Confessions of a Wino

Most people think of Portugal and think of Port. But, when it comes to table wine, this is an outdated view. Dirk Niepoort is a pioneer of new Portugal. Fabulous non-fortified wines made from indigenous grapes that I can’t even pronounce, let alone spell. I first discovered his wines in Lisbon in 2009 at EWBC. And stuffed this into my luggage at Lisbon Aiport on the way home for €33.10.

Very subtle for a 14% ABV wine, rich yet refined with tawny autumn fruits and spicy tomato. Goes just great with a rich meaty steak like ribeye and sirloin.

As any good chef will tell you, good cooking starts with good sourcing. Assuming that you are an adult, the single most important ingredient you need for this dish is Branston Baked Beans.

The other essential component is a bottle of Tuella, Douro, 2006 vintage if you can get it, which should be opened and placed in the fridge. Then put a pan on the hob.

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There’s always a danger that things can get a tad introspective at conferences like EWBC, so it is great to get the opportunity to broaden ones horizons out in the field, or terroir, if you will.  A trip to see how cork is produced was, inevitably, sponsored by Amorim, who almost silently supply one quarter of the world’s natural wine closures.  A heavyweight, if there were ever such a thing, in the cork world.

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I’ve just returned from EWBC in Lisbon with a newfound passion for Portuguese wine.  The whites impressed me most, even though they represented a mere champagne flute to the magnum of reds on display.

Espoṛo Reserva 2007 was a leftover bottle of tinto that found its way into my luggage by means not requiring wallet surgery РI can reveal no more than that.

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What’s in a name?  Or the way it is pronounced?  Or the way it is presented?  Hyacinth Bucket was famous for re-packaging her married name as “Bouquet”.  Snob residents of Burnage in Manchester (pronounced burnidge since 1478) are heard to mutter that they come from Burnaaaarj (as the French would pronounce it).

Long ago, the Cockburn family must have realised that their own name needed a bit of thought.  Who is going to buy a bottle of port from a company that sounds like a naked barbecue incident?  And so they became Coeburn by pronunciation.

193 years later, and change is on the agenda again, as Cockburn’s have decided to repackage port to make it more trendy, more appealing to the contemporary drinker, more relevant to the modern dinner table, and perhaps more attractive to the Buckets of the world.

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When we arrived at St Alban for Sunday lunch there were only three other tables occupied!  This despite the day being the biggest sporting day in the UK calendar – men’s final at Wimbledon, Tour de France starting at Trafalgar Square (just round the corner) that morning, British Grand Prix at Northampton (Silverstone), and me dancing at Live Earth the night before (and that is a rare occasion).  This despite the fact that St Alban had telephoned us the day before to push our booking back from 2:0pm to 2:15pm – hmmmm.

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