81 Beach Street, Deal, Kent

I have just had the pleasure of hosting a wine dinner at a gem of a restaurant in Deal. Being the rump end of Kent (and just a stones skip from France), it seemed apt that it was to be an evening of French food, wine and music. Yes, this would be the first time that I would have a musical accompaniment to my one-man show. The venue was the welcoming 81 Beach Street restaurant www.81beachstreet.co.uk and as can be deduced from its name, it commands a prime position on the seafront.

Deal is just round the corner from Dover and yet it has the slight air of being undiscovered and off the beaten track. I am reliably informed by the locals, that the fact that all of its beach is pebbled, means that the town does not get too over run with ’sun seekers’ and therefore has a lovely relaxed and non-crowded feel to it in the summer and is definitely worth a visit should you have some time to spare.

However, I digress.  Guests were treated to a taste-bud activating glass of Crémant de Limoux on arrival, which was as well received as ever. After a delightful amuse-bouche of French Fish Provençale with Aioli & Garlic Crouton, there was a choice of two starters. Both the Chicken Liver & Cognac Parfait and the Onion, Thyme and Goat’s Cheese Tartlet were well matched with our Gamay de l’Ardèche. This classic Gamay was showing plenty of juicy, berry flavours and the tannins were soft and supple. Its Rhône origin gave it enough structure and backbone to stand up to the chicken liver and ample freshness to cut through the goat’s cheese.

Main courses were as classic as you can get. Bouillabaisse, Beef Bourguignon and Cassoulet meant that I had to select two wines to offer the best match. A safe starting point, when putting together food and wine matching ideas, is to try wines that originate from the same area as the food. The locals always know best… well, it’s a good place to start anyway.

For a Provençal Bouillabaisse, I opted for the excellent Château des Gavelles Rosé. It had plenty of ripe red berry flavours to celebrate our (now long forgotten) Indian summer but it still has enough acidity for a dry finish to combine well with the fish. Our ’star wine of the year’, the juicy, forward drinking, Côtes de Thongue Tradition was the perfect partner to the Cassoulet, its regional cohort. The 50% Merlot blend also leant enough soft, fruity, elegance to draw out the Bourguignon’s rich, meaty flavours.

Desserts of Tart Normandé and Crêpe Suzette were served with the divinely honeyed Monbazillac from Domaine de l’Ancienne Cure. The mouth filling sweetness of the desserts and the wine was kept refreshing and zesty with the beautifully balanced acidity of the wine’s finish. Sweet but not cloying is the name of the game when it comes to dessert wines and I was not let down by this Yapp favourite.

The whole evening was great fun and we all left fully sated. The Gypsy Jazz band added to the convivial atmosphere of the evening and I am now insisting that Yapp Brothers provide a house band to share the billing with me at all my future wine events. My thanks are extended to 81 Beach Street’s manager, Rebecca and all of her team for helping to make a great night. This was their first time in running such an event and I am pleased that we have already spoken about putting some future dates in the diary.

Deal is only 25 miles from France (which can be seen on a clear day), but why risk the choppiness of the channel or the train travelling tediousness of the tunnel when 81 Beach Street offers you a little bit of France right here in dear old Blighty?

Maxime & Alain Graillot

Last week, we were blessed with a whistle-stop visit from our old friend Crozes Hermitage maestro Alain Graillot and his charming wife (and administrative guru) Elisabeth. Alain graciously agreed to talk us through a flight of his wines and elaborate on his wine making philosophy as well as fielding questions from our inquisitive team in Mere.

Alain (who fortunately speaks excellent English) told us how he had become a first generation winemaker comparatively late in life on the eve of his 40^th birthday back in 1985. After a successful international career in agro-chemicals Alain decided to pursue his dream and found a 17 hectare vineyard to rent on Le Chassis plain below Tain l’Hermitage. Alain was drawn to Crozes Hermitage because he is partial to Syrah and had been buying wines from the likes of Marcel Guigal, Paul Jaboulet and Jean-Louis Grippat for his personal cellar and also because land there was relatively affordable and he was able to get a toe-hold without enormous borrowings.

From the outset Alain has tried to produce “wines that are affordable and that people will want to drink”. This game plan has served him well and he was able to buy the vineyard in 1988 and this year has overseen a huge excavation project to extend his cellars to accommodate his son Maxime’s wine production from a neighbouring estate called ‘Domaine des Lises’. Alain is candid that his retirement plans revolve around 32 year-old Maxime’s ability to take over the day to day running of the operation and he is looking forward to working less hard!

We started our tasting with Alain’s white Crozes Hermitage 2008 that is made from a blend of 80% Marsanne and 20% Roussanne and is a comparative rarity accounting for just 1 seventh of production. This fresh, youthful wine is, in Alain’s opinion, best drunk in its first 3-4 years so he has decided to bottle it under Stelvin® scewcap. This policy has met with a mixed reception in France (which accounts for half of sales) but Alain is convinced it is the best way forward for fruity, early-drinking wines.

