Macedonia is a country that people aren't quite sure about: it could be part of Greece or Turkey; it could be independent; it could be one of those confusing Balkan states. In many ways, Macedonia is all of these things, or at least it has been at some point in its history. At the moment it's independent and has been so since its peaceful secession from Yugoslavia in 1991. This is important, because the years since then can be seen as a make-or-break period for the country, and nowhere is this more relevant than in the realm of wine production.
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What was it like growing up on a small farm in Yorkshire?
I was around livestock all the time, putting straw in their beds, but I was never cut out to be a farmer. The brutality is difficult to understand when you're a child, and farming is a tricky business now. A lot of estates have yet to recover after foot and mouth, and it really decimated the area round my folks. The landscape went from being filled with cattle, to fields containing long grass and not much else. It lingers longer in smaller communities because things tend to move more slowly.
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2005 will probably be best remembered for the arrival of 24-hour drinking in the UK. But along with the consolidation express continuing to whistle through the trade, wine terrorists making their presence felt in France and the rise and fall of SIPPs, there's been plenty of other headlines.
David Williams reviews the year as it appeared in Harpers
Licensing
As well as being historic, the decision to introduce 24-hour drinking was also, depending on who you spoke to, the beginning of the end of civilisation, the dawn of a continental-style drinking culture or an unnecessarily complicated botch job. Time will tell which of the first two analyses is more correct, although Harpers inclines to the view that the smaller the window of drinking opportunity, the bigger the binge - and, as far as we're aware, all hell did not break loose on 24 November when the act came into force.
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Tragedy may be too strong a word, but it is certainly a sad irony, a missed opportunity, a shame: even restaurants that proudly splash the sauce madre over the pigeon and the sauce Prigueux over the quail, even restaurants that have AA and Michelin stars and have won awards for the best wine list
in the UK often don't have even a bottle of 5-, 10- or 15-year-old Bual or Malmsey on that list, let alone one of the exciting new Colheitas or thrilling venerable Soleras or Vintages. A great range of wines, of astonishing complexity, intensity, longevity and personality, is relegated to a sweetener for demi-glace.
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A grandfather's rusty old megaphone stuffed unceremoniously into the hedge of a quinta that had to be sold in the battle for survival - a poignant reminder of the bleak postwar years when the Port trade itself almost went under. But when the Symingtons recovered the megaphone in 1998, Dow's bicentennial year, they had bought back the estate, Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira, that Dow's had been forced to sell in 1954. They had already purchased (in 1989) and renovated the huge historic estate on the opposite south bank of the Douro Superior - Quinta do Vesuvio - and in 1999, three of the younger Symington partners took on the neighbouring Quinta do Vale de Malhadas. In the five years since then (2000-04), Symington Family Estates has invested a further e36 million in major capital projects.
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How did you start devising restaurant wine lists?
Well, I was a bum for a long time and then decided I wanted to work as a buyer. When I figured out there weren't many buying jobs, I went into sales. I originally worked for David Gleave at Wine Cellars, which was then bought by Enotria. That was a great two years. I really like Remo Nardone; he's got a great business.
Other people in the trade are really sniffy about Enotria, but it has loyal staff and customers. Then I went to Bibendum, and then I started this.
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Attendees
What kind of tasting do you find the most useful and why?
Generic, both annual and special, as well as the LIWSF. It's better to be focused on a single area or country. The LIWSF is good for networking and finding something new and exciting but not for business meetings.' - Philippa Carr MW, Asda
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Nature morte automnale, one of the eight courses comprising the Burgundy Menu, was less auspicious than delicious as the signature dish of an event heralding The Renaissance of the French Vineyard. But the trompettes de la mort were savoured rather than sounded at the two-day annual festival of food and wine held at Raymond Blanc's Manoir aux Quat' Saisons near Oxford on Monday and Tuesday 21-22 November. The event - supported by Sopexa, which offered members of the paying public and the trade the opportunity to taste more than 60 Absolutely Cracking Wines from France', as well as by corporate sponsors such as Spiegelau and The Sunday Times Wine Club - largely met Blanc's objective of showcasing the creativity, dynamism and excitement across four great French vineyards': Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhne and Languedoc-Roussillon.
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A Champagne price war between leading retailers is widely expected to be a major feature in the run-up to Christmas and
the New Year in the UK off-trade. After two years in which the really deep price cuts have been largely avoided, the pretty consistently bad news from high-street retail in general means that, once again, the likes of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Morrisons will be using fizz - and Champagne in particular - as a way of bringing reluctant shoppers into their stores.
