How I fell out of love with sourdough

Those of you who follow me on Instagram or who read my recent article in Club Oenologique, may recall a smug series of posts about a month ago crowing about my newly acquired prowess as a sourdough baker.

True, I did mutter about beginner’s luck at the time but I really thought I'd nailed it.

So what happened after such a promising start? I feel I owe it to my starter to explain why it’s all over

“So, sourdough, I admit it was love - or maybe lust - at first sight. I was swept away by your charms. Glowed with pride at hanging out with such a handsome loaf.

But once I got to know you better I realised it wasn’t all plain sailing. You were, I discovered, temperamental. Moody and inconsistent. Sure, you flattered me in the early days with your crisp golden crust but were sulkily capable of turning yourself into a leaden dough that I couldn’t even shape into a loaf..

And talk about high maintenance. Gawd you were needy. There was one stage in the process when I had to handle you every 30 minutes. Even my husband didn’t expect that.

And the mess! I’m not that domesticated at the best of times so having to scrape and scrub sticky dough off my lovely wooden kitchen table (which still hasn’t recovered, just so you know, Sourdough) is just one extra task I can do without. And the endless washing up ….

Also you weren’t good for me. I mean I’m trying to keep my weight under some control under lockdown and you were tempting me to eat far too much bread. Or ship it out to the neighbours whether they wanted it or not (and I suspect they probably didn’t).

It’s not as if I can’t buy a decent loaf. All those wonderful bakers in my home town* whose loaves, as you can see above, are better than anything I could possibly make myself. Basically I was doing them out of business and that’s not good in these hard times, you have to admit.

Finally - and I know this doesn’t reflect well on me - I was finding it hard to be a one bread woman. I want to play around with other loaves - flatbreads, focaccia, fougasse - some of which involve - yes, I know you’ll be shocked - commercial yeast. And are the better for it.

Just making the same bread day after day was, dare I say, boring. And it’s not as if life is massively exciting at the moment

So, sorry Sourdough. I genuinely did feel for you but like so many holiday romances it was just a flash in the pan (or the cast iron Le Creuset in your case).

I really hope you’ll find someone else who can give you the love and attention you deserve.

All the best

Fiona

Which include, in Bristol, Farro, Harts Bakery and Bakers and Co and easy access to Gloucestershire-based Hobbs House

If you still want to have a go read my rather more optimistic first piece.

Image © Krasimira Nevenova at shutterstock.com

Do Mother's Day drinks have to be pink?

My inbox for the past couple of weeks has been full of gift ideas for Mother’s Day and when it comes to wine that’s all about one colour - pink.

“Beautiful bubbly for mums that are proseccond to none!” trills one press release. continuing, with an apparently straight face “there’s something to tickle every mums fancy.”

(If the drink is not pink then it has to be fizzy or preferably both. Pink prosecco has been an absolute godsend to the gifting business.)

"Spoil mother’s [sic] with delicious bubbly from crisp pink champagne to ideal prosecco tipples." invites another. Would an agency use the word 'tipple' in a Father’s Day press release? I doubt it.

Now I know wine retailers have to work on the basis of what *most* women want and it’s true that most mums, particularly younger mums, like rosé. Actually mums would be so grateful that someone else had taken responsibility for buying the wine they’d probably drink anything.

But it’s a lazy cliché to assume all mums are the same, given they range in age from twenty to eighty. Some would actually like a bottle of ordinary champagne (which tend to be cheaper than rosé champagne too). Others - and I’m thinking of you, Red Wine Caroline - would prefer a lush red. Yet others would be thrilled with a bottle of gin or, if they’re pregnant and not drinking, a glamourous gin substitute which again doesn’t have to be pink.

So hats off to The Wine Show for sending out an email than suggests women might like a special glass or a decanter or, even better, an expensive wine storage fridge (or is that subtly targeted at male subscribers who might be reading it and want it for themselves?)

