
Jancis Robinson
Who? Jancis who is a wine “expert” and makes a good living out of publicizing plonk – and herself – in books, videos, presentations, sites and a column in the Financial Times. She was awarded the OBE in 2003 and claims to advise Her Maj on the kind of hooch to stock the royal cellar with. I read her FT column for a laugh and the ludicrous attempts to describe how the stuff tastes – the usual clichés about a cheery red with a hint of walnut, tobacco and exquisite blackcurrant, a silky yet powerful white with a lush vanilla aftertaste and smoky fine spicy tannin etc. Like all these wine experts, she only takes a sip, spits it out then starts on another, sometimes sampling over a dozen wines in the same sitting. How anyone could have any taste buds left after this is a mystery to me but I am not a Master of Wine as Jancis is.
Rather than go on about her, I will let you sample Jancis´s style and give you an insight into her world. Apparently poor old Jancis suffers from “guest stress syndrome” and was very nervous indeed about how to impress fussy guests at a dinner party last year. This is how she solved the “problem”.
“We all took our glasses to the table for a salad of fresh mozzarella, tiny heritage tomatoes and a few shavings of black truffle to double up on our pre-poured glasses of Coche-Dury’s Meursault Rougeots 2009. My plan had been to serve a California Chardonnay from the cool Sonoma Coast, DuMOL’s Isobel Chardonnay 2013, made, incidentally, by a Scottish winemaker. Full-bodied whites served too cold are often wasted, tasting merely wet rather than expressing any nuance. When I tasted it before our friends arrived, I was a bit worried (guest stress syndrome again). I was concerned the California wine would be dismissed as too blowsy and obvious because it seemed so much richer than the Coche. So I decanted the Coche, as I do often with white burgundies, in order to expose them to lots of air that would loosen them up. I splashed it into a generous magnum decanter and put it in our wine store, which is kept at a regular 13C, rather than in the fridge. Full-bodied whites served too cold are often wasted, tasting merely wet rather than expressing any nuance.I was delighted to find that by the time the two Chardonnays were served side by side, the Coche had opened out and the DuMOL had tightened up, so they really were quite a respectable match for each other. California honour was saved.”
Well thank goodness that worked out Jancis! No wonder you look so smug in the column photo.
Nominated by Mr Polly