So, having enjoyed last year’s experience at Ottolenghi’s Spitalfields location, we took our precautions and booked a table at Nopi well in advance. Rightly so, seeing as the place was packed! I am an enormous fan of the Plenty books, mainly as the recipes remain so accessible. Sure, you need a couple of ingredients that may be relatively obscure to what you would normally put to use in everyday cooking, but overall, I am always surprised by the ease and speed of actually preparing the food. The food presented in Nopi is from a different level though, and whereas the explanations still make it sound doable and easy, from my experience, there are a couple of recipes that you would need to put through a test-run before presenting them at a dinner party.
There is an interview with Heidi Nam Knudsen, the wine buyer for the Ottolenghi restaurants, posted on the Real Wine Fair’s website which gives a good indication of the role wine plays in the whole concept. The goal is to go natural, but from what I gathered from the list: not too dogmatic. You are presented with a limited and thus eclectic selection, but you can sense the enthusiasm and love for these wines. It is however a bit of a hipster’s choice; if you are not familiar with what is going on the wine world these days, the selection going from Georgia over Slovenia to Pantellaria can be baffling. There is a ‘classic’ offer for the less adventurous, but there is a price to be paid in the sense of accepting quite the markup.
Now, a cuisine with an emphasis on vegetables and a rather outspoken punchy flavour profile is not the easiest to pair with wine. I remember a visit to the Barbary a couple of months ago where we had a fantastic evening, yet the Mother Rock White chosen matched with nothing really, as the intensity of the food completely crushed what the wine had to offer. As if this isn’t challenging enough, being offered sharing plates that can go in all sensory directions make it nigh impossible to find the one to match them all. Acceptance is the first step, and after that it gets easier. Either go for a ‘neutral’ option, which is always a compromise I personally am not willing to make, a vin de soif chosen for its thirst-quenching quality and not its complexity, or for a great plunge into the unknown.
While the girlfriend enjoyed some of the cocktails, which were actually more to her liking as to what she tasted last year, I went for my third choice: into the unknown with Palestinian wines. The Cremisan Winery has actually been around since the 19th century, but it has only been quite recent that the Salesian Monks in charge have been working on expanding their commercial efforts on a global scale. They attracted an Italian oenologist and set up a collaboration with an international NGO to direct any profits towards education programs in the region.
The white 2015 is a blend of two grapes that have gained some notoriety for not being featured in Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz’ Wine Grapes, Hamdani and Jandali. Apparently, these varieties are indigenous to the region of Bethlehem, which is more than enough to pique a winegeek’s interest. On the nose, it reminded me of a sunny Sémillon, zesty, ripe fruit, which did not present itself so rich on the palate, being balanced out with a bit of freshness. It is not very outspoken, more subdued and something that is destined to always take second place, which made it the perfect accompaniment for the food actually!
For our starters, we looked for a mix between the restaurant’s self-proclaimed classics and a couple of lesser known dishes. Our absolute favorite was Burrata with blood orange and coriander seeds, a combination that does not work on paper but that manages to create such a dazzling impact in your mouth that you wonder why you never tried it before. The second dish, being the Valdeon cheesecake with pickled beetroot gets the prize for being the best match with the wine as the richness acts as a natural complement. The pumpkin with yoghurt dressing and charred cherry tomatoes was very fine in its own right, yet lost out against the wine.
Now, the first Nopi recipe that I attempted at home was the twice cooked baby chicken with chili sauce and lemon myrtle salt. Being one of the trickier recipes, I was surprised that it actually turned out good, though I sensed that it was not exactly what it should be. Having tasted the real thing now, I realize that I still have a long way to go! After spending so much time in the Asian stock, the meat is ever so tender and soft, meltingly good, especially when given a kick with the chili and the extra bit of flavouring provided by the salt. A great example of a dish elevating all its individual components, making it a worthy signature dish.
Our second flight of vegetables was a bit of a mixed selection. The beans with green salsa were fine but a bit uninspired, the heirloom tomatoes and wasabi mascarpone were fine, yet the kohlrabi felt out of place. It is with a bit of pride that I can say that my grilled broccoli with tahin was way better than what we were served here, which just seemed to be tossed on a plate. Luckily, the pastilla saved the day, so packed full of heady spiciness that it could only really be enjoyed on its own, utterly delicious.
Passing on to red for this final flight, I was pleased with the Baladi of the same estate. Juicy, very much on the fruit yet soft on the palate, kind of reminding me of a Grenache that has seen carbonic maceration, made in a vin de soif style, with a nice freshness to it. The type of bottle that you can drink at ease without realizing it. Unobtrusive at its worst, a great thirst quencher at its best. It worked well with the pastille, which surprised me with all the spices, but the chili sauce kind of nipped its potential in the bud.
Whereas I considered last year’s visit to Ottolenghi Spitalfield just okay, Nopi took it up a notch, and seemed to deliver more bang for the buck. It is a bit of the shame that not all dishes delivered the same kind of high, but as last year, a fanboy’s expectations may have come into play again. In short, I would visit again, if only for the newly discovered classics, but also to see if that innovative spark that I see on Ottolenghi’s Instagram actually stays alight in the restaurant’s kitchen!
