Gathering rosebuds at Sally Clarke’s

When I was young I remember my grandmother endlessly telling me ‘Do all you can while you can’ or - even more irritatingly - ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’. At the time I found it hugely annoying but as I get older I can see the point.

Unexpected things happen to you - and to people close to you - that prevent you from doing things you might have desperately wanted to do and the chance is lost.

I had that very much in mind as I wrestled with my conscience yesterday as to whether to go to Sally Clarke’s in Kensington who was hosting one of my culinary heroes Alice Waters or go to the supermarket wine tasting I was supposed to attend for the day job. Lunch was the only time I could do it. Would I regret not going if, for any random reason, it proved to be Waters last visit to the UK? More than missing the tasting? It was a no-brainer.

So why the excitement? Alice was the first person to introduce the simple ingredient-led cooking we now take for granted back in 1971 when she opened her iconic Californian restaurant Chez Panisse. I remember going to her restaurant in Berkeley and being overwhelmed by the simple clean flavours and unfussy presentation. Sally used to work for her and was obviously equally inspired. She was the forerunner of that kind of food in London - and is still cooking it 30 years on. Alice was over to celebrate the restaurant’s 30th anniversary

Part of the aim of the meal was to raise money and consciousness for Waters’ groundbreaking Edible Schoolyard project which encourages schools to incorporate an ‘edible education’ curriculum which covers everything from growing food to cooking and eating it. You can find out more about it here.

So what did we eat? It was a simple, no-choice 3 course meal but one of great generosity. Roasted peppers with fabulously creamy buffalo mozzarella and anchovies, crisp-skinned seabass with aioli and coco beans in a tomato and fennel broth and an insanely good molten dark chocolate pudding with caramelised hazelnut ice-cream made by Alice’s former pastry chef and food stylist Claire Ptak who runs Violet Cakes in Hackney. Some of the ingredients were supplied by local school gardens in London.

We drank a bottle of 2003 Arbois Pupillin Poulsard, an ethereal Burgundian-stye natural red wine that my friend Doug of Les Caves de Pyrène managed to persuade them to let us open. (Normally they don’t do BYO so don’t try it!)

Apart from being a memorable meal, yesterday was a reminder of a good life lesson. If you think “if I was hit by a bus tomorrow would I regret not doing this?” and the answer is yes, just do it. Gather ye rosebuds ….

PS If you missed Alice’s visit there’s nothing to stop you going to Clarke’s anyway. Sally recently moved to serving her food à la carte and the sample menu is particularly tempting.

How to learn about wine without opening a book (or spending hours on the internet)

One of the things that still surprises me after all these years is how scared otherwise confident people are of wine. The number of people who preface a comment on a bottle with ‘I really don’t know ANYTHING about wine’ as if their view didn’t count is ridiculous. Even people like chefs and food writers who taste for a living.

I can only put it down to the fact that they perceive wine as immensely complicated subject they couldn’t possibly master - and just don’t have time to get to grips with. But the same is true of cheese yet whoever goes around saying "I’m afraid I don’t know much about cheese"? No-one.

I’ll let you into a secret. I’ve never done a wine course in my life. I’m not a Master of Wine. I have absolutely no qualifications to write about it other than passion for the subject. And the fact that I've tasted (er, drunk) a lot in my time.

THE TRUTH IS YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNOW EVERYTHING YOU JUST NEED TO TASTE AS MANY WINES AS POSSIBLE. (PREFERABLY NOT ON THE SAME NIGHT)

When you go to the supermarket buy at least one wine you’ve never tried before. That’s probably 50 new wines a year for a start. If you have a local wine shop you've never been into, walk through the door. Tell them the kind of wine you like, let them know what you want to pay and ask them to recommend a bottle. Another dozen-odd discoveries, I'm betting. When you go to a restaurant or wine bar make it a rule to order an unfamiliar wine by the glass. That’s at least a couple a month more. Carry a notebook with you or snap the labels with your phone to record your discoveries

If your interest is piqued find a group of friends or work colleagues who would like to know more about wine and get together once a month for a wine tasting. Have a different theme each month - six pinot noirs from different parts of the world, say or six sherries. With appropriate food which doesn’t have to be made from scratch if you’re casting around for excuses. Just raid the local deli or get a takeaway.

