Sausage and Beer Tasting with the Cambridge Food and Wine Society

Cambridge's status as a tourist centre means that, in general, it is not a great area for eating out as most of the restaurant chains in the centre of town do not have to rely on repeat business.

However, the good news for those of us that actually live and do our shopping here, is that Cambridge and its environs are blessed with a good number of delicatessens and butchers' supplying organic, free-range meat in various forms.

The Cambridge Food and Wine Society had previously held a butchery evening, run by Knibbs Meat Safe, but here was a chance to sample the produce of various local butchers' and delis in a comparative testing of sausages with home-made chutneys and beers to wash it all down.

As a newcomer to sausage-tasting, I was intrigued to learn the basis for tasting and judging sausages - without going into too much detail about the process, there are points awarded for appearance (both cooked and uncooked), level of fattiness, taste, texture and so on. For me, judging a sausage on its uncooked appearance seems a bit like judging a red Burgundy based on whether you happen to find Pinot Noir a particularly attractive sort of grape variety, but in any case there were no raw sausages on display here.

All the sausages had been pre-cooked (some shallow-fried, some poached) and were served cold with chutneys and accompanying beers. On our table, we followed the order of the beers as the sausages were served - I don't know how much thought had gone into matching the beers to the sausages, but they did seem go very well together.

There was an element of "blind-tasting" in the way the sausages were presented - we were given details of where they had come from and had to guess at the meat used plus any flavourings. We then scored each sausage against various criteria and came up with a total score for each.

At the end of the evening, there was a show of hands to determine the top (hot) dog of the sausage challenge. In the end, it was a tie between the "Herby" sausage from Knibbs Meat Safe at Burwash Manor and a "Black Olive, Parma Ham and Pork" sausage from Barker Brothers in Shelford.

For me, the Herby sausage scored well, but was not my overall favourite - that was the Gloucester Old Spot Apple and Cider from Pigs in Parcels, based in Fowlmere, which tasted lovely, had great texture and just the right level of fattiness. The black olive etc sausage I found a little over-salted and actually was my lowest-scoring sausage. However, it was not all bad news for Barker Brothers, as their second offering of the night, called simply the "Special" was my second favourite - like the Gloucester Old Spot, it was a well-made but traditional sausage of pork and sage.

Perhaps the most exotic sausage of the evening came from Andrew Northrop and had a Thai theme, with chili, paprika, coconut and lemongrass. Other more unusual sausages included game from Radwinter Wild Game, a South African Boewors from Baobab Treats and a pork double minced with ginger from Gog Magog Hills.

The chutneys were a mixture of shop-bought and home-made and I particularly liked the apple, orange and walnut, which tasted like a Christmas pudding chutney and was delicious. The beers, a mixture of real ales, stouts and the odd lager were all excellent, but Foreign Extra Guinness deserves a special mention not just as it is somewhat unusual and hard to find but also for its heady 7.3% alcohol level.

A full run-down of the sausages with prices per kilo, beers and chutneys is below:

Sausages

- Knibbs Meat Safe, £6.25, Coriander and Red Onion
- Radwinter Wild Game Co £6.55, Wild Game
- Knibbs Meat Safe, £6.99, Herby
- Pigs in Parcels, £9.43, Gloucester Old Spot, Apple and Cider
- Priors Hall Farm, £9.40, Traditional Pork
- Barker Brothers, £10.00, Black Olive, Parma Ham and Pork
- Waller and Son, £6.70, Royal Cambridge
- Barker Brothers, £10.00, Special
- Andrew Northrop, £7.69, Red Thai and Coconut
- Baobab Treats, £9.09, Boewors
- Gog Magog Hills, £7.25, Pork double minced with ginger

Chutneys

- Apple, orange and walnut (a Christmas pudding chutney)
- Hot pear (very hot !)
- Garlic and apricot (deliciously sweet)
- Red tomato (sharp and crunchy)

Beers

SA GOLD, BRAINS, 4.7%: bright golden colour. After an initial malty aroma, the chicory qualities of the hops come through, with a touch of flint. On the palate that broad, caramel and burnt orange malt character is again quite powerful, but it is balanced by the fresh, leafy hoppiness and a zesty appeal. Dry and fresh in the finish, this is a crisp and satisfying beer. [Short-listed for CAMRA Golden Ale of the Year 2009]

MAPLE MOON HOLTS 4.8% A Silver Medal winner in the International Brewing Awards, this beer is brewed using unique subtle maple flavouring, giving it a rather sweet caramel after taste. A lighter more malty ale perfect for complementing spicy foods.

