Rule Britannia? LondonWineGirl’s very British meal at Union Jack’s

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

Chiswick High Road seems to be a tricky site for restaurants. Quite a few chains have tried and failed to make it work in W4, including Balans and Villandry, both of which are recent disappearances – leaving a gaping hole for hangover-curing breakfasts and bloody Marys.

Having said that, there is a massive amount of choice and some real gems, including the amazing La Trompette and the weirdly amazing Hedone at the top end and blisteringly hot (and yes, amazing) Vietnamese at Saigon Saigon in the more affordable camp. Chiswick is a family neighbourhood, and it’s not uncommon to find yourself shouting at your friends over lunch so you can be heard over the choir of wailing babies and their competitive middle-class mummies.

So when another new place opened a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t totally excited – until I heard they had an all-English, all Chapel Down winery winelist! Union Jack’s is the brainchild of Jamie Oliver and US restauranteur Chris Bianco – the gimmick/premise is all British ingredients, made into flatbread/pizzas.

It’s pretty much exactly what would happen if you threw three random food trends together to make a restaurant concept out of them. I imagine the brainstorming session took no more than an hour (Pizzas! Local sourcing! Celebrity chefs! Hmm – where can we put it? Why not West London – affluent but not too discerning!). It’s nicely, predictably executed, and predictably popular, at least on my visit with LondonWineHusband this weekend.

The winelist is brilliantly simple – the wines are all Chapel Down, from Tenterden in Kent, including their delicious sparkling pink, English Rose, their white Bacchus and even Pinot Noir. The markups are tiny and in my view English wine is still spectacularly good value. I had a glass of Bacchus, which is a German grape that does well in our cooler weather and tastes a bit like a fresh, off-dry Verdicchio.

The food is not brilliant value, at £12 for a flatbread pizza, but passable – I had a chilli freak flatbread with 6 different kinds of chilli that went well with my wine but wasn’t quite as feisty as I would have liked, and LWH had bangers with bubble and squeak, which he wolfed down in a vaguely approving way.

An added bonus was eating counter-style, overlooking the Chiswick High Road – not a bad way to while away a Sunday afternoon! It’s definitely a “come for the wine, stay for the food” sort of place, but always encouraging to see such an emphasis on UK wines.

Best of British, and thanks for reading -

LWG

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Rustenberg Stellenbosch Chardonnay 2010 – wine review

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

The wine: Rustenberg Stellenbosch Chardonnay, 2010
Where’s it from? South Africa
Where to buy it: Majestic Wine
What it will set you back: £10.99 if you buy 2 or more
How boozy is it? 14.5%

Rustenberg Stellenbosch Chardonnay

Ah, spring. A time when in London, people start to wear their sunglasses, resolutely dine al fresco in their biggest jackets pretending not to shiver, and some of our more lunatic citizens (the Aussies) break out the shorts and flip-flops. For wine fans, it also means that we’re ditching the big, boozy reds that we can drink on the sofa under the duvet and starting to think about switching to lovely, crisp white wines.

This Rustenberg Stellenbosch Chardonnay 2010 is an amazing value white wine and perfect for the more summery weather that I’m hoping is just around the corner! Chardonnay has a bit of an untrendy reputation but this is a great one to try if you’re generally a fan of dry white wines in the Pinot Grigio or Sauvy Blanc style. Although it’s from the warmer climate of the new world, it’s about as far away from the big, oaky style Chardonnays of the 1980s as it’s possible to get.

Photographed in the warmth of my kitchen - the Rustenberg Stellenbosch Chardonnay 2010

It’s a very fresh, zingy wine which is brilliant served chilled with seafood, barbecued meats that you’ve had to do under the grill as it’s blowing a gale outside, and those summery salads that you’re starting to wish were a warming shepherd’s pie. This wine is balanced, reasonably priced and at 14.5% alcohol, will ensure you have a warm, rosy glow even if it’s only 8 degrees out in your garden.

Enjoy the season, and thanks for reading -

LWG

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Very Merry

Posted on December 29, 2011 by

Hope you all had a fab Christmas and did lots of drinking! We paired our roast goose dinner with a Meursault Chateau de Blagny (that’s a white oaky Chardonnay from Burgundy in France) which I was too pissed to photograph. Sorry.

Looking forward to new year’s eve (champagne reviews coming soon!) and especially to a week in California in mid January where we’re hoping to spend some time in Napa Valley trying some Cali wines.

