What makes a vino da meditazione?

You may have a fixed idea of what constitutes a vino da meditazione but, as Peter Pharos argues, many wines are well suited to sipping thoughtfully on one's own.

Wine is for sharing: it’s the drink of conviviality and the table, food and company, the elixir of good times.

There is, however, another aspect to Dionysus’ gift. It calls for low light and solitude, quiet and reflection. If there is music, it is unobtrusive. If there is food, it is in modest quantity, there not to lead, but to support. Called vini da meditazione by the great Italian writer and connoisseur Luigi Veronelli, these wines were meant to be one-on-one affairs between the oenophile and his or her wine.

The qualities that make a “meditation” wine are not strictly defined, but typically it has to be complex and very well made. It is usually suitable for ageing and has gone at least some way towards maturity. Sometimes it is said, erroneously, that it also needs to be sweet and/or over-alcoholic. In reality, the most important quality of a vino da meditazione is to be intellectually stimulating. You wouldn’t want a boring partner in a one-to-one conversation, would you?

Six Vini da Meditazione

1. Champagne

I will understand if you think that I’m just trying to wind you up. After all, champagne looks like the complete inverse of a vino da meditazione. It is drunk at the beginning, not the end, of a meal. It’s the drink of weddings and graduations, sport victories and business deals, not of solitude, but of big groups toasting to life.

Even if one wanted to drink it alone, it doesn’t lend itself to a single pour, the fleeting nature of bubbles being notoriously tricky to preserve, above even the technological might of a Coravin.

In a way though, Champagne is a victim of its own marketing success. True, some of the non-vintage supermarket cuvées, or even some of the lower-end grandes marques, might be better suited to spraying on your fellow F1 drivers on the podium. But aim a bit further up and you are rewarded with powerful, elaborate wines with multiple layers of aromas and flavour. At the top end, as in the case of the Holy Trinity of Dom Perignon, Krug, and Cristal, you have wines of remarkable complexity, gripping intensity, and at times astounding creativity. For the oenophile, they provide an intellectual stimulation that demands full attention. You might be surrounded by people, but the affair becomes strictly one-on-one.

2. Oaked white Rioja

Like Bordeaux and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Rioja is an area where the fame of the reds outshines some excellent, and occasionally outstanding, whites. Young or unoaked white Rioja is a food wine, needing some seafood or grilled vegetables to accompany. It is the oaked, aged takes that are of interest here though.

The traditionalists of López de Heredia produce what just might be the best value-for-money white in Europe in Tondonia Blanco Reserva. Released well over a decade after the vintage, including six years in oak, it can easily take a further decade or two in the bottle. Elegant, aromatic, and very dry, it is a wine that rewards thoughtfulness. It can accompany a carefully curated meal, but it is also happy with a small snack: some green olives, a plate of pimientos de padron, maybe a bit of manchego. And when you are ready, invest on the magnificent peculiarity that is the Gran Reserva: it is not the easiest of wines, but it is one of the most interesting. A few slivers of jamón ibérico and a couple of thin slices of good bread are enough to see you through a glass.

3. Côte-Rôtie

Autumn is prime time for the elite of the northern Rhône to grace your table. If you are lucky enough to have suitably long aged Cornas or, even better, Hermitage (and if you do, brother, can you spare a glass?), now is the time to open them; these dark and earthy marvels need gamey and ferrous flavours to be tamed. It is, however, the gentler, occasionally viognier-tempered, Syrah of the “roasted slope” that makes a meditation wine for me. Prices at the higher end can match Hermitage for silliness, but I am happy with something as relatively reasonable as Chapoutier’s Les Bécasses. You need to start early though: I am waiting at least two more years before I start diving into on my 2010s. Alternatively, look at the Wine Society, which conveniently stocks the 2006. Pour just one glass. Put a bit of pâté on grilled bread. Ponder.

4. Barolo

Pinot Noir, the great prima donna of the French vineyard, makes for a natural meditation wine when at its best. Or so I hear, as the stratospheric prices put the great crus far beyond my reach and there is only so much thinking one can do with a glass of a village-level Fixin.

Instead, I look a couple of hundred miles to the southwest, at pinot noir’s transalpine opposite number. In Barolo and environs, Nebbiolo starts too muscular and virile to imbibe solo: it needs to dance with steak in its youth and argue with truffle in its middle age. But some time around the 15-year mark, when the sharp edges have mellowed away and the nose has finally attained perfect poise, the intellectual side of The Foggy One finally comes out.

