Earthworks 2014 Barossa Valley Shiraz

Today's You-app task was to "think positive" and make a note of something positive. This was actually my chosen "keep-it-up" habit-forming activity, so I had to do it twice. Fortunately, living in Australia gives you many positive things to think about, even on a rainy day like today. One of them is the wine - and one of the wines to be positive about is Earthworks 2014 Barossa Valley Shiraz, which is rich and velvety without being too in-your-face like some Aussie wines can be. (Not that I have a problem with that!)

It’s on offer at Vintage Cellars at the moment, so that’s two things to be positive about in itself!

Earthworks 2013 Barossa Valley Shiraz

From (mostly) Aussie beer to Aussie wine. This week's discovery was Earthworks 2013 Barossa Valley Shiraz. It’s a real corker. Except no cork, obviously. (The Aussies were sensible enough to ditch those years ago.)

A good companion for beef and guinness stew. And blogging! The only downside is a very purple tongue.

The best bit… I bought it on buy-one-get-one-free, so we still have another bottle to enjoy!

A pair of top quality bargain white wines from Tyrrell's

Ever since our Hunter Valley wine tour last month, I’ve been on the lookout for Tyrrell’s Wines in the local bottle shops. At the weekend, we had friends over for curry and I was therefore very happy to find a Tyrrell’s 2013 Old Winery Sauvignon Blanc for a snip at $12.99, which was suggested to make “an ideal accompaniment to fresh seafood and spicy Asian dishes”. Ideal, it was!

The Old Winery Sauvignon Blanc exhibits a wonderfully fragrant nose of snow peas, guava and a little passionfruit. With its classic varietal character, this full flavoured and refreshing sauvignon blanc delivers herbal and grassy notes with vibrant, zesty citrus fruit character.

Tonight, we sampled a second one from the range, the 2013 Old Winery Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, “an ideal accompaniment to a wide variety of cuisines such as seafood, vegetarian, chicken and creamy pasta dishes” - it paired very nicely with our pasta carbonara.

Citrus semillon fruit characters and lifted herbaceous sauvignon blanc overtones combine perfectly to produce this zesty wine style with a fresh and lively finish.

If cheap (but delicious) whites are not your thing, I can also thoroughly recommend the 2011 Stevens Single Vineyard Shiraz.

Medium to full bodied with a lively, intense purple colour. Black cherry, rapsberry and fresh, spicy flavours dominate the palate with a vibrant, fresh acidity that make the wine a wonderful example of the modern, balanced style of Hunter Valley shiraz.

You have to go to the winery in Hunter Valley to get it (and it’s a tad more than $13) but it’s worth the trip!

Hunter Valley wine tasting with Wine Country Tours

When we moved to Australia, my fabulous sister-in-law gave us a present of voucher for Wine Country Tours to visit the famous Hunter Valley wine region. (Nothing to do with Huntsman spiders!) At the weekend, we went on the tour and it was great!

Hunter Valley is 2-3 hours north of us, so we had a pretty early start, but much of the journey is through National Parks and very pretty. (At least the bits I saw - I must confess to having a bit of a snooze at times en route despite the often bumpy toad. Tip: if mornings are not your thing, bring a travel neck pillow for the journey!)

The tour itself started with morning coffee and baked goods at Peppers Guesthouse, which was very pleasant. As a bonus, we got to see our first wild kangaroo, even if it was quite far away.

Once refreshed, we drove down the road to the main event: a tour and tasting at Tyrrell’s Wines, where we got up close and personal with some of the vines. Tyrrell’s Wines have been making wine (and family run) since 1858. Indeed, thanks to Phylloxera blighting European vineyards, the winery has some of the oldest vines in the world. At the time of our visit, the grapes were close to full colour and would be harvested in a few weeks. (Sooner for the whites.)

We then had a tour of the winery itself. Our guide, Richard Everett, is a trained Oenologist (winemaker) who worked in the wine industry for many years before moving into the wine guide business; he really knows his stuff and was able to give lots of insights into the wine-making process and the challenges it faces. (If you ever have doubts about the reality of climate change, talk to a winemaker!)

