Drink
"Perhaps you shouldn't have let the teetotaller taste the wine," suggests the teetotaller as the rest of us argue over the apportioning of blame for the duff bottle of red we have ordered. Actually it was entirely my fault, though naturally I am carefully constructing a watertight case against someone else.
It was I who asked the barrister friend recently returned from four months in Argentina what he thought of newly fashionable Argentinian red wine. "Filthy stuff," he shouted. Presuming that he had confined his vinous forays to peasant vintages, and judging that his smoker's palate would not anyway be up to appreciating a fine grape, I paid no attention and chose one all the same. When our Vista Flores arrives, I am sorry.
From the Mendoza province, home to about 90 per cent of Argentina's vineyards, it is a blend of Sangiovese (big in Chianti wines) and Malbec, Argentina's favourite grape. In the White Onion in Islington, where we are having an increasingly rowdy dinner, it costs £11.50 a bottle. This is one of the house selection, mind. It tastes £2.79 from Thresher's bargain basement. Reasonably drinkable until the bitter aftertaste grabs you by the gullet and suggests you don't venture another mouthful, it reminds us of our three bleak years struggling through crate after crate of acrid College Red. Malbec tends to produce such dark, peppery wines that this can be a problem with some cheaper versions.
The teetotaller suggests taking this one back to his Cambridge ghetto and using it to disinfect his seven-year-old washing-up brush. His lack of hygiene causes my friend Sarah enormous discomfort, but I am more concerned that a restaurant in the aorta of the new Labour heartland (see all the shaven-headed and bespectacled trendy diners) could be so off-message as to fail to provide a decent bottle of the latest it drink.
No one will believe that Argentinian can be good, least of all my latest love, who persistently refers to "Argie" wine fit only for the likes of "that cheat Maradona" to swill. But it can. Bodega Norton's 1996 Malbec is smooth and soft as a kiss (the only critic of it I have heard growled "watery", but she was being difficult about everything). At £4.99 (Oddbins) it comes in at the very top of the everyday drinking price bracket, but it's worth it. At an impromptu tasting a few days later, even the barrister condescends to finish his glassful.
And Valentin Bianchi's 1996 Reserve Malbec Reine (Oddbins again, £8.99) is staggeringly delicious. It has the Argie sceptics voluble with excitement. Again, beautifully soft, but this one is complex so that in between the first, gentle sip and the last, easy whisper of flavour to leave the mouth there is a chewy range of spice, raspberries and chocolate. The girls love it. "Oh God, oh God, oh God," they cry, which seems to be a good sign. My barrister friend, the Argentinian expert, has to pretend not to be annoyed that his presence fails to create an equivalent stir, yet is grudgingly impressed nevertheless.
Harder to get hold of are the more expensive wines from the brilliant wine producer Nicolas Catena, who has a stake in Weinert and owns Bodegas Alta, Esmerelda and Alta Catena, but it is worth persevering. They are among the best that Argentina has to offer. Weinert's 1994 Malbec is good and dry, aged in oak and with a dark richness that wallows in cedar and spices. Its label claims it "offers splendid aromas of violets" - something I didn't quite get, although after a few glasses I was prepared to believe anything.
Shame the White Onion doesn't have any of these on its list. There's no way you'd think to use them as detergent or to feed to footballers. They are quite bad for hangovers, though, and it's nothing to do with impurities, just that you keep needing to have one more glass.
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