Rack Draining Wine Reviews pt1 – Wickham Vineyard Special Reserve

This is the first instalment of the first regular feature on this blog: 'rack-draining wine reviews'. I am getting married and moving house within 6 months of each other next year, so my booze tokens are depressingly low. The unfortunate result of this is that I'm going to have to start draining my wine rack of all the little delights I have been laying down to age and do their thing. To justify this culling of my little dusty friends in the darkest corner of our kitchen I will be lamenting how much a few more years laying down would have benefited these wines, and also hopefully telling you how delicious they are.

It's a sunny Sunday afternoon and I'm meeting up with good friends at the excellent BYO Lebanese canteen Comptoir Libanais so what better opportunity to crack something half decent?

Comptoir Libanais is a small but growing chain well worth a visit. Our service was superfast and cheerful among the colourful, relaxed surroundings. But the food defies the lighthearted décor; a plate of warm flatbreads with generous dollops of humous, yoghurt and a subtly smoked baba ganoush was a comforting shared starter, and our mains of zingy chicken and green olive stew and a hearty lamb tagine – delightfully tender – were great value at under £8 each (including rice or cous cous). Ideal, I thought, for the first wine I pulled kicking and screaming from the rack...

Wickham Vineyard's Special Reserve red (£12.50) is a blend of rondo and pinot noir grapes from Hampshire in the south of England. Rondo is a popular grape for English reds and rosés due to its affinity to the colder climate, though I find it often makes odd wines with a bright purple colour and very confected flavours which I'm not too fond of.

This wine, luckily, has plenty of pinot noir in the blend, which, on it's own is now actually making hard-to-find but really fantastic wines in England. I have to say though the rondo in the blend does deserve some credit, adding a well received juiciness. It's deep purple in colour with some classic earthy and ripe cherry aromas from the pinot noir. On the palate it has some good grainy tannins which were a nice surprise, along with lots of acidity, which you would expect from a wine from this cool a climate. That acidity combines with the fruit character to bring out bags of juicy blueberry and redcurrant flavours. It paired with my delicious lamb tagine rather well, latching on to the prunes and apricots in the dish wonderfully. It didn't go too badly with my fellow diners' chicken stew either, snuggling up to the green olives in the dish.

It could have lasted happily another year in the rack but I don't think it would have evolved a huge amount more. So, no hard feelings this time; lovely wine, drink young, and don't feel bad about draining it from the rack.

Craft Beer and Train Stations

I start my first foray into blogging full up on delicious food and slightly inebriated from even more delicious beer - the result of a fantastic day of beer exploration and great company.

To set the scene, I am lucky enough to work in the drinks industry (mainly wine) and had been tasked to source a few beers to stock from local brewers due to my vocal passion on the subject. Living in London, this opens up a world of breweries from the tiniest micro breweries to big national brands. I felt it important to find something truly local and truly interesting to deliver to our customers. In this quest and limited by quantity, I found two brewers who fit the bill. Both very new, and both very local: Camden Town Brewery and the brand new London Fields Brewery.

Myself and a colleague of mine, a keen home brewer and a veteran of the wine industry, descended on London Fields overground station to visit the latter. Arriving at the brewery - which, like Camden Town and fellow London craft brewery Kernel, sits underneath railway arches - we can see this is a small operation, with a few chirpy looking chaps mucking in and bustling about. And so on to the beers:

London Fields Landlord: A little unoriginal in the name, but it certainly delivers in flavour. A classic best bitter style with a lovely coppery colour, good round malt background and some nice aromatic hop notes balancing it out. This beer recently got third at the St Albans beer festival and for only their third brew, that's really saying something. It's either a fluke, or these guys really have something going on. Next, let's see what they can offer in the way of pale ale.

Hackney Hopster: Everything you want out of a nice hoppy pale ale! Good balance of soft pale ale malt and aromatic hops giving tropical fruit flavours and a citrus zing, with a surprisingly long and well structured bitter finish. Already, they have achieved a great balance of early bittering hops and late aromatising dry hops. I really can't wait to see how this brewery evolves.

After having our minds blown by an early cask sample of the 'London Fields Session Ale' showcasing the Galaxy hop (passion fruit all over the place - I love that hop) we trecked along to canal to our next stop - the seriously up-and-coming Camden Town Brewery.

This brewery is a different kettle of fish. London Fields is brand new, still experimenting and just getting to grips with their brews. In comparison Camden Town, situated underneath Kentish Town overground station is a serious operation. They are concentrating on three main beers, honing them to perfection and using the best technology available. Let's not forget, these guys opened for business only last year and are still very small compared to some of the better known craft brewers. They have flavour at the front of their minds and only minor usage of (vegan friendly) filtering - and zero pasteurisation - ensures they keep it that way. I'm going to talk about just two of their beers which we hope to stock; Camden Hells Lager and Camden Wheat Beer.


The Lager is mega-clean and very refreshing which is exactly what you want from a lager. This beer is not about big flavours, but what's there is very well balanced. Delicate toasty notes and subtle bitterness mingle with some light fruit flavours. But the real point of this beer is to be refreshing and it's a perfect thirst quencher.

The Wheat Beer is a little different. This is a flavour bomb. In the German hefeweizen style it displays all of the banana and bubblegum notes you would hope for, from the aroma to the palate. Mix in some subtle cirtus and bready flavours and a lovely round body and you have a really great quality wheat beer giving the Germans a serious run for their money.

After being forced to stay for another round and sampling their zippy Pale Ale straight from the tank (it's a hard life), it was time to move on to our next port of call. If you're ever in the Camden/Kings Cross area, you need to wander up the Euston Road and pop in the Euston Tap, just outside Euston station. My favourite craft beer bar and on this particular day, showcasing 8 Thornbridge beers on keg and cask. A massive bonus and the most excellent way to finish off one of the best days of beer exploration I have had.

Derbyshire brewery Thornbridge have become a benchmark in the British craft beer scene after only 6 years and it was a real treat to try their beers alongside each other. My two favourites had to be the Sequoia American style pale ale, and Raven, their take on a Black IPA. Sequoia was the real star of the show, mouthwateringly refreshing and dry hopped showing tons of aromatic pine and tropical flavours with a body like a feather duvet. The black IPA was a nice surprise. Often black IPAs are a little too toasty for me (I know it's kind of the point) but I find it clashes with the big hop flavours. Not this one, however - far more chocolate and coffee notes, which alongside the up-front hop bitterness was more like fresh cocoa than burnt toast.

So, blog number one and a day to remember. I will be updating regularly about my explorations of beer, wine and food so keep checking back. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/jimmyhatherley