Let Them Drink Chablis

In my wine formative years Chablis was the height of pronounceable sophistication. A just about affordable treat that occasionally tasted sublime. I still love the stuff, although unfortunately it's still usually in the same price bracket. So imagine my surprise when I spotted this in Tesco last night.

The shock wasn't finding Chablis in Tesco... but the price.

Incredible, just incredible, Chablis for £4.49...!!!

I was convinced it was going to taste like battery acid but had to take a punt.

Well, I'm glad I did. It's a good, typical basic Chablis. Sharp, with a lick of butter and a hint of all those fossilised oyster shells lurking below the soil. A remarkable price.

A Winner's Dinner

This year I took a punt on our office's General Election sweepstake. A fiendishly complicated graph where, for a £1, you get to place 3 Xs depending on... well I can't actually remember. It was explained to me by a very clever person and, for a fleeting few seconds, I thought I'd grasped it. But when it came to committing my Xs to paper I did what I always do... put them in the big spaces where nobody else had put any. My reasoning is simple enough... if very clever people could actually predict outcomes then they'd all be very rich and bookies would all be very poor. This isn't the case. And what would you know...

I'd decided to invest my new found wealth in a nice bottle of wine. Something with which to remember my good fortune. Then I popped my winnings into a drawer and forgot all about them... until yesterday. Excitedly I decided to pay a visit to one of my favourite wine merchants...

After a brief conversation about the provenance of an interesting looking Alberino... "Eh, I've nae idea pal, never drink the stuff. Think ma burd likes that wan though"... I settled on two bottles.

The Chablis costs £23 and comes from apparently 'on form' producers William Fevre.

The Cornas I'd spotted a few months ago, lurking behind some other bottles on it's own... but it was £25, so I'd left it. How could I possibly leave it behind again? Surely worth a punt.

The Chablis was special. Buttery pineapple, mouthwatering acidity and an incredibly long lasting finish. This was a seriously uplifting wine. After a few glasses I was feeling positively euphoric and found myself dancing round the kitchen as I knocked up a 'Poulet Frites'.

Decanted the Cornas into a rather fetching Ikea decanter. What an incredible smell... powerful aromas of decay intermingled with black fruits. No way was this going to work with chicken, so I cracked open a Morgan for that and the Cornas got savoured afterwards. Actually this wine is so savoury it doesn't need food... it's a meal and a drink in one. Perfect for someone on a diet. Amazing how much flavour can get packed into a wine with only 13% alcohol. Still incredibly young for a nine year old wine.

Both wines came from the superbly priced range of top drawer stuff that Costco stocks.

And, I'd suggest anyone else overcome by euphoria half way down a Grand Cru Chablis should try sticking this on. It worked for me.

Waking the Dead

Working till two in the morning meant I was determined to drive in the evening. If I started to droop, an escape would be easier. Persuasive powers and the pop of a cork melted that resolve in minutes. I'm glad.

Tattinger's Prelude was gorgeous. Honeyed praline reviving juice that bundled me into the cab. We drove towards Paisley in the drizzle and finally found the place. A splendid Victorian villa whose owners put their own art in the basement to make way for art to sell. A proportion of the money raised goes to charity.

Best in the sale for me looked like a fucked up Amelia Earhart. Unfortunately my art purchasing fund couldn't stretch to the £5000 asked. Instead I spent more time gazing upon my favourite piece, it wasn't part of the sale, so I felt better coveting it.

Flaking after the taxi back I was given an elixir to sip. This stuff could wake the dead.

Immense mineral refreshment. It's probably wrong, but I like Grand Cru Chablis young, unfortunately my wine purchasing fund rarely stretches to it's asking price either.

Thank you Jo.

