Red Wine Bargain of the Year

This Marzemino is spectacularly good. Best drunk after 30 minutes in the fridge when pure luscious berry fruits come bursting from the glass. As the label says, plenty of cherry and violet flavours too. I bought it because I was skint, hoping for something wine like and not too nasty. What a shocker! Of course when I went back the next day there was none left.

Managing to overcome the initial suspicion of two Sainsbury's chaps in the wine aisle I put in a request for 6 bottles and left my phone number. The call came within 24 hours, just in time for the Bank Holiday.

The first bottle was consumed with a spaghetti carbonara. Another near an open window grabbing bursts of sunshine between torrential downpours. Both matches worked a treat.

This wine is normally sold for the bargainous price of £5.99. At the moment, incredibly, it's just £4.49. Fill your boots! And, if there isn't any left at your local store, risk a "Code 99" on the wine aisle and order some. Wine this good at this price is unique.

Marzemino della Venezie 2010: down from £5.99 to £4.49: Sainsbury's

I ain't yellow, I ain't mellow

I've always hated mellow. Even the sound of the word. It's so wet, stoned, passionless. What use is mellow? "This is your Captain speaking, if there are any mellow passengers on board could they please make themselves known to the cabin crew immediately". I don't think so.

But age distorts so many things and the black dog currently nibbling at my shoulder is the terrifying realisation that I'm mellowing. Take this one time Christmas stocking filler.

Written as a series of letters to a daughter just off to university. Snippets of a family's history intertwined with recipes and signed off 'Mummy'. Excruciating. Everything about this book got me ranting and raging. It seemed the embodiment of conceited middle class smugness writ large. Even the title was embarrassing. So it sat in a darkened cupboard for years, in case anyone thought I'd bought it.

I can't remember when exactly, but gradually, bit by bit, I started dipping in. A pasta recipe here, a risotto recipe there. I still couldn't go the 'letters' but it quickly dawned on me that the food was good. Many books claim to reveal family recipes handed down through generations, most are either lying or their family's food must have been a bit shit. This book was the real deal.

It's the subtlety of the tastes that really impresses. Little techniques that impart so much flavour. Combinations that compliment and never overwhelm. Do not be fooled by the apparent simplicity. One of my favourites is 'Poussin with an Orvieto style stuffing'. I eat it once a week. This is all you need. Plus some rosemary.

First bash two unpeeled garlic cloves with a heavy knife. Let them gently fry while chopping the roasting potatoes and fennel bulb.

Pop them into the pan once the garlic is golden. Fry for 10/15 minutes till they colour a bit. I always find they stick, so just before finishing add a little water and scrape up the tasty brown stuff.

Fish out the garlic and add a tablespoon of chopped olives, the dry 'stone in' ones are best, salt and pepper. Stuff the birds, pop in a sprig of rosemary season and rub with a little olive oil.

Into the preheated oven, 220c for 25 minutes. Remove, baste, pour in a glass of white wine and add any left over stuffing to the roasting pan too. Then put everything back in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes. It's divine.

White wine probably suits this dish best, I guess something from Orvieto would make sense. But I fancied red wine.

£7.99 from Sainsbury's. Made utilising a technique developed in Beaujolais to extract all the nice things from the grape and less of the difficult stuff.

It's now used to great effect in the Languedoc when some of the rougher grapes need, err, mellowing. Oh hell, why fight it? I may even try reading those letters.

'Dear Francesca' by Mary Contini

Ebury Press. First published 2002.

If you see it, buy it.

Or just visit her family's original 'Valvona & Crolla', 19 Elm Row, Edinburgh EH7 4AA

Pricey, but by some way the best Italian deli in Scotland.

The poussins came from Sainsbury's: £4.50 for 2.

Run rabbit, run rabbit, quick, quick..... oops too late.

Picked up a wild rabbit for £5 in Alan Beveridge, the fishmonger on Byres Road. Jointed then soaked in water with a drop of vinegar for a few hours. This blanches the meat and gets rid of the 'rodenty' flavour.

Used the trimmings to make a stock which cooked while I fannied around making the rest of the dish.

It came with the liver and kidneys intact. Rabbit liver is one of the best and the kidneys, well, if another animal produces a tastier one I'm yet to eat it.

This is what I did:
Cut a piece of pancetta into cubes and fried it gently for 5 mins. Added two cloves of garlic and continued frying until the garlic turned golden. Strained it reserving the pancetta and garlic and keeping the fat.
Put a tablespoon of the fat back in the pan and browned the rabbit. Put the pancetta and garlic back in the pan, poured in a glass of white wine and reduced it to almost nothing. Strained the trimmings stock into the pan to just cover the rabbit. Brought everything to the boil, then simmered very gently with a lid on for about an hour. The simmering could have taken longer if the rabbit was older.
Once the rabbit was tender I poured the juices into another pan and boiled to reduce by a half. Then I added a a few tablespoons of cream and boiled for a few more minutes. Finally I added about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, some fresh chopped parsley, a minced clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Popped it all to one side while I quickly fried the liver and kidneys in some of the reserved fat. About 2 minutes on each side, no more. Served with potatoes, cut into slices, parboiled, rubbed with olive oil then roasted in an oven @ 200 c for approx. 40 mins.

