Flying the Flag for British Asparagus
To celebrate the great British Asparagus season, a fabulous way to enjoy this versatile vegetable is inspired by the late, great Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, who founded the phenomenally successful River Café restaurant in London in 1987.
Asparagus and Anchovy Antipasto
Choose Asparagus with tightly closed tips and firm stalks. An asparagus steamer is the best way to cook these tender veg as they are designed to protect the fragile tips as they cook standing upright. If you don’t have one, lay the asparagus flat in a large frying pan and cover with boiling salted water for 6-8 minutes or until just tender. Serves 4
Ingredients
800g British Asparagus
6 Salted Anchovy Fillets
150g Unsalted Butter
Half a Lemon
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
50g Parmesan
Cooking
Soften the butter. Rinse, dry and roughly chop the anchovies.
In a bowl mix the anchovies with lemon juice and black pepper, then with a fork mix with the butter.
Boil the asparagus in salted water until tender. Drain and season and drizzle with olive oil.
Place the asparagus on warm plates. Spoon over the anchovy butter, and scatter with Parmesan shavings.
Original Recipe from the River Café Cook Book Easy
Simple and delicious, try this recipe with our English Nutbourne Vineyards Sussex Reserve
Learn why Sussex wines are so good at our Summer Tasting and Festival of the Senses on 21 June
Wine maker, Simon Woodhead from a Sussex vineyard will be one of the special guests providing advice at our next wine tasting event on Thursday 21 June.
Simon, who used to design sensors at TAG McLaren F1 before successfully turning his skills to viticulture, will be at our Festival of the Senses, where you can sample more than 40 different wines, many of which are produced in Sussex.
Come and chat to Simon, from the Stopham Estate, near Pulborough, and find out exactly why the South Downs is so good for wine production.
With the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics this year we are continuing to focus on the success of English wines and trying to show how great they are to mark these celebrations, or indeed any celebration.
Simon is part of a new generation of highly talented and skilled winemakers based in the UK, producing some exciting wines which rightfully belong on the international stage. I am confident his passion and enthusiasm will prove contagious to everyone on the night.
As well as Sussex wines there will be wines from other new and old world wine regions and a chance to chat to some of the producers of several French varieties. There will also be an opportunity to enjoy different chocolates and cheeses throughout the night – some of which are produced in Sussex.
Work by renowned printmaker Anita Klein will be on display through our friends at Fawn Art Consultants in Brighton, and there will be a “Vinolympics” where people will have to rate different wines with a prize at the end of it.
The event, which is at Lighthouse Arts, Kensington Street, Brighton, is open to everyone from complete novices, to wine buffs. Our wines will be arranged to appeal to everyone and make it easier for you to appreciate the different varieties. Rather than organising them by grape or country they will be categorised under headings such as party wines, alfresco wines and off piste wines.
This is our second festival of the senses which is designed to appeal to all the senses – sight, taste, smell and even sound.
Cheese and wine are old companions, but chocolate and wine is a popular theme with our adventurous customers and can be treated in the same way when you taste them, either individually or together.
This event is part of our continuing drive to modernise the way people think about wine tastings. They are no longer just about wine and they are no longer the preserve of stuffy old wine experts.
As we don’t have a shop, this event is also a great opportunity for people to have an enjoyable evening and explore the wines we have to offer.
Event Details:
Where: The Lighthouse Arts, Kensington Street, Brighton
When: Thursday 21 June 2012 from 6pm to 9.30pm
Price: £30 per person
For further information or to book tickets call us on 01273 242535 or click here for more details and to book online.
Luscious Lamb Recipe for April
A perfect dish to enjoy this April, this lamb recipe was originally by Robert Carrier, although over time it has perhaps seen a deviation from the original as we lost that recipe some years ago! That said, it still remains a firm favourite in our house.
Try it with a glass of our Crossings 2009 Pino Noir – an elegant red from New Zealand which boasts a supple and very intense core of fruit – a perfect match with lamb.
Grilled Marinated Lamb Chops with Lemon Garlic Butter
Serves 4 | Preparation time: 20 minutes | Cooking time: 12 minutes
Ingredients
8 loin lamb chops
For the marinade:
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 shallot, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, peeled and sliced
1 large sprig of thyme
1 large sprig of rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon of dry white wine
salt and pepper
For the lemon garlic butter:
75g unsalted butter (allow to soften a little)
1 large clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tablespoon of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1/2 grated lemon and its juice
salt and pepper
For the lamb marinade, put the lamb chops and all the ingredients in a food bag and allow them to marinade for a minimum of 2 hours in the fridge – longer if you can.
To make the garlic butter balls, place all the ingredients in a bowl and combine well – a fork works beautifully for this. With a teaspoon scoop out some of the garlic butter mixture and with your hands roll into small balls and place onto a plate, cover and leave them in the fridge for a couple of hours to set.
