Epic wine tasting, and lunch!

 My regular reader knows that wine plays an important role in my life,  and has done so for the last forty-something years. While I may have stumbled upon the wonderful world of wine almost by accident, joining the wine society at my post-graduate University when I suddenly found myself with time to spare, I stayed because I discovered in the world of wine endless fascination, something to be passionate about. And it is, for me, a life-long passion.

The world of wine is populated by many wonderful people who, for the most part, share this passion irrespective of where they fit in; this is the world not only of the professionals working at all levels of the wine trade, but also that of the dedicated amateurs who devote time and money to the appreciation of wine as a fascinating, delicious, interesting, life-enhancing liquid. This is not about drunkards, though some of us may occasionally also drink too much, but about tastes and textures, aromas and colours, and how they intertwine with food of all kinds, both simple and complex, straightforward or elaborate.

The other Saturday one of my friends, who also happens to be a lifelong wine enthusiast, put on a wine tasting at his home in Athens, combining it with lunch, and invited a group of friends of his, wine people all, to enjoy the experience. The theme was interesting wines of the world, excluding France, and the selection was intriguing, beguiling and thought-provoking, a real enthusiast's pot pourri of tastes. The food may have played second fiddle to the wine, but was equally satisfying and a terrific accompaniment to the wine, helping to complete and elevate the palette of taste.

YT hosts events such as this at most once a year, though this was delayed due to health reasons. The more attentive among you will remember that I have written about similar occasions in the past, and also how special they are. Unique in nature, with no commercial motive whatsoever but rather passion as the driver. YT is fortunate that, thanks to a successful commercial career he is able to indulge his passion and we, his friends, are even more fortunate that he is willing to share his passion with us.

The ordeal we faced involved 9 wines and a spirit, all from notable producers, thankfully not served blind as on some previous occasions, as I would have had trouble in identifying some (most?) of them, with age and individuality making most of them striking but not clearly typical. The wines moved between stunning perfection - the first, a riesling from Austria, was just flawless in every way, delicate yet powerful, and set the tone for the afternoon. Our senses were challenged, tantalised, puzzled and rewarded with the wines that followed, then finally bludgeoned to a close with an insanely characterful Jamaican rum from 1945. Should anyone desperately want to know more about them I have detailed tasting notes on all the wines of the day but will not bore you with them unless you so request.

Yet this was not a typical wine tasting with the wines lined up and tasted solely with the benefit of a few crackers or similar; this was a paired lunch, where YT and co. served several dishes to accompany - no, perfectly match - the wines and keep us amused, interested and fed! He may not thank me for revealing this but he is internationally renowned for his matching of food and wine, with his attention to detail being unique and hugely successful. All food prepared and/or served at his home is of the highest order, unpretentious yet supremely delicious - some of the best meals I have eaten in Greece have been there!

All in all this was a very special day, one that the attendees will not forget in a hurry, that most people will never experience in their lifetime. I feel truly blessed, as a passionate wine and food person, to be included.

Lucky, lucky man...

 I know that you have missed me, dear reader, as it's been a long time since I put pen to paper or, in any case, got the old laptop out to record thoughts, irritations, even good things. My old excuse, COVID in all its forms has come and looks to be going, so I cannot use that. I guess there has been a kind of hibernation, which seemed to start before the summer and lasted until now; I have no idea why.

Still, I'm back and raring to go, especially as I need to tell you about a very special lunch that my friend YT gave about a week ago. This was very special indeed - a once in ten years, if not once in a lifetime event, and only for wine people - and the wines were rare, largely unusual and served blind; this led to all sorts of interesting conversations and in which I failed miserably in the detective work required. In my defence I have been drinking plonk over the last few years, so my exposure to the more serious stu is limited.

The food that accompanied the wines was relatively simple by YT standards, in order to accompany and not overshadow the wines, but it was delicious and beautifully prepared - home cooking on another level entirely.

Now you may curse me for parading these beauties, but they are worth reading about simply because this will be the closest most of us will ever come to them. Most of these wines are rare and now expensive, superb examples of the winemaker's skill, which takes grape juice and turns it into something magical. They are:

1. Chateau Chalon 1995 from Jean Macle in the Jura. These wines, quirky and individual, were for years undervalued, as they were an acquired taste, but are now in demand and with the appropriate price. Luckily YT has been a follower for many years and still has some bottles he is willing to share with us. This particular one was golden in colour, had a restrained and almost medicinal nose, had sweetness and a typical complex and very long palate. What a way to start...

2. The second wine was a Sancerre 2010, cuvee Paul, from Domaine F. Cotat, as untypical as they come, with a golden colour, burnt sugar nose, bone dry yet with hints of sweetness, long and complex. Would not have pegged it as a Sancerre in a million years.

3. A Clos Ste-Hune 2000 from domaine Trimbach followed, its age disguising its pedigree to some extent, greeny-gold in colour with a distinct grassy nose, medium sweet, complex, long.

4. Bienvenue-Batard Montrachet 1999, domaine Leflaive. This wine caught me completely by surprise, as I had never tried anything but younger, more vibrant examples. Golden yellow, with a bit of brimstone on the nose, a big brute from on the best estates in Burgundy.

5. Cristal 1996, Louis Roederer. I love aged champagne so I appreciated its browny gold colour, its lemony, biscuity nose and its now sedate, long, complex palate. It is a great pity that these wines usually end up in the hands of people who don't understand their quality and care only about their perceived status - the show-off value. Cristal is a beauty, perfectly made by serious people and meant to be enjoyed by like-minded souls, not poured into drunken idiots...

6. Musigny 2011 Domaine de la Vougeraie. Top class red burgundy from a top producer and, if you are tempted to drink Pinot Noir from anywhere else in the world, don't! Most of us may not be able to afford the Grand Crus, but Pinot Noir from anywhere else is at best well-made and competent. Starting to brown, with strawberries and plums on the nose and palate, complex and very long.

