Drink
Never have I been so shocked as I was this morning when I discovered the figure for the weekly consumption of wine per person in Great Britain. My guess was about two bottles. In fact, it is a pathetic, measly, miserly 120ml. That's about a glassful. Not a very big glassful. And of that glassful, only a small mouthful is from California, which is not surprising but is a very great shame.
Californian winemakers are not all called Ernest or Julio. And they make wines that are as luscious, tempting and likely to cause excessive slavering as the state's favourite export - the honey-skinned, pneumatic blonde. California is bursting with small family-run vineyards whose attention to quality and reluctance to fall into the wine-spoiling trap of over- production means that their bottles are much sought after - and difficult to get hold of.
Luckily the industrialist and oenophile Sir Peter Michael (who has his own vineyards on mountain slopes in Knights Valley, California) has done the work for us. At his hotel, the Vineyard, in Stockcross, near Newbury, he has put together a list of some 350 Californian wines, many of which are tricky (if not impossible) to find over here. Michael says, somewhat elliptically, that his love affair with Californian wines began in 1972 with Peggy Lee and two corked bottles of burgundy. Whatever, we can only benefit from the expertise he has since gained. In the restaurant at the Vineyard there is something called a fusion menu. This has nothing to do with nuclear power but is a five-course dinner served with four different wines which have been chosen to complement the meal. Even better, the sommelier is neither French nor snooty; his name is Steve.
There are two Californian wines on the menu. The first, Steve explains, is a 1998 Geyser Peak sauvignon blanc. The vines are grown on hillside sites where the altitude makes the grapes ripen slowly despite being bathed in West Coast sun. The wine smells of fresh grass and citrus. It is clean on the palate, a perfect match for our scallops and Jerusalem artichoke salad. Though we try to savour it as might be considered proper, we have soon polished off our week's allowance and moved on to the next course and the second Californian wine. This is a 1997 Camino chardonnay from Monterey. Steve tells us that in this region there is a cold water current from Alaska which causes sea fogs, creating a cooler climate to support the growth of these particular grapes. Once again, it is delicious. Not too heavily oaked, with a little body and yet not so much that the delicate flavours of our crab vermicelli are overwhelmed.
It really is the most splendid idea in the world to have a menu like this, and even better to have a sommelier who brings a piece of oenology to the table with each bottle. In fact, Steve is so excited by his wines that, when he brings our main course bordeaux, a 1995 Z de Zede whose strawberry aroma is delicious with our duck and cherries, I can't resist asking which is his personal favourite.
"Oh," he says, delighted, "the dessert wine. It's a sparkling red malvasia from Piedmont in Italy." He then launches into an explanation of how it is made by the Asti method. "But one wine at a time," he reluctantly stops himself. "I'll tell you about that later." We cannot wait, though, and have him tell us about the malvasia's alluring fruit taste as we eat a refreshing grapefruit and mint granita between courses. As I drink in its sweet red berry flavour, I reflect on how unimaginative and how abstemious it is to expect a solitary wine to adorn an entire meal. Food for thought, not least for all the poor wretches who survive on one glass a week.
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