Vinosottey

Follow @Vinosottey !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

[vinosottey]

Bollock

It began in the Borough of Camden and, with a brief detour viaTexas, it ended there also. It was wonderful, wonderful and unexpected, fromstart to climax...

So I left my home in Kentish Town and I walked, strange for a Londoner and a cyclist, I grant you, but I walked. The sun was at large and she’d brought her nemesis along, the cold wind, but in wintery combination the two proved strangely pleasing. On my journey I stumbled across Camden’s The Coffee Jar, and I honestly thought that the skilfully heart-topped Flat White, with its unusual note of cherry tomato, and the wonderful accompanying salt-flecked white chocolate cookie that I picked up there, would be the pinnacle of my sensory journey for this particular Saturday. But I was wrong, oh so very wrong... 

As I shuffled, hands plunged deep into pockets, around Regents Park, I unequivocally heard a gentleman call his associate a “bollock”, singular and visceral. The brash offensiveness combined with the very English eloquence of this insult would stick with me all day, and then repeat on me later with the potency of a cod liver oil tablet.

Over lunch with a one cad and one particular bounder, I learned that the name “avocado” derives from the fruit’s likeness to a testicle. This startling fact made me love, but also fear, guacamole a little more. It also reminded me of the Camdenite’s pendulous comparison. And it wasn’t the last time that that organ would swing back into my memory...

I returned home, without leaving the Borough of Camden all day, but with the spoils of a little retail therapy in the form of a bottle of Balcones Brimstone from Royal Mile Whiskies. I nestled into the sofa in my tiny flat to watch Liam Neeson bash foreigners with a ferocity only rivalled by Fox News. But while doing so, I idly took my first sip of that Texas Scrub Smoked Corn Whisky. The first mouthful roundhoused me, it was like being hit in the face with a rubber soled Converse filled with milk chocolate, chipotles and bacon fat. I can categorically say that Mr Neeson’s very particular set of skills, ceased to be very important. The leathery old Country Antrimite mercilessly pummelling bad guys with his big ol’ sausage hands couldn’t distract me from the leathery old American whisky that was mercilessly pummelling every taste bud in my mouth with its dark notes of charred sweetcorn, fresh paint, barbecue sauce lathered hot dog, candle wax, suede, smoked paprika, cracked black pepper and burnt children’s plastic toys. Balls, what is this brew?

Balcones (for some strange reason I find it difficult to say the name without rhyming it with “cojones”) Brimstone is complex and unique beyond anything that Scotland has yet thrown at me in recent years. It’s both brash and yet eloquent, fun, naughty and charmingly insulting, much like calling someone a “bollock” loudly in public I thought. 

Please try it.*

*I mean the whisky of course, not abusing passersby with foul language.

[vinosottey]

Fedora, Homburg, Pork pie...

Welcome distinguished reader. Please imagine I have just doffed or at least lightly fingered the brim of my hat in greeting to you...

But in all honesty I probably haven’t, because being a filthy child of the Eighties all I know of headwear are the uncouth baseball caps and beanies of my youth.

In the 1950s a man wouldn’t have been seen dead without a hat. In actual fact he probably wouldn’t have been seen undead without a hat. Imagine The Walking Dead had been set in the 50s: wall to wall dapper zombies tipping their Pork Pie before devouring you. You’d almost forgive those well-groomed mobile corpses, if being torn limb from limb and eaten alive didn’t smart so much.

There is no denying that the Fedora or its thinner brimmed younger brother, the Trilby, added cachet, je ne sais quoi and mystery to Bogart, Grant, Sinatra and prohibition-era gangsters like Steve “Snaggletooth” Buscemi and Michael “apparently not Billy from Neighbours” Pitt. You try telling Al Pachino in the Godfather, Winston Churchill winner of WWII, Snoop Dogg all up in your shizzle, Poirot the multi-tasking slug balancer and sleuth or Edward “I made wearing black ties with dinner jackets a thing” VII that their Homburg is just an upturned and slightly taller Fedora, which was in essence a ladies hat. Nope, you still can’t take away from the cool that these headpieces deliver. A serious hat can make you seem dignified, even if you are a tiny Hawaiian-born wrestler called Harold who uses said hat to despatch your enemies by throwing it at them*.

What is the wine equivalent of a Fedora? What tells you that a wine is probably a powerful, important and sophisticated tipple just to look at it? If I had to throw my hat into the ring, there are a few things that I’d bet on:

A wax seal. Oh yeah, this generally means sexy stuff. No mass-produced capsule here. This bespoke lid displays significant effort and was made by literally thousands of bees (it’s not but it’s good to imagine and wine certainly needs bees). It takes you back to watching Cardinal Richelieu use red wax to seal a letter condemning Dogtanian and his renegade Muskehounds. Interestingly enough Cardinal Richelieu did have a big impact on the wine world, being the man, apparently not a dog at all (Dumas was such a fraud), who introduced Cabernet Franc to its spiritual home: the Loire. It is also worth bearing in mind that this wax seal of approval also quite often works for wine’s dance partner: cheese.

Zero information and a whopping price tag. If your wine costs twenty-odd quid and is described as a Vino da Tavola (table wine), you know that there is more to it than meets the eye. This probably means that it is some clever winemaker doing something weird that falls outside the bureaucrats' restrictive wine laws, like using rogue techniques or unusual grape varieties, and has therefore been declassified. This will normally mean that they can’t even tell you where it is specifically from, so it might say something vague like “Product of Italy”, or what year it was made, they may get around that by writing it in Roman numerals (MMXI). Winemakers are sneaky like that.  If it doesn't have the corresponding price tag though, it is probably just crap. As Eddie Izzard told us, it is a fine line between being cool and looking like a dickhead.

