Wine

Thursday

Bruce Anderson

Riders and diners

Not quite nil humanum a me alienum, but I have always been interested in other people’s trades and worlds. That was one reason why I enjoyed the late Woodrow Wyatt’s invitations to the annual Tote board lunch. I always found myself on a table with racehorse owners and trainers. When they realised that I barely knew the difference between a fetlock and a bridle, they became politely distant, until they discovered that I was a political journalist, which made them barely politely suspicious. Politicians they disdained. As for hacks, they only took notice of the ones that they could ride. That said, I am sure that they would have paid

Friday

Jonathan Ray

Browsing and Sluicing in Sussex and Surrey

To get himself in shape for the forthcoming Spectator St. George’s Day trip to Chapel Down Winery in Kent, Jonathan Ray spends a weekend in the wine-lands of Sussex and Surrey. It’s one of life’s greatest pleasures, taking one’s car across the Channel and pootling about Champagne, say, or the Loire Valley or Alsace, Burgundy, Bordeaux or even down to the Rhône. You know the form. You toss a coin to choose the day’s designated driver and then simply lurch from winery to winery, cellar door to cellar door, restaurant to restaurant. In no time at all you’re delightfully squiffy, your shirt buttons are popping and the car boot is

Thursday

Bruce Anderson

A gentleman of Bordeaux

There was a moment during the war when De Gaulle was being more than usually impossible. Roosevelt, furious, asked Churchill to convey his feelings. The PM summoned the Frenchman, who arrived, took off his kepi and sat down. Churchill launched into him. Unfortunately, the tirade was not recorded. By all accounts, few prosecution cases have been expounded more forcefully. It was a masterpiece of eloquence which lasted for 45 minutes. Throughout, de Gaulle was impassive: not a flicker of facial muscle, let alone emotion. Churchill came to a final flourish, then stopped and glared. In response, de Gaulle rose to his feet, put on his kepi, saluted, turned and left.

Thursday

Jonathan Ray

RIP Ronnie Corbett

Ronnie Corbett was an absolute gent, one of the nicest of men and hilarious company. He was self-deprecating, courteous and genuinely charming with an endless stream of anecdotes and a fine line in dirty limericks. He loved his wine and, although he denied it, was very knowledgeable about it. I met him about ten years ago when I interviewed him over lunch. We kept loosely in touch thereafter, enjoying the occasional very liquid lunch together, usually in the company of his just-as-funny-and-almost-as-ribald wife, Anne. I remember we got through an awful lot of Théophile Roederer champagne at Scott’s before tucking into some Yarra Yering Chardonnay from Australia’s Yarra Valley, Ronnie’s

Tuesday

Jonathan Ray

The Perils of Taking Wine to a Party

Which is worse – to take an expensive wine to a party (“Oh, how sweet of you!”) only for the host to snaffle it away, or to take a lousy one (“Oh, um, thanks….”), and be publicly humiliated as it is placed next to the cooking sherry? Of course, in our parents’ day it was considered terribly naff, even insulting, to take a bottle, just as it was to take flowers or chocolates.  You simply presented yourself, had a nice time, wrote a fulsome letter of thanks the following morning and then sent flowers or chocolates. Nowadays, though, a bottle is de rigueur.  But what should you take?  The simple

Wednesday

Bruce Anderson

On the trail of a Holy Grail

It was a scene evoking the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony. The evening sunshine was caressing the verdant woods at the top of a hill. It was only a low hill; there seemed nothing especial about this sweet rural scene. But just below the woods, the upper slopes contain some of the most valuable agricultural land in the world, producing magnificent wine. We were looking up from Gevrey-Chambertin towards the domain of the grands crus. Not everything was as joyous in recent years, Dijon has expanded. France, with the same population, is two and a half times as large as the UK, so land is cheap. There is nothing

Thursday

Jonathan Ray

Why isn’t George Osborne more supportive of the English wine industry?

