Situated in a lovely part of Amsterdam with a village feel that reminds me of certain parts of New York and London (but with more canals and lower rise buildings), Fred had telephoned ahead to strong-arm them into giving us a good table (on account of it being my birthday). They delivered on that front, with the best table in the house in the corner of the window. But did the food and wine follow suit?
Germans never use three letters when it is possible to craft a word from three k’s, four ch’s and at least two consecutive f’s. W also features prominently. Perhaps it was a German who extended the short form “world wide web” into the excessive and unnecessary “www”, possibly the only acronym with three times as many syllables as its original “long” form.
Perhaps it belies a Teutonic predilection for taking more time than is sensible in the name of quality, or detail at least, and if this applies to winemaking, this may explain some of the prices of German Rieslings I have seen recently. And I bought most of mine before Sterling/Euro parity played havoc with my holiday plans. I don’t suppose Angela Merkel would have welcomed me to her country anyway, given her views on Gordon Brown’s “world saving” economic initiatives.
Invited over to Darryl and Jayne’s for a bit of Scouse spicy scram and a few bottles of wine, Darryl was not surprised to see me turn up with a couple of bottles of Riesling.
Our mutual mate, Tony, calls Riesling sugary shite but that is unsurprising from a man whose wine sophistication is measured by the fact that he thinks Beaujolais should be served at 25 degrees centigrade.
I’ve held my tongue for a while. I don’t want to sound like yet another whinger that told you so, but I was never in favour of Mark Hughes being appointed manager of Man City. I admit that I reneged on my promise to turn up at the first game of this season and shout the Sven mantra. I actually turned up at Eastlands yesterday to see Man City suffer a humiliating 2-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, albeit after some questionable refereeing and grim Manchester weather.
But whilst luck and refereeing even out over a season, we have a number of more fundamental weaknesses. Dunne is looking disastrous, Vassell is just not in the same class as his team-mates, Zabaleta still has to convince me he is even close to Corluka who left for Spurs in August. Worryingly I hear rumours that Hughes’ intentions of splashing the Abu Dhabi cash in the January transfer window are targeted at a handful of his Blackburn ex-employees. The ones who helped him reach the astonishing heights of mid table obscurity, admittedly at low cost.
Sometimes, though, if you have the money, you need to aim a bit higher. I am not exactly rich so it was a stretch for me to fork out £21 to the Wine Society for this Kanzem Altenberg Alte Reben Riesling Spätlese, von Othegraven, 2007 from the Mosel. A mouthful in every sense…
I am working my way, manfully, through a case of Wine Society branded wines. Not all this evening I might add but nonetheless at a steady pace.
After all, it’s necessary to find some solace when Steve McClaren is manager of your national football team.
This wine is a Saar Reisling Von Kesselstat 2004 and to be frank I am as confused about it as the Wine Society is.
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