Confessions of a Wino

My 1986 Hand of God driven campaign to avoid everything from the land of Peron ended for two reasons.  Firstly, I finally forgave Maradona.  Lurching from national crisis to personal crisis, he cuts a sorry figure on the world football stage these days.  Secondly, Argentina produces some of my favourite wines and, at my age, there is little point in cutting ones stem off to spite ones Riedel Vinum.

This Malbec from Catena Alta is a prime example.  It is quite expensive, although nowhere near the 37M euros that Maradona owes the Italian tax authorities.  Is it worth it?

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With superstars like Robert de Niro sponsoring Tribeca as an upcoming area (and selflessly trousering a good portion of the profits of Tribeca Grill), despite the proliferation of convenient subway stops, there was only one way to arrive.  I asked our Taxi Driver why he was tanking down these Mean Streets like a Raging Bull.  He said that given the Heat, and whilst he was not the King of Comedy, he was a Goodfella and, put simply, The Mission was to Meet the Parents, and not least, The Godfather (Part II) before the Midnight Run.  Before I had time to Analyze This, it was Showtime – the waitresses were Flawless and it was time to Meet the Fockers.

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I am so excited I could eat a bowl of soup.  And if you want to be as excited as me you have until 11am tomorrow (1 December).  Oh, and you need to be a member of the Sunday Times Wine Club.  Oh, and you need to have a wine budget of at least £100.  I can’t see the same offer on the Laithwaites main site so maybe they will repeat this down the way.

The deal is that if you spend £100 you get 10% off.  Not that special, but if you can find £150 the discount ups to 15%, and if you are in the fortunate position of having £200 or more leaking from your trousers, 20% is your reward!

I’ve just placed an order for 6 bottles of Cheval des Andes 2005, an Argentinean stunner made in a Bordeaux style but with “robust” spinal chord of Malbec.  A well regarded wine, which is more than can be said for the abysmal website.

With a 20% discount, even including delivery charges I have just paid £37 per bottle.  Compare this to the normal STWC/Laithwaites prices of £45, the Majestic price of £50, and the rip-off Gaucho Wine Boutique price of £64.65, I think that is a bargain.

By the way, if you dine at Gaucho Grills, expect to see this wine on the list at £147.95 per bottle – oucho!

I assured some French friends who visited recently, that ignorant southerners who claimed that it rained in Manchester 24 hours a day were plain wrong.  In my experience the average precipitation is a considerably more modest 23.  I am looking forwards to tomorrow between 8 and 9am when we are promised a refreshing spot of light cloud.

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Hotel restaurants always give me a slight sinking feeling. Reminders of 1980s boil in the bag meals; they always smell of stale cooking, probably because breakfast buffets are when they get 90% of their traffic.

The Hotel Russell probably counts early risers 99% of its clientele.  It’s easier to get a table at The Ivy than a breakfast table here.  Dinner, however, was predictably quiet.  A few lonely foreign travellers and one table of two couples from Yorkshire who were asking for more gravy – gravy shortages are punishable by death north of Watford Gap.

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Where did all the money go then?  In my quest to account for some of the missing credit crunch trillions, once believed to have been squirreled away by bankers, I spotted that £7 billion has been invested in the search for Higgs Boson – the clitoris of particle physics.

But last September, the Large Hadron Collider hit technical snags and some magnets over-heated bringing the search to a premature climax with helium gushing out all over the place.

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Meet a Yorkshireman and the word “baaaaaaaaaaaaa” springs to mind.  How ironic then, that this land of sheep, where I have spent a large portion of my life, is seeing a proliferation of steak houses making a bovine takeover bid.

But here, sheep have other uses, mostly exercised at night and often, it is said, at the edge of a cliff so they push back harder.  Such nocturnal activity demands that they remain alive.  Perhaps this explains the fondness for eating beef, with or without Yorkshire pudding.

When it comes to dining, Leeds residents like to maintain their stature.  Quantity is, therefore, the primary measure of a good meal.  And there’s nowt wrong with that, provided that the quality is as good as the portions are big.  And I prefer that they contain meat and not just carbo-fillers such as the eponymous local batter delicacy.

Blackhouse Grills is a juggernaut chain expanding rapidly, with six restaurants already spanning the country from Glasgow to London, but with the majority in the north of England.  I spotted one in Leeds.

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I’ve got my comeuppance for slagging off Mark Hughes.  Man City announced that the UEFA Cup quarter final home leg would be a “reward for the fans” and tickets were priced at only £5 so “ordinary fans” could come and watch.  I am obviously not an ordinary fan since, despite numerous calls to the ticket office (engaged tone) the match is sold out and I have to watch on some backwater internet channel.  Shame – I am in Manchester on 16 April when the town turns into a Hamburger for a night.

So perhaps I should be more complimentary about people I have never met.

Everyone knows that it is impossible to mass produce and mass market a decent wine – especially a Pinot Noir.  Trouble is, nobody told Alfred Hurtado.  His Chilean Cono Sur brand is taking over the world and rightly so.

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The primary responsibility of a wine producer is to make drinkable or, better still, remarkable wine.  It is a bit like a restaurant whose benchmark is firstly decent food, then cool atmosphere, warm ambience, decent price, and finally how good looking the waitresses are – oh and the quality and price of the wine list helps!

Fundamentally I care about our planet and I am very much in favour of reduced carbon emissions.  Irrespective of whether you believe the global warming doom mongerers, you would have to be a nincompoop of Victorian standards not to accept that pumping out all this shit into our precious H2O is simply a route to premature apocalypse.

However, is there really a need to shout so loud about your green credentials?  I expect as a matter of course that winemakers use ever more green and efficient production methods.  So I am always suspicious about any product that claims to be “greener” – it is the Toyota Prius effect applied to the wine industry.

This “green” one from Virgin at £8.99 wasn’t undrinkable but it was unremarkable.

I’ve sacked Mybloglog.  What is the point when Facebook (you see, no need to provide a hyperlink) is taking over every social interaction on the web.  I like to think that LinkedIn looks after business interaction, but Facebook’s success in the social space has undoubtedly been due to its open platform.

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