A grape variety nobody has ever heard of. Weird is wonderful. Ecclestiastes was wrong when he said “there is nothing new under the sun”, there’s a load of new stuff and besides new is all relative. Erbaluce is one such grape variety from the Alpine slopes of Piedmont in Italy, which is brand new to me and is more famous, when measured using the yardstick of Google, for being a restaurant in Boston, than it is for making wine. This way excitement lies.

A numbered bottle. Boom. Everyone loves small batch, boutique, unique and limited edition. 45/2000 made in 2011 means that there aren’t many of these bad boys left and I’m sucking up history like hoovering Tutankhamun’s tomb.

And so, which wine wears all these hats? Vinochisti e3 2011, made by an ex-Oddbins employee ,Tim Manning, who went from shop floor to grape picker, from apprentice to winemaker, and then became a dream weaver, apparently. His Erbaluce is a flight of awesomeness. In the glass it flashes with more shades of gold than a Russian wedding ring. On opening its wax seal it doffs its wet oak barrel, unripe pear, fresh bandaid (in a good way), dry Madeira and stale spice box aromas. On the palate this wine reinvents itself quicker than Madonna, initially perfumed with waxy Satsuma peel and unripe banana; it suddenly becomes sweet melon, apricots in Sauternes, marzipan and dusty tannins. It drifts effortlessly from a heavily-candied and sweet richness that lulls you into a soporific mood to the kind of acidity and almost arid dryness that slaps you back awake. If I were a man that held the turkey, or religion for that matter, in particularly high esteem, I might have just found my Christmas wine.

There is only one thing to say to Vinochisti’s winemaker Tim Manning, his friend and importer John Baum of the Winemakers Club and Theatre of Wine in Tufnell Park, who had the audacity to not even try and sell me this wine, but just to leave it there winking at me coquettishly from the top shelf, and that is...

CHAPEAU!            

Food Match: Probably a pork pie. Or I guess I'll have to eat your hat.

Hat: model's own.      

*Oddjob: evil bowler-wielding henchman from Bond film Goldfinger.

[vinosottey]

What Rot!

OK, so I’m back. I know I dropped off the radar for two and half years and have just resurfaced unexpectedly like a mole you thought you’d killed with a spade, but can’t we just let sleeping/dead dogs/moles lie? I’m categorically unwilling to talk about what happened during the interim period despite it being tough on both of us. Suffice to say, I’m ginger and my disappearance could very well have been a vinous equivalent of Homeland...

*turns on unanticipated jazz music*

[enter Claire Danes weeping and convulsing uncontrollably]

So how are we celebrating prodigal Tom’s return? Well the the thunder was somewhat stolen by the poorly based photo above, the answer is obviously Stefan Breuer’s Breuers Rot 2011. This beautiful designed wine, purchased from the lovely people at Theatre of Wine for £13, comes from Rheinhessen in Germany, the home of Liebfraumilch, located between the wonderfully named cities of Worms and Bingen (wouldn't “Worms & Bingen” make a great name for twin dogs or a hipster bar specialising in mescal bubble tea cocktails and organic kimchi empanadas?). And before you get grammar rage, like I did (note to self: shaking uncontrollably with a red face in a wine merchant is not a good look), the wine is teutonic and the genitive case is more efficient in German, hence the missing apostrophe in the name. It’s a blend of 10% Dornfelder, the grape variety used to great effect with its chum Rondo in many English red wines to make them taste like a mixture of Jolly Ranchers and Skittles, 45% Pinot Noir, the grape variety used to great effect by many wine snobs to make other people feel smaller than a Jolly Rancher or Skittle, and 45% Frühburgunder. Whisky tango foxtrot? Now we’ve stumbled on something interesting...

Frühburgunder is sometimes called Pinot Noir Précoce. Précoce is French for “precocious”. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Pinot Noir is so damned arrogant, now there is a precocious version? No, it just means that the grapes develop faster than expected, i.e. it matures/ripens earlier. If you google the word “précoce” you’ll also see that it is used to describe premature ejaculation and in so googling you may also come (excuse the pun) across the mildly amusing term “retarder l’éjaculation”. The back label of the wine does not suggest that this wine will retard your ejaculates in any shape or form. In fact the picture of the pregnant lady adopting the sexy drinking pose with a no-go line fiercely stuck across her, that normally adorns wine bottles, is unusually absent from the back of the label. So the impact on your ability to procreate is all very unclear. Am I deviating from the subject again?

I think Frühburgunder, also known as Pinot Madeleine and seventy other synonyms besides, may be one of my new favourite grapes for acquired comedy knowledge alone. But weirdly, many ampelographers* don’t distinguish it from bog standard Pinot Noir Arrogant (please pronounce the last word in a French accent). Isn’t it weird that the French word for arrogant is the same as the English word for arrogant? It almost suggests that the French invented it. I’ll just leave that one hanging there. Where was I? Oh yeah, Frühburgunder is in fact a mutation of Pinot Noir. And as the X-Men have taught us, mutations are awesome, frequently misunderstood and can develop unusual hairstyles and a tendency to lash out viciously. This grape variety is no exception; the Frühburgunder vines can control minds, spontaneously combust and sprout adamantium tendrils at will. Nope, no, sorry, none of that is true; it just ripens a bit earlier. Unsurprisingly there are quite a few English vineyards that have planted this variety, as it can offer a back up in years that our famously unreliable weather doesn't allow Pinot Noir to ripen.