After the tour of the cellars, we then got down to the highlight of the day: tasting (15!) delicious Tyrrell’s wines. The tasting concentrated on what Hunter Valley (currently) does best - Semillon, Chardonnay and Shiraz - with several interesting comparisons, including three “vertical” tastings (same wine, different vintage) and several straight comparisons of the same grape from different vines and/or vineyards. (Tyrrell’s have vineyards outside Hunter too, so we were able to taste some of those and compare!) Richard was great and made the tasting highly educational, entertaining and enjoyable.

It’s fair to say that I came away from the tasting a major fan of Tyrrell’s Wines and will be looking out for them in future. It also really struck home how dynamic the whole wine business is - and how hard oenologists have to work year on year to maintain quality in the face of changing weather and climate.

After the tasting, we went for a somewhat pricey but very tasty lunch at Roberts Restaurant before a flying visit to Hungerford Hill Wines for a second (smaller) tasting with glimpse of the future: “cool climate” wines grown at altitude in the Snowy Mountains.

All-in-all, an excellent day out and highly recommended! (There are a few more photos here.)

Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2013

When I was last buying some wine from Liquorland, I was informed at the till that I had spent enough to qualify for a couple of special offers at the till at $10 for a bottle. Generally, I say no to such attempts to getting you to spend more but the sight of a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc made me pause - long enough to be told it was normally $23 a bottle.

I can’t (always) resist a bargain and had just bought some sushi for dinner, which I thought might go nicely with a glass of wine, so I decided to get a bottle from the fridge. A good decision, for very nice it was too! (And did indeed go well with the sushi.)

They say:

“Distinctly Marlborough, this 2013 Sauvignon Blanc captures the vibrant herbaceous, grapefruit and gooseberry characters of the region. Superb weight and elegance combine to complete a wine of remarkable fruit intensity and style.”

This one is certainly on the watchlist for recurring offers!

Winning wine from Secret Stone

It feels like a bit of a betrayal to post about New Zealand wine but there is plenty of time to get to the Aussie ones! When I was in Wellington last year, I visited a wine bar (for the free Wifi!) and had a very nice glass of red wine. I cannot remember the grape(s) but I do remember it was from Secret Stone. A week or so ago - the time is beginning to blur (but not due to too much wine) - I therefore decided to take advantage of a special offer in Liquorland for two bottles from the Secret Stone range. I thought perhaps it was blend of some kind but the only two varieties I could find in the shop were Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc - two of my favourites from the Marlborough region.

Both were good but the Pinot was the one that I really liked. It wasn’t quite up to the awesomeness of Roaring Meg from Mt Difficulty but it’s definitely one that I would get again. It’s also pushed New Zealand Pinot Noir slightly higher up my red wine wish-list. (Australian Shiraz has been sitting at the top of the go-to list since moving over but I’ve also had some decent glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon - my wine of choice as a student - whilst out and about, which has given me pause for thought.)

McGuigan Estate Shiraz

Tonight was a steak night, which called for a hearty red wine. With the forthcoming move Down Under, an Aussie number seemed appropriate.

I'm not sure how much it's drunk in Australia itself but the McGuigan Estate Shiraz is on offer at Sainsburys at the moment and has a couple of IWSC trophies to its name. I can see why - it's full-bodied, robust and packed full of flavour.

It pairs well with a juicy steak but easily has enough flavour to hold its own for some quality quaffing in its own right. One more reason to look forward to the move later this year!

Wonderful wines of the Western Cape

On Friday, a new star of the wine world was revealed to me. Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve 2009 has joined Roaring Meg Pinot Noir as a wine worth remembering - and paying full price for! :op Unlike Meg, though, it's a real bargain at under £14!

The discovery was made at a particularly good tasting of the University of Southampton Wine Club, "Cape Wines", which featured eight excellent South African wines. (All available from SA Wines.) The Beyerskloof Pinotage Reserve 2009 was the last wine of the night and the star of the show (for me) but all eight wines were very palatable. Affordable too! (The most expensive one was still under £20 - and actually my least favourite of the night.)

A couple of the other reds were also worthy of a mention: the Rustenberg Syrah 2009 and Simonsig Frans Malan Reserve 2007. As one might expect, all three were big and bold, just the way I like my red wine, although the Simonsig had a rather disappointing finish.

