Roussillon Dessert Trophy 2007

This year's sweet-toothed event starts in August, run by the Wines of Roussillon generic body (CIVR) in association with the Academy of Food & Wine. It's a restaurant competition looking for "the most talented pastry chef/sommelier team in Britain," by inviting them to submit a winning combination of a Roussillon Vin Doux Naturel (VDN) sweet wine (white, 'amber' or red) with their dessert fantasy. Eric Aracil, CIVR Export Manager, commented: “The CIVR is proud to support an initiative which recognises excellence in the UK on-trade. The 2007 Roussillon Dessert Trophy puts the limelight on pastry chefs and sommeliers and encourages them to go further in developing their knowledge and expressing their creativity."

Those entering are asked to choose dessert wines off their list from these VDN appellations: Banyuls, Banyuls Grand Cru, Maury, Muscat de Rivesaltes and Rivesaltes. The Roussillon region, or French Catalonia, produces most of France’s VDN wines (see "more wine words" for several articles).

How to enter the Roussillon Dessert Trophy 2007: forms are available from Sophie Brown at the Academy of Food & Wine on 0208 661 4646 or info@acfws.org. Deadline Friday 31st August. If you don't already list Roussillon dessert wines, samples are available from Georgie Hope or Natalie Jeune at Focus PR on 020 7432 9432 or civr-focuspr@focuspr.co.uk.
The final: the trophy will be presented at the Arts Club, Dover Street, London on 1st October 2007. The prizes: the winning chef gets a 4-day course with world champion pastry chef, Olivier Bajard, at the École Internationale de Patîsserie in Perpignan; the winning sommelier spends four days on a guided tour of top Roussillon wine producers. Jury members include Nigel Sutcliffe, restaurant consultant and former director of the Fat Duck, Sarah Jane Evans MW, writer and broadcaster, and Sara Jayne Stanes, chief executive of Academy of Culinary Arts.
Last year’s winning team was sommelier Anke Carmen Hartmann and chef Rebecca Kinsella from Chewton Glen, who paired poached black plums and anise chiboust (what?) mille-feuille with Domaine du Mas Blanc's Banyuls Rimage 2003. Carmen Hartmann enthused: “We enjoyed the challenge of combining flavours with textures and found that, for outstanding results, the dessert needed to be created after the wine was chosen rather than the other way round.”

Update 20/09/07: Dessert Trophy finalists announced

And they are (drum roll...):
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road, London
Chocolate Gianduja parfait with roasted pear and pecan, Banyuls syrup with pear and cardamom foam.
Wine: 1996 Banyuls Grand Cru, Cuvée André Magnères, Domaine Vial Magnères.
Chef: Hideko Kawa, sommelier: Naoko Tomita.
Hotel du Vin, Winchester
Dark chocolate mille-feuille, poached cherries, coffee tuiles.
Wine: 2005 Banyuls Quintessence, La Coume del Mas.
Sous chef: Adam Fargin, chef sommelier: Yohann Jousselin.
Roussillon Restaurant, London (I should hope so too!)
Honey mousse with glazed dates, pear rösti and Chinese lemon sorbet.
Wine: 1988 Rivesaltes ambré, Domaine Piquemal.
Pastry chef: Heinrich Greve, chef sommelier: Roberto Della Pietra.
Galvin at Windows, Hilton Park Lane, London
Palet d’or of chocolate with spiced ice cream, spiced crunch tuile, roast fig in Mas Amiel 15 YO and fig purée.
Wine: Maury Prestige 15 Year Old, Mas Amiel.
Pastry chef: Peter Bras, sommelier: Charles Segond.

Call back in October to find out which of these yum-inducing creations is the winner... 

Update 7/10/07: Dramatic drum roll... it's the first one i.e. chocolate Gianduja (what?) parfait with Domaine Vial Magnères' 96 Banyuls Grand Cru, by Hideko Kawa and Naoko Tomita chez Gordon Ramsay.

Caliterra sponsors Allotment of the Year

In a cunningly original sponsorship deal to infiltrate the very core of things peculiarly British, Chilean wine brand Caliterra has lent its name (and a few bottles presumably) to this most serious of competitions. Run by the National Allotment Gardens Trust, the winners will be announced during National Allotment Week, August 13th to 19th. Being a bit slow in reacting to this news, it's actually now too late to enter so my apologies for that! However, these are the five earth-moving categories:

Best Shed - looking for "the ultimate UK shed, the English allotmenteer’s supreme bolthole."
Best Allotment in the Country - "recognising the most beautiful, individually held plot in the country."
Best Newcomer - "for the person who has been allotment-gardening for less than three years."
Best Community Project - "everything from communal orchards to wild gardens used by special needs groups, an inclusive-minded Eden."
Best Allotment Site - "...in terms of maintenance, cleanliness and organic waste disposal."
With a new British film just out about life on the allotment, 'Grow Your Own', and the UKTV Gardens series, 'Dig For Victory'; this appears to be something that'll run and run. All goes to show you don't need an excuse to have a sit down in your veg garden after a hard day's digging, with a nice glass of wine of course. By the way, I'd stick to spuds and courgettes if I were you: Cabernet vines might be a bit tricky even in these global warming times. Posted 13/07/07. More Caliterra and Chilean wines to follow (see "Chile" page on the right).

Champagne with potato chips?

"...Zinfandel with your Tex-Mex? Not a problem," says Natalie MacLean, author and sommelier,  who claims to offer no less than 360,000 "daring food and wine matches" in a new feature on her website Nat Decants. So click here www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher and have a bit of fun playing around with it. There's quite a lot of superior rubbish written about which wines should go with what; or, worse still, you know that kind of useless back label stating 'ideal with red meat or cheese.' What I like about Natalie's thing is the depth of options she's included: for example, put in 'pasta' and you'll get a long list of different sauces and ingredients, much more helpful and important when attempting to pair flavours and textures. You might not agree with every suggestion but at least she's spent time thinking it through, and probably done a fair bit of cooking and complementary tasting too! Another good site on this theme is Fiona Beckett’s www.matchingfoodandwine.com.