So, I guess I’ve waffled on nonsensically for long enough. Stefan Breuer may make his wines in Germany’s biggest wine region, but he doesn’t follow the crowd with this thoroughly modern and unexpectedly dark affair. To be honest it feels a little bit more like an Austrian red somehow and smells like a warmish autumn evening: mulled wine tinged with blackcurrants, blackberries and black pepper, pine trees, mizzle on bracken and the faint waft of a bonfire. In the mouth it’s silky feeling, with crisp black cherry, muted clove and cinnamon and cleansing tarragon. Precise, dark and for its fascinatingly quirky appeal alone, worth every one of the thirteen smackeroos. The only downsides were the thick sludge that I gulped down at the end of the bottle like a complete novice or a seabird ingesting BP’s finest, and the fact that it was unfortunately no match for an overpowering but delectable spicy mackerel taco**. Stefan in fact recommends matching with rind, lamm und thunfisch (does Waitrose sell rind?). But both of those downsides were my bad, so don’t judge Stefan's Rot too harshly.

Yeah, I’m back: ejaculates, casual racism, completely inappropriate Mexican food matches, weird pop culture references and more superfluous words than a Russian classic. I’d like to promise that it’ll get better, but that’s just what I do and therein lies the rub dearest reader.

Toodles.

*Experts in the study and classification of cultivated grape varieties. Literally every day is a school day, no?

**Tacos de Minilla recipe available on page 74 of Phaidon's wonderful new "Mexico The Cookbook" by Margarita Carrillo Arronte.

[vinosottey]

Here's Mud In Your Wye

Ross-on-Wye is the birthplace of the British tourist industry. Famed for its hedgehogs, John Kyrle (inventor of the wet perm), Richard Hammond’s wife’s coffee shop, a nearby bovine-shaped viewing platform called Symond’s Yak, a kink in the River Wye called the U-bend and not being the place with the book festival, that’s Hay. Unfortunately the unending march of sightseers turned the sleepy town upside down and slowly bled the life out of it, a little like a halal goat, culminating in the train station finally closing in 1965. Luckily Stelios Haji-Ioannou was born just two years later and Britons would shortly be able to enjoy all the fun of tourism again, i.e. getting drunk in a place that isn’t your home and shouting at the locals. Once the jewel in the crown of Herefordshire, not so much a crown but more of a crêpe paper party hat*, Ross has been eclipsed in recent years by the success of Ross from Friends and Ross Kemp. Now it’s about as well known by most Brits as its twin town Namutumba in Uganda. When Meader’s, the UK’s premiere Hungarian restaurant for 21 years, closed in 2006 you’d have been forgiven for thinking it was curtains for the town.  

In Tibor Fischer’s incredible novel “Under The Frog”, a sadistic basketball coach declares that “they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but as far as I’m concerned that’s exactly what it’s there for”. I adhere completely to this philosophy. So it was that I found myself sat on a train from Gloucester to London clutching two bottles I picked up in Ross. Judging them by their labels, I was returning with a slutty beer and a God-awful fizz.

Hidden behind the smutty postcard design, Dorothy Goodbody’s Country Ale from Wye Valley Brewery, is a smooth, sophisticated and quintessentially English brew. Imagine fermenting Christmas down and ageing it in casks, it’s brimming with festive spices, fruitcake and a touch of sweetness that makes it slip down quicker than a Rossian trying to climb the Rotary Club Christmas Tree by the Market House on New Year’s Eve after a night at Connolly’s Bar. If you’re looking for a session beer, Wye Valley Brewery is excellent; the Dorothy Goodbody beers all have character without going over the top, a keg of the HPA went down very refreshingly at a beautifully sunny wedding in Clevedon recently and you can do far worse than a pint of the Butty Bach or Wye Valley Bitter in The King’s Head.

Chinn-Chinn 2006 (£23.99 from Truffles, the Fortnum & Mason of Herefordshire) from Castle Brook Vineyard is still a bit of a mystery to me. It’s probably one of the finest English Sparkling Wines I’ve ever tried. Huge autolytic flavours unlike anything else I’ve come across in this field; yeasty freshly baked bread, hunky chunky almonds, roasted hazelnuts and lightly spiced, but aggressively toasted, teacakes. The wine was made at Ridgeview, which might explain some of its quality, but fair play to Castle Brook because the grapes must have been excellent, it’s truly delightful. However, it does have a couple of drawbacks. Firstly, the mousse is so fierce and persistent that with each sip you worry about either passing out due to all the carbon dioxide or burping yourself out of polite society/into a seizure. The second slight issue is the label. It cheapens what could be a very classy boutique product; when it comes to fonts and gold, less would’ve been more, and I don’t care that the grapes are grown by the Chinn family, the hideous pun is inexcusable. They should’ve called it “here’s mud in your eye”, with the tagline “at least then you can’t see the label”. Having said this, I was so impressed with the taste that when I’m next in Ross, if I can find one, I’ll pick up another bottle to lay down for bit and see if the bubbles calm down.  

