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

Espresso: probably the best panini in Glasgow.

Not so long ago Finnieston was only good for was skaggy bags of heroin and a Gaelic education. Thankfully the economic boom lasted long enough to brush aside Glasgow City Council's endemic lack of vision and shove the few remaining entrepreneurs into areas they could still afford. Thank god. Finnieston's now hoaching with good cafes, bars and places to eat. I even spotted an antiques shop the other day. Meanwhile, Byres Road, traditional commerce hub of the West End, rots amid a sea of chains.

One of the earliest beacons of hope was Espresso. Owned and run by the ever present Ricardo. It's without doubt the best snack bar I know.

The pizzas, pastas and soups are all good but for me the real stars are the panini. Choose your bread and choose your filling. All freshly made and quickly toasted.

Prices go from £2.60 for the Caprese: tomato, mozzarella, basil, oregano up to £4 for some of the meatier concoctions like Polonia: grilled marinated chicken breast, sun dried tomatoes, mayo and lettuce.

In total there are about 40 combinations. My favourite, always on ciabatta, is the Antipasto: grilled pepper, aubergine, courgette and onion with artichoke, anchovies, black olives and capers. It's about as good as a sandwich gets. A close second comes Quattro Stagioni: ham, artichoke, sauteed mushrooms and boiled egg.

Don't overlook the impressive and pleasingly underwrought salads and, of course, the coffee. It's sublime.

One time I happened to mention to Ricardo that the 'Young Turks' who'd set up a sandwich bar down the road also use Danesi coffee beans, but their coffee, while nice, wasn't a patch on his. After palpably bristling he said:

"Well you know Jonathan, everyday is different. When I'm heading in of a morning I'll notice the weather. If it's damp, the beans swell, if it's dry, they contract, so I'll adjust the grind accordingly. After that, I'll clean the machine and pour myself a coffee. Then I'll reasses, maybe alter the grind again, maybe adjust the water temperature, then have another coffee to check I'm happy".

At this point he paused, turned, and looked wistfully out the window in the direction of this 'other' place...

"So, I don't know, maybe these guys... maybe they don't do that".

Espresso

6 Claremont Street

Glasgow

G3 7HA

0141 248 9174

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP

Rum Chat

It happened towards the end of last year. I was in a pub talking to a woman I'd just met about something or other when she suddenly said "Do you like rum?"... "Well, I don't mind it, I keep trying to find one that'll change my mind about it"... "Well, they've got a good one in here, my second favourite". And she came back from the bar with my first taste of Angostura 1919. With a little ice, nothing more, it was delicious.

She told me to keep out for her favourite. Havana Club 7. "It's not expensive but can be hard to track down". I spoke to some friends in Oddbins. "Oh yeah, we get an allocation every now and again, but it walks through the door as soon as it arrives. We'll keep a bottle back for you".

A few weeks later I got the nod and hurried home with my booty. It is an utterly sublime drink. Much more complex than the Angostura. Smells include citrus peel, sandalwood, cocoa and it has an aftertaste that goes on forever. Best drunk camp... a frilly shirt, eye patch, and knee high boots should do the trick... but definitely no embellishments to the drink itself. Ice if you must.

If you manage to find it in the High Street great. If not CLICK HERE as the Drink Store usually have some.

Rejuvenation

It's springtime. I've had time to notice. Firstly ten days of quarantine. Then, despite protestations, another seven days off work. "Why are you arguing?" the doctor wanted to know. "I suppose it's because I'll be bored". He wasn't buying that. "I blame Calvinism. That 'work ethic'. Anyway, you're not going back to work, you need to get better"... "Can I go out for walks?"... "After tomorrow should be fine, you'll no longer be infectious. Maybe best if you go out after dark though"... "Eh?"... "Well", he said, waving a hand across my face, "Until you clear up a bit, you'll just make people anxious".

The net result is I've got time, lots of time. So today, when I decided to go for something healthy with a convalescence vibe, I also decided to make the pasta too. Actually, it's pretty easy, once you suss to do the kneading in the pasta machine itself. Just keep folding your loosely affiliated flour and egg mix over on itself and passing it through the lowest setting until it looks good.

My springtime vibe included fresh asparagus from Ross on Wye, fresh broad beans from Portugal, frozen organic peas, spring onions from Mexico and fresh basil from Israel. Eat local sounds good, but in Scotland essentially that means kale, cabbage and potatoes for ten months of the year. Some of the world's most boring vegetables. Sod that.