Or, best of all, go to the London Wine Sessions in Hackney this Saturday, a fun, totally unintimidating wine event where you can try wines you might like if only you let yourself.

My session at 12 noon (for which I’m not being paid in case you think this is a commercial plug. It’s for charidee) is on Wine Basics. How to find the kind of wines you’ll enjoy. We’ll be tasting a fascinating fizz I’m almost 100% certain you won’t have tried before, an astonishingly good Italian white at a bargain price, a truly sumptuous chardonnay (it’s my mission to get people back drinking chardonnay), a lovely light summery red and a big bold gorgeous red from one of my favourite winemakers.

There are other great sessions too. Three of the best wine writers around - Victoria Moore of the Telegraph, Anthony Rose of the Independent and Richard Hemming of jancisrobinson.com talking about the bottles that turned them on to wine. A session on ‘the unlovables’ - wines you probably think you don’t like but which will undoubtedly surprise you - that’s with Mike Sager-Wilde of the wonderful Sager & Wilde wine bar, Charlie Young of Vinoteca and Courtney Stebbing of Lyle’s, a hot new restaurant in Hackney. A ‘moon walk’ with organic and biodynamic wine supplier Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrène and award-winning wine blogger Jamie Goode unravelling the mysteries of biodynamics. And ‘rad’ food matching with Matthew Young of Mayfields and Jack Lewens of Skye Gyngell’s Spring. That’s £40 cos it includes food but all the other sessions are just £20. And you can book them here.

So come, have fun and go away with some new favourite wines. If you're in London this weekend it would be rude not to.

The London Wine Sessions take place at The Apiary at 458 Hackney Road, London E2 9EG on June 7th, 2014 and are part of London Wine Week.

Top photo © jillchen - Fotolia.com

Friends of Ham and where else to drink good beer in Leeds

One of the bonuses of judging the BBC Food and Farming awards was a night in Leeds and the chance to take in the brilliantly named beer & charcuterie bar Friends of Ham which I’d been dying to visit since Jay Rayner reviewed it last year.

It didn’t disappoint. It’s a small cosy bar with a slightly larger restaurant downstairs where you can drink an amazing selection of craft beers and tuck into some top quality meats and cheeses. What’s nice about the place is that the food isn’t all Italian (though there is lardo - sadly sold out) but also a Yorkshire platter including salami made by another Leeds craft bar, The Reliance [now closed]. Leeds is that cool!

It reminded me of a place I went to in St Petersburg about 15 years ago called The Idiot - a couple of the punters were even playing chess. I drank a pretty good Tyne Bank dark brown ale from Newcastle (though less good with the salumi) and a gloriously hoppy 02/01 golden ale from Brew by Numbers yet another London brewery I haven’t heard of. It’s hard to keep up these days.

Prior to that, we - and by we I mean me, my co-judge Charles Campion and Leeds-based blogger Chris Smith of Northern Writes who had generously shared his local knowledge - had kicked off at Tapped Leeds, a huge modern brewpub just a few paces from FOH (both usefully just 5 minutes from the station).

I really enjoyed their Bramling, a 4.2% Golden Ale and Charles’ incredibly full-flavoured 2.7% Brodie’s Session IPA, less so their very banana-y Miami Weisse. They also do some cracking little pizzas which are on a 2 for 1 offer on a Monday or Tuesday night, making a brilliant bar snack for just £4.

We also looked in at Leeds Brewery’s The Brewery Tap on the basis that it was just round the corner but were less impressed (a strong smell of chips and a rather dull red ale). Stick to the other two or try the others Chris recommended: North Bar which started the city's craft beer revolution, The Reliance, Brewdog and Crowd of Favours (that too is owned by Leeds Brewery but sounds rather more fun.)

As a footnote I was struck when checking the beers we drank on sites like Ratebeer and Untappd how much geekier beer drinkers are than wine drinkers. There’s a ‘tick ‘em off’ mentality about trying everything you can lay your hands on that doesn’t seem to apply to wine - maybe why it’s failing to connect with Generation Y? Food for thought, anyway . . .

Do you have any favourite pubs or beer bars in Leeds I haven't covered?

