I was recently going through my bank statment, and it became clear as to where a lot of my money goes. One word WINE.

I love wine, the reason I left Canada was to come and work in the UK wine industry, London is a haven for wine lovers. Where else in the world can you get your hands on such a wide range of wines? The UK has been a main importer of wine since Roman times!

Most of the wine I drink is from Vinoteca’s wine list, this is due obviously to convenience, plus my handy staff discount, but mostly because it is packed full of excellent good value wines.  I’ve decided to start sharing my thoughts on the wines I drink, and the meals I enjoy them with.

On Friday afternoon I had purchased some veal escalope from the Smithfield Buthcers, planning on schnitzel for Sunday dinner. With this in mind I grabbed a bottle fo 2004 Rolly Gassman Riesling, which I figured would go well with a German inspired meal. I still hadn’t decided on a side dish, and in the end I veered away from Germany and went for a Sicilian side dish Caponata. My Sicilian friend Vicky had mentioned that Veal escalope was a dish they eat quite often in Sicily, so I figured they would go well together. Then it dawned on me, will Caponata go with Alsatian Riesling!?

We sat down to dinner, and I must say it was one of my best meals to date. The caponata was very good, not too oily or vinegary, and with just enough sweetness, which worked really well with the schnitzel. We also had a side of brussel sprouts, a bit of an odd addition, but they are just coming into season, I couldn’t leave them out! What was so astonishing about this meal, was how well the Riesling worked with each element of the dish, even the brussel sprouts! This style of Riesling is a classic one with some residual sugar, but not too much, which was balanced out by the sweetness in the caponata, as well as the the brussel sprouts. The ‘04 Rolly Gassman has a little bit of age, which brought in some complexity, texture, and great depth of flavour, along with fresh acidity, which cut through the fattiness of the fried schnitzel. I was very impressed how well this wine stood up to such a flavourful dish!

Caitlin

This weekend is the European Wine Blogger’s Conference in Lisbon. I would love to be there, and am very jealous watching all the tweets go by. However, I know that even though I couldn’t make it to Lisbon, that I’ll learn things from all the  bloggers upon their return. I have already taken some useful advice from well know wine blogger Jamie Goode, who himself couldn’t attend the conference. He offered some great advice about blogging in is his most recent blog post “Bloggers Conference: what I’d say if I was there!“, I have already taken him up on some of his advice by just writing this blog post. One of my blog weaknesses has been not blogging enough, so I am going to do my best change that!

Thanks Jamie, and well done to all those who have organised, and attended the Europena Wine Bloggers Conference, hope to make it next year!

Caitlin

Vinoteca bread

I rencently read an interview with Michael Caine, he said that the key to having a successful restaurant is to provide good bread, and good coffee. His logic was that the bread is a diner’s first impression and coffee the last. I think there is definitely some truth to what he is saying.

I’ve been thinking back through my many restaurant meals…it’s quite amazing the range of bread experiences I’ve had, some of them were even traumatic enough to result in my own personal boycott . I once visited a very famous gastro pub here in London, where our server topped up our empty bread basket by carrying a handful of bread across the restaurant to our table, this just after I saw him popping olives (from the bowl destined for customers I might add) into his mouth, and fishing the stones out with the very same fingers that delivered our bread. On the other hand there are places like St.John where you look forward to the promise of their delicious sourdough bread, and posh butter you can enjoy while reading through the menu. And funnily enough, you wouldn’t believe how many Vinoteca customers have expressed to me that they “love the bread”.

As for coffee again, I think Michael is right, there is nothing worse than a bad coffee to finish off a meal. I usually avoid coffees for this very reason, if only all coffee could be as perfectly crafted as the ones I am lucky enough do drink each day from Dose Espresso.

Thanks to @zoedisco for the picture this is me enjoying a 'good' coffee at the bull & last, along with a delicious mini-brownie.

I was however recently impressed by a restaurant coffee, which I enjoyed after an ENORMOUS and delicious sunday lunch at the Bull & Last, it was a perfect end to the meal. It was a tasty coffee, but for me it was the service, the food, the wine, the atmosphere, and the affordability of the meal that left me impressed. Michael Caine makes an interesting point, but I don’t think that either the bread or the coffee alone can win me over.