One of my star wines of last year was a Pio Cesare Barolo 2000. At 17 years of age, it had started showing hints of caramel on the nose, was gentle enough not to harm a bit of Toma di Balme, yet robust enough to take on a bit of Crudo di Cuneo.

5. Sherry

I would understand if you thought that the way I have been compiling this list makes vinous meditation sound like an extremely expensive sport, if not an outright vice. Lamentably, it is probably a bit both. If, however, you want to stay on a budget, you can hardly do better than sherry.

Wine people have been saying that it is due for a major comeback ever since I can remember, yet even in these more adventurous years, it remains an underperformer.

While this state of affairs is very unfair to the good people and excellent winemakers of Jerez, it does have the advantage of allowing the rest of us to buy wine that is complex, interesting, and different, at remarkably low prices. Marks and Spencer stocks a range of Lustau-made sherries, the more interesting of which, such as the oloroso and the palo cortado, would still be bargains at one-and-a-half times the price.

And if you do want to invest in a more extravagant sherry, wonders await. Tradición’s VORS 30 year old Oloroso is only the latest to blow me away, a multi-layered marvel that needs only a biscuit and a thin slice of Gruyère – or maybe a handful of hazelnuts.

6. Nectar

It’s not just sherry: fortified wines are natural vini da meditazione. Complexity and intensity come easy to them, while the high alcohol suggests sipping as opposed to quaffing. In many ways, vintage port is the quintessential meditation wine and one of the two I considered a bit too obvious to include here (the other being Amarone).

Sweet wines come close behind, and one could make a case for many, from Sauternes, to trockenbeerenauslese, to Passito di Pantelleria. Allow me a left-field suggestion though and a bit of a cheer for the home team. The island of Samos in Greece makes sweet wines from the local Muscat variant, which are beautifully honeyed and elegantly moreish, yet somehow still remain very under-priced.

Waitrose stocks the classic Anthemis, a great match for many traditional Greek and Middle Eastern desserts, for just above £10 for 500ml. It is, however, the odd bottling of decades-old Nectar, a naturally sweet wine of sun-dried, overripe grapes, that achieves the truly profound. In recent years, the local co-operative has released limited quantities of the 1975 and 1980 vintages, both outstanding vinous experiences that demand one’s complete and unwavering attention.

You don’t have to take my biased word for it; Jancis Robinson gave the 1980 a very rare 19/20, above venerable ports costing many times the price - and you don’t have to remember if you need to pass it left or right.

So what is your perfect vino da meditazione? Do you agree with Peter or have another favourite?

Peter Pharos likes drinking, talking and writing about the wines of Greece and Italy. He also writes a bimonthly column for timatkin.com. (That's not him in the picture by the way but a stock photo ©tverdohlib @fotolia.com!)

The effect of temperature on food and wine pairing

Does the temperature at which you serve a dish affect the wine pairing? Matt Walls investigates: (This article was first published in 2012)

Ice cold plate of curry, anyone? How about a nice hot trifle? No. Didn’t think so. We all know that the serving temperature of food has a big impact on the enjoyment of the dish. As foods become hotter, their texture often changes; liquids become thinner, solids soften or melt. Additionally, as they heat up, foods release volatile (i.e. easy to evaporate) molecules more readily, which affects their aroma. So a plate of food served at a different temperature becomes in effect a different dish. And a different dish might require a different wine match.

Last week I went to an ambitious tasting organised by Champagnes Mumm and Perrier-Jouët to investigate this often neglected dimension in food and wine matching. It was led by Peter Barham, Honorary Professor of Molecular Gastronomy at Copenhagen University (his day job is Professor of Physics at Bristol University). He explained that it isn’t just the aroma and texture of foods that can be manipulated by temperature; our sense of taste can also be affected.

Cool a food or drink down, and any sensation of bitterness and sweetness will be reduced. Ice cream mix tastes overwhelmingly sweet before being churned and frozen; once it is set, it tastes less so. Warm up a can of cheap lager and it will begin to taste overpoweringly bitter. Surprisingly though, when it comes to our sense of taste, it is not the temperature of the food that is making the difference – it is the temperature of your tongue.

