Part 1: Lamenting the Premiership

You know what you're getting with Redknapp, it's a tight fitting suit

I am living in England and utterly bored with the Premiership. It is a league and sporting spectacle I once cherished. I loved getting up early on a Saturday morning in Canada to take in a pulsating Tyne-Wear derby.

The culmination of my adherence was the 2008-09 season, my last to date on the home side of the pond. This was the season my beloved Liverpool put up their strongest title challenge in my memory. Those were the halcyon days of Torres in his pomp. A midfield marshalled by the masterful Mascherano and Alonso. When our ludicrously thin bench regularly featured the likes of Nabil El-Zhar and David N'gog.

I think I watched every single game that year. Results I still remember exactly where I was include the win away at Stamford Bridge (Football Factory on Bathurst Avenue in Toronto); a demolition of United at Old Trafford (the upstairs bar at Scallywags with my brother); Andrea Dossena scoring in a victory at the Bernabeu Anfield (Fitz's on Dundas Street in London, Ontario... Andrea Dossena!). I even recall my girlfriend at the time visiting me at uni and gamely putting up with a dross first half of a midweek Merseyside derby before going off shopping.

A quiet Saturday morning at Scallywags last month vs. WBA. The way football was meant to be enjoyed. Over by noon and you're already at a bar

I watched many of the weekend matches that year at the aforementioned Fitz's Bar in London. It was run by an Arsenal fan, but somehow had been pressed into service by scousers as the designated Liverpool bar (As Scallywags is in Toronto). There were a good half dozen Liverpudlians of various ages and of the red persuasion who had emigrated to the sleepy college city over the years. They combined together with the cohort of of Ontario reared supporters like myself of that most historical of English football clubs.

The manager, good lad that he was, would come in early on his own and open the bar for us, and put on a pot of coffee for us rabid band of scousers standing around the front of the bar by the big screen. We even had one superstitious bloke, always kitted out in his fire-engine red Stevie Gerrard home strip, who if Liverpool were drawn or down at the 80 minute mark, he would venture to his own TV at the back of the bar to pull his hair out in isolation. Oddly enough in those Rafa Benitez days Liverpool would often pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat in cardiac kids fashion.
This spring I eventually came around to following the matches with something approaching ardour when it once again looked like the Reds were in with a shout. This year I'm back to barely caring; and this is from a kid who once only desired a subscription to the LFC monthly magazine for Christmas!

Overlying this has been my growing apathy to the sport coincidentally since I moved to its heartland in Europe. A great deal of that, I think, has been the 'NFL-ization' of the Premiership, with Sky-Sports TV as its main abettor.

They even have a 'Monday Night Football' pre-game program now. Where a motley assemblage of former players and managers stand around a studio like muppets pontificating on tactics or spouting banalities of the 'the team that scores more goals will win the match' ilk. All the while fiddling around with a telestrator. It makes me want to throw up.

Why. Just,why?

The other incursion has been the colour commentator, which is largely needless in football, especially when they're not trained in broadcasting. Why do Michael Owen and Phil Neville have microphones? Why is Kevin Kilbane pitchside? Give me the solitary warblings of John Motson any day. One caveat there is the traditionally brilliant ESPN Champions League tandem of Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth.

A second major factor has been the influx of money and internationalism to the game. In this respect I may well be accused of being a Luddite. For me the good old days were when Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola were the flashy internationals, when Leeds were in the top six and Man City were perennially in the bottom half.

I accepted the rise of Chelski because they had always been there, or thereabouts. But when Manchester City starts buying championships with a team with zero homegrown outfield players, to me, something of the magic; indeed, something of the legitimacy of the whole thing is brought into question.

The Premiership has never aspired to be a fair fight. United, Liverpool and Arsenal, and in a lesser manner teams like Newcastle, Everton and West Ham, were built on tradition and structure, not whimsical overseas investment.

Having had this discussion before over the pub table, I have been dubbed marginally xenophobic in the 'In-Gur-Land' vein for feeling like I can't get behind a team packed with foreigners rather than scousers. Yes and no. Some of my favourite all-time Reds have been foreigners like Xabi Alonso, John Arne Riise and Dietmar Hamann.

That said, there is also something praiseworthy about having kids from the old neighbourhood (even if they grew up supporting Everton) breaking into the squad and having a lasting impact on the first team. I think this sensation is less actually about where they're from than seeing them develop up through the ranks and leaving a charmed legacy. Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler, to name two, did that; even if they eventually moved on elsewhere.

Connected a bit to what I wrote earlier this week, I feel the same way in hockey about home groomed players. They could be from Sweden or wherever, but if you've followed their junior career from draft day, there is a sense of pride with your club's development scheme when they come good and forge a great NHL career with the team that initially drafted them.

Note: this has never happened with the Toronto Maple Leafs, so I'm actually speaking conjecturally. We had that brief moment of a team comprising home drafted former junior stand-outs like Alex Steen, Carlo Colaiacovo, Matt Stajan, Kyle Wellwood, and Ian White. That went precisely nowhere.
Seriously, the best home grown Leaf since Wendel Clark? Is it fucking Nik Antropov? Sophmore Morgan Rielly? Nazem Kadri?? I guess it would be the greatly uninspiring Tomas Kaberle.

End story, I've been turned off the Premiership by the hype and bombastic coverage of a game played by mercenaries that I don't identify with being nurtured to fruition by my team.
This leads directly to the paean of my current favourite team.

Part 2: Paean to the Irish men's rugby team

At the final whistle against Australia last weekend

I watched the Irish rugby team sweep aside South Africa and, more tightly, Australia in recent weeks to reach the heights of third ranked in the world behind only the All-Blacks and Springboks. They are in essence my favourite team in any sport to watch at the moment.

I've followed this team closely for a decade, and with much of the core having been together now for five years or so, Ireland, with a new-found squad depth, looks as well situated for success at next year's World Cup than ever. Ironically this positioning comes less than a season after the retirement of their greatest ever impact player, Brian O'Driscoll.

