The power of metaphors

Now some time ago, I posited that something I had written might have been a metaphor for something else, only for the wonderful Gergely to rudely remind me that metaphors came in jars and were usually pickled... something that may well be very close to the truth.

Any way, I spent today in the esteemed company of Johan Reyneke, philosophy graduate and biodynamic winemaker extraordinaire. After a longish day of traipsing around wine shops and restaurants flogging our respective wares, we retired to Bar Battu in the city. After having a couple of revivifying beers and a small tasting with the staff I ordered a bottle of Jean Foillards Morgon Cote du Py 2008.

This put the cat amongst the pigeons. The initial nose (as so often) was all awkwardness, hints of faults, fist full's of grit and dirt, berries crushed under leather boots being ground into the well matured manure. Then on the palette there was that lick of acidity, the refreshing chime of bitter cherry, the underlay of granite and mineral.

Some wines demand food, some wines demand good company..

Earlier in the day we had discussed the rational explanations that can underlie some of the procedures that comprise the biodynamic method. We then reappraised the subject and I mentioned that while I had always struggled with biodynamics, I had come to accept that there were genuinely effective methods at the heart of its teaching. However I still had issues with Steiner.

Johan replied that he too had issues with Steiner, in that he felt Steiner had lifted a lot of the peasant wisdom and recast it into his Theosophical world view, and created a set of post hoc mystical justifications for the actions of the methodology.

We then moved on to talking about the limits of reductive learning systems and how they are doomed to fail when confronted by complex systems. That a reductive approach if used in a non Popperian empirical falsificationary approach leads to misguided courses of action that prove to be ultimately painful.

In agriculture it was the reduction of the hugely complex web of interactions that is the vineyard/farm ecosystem into a series of flow diagrams that merely comprise key nutritional requirements and pest vector threats. Which in turn leads to a successive unbalancing of the natural cycles, picture knocking a spinning top out of balance and watching as it careens off the table.

This we compared with the essentially holistic approach that Goethe pioneered to observation of phenomena, and his view of each element of a system is to some degree representative of the system as a whole, and how, whilst not as immediately useful as the empirical reductive approach it is, none the less, a better way of avoiding making poor decisions as there is, implicit in it's approach a respect of the system being studied and an appreciation of the inherent incomprehensible quality of the complexity to be found therein.

So how does one reconcile people to successful, non reductionary approaches to complex systems? Well therein lies where Steiners post hoc mystical gobbledigook comes into the picture, for he tied up the accumulated trial and error wisdom of a pheasant populace who had to try and cope with an unpredictable and frankly capricious world into a meaninful and justifiable philosophy of bbiodynamic gardening. For this he turned to the metaphor (see by this time, nicely pickled). An excellent way of bridging the gap between the actuality of the mechanics of a complex system and a suitably comprehensible reduction of said mechanics.

We finished on the decision that what we needed was a new metaphor for the actions of biodynamic preparations on the vineyard ecosystem, one that stripped the story of its mystical bent, one that would make sense to a 21th century lay person, and one that would place the biodynamic method in a comprehensible context.

Biodynamics a short clarification of my views

This is a short response to a short twitter conversation that I had this morning:
Having posted several links to websites that openly question Biodynamic methodology and rationale that underpins it. I felt that it would be helpful to state where I stand.
If you break Biodynamics down it does indeed include all of the best things about organic viticulture. Increasing soil organic matter, dealing proactively with pest control issues, paying extra care and attention to the vineyard, increasing biodiversity in the vineyard and its surrounds. However there is a whole extra level of detail that biodynamics carries with it. It is here that I struggle. Rudolph Steiner was an interesting man who for all his many talents was not a farmer. Hence when he prepared his speeches on agriculture he shoehorned his existing belief structure into a methodology that was based around a traditional self contained organically famed small holdings routine.
As Caroline Gilby so neatly pointed out, it is possible that the position of the moon may have a microscopic affect on water in plants, it is not so reasonable to posit that the phases of the moon which relate more to shadow and light effects do so. Furthermore the biodynamic calendar is based on an astrological calendar. Many other people have denounced Astrology as a pseudoscience far more effectively than I'm able.

With regards to how biodynamics is presented to the public, I feel that the standard line of 'like organics but better' is misleading. However as with all things pertaining to the general understanding of the complexities of wine production the full story is far too complex to be written up as a short precis on a wine label.

There are elements of the philosophy that inspired Steiner that I believe are quite helpful. He based a lot of his work on the Goethean concept of non-reductive consideration of the system as a whole, wherein all elements of the system in a sense represent the greater whole. And that comprehension ad reductio merely seeks to promote a false sense of certainty as to the processes at play. There is no doubt that the advances made in understanding the principles of plant nutrition were taken and run with in the production and excessive use of fertilisers, and that this caused untold damage and to many a fragile ecosystem. However this is no excuse to run back to mysticism and spiritualism.

I'm quite happy for growers to explain to me that they're preparing some cow manure compost, indeed the actual finished compost is a thing of beauty, however to then try to explain that it has taken up astral forces by being buried in a cow horn over the winter. Well quite.

Then if you delve further into the founding texts you start to see references to the Etheric Jesus and his journey through the 7 layers of the earth to the core, and how the Astral forces need to be channelled into said Jesus so he can combat demons. It gets incredibly silly. That there is a core of wine producers who engage with this to various degrees is something I find a bit worrying.

But, and a largish but this is, there is almost certainly nothing harmful about BD (excepting the use of Bordeaux mixture which accumulates in the soil and is a broad spectrum anti insecticide/herbicide) and it does, mostly, promote good soil management, and other practices.

I jut get a bit annoyed hearing it referred to in such non-critical glowing terms.

Comfort Zones

Comfort zones are funny things, both cosseting and suffocating at the same time. I'd been working in restaurants for nearly six years when I left Le Bouchon Breton in the middle of last year, which being honest was about five and a half years more than I expected when I first agreed to work as a part time sommelier at Ashdown Park.
Don't get me wrong there have been some wonderful highs as well as some grindingly difficult moments.
I've been very lucky in that it turned out I was quite good at what I did, I made a lot of friends and was lucky enough to be taken on quite a few trip.
However this is all over. I have changed sides. For five years as a head sommelier I've been courted by suppliers, I could be difficult, arrogant, rude, coquettish, playful, helpful, irreverent, forgetful, it didn't really matter. The simple truth was that if a supplier wanted my money, then he had to work for it. I am now that person, I'll be smiling when people are rude to me, I'll be gently trying to suggest that maybe, just maybe the wines I need to sell might be better placed on their lists.
For years I had the pick of all the suppliers wines in London, if I wanted a wine, I could pretty much have it to work with. This is a wonderful privilege, all the more fun when you're spending someone else's money.
Now I have a much smaller pool of wines to work with, I'll have to be creative when people tell me that what they really want is a Sauvignon de Touraine, this is good. I'll be a much better placed to meet the winemakers and really discuss what they're doing around the world as I take them round the restaurants that list their wines, but along with this will come the trouble of persuading busy sommeliers and buyers to take half an hour out of their day to sit with me, taste some wines and hopefully offer up the requisite platitudes to the winemakers in question that will make them feel content about their trip over.
To add to the impending displacement I'm moving back to London in a day, admittedly I'm moving in with some friends, but it's still a case of two big changes coming back to back.
So with crossed fingers and a sense of adventure I'm starting to pack again..

Pressed Tongue

So this year we're having a whole load of the family around on Boxing day, this means that there needs to be a whole host of lovely things prepared.
First to be set about to was pressing a tongue. Now I don't know about you but I'm ok with certain bits of food but I find my sqeamish meter tends to get going around raw tongues. They're more than a little bit special.
Any way quickly empty from its bag into a large pan, then trying not to look too closely at it cover with cold water.
Leave for the best part of 24 hours, occasionally (I managed once) changing the water.
Prepare stock like items, heat the water up, take of a what scum form, then add the veg. 2 carrots, some celery, an onion, black pepper, bay leaf. Simmer for about 4 hours.
Once it's cooked it feels rather different. There's a pleasing solidity to the meat and it becomes quite fascinating peeling the skin of.
Here you'll need a tongue press, slit the underside of the base of the tongue and force into the basin. Then screw on the lid. Leave in fridge over night...

quick bites no.1

It's cold, I'm going out to a friends for drinks this evening so I've no idea what time I'll eat. I need something warming, but proper comforting as well as heating.

Some salad potatoes, half an onion, some Hungarian sausage, though any spicy salami or chorizo would do, and some Reblochon cheese. Oh yeah, speedy Tartiflette for lunch; Parboil the roughly sliced potatoes, soften the onions with a little bit of garlic, add diced salami, add potato slices, add thin slices of Reblochon (pos a small spoon of creme fraiche), let mingle, then eat with a bit of salad and a glass of crisp white. Today it was a glass of Vavasour 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, taut, citrus with a touch of herbality but all together pleasingly restrained for a Kiwi Sauv.

Smoked Haddock and Celeriac Remoulade

It was my sisters birthday, so obviously there was dinner to be made. However I was still feeling a little bit knocked around by this dastardly cold that has taken up residence in my sinuses. Any way main course turned out to be quite simple as both my sister and her mum (mine as well) expressed a desire for roast leg of lamb... So all my preparations for slightly more exotic versions of slow roasted pork belly with sage and orange (as suggested by @bribedwithfood). However this still left starters, pottering around the shops I realised that all the usual things had made their way into the shopping trolley, smoked salmon, creme fraiche and so on. So I decided to remove said items and start again (obviously I left the creme fraiche, so many uses).
A largish fillet of smoked Haddock, a celeriac root and that was about as far as inspiration went.
I should state in advance that this isn't really a remoulade as there's no mayonaisse involved, but it was very easy and very tasty. The creamy smokiness of the fish combining nicely with the slightly crunchy earthiness of the celeriac.

1 large fillet of smoked haddock
1/2 a celeriac root
1 medium onion (go for quite a strong one)
butter
full cream milk
salt and pepper
dill
capers

Prepare the vegetables by grating the celeriac, and finely dicing the onion, then set aside.
Lightly poach the smoked haddock in some butter and the full cream milk. You want to use a pan where the fillet, cut in half takes up most of the pan, then the milk should come up to about half way up the highest point of the fillet, start the poaching skin down, then turn after a couple of minutes, I find this makes it easy to get a good cooking through, and yet still have the skin come off easily. Incidentally you want the flesh to flake apart but not fall apart.
Remove the fish from the poaching liquor and retain both, peel off the skin of the fish (this should be quite easy if the fish is only lightly poached.
Then add the celeriac and onion to the poaching liquor and leave to simmer for about 5 minutes, you're looking just to soften and flavour it.
Flake up the fish, add in the celeriac and onion and mix together. Season to taste.
Finely chop some of the capers and dill (not too much) and mix into the fish and celeriac.
Then turn the mixture into the serving bowl.
Decorate with more chopped capers and dill, salt and pepper and refrigerate.
Oh and I served it with toast and some sharply dressed leaves.

Disgustingly easy, and for me it used hardly any pans (only one). Sadly I failed to take any photos while cooking as I was absorbed with being grumpy and headachey, and the lemsip was taking it's time to kick in. Luckily it had done by the time we sat down for dinner.

I think the label shows what area of the market this was targeted at..

As for what we drank with it, I pulled out one of my experimental bottles of Riesling, Duckbill 2006 from the Great Southern in Western Australia. Now Great Southern is quite a large area that encompasses the steep hilly Mount Barker and the Porongorups, as well as Frankland River and the verdant surrounds of Denmark. I guess I saw this bottle a few years back and figured that it was cool climate Australian Riesling, it wasn't expensive and was worth a punt.
Now I like my Rieslings with a few years of bottle age to them, and this was no exception, tight, minerally, with the beginnings of some toastiness, whoever the winemaker was won't like me for saying that I certainly found a spot of kerosene like characters, but again I like them. All in all it went great with the dish, the acidity pairing the creaminess of the dish well, and the assertive citrus, sherbet and kerosene like characters standing up really well to the smokiness of the fish.

Memories

So we’re coming to the end of a year that started with travel, then stayed resolutely London bound before ending with my longest period away.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit wineries in four countries and to have extended stays in two of them. Obviously with so many wonderful and special memories, not to mention incredible wines it’s quite hard to pick out favorites, but with no small application of a critical razor I’ve just about managed to do it.

One of the Grand Father vines in the Hill of Grace Vineyard

Red wine of the year:

This is a pretty easy call, it was Henschke, Hill of Grace, 1996. Tasted (and later drunk) at Pru and Steven Henschke’s winery in the Eden Valley. Sometimes when you taste wines that are legendary there is a sense of expectation, and with that comes a nagging doubt as to your impartiality in the face of the wine. Well there was no time for that with the 96 Hill of Grace, it was a wine that soared and dazzled, with such breath taking complexity of aromatics. My first notes on tasting it were; wow, privileged, deep succulent herbal red fruits, pot pourri, violets, clove oil, unicum, pepper, such depth and complexity. But this isn’t really doing the wine justice, every time I went back to it, it had changed, it was a glass that I really didn’t want to end. The 86 that was served along side would be a close contender for the years crown, but it was the 96 that leapt straight into my list of all time wines.

White of the year:

Video of Ales talking about Puro and disgorging it in water

I’m not going to go with the greatest white I tasted this year, as to do that would require choosing between four or five stunning experiences, so instead I’m going to go for my biggest surprise of the year. The wine that knocked my right on my arse for simply being so impressive and for being such an unexpected treat.

Movia is a winery in the Collio hills, straddling the Italy/Slovenia border the fact that their post box is in Slovenia makes them Slovenian. Ales Kristancic their winemaker was present at the London International Wine and Spirit Fair. Amongst his mightily impressive collection of wines he was presenting his Puro 2002 Sparkling wine. This is undisgorged and as so needs opening in a bucket of water at the table.

Now this isn’t the time nor the place or a lengthy dissertation on the effect of yeast lees in the bottle with regards to contribution of autolytic flavours, but also as a protection from oxidation. Suffice to say that with recently disgorged Champagnes the closer to the disgorgement you can drink them the better and more unique (as distinct from non lees bottle aged Champagnes) the experience will be.

Ales’ Puro is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Rebulla (known in Italian as Ribolla Giallo), the base wine is made and aged in old oak for 4 years, then instead of adding sugar and yeast to the base wine a la the Champenoise, he adds fresh grape juice, which has enough sugar and natural yeasts to start the secondary fermentation.

For all the funkiness of the production it would have all been for naught if the wine hadn’t been great. All sorts of toasty, apricot, salt caramel savoriness, butterscotch, spiced apples, all tied together with a great minerally core.

Dish of the year:

I’ve chosen my dish of the year, from what was undoubtedly from a technical perspective the outstanding meal of the year. The tasting menu lunch at the Ledbury. A succession of dishes that were each as outstanding as the next, but the one I’ve plumped for was the Celeriac backed in ash with wood sorrel and a wild boar kromenski.

Very often when I visit restaurants the focus is on the protein, whatever the beef is, or on what the lamb has been fed. However it’s  more often that not something that has been done with the vegetables that turns my head, be it beetroot caramelized in sherry vinegar with thyme comprehensively blowing the great Tasmanian steak out of the water at the Black Cow in Launceston, or at the Ledbury, the Celeriac being brought to the table in it’s ash sarcophagus, ceremonially carved in front of us then being returned to the kitchen for plating. The dusky, earthy, smoky notes transforming the celeriac from a great, but slightly work horse vegetable, into the star, from girl next door to smoldering kohl eyed temptress. Quite sensational.

Meal of the Year:

Again there are a lot of very strong contenders here from my travels, particularly the salt pepper squid and fish n chips we enjoyed at the etherial Star of Greece in the McLaren Vale. However it was the first of the trips meals that really stood out, and that was despite quite a few potential marks against.

Lunch with William (Bill) Downie in his barn on their farm in Gipsland Victoria. We started with his zero Sulphur Pinot and plates of Charcuterie and Crudites from his farm and the pigs next door. This was hands down some of the finest Charcuterie I’ve ever eaten, the Lardo was divine, salty, intriguingly herbal with just a hint of spicing to it. The Prosciutto lingered longer on the palette than any Pata Negra I’ve ever tasted. The vegetables were gorgeously sweet and crunchy, it was as if Bill was laying down a gauntlet; Forget everything you might have though about Australia and her wines.

Then an off dry Petit Manseng which he made in 09 as it was a bit hot for him to be happy with his Pinot Noir, a salad of raw seafood, impeccably fresh and moreish.

Then the main course, BBQ lamb, plates heaving with the most sumptuous Morels and Artichoke hearts. Bottles of Bill’s Pinots started arriving on the tables, they’re stunning, pure, elegant, and yet each hugely different from the others.

Oh and all the while there was an open fire blowing smoke at us in a doomed attempt to mitigate the late spring chill. Yep this was cool climate Australia, and we carried the smell of the smoke as a reminder for several days to come....