Confessions of a Wino

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?

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Following my recent post on which glasses to drink from I was asked about glass “maintenance”.

There is a supposed cardinal rule with fine wine glasses that you should never use soap.  I ignore this, but do so with care.

Here’s a few practical tips for keeping your wine glasses in tip top condition.

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I’ve been waiting for this to happen so I can blog about it.  I opened a bottle of Clos de Marquis 2001 (after dutifully fridging it for half an hour) only to find it was corked.

Fortunately I had another bottle so opened that and joy of joys – it was perfect.  So what was the difference?

Both bottles are shown in the picture below-  which do you think was corked?

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I’ve just been looking at www.wineintro.com where there is chart suggesting that white wine should be served between 5 and 11 degrees Celsius, and red wine between 12 and 18 degrees (depending on type).  Nearly every wine website and book gives pretty much this advice.

So why does almost every bar/resto serve wine at the wrong temperature then?  Here’s why…

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