Magnetic wine magic?Martin Field
No I haven’t tried them – I’m sceptical and I’ve got better things to do with my money.
But others have and report positively –
see
The rage to age wine.
I have cheaper and more innovative ways to prematurely age my wine – here are a few. I align my bottles on a north-south axis on the night of a full moon. Some bottles I place under a rickety pyramid constructed out of an old packing case. One bottle that I had inadvertently situated next to a postcard from Stonehenge for a few minutes was positively breathtaking. A case of red I once kept in the car boot in the middle of summer on the way back from a northerly based vineyard improved so rapidly I had to toss it out.
A friend reports – from hospital – that his house – built under high voltage power lines – is
wonderful for accelerating the drinkability of his wines. He hopes one day – if he gets well -
to savour them. Next time I visit I’m going to ask him to smuggle a bottle into his next
MRI scan as an experiment. In a similar vein another friend says he has had astonishing results by keeping a bottle of red in his brief case next to his mobile phone for an hour or two just before a business lunch.
My next experiments will involve exposure of wine to cosmic rays and consultation with a clairvoyant. For example: Me, “Is this bottle ready to drink now?” Clairvoyant, “Mmmm. Could be corked.” Me, “What about this one?” Clairvoyant “2005 to 2007.” Me “What about this?” Clairvoyant, “A tad tired. Have you tried the Wine De-Gausser? I have one here under my crystal ball somewhere.”
Plenty of words have been written about wine and food matching but little about wine and music matching – in other words, the use of music to create and enhance a suitable ambience for the enjoyment of wine. If you click on the headline above you’ll find an article on matching wine with classical music. It’s a bit toffy for me so here are a few wine and music matching suggestions for the more down to earth type.
Cask (bag in a box) white –
Michael Bolton
and Celine Dion
present selections from the Best of Andrew Lloyd-Webber.
Soft, buttery, over wrought and over-oaked chardonnay –
Muzak to my ears.
New Zealand sauvignon blanc – Always reminds me
of “The Green Green Grass of Home” for some reason.
(Jerry Lee Lewis
has the best version.)
Champagne – Addictive. Cole Porter
’s “I’ve got you under my skin / I’ve got you deep in the heart of me…” rings a
bell. “Another magnum of Bolly please waiter. And two straws.”
Botrytised
whites –
Vaughn Williams’
‘The Lark Ascending
’. Imagine sipping a glass of Sauternes after a decent lunch on a late autumn afternoon in
front of an open fire while listening to one of the most delicate violin tone poems ever
written. (Hugh Bean
on violin cuts the mustard for me). The piece takes its title from a George Meredith poem: ‘…And ever winging up and up, / Our valley is his golden cup / And he the wine which overflows / To lift us with him as he goes…’
Cask red – Rough’n’ready - Take your pick of
AC/DC,
Jimmy Barnes and
Metallica.
Australian Pinot Noir – A mixed bag of uncertain styles at high prices.
The Stones
’
‘(I can’t get no) Satisfaction’ would seem entirely appropriate with these.
Burgundy – Bags Groove
, a laid back blues featuring Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke. Just the thing to suit velvety, if pricey, reds.
Cabernet Sauvignon – Are you an experienced cabernet drinker? You couldn’t go past a
bottle of Penfolds Bin 707 with ‘Purple Haze’ by
Jimi Hendrix
pumpin’ in the background: ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky...’
Bordeaux – Dylan’s “
A hard rain’s a-gonna fall
” and the Band’s “
Tears of rage
” are for reminiscing about the good old days of the Rainbow Warrior and French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll with a goblet of Mouton Rothschild in one hand and a Geiger counter in the other.
Australian Shiraz – Van Morrison’s
Astral Weeks
has a significant jazz feel (Connie Kay on drums) and if ever an Australian style
was ‘…to be born again’ it was shiraz.
Southern Comfort – Janis Joplin and ‘
Piece of my heart
’ are complementary here.
Gin & Tonic, twist of lime – Ella Fitzgerald
singing ‘The lady is a tramp’ while watching the sun go down over Kuta Beach.
Light beer – see cask white.
Beer – What else but John Lee Hooker’s ‘
One Bourbon, one Scotch and one beer
’?
How the other half eat
Flicking through a few books last week I came across a couple of examples of food eaten by the rich and famous. Try these for size.
Fool’s Gold Loaf
– Elvis enjoyed this king-sized sandwich, made by a Denver restaurant, the Colorado Gold Mine
Company. It consisted of a hollowed out loaf containing smooth peanut butter (large jar),
the same amount of grape jelly and a pound of crisp fried bacon. From the excellent The Life
and Cuisine Of Elvis Presley, by Davis Adler, Crown Trade Paperbacks, New York, 1993.
