Down to earth drinking - Part III
- Written by Maurice P Lee
"A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine”
The King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar (604-562 BC), was probably the first person to have a wine list, which incidentally is still in existence. Over the years I compiled many wine lists for restaurants, hotels and clubs, and I always included 'Bin Numbers'. These are very important, especially if there are ten different Chardonnays on the list. If you just order Chardonnay, and the sommelier doesn't ask you which one, then you'll get whichever one he wants to get rid of. But if you order by the 'Bin Number', you'll get the one you want. Another problem arises if you order 'Muscat' and the sommelier thinks you said 'Muscadet', you'll get a very different wine to the one you wanted. Always order by 'Bin Number'.
In a restaurant, the host should order the wine, and not the wine 'buff'. If you pretend to know about wines, you could finish up like the Mitchells when they dined at the Petrus Restaurant, Knightsbridge. They ordered a bottle of Margaux, costing £160 (230 euro). They obviously couldn't read a wine list, but they saw the word MARGAUX, ordered it knowing it meant something, but didn't know what. There are 20 other Margaux wines classified in the village, but there's only one Chateau Margaux. I wonder which one of the 20 the Mitchells ordered. It certainly wasn't Chateau Margaux. The waiter advised them to cancel their choice and have the Chateau Margaux 1966. They were shocked when they got the bill and saw the price, £800 for the 1966 bottle. I don't know why they were shocked. Even a 'wino' down on 'skid row' would realise that a First Growth 1966 Medoc would cost around that in The Petrus. I wouldn't have refunded the money like Marcus Wareing did. If people want to be snobbish, then let them pay for it. Realistically they should go on a ten week wine course, and learn something about wine.
This is a perfect example of people thinking they know about wines and when they get it wrong, they blame the restaurant. If you can't read the wine list, ask for advice. Try and avoid selecting a middle priced wine. They're not always the best value. If you don't know the wine, don't order it.
In the same paper there was an article by Michael Winner. I don't know how he heard about the Mitchells, but he sympathised with them, saying they could have bought 12 bottles of Margaux 1966 for £776.28 at Sotheby's in 2000. Yes Michael, they probably could have. But was it Chateau Margaux? He openly admits he knows nothing about wine. So why does he write about it? He couldn't believe a bottle of wine could cost £1,000, but about 8 paragraphs beforehand he commented on a wine costing about £8,000. He says 1961 Ch. Latour should breathe for three hours before drinking. Yet his friend Carol, at the French Horn, opened a Ch. Margaux 1961, which he tried immediately, and it tasted like nothing he'd ever drunk. If I'd ordered either wine, I would have done so the previous day. Then it could have stood for 24 hours, been opened and decanted long before I got my main meal. Carol obviously didn't feel that a 32 year old First cru Medoc needed decanting, so served it in the bottle. Maybe she should have stayed longer at Wheelers.
Incidentally, 1961 and 1966 were both excellent vintages in the Medoc, so why was Mr. Winner complaining about £800 for a bottle of 1966 in 2003 at The Petrus, when his friend Carol was charging £1000 for a 1961 in 1993, at The French Horn. Maybe he doesn't like The Petrus. He certainly doesn't understand wine lists. Are these people for real?
Digressing, Mr. Winner pays £200 (290 euro) for a bottle of single malt whisky and then puts a nip into his coffee. He's not sophisticated, he's crude. He wouldn't use a Chablis Grand Cru in a 'spritzer', would he? Maybe HE would!! Why pay that price for a malt whisky to mix with coffee? You can get very good single malts for around £25 (35 euro). Even a 20 year old can be bought for less than £100. He knows as much about Malt Whisky as he does about wine. Zilch!! Mr. Winner, you contradicted yourself many times in that article, and gave such bad advice to diners, that if I were you, I'd stick to commercials.
Any comments? e.mail : truda-anne@treleon.freeserve.com
By Maurice Lee