My enthusiasm for the sport of rugby, which has burned consistently bright this past decade, comes down to many of the reasons I've been turned off football. The coverage is not consistently overblown. I don't care what Sky Sports adverts say, a Swansea-QPR, Aston Villa-Norwich double header is not a 'Super Sunday' of sport.

By contrast the five weekends of the 6 Nations ARE huge, genuine highlights of the sporting calendar. The familiar announcing crews on RTE and BBC are a welcome part of it. The players, while still professional athletes, aren't on six figures a week pay packets. They epitomize my enjoyment of home grown talent to root for.

In the Irish rugby case, it is almost literally so. Rugby in Ireland, like in Canada, is a fairly small world, dominated by a few schools and areas. I've come across Irish mates who were once school kids with Jamie Heaslip or Rob Kearney. I went on a date last year with a girl who was at Methody with Paddy Jackson and Craig Gilroy.

Like the way hockey used to be when the Leafs and Habs drew almost exclusively from their respective constituencies, rugby players follow that model more than any other current major sport I can think of.

Dublin and Belfast schoolboys, and Limerick and Cork men play for Leinster, Ulster, and Munster respectively. Kiwi's from that great pipeline of Christchurch play for the Crusaders; Afrikaaner's from Pretoria play for the Bulls.

Conor Murray at scrum half has come on greatly

[Note: this next bit will really only interest those who follow rugby]

For the current robust form of the Irish team much has been made of the uber professional approach of Kiwi head coach Joe Schmidt, who previously led Leinster to two Heineken Cups. I was only ever coached at an excessively amateur level, so in eyeballing player's performances for analysis I am want to fail to pick up some of the hard grafting in the scrum or maul.

Paul O'Connell's 'leading from the front' mentality, not only in recent weeks, but throughout his illustrious career gives Ireland a very strong on-field and locker room general in advance of the World Cup. An injury to the man who will be 36 then would be devastating.

Rory Best still has his line out wobbles, but the Ulster captain's carrying and break down play is in the best shape of his long career. Mike Ross looks indispensable at 3, and Ireland need a competent backup in case he goes down in the heat of the battle; as witnessed when Tom Court couldn't pack down at tighthead and England obliterated the scrum in 2012.

On the other side, Cian Healy's freakish ball carrying talents make him one of the preeminent props in the game. Jack McGrath's mammoth tackling, and a good shift from Dave Kilcoyne shows there is relief in depth at loosehead.

In the backrow Jamie Heaslip picks himself as a tireless war horse. He's come in for some flak for no longer being the ball carrying menace he was when he rose to prominence in the Grand Slam and Lions year of 2009. But that's five years ago and, when healthy, much of the line breaking load has been delegated for both Ireland and Leinster to Sean O'Brien. At blindside Peter O'Mahony is often lionized, and while I'm not sure he's yet a superstar, he does fill the enforcer role left vacated by the injury induced retirement of Stephen Ferris.



In the halfbacks Conor Murray and Jonathan Sexton, with all respect to Stringer and ROG, are likely the two best I've seen with Ireland. Murray's box kicking has improved dramatically, while Sexton is assuredly the premier stand-off in the northern hemisphere.

This year's Six Nations will show whether Gordon D'Arcy still has the legs to be a starter. Though without his long time partner, D'Arcy's work in tackling and generating turnovers is important. The little I've heard of young Robbie Henshaw, it sounds like he might be of the same ilk. It is interesting how much stronger the side would be for the World Cup in Drico had held on, but I gather that his body was finally done after years of taking a pounding.

Rob Kearney under the high ball

Rob Kearney's aerial prowess alone makes him one of the iconic full backs in world rugby and he seems to have returned to form after being a reserve player on the last Lions tour. On the wings, there is stiff competition to line up opposite Tommy Bowe. I like his clubmate Andrew Trimble as a stout defender and good finisher. Simon Zebo or Craig Gilroy would be the bolter's choice, and that still leaves blooded test international's like Keith Earls, Fergus McFadden, Dave Kearney and Luke Fitzgerald. I might be inclined to move Bowe to 13 as he played with the Ospreys and Lions and partner Henshaw in midfield.

State of the Nation: Jerseys on Ice

I used to write these updates fairly regularly when I was back home in the thick of things of 'Leaf Nation' and a modest contributor and one-time sports editor for my college magazine. What's the issue of the moment? Fans throwing their Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys on the ice in protest during a bad loss. Is this acceptable or is it 'disrespecting' the emblem? (Also, as ever, what in Seven Hells is Don Cherry wearing above?)

Firstly, a quick word on the appellation of 'Leafs Nation', since occasionally such an imaginary geographical entity in relation to a sports team is overused. I believe the term was first cultivated by fans of the Oakland Raiders NFL team. And while 'Raider Nation' is famous for its hardcore, and often costumed supporters, the Raiders aren't by any means the definitive team of the Bay area.
I think that collective 'living and dying' with the team's fortunes is a key ingredient if you're going to start inferring that a block of fans have taken on almost citizen and legionary status. Red Sox Nation works because the BoSox are undoubtably the team of New England; the Green Bay Packers have their very own Ancient Greek city-state fanaticism; the New York Yankees have the aptly titled 'Evil Empire'. A sense of angst and unrequited devotion helps too. Despite their popularity, I don't think you have an 'L.A. Lakers Nation', but conceivably could have a Chicago Cubs one, that is, if they're not too beat down already.

In hockey, there is certainly a Leafs Nation. From its metro Toronto core to proud border towns like London and Kingston. The heartland of the Nation travels north into my neck of the woods: Grey highlands, Collingwood, Creemore way. It takes in the Anglophone majority settlements in Sudbury, the Sault, Timmins and Kirkland Lake; where so many of the early stars of the blue and white had their ice-bound northern roots.  Finally, in patches along the prairies to transplant ex-pat communities in Vancouver and Ottawa. Even holidaying Leafs fans often make up the majority of the crowd at games in Florida.


