what should we do with a rubbish cider? (to the tune of the drunker sailer sea shanty)

My girlfriend Helen (@foodstories) gets sent all sorts of stuff on account of her being a much, much better blogger (chef and all round person) than me.
Sometime we don't quite know what to do with said products.
I give you Brothers Cider, all the way from somewhere in Somerset, from a family with cider making traditions dating back to the 1600s (some ancestors possibly spinning in their graves over the crazy fruit flavours) and a nice friendly PR who kindly sent Helen a couple of bottles of their strawberry and wild fruit flavours ciders.
So, we were faced with a dilemma; one not at all disimilar to the one I faced whilst buying a bottle of Appleton's Estate rum from the corner shop at 8.15am (it was for a work function that night I promise) when the proprietor proudly grabbed a large bottle of pink Bacardi Breezer from under the counter and presented it to me whilst informing me that I could have it free with my purchase. How to politely get across the message that it wasn't really the sort of thing we drink?
Then, the idea came like a special sort of heavenly manna lightning cross. What if we made ice lollies from them!?!

Take one bottle of sweet red fruit flavoured cider.
Pour into four disposable plastic wine glasses.
Freeze with a teaspoon inserted at a jaunty angle.

Remove and enjoy!

Needless to say the act of freezing the sweet sickly cider goes a very long way to making it palatable (remind me to write a post about FroRosé some time soon).

On supermarkets and sweet vinotypes

I've been reading the new text by Tim Hanni 'Why we like the wines we like' and while I find the style a little abrasive (it's very chatty and American) there's no doubt in my mind that it's the most interesting and thought provoking wine book I've read in a good while.

The central tenet of his take on wine is that there are essentially four different palette profiles extant in the general populace, of which only two, sensitive and tolerant are really paid much attention in the wider wine world. He spends a lot of time discussing, sweet and hypersensitive palette profiles and how they often find delicate wines such as Pinot Grigios and softer sweeter wines like White Zin more appealing.

I'd been chewing (swilling round my mouth) over what I'd read I found myself looking for something drinkable in my local Morrisons (I'm in Camberwell and sometimes I forget to pre purchase the evenings drinking) it dawned on me that the bulk of the whites would cater very well for the sweet and hypersensitive drinkers. I stopped, mused on some statistics that I'd remembered.

image nicked from Yapp wine's blog, a really good wine merchant http://www.yapp.co.uk/

Sweet vinotypes: 21%:7% Female to male. That's a 3 to 1 ratio of female to male.
Hypersensitive: 36%:38% pretty much even.
Tolerant (the palette type that appreciates big gutsy reds etc, your Parker wines if you will) is 2:1 male:female.

I also remembered that I'd read somewhere that supermarket wine purchasing is some 80% controlled by women.

So ensuring that the wine selection will appeal to the palette preferences most likely to present in the consumers most likely to be spending money in the shop. All of a sudden the predominance of wine styles that were likely to be appreciated by the dominant spenders in the shop didn't seem all that unusual.

I guess the supermarket wine buyers do know what they're doing...

Jamie Goode on the same topic..

RAW preview..

The world of wine is by its very essence cyclical. Vintage follows vintage and wine follows wine in a stately procession that can ether prove fascinating or somewhat somnolent. Whenever I find myself less than thrilled to be reading about the intricacies of the most recent Bordeaux vintage, or exactly how much the emerging Chinese desire for Burgundy is going to hamper my future enjoyment of said region, my thoughts turn to Italy.

Endless complex, gloriously varied, and possessed of a soul that honestly does seem to leap out of the glass, gesticulating wildly whilst fretting over the fortunes of their local team in the scudetta.

As an aside; how do you stop an Italian from talking? Tie their hands behind their back....

Interestingly the Italians have been enthusiastic adopters of the minimal interventionalist movement, I guess that there's something about the devil may care attitude and snubbing of convention that appeals. None the less, there are a huge number of Italian natural wines making their way to our shores, many of the growers (actually lots of them) are going to be at RAW fairin May. 

I had a little sneak preview of some of them with Isabelle earlier this week. 

