Find out all about the “Ultimate Boot Camp” for wine enthusiasts and how to enlist in WineChap’s latest “The Haute Seat” article, care of the Financial Times, How to Spend it.

Perhaps not quite so extreme as my attempt to imbibe Champagne whilst corkscrewing through the skies with the Blades (see the video here), but The Extreme Wine Experience is certainly one of the most intensive, illuminating yet indulgent ways to learn about wine.

With the terrible natural disasters afflicting various parts of the Southern Hemisphere - its hard not to feel that although 2012 was a dreadful film, perhaps the Mayans were on to something.  Anyway we all have to do our bit and WineChap is very pleased to be acting as auctioneer for the Fire and Floods Ball on 3rd May.  Before the earthquakes that have been so devastating in New Zealand and of course the appalling destruction that is still horrifying everyone in Japan, Australia had its fair share of woes with terrible bush fires and extensive flooding across various states which have left 100s dead and thousands homeless.

Most people know nothing about wine.  And there are many who speak or even write authoritatively about wine, who know even less.  Some have been doing so confidently for so long, they’ve actually forgotten they know nothing.

Some particularly purple notes from past Tastings that might provide further inspiration.

WineChap and the classic Italians…

Barolo vs Brunello:  A Tale of Two Lunches

WineChap’s latest Haute Seat column for the FT’s How To Spend It deals with two of Italy’s greatest wines, as represented by two of the their top exponents.
http://www.howtospendit.com/#/articles/4221-the-haute-seat-winechap
NB - for some reason the article’s penultimate sentence, and a clever/variously cultured one at that, was cut:
‘I think of Castelgiocondo as the Highland Park of Malts, and whisky connoisseurs will bear the comparison; - the same peerless balance, completeness and uncontraversial appeal. Neither aesthetic nor hearty (as I once read of Clare College’s students in their Cambridge prospectus) and for Top Gun enthusiasts: More Ice than Mav.’
Perhaps How To Spend it harbours a grudge against Whisky, Cambridge or iconic Tom Cruise movies?

Amarone and the re-launch of Eno Club:

The third of Italy’s great wines and referenced in the above article as those most akin to the rich and swarthy Chateuneuf-du-Pape styles of the Southern Rhone is Amarone.  This unique wine, which relies on the grapes being partially dehydrated to concentrate their sugars and acidity is the considerably bigger brother of the light Valpolicella wines of the Veneto.
To learn more about these classic Corvina-based reds of the region make sure you attend one of the forthcoming Eno-Club Nights at Polpo (Veneto) where we will sample examples from one of the very finest artisan producers.  Other Eno-Club dates are also below and provide similar opportunities to sample various exotic Northern Italian varietals alongside selections of Ciceti and sharer plates.

REMEMBER – ITS THE ONLY OPPORTUNITY TO BOOK AT POLPO AND AVOID THE QUEUES…  That has to be worth putting up with WineChap droning on about grape maturation for a couple of hours.

For more details be sure to take a look at our Events Page

WineChap’s most recent brush with Royalty:

Be sure to take a look at WineChap’s irreverent Royal Wedding Wine Special for The Times*

*Please note, video is behind a paywall, available for Times subscribers only

Back in February WineChap was pleased to collaborate with Fiumano Fine Art Gallery for a tasting of the wines of Guicciardini Strozzi, with guest host Princess Natalia Strozzi, (whose family links include Medici princes, The Mona Lisa and Winston Churchill - not that we’re name dropping). For those who were unable to attend this exclusive event, you can still get a taste of this spectacular evening by checking out this video - http://www.youtube.com/user/LuddafilmsLtd** courtesy of LuddaFilms

**(to see the film, please right click on the link and open in a new window)

Half a decade a go, a young Proto-WineChap upped sticks from London and moved to Florence, to brush up his Italian and learn more about the sharp end of the wine business in the region’s vineyards, a relocation prompted by a previous encounter at a top Tuscan winery with the iridescent and sentimental Olga, a 6-ft German/Swedish/Brazilian marketing intern who admitted that she got rather lonely and often wished for her Heathcliff to come riding over the hills to her cottage on the estate.  Olga is a distant, fond memory but 6-months in the city of Dante, Brunelleschi and Michaelangelo but also of trippa, bistecca, and ribolitta yeilded the notes below from my top gastronomic experiences.  They are reproduced faithfully here for new visitors to Firenze, some of the venues may have closed down or gone downhill but I doubt it and, as they were the settings for memorably good times I’d rather not know if they have.