To the issue at hand. The Leafs have been terrible for basically a decade. Not terrible enough, mind you, to get a top three draft pick and rebuild from the ground up; but terrible enough to miss the playoffs, that more than half the league makes, for years on end.

Some modest hope arose with the solitary playoff appearance two years ago while fighting the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins in a memorable seven game series. (Of the 3rd period collapse to lose that series, which remains statistically the biggest choke in the history of the sport, I have nothing new to add, and have buried that way too deep to rehash).

The following year, fans hoped to be able to build on that post-season experience, and the season started brightly enough before another unwieldy collapse meant we finished in the bottom half again.
Thus, the stakes for this season are decidedly middling. It would be a disappointment not to make the playoffs and the low end expectation is that we should be in the running for that position. We're not exactly a demanding fan base, despite elements of the stupid and incorrigible Toronto media portraying us as impatient.

The Leafs, far from being middling in their on-ice play, have been wildly inconsistent. Several surprisingly good results in a row will be followed by a couple utter abominations. That's when, in a new twist for fan dissent this year, the jerseys have been projected from the audience. Not many, and not in every loss, but enough that it's become over the last week a discussion point.

Seeing as how some of the incidents have occurred during away games (where Leaf Nation turns up in force in outposts like Ottawa and Buffalo) I have read that many of the individuals actually doing the chucking of the jerseys (which, as with any officially licensed pro sports apparel, are quite expensive) are not in fact Leaf fans, but those wanting to stir the pot and get their antics written about in the newspaper.

Irrespective, the question comes back: is this an acceptable form of protest? Or, as former Leaf netminder, Ivy League graduate and self-styled intellectual, Ben Scrivens intoned when the same thing was happening in Edmonton: that it was fundamentally disrespecting the emblem of the hockey club.

Short answer is yes, it is acceptable within confined circumstance, and no, it is not disrespecting the sweater. After all, these are pro athletes who would happily shill advertising wearing team logo gear if the league let them.

I believe it is acceptable to throw shit on the ice when it is reserved as a most strenuous symbol of unrest. Especially given that patrons of the Air Canada Centre pay exorbitant and inflated prices for the pleasure/pain of watching the blue and white play live. I actually quite liked the briefly utilizied meme a few seasons ago when suffering Leaf Nation citizens took to wearing paper bags over their heads and throwing frozen Eggo waffles on the ice. I loved it because it was arbitrarily random, and yet was a legitimate time to protest. (Was that the Ron Wilson 18 wheeler off a cliff catastrophe year?)

MLSE, the Leafs corporate parent company, has made their policy clear. They are a business, eager to extract every possible dollar out of patriotic Leaf Nation citizens. From their point of view winning would simply be an added bonus. This makes me so angry, precisely because Leafs fans, with all their primal, ludicrous devotion, deserve better.

A perfect example of this was the release of the American media giant ESPN's annual rankings of how every North American professional sports franchise treats their fans. It featured a convoluted metric of on-field performance tied in with ticket prices and general satisfaction surrounding the culture of the team. Of the more than 120 pro teams in North America, the Toronto Maple Leafs ranked dead last for the first time. (We've been in the bottom handful for several years now)

The funniest thing was how up in arms the MLSE corporate suits were about this slight against the 'Centre of the Hockey Universe' (our own moniker faithfully used within the Nation and lampooned outside of it). If you had asked any average fan on the street they likely would have responded something like "that's a bit harsh to our on-field team, but definitely makes sense as far as how an ownership group treats the fans".

Thus, amid all this pseudo class tension between the boardroom and the millions of Leaf Nation citizens, when results fall below even our tempered and mediocre desires, fan protest is perfectly valid.

This past off-season MLSE hired as club president Brendan Shanahan, a son of Leafs Nation and absolute beast during his playing career, notably in the Stanley Cup playoffs with Detroit. He was, in part, tasked with injecting into the culture of the team a toughness and hard nosed edge, combined with suitable acumen, that has been lacking since the days of the late Pat Quinn a decade ago.

Upon opening the season the Leafs lost a couple bad ones out of the blocks. That, to me, is when the serenade of boos and barrage of logo'ed gear onto the ice is warranted. The blatantly money oriented boardroom hires a good 'ole boy of Toronto to take the flak at press conferences where much is discussed about 'leadership', 'compete levels', and 'taking responsibility', and then the team goes out and plays like that?
Yes, chuck the fucking jerseys on the ice, it's an embarrassment.

Then the Leafs began to turn it around. We became the alright, slightly above .500 team most were vaguely hoping for. A few good wins even brought us as high as third in the Eastern Conference, before returning to our familiar position around the eighth and final playoff spot.

With the scoreline at 8-2 during the Nashville game last week

Just as this see-sawing was balancing out last week, came the two resounding losses. 6-2 to Buffalo (who are far and away the worst team in the league) and 9-2 (a lopsided scoreline that you practically never see nowadays in hockey) to Nashville. Cue more jerseys on the ice at the Air Canada Centre.
Obviously those are not good results, but they are only two more losses in an 82 game season. Indeed at the weekend the Leafs responded with quality wins over Tampa and Detroit; isolated disaster put to bed.

Two bad, even really bad losses, amongst a smattering of four or five good wins deserves loyalty and respect. I do suspect the jersey tossers aren't proper Leafs Nation citizens; can you imagine the Kop failing to sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' after a couple bad Liverpool losses? Faith needs to be held. Leaf fans are good at that.

Systemic underacheivement is one thing, and deserves ridicule and shaming. A couple of flat outings during a long season does not.


As for the second bit about 'disrespecting the sweater'; it's a bit rich for an NHLer to talk about that. I'm sure many players do value the logo on their chest, but they certainly don't have a monopoly on caring about it.

A strong fan of any team figuratively lives and dies by the successes and failures of their squad, and are tied to them as such. An NHLer hits free agency and often as not, follows the money. Dave Bolland, a Toronto boy and player I've loved since his junior days with the London Knights, played part of one season in his hometown blue and white before deciding this year to sign for slightly more money in Florida. Maybe that decision was also about preferable climate or not raising a family under the media microscope in Toronto for all I know, but it sure as hell had nothing to do with respecting the emblem on the front of his uniform.