7. Chateauneuf-du-Pape Chateau Rayas 1998. This property has made outstanding, untypical, quirky wines for decades, with a complete lack of interest in wine fashion but a total dedication to their craft. Bottles of Rayas are like gold-dust, elusive and beautiful. This was ruby red in colour, wild strawberries on nose with dry tannins and a green-ish finish that was very long indeed.

8. Chateau Haut Brion 1989, one of the heavy hitters of Bordeaux from a good, rich year. Dark in colour still, nearly black, a refined deep red fruit nose and a jammy ripe palate with a perfect ripe, very long finish. A lovely example from a part of the world that can sell most of its wine even when it is mediocre, especially the big names.

9. Chateau Yquem 1967, a mythical wine from a special vintage, rare and delicious. I challenge anybody who says they do not like sweet wines to try something like this beauty. Of course they're expensive, of course making Sauternes is difficult and costly with most things done by hand, but this is a life-changing experience for wine lovers. This was golden brown with ripe apricot and caramel on the palate, caramel on the palate, long, complex, seductive, special.

And then we finished with some Chartreuse Verte Tarragone 1964, a digestif with a strange green yellow colour, minty aromatic nose, medicinal & complex, powerful palate, long and complete, an unusual but rewarding way to finish this most interesting of meals.

Oh, and the bit about the lucky man refers to me, dear reader, not you!

YT strikes again!

Not only is YT and extremely generous friend and host but, alas for my peace of mind though a positive influence on my accuracy, is also an eagle-eyed reader of my posts (much like you, dear reader), ready to correct the smallest slip and - wouldn't you know it - a slip materialised in my recent post concerning the reopening of the Roof Terrace! YT noticed that I seemed to claim, for reasons best known to me and me alone, that  the second wine he served that time was of a different vintage to the first wine, 2005 to 2008 to be precise; needless to say that my statement was incorrect, as they are both 2005s and, you clearly remember dear reader, both very good, the first even a star.

Last week we were summoned again to YT's place, though only two of us could make it on the night, for a simple dinner washed down by some rather pleasant wines. The YT/MT duo make simple seem easy, as their food is always positively bursting with interesting flavours and has a near perfect texture (pace YT). With the openers -little canapés and bits and pieces - we had a lovely young (2016) 1er Cru red Burgundy from a sub-prime (ha-ha, I know, clever way of putting it...) village but a top grower, and very good it was too. Young burgundy of this kind is vigorous yet delicate, full of strawberry lusciousness typical of young Pinot Noir, clean and intensely gluggable. But for the price this would be my perfect choice for an everyday red to drink on its own or with food, though not with very spicy stuff, and was a good example of why pinot noir from Burgundy is a class apart. The wine was from the village of Givry on the Cote Chalonnaise (between the Cote d'Or, where top Burgundies come from, and the rather plainer cousins in the Maconnais further south), the grower was Francois Lumpp and it was a lovely glass of wine, a real treat for an old Burgundy lover like me.

The second bottle, served to accompany the main course of gigantes (giant beans) and kavourmas (cured spiced meat with Turkish origins, as suggested by the name) was a biggy from that famous Rhone master of winemaking Guigal - a Cote Rotie 2000 Brune et Blonde de Guigal. Guigal makes some of the best wines of the Rhone valley and produces no duff wines at all, with even his basic Cotes du Rhone red a cut above most others and worth seeking out. His bigger reds like this one, as well as his single vineyard gems are worth seeking out for any wine lover, though prices can be eye-watering. Whilst warm temperatures do not tend to flatter these big red wines, this was showing all its power and complexity, its ripe spicy red fruit nicely balanced with a twist of finesse, juicy and lingering on the palate and its age hardly obvious in its vivid colour and voluptuous nature; as per YT standards this was a great match for our main course. For me this was an unexpected treat, especially given the time of year, and most gratefully received.


But luckily the evening did not end there, but continued with a rare Hungarian gem to follow, a sweet Tokaji (Tokay) from the 1997 vintage, Chateau Pazjos, rare and apparently extremely valuable because of its rarity. Sweet, luscious and concentrated, this was impressively complex and enjoyable - a dessert in a glass - but not that wonderful as to justify a highly elevated price. Granted, Tokay is never cheap but I had been expecting to taste something not just enjoyable but shockingly good; this did not fulfil my ambitions, but I was grateful for the opportunity of tasting it nevertheless.

And then came the finale: you have heard me rave more than once about the ethereal, wonderful stuff that is grappa from Levi and YT honoured us by offering a little glass of this very rare, delicious glory in a glass; I was more than happy to take him up on that, and always will unless I am in some way incapacitated or have no free will! Grappa has no right to be this good, believe me, no right at all - most grappas are slightly coarse if satisfyingly flavourful, not hugely refined - but here we have a masterpiece: all the flavour of the best grappas with an extra dimension (several?) of finesse and complexity, ayeeee, heaven.

As I see you looking pale, dear reader, and ready to enquire after the state of my liver, I must clarify that this is not an everyday occurrence for me, much to my disappointment, but an occasional treat - why there are days when all I have to drink is water, even though I know all the arguments about rusting or what the fish do in it, naughty things. But not every day...

The Roof Garden is open for business again!

I'll be honest with you up front for a change, dear reader: there is no Roof Garden and no business is involved at our private get-togethers on any occasion!

Please don't be disappointed, it's just a bit of fun  to celebrate the restart of the, by now, famous with you evenings at the home of my friends YT and MT, evenings with lovely, mostly simple but amazingly tasty, food and stunning wines, lively discussions and generosity of spirit. In the colder months festivities have always taken place indoors, but when the weather softens we have in the past moved to the balcony - the roof garden of my imagination. This year, of course, Covid-19 cut short the winter YT/MT dining season and, until recently, was keeping the warmer weather version under wraps.