The tourists should return to the Gateway of the Wye, there are some very talented winemakers and brewers there. On a recent train journey to Ross, I thought the holiday makers were back when I overheard a Canadian. But then the voice said to her travelling companion “Do you know what I forgot to pack? It’s a tragedy really, but I forgot to pack my monocle. I wanted it in case I saw some sheep while out walking.”** In hindsight it’s more likely that somebody so wistfully lamenting their inability to more closely inspect the ovine, may have in fact been heading on to Monmouth and the majesty of Wales than to poor old Ross-on-Wye.

*Sorry, I’m from Worcestershire and bitterness still lingers from the great county divide of 1997.

**This is completely true even though most of my blog is based on lies.

[vinosottey]

Now Playing...

As fans of wine, I'm sure that you're also keen followers of medieval Japanese literature. It's obvious that the two go hand in hand isn't it? I'm therefore sure you'll be familiar with the following quote from Yoshida Kenkō's "Essays in Idleness":

"One should write not unskillfully in the running hand, be able to sing in a pleasing voice and keep good time to music; and, lastly, a man should not refuse a little wine when it is pressed upon him."

Wise words I think you'll agree. Despite my idleness, I'll try to write for you in a not unskillful manner and I promise never to refuse wine if you press it upon me. Please feel free to press it upon me. However, I think I'll leave the singing to others as my voice is about as pleasing as my face. So instead, why not listen to a bit of Radio Vinosottey on Spotify?

[vinosottey]

Rockus Bockus - Why So Serious?

Quick, buy petrol. If you don’t your automobile will be rendered immobile and you’ll be condemned to a tortuous Easter weekend at home wallowing in boredom, self loathing, eggs made of bad chocolate, religious martyrdom, Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakuel and your family. Seriously the petrol is going to run out. For the love of God stockpile and hoard; fill the garage, fill the bath, fill your boots.

No wait a minute, that’s not right, that way idiocy lies. You’re such an imbecile you’d set yourself ablaze quicker than a Tibetan protester. Stop buying petrol immediately and go to the pub. But whatever you do don’t have a drink because it’ll probably just taste of tax, bitterness and slimy David Cameron’s smug judgement. That kind of fun is the property of Bullingdon Club members, not plebeians like you. Beside if you can’t even afford a pasty on the station platform as you wait for your delayed train home, what’s the point? Buy some hot cross buns, shut up, go home and worry about Iran, global climate madness, North Korea, terrorism, frozen wages vs rising prices, people who are fitter than you having heart attacks and the frankly worrying decline in the number of bees, native ladybirds and red squirrels.

When did the world become so serious? It’s about as depressing as a recurring dream in which you repeatedly perform maudlin cover versions of Coldplay and Radiohead songs on a recorder for Simon Cowell while he tells you that you're talentless and worthless. Sorry my ranting seemed to eat all the commas in that sentence.

Praise be that some things are still fun. Take Marks and Spencer for example. They lovingly plaster their shops with pictures of Dannii Minogue, Mylene Klass, Lisa Snowdon and that woman from Transformers who looks like she's been slapped in her posh lips, without even pretending that it's anything more than entertainment for bored husbands on a Saturday afternoon. But more importantly they give us wines like Rockus Bockus. To be honest calling this American frivolity good is probably being slightly generous. It’s soft, fruity and fractionally more chocolaty than an Easter egg. But its label is startlingly well designed, which makes it leap off the shelf at you. It’s a crazy Cabernet cocktail topped up with Zinfandel, Syrah, Malbec, Merlot, Petit Verdot and anything else the winemakers could find kicking around in the garage. Speaking of the winemakers, these guys are so cool that when they're not making wine they put together amusing videos to explain the rise and fall of Merlot's empire. In short it has a sense of humour.

Sometimes it’s a joy to buy and drink something that doesn't take itself too seriously. I say wine should be fun, let’s keep it that way. 

P.S. I only bought one bottle of the Rockus Bockus, it never ceases to amaze me what can be achieved with Paint!

[vinosottey]

A Brief Ginterlude

In 1748, when gin consumption peaked, 1 in 4 Londoners was totally battered drunk at any one time. Ah the good old days.

Today's ginteresting fact was brought to you in conjunction with Meantime Brewery, Vinosottey and everybody's favourite female seed cone: the juniper berry.

[vinosottey]

Birthday Beer - Robinsons Old Tom Strong Ale

Today is a special day. It’s the birthday of the deceased North Korean pub quiz movie round specialist Kim Jong-il, world famous rap stars Tracy Marrow and Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, the guy who played the body, but not the voice, of Boba Fett and John McEnroe, although the last one may or may not be serious. Oh and me. Hoorah!

People no longer believe me when I tell them that I'm in my late twenties. And rightly so, I’m not a cast member of Friends, so this kind of blatant lie just isn’t realistic. My age is given away by the fact that I own a woollen cardigan with leather buttons that the manufacturer describes as "heritage". From time to time I find my nasal hair protruding beyond the confines of my nostrils, like squid tentacles reaching out from a cave to find sustenance. I don’t understand modern music, did we learn nothing from the deep orchestration and sweet lyricism of Curtis Mayfield. I cannot find sufficient proof to substantiate 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth’s claim that he’s the best looking fat man on radio. And this concerns me, because now I’m not sure if I can trust anything about him. My skin seems to be loosening; it flaps around in a Dyson Airblade like the jowls of a skydiving bulldog. I’m also a little unsure of putting my hands inside modern technology whose name suggests a form of gaseous cutting. I can’t rock a singlet anymore; my vests now must be long sleeved. Snow no longer makes me think "yay"; instead it makes me contemplate whether my hips will crumble, like feta beneath a big Grecian fist, when I fall. And I will fall in these slippery fashion shoes, they've been designed to single out and trip up the aged and infirm like me, with their stupidly sexy pointy toes and slick soles. I laughed out loud when I naively tried on "carrot-fit" trousers, and received a dirty look of rebuke from the changing room stewardess on my departure from the dressing area. All of this is proof that I'm old.     