To demonstrate this, we were given two pots of identical foie gras parfait with sweet peach jelly. All the dishes throughout the tasting were designed to match specific Champagnes by Jonray and Peter Sanchez-Iglesias, owners of the Michelin-starred Casamia restaurant in Bristol. This pairing was to complement a glass of sweet Champagne – G.H. Mumm Demi-Sec NV. The pots were served at the same temperature, but with two sets of cutlery: one hot and one cold. When using the cold cutlery, the dish and the wine did seem to taste less sweet than when using the hot cutlery – the cold spoon did seem to numb my tongue to the sweetness of the dish.

Then we tried a dish of prawn consommé, sweet corn puree and toasted pine nut. This was well paired with a glass of G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge NV. We were given two versions of the dish; one cold, one hot. The dish itself was more successful hot; the texture was smoother, more balanced and the flavours more integrated.

Did it match the Champagne better? Due to the heat, the flavour of the dish was a touch more pronounced, and this may have helped meet the intensity of flavour of the Champagne. But as the Champagne gradually warmed in the glass, and the dish cooled down, this fleeting impression diminished.

Lastly, we were presented with two toasted brioche sandwiches of Tunworth cheese with marmite butter and a glass of G.H. Mumm Cuvée R. Lalou 1999. One sandwich was at room temperature, one straight from the grill. This Champagne is rich, toasty and full-bodied, and it worked well with both versions of the sandwich, but particularly the hotter one; the melted cheese had richer, more farmyardy flavours which paired well with the truffle, hay and other mature characteristics in the wine, thanks to its eight years ageing on the lees. The smoother texture of the melted cheese also worked better with the Champagne than the firmer, more rubbery texture of the room-temperature Tunworth.

Technically speaking, this was a difficult tasting to pull off. With the temperatures of the food, wines and cutlery constantly pulling towards room temperature, timing was all important. This element was hard for the kitchen and waiting staff to achieve with precision, even in this dedicated experimental tasting. But although this exact type of tasting is challenging to replicate, there are some more general insights that are useful to bear in mind.

Though there were disagreements in the room about which combinations of foods and wines worked the best, the temperature of the food (and indeed the mouth) does actually make for a subtly different dish.

One thing that many tasters did seem to agree on was that it was more often warmer dishes that made for better matches with Champagne; if you are throwing a party and intend on serving Champagne and canapés, instead of the more typical cold canapés, it would be well worth experimenting with warm ones instead.

The inclusion or omission of an ingredient in a dish will have a greater overall effect on any food and wine match, but considering temperature of serving can perhaps add a little fine-tuning to make a good match that little bit better.

Matt Walls is a contributing editor to Decanter magazine. His latest book is Wines of the Rhône and you can find him on Twitter @mattwallswine.

Jonray Sanchez sadly died in 2015 at the age of 32.

Vector by Zanna Pesnina at shutterstock.com

Pairing cognac and cheese

Cognac pairs with chocolate, we all know but what about cheese? Surprisingly there are some standout matches as I discovered when I chaired the cheese workshop at the 2014 International Cognac Summit in France a couple of years ago.

The cheeses reflected the most popular individual cheeses in the countries that were participating in the event: China, Germany, Russia, the UK, the US and, of course, France and included fromage frais, Brie, Cheddar, Edam, Emmental, Camembert, Fourme d’Ambert and Roquefort. However they were more interesting than they might sound from that selection as they were supplied by maitre fromager Xavier Thuret who also brought along some ‘surprise cheeses for us to try.

The cheeses that worked best overall were the fromage frais (an extremely rich, creamy Brillat-Savarin), the Brie (much better than the Camembert, oddly, except with the XO), the Cheddar and above all the Roquefort though that too was unusually soft and unctuous though still with its characteristic saltiness. We also found the Mimolette that Xavier had brought along as an extra a fantastic match with XO.

Judging by the results of the tasting which took place over 4 sessions with 4 different styles of cognac - VS, VS frozen, VSOP and XO - you need to tailor your cognac to your cheese. Apart from the Roquefort which matched with all the cognacs most cheeses work only with one or two. Here’s what I’d pair with what.

VS COGNAC (minimum 2 years old)

Style: the most popular type, relatively light, fruity and with a sweet vanilla flavour.

Cheeses that worked: suited the rich creamy Brillat-Savarin and milder mellow Edam. Roquefort.

Should also match with: other double and triple crème cheeses like Boursault and Explorateur, mascarpone and cheesecake (the patisserie group verified that). Also young Goudas, mild to medium cheddars and milder blues such as Gorgonzola, especially with honey

VS FROZEN

A new way of serving VS straight from the freezer which increases its viscosity and sweetness and lessens the sensation of alcohol

Cheeses that worked: Emmental (although not all our group agreed) or - for dramatic contrast - with Roquefort.