I had been expecting to enjoy the reds but the whites were also surprisingly good. The Groot Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2011 was pleasant but unspectacular - a bit disappointing for a New World Sauvignon Blanc fan. The Vergelegen Chardonnay Reserve 2011, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise: lightly buttery but crisp. I'm not generally one for Chardonnay but I'd happily have this one again.
The final notable wine of the night was the least spectacular but worth remembering all the same, which was the opener - a Graham Beck Brut NV. I am not a great champagne drinker but this one was very pleasant and at £12.99 definitely one to note for next time I need something bubbly.

All-in-all, a great evening with some great wines - and eight more reasons to go wine tasting in the Western Cape!

A bit more than Three Good Things on a Plate - Mushrooms, scone and soured cream recipe

I'm a bit of a fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's cookbooks and we have a few of the River Cottage series. I've blogged before
about Veg Every Day. I also got The River Cottage Meat Book for Christmas and one of my New Year's Aspirations was to cook more/better meat. I've not yet been able to do that but the veg
front has been more successful and this weekend saw another Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall veg recipe triumph.

This one was not from Veg Every Day, though. Another Christmas present this year was Hugh's Three Good Things, which features recipes predominantly consisting of "three good things on a
plate". I think there is a bit of artistic license here, to be honest, as the recipe I made yesterday - Mushrooms, scone and soured cream - had considerably more then three things in it, although I guess that the "mushrooms" is really short for "mushroom stew". The stew was then topped with a cheese scone mix and baked in the oven, like a cobbler.

I'd never made a cobbler-style dish before and I haven't made scones for years - I'm not the baker in our house - so I was a bit nervous but it turned out pretty well, despite a couple of mistakes on my part. A "rustic" finish but exceptionally tasty and well recommended. The third "good thing" - soured cream - was just for serving.

I'm a big fan of mushrooms and they really are the star of this dish (although the scone topping was pretty fine too). The key, as ever with mushrooms, is to cook them for quite a long time to really concentrate their shroomy goodness. A healthy glug of red wine added to the richness of the dish further. We went for a very palatable Aussie McGuigan Bin No. 736 Shiraz Viognier blend, and a fine accompaniment it was too.

A dish this hearty and tasty does not need much on the side dishes and some simple stir fried savoy cabbage with a touch of soy sauce was great. Thanks to signing up with Abel & Cole, I think that more tasty River Cottage veg dishes are in our future.

Some fine wine for Christmas Part II

One of the nice things about having family in two different locations is that it provides a good excuse to extend Christmas. And so it was that we flew to Dublin yesterday with a case full of presents for Christmas Part II. (Note to self: next time, buy smaller presents! The Tonka "Big Rigs" dump truck for my nephew was too good to pass over on the basis of size!)

This Christmas had been relatively alcohol-free so far. That is, until we went to Dublin! This is nothing to do with the stereotype of Irish drinking habits - having been a student in the UK and lived in Dublin for six years, I would say the two cultures are on a par in terms of alcohol consumption - but more do to with not driving and being in non-tee-total company. Last night's dinner was therefore accompanied by a couple of very nice wines. (Thanks to the discerning tastes of my in-laws.)

The first was a classic New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which we've had before: Mirror Lake. Still crisp, fruity and refreshing.

The second was nicer still - a very fine 2007 Domaine Combier Crozes-Hermitage Clos des Grives from Rhone, France. I'm not the biggest fan of French wine but Crozes-Hermitage seems to be an exception. I remember enjoying one at a wine club event a few years ago and really enjoyed the ‘la Matiniere’ Domaine Ferraton Pere et Fil that we had at The Black Rat in Winchester. This one was a very good Syrah - not quite as fruity and in-your-face as a New World Shiraz tends to be but still packed full of flavour. (And much nicer than any from the Syrah/Shiraz wine tasting from early this year.) Highly recommended.

Leek risotto with chestnuts - it may not be healthier than a ready meal but it sure is tastier!

Yesterday, we had "Leek risotto with chestnuts" from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg Every Day! The picture (below) does not do it justice, more to do with my bad/rushed food photography skills than the dish itself. I've never used chestnuts in a recipe before and they were tasty! Easy too.