Old Tom Strong Ale shares my age and my name. Like me it’s also dark, bitter and alcoholic.

I'm only joshing. Agreed I'm not young. If pushed, I'd say I'm about as sprightly as a mildly asthmatic twentysomething. Sorry, I'm deviating, the decrepit do that. The important thing is that this is a cracking little ale. With it's smooth and satisfying notes of pepper, treacle, red fruit and Bourneville chocolate, it reminds me of drinking South African red wine. I'd heartily recommend lapping it up with some good old British roast beef. Or alternatively try it with an episode of Borgen like I did. I do love a spot of Scandinavian political intrigue in my old age.  

[vinosottey]

Trust Issues - Sainsbury's House Muscadet

When I started writing this, the subject #YouShouldNeverTrust was trending on Twitter. Despite the fact that at least 80% of wine purchased in the UK is done so through the big four supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons), the wine industry likes to claim that you should never trust the retail Goliaths. I have to admit that I do have some trust issues when it comes to supermarket wines. In my experience, their special offers often devalue wines and mislead customers. Also without the ability to hand sell unusual wines, supermarket ranges can seem lacking in interest and innovation, instead plumping for the recognised brands and regions that are guaranteed sellers. The exceptions are the posh two: Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, who have both recently brought a child-like grin to my face. The former with a great value Nero di Troia and the latter with an inky old vines Chilean Carignan. But when shopping in the supermarket I miss the human interaction. Wine is a personal, friendly and magical thing. I like Mike at Philglas & Swiggot's turn of phrase when describing the adolescence of Saint Cosme's Les Deux Albion. And being offered a splash of Le Soula Blanc, despite actually shopping for sherry, at Theatre of Wine makes me feel like a valued customer far more than Nectar Points and petrol vouchers. Unfortunately one thing that the independent wine merchant will never be able to compete with the supermarkets on is convenience, or read another way: our inherent laziness. The unwillingness to walk five minutes further down the street to an independent wine merchant on a cold February night, was how I found myself slipping a cheeky bottle of Sainsbury's House Muscadet (£4.99) into my basket. I had only popped in for limes and coriander, of which they had neither, oh the irony!

But hold on, please take up your serving utensils and cut me a generous portion of your humblest pastry-based dish, because Sainsbury's House Muscadet is actually pretty good. It isn't "sur lie" and it isn't "Sèvre et Maine", it's bog-standard, unfashionable Muscadet. However, like Sophie Ellis-Bextor in a carwash, it's clean, delicate and pale. It takes me back to my childhood, eating green apple peelings and licking salty pebbles on the beach. Easy and uncomplicated, perfect at the end of a challenging day. Maybe #YouCanSometimesTrust the supermarkets. Well done Sainsbury's.

[vinosottey]

Scottish Independents

Scottish independence is a question that opens up a squirming can of haggis. Within said can are some substantial meaty questions, the heart, liver and lungs if you will: How will it affect Scotland's global influence? Who will help in the battle against the dominating Tories if we lose our unwavering Scottish flank? Then there are some more stodgy suet and bland oatmeal questions: What are the implications on taxes? Is Scotland economically stronger as part of the UK? And finally there are the exciting and frivolous spicy questions: Where will we move our nuclear weapons? Will we have to change the name from Great Britain to Mediocre Britain? Are the kilted weeble Alex Salmond’s eyebrows really made of Fuzzy Felt? Will it mean that we can all stop pretending to like Andy Murray? Although this is all very interesting, what scares me right down to my neeps and tatties, is that down south we might lose access to some of the nation’s finest beers. With over 5000 years of brewing history and 70-odd microbreweries Scotland is one of England’s most important beer producing counties.*

Thinking of what lurks behind the gothic labels of the Black Isle Brewery makes me happy. So does sipping a Red Cuillin from Skye Brewery with an Islay whisky chaser to recreate the unmistakable childhood flavour of Frazzles. The remarkable balance of complexity and freshness of the Williams Bros’ Seven Giraffes and Joker IPA. The sweet central heating of an Innis & Gunn Rum Cask. The reward of finding a handmade ale from the rare but exquisite Tryst Brewery. The weird combination of strawberry and celery notes in BrewDog's 5am Saint. Don't even get me started on Colonsay, Atlas, Arran...

Scotland’s beers are inspiring. Robert Knops founded Knops Beer Company in Edinburgh and is going against the popular grain of making ever more hoppy and in-your-face beers, instead choosing to recreate truly drinkable lost Scottish beers. His Black Cork, available from Edinburgh’s exciting new imbibe merchant The Bon Vivant’s Companion (which has an excellent beer assortment), is his best yet. Dark and smooth as Whitby jet, it evokes roasted peanuts in the pocket of a worn leather jacket, and cream, but I’m not sure how to fit that into the simile.