Any thoughts?

Caitlin

New York the Loser:

I’ve just returned from my very first visit to NYC, which I must say was quite an interesting experience. I loved the place, but was shocked and saddened at the price of wine, we visited a well known wine bar where the cheapest glass of wine was priced at $8. I find prices like this very hard to stomach, I feel that if someone owns a wine bar and they have a true passion for wine, they would never create these kind of price limitations for their customers.  How boring is it to be handed a list of wines by the glass starting at $8? Where is the $5 glass? I know it is out there, and it is possible to offer a glass of wine at this price because we do it here at Vinoteca everyday.  Sure our £3.30  glass of wine is nothing outstanding, but it is a perfectly good glass of wine that costs less than an hours wages!

New York the Winner:

I have never been so impressed with servers until I experience eating in New York, they were amazing! Every restaurant we visited – Scarpetta, Fatty Crab, Pastis, Balthazar, Market Table, Pearl Oyster Bar (just to name a few!), we were lucky to have the most well informed friendly, yet professional servers we have ever come across. Sure I have had some friendly service in London, but nothing like this.  These people know every last detail about every dish on the menu, even down to the origin of all the different kinds of oysters. We also never seemed to have an empty glass of water, they cruise around with jugs of ice water endlessly topping up, which was just the tip of the iceberg. These servers were passionate and proud of the food they were serving, not sure if it is just the ‘American way’, working for tips, or good training, but whatever it is I like it, and it beats London hands down!

Overall I love both cities, of course I know London much better than New York, but how cool is it to be able to compare two of the most amazing cities in the world? I would love to hear any thoughts on this subject, especially if there are any NYC servers out there, why are you so good?

Caitlin

My job here at Vinoteca mostly involves being locked in a dark office, staring at a computer screen, but  sometimes I am released back onto the floor where I began my career here just over three years ago. One of my favourite parts of being a server is suggesting wine; I couldn’t be more pleased when a customer finds one of my suggestions to be exactly what they were looking for. Of course it doesn’t always work, and sometimes I find myself suggesting my favourites over and over again.  Of course just because I like a wine, it doesn’t mean a customer will like it right?

I find one of the best ways to appreciate a wine is to have a story associated with it. It helps to distinguish it from all the other wines. These stories can also be incredibly useful when selling wine to a customer, especially the unpopular ones that no one has ever heard of.

I can understand that it must be quite daunting skimming through our 275 bin list, certain wines and regions are easily overlooked. Bergerac is one of these regions, being the unpopular slightly weird cousin of Bordeaux.

2006 Bergerac Rouge ‘Les Sens du Fruit’, Chateau Jonc Blanc

First of all I love this wine; it is my type of wine.  A Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec blend, unoaked, all about fruit flavours, and great slightly chilled. A few months ago I was vacationing in the South West of France, not too far from Chateau Jonc Blanc, so we headed there one afternoon to see if we could buy some of their wines, and put a face to a bottle. There was no one at the house, just a man driving a tractor in the vines, could this be Monsieur Pascal? We waited at the end of a row until the tractor came closer; he switched off his tractor looking a little confused:

I said “Bonjour! Est-ce que vous-etes M.Pascal?”

He replied “Oui?”

What luck!? We were then given a tour of his chai, and he sold us some of his wine, at a very reasonable non UK taxed price, then we were off to enjoy his lovely wines with our dinner.

Now when I’m working in the restaurant, or suggesting wines for a function this will be one of the stories I can tell to encourage people to drink some of the lesser known wines on our list, which I can assure you are just as good as the more famous ones!

Caitlin

Last night I had the pleasure of conducting a ‘Bordeaux’ tasting for 17 people in our private room.  How do you begin to explain the wines of Bordeaux? It is a notoriously complex  region (however, not as complex as Burgundy).I wasn’t quite sure how to approach the topic, luckily I had a few things working in my favour to help prepare for the tasting.

