Bobby Moore's Almanac

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2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣0️⃣ Vision.
Herebe the MP2020 Almanac for the rest of the year.
(Some fluidity in temporal shifts possible).

🎸☔
June - Glasthomebury celebration regarded as the best Glasto in 50 years. Creedence play surprise Pyramid stage set to the friesians and the Eavis family, 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain' ushers torrential floods in the Shires, Sofabury becomes Raftbury.
Northern England, Hosepipe ban enforced via Track & Trace. Record weekend visitors to theme parks, Skeggy, and Blackpool. Newcastle go 2nd in Premier League. HS2 planning sees mass migrations from London to post-industrial heartlands. Shortage of garages for rent with surge in garage-rock bands.

⛺⚽
July - Staycations and camping become keeping up with the Jones's. Elon Musk in talks with Mike Ashley. Blackpool requisitions Donkeys all the way to Bethlehem. 🥕
Hosepipe ban in t'North becomes bath-time ban. Bathing in the Mersey on Sunday only. UEFA Champion's League cancelled amidst global pandemic, Liverpool FC retain title. Klopp reported to say "Boom". 🏆

🏖 🦀
August - Scottish beaches record warmer waters than Antigua for the first time amidst global heatwave. English having to quarantine at Gretna Green until test results become available. Scotland sending them to Dunedin, NZ causes unnecessary delays. Necessary, the Scottish say as they advance talks to return Berwick-on-Tweed to Scottish hands. Tyres melting on tarmac in Tynemouth. Elon Musk reports irregularities in Newcastle FC's book-keeping.
Craft ale producers switch to two core lines of a lager and a rhubarb saison. Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and Cornwall on target to produce record harvest as Champagne is beset by two months of rains and boar infestation. 🍇🐗
Skeggy sees a housing boom.

🇺🇸 🐥
September - COVID19 recedes in UK consciousness despite becoming the World leader, outstripping USA. Hancock pours ice on trade talks calling Trump a loser amidst death toll reports.
First chlorinated chickens hit the UK shelves. Public fury as the Chickens turn purple after two days of refrigeration.
The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express go into administration. Murdoch launches Fox News in the UK amidst riots. Thames estuary underwater.
Prince Andrew stands trial in the USA, will he spill the beans on Trump to save his bacon? 🥓
Man City deemed to have contravened FFP regulations, the B team makes the A team.

🛸✂
October - Chanctonbury Ring becomes a mecca like Quatermass/Close Encounters as U.F.O. activity becomes a nightly light show. Productions range from mininimalist tonal programming to ensemble pieces not heard since Tangerine Dream. All roads in are blocked, thermos flasks advisory.
Barber shops offer one cut only in order to clear the backlog of Yetification during lockdown. The crew-cut is elected by the scientific body, though sideburns can go untouched. Crosby, Still, Nash & Young reissue 'Almost Cut My Hair' as 'Mostly Never Cut My Hair', Neil Young is given free rein to light up his guitar with the use of agent orange thus concluding a 5 minute freak-out. Half Man Half Biscuit head the charts with their single, 'Scratch & Sniff'. 👨🍪 

UK Airlines go into admistration. Duty-free sold off as buy one get two free. Uniforms available on eBay.
Global heatwave sees an Indian summer become a Kerelan summer with a surge in banana leaf cooking.

🥧🚍
November - Guy Fawkes Day is commemorated with the accelerated displacement of centralisation, Westminster sets up home in the Royal Liver Building. MPs expenses are further restricted to menu choices of Scouse or Pie-of-the-Day and Chips. Catering provided by homeless incentives to reintegrate into society. Expenses will only cover travel by National Express. Whitehall moves into the Cunard building.
Probe Records enjoys continued resurgence in vinyl sales and moves back into its original home at Button Street. Now licensed, communication with the ghost of Pete Burns is reportedly seen when imbibing Absinthe.
God visits Yorkshire. And decrees cricket the second most important sport in the UK when speaking via Zoom. Also, the best Breweries in the UK by divine acknowledgement. 🇬🇧

🍻🍫
December - The UK booze tolerance has seen massive increase during COVID19 lockdown, craft ale producers switch to two core lines of Imperial Stout with min. abv 12%, and DDH DIPAs. Competitions are open to minors to fashion new recipes. A winning entry by Zach, (7) from Cleethorpes with a Liquorice Allsorts Chocolate Imperial Stout is fully endorsed by Bertie Bassett. A Phileas Fogg-inspired round the world trip is the prize. Fortunately, this can be taken instantly as global weather patterns see record temperatures, the British winter with prevailing westerlys, some mist and murk, but largely warm with drip-drip-drop little April showers.
Amazon go into administration with closure of tax loop holes having been called to pay back unpaid taxes to 2010. A good job Brexit was cancelled is the national sentiment.

