Greybeard’s Corner, January 2009
Ξ February 8th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Greybeard's Corner, Restaurant Reviews, Tasting Notes |
January is typically a cold, unwelcoming month and 2009 was no exception. After the excesses of the Christmas and New Year celebrations the return to work was a sobering experience and I got off to a slow start.
At home I finally completed reading my first ever Wine Spectator, which I had bought at a Swedish railway station during my December trip to Lund. Although it cost the equivalent of £10 I had to buy it for of curiosity value more than anything else, as I’ve never seen this in the UK. It was the November 30th edition and had James Molesworth did a good job covering the Rhône, a region I get great enjoyment out of, and specifically Côte-Rôtie. Overall it was an enjoyable read, but I couldn’t help comparing it to the UKs own magazine, Decanter, which I buy nearly every month.
Decanter (I used the December ’08 edition as a comparison) retails at £3.80 in the UK, Spectator at $5.95 in the US, so not a great difference in (local) price. Decanter comes in a smaller format, probably 15-20% less cover area than Spectator, and also uses a smaller font size for its text -at a rough guestimate I’d say that Decanter offers more words per page and more pages in total with 160 to Spectator’s 144. Despite the extra pages I preferred this for general reading – Spectator felt cumbersome and unwieldy at times and at first glance the larger reading font and spacing made me feel a little as if I had mistakenly picked up a children’s magazine. Both magazines had roughly equal advertisement space with plenty of full-page ads breaking up the articles but otherwise they were equally informative and, laying aside my natural bias for Decanter, I would recommend both for the quality of writing but would favour Decanter for its smaller format if nothing else.
In mid-January we had a rare family visit to a local restaurant, the Aramee II in Prudhoe, which serves Indian and Bangladeshi food. I’m still on the fence when it comes to wine and Indian cuisine; typically I choose a cold Cobra or Kingfisher beer to dampen the fires of a chilli attack, but for the milder dishes I can see how some white wines would be a good match and this time I selected a bottle of Alsace 2007 Gewürztraminer to share with Sarah. Unfortunately I neglected to note down the specific producer but was impressed by how well the semi-dry, refreshing & fruity white wine stood up to the spices – although to be fair neither of us had ordered anything too fiery.
The month came to a close with a business trip to Germany – one night in Munich and three in Hamburg. Although at opposite ends of the country both cities had similar wintry weather with freezing temperatures and intermittent snow, luckily not enough to disrupt any of the travelling or prevent some enjoyable evening meals.
In Munich I wandered for half an hour near my hotel until I came upon the Altmünchner Gesellenhaus on Adolf-Kolping Strasse. Inside was a warm and friendly Bavarian beerhouse with a menu of classic and rustic meals.
To quench my thirst I had a glass of Franziskaner Wiessbier, a favourite tipple of mine for years whenever in Germany.
A browse of the menu showed they didn’t have my must-have meal, Kalbsleber, so I opted for the Münchner Würstplatte – a selection of 3 types of sausage on a bed of sauerkraut with a little potato hash-brown on the side.
The food was delicious; strong German mustard went well with the sausage while the sauerkraut was quite rich, not too acidic or sour. 
A glass of Riesling seemed like a good idea once the beer had gone so I went for the Rudolf Müllner 2007 Himmelreich Trocken, which wasn’t that Trocken after all turning out to be an uncomplicated light and fruity wine with a little lime zest. It was nothing like the more serious German or Austrian Rieslings I tend to lean to when buying, but it was very drinkable and a good match for the simple flavours of the würst and kraut, 2+/5. In total the 2 drinks and a satisfying Bavarian beerhaus dinner set me back the grand total of €16.50, a bargain!
I finished off the week, and the month, in Hamburg. This northern port city is famous for its seafood and the highlight of the trip was an evening meal at the Engel (Angel) on the banks of the Elbe river, opposite the large Airbus factory that builds the enormous A380 jetliner. The restaurant is actually part of a floating concrete pontoon on the river itself and as the larger boats and ships steam by you can feel the gentle rocking of the structure. More exciting was when one of the regular river ferries that pull up on the jetty misjudged its arrival and hit the side with a resounding thud, shaking the glasses on the table!
