Confessions of a Wino

If there’s one thing better than a pint of Black Sheep, it’s a pint of Black Sheep served in a cosy warm Yorkshire pub, after a long Sunday morning walk on the moors.

The Star at Harome is just such a warming and friendly establishment but with the added bonus of being a restaurant that serves game, fish and fine wines. Oh and it has won just about every “best gastro pub” award going including, at one point, a Michelin star. It’s grouse season and I might just be in heaven. I am going to pay a celestial price too, £111 (a Nelson) plus service is more than a trifle in this part of the world.

(more…)

I discovered two things about Austrian wine last year. Firstly that there are some amazingly good reds. Secondly, that sourcing them in the UK is like trying to find a Greek MP at a “Bring back the Drachma” rally. But at an Austrian wine tasting I attended in London this year, I was assured that all the couple of hundred or so wines, are available in the UK.

Until EWBC 2010, Vienna, I was a virgin to Blaufränkisch, a grape that frequently makes Pinot Noir style wines – smooth, fruity, and deliciously drinkable. I have now tasted enough to know that it is nearly always a good choice when eating out in Austria and, if you can find it in the UK, a serious alternative to certain Burgundies (albeit frequently almost as expensive). I thought I would call out a couple to remind myself to look out for them.

(more…)

A free day in Vienna and a hatful of recommendations for lunch, many of which were either closed or impossible to find.  My iPhone had given up on data so my life-raft (Google maps) was not the usual powerful tool in my weaponry. Relying on analogue techniques from ancient history: Metro maps, street plans and gut feel, I stumbled across a very posh place next to the KK Hofburg Theater.

(more…)

I’ve just placed my first order with Naked Wines.  Is this news?  Not really, I suppose, but the strange thing is the reason why.  Naked has persistently pestered me, offered free samples, discounts and special offers and I have resisted for over a year.

I attended EWBC 2010 and witnessed something very interesting.  Naked founder, Rowan Gormley,  (fortunately wearing clothes in front of several hundred people) standing side by side with Willi Klinger of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, a top guy by any standard, running a mass taste-off between 11 Austrian Wines.

(more…)

If you are at the intersection of wine and social media, then you were probably at EWBC 2010 in Vienna this October.

It’s a diverse and eclectic group of folk: Wine-makers, journalists, blog authors, wine educators, PR people, sponsors.  All have their own reasons for attending.  Mine are manifold but the two most important are to meet really interesting people and to learn about really interesting wines.

Partly due to my own ignorance, and partly due to the lack of wines available in the UK, Austria has been a bit of a blind spot for me. The best I could say of most Austrian wines is that they broke the spellchecker.  However, in a 3 day blitzkrieg of wine tastings I learnt that Austria has so much more to offer the world than Grüner Veltliner (not that ‘Gruvee’ itself is boring or ubiquitous).

I write this to capture a few favourites and, if I may, offer a few suggestions to the rare few amongst you with even less Austrian wine experience than me. These were some of the wines that torpedoed my subs…

(more…)

If I had grown a micron for every penis extension product I have been offered by email in the last 12 months, I would now have King Dong trembling in flaccid anxiety.

Equally, offers for Viagra, “Rolex” watches, non-study MBAs and Nigerian dollar inheritances are starting to wear a bit thin.

Domæne Gobelsburg, 2008 is made from the “latest grape”, Grüner Veltliner.  Trouble is, I have been hearing this for yonks.  Who cares?

(more…)

Fortnum and Mason is my secret preferred meeting place in London because its 1707 basement wine bar is discreet, well located, and staffed by knowledgeable people who serve wine in the correct Riedel glasses.

(more…)

As 2008 races towards us faster than an over-indulgent party reveller to the big white telephone, it’s time to take stock of the year just gone.  My 2007 new year resolution was to lose a stone in 3 months.  For non-British readers that is 14 pounds, or 6.35029318 kilos.

I’ve always been a slow starter but I can be a determined sod, and I finally made my target on 23 December 2007 after watching a weight chart that was broadly directly proportional to the Dow Jones and FTSE indices.  I am still surprised I actually made it at all, but a bigger surprise this year was the discovery of a new wine.  Not because it was a discovery to anyone but me, simply that I was the last person on earth to encounter it.  The wine is known by many as Gru Vee and I thought I’d close this year on a decent, inexpensive example of the genre.

(more…)

The wine bar in the lower ground floor of F & M Foodhall on Piccadilly is so cool, and I’m not talking about the ambient temperature.  Staffed by a range of nationalities with a variety of experiences in wine.  Our Polish waiter, Artur Zarzycki “vaz early on hiz vine joornee” but seemed to know plenty despite his claimed one year of experience.  And he almost knew how to operate a camera!

Queuing outside F & M on a Sunday at midday (the bloody shop opened late by about 2 minutes 30 seconds), because we had an hour to kill before our reservation at St Alban (more anon).  So, as all the restaurants and cafes in F & M were being refurbished, we dashed down to the wine bar “1707” where, for £23.90 (inc. service) we got to try a fantastic range of wines.  Who says the posh shops are expensive?

(more…)

I haven’t managed to get a ticket to see Connie in the hottest show in town just yet.  Connie Fisher’s prize for winning a BBC talent contest was the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic at the London Palladium.

But I thought I would get in the mood anyway by trying an Austrian wine whose reputation seems to be growing faster than The Sound of Music revenues.

My Grüner Veltliner came from the Wine Society’s “Exhibition” Range.

(more…)