The blessed blue Maple Leaf of my youth and of my life is cherished, not sacred. It is not the red Maple Leaf of our national flag or that Canadians wore on their shoulders in the First World War, from which the Toronto Ice Hockey club took its defining nickname.

Many sons of Leaf Nation have honoured the jersey down the years. In my lifetime I think of the late, great face-off man Peter Zezel. Of Gary Roberts, who went into the corners every time like it was his last. Of Curtis Joseph and Doug Gilmour, who came back to retire as Leafs.

Throwing the emblem of the blue Maple Leaf on the ice in disgust should be a last resort to lodge a complaint over insipid, weak play that has, all too sadly, been part and parcel of the Leafs in the last decade.

But if it is just a bad night at the office, the ACC needs to take a page from the Liverpool fans. Keep your heads held high and sing on through the storm.

Autumnal Wines: Novello & Barbaresco

Last Thursday was beaujolais nouveau day. The third Thursday of November when the infant wine of that year's harvest was shipped to the wine shops of Paris. A one time annual institution, which was marketed with some fanfare from France on to the wider world, it has now largely fallen off from the general consciousness. And fair enough, the wine was never that good; but offered a pleasant afternoon's distraction of levity with an equally light red wine during the increasingly dark days of late November when nothing much is going on.

During my time in Rome I came across the Italian imitation Novello. Being available from the supermarket usually for about two or three euro it actually was good value for money to enjoy in the remaining brisk, sunny afternoons.

Novello can conceivably come from any local light red grape in Italy, but much of the export produce is from Merlot dominated blends in the Veneto. This leads me to mention my favourable tasting of Sainsbury's House Red Wine, which very much reminded me of a nice Novello.
This isn't of great help to those outside the UK, but I was rather surprised when perusing the Decanter magazine awards list, they had given a bronze medal to that supermarket's ostensibly most budget regular wine.

Retailing at £4.25 it's classified as a non-vintage vin de France. This is the most open end of the appellation control bracket, replacing vin de table I suppose in a bit of a marketing gesture, as 'French wine' does sound a bit better than plain old 'table wine'. Though I have read some hopes for the re-branding of this customarily low end grading is to allow creative dabbling on grapes or blends hitherto eschewed under the strict village and regional classification system.

As a for instance, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's winery in Provence, which by all accounts is a serious endeavor and not simply a dilettantish amusement, are growing red grapes allowed the next valley over, but not under the specific Coteaux de Provence label. Thus, are choosing to go ahead and label their bottlings as 'vin de France'.

All that being said, the Sainsbury's House vin de France is comprised of Merlot, Grenache and Carignan (a southern French grape I quite like when done well). It has a lovely fruitiness to it, and if it intrinsically lacks length, you can't really do much better at that price point for a fresh, easy drinking red wine. Entirely reminiscent of Italian Merlot Novello's on sunny, cold November days in Rome!

The whole idea of supermarkets having their own label wine was a bit of a surprise to me when I settled in Britain; multiplied by the fact that much of it is quite decent, and some even very good, affordable expressions of certain wines.

An obvious example is some of Sainsbury's 'Taste the Difference' wines. (Disclaimer: Sainsbury's just happens to me my local shop in Brixton. M&S would be second. Interestingly for a case study in retail giants re-enforcing class and racial stereotypes: the Tesco in Brixton (a largely black neighbourhood) has a terrible wine section. Whereas the same supermarket in nearby yuppie-ish Clapham has an alright one.

Anyway, my first night in London a couple years ago I wandered into the local Sainsbury's and immediately marvelled that they had a Barbaresco on discount offer for £6. It was only after I had gotten home to the flat I was crashing at that I noticed it was somewhat oddly titled 'Taste the Difference', taking me several weeks to realize that was a supermarket's own premium brand range.
Fast forward to to this month, and I have again found Sainsbury's Barbaresco on offer (now at £8, but still a fantastic buy). The 2011 vintage now on sale is especially nice, and if you'd found on the shelf of some independent wine shop it wouldn't look out of place at three times the price.

Barbaresco is made in the Piedmont from the Nebbiolo grape. Most famous for producing Barolo, one of Italy's heavyweight reds, this Barbaresco actually looks light in the glass, but has incredible length and structure. It's made in the Langhe Hills from 20 to 40 year old vines, and is quite simply unlike anything else you're going to find at a supermarket for £8.

Another lovely, earthy sort of autumnal wine from Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range in the very same Italian region is their Barbera d'Asti. Regularly priced also at £8, it's occasionally on offer down to £6. Barbera is a grape, and by extension, wine I'm often picky about since you can come across some expensive duds.

The Barbera d'Asti (denoting the town it's vineyards surround) is actually a richer wine than the Barbaresco, and would be perfect with hearty winter dishes. The Barbaresco I might pair with cheeses or, naturally enough for the locale and time of year, truffle associated pasta.

For those situated elsewhere than the UK, I'd suggest keeping an eye out for well reviewed Barbera's or Nebbiolo varietals labled as coming from the Langhe region in general, as they are usually better value for money than DOCG rated Barbaresco.

Travels in Napa

The view from Artesa winery in Carneros

My trip to Napa Valley was not as wine oriented as I had imagined. Well, that is to say, it was not as studiously wine oriented as I might have imagined. There on best man duties for an old friend from Rome days, we met up with a bevy of our ex-pat companions who had made the journey from various points afar. From there it quickly galvanized into one of those truly memorable convivial symposiums four days on the trot. I've had mornings before where I awoke with my mouth tasting uncomfortably of whiskey; never before has it tasted so consistently of Cabernet Sauvignon.

On our first full day there we assembled on the edge of Napa town, about 25 in total from the out-of-towners to the wedding, onto a bus to head north up the valley and into the heart of the wine country. Organized by the groom's father, a local Napa resident, our first stop was an afternoon soiree (if there is such a thing) at the Mumm's winery.