Should also match with: other mild-flavoured alpine cheeses like young Gruyère (perfect for après-ski - or other occasions when cheese is served as an aperitif), milder Bries, goats' cheese, maybe flavoured cheeses with ham or a hint of chilli or garlic. Other salty blues like Cashel Blue.

VSOP COGNAC

A richer, spicier style of cognac where the individual cognacs will have been aged for at least 4 years. The extra wood ageing gives a more tannic structure that needs a stronger cheese to balance it. Think cheeses that go with red wine (though cognac is obviously sweeter)

Cheeses that worked: The perfect foil for a mature cheddar with plenty of ‘bite’ and yet again for our Roquefort which was served, as you can see, in a spoon. Pretty good with the Brie de Meaux.

Should also match with: other hard English territorial cheeses such as Cheshire, Lancashire and Red Leicester. More mature Goudas. Washed rind cheeses such as Pont l’Eveque and Epoisses provided they’re not too strong. Mellow blues such as Stilton.

XO COGNAC

A more complex style with grilled nuts and dried fruit flavours. Component cognacs are at least 6 years old. Smoother with a less obvious, more integrated wood influence than the typical VSOP. Drier too with maybe a touch of rancio (oxidation)

Cheeses that worked: Succeeded with a couple of cheeses that had caused us problems - a mature Camembert and the Emmental in which it brought out extra flavour. Pretty good with cheddar, Brillat-Savarin and Roquefort though these were totally eclipsed by the match with glorious nutty, Mimolette. Possibly the best match of the lot.

Should also match with: other alpine cheeses such as Comté, Gruyère and Beaufort, other well-aged crumbly cheeses such as parmesan and well-aged Gouda, mature sheeps’ cheeses such as Manchego. And - this is speculative - 'stinky' washed-rind cheeses such as Epoisses and Livarot.

Obviously these are generalisations - cognacs will differ from one house to another depending on the house style. Some are significantly more heavily wooded than others.

Cheeses too are hugely variable even changing from one day to another - depending whether they’ve been freshly bought, if they’ve been kept in the fridge and at what temperature they’re served. Our cheeses at the tasting were for the most part artisanal cheeses, served at room temperature. I suspect many milder commercially produced cheeses would not work as well or need a different style of cognac to complement them.

But probably the single most useful tip to keep in mind is that fresh cheeses generally go with younger cognacs and mature cheeses with older ones.

Top image ©photosymisia at adobe.com

So you want to be a sommelier…

On the floor the lights are low, the customers are munching away on their Dover soles and their duck breasts, the musak is playing gently in the background.

The wine list is 250+ references and you’ve just got a new delivery that morning, so you’ve got some research to do, update the wine list, print off ten copies, and don’t forget to push the Numanthia, and we’re out of four of the wines.

Table 38 needs the next wine on their tasting menu, 49 have empty glasses that need clearing, 52 are waiting on their gin and tonics and the Chef’s Table needs top ups.

Mr Smith on 46 is a regular, and he likes Lynch Bages, but why don’t we upsell him a bit? What are his preferred vintages again? And he’d prefer it decanted. Oh, Luigi has all the bottles of Mas de Daumas Gassac in the Lindsay room.

Running. ‘Can we get some more bread?’. OK. 49's starters are being served, I should help. Mr Smith’s glass is empty and he’s giving the side eye. Mains away on 38's next tasting course, so they need the Tramari rosé in three minutes. Running again. Chef’s table! Thank goodness our private dining waiter doesn’t mind helping out. Still running. Always running ...

At the pub after work. 1am. Contented and feeling rewarded. It was a great shift. Every muscle in your body aches. But you did it. You opened some great bottles and your guests were overjoyed. The cheap lager tastes like you’ve just taken your first sip of water after being stuck in the Sahara for a week. Euphoria.

In June of 2017, I left Glasgow for London, having accepted the position of Junior Sommelier at Corrigan’s Mayfair – Richard Corrigan’s third award-winning fine dining restaurant, in the heart of one of the city’s most prosperous areas – with the dream of gaining enough knowledge and experience to be the best in the business. It helped me realise that personally I would prefer to be the best in the business through a word processor, but I wouldn’t give my experience as a somm back for the world. So, what does it take to become a sommelier?

