Yotam Ottolenghi drinks the world’s five greatest wines* offer its menu in shillings ... elaborate...

36 Noble Rot

Yotam Ottolenghi drinks the world’s

five greatest wines*Noble Rot meets one of Britain’s

best-loved chefs for the ultimate liquid lunch

Words by Dan Keeling | Photos by Juan Trujillo Andrades

I t’s early May in central London and summer’s arrival can be felt in the

warm concrete glow and languid pace of Gray’s Inn Road. Black cabs and buses shuttle weary passengers northwards to King’s Cross Station or south to the City, past strip-lit takeaways, cafés and Otto’s Restaurant

– a celebration of classical gastronomy so diametrically opposed to today’s zeitgeist for casual dining it may as well offer its menu in shillings and crowns. There’s nothing about this place that should work, but it does. Mixing old-school table service with eccentric charm, it features antique silver lobster and

duck presses, centrepieces for elaborate preparations that turn classical French cooking into acts of pure theatre. As the location for Noble Rot to reappraise the famous 20th century gastronome Curnonsky’s list of the world’s five greatest white wines with Yotam Ottolenghi it couldn’t get much better.

*according to Curnonsky

38 Noble Rot Noble Rot 39

“I’m absolutely bemused by the idea of a lobster press,” chuckles Ottolenghi as we settle down for a Tuesday lunch of Lucullan proportions. “How much juice do you get out of a lobster? I’m dying to see,” he ponders as owner Otto Tepassé appears pushing a dining cart carrying two colossal 70-year-old Crustaceans. “Oh my god – I can’t wait to eat them,” says Yotam, admiring the barnacle-encrusted beasties. But before Noble Rot gets stuck into a menu of cheery artery cloggers such as ‘Homard à la Presse’ and ‘Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil en Vessie’, a bit more about today’s premise: who was Curnonsky? Was his list of wines really that good? And do they still justify such prestigious reputations today?

Maurice Edmond Sailland AKA Curnonsky was born in Angers, France in 1872 and became the most influential food and wine writer of his generation. Voted ‘Prince of Gastronomes’ by Le Bon Gîte magazine in 1927, Curnonsky wrote a series of books about regional food called The

Gastronomic France and in the 1930s classified what he considered to be the world’s five best white wines (Montrachet, ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’, Château-Grillet, Château-Chalon and Château d’Yquem – all French, naturellement). “When I told friends I was doing this today I had so many jealous people saying ‘That’s such a fun thing to

do’,” says Ottolenghi, observing a 1990 Château d’Yquem being decanted. To drink all five wines over the course of one sitting promises to be an extraordinary experience. It is, as they say, a dirty job – and Noble Rot is the magazine to do it.

Curnonsky died in 1956 but, among many gastronomic insights, he’s still best remembered for his slogan,

(Left) “Have you heard the one about the German, the lobsters and the antique food press?” Otto Tepasse and friends

(Above Right, Left to Right) 1990 Château d’Yquem, 1990 Château- Grillet, 1990 ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’, 1992 Baron Thénard Montrachet, 2007 Macle Château-Chalon

(Right) Otto’s dining room


assistant always says to me, “before you tweet, call me…”

NR: Before you moved to London you were a journalist on a national newspaper. Did you interview people or was it all news?

YO: I was a news editor. When I was at university in Tel Aviv I worked in the newsroom in the evenings writing headlines. It was so intense – we’re talking the 1990s, with a room full of cigarette smoke, just like in the films. I was the first generation that worked on computers and it was a very funny time.

NR: So what’s the funniest headline you’ve written?

YO: I was really crap at finance and stock market news. One time I got myself

into real trouble because I got the figures completely wrong. It was supposed to say two-hundred thousand and I wrote twenty thousand and almost got fired. One decimal point wrong, but for a news story...

NR: Your recipes are renowned for always working. Have you ever made any mistakes with those?

