Latest news with #ChâteauMargaux
Mint
12-07-2025
- Mint
A ‘Master of Wine' on how wine and food work together
Another memorable trip was to the Bordeaux region in France—home to some of the most revered wineries in the world, such as Château Margaux, Château Brane-Cantenac, Château Pichon Baron and Château Leoville Barton. As always, I got to drink several fascinating wines on this trip. One of the highlights of this trip for me was our visit to Château Cos d'Estournel, where I was stunned to find that the architecture of the winery closely resembled the pagodas of Asia. The château's founder, Louis Gaspard d'Estournel, was known to have a fondness for India, which is reflected in the château's architecture, as underneath the pagodas is an ornate wooden door guarded by elephants. To see the Indian elephant as the symbol of this esteemed winery, sculpted in stone, wood and shrub across the château's premises, filled my heart with fondness and pride. It was a reminder of India's vast legacy and influence across different continents. India might be discovering the world of wine now, but it had been woven into the history of wine centuries ago by this estate. During our visit to Bordeaux, for a couple of days we stayed in Sauternes, which produces graceful sweet wines. The amber-coloured wines have aromas of honey, orange marmalade and spices. The producers of Sauternes wines always emphasise it isn't just a dessert wine and can be paired with a range of dishes. While visiting wineries in Sauternes, we were treated to lunches that explored the wine's versatile food compatibility. One of the most popular food pairings was with liver pâté, which is made by grinding pork liver with lard. Liver pâté is a popular French delicacy, so my fellow students were thrilled to try it with exquisite Sauternes wine. As a pescatarian, I hadn't been sure of what kind of food would be available on this visit. So, I had registered for the tour as a vegetarian, and was served dishes like cucumber and cream cheese roulade or fruit-based salads. Sonal Holland's 'One in a Billion' book cover. As the tour progressed, my friends' reaction changed from 'Ah, pâté' to 'Ooh, pâté, again' and then 'Oh, pâté, again.' By the third day, people would hover over my table, looking wistfully at my plate of fresh veggies and cheeses, and say, 'We want what you have!' This experience proved that every food and cuisine can be paired with wine if you understand the fundamentals of pairing the two. Many foods suppress certain taste buds on our tongue, momentarily altering our perception. The simplest example of this is drinking orange juice straight after brushing your teeth. The juice tastes sour and bitter because toothpaste contains sodium laureth sulfate, which suppresses the taste buds that detect sweetness. Understanding this interaction between different foods and beverages is the key to wine and food pairing, so that the wine you offer doesn't get overpowered or altered in taste by the food you serve it with. Sour foods, such as tomatoes, vinegar, lemons, enhance the flavours of wine, making it taste richer. Salty foods like salted cod, salted nuts and salt-crusted pretzels and even bread too make a great pairing with wine, especially with high-tannin wines like Shiraz or Malbec, since salt acts as a flavour enhancer and softens the wine's tannins. However, pairing wines with bitter foods like bitter green vegetables or umami foods like eggs or bacon is challenging. Indian dishes can pair with a wide variety of wines, as long as they aren't overly spicy, but this requires another book, which I will write soon. During these visits, I learnt invaluable lessons from people working in different spheres of the wine industry. Ironically, these people were not MWs themselves, but their wealth of experience and practical knowledge was immense. Come to think of it, an MW learns the most from people who are not MWs themselves! However, every person I interacted with had immense respect for the title and for the students who pursued it. I think the respect was for the determination, focus and dedication that we students put in. Once a person becomes an MW, they earn respect from the industry for the time and effort they invest to further develop the industry. An MW is meant to be the keeper of knowledge of the wine world. The whole reason for being vessels of knowledge is to share whatever we know with the rest of the world—that's the core virtue of every MW, because knowledge has no power unless it is shared. Over the six years, I also realised that the wine world is constantly evolving, with innovations in how wine is produced, marketed or accessed, and because of the impact of external factors like climate change on the industry. This meant that even after one became an MW, the learning never stopped. Excerpted with permission from One in a Billion: Becoming India's First Master of Wine by Sonal C. Holland, published by Westland Books.
Evening Standard
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
John Banville: The year in London that changed my life
After more desultory talk and a few more generous splashes of gin, we took ourselves off to lunch at Au Jardin des Gourmets in Greek Street. First off we had a Pimm's, for refreshment, and David related more of his adventures in and out of the publishing trade. He was cheerfully non-intellectual, but he had a sharp eye for a winner — he liked a flutter on the horses, too — and at the time he was betting on a novel due out in October, The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, a writer I had never heard of. When we were done and the bill arrived I managed to get a look at it, bleared though I was from the gin, the Pimm's and the subsequent bottle of Château Margaux; the total made my eyes water. 'David,' I slurred, 'next time could I just have the money?' He twinkled at me. 'Ah but then, dear boy, I wouldn't get my lunch, would I?'
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Tasting review – French midlife romcom takes its leads guzzling fine winen
Chateau average? There's not much complexity to this romantic comedy about love in middle-age, set in the medieval city of Troyes in France's Champagne region. It's easy-going but lacking a bit of oomph, and the comedy never properly fizzes. Isabelle Carré and Bernard Campan give warm, likable performances as a couple meeting in their 40s; he owns a wine shop, she's a midwife. But the real star is Troyes itself, with its cobbled alleyways, surrounded by vineyards. You might find yourself planning a mini-break during the slower bits. Carré plays midwife Hortense as an interesting and believable contradiction of eager-to-please and spiky – though there's something a bit off in the script's depiction of her as single woman desperately filling up her spare time: choir practice, church on Sundays, volunteering at a homeless shelter. Hortense meets grumpy Jacques when she buys a bottle of wine in his shop and invites herself along to a tasting; Jacques has had to quit drinking after a health scare. (In the most French line of the film he protests to his doctor: 'But I only drink fine wines. Wine isn't alcohol.') There's a spark between Hortense and Jacques but their lives are already complicated enough. In truth, some of the comedy around Hortense's sadness at being childless feels clumsy and a bit cliched, and for a supposedly grownup romcom there's a fair few ooh-er gags (including one about spitting v swallowing at a wine tasting). But the film gets by on the performances; in a smallish role, Mounir Amamra is a joy as Jacques' workshy young assistant Steve. The movie ends with Hortense's homeless friends quaffing a bottle of fancy Château Margaux. Unlike vintage plonk, this is not a experience that will linger. The Tasting is in UK cinemas from 31 January.
