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...I’ve been following the career of British wine merchant Robin Davis ever since he ran the nearest wine shop to me when I lived in Belsize Park....
...“I know of no other literature except certain late plays of Shakespeare that elevates grace as this book does,” Robinson concludes....
...I have 1971s in my cellar that I’m in no hurry to open....
...But I have a colleague on Jancis Robinson.com, Tamlyn Currin, who specialises in detailed analysis of the interaction between her inventive dishes on the one hand and her cellar on the other....
...“In one of the obits I read this week, I saw that Robinson thought it was unfair that I got the reputation as the risk taker and not him, and he was absolutely right,” Sandy Weill, who was once one of Robinson...
...I’m looking forward to tasting the evidence....
...I’ve become extremely picky. I just lost any desire for the fermented grape juice that has been my nightly friend for decades....
...I still come across “corked” bottles horribly affected by TCA but they tend to be wines bottled more than 10 years ago....
...The main red-wine grape here is the transparent Nerello Mascalese but I’m not convinced that the wines need that long in bottle....
...I’m also an admirer of the wines of négociant Tardieu-Laurent....
...I asked everyone what they felt was their greatest disappointment and greatest achievement....
...“I constantly have my head buried in hedgerows,” says the artist and designer Jess Wheeler of the brambly boughs that have been a hallmark of England’s rural landscape since before the Romans....
...But I couldn’t resist recommending seven wines from that current hotbed of value, Bordeaux, too. I would always recommend buying by the case to reduce bottle prices substantially....
...I don’t expect any sympathy, but on Friday November 24 last year I certainly felt as though I was suffering from it....
...At the same time, UK duty on sparkling wines actually went down, by 19p a bottle, but I have seen no sign of this being passed on to those of us who buy it....
...I certainly can’t justify the wines I used to buy....
...I do have a party trick for when that happens. I crumple up some clingfilm, ram it into the bottle and stopper it up again....
...His thank-you email included this: “now that I have been converted, that was a lovely mature Barolo. (Who’d have thought that I would ever type those words?).”...
...Last December I attended a lunch in London organised by Mohamed to show Veronelli’s family how much interest there would be in the collection....
...But Robinson, who is MP for East Belfast, challenged his depiction by commentators as a continuity candidate, “I’m my own man,” he said....
...I may have qualified as a Master of Wine and have been immersed in wine professionally since 1975 but I’d never style myself an “expert”....
...Very ripe, intense fruit presumably accounts for the fact that, if served this blind, I would guess a higher dosage than 3g/l....
...I have sat in the Commons chamber — its intimacy and vibrancy is sensational....
...“Oh, my God,” says Robinson, choosing a pigeon dish — “I feel a little guilty, but I’ll try it” — and for starters a salad of lettuce hearts....
...And the days when I was asked whether I was tasting for my boss feel long gone....
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