You bet your taste vin!
InterWined is still on holiday…but will be returning next week. In the meantime, to keep your toddies warm…we have some info that has been previously misreported in the press:
Victoria Beckham spent £5000 (not £8000!) at a recent dinner at ITHACA, a Japanese restaurant in Manchester on Thursday 28th August. She was […]

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InterWined recently had the luxury of enjoying Champagne in two settings of high society.
Last night was at Lancaster House, located next to Buckingham Palace. The party was held by French investment bank, Societe Generale, which now has a new operator at its helm.
But those details are secondary to the terrific Champagne the bank served…so much […]

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Each week, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

Yesterday, it was Gingerbread; and today it’s Champagne-Vanilla Ice Cream, as ‘Blow the Bank’ returns a touch of class to the 4^th of July.

Sometime toward the end of last year, the great and always entertaining Rowena of Rubber Slippers in Italy and I were discussing the pleasures of foods and wines, when Rowena suggested wine ice cream. It had never occurred to me to add wine to ice cream, even though I had tried all sorts of other concoctions, from the very good addition of balsamic vinegar to the very bad addition of Tabasco sauce.

Why Tabasco sauce? Well, I love it — almost as much as I love ice cream. I’ve even been to the McIlhenny family’s Avery Island in Louisiana where it’s manufactured (with InterWined’s Jacob Gaffney, in fact). Seen the Buddha; seen the alligators; bought a t-shirt that was ruined when the city of New Orleans and my ground-floor apartment were flooded in the summer of 1994. So, why shouldn’t I add between 20 and 30 drops of Tabasco to my ice cream? Because the fiery flavour of each drop intensifies as it cuts straight through the ice cream like a blade through butter, that’s why.

Frankly, I blame all of it on those Tabasco adverts that ran on American television in the early 1990s with the likes of Dan Ackroyd daring you try Tabasco sauce with all of your favourite foods. “So what do you put it on?” Not ICE CREAM! Not ice cream…

So what about wine and ice cream? After all, alcohol and ice cream really isn’t anything new. There are many ice cream cocktails and several alcohol ice creams. But wine ice creams? Admittedly even though I was wary of a Tabasco-like fiasco, I was intrigued and found myself agreeing to make wine ice cream as soon as I purchased an ice cream maker.

Well, I bought an ice cream maker last week. And true to my word, one of the very first ice creams I made was Champagne-Vanilla with a bottle of Bricout Premier Cru Cuvee Prestige Brut, £13.30 per bottle from Tesco (available online by the case).

Unlike with the ice cream Tabasco sauce, this was a perfect match. The champagne works to enhance and sharpen the flavour of the ice cream, while the vanilla keeps the balance and helps prevent the champagne from becoming too strong or overbearing.
InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Champagne-Vanilla Ice Cream

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Two weeks ago saw two wine reviews on InterWined.com from Spanish producer Albet i Noya.
This week, a glass of NV Catalan Cava from the same producer was enjoyed at the Kensington Whole Foods market in London, with a few fresh, raw rock oysters from the waters of Britain and France. Perfect.
The store has a decent […]

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The recent lock in the financial markets is beginning to spill over into other sectors. A friend in private equity recently said that the damage to the average retail shop on the high street is expected to be huge.
Even some luxury markets are expected to take a hit. In an interview with Fitch Ratings, a […]

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ continues InterWined’s All American, a month-long celebration of some of American cuisine’s greatest dishes from classic comfort foods to the unsung greats of American soulfood, with InterWined’s Own Homemade Buffalo Wings with Lemon Parsley Dip.

You could write a book about Buffalo Wings…and, indeed, someone has. Two someones, if fact — Aaron Reynolds and Paulette Bogan. They are a children’s author and an illustrator, respectively, and the book is called — surprise, surprise — Buffalo Wings. It’s the story of a rooster and quest and a recipe by woman named Bellissimo and made famous by a guy named Frank at a place called the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.

And, if a story about what must surely be a cannibal rooster hungry for some chicken wings doused in a sauce created by a woman named beautiful in a bar in Buffalo doesn’t mark out a recipe as an American classic, nothing will. Let’s be honest, shall we?

Now, controversial tales of cannibalising roosters aside, the story of Buffalo Wings still finds itself in the midst of a minor controversy. To bread or not to bread…

Breaded wings are able to absorb more of the sauce into the breading and maintain the fiery kick of the peppers; they are a little more civilised and only slightly messy to eat, the breading coming free on the tips of one’s fingers and easily picked away. Un-breaded wings somewhat prevent the sauce from fully absorbing into the meat of the wing; sauce drips from wings and stains the fingers and lips a bright orange. Given our rooster friend’s rather shocking predilections, this is surely his preferred method of feasting, feathers ruffled and orange stains everywhere.