Rhubarb | Rhubarb | Rhubarb

Once upon a Rhubarb time, there was Rhubarb a strange and idiosyncratically Rhubarb British movie, given over Rhubarb to little Rhubarb in the way Rhubarb of narrative Rhubarb development. One need not Rhubarb have noticed, it got filed Rhubarb somewhere in the memory banks Rhubarb labelled - Rhubarb.

Then the pesky mutt, Roobarb came along, diddle de der diddle de der, diddle de diddle de derr... and his cohort, Custard. They smiled, and scampered along. One was pea green, the other day-glo pink. A show lasted a keen 5 minutes long. Once seen, it's never forgotten, which is neither/neither a good or bad thing, it just is.

Neither film or cartoon informed our culinary or brewing traditions, they were nevertheless a somewhat British quirk of creativity. 

Which brings us on to some craft ale tipples...

Brasserie Saint-Germain & Nøgne Ø, Rhub' I.P.A., Edition Limitee 6.9% abv

Cloudy, very keen head topping, moderate carbonation adds lift to spangley aromas and summer pudding-like flavours of red berries + exotic fruits + herbs, + bready malty esters. 

Dans le bouche, sweet rhubarb (not sour), papaya and guava meet a creamy and malty mouthfeel, with rich caramelised rhubarb tatin on the finish. Yes+

Omnipollo, 411 Magic Numbers 6% abv

Cloudy and opaque (like sandwater), an I.P.A. with saison-like fine carbonation, green resinous sage leaf (and hemp) nose, beneath which lurks a fine seam of sweet strawberries, rhubarb, red berry flavours and a creamy mouthfeel from lactose. Clever, not 'alf!

Mad Hatter Brewery, Rhubarb & Custard 7% abv

Take a bretty Saison from wheat and oats, add lactose and hops, muddle in some forced Yorkshire rhubarb (from the Yorkshire triangle of growers) and treat your fans generously with some fresh vanilla pod. Et Viola, Rhubarbe et Crème. 

A funky bretty nose leads in with earthy vegetable patch tones, a keen effervescence is married with a fresh-as-a-daisy palate, clean and crisp to a tee with sourish rhubarb fruit lending a foil. 

One to repeat > cap > refresh > repeat.

FYI - In the Rhubarb Triangle (area between Morley, Wakefield and Rothwell) there are now only around 12 growers.

Both of these two below are public nuisances.

Hard Sun

A light has gone out. Vanquished, and never to return. Aside from the near and dear, who would notice? Gavin Clark was a singer/songwriter best known for work alongside Sunhouse, Clayhill, and a latter-day U.N.K.L.E. vocalist. It's a name that barely registers in the zeitgeist, amongst the clamour to be heard, the hipper than thou, the fakes and fraudsters, the hullabaloo of the market place. Gavin Clark was free of such trappings. An authentic. A songsmith cut from a different cloth. A Southerner who found home in the urban North of England, in Staffordshire.

There's something truly arresting about seeing an Original in live performance. My epiphany came seeing Clayhill support a Beth Orton tour at Glasgow's ABC, circa 2006. A voice, at once gruff, battered, weary, lived in like some old stained and frayed jeans. Comforting, and unique. The delivery was affecting. The subject matter personally experienced, full of emotion, resonant, universal yet set to a frequency few would hear. Eddies and tidal currents rising and falling through song. Broody, largely introverted, imagistic at times, an English Original.

I've said Original twice already, but not alluded to the light; the glimpse of moonlight through a parted curtain when hope glimmers and shimmers to a sick, dog-tired, hungover or strung-out cosmic dance. The last laugh is on the songsmith. The Sun is hard, perhaps one of the finest songs Gavin Clark crafted, 'Hard Sun', a paean to fresh starts with nothing but wits to rely on, and on 'Hector's Laugh' surging piano chords buoy a song where "the light is going out on the sun". There's songcraft from the twilight of consciousness. 'Monkey Dead' is probably the best drug addiction survival song, in a lineage that includes Neil Young's 'Needle and the Damage Done'. Death is close in a broody spectre, friends have fallen, mortality is a ticking watch. The human experience is one of fragility. Yet the song lives on. 