Not anymore, amigos! Only a few days ago I had the pleasure of visiting my friends again and, together with two more lucky souls, experience their bountiful hospitality once more. The theme food-wise was simplicity itself, the wines were anything but: unusual, interesting, intriguing, satisfying and luscious, with a tiny drop of rare lightly cask-aged grappa to aid the digestion - the roof garden back with a bang.

The first white wine was one of those beauties that you need to give your palate time to fully appreciate, though your nose will have given you fair warning of the pleasures to come. Made by top Austrian grower F.X. Pichler in Wachau from the Gruner Veltliner grape, this Smaragd Dursteiner Kellerberg 2008 was a study in subtlety, complexity and hidden power in a wine already over twenty years old. Youthfull and fresh in colour and taste, yet with surprising depth of lychee and ripe apricot/melon taste including a metallic note in subtle layers on both nose and palate, this was to me a confirmation of the heights now scaled by top Austrian wines. Pichler's wines are stars in anybody's way of thinking, deservedly, with prices to match, and this is one of the best. The Kellerberg vineyard appears to be uniquely blessed in every way - exposure, gradient, micro-climate, soil - to produce outstanding and complex wines; this was certainly one of them, with the Smaragd designation (minimum 12.5% alcohol) achieved with hard work in a difficult, rainy vintage to give it some extra punch. Wow!

The second wine was from the same area and grape variety but a different grower, sightly older with a very different style: Gruner Veltliner Smaragd Vinothekfullung 2005 Emmerich Knoll. A lovely, riper style, golden yellow in colour and with plenty to chew on, I found this immediately appealing but less beguiling than the first wine, more up front but less complex, somehow a bit easier to approach but ultimately less rewarding. Whilst I wouldn't 'kick it out of bed' it never reached the heights of the Pichler wine for me, though two of my friends present actually preferred this. Super wines both with prices to match, I can only think back to my start in the wine trade, when the Austrian wine scandal with the anti-freeze had just broken and nobody thought much of them or showed any inclination to buy - how wrong we all were, how short-sighted!

Only a few days ago I raved about a wine from Bordeaux; today, alas, I cannot do the same. Our third wine was a 1995 Troplong Mondot from St. Emilion, classified Premier Grand Cru Classe B in the local classification and a bottle I would have expected to have been splendid. The 1995 vintage, however, seems to have been difficult in St. Emilion, with tannins remaining hard and the fruit on this showing in retreat, making for a rather hard, untypical wine from a property where the blend is 90% Merlot, 5% each of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. With the wine too mature for it to have been a phase in the development we either had a hard bottle or the 1995 at Troplong Mondot is ungenerous in character.

Nobody can ever accuse good Sauternes wines of being ungenerous, however, and our sumptuous 1990 Chateau Raymond-Lafon was no exception. Though unclassified, this property has, since it was purchased by Pierre Meslier and his family in the 1970's, been transformed into a little superstar, helped enormously by the fact that Mr. Meslier was at the time the technical director of Chateau d'Yquem, possibly the best and certainly consistently the most sought-after and expensive wine in the Sauternes  appellation. Skilfully exploiting both his deep knowledge and connections Pierre Meslier and his family managed to quickly achieve both excellent quality and a glowing reputation, to the envy of some of his more highly-rated vineyards. I was fortunate to attend a tasting in London around the 1980s sometime presented by Madame Meslier, Pierre's wife, and was much impressed by the attention to detail of Raymond-Lafon wines, rating them highly. If they manage to charge more than other, more highly rated and perhaps better, wines is not a point against Raymond-Lafon but against the buyers who support this and allow it to happen, though if the end customer is happy we can say nothing.

Raymond-Lafon is a botrytis wine, sweet, big and luscious, exotic yet earthy, full of notes of ripe white fruits and creme brûlée, the 1990 came from a big, ripe vintage and displayed all of those characteristics while still being full of life, rich but not blowsy. Perhaps it lacked the finesse and complexity of an absolutely top wine from a top vintage, but I 'ain't complainin' - I just love these wines and all they give us! Currently rather unfashionable, difficult to produce and therefore expensive but currently hard to sell at a decent price to make a living - Yquem is an exception, obviously - they are a glorious anachronism and may soon become a thing of the past. I hope I don't live to see their passing, for the world would be a far more boring place without them.

I closed with a rare grappa (a special bottling for a friend of Levi and also ours) from the Levi stable from the time when the old folks were alive. I've raved about these before, as they are rare in their finesse and complexity and may never be equalled or bettered. Like a fine cognac, these are works of art and I am grateful to YT for occasionally allowing me to enjoy one.

Aren't I the lucky one?

Bordeaux wine on a spring evening

Bordeaux wines are impressive, expensive beasts, at least at the top levels, full of class and power; the tables or the powerful, rich and famous are their normal stomping grounds. In the last 30-35 years they are impeccably made and beautifully aged in the best oak casks money can buy, resting in cellars that provide the ideal conditions. And well they must, of course, as they are the investment vehicles of the wine world, expected to be reliable and impressive.

Bordeaux is an area full of glamour, with beautiful chateaux all over the place, benefiting from a stellar reputation developed over centuries of serious wine-making and status building. The area is full of grand estates with many beautiful chateaux and correspondingly smart proprietors; it is a very status-conscious part of the world that makes great wines, thus supporting the status. The temperate climate guarantees good results most years, with the grape varieties used for the famed red wines providing a sturdy backbone of structure combined with finesse and, occasionally, lusciousness; technology can now ensure the indifferent or difficult years can also be decent. White dry wines exist here and range from the run-of-the-mill boring but gluggable bottles to the rare glorious curiosities. The sweet white wines are in a - currently less than fashionable - class of their own; why they are currently unloved when they offer, at least at the serious level, huge satisfaction per sip plus value for money is beyond me - but then, so is most fashion.

