Robert Mondavi, one of the wine industry's legendary figures, has died aged 94. As well as building up his own eponymous empire in the Napa Valley, he also collaborated with the Rothschild dynasty of Bordeaux to create the iconic Opus One.

Decanter have an obituary here.

The latest edition of Hospitality Ireland has an interview with Marco Pierre White, the latest British gastro-celeb to cross the Irish Sea. His new venture, Hell's Brasserie, will open at Harry Crosbie's Point Village in 2009.

Eager to learn from the mistakes of his peers, he wants to be sure that he doesn't offend local sensitivities by only having a token presence in his Irish emporium:

"I'm not going to go to Ireland with that attitude, like certain people do who come from the mainland."

Yup. That's a great way to start.

I arrived back from Vinitaly last night, absolutely exhausted. I was away for five nights, so it was nice to be back in my own leaba again.

To those outside the wine business, the idea of going to Verona to taste wine for five days sounds like a cushy number. Of course, it is an enjoyable and educational experience, and for a first-time visitor like myself, a real eye-opener as to the breadth and depth of wine available from Italy. Up to now my area of specialism has generally been French wine, but my new employer majors big time on Italy, so Vinitaly was a great opportunity to get myself up to speed.

But this was a work trip, and it was five days of hard work. I had to meet all of our suppliers and taste all of their wines, writing meaningful tasting notes that I can refer to in the future as I sell these wines to my customers. Happily, our buyers are experts who have a deep understanding of what Italian wine is all about, so it was no hardship to meet some fascinating winemakers and taste some great wines.

Conventional wisdom dictates that you should taste white wines first and then reds. We decided to do the opposite and taste the big, full bodied reds first thing in the morning. The rationale behind this was that by the afternoon, our palates would be knackered and unable to tackle the reds, and the fresh crisp whites would give us a lift from the late afternoon slump. Happily this worked, and we got through prodigious amounts in the first three days.

Italy is a treasure trove for the wine lover. If you are a fan of international varieties like Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Noir, etc., you'll find plenty to please you. If you like to try indigenous varieties, you won't have to look too hard to find something to pique your interest, whether it's a Nebbiolo, Barbera or Dolcetto from Piemonte; a Teroldego, Marzemina or Lagrein from Trentino; a Montepulciano from Abruzzo; an Aglianico from Campania; a Primitivo, Negramaro or Malvasia Nera from Puglia; or a Nero d'Avola from Sicily.

I have neglected Italian wine for too long, because in my last job it was something of an afterthought. As a result, I never kept up with the advances made in certain areas. Two of the most famous wines from Veneto, Soave and Valpolicella, I had overlooked for years. In my opinion, they were dull, overcropped rubbish. But while that may have been the case when I started in the trade nearly twenty years ago, it certainly is not the case today. I tasted some magnificent Soaves in the last week, ranging from the fresh and fruity to some that were very complex and minerally. Similarly, the Valpolicellas I tasted were a revelation, with lovely ripe fruit, clean acidity and the right amount of tannin. The best of Valpolicella, the Ripassos and Amarones were just stunning. Demand is high for these wines and prices are going up.

But for me the biggest eye-opener was the standard of the white wines. Again, in my ignorance, I dismissed Italian whites as neutral and insipid. But how wrong I was. Again it was a mixture of both international and local varieties. I tasted some gorgeous Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from Friuli Venezia Giulia, alongside local varieties like Ribolla Giallo and Friulano. Even Pinot Grigio, derided as the blandest of the bland, in the hands of a good winemaker can be very special. I especially enjoyed some Lugana, a Lombardian white wine from the shores of Lake Garda. From further south, Campania came up trumps with Fiano de Avellina, Sannio Falanghino, and Greco di Tufo.

Like any trade fair, glamour is sometimes used to compensate for lack of quality. There were several stands with dolly birds out front to tempt the punters in. Some of our party decided to put a mathematical theory to the test, that the amount of flesh on display is inversely proportional to the quality of the wine. And so it turned out to be. If the stunna on the stand has big knockers and is wearing a very short skirt, chances are the wine will be shite.

Evenings were taken up mostly with visits to producers. I love visiting a producer's vineyard as opposed to his cellar, as I think you can tell a lot more about a winemaker from how he tends his vines. Good wine starts in the vineyard, and if a producer gets that right, then the job in the cellar is that much easier.