In a quintessentially beautiful setting of a private patio space with the vineyards of the valley floor before us and the Mayacamas mountains beyond, we were offered to sample, liberally as we soon discovered, from one of their vintage Brut and a rose sparkler.

The scene at Mumm's

I was soon catching up amongst a circle of friends, many of whom I had barely seen over the past number of years. Before long I noticed a group of us had, without really intending to, propped ourselves up at the makeshift bar the gentleman was hosting behind. And if some of the parent's age folks in the crowd weren't going to help themselves to a third, or fourth tipple of champenois style at 2:30 in the afternoon, who were we to turn down our diligent duty to utilize the quota of bottles that had already been opened?

Back on the bus we departed the Silverado Trail and made our way in traffic down Highway 29 towards the Carneros region and our stop at Artesa winery. One of the groomsmen along for the ride wasn't a wine man, and so had apparently made a dash to the gas station 7-11 before our bus departed and emerged with a bottle of Crown Royal and Canada Dry ginger ale. As the lone Canadian in the contingent I found this sophmorically amusing (and that's an adjective of approbation in the early days of a symposium). The Canadian whisky and ginger duly passed about, including the parent's generation I'll add, we garrulously stepped off the bus at Artesa and took in our surroundings: A near 360 degree panorama of the Napa Valley and hills from a southwestern perspective (Behind us, the next valley unseen over the ridge would have been Sonoma).

Napa wine country; with the author at centre

The consensus amongst those of us who had lived in Italy was that it was immediately most reminiscent of Tuscany, though the topography arguably even more dramatic. Inside, the tasting room was organized, perhaps in a nod to an Italian influence at Artesa, into a pseudo Roman hall, complete with impluvium. We did comment amongst ourselves that all the open, undemarcated pools of flowing water seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen at a winery.

Sidling up to the bar with our man Diego hosting, I felt a bit more in my pensive tasting element: two whites, two reds. The first white was a native Spanish grape that I don't recall. Likely mirroring the way I generally feel about Spanish whites. I'm sure they're fine, but nowhere near the top of my list of 'must-try' wines.

The second white was a Carneros Chardonnay, something both I, and a number in our group, would typically be wary of. Diego gave me a resassuring smile, and mentioned that this was not only his favourite, but also the most expensive bottling we'd be trying.

The common complaint about California Chards, as with some Australians and burgundies, is that they're too buttery, too immersed in sub-standard oak aging. This chardonnay was both buttery and clean, something I'd never tasted out of California before. The taste up front was typical rich Chardonnay, but then it quickly cut away to a clean finish, almost like my beloved Riesling. Chardonnay lives to fight another day in the palette of my mind.

For the reds, I honed in, and without consulting the tasting line-up and likely attempting some sort of token effort that I pretend to be a wine journalist, offered to Diego, "Now I see you're situated in the southern end of the Valley, and with the prevailing tramontane winds I suspect Pinot Noir would be your primary grape here as opposed to Cabernet". He looked at me a bit like I was an idiot, and with an 'obviously' hint to his response, "Uh... yeah".

At that point my investigative brain checked out, and what was left chimed in "So I see you have wines to serve me, good sir".  One Pinot, one Cab, fittingly.

The Pinot was luxurious and supple, very lovely (representing my wine notes after about 9 tastings); the Cab however was extraordinary and delicious. Rich, mouthfilling, but no bitterness. A perfect melding of say Chilean and Medoc Cabernet styles. Admittedly I've not had much experience tasting Napa Cab's, so that blended comparison may come off as crass for the non-parvenu. To think, Carneros wasn't even one of the great heralded Cabernet Sauvignon terroir's of the Napa Valley.

That evening in our Arrested Development style Air B&B rented model home, in the lyrically titled Napa town of American Canyon, the Rome crew bantered over some supermarket Sauvignon Blanc (I wasn't in charge of that expedition). Later we dipped into a bottle each of the Artesa reds that folks had purchased. The Pinot and the Cab; luxurious and the rich, and we joked about our days and nights amongst the piazza's of Rome.

Thanksgiving wines: Oregon Pinot Noir

Originally wrote this for Canadian thanksgiving, but can work as well on an American thanksgiving table. I realize with some six feet of snow on the ground in parts of the Great Lakes and Northeast this week, it's not precisely autumnal anymore...

The Willamette Valley

Pinot in general is I think a good shoulder season bottle, but there is a certain earthiness to the Oregon wines that I think fit nicely around thanksgiving. Pinot Noir is traditionally regarded as amongst the most challenging wine grapes to flourish, much less perfect. This mostly has to do with the grape skin's delicate nature and the exacting conditions the resulting juice requires to thrive. As far as red grapes go it is just about the opposite of the hardy sun-loving plant-all grapes like Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon that practically appear in every wine growing nation on earth.

Indeed it was long conjectured that Pinot's homeland of Burgundy would never face a serious challenger like Bordeaux has seen with Napa. The prices of the top drawer red burgundies from the Cote d'Or may not be touched but the last couple decades has seen upstart colonies in New Zealand and Oregon demonstrate the French monopoly on quality Pinot Noir is well over.

Next comes the cost difficulty. Pinot Noir has never been cheap, and that is just a fact of the high value estates it can be grown in and the meticulousness that it's harvesting requires. The usual low bar for a decent expression of Pinot is around £12 or $20 CAN. The one fantastic exception to this rule is a wine I've trumpeted for years and that's Cono Sur bicicleta Pinot Noir from Chile, which is widely available with it's distinctive lavender coloured twist off cap for £7 or $12 CAN.

I should mention a note on the taste of Pinot. For those accustomed to rather rich, fruit driven everyday wines from, say, the Languedoc or Australia, Pinot can come as a bit of a surprise. It's a bit like the difference between a filet mignon and a t-bone steak. The one more delicate and perhaps exquisite on the tastesbuds, the other hearty and juicy. I know well seasoned wine drinkers who simply don't comprehend the lingering cherry bite of a Pinot, as if it's an entirely different drink than the Cab and Shiraz they're used to. But I digress.