These days, as I am not fully active in the wine trade and with Covid-19 restricting me to Athens, I get few chances to try a mature, decent Bordeaux red, so it was with great pleasure that I greeted my friend YT (you know him and his generosity well by now, dear reader) knowing that he had brought to a mutual friend's dinner a magnum (large bottle the size of 2 normal 75 cl. bottles for the uninitiated) of 1994 Chateau Brane-Cantenac. Based in the commune of Cantenac-Margaux and deserving of the Margaux appelation, it used to have a terrific reputation in the distant past and was classified as a 2nd Growth (2eme Cru) in the 1855 classification of Bordeaux Chateaux, but went into decline by the early 20th century. The Lurton family of Bordeaux wine producers have, since purchasing it in 1922, slowly but surely dragged it back up where it belongs, with our magnum a testament to this: textbook Margaux silky seductiveness, youthful for its age ethereal complex red cherry fruit and balanced tannins making this a most enjoyable glass of wine, belying the fact that it came from an 'off' vintage. Well-made, mature but lively, perfectly poised and full of Margaux charm - the nose in particular was especially impressive, gloriously complex, rich and elegant - this was satisfaction in a glass.

Since I first became involved in wine many moons ago, I have always admired Bordeaux and its wines, primarily for their business-like approach, their commitment to excellence and their consistency. My passion, however, has been for Burgundy, that intriguing little plot of land either side of Beaune, a site of tiny vineyards, small wineries and - at the best level - unimaginably complex wines. The people there are, by and large, people of the soil, ordinary villagers, with few grand chateaux and mostly village housing, but the area holds me in its spell. Having said that, a good Bordeaux ready to drink is something very special, a sight to behold, a bottle to be greatly appreciated, just like our magnum of Brane-Cantenac 1994. Not as complex and beguiling as a top Burgundy, perhaps, but pleasing in its own way nevertheless, a charming 25-year old worth going out of your way for.

How lucky I am, retsina one night, a 2nd growth Bordeaux another, all the wonders of the world in my glass and with good company to boot...  I don't know what is to follow, but I'm grateful in advance.

Retsina

Dear reader, had you asked me not that long ago whether I would be writing about retsina, a wine so out of fashion as to be virtually unmentionable in serious wine circles, I probably would have smirked before staring at you aggressively. It had never been my thing, retsina, never sought it out, never felt warmly towards it, was truly never a fan. And this despite having glugged gallons of the stuff over the last twenty-something years in Lemonia restaurant, Primrose Hill, London, with my friends Nick & Jen and assorted others.

At the time of glugging - and I seriously do mean gallons - I thought that I was just going along with the others so as not to offend, but drink it I did in quantity, never really complaining. This was the standard retsina of Attica (the area around Athens) from Kourtaki, textbook stuff, typically unsubtle and in-your-face resinated, which chilled was surprisingly agreeable (hindsight rewriting history here) with the Greek/Cypriot food served at Lemonia. Hell, it must have been or at some point I would have demurred and ordered something else; I never did. On one memorable occasion Athens the tail end of the previous century we started eating and drinking around 1:30 pm, were still at it a about 4:30 when they finished the lunchtime service and closed for an hour and a half, yet still there when they reopened for evening service at around 6:00. We left, I think, around 7:30 after 6 or 8 (or maybe 10) bottles of the aforementioned mainly between the three of us. Nobody forced me, you understand, it was a great afternoon/evening filled with laughter, sort of memorable (I don't remember details, unsurprisingly!), so I must have enjoyed myself - and the retsina.

Still, I never expected I'd actually be interested in the stuff in any intellectual way. But, confession time, I am, for a funny, roundabout reason, it being the Savatiano grape variety that you will see mentioned on this blog again and again. In my humble opinion it is the next great grape variety from Greece to woo international wine lovers after the glorious Assyrtiko and its cohorts Athiri and Aidani, so beautifully showcased in Santorini white wines. Savatiano is prevalent in the Attic vineyards, traditional in retsina and too subtle to attract the average wine drinker, so until recently it has featured as an indifferent high-yield glugger and has been largely ignored. Not any more, boys and girls, as certain producers have taken to looking after it properly, limiting yields and making concentrated, still subtle but multi-layered, proper wines with real potential. And the attention to detail has spread to retsina, with interesting results.

Resin in ancient times was added to the wine as a preservative, because there was no way to protect the wine placed in amphorae from the harmful effects of contact with air - even sealed in some way they were never entirely airtight - and not as a modification of the taste, or so we must assume given that, inconsiderately, no ancient Greeks have either survived to explain otherwise or have bequeathed detailed production/tasting notes to posterity. Modern versions add it purely for the taste but it remains a minority sport, ignored by most as uncouth and yucky.

It is not so, I must tell you, dear friends, as your intrepid taster has been fortunate to discover. Even the Kourtaki version now offers a degree of complexity and character that makes it enticing, with others producing even more subtle versions, with the resin complementing the Savatiano character admirably. So admirably, indeed, that I have found myself on occasion seeking out retsina for pleasure at home and, no, it is not a sign of losing my sense of taste due to Covid-19. There are now several new-wave wines featuring resin, some even small-scale and with single vineyard status, offering character and style in harmony with complexity and, even, subtlety!

Retsina may never be to everyone's taste, but that is not necessarily a bad thing, as it has lots of character and, if well made, even class. It can be not only pleasurable but, actually, a great accompaniment to many strong-tasting Greek dishes. And, being unfashionable, it will by and large keep your pocket happy too. One of these days I'll do a comparative tasting of several Retsina versions and let you have the results, in order to help guide you to the one you'll like the best.