Leek risotto is a bit of a deviation from the normal risotto I make, which has shallots or onions as the first ingredient and then something for the flavour later. The leeks take the place of both elements but they require some additional cooking up front.

Once they've been sauteed in butter for 20 mins or so to make them really silky, though, it's pretty much business as usual: chuck in the risotto rice and fry for a bit with the leeks, cook off a glass of dry white wine, then simmer in stock, adding a bit at a time. The chestnuts were simply crumbled, cooked in a bit more butter for a couple of minutes, and then added at the end. Delicious!

It paired very well with the dry white I used for the risotto too, a Clearsprings Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa. (Half price in Sainsbury's at the moment!)

Celebrity chefs have got some bad press recently following a report on some research on the BBC News website - Ready meals 'healthier' than TV chefs' fare:

"In the study, published in the British Medical Journal, they compared 100 main meals from four TV chefs, who had books at the top of the bestseller charts, to 100 supermarket ready meals. These were then compared to nutritional guidelines set by the World Health Organization.

Red light
On average, meals in the chef's books were less healthy and "more likely to achieve red traffic light labels", the researchers said."

And then the damning traffic lights themselves:


There was a fair amount of butter in this recipe, it is true, but I think this account might be a little harsh on the old celeb chef cook books, even ignoring the very valid comment by the chefs themselves that they feature of mix of "normal" and "special occasion" dishes. There is also a lot more to healthy eating than the "traffic light" system. What about the nutritional value of the food?

It is true that the risotto only had three leeks in four portions but the ratatouille we made at the weekend from the same book was packed full of vegetables. Similarly, Jamie Oliver's English Onion soup recipe from Jamie at Home may have been topped with cheese on toast but was crammed full of onions and leeks.

Not only are these recipes packed full of veg, they're packed through of flavour too! Which brings me to my last point: cooking fresh food and making something tastier than any ready meal has to be better even if it gets the odd red light. Cooking tasty recipes increases confidence and leads to cooking with more fresh fruit and veg. Finally, if there is unhealthy stuff in there, you know because you put it in!

Stoneberg Reserve Pinotage Shiraz 2011

They say:

Stoneberg Reserve Pinotage-Shiraz has elegant, ripe flavours of plum and mixed spice, with dark chocolate aromas on the nose. The silky tannins linger on the tongue to make this an intense, enjoyable glass. Enjoy with cold meats and tapas dishes or with mature cheddar cheese.

Not too shabby with beef stir-fry or pasta either! One to look out for at the supermarket - I'm pretty sure this was one of my half-price £10/bottle -> £5/bottle bargains a while back and it's bound to come round again. (13.5% if Karen's reading!)

Life's too short to drink bad wines

Last Friday was the last University of Southampton wine club tasting and the theme was wines selected from Simon Hoggart's Life's Too Short to Drink Bad Wine: 100 wines for the discerning drinker. Clearly, we did not do them all but we did manage to taste an impressive eight. (The wines themselves were sourced from The Wine Society and any prices quoted are from there. Names are from the evening's handout, so apologies if any are not quite right.)

In total, we got through three whites, five reds and one Prosecco. I did not remember to get pictures of them all but I have my favourite five from the night. First up was the Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine sur Lie, Chateau de Chasseloire, Cuvee Centenaires, 2007. This was a crisp, white wine that was very drinkable and a bargain at only £9. A very good start and my favourite white of the evening. It was accompanied by an amusing passage from the book but, sadly, I cannot remember any of that.

Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine sur Lie, Chateau de Chasseloire, Cuvee Centenaires, 2007	Madiran Chateau Montus, 2005

The star wine of the evening for me, though, was the Madiran Chateau Montus, 2005. At £19 a bottle, it's over twice the price of the Muscadet but also over twice as nice and I might invest in a bottle or two for special occasions. (Although, sadly, I cannot find it on the Wine Society website.)