Chablis and Gypsies

This post started off along the lines of: "I often forget how much I like Chablis"... but fortunately I caught myself just in time. What was I trying to say? That I've drunk shed loads of it in the past? That because it's so well known I tend to ignore it? That I'm too busy drinking other expensive wine? None of this is true, a crying shame in the latter case, and if not kept in check, who knows what guff could spew forth ....."I will never tire of Chablis, be it with oysters, sea trout or simply unadorned, as 'al fresco' refreshment sat 'au jardin' with the first rays of summer tickling my newly shorn lawn".

I'm becoming increasingly aware of certain pit falls with wine writing. It's hard to ignore what has been written before, and a lot of my wine formative years were spent gleaning information from lifestyle magazines. Part of the problem is a lack of vocabulary. Things have to smell or taste "like" something or perhaps "evoke" something from the memory. One writer's description of a certain grape variety will never leave me:

"Flowers in the boudoir, ginger biscuits in the oven".

How fabulously laden is that? But here's a thing, try and guess which grape variety, because, and this is partly my point, despite never having seen a boudoir or baked a biscuit, I get it. 

(Answer at the end of this post). 

A friend invited us to dinner this week but asked to remain anonymous, so I'll call him Mr G. We often look after his dog, let's call him Dog A. We had some lovely food and wine at Mr G's. These two Chablis for starters. The straight one was good: minerally, buttery and no oak. I don't like oak in Chablis, it's just wrong. The premier cru Beauroy was more intense with a mid palate taste of what I can only describe as a boiled pineapple sweet. It has a finer acidity than the Chablis and is altogether more 'nervy' and complex.

Next up we had a 2005 Burgundy from a famous Cotes de Nuits village. Pretty special this one but still young. It's all there, but still developing the gamey, manure flavours pinot noir gets as it matures.

Finally a real cracker from St Emilion.

I love the idea of a "contemporary wine-maker". This is marvelous stuff from the 2004 vintage. Every time I drink something from this vintage I'm impressed, it's seriously underrated..... Right, stop, "Every time.... I'm impressed"...... 

I'm doing it again. Here's the truth: I've drunk 4 bottles of Bordeaux from the 2004 vintage, they were all very nice and I've probably read elsewhere about it being underrated. 

Anyway, Chateau Quercy 2004: "Lying by the campfire being fed plums by a ravishing gypsy, she tempting and dark, you, curious but afraid, the music starts up, wild and intoxicating, resistance is futile".

The answer is : Gewurztraminer.

If you want to try for that boudoir/biscuit experience go for M&S's own label Alsace. It's particularly good at the moment, but I'm afraid they're all out of ravishing gypsies.

HOW'Z IT HANGIN'

Sometimes, when I really can't get out of it, I have to come here. It's as grim inside as it is out. Though not if you're into fabric. Because if fabric floats your boat then this is El Dorado. Afterwards I headed off to somewhere with an equally grim exterior but a far more inviting stock. 

I've been trying to play Credit Crunch recently. A game of scrimping and saving. Hopefully we'll be too absorbed playing it to notice that our houses are now as worthless as our currency and our jobs are about as secure as, err, well our jobs.

My first purchase is well within the rules.

What I used to call winkles but the fishmonger here calls whelks. £4.99 kg. I'll be boiling these in very salty water for 5 minutes and eating them with a pin..... no shortage of them today.

The next purchase disqualifies me immediately. It's a rubbish game anyway.

But who could resist a wild sea bass for £13.49 kg? The fishmonger scaled and gutted it. My plan is to bake it with a few slices of ginger, a little mirin, grassy olive oil and some fresh herbs. A few years ago I planted up some old sinks with various herbs and then forgot all about them. Amazingly they're still there, so perhaps a few more points back on the Credit Crunch board. Fennel, chives and.....

Lemon sorrel. This stuff really tastes good. Can't decide whether to put it in with the fish to bake or chop it up with butter to serve? Probably not the sort of dilemma you're suppose to have in a global recession. The wine....

another present from Niven and Sabeen who just came back from Paris. They're not very good at Credit Crunch either.