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Winemaker in four steps

by Qin Xie | 3 Comments

Published in Condé Nast Traveller China October 2014 Issue 19:

Qin Xie Condé Nast Traveller China Oct 2014 Bordeaux winemaker

(The copy has been translated into Chinese so the below is my original)

There’s nothing quite like hands on experience to learn about wine. It gives you an appreciation of the amount of work that’s gone into your daily tipple and affords you an understanding of what makes one wine better than the other.

Where better to learn than in the heart of the fine wine world, Bordeaux. Here are three courses to give you a taste of the life of a novice winemaker:

1. l’École du Vin de Bordeaux – Learn the basics

Given the old adage “walk before you run”, it’s wise to start at the l’École du Vin de Bordeaux.

The centrally located school is run by the Bordeaux Wine Council where, in the space of two hours, you’ll build a foundation of knowledge. The sessions always start with a little history of the region before moving on to the different appellations and their respective wine styles.

An essential skill for the budding winemaker is being able to discern between the different aromas and flavours in a wine; luckily, this is a key part of the interactive workshop.

There’s also a wine bar at the school, if you need to further your study.

Prices start from 39€, private sessions are available www.bordeaux.com

2. Château Paloumey and Château du Taillan – Try your hand at harvest

Martine Cazeneuve (Château Paloumey) and Armelle Falcy Cruse (Château du Taillan) are the two formidable female owners who have joined forces to create Les Médocaines. Based in the Médoc, Les Médocaines offer a full day’s harvest and vinification workshop split across the two châteaux.

The day begins with the harvest.

Starting at the first property, you will get to taste the berries, pick and sort the grapes and generally muck-in. After a grape-picker’s lunch, you will visit the second estate and learn about the vinification process, from fermentation to ageing, and even taste the grape must (the pressed juice) from different vats.

A hard day’s work is rewarded with a tasting of the finished wines from previous vintages.

Priced at 62€ per person www.chateaupaloumey.com www.chateaudutaillan.com

3. Château Haut-Sarpe – Blend your own Grand Cru Classé

At Château Haut-Sarpe, a Grand Cru Classé estate in Saint-Émilion, winemaker Pierre Dufourq has set up B-winemaker to offer hands-on blending experiences. Blending comes only after the fermentation has completed so you’ll be working with the previous season’s wines.

For Château Haut-Sarpe, the main grapes are Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Tasting the single varietal wines first will give you an idea of the range of styles available. The next step is to create different blends, by adjusting the percentage of each varietal in the blend, until you find the wine for you. It gets pretty competitive.

Once you’re happy, you get a 75cl bottle to fill which you then have to cork and capsule before slapping on your own label. Of course, you also get to take it home.

B-winemaker runs courses at a number of other châteaux as well so you can experience the different terroirs of Pessac Léognan, Margaux and Haut Médoc too.

Prices start from 65€ www.b-winemaker.com

Château Lynch-Bages – Go the whole way

For serious connoisseurs, Viniv are the people to go to.

Based out of Château Lynch-Bages in Pauillac, their experts will take you by-the-hand to create your own style of wine from start to finish; including selecting the grape variety and the vineyards where they are sourced from. And as they work with several other châteaux in Bordeaux, there’s a range of options available.

Come harvest, you can help with the grape picking and vinification; and later, there’s decisions to be made about blending, ageing and label design. Of course, you could sit back and let the experts get to work.

The downside is, you will have to commit to a minimum of a barrel, or around 288 bottles of wine. It’s a snip of the price of a château though.

The question is, just how serious are you?

Prices start from 7,350€ per barrel www.vinivwine.com

The good gobblers

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published in The Jellied Eel Winter 2013 Issue 41 and online:

Kelly Bronze turkeys, The Jellied Eel

Will the bird you tuck into this Christmas do you proud for its wellbeing and not just its weight? Qin Xie visits a free-range London farm to talk the proverbial.

Paying over £60 for a five kilo turkey may seem an awfully large sum to append to the already belt-tightening Christmas bill, but that’s the sort of price that Kelly Bronze has been commanding for its turkeys for more than 40 years.

Derek Kelly started his free-range turkey business back in the early 1970s. From the very beginning, he says, he wanted to concentrate on the flavour and texture of the meat rather than profit margins. In the years before he took to turkey farming, the bronze breed had been gradually falling out of favour – mainly because their feathers left rather unsightly stubs on the skin which looked a lot less appetising in comparison to the seemingly clean cut white turkey. With falling demand, the bronze turkeys were nearing extinction when Derek made it his business to save this tasty breed, and from there created the Kelly Bronze.

The difference starts with the slow rearing. A standard commercial turkey takes just 10 weeks to reach the saleable weight of 5kg, while the Kelly Bronze needs around six months. Operating as a hatchery as well as a farm, this business is involved in the entire life-cycle of the turkey – everything from artificial insemination to slaughter. However, it’s only when they are released into the ‘wild’ after five weeks, that the difference between a Kelly Bronze turkey and a standard commercial turkey really shows, says David. The turkeys are allowed to forage for their own food in acres of land for the next few months, though locally-grown feed is also provided daily to supplement their diet.

The Kellys believe that it’s this slow rearing that allow the turkeys to fully mature and create a marbling of fat in the meat, similar to that of the famous Wagyu beef, from the Japanese breed genetically predisposed to intense marbling. That’s why Paul Kelly, Derek’s son and now the managing director at Kelly Bronze, says their turkeys are basically self-basting. “All you need to do is roast the bird breast side down for the first hour or so and then turn it over to finish.” The fat also helps the turkey to cook quicker with the average bird being ready to carve in around two hours.

There are other things that help improve the flavour too. The turkeys are killed in the on-site abattoir before being dry-plucked by hand. It’s a slower process, but one which allows the birds to be hung to age like beef for up to five weeks. The long and slow ageing makes the meat more tender and helps gamey flavours to develop. The turkeys are eviscerated (gutted) after hanging, before being packed and shipped to their final destination.

The heritage breeding, free-range rearing, slow maturing, hand plucking and long ageing all add to the cost of the turkey. At £12.50/kg, the price may seem staggering compared to a water-chilled frozen turkey that can cost as little as £2.90/kg. But that’s the price you pay for quality and a bird you won’t be ashamed to have as your centrepiece. Perhaps that’s why the Kellys’ favourite quote is John Ruskin’s: “There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only, are this man’s lawful prey.”

Want to be first with the World’s 50 Best Restaurants? Forget the ceremony: check Twitter

by Qin Xie | 1 Comment

Published on Spear’s WMS on 3rd May 2013:

As the chatter quietens down and lights dim inside the Guildhall ready for the countdown of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, a flurry of activity restarts.

The results had been leaked. ‘It’s all over the internet,’ screams Twitter.

How silly are we to be sitting down, waiting eagerly to see if Noma had been toppled?

‘Can everyone switch off their phone please?’ came the announcement. I guess the organisers knew too.

Awkward.

But still, there’s a slim chance that the results were fake. As the countdown begins, it was obvious — we’re all trapped here for the next hour listening to what we already knew. The Spanish have taken the crown: El Celler de Can Roca is number one.

Christ, this is tedious. Especially as the champagne had been ditched at the reception; the thirst is coming on strong.

Even more annoying, perhaps, was the prospect of having to file a story overnight because, apparently, only three media outlets in the world have been given access to the results before the event. So much for embargoes, eh?

But then it struck me. Something that was even more annoying than losing sleep. Knowing the results doesn’t mean that the event was any less of a celebration — of achievements, creativity, hospitality, innovation, etc. The list goes on.

Because if you, like me and like them, have worked inside a kitchen, you know hard work doesn’t even begin to describe it. Sure, if the results were just posted on Twitter each year, we probably wouldn’t have to needlessly sit there while Mark Durden-Smith whittled down the numbers until we get to number one but actually, for everyone on the list, this was their 15 minutes.

So shush, Twitter, let them have their moment of glory and savour their spot in restaurant history.

Opium, Soho

by Qin Xie | 1 Comment

Published in Scout London Magazine January 28 – February 03 2013 Issue number 25:

With history in mind, one might find a restaurant named Opium in Chinatown to be somewhat bad taste. As it goes, this is anything but. Like its neighbours, the Experimental Cocktail Club, it is nestled high above the Chinese eateries we know the area for. Owners Dre Masso and Eric Yu have drawn inspiration from 19th century opium dens in their theme. A smoking signature cocktail made with kaffir lime, mandarin, absinthe and rum is a pleasing shock to the system; a toilet that shouts at you is just shocking. A smattering of dim sum make up the single-page food menu, and the scallop, coriander and pea dumplings could rival any on Gerrard Street. The sesame and poppy lobster prawn toast is another must-try.

Tonkotsu, Soho

by Qin Xie | 1 Comment

Published in Scout London Magazine January 21 – 27 2013 Issue number 24:

Tonkotsu review, Scout London

Tonkotsu is the sort of place you can follow your nose to; the bubbling stock-pot by the window is surely designed to lure in passers-by. Owned by the people behind Tsuru Sushi, this new venture skilfully rides the wave of noodle fever currently flooding Soho. As is usually the case with anything namesake, the tonkotsu noodle dish (which translates as ‘pork bone’) is one to try. Creamy and only slightly gelatinous from the pork stock, with a fragrant edge coming from near-raw spring onions, it’s salivating stuff to slurp your way through. The rest of the menu is simple and compact. Ramen sit with sides such as prawn and pork gyoza, edamame and crisp deep-fried chicken karaage, but it’s the noodles which bring in the oodles.