BARN STORMER BATH ALES 4.5%: Brewed with a mixture of Maris Otter, Chocolate and Crystal malts together with Brambling Cross hops, this full-bodied dark ale is well balanced and smooth with a malty, bitter, dry finish. [Short-listed for CAMRA Strong Bitter of the Year 2009]

OLD SPECKLED HEN GREEN KING 5.2%: There's a distinctive biscuity quality on the nose, and quite complex set of spice, fruit and hop aromas. On the palate the beer is surprisingly light in some respects,though there is plenty of flavour, with more of that shortbread and malty richness and a nice bitter finish. (Originally brewed at Morlands of Abingdon)

BUDVEISER BUDVAR 5.0%: Medium gold colour with quite a persistent white head. Perfumed floral note on the nose at first, before a gentle, grassy hoppiness emerges and just a hint of toast. On the palate it is mellow and smooth, with quite a creamy texture and moderate, subtle hop bitterness. There's an orangy tang of citrus acidity in the finish of this elegant, very drinkable lager.

ORIGINAL GUINNESS 4.5%: This is an Irish-brewed version of Guinness, and it pours a very dark amber which is almost black, with a coffee-coloured head. The nose is biscuity, with a nice hoppy edge. On the palate it is smooth and creamy-textured, with a big raft of bitter, burnt, dark-roasted hop bitterness and good acidity in the finish.

FOREIGN EXTRA GUINNESS 7.3%: Foreign Extra Stout (FES) is brewed with pale malt, 25% flaked barley and 10% roasted barley. Galena, Nugget and Target hop varieties create a mighty 60 units of bitterness. The aroma is complex, with bitter roasted grain, a woody and vinous note and spicy hop resins. The palate is bitter from roasted grain and hops, balanced by dark fruit, with a long, dry and bitter finish with hints of liquorice and dark mysterious fruits, including something akin to sour bananas.

Links

Knibbs Meat Safe - http://www.burwashmanor.net/01_shops_kms.asp
Radwinter Wild Game - http://www.radwinterwildgame.com/
Pigs in Parcels - http://www.pigsinparcels.co.uk/
Priors Hall Farm - no website, located at Priors Hall, Lindsell, Dunmow, Essex CM63QR
Barker Brothers - http://www.barkerbrosbutchers.co.uk/Site/HOME.html
A Waller & Son - no website, located at 15A Victoria Avenue, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB4 1EG
Andrew Northrop - no website, located at 114 Mill Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB1 2BQ
Gog Magog Hills - http://www.gogmagoghills.com/

Wine-swapping

Not to be confused with a reality programme of almost the same name, I got the idea for wine-swapping whilst on holiday in Alsace a few years ago.

Thanks to the wonder (!) of modern technology, a colleague and I found ourselves emailing each other remotely via Blackberry when we should really have been enjoying our holidays. Realising we were both in wine regions of France (Alison was in Bordeaux), we agreed to buy each other a bottle of something local, bought directly from the producer, for a price limit of €10.

When we got back, we exchanged wines and I took ownership of a very nice red Bordeaux which accompanied a traditional roast beef dinner extremely well. My offering was an Alsace Riesling - two actually, as I had managed to get a couple of good examples for €5 each - which is very food friendly, but does not have too many traditional matches.

Alison asked for a recommendation of what she should drink it with and I thought of a couple of possibilities, but plumped for a simple and versatile pasta recipe.

Spaghetti with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and rocket

I never weigh the ingredients for this recipe, except the pasta and all the amounts can be varied or adapted according to taste in any case.

Ingredients for 2 -4 people

Spaghetti or other flat pasta, allow around 50g - 75g dry weight per person

A handful of sun-dried tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes), roughly cut up

A couple of spoons of pesto

A splash of olive oil

A handful of pine nuts, gently toasted

Some Parmesan shavings

A good handful of rocket or lamb's lettuce

Method

Start by toasting the pine nuts very gently, turning constantly in a frying pan until golden brown - they burn very easily !

Cook the pasta using plenty of well-seasoned water in a heavy-bottomed pan until al dente, drain and return to the pan; splash on some olive oil, stir in a few spoons of pesto and throw in the tomatoes, pine nuts and rocket. Stir once more and leave for a minute or so until the rocket wilts.

