering steely refreshment under-laid with warming dairy notes.

After going through these choices, I hope that he finds it in himself to invite me to the launch.

Ahead of our next One Day Wine Course on March 31st (details to follow) I wanted to share a short video where we look at red wine.

Cheers!

Getting ready

At our wine dinner at The Bleeding Heart on Wednesday, John and I wanted to share just how much fun it can be to work in the world of wine and food.

We wanted to share the fun of tasting lots of different wines side by side and the pleasure of enjoying a menu that’s been designed around the wines that it is to be served with.

Until I worked with wine, I rarely tasted more than one wine at a time – I’m sure that goes for most people. However, when you are able to compare the wine in your glass with another, and another, your levels of appreciation and understanding rise remarkably quickly.

We’d chosen to show wines from Bordeaux, seven in all, ranging from dry whites to sweet whites; from plush fruity reds to stately classical ones. I’ve included the menu below.

John holding court

When we talked about the wines a few things came out – firstly, how important it is to enjoy red bordeaux with food. Food transforms it. Chef Julian Marshall prepared us a wonderful menu and it brought out the beauty in the wines and the wines perfectly complimented the food. The match with the Suffolk lamb was incredible and something you have to try.

Secondly, we were all impressed with the distinctiveness of the wines. These are wines that share certain regional characteristics, but which are definitely of their place. The first two reds, both merlot dominated, were plush and forward as you’d perhaps expect. Whilst, the second two, cabernet driven, wines had the lovely acidity and noble, dry characteristics of the Medoc. However, it was their similarities, rather than their differences which were most interesting. The way they developed in the glass, the lingering finish, their complexity,intensity and the way in which they were modern wines with a clear, traceable past.

I could go on and on. However, I’ll leave something to your imagination. It was a wonderful evening, with great company, conversation, wine, food and even a little cognac.

I can’t wait for the next one!

John and Ewan’s Wine Club Bordeaux Dinner

Ballotine of Confit Duck, Maize fed Chicken and Pistachio with Apple Compote

Château Deville, Entre-deux-Mers 2009

Château La Croix Chantecaille, St Emillion Grand Cru 2004

Roast Rump of Suffolk Black face Lamb with Caramelised Root Vegetables and Pomme Mousseline, Rosemary Jus

Château Des Annereaux, Lalande de Pomerol 2006

Lacoste-Borie, Pauillac, 2006

Selection of Cheese with Home-made Raisin and Walnut Bread

Chateau Langoa Barton, Troisième Cru, St Julien, 2006

Le Coeur de Cassis with a Passion Fruit Coulis

Clos Dady, Sauternes 2008

Château Filhot, Deuxième Cru, Sauternes 1999

Coffee and Petits Fours

VSOP Cognac

Sitting at lunch with Egon Müller, I asked him to pass me the spittoon. He looked at me in a kindly, but confused way, the sort of look you might give a friend who’d just made an idiotic blunder – like pinching the bread from someone else’s side plate or using the table cloth as a handkerchief.

As he passed it to me, he whispered, ‘you keep it, I won’t be using it. These wines are too precious to spit out; they will never be made again.’ I nodded and took note.

The vineyards which Egon Müller owns and makes wine from in the Mosel were planted by the Romans. Thereafter they were tended for centuries by Monks until they were sold (following the French Revolution) to one particular monk who eschewed his religious vows and had 7 children. Six generations later we reach Egon.

He’s a tall man, fit from working his vineyards by hand and with the deep, confident assurance that comes from decades of hard work. He really knows his wines. His vineyards are in the Wiltingen/Saar region of Germany and for those of you who studied history; you might recall that the Saarland like many parts of the Franco-German border is a place that has flown a number of different flags during the last 250 years. Despite this, the wines he makes are emphatically German; definitively German, in fact.

The beauty of German white wines lies in the tension played out between sweetness and acidity. The best examples are etched with a mouth-watering sharpness and offer the beauty and opulence of layers of sweet fruit flavours.

2010 Scharzhofberger Auslese Goldkapsel

Quick translation here – Scharzhofberger is the name of the vineyard, Auslese means that the grapes have been selected for their quality, Goldkapsel means gold capsule and indicates that this is a wine which is of extremely high quality. The grapes, not mentioned, are always Riesling.

The wine has an amazing texture because it’s both light on the palate and richly full bodied. The small crop in 2010 means that the wine is incredibly concentrated: intense, refreshing and sweet with long, lingering dimensions of flavour and perfect balance.

