Halliday Destination

Appreciating wine is not about ticking off lists of famous or expensive wines just to say you've tried them. In the same way, going on holiday shouldn't be about ticking off the places you've been just to say you've been there. Both are as much about the journey as they are about the destination...

I was at The World Gourmet Summit in Sentosa last week for a tutored Shiraz tasting with James Halliday and guests Lisa Perotti-Brown MW and Dr N K Yong. My destination wine was going to be Penfolds Grange (and boy, was it good). But along the way I was treated to some wine discoveries that made the journey just as sweet.

Shiraz has become an icon of modern winemaking, grown in all 62 of Australia's wine making regions. Although relatively low-yielding, it is an adaptable grape that survives in many different vine growing environments.

Hunter Valley, or “the umbilical cord of Sydney”, as  Halliday likes to call it, is at the hot end of the scale for a fine wine producing area. For a long time the shiraz from this area was “undiscovered and undervalued”, he says , but the “recent awakening of Tyrrell's to the age of their vines” has lead fellow winemakers to follow suit, and collectively “take the game by the throat”. The 2007 Tyrrell's Vat 9 Hunter Shiraz  is a great example of old vine Shiraz, made from vines with an average age of 80 years.

Hunter Valley, like the other winemaking areas represented today, has never been affected by the  phylloxera louse. It is an important point to note as these vines are ungrafted, and grown on their own roots. This is extremely rare in the world of winemaking; only a few countires and viticultural areas can lay claim to this. All others have vines that are grafted on to American root stock to protect them from the louse. Ungrafted vines have a longer lifespan and can lead to deep concentrated flavours in the grapes due to naturally lowering yields.

It maybe surprising, but this, and many of the other top wines here, are sealed with a screw cap. Halliday is a proponent of screw cap technology and would choose screw cap over cork for all wines, whether they are meant for drinking young, or for ageing.  It is a controversial subject, he says; an ongoing 'topic of discussion' within the wine industry. By way of example he refers to  two of the Penfolds wines tasting today.


Penfolds Grange uses cork whereas Penfolds RWT has a screw cap: is this just because of consumer image and the “perception of quality” a cork brings to a wine? Halliday remarks that he would be willing to pay more for a Grange with a screw cap closure!
However, the 2005 Henschke Hill of Grace is an example of a super-premium wine that uses screw cap as a closure: a rare sight indeed at it's price point. Halliday hopes this is the way forward for all wines, and indeed it doesn't seem to have affected  it's popularity.

The Hill of Grace comes from Eden Valley, just next to Barossa. It is second in line to the Shiraz throne, behind 2004 Penfolds Grange. Comparisons cannot really be made between the two as they are made in two very distinct styles.

Hill of Grace was one of the first single vineyard sites to be made famous in Australia. Halliday states that it's a single vineyard wine using “a whole mosaic of different blocks”. Halliday has tasted the grapes, juice and fermented grape juice of the different blocks within Hill of Grace and can report that the characters are “significantly different”.The individual blocks are selected for the wine depending on the character of the vintage.

Penfolds Grange is a much more intense style of wine, but according to Halliday, it “shows class through it's back palate and finish”.It is not a single vineyard wine, but a multi-region wine. However the complex blending involved is not dissimilar to the assembly of Hill of Grace's vineyard blocks of grapes.

They use a method that is unique to Penfolds to maximise fruit flavour and give longevity to the wine. They add tannins derived from powdered grape tannin for balance and structure and so exercise complete control of the ageing potential. Sounds strange, but then again, Penfolds are always at the forefront of the field when it comes to experimentation.
Max Shubert, the innovator behind Grange, came up with the idea of pressing the grapes and taking them to barrel while they were still actively fermenting at 2-3 baume. This too was unique to Grange for a while; it is now widely adopted.

The wine that has the room buzzing, however, is 2006 Yarra Yering Dry Red No.2. The company was recently acquired by Singapore's own Ed Peters, but it is the quality and style that is the talk of the table. Maintaining consistently low yields on unirrigated soils has lead to a wine that is, in Halliday's words, “most complex” and has a “unique style”. Lisa adds that she likes the “earthy” character and flavours of “dried Mediterranean herbs”. The only downside for Halliday is the cork stopper!

There is also a stalky character to the wine that Halliday say is a result of  “whole bunch pressing” of grapes. This method is one of the on-going trends that he has identified in the production of  quality Shiraz. It is a method used by Syrah producers in the Rhone.

The Barossa Valley 2008 Kaesler, Alte Reben Shiraz is another acquisition  of Singapore-based Ed Peters, this time in conjunction with flying wine makers Reid & Bindy Bosward. The “whole bunch pressing” is evident here too, as Halliday points out it's crucial role in this wine's tannin structure. There are less than 1000 bottles of this made each vintage so it is a particularly rare wine. The fruit comes from vines planted in 1899 with the resulting wine benefiting from subtle use of French oak, and an absence of fining and filtration to give the wine it's full expression.