Make the sauce by sautéing the chopped tougher ends of the asparagus with the spring onions, then add a handful of frozen peas, a few ladles of stock or water, bring to the boil, simmer for a few minutes then blend. Pass through a sieve, add a tablespoon of good olive oil, a few torn basil leaves, taste, season and set aside. Chop the asparagus and steam above the pan the broad beans are boiling in. Cook the pasta. Drain. Mix the pasta with the sauce and drained broad beans. Top with the asparagus and some Parmesan shavings. Delicious. I felt better immediately. Helped, no doubt, by a medicinal glass of something spring-like to accompany it...

As fresh and invigorating as sticking your head under a waterfall. At the moment this is down to just over £7 in Waitrose. It would be a great drink for the park.

Lobster Spaghetti

Costco is a vast Aladdin's Cave of things you don't really need but struggle to resist. 3 metre high TV sets, rolls of cellophane big enough to wrap Wales, BBQ sauce bottles so vast the label's got a life size picture of Ainsley Harriot's mug. Actually, even with the offer of a free tasting, everyone was managing to resist that. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted something new. According to the lady manning the icy stall it was their 'seafood event'. Isn't it marvellous when retail managers come back from courses on how to enthuse shoppers? It only happens once a month, so I'd lucked out. Then she told me the lobsters had just been halved in price. Major result.

Lobsters have become more affordable in recent years. Thanks mainly to the greed of fishermen. Although Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall may disagree, hunting Canada's cod to extinction wasn't entirely bad. They fed on baby lobsters and crabs, so once gone, the sea starting hoaching with these much tastier crustacea.

The advantage of getting something luxurious cheap, is that I'm willing to experiment in a way I'd never do with say a fresh, live Scottish lobster. That just gets grilled with a little butter. With these, the shells got turned into Lobster Bisque, but that's for another time, for now, here's my Lobster Spaghetti recipe. It was rather good.

While the spaghetti's cooking, saute a garlic clove in a little olive oil. Add a couple of finely chopped tomatoes and cooked till they're a bit soft, then add some decent quality tomato puree. Fry for a few minutes then put in a good splash of wine and reduce by about a half. If you have any brandy in a tablespoon added with the wine would work wonders. Next in with some double cream, bubbled to reduce a little too, suppose it was about four tablespoons, then the lobster meat just to warm through. Finally added some fresh basil leaves and then mixed the whole lot through with the spaghetti. Parmesan's optional.

The reason I joined Costco was the wine. They stock some really good bottles often at a fraction of the price you'd pay elsewhere. So using the fine monetary logic that's served me so well over the years, I reasoned that having "saved" £13 on the lobsters I should trade up for a decent wine to accompany them. I went for this.

It was just shy of £17 a bottle and is without doubt the best return I've had on a wine in years. It was immense. Fabulous texture with a multi layered taste that included tropical fruits, smokey bacon and ginger. It's quite sweet and far too much for the lobster, probably for any food, it screams for your undivided attention. According to Costco, Robert Parker scored this wine 95 points. For once, I'm not surprised.

CLICK HERE to read more on the 2004 Clos Jebsal Pinot Gris.

ingr3dients @ The Ubiquitous Chip

Forty years back when Ronnie Clydesdale opened The Ubiquitous Chip, Ashton Lane was a hodgepodge of abandoned stabling and dodgy dealing. Today it's the only place worth considering along this strip of boozeries. Upstairs you can watch as segregated packs spew in and out of 'Vodka Wodka' and 'Nude'. Last Thursday the lane buzzed with Oirish accents. The patron saint of Guinness was having his day. Men with ear pieces smiled and parted to let us pass. Twenty seconds later we were back outside asking them how to get into the restaurant.

Inside it was dark, very dark, as the effortlessly affable James showed us to our table. On the way there we crossed a virtual rockpool, apparently it's fishy inhabitants would nibble our fingers if we lingered long enough. We didn't, so they didn't. We got to our table and donned the 3D specs immediately... "Is that shrub over there in 3D? What about that light? The wine list?"

Thank god the wine list wasn't, it's scale was enough, much to the chagrin of my 'companion of your choosing'... as specified on the invite.

It's not cheap, but it's a damn good collection and Richard the sommelier was keen to help. Each course was preceded, or followed, by a 3D projection about... well I'm not really sure, but at one point a giant clam nibbled my nose. Honest. Meanwhile, on another wall, an impressive Alasdair Gray mural scrolled along. It reminded me of an early Sega Megadrive game and I could have gazed on it all night.