In the lexicon of wonderful archaic descriptions that are associated with the nose (ie. smell) of certain wines, a classic is 'barnyard' with red burgundy. Whether it specifies whether's it meant to be the domicile of cattle or horses, I'm not sure, but it does speak to that earthy quality that can be present in Pinot.

The Willamette Valley south of Portland was the end of the line for American settlers going back to the days of the Oregon trail itself, but it wasn't until the 1960's that world class wine operations began to take shape. It was noted in those days that the climate was more similar to that of Burgundy than anything found further south in California. Since then the number of wineries in the valley focusing their production on Pinor Noir has mushroomed.

 Erath, founded in 1972, was a vineyard I visited on one of my trips to Portland, as it lies just south of the city near the head of the Willamette Valley. It's range of Pinot Noir's have long rated well, and it's principal wine is one of the only Oregon Pinot's reguarly on offer in Ontario at least.

Apparently it's sold by the can in Oregon... allowing for It's Always Sunny in Philadephia induced wild gesticulating during conversation while drinking wine

Underwood Oregon Pinot Noir, availbale in the UK at Marks & Spencer is award winning and at the respectable price of £13. As for a thanksgiving meal, I very much like the pairing of Pinot with turkey and lightish gravy since the wine shouldn't overpower the various flavours combined together in a classic full dinner. For that Oregon Pinot likely represents much better value for money than an average burgundy.

Sartorials: Thoughts on Walking Out the Door in the Morning

I was reminded recently in a ribbing manner of Jack Donaghy's line to Liz Lemon when dressed in a tuxedo for no apparent reason, "it's after 6, what am I a farmer?" It also made me a recall a similar statement I had answered years ago, when queried on my habit of donning a suit, or at least a waistcoat and tie. "I'm a man. How else would I walk out the front door in the morning?"

I've been in London now for a couple of years, and have had the chance to observe that, in the main, it is the best male dressed city that I have spent time in. By comparison Rome was embarassingly shabby despite Italian's elegant reputation.

Here, therefore, is a handful of axioms in some semblance of order from the ground up.

Shoes: As long as you find yourself in some line of work that is not a funeral home director or an underling in high finance where you're expected to sleep at your desk in your uniform navy drabs, there is no reason to not occasionally be wearing brown dress shoes. They punch up any suit, including navy ones, and especially grey ones. In fact, except for the theatre, the only time I tend to wear classic black lace ups is with a brown suit, to once again draw the eye to the whole ensemble.

The bolder one's persona/ latitude of one's employer's the lighter one can go with the brown shoes. Additionally tied into that is the lightness of the grey/blue suit, and finally the summer, clearly, is a more fitting time to go with lighter shades. Ultimately, when in doubt look for a chocolate brown.

A Matter of Fit:
So now that you've got your spiffy brogues, please for the love of god, hem your trousers properly. Potentially my biggest complaint of men who don't know how to dress is ill-fitting trousers. When standing, the base of the pant leg should just obsure the socks, touching the top of the shoe tongue and laces. It should not pool or otherwise bunch around your ankles. When seated with a leg crossed it is perfectly acceptable, indeed encouraged to show some of your sock, and thus why men's dress socks are sneakily the best way personalize a look even if stuck in an otherwise plain office attire

Socks: the classic dictum for colour is to go for a shade somewhere between your trousers and shoes. So for blue suit, black shoes, a dark grey is good. For blue to brown, I like a lighter blue or darker brown. That said, arbitrary colour and/or pattern is definitely in vogue. You can throw just about anything on, and I'd say as long as it doesn't look like either you're trying too hard, or just downright bizarre, go for it.

Belts: Another vexatious issue. For some reason many young men believe it as an indispensible item in a formal suit. It is completely not. Indeed, if you don't actually require a belt to hold up your pants, you probably shouldn't be wearing one. The greatest strengths of the visual look of a two piece suit are clean lines and symmetry, and this gets needlessly broken up with a shiny belt buckle. This even includes suit trousers with belt loops. They look totally fine empty, and again, contribute to the clean look of a suit on a reasonably in shape man.

That said, one scenario where I think a good belt can help the look is with a non matching jacket- trousers combination. Here, like the socks, the colour of a belt can transition between the two. Definitely for instance with jeans and a jacket. Finally, yes dictum says your belt and shoes should match in colour, and I would typically agree, though it's not an ironclad rule.

What to look for in a jacket: The biggest trend in the last decade, in no small part thanks to the late 50's-early 60's aesthetic of Mad Men has been the slimming of suits, eliminating the boxy three button jackets of the 90's. Unless you're shopping at Sears or a provincial Marks & Spencer, three button jackets, that is to say cut higher on the chest, are completely out of style.

A note on doing up buttons: only do up the top button of a two button jacket, or the middle one on a three button, followed in preferance by the top two.  Do not do up the bottom button on a jacket, especially when sitting, otherwise you look like an idiot.

What else? Much like the trousers, men tend to buy suit jackets not only too large, but often, too long. When standing, you should be able to easily cup your fingers underneath the base of the jacket. If your fingers are just touching the bottom of it, it's too long. Similarly on the cuff, the sleeve should just barely reach to the wrist, and certainly not encompass it, thus allowing to show about a centimetre of shirt at the wrist.

On ties: Generally one's tie width should aim to match the width of the jacket lapel at it's widest point. Most average width ties and average lapelled jackets fit this fine without anyone putting any thought to it. Particularly fat ties can still look acceptable with an average jacket, but skinny ties look lost with a wide lapelled jacket and torpedo the whole look.

Same for knots. Mid sized four in hand (that is, regular) tie knots look fine with average collars. A skinny tie looks ridiculous with a spread collar. But unless you're a banker, or the recently employed David Moyes, you likely don't have too many spread collar shirts.
If you've stuck with me for this long, here comes the payoff. The one, unbreakable rule for a man to dress properly. Your tie must be darker than your shirt. Repeat that sentence.