2011 has been a great year and I’ve loved reading all your comments and questions – thanks for reading and here’s to a wonderful 2012.

- LWG

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Londonwinegirl’s Dinner with Heston (well, sort of)

Posted on December 12, 2011 by

LondonWineHusband and I went to lunch at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal last week, curious to know whether it would live up to our Willy Wonka-ish expectations of a kooky feast. It’s part of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in super-posh Knightsbridge directly opposite Harvey Nicks, which is an oddly Eurotrashy location for a chef so English and eccentric. The restaurant itself is beautiful, with high ceilings, dark wood floors, clean lines, no tablecloths and amazing floor to ceiling windows with a view onto Hyde Park.

The wine list was great, with loads of interesting choices – we ended up choosing a Riesling from Washington in the US, made as a collaboration between Ernie Loosen of Germany’s well known Dr Loosen winery, and Chateau Ste Michelle, in a lovely fresh and fruity style, the 2008 Eroica Riesling – 55 quid at Dinner, but £17.95 at slurp.co.uk if you fancy recreating the experience.

Eroica Riesling at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

It matched really well with the food we chose – Riesling as a sweeter white wine goes really well with big offally flavours like fois gras, which made it the perfect partner for Heston’s Meatfruit, a pate encased in an orange jelly which looked exactly like a clementine.

Meatfruit - fois gras disguised as a satsuma

It also stood up really well to my second dish, Chicken with Lettuces.

Chicken with cooked, crunchy lettuce - all done to perfection

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is a truly amazing eating experience, and the menu and wine list are full of imagination – it’s definitely on the pricey side, but would make a fantastic Christmas treat.

Thanks for reading -

LWG

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A Wine Weekend Away – Londonwinegirl Goes Slurping in Amsterdam

Posted on November 2, 2011 by

Even the most devoted Londoner has to leave town sometimes, but it won’t surprise you to learn that for a weekend away, access to wine is something I consider essential. We spent four nights in Amsterdam, although it’s a sufficiently foodie place that I get the impression we only scratched the surface of this cosmopolitan city’s menus and winelists.

Wine probably isn’t the first thing that crosses your mind when you consider Amsterdam (everyone has that mate that comes back with some horrific stories about how they became “totally Amsterdamaged”) but beyond the stag groups on red light adventures, it’s an amazingly gastro destination.

I decided that to narrow down options, the best way forward was to crowdsource unmissable places on Twitter (if you don’t already follow, I’m available in more digestable 140 character form here).

Massive thank yous to London’s @winerambler, and Dutch wine people @vinissima, @andrewijn and @perswijn for your helpful advice and retweets – it’s always great to get an insider’s perspective on this stuff and to learn that Dutch wijn-types are just as passionate as those in the UK.

We ended up checking out a couple of wine bars, starting at Bubbles & Wines which was incredible.

It was like a Gucci ad – all wood panels and smoky lighting, with a great wine list including lots of reasonably priced wines by the glass and available in “flights” – 3 glasses side by side to allow tasting and comparison of different wines. The service here was great, too, with real passion about the wine they were pouring and a laidback, unpretentious approach. The highlight here was a flight of sweet wines, including a brilliant port-esque Californian sticky wine from Madera, Quady’s Batch 88 Starboard (it can’t be called port as it’s not from Porto… told you wine-makers needed to get out more!)

A wine flight at Bubbles and Wines

I also stopped into a couple of wine merchants, with one in particular, GrapeDistrict on Haarlemmerstraat, that really stood out – this chain of 12 merchants classifies wine by types of characteristics including “rich” and “light” which potentially encourages customers to branch out beyond their regional preferences.

Funky wine merchant GrapeDistrict

Wine categories at GrapeDistrict

The other wine bar we checked out was Vyne which has a great list, but I found the team a bit less enthusiastic and more snooty than at Bubbles and Wines.

Wall of wines at Vyne

It’s definitely still well worth including in a weekend itinerary on the strength of some great wines being available by the glass, but maybe dress up a little as we received a bit of a frosty reception in our Converse!

Finally, if you fancy some touristy fun, and are open to life beyond the grape, you also might like to check out the Heineken Experience, a marketing-tastic tour of the Heineken brewery complete with free beers.

Hope this post inspires you to a winey weekend away of your own.