A cup of beef consommé – Consumed daily as his first luncheon course by Herbrand Arthur
Russell, the 11th Duke of Bedford. It was made from “precisely nine and a half pounds of best
shin of beef, and one kitchen-maid only was entrusted with the making of it.” The consommé,
mind you, was for the Duke only, guests were served other food. From A Silver-Plated Spoon
by John, [13th] Duke of Bedford,
- a fascinating and somewhat eccentric history of Woburn Abbey and the Russell family. The Reprint Society Ltd, London, 1960.
How many bottles left
Len Evans once wrote an article in which he estimated the number of days left in his life and
decided that life was too short to ever drink bad wine again. Like-minded wine lovers can now
visit the
Death Clock, enter their particulars and be
advised of their expected use by date. The clock will then start actually counting down the
seconds, minutes, days and years until their ultimate departure.
According to the clock I’m going to cash in my chips on July 14, 2036. This means I have only 12,403 good bottles left to open (at the rate of one a day). Let’s see 12403 by around $20 the bottle…that’s gonna cost about a quarter of a million bucks. So much wine so little time - where’s that bloody corkscrew?
Feedback
Which came first, the cork or the screw?
‘Hi Martin, I may, in my haste, have missed something here, but, which came first, the cork or the corkscrew? If it was the cork, how did they plan to extract it from the bottle? If it was the corkscrew, what did they envisage it would be used for? I'm probably unimaginative but I can't think of any use for a corkscrew other than ripping out a cork or performing prefrontal lobotomies so it could suggest that they put the cork in the bottle without a definite idea of how they would eventually remove it? Not a bad plan if you intend to lie down the vintage until somebody invents a means of opening it but a definite problem if, like me, you are impetuous and can't hold out for more than a day or two, which is why my wine cellar consists of a pile of neckless bottles and some punctured wine casks...premature ejaculation comes to mind...Or did they invent the Champagne bottle and its cork first? Yours thirstily, Bruno of Balmoral.’
Well Bruno, I like to think it was the corkscrew that came first. I remember reading somewhere that in prehistoric cave paintings there is a representation of a simple double helix corkscrew among a few naïve paintings of bison and phallic imagery. The pre-historian who analysed the artwork suggested that the helix was simply an attempt by a bright young Neanderthal to get his or her head around a few prototypical ideas on recombinant DNA theory. “Au contraire!” I thought at the time. This was obviously an antediluvian Leonardo in search of the yet uninvented cork. I rest my case.
Tastings
Angoves
St Agnes 7 Star XO Very Old Brandy About $55 KKKK½
Medium amber. Rich spirited bouquet showing aged characters and lovely oak. Powerful and mouth-filling flavours, sweet spirit, smoothed by twenty years and more in the cask. Finishes like velvet, with clean, nutty and persistent aftertaste. Quality is easily on a par with any premium world brandy.
Diamond Valley
Pinot Noir 2001. Cellar to 2005. About $25. KKKK
Yarra Valley. Ruby red. Both youthful and savoury on the nose, hints of strawberry. Softly
tannic mouthfeel supports solid varietal flavours of dark cherry and strawberry. Long, dry aftertaste will suit substantial food.
d’Arenberg
The Stump Jump Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2001. Cellar to 2005 About $10 KKK½
McLaren Vale. This one was presented masked to the Tuesday lunch table. Comments from eight lunchers included: “Attractive nose and fruit, Soft finish. Appealing nose, nice balance. Lovely wine, good acid, sangiovese? Nutty fruity taste, round. Good strong tannins. Sweetness is cloying.” I thought it was a likeable, soft fruity style made for relatively early consumption.
Seppelt
Chalambar Shiraz 1999. Cellar to 2007. About $18. KKKK
Victorian regions. Medium red, edge of purple. Spicy, plummy nose. Full grippy palate, plenty of grapes in the bottle as the saying goes. Generous flavours of ripe blackberries nicely enhanced with oak. Lovely as a main course accompaniment and with potential for the cellar.
Mount Prior
Durif 2001 (tank sample) KKKK
We tried this (masked) at lunch. Most of the 13 diners (including winemakers, winewriters and others who are often enough catastrophically wrong at identifying masked wines) picked it as northeast Victorian material. A selection of their comments: “Gorgeous colour. Lots of everything. Mocha, liquorice. Overwhelming, crushed ants, intense. Over the top, huge alcohol [14%]. Tank sample, purple teeth stainer. Very drinkable. Go for ages. Delightful. Outrageously ripe wine. Grapey, tremendous fruit. Lovely. Raw." I rather liked it – when it mellows, in a year or two, I dare say I could drink a bucket of it.
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Martin Field