'If I was Prosecco, I'd be cool and art deco, you could drink me in the penthouse you could drink me in the ghetto' so went the short bit of verse an Oddbins colleague of mine penned many years ago for some competition or other. At that time we saw Prosecco as a frothy, simplistic sort of drink, ideal for folk who didn't really understand why Champagne was better. God we were snobby in our ignorance. Still, I like to think that I've moved on somewhat, now I only look down on the people who unthinkingly drink Prosecco, not the drink itself, an important distinction (I keep telling myself). Any way, the real excitement in Prosecco is all about the words 'Col Fondo' directly translating as 'with the bottom' while actually meaning bottle with the lees. Opaque, enervating, gloriously moreish, this is Prosecco that seems to birth vitality. 

Malibra, Sottoriva (Col Fondo, 2011), coming from a tiny 7ha vineyard this seemed to me like a grown up lemon barley water, delicately sparkling with subtle fruit notes and an invigorating minerality. 

Tuscany, the Chiantishire of so many idyllic new Labour retreats. Sangiovese the blood that runs through the valleys, Malvasia and Trebbiano the Lymphatic to the better known reds. Columbaia Bianco 2011, from just outside of Siena, a blend of the two white varieties. Somewhat spiritually cleansing, tart peach floral notes, just a touch of fatness from its time on lees, the chalky clay soils coming through in the persistant minerally finish. Pacina, Il Secondo 2010, like the Columbaia this was a steel tank job, the inert vessel maintaining a lot of the freshness and aromatics of the Sangiovese, all dark cherries, black tea and primal meatiness. Some very chewy tannins suggest that this was a wine that really wanted to be sidling up to something with a healthy whack of meat fat. Nothing bad with that though.

Not strictly Italian, but given its proximity to the border I'm letting the Vipava valley in Slovenia slip into my Italocentric round up. Mlecnik (if anyone can help me out with the short cut for the little v on top of the c I'd be most grateful) Chardonnay 07. Three weeks on skins puts this wine firmly in the orange category, however it's still recognisably Chardonnay, and a surprisingly youthful one at that, its six years of age merely contributing a nice earthy creaminess, ripe apple and peach contributed the fruit notes while the measured tannin extraction made for a most satisfying body.

Wrapping up our little tour of Italian staples was La Biancara, Recioto Garganega 2007 from the Veneto. Half of the crop dried in a traditional passito fashion, the other half given extended skin contact, this seemed to me to sum up why natural wines can be so much fun. All sorts of naughty volatility on the nose, but I didn't really care, figs, prunes, toffee glazed walnuts, rich, sweet and lovely. The kind of wine that makes me want to just ditch the hassle of making a tart tatin, far too much going on to dick about with a pudding..

Links on the wine names take you to the suppliers. 

Old school Italians...

The old school Italian restaurant, they not as numerous as they once were but it doesn’t take too long to find one. Often they now look a little forlorn, but we shouldn’t forget the pioneering role these outposts of Italian culture played in shaping the restaurant scene of today.

There have been Italian restaurants in London since 1803, when Joseph Moretti opened the Italian Eating House near Leicester Sqare, his was a response to the growing Italian community based around Clarkenwell and Holborn, a collection of political emigres, and craftsmen.

In the century that followed the community grew steadily with the addition of a large group of merchant seamen. The Italian restaurant community also grew with hotels and eating houses being opened, mostly around Leicester Square, though by now Clerkenwell was known as little Italy and was a centre for skilled glass and plaster working.

By 1901 there were 11000 Italians living in London and the modern age of the trattoria was just around the corner. At this point we also turn our gaze towards Soho, Dean street in particular. 45 Dean street (now the Groucho club) had been a restaurant since 1880, but it was Gennaro’s that made its name. Along with Leoni’s Quo Vadis further up the road Soho had become the centre of British Italian dining.

Outside of the rarified salons of Soho the post war years of the 50s to the 70s saw an explosion in Italian emigration. The poor southern half of the country struggled after the second world war and many people left. Emilio-Romagna in particular saw a large exodus to the British isles.

1955 saw what was perhaps the most iconic of London Italian openings, with the first Spaghetti house offering Anglicised versions of Italian favourites. Just like the growth of curry houses across the land the Italian trattorias offered Spaghetti Bolognese and creamy Carbonarras. Wine was wicker basketed and the patrons would charm the ladies with roses and allusions to exotic mediterranean wonders. But let’s remember that for most people in Britain at that time wine was still exotic and unknown. Indeed I remember my father telling me of his Aunt coming back from Italy with the first bottle of wine he’d ever seen.