In my time I've done some serious poncing around with rabbit... marinades, stuffings, waterbaths, boning and wrapping... but I reckon this was the tastiest rabbit dish I've eaten. Next time, if I'm flush, I reckon a few morel mushrooms would really make it.

Drank this with it. The name was so nearly so right...

It came from Sainsbury's and at £5.49 it's a good price for white burgundy. It tastes pretty typical too. But it does have a rustic edge, a touch of rough, a hint of rodent perhaps? Archie the fox terrier was uncontrollably excited after his first bite of rabbit, so I took him out to calm down. Spotted this on the walk and thought it looked a bit like a fossilised dinosaur rodent.

It's pronounced 'B-A-R-G-A-I-N'

There's a great scene in the one of the Harry Palmer spy films where Harry opens a bottle of Portugese Dao and announces, in his best Micheal Caine voice, "It's pronounced Down". Until that scene, I think it's fair to say, not a lot of people knew that.

Rioja never seemed to cause pronunciation problems. It may not be exactly how they say it in situ, but for English speakers a very oaky wine called 'Ree-oak-aah' makes perfect sense.

Sainsbury's have this one on sale at the moment, down from £15.99 to just £8.00 a bottle.

£8 for a quality ten year old Gran Reserva is a serious bargain. It's only available in some stores so worth calling ahead to check they have it. The store on Glasgow's Crow Road had about 10 bottles left last night. I'm planning for there to be less tonight.

At times it seems beautifully mature. All cedary sweetness. Then a few swirls later and it's back in it's youth. Stroppy, brooding, slightly out of balance. Weird, but very enjoyable. You get two phases of a wine's maturity in the same glassful. Can wines have a late 'teenage' phase? Increasingly I'm aware that many things do...

The Imperious Urge

Just popped into my local Sainsbury's to buy venison sausages for tea. Looking for something to help wash them down my eyes strayed to the "too expensive for you mate" section. Where all the wines have those plastic security necklaces. Now, I've been offered all kinds of interesting things in bars and minicabs before, some of which I've accepted, but never fine claret!

Anyway, I spotted this 14 year old St Emilion with a whopping £10 knocked off. Down from £19.99 to £9.99. Seized somewhat by the moment I lifted the bottle in view and climbed up the shelves where a bit of groping around the back produced another two.

It's a genuine reduction because I remember it appearing sometime last year. Yes, that is sad, but you really don't see 14 year old wines in supermarkets that often. On the label it says this wine was released especially for Sainsbury's. And I believe them..... but mainly cos I've just bought three.

So far this is a bit of a tease, I can't keep writing about Chateau Simard without actually trying it. So here goes.

The cork looks sound and has a branded '95 on top.... nice. It comes off without breaking, so could have been kept reasonably well.

Mmm, it's a very light colour, more Burgundy than Bordeaux looking. Still, it is nearly 14 years old.

Smell, initially, err, well not very much really. "Bordeauxy" is the best I can come up with. Actually it seems a bit watery.... oh bugger. Fortunately with 10 minutes in the glass it's starting to flesh out and become more complex. Phew. Right, enough blogging, I'm away to savour my new bargain.

Fill Your Stivali !

Until yesterday I'd always avoided the Chiantis of Familae Piccini. They mass on too many shelves and seem to spend more time discounted than they ever do at full price. So I don't know what came over me when I grabbed this bottle from Sainsbury's. But I'm glad it did.

It's seriously tasty. A classic old style Chianti. Best drunk while wearing a cravate and calling yourself 'Marchese'.

It has an almost floral nose with hints of orange.... and something of the forest floor? On the palate there's a lot of acidity and quite a bit of tannin. The label suggests it's great with red meats, game and cheeses. Well, it went pretty well Guinea Fowl last night and pasta with tomato sauce tonight. Yes, I went back for more.... only to discover someone, probably a savvy Trattoria owner, had cleaned out the promotional shelf. Luckily they'd missed a stash in the main section so I grabbed 6. Both 2004 and 2005 were available. I went for 2004 but only because I've read it was the better vintage in Tuscany.

Familae Piccini Chianti Riserva 2004: Sainsburys down from £9.99 to £4.99. At that price it really is a bargain. But you may need to hurry..... or drink it at your local Italian, where I suspect it'll be a bit more than £4.99.

Red Wine Bargain

Top glugger!  It was recommended by someone called 'wine expert' on those tags they attach to most supermarket wines now. No matter how lowly the wine, someone, somewhere, will have recommended it.... and the supermarkets love recommendations.

Anyhow Mr Expert is on the money.  The label says cherries and wild berries.....I'd say blackberries and cherries squished in the dusty pockets of an old boiler suit, mixed with a bit of fag ash and a soupcon of phlegm. In a good way.  Think you might notice drinking too much of this one..... in the interests of research I'll experiment asap and post the results.  Anyway, at £3.99 from Sainsbury's you can't complain.