In a spirit of seasonal cheer, I've asked some experts what drink-related present they would like to give themselves for Christmas. There were no rules, save that it had to be something they'd really, really like.
The wine critic Matthew Jukes begged for "a small glass of Cheval Blanc 1947. I tasted it once and it was the most unbelievable sensory experience I've ever had. More modestly, a pichet of Alsace Riesling while sitting in the Brasserie de l'Ile St-Louis, overlooking Notre-Dame, would do me."
The Lanesborough's head bartender, Salvatore Calabrese, needs a more powerful fairy godmother to grant his wish. "I'd like to travel back in time to the 1920s and 1930s. I'd experience Prohibition and go to Paris to see the great bartenders who invented the Bloody Mary and the Sidecar at work."
From Sam(antha) and Sam(uel) Clark, the sherry-fiend owners of the Spanish/southern Mediterranean restaurant Moro, in London, came a more traditional request. "A bottle of Gonzalez Byass's Matusalem - an Oloroso-style sherry. It's old and sweet with a rich, Christmassy flavour, and the average age of this wine is about 30 years, so it's lovely and complex."
A small vineyard in Languedoc-Roussillon where "there are interesting indigenous grape varieties and good modern techniques" would please Lynne Coyle, the head of buying at Oddbins. "Or at least a bottle from that area. For choice, Borie de Maurel Carignan 2000, which we sell at £7.49."
Amy Wislocki, the editor of Decanter magazine, wants "six of bottles of Nyetimber's excellent vintage sparkling wine, made at a beautiful estate down in Sussex. At around £17 per bottle, it's much better than many champagnes I've tasted at the price, but sadly, many champagne drinkers won't believe how delicious it is."
No such restraint from Serena Sutcliffe, MW, head of Sotheby's international wine department: "I'd like a case of Chateau Ausone 2000 to inspire me to live to drink it at its supreme best. Ausone like this is the Eighth Wonder of the World - rare, mysterious and utterly glorious. Or I'd settle for Taittinger's ultra-seductive Comtes de Champagne 1989, drunk at sunset at Angkor Wat. Actually, please can I have both!"
And finally, the indefatigable bar critic of the London Evening Standard, Edward Sullivan, says: "Every Christmas, I'd religiously receive a clean, crisp £5 note from my grandma. It was her way of pretending that she had little understanding of the value of money. If she were alive today, I'd buy a bottle or two of Mackeson, my gran's favourite tipple. It seems to have fallen out of fashion these days, but it remains excellent stout."
Cheers.