Thus why a white shirt, a la the Mad Men era is in fact the most versatile look because it allows basically any combination for a tie and suit.

Bonus second unbreakable sartorial dictum: DO NOT wear a backpack/knapsack with a suit. A backpack with a suit makes you look like a high school student at a university open house day. I don't care if you cycle to work. Hipsters have Messenger bags for a reason. I don't care if you've come off a plane, carry a Fred Perryesque duffel bag.

Travels in Austro-Hungary: Vienna

If Budapest felt like we were at times on our way to some rendezvous with an operative out of a John le Carre novel, Vienna was distinctive and all the same appealing. The Magyar capital seemed post-war; first or second, take your pick. Vienna resounded with an imperial belle epoch neo-renaissance glitz. The huge palaces, the artfully conceived ring strasse and pretty public gardens all felt destined to echo and hum with the clip-clop of handsome cabs and the rustling of vintage trams.

First impressions were rather less ebullient as we ascended the steps from the u-bahn into the uncomfortable bustle of Stephensdom Platz and the main tourist drag. Further wandering however led us to the elegant shopping quarters and the impressive grand buildings lining the ringstrasse. These included the Parliament, the Opera, and state museums, to speak nothing of the imperial residences. I particularly liked the story of why the Vienna town hall is arguably the grandest of the civic architecture for the fact that after decades of imperial direction on renovating the cityscape, the commerical burghers of the city decided that enough was enough of visibly playing second fiddle in their own front yard.

Continually finding pleasant pockets of streets slightly away from the Cathedral hub, this most livable of cities (as meaured by the Economist) reminded me as a sort of cross of the proud bourgeios architecture of Amsterdam and the limestone faced Catholic churches and cafe culture of Rome.

Speaking of the coffee, I did adore the antention to detail and civility of the newspaper strewn proper coffee houses (not like Amsterdam there). At the locally popular Cafe Pruckel we sat outside in the late afternoon along the eastern side of the Ringstrasse. I had a glass of wine, while most of the local patrons partook in wine spritzers.

The next morning at the Cafe Museum near the Opera we enjoyed a nice cup of americano though I would later read the decor of plush red velvet booths had recently been modifed from the cafe's more workaday appearance in the fin d'siecle.

Of palaces, we took in the grounds of the Belvedere and Schonbronn, and disappointingly touring the state rooms of the Hofburg. My thinking was along the lines of "these are just a series of unrelated rooms with, quite frankly, drab furniture and fittings organized around various colours... I saw this at the White House when I was like 9."

Ah, Vienna

Perhaps the highlight of attempting to investigate the local area around the Belvedere was finding ourselves in ordinary working class south eastern Vienna, myself obviously wearing jacket and tie, since I thought I was visiting a palace. We were rebuffed at one dive bar that was in the guide book as a decent local coffee house, before shuffling into a crossroads tavern bar, It was full on Alpine with the wooden booths, frumpy hostess, good beer and tasty schnitzel. I even proudly recall I managed a couple utterly rudimentary sentences in German, with the Bavarian return prego I remember as bitteschon.

Naturally, I get very excited about the chance to imbibe truly locale tipples. So it was for Vienna and Gruner Veltliner (as I would learn pronounced velt-leener). In a worldwide scene dominated by the likes of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, it is intriguing to me the modest success story of a grape like Gruner. It is almost entirely grown only within the wine regions near the Danube in eastern Austria. It is typically a light-ish white that is perhaps more pleasant than it is distinctive and thus is well suited as an aperitif or pairing with food.

After a couple Gruner's at a hipstery kind of bar near the museums, we returned across town to the hotel for a regroup, where, with my proverbial tail up, I knocked about the Spar supermarket up the street for another bottle of the local white Veltliner.

Making a night of it, just off Schweden Platz we remembered a well lit, small wine bar that we had ventured past the first evening immediately across, handily, from the Canadian embassy on Laurenzerberg.

We wandered in and pulled up a stool at the counter and began to converse with the jovial proprietor, Roland. Turns out he had just opened the joint barely a fortnight ago, sinking his savings into his dream of running a wine bar, in part focusing on locally produced stuff. He had even roped his wife into service that night as she was, to her chagrin, on summer holiday from a desk job in their nearby provincial town.

Laughing and chatting with Roland, the glasses kept being topped up with various Austrian Gruner's and Rieslings and even some South African rose bubbly he had picked up on a golfing trip and had opened the previous evening. Before long a cured leg of ham was produced and we ended up helping Roland and his wife close up the joint.

Finally, we tread the well worn path to the Cafe Central, replete with its fluted interior where in the years before the First World War one might have come across Sigmund Freud or Adolf Hitler on any given day. Unfortunatey the grand old cafe of the city does a brisk tourist trade. Maybe it's always been the case, but the table next to us was a couple of frat boys in Florida State t-shirts- at least they'd gotten out of bed before midday. Much worse was the bloke in cargo shorts, blond surfer hair and flip flops who walked in, browsed the confectionary counter, and then turned around and took a selfie with one of hand held poles. 5-2 he was Aussie? Plus, the coffee was rubbish.

Our last evening in the city we grabbed a beer along the main canal, similar to the pop-up cocktail bars in summer along the Tiber embankments in Rome. It was a relaxed setting watching the joggers and after-work amblers. If I could speak more than two sentences of German I even mused I could imagine myself in a city like Vienna. A coffee, Gruner Veltliner and Palace infused culmination of a universiy wine buddy and I's week in the Habsburg capitals.

Travels in Austro-Hungary: Budapest

I was booked on something called 'Wizz Air'. Once upon a time all airlines tended to have stolid, upstanding names: British Airways, Air Canada, Continental. Then there's EasyJet and Ryan Air (invariably announced over the intercom, in the moments when trumpets aren't blaring, with that conspiratorial culchie accent that seems to make it all the more grating).  Now I'm on Wizz Air. Which, frankly, all sounds a bit slipshod.