The Scots are also being inspired to brew at home, what I’m going to call macpicobrewery (i.e. Scottish and smaller scale than microbrewery). Cameron Peron, a resident of culinary hotbed Leith, makes intricately crafted beers in his living room under the watchful eye of his cat Millie. Through a love of beer he’s developed a knowledge that would put many professionals to shame. His Travelator Doppelbock is rich and dark with a nose of coffee ice cream, the name is inspired by the German producers who end their beers with “–ator” in homage to Salvator, the original Doppelbock. He’s also made, amongst others, a New Zealand Pale Ale using three different Kiwi hops (Pacific Gem, Nelson Sauvin and Green Bullet), which offers up passionfruit, grapefruit and apple with a rich tea biscuit and nutty finish. You can't buy his beers, but watch this space because this guy is talented and I'm keen for him to quit his day job and go pro. An alternative would be to frequent enough pubs around Edinburgh that you bump into him. You could do worse than starting off with the Bow Bar, Teuchters Landing, Brauhaus, BrewDog or The Tourmalet. Then simply twist his arm into letting you try a few. If you fancy something new, Cameron recommends seeking out Tempest Brewing Company.    

I guess we have a couple of years to work out how we are going to maintain a supply of these excellent Scottish beers if Mr Salmond manages to reinstate Hadrian's Wall for the reverse purpose. Luckily BrewDog are trying to help by opening a bar in Camden and making some of their beers at Meantime. If the worst comes to the worst maybe England could consider withholding supplies of Buckfast... 

*Apologies for any offence caused by this quip, as an Englishman who once lived in Scotland for over six years, I've taken some abuse and I’m out for revenge. Apparently my disguise of ginger hair and freckles, combined with a naturally blue skin tone, didn’t fool anyone.

[vinosottey]

England too cold to produce wine? Pah!

You've heard of ice wine, but have you ever seen snow wine?

This six foot snow wine took me about an hour to make before taking this photo. The snow wine bottle was then promptly razed to the ground by the fatal boot of a young rapscallion. Rather than just shaking my head and tutting about the state of the youth today, I may have used the "C" word in a lapse of decency, and unfortunately I don't mean Chablis.

[vinosottey]

My Sherry Amour

What do we know about sherry? In the late 1960s Stevie Wonder sang "my sherry amour, pretty little one that I adore", which was weird. Then there's trifle, which is a wobbly amalgamation of puddings laced with the stuff. And finally there's the faint whiff of Croft Original or Harveys Bristol Cream given off by grandparents when leaning in for the obligatory end of visit wrinkly kiss, which is deeply unsettling. And that's about it. As well as never being able to properly decipher song lyrics, I've never been able to understand the depth of Stevie’s passion for the Spanish beverage.

That was until now, because now sherry is à la mode, sherry is sexy, sherry is dancing in the spotlight and clacking its castanets at you in a provocative manner. Well kind of, in truth it's more of a mini renaissance, a quiet revolution. Like German Riesling, the wine industry is in whole-hearted agreement that sherry should be cool but for some reason it isn't. My theory is that although these wines are great, it's often easier to wow with the sparkly and new than it is to change perceptions of the stuffy and old. This is why New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc trumps the Loire in popularity at the moment, and Patagonian Malbec seems far more exciting than Cahors. But sherry has not one, not two, but three secret weapons up its flouncy red Spanish sleeves.

Uno: it's cheap as patatas bravas because there's relatively little demand for it in the UK. As a result it's great value for money and even the cheapest of bottles can have a gloriously long finish and bags of flavour and complexity. Furthermore, useful little half bottles have now started appearing. 

Dos: sherry has strength in variety, it sounds clichéd but there's a sherry for everyone. It can be roughly divided into three basic categories. The first contains the Fino and Manzanilla styles, these are dry wines aged in barrels under a layer of yeast called flor. This magical growth stops the fortified wine from oxidising and keeps it fresh. It also adds a characteristic tangy, yeastiness to the natural citrus, almond and sea spray flavours. The next category contains the Amontillado and Oloroso styles, these are richer and naturally dry, but are often sweetened. They are aged in the same way as Fino and Manzanilla, but the flor either dies or is killed off, leaving the wine exposed to oxidise and develop deeper nuttier spicier flavours and a darker colour. Then there are the dark and voluptuous sweet sherries made from Pedro Ximénez and Moscatel grapes. The grapes are dried to intensify the sweetness, making them syrupy and sticky, basically all your puddings for the week rolled into one handy snifter.

Tres: the final secret weapon is tapas. Well it isn't that secret with wonderful restaurants popping up all over the capital like José, Opera Tavern, Barrica, Salt Yard and Camino. The latter went one step further opening a specialist sherry bar called Pepito. Tapas has more sex appeal than Penelope Cruz and it looks less like a duck. With its tiny plates of anchovies, chorizo, garlic, morcilla, olive oil, pork belly, croquetas, Padrón peppers, hard cheeses and luscious tomatoes, you barely need to choose what you want to eat because you can have it all. And sherry is the perfect wine match to your journey though this culinary promised land called Spain.