Yet again wine drinkers get it straight in the goolies from the Chancellor. Duty on wine will rise with inflation while that on beer, cider and spirits will remain as it is, having been cut last year. We endure almost the highest duty levels in the EU (after yesterday’s announcement, duty has risen to £2.08 per 75cl bottle, up from £2.05) and when one tots up the fixed costs of a bottle of £4.99 wine – the glass, the capsule, the label, the import costs, the profit margin, the VAT, the new rate of duty and so on – the value of the actual wine inside will be no more

Monday

Jonathan Ray

Wine on Aeroplanes

I’m one of those sad folk who rather likes airline food. On those rare occasions I get to turn left, of course, never when I get to turn right. Don’t be daft. And now that they are finally taking it seriously, I rather like airline wine. Food and drink might only be ninth or tenth on our list of concerns when we book our flight, but by the time we stand at the aircraft’s door it’s second only to who we’re going to sit next to (please God not beside that fat man or that bawling baby). Once we finally buckle our seatbelt, however, our only worry is what we’re

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Ask Johnny!

Q. What does méthode traditionelle mean on a wine label? It is the process (sometimes known as Méthode Champenoise) by which champagne and other top-quality sparkling wines are made, the bubbles being caused by a secondary fermentation in bottle. It distinguishes such wines from those sparklers such as Prosecco made by other cheaper methods. Q. It’s okay to like screwcaps isn’t it? You bet!  They will never have the same charm of cork and the associated rituals, but their convenience and success in reducing the number of spoiled wines has to be a good thing. Their introduction was very much a New World initiative and the finest wines from both Australia

Friday

Jonathan Ray

If it’s good enough for Dom Perignon, it’s good enough for me!

We had a fine Spectator Winemaker Dinner just before Christmas, hosted by the inimitable Richard Geoffroy, Chef de Cave at the equally inimitable Dom Pérignon. Richard brought with him ample amounts of his spectacular fizz: the 2005, the 2004 Rosé and the P2 1998. We ate and drank royally and there wasn’t a person there who wasn’t seduced by the magic of Dom Pérignon. It might not be as exclusive and as rare as Moët & Chandon (whose prestige cuvée it is) would have us believe, but my goodness it’s a belter, up there with the very, very finest. Richard insists that his champagne be served from red wine glasses.

Tuesday

Jonathan Ray

About our Wine Partners

Berry Bros & Rudd is the grand old man of St. James’s, family-owned and still trading from the very spot it in which it was established in 1698. Berrys’ has the most innovative and informative website of any wine merchant, anywhere in the world, and boasts an unrivalled seven Masters of Wine. Corney & Barrow is one of the UK’s bluest of blue chip wine merchants with an agency list to die for, including Champagne Salon, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Château Pétrus. But they work hard at the other end of their list too and their range of house wines is one of spectacular value. Mr Wheeler in Colchester

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Buying wine in a restaurant

Buying wine in a restaurant can be both an uplifting and a dispiriting experience. Uplifting because you are very likely to come across wonderful wines you just won’t find anywhere else, wines chosen specifically to suit the style and food of the chef, with a highly trained sommelier on hand to proffer genuine and useful advice. Dispiriting because the savage mark ups charged by all too many greedy restaurateurs these days can put all but the most basic of wines out of our reach. The usual formula is for the restaurant to multiply a wine’s original trade price by anything from between three to five, and the results can be

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Train to Marseille

Mrs Ray and I took the train the other day. All the way from Ashford to Marseille – direct. And it was absolute bliss. I booked it on a whim, Eurostar having recently launched their new direct route from St Pancras to the Côte d’Azur, just to see whether we could fall in love with train travel again after years of overcrowding, delays and downright misery on the London to Brighton line (among others). We joined our train at Ashford International at 07.55 and were in Marseille 5 hours and 51 minutes later. We travelled Standard Premier (£112 each, one way) and had two seats and a table all to

Monday

Jonathan Ray

Wine from the greatest châteaux for a fraction of the price | 15 February 2016

They’re a crafty bunch at FromVineyardsDirect.com and no mistake. One of their smartest wheezes is to ferret out, very discreetly, small parcels of surplus production from the top — and I mean the top — châteaux of Bordeaux and sell them on to their customers at extremely reasonable prices. These ‘defrocked’ wines (as they like to call them) are made from estate fruit with the same care and attention that goes into the property’s grand vin by the same winemaking teams. I know which châteaux the wines are from but, for obvious reasons, FVD would rather I didn’t say. I can hint if you can guess… We can, however, be quite open as to where the 2011 Pomerol is from: Château Beauregard, natch.