So in summary, Vinitaly was vast. I was there for five days and tasted about 300 or so wines. That's maybe 0.02% of all the wines in the fair. It was an amazing experience, and I hope to do it again some day.

Living in the Midlands means that we don't have the same access to good fishmongers that we had when we lived in de Shmoke. If you like fish, the only way to buy it is from a fishmonger. (I remember a cartoon, years ago, in The Phoenix with two guys behind a fish stall. One says to the other "Well, don't just stand there - mong, for God's sake!")

I don't buy fish in supermarkets, as I find that it usually has at least a day more out of the sea than I would like. If fish isn't absolutely spanking fresh, it's not good.

These days, what we tend to do is to buy in bulk from a fishmonger, have it vacuum packed and then freeze it. Normally, we do this when we go to Cork, where there are several good fishmongers. The best known of them is Kay O'Connell's in the English Market, who have a magnificent display of fish at their stall. If we're in town and want some fish for dinner that night, we usually get it there.

However, if we're buying in bulk, we head for Carrigaline and stock up at Denis Good's. The main business here is fish processing and wholesale, but they have a retail outlet at the front of the building in the industrial estate on the Crosshaven Road. Our regular order is €100 worth of whatever is on offer on the day. Along with staples like salmon and cod, we include things like John Dory, ray, hake, turbot, scallops and lemon sole in the selection. As soon as we get back to my wife's folks' place, the lot goes in the freezer, and when we're going home, it goes in a coolbag with some freezer blocks.

Some purists will say that freezing ruins fish, and that it has to be eaten fresh. In an ideal world, I might agree, but freezing is a compromise I am willing to make, as the end result is far superior to what I have available to me otherwise.

The other consideration is how to cook it. I look on it two ways. If it's big and chunky like a fillet of cod or salmon, roast it. If its thin and flat like sole or plaice, then coat it in seasoned flour and fry it. Some people don't like fish because they think it's bland. Most fish needs something acidic to complement it and bring out the flavour. It can be something as simple as lemon juice, or maybe a salsa verde (lemon juice, capers, garlic and parsley). But best of the lot is a glass of crisp, dry white wine.

Whenever I tell someone that I work in the wine business, their reaction is usually to say how lucky I am, getting to drink all that lovely wine and all that. To an extent they are right, after 17 years in the business I have had the opportunity to taste (note that word, taste, not scull) some of the greatest wines in the world, often at no expense to myself. I should add that in the course of my job I often have to taste some of the most uninspiring, dull, insipid shite ever to emerge from a vineyard. (Yes, Chilean Merlot, that is you I speak of.)

But enough of that, let's get back to the good stuff. In my soon-to-be-previous job, I used to teach wine appreciation courses. During these courses, I used to warn participants of expecting too much from a special bottle. Wine lovers often hoard special bottles, taking them out to stroke lovingly every now and then, waiting for the exact, perfect moment to drink them. And when that time comes, their expectation is so high that disappointment is sure to follow.

I try to avoid this myself, and whenever I acquire something a bit special, I at least try to envisage a time when it could be put to the sword. I came upon a couple of bottles of Chateau Pontet Canet 1966 in excellent nick a few years back, and bought them in anticipation of my fortieth birthday, as I am of the '66 vintage myself. But fate dictated otherwise, as my wife was in the very latter stages of pregnancy with our beloved Aoife as my clock turned 40. But we did one of them justice this year for my 41st, and very nice it was too.

Even though I have had the fortune to taste some great wines in my career, others have eluded me. I have never tasted Petrus, Romanée Conti, and until Christmas night just gone, Chateau d'Yquem. Like nearly every other wine lover I have ever met, I am passionate about dessert wines. And for fans of dessert wines, Yquem is a milestone. It is regarded as the greatest sweet wine of the world, and the most famous wine of the Sauternes appellation in Bordeaux.

In September 2005, I spent a week in Bordeaux as guide of a wine tour. Once, when I had some time away from the group, I was browsing a wine shop when I saw some half-bottles of Yquem 1994 at somewhere between €50 and €100 ( I can't remember exactly.) Normally Yquem is several hundred euros per bottle, so I said "Sod it" and bought one. I knew 1994 was not a great year for Sauternes, but if it's a really bad year, Chateau d'Yquem will not release a wine under their famous name. So I figured that if Yquem made a wine that year, it must be of a high standard.