Now, whatever your choice in all things chicken wings, InterWined is here to help. (I was going to write “swings both ways”, but was worried what kind of spam comments those words might generate. But, since I just wrote that I wasn’t going to write it, I’ll guess I’ll find out soon enough.)

Regardless of how you take your wings and which way InterWined swings, the Brown Brothers Non-Vintage Pinot Noir Chardonnay & Pinot Meunier (13%), £9-10 from Waitrose, is a treat. It’s not a sophisticated as a sparkling white wine could be; it’s not a dazzler to save for a special occasion — even if it did recently win the 2007 Yarden Trophy at International Wine and Spirits Competition in London. It’s a non-vintage, after all. It’s a sparkler to enjoy any day at any time for any occasion that I discovered in 2004, while looking for a bottle of wine to take to BYOB Vietnamese in Newtown, Sydney Australia. There’s a light, green-apple tinge perfectly in keeping with its pale yellow-green colour. It’s light and unfussy without being forgettable, fruity for a dry wine, and marked with a creamy sweetness to it. The creamy fruit flavour makes for an excellent balance to the spicy, hot zing of the Buffalo Wing sauce and the citrus and herb flavour of the lemon parsley dip. A winning wine for a winning recipe: 9.5.

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Homemade Buffalo Wings with Lemon Parsley Dip

Click on the post to view and download the recipe

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This is a Valentine’s day shot out to our financial director Duncan Webster, who finally talked his Bahama Mama, Ramona, into marrying him this week.
We celebrated her (questionable) decision to say ‘yes’ with a quick glass of Bruno Paillard Premiere Cuvee, at the trendy Mercer for £9 a glass. The Champagne is a non-vintage (sourced […]

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Jeez. I know there is supposed to be health news around this time of the week, and I have some: eating leafy vegetables decreases the amount of scar tissue after suffering a heart attack. Was going to put up 400 words or so on that study.
But…
After Monday’s opening of the Champagne Bar located in the […]

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To the point:

Perrier-Jouet wins for best non-vintage Champagne, for value, for taste. For that elusive odds-ratio that wine websites, such as this, describe but never really ultimately get. The art, my good friends, is in the struggle. The nobility is in the craft of the winemaker. The legacy is in the bottle. The meaning is in the taste.

Lanson Black Label is another great one and it tastes great with cigarettes, but InterWined doesn’t smoke, so what do we make of that?

Lanson Rosé Champagne is a good deal at £24 at Costcutter. The short-term exposure to the red skinned Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier give it that special pink tint, usually. The Lanson is not-very-creamy and peachy in color. Of all the notable non-vintages sampled during various entries of the last seven days, this is the Winston Churchill. A bulldog. Rugged and sluggish, with a hint of heavy metals (zinc, copper). No biscuits, no vanilla.

Drink by itself and never in anger. 8.6 points.

Moet & Chandon, also £24 at Costcutter. This non-vintage is very pleasant and introspective. A Gandhi of a Champagne. Sweet and well-structured, but the character feels tarnished. The finish is dry, and over way to soon. 8.6 points.

Thus concludes the non-vintage review of non-vintage Champagnes for InterWined.com.

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Bollinger Non-Vintage Special Cuvee, light and airy, and exceptionally easy-to-drink. Green apples and very dry. Great bubbles, small and copious: 8.9.

Yellow Label Veuve Cliquot, real ‘Champagne’ like. Crisp and refreshing, with biscuit and hints of lemon and vanilla: 8.9.

Both are made from a blend of Pinto Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. Both are a touch under £30.

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Ruinart is a Champagne house that appeals both in taste and in price. In fact, their lower priced bottlings are tremendously delicious. Unfortunately, the Blanc de Blancs (only Chardonnay) is not worth the £45 price tag. (It was a celebration.)

Other positives are the Lanson Black Label which frequents the cheapside London party scene. Not sure of the price, but it’s nice.

But, it’s the Bollinger NV that takes the cake: minerality, mainly flint, a nice, crisp profile with a touch of tarty green apple. Not to mention a decent weight and enjoyable finish: 8.8. Bollinger also continues to bubble for FOUR days after being opened. Now that’s gas.