The other prevalent myth is that mums are all gagging for something sweet, chocolates in particular or, as another press release suggests, tiramisu flavoured coffee. (Massive eyeroll) Well not this female parent although I admit that is probably less typical. I may be the only person who can cohabit with a box of chocolates and leave half of them uneaten. Buy me a selection of cheese though, as The Fine Cheese Co suggests, and I’m in clover. (That is not a sponsored plug btw I just happen to be on their mailing list.)

You might argue that this is an overreaction. It’s all about encouraging us to treat our mums and what's the harm in that? Quite simply, it’s the perpetuation of stereotyping that starts with little girls and bedevils young women who want to be taken seriously. And extends to men, obviously, who if truth be told, like sweet things just as much but get given whisky on Father’s Day instead.

In my view the same rule should apply to Mother’s Day as birthdays and Christmas presents. Give your mum something that she’ll really appreciate, whatever colour it is.

If you're a mum or, come to that, any human being let me know what you think!

Image by Ekaterina_Molchanova at shutterstock.com

The trouble with wine tasting

Zoom tastings have been hugely popular during lockdown for understandable reasons. Unable to travel or get to tastings in person it's a good way to keep up with new releases or learn more about a wine region.

They definitely have their advantages in terms of fewer bottles to taste and access to winemakers who might not always have time to make themselves available in person to journalists on a press trip. Having the opportunity to dip into a wine over 24 hours or longer, particularly with food, also gives you a much more rounded impression of a wine too. But are decanted samples - on which these tastings are mainly based - a fair representation of what's actually in the bottle?

Wines of Australia has done a number of tastings based on mini bottles but has arranged for delivery of the wines at the last minute so that the samples don't deteriorate. I've received other samples where the quality hasn't been so reliable.

It's obviously expensive both from the point of view of the amount of wine and the cost of delivering it to send out whole bottles but maybe it's the only way to ensure the recipient gets them in the same condition as those they're writing for or selling to.

Of course it's not the only variable in terms of a tasting experience as I highlighted on my now defunct blog Wine Naturally back in 2012 and thought would be worth a re-run.

"I had a bad start to a wine tasting a few days ago. The first eight to ten wines I tried - all red - tasted unforgiving and mean with unusually high acidity and edgy tannins. As the tasting was the Wine Society’s, whose wines I generally admire, I wondered whether the fault was mine, not theirs.

I had started the tasting unusually early just before it opened at 10am. The wines were a little cold - most had just been opened and the room was a chillier than usual 18°C. I’d been travelling for two days and hadn’t slept brilliantly the night before. I had a claggy throat that was threatening to turn into a cold. It was a leaf day. It could have been any one of those things.

I went back at the end of the tasting and re-tasted the wines, slightly warmer now, with less in the bottle and found them more giving in a couple of instances but not a great deal changed in others. I then went on to another short tasting with a chef - in a slightly warmer room - where the wines seemed to show more character. So maybe it was room temperature. Or a more relaxed congenial atmosphere? Who knows?

It got me thinking about other factors that might affect the way you taste:

How long the wine has been opened and whether it’s been decanted
Some producers even reckon their wines are better opened the previous day. Three of the wines at the Wine Society had been decanted ‘to get rid of sediment’. That would have also opened them up.

How much is left in the bottle
The first sip you taste from a full bottle is inevitably going to be different from one of the last

How many wines you’ve tasted beforehand
At supermarket tastings you’re often faced with 120 wines - sometimes more. At wine competitions, twice or three times that. Even the best tasters must suffer from some degree of palate fatigue

What type of wine preceded the one you’re tasting
They should be placed in style order but often they’re grouped by country and price so you may taste an smooth, expensively made wine before a cheaper, lighter-bodied one. If you’re tasting wines of the same type - particularly young, high alcohol reds, it becomes more and more difficult to differentiate between them

Whether it’s a tank sample or a finished wine
Or if it’s a mass-produced wine which is bottled on demand, which batch you get and how well the wine is stored in transit

How familiar with or sympathetic you are to that particular style of wine
Where natural wines may fare badly in a line-up. And I have a problem, as admitted in the blog, with soupy reds.

How long since you’ve eaten and how much
Most people say they taste better in the morning - I certainly find it hard to taste well after anything other than a light lunch. How strongly flavoured and/or spicy the food you eat will also make a difference.