Jonathan Ray Jonathan Ray

Ten unexpectedly wonderful places in which to eat

Once in a while, you stumble upon a restaurant that unexpectedly hits the spot perfectly. It’s unlikely to be pricey or smart, and very likely to be cheap and cheerful. It might be well-known to everyone except you or – much more likely – the well-kept secret of a select few. It probably doesn’t look that prepossessing. But, hey-ho, needs must. You’re hungry and in you dive. Hours later you totter outside, beaming, shirt buttons popping, having eaten one of the finest meals ever. And who wouldn’t want to tip like-minded souls the wink? So, in the spirit of sharing, here are ten unexpectedly wonderful places that I have discovered recently

Thursday

Bruce Anderson

Game show

A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself for the penal colony, he invited three predecessors to lunch, for advice. The first said that he should make contact with the Billabong institute in Sydney. They were experts on the transportees’ economy. The second advised him to befriend Ned Kelly, editor of the Convict Chronicle, who knew where the political bodies were buried, having often handled the shovel. Then it was Peter Carrington’s turn; Peter had held the post in the mid-1950s. ‘Watch out in late January,’ he warned. ‘When the shooting season ends, all your friends will try

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 21 January 2016

Many have rightly attacked the police for their handling of the demented accusations against Field Marshal Lord Bramall, now at last dropped. They ostentatiously descended on his village in huge numbers, chatted about the case in the pub and pointlessly searched his house for ten hours. But one needs to understand that their pursuit of Lord Bramall — though not their exact methods — is the result of the system. Because the doctrine has now been established that all ‘victims’ must be ‘believed’, the police must take seriously every sex abuse accusation made and record the accusation as a reported crime (hence the huge increase in sex abuse figures). Even if you

Rebecca Weisser

The Clare Valley

It is a century and a half since The Spectator noted the exceptional qualities of South Australia, a colony of free settlers untainted — unlike the rest of the continent — by the convict stain. ‘Everywhere … the enclosures over miles of plain, the hedged gardens, the well-grown orchards and well-appointed homesteads, proclaim the possession of the land by an industrious and thrifty yeomanry,’ wrote a Mr Wilson in these pages in 1866. ‘It is England in miniature, England without its poverty … with a finer climate, a virgin soil … more liberal institutions and a happier people.’ These days, alas, the ‘thrifty yeomanry’ has to support a ballooning public

Anne Applebaum

Israel notebook

Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Morocco: if I had picked anywhere else on the Mediterranean for a family holiday, at least anywhere that’s not convulsed by civil war, I don’t think anyone would have noticed. But when I told friends that we were taking our children to Israel on vacation, I got some odd looks. Was there a special reason, someone wanted to know. Were we in search of political insight, asked another. Perhaps one of us was interested in finding his or her Jewish roots, an acquaintance suggested. Perhaps one of us was ‘searching’, spiritually speaking, and would like to walk in the steps of Jesus. Nobody seemed able

Thursday

Toby Young

Tis the season for disagreeing with your spouse about everything

The older I get, the more Scrooge-like I become. I’m dyspeptic, misanthropic, curmudgeonly, parsimonious and unsentimental. Caroline, by contrast, is even-tempered, sweet-natured, charitable, generous and easily moved. Yet paradoxically, I love Christmas, whereas she regards it as a time of year to be endured rather than enjoyed. This inevitably leads to a number of arguments and, as with everything else connected with the festival, they’ve become ritualised. So here are the rows that are guaranteed to occur in the Young household at this time of year. The season always begins with a heated discussion about external lighting. My ideal is to go Full Chav, with a giant neon-lit Santa plastered