The wonderful nonsense called terroir

Whisky’s new terroir:

From The Financial Times


Can a whisky ever really taste of a place? If you’re a fan of Speyside malts, or a dyed-in-the-wool Islay drinker, then you’re probably thinking: yes, of course it can. Yet the average Scotch whisky is actually a bit of a mongrel, made with barley that can come from Scotland, England or Europe, aged in oak (arguably the biggest factor in a whisky’s flavour) grown in the US or Spain. Peat can certainly impart regional character, but the water source is not nearly as important as whisky marketeers would have you believe. In fact, the most Scottish ingredient in Scotch whisky is probably the climate: cool, damp and temperate, it promotes a kind of stately maturation that’s entirely different to hot-and-cold Kentucky, or the tropical Caribbean.

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Telling porkies: German MP attacks vegetarian products with meaty names

Telling porkies: German MP attacks vegetarian products with meaty names | World news | The Guardian: "Germany’s agriculture minister has called for a ban on names such as “vegetarian schnitzel” for meat-substitute products, which he said were misleading consumers.

Among the “wurst” offenders is “vegan curry sausage”, a meat-free version of a heavily spiced pork dish born of post-second world war necessity and now considered a delicacy in Berlin — though largely unknown outside Germany.

“These terms are completely misleading and unsettle consumers,” Christian Schmidt told Germany’s Bild daily.

“I favour them being banned in the interest of clear consumer labelling.

“I do not want us to pretend that these pseudo-meat dishes are meat dishes.”"



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Restaurant trends for 2017

Restaurant trends for 2017: From the Financial Times



"... restaurants without seats, seats without restaurants” 

:... start-ups and chain restaurants opening their own kitchens in offbeat locations staffed by professional chefs. These are no-seats restaurants whose sole purpose is the delivery of top-class food directly to the consumer. Upscale Domino’s, if you like.”

... Then there is the challenge by start-ups that employ cooks to prepare food in their own domestic kitchen. Meals are then delivered to people’s dining rooms — an example of Whiteman’s “seats without restaurants”.
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Spain proposes fines for parents of underage drinkers

Spain proposes fines for parents of underage drinkers - The Local: "Spain’s new health minister has revealed that she wants to pass a law which would see parents of underage drinkers fined if they refused to take their children to special 'awareness courses' on drinking.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper ABC, Dolors Montserrat said she intends on introducing a new law designed to reduce underage consumption of alcohol in the country.

“I need to listen to all of the sectors involved. I want a law with the maximum consensus possible, because if not, it won’t go forward and our children will continue to drink in the street,” she told ABC.

Montserrat’s predecessors have struggled to pass effective alcohol legislation. But the Catalan, who became Spanish Health Minister when the conservative PP government was finally re-instated in November, suggested that fines could be used to make sure the proposed new law has an impact:

“The family will receive notice to attend an awareness course with their kid, similar to the ones for traffic offences. There will be some irresponsible parents who decline to go, and then, if the kid is a repeat offender, some kind of economic sanction may have to be considered.”"

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An Australian tells the French how to do coffee properly

Is coffee becoming the new wine for Parisians? - The Local:

"Forget tasteless espressos on a Paris terrace. The capital is taking the coffee trend seriously. But for how long?
It seems a new specialty coffee shop is popping up on every street in Paris these days.
 
And the attention to good coffee is long overdue, says Australian Tom Clark, the co-founder of Coutume, one of the top Paris cafes according to Google, TripAdvisor, and just about every blog post on the topic.
 
"When I came to Paris in 2006 I was expecting great coffee," he said in an interview with World Radio Paris. 
 
"But it was probably the worst coffee scene on the planet, barring Antarctica.""



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Back to making it French and simple

Adam Platt’s Where to Eat 2017:

" When I visited Paris not so long ago, though, the real dining sophisticates all seemed to be obsessed with simpler, more comforting pleasures, like terrine de veau, celery-root rémoulade, and country chicken cooked with vegetables in a pot for two. And so it is right here in New York City. All of the trendiest, most fashion-conscious food groupies I know are clamoring for tables at a whole crop of new haute bistro establishments, where the chefs trained for long years in places like Paris and Lyon and the carefully scripted menus are filled with pleasing, formerly vanished recipes with familiar poetic names, like tête de veau ravigote, canard à l’orange, and terrine de foie gras en croûte."



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Clonakilla made a cellaring favourite

The wines Australians have been collecting in 2016 | Business Insider:
"The iconic Canberra shiraz viognier produced by Clonakilla is this year’s favourite for wine collectors according to Australia’s largest managed cellar business.

Wine Ark, which has around 2 million bottles laid down in 16 centres nationwide, keeps data on all the bottles moving in and out of storage, and the top wine people put down this year was the 2015 Clonakilla shiraz viognier, costing around $100 – just 18 bottles ahead of the 2014 Lake’s Folly cabernet ($75) from the Hunter Valley.

Penfolds 2012 St Henri ($95) was the third most added wine of 2016."

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It was those monkeyss that caused it

How we evolved from drunken monkeys to boozy humans | Aeon Ideas:

"Drinking and producing alcohol are among the most universal of human behaviours. On the face of it, there is no obvious connection between today’s casual (or excessive) drinking of alcohol, and the natural ecology of monkeys, apes and other primates living in tropical forests. So why do we have such an instinct for drink? Could the most commonly used of all psychoactive substances occur in natural environments, and could our ancestors really have been exposed to alcohol on a regular basis?

The ‘drunken monkey’ hypothesis proposes that alcohol, and primarily the ethanol molecule, is routinely consumed by all animals that eat fruits and nectar."