Main image source: friendsofham.com

Why Fairtrade wine could be better

As those of you who read my Guardian column will know I had a big rant about the quality of Fairtrade wine at the beginning of Fairtrade Fortnight. Now on the last day it seems like a good opportunity to explore how it might be improved

To those of you who think I’m being unfair let me hasten to say I’ve no problem with Fairtrade branding. I regularly buy Fairtrade coffee, chocolate and bananas and occasionally honey and tea. All those products have improved immeasurably over the years. But not wine.

The main problem appears to be that the supermarkets aren’t getting behind it - presumably on the basis that they reckon consumers are unwilling to pay a premium for Fairtrade wine. But given the money that goes to support Fairtrade producers is pence per bottle I don’t think that really washes. The fact that Tesco has only three Fairtrade products in its entire range, and that includes an low-alcohol aromatized wine - says it all. With the honourable exceptions of the Co-op and Marks & Spencer, they simply don't appear to be interested.

I guess also that the Fairtrade Foundation doesn’t want to be seen to be promoting alcohol quite as actively as it does bananas.

But there is also a problem that the Fairtrade wines made in South Africa - the most important Fairtrade market - are not as good as they could be. Not in the UK at least. One of the most fascinating aspects of my recent trip to the country was the discovery that there are terrific Fairtrade wines out there, most notably in Nederburg's Manor House range, whose shiraz I made my wine of the week the other day. Most of it goes to Canada and Sweden.

The company who invited me, Distell, has an interest in two other Fairtrade projects Earthbound (formerly known as Tukulu) and A Place in the Sun whose work you can see on YouTube. The big difference is that both are in premium grape-growing areas (Darling and Stellenbosch) rather than the less quality-oriented areas like Robertson and Rawsonville some of the other Fairtrade producers use. They also work on lower yields (meaning more concentrated, better quality wines).

The wines that are made from these grapes are also made at premium wineries (Zonnebloem in the case of Place in the Sun, Nederburg for Earthbound) by the same winemakers who handle the main brands.

I was particularly impressed by Place in the Sun’s lovely smooth ripe 2013 Merlot which is as good as cellarmaster Deon Boshoff’s Zonnebloem version. The shiraz is great too. Dean (right) reckons the secret is giving wines more time “especially the reds.”

Earthbound while not quite in the same league (the 2014 Sauvignon was just about to be bottled, a bit prematurely I felt) is also made from organically produced fruit but there is a lovely pinot noir in the range, a Fairtrade rarity, which you should look out for when it comes over later this year. (A deal is apparently in the pipeline.)

The fruit for this comes from the huge Papkulsfontein farm which has 375 hectares under vine, 175 of them organic. "Darling is known as a cool climate region because it has slopes facing the ocean but as you move further inland to Groenekloof the region gets warmer and there’s a lot of red clay which makes it a fantastic farm for reds" says winemaker Samuel Viljoen. The fact that the vines are dry-farmed - the vineyard is too costly to irrigate - helps keep down yields

There is also another scheme in South Africa which protects workers' rights and conditions in the wine industry called the Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association or WIETA which was established back in 2002. It’s a not-for-profit organisation of producers, retailers, trade unions and government representatives and covers such issues as health and safety (e.g. protective clothing while spraying) as well as child labour (participants may not employ children under the age of 15 and only between 15-18 if the work doesn’t interfere with their studies). It covers working and living conditions, working hours, sexual harassment and the right to join a union.

It’s an impressive charter which I think should be more widely promoted than it is. (This may sound harsh but you sometimes get the impression that the industry would rather talk about how much it cares about the environment and wildlife than people. Maybe because wage rates - around 105R or £5.85 a day - though recently increased are still painfully low*.)

Nevertheless I left South Africa optimistic about the future. A company like Distell - and some of South Africa’s other powerful and wealthy wine companies - have enormous resources and clout. If they chose to give Fairtrade a higher priority and profile it could transform the whole wine industry.

We in Britain - retailers and consumers - also need to do our bit. I like to think we’re no less willing to spend money on Fairtrade wine than the Swedes, Danes and Canadians. I hope there will be wines on the shelves within the next couple of years to prove me right.

As Samuel Viljoen of Nederburg put it. "People may buy organic and Fairtrade wine out of sentiment but what will keep them coming back is quality."

* Fairtrade rates are a little higher at 108R (£6) a day plus a 5 cents per bottle goes back to community projects. And many workers get free housing.

Picture of Charl Wenn (top), production manager at Place in the Sun © Fiona Beckett