Food, passion and coronaviruses

You, dear regular reader, know that I am a person for whom food is extremely important - and not just as a means of survival or existence; I love good food and the culture that goes with it. But good food depends on passion, as every form of it, from wonderful fruits and vegetables to exquisite restaurant dishes, require hard work and sacrifices with relatively limited monetary return.

Passion for great food is rare, wonderful and always worth supporting. Through this we preserve food traditions that may be centuries-old or create new ones, make better foodstuffs of every description, help celebrate life by sharing little glories, help share joy and the life-giving qualities that food, decent food made with love, brings. To me there is no greater pleasure than breaking bread and drinking wine, all made with care and love, with people you care about.

I was recently looking at something on YouTube, where a young man was summarising why he has gone back to his small, unsexy, family food-smoking business to be the 6th generation involved: 'I did a lot of fancy things with a lot of fancy people' he said of his previous career in big business in a big city 'but there was no heart. So I came back' (I apologise if I have somehow paraphrased him). To many of us, you see, money is not everything, passion is, and those of us involved in food and wine use this passion to lead us to great products, great moments, great pleasure.

As a professional voyeur on the periphery I am constantly amazed and pleasantly surprised by the number of people who share this outlook, this feeling. Few, if any, are world-renowned and famous, other than within their field, and - do you know - they don't care one bit. The reason they work hard, lose sleep and sacrifice creature comforts is because they are passionate about their craft, their products, their chosen field; the appreciative nod of the knowledgable buyer is all they need. I am in awe of these people, in awe of their passion, grateful for their very existence.

Life is about passion, creativity, dreams, at least as much as it can be about comfort, luxury and material things. Life is about the little things that make it special, the ones that someone else's passion has brought about and allowed you to get to know and appreciate. Life, whether through our passion or someone else's, can be extraordinary, even if due to external circumstances (hello coronavirus!) we now have to put it on hold and wallow in boredom.

At least that's what I think, dear reader. Feel free to disagree...

Dionysos you rascal, you've done it again!

Dionysos was up to his old tricks again, with his friends putting on an exceedingly good show in a suburb north of Athens on a February evening, a Tuesday. Being one of them, a philos no less, I had to be present, both to participate and to help with the show. Dionysos himself was absent, you understand, leaving his friends to get on with festivities and, obviously, busying himself with his godly duties.

A pleasant evening following a lovely, bright, almost summery day was a good prelude to this dinner which not only featured some achingly superb wines from Greece and beyond, but matched them with food of a high order indeed. Menoo restaurant is situated in a small shopping precinct next to a bookstore, doubles as a cafe during the day and, at the same time, has an ambitious kitchen; this should not come as a surprise, as its late founder was for many years one of Athenian society's foremost caterers, Mr. Platis.

But tonight was truly about the wine, which was as splendid as it was unusual, at least some of it. Three Greek wines, ranging from rather special to wonderful, and a rare French masterpiece were served for our delectation, and we lapped it up with great grunts of pleasure, at least I did. Unusually the food played second fiddle, serving as a teaser and able supporter, even a palate refresher.

The first wine was a full-bodied rose from the Negoska grape and the northern appellation of Goumenissa. Somewhat reminiscent of full-bodied Provence roses of the past, this had a certain chunky elegance and weight to match our starter, a small cup of 'bouillabaisse' that kept us wanting more.

The white wine was from the Argyros Estate on Santorini, one of that unique, volcanic island's biggest but still top rated producers. With a rich history of over 100 years, care and attention, their wines, from old vines with low yields, have a distinct, characterful, style, managing to balance the ingredients to perfection while bursting with flavours that show terroir and grape variety in perfect harmony. This Assyrtiko 2006 was a textbook example, metallic notes blending with white fruit and citrus, rich yet dry, intense yet restrained, long and seductive. It matched the seafood starter perfectly, but then it was so good it could match-up well with almost anything.

My observant reader - was it you? - will remember that a few months ago I wrote a piece on Economou and called him the wonderful winemaker of Crete. If anything I understated his place in the Greek wine firmament, for he is unique, ingenious, dedicated and wildly eccentric in a way that ensures his wines speak to the heart of any true wine lover. His 1999 Sitia red wine largely from the Liatiko grape served from magnums was just stunning - delicate red colour starting to brown, multi-layered ripe red fruit and spices on nose and even more so on the palate, complex, entrancing, long, long long. I strongly urge anyone who comes across Economou wines to taste them (guzzle them???), as they are unique and quite wonderful but, beware, they are not easy drinking but highly individual. The braised Black Angus brisket was an ideal accompaniment (of course, not the other way around with a wine like that!), though some pieces were excessively glutinous while others were perfect.

Sweet wine is not fashionable at the moment, and I pity the poor fools who spurn it because they can never appreciate a wine as fine as Philippe Foreau's stupendous Vouvray moelleux 2005 from Clos Naudin.  Top sweet wine is luscious but not cloying, intensely sweet but delicate, a balance of flavours that showcase terroir, grapes and winemaking, something this wine demonstrated in abundance. Rich exotic aromas and flavours (mango, papaya, pineapple and ripe melon) with perfect acidity and exquisite balance in this masterpiece of finesse that is a tribute to Foreau's complete understanding of his art in every way. The mango tart tatin with a passion fruit coulis and vanilla ice cream was a successful match, though quite honestly I couldn't care less - the wine was enough perfection for me.

Nearby I could feel Dionysos sighing with pleasure and Pan contentedly playing his pipes and no, it was not because I was totally inebriated. In fact, I was not inebriated enough to accept gracefully the disappointment of once again not winning the prize in our traditional annual New Year's Pitta!

