Dining without Wining

For me drinking wine is about drinking wine over a nice dinner with friends or someone I love, Jane. Thus I have, over the years, come to associate wine with food and vice versa. In this way I am probably quite continental European, despite my English background. Matching food and wine for me is a fun experience and one where one can experiment and if the matching is not perfect, so what! It is certainly nothing to get stressed over.

Fine wine has always demanded fine food. It is difficult to imagine drinking a nice bottle of Pauillac without some perfectly cooked lamb or a good Barolo without some beautifully prepared Italian food. However, by fine food I mean the best quality and freshest ingredients. These ingredients also need to be well but very simply cooked. We want to taste the complexity in the wine and not have it masked by the complexity of the food.

With less fine wines one can have fun matching the wine with some less simple food. An example would be matching a sweet white wine with a spicy dish whether it be Icewine with Haggis or a Montbazillac with Tandoori chicken. Neither haggis nor tandoori chicken could be regarded as fine dining and I am not suggesting Grand Cru wines to accompany them either. With both my examples the wine is in effect almost the “sauce” for the dish in that it provides both a counterpoint of flavour and the moistness needed to help down the dish.

Fine dining today is increasingly about Chefs achieving amazing flavour and texture combinations on the plate. In many ways good food no longer needs wine. In England perhaps the traditional English food never needed wine; roast lamb was served with mint sauce and in many ways this acted liked a good Medoc in making the lamb more palatable. However, try lamb and mint sauce with a nice Pauillac and you are definitely going to ruin the wine. Nowadays, a powerful wine might actually ruin the good food.

Yesterday we visited the talented Mr Drake at the Clockhouse in Ripley. Steve is a great exponent of flavour and balance and is looking for ingredients that work well together on a plate. We had the lunchtime tasting menu and none of the dishes needed wine to appreciate them. That being said, and despite the fact that I am a wine lover, it was probably the best lunch I have ever experienced. Most wines would have altered the balance of his beautifully prepared dishes. The way to enjoy the food is to lose some of your inhibitions with a glass of champagne, Mailly Grand Cru Rose or Gosset Brut, in the well tended garden before you start and then to just have water throughout the meal. Certainly don’t go further than a glass of relatively simple clean Gruner Veltliner or Pinot Blanc. Steve’s food is magnificent and doesn’t need the help of wine. The great thing is you can drive home with no worries. His portion sizes are also spot on for lunchtime and you won’t be snoozing all afternoon. Nowadays, fine dining is possible without fine wines or in fact any wine at all.

Drake’s at the Clockhouse is in the High Street, Ripley, Surrey GU23 6AQ. Lunchtime tasting menu was £45 and we had an amouse bouche and six small courses. Coffee or tea was an extra £4 but came with some superb petits fours. Overall bill for two with service came to £150. Dress is casual and service is good; I know this is fine dining but I just wish they would lighten up a little. Highly recommended.