Serve as either a starter or a side dish and garnish with Parmesan shavings (use a potato peeler and a block of good Parmesan).

If using as a side dish, you can serve this with any easily-prepared, boneless meat, such as good butcher's sausages or griddled chicken breast.

Credit Crunch Wines at the Cambridge Food and Wine Society

The recession may be officially over, but it is always good to get a bargain and there was a very full turnout at the Cambridge Food and Wine Society's "Credit Crunch" wines event to pick up some tips from Robert Hammond, a WSET-qualified speaker and director of RHWine.

Robert outlined a number of strategies for getting good value from wine-buying - this was a much more sophisticated approach than simply going to Aldi rather than Waitrose ! Broadly, the strategies fell into two categories - unfashionable grapes / areas and smarter buying.

Some of the wines had been sold on deep discount and this area of retailing has become something of an art form in its own right. As a result, one has to approach deep discounts with a little caution, as retailing law in this area is quite complex and apparent price reductions may not always be quite as genuine as they seem. One common practice is a selective, artificial increase of the selling price of a product, followed by a widely and highly-publicised "discount" back to a sensible price level. For the retailers, this is something of a no-brainer as they can make very high margins on the artificially-inflated price and also promote the product at its normal price as being a bargain.

In the longer term, this constant manipulation of price becomes confusing for the consumer and undermines the integrity of the brand - there is one well-known Australian Chardonnay that shall remain nameless (but is sold with a yellow label) that retails for anywhere between about £5 and £9. At the lower end, it is fairly priced and a good example of what an oaked chardie should be - however, at £9 it is overpriced and I simply would not buy it.

Another alternative is buying direct from the producer - this is not so easy in the UK, especially if you do not live in the south ! That said, we have at least one local producer in Cambridge (Chilford Hall), plus some more in neighbouring counties. Buying direct from the producer somewhere like France, however, is a different proposition entirely and can be excellent value, even after allowing for the fixed cost of getting there (for more details of buying in Alsace, see my earlier blog entry ).

And so to the wines - the first wine was a cava with a gentle mousse, good yeast and fruit flavours. This was followed by Auntie's favourite tipple - a sherry. Rumours of a sherry revival have been around for a few years, but it has still not really caught on in the way that Pinot Grigio, for example, has. It is however, a favourite of mine in all styles from bone-dry fino and tangy Manzanilla to deep-hued oloroso and luscious PX. Sherry is, in my opinion, a vastly underrated wine and therefore offers fantastic value. This was a Manzanilla, aged in Sanlucar under flor which gives a salty edge; bone dry, crisp and refreshing, it's a lovely wine and certainly deserves more than just drinking before meals.

Next came an English wine, an Ortega (a modern German crossing of Muller-Thurgau and Siegrrebe) and a light Muscadet sur Lie Sevre et Main - the best of the various Muscadet appellations and the "sur lie" tag means it has been aged on its lees (essentially the dead yeast after fermentation has finished) to give a slightly fuller, smoother flavour.

Italian whites can be neutral at best and even super-neutral, but the final white, a Soave proved to be the most popular of the white wines and similar to an unoaked Chardonnay.

The first red was an example of a low-cost country, South Africa, and an unfashionable grape, Pinotage. Ironically, Pinotage is a cross that includes perhaps the most chic and generally expensive red wine grape in its parentage, Pinot Noir. This Pinotage, however, was smokey on the nose with black fruit aromas, deep black fruit on the palate, a touch of cabbage, tar and dark bittter chocolate on the finish. At £5, it is excellent value - if you like those kind of flavours !

Languedoc has long been one of the better value and most interesting wine regions of France; as a result, prices for AC wines in this area have risen and real bargain hunters will look for a (lower classification) Vin de Pays. The Domaine Laborie VDP d'Oc 2008 from the Wine Society is excellent value at only £4.95 (less if you collect it yourself!). It's well made for the price and good, everyday drinking. Fresh red fruit aromas give way to easy red fruit on the palate with some sweet spice and hints of oak. Not particularly complex, but well worth the money.

Italy and California are not the obvious places one thinks of for value wines but the last two wines disproved this - the Aldi Valpolicella Ripasso 2008 had a rich and interesting character and good cherry fruit, whilst the Marks and Spencer Californian Coastal Syrah 2006 from Bonny Doon was a Rhone copy - lots of black fruit, pepper and spice. This was the most popular red on the night and usually sells for around £12.00, but was bought during a 25%-off campaign.