The heroic winemakers of Switzerland

You'r probably confused already, dear reader, as you either never realised that there was such a thing as Swiss wine, or had tried it years ago and decided it was a bit of a joke - and not a particularly good one at that. The wines made were - and some still are - made from grape varieties not deliriously happy in the rather bracing Swiss climate, thus giving a thin, acidic, graceless liquid that no amount of skill can legitimately turn into nectar.

There have always been a few hidden gems, of course, and some perfectly drinkable stuff, especially in situ, but little to get excited about. Anyone who has visited Switzerland and has even a basic understanding of viticulture and what it takes to make a good wine would see that it would not be an easy task; rather, careful variety selection and a lot of hard work, coupled with a bit of luck, would be required to come up with the goods, i.e. a wine that could be served anywhere in the world and hold its own. And no, I'm not talking about winning prizes but winning hearts.

Recently I happened to be in Switzerland briefly and had the good fortune, though it did not feel like that at the time, to travel on Swiss trains back and forth between Saanen and Geneva with time to gaze out of the window, something that I am not able or inclined to do when driving a motor vehicle. Near the train tracks, even in steep and rather inaccessible parts of the route I discovered vineyards, incredibly well-tended, some tiny, well-organised vineyards.  These mainly face Lac Leman, the big lake between Lausanne and Geneva known to the english-speaking world as Lake Geneva.

You would not believe the effort needed to look after these plots of land, to protect the vines from both the weather and animals and then to harvest the grapes. This is a labour of love, of passion, nothing less, as commercially it makes little sense irrespective of the price of the finished article. These vineyards, or at least most of them, I'm reliably informed are now protected as World Heritage sites by UNESCO, for they are wonderful to behold. And the wine these days, you'll be pleased to hear, is no longer to be laughed at, with many extremely well made, deeply satisfying bottles around.

I have often ranted, dear reader, about the passion needed to produce decent wine not of the purely commercial, high volume variety. Wine needs this passion because it involves lots of hard work, risks with the weather and intense competition; these Swiss winemakers have it in spades. There is no chance you will make lots of money making wine in Switzerland - you probably have a better chance of winning the lottery - but you are doing something you love, ancient yet advanced, simple yet complex, pride-giving and quite adorable.

I salute these brave, passionate men and women, winemakers of Switzerland, true heroes, am pleased that their products have improved and continue to do so, and will back them in whatever tiny way I can. And you should too!

Something special

Many countries around the world make wine, with some of it actually being jolly good and extremely well made. In this day and age the supremacy of Europe is challenged, even disputed, by some of the newer producers around the world, sometimes even successfully. Yet in my view if I had to choose the best, most interesting wines in the world I would look to Europe - and, more often than not, France - to provide the excitement.

Luckily YT agrees with me and last night laid on three vintages of the rare Jura 'vin jaune' wines for the enjoyment and appreciation of some of his friends, me included. These we tackled - and believe me, if you know vin jaune at all it is something one tackles, not an easy-drinking sipping wine - with great pleasure to accompany some Greek country sausages from the south of the Peloponnese and my family's erstwhile home town, Kalamata. These were artfully prepared and served with leeks, onions, peppers and potatoes, superbly enjoyable dinner bursting with taste and combining textures. Gorgeous stuff, if not exactly light and easy to digest, especially as I overindulged...

The three wines, all from the same Jura producer (Domaine Philippe Vandelle from the L'Etoile appellation), were from the 2001, 2000 and 1999 vintages, showing the overall vin jaune character but also showing the differences of nuance in each vintage. For those of you not in the know, the Jura wine producing region is small, in some ways old-fashioned and quirky, slightly cut off from the flow of the modern wine world - and all the better for it. They hold on to the good things from the past while at the same time developing superb wines for the present and, indeed, the future. Their chardonnays currently seem to me to be particularly good, though as the world discovers them their prices are changing, unfortunately rapidly climbing.

The wines last night were good examples of the style, complex and powerful, nutty caramel and alcohol. These are chunky wines yet at the same time have a delicate complexity, power with finesse, full of personality, scary to the uninitiated but an occasional delight to true wine lovers. Expensive to produce and idiosyncratic, these are jewels of the wine world worth preserving and enjoying on the odd occasions when we have the good fortune to come across them.

The next wine was a far more commercial, straightforward bottle, coming as it did from Bordeaux, an excellent cru Bourgeois and a superb vintage - Chateau Sociando Mallet 1996. This is a wine that I first tried in the 1980s, was impressed then and traded in, and it has been improving further. Last night's example had a sweet, rich, spicy plum and red fruit nose, a beguiling and balanced fruit and spice palate and a long, long finish - really batting at a very high level, charming and impressive at the same time, and a perfect accompaniment to the cheeses we were served - what else, you might say, from YT.

Then came dessert with ice cream, chocolatey bits and pieces and a green Chartreuse from those skilful monks of the Carthusian Order, who have been producing their elixirs since 1737 for the enjoyment of all, non-catholics and irreligious individuals included. This is a sweet, spicy, herbal liqueur, a touch medicinal in character and, in its green form, quite strong in alcohol (55%), rich but not cloying, a unique, strong and enjoyable digestif. I have tasted it several times in different form and I am always surprised at how much, after the initial 'gosh it's sweet and herby' reaction I really, really enjoy it. This doesn't change whether it's served on its own or as an accompaniment to something...yum!

To those of you who feel that France and its wines are past it, think again; the best in wine and gastronomy is still largely to be found here, despite the changes everywhere, positive and negative.

To those of you who think I'm incredibly lucky to be able to taste wonderful stuff time and again I have only one thing to say: you are absolutely correct!

Oooh la la!

Sorry chaps, dear readers, everyone, but yesterday I had a really great afternoon, having been invited to a wonderful lunch by my kind and generous friend YT. Lots of fine wine and a great digestif defined a very fine lunch, fully orchestrated by our friend, the multi-talented chef Michalis Dounetas at his Wood Restaurant.