Gavin Clark communicated the difficult songs, wrenched from experience like some rare metal that has yet to be recognised and classified. File with the Tim and Jeff Buckley if you will. A Post-Millennial Nick Drake. Gavin Clark wasn't a tragic 27 year old doomed romantic whose life was shortly curtailed. I can't comment whether Gavin Clark suffered for his art, but I do know a pugilist in the face of adversity, and Gavin was a sparring partner, whose song is unfailingly affirmative.

There's songs of glee as in 'Buy Me A Suit' like some Beatles' 'Abbey Road' out-take, or 'Beard' with xylophonic chimes to a cartoon strip-like ditty, and the effusive punch-to-the-air of 'Grasscutter'. The best work may well have been saved until last with the yet-to-surface-release, and tracks 'Years Have Loved Us' and 'Calling In the Cards' from the solo album, 'Beautiful Skeletons'. Light is dark, dark is light, the twain have met. Shane Meadows' documentary, 'The Living Room' goes a long way to capture the difficulty that Gavin Clark faced in performing his own songs with an audience. A fright that belies his articulacy.

I feel saddened by Gavin's loss. A loss that is paltry compared to his Family, Friends and band associates. I'm just a long-term fan, a true appreciator. Perhaps a Kindred Spirit. And I never did say "Thank You" to him for the songs that resonate and speak to me. 

"Thank You for the music, Gavin. You were one of a kind. Rest in Peace, Fella"!

The Bouche is most amused!

The Wild Beer Co, Amuse Bouche

Brewed with zest and vigour, plus wild yeasts, thence matured in Burgundian Chardonnay barrels, sporting an oxidative character with high VA, and a sweet n' sour finish, this is a most vinous ale. 

Is this a natural wine,

Is this brettanomyces,

Caught in a farmhouse style,

No escape from the wild yeast.

Open your nose,

Look up to the rafters and beams,

I'm just a humble ale, I need no salinity,

Because I'm easy style, easy quaff,

Lambic style, a little doff,

Anyway the yeast goes, doesn't really matter,

if pithy, to zesty.

(apologies, you know who).

Characterful, charming, most beguiling, could be!

something missing

Mikkeller, Drink'in The Sun, American Style Wheat Beer 

brewed at De Proef Brouwerij, Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium

Something is missing. Was it even there, was it taken out? Lurking, forgotten in the cupboard and waiting for it's moment to sing, this cheeky low alcohol number from Mikkeller got the synapses firing, the taste-buds a-tingling, excitement at the thought of a tasty bevvie in this combat zone between #DryJanuary vs #TryJanuary. Drink and be glad, even if it is 0.3% abv and has you hoppy mad!

Any good? Yes! Surprisingly, unfathomably, verifiably good. Rarely has low alcohol beer tasted so exciting. Orangely and tawny hued, there's pronounced muscat-like floral aromatics from Amarillo hops, a candied citrus swirl, a deliciously refreshing palate with a dry bitter-lite finish and a delicate carbonation. 

Low alcohol/negligible alcohol beers are normally some bastard off-spring that would be the swill of Temperance Society members. Happily, we too are gifted, and our choices are elasticated. Abstinence, even momentarily, has a new gravitas!

Shnoodlepip by Wild Beer Co

Shnoodlepip by Wild Beer Co + Good George Brewing Co (NZ) + Burning Sky Brewery - 6.5% abv

Once upon a time, there was ale, and there was wine. And never the twain shall meet. Then a dining scene took the palates to hitherto unexplored reaches, and this shook the foundations of common or garden dining. And it shook the manner and authenticity of wine in its  fermenting, its ageing, the multiplicity of flavours having signatures as well as sense of place, and woe betide heavy handed manipulation. Brewcraft too explored recipes, Belgique and European heritage, and was prepared to diversify, to boldly take on flavour studding and arrive at complex, dining enhancing beers. These are, indeed, the best of times.