The Wines

Clos Monistrol Cava 2005 - reduced from £9.99 to £4.00.

La Gitana Manzinalla - sells at around £7 - £8 in most outlets.

New Hall Ortega, 2004 - bought at the vineyard where they sell for around £6.50, less on an open day.

Muscadet sur Lie Sevre et Main, Domaine de la Tourmaline 2008 around £6.00 from Majestic

Fattori Soave Classico 2007 - Bought online from Marks and Spencers when they had a 25% sale
Swartland Pinotage 2006 - around £5.00 from Majestic

Domaine Laborie VDP d'Oc 2008 - £4.95 from The Wine Society

Aldi Valpolicella Ripasso 2008 £5.99 from Aldi

Marks and Spencer Californian Coastal Syrah 2006 - bought for £7 from M&S

Links
Cambridge Food and Wine Society - http://www.cambridgefoodandwinesociety.org.uk/

RHWine - http://www.rhwine.net/CambridgeFoodWineSociety.html

Chilford Hall (vineyard section) - http://www.chilfordhall.co.uk/cgi-bin/ch/info.html?domain=info&name=Vineyard

New Hall Wines (producer of the Ortega) - http://www.newhallwines.co.uk/

A Red Bordeaux at Christmas - Troplong Mondot 1998

A while ago, after a couple of years' very good results, my boss presented me with a rather special bottle of Bordeaux - a magnum of Troplong Mondot 1998, no less.

Troplong Mondot is a St Emilion Grand Cru Classe, meaning it is officially one of the top properties on the right bank of the Gironde in Bordeaux where the dominant grape variety is Merlot. Unofficially, it is considered one of the best chateaux in St Emilion with 1998 being one of the best recent vintages.

So, this was a little way above my usual "everyday" drinking and I wanted to be sure to appreciate the wine fully.

Usually, I buy new wines in pairs at least; with the first bottle you learn how the wine develops once opened so that you can serve the second bottle at the ideal temperature and with the right amount of airing, be it straight from the bottle or after several hours in a decanter. With a half-case, or even a full case, you can also see how the wine develops in bottle over the weeks and months between the first and the last tasting.

I once had a couple of cases of Austrian Weissburgunder (Pinot blanc) which matured beautifully from a crisp, apples-and-pears aperitif to something much richer and rounded over the 18 months or so that it took to drink it all.

Sadly, my boss's generosity "only" ran to a single magnum of the St Emilion, but I figured that we could decant half for one meal, then stopper the bottle and finish it off the next day and hopefully at some point during that time, it would reach a peak. So, here are my tasting notes from the 36-hour period during which the wine was consumed and some afterthoughts:

Immediately on opening:

Wonderful nose of cassis and vanilla, smells richer and "bigger" than a more basic Bordeaux; colour still quite dark for a wine of this age; however, first impressions on the palate are disappointing, all acidity and tannic grip with little evidence of any fruit.

With the meal after two hours in the decanter:

Starting to open up now, more balanced with some fruit on the palate, lovely texture but feels a little overwhelmed by the food (free-range slow-roast chicken plus trimmings)

With dinner the following evening:

Keep the food simple this time - roast beef and Yorkshire puddings; wine much improved, has really opened up and feels much more balanced, still has that wonderful cassis and vanilla on the nose, same on the palate with added hints of pencil shavings and mint, good fruit, but not as fruit-driven as a younger wine would be, exceptionally smooth with wonderful texture, continues to improve during the meal and, sadly, seems to reach a peak just as we finish it off.

Afterthoughts:

Before trying this wine, I wondered what it would be like, how it would be different from a €10 Bordeaux - and if I would be able to tell !

Having drunk quite a lot of Bordeaux in general and right-bank Bordeaux in particular, I found it quite familiar on the nose and palate; it did not taste fundamentally different from a ordinary Bordeaux. The most noticeable difference was that the fruit on the palate was not as prominent as with a younger wine.

However, where the wine really showed its superiority was in the texture, the mouth-feel. It's very difficult to describe, but rather like looking at the original of a great painting after having seen only a reproduction in a book - it's all there, all the same, but somehow better, more complex, more textured, more detailed.

It may be just my imagination, but also since trying the Troplong-Mondot, the more everyday reds I have been drinking seem a bit thin and two-dimensional - rather like returning to the family runaround after a lift in your rich uncle's posh German saloon.