Wood is primarily a meat restaurant and this was a red wine afternoon, mainly. The food was personally prepared or stewarded by the chef and was pretty impressive, with every course being spot-on and perfectly matched with the wines, all of them; this is, after all, one of YT's great talents. In any case the wine was so amazing that it would have been able to combine with anything, and even more so with the great productions of the Wood kitchen, unfussy, intelligent and bursting with flavour.

All the eleven attendees were wine people of some sort, from the professional (yes, loyal reader, I still belong there, just!) to the amateur but keen wine lover end of the spectrum, and all were friends with YT; most of us were also friends, primarily through our shared love of wine. The bonhomie was palpable, the enthusiasm also, as wine after wine was presented, tasted, combined with food, dispatched and dissected

Before you get the idea that this was just a group of guys getting pissed on a Saturday afternoon, just with a better quality of wine, you could not be more wrong. Sure, by the end of the afternoon I had had plenty to drink and eat, as had all present, but we were not rowdy, not loud and abusive, not combative. Wine lovers are not die that and we were all respectful of the good food, the great wines, the kindness of our host and, of course, each other; it was a wonderful, relaxed but extremely pleasurable afternoon.
The food, of which only two photos are included, was up to the task of accompanying this truly outstanding collection of southern French red wines. It was also shamelessly meat-centred, as is the restaurant itself, which prides itself on the sourcing of its ingredients. We ate:
Carpaccio of Greek beef, slightly spicy, with marinated vegetables - superb.
Mushroom risotto, lamb, graviera (greek cheese) foam - saltier than I would like but full of flavour and excellent with the trio of wines selected.
Ragout of Greek black pig with a celeriac puree - for me the dish of the day, outstanding, subtle layers of flavour and refinement out of essentially a simple country dish.
Filet of beef in a pepper sauce - simple, tasty, elegant and not over-peppered, spot-on.
Duet of chocolate mousse - palate cleansing and pleasant, if for my taste lacking intensity, excellent with an espresso or two...
But this lunch was all about the wine and the amazing intensity and variety of flavours in southern French reds... so naturally we started with a white wine, Vin de Voile 1997 from R&B Plageoles, Gaillac, which was delicately nutty, complex and long, not unlike a light version of an amontillado sherry.
Each of us had three glasses for three different red wines, so we could taste and compare almost as we saw fit. Of course ideally we would have had six different glasses, but in a busy restaurant this is not realistic, with our simple rotation system working very well. KL (Master of Wine) set the running order and off we went in pursuit of greatness. And there was lots of it around, in no particular order:
Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1998, Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe 1998 from a magnum - rather ethereal, majestic ripe and complex nose, lots of ripe red fruit, palate full and complex, long but a bit hard on the finish.
Domaine de Trevallon 1990, from further south (Baux de Provence), older, a stunning still-young wine, big and chunky (hello cabernet sauvignon!) with a hint of bitterness, clean and intriguing, for me the best in standing up to the lamb.
Cornas-Reynard 1999, Domaine Thierry Allemand from a magnum, one of the top wines of this area, round and rich, ripe and ready, surprisingly without hard edges.
Hermitage 1995 Domaine J.L. Chave, explosive nose full of red fruit, apples, violets, a big wine of complexity, ripeness and style, balanced and classy. A definite wow!
Mas de Daumas Gassac Cuvee Emile Peynaud 2001, this jewel of a wine from the Languedoc either was going through an awkward phase or suffered in a line-up with more juicy, more exuberant Rhone wines, this being 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. A very fine wine indeed unfairly treated?
Cote-Rotie 1999, Domaine Burgaud - Oooops, have mislaid my note on this, sorry! From refresher discussions I believe it was rich and untypical, with a pronounced minerality.

For our finish, we were fortunate enough to have a rare find, an old distillate from a domaine long consigned to history, vieux marc du Beaujolais 1949 from Domaine du Pinay et du Vivier. This had an old-fashioned rustic/refined character with a massively alcoholic nose, aggressively chunky and powerful palate, long and intriguing - woof!

To say the occasion was remarkable is a simple statement of fact, hugely enjoyable a wretched understatement. For all of us there it was also an education.

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Great food, great wines, expertly paired!

I wish I could take credit for all the wonderful wines I have beed lucky enough to drink and all the lovely food I have been fortunate enough to eat; alas, most of the time somebody else has either been guiding me, or has invited me to stuff my face with delights that they had prepared for my appreciation. Still, I've done well.

And one night three weeks ago I was 'forced' by the friends of Dionysos to attend a dinner at a special little Athens, Greece restaurant called CTC, which is a clever play on the greek word for nourishment. Only a few years ago and in the middle of the worst economic crisis that Greece has seen for many a year, a young chef called Alexandros Tsiotinis decided, having trained alongside some of the giants of world gastronomy, to open his own seriously ambitious restaurant - CTC urban gastronomy was born.

Young Mr. Tsiotinis is not playing at this and has learned well, with his food being innovative and exciting, making us think but giving pleasure at the same time. Amazingly detailed presentation, spectacular textures and small but intense portions were the name of the day on 22.10.19, with tastes that were subtle and at the same time strong, complex enough to knock your socks off. Every course was different - even the bread was unusual - with most being spectacularly successful, and one perhaps less so, but they all showed individuality, good technique and an abundance of passion, that most important of cooking ingredients. CTC is a very special place that engages the mind as well as the stomach, not perhaps cheap but worth every penny, a treat for any food lover as and when they can.