The first red we tasted was Alain’s 2007 Saint Joseph, from just over half a hectare of Syrah vines that Alain rents at Saint Désirat. Alain explained that he is really looking for fruit “above all else” in his Saint Joseph and although this is very much a side line it is a wonderfully juicy and accessible wine with lots of bright red berry flavours and very supple tannins. Interestingly Alain told us that, on account of the granite soil that can yield hard tannin, he always de-stems all of his Saint Joseph but he never de-stems his Crozes Hermitage.

Our next wine was the 2007 Crozes Hermitage rouge that Alain admitted he was proud of as it was a vintage that required a great deal of effort and was never a predetermined success. This was darker, fuller and more complex than the Saint Joseph but was showing very well on its youthful fruit. We followed this with the same wine in the 2006 vintage which was denser, more closed and restrained with much less fruit on the nose. Alain explained that one is better off drinking Northern Rhône Syrah when really young (within a year or so of bottling) or keeping it for at least 3 years to develop some bottle age. To illustrate this point we then tasted the red Crozes’ 1995 which was a great vintage and just coming into its stride with more secondary leather, chocolate, and sous bois aromas and a fine palate of black fruit that still had plenty of vigour. Alain told us not to underestimate the longevity of Syrah and that last year he tasted through a retrospective vertical of all of the wines he had made and that even his 2 most fraught vintages (1993 and 2002) were still ‘alive’ and enjoyable.

The final wine in this line-up was a real treat, Alain’s ‘La Guiraude’ 2005. The La Guiraude is a barrel selection or Cuvée du Patron that Alain blends when the correct conditions prevail and can represent up to 10% of his red production. Although 2005 was a terrific vintage this wine is made to be laid down and was still very much in its infancy. It was showing more concentration and fuller and rounder tannins than the ‘regular’ Crozes’ with a wealth of black fruit and good acidity - it should be an absolute belter given a further 3-5 years.

Before he headed for the hills we asked Alain what he thought was the secret of his winemaking success. “A fresh finish” was his immediate response because “that provides the incentive for the next glass”. We couldn’t agree more.

Michel Roux Jr

A couple of weeks ago, I was excited to attend our annual lunch at Le Gavroche, Michel Roux Jr’s two Michelin star restaurant in Mayfair.  Having become an avid fan of Masterchef recently, I was eager to see if Chef Michel himself would be in residence and I was not disappointed, finding him mid-photo shoot, as I arrived at this iconic French restaurant.

Yapp Brothers have been holding such an event for customers at Le Gavroche, once or twice a year for over twenty years. Today, we were expecting around 100 for a lunch specially devised for us by Michel and accompanied by carefully-matched Yapp wines to complete the gastronomic experience.  And what an experience it was!

Our guests were greeted with a glass of Crémant de Limoux Brut from Philippe Collin, a Champenois who moved to Limoux in 1980.  This excellent Pinot Noir and Chardonnay blend has become a staple of the Yapp portfolio, gaining much kudos with the press and featuring in the Independent’s ‘Top 50 Wines for Christmas’ last year.

Suitably gee’d up by the fizz, the assembled crowd moved downstairs to the restaurant to enjoy a pre-starter of Ballotine de Volaille, Celeri Remoulade et Vinaigrette de Truffes with a 2008 white Côtes du Luberon from Château la Canorgue, famous as the setting for the film ‘A Good Year’ starring Russell Crowe.  The wine was showing particularly well and the lemony flavours were ideally suited to the richness of this immaculately-presented dish.

Next up, Ragout de Langoustines et Pied de Cochon à la Graine de Moutarde.  The sauce was so full of flavour and our white Crozes Hermitage 2008 from Olivier Dumaine lived up to it manfully.  A new wine to the Yapp stable this year, it was recently recommended by Jancis Robinson as a wine with ‘explosive fruit on the palate and very fresh and mouthfilling.’ The main course of Roasted French Partridge with a Brandy Shallot Jus was served with a brace of reds - Domaine Paul Misset’s sublime Nuits Saint George 2002 and a Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalan Carignan 2007, from Domaine Ferrer-Ribière’s precious parcel of 130 year-old vines, that is brimming over with warm, autumnal fruits making it a current favourite with everyone at Yapp Brothers.

Jason Yapp had met with the Gavroche team the previous week to do some serious food and wine matching and this was not lost on the guests on my table who pronounced the dessert, Golden Pineapple and Warm Almond Cake with Rum and Raisin Ice Cream, to be the most heavenly match for a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise 2006 from Domaine de Durban.  Indeed it was,  with neither the wine nor the dish being outshone by the other but coming together to round off the meal to perfection.

After much witty repartee from Jason Yapp, a brief, insightful address from Michel Roux Jr, and the most divine menu with some superbly matched wines, our 100 or so guests couldn’t fail to go away happy and nor, for that matter, could I.