When ready to cook the lamb, remove the chops from the marinade. Heat your grill to the max and cook each chop to your preference – ideally they should be medium rare, so approx 2-3 mins each side depending on the size of the chops and your grill.
Remove the garlic & lemon butter balls from the fridge, cut in half and place them on top of each chop.
Serve with a green salad and French fries, not to forget the glass of our Crossings 2009 Pinot Noir.
We’re always on the search for great recipes to match with our portfolio of wines. So, if you have any favourite recipes you would like us to wine match, we’d love to hear from you!
If we love it enough, we’ll give you a bottle of the wine absolutely FREE and publish the recipe on our website.
All we ask in return is for you to review the wine, send us a picture of your recipe and we’ll post it up on our website with a link to our Facebook page and Twitter feed.
Viniculture Visionary
Thanks to Corinne Attwood for this great write-up in the current issue of Regency Magazine – a local community magazine for the centre of Brighton and Hove, produced by local residents in the area – we’re on Page 12!
Corinne and Editor Tony Davenport attended our Wines of the USA Tasting back in February, where we tasted our way through 5 fabulous wines from some lesser known vineyards in the North West, including Washington State.
This is just one of a series of tasting events we run in various venues in Brighton & Hove. An opportunity to learn about how wine is produced and develops it’s own distinctive flavours and how to select the right wine for any occasion – regular event information is posted on our website.
Has the Fizz really gone out of the UK Champagne Market?
According to a recent article in The Guardian, wine lovers are turning their backs on champagne with about a million less bottles being shipped to the UK last year.
With typical Gallic bravura the French are putting on a strong front, arguing they are still doing really well given the current economic climate and indeed it is a pretty good achievement when other industries are dying on their feet. But that doesn’t entirely explain the drop (albeit slight) in popularity.
Some might argue austere times call for austere measures and people are simply consuming less alcohol, but in truth people are getting more savvy about what they drink, opting for better value sparkling wine which is easier on the pocket but still delicious on the palate.
Champagne is called champagne because it is produced in the Champagne region of France and has been given special status under EU law. The same variety of grape could be grown anywhere else in the world and produce just as good or an even better bottle of wine but it could never be called champagne.
And that’s the nub of it all – people are now realising there are some excellent sparkling wines out there. Just because it isn’t called champagne doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste like it. It’s a bit like buying supermarket own brands – half the price but all the taste. Of course there are always going to be some sparkling wines that are terrible just as there are some champagnes that leave a lot to be desired but it certainly pays to look beyond the label.
Our local region has some excellent sparkling wines available. Breaky Bottom Vineyard near Lewes in Sussex has produced some stunning award winning sparkling wines that have gone so far as to beat many more established types of champagne on the world stage. Similarly, the 2004 Cuvee Merret Fitzrovia Rosé from Ridgeview Vineyard in Ditchling, Sussex, was served at Barack Obamaʼs state dinner last year and, just across the county border in Kent, wine from Chapel Down was served as part of the Royal wedding Celebrations – if Wills and Kate can quaff it, it must be good!
So if you want an equally good alternative to Champagne, consider all those other lovely sparkling wines that might be just as good.
You may find you are pleasantly surprised!
Discovering surprisingly good English wines in Sussex
In our quest to bring you some quality English wines, we took some time out last month to visit some of the emerging new producers in Sussex. Being at the forefront of English wine production, many Sussex sparkling wines are consistently winning awards and are fast becoming a big part of the new, New World of wines, which includes other unlikely wine producing countries such as China, India and Israel.
Being a long-term advocate of Breaky Bottom’s award winning Sparkling wine, it has to be said that we are new to discovering still English wines that compete well on the international stage. That looks set to change with the emergence of some very talented winemaking in the UK.
The first leg of our Sussex trip took us east to Seddlescombe where we met Roy & Irma Cook, owners and winemakers at Seddlescome Organic Vineyards. Established in 1982 Seddlescombe have recently received their Bio-dynamic accreditation. Their long established portfolio includes a range of still wines, some quirky fruit liqueurs and a particularly delicious still cider.
The second leg of our road trip started at Highdown Vineyard, which nestles on the southern slopes of the South Downs between Littlehampton and Worthing. Originally planted in 1985 the vineyard boasts six varieties of grapes including Pinot Noir, Bacchus and an additional variety of Chardonnay planted in 2006.
Many leading wine producers recognise the tremendous future that wine cultivation has in England and we went on to discover two very special vineyards in the heart of the South Downs National Park, who are producing some extremely drinkable white and rosé wines.