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Don't say it on your website Chester Osborn because the truth is no defense

Speaking to the drinks business during a recent visit to the region, reports the drink business, Chester Osborn of d’Arenberg was the first to throw down the gauntlet. Said Chester:

“I think the McLaren Vale is the best place for Grenache in Australia right now. It’s so fragrant and is halfway between Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Côte Rôtie in style."

An interesting comment that some would agree with and others wouldn't. A comment of the kind to provokes the kind of reaction that makes talking about wine so enjoyable. But not the kind of comment he could post on his own d'Arenberg website..

No, no. That would be an offence carrying a jail term under the draconian laws administered by Wine ustralia

Do wine tasting notes actually help you?

While doing my little research into whether Australia's major wine companies take any notice of Wine Australia's absurd rules about describing where their wines come from, I inevitably came across that strange thing called the tasting note. These descriptions presumably are intended to tell we consumers what we can expect if we buy and drink. But do they actually do so?

To help you judge I did a brief survey of what some of the "experts" had to say about Penfolds St Henri 2013. It presented a confusing picture.

Take colour for a start. Penfolds reckon their wine is "magenta" with a "purple core." Huon Hook, writing for Fairfax, saw "deep, dense, dark red/purple colour". But for Master of wine Andrew Caillard there was nothing deep and dark about it - just "medium dense."

Still, we do not taste the colour. But when it comes to taste we are influenced bya wine's aroma. So what do the experts think abut that?

The official Panfolds tasting note waxes almost lyrical.

A heightened ethereal/subliminal fruit lift... hovering above, cleverly propelled by just the right amount of formics and V.A. Black jelly-bean and star anise notes arise, augmented by fig paste, dried herbs and spice – cinnamon and thyme..With air, scents of freshly-cured corned beef with a carpaccio-like freshness, replete with capers/vinegar/brine.

Australian retailer First Choice just goes in for a little plagiarism noting the"aromas of black jellybean, star anise, fig paste, dried herbs and spice." For Huon Hook "the bouquet is subdued and discreet, with fresh earth and discreet spice notes" while Andrew Caillard's nose detects "inky espresso aromas" but it is "intense blackberry" not Decanter's "full bodied blueberry." Everyone to his own nose I suppose.

When it comes to describing the taste - or the palate as the reviewer csll it - Penfolds reckons its wine is "Youthful. Structurally expansive – large-framed/amply-dimensioned! St Henri aims to please - pickled beetroot for the vegetarians; gamey venison and the blackened crust of roast beef for the carnivores. Wild blackberry and a dark-fruited compote benevolently offer a generosity of fruit sweetness.An almost silky tarriness coupled with mouth-watering acidity create a texturally appealing and integrated mouthfeel. Voluptuous/Voluminous/Velvety."

Taking the company view is again good enough for First Choice. It tells its customers about the "pickled beetroot, gamey venison and the crust of roast beef with wild blackberry and dark-fruit compote for sweetness. Voluptuous, voluminous and velvety." The Decanter review writes how "this multi-regional blend of 96% Shiraz and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon boasts a seductively sweet fragrance of herbs and spices followed by a full-bodied blueberry-like opulence, with a note of tar and balsamic complexity behind a firm acid spine."

Huon Hook prefers to tell us that  "the palate is where the fireworks really happen. Its silky smooth, supremely elegant and fruit-sweet within its casing of fine powdery tannins. Soft and fleshy, elegant and not as full-bodied as other Penfolds reds this year. A lovely, lovely wine."

The Master of Wine, who advises the Dan Murphy chain about such matters, is not to be outdone. Andrew Caillard finds:

Inky textured wine with lovely fruit complexity and balance. Well-concentrated yet modulated blackberry pastille espresso flavours, looseknit graphite/ fine-boned chalky textures and roasted almond notes. Finishes chalky firm with blackberry pastille, inky notes. Delicious and classic in style with superb vinosity and fruit complexity. Should develop very well over the next ten years or so.

Now how all those words help tell you what the 2013 St Henri is actually like is beyond me.

I guess you just choose your reviewer, pay your money and take your chance.

How the World's Most Sought-After Champagne Is Made

I think my brother has some of this Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Françaises tucked away somewhere in a London bond store. Or maybe his is the Krug equivalent. Whatever. He promised to bring some home for his 70th birthday but failed to deliver so this video from the website of Bloomberg looks like being the closest I get to one of these classics where "older vintages often go for upwards of $5,000 a bottle."

 

Two years in the slammer for Dan Murphy?

Oh dear, Australia's biggest wine retailer has used the dreaded "c" word in an advertisement. Presumably Wine Australia will be sending one of its threatening letters. Mentioning Champagne in an ad for an Australian sparkling carries a two year jail term

Like to know what's in Grange? Most years Penfolds has to break the law to tell you

Grange. Australia's most famous wine. The red that put our country on the world's quality wine map. Yet most years Penfolds has to break the law to tell people what's in it.
If you think that sounds like madness, well, yes, it is. Yet Wine Australia, the federal government body that controls how wine is labelled and promoted does, outlaw telling the truth about Grange and many other wines blended from different regions.
This is the idiotic bureaucratic regulation that defines the offence:

(Click to enlarge)

And the section of the Australian Grape and Wine Authority Act 2013 that the regulation refers to:

The problem arises because the grapes that end up in Grange regularly come from more than three regions as the company website explains.

So Penfolds is in breach of the law with this reference in its tasting note for the 2010 Grange:

VINEYARD REGION Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale, Magill Estate

Oh no! Five GIs mentioned when you are only allowed three.

I wonder if and when the regulatory bulldogs of Wine Australia will threaten Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago with jail like they have the proprietors of that little Baross winemaker glug.com.au?

Eating around the world: he man from the Financial Times makes us jealous

The best restaurants of 2016: Nicholas Lander’s guide:

‘Even just a few days spent in New York yields far more enticing restaurants than almost any other city’

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