So the trattorias spread across the country, bringing affordable dining to towns and cities where before there’d been none. I’m certain that there are many whose first restaurant experiences were just that.

So anyway, now we’re blessed with regional specific Italians, modern British interpretations of Italian, and the wonderful legacy of the River Cafe, let’s raise a glass of Chianti to those pioneers and remember what made them great. 

Shit wine lists

You know how it is, you've been back and forth over the channel to source your chickens from just the right Brittany co-op. You've spent hours toiling over getting your special house marinade just right. You've put loads of effort into getting the design of your special cooking system spot on and sorted the brand identity so that you'll be able to expand.

All of that was, I'm sure, time very well spent.

However, I'm not going to visit. Why? The drinks selection is properly shit.

A couple of the biggest production, blandest wines you could list from probably the biggest UK supplier. Couple that with Staropramen, Estrella and London Pride as the beer selection and you have the most stultifyingly boring drinks list I've seen in a very long time. I'm hoping that you negotiated the hell out of the prices (plus sorted some listing kickbacks) because if you didn't, well, then that's just poor.

Anyway, feel free to ignore me, I'm unlikely to pester you as I won't be visiting.

Everyday sexism...

Sexy, sexy chip blow job pic

Just a short post this one. The Observer arrived this morning and as usual I was somewhat keen to have a squizzle.

What can I say about the front page, there it was, the classic lady seductively eating a piece of food, lips all a red, mouth just a little open. It's not like we're consciously aping the mental ideal of a blowjob. Perfect lips, the idea of slightly naughty satisfaction on receipt of oral pleasure (I accept that this could be implying that eating chips is a satisfying as sucking cock, but I doubt that was thought about when the image concept was first hit upon).

Then I got to thinking, have I ever seen the same image but with a male face being used? No, and for me, therein lies the rub. I honestly thought the Observer was a trifle better than this, but it would appear not.

Old Chablis

Early January in London can be most pleasant. Clear skies, bright sunshine and the spring in our steps that comes with the knowledge that Burgundies finest will all soon be visiting.

Sadly when it comes to the finer bottles from the Cote d’Or I tend to feel like a runner helplessly watching a much better class of athlete energetically showing me their heels. The prices seem to creep up every year with equal clamour for all the interesting wines.

There is one little corner of Burgundy that I hope will still remain approachable, that august hillside that hosts the grand crus of Chablis. 

Drouhin-Vaudin 

Now, many other people have written knowledgeably about the different crus and the different growers. Rosemary George, for one has written an excellent book on the region. So instead I’m going to talk about the thing that excites me most about the little Union de Grand Crus de Chablis tasting that always kicks off my wine tasting year. The older bottles that the producers bring along for comparison.

Please don’t take this as my not being interested in the new vintage, the 2011s were looking quite lovely, with a great depth of minerality and acidity closer in style to the 08s than I’ve seen recently. There were some stand out wines, Simonnet-Febvre’s 011 Preuses being one such, fair glimmering with white flowers while on the palette all a quiver with nervous minerality. Really though to single out wines so early on in their lives is a little unfair.

I digress, at the UGC tasting all the producers bring along something older for us to taste, a little window into what the younger wines might become, it’s these bottles that really make my day. There’s something about the mealy creaminess and mushroomy dankness that gets me everytime.

Drouhin Vaudon Les Clos 08 brought to mind visiting old castles as a child, there was a sense of something ancient and worn, like the smell of old moss on even older walls.

Albert Bichot’s Moutonne 01 (from magnum) dazzled with it’s youthfulness, lean and lithe with a twist of citrus peel still prominent in it’s bouquet. A sculpted mineral core was paying just lip service to the savoury wild mushroom risotto notes that were probably still to come.

Servin’s Blanchot 99 delighted, wearing it’s 13 odd years of age with some great poise and vigour. Savoury mushrooms and starchy creaminess, a glorious velouté of kimmeridgian chalk. What more is there to say, old Chablis, properly love it.