Watching Egon taste his wines was a bit like peeking at someone looking over family photo albums from summers past, remembering with fondness the days of those years. ‘This wine,’ he remarked ‘still has a little puppy fat, when it loses that it will be more pure.’

1990 Scharzhofberger Trockenbeerenauslese

The word Trockenbeerenauslese may be too long for some of us to try and pronounce (TBA is a handy abbreviation) but the wine itself is divine. It is a wine that is as easy to like as it is difficult to produce.

To make this wine at all is a huge gamble and beyond the mere cooperation of Mother Nature it also requires assiduous hard work and painstaking dedication as the dried grapes are hand selected at their moment of readiness.

The wine is crystal clear, although deeply amber coloured; it is richly sweet and offers dazzling refreshment; it is concentrated with great weight yet graceful. It’s a haunting wine and unforgettable.

I once sat next to Goldie Hawn at an event. What struck me about her was that she was so fabulous (and famous) yet she was really normal, charming and easy to get along with. Now, I do hesitate to compare wines to people, however, the TBA is a superlative wine in every way, and yet there it is: obviously beautiful but not at all demanding. Even though it costs a lot, it’s worth every penny.

The 1990 was the year Egon took over from his father and it is a testament to both men. Egon’s father had to rebuild the estate in the years after 1945 and was barely able to make a living for his family. Indeed one of the things he worked towards was to bring the business up to the point where it could support two families, his own and his son’s.

I’m very glad that he succeeded and hope to be able to enjoy these wines again for many years to come.

You can probably guess the question that I am always asked when I talk about wines that carry a big price tag. It’s very simple. People ask, ‘Is it worth the money?’

I’d like to have a look at that, specifically discussing Dom Perignon’s latest release the 2003 vintage.

Richard Geoffroy launching DP 2003

To be worth it, the wine ought to have intensity, complexity and it must be instantly recognisable that the wine is very good (passing the Blink test proposed by Malcolm Gladwell.) It has to have layers of flavour; change and improve in the glass and show different facets when matched with food. Behind all of this, the wine will have been expertly made from the finest fruit, following a philosophy of excellence.

In short, when poured into the glass, it must be of the very highest quality, but what does that mean, given that taste is so subjective?

The first thing to be said is that taste isn’t as subjective as you might suppose. For wines to taste good, what we need is a harmonious balance on the palate between the tastes of sweet, sour and bitter allied with a good texture or mouth-feel. Too sweet and the wine is cloying, too sour it’s acidic, too bitter, it’s astringent and without the right weight the wine could be too light, insipid, or too heavy and clogging.

The Dom Perignon 2003 is perfectly balanced, although the emphasis is slightly different from what you might expect from a white wine, even one made from 60% pinot noir. The stress, you see is on the bitter flavours – generally we encounter more fresh notes. This is because the small crop of 2003 (almost wiped out by frost and hail in the spring) was then roasted by the hottest summer in over half a century. This produced a very small harvest of very ripe grapes with great concentration.

When we get beyond taste and questions of balance, we move into the much more subjective realm of flavour. There are millions of flavours and unlike tastes that are picked up in the mouth; flavours are picked up by the nose. It’s these combinations of flavours and how they alter when matched with food that points the way to wines that are worth cost.

When paired with food, the wine showed its different faces.

Arpège Egg

With the sweetness of an Arpège Egg (inspired by Alain Passard’s 3 star Paris restaurant) a beautifully soft and refreshing character issued from the wine with light pear and lemon sherbet tones. Matched with saffron risotto, finished with parmesan, a more extreme lifted note (almost of quince) was revealed – not what I was expecting. Partnering responsibly-farmed caviar and hibiscus jelly, sweeter, richer fruit flavours of strawberry and raspberry came to the fore. Served alongside duck foie gras in mole sauce those deeper toffee and caramel notes and the noble bitter flavour of iodine became apparent.

The final consideration rests on the philosophy behind the wine making. With Dom Perignon there is a commitment to excellence which means that using only the best fruit, outstanding wine-making, expert blending and careful ageing are seen only as a starting point. Beyond that Richard Geoffroy (chef de cave – wine maker and more) wants the wine he makes to be on the absolute edge of possibility. A wine that bears witness to the vintage and with the 2003, he has succeeded.

So is it worth it? On the above I’d say yes, however, the acid test is always much more simple – would I pay for it with my own money?

Well, I would, but only if I had something to celebrate.

This month I’ve got Valentines day, my wife’s birthday, my youngest son’s birthday and our anniversary, so it might just be time to order a case.