Northern Rhône: 'Touring Crozes-Hermitage country..'

"Crozes-Hermitage literally stands in the imposing shadow of the Hermitage hillside vineyard, but do the wines lag far behind in its awesome wake? The busy little town of Tain l’Hermitage, on the Rhone’s right bank north of Valence, forms the heart of the appellation (AOC) and where the eponymous hill starts to rise steeply, immediately behind the station, adorned with placards carrying those oh-so famous names (Chapoutier, Jaboulet…) and the landmark Chapelle revered by wine lovers around the globe..."

Featuring these wineries: Chapoutier, Cave de Tain, Jaboulet, Yann Chave, Laurent Combier, Delas Frères, Alain Graillot, Rémizières-Desmeure, Gilles Robin, Chasselvin-Chomarat, Cave Fayolle, Hauts Chassis; and some touristy stuff such as Valrhona choc factory and the magnificently bizarre Palais Idéal... Part of this feature was originally written for the website winetourisminfrance.com (summer 2007).

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE (in my archive pages).

Wine Women Awards 2007

Another competition, I hear you say! But this one's a bit different and celebrates leading women in the wine business and related fields, including an 'amateur' category this year. The contest itself takes place in Paris in mid June, where the finalists will be grilled by judges holding €4000 prize-money in their wallets/purses. Closing date to enter is 20th April, so 'sisters get doin' it for yourselves.' Full details on the WWA website: www.winewomenawards.com. Posted 5/3/07.
Update July 07: and the winners were Veronique Rivest, a 41 year-old Canadian sommelier, educator and columnist in the 'professional category'; and, in the 'amateur category', Aurélie Degoul, 23 year-old from France who's in charge of a wine tourism project in Sauternes (sounds pretty 'professional' to me).

Reader offer on Wine Travel Guides...com

This new and original site launched by wine writer and educator Wink Lorch is very good; although I'm biased as I compiled all the Languedoc-Roussillon sections, or 'micro-regions' as we like to call them. Wink had the bright idea of breaking up all of France's wine and administrative regions in a less traditional and more logical way (for English speakers at least). Hence there are 40 downloadable micro-region guides each including a dozen personally recommended wineries to visit, good restaurants and hotels, wine and tourist events and attractions and much more besides. All neatly brought together in a downloadable compact PDF format along with location maps and suggested itineraries for the 'busy independent traveller'.
Unsubtle plugging and humour aside, these guides are all compiled by specialist writers who live in the area or visit it very regularly: Jane Anson, Liz Berry MW, Jacqueline Friedrich, Elizabeth Gabay MW, Rosemary George MW, Jean-Pierre Renard, Tom Stevenson, Paul Strang, Sue Style, Wink herself and yours truly. Wink explains further: "The Guides are available by annual subscription with several options. For Gold subscribers they include not only the Michelin Green Guides for extra tourist information, but also interactive Michelin maps, which provide precise locations for all the recommendations. The design is crisp, fresh and professional and there is no advertising to get in the way of the wealth of information. Registration on the site allows access to a free sample Guide available as a PDF download or to view on-line." Here's the deal for winewriting.com readers:
Introductory offer for subscriptions on www.winetravelguides.com. Enter the code D1CTR07 into the ‘Subscribe’ Page to receive a discounted subscription of: £6.50 Bronze (instead of £7.50), £17 Silver (instead of £19.50) and £39 Gold (instead of £49). Valid until 30th September 2007. So check it out today! Posted 22 June 07.
Latest March 2008: there are now 46 downloadable mini-guides to France's wine regions, all recently updated and revised. Click on the link above to check it out.
UPDATE June 2008 As I've said before, I'm a contributor to these guides so have an interest in seeing the site succeed. So, I'll let creator Wink Lorch do the talking: "At Wine Travel Guides we are marking one year on-line and are delighted at how the website has been received. As an example, a recent subscriber wrote: "My son and I are doing a food/wine trip in the Rhône and the level of detailed local insight you give on growers, restaurants and hotels isn't equalled by any other source I've found." To celebrate, we have changed the free sample guide on the site to the enticing Inland Provence Guide by local resident Elizabeth Gabay MW. As a registered user, you can view the Guide on-line or download the PDF guide right away once you've logged in. (Your login is your email address; if you've forgotten your password just click on the link and it will be re-sent to you)."
SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER for winewriting.com readers
"There's no better time to subscribe to a Gold subscription with our very special June offer (nearly 30% off) which will give you a whole year of access to all the Guides, with interactive Michelin maps and tourist guides too. Generous discounts are available too for the Silver and Bronze PDF subscription options. Go to the 'subscribe' page, enter the promotional code D2REG0608 and click 'Apply promotion'. This offer is only valid until 30 June 2008: Gold £35 (instead of £49), Silver £15.50 (instead of £19.50) and Bronze £6.00 (instead of £7.50). The approximate € or US$ rates prevailing at the time will appear in brackets."
Developments in the pipeline include adding GPS coordinates to all recommended wine producers, places to stay, eat and shop etc. By popular demand, WTG will be extending the choice of guides into major wine regions elsewhere in Europe including Italy, Spain and Portugal. These new guides will come on stream over the year. Other plans include a general wine travel resource section and blog. And for fans of the Loire Valley, serious-moustached & loud-shirted wine writer Jim Budd (click here to go to his Loire blog), an authority on the region's wines, will now be covering this section (currently five guides). Posted 30/5/08.