YO: Not many. With books, occasionally you find there are two or three mistakes that are normally fixed in the second print but I’m slightly obsessive about testing my recipes. In my test kitchen there’s no interesting kitchen gear – no lobster presses – although I think I might need one of those. I’ve got a small team I send ideas to on the weekend, which we then

test during the week. Some recipes have taken 15 times to perfect. I also work with a lady in Wales – every recipe goes to her. She goes shopping where she lives around Cardiff to buy the ingredients, cooks the recipes for her family, then writes me a report on how it went. She tests all the timings and temperatures so by the time it comes back from her I feel confident that it’s fine.

NR: And I suppose if you can find all the ingredients around Cardiff you can get them anywhere…

YO: That’s the thing. I’m famous for using obscure ingredients, so she also has to get the ingredients and tell me how she got them. She’ll get some online, or she’ll tell me “I can’t get curry leaf in Cardiff, what should I do?”

“From the first Ottolenghi Cookbook everybody does the traditional

Palestinian chicken with lemon slices and za’atar and sumac

– if you haven’t, go home and try it!”

Yotam Ottolenghi

“Les choses doivent avoir le goût de ce qu’elles sont”; things should taste of what they are – a sentiment that Noble Rot’s special guest definitely agrees with. “A chocolate cake should, first and foremost, taste of chocolate”, Yotam and business partner Sami Tamimi unwittingly echoed in their introduction to The Ottolenghi Cookbook, the first in a series of phenomenally successful publications (including Plenty, Plenty More, Jerusalem and Nopi) that, along with television appearances and five central London restaurants, have established Ottolenghi as the most influential gastronomic brand of the last decade and a half. Responsible for introducing a long list of exotic ingredients to the shelves of British supermarkets, most ardent fans will at some point experience a minor existential crisis when another shopper snaffles the last bottle of pomegranate molasses in Waitrose. A chef who has done more than any to inspire a nation of mediocre home cooks to engage with real food, Yotam Ottolenghi we salute you. Bring on the Montrachet!

Noble Rot: Given how many meat-free recipes you’ve

written, do many of your readers still think you’re a vegetarian?

Yotam Ottolenghi: They don’t think that I’m a vegetarian, but some of them don’t like the idea that I eat meat.

I once visited a hotel and they had a beautiful elk head on the wall – a stunning animal that died years ago – so I tweeted a picture of it. But I had to take it straight off because of the amount of horrible comments I got. My


Yotam Ottolenghi: (Sniffing ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’) Wow, this is so wonderfully dry.

NR: It’s got that Sherry-ness to it, hasn’t it?

YO: It’s beautiful, and you can see how you could carry on drinking it for a while because it’s not cloying in any way. If a lot of the

surrounding appellations are famous for their super-sweet Chenin, this is the complete opposite.

NR: We checked the lunar calendar earlier and today is a ‘fruit day’. According to biodynamics, some days have better conditions for drinking and making wines. What do you think of the Château-Chalon? It’s got a more

pronounced flavour than ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’, typically featuring aromas of fenugreek, curry leaves and walnuts.

YO: As it ages it gets those curry notes, right? Yeah, fenugreek, I can taste fenugreek here, no question about that. The benefit with wine is you can take a metaphor of something that

(Left) Otto cuts open the pig’s bladder to extract the chicken

(Above) Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil en Vessie

I’m strict about offering alternatives, however about one in every 30 recipes there is no alternative ingredient – like you can’t do this without dried mandarin peel, which is only available in certain shops in Chinatown.

NR: Which recipes are you most proud of creating?

YO: The ones that I’m most proud of are the ones people cook most. From the first Ottolenghi Cookbook everybody does the traditional Palestinian chicken with lemon slices and za’atar and sumac – if you haven’t, go home and try it! From Plenty there’s a recipe for confit garlic tart which a lot of people do. It’s got three heads of garlic in it that are cooked very long and very slow. (Sipping the Château-Chalon) I hardly ever drink wine during the day, so this is such a luxury. I drink in the evening because drinking during the day takes me off course.

NR: A lot of people who worked in the kitchen with you have now started their own restaurants (Honey & Co, Berber & Q, Good Egg, etc). Does that you make you proud?

YO: Really happy, yeah.

CURNONSKY’S FIRST FLIGHT

(Top) 1990 Nicolas Joly ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’, Savenièrres, Loire, France (Above) 2007 Domaine Macle Château-Chalon, Jura, France

Served with Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil en Vessie

NR: And free meals, right?

YO: I don’t need any more meals, that’s the problem! (laughs) When I started out in London 20 years ago it was much less democratic than it is today but now something has changed. I was under the impression that whatever happened, you needed to work in a Michelin-starred restaurant and suffer terribly for a few years in order to become a good chef. But that’s a complete myth perpetrated by certain people. I couldn’t take it so I left and went to work at places that were more civilised. With Rowley Leigh, who was a real breath of fresh air, and then I worked at Baker & Spice because I specialised in baking. These were places where your talent and enthusiasm meant so much more than how you came through the ranks and ‘did the time’. I worked for Maison Blanc in their factory in Park Royal for two months. I wanted to learn how to make French pastry properly, but it was horrible. I made strawberry tarts for 12 hours straight. The guy that stood next to me once asked me, “Do you have a driver’s license?” I said, “Yeah why?” And he said, “So, why aren’t you a minicab driver?” (Laughs)


(Top) 1992 Domaine Baron Thénard, Montrachet, Burgundy, France. (Above) 1990 Château-Grillet, Northern Rhone, France

Served with Homard à la Presse

CURNONSKY’S SECOND FLIGHT

Otto: (Arriving tableside to do the business with the lobsters) For the lobster bisque I’m going to start by adding some Pernod, then Cognac, and for some sweetness, Grand Marnier. Then I add the juices and then the shells.

Yotam Ottolenghi: I love this theatre. What’s in the other pot?

Otto: The other one contains what was in the top of the lobster’s head. We drag the contents out with a spoon. What we press is the mass of the bone structure that comes off the legs.

YO: So nothing’s wasted? If you didn’t want that I was about to offer a recipe for fish cakes. (Laughs, taking a sip of the Château-Grillet.) For a wine that’s over 25 years old it’s so fresh and youthful. It doesn’t feel like something that’s been around for so long. When you opened Noble Rot restaurant last year were you terrified?

Noble Rot: Excited and terrified. How did opening your first restaurant in Notting Hill come about?

YO: Originally it was going to be in a little bakery in Hampstead, but it ended up

being too small. Then a beautiful place called Bradley’s on Ledbury Road came up. It was the perfect spot. When we started we didn’t know what we were doing – the way the brand has evolved is clear now but we didn’t know that at the time. I remember the first day, when Sami finished his first order of fruit and vegetables to cook for the next day, and these crates full of aubergines and courgettes arrived I was like, “You’re mad! We’re never going to sell all this food!” When you guys started Noble Rot you had the magazine but we were just nothing, we just had this space – but the food sold. Day one in a restaurant is always terrifying because you’ve got nothing to compare it to – you don’t know whether you’re going to have one customer or 50.

NR: Does Sami mind that you’re the face of the business?

YO: He likes the limelight less than I do. You know what, it’s really hard to say now how these things work, I think what made it really work was that fact we had this amazing reaction: people saw the food and they loved the visuals.

NR: It was like nothing we’d ever seen before – those meringues!

is from a completely different stratosphere – in a sense it shows how much there is out there in terms of wine. This wine covers the whole palate.

NR: You sell some interesting wines from producers like Gabrio Bini and Arianna Occhipinti in your restaurants. (Both are profiled in Noble Rot Issue 11)

YO: Yeah, our sommelier Heidi Knudsen loves natural wines so she hunts them down. We mostly have natural wine – 60-70% natural. I’m a philistine when it comes to wine; I know what I like but I don’t know the names or how to choose.

NR: What do you drink at home?