1. My parents own a house in the South West of France, and I was just there drinking bucket loads of Bordeaux, I visited St.Emilion, drove through the vineyards of Pomerol and had lunch at the famous La Tupina in the city centre of Bordeaux, where we enjoyed a bottle of Listrac-Medoc  with a delicious steak grilled over an open fire! I find these experiences are extremely helpful in wrapping my head around a wine region ( I must visit Burgundy!).

2. I just wrote the evil  Unit 3 exam for my WSET Diploma, and of course Bordeaux was one of the million topics that could randomly appear within it, so I had some recently memorised knowledge.

The wines we tasted were the following:

2007 Bordeaux Blanc Sec from Chateau des Antonins, Graves

2006 Graves Blanc from Chateau Langlet , Graves

2005 Château Haura, Graves

1999 Chateau La Croix du Casse, Pomerol, Right Bank

1999 Clos du Marquis, St-Julien, Left Bank

2000 Château Langoa-Barton, St-Julien, Left Bank

Of course this is only a tiny scratch on the surface of what the region has to offer, but what I found most exciting about this line up of wines, was the diversity of styles they offered, which can very simply be brought down to the different soil profiles of each appellation, determining which grape will dominate the blend, and which sites will be home to the best wines.  I did my best to keep it simple last night, and lucky for me found that the wines did most of the talking. There were two wines that stood out, and when tasted together expressed the impressive flavour spectrum offered by red Bordeaux.

1999 Chateau La Croix du Casse, Pomerol, Right Bank -  ‘Right Bank’ – Merlot Dominated – Clay Soils

This wine was drinking beautifully, a very delicate wine with fine ripe tannins.  A perfect expression of the elegance of Pomerol with ten years of ageing bringing in lots of complex and interesting aromas and flavours such as anise and boiled vegetables ( I know it sounds gross, but was amazing!)

1999 Clos du Marquis, St-Julien, ‘Left Bank’ – Cab Sauv. Dominated – Gravel Soils

St.Julien and neighbouring commune Pauillac have more fine wine within their tiny boundaries than any other place on earth! This is the second wine of Deuxieme Cru Classe Chateau Leoville Las Cases, and I found that it was quite youthful despite its age, especially when compared to the Pomerol.  It was was a deeper darker wine with sweet spice ,black currant , and an incredible earthiness  on the palate, which must come down to the regions gravel soils.

This tasting further solidified by love and intrigue for Bordeaux, I know I still have a lot to learn, and it will take a lifetime, must keep tasting!

Caitlin

Gravadlax, broad bean, golden beet, celery cress

Langoustine, caramel carrot, sea beet, sea purslane

Pea puree, crab salad, quail egg

Last week I had the priviledge of cooking for two of the Barossa’s foodie legends – Maggie Beer and John Duval. Some years ago at cooking school I was introduced to Maggie Beer when we learnt about the ingredient verjuice, then still an unknown condiment in South African kitchens. I loved it because of its ability to lend acidity to a dish without overpowering, and how its gentle sweetness somehow enriches dishes and lifts out the finer characteristics of ingredients. At Vinoteca we often use the Verjuice from her range, although I had no idea how large the range of products was - including Vino Cotto, fruit pastes, jams and of course white as well as Sangiovese verjuice.

Vinoteca’s Winemaker dinners are well known by now and are an exciting way for us to highlight special wines and create an eveing of informative and fun conversation with the people who actually produce the wines. Friday night’s dinner with John Duval was fantastic – its always great when producers are really passionate about what they do, and this made the evening really special and successful. John makes three fantastic wines under his own name – Eligo Shiraz, Entity Shiraz and Plexus SGM. The menu format of the two evenings were similar but the wine pairings turned them into two very distinctive events.

Guests were welcomed with Charles Melton Rose of Virginia, and a pre-starter of home-cured gravadlax with a salad of broad beans, Secrett’s Farm baby golden beets and micro herbs started the meal. The starter of Scottish Langoustines, carrots caramelised with verjuice, sea purslane and sea beets was paired with an Eden Valley Riesling from Pewsey Vale. The same Riesling was served with a crab, lemon and mint salad, poached quail egg and pea puree for the Duval dinner.