The Friends of Dionysos, that busy little band of wine fanatics that I am fortunate to be a part of, put forward some stunning wines to accompany the food, starting with a cracking white from Savoie, Un Matin Face au Lac 2016, Les Vignes du Paradis. Minerally yet floral, sweet on the finish with lychee and ripe pear overtones on the palate, complex and long, this was a stunning wine to start with and accompany the first two courses, a cream of lobster infused with bergamot and corn, and cod with a burnt leek mousse. Both courses were produced with a delicacy of touch often lacking in Greece, both were very well executed in taste and texture, just yummy!

The rose that followed was a big, big wine from 2017 that was closer to a red than a rose from the Tatsis winery in the north of Greece, and a grape variety called Negoska. This is not your light, summery, wispy light pink stuff, this is a bone dry heavyweight, almost a light red with a hint of tannin, good deep rose colour and plenty of taste. Reminding me of some of the old-fashioned, delectable rose wines from the South of France of years gone by, before angels started whispering, it was able to stand up to and accompany properly the 'paella' of potato with calamari and octopus, all infused with hints of chorizo.

Chateau Carras is a wine created entirely from scratch as a whim of John C. Carras, Greek shipowner extraordinaire and visionary, who in the 1960s fell in love with and bought a large plot of land in Sithonia, the middle of the three Halkidiki peninsulas, in order to create a world-beating tourist complex. At the same time he wanted to create new vineyards in order to make a greek wine that could compete with the best in Europe, which for him meant the wines of Bordeaux; amazingly he did just that, with the help of experts, a lot of money and patience. Porto Carras was the overall property, including hotels, marinas, bungalows, with Chateau Carras its flagship wine.

A Bordeaux blend with a touch of the greek variety Limnio as a filler, the Carras wine soon established itself as a wine of class and quality. At CTC we were able to show the 1997, all big red fruit, spices, balance and finesse, still young and drinking supremely well, long and impressive, matched if nor exceeded by the bigger, chunkier 1990, still vigorous, tannins lurking, ripe fruits. Two superb reds to partner our main course of beef with hazelnut, black garlic and jerusalem artichoke (topinambour) puree.

The CTC crew surpassed themselves with the dessert, made to look like a miniature handbag, full of chocolatey and red fruit tastes, and textures that varied from the chewy to the crunchy. To accompany this an ethereal eau-de-vie was served, made from wild rasberries by Gilbert Miclos in Alsace, clean, delicate and strong at the same time, just superb and eminently gluggable.

The Friends of Dionysos have staged many extraordinary dinners, with this being one of the best. And CTC, with its artistry and passion, is carving a niche for itself in the inhospitable scene that is Athenian High Gastronomy. I'm just grateful to have been a part of a delightful evening, to have presented the Chateau Carras wines, to have broken bread with fellow Friends of Dionysos, to have enjoyed the fruits of Greek passion in CTC and Chateau Carras, to deeply appreciate and love food and wine, making my life immeasurably richer.

Homemade wine

Having been involved in wine as an amateur since the early 1980s and professionally shortly thereafter, I have had a lot of experience tasting everything, from priceless 1st growth Bordeaux to everyday drinking wine. Though I have always specialised in selling wines of exceptional, in one way or another, pedigree, I have tried and drank lots of middling or indifferent stuff, with one horror always lurking at the back of my mind - a friend's home-made wine.

Uninformed people like to kid themselves that somehow a little person on their own with no facilities and little real knowledge can make a better, a more honest wine, than the dastardly commercial producers, out for what they can get with little regard for purity and real quality. It is a wonderful, innocent idea that seems rational until you know a bit more about it, when if you have any sense you realise that this is all a bullock would deposit not long after a good meal - the average Joe or Josephine has no suitable equipment, little knowledge and, quite frankly, limited understanding of what makes a good wine. Not to labour a point, most homemade wine is mediocre, sometimes embarrassing and, more often than not, undrinkable by anyone with a trained palate.

You, my regular reader, remember clearly that back in May I took a ship and visited old friends on the beautiful island of Kos, friends that I had known since before my teens and that I had lost touch with until relatively recently, life being what it is. After spending a few days on the island, encountering the same warmth that had bound us as children from entirely different backgrounds all those years ago, I had to leave and return to the Greek mainland. One of my kind friends insisted he give me some of his family's homemade olive oil and a bottle of their family wine, both of which I accepted with outward pleasure and inner apprehension; the wine especially worried me.

Over the last few months the olive oil has been in regular use in my sister's household, where I am thankfully a guest, enhancing many a salad but also, despite my friend warning against it - don't waste this in cooking, it's too good - I used it in a handful of yummy dishes. The wine posed more of a problem - what if it was awful? - and I was more circumspect in sharing it, not wanting to embarrass neither my friend in Kos nor the sharer, so I kept it in my wardrobe.

Well, today became the moment of truth and, as my sister went out for the evening, I indulged in some basic cooking and a glass or three of wine, choosing my friend's wine from Kos as the victim. And - and I can hardly credit this myself - I was bowled over, for this was a terrific red wine, serious and concentrated in nose and palate, intense strawberries with a touch of brandy dominating everything. Rich and pleasing, it was the exact opposite of what I had feared and exactly what my friend had loosely promised me... Oh ye of little faith!

With all my preconceptions shattered, my simple meal tonight fittingly involved some of his olive oil as well, giving me lots of satisfaction in more ways than one and proving to me how stupid prejudice is - yes, most homemade wine is shite, but some can be very good indeed. As a little egomaniac I may not enjoy being taught lessons but, on the other hand, I do so enjoy learning! The pleasure from this unexpected surprise was such - and I was fully prepared to have to flush the wine down the sink, if I'm honest - that I polished off the whole bottle and it left me wanting more.

I do not know when my next time in Kos will be, though I hope it may be soon as I yearn to spend more time with my lovely friends there, but it will have to include a bit more of this lovely wine, made with love and surprising skill and offered with affection for a friendship that, incredible as it may seem, has transcended the years - I feel so amazingly blessed.