The cabbie did add that he felt Argentina trumps Chile with its block-buster Malbec and that 2005 Ribera del Duero was going to be a very promising vintage(!).

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Santa Margarita Prosecco: Sparkling wine produced in the Veneto, Italy, outside Venice. Brilliant, simple and crisp, a perfect start. Nice, easy bubbles, but a bit pricey, probably would retail for £10, a lot for Prosecco: 8.4.

Margues de Monistrol, 2004, Cava: Sparking wine from Penedes, around Barcelona. Slightly lemony, with a hint of green olive, a bit acidic, but a bargain at £8 retail: 8.4.

Most preferred: the supermarket Champagne! Tesco Premier Cru at about £15 a bottle. This is a sparkling wine engineered in a laboratory to best fit the British notion of what Champagne should taste like. Almonds and Italian-style biscuit. A smooth oakiness, with plenty of bubbles. Also, a little too sweet. This makes people, Brits in particular, think they are savouring something more then they really are…it works though, wining the 2005 Wine International award for Best non-vintage Champagne, beating out some French contenders that sell their wines for much, much more. Would score higher if not so predictable: 8.5.

The tasting for the Islington Conservative Party was meant to be the best ever, and it was. Sparkling wine tasting: What could go wrong? Well, having less than 20 people showing up…at any rate, it was a blast. Yours truly is working the speaking circuit like a Clinton. Large, in-charge and, usually, full of crap.

Just kidding.

The night was tinged by politics of course, but what do we really care about? No, let’s talk about something that benefits us. (May have just lost that contract.)

Santa Margarita Prosecco: Sparkling wine produced in the Veneto, Italy, outside Venice. Brilliant, simple and crisp, a perfect start. Nice, easy bubbles, but a bit pricey, probably would retail for £10, a lot for Prosecco: 8.4.

Marques de Monistrol, 2004, Cava: Sparking wine from Penedes, around Barcelona. Slightly lemony, with a hint of green olive, a bit acidic, but a bargain at £8 retail: 8.4.

Most preferred: the supermarket Champagne! Tesco Premier Cru at about £15 a bottle. This is a sparkling wine engineered in a laboratory to best fit the British notion of what Champagne should taste like. Almonds and Italian-style biscuit. A smooth oakiness, with plenty of bubbles. Also, a little too sweet. This makes people, Brits in particular, think they are savouring something more then they really are…it works though, wining the 2005 Wine International award for Best non-vintage Champagne, beating out some French contenders that sell their wines for much, much more. Would score higher if not so predictable: 8.5.

During a ‘meeting’ last night, enjoyed the 2004 Cape Mentelle Cabernet Merlot from Margaret River, Australia. My esteemed colleague called it ’spicy.’ But spicy is really only an OK descriptor, for this wine is better than that. It’s not aromatic spices, cardamom, fenugreek, etc. More like very slight cinnamon or clove. Perfect balance, mouth-feel, earthy expression. Almost took the ouch out of the four-time mark-up at the wine bar: 9.0 (£24).

La Baume 2005 Merlot, South of France, £5.50, has a tasting note on the front label: Dark Cherry and Spicy(!), Fruit Characters, soft and round. A wonderful idea, if completely untrue. Actually it is vile, tense and terse. No balance and burns the throat. Smells like Teen Spirit: 7.6.

Now the 2004 Palandri Estate Cabernet Merlot, West Australia, Reserve, £8…that’s much better: Black olive, blackberry, oak and dill. Smooth in alcohol but bright in feeling. Dark colour. Inky texture. Great for the price; and, you know, for having one glass too many as its hangover after-burps will go well with your morning coffee: 8.7.

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The 2005 Four Crossing Australian Chardonnay is zippy and full of bursting citrus. The throat burn suggests a price tag around the £5 mark but still very versatile with food. Half a bottle used for a superior turkey stock on the BIG day. Gets extra points for coming from a family that never touches the stuff: 8.5 points.

* New Year’s Eve: 2000 Heidsick Monopole Silver Label Champagne. Nutty, biscotti trim. Fresh orange scent. Small, lovely bubbles. A real value at £20 per bottle at Oddbins: 8.8.

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I would have recommended a Riesling (grape) from the Mosel (region) in Germany, flinty and fresh, but not dry…or the more exotic Gruner Veltliner (grape) from anywhere in Austria…look for tell-tale hints of white pepper…

On the blush maybe a Tavel (region) Rosé from France…but those tend to be on the dry side… Banrock Station makes a pretty crazy sparkling Shiraz from Australia…

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