Pheasant Farm Home Block Shiraz was served  with char-grilled onglet, asparagus, jersey royal potatoes and a sauce enriched with Maggie Beer’s Cabernet Paste for Maggie’s dinner, and on the second night the John Duval Entity and Plexus shiraz’ were served with the same main course. These South Australian Shiraz’ are known to be big and rich with intense fruit (excuse the generalisation!) but paired well with rare onglet and a rich jus.

Montgomery Cheddar with Maggie Beer Fig and Fennel Seed Paste and homemade oatcakes filled in the cheese course (I still dont understand this concept of the cheese before the dessert) and then the meal was concluded with traditional English Custard Tart and rhubarb roasted with Sangiovese Verjuice. The latter was prepared intentionally tart (as if the rhubarb needs it!) to liven up the custard tart and to showcase the Deen De Bortoli Vat 5 Botrytis Semillon’s classic tart apricot and peach notes. Once again it was successful, as I was a bit doubtful – rhubarb can be quite tricky in wine pairing.

It was great cooking for two such legends, bring on the next Winemaker dinner!

tallchef

I have to make it clear that I am lucky, and I do realise this.  It was all thanks to my boss Brett having a cold that day (sorry Brett to take happiness from your sickness, but I was so happy!), and so, I was asked to fill his seat at the Northwest Italian Winemaker dinner.  If I hadn’t have been dining at Vinoteca that night I would have been heading to Tayyab’s to dine with 20 food bloggers, which would have been great too, so it really was a win-win situation.

The pics for this dinner aren’t as good as the photos we have taken of the meals in the past, this is only because Charlie and I kept getting distracted by the food, then the wine, then the food, then the wine etc, and we seemed to keep eating each dish before realising that we needed to take a picture for the blog.   It truly was an amazing dinner put together by head chef Ross Goodall, and the wines from Produttori del Barbaresco were stellar! I was also lucky to dine with Aldo Vacca, the managing Director of Produttori del Barbaresco, who has followed in the footsteps of his Father, who was the first managing director of the company from 1958 – 1984, very cool.  Aldo was great company, with an obvious passion for the wine he promotes all over the world.  I was also sat with Charlie, who was in full wine geek mode, loving every sip of his beloved Nebbiolo, and Mark Perna from Astrum wines, who has the best wine descriptors I have ever heard, some of which I think you need to be Australian to truly understand.

Mark Perna from Astrum with Aldo Vacca from Produttori del Barbaresco

Produttori Del Barbaresco Winemaker Dinner

Thursday 19th March 2009

Apperitif: 2006 Renano ‘Herzu’ Riesling, Ettore Germano

Rabbit & ramson ragout, soft pecorino polenta

2005 Langhe Nebbiolo,

2007 Langhe Nebbiolo,

For me this was the star of the meal, it was such a perfect flavour combination.  The pecorino polenta was rich in flavour, but still light enough to not over power the dish.  The rabbit was perfectly cooked, the vegetables gave the dish texture, while the ramson (wild garlic leaves) lifted the dish.  Aldo said this was perfectly paired with the wines because it was simple and rustic, echoing the food of the Barbaresco region.

~~~

Venison rossini, nebbiolo reduction

1999 Barbaresco

2004 Barbaresco

This is one where we started to get distracted, the photo does not do it justice.

I was first told about Rossini by Brett, it is one of his favourites, and he was very sad to have missed it that night.  When I first heard about  it, I was a bit skeptical of the idea of foie gras with meat, but then again foie gras seems to work with so many random things, so I really wasn’t surprised by how well it went together.  The venison was incredibly tender, and “perfectly seasoned”, which Aldo pointed out.  Another great match with the wines, but we concluded later that the 1999 ‘Riserva Montefico’ would have been an even better match.