How well - or badly - you’ve slept
A noisy room, an unfamiliar bed, too much food or drink the night before, a pressing deadline can all affect how well you sleep. As can . . .

Whether you’re jet-lagged and tasting in a different time zone

What temperature the room is and whether it’s air-conditioned
See my initial remarks. I think the air conditioning is the more significant factor here. I rarely have any problems tasting in a wine cellar at 18°C

Whether there are extraneous smells
Perfume and after-shave being the obvious culprits (it’s surprising how many still wear it to tastings) but the smell of the lunchtime food being prepared - or even laid out - can be distracting too

The weather
Not so much a question of whether it’s wet or sunny but of the atmospheric pressure. Very much more competently explored than I could by The Wine Doctor, Chris Kissack though unfortunately I can't now find the link.

The biodynamic calendar
A more controversial one. I didn’t know it was a leaf day before the tasting. I checked (the app When Wine Tastes Best is useful) when I’d got through my first 10 wines. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to make a blind bit of difference - a wine tastes disappointing, I find it’s a fruit day. Hard to prove either way.

The pyschological state of the taster
Relaxed or tense and stressed?

Industry professionals such as MWs will no doubt tell me that if you follow an accepted tasting protocol in your assessments that these variations are marginal but I’m not sure. They’re not superhuman. They worry about their kids. They feel liverish just like the rest of us. Inevitably how we feel must affect the way we engage with a wine.

I remember the late Gerard Basset before the World’s Best Sommelier awards in Chile a couple of years ago barely eating anything, terrified that something might affect his palate or, worse still, upset his stomach.

The implication of course is that you should try and taste wines at least twice before scoring or pronouncing on them - something I try to do but which is not always possible given the tight deadlines we all work to.

Maybe we all need to be a bit more mindful though as I argued in this post.

Food for thought, anyway. What do you think?

Photo by K.Decha at shutterstock.com

Why Valentine’s Day can be more romantic in lockdown

I’ve never understood why people want to go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day. Why would you fancy sitting in a restaurant with dozens of other people, paying over the odds for an often indifferent meal and a glass of overpriced champagne? The only argument in favour is that you don’t have to make it yourself.

Well this year you don’t even have the choice. To me that's one of the few bonuses of lockdown not least because you can order in restaurant quality, often Michelin-starred meals rather than getting hot and flustered in the kitchen (an equally unattractive option)

Looking through my inbox I can see that Skye Gyngell’s Spring is doing a breakfast in bed box and Richard Corrigan’s Bentley’s a champagne and oyster box (via Restokit which has a number of other options as does Dishpatch though you’ll need to get in quick as many have sold out of their allocation.

Admittedly some of the offerings are more expensive than they would be were it not Valentine's weekend but you don’t have to go for the full monty. Call in a selection of seafood or sushi. (Wright Brothers is good for the former), order some truffles (Wiltshire Truffles has a tempting selection) or commandeer a cheese selection including a heart-shaped Coeur de Neufchâtel from Paxton & Whitfield or Pong: splurge the money you’re not spending on going out on spoiling yourself and your loved one as we must all call our partners these days. I’ve been reallocating the money I would have spent on taxis on a fortnightly flower subscription box and it’s the best thing I’ve done for myself during lockdown.

With no pesky mark-ups you can also afford to open a really good bottle. My choice would be a lush white burgundy or pinot noir which you can buy for the same price as a big name champagne but if you feel V-Day is not V-Day without bubbles there are plenty on offer. Taittinger, for £28 at Waitrose currently, for one.

I appreciate this stay-at-home scenario is not so great for parents already ground down by home schooling and the industrial-scale catering involved in having teenagers at home but just having a meal THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE COOKED and is not pizza could make you feel pampered.

And if you’re on your own for Valentine’s Day? Honestly it’s not the end of the world. It’s just a Sunday. Pour yourself a G & T and binge-watch Bridgerton. Or treat yourself to a proper Sunday roast.

The following day is February 15th, we'll be over half way through the month and it’s getting lighter by the day …

Image by Lucky Business at shutterstock.com