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Troubling Advice from London Sommeliers
Saturday, 26th April, 2008
- David Farmer
When dining out in Sydney or Melbourne I will peruse the wine list out of general interest but in most cases will then ask the sommelier for his or her recommendation for a white and red with my only input being the price range I am happy to pay. I do this because the wine talent in our better restaurants is very high and they know far better than I where the 'real' value in the list lies. After all they have probably created the wine list. In this way I have been well entertained over the last few years and my interest has been pricked in white varieties like arneis and pinot gris and odd new red varieties.
If I might use an example, in March three of us went to Aria restaurant along Circular Quay in Sydney and simply asked that we be bought a sequence of wines all masked without any hint of the origin, variety or vintage with the only guideline being the price range. Well we were all over the place in trying to identify the wines and on all accounts were hopelessly wrong but such fun we had. The wines of course were very good and we tried a Saint Peray (Cuilleron) 2006 (variety marsanne), a Bindi Cuvee V Chardonnay Pinot Extended Lees Aged (a blend from 1993 to 2000) and disgorged in October 2006, a Cobaw Ridge Lagrein 2004 and a Ribera del Duero Condado de Haza 1995. I feel certain there were others but these are all I can recall. The staff seemed tolerably amused by our antics and I detected the odd diner looking our way asking why we were having all the fun.
My confidence in this ordering approach has been a bit battered after a recent trip to London and I must reiterate that it should only be used if the restaurant has a sommelier. At the famous Waterside Inn at Bray I was presented with a wine list of great depth but these days I am very rusty on Bordeaux and Burgundy and in such a place it makes sense to not only ask for advice but leave it to them. I thought a half of a 2005 Pouilly Fiusse looked interesting as this was a very hot year but took their suggestion and went with a half of the Puligny Montrachet (Vincent Girardin) 2004. The first sip was O.K. but it's a long time since I have watched a wine oxidise quicker than I could drink the bottle. The wine crumbled before our eyes and confirmed my view that ordering half bottles should in most cases be avoided. But what do you do if you feel like a glass of great white at the start of a meal? All through this the beaming and well meaning sommelier was hovering around prodding us to see what we thought of the wine. Another of my views is that you should never tell the truth, or your interpretation, about the wine or food while at the restaurant as it will in most cases set up bad vibes or worse. Wear it, move on and write later.
The red selection was a Chateau De Fieuzal 2000 from Graves. The sommeliers description of the wine left us in heightened expectation but a wine like this at around 130 pounds in a place like the Waterside is not overly expensive so we were not expecting the taste level of Latour. Alas the Fieuzal was riddled with sulphur compounds and possibly showed bacterial problems. It cleaned up a bit with time but had few redeeming features and for us lacked fruit, was too dry and tannic with acidity poking out all over.
The following day found us just north of Hyde Park and feeling peckish had a meal at the Angelus in Bathurst Street. This place may have a future so place it on your list. The glass of white was O.K. but again how much acid and sulphur can you have in a glass. For the red I set the acceptable price at around 120 pounds or so and said bring your personal selection from Bordeaux. The Chateaux Figeac 2001 could not carry the sulphur load and while it partly cleared with time offered little and was dry, tannic and a very dour sort of wine.
I had been in London a few weeks by now and was aware that what I thought a good wine should be and what wine waiters and sommeliers thought was a good wine were at times some way apart. The dry, tannic austerity that expresses the terroir of some is the lack of fruit and flavour of another. Recommending expensive wines that are faulty is another thing entirely and if I might rather harshly put it to these sommeliers, divorcing yourself from a particular love of a region or country is the first step to wine freedom. There are cellar palates, country palates and blind prejudice and all can hide you from not seeing basic unacceptable faults.
Not all whose opinions I asked had clouded judgement and the sommelier at the Capital restaurant in the Capital Hotel on Basil Street, incidentally a favourite haunt of Len Evans in the 1980's, was spot on with his selections. Whether some of the great wines I drank in London were actually worth the money is another argument entirely. My youthful work colleagues whom I lecture about capital management being the source of a happy life would no doubt not approve of how the money was spent.
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