When I brought it home, we decided that Christmas would be a good time to give it the chop. The first weekend of December that year, my wife discovered she was pregnant, so that put an end to that. The following Christmas, we were still in the throes of being new parents, and fell asleep on the sofa at 9pm, so the Yquem stayed in its bottle for another year.

But this Christmas I was determined to lose my Yquem virginity. I had the Riedel Sommelier Sauternes glasses cleaned and ready. The bottle was chilled, but not too cold. We had a chunk of stilton to go with it. We opened it, and it was…

…alright.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but it was disappointing. There was a bitter streak down the middle of the palate, and it had no length whatsoever. I can still remember my first taste of Haut-Brion, Lafite-Rothschild, Margaux, Vega Sicilia, Krug, Penfold's Grange. This was completely forgettable.

Mind you, I wasn't paying for my first taste of all of the others. That might have been it.

Perhaps in future I should take the approach of Miles from the movie Sideways, who dispatched his cherished Chateau Cheval Blanc 1961 thus:





One thing I never understood from that movie - Miles reveres Pinot Noir and despises both Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Yet his prized bottle is Chateau Cheval Blanc, a blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. Maybe it's an in-joke or something.

In Lidl yesterday, picking up a few bits and bobs (including their very good Serrano ham and Italian salami), I was making my way to the till along the aisle with the wines. Up to now, I have found the wine selection in Lidl to be atrocious, and normally wouldn't bother even looking at what was on offer. But a couple of things caught my eye this time around. It would appear that they have done a bit of work on their Italian offerings.

I picked up a Teroldego Rotaliano Riserva 2004 for €7.99 and a Vino Nobile de Montepulciano 2004 for €10.99. Teroldego is a grape variety local to Trentino in the north east, and sightings of it are rare on export markets. This one was perfectly drinkable, but it lacked the smoothness and depth of flavour typical of this variety. I'm enjoying a glass of the Vino Nobile as I write this. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made using the Sangiovese grape, and comes from the village of Montepulciano in Tuscany. Considered one of Italy's finest red wines, it usually retails for €20+. (It's not to be confused with Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which is made using the Montepulciano grape and comes from the Abruzzi region to the east of Italy.) At €10.99, this is a genuine bargain.

Also a bargain, and I suspect a mistake, is Lidl's Parmesan. Priced on the shelf at €19.99 per kilo, but at €9.99 on the packet, I bought two quarter-kilo chunks for a fiver. It's the real stuff too - Parmigiano-Reggiano - not some ersatz parmesan-type cheap hard cheese.

Things have been quiet on the blog front for the last while, for one reason or another. Work has been quite busy, with a lot of toing and froing. I have found that I have had a dearth of ideas for posts, and those that do crop up seem like too much effort to write up.

But anyways, I'm on hols at the moment. I'm at home minding the little 'un. My sister, who looks after her during the week is away with her gang on their jolliers. My wife started a new job last month, so she can only get one week off, hence my status as a househusband this week. We will be on hols en famille next week.

The burtda went grand. I was working all day, but we managed to avoid the rain in the evening and get the barbie going. A nice piece of lamb was the order of the day, and we accompanied it with a nice bottle that we had originally planned to open last year on the 40th, but circumstances dictated otherwise. (Pontet-Canet 1966, in case you're curious.)

We were in Mayo last weekend, and took ourselves off to the beach on Sunday. Folly, you might think, but it was a lovely day on Cross Strand near Louisburgh. Not warm, as such, but very pleasant. I love the beaches around there, as the sea can be quite wild and dramatic, and also the fact that they are nearly always practically deserted. This weekend was no different, and with the exception of a few surfer d00dz, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. It was Babba's first trip to the seaside, and she even got to dip her piggies in the Atlantic. Back home on Monday, and since then thankfully the weather has been holding up. Walks at Emo Court are a regular feature of our days this week, and in this weather, it's a very pleasant way to pass an hour.