I love the Fino and Manzanilla style sherries. One of my favourite brands is Equipo Navazos, a group of sherry aficionados who merrily skip around the region (for my own pleasure I imagine them dressed like matadors, but please do as you will) selecting the top barrels from prestigious producers, then tinker with 'em and bottle 'em. Every new sherry they release seems to contain the joy and experience that these guys have for their product. The I Think Manzanilla En Rama (£11.99 from Theatre of Wine) pictured is barely filtered, so has a punchy lemony note with a rich creaminess well worth seeking out. If you fancy splashing out, then search for Equipo Navazos' La Bota range or for González Byass’ Palmas range (the Una Palmas is truly a golden nectar). For cheaper options Hidalgo are very reliable, particularly La Gitana and Triana, but I found the Pasada reminded me a bit of grubby dogs. Alternatively, the super tasty and bargainous Manzanilla San Leon from Argüeso comes in at only £6.99 for a half bottle, again from Theatre of Wine. Or if you would like to break yourself into sherry gradually, try a sherry-esque wine. Port makers Niepoort and Equipo Navazos have formed a crazy collabo to produce and unusual wine with a not very imaginative name: Niepoort-Navazos. Made from Palomino grapes (the variety used in most sherries), aged under flor to give the yeasty Manzanilla and Fino flavours, but not fortified like sherry, it's in equal measures weird and wonderful.

My advice is to withdraw your savings and head to Pepito or alternatively buy some sherry and some smoked almonds, rent the film Jamon Jamon and sit back and relax while watching a topless man in tight trousers bludgeon another man to death with a ham. Viva España, Steve was right, life doesn't get much better than that.

I don't know why I'm getting so worked up about making people aware that sherry is cool. There are far more important issues at hand. A master criminal is slowly stealing our apostrophes: Waterstones, Boots, Clarks, Selfridges and now Harveys Bristol Cream...WTF?!

[vinosottey]

The Macaron Maker - Castello di Farnetella Lucilla 2008

Lucilla is a quiet girl, dusted white with icing sugar. She busies herself at work. Her back is strong and she never raises her eyes from the task at hand. Sweet and glorious macarons. She misses the winks and whistles from the roguish boys smoking on the street corner behind the pâtisserie. She misses the sunset across the rooftops. But the palate she paints from is far more exotic. Splashed with food colouring her gentle hands are hummingbirds fluttering deftly over the tiny almond meringues. Dipping in and quickly moving on. Infusing with intense flavours in ever more unusual combinations. Liquorice with a bitter coffee. Blackcurrant and a dash of orange. Ripe cherry and aniseed. Violet petals and baked plum. Crisp feather-light veneer. Reserved and delicate as their maker. But contained within is a molten eruption of flavour and joy. Castello di Farnetella's Lucilla 2008 is the Macaron Maker...

Castello di Farnetella has vineyards at various altitudes sandwiched between the Chianti Classico and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano regions; it would be difficult to ask for more prestigious neighbours. I also understand that they're a sister outfit to the highly respected and experienced Fattoria di Felsina. Regular shoppers at Oddbins may recognise Castello di Farnetella, as the rejuvenated wine merchant used to stock their joyously leathery Chianti Colli Senesi for around £17. But in these challenging economic times the Lucilla seems to be a cracking alternative at £12. Just like the macaron maker, this wine is reserved, its simple white label won't jump off the shelf at you. In the glass it appears delicate and light, but it has big gutsy cherry flavours with a touch of orange and blackcurrant. There are also bitter high notes of liquorice, aniseed and coffee. Lucilla is labelled simply as Toscana, i.e. from Tuscany, either because by Italian wine law it has a little too much Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon mixed into the Sangiovese or not enough oak aging for it to be a true Chianti. This doesn't mean that it's in anyway inferior, in fact I think it gives it a bit more oomph than the average Chianti. Like the macaron maker, it has a strong backbone and deals in big and bouncy fruit flavours. The Lucilla had a lot of fun wrestling garlicky orrechiette with cauliflower, tomato and cream. A Super Tuscan without the super price tag. 

The macaron maker may seem shy and retiring, but hidden behind the apparent delicacy are flavours to dazzle you.

[vinosottey]

After this any other wine review will simply pale into insignificance. 

[vinosottey]

The Southville Hop

In the 1920s the American harbour city of Charleston dropped a fast twisting eponymous social dance on an unsuspectingly stationary world. If you can imagine the impact of creeping up on a deaf kitten with a pair of defibrillator paddles, you are some way to understanding the reaction of the people to this rhythmic sensation. Unfortunately the Southville Hop, Bristol's answer to the Charleston craze, did not bask in the same warm sunshine of popular success. Many of the pioneers of this West Country dance lacked the mobility of their rivals from across the pond. Historians have confirmed that this was due to the following factors: trench foot caused by long periods spent in mud with unsuitable footwear, idiocy with cider, pirate inflicted injury and an unwillingness to let the stalk of straw fall from between lips by moving too vigorously. As a result the Southville Hop developed a hypnotic shuffling style centred around a downtempo beat. Kind dance aficionados have described the much maligned step as "mesmerisingly haunting", less friendly critics have dubbed it "the dirge of the arthritic sloth". Almost seventy years passed before a wild bunch of youths rediscovered the dance, which had been lying dormant beneath a Spar car park in Bedminster, and thus Bristol's finest export, Trip Hop, was born. Unfortunately this musical genre has long since been relegated to the weekday evening graveyard shift on Jazz FM. Here it is artfully spliced together by Claire Anderson, who walks a dangerous tightrope between husky and sex pest. True story.

