Misquotes

I got interviewed over the telephone a couple of weeks ago for an article being written by Graham Holter in the trade publication Off Licence News. Singer KT Tunstall, who used to work in the shop that I now manage, said in a magazine interview that "blended whisky is "sacrilege" and "deserves Coke". As soon as I read the interview with her I knew someone would be on the phone to me asking my views and asking if that was the company I work for's position on blended whiskies.

Now my personal views on blended whisky pretty much echo Ms Tunstall's - ironically! I really am not a fan of the Bells/Grouse/Teachers style of blend, Baillie Nicol Jarvie is pretty tasty, and the Compass Box and Monkey Shoulder brands rock, but mainstream brands just aren't my thing. I'd go a little further to say that if you put certain supermarket own label blended whiskies with Coke, you are ruining a perfectly good Coke! Having said that, blended whisky is a large part of any off licence's business, and there are many people who love these whiskies, and I made that perfectly clear in the interview. For the company I work for, however, malt is the backbone of the whisky business.

On the whole, I've been quoted pretty accurately. I did suggest that the whisky industry target the gay market (although I did say it off the record), I did say that I did say that selling non malt whisky was a challenge, and I did say that I thought Diageo was missing a trick by not making more of sponsoring Lewis Hamilton. What I didn't say was that I absolve myself of any "blame" for training Ms Tunstall! The context with which this is read would indicate that someone else is at fault for her opinions, which is nonsense. If she dislikes blended whiskies, like I do, that is a personal opinion that we are all capable of making ourselves without any external influence.

Oh well, serves me right for going on the record...

By Peter Wood with No comments

A mini adventure with NS Georges

I have something in common with Enzo Ferrari, Steve McQueen, all of the Beatles except McCartney and Peter Sellars. We have all owned a Mini. In fact I’ve owned four of these little cars and still own one. It is a 1971 Mk 3 850 model with a faded blue colour on the outside and a cat vomit coloured vinyl interior, and it needs a total restoration before it would ever turn a wheel on the roads again. I love minis, aside from being the first ‘super mini’ and becoming a British icon, they are so fun to drive, as is obvious by some of it’s owners, and they are surprisingly spacious. But the thing I love most about them is the smell.

Mini’s have a unique smell. It is a combination of oil, cheap mid seventies car interior, damp rust and a leaking petrol tank that is dangerously close to your rear seat passengers. Anytime I smell the inside of an old mini, I’m immediately eight years old in the red, ‘S reg’ 1000 model that my parent’s owned in the late 1980’s, with the car being driven by my mum, bouncing along the Yorkshire country lanes. I love them.

Conversly, I hate the smell of a Volkswagen Polo. The Mk 3 model to be precise. The smell is akin to that of cheap burnt plastic with a bit of singed dog hair thrown in for the hell of it. I don’t know what VW did, but I really cannot abide riding in one of these cars as nausea kicks in and I want to redecorate the dashboard! The aroma of these two cars evoke such reactions in me and I’m not at all certain if it is all me imagining things or not.

Over the weekend, I tried 2 Nuits St Georges from the 2004 vintage, and like the two cars, both evoked strong emotions – one good, one bad. The Mini of the pair was the 2004 Nuits St Georges Clos des Fourches by Jacques Frederic Mugnier. An outstanding wine with soft, earthy fruit, some herb and sweet cherry, an element like Amaro too on the nose – herbal and medicinal – leading to a stunning, gentle palate of cherry stone, some tea component and a long, dry, soft earthy finish. It was a very, very good bottle of wine and at £29 it was great value. Even the next day, after being open for eighteen hours, it was still holding up well, a little oxidised, yes, but still a stunning bottle of wine.

Then I tried the 2004 Nuits St Georges from Domaine Henri Gouges. Lets not beat about the bush here, it too is a good wine, but it triggered negativity from me. The problem lies in that it is a restaurant wine, which is brilliant if you are having this wine with a meal, but not great if you are a geek like I am and want to savour the development of this wine over time. Initially, there was full on sweeter fruit, some herb elements and a nice minty, sweet cherry aroma. The palate had a bit of milk chocolate, some cherry with a nice herb encrusted liquorice, and a bitter, pencil lead flavour that needed masked by a nice piece of pheasant! The finish was stalky, with some plum skin flavours. Three hours later, I went back to the wine and it was shot. Astringent, mean and vegetal with little going for it anymore. And that bothers me.

When you are paying the best part of thirty quid for a bottle, it should entertain you. The Henri Gouges is like the VW in that it is a great creation, offering exactly what the general punter wants, but falling short of generating any passion, at least of the positive kind! I know that most of this wine will be drunk within an hour of opening, and as a result will please almost everyone, and similarly the Polo will get you from A to B in comfort, but your journey won’t stay with you. The Mini generates passion, each journey you make to Tesco is like an adventure, with it’s go-kart like handling and it’s ability to perform Evel Knievel sized jumps over the smallest of speed bumps, you love driving the Mini. The Mugnier does the same. It might not be an upfront, bang for your bucks wine, that the Gouges does, but this wine takes your tastebuds on an adventure of taste. And like the Mini, it smells great too!

By Peter Wood with No comments