In between the Muscadet and Montus were two more whites and three reds, most of which were very drinkable. The book sold itself on being for the wine enthusiast and not the wine snob and, definitely not being a wine snob, I found this to be a refreshingly honest and down-to-earth approach. I'm not sure that I have the knowledge (or sophisticated palate) to class myself as a wine enthusiast (although this does complete a round dozen posts about wine) but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself appreciating the majority of Simon Hoggart's suggestions that we tried that night. (The exception was the Cassis Chateau Barbanau Kalahari, 2007, which I found to be very hard work and definitely not one to revisit at £18 a pop. Still, one failure out of eight is not bad at all.)

My favourite three of those five are shown below. (The second white of the night, a Fefinanes Alabarino, 2010, was not omitted deliberately but neither is it worth £11.50 a bottle by my taste/budget.) Of these three, I think the best bang-for-buck goes to the 2005 Hochar at £10.50. This was a fair bit nicer than the slightly more expensive 2009 Morellino di Scansano. The 2004 Chateau Musar was nicer than them both but at £18 I think I would rather spend a pound more and get the 2005 Madiran Chateau Montus. I wouldn't say no to a glass (or two) if offered, though!

Morellino di Scansano, 2009	Chateau Musar, Hochar, 2005	Chateau Musar, Gaston Hochar, 2004

The evening was rounded off with a glass of Prosseco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene NV, which was perfectly quaffable, even if not noteworthy enough to warrant a photo. It seems a little wrong to review a book based on 8% of its contents but if they are a representative 8% then this book is well worth buying!

Mmmm.... Madeira

Tonight's wine tasting was a Madeira wine tasting. Madeira's come in a variety of styles but the most famous (I think) and best are very raisiny fortified wines. They range in sweetness but the sweetest "Malmsey" style is the nicest, in my book.

We had some interesting wines (Madeira table wine = bad!), including a 40 year old Verdelho from Blandy's. This was pretty nice, I must admit, and at £133 a pop, this was not a wine I was likely to drink any other time (or again, for that matter).

The standout wine of the night for me, however, was a delicious 1994 Cossant Gordon Malmsey [Colhieta], paired with a delicious madeira cake - not the English sponge cake but, rather, the traditional honey cake. (Recipe here, where I also half-inched the picture, below.)

Madeira wine has a pretty interesting history. I'm certainly not going to repeat all of it here (that's what Wikipedia is for) but I like the fact that Madeira, like so many great discoveries, was an accidnet. The Madeirans were shipping their wine aborad for sale to far-flung destinations, such as India, but they failed to sell it all - if it's like the Rose table wine we had tonight, I'm not surprised. The unsold wine was shipped back to Madeira on the same ships but, by the time it got home, it had changed. For the better. Gone was the pale, bland (I wonder if this was the origin of "Blandy's") wine and in its place was something dark and raisiny and delicious. For a while, they deliberatley shipped it long distances to make the transformation before finally realising that it was the heat of passing through the tropics that was responsible for the transformation. Now, they just stick the barrels up near the winery roof for a while, where it can get the required heat without the cost.

A favoured wine of Napoleon and Churchill, among others, it's an interesting wine with an interesting history and well worth a glass or two - especially if you have some tasty Madeira honey cake to go with it!

Que Syrah, Syrah

Last night we had a Syrah/Shiraz wine tasting at the wine club. I had been looking forward to this, as I am rather partial to a Shiraz or Shiraz blend and was expecting to be blown over by some bold, fruity and maybe slightly spicy red wines from the New World.

The format was quite fun and after a couple of "interesting" Aussie Shiraz variants - namely a Rose (OK but I'm not a big Rose fan) and a sparkling Shiraz (Why?!! Yuck!) - we had a series of five Shiraz/Syrah wines tasted blind, with a quiz asking where were they from and how much did they cost. I also rated mine out of ten. I don't normally reveal my tasting notes, such as they are, because my ignorance is great and my wine vocabulary limited. This time, though, I thought I would make an exception:



There are a couple of things to note here. One is that I only got a couple right (the French and Chilean) and this was essentially a pair of lucky guesses based on (1) the fact that I generally don't like French wine and (2) I liked "E" the best and figured that Chile could knock out a decent full-bodied red. The Chilean in question was a 2008 Lapostolle Cuvee Alexandre from Las Kuras Vineyard (right). It wasn't my favourite ever but it was cetainly good stuff, almost black in colour and with chocolately smoothness. I'm not sure I would pay £15.75 for it but it might be worth it.