****

Troplong-Mondot 1998 is available in the UK - not cheaply, though. One site I found it on suggests it is ready for drinking any time between now and 2017, and that seems entirely possible given how it developed after opening. Magnums generally age more slowly than single bottles (same air gap below the cork, double the amount of wine), so even at 11 years, this one may have been a little young.

We had some other excellent drinks over Christmas including a sweet sherry that tasted like Christmas pudding in a bottle and a very smooth Ukrainian brandy. Appropriately enough, after all that indulgence, my next wine tasting has a "credit crunch" theme.

Links

Chateau Troplong-Mondot - www.troplong-mondot.com/

Wine searcher - www.wine-searcher.com/

International Wine Challenge - blind tasting of trophy winners by Cambridge Food and Wine Society

Wine competitions have had something of a bad press in the last few years with the perception that they are little more than a profile-raising, money making exercise in which the only loser is the consumer. The "anti-competition" argument goes something like this: cynical competition organisers hand out too many medals to undeserving wines simply to encourage more entrants and increase their income from entry fees. The wine-makers benefit as they get to put a medal sticker on their wines and maybe get a little extra shelf-space from the supermarket and the poor consumer is duped into thinking an overpriced ordinary wine is something special.

I think this is a journalistic distortion, or at least selective exaggeration, of the underlying truth; for sure, medals help a wine stand out on a supermarket shelf but the International Wine Challenge has, for example, amongst its judges, 370 winemakers, merchants and writers from around the world, including an number of Masters of Wine, and a rigorous, multi-stage judging process. You may not agree with what the judges consider to be a good, excellent or even best-in-class wine, but a medal is no guarantee that you will actually like a wine, only that it is a good-to-excellent example of that type of wine.

This year, 45,000 wines were entered into the International Wine Challenge and only a select few won one or more trophies. The blind tasting at the Cambridge Food and Wine Society included a sample of the trophy-winners, including the Champion Red Wine, Runner-Up Red Wine and (a popular one on the night) the Great Value Champion Sweet Wine.

There were also the usual few curve-balls, such as the Greek White Trophy wine and the International Viognier Trophy wine.

As usual, the tasting was done blind, with Society members invited to hazard a guess at the country of origin, main grape variety, vintage, alcohol content and price. This made for plenty of discussion and some surprising results. It is worth pointing out that the highest score achieved on the night was a shade over 50%, so there is clearly no GCSE-type dumbing down here !

Most of the wines are available at local independent wine merchants such as Noel Young (who garnered a couple of merchant accolades himself) and Cambridge Wine Merchants, whilst others are more generally available at Waitrose, Tesco, M&S and Majestic.

With, apparently, 40% of all wine being bought between September and Christmas, the list below would make a good Christmas shopping list if you are looking for something special for the festive season.

The Wines

Tim Adams Riesling, 2008 (Australia, £8.99, Tes, 3 trophies)
Domaine de Bel Air, 2008 (Pouilly Fume, £13.99, CWM, NY, trophy)
Laurent Miquel Verite Viognier, 2007 (Languedoc-Rousillon, £13.99, Wai, 2 trophies)
Ktima Biblia Chora Ovilis White, 2008 (Greece, £17.50, NY, trophy)
Vinedos Emiliana Carmenere / Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 (Chile, £7.99, NY 2 trophies)
Bodegas y Vinedos Pascal Toso Malbec, 2008 (Argentina, NY, £7.99, 5 trophies)
Guardian Peak, Lapa Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007 (South Africa, NY, £16.95, 4 trophies)
Chateau Caronne Ste Gemme, 2004 (Haut Medoc, Maj £12.99, trophy)
Matetiq EQ Syrah, 2007 (Chile, Maj, NY, £18.49, 3 trophies)
Weingut Darting Scheurebe, 2005 (Germany, M&S, £14.99 trophy)

Abbreviations

CWM - Cambridge Wine Merchants
Maj - Majestic
M&S - Marks and Spencer
NY - Noel Young Wines
Tes - Tesco

Links

Cambridge Wine Merchants - http://www.cambridgewine.com/

Noel Young Wines - http://www.nywines.co.uk/

International Wine Challenge - http://www.internationalwinechallenge.com/

In search of Terroir: Chile's Vina Undurraga

Terroir is a uniquely French concept, meaning the combination of soil, altitude, aspect, rainfall and just about eveything which makes the local climate suitable or otherwise for growing vines. Indeed, the whole French system of wine classification is based on the concept of terroir - Pauillac and the Côte d'Or are places, not grape varieties.