YO: I don’t really drink much at home. [Pause for horrified silence] We do drink, of course we do, but it’s not that much. I love both wines, but of these two I think the Château-Chalon works better with the chicken against all that salt and sweetness in the jus. I like Sherry, so when it arrived I knew I was going to like it. Why did Curnonsky only do five whites but not also five reds? I guess he’s too dead now to find out the answer.

1990 Nicolas Joly ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’, Savennières, Loire, France

‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’ is a powerful, dry Chenin Blanc from the top vineyard within the appellation of Savenièrres, not far from Curnonsky’s Angers birthplace in the Loire Valley. A singular wine that stands in stark contrast to the plethora of sweet styles made in the region, ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’ is owned by leading biodynamics evangelist and ex-J.P. Morgan banker Nicolas Joly, and varies considerably between vintages. Today, Joly’s daughter Virginie runs the estate. The 1990 has a bouquet of wet wool, lanolin and apple with intense minerality and cut. Very long finish.

2007 Domaine Macle Château-Chalon, Jura, France

Château-Chalon is the Jura in Eastern France’s most prestigious appellation, and Domaine Macle its premier producer. Tasting like an unfortified alpine Sherry, the ageworthy Château-Chalon is a ‘yellow wine’ made from 100% Savagnin (not to be confused with Sauvignon Blanc), aged under a ‘veil’ of yeast cells in old oak barrels for a minimum of six years and three months before being bottled into 62cl clavelin bottles. Great vintages can evolve beautifully for decades although they are very hard to source. The 2007 is absolutely classic – rich, complex, intense and very long.

Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil en Vessie is a famous Lyonnais speciality created by la Mère Filloux, mentor to Mère Brazier, the first female chef ever to obtain three Michelin Stars (see p85). Bresse chicken breast in ‘half-mourning’ is stuffed with black truffles and slow-poached for 3½ hours in a pig’s bladder, then served with two separate sauces – morel mushroom, and truffle and Madeira. Reports that Prêt À Manger are set to release a diffusion range of sandwiches featuring Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil en Vessie remain unconfirmed.


(Right) Preparing Homard à la Presse

“My dad, when he looks at my food he takes a deep breath – he’s so nice and polite

but I know that deep down he thinks it’s way too busy.”

Yotam Ottolenghi

YO: In a way it was a kind of creative experiment where Alex our architect/designer made these white counters and said “fill them up”. We realised that the more you put out there the more people buy. In retail, if you put out four sandwiches, they’re never going to sell, but if you put out 30 they’re going to sell – and nobody’s going to touch the last five.

NR: So the sparseness of the décor was deliberate?

YO: Alex is from the John Pawson school of thought: put nothing there. I was really reluctant because – and I use the word ‘cold’ a lot – I thought all that whiteness would feel too cold, especially in London. I thought we needed some warmth, some wood, something natural. But that was the genius – I didn’t think it was going to work but once we put the flower arrangements and the food out nobody could see the white and it made the food stand out more. When people came in they said it felt like being in Melbourne or Sydney


them. I’d get more excited going for breakfast in Tartine bakery in San Francisco. They have the most incredible croissants, pain au chocolat and Danish pastries. I would probably go for a good coffee and one of their pastries, or a slice of the sourdough bread.

NR: What’s a typical Ottolenghi fan like?

YO: I shouldn’t say this but… this lunch is a great way of getting me to say things I shouldn’t say. One of my partners said that my fan base is mainly middle-aged women. And I said I’ve got lots of cool young blokes with beards who are fans. Then when I went to Australia there was a big queue at Sydney Opera House to get books signed, all women, mostly middle-aged. But at the very end of the queue were a couple of really cool looking hipsters with beards. I was so happy they’d finally arrived. Then they asked, “Please could you sign this for my mum?” (Laughs)

NR: One of your grand-parents is Italian. Where do you go for Italian food?

YO: I like to cook Italian food at home. The funny thing is my food is the opposite of Italian food because Italians

Noble Rot: Do you think it’s unfashionable to drink sweet wine today?