The second thing to note is the generally low scores out of ten that I gave the five wines - 4/10, 7.5/10, 5/10, 5/10 and 8/10. Most disappointing of all was the Australian Torbreck "Woodcutter's Shiraz" (below left), which I have made a note of in order to remember to avoid in future! It was not what I have grown to love and expect from an Aussie Shiraz.



Somewhat more successful was the fortified Shiraz Australian "port" from d'Arenberg (above right). This tasted a bit of blueberries with a hint of liquorice and would probably be very nice after dinner with some dark chocolate.

The disappointing aspect of the evening was that in the past couple of weeks, I've had three Shiraz/Syrah or Shiraz blends that, quite frankly, blew everything from last night out of the water. In California last month, we had a fantastic Shiraz from Vermeil Wines in Napa Valley (one for a future blog post), I've already posted about the delicious and bargainiferous Kumala Zenith Merlot/Cab Sav/Shiraz blend and on Thursday, to prepare for last night's tasting, we had a very tasty Australian Shiraz from JJ McWilliam (left).

With the exception of Californian winery tasting sessions, I think I might be sticking to my half-price £10 bottle from the supermarket in future!

Kumala Zenith Merlot/Cab Sav/Shiraz - another bargain red

As I may have mentioned before, I have a rather random but effective wine purchasing strategy. I know roughly what I like (fruity dry whites and robust reds) but I don't know enough about my wine to be able to pick a bottle off the shelf and say for sure that it's going to be good.

Instead, I work on the principles that (1) I won't be too upset if I spend a fiver on a bottle and it turns out not to be too great, and (2) bottles on sale for a tenner are rarely unpleasant. When our wine stocks are a bit low, I therefore poke around the wine section of the supermarket for half-price ten(ish) pound bottles of wine of the general kind that I like. Sometimes it goes wrong but more often that not it seems to work out well.

The latest hit with this strategy was the "Zenith" Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz blend from Kumala winery. A "juicy, smooth full bodied red wine", this one paired very nicely with beef and mushroom stroganoff. Very quaffable and a real bargain at only £5 from Sainsbury's - get some while it's still on offer!

Kali Mirchi, Shirley a top Indian restaurant

Southampton has quite a lot of restaurants and is particularly well-endowed with good Indian restaurants. Fortunately for me as a curry lover, a whole bunch of the best Indian restaurants are within spitting distance of where I live, Shirley, and work. (Well, spitting distance for a bionic camel. And don't call me Shirley.)

Near the University on Burgess Road is Kairali, which is a great South Indian restaurant. (One without a website it seems.) A bit further along the road, on the corner of Hill Lane and Winchester Road, is Jehangir, an Indian and Bangladeshi restaurant and takeaway. Both are well worth a visit and both have their own charms but I am not going to say any more about either right now. Instead, I want to sing the praises of Kali Mirchi in Shirley - partly because it is long overdue, partly because I have just had a delectable Kali Mirchi takeaway for my dinner.

This place first caught my attention when a friend revealed that it was the #1 restaurant in Southampton, or possibly even Hampshire, on TripAdvisor. (It's currently #2 in Southampton, having been knocked off the top spot by another Indian restaurant, which I am yet to visit.) I think that the first time I went was when my brother came over to visit from Dublin in late 2010. I went back twice more in the next couple of weeks. It was that good.

The dish that really blew me away - and still a favourite - was the Chicken Tikka Malaidar. This is a spicy(ish), creamy, spinach dish; something that I don't think I've seen elsewhere and certainly hadn't tried before. (It's the green one in the picture, which is actually a greedy takeaway portion from two or three weeks ago!) The deliciousness of the Malaidar (also great with lamb tikka or paneer!) has sometimes made it hard to order other things but I may have a new favourite with the Tawa Murgh, "shredded chicken breast cooked on a hot plate with bell peppers in a smooth onion and tomato sauce". (It's the one on the other side of the mushroom rice in the picture. Fantastic Peshwari naan on the far left.) I also heartily recommend the Kadhai - with paneer, if you like Indian cheese. Mmmmmm!

