Quick question: what does a marathon runner eat before the competition? Pasta? Chicken? A kale smoothie and handful of nuts?
The reason I ask is because this past September I was competing in an endurance event of my own. A wine tasting hosted by The Vinorium at 67 Pall Mall called Australia Unearthed.
‘Hold on, Mark… An endurance event? Are you kidding? What about imbibing quarts of shiraz in one of London’s most sumptuous wine clubs requires an athlete’s constitution? I mean, it’s pleasure, isn’t it? Nothing but becoming Bacchus for the day and drinking with a discerningly Roman vigour until you get spatula’d off the floor and put into a train carriage vaguely heading in the direction of your home?’
There is, of course, an element of truth in the pleasure thing. Ok, more than an element. The Vinorium has recently become Decanter’s best Australian merchant for the second consecutive year with a mind-bending list of Antipodean splendours that stretch over decades. A bona fide vinous playground for the hedonist.
Where the marathon runner and wine taster converge is on the the little matter of fatigue. For the former it would be the lactic acid accreting in the muscles and the tightening of the chest as they struggle for oxygen and use up every calorie from the meal of solid carbohydrate devoured some 3 hours before the starter’s pistol is fired. And they jostle between other sinewy runners and people dressed in suits of armour and the Honey Monster, who bobs along with his massive papier–mâchéhead, sending a diminutive Kenyan over the iron railings into the spectators with the careless flail of a shaggy yellow arm.
The wine taster copes with a different fatigue. Palate fatigue. A condition only known to the intrepid oenophile who recognises the bravery and sense of duty that comes with sampling dozens and dozens of wines in an all-out assault of the retrolnasal olfactory senses. Dare I say, this is what establishes the true warriors amongst us. Those with the innate toughness and ability to face down a chardonnay, a pinot noir, a mighty cabernet, within minutes of one another to answer the simple question: what wines from The Vinorium portfolio am I going to buy next…
My quartet started the day with the athlete’s mindset. FUEL. In this case, an English muffin topped with 3 scrambled eggs laced with butter, crème fraiche and garnished with chives. Because palate fatigue is not the only issue facing the wine taster, there is the small concern of alcohol…particularly New World alcohol. Making sure you have a good base is crucial when tackling reds which sometimes reach the heady peak of 16% volume and, though you may be using a spittoon, the mucous membrane can still absorb alcohol at a surprisingly rapid rate.
It too means hydration is key. Following the eggs, I drunk nearly a litre of water. I don’t subscribe to the Rafa Nadal technique of checking the colour and odour of my urine before a contest, but I am mindful to make sure I am transparent and ready to go to war.
Having read Jancis Robinson in the FT, I supplemented breakfast and H2O with two tablets of milk thistle, a prophylactic containing silymarin used in the treatment of liver disease. Now, I’m not one for doping, but a prescription from a Master of Wine and international doyenne that combats a hangover is worth paying attention to, principally when you consider Jancis’s wealth of tasting experience. I swallowed two and convinced myself I wasn’t Ben Johnson and it was a totally legitimate practice.
67 Pall Mall sits obliquely opposite another UK wine institution, Berry Bros & Rudd. It’s a private members’ club opened in 2015 with over 4,000 bottles and 800 wines served by the glass. It is currently fully subscribed, but does host events in the St James Room, situated down a set of steps at the foot of the Grade II, Sir Edward Lutyens-designed façade.
There looked to be 100 Vinorium customers, or so, congregated for the first session, running for three hours from 10:30 to 13:30. Eleven tables and 120 wines, sat in the bottle, oxygenating and waiting for the thirsty clientele to start making inroads.
Table 1 was perhaps an obvious place to start, but it made logical sense as a natural partition of humanity created a path to Barossan producer Purple Hands. Speaking to winemaker Craig Stansborough I got another insight into stamina and fortitude as he had flown in from Adelaide on Wednesday and was returning home on Sunday. I’ve done the 11,000 miles to south east Australia on more than a few occasions and can tell you, 4 days isn’t nearly long enough for the bodyclock to adapt to local time. Craig was nothing but enthusiastic, however, and he talked us through his range of structured reds (grenache, cabernet and shiraz) and the atypical Italian varietals of montepulciano and aglianico, citing his love of Barolo and Barbaresco as the driving force behind these experimental plantings. The aglianico, in particular, showed the requisite firm tannins and high acidity to be a great food wine and certainly exuded some good ageing potential.
Of my group, Catherine was experiencing a wine tasting for the first time and acclimatising nicely. One of wine’s great tragedies is the elitism sometimes associated with talking about it. Catherine was finding out that everybody in the room was brought together by a love of wine and an appreciation that rightly goes beyond pretentious verbalisations and social divisions. The only thing that really counts is if a wine is delicious and that the ‘community’, if there is such a broad notion, is full of enthralling and down-to-earth people whose adoration of the subject radiates openly.
Upon reaching Table 3 I had shed my sweater and was fully warmed up like a pace bowler reaching his peak velocity. On the topic, It was nice not to be reminded of the recent Ashes result and underscored the benevolent spirit in the room. The familiar face of Vinorium founder/owner/director, Stu McCloskey, was on pouring duties for the Tasmanian trio of Domaine Simha, Glaetzer-Dixon and Sailor Seeks Horse. Preceding the first chardonnay (a gorgeous, Burgundian-aping contribution from SSH) Stu told us of the Bordeaux-soaked dinner the previous night within the hallowed walls of 67 Pall Mall and had us dripping with envy. Next came the Simha pinot noirs, fermented and aged in amphora[i]. Depending on how you like your pinot, Simha offer a fresher, fruit gum style optimised by whole bunch fermentations and minimal intervention as well as the gamier, forest floor examples synonymous with the Old World.
Glaetzer-Dixon are a winery of superb value and gave me my first ever glass of Tassie Riesling. The 2018 Uberblanc is dry, herbaceous and a challenging departure from a Clare Valley example.
From Table 3 we traversed the room to the Margaret River and Domaine Naturaliste. In the 2020 Halliday Wine Companion Awards[i] Dom-Nat has been declared the best value winery in Australia. Sampling the Rebus 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon it was plainly evident to understand why. Catherine, who finds pinot noir a touch subtle[ii], was captured by the cocoa powder-textured tannins and spicy black fruit. Malcolm and David were smitten also, being devotees of Bordeaux’s left bank.
The deeper reds push the palate to the limit. There were bottles of water on hand to rinse glasses and mouths, but the blackening teeth, evident in the room and the bathroom mirror, were totems of a good time being had by all. On about my 25th wine of the day, I decided, prudently, to make use of the spittoons. There were two communal, free-standing cuspidors whose chrome construction gave the overtone of motionless Daleks, which, in some dystopian wine-based sci-fi thriller, might have sprung to life once two litres of reconstituted shiraz was delivered down their inviting funnels and they would then go about 67 Pall Mall jetting purple liquid at anyone and everyone. This reverie may have been a result of the 24 previous wines.
Tables 6, for me, is when the seriousness took a step up. Back in the summer I opened a bottle of Deep Woods Reserve Chardonnay 2017 for my brother, an honorary Melburnian who moved Down Under in 2002. I took him to The Vinorium HQ and he was impressed not just with the compendium of Aussie wines, but the prices that appeared, on the face of it, to be equivalent or marginally cheaper than the merchants he visits in his Melbourne suburb. And the chardonnay was world-class with no contention – my brother declaring it probably the best white wine he had ever had.
Deep Woods was rightly puffing its chest up on Table 6. The ‘entry level’ Hillside Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon were exhibiting élevage of great pedigree and, both under £18, were wonderful value from Margaret River, again. The Reserve Chard 2018, like the ’17, had the faint whiff of gunflint on the nose and the mid-palate structure of a grand cru Côte de Beaune. It doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of the previous vintage but is still a superb example of Aussie chardonnay.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and by no means fading into the background, next to Deep Woods was Barossa Valley’s Hentley Farm. The supremely affable, Jon, took us through the range of brooding, silky-textured shiraz, including ‘The Beauty’ and ‘The Beast’ which I can assure you are no misnomers. Interestingly, the single vintage ‘Black Beauty’ sparkling shiraz was a minor sensation. Paired with a fantastically rich and over-reduced pappardelle ragu, it would be heaven, but even in the midst of a tasting it was a blueberry-scented cleanser, unusual and titillating in equal measure. In addition, Jon proved himself to be a bit of an Annie Leibovitz, talking through the wines and operating a Samsung camera phone with great aplomb.