Shnoodlepip, sounds like a Dickensian miscreant. It isn't. It is funky, for sure, funky, sweaty fruit and feral on the nose, clean, linear palate, brettanomyces and subtle spice over a moderately carbonated Saison. Spelt grain is used to lend body, Pink Peppercorns an aromatic spice, Saison and Brettanomyces yeast strains bring a dry spicy character, and finishing with wood-ageing in French red wine barrels for 3 months before a chock load of Hibiscus Flowers complete the brew. Well-toned, this is a 1* Michelin Beer, correct, held in check, sour notes matched by full flavour and twisty windey spice notes, exotic fruit flavours of passion fruit, papaya and guava. I've heard it touted as the World's best beer. It isn't. But the brewers and their experimental edge may well ruffle feathers, garner plaudits and make for great dining beers. It's another meeting place where funky Natural Wines meet Brewcraft, where flavour spectrums inform each other. Which, I suppose, is a love-song of sorts!

Siren Bière de Gouttière, Belgian Saison

Poor man's Champagne, Siren Bière de Gouttière, Belgian Saison 4.4% abv - it's gout! I'd get oot more often if the beverages were as gout as this!

hazy, bone-dry, pin prick carbonation, delicate, refreshing, wood shavings, herbaceous (burdock root!), thyme, dryed grass, sous bois woodland. Easy brew!

Collab brew by Siren + Jon Laffler from Off Colour Brewing (formerly of Goose Island, Chicago).

F.e.S.T.i.V.a.L.

One goes to Festivals, one has been to Festivals, each one unique, each the epicentre of the extraordinary.

A mood-setting Festival Playlist is -

a very serious affair

meant to excite (oneself, if no one else)

to bamboozle

to be broader than the horizon

A mood-setting Festival Playlist -

should weird you out

and pump you up

make you wanna groove

embrace the un-familiar

A mood-setting Festival Playlist should -

mix the high-octane and the shit-hot

acknowledge one's musical heritage

know all too well that man lives not be bread alone

be a soupçon, a taster to galvanise the palate

A mood-setting Festival Playlist is -

a point in time, a pre-prandial

foreplay

a roll in the hay

an auditory buzz direct to the pleasure receptors, a kick start to the synapses

Saperavi, earthenware, and Ruby Wax

Saperavi Vita Vinea by Generation, Kakheti, Georgia 2011

Why be bothered about an ageing vessel? Buried pots, at that. When the juice is this good, this satisfying, one had better sit up straight. The spotlighted wine was aged and fermented in Qvevri (sunken clay amphorae lined with beeswax), the time-honoured tradition of winemaking from the country with the longest unbroken history of winemaking, Georgia. 

One gawps, noting a rich ruby core with a youthful garnet rim, starbright in appearance with stained tears and a medium+ viscosity. On the beak, there's compote black fruits, damsons, blackberries, some dried fig, pomegranate, tobacco leaf, herby sage leaf, Bertie Bassett candied liquorice; and quaffing, one notes an appealing sappiness, coupled with a most remarkable tannin structure. Where wood aged wines may show a long-chain tannin structure, this wine has a kind of reflex relay switch between astringent grip > juice > more grip > more juice. Cascading, and generous, there's oodles and cornucopias of primary fruit, not a hint of brett or funk, a most beguiling, satisfying glug.

Pegasus Bay, Waipara Valley - with age, the song stands the test of time.

With awareness, care, and delicacy, the Opera Singer fine tunes their instrument, their voice, ready for performance with nuance and power of expression. An aged wine also often calls for the care and aeration that decanting offers (sedimentation aside), allowing the wine to relax, spread its' wings, find its' voice.

It's high time for a rebuttal of the economically driven tendency to infanticide of wine releases fresh from the bottling run of the winery - the rush to market of wines just out of barrel, slurped to bottle and hoofed to bonded warehouses, ready to go, eager to be paraded, seldom to be cellared. Pinot Noir possesses about it that most graceful of ageing potentials that's anathema to the (all too New World) tendency to drink wine in its' infancy. Who pays for the cellaring is open to conjecture, but it's a given that that time and expression can be the most suitable of bedfellows, that the complete evolutionary arc may be realised, or at least glimpsed.

Visiting from New Zealand, Pegasus Bay and Ed Donaldson gifted a wonderful opportunity to showcase the ageing potential of wines from a top New Zealand producer spread over a different ranges of wines, different cultivars, and multiple vintages all the way back to 2001.