Yotam Ottolenghi: Not in my world. This Roquefort is excellent and the perfect salty contrast against the richness of the Yquem.

NR: Now you’ve had all of Curnonsky’s five wines, could the Yquem be your favourite?

YO: I’m old-fashioned so I always go for sweet, which is a bit cheap. I like it with the fresh apricots, but it is way more intense with the

1990 Château d’Yquem, Sauternes, Bordeaux, France

Served with Roquefort cheese, fresh apricots

CURNONSKY’S THIRD FLIGHT

– places where, because of the humidity, you can’t have anything but really clean, solid surfaces otherwise it all goes wrong. For a long time people assumed we were an Australian brand.

(The finished Homard à la Presse arrives)

YO: Wow, this feels so decadent and extravagant for a Tuesday afternoon.

(1992 Domaine Baron Thénard Montrachet is poured)

NR: This is so rich and intense – it has a sensation of heaviness without actually being heavy.

YO: It’s so rich. It’s like that kind of vanilla, citrus… butter. It’s very difficult to compare to the Château-Grillet because there’s just so much going on with the Montrachet. Actually I have to say that this is really magical. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like this before… This is just something else.

NR: What’s your favourite restaurant, Yotam?

YO: Restaurants do it much less for me these days because I’m constantly out in

1992 Domaine Baron Thénard, Montrachet, Burgundy, France

Montrachet is the ultimate expression of Chardonnay. A visually unremarkable vineyard straddling the communes of Puligny-Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet, Montrachet produces Burgundy’s rarest and most expensive whites that should, according to Alexandre Dumas, be experienced “on bended knee, with head bared”. Many producers own small sections of Montrachet, so quality is variable. Comte Lafon, Ramonet and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti are among the finest examples, but at over £3000 for a vintage of the latter we plumped for a sensational 1992 Baron Thénard at a tenth of the price. Deep, rich and creamy, balanced with a gorgeous lemon-like acidity and long intense finish. When combined with the lobster, it was a true showstopper and Noble Rot’s wine of the lunch.

1990 Château-Grillet, Northern Rhone, France

Château-Grillet is both the monopole appellation and name of the producer, located in the Northern Rhône Valley. Often mistakenly referred to as France’s smallest appellation (several Côte de Nuits Grand Crus are smaller), Château-Grillet and its neighbouring appellation of Condrieu are famed for producing rich, voluptuous whites made from 100% Viognier, which one writer evocatively compared to “a sweet apricot tart with a great dollop of crème fraîche on top”. Unlike Condrieu, which should be enjoyed young, good vintages of Château-Grillet can evolve well – although trying to find them for sale is very hard indeed. This 1990 is still very youthful, full of minerality and life. Hints of citrus meld with savoury notes; an understated Viognier with great clarity and unusually good acidity.

For Homard à la Presse a lobster is poached in court-bouillon and the claws served with scrambled egg, beurre blanc and Oscietra caviar. Meanwhile, the shell and roe are pressed and the juices incorporated to create a rich lobster bisque. The dish was served with baby vegetables and a Champagne sabayon. Otto’s own one of the few antique silver lobster presses in existence, made in 1910.

are masters of understatement and I’m obviously more of an overstatement kind of guy. My dad, when he looks at my food he takes a deep breath – he’s so nice and polite but I know that deep down he thinks it’s way too busy. But as much as I see things differently, I learned from him to separate your courses. I can’t stand putting lots of things on my plate. My hell is Christmas dinner, because I don’t really know what I’m eating. I hate it so much I get goosebumps.

NR: Who do you admire as a recipe and food writer?

YO: A lot of writers from California – Alice Waters, people like that. I like the clarity of the way they cook – that a vegetable is a vegetable, or a fruit is a fruit and you put it at the centre. There are books I like to cook from and ones I like to read. I love to read Nigella Lawson’s writing – she writes so effortlessly. I also like Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer from Australia, and Deborah Madison from California. She writes these vegetable bibles. She goes over every vegetable and exhausts everything you could do with it – I read her books all the time.