The food was excellent, starting with an amuse-bouche of a frothy fish soup with wonderful concentrated flavours and moving into an appetizer of Scallop Cappuccino; delicate scallops in a rich foam sauce on a sweet potato mousse. For the main course the special of the day was a delicious and rich beef linguini with sugar-snap peas.
For the wine I wanted something red and something German (a combination that can be hit or miss) which resulted in a bottle of LEO X-treme 2006 Pinot Noir from the GermanHill winery, the German spin-off winery from Austrian winemaker Leo Hillinger. The wine was pale and light with a cherry cream taste and some oak detectable, not one for those who like body and extraction but a decent 3/5.
Wine Purchases. As expected January has been a relatively quiet month with only two purchases – although they do amount to 14 bottles!
The first was a mixed case of wine from The Sunday Times Wine Club and those of you who know me will realise I tend to avoid wine clubs and also buying more than two or three bottles at a time, but this case was a follow-up to a Christmas present. I had selected one of the more expensive selections but as with most mixed cases there was a combination of some for early drinking and a few that should last several years in the cellar. I am especially looking forward to the O’Leary Walker 2005 Shiraz, the Domaine Raimbault-Pineau 2007 Pouilly-Fumé Cuvée Cassandra and the Château de Chenas Selection de la Hante 2006 Moulin-à-Vent. Unusual bottles included a Corsican Pinot Noir, the 2006 Domain du Mont Saint Jean, and a Picolit dessert wine from Colli Orientali del Friuli. However most exciting for me was my first ever vintage port, the 2003 DelaForce which, although not one of the really big names in the game, sounds like it should be a sound wine to open sometime after 2015. Hopefully by then I’ll have tried some earlier vintage ports to compare it against!
The other two bottles for the month came out of my Hamburg visit when I stumbled upon a wine shop near my hotel which was still open in the evening after I’d finished work. Weinhaus am Grindel had a nice selection of German wines on its shelves and the owner, Stephan Lehmitz, was happy to spend a few minutes discussing some of the bottles. I ended up with a new red varietal for my cellar, the Meiser 2007 Weinheimer Kirchenstück Frühburgunder (an ancestor/relative of Pinot Noir) from Rheinhessen, and a Rheingau Riesling that should be able to handle a few years cellaring, the Domdechant Werner 2007 Hochheimer Kirchenstuck Spätlese Trocken.
Wine consumption. Only 7 bottles were opened at home this month, possible a new all time low!
Most memorable, but for all the wrong reasons, was my first ever corked wine. OK, let me rephrase that, since I have had corked wines before at tastings and restaurants – this was the first corked wine I’ve ever knowingly had in one of my own purchased bottles “since records began”. For reference records began in April 2006 and I’ve opened nearly 400 bottles in that time, so one obviously corked bottle isn’t too bad really. The offending liquid was La Capitana Magliano 2004 Morellino di Scansano which I bought early last year, a shame since I was interested in trying out this lesser known Toscana Sangiovese.
The bottle I opened in its place was the Baron de Ley Museum Real 2002 Cigales Reserva. This and the Carpineto 1999 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano were the two best wines drank at home last month, although both just managed a 3+/5. The dark, inky Cigales had a firm tannins and balanced acidity with a spice aroma, while the Sangiovese had a mix of complex flavours including menthol and liquorice.
Least impressive was one of the whites from my mixed case, The Loose Goose 2008 unwooded Chardonnay made by Adolfo Hurtado of Chilean winery Cono Sur. Although this had a refreshing acidity with a creamy finish it was just too basic with no complexity, so warranted a 2+/5.
Time to bring January to a close – February is already here and, for the UK at least, the winter continues with a vengeance, so rich reds are as welcome as ever and I suspect will feature in next month’s Corner.
Greybeard.