So what's been going on? I had planned to write at length about the Darren Graham affair, and may yet live up to that ambition. That sort of nonsense should have no place in any sport. Hopefully the GAA will use the opportunity to do something positive.

The recent Irish Times series about "Rip-Off Ireland" almost inspired me to put fingers to keyboard, but so far I have manfully resisted. Maybe next week. Or then again, maybe not.

On the tech side of things, Fake Steve Jobs has been unmasked. Apple have released new iMacs, so my machine is no longer cutting-edge. Still, I got ten months or so on the frontline, so it wasn't too bad a stint. Also, the new iLife and iWork suites have been released. I have ordered my copy of iLife '08 already. And to top it all, my .Mac account goes up from a measly 1GB to a much more respectable 10GB of storage. Once I install Leopard, I will use some of that space to back up all my photos (to go with my current backup regime of external HDD, Flickr and monthly DVD burn.)

Next week is Aoife's first birthday, so there will be lots of excitement to be had. She has a new little cousin as well, who was born just three weeks ago.

Then there's the preparations for the World Cup coming up as well. Loads to write about, just have to find the time.

So that's it. The babba is having a snooze at the moment, but is due to wake up any minute, so I'd better sign off.

Seasonal food is a topic I come back to every now and then. I see it as important, not just from the "food miles" aspect, but also because food that has a short journey from the farm to the plate is likely to be more nutritious than that which has flown long-haul.

Asparagus is something we are used to seeing on supermarket shelves pretty much all year around. The European asparagus season is quite short, only a few weeks, and we are in the midst of it right now. Outside of this season, most of the asparagus you see comes from countries far away like Peru.

I love the stuff. Fresh asparagus, steamed, served with butter, salt and pepper, or dusted with fresh parmesan or smothered in freshly-made hollandaise sauce…

It doesn't half make your wee smell, though.

Tags: asparagus, seasonal food, wee

I have written before on the subject of tasting notes on restaurant wine lists. Most restaurants feel the need to describe what their wines taste like (well, that's not exactly true. They usually get their suppliers to do the describing for them), but in the end what ends up of the list is usually pretentious nonsense.

The idea of describing what wine tastes like is sound, but only when the wines being described actually have some character. In Ireland, seven bottles out of ten come from the "New World" (i.e. Australia, Chile, USA, South Africa, and to a lesser extent Argentina and New Zealand), and most of those have a retail price of €8 or less. Most of them are made (or marketed) by big corporations, and the wine in the bottle is usually a secondary consideration to the brand name on the label. The best you can say about them is that they are bland or inoffensive. If a restaurant stocks one of these, I can't see why they should see the need to describe what it tastes like. A picture of the label would be more effective at communicating the message.

Yesterday, I was in Dún Laoghaire and ended up in Café Mao for a quick nosebag at lunchtime. (I have never understood the rationale behind the name of that restaurant. I can't imagine a restaurant called Café Stalin, or Café Pol Pot, but that's by the by.) Anyway, while I was there, I came across an exquisite example of oenobollocks. A Merlot (always a difficult one to describe) on their wine list was flagged up as this:

Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues. Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices. Intensely vinous, harmonic.

This tasting note consists of three verbless sentences describing appearance, nose and palate. Obviously it was written by someone who has studied wine tasting, because these three things are considered sacrosanct when it comes to writing tasting notes. But sadly, the whole lot is meaningless bollocks.

"Ruby red tending to Burgundy-red hues."
Are Burgundy-red hues feeling a bit poorly, and Ruby red is wiping their feverish brows?

"Intense, persistent with complex scents of spices."
It's a cheap fucking Merlot. You don't get intensity, persistence, complexity, scents or spices with cheap fucking Merlot. You get bleh.

"Intensely vinous, harmonic."
Rule No.1. of writing short tasting notes: never use the same word twice. Once again, you don't get "intense" with cheap fucking Merlot. I should freakin' hope it's "vinous", seeing as it's wine, after all. "Harmonic"? If you ping the glass with your fingernail, does it give a perfect C major? I think the word the writer was scrambling for there was "harmonious", but again, it would not be appropriate here.

There probably is a nice picture of a kangaroo or something on the label of this wine. They should stick with that to sell it rather than trying to describe how awful it tastes.

Tags: wine, Tasting notes