The New World, by contrast, tends to focus as much, if not more, on grape variety and for that reason, one tends to speak of Aussie Shiraz or Chilean Sauvignon Blanc. However, it was only a matter of time before more forward-thinking winemakers from the New World began to look more closely at the area where the grapes are grown and start to delineate growing areas more precisely, identifying those which produce better wines.

Such a man is Rafael Urrejola, chief winemaker of Chile's Vina Undurraga; the winery was founded in 1885 but has only recently started to focus on the concept of terroir under Rafael's leadership with his "Terroir Hunter" project.

Rafael presented his wines at the newly-established St John's Chop House on Northampton Street in central Cambridge and the event was organised by Cambridge Wine Merchants.

With just one exception, all the wines Rafael presented were from his Terroir Hunter series and what became clear over the tasting is that there are indeed distinct characteristics discernible in the wines from the different terroirs - or micro-terroirs, as each wine was from an area of fewer than 5 hectares. To put it crudely, the wines from Leyda tend to have more fruit on the nose, but are more delicate on the palate, whilst the Casablanca wines are somewhat muted on the nose but richer and stronger on the palate.

Chile is a long, thin strip of a country snaking down the western side of South America - not much over 100 miles wide, its geography is complex, but in simple terms it has the Andes to the west, the Antarctic to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the east (with its cooling breezes) and finally the Atacama desert to the north. Add into this differing soil types washed down the valleys of the Andes, and a lower-lying coastal mountain range giving some shelter from the cooling sea breezes and the variety of terroirs and micro-terroirs is immense.

All the wines were relatively young, mostly from 2008, and all were in screw-cap bottles and were poured without decanting; as a result, many developed significantly in the glass and first impressions needed revisiting after a few minutes airing and swirling.

We started with the Brut Royal, a sparkling wine fermented in tank, rather than using the traditional (and more expensive) Champagne method of secondary fermentation in bottle. It was fruity, refreshing and well-balanced.

Next up was a trio of Sauvignon Blancs from Casablanca, Leyda and Abarca respectively. The first was the most typically "Chilean" of the three, with lots of zesty, ripe tropical fruit, whilst the Leyda Sauvignon had a very herbaceous nose and the Abarca tasted as if it had been barrel fermented, having a muted nose but a generous, minerally mouth-feel on the palate. Rafael explained that the style of the wine is due not to barrel fermentation, but to the effect of cooling breezes from the Pacific, so the grapes ripen more slowly and do not achieve quite the same level of ripeness as they would in warmer climates.

The last of the whites was an oaked Chardonnay from Limari - initially, this was very oaky tasting of buttered crumpets and mixed spice matched with good acidity, but after opening up it became a much more balanced and complex wine. The "Burgundian" section of the tasting continued with two Pinot Noirs which, again, highlighted the differences between Leyda and Casablanca; the first having a typical Pinot nose with cherries and a distinct vegetal or farmyard note, whilst the second was fuller, with more complexity on the palate.

Finally, there were two Syrahs - one from Limari and the other from Maipo. Both wines had lots of fruit, hints of spicy white pepper and a very smooth texture, and again the Limari, being from a cooler climate, was lighter with more red fruit on the nose. By contrast the Maipo was richer and fuller with black fruits; it was for me, the most enjoyable wine of the evening and has even earned a nod from Oz Clarke.

The Wines (all available from Cambridge Wine Merchants)

Undurraga Brut Royal NV (£8.99)
TH Sauvignon Blanc Casablanca 2008 (£10.99)
TH Sauvignon Blanc Leyda 2007 (£8.99)
TH Sauvignon Blanc Abarca 2008 (£10.99)
2008 Decanter International Trophy Winner
TH Chardonnay Limari 2008 (£12.99)
TH Pinot Noir Leyda 2008 (£12.99)
TH Pinot Noir Casablanca 2008 (£13.99)
TH Syrah Limari 2007 (£12.99)
TH Syrah Maipo 2006 (£9.99)
Best 250 wines by Oz Clarke

Links
Undurraga - http://www.undurraga.cl/
Cambridge Wine Merchants - http://www.cambridgewine.com/
St John's Chop House - http://www.chophouses.co.uk/StJohnsChopHouse/index.html

Wine-buying in France; Calais

Does the Pas-de-Calais region actually produce any wine? I doubt it. However, it is still a very good part of France in which to buy wine for the simple reason that it full of hypermarkets and can be done as a day trip from Cambridge.