It was a glorious spring-like day when we met up with Simon Woodhead who is the winemaker at Stopham Vineyards, a very exciting new vineyard planted
on sandy slopes between Pulborough and Petworth in West Sussex. The Stopham Pinot Gris 2010 has the classic, aromatic, off-dry characteristics you’d expect from this grape, but with a more obvious acidity from a cooler climate and less alcohol (11%) “At last! A still English wine worth raving about” – Jancis Robinson MW tweeted last month. We also tasted Simon’s delicious Pinot Blanc 2010, a drier wine with plenty of energy and poise on the palate and an excellent Rosé 2011 that was a joy to taste from tank (due to be bottled in May). Simon used to design automotive sensors at TAG McLaren F1, but now the only sensor he is concerned about is the carbon dioxide sensor measuring the fermentation rates in his state of the art winery, which is housed in a barn on the estate that was refitted as a winery in time for the 2010 vintage.
It has to be pointed out that 2010 was the first commercial vintage at Stopham Vineyards, so the future bodes well for this undoubtedly talented winemaker.
Just a couple of miles down the road we discovered Nutbourne Vineyards, near neighbours to the mighty Nytimber. Nutbourne Vineyards is run by Bridget and Peter Gladwin who have been producing award winning wines from their beautiful 7.3 hectare estate with the winemaking expertise and facilities at Chapel Down for 20 years. Their. Bacchus 2010 was rather reminiscent of a Loire Sauvignon Blanc, with notes of gooseberries and fresh peaches. We also tasted their Sussex Reserve 2010, a blend of several grapes, producing an aromatic, fresh, dry white with hints of pithy grapefruit on the finish.
These wines are great examples of the innovative winemaking we came across in Sussex and if you’d like to taste them for yourself, they will be featured at our next tutored tasting on 29 March.
For more info and booking details click here>>>
We look forward to seeing you there!
Karl Elwood
Your Personal Wine Shopper
Recipe for March – Sautéed prawns with artichokes, broad beans, Serrano ham and gremolata
Serves 4 as a starter or 2 for a light lunch
We’ve been eating this tasty dish rather lot recently as it’s quick and easy to prepare and looks great too. As a more formal dish you may wish to plate up, but we like to serve this up on a platter and simply help ourselves. Serve it will some good bread to mop up the Gremolata dressing!
For a vegetarian version, we found this was also delicious with sun blushed tomatoes and crumbled goats cheese.
Our recommended wine match is the Valdemar Blanco 2010 Rioja
Ingredients
1 cup olive oil
1 clove of garlic, peeled (sautée in some olive oil for 5 mins if you prefer a milder garlic hit)
Zest and juice of half a lemon
8 artichokes (pre-cooked packs are readily available, which is what we use), cut into thick slices
A good handful each of flat-leaf parsley and watercress
12 large raw prawns, peeled, cleaned, leaving tails intact
4 slices Serrano ham (Parma ham works well too)
100g Fresh Broad beans, cooked and refreshed in iced water then dried with kitchen towel
Handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
Preparation: 25 mins (assuming you buy pre-cooked artichokes)
Cooking: 2 mins.
Instructions
First make the Gremolata dressing. Blanch parsley and watercress in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain and refresh in iced water. Drain, squeeze excess water and finely chop, then place in a food processor with the garlic. With the motor running gradually add the olive oil until emulsified. Season and add zest.
Heat a frying pan and when hot add a little olive oil. Cook the prawns for 1 minute each side. Season and toss with the lemon juice.
Spoon a little of the dressing on to plates or a serving dish and then layer with artichokes, prawns, broad beans and the Serrano ham, torn into strips – as rustic as you like!
Scatter over the toasted pine nuts and drizzle with more of the dressing.
Serve with a nice chilled glass of Valdemar Blanco 2010 Rioja.
Enjoy!
We’re always on the search for great recipes to match with our portfolio of wines. So, if you have any favourite recipes you would like us to wine match, we’d love to hear from you!
If we love it enough, we’ll give you a bottle of the wine absolutely FREE and publish the recipe on our website.
All we ask in return is for you to review the wine, send us a picture of your recipe and we’ll post it up on our website with a link to our Facebook page and Twitter feed.
Karl Elwood
Waitangi Day is a public holiday in New Zealand and Kiwis from all around the world will be celebrating this weekend. This delicious lamb roast is traditionally served in our house on February 6th to commemorate the day the Maoris signed over sovereignty of New Zealand to Queen Victoria in 1840.
Waitangi Lamb
Serves 4-6
Get your butcher to bone the shoulder for you then stuff it with this lovely scented stuffing.
200g chopped dried apricots
1 small onion
3tbsp butter
4 slices stale bread crumbed
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 shoulder or leg of lamb boned (keep the strings)
2 tbsp olive oil
Serve with Roast Potatoes and Kumera (sweet potatoes) and peas
Cover chopped apricots with boiling water and soak while you heat the oven to 200C/ 400F/ Gas 6.
Chop the onion finely and cook gently in a small pan with the butter.