Well in actually very little of that is true. The Southville Hop is in fact an excellent beverage from the Bristol Beer Factory. It's an independent, hand crafted, open fermented beer that dances across the tongue with the vibrancy of a Charleston and the racy vivacity of Michael Flatley on speed. A sensory treat that starts with its rich amber colour, moves on to intense tropical fruit aromas, then a lifting but not overpowering fizz accompanies grapefruit and kumquat pith and sour raspberry across the palate, culminating in a bitter hoppy finish that leaves you gasping for more. Big in the Bristol area (I don't mean that in the London slang sense, filthy mind, what were you thinking?), this should also become the real stuff of legend throughout this great nation.

[vinosottey]

The Dregs of 2011

The following patchwork of photos and words was supposed to concisely round up my drinking experiences in the finale of 2011. Instead the montage more closely resembles a picture produced by a ritalin infused child using glue, pasta, papier-mâché and poster paint. Not even the good kind, but the kind that'll never proudly be blu-tacked to the fridge. Read on if you dare...

I have enormous respect for Fiona Beckett. Her book "Eating and Drinking" is probably one of my favourite books about wine, and I think it's a travesty that it's out of print. However, in the Christmas Eve edition of the Guardian Magazine she offered us the following questionable advice about Champagne:

"I'm always a bit wary of names I've not heard of, so would generally advise going for a well-known brand or own label."

To use the Scottish parlance "pish". If you've heard of it, you may have bought something mediocre that the French couldn't sell to their own people and paid a little extra for the advertising campaign to boot (there are a few exceptions, see Pol Roger, Billecart-Salmon, Ruinart and Drappier). This Christmas I drank Champagne de Sainte Hermance from Henry de Vaugency, a tiny producer from Oger who dabbles only in Blanc de Blancs (100% Chardonnay). I'd never heard of him and worryingly he owns a slightly creepy wedding museum as a sideline. But this set me back less than £15, and oozes honey and butter smothered toast and fresh lemony zip. Pound for pound it out punches the majority of the big brands. I say embrace your adventurous side and support with the growers. 

  My next purchase was a Belgian blonde beer from St Stefanus. An unremarkable beer wrapped in amazing packaging, a veritable sheep in wolf's clothing. Its crown cap was plucked straight from Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet and its label carries a Farrow and Ball inspired colour chart to explain how many months it has been ageing and how complex it has become. But amongst all this design beauty, why did nobody tell them how it might look if the busy off-licence employee didn't face the bottle up accurately? Anus anyone?

  Next up I have a grovelling apology to make. In August I rather slated a red wine from Bordeaux (if you'd like to read it, please click here), but in my defence I said that I thought it was the white wines that the producer was probably most respected for. Luckily I stumbled across a bottle. I then cunningly bided my time waiting until the good lady had the sniffles, and was therefore sworn off the grog, and proceeded to guzzle Château Bauduc's Semillon all by myself. The result was outstanding, literally thrashing my meagre taste buds all over the room with prickly gooseberry, melon and grapefruit. This was an excellent example of just how good white Bordeaux can be for as little as £10. I however do not withdraw any of my comments about Worcestershire, I can confirm that it remains a bit dull. 

  This only leaves me to warn the unsuspecting Scots that though they'll never take your freedom, they will leave your words from the dictionary and they will learn to make whisky outwith the motherland. The first blended whisky made entirely in South Africa has arrived. Now I was expecting the bourbon cask finished whisky from Three Ships to taste like biltong, braaie and racial tension, but it didn't. Instead, like a vuvuzela blaring though the silence of my scepticism, it dawned on me that it's pretty damned good. Sweet orange polenta cake and Werther's Originals on the nose, while on the palate it's one of the smoothest blends I've ever tried. There's something here for both bourbon and malt fans to enjoy and more than a little for the Scots to worry about.

And now we must put 2011 to bed, for there's a whole new year of beverages awaiting us. Stay tuned folks.

[vinosottey]

Well Islay Be Damned - St Peter's Suffolk Smokey and The Saints

I take a sip and I'm instantly whisked away to Islay. Sea salt, peat smoke and iodine crash like waves across the beach of my tongue. The warmth of whisky radiates through my feeble body, fending off the sting of the rain lashing sideways against me, and the bog slowly seeping in through my flimsy fashion footwear. Lapwings and curlews scatter over the sea, dodging between the gentle wafts of heather and gorse on the breeze. But hold your haggises (or should that be haggii?), I've never even been to Islay... 

...and neither have the beers I'm supping: fresh from their medicinal bottles The Saints and Suffolk Smokey are both from St Peter's Brewery near Bungay. In fact according to Google Maps, Islay and St Peter's are so far apart it would take almost five days and eight ferries to walk the 640 miles between them. Usefully Google Maps warns you to “use caution this route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths” not “you can't walk that you muppet it's 640 miles, the Proclaimers were liars, you won't even manage the first 500 miles” that I was expecting.

    For malt aficionados, Suffolk Smokey is like Bunnahabhain, beautifully balanced, smooth and satisfying, with a gentle peaty tang and a touch of fruity sweetness. The Saints, made with a slug of Norfolk's St George's Distillery's peated single malt, is more of an Ardbeg (the favourite dram of Harry from Spooks), delivering a slap of peat equivalent to be being hit full pelt with a clod thrown by a shovel. Like a Scottish pensioner it effortlessly combines a nip and a half, without missing a trick of either tipple. I personally think that St Peter's are one of the most skilled of the UK's breweries, innovatively making beers with real character, balance and restrained sub 5% alcohol levels (take heed BrewDog). Those who love Islay whisky will fall for both of these beers. Those who don't, probably won't, but quite frankly I peaty those fools.