Read WineChap’s first piece for the Financial Times luxury blog “How To Spend It” - ‘The Haute Seat’ .  As much a pleasure as a privilege:  All about the joys of older Champagnes and also how to properly appreciate any decent fizz.

Then continuing on a fizzy theme a few notes from this years’s CIVC Tasting at Whitehall’s Banqueting Suite, 15^th March…

I sometimes wonder if people really care about an individual’s tasting notes, beyond a very select bunch of well-known critics: In America - Robert Parker (WA), James Suckling (ex-WS), Steven Tanzer (IWC) and Allen Meadows (Burghound) In the UK - Jancis Robinson (Purple Pages), Neil Martin (surrogate Parker for WA), errr, ….thats it.  If you think I’m being unfair – try and dig up any other independent tasters whose scores are used to bolster press releases or merchant’s offers.

I print the notes below purely to justify spending most of a Tuesday chatting to colleagues and acquaintances old and new whilst drinking a lot of Champagne, AND because if the CIVC think my opinions are worth filming to present to their board, I am flown with an even more elevated sense of self-importance.

There are various, unmistakeable and universally acknowledged signs of ageing.  Things like your joints creaking ominously as you struggle out of bed in the mornings, teenagers seem horribly young, loud and far more obnoxious than you ever were at that age and embarrassingly you find yourself shouting at the television.  This is not so terrible when some kind of sporting event is taking place, but shouting at Newsnight, adverts, or to my shame Top Gear is generally pretty tragic.

Yes, recently I found myself getting het up by Top Gear; it was an old episode, back in the heady days when Clarkson was not ubiquitous, Hammond didn’t wear his hair long (to cover the scars) and James May, well he was pretty much the same.  It wasn’t climate change denials, anti-cycling rants or the generally un-PC comments Clarkson is so renowned for that left me seething, no it was a simple comment, “Sherry is never sexy.”   He went on to illustrate his point, after calling on a volunteer from the audience he announced, “This is sherry on sex”, then kissed the young woman chastely on the cheek.

The man is clearly a moron, in spite of the fact that right now I could probably be forgiven for eschewing all fortifieds (having just spent the last week cramming for an exam on them) my obsession with oleaginous olorso remains undimmed, my fervour for fair fino undiminished and my ardour for amber amontillado is absolute.

Yes, the blue rinsers can keep the Bristol cream, but until you’ve tried a night of fortified fuelled passion, don’t knock it Clarkson – this is just the beginning of the sherry revolution!  Have a night of tapas and Tio Pepe, or follow up dinner with a sherry flight at Pepito - or… join WineChap and friends tomorrow at 2pm GMT and uncork a great bottle of sherry for our second interactive tasting. After the success of the first ever #winechat Manzanilla sherry tasting on Twitter (are we wrong? Please comment if so) we are broadening the focus to include different sherry styles.

And you’re invited…
What we are wondering is this: can you translate the inimitably social act of tasting wine in the digital world?  Well, there’s only one way to find out.  Why not join in tomorrow, even just to see who’s taking part.  And then check back here next week to hear how it went, and for the times and dates for follow up sessions.

That’s assuming anyone at all wants to do this.  But if you ask us, it’s the perfect excuse to uncork a piece of Spanish culture on a Sunday lunchtime.  Just DON’T FORGET THE HASHTAGS #winechat and #sherryissexy, let’s get #sherryissexy trending fellow twitterers, after all, you can’t spell Lustau without Lust…

Wines to try:

When: March 20th, 2011, 7:00–9:30p.m.
Where: Trishna | 15 -17 Blandford Street, Marylebone Village, London W1U 3DG
Price: £45

At ‘Not Your Usual Curry Night’ Trishna and WineChap are offering a pairing menu with a difference:

When: April 17th, 2011, 7:00–9:30p.m.
Where: Trishna | 15 -17 Blandford Street, Marylebone Village, London W1U 3DG
Price: £45

At ‘Not Your Usual Curry Night’ Trishna and WineChap are offering a pairing menu with a difference: