This one’s been simmering on the backburner for a while, and now that Jeni Port has listed her 10 wines you really must try before you die, it’s time to turn up the gas.

From time to time lovers of fine wines and spirits get to taste those rare or obscure elixirs that comprise the distinctive or even archetypal alcoholic drinks of the world. Most of these, it should go without saying, are either expensive or hard to find, or both.

However, when just a few sips of any of these precious liquors will live in your memory forever, who cares about the cost? If you can’t afford to buy one for yourself, hint that a bottle of this or that might be a fine gift. Failing that, share the cost of a bottle with four or five friends.

Here is my selection of essential nectars of the gods, in no particular order: Read the rest of this entry

Correspondent Brian Miller writes

10. What else is the winemaker going to do with it?

9. It’s not technically faulty.

8. It’s preferable to alco-pops.

7. It’s better than what you drank when you first Kombi-vanned around Europe.

6. It’s no more ridiculous than $3 bottled water.

5. You can blend it with a $38 wine to make two $20 wines.

4. It’s more economical than pouring expensive corked wine down the sink.

3. Penfolds Grange once cost $2.40.

2.  Your superannuation is partly invested in Woolworths*.

1 It’s $2 a bottle.

*Owners of Dan Murphys who sell the $24 per dozen wine.

I tried some Pimientos de Padron – little green Spanish peppers – at the Noosa Farmers’ Market last week – sensational!

You fry them for a few minutes in hot olive oil – until the skin blisters and shows just a few speckles of brown – then serve hot with a sprinkling of sea salt flakes.

They are not at all chili hot but rather, succulent and sweet. I lied. About one in 15 is hot – adds a little spice to a plateful and the palate.

A brilliant starter dish on any table – you won’t be able to stop eating them.

Serve with cold beer or a chilled Fino sherry.

If you’re in Noosa on the odd weekend, I can highly recommend the Saturday and Sunday breakfasts (8a.m. to 11a.m.) at the Sunshine Beach Surf Lifesaving Club.

 One Sunday for a treat, I wandered down and had a big plate of Eggs Benedict Florentine: two poached eggs smothered in a creamy Hollandaise sauce, on a bed of just wilted baby spinach leaves, on grilled sourdough. I just had to have crispy hash browns on the side and, to top it all off, a flat white.

  Read the rest of this entry

The sub-tropical clime of Noosa has led to a marked change in our drinking habits. In Melbourne, it was mostly beer and red and white wines, winter and summer. In Noosa’s summer heat and humidity, the drinking diet has varied somewhat and now includes a fair whack of mixed drinks and cocktails, as well as the tried and true.

After some research, the bar is looking well-stocked: a stainless steel cocktail shaker from the local op shop, Angostura Bitters, vermouth, all sorts of spirits and liqueurs. No teensy umbrellas. And in the fridge, the usual tonic water, dry ginger, and soda water. Not to mention various cordials, and limes and lemons and buckets of ice.

Read the rest of this entry

Yarra Burn Blanc de Blancs 2004 – $45 – ****

100% Chardonnay. Very pale yellow with an edge of green, fine bead. White flower petals, light biscuity yeast and a hint of green apple on the nose. Youthful, dry and elegant in the mouth with delicate Apple Danish flavours against a background of beautifully integrated lime acidity at the finish.

De Bortoli Rococo Yarra Valley Rosé NV – $22 – ***

A sparkling blend of chardonnay, pinot meunier and pinot noir. The colour is a pale, just off-white, candy pink. Lively fragrant nose of rose water and strawberries. Shows a dry, clean palate of new season summer berries with a tang of lemon zest at the finish. Ideal summer luncheon fizz.

Read the rest of this entry

Senderens (9 Place de la Madeleine, Paris 8e, 0142652290): what hope is there of finding a last-minute table at super-chef Alain Senderens’ fabulously redecorated and voluntarily de-starred restaurant on a Tuesday night during the busy Batimat building material exhibition here in Paris? Crise-oblige, it was not a problem, and so on the spur of the moment we returned to this grand establishment, which I visited over ten years ago, when my friend Harry generously invited us here for his birthday; back then it was called Lucas Carton, the cooking was superb, Alain Senderens was still in the kitchen, and it was incredibly pricy the way only Parisian 3-star restaurants can be.

Senderens, Paris

Read the rest of this entry

Bread has all but disappeared from restaurant tables and we should all lament its absence.

In mediaeval days, they served meals on trenchers instead of plates. The trencher was a thick slice of stale bread and the meat and gravy were ladled on to it. When the meat was finished, nobles and peasants alike gobbled up the gravy-enriched trencher as a second course. Read the rest of this entry

Every wine cask (bag in box) has a silver lining. At least for wine drinkers.

 You can more or less judge the state of the Australian wine industry by the quality of wine available in casks. When cask wine is generally crap, it’s bad for consumers and means the industry is making a packet, selling all it produces across the price spectrum. Read the rest of this entry

Macrobiotic hippies London, 1971

I shared a flat with a couple of low pH* hippies in London in 1971. Their diet, which was therefore my diet, was allegedly macrobiotic. No meat, no tomatoes, a bit of yin, brown rice, a pinch of hing, an occasional dollop of yang, (see yin) carrots, green tea, no onion or garlic. That was it.

 It was inexpensive, but not too appetizing. I didn’t dare ask about alcohol so I’d sneak off to meditate, adopt the full lotus position and slurp a glass or two of cheap claret (chateau-bottled, in Bulgaria) for a vitamin boost. Read the rest of this entry