YO: Public transport. The trouble with a private jet is that I’d have to hang out with people who I can’t stand, so I’d rather go on public transport because I don’t have to talk to anyone.

NR: 1980s or 1990s?

YO: The ‘90s, for sure. I’ve never had a strong affinity with the ‘80s, the ‘90s is when things started to become more diverse. And the ‘80s

1990 Château d’Yquem, Sauternes, Bordeaux, France

After the extravagance of the previous two flights, we’ve two simple but classic matches for Château d’Yquem. The superstar producer of Sauternes (which specialises in sweet wines made under the influence of noble rot), Château d’Yquem is located about half an hour’s drive south of Bordeaux city centre. Noble rot, AKA botrytis cinerea, is a fungus that spreads through the vineyards in late summer, caused by foggy mornings alternating with hot afternoons at the confluence of rivers Ciron and Garonne. A blend of approximately 80% Sémillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc, (Sémillon wines are rich and waxy, Sauvignon Blanc adds crispness and nerve) Château d’Yquem is very expensive to make – it takes one vine to produce one bottle of red Bordeaux compared to one vine per glass of sweet Sauternes. A favourite tipple of Russian Tsars and American President Thomas Jefferson, earlier this year a bottle of 1811 Château d’Yquem was sold by Hedonism Wines for over £93,000, becoming the most expensive white wine ever sold. 1990 was a great vintage for the estate, producing wonderfully rich but balanced wines. It has a glorious, honeyed bouquet of butterscotch and ripe apricots with bright freshness on the palate – powerful yet understated.

the best new natural wines. But the beauty of this meal is that it proves how much food and wine matching can be a kind of perfection. To have that lobster with the appropriate wine! I mean, it’s quite obvious there are so many variables: reasons to drink wine, times to drink wine, food to drink wine with… But the Montrachet was outstanding.

NR: Lastly, even though it’s only the start of summer, this afternoon feels like the afterglow of a decadently festive lunch, so we’ve got a Noble Rot word association game to end with. Yotam, please pick which of the following options you prefer and tell us why... east London or west London?

YO: I’m going to be controversial: west London. It’s where I got started so it would be so fickle not to go with west.

NR: Johnny Depp or Johnny Vegas?

YO: I love Johnny Vegas, I was on Saturday Kitchen with him a couple of months ago. He’s so charming, I like everything about him.

NR: Public transport or private jet?

had a lot of crap music – the ‘90s was better.

NR: Boris Becker or Boris Johnson?

YO: What kind of a question is that? I like Boris Becker, actually.

NR: Sumac or za’atar?

YO: Ah, now, there’s a question. Sumac is nice but za’atar is a revelation.

Roquefort – it brings out the flavour. So the Yquem for me, yes. But that Montrachet! And I like the Château-Chalon with the food we had – I thought it was a brilliant match to all that richness.

NR: Do you think Curnonsky’s selection still represents the world’s five greatest white wines today?

YO: No. I’m going to sound like a philistine because I

don’t have the vocabulary or the knowledge to say things as I should, but you get modern wines that have a little bit more – oh my god, I really want to find the right word – idiosyncrasy. Just a little bit more interesting in the sense that they would fit in a certain food niche or corner that these don’t. I mean, they’re all really magnificent, but not all of them are eccentric in a way that you get from some of

Noble Rot 5352 Noble Rot

Curnonsky’s list is a good choice if the choice is restricted to only France, although I would include a Clos Saint Urbain, Rangen de Thann, Sélection de Grains Nobles from Zind-Humbrecht instead of Château d’Yquem. If we open this list beyond the French borders here’s my list in preferred order:

1. ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’ – Nicolas Joly

2. Montrachet – Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

3. Kallstadter Saumagen Riesling Auslese Trocken R – Koehler-Ruprecht

4. Arbois-Pupillin Vin Jaune – Houillon-Overnoy

5. Pinot Gris, Sélection de Grains Nobles ‘Clos Saint Urbain Rangen de Thann’ from Zind-Humbrecht.

Curnonsky’s list holds up pretty well after all these years, though of course Château-Grillet has had ups and downs in terms of viticulture and winemaking, as has ‘Coulée de Serrant’. There have been poor stretches for both of these properties, but Grillet under its new owners will certainly become more consistent. In the ‘80s and ‘90s I might have been tempted to substitute Condrieu for Grillet. Château-Chalon is a wine more talked about than tasted, even with the recent burst of interest in the Jura. Montrachet, at its best, is incomparable, though there are some very indifferent wines being produced to this day. Château d’Yquem, thankfully, continues to amaze. Trimbach’s ‘Clos Sainte Hune’ from Alsace is worthy of a place on the list.

Only two of Curnonsky’s wines remain unquestionably at the top: Montrachet and Yquem. Château-Grillet has been invisible for years – though it now has a billionaire owner and will revive. ‘Coulée de Serrant’ has become too eccentric to be considered great, though some Savennières neighbours are excellent. Château-Chalon occupies a niche where it will never be disturbed – or much drunk. It’s strange that Riesling didn’t enter into it, until you remember that Alsace was considered German. Today it belongs at the top, whether from Alsace or Germany. Moselle and Saar Rieslings can be superlative, and Scharzhofberger vies with Montrachet as the world’s greatest white wine vineyard. The other strange omission is white Hermitage, usually on French lists of greatest wines, and at its best well worthy. Outside France there are too many fine Chardonnays to put in order, but Western Australia’s Leeuwin Estate is my number one. It depends on your timescale. No Californian or South African Chardonnay has a long enough consistent track record for this list.

Hugh JohnsonDoyen of fine wine

Jay McInerneyNovelist, wine writer and bon vivant

Frank CornelissenMount Etna artisan extraordinaire

Noble Rot asks the experts whether Curnonsky’s list of greatest wines still holds up today, and what other bottles they would add

There is one obvious problem with this list: that it’s all French. What about the world’s greatest white wine grape, Riesling? Tip-top Saar Riesling surely belongs here. How about Scharzhofberger? And it seems strange to ignore Sherry and Madeira, both of which can be sublime and, especially Madeira, last forever. If Curnonsky appreciates Château-Chalon, he should surely acknowledge the archetypal flor wine. I’d certainly agree with the choice of Yquem. I can’t remember a bad bottle and it keeps on surprising me with its longevity and ability to evolve for the better in bottle. And the finest DRC Montrachets – although the reputation of the appellation has been so sullied by some halfhearted renditions. Frédéric Engerer is doing his best to restore the reputation of Château-Grillet but there was a long period of under-performance before François Pinault took over, so it’s too early to judge how the new era wines will age. Same with ‘Coulée de Serrant’. Virginie Joly seems to be doing a great job but she’s only just starting to re-establish the reputation of this great terroir.

My answer is “yes” and “no”. Yes, because at their best these wines are among the most intense, complex and transparent of terroir of any wines. And no, because so many other wines rival them but do not have the historical wealth to confirm their status. Of Curnonsky’s five, three of them are single-producer wines (Yquem, Grillet and ‘Coulée de Serrant’), and their quality wavers depending who is at the helm at any point in time. The other two (Château-Chalon and Montrachet) are appellations with multiple producers. There are some great Montrachets but many mediocre examples that are surpassed by Premier Cru or even village-level wines from great producers. Today, I would add Domaine de Chevalier Blanc, Laville Haut-Brion, López de Heredia Blanco and Hermitage Blanc to the list.

Daniel JohnnesAmerica’s Sommelier-in-Chief

Jancis RobinsonQueen of wine writers

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Yotam Ottolenghi drinks the world’s five greatest wines* offer its menu in shillings ... elaborate...

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Transcript of Yotam Ottolenghi drinks the world’s five greatest wines* offer its menu in shillings ... elaborate...