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When was your introduction to great wine?
I was 17. I had no real cash, working part time here and there, and was earning about 50 a month. But I was walking past a restaurant in my little town of Besanon and it was about 12 o'clock. At this time something happens in a Frenchman's stomach. I smelled aromas coming out of this restaurant, Le Pocker d'As, which is still there today. I could smell this complexity of flavours and so I had to go in. I asked the sommelier what the chef was cooking. He said roasted veal kidneys in a Rhne wine reduction, and so I ordered a half-bottle of Cte Rtie from Guigal. It was the first time I'd paid so much money for a wine!
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The significance of the 145th Hospices de Beaune auction on Saturday and Sunday 19-20 November was wider than that of its historic role as a predictor of the price trend for the most recent vintage. As in Bordeaux, so in Burgundy, 2005 is being hailed as an exceptionally high-quality vintage, while this year the auction was being conducted by Christie's and opened to private buyers for the first time. The auction prices - which have been an accurate predictor of the general trend in 12 of the past 13 years - were therefore anticipated even more keenly than usual.
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It has been quite a year for Scotch whisky. The category has been bogged down with issues such as tax stamps and legal definitions - both drawing attention away from the more important aspect of what's in the bottle, not on it. But a quick look around the category highlights many examples of creative thinking, and new takes on a classic product.
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In his book A Wine Journey Along the Russian River, Steve Heimoff refers to a comparative tasting of Alexander Valley and Napa Valley Cabernets, to which members of the Court of Master Sommeliers - among the royalty of the wine-tasting world' - were invited. Everyone in the wine trade knows about MWs, but what is this other mysterious organisation, which allows successful exam candidates to put the letters MS after their names but doesn't even have any offices to call its own?
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Selfridges will be stocking the Champagne Taittinger Cool-Air tube this Christmas. The tube, which has been created specially for Taittinger's Brut Rserve NV Cuve, keeps chilled bottles cool for up to four hours. The Cool-Air tube was developed by packaging company Robinson and is made of recycled cardboard. The Taittinger pack retails for 33.50.
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An increasing number of Champagne companies no longer want to be merely one of a number of bottles behind the bar and are choosing instead to sponsor a whole bar or at least affiliate their brand with a particular organisation. But why are they doing this, and what does each party get out of it?
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Your recent redesign of the restaurant should help the push for three stars.
I don't know about that. Why, because we have more space, should Michelin prefer it? Some people say you need more flunkeys in the dining room or lavish decoration to make them happy. Certainly buying next door has given us the room between tables that you don't often get these days. Or if you do have the land mass, then the tables are turned.
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Christmas is coming. Festive aisles have sprung up in shops and supermarkets nationwide, while the drinks industry
is rubbing its hands together in glee at the thought of all the bottles flying off the shelves to play their part in the celebrations. This is a vital time of year for every member of the alcohol family but none more so than the oft-neglected liqueur. Beer, wine and spirits stoically remain the drinks of common choice, but Christmas has traditionally given
the liqueurs and specialities category a chance to show off in style.
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Picture something quintessentially Canadian. For many people, that prompt either draws a complete blank or it connotes polar bears, the Inuit (formerly known as Eskimos) and perhaps ice hockey. But vineyards and barrel-lined cellars don't fit among those frosty symbols. Wine is not really a Canadian emblem. At least not in the public mind. Informed oenophiles and members of the drinks trade, however, recognise Canada as the world's largest source of, appropriately enough, Icewine.
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What got you into wine?
The usual clich I say is that I did a history degree, so the only things I was qualified to do were eating and drinking; three hours of tutorials a week left a lot of time for other stuff. Me and a mate did the restaurant reviews for a newspaper, which was a bit of a farce really. We'd go along and ask for free food beforehand, so they knew we were coming. But my parents had always had an interest in wine, and my mum was PA to Ronald Avery for a couple of years when she started out, so she always says there's a link.
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The Languedoc's quality revolution of the past 20 years is one of the true good news' stories of the French wine industry. From the commercial success of its numerous vins de pays (VdP) varietal wines to the critical success of some of its AOC (and VdP) super-cuves, one of Europe's oldest wine regions this side of the Alps has finally come of age. However, it has also generated its fair share of bad news this year, with stories of the actions perpetrated by disgruntled vignerons - which include numerous public demonstrations, an attack on a tanker of Spanish wine and the destruction of public property - suggesting that not everyone has benefited from the revolution' and that some are increasingly struggling in a world that simply doesn't want their wines.
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