Here's my latest wine Ten Best for the Independent, on roses
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-ten-best-ross-867230.html
There are some terrific roses around, which are perfect for drinking during the summer months, or rather when we have some summer...To my mind, you cant really enjoy rose unless the weather's hot (or warm at the very least) so lets keep our fingers crossed that we might get a few better weeks between now and the end of August, for sitting outside, eating some nice Mediterranean food and sipping an iced rose. They do it all over southern Europe, so why not here? At the moment, its cool and rainy, so....
Unfortunately, I can't recommend the one rose that to me is probably the most memorable I've drunk. It was many years ago, on the island of Fueteventura in the Canary Isles - a curious place that seems more like a setting for a Spaghetti western that a holiday spot - but the local fish from the warm Atlantic is cheap, abundant and fabulous, usually served simply grilled with garlic and a choice of red chili and green coriander sauces, which owe more to North African cuisine than Spanish. And the almost deserted beaches are sensational - or at least they were then. I suspect the tourist hoards may well have made more inroads since. Anyway, one evening, my then wife, Marion, and I had been directed a small village in a sparsely populated part of the west coast of the island, where we had been assured that terrific local peasant food was awaiting us, if we knocked at a certain door, marked Marias (or something like that) After losing our way in the twilight, we eventually arrived in this village - hot, dusty deserted streets, no lighting, a few stray dogs, shuttered houses, that sort of thing. After soom mooching around, we found this door, with a small sign that said Marias (or something like that) in a side street and peered through one of those plastic strip curtains so popular in hot countries. Inside was a small room and what appeared to be an elderly woman, dozing in a chair. There was a far off sound of a television, in Spanish. I was all for calling it a day and heading somewhere more welcoming, but Marion insisted on ringing the bell, mumbling about coming all this way, starving etc. No response. The women continued dozing. She tried again. No joy. Eventually, something stirred deep inside the house and an elderly man came to the door. The woman continued to doze. We tried to say something about looking for somewhere to eat, but the man wordlessly, but welcomingly, ushered us inside, past the dozing one and into a back room, where there were several plastic clothed topped tables and an assortment of chairs. A single bright light illuminated the room. It was pretty basic. He motioned to us to sit down. Clearly this was a place that served food, although with hindsight, I suspect we might have been a bit late in the day for them. Or maybe they just did lunchtimes. The man disappeared into the kitchen and there was a good deal of clunking and clattering of pots and pans. In another darkened room, separated from the dining area by another plastic curtain, what appeared to be an entire family sat on a bed, watching television, entirely indifferent to us. After a few minutes, we were each presented with a bowl of intensely flavoured fish broth, with some prawns floating in it. Fantastic. This was followed by a large platter of chunks of white fish, moistened with the broth and flecked with saffron strands. Again, simple, but fantastic. This was accompanied by a basket of bread and potatoes boiled for a long time in highly salted water, a Canary Islands speciality. And also the point of this story - a bottle of unlabeled, ice cold light pink rose, clearly straight from the deepest recesses of the fridge, covered with condensation and plonked unceremoniously on the table with a couple of Duralex tumblers. It was not, I think, from Fuertaventura, where the climate and soil don't favour grapes, but the neighbouring island of Lanzarote, where the volcanic soils are more fertile. And it was perfect: bone dry, almost acidic, light and refreshing, the only possible accompaniment to such basic, elemental, cuisine eaten on a hot night. Desert, by the way, was a bunch of bananas. And the cost? Well, minimal, obviously. We left, extraordinarily satisfied and with grateful thanks, past the still dozing senorita.
As I said in the earlier posting about moules frites, it was a trip where we ate and drank in a much more elegant fashion at other points, but it is such singular, authentic experiences, where the eating and drinking are inexorably linked with the surroundings and the occasion, that linger in the mind and on the palate many years later.

The International Exhibition Co-operative Wine Society is the worlds oldest wine club and one of the more interesting organisations from which to buy wine. In 1874, the then Government asked Major-General Henry Scott, one of the great family of architects and who helped design the Royal Albert Hall, to deal with a surplus of casks of wine left in the cellars of the Hall after the last of the great Victorian industrial exhibitions. Aided by two other grandees, a distinguished ophthalmic surgeon and a senior official of the Board of Customs, they held a series of lunches to publicise the wines. It was such a success that Scott proposed the setting up of ‘a co-operative company’ to buy good quality wines on a regular basis to sell to members. More than 130 years later, The Wine Society, as it is now commonly known, still exists to buy wines directly from growers and offer them to members at fair prices. Life membership is currently only £40 and seems to me to be a worthwhile investment, since it allows access to tastings, special events and a vast range of dependable wines at good prices - from fine vintages for laying down to cheaper wines for everyday drinking.It also makes you feel part of a small club, even one with 100,000 or so members. Unlike a lot of other wine companies, delivery is mostly free and they will also store your wines for a small charge.