I've now eaten in several times, in large groups and small, and got a few takeaways, both collections and deliveries, and it has always been great. The all-you-can-eat buffet lunch isn't bad, either. (Although I don't think you get Malaidar or Kadhai - at least, there was none the one time I have been at lunchtime.)

I do have one caution, however - don't order the Chicken Tikka Masala! At least, don't order it if you like the generic British coconut-rich Chicken Tikka Masala that (understandably) is Britain's favourite dish (allegedly) and is emulated by pubs and supermarkets across the land. Kali Mirchi, for whatever the reason (presumably the speciality region of India of the restaurant, or possibly even the authenticity of the food) is not that kind of curry house. To be honest, though, there are so many interesting and tasty dishes on the menu, it would almost be a crime to order Chicken Tikka Masala! (The same actually applies to Jehangir. If I fancy Chicken Tikka Masala, I tend to get it from somewhere a bit more "generic".)

In addition to not ordering Malaidar today (I went for Tawa Murgh and Lamb Biryani), I also made one other break from tradition today. I don't normally have wine with curry but there was a bottle of McGuigan Bin No. 528 open, so I figured I have some rather than the traditional lager. It was good! I think I will have to experiment more with curry and wine in future.

Damn fine Dalmatian Dingač

Yesterday was the first tasting of the Year for the University of Southampton Wine Club. The tasting was "8 Dalmations":

"The 2012 inaugural wine tasting will bring back fond memories of summer warmth and sun-drenched picturesque shores of the south Adriatic Sea – and hopefully this setting can be recreated by tasting the wines typical of that region: Pelješac peninsula and Korčula Island. Already the ancient Greeks grew vine there and after a brief exile in established wine-making regions of the old and new world more and more wine-growers and makers return to Croatia, only to express their newly polished skills in exciting wines.

We will experience 3 white wines from the Korčula vinogorje (typical/registered region), a relatively green island with rolling hills, famous also for being the home of Marco Polo. In contrast, northern Pelješac is characterised by wind swept escarpments and small villages. Grapes barely survive what nature and the gods throws at them, but for the wine-lover the efforts of hard working small wine estates can be very rewarding, and we will taste 5 reds from the Pelješac vinogorje."

This was a great tasting that embodies all that is good about these events: good company, good nibbles and an interesting selection of wines that I would not normally have access to nor think about trying. (Too be honest, I had never heard of any of them!)

The stand-out discovery for me was my enjoyment of the Dingač red wines. We sampled two robust reds (14.3% and 15% vol!) and a dessert variety, and all three were very tasty. My personal favourite was the 2006 Matuško (right) but others favoured the 2004 Skaramuča (centre). They have an interesting flavour, with a lot more cherry versus the berries of the red wines that I normally go for. Sadly, I think they are only really available in Croatia but it is on my holiday destination wishlist, so I will just have to make a mental note and bide my time!

Mirror Lake - yet another cracking Marlborough white

Wine this Christmas was a rather delicious New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Mirror Lake in the Marlborough region. Another wine that hits all the right notes for me: crisp, fruity and refreshing. Great stuff.

Another Marlborough classic

Being a wine-drinker of limited knowledge, I have a fairly crude but effective way of sourcing new wines. When I am in the supermarket, I keep an eye out for half-price bottles of a variety I like (usally Rioja, New World Sauvignon Blanc, or some kind of Shiraz/Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon affair) that usually costs around £10. Experience has told me that this price range seems to match the (lack of) sophistication of my palate plus the lack of extravagance of my wallet. (I'm prepared to risk a fiver on untested wine but not much more!)

Occasionally, this tactic goes a bit wrong and I bring home something rather bland, or too sweet, destined for a risotto or casserole dish of some kind. Sometimes, though, it reaps welcome rewards. One of the latter is the Sauvignon Blanc from Glenridge Point. This is a crisp, zesty and fruity wine with all the new world features that I love from New Zealand Sauvignons. I will happily add it to my exisiting go-to Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough: Oyster Bay and Villa Maria. If you are a fan of such things... head to Sainsburys whilst it's still on offer!