The Good Life
The alcoholised ice lolly
Pamela Vandyke Price
Gastronomically, the British tend to rush to extremes. A combination of asceticism and excess that would have bewildered a multi-pronged fakir and the most experienced of Romans on the orgy circuit did once give us an empire. In the confines of the kitchen it can only result in indigestion — aesthetic as well as corporal. Recently I was lunching with two members of the wine trade who have taught me much — and we had to send the claret back because it was, without exaggeration, hotter than the soup. The replacement, which arrived at the end of the meal, was literally iced.
Currently it seems impossible to convey what is meant by "should be served cool," as, indeed, should all white and sparkling wines, fine sherries, roses, young Beaujolais. (I know Lacrima Christi is supposed to be the one white you are supposed to enjoy tepid, but it isn't exactly an everyday, available at any off-licence, tipple.) But "cool," even in the stffiest weather, really shouldn't mean frappe, so that you get a pain behind the eyes as it inches into your system. The over-chilling of white wine results in your being unable to smell it at all and that you taste it only slightly — and you have paid for both smell and taste. The over-icing of bad wine masks the badness. One does not, as far as even I, obsessionalist that I am, know, approach an ice lolly with the same deliberation as one does, say, a bottle of Wehlener Sonnenuhr 1953 of J. J. Prtlm. But if the most superb Mosel were at ice lolly tem
perature, one might even prefer the ice lolly. One then tastes virtually nothing except a certain sweetness, if present.
At a discussion with the French gastronomic press in Champagne, I ventured to query the assertion by one pundit that Champagne should be served at Or'C — and was applauded by all present who ac
tually made the wines, whose view was that the temperature at which it comes from a cool cellar is ideal — anything lower will cheat the drinker of some of the wine's quality. Of course, as my white wines live alongside the cornice brush en route for the bathroom, what, you may well ask, is my idea of "cool cellar "? Frankly, forty to forty-five minutes in the refrigerator for dry white wines, only a very little longer for the sweeter ones. And if it's winter and one can stick the bottle on the windowsill on a cold evening, I think, from having compared two cooled wines from cellar and fridge, that the en plein air production has the edge on t'other. (I shall regret this one day, of course, when some guest rings the bell and is flattened by a magnum sliding from an icy cornice — but I do usually put a string prudently round the bottle.) The ice bucket is, in some ways, more effective even than the refrigerator — but it must contain ice and water, to surround the bottle up to the neck. Ice alone will merely chill patches and the wine doesn't like that, any more than you would if you had an electric blanket that only worked in a spotty sort of way. If your bucket won't take a tall bottle — many won't — then before you draw the cork, put the bottle in upside down. I know — of course the wine turns round when you reverse the bottle, but it will then be poured through the chilled neck and the first two or three helpings won't be tepid. But otherwise, if you can remember, it's always an idea to pull the cork on a white wine for ten to fifteen minutes before you serve it, as this very
slight airing will get rid of the 'bottle stink' — the smell of the scrap of air that has been under the cork — that may disappoint you when you sip at what should be something as beautiful as its probable price lures you to anticipate.
People who haven't a refrigerator, whose fridge has sagged under the sultriness, or who, like me, can't get more than two or three bottles in it unless they take everything else out, should put any bottles to cool in a bucket of water, so that the water comes about halfway up the body of the bottle, then drape a cloth over the top, so that the ends of it hang down into the water. Stand the whole bucketful, tub, adapted wastebin or baby's bath in the draughtiest courant d'air you can track (fan or hairdryer if nothing natural) and in about an hour the wine will be, actually, almost at ' cool ' cellar temperature. If you can put your glasses in the fridge, suppose you're in a hurry and haven't the requisite forty-five minutes to hand' for the bottle, then they, in about ten, will be chilled and the first pourings will be cool too — and it won't ruin an everyday sort of wine if you put it in the freezer for a quarter of an hour either, though don't forget it, else you really will have an ice lolly next day.
But never accept an invitation from the character who 'always keeps his white wines on ice.' These will, after about twenty-four hours, often develop a curious, stale swimming-bath sort of smell, the flavour will go off and, as happens with wines almost boiled by way of being chambr6, they won't ever really recover. It's probably the only good reason there is for refusing a late night drink of Champagne. (Anyone whose invitation is worth accepting will get the wine cool in fifteen minutes and anyone who wants to accept will also be willing to wait. As the song indicates — the British do need time. But they — and the wines they drink — can be worth waiting for.)
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