The food was good. The starter, marrow fritter and desert were seriously good.

Three attempts at a white Chateaneuf didn't fair so well. Four years in it's half bottle hadn't been kind.

There were no quibbles just apologies... from me too by the third attempt. The red Pic St Loup was delicious, a few pennies shy of £30 and worth it.

We couldn't help but admire the ambition of the night. At one point 'my choice of companion' uttered the immortal line, "A squid's gone inside that lady's head, do you think I should tell her?". Glasgow feels very staid just now and the more people pushing the boat out, even a virtual one, the better.

This was a freebie and part of their 40th anniversary celebrations. Something similar's planned for later this year. Normally it's £49 a head. When I went to settle the drinks they said it was covered, exceptionally generous.

We wandered upstairs to the bar where friends were drinking in memory of Allan Mawn, someone else whose ambition went beyond bottom lines. He died suddenly and far too soon. As we chatted and supped, a woman who'd just been given short shrift by one of our crowd, came back to pour wine on his head. He shrugged, she returned to her seat. No one got punched and no one got thrown out. It was a perfect Chip moment.

Gandolfi Wine Club

Once a month Cafe Gandolfi's 'wine club' meets up to taste a supplier's selection and vote for the next 'wines of the month'. Anyone can join and membership's free. It takes place on a Monday in Gandolfi Fish and when we arrived at 6.30 last night the place was packed. No mean feat.

A guy called Guy from Chilean wine giant Concha y Toro stood up to tell us about his career so far and that he was visiting Chateau Mouton Rothschild next week. As the wines began to arrive Guy started talking us through them, with more than a smattering of company shpeel. I'll summarise:

Conco y Toro are enormous. 53% of the entire Chilean wine industry. But that's okay because it's run by a man called Adolpho who employs geese in the vineyards, loves the planet and is just simply, brilliantly, amazing.

The wines came in decent sized servings so it didn't take long for the place to start buzzing. And you get nibbly bits too.

I can now reveal the winners *drum roll*...

White of the month is the Gerwurtraminer. It reeked of lychees and was as refreshing as a mountain stream. Red of the month is the Explorer Pinot Noir. Nothing like Burgundy but good. The other Pinot Noir, Los Gansos, despite the help of geese, was rubbish.

It's also worth mentioning the Camenere, which to Guy's surprise didn't make the grade. It tasted okay initially but came alive after a bite of the miniature Pheasant Empanada. The best food and wine match of the night.

At the end of the tasting there was a true or false competition to win two bottles of wine. Three people were left in for the decider, Guy asked, "The first Chilean wines were made in 1565, this means that wine was being made in Chile before it was being made in the Medoc, true or false?". According to Guy... this was true.

Having watched that 'can you recognise them now' round on a repeat of Never Mind the Buzzcocks last week, I spotted the winner was Manda Rin, once lead singer with a band called Bis.

If generous friends aren't treating you, tickets cost £15. For two hours of sociable imbibing on a Monday evening, that's an absolute steal. It looked like a sell out too, so be sure to book.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

And here's what happened when Bis headed home after drinking their prize...

Vegophilia

"What a gorgeous looking lettuce". The words that actually came out of my mouth as I pulled this from the bag. I blame my grandparents. They didn't hold back when it came to vegetables. Not any vegetable mind. To qualify for wolf whistles they had to grow here. None of that foreign nonsense like "orbojeans". And of all the veg giving them a come on, two in their prime were utterly irresistible. The lettuce and the 'colly'. To see them fondling both, in raptures, you'd think they'd popped drugs. It must have been a war thing, all that rationing.

Seemed fitting to use something frugal to accompany my prize. Squat Lobsters. Not lobsters at all but something visually akin to slaters, or woodlice as they call them south of the border. The tails were £9 a kilo and there's a hell of a lot in a kilo.

Boiled in sea strength salted water then peeled. There was a lot of roe.

You can put anything you like in the salad. I went for some tasty radishes, sexy tomatoes and ooooh, would you look at the cress on that. Spot of homemade thousand island dressing. Delicious.

The wine's £5.99 in Oddbins and a cracker. All lime sherbet refreshment. A bargain and if you buy 6 they'll give you 20% off. Well, don't you know there's a war on! Speaking of which the roe got pummelled with butter, rolled up, refrigerated and then slices got popped on a steak. Phwoar.