Thanks for reading –

LWG

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DIY booze – Londonwinegirl’s sloe gin how-to

Posted on October 9, 2011 by

OK, so sloe gin isn’t technically a wine, but given the open-minded, boozy streak that runs through my readership, I didn’t think you’d mind reading about how to make your own sloe gin.

Sloe gin is one of my favourites – sloes are basically tiny blue plums that, eaten raw, taste like licking a deodorant, but when combined with gin and sugar (and patience, unfortunately) become a delicious plummy, boozy treat.

The essential sloe gin ingredient line-up: Tanqueray, almond extract, sloes, sugar, a fork, a funnel and an empty bottle

1. Find some sloes. They grow wild on blackthorn bushes, which are spiky buggers found in hedgerows around parks and by A-roads. You need to wait until “the first frost” to pick them, which basically means until there’s been at least one properly cold night – generally October. If you can’t be bothered to go and forage for sloes, or can’t find any in your trendy enclave of London, there is a bustling sloe trade on Ebay, where you can even buy “organic” sloes from the rural county of your choice. You’ll need about a pound of sloes for every litre of gin.

A bowl of beautiful blue sloes

2. Prepare the sloes. Once you’ve got your sloes, give them a good soak in salty water to get any lingering bugs off, and then rinse them well. You will then need to poke your sloes, either with a fork or a needle, so that their juice can seep into the gin.

Forking sloes. (Snigger.)

3. Pop your sloes into a half-full gin bottle. You can either decant the other half of the gin into a different bottle for a second batch of sloe gin, or drink it now with lime and tonic, depending on what sort of day you’re having.

4. Add sugar to your sloe/gin mixture – you will need ½ a pound of sugar for every pound of sloes.

Adding sugar to the sloes

5. Add any secret ingredients. Some people add a couple of drops of almond extract, glycerine, cinnamon, orange peel or cloves. You might also like to try a couple of drops of Angostura bitters. Experiment!

6. Shake it up, baby. Give it a good shake now (make sure you’ve put the lid on first, LondonWineDad, if you’re reading) and then a good shake every couple of days for the next month or so.

Already looking a little pink after a good shake

7. Wait. You’ll need to leave the sloe and sugar mixture in for at least 8 weeks before you can sieve out the sludgey sloe mixture and enjoy your delicious sloe gin. The longer you leave it, the yummier it will be.

Here's day one's sloe gin next to a bottle I made last year.

It's thirsty work and since I'll have to wait for the fruit of my labour, I've made a gin and tonic.

8. Drink. Whatever you do, do not drink your sloe gin neat, as it will be very strong but deceptively smooth and sweet, rendering you stupidly drunk very quickly. It’s amazing with soda or tonic, and makes a great addition to champagne or any sparkling white wines.

Enjoy life in the sloe lane – and thanks for reading,

LWG

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D’Arenberg Laughing Magpie Shiraz Viognier 2008 – wine review

Posted on September 26, 2011 by

The wine: D’Arenberg Laughing Magpie Shiraz Viognier, 2008
Where’s it from? McLaren Vale, Australia
Where to buy it: Wine Direct
What it will set you back: £13.95
How boozy is it? 14.5%

What’s it like?

This is a funky Aussie red, a big boozy Shiraz with 6% of the white Viognier grape blended in (black Shiraz grapes + white Viognier grapes = hilarious wine joke about magpie in the name. Wine people definitely need to get out more.)

D'Arenberg Laughing Magpie 2008 Shiraz Viognier

It’s the kind of wine I’d describe as stonking – I’d bought it at Majestic as it scored very highly by wine critics like Robert Parker and Jancis Queen of All That Is Awesome About Wine-Writing but came without the £50 price tag these high scores can accompany.

I cracked it open as I was hunting around for something to serve LondonWineHusband with the mega-spicy burritos I’d cooked him, and it went with the avocado/chilli/cheese/meat combo perfectly. It even had the added bonus of a screw-top, so no corkscrew faffing with avocadoey fingers.

Critics suggest decanting this, but I didn’t bother and it was still yummy. If you’re feeling proper, pouring it into a jug a couple of hours before drinking will make it a bit smoother.

The Laughing Magpie tastes a bit like a mulled wine or mince pie – cinnamonny and really fruity, it’s great with feisty dishes like Mexican or curry, but maybe a bit much for drinking on its own. I could see it going really well with a Sunday roast, too. Perfect for crisp autumn evenings, but at 14.5% alcohol, you should definitely plan for a post-meal nap on the sofa .

Happy drinking, and thanks for reading –

LWG

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