I learnt all this on from Ewen Murray of the Society on a trip last Friday to its headquarters - not, as one might imagine, a set of dusty rooms and cellars in St James or the City - but a modern office block and warehouse in Stevenage where they have been since abandoning their London base in 1965. Here they are currently building a new extension which will create what they believe is the biggest wine warehouse in Europe.
I was at Stevenage at their kind invitation to sample some of the wines from their Exhibition range - around 30 wines specially selected from mostly well established and reputable growers in order to demonstrate the typical strengths of any one type of wine, grape or area. So, they have their own Pouilly Fume, their own Chianti Classico, their Pomerol, their Chilean Merlot etc.... Unlike a lot of supermarket 'own labels' this isn't bargain basement stuff - there's nothing less than about £7.50 and you can pay up to £29 for a 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape, (even more for champagne or brandy) but they do represent terrific value for money and absolute dependable value. Out of the twenty wines I tasted, most were excellent. The standout whites were a wonderfully unexpected Gruner Veltliner from Austria (£9.95) - bone dry, light, refreshing, but amazing white pepper flavours on the palate and the lovely grassy, Pouilly Fume (£13.95), perfect for fine, white fish. Among the reds, I loved the Moulin a Vent 2005, (£7.95) a bargain example of a wine I'd never normally consider drinking, the big, serious, ballsy but biodynamic Margaret River Cabernet Merlot (£14.95), the spicy, Pinotage-heavy Cape Blend, (£8.50) the chewy, oaky, hints of tobacco and vanilla tastes of the Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon (£13.95) and the Gigondas (£10.95) - the best of the bunch, full of the herby,spicy flavours of the south of France.
As Ewan explained over an excellent lunch, what the Society hope is that its members, reassured by their adherence to certain standards, will use the Exhibition range to sample benchmark examples of wines with which they might be unfamiliar and then move onto trying others of the type from its range of 800 wines. Which makes sense. It certainly worked for me with the Veltliner and the Moulin. The Society can be found here: www.thewinesociety.com or 01438 737700

It's amazing what we do, sometimes, in search of the perfect meal. Last weekend, Cathy and I were in Brussels for a friend's 50th birthday party. We had an early start and only some croissants on the Eurostar so by lunchtime, having a potter around the (rather nice) Grand Place, we were starving. Of course, Brussels is one of the great eating cities of Europe, but we didnt want a big, expensive lunch because we were due to eat with our friends that evening and the following day; but neither did we want just a snack or sandwich. No, this was Brussels and we wanted what has become almost the Belgian national dish. We wanted moules/frites. And a beer. And, furthermore, we wanted them in an authentic Brussels brasserie, full of mirrors, faux Belle Epoque decor and genuine locals stuffing themselves with waterzoi and Chimay. But we were in the center of town, in an area populated mostly by tourists. Sure there were many, many places selling moules/frites and some even had the appropriate decor. But I have an absolute ban on eating in places were they have pictures of the food posted up outside and menus which include a Swedish translation (except in Sweden, of course)and some guy who grabs you by the arm to drag you to a table. We walked for miles, getting hungrier, weaker and grumpier by the minute, (it was also quite hot) leaving the tourist area and passing some quite decent looking little cafes and bistros. However, none of them served moules/frites. We eventually staggered into a downbeat, empty little joint, which had a loud jukebox, a television playing Belgian soaps, a friendly waitress and best of all, a sign outside saying 'Festival Du Moule' or something like that. We sat down with considerable relief. Ok, it wasnt the best meal I've ever had, but the moules were plentiful, plump and clearly freshly cooked and the frites were hot and crisp. The bread and beer were precisely what they needed to be. We scoffed it all down. It cost about £10 a head.
That night, at supper in the glorious garden of our friends, we had some great food. The next day at the garden party in the grounds of a small Chateau to celebrate C's birthday, we drank champagne, ate wonderful nibbles, enjoyed a sumptuous barbecue and buffet and possibly the best birthday cake I had ever eaten. It was glorious and made all the better by the occasion and the company. But its not the only taste I shall remember from the weekend.