~~~

Castelmagno, muscatel raisins, biscuits

1999 Barbaresco ‘Riversa Montefico’

2004 Barbaresco ‘Riserva Montefico’

The cheese was paired with the most amazing wines of the night, and for me they demanded all of my attention, and I seriously neglected my cheese.  I know that the general consensus what that the Castelmagno (a cheese from the Northwest of Italy) works very well with Barbaresco, and it is the cheese that Aldo recommended for his wines.  I am not an Italian speaker, but I was very pleased to learn that ‘Montefico’ means ‘fig tree hill’ in Italian.

~~~

Buttermilk panacotta, rhubarb & vanilla compote

2008 Moscato d’Asti, Paolo Saracco

If you haven’t had Moscato d’Asti before, I suggest you try it.  It is one of the most refreshing and delicious wines I have ever tasted.  This was also a well thought out food and wine matching on Ross’ part, the key thing when matching wines with a dessert it that the dessert cannot be sweeter than the dessert.  If it is too sweet, the taste of the wine is cancelled out, which is always disappointing.  This buttermilk pannacotta was just the right level of sweetness allowing the Moscato d’Asti to remain refreshing.

Overall it was an great night of food and wine, and I learned loads about Barbaresco, which I think deserves a post of its own.

Caitlin

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Gabriella preparing for the Cata Vino tasting

Ryan Opaz at the Cata Vino Tasting

Well, I can’t believe it, but the Cata Vino tasting has come and gone.  It seems like just yesterday that I signed up to twitter, and started tweeting.  A very good  friend of mine back home, who works in social media recommended twitter.  Who knew that within a few months I would make enough contacts to hold an event in our private room hosted by the very lovely Garbriella and Ryan Opaz from Cata Vino.  Of course it was not on my own that this event came about, it was thanks to Robert McIntosh of Wine Conversation, who guided me in the right direction, and was also there pouring and chatting about wines on the night.

I have to say that I have been thoroughly impressed by the power and speed of social networking sites like twitter, I know some people like to poke fun, when the topic of twitter or blogs comes up, but there is no denying the pull that online communities currently have.  I know I always turn to online foodies for reccomendations as to where to eat and drink.

Another event we hosted in the last week of February, was Dine with Dos Hermanos, luckily the famous food blogging brothers rate Vinoteca high enough to hold one of their dinners with us (they invite their fans and friends to come along and dine with them, I’ll be going to the next one!).  It was an interesting week in the private room, Thursday night a room full of 30 food bloggers, and Friday night a room full of wine bloggers!  The pressure was on! For me, both nights were a huge success, and I was just so pleased that without using any conventional forms of advertising for the CataVino tasting we were sold out, by using only the power of online ‘word of mouth’.  Overall it was very interesting, and I was pleased to read all the positive blogs following both events.  I think, as a restaurant, or any business really, these were very unique chances to hear back from customers, and get some extremely thorough feedback on a particular event.   Being present at both ’social media’ gatherings, and experiencing them from my own point of view, it was great to follow them up online, and see how others perceived the same event.

Tomorrow night I’ll be going to Tayyab’s for dinner with 23 food blogger’s organised by Helen, who writes the witty food blog Food Stories.  Can’t wait to read all of their impressions of the meal online.

If you would like to read about the Cata Vino tasting or Dine with Dos Hermanos then please check out the following blogs, thanks to all of you who wrote about us, and if I missed any please let me know.

The Boy Done Food

Hollowlegs

Lambshank Redemption

Dine With Dos Hermanos

Winesleuth

Spittoon – wine drink and food

Londonelicious

I would like to send out a thank you to Miquel from Casa Leal who supplied all the wines for the Dos Hermanos dinner, he even did a pre-dinner wine tasting for everyone, which you can see in the video above.

Thanks,

Caitlin

Aby and I headed to the Berkmann Portofolio tasting at The Waldorf a few weeks back.  We were running late, but managed to get there for the last hour, where we produced Vinoteca’s first ever wine tasting video.  I am not the most comfortable person on camera, espeacially faced with the challenge of tasting wine, and then trying to express verbally what I am smelling, tasting, and my general impression ofthat particular wine.  What I am trying to tell you in this video is that I like the wine, and that it is their ‘Prima’ Riesling, which is what they call their ‘German’ style Riesling, meaning that there is residual sugar unlike their dry Pewsey Vale Riesling (which we stock at Vinoteca).  How they achieve this sweetness is by harvesting the grapes earlier than the ones for their dry riesling, this way they will be higher in acidity, and when fermenting the wine they will stop before all the sugar is gone, leaving an off dry wine, lower in alcohol, that is balanced thanks to the high acidity, leaving your palate fresh and clean!

Enjoy!

Caitlin