Table 7 was pure heavyweight. My group regathered after the glorious Table 6 and visited The Vinorium’s Magda standing behind the wines of Dan Standish like they were uranium warheads seconds from the key turn. The night I opened the Deep Woods Chardonnay, a 2001 Chateau Pavie segued into the 2016 Standish Relic – a violet, shiraz-viognier juggernaut of blueberry, blackberry, liquorice and stone fruits. It was pure sybarism and excess, the 1980s in an elegant Austrian glass. I was looking forward to trying the rest of his mouth-coating range from the 2017 vintage.
The orthodox Standish Shiraz and Lamella are both fabulous. Dark fruit, chocolate, pepper, and crafted expertly where the alcohol, tannins and extraction are precisely balanced.
The Relic is a worthy successor to the 2016. The purple colouration, a binding and stabilisation of anthrocyanins from the shiraz and polyphenols from the viognier for any biology geeks out there, is a wonder in itself. And the florals and dark fruits are there in abundance.
And then came The Schubert Theorem[i], my wine of the event. Looking at the jet-black label you somehow know this is a shiraz of uncanny power. An east-facing, mica/quartz, single vineyard from Marananga in Barossa’s ‘golden mile’ bears something quite exceptional, a wine in the upper echelons of Australian viticultural royalty. You have the black fruit, you have the cedar from the French oak, the savoury nose of Provencal herbs, a palate boasting layer upon layer of blackberry, blueberry, svelte tannins and integrated alcohol and sheer bloody deliciousness. It would honestly be a pleasure to be waterboarded with this stuff and even better if you can wait a couple of decades and be waterboarded then. Of the Standish range, this is the showstopper and the wine that is so tempting right now you can drink it without a moment’s guilt.
We stood smiling, teeth stained and tastebuds jaded and overworked. I think this is what runners call The Wall. David let The Schubert be his coda, he was done and didn’t want a drop more when Stu rung the metaphorical last orders bell with 10 minutes to go. David had a Richard E Grant facsimile to compare notes with in the corner of the room. There was laughter and an imbibed kinship.
The remaining trio made their way to Table 9 and Soumah Wine, a vineyard in the Yarra Valley I had visited with my brother in 2017. Asked by distributor Steven Worley what wines I remembered back then, I had to be unapologetically honest. Soumah was one of the final stops during a day of 10 winery visits and the Four Pillars gin distillery, my powers of recall were not sharp. I did remember buying their nebbiolo and drinking it with a pizza, which was something, I thought. Steven took us through the delightful pinot noirs to close the show.
And it was done. Three hours gone in the blink of an eye. Of all the hallmarks, it was the teeth and tannin-battered gums that spoke most of the battle. I suspect like a marathon competitor, the real elation comes with the accomplishment of finishing the task… But we didn’t finish the task. A totting up of the wines tasted in the programme revealed we sampled 62 of the 120 in the room.
Honestly, I’m not sure if anyone ploughed through all of the show wines. It would mean a new glass every 90 seconds, and though not impossible, it would mean cutting short any discussion and treating the wines like they are on a conveyor belt or lined up like a tequila shots. It would also mean, if avoiding the spittoons, an analogue consumption of 3 bottles; quite an overture for a weekend that had just got underway. Conceivably not a marathon, more an Ironman…
We collected our coats and walked out into an overcast Pall Mall, ravenous. Previous tasting experience has shown me after flights and flights of wine, hunger is the undeniable force. The Wolseley was close and we walked right by Wild Honey[i], but, truthfully, unashamedly, real food was called for in the shape of Burger & Lobster, Leicester Square. No airs or graces, just prime Nebraskan beef, Canadian crustacean and fries coated in black truffle and parmigiano. A filthy hit washed down with a cold lager.
Cleansed and sated we went home. Competitors, athletes, epicures…ready for the next tasting event!
MWB
Endnotes:
[i] Clay vessels used by the Ancient Greeks and Etruscans
[ii] James Halliday being the foremost wine critic of Australia
[iii] This will save me money in the long run
[iv] Named after Horst Schubert’s mathematic theorem, stating that every knot can be uniquely expressed as a connected sum of prime knots. No, no idea, either.
[v] Sister restaurant of the now deceased Arbutus. Arbutus gave me perfect treacle and egg custard tarts. Badly missed.
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