First up, the German selection may be familiar with those who have been following my writing since the beginning: Am Stein’s Innere Leiste Silvaner 2012. It just goes to show that I don’t just 
Given that I wrote about pairing a non-French dish with French wines last week, why not turn it around and pair a French classic with something a bit more international?
For years the Jura remained a blind spot on my wine radar. About ten years ago I followed your very basic wine course which was more about drinking than actually learning anything. I was ticked off that I had to miss the one class on regions that I knew nothing about, Jura and Savoie, but quickly forgot about it. A couple of years later, when I was getting more and more into wine, I came across an invitation for a Jura wine tasting in Antwerp, organized by Terrovin. It turned out to not only be my first real introduction to the wines of the Jura, but also to the world of natural wine. I have visited a lot of tastings over the years, but this is one that stayed with me, because the wines were so different from what I had drunk up until that point. My tasting notes can be summarized by ‘subdued, coolness, crunch, length, stinky, pure, shifting in the glass, and geuze, geuze, geuze’.
This week I will be joining the Winophiles, a group of bloggers united in their love for French wine who commit to an article on a shared topic. This month: Cross-cultural food pairings with French wine! This is really something that I love, as it forces you to think outside of the box; to put aside wine conventions that are mostly based on regional cuisines and that have been developed and semi-set in stone.
Now, the safer and classic match was Roc des Anges’ Reliefs Cotes de Rousillon 2013. I have to admit that the South of France has been a blind spot on my wine radar for too long, and every year, when I encounter one of those fantastic wines that show that the Rousillon is so much more than a cheap swill factory, I tell myself that I need to pay far more attention to it. For now, it is but a note on my never-ending list of wine-related to-do’s.
The other day I organized an introductory tasting on the wines of the Canary Islands. In the past, I had the opportunity to acquaint myself with the wines of what are arguably the islands’ most well-known producers, Vinatiego and Suertes del Marques. Given that they are not commonly found or well-known, even by winegeek standards, I thought they warranted a closer look.
Dive is the type of chaos with a flair that only the French know how to do right. Get annoyed at the lack of navettes between the Saumur station and the Ackerman cellars where la Dive takes place or walk. Get pissed off at the crowds of backpack-carrying groupies who just hang out with their revered winemaker of choice, or simply mingle with them. Finally, get paralyzed by the fear of swallowing due to the lack of spittoons, or carry around your own in a trolley, trumping backpacks in annoyance, like a certain couple of Dutch wine merchants (although you never know with the Dutch, they may as well have been creating their own very special blend of salvia-textured wine vinegar).
In a first example of a night out on the town had with a fellow sommelier-conseil, the celebration of Beaujolais Nouveau 2016! 
When is a wine faulty? There are plenty of times when this is clear from the start; a messed up colour, raging volatile acidity, vinegar,…. Other times it is not always clear. For a long time, I did not like Cabernet Franc as there is often something unpleasant in the nose at first, especially in the case of young wines. You get aromas of degraded fruit, barnyard or just plain shit. This most often happens with wines that have been created in an oxygen-depraved environment, like I mentioned already when talking about 
The 2016 RAW fair took place in London this weekend, and just like 
The culinary reputation the Netherlands has with its southern neighbours is sketchy at best. A first day in Rotterdam sadly confirmed this view when we were served what was supposedly Basque cuisine in a restaurant on which the less is said the better (the only two Basque wines on the menu where even sold out!). Being friends with wine merchants on Facebook does have its benefits, and so on a sunny Sunday evening we ended up in Restaurant De Jong.
The main courses were terrific on their own, but whereas one was intensified by my wine choice, the other one was more enjoyable on its own (the slight disadvantage of not knowing what you will get beforehand). The match was spot on with the Baamburgs Big, which Google tells me is a unique species of pig cultivated near Utrecht, and different preparations of beetroot. The earthiness of the wine and the juiciness of the meat worked terrific together. The other main course, potato gnocchi with smoked peas served with crunchy potato skins was a bit more difficult. On itself the dish was delicious, but the peas did not work well with the wine.
When talking about pinot noir in France, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who links it to another region besides Burgundy. Granted, it is nigh unbeatable reputation-wise, as the recent auction at Hospice de Beaune proved with a whopping 39% price increase versus last year. Nonetheless, other regions are perfectly capable of producing unique pinot noir. For instance, Jura wines may not be the easiest, are from time to time hijacked by hipsters and enjoy sudden bursts of popularity on the sommelier scene, but on plenty of occasions they are utterly delicious.
Despite my love for Riesling, I’ve never really gotten to know the Alsace, France’s one and only home to the variety. Part of this is because of the limited availability of Alsacien wines, as I do not think that there is one merchant in Belgium who really specializes in the region; most of them only have a limited range just because they think that they need it to complete their offer. 
Today we are entering winegeek territory with the Tokaji Szamorodni 2003 from Sajgo Cellars in Hungary. The offer of Hungarian wines on the Belgian market is tiny, and szamorodni wines are not well-reprented in what is available. Nevertheless, there are some exciting wines out there. 