Estate Pinot Noir - showing earthy sous bois undertones, red fruits and raspberry pips, long-chain tannins are indicative of this quality range. A notch up from the Main Divide range which show great value, primary fruited but with good grip and structure.

let's get serious - served from Magnum estate Pinot Noir 2001 - still with a wonderful acidity, truffley and earthy sous bois, earl grey tea, sage and garden herbs, top medium+ length, serve alongside a village Gevrey Chambertin and take your pick.

made in only the best years, Prima Donna is the Reserve range of oldest vines selected from the best barrels in the best vintages. Bringing an extra meaty savoury dimension to fruits of the forest, there's real depth and layers, roasting meats, sage and thyme herbs, good tannic grip and retaining a marked acidity, these are masculine and flex muscle, able to stir like Pavorotti.

Auslese style Riesling with some botrytised fruit for added lusciousness and richness, honeyed citrus and a medium+ acidity make for toothsome wines with poached sweet orange and baked apple fruit, age begets wines of fine song. 

Encore, take a bow. Trockenbeerenaulese style, 200 grams/litre residual sugar juxta zippy acidity, the song never ends.

...and finally, Finale. Barrique matured Noble Semillon only produced in years nature permits, from old and new French barrels and aged for 2 years. Oxidative rancio fruit with candied fruits, barley sugar, burnt sugar and savoury nut brittle, it's a food match playground. 

'tis the season for les saisonniers

Potlatch by Omnipollo X Prairie brewed at De Proef Brouwerij, Stockholm 7% abv

A seasonally adjusted Saison, aka a Farmhouse Ale hopped exclusively with Mosaic and refermented with brettanomyces, the funky duck walk stuff.

Frothy foamy head with a cloudy body from bottle conditioning, full straw/pale amber in colour.

Earthy aromas of hay and composting grass, bready esters, bakery wafts.

Palate is dry, all fresh with a zingy moderate carbonation and forward flavours of lemon ginger punch, bergamot, creamed honey, with seasoning (saisoning) of white pepper and clove notes, medium minus bitterness, malty body carries the beer with delicacy. 

The workers will be happy and productive, loyal too.

Voodoo Chile - gazing through a glass, kaleidoscopically

De Martino Viejas Tinajas Muscat 2012 Valle del Itata

One begins, like all great adventures, noting the colour, the appearance of the wine before thee. Amber core to pale rim, translucent, cloudy. The wine in question comes from ungrafted vines aged Viejas Tinajas, in old terracotta amphorae with minimal intervention. The Romans would be most pleased to see that it's not just their roads that endure. 

From there the journey meanders, most unexpectedly, and one is reminded of that most spectacular SP68 Zibbibo from Arianna Occhipinti of Sicily, a former Top 3 of the Year circa 2012. Aromatic and fragrant with a medium+ intensity, this is a shapeshifter, a kaleidoscopic wine that reveals a panopoly of aromas. At first sweet orange blossom, jasmine, poached pear, herbs, anise, quirky notes of ready rub tobacco and cherry lips, a complex fruit basket of varying proportions.

The palate reveals texture, dry with a sweet core, there's ruffles of grip, explosions of flavour that mirror the aromas, a moderate acidity carries a wine that has a finish to infinity and beyond. One follows trails of flavour that tease and cajole, this is a wine that doesn't want to be understood, but appreciated, like a journey that doesn't end, but begins with another journey. 

One is exhilarated, and there's change in the pocket. This isn't a fine wine, this is an extraordinary wine. For that, we give thanks.

briney the coastal brew

Er Boquerón - Beer with Sea Water, hailing from Spain

Let's cut to the chase - how many lagers do you want to not end? This is a brew that ends all too soon! 

techy stuff - 

low carbonation from double fermentation, brewed with 4 malts and Mediterranea, which made its debut in 2012. Mediterranea is extracted from pure Mediterranean seawater and is designed to imbue foods with the taste of the sea, as well as to boost the nutritional profile of dishes with naturally-occurring minerals. 

Aromatically complex, beguiling. Sea salt and herb foccacia, a vapour trail that's less the much-touted iodine trail, more a malty heart, muted palate, clean, dry finish but good length. Interesting! Very interesting!

if you've got it, flaunt it, and hang'em out to dry!

Ger'onimo! Beavertown in Collaboration with Jameson Irish Whiskey

Limited Edition Imperial Stout aged in Jameson Whiskey Barrels - 9% abv

and very very pricey!

So, if beers were Superheroes, which they never will be, then this is The Incredible Hulk. Ripping at the seams and lacking in sartorial eloquence, it's a bruiser! A Weeble Wobble of gigantic proportions. Thing is, Imperial Stout, hello, this is my cookie, my deep-fried cod, my number, my personal preference - power, richness, viscosity in equal measure. All present and correct - umami, spice, black jacks, bitter sweet, a knuckle duster to the palate. 

This is an arranged marriage, someone's got the bucks. Like a drag impresario Dolly Parton, all up front, F-cup, get a load of my flavours, tottering on platform heels, either this needs time, or the beer is out of balance. 

At this expense, one needs a head-check, leaving a feeling of disappointment. 

funk is a feeling!

Rare brew with the new fangled Spiegelau IPA glass -
Magic Rock Brewing, Farmhouse IPA in collaboration with Lervig Aktiebryggeri (Norway) -

Belgian yeast and brettanomyces (brett), funky it surely is in a hugely palatable way (cutting up the dance floor of the palate), sourdough bread, spiced ginger cake/pain d'épice, funky fruity hoppy aromatics. Very tasty,!

Wonderful design technology on the glass - like the bulb at the end of a yard of ale, there's a flow into the larger part of the glass vessel, and with each sip, a wash-back that ignites the aromas. Sensory enhancement!

I wanna paint the future, paint it black...

black is the colour of my true love's hair -

Bearded Lady Imperial Brown Stout by Magic Rock Brewing 10.5%abv

like a Turkish massage with knuckle dusters on, you cannot hide. low carbonation, ultra high engine oil viscosity, black jacks, chocolate sorbet, coffee and prune cake, sous bois, savoury bouillon, umami finish. relish!

memorable, like a train ride in a foreign country.

there ought to be a law against you comin' around, you should be made to wear earphones!

Worlds End by Ilkley Brewery - whisky aged chipotle chocolate stout

this is the way the world ends, not with a whimper, but a bang! (sorry T.S. Elliott)

not for the faint-hearted, a chipotle spiced chocolate stout that spends 9 months in 15 year old whisky casks, it's freakin' Islay casks - hello! It's a marriage a la Burton and Taylor, and gives great copy. There should be a law, but imagination has no laws. And it works, like spinning plates. Like a souped up custom car, this boy is klaxon horns, cow bells and a rollicking tune. 8% abv. Aromatically complex, rich, peat smoke, malt and chocolate, low carbonation, smoked kippers washed under tides of umami tainted Cocoa. The results are imperious!

Doff your cap to imagination and it's' successes! 

Top Hat and Tails - Elegant, Old European Riesling

Think Riesling. Pause for breath. Think again. The palate salivates at the thought. The salivary glands are ignited, kick started, there's a wrestle to pull a crab from its' limbs, to unhook and fillet a fish for the catch of the day, or indeed, another rotation on the suckling pig in gustatory anticipation. Rieslings, indeed, to be cheerful (part 3). The mind roams to the thirst quenching slurp of lime and lemon fruited Riesling, razor edged acidity. a bare-knuckle fighting white... And we mentally roam the lands, geographically flanking the unspeakably pretty Alsace, cartwheeling the slopes of the Mosel, donning a sunhat for Clare and Eden Valley, maybe checking in with Washington State, Hi to our Kiwi cousins... Hello, that means a gross omission - what about Austria's other white grape? 

2002 Prager Riesling Smaragd 'Klaus', Wachau - an Archduke, a European Aristocrat...

What's happening in the glass? Pale gold, still showing a tremendous medium+ acidity, haunting aromatics, baked apples, beeswax, quince, poached peach, lime, hay, lemon citrus squeezed over quartzite rocks. 

Anticipation is a strange bedfellow, and to be flirted with. Indeed, this was a blanc that was personally cellared some 10+ years. This wine comes on the back of an old listing, circa 2004, where the vivacious fruit, searing acidity and mineral purity were the heel stone.

Dish du Jour - drawing from Central European culinary traditions, a dish in the Slovak is known as Koložvárska Kapusta, and includes sauerkraut cabbage, rice, minced pork, lardons. 

 if brevity be the watchword, then - #7wordwinereview European Aristo, lemon citrus over quartzite, haunting 

http://www.weingutprager.at/english/index.php?id=2

Phoenix from the Fynbos

Circa 1993, to quote - Remember this was 1993, Mandela was still on his ‘long walk to freedom’ and free elections were still over a year away. At the time, I’d say I knew two things about the Cape wine industry: nothing and bugger all. In my ten years of wine drinking I had barely been exposed to anything South African.

To the novice drinker, what's excitable about South African wine today?

It might have taken 20 years, but the Cape is catching up on the rest of the world and, rather than looking at their Countries for benchmarks, it is finally looking at itself for inspiration. that comes in the form of old vineyards, mostly Chenin Blanc, with which it is developing identifiably South African white blends that few in the new world can replicate.  

Does South Africa offer diversity in its' regions?

Absolutely. There was a time (and some would argue that it still does) that you’d find every commercial grape variety planted within spitting distance of each other. Now, growers are identifying regions which are best adapted to certain varieties – Rhône varieties in the heat of the Swartland, Bordeaux varieties in the more maritime climes of False Bay, Elgin for Pinot Noir…

South Africa one of the best countries to 'trade up' in wine buying (on and off-trade)?

South Africa is offering the best value of any wine producing Country at the moment. This is good and bad. It also means the supermarkets are piling into the country to exploit the weak currency, which invariably means that they undermine the overall image. A five pound bottle of wine is a five pound bottle of wine regardless of where it comes from. Supermarkets add no value to the image of a Country when their sole motivation is based on sourcing at the lowest possible price. Be prepared to pay over a tenner (from any decent independent merchant) and you’ll be amazed at what’s on offer.

Does South Africa produce truly World-class Pinot Noir? Your Top 3 South African Pinot Noirs?

Five years ago I was joking that you could count the numbers of ‘world class’ South African Pinot Noir on the fingers of a mitten. I’m delighted to say that massive progress has been made this decade with my favourite examples coming from Chamonix, Newton Johnson and watch out for the first release from Kevin Grant at Ataraxia, whenever that might happen.

What's the most stunning vineyard/winery (aesthetically) you've visited in South Africa? Describe its' allure.

First you have to get there… Thirty kilometres down a dirt road to Tierhoek in the Piekenierskloof. The isolation spooks some people out (and it’s a real bugger if you run out of sugar).

Does the future of South African wine 'innovation' lie with the maverick approach - small production old-vine bottling’s from top producers, or is there strength in brands still?

All of the above. Even the biggest brands like Nederberg are a force to be reckoned with – at every level in their range.

In brief, South Africa's key strengths over other new world producers.

They have access to more old vine Chenin Blanc that the rest of the world put together.

What are the Top 3 of the World's most under-estimated white grapes (aside from Chenin Blanc).

Riesling (it still is), Muscadet/Melon de Bourgogne (yes, really) and Semillon.

Fantasy dinner table - 6 dinner guests living/deceased.

My three wine heros: Gaston Huet, Robert Mondavi, Allan Mullins. Then Paul Macca (macaroni turkey, anyone?), Joe Jackson and a token woman. Oh yes, my wife…

Describe the most memorable dining experiences in South Africa.

Invariably with friends at their homes:  pizzas on the stoep chez Fanus Bruwer (Quando, Robertson), crayfish on the braai with ‘Fast’ Eddie Haumann on the West Coast and Shelley Sandell’s malva pudding at Tierhoek

Is Fair-Trade still a valid trade route to encourage equitable trading between developed/developing nations?

I’ll keep my views to myself on this one.

Advice to the Chancellor on Wine taxation?

There is no justifiable reason why sparkling wine should be taxed at a higher rate than table wine. Parity, please.

One word - is Cape Town the hippest city in the world?

After Harrogate, probably

Favourite Wine movies?

Butch and the Sunrise Kid – a special edition ‘Liberator’ for the Wine Society, now on release…

Richard Kelley MW shares his vision for South African Wine - ?

Finally, just finally, after 20 years, South Africa is getting the recognition for its wines. First the trade and now the press. Next stop - widespread consumer recognition. The best wines are still to come.

Gamay Sans Tra-La-La

Domaine de la Garrelière’s, Gamay Sans Tra-La-La, Touraine 2012

What's good? Biodynamic wines on the money are good! Gluggable Vin de Soif is also good. Wrap them up in one little package and it's doubly good. Unfined, unfiltered, this is an earthy toned and up-front fragrant Gamay - cherries, rosehips, bramble fruits, red liquorice, white pepper, anise and herbs jostle for primacy, with rosemary and marjoram scenting the red fruits. Utterly, utterly gluggable, a lip-smacker that leaves a ferrous-lite tone on the finish and a hankering for more. 

Please Sir, can I have some more? 

More? More?