Calais is a pretty soulless place at the best of times - flat, bleak, mostly destroyed during the war, it is a working port with the refugee centre of Sangatte just up the road. Bill Bryson describes it in his Notes from a Small Island as "an interesting place that exists for solely for the purpose of giving English people in shell suits somewhere to go for the day" and its buildings as examples of "1950s planners smitten with the novel possibilities of concrete".

Hardly an idyllic day-trip then, but Calais' main attraction is its large number of hypermarkets in the Channel Tunnel terminal area known as "Cite Europe".

Whether you are travelling through Calais on the way back to the UK or just coming across for the day, this is the place to stock up on wine if you are looking for some everyday-drinking bottles. Stick to a few simple principles and you can have an instant cellar of reliable, enjoyable wine for a lot less than it would cost in the UK - even if you include the travel costs of getting there.

One of my principles when buying wine is to try and get it as close to the region in which it is produced as possible - and the smaller the wine-producing area, the nearer you need to get to find the decent stuff. Wine-buying in Calais is about getting good bottles of mainstream French wines that are, or at least should be, more interesting and cost rather less that what you'll find in a UK supermarket.

To get the best out of a day trip to Calais then, you need to do the following:

1) travel out of season; Calais is never that nice a place, so don't go for the scenery; out of season, the crossing will be much cheaper than in the height of summer when all the schools are on holiday

2) you do need to buy a fair amount of wine in order to offset the costs of getting to Calais and back; the "working amount" maximum for personal import limits is 90 litres, which is 120 bottles. This may seem like a lot, but is only around a year's supply if you share a bottle with your other half every weekend evening.

3) avoid very specialist, obscure or small-scale areas; if Savoie or Grand Cru Burgundy is your thing, you are unlikely to find much of it in a supermarket.

Better, stick to the larger, more reliable areas such as Bordeaux, the south west in general (Corbieres, Languedoc-Rousillon) and the southern Rhone. A good guide is to look at the volume of shelf space given to a particular region - there larger the shelf space, the safer the bet.

4) choose your price range - in my experience, French supermarkets tend to specialise in in wines at the €4 - €10 price range. Anything cheaper may well be fine, perhaps a little rustic, but if you don't like it you can always put it in the cooking. Anything more expensive is really the domain of more specialist sellers.

5) look for medal-winners in regional competitions; wine competitions have had something of a bad press in recent years, especially the larger ones, but local competitions have a reputation to maintain and medals here really do mean something.

6) choose a good supermarket; Auchan has a wide range of good, well-priced wines from all major areas of France.

7) remember you can stock up on other things too; look for local beers from northeast France and regional cheeses.

8) allow plenty of time for your shopping; there are some seriously big hypermarkets in Cite Europe with plenty of things to look at, so two hours just for your wine is sensible, plus time for anything else

Depending on whether you just go for the shopping or do want something of a day trip, you can also head up the coastal road to Boulogne - with its walled old town on a hilltop, it's much more worthy of a visit and event has a couple of Logis de France hotel restaurants that are usually worth seeking out.

If you are travelling further afield and just using Calais as your base for travelling between Cambridge and France, it is still worth stocking up at Cite Europe, albeit on your way back and not out - 120 bottles of wine are quite heavy and even a big car will feel wallowy with so much weight on board, which is not ideal for B-road cruising during your two-week driving holiday.

Remember that the wines may well improve with age - plan on buying enough for this year and next; a couple can bring back enough wine for a bottle each weekend evening for two years.

Links

Auchan - wine list (only in French):

http://www.auchan.fr/vad/sdv/homeUnivers.jsp?channelid=2902803

Auchan Calais - map:

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=calais&countryCode=GB#map=50.94465,1.81476184&bd=useful_information&loc=FR:50.94435:1.81476:17Av.%20Roger%20Salengro,%20calaisAvenue%20Roger%20Salengro,%2062100,%20Calais,%20Pas-de-Calais

Cite Europe (in English):

http://en.citeeurope.com/vue/form/citeeuropeuk/accueil/accueil.htm

Logis de France

http://www.logis-de-france.fr/uk/recherch/index-ca.htm