Remove from heat and add soaked apricots, bread crumbs and chopped thyme – mix well together and spread over the unrolled lamb.
Roll and re-tie as neatly as you can.
Place meat and potatoes in a roasting tin and brush well with the oil.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Cook until the juices run clear, about 1 hour 15 minutes.
Rest in a warm place for 20 minutes while the stuffing settles.
Serve cut in slices with the peas and a minty gravy.
Try this dish with a rich New Zealand red such as our Crossings, Pinot Noir 2009 – a beautifully crafted wine from grapes grown in the picturesque Awatere Valley in New Zealand’s Marlborough region, at the northern tip of the South Island.
Finish up with a Pavlova decorated with Kiwi fruit to complete the feast!
Enjoy!
Karl
The government plans to cut the number of late night clubs and bars or make them pay for policing, but there needs to be a shift in the way people view drinking. If we adopted the continental approach, where binge drinking is much less common, people could enjoy and savour a quality glass of wine.
A return to more traditional pub hours is welcomed in tackling the binge drinking epidemic but this is only part of the problem and there needs to be a fundamental change in people’s attitudes to drinking in the UK.
It seems to be acceptable to some to go out and drink as much cheap alcohol as they can and get as inebriated as they can.
Every week there are pictures in the press of young men and women falling out of bars, blind drunk and incapable of taking care of themselves. But this isn’t something you see in France or Italy, for example. They have late opening bars but they are much more restrained.
The attitude is very much one of savouring a good glass of wine with a meal or enjoying a couple of drinks with friends as part of an evening rather than drinking being the main aim of the evening.
Alongside the Government review on opening hours young adults need to be educated from an early age to accept drinking in moderation. If they are taught early enough that by binge drinking they are putting themselves in danger and that, if they are going to drink, it is much better to enjoy a quality drink as part of a family or social setting then hopefully it will reverse the binge drinking culture which is epidemic in this country and blights our streets every weekend.
The Government papers released on 18th January, include proposals for a late night levy scheme under which local councils will be able to charge late opening pubs and bars a fee of up to £4,400 a year.
A number of venues are likely to return to normal hours as a result and all money raised from the levy will be used to tackle problems caused by binge drinking. Police are likely to spend money on extra police on the streets whilst councils can use their share for taxi marshalls to ensure people get home safely and street cleaning.
There are also proposals, introduced through the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which will give licensing authorities the power to end 24-hour drinking in their area with early-morning alcohol restriction orders. Exemptions are likely to be made for rural pubs to avoid driving them out of business.
The binge drinking culture is out of control. No one is saying people shouldn’t drink but these reforms will hopefully encourage people to drink more responsibly and perhaps look at the quality of what they drink rather than the quantity.
We hold a number of wine tasting evenings throughout the year to give everyone an opportunity of discovering some good quality wines from smaller independent estates, at price levels that are affordable and learn more about how wine is produced.
Come and check out our next event which is all about the Wines of the USA on Thursday 2 February, in The Cellar Room under the Old Ship Hotel on King’s Road, Brighton. It runs from 7.30pm to 9.30pm and costs £25 per person.
A Heartwarming Soup Recipe for January
An ideal time of year for a heartwarming soup, to bring comfort on a dull January day. We love this version of a classic parsnip soup, which is rich, creamy and very tasty.
It’s great with a couple of chunks of wholemeal or sourdough bread and works well with our delicious Vasse Felix Chardonnay 2009.
We’re always on the search for great recipes to match with our portfolio of wines. So, if you have any favourite recipes you would like us to wine match, we’d love to hear from you!
If we love it enough, we’ll give you a bottle of the wine absolutely FREE and publish the recipe on our website.
All we ask in return is for you to review the wine, send us a picture of your recipe and we’ll post it up on our website with a link to our Facebook page and Twitter feed.
Have a go at this month’s recipe – it’s really simple and if you’re worried about those extra calories, substitute the cream with skimmed milk – it’s just as delicious!
Roasted Parsnip and Parmesan Soup
Serves 6
• 450g parsnips
• 50g grated fresh parmesan
• 2 tbls Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Big dollop of butter
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 1.5L chicken stock
• Salt & ground black pepper to season
• 75ml Double Cream
Pre-heat over to 200C /400F /Gas 6
Simmer parsnips in salted water for 3-4 mins.
Drain well and toss in half the Parmesan.
Heat the oil in a roasting tin for 3-4 mins in the oven.
Put the parsnips in the tin and add the butter. Bake for 45 mins, basting throughout.
Once they’re cooked, drain the oil into a pan and cook the onions until soft without colouring.
Add the stock, stirring constantly and bring to the boil.
Add the parsnips and simmer, covered for 10mins.
Liquidize the soup with the remaining Parmesan.
Stir in the cream and season to taste.
Serve with a twist of ground black pepper and a swirl of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Enjoy!