When it comes to embarking on a career a sommelier, the easiest way to begin is simply by immersing yourself in wine. Go to your local library, wine shop, restaurant, and begin to ask questions. Most importantly, taste as widely as possible – even wines you wouldn’t normally go for. Taste fortified wines, like sherries and ports, cognac, the whole magical spectrum.

There are some invaluable resources out there, especially those like Wine Folly’s Visual Guide to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine, and Wine Bible. And of course the infinite expanses of the Word Wide Web always help. The guys behind Wine Folly have a great site that is perfect for the beginner, as well as Wine Spectator, Decanter – from whom I would also recommend getting a magazine subscription for some interesting perspectives and wine-related news – and some more casual sites such as Wine Wankers.

Talk to professionals, find other people who love wine, and get to tasting (or drinking). A fantastic way of tasting tons of wine without having to splash out on a bottle of Haut-Brion or DRC is to find somewhere nearby where they have an Enomatic wine dispenser, which allows you to experience tasting-sized portions of amazing wines like these without having to splash the cash ridiculously. Enomatics are also great for training if you’re taking an exam, like one of the WSET or Court exams.

So, you’ve tasted a lot, you’ve read up, you can talk to other enthusiasts about wine, so it’s time to go out and be a sommelier. Have a look online for commis or junior sommelier jobs – at the point at which I became a somm, I’d been working in hospitality for about 5 years, but it’s best to go in at the base of the pyramid. If you think you know a lot about wine, stepping foot on the floor as one of the people your guests rely on to make their evening special, armed with only your knowledge and a corkscrew, will change your mind!

The most rewarding part of the job is the joy it brings to the guests. It sounds like a huge cliché but it’s true. You are introducing people to wines they maybe haven’t considered trying before and now absolutely love, and telling them stories about each producer. And your own personal learning never stops! There are opportunities to go to professional industry tastings, your network grows by the day, and a lot of employers offer incentives – I managed to wangle winning a trip to Cognac with Remy Martin’s Louis XIII in the middle of a beautiful French summer, because of my job as a sommelier.

At Corrigan’s especially, the team spirit between the entire team was great too, not just the sommeliers. There were three off us somms, hanging out in the cellar, talking wine and testing each other, talking about wines we had tasted, and encouraging one another to excel in exams and competitions.

Our Head Sommelier, Jolanta Dinnadge, competed in the Bellavita’s UK’s Best Sommelier competition and came 2nd, and, although I’m biased, I put it down to a supportive team who want the employees to succeed. (At the time of writing she's also just been shortlisted for best UK sommelier in the 2019 GQ Food and Drink awards!)

Also, as with all hospitality jobs, you spend more time with your colleagues than your own family, which means I have come out of this job with a second mother, a protective uncle and about 15 siblings. You don’t often get that at an office job. It’s lovely to walk into the restaurant before service and receive hugs and high fives and talk next to the coffee machine for a few minutes before you clock in.

On the down side a certain weariness sets in when you’ve had four hours sleep every night for the past two weeks, and you’re only halfway through the Christmas rush. The hours are deadly.

And when you finish at three in the morning and the Tube is closed, you get home at five and are back up ready to start at ten. And when you start at ten there’s no breakfast, which means your last meal was 24 hours ago. Don’t forget you’re not allowed to eat in the kitchen. Prospective guests are coming to view the private dining rooms while you eat so if you just stand for an hour and a quarter, holding your plate in your hand, looking like a spare spanner, you’ll be fine. And you haven’t sat down in 14 hours. And don’t go through the front door, just in case the guests see you being a normal human being walking outside. Oh and we ran out of water yesterday and the delivery is not till Friday. Are you ready to be sleep deprived, hungry and dehydrated? No biggie.

But even when you come in on Saturdays before service to polish ice buckets for hours, and take out 100 bottles from the shelves to make sure the floors of the cellar are sparkly, and to clean the digestif trolley, and unpack 30 cases of wine in less than twenty minutes, you know what you are doing is for the greater good of the customer.

Sales do really go up when your bottles of fine whisky and cognacs are more sparkly than they have ever been before. And it is truly fun. Especially if it means opening a bottle of 1997 Romanée Conti Romanée Saint-Vivant. I tasted it once in my time with Corrigan’s and every late finish, every case of wine unpacked, every glass polished, became instantly worth it.

At the time Nathalie Gardiner wrote this she was studying for a Wine and Management Diploma at the Cordon Bleu Institute in Paris. She is currently working as a sommelier at Bentley's.

Photographs © Niamh Shields.