This is just a snapshot of the wonderful wines sampled on the journey to Grange. It is a perfect destination, just as impressive as I have imagined all these years, but the journey itself has been First Class.


Thanks to Peter Knipp Holdings Pte Ltd and all at The World Gourmet Summit.
http://www.worldgourmetsummit.com/wgs2011/english/

Taking the Shish

Let's begin at the beginning: I like to think that I know a lot about kebabs, right? I was there during the Portsmouth & Southsea Kebab Wars in the late 80's when the phrase "buy 1 get 1 free" was invented over stirrings of chilli sauce. I've eaten TWO kebabs in one night - hey, it was a long walk home! I've eaten shawarma in Israel, in between mixing cement and cutting floor tiles, and tucked into souvlaki in Greece next to the Acropolis. I haven't been to Turkey or the Lebanon but i've been there in spirit in the restaurants of Dalston, Green Lanes and Newington Green in London. Yep, I've tried 'em all.

"Small Doner, please" 

What I haven't tasted before is a Singapore kebab, so it is with great merriment that I skip towards Arab Street with my trusted companion, El Jacko (aka Caroline) to sample the delights of this culinary enclave.

Tonight we are to frequent TWO establishments. No, not to recreate a bygone era of drunken student debauchery: It is because the first place is so bad that we have to walk out, Gordon Ramsay style.

On arrival at Alaturka Restaurant, Bussorah Street, we are told that they are shutting early tonight because they have their anniversary party. How sweet, we say, no problem. How inconvenient, I think to myself.

"Are you celebrating with your own home-cooked food?" i joke.
"No, we are going elsewhere", comes the reply.

Little do I know that I'll want to do the same thing in approximately 25 minutes time.

We are forced to order tea from the drinks menu as there is not a beer in sight, so opt for the mint tea. Curiously,  the opportunity to give us our first glimpse of authenticity is thwarted by the arrival of a pot of tea that would have looked at home in my Nan's kitchen in the 50s. Where is the wonderful, ornate teapot, fashioned out of metal and delivered on an intricately crafted tray?

I look up and notice that the "authentic tiles" on the wall are in fact laminate...

The baba ganoush turns up with all the florish of a navvy's breakfast, and the sad middle eastern salad is devoid of any discernible flavour. In fact, it seems remarkable that flavour can actually be taken away from a dish, but somehow they manage it.

In comparison with the second course, the starter is a triumph. I order the lamb chops as they are recommended by our guide book. Served on a copper platter, it says.

They turn up on a very ordinary looking plate, covered in what can only be described as cold Bisto. There are some cold vegetables too: Peppers? No. Eggpant? No. Boiled broccoli and cauliflower? Of course!

All meat, yes: but not kebabs

The only hot thing at the table is the steam coming out of my ears, but I wait patiently for Caroline's food to turn up. Five minutes later and still nothing. It's not that my food is getting cold - that would be impossible - If i left it long enough in Singapore's heat it might just be warm enough to eat.

So, having had quite enough, I demand to see the manager to complain that my food seems to have been mixed up with that of a bad school canteen. I find myself pointing at vegetables and gravy and saying in high pitched Ramsay-stylee, "What's that doing on this plate??"

So we walk out. I do pay the man £10 for his trouble, which is far more that he deserves.It's a kind of anniversary present of sorts.

On to the next venue we go, eagerly awaiting our next disappointment. And are we disappointed? No, it is just as bad as the last!

Sufi is the name of the restaurant, but it is largely irrelevant seeing as the standard of food here is indicative of the poor standards of the whole area.

Again we order mint tea, but this time it arrives in a more authentic teapot. Nice touch. Until we look inside. Even the first place used FRESH mint. This is a mint teabag. Oh dear.

While waiting for the food to arrive, a cockroach scurries from the premises next door, straight towards us. Even cockroaches are bemused by the standards here. One swift crunch of the flip flop and it's bye-bye time Mr Roach. It's lifeless body is the most edible thing I've seen so far this evening, certainly the freshest.

As rigor mortis sets in, our mixed meat platter turns up. Hooray! It's in a copper bowl! This is gonna be great!

As the bowl approaches, my heart sinks as I see some grilled meats lying in a Bisto gravy with brocolli and cauliflower on the side. Like the cockroach, I feel crushed, but summon the strength to tuck into what looks like sunday lunch served with rice.

In a city that loves to eat, we have discovered the one place that is culinarily deserted. As I scan the dessert menu merely out of politeness, I notice the typo error "desert". We take the hint and hail a taxi home.