On the positive, they have a uniformly hot team of, presumably Hungarian, stewardesses well used to the baiting of the English stags, or in the case of a few rows in front of me, a mid-fifties lads weekend to Budapest.

Earlier, amongst the seventeen page clicks it had taken me to purchase my flight, I had opted for the airline's express shuttle bus from the airport for four euro; reasoning that represented a good piece of business, despite not altogether being certain where it was delivering me to.

I was flying out of Luton, my least favourite London entrepot (extrepot? Can we get a ruling on that? Also, Stansted can't believe it's luck after that last sentence.) Naturally the plane was delayed by over an hour, leaving me some fourteen minutes from touching down in Budapest to my appointed bus rendezvous. This being random Europe, I made it with time to spare.

Standing alone in the quiet of long term parking, an unmarked white van pulled up at speed, with a young man throwing open the sliding door "You Muncaster?" Well, that didn't actually happen, but would have been cool. Instead I wordlessly pointed to my single name on a clipboard and we sped off again to destinations unknown. (I presumed he would drop me at the train station or something, and wasn't too worried about it. One of these trips I'm definitely going to find myself in the wrong unmarked van, but I digress.)

Dropped off at a bustling modern traffic square in Pest I went in search of some cobblestone streets and a leisurely stroll in the humid Friday August evening for my scheduled 8pm glass of red in the Mercure hotel lobby bar with my old university buddy and wine confrere Eric.

That first evening we found a lovely street in the university district on a neo-classical piazza for some al fresco dining and Staropramen. Day one found us exploring the Royal quarter on the Buda side of the Danube; ascending the citadel via the Grand Budapest Hotel-esque funicular, drawing laughs of comparison to the similar gondola utilized in the Ralph Fiennes film.

After lunch I was delighted to learn from the guide book that there was an establishment nearby labelled 'Domus Vinum Magiarum'. Not least because I feel Latin really ought to be used as a lingua franca more often. It was billed as a wine and cicchetti bar sponsored by the Hungarian wine authorities specifically for promulgation of their country's home products. So you've got a couple of veteran wine geeks actively looking to be impressed by their nation's offering, and on a thirsty, sunny Saturday afternoon the House of Hungarian Wine is shuttered up closed.

Crestfallen, I had to make do with getting out of the baking sun by checking out some nearby catacombs that spuriously claimed to be the holding dungeon of Count Dracula. Furthermore, I thought Hungarian wine might have missed its best shot to impress me. Happily I was to be proven incorrect on that score.

As day turned to evening, we found Budapest strangely quiet. I wasn't even convinced it was the old carte blanche August holiday of grand French or Italian tradition. After all, there weren't any hastily scotch-taped, pen scribed 'closed' signs across the multitude of shuttered joints.

Irrespective, it was a grand town, and sufficiently John Le Carre-esque enough vibe for the Euro-trotting Eric and I to bask in. One morning's coffee was taken at a cafe situated in a 19th century apartment block courtyard. The euro police siren echoed from the busy thouroughfare; a couple of cute college aged girls with potentially American accents laughed and took photos the next table over. Instinctively and humourously, Eric and I lean in, take on Kim Philby- Cambridge Five toff accents, and wonder "Could Langley be on to us!?" Funny thing, twenty five years ago you would have probably been shot or at least suspiciously gulaged for joking about such stuff in that city.

That evening, finding the town bizarrely demure for a browse of restaurants and bars, we settled on investigating a restaurant with a highlighted wine menu that I had noted in the guide book. Called Borbirosag, it was located on another empty, non-descript square in the south end of Pest and turned out to be one of the memorable restaurants of my whole life.

It's about half full on this balmy Saturday night in August and we get an outside table. The service is immediately friendly, intimate, and knowledgeable. Their wine list is a thing of beauty. Some two hundred wines available by the glass, and all of them Hungarian! The actual menu wasn't a trifle either as we both enjoyed wonderful meals.

I'm not a food porn kind of guy, so I basically recall that Eric had a whole white fish, possibly pan fried, that came apart beautifully. I had a tenderloin of beef alongside the Hungarian foie gras equivalent that's a local favourite.

What impressed me most with the Hungarian wine was it's breadth. Encompassing a range of well known varietals, both red and white, in addition to their own homegrown niche grapes. They might not have the mass scale export capability of a Chile or South Africa, but compared to Canadian wine, say, they left us stone dead, and all with enticing prices; at least there in the Hungarian Forint.

Both nights (we ended up returning for round two on our last night it was so memorable) we naturally started with white before moving onto red either with dinner or the cheese course.

My favourite white was a Furmint, the local grape grown historically for Tokaj, the famous sweet wine of centuries gone by. This dry offering, from the village of Mad in north-eastern Hungary (I'm sure there's an accent in there over the 'a' but not sure which one, or how my computer does it) was crisp and yet full of flavour. Somewhere between a cleaner Sauvignon Blanc and a fruitier Pinot Grigio.

Next we had a couple gorgeous reds from the Ikon vineyard situated around Lake Balaton, a resort area not far from Budapest. Their 'Evangelista' offering is 100% Cabernet Franc (always one of my favourite grapes) and retails around £11 if you can find it in the UK, which I would happily pay. The rarer 'Tulipan' bottling is a bordeaux blend, and regarded as a top notch Hungarian wine.

Our waiter was a young man and did yeoman's service in shepherding us through the pages of the exhaustive wine list, which was fantastically interesting for it's inherent foreignness. The second visit, the food was just as good, but a couple times I was left feeling average on the staff's wine calls, asking more than once for something "closer to what I had last time".

Ultimately, having an all round jolly time and deciding to proverbially push the boat out on the Hungarian Forint, I simply asked as the waitress, "what is the best red wine you have?" I can assure you I've never done that at a restaurant before, nor unlikely will again in most conceivable circumstances.

I was brought a glass of 2009 St. Andrea 'Merengo' from Eger region, and it was a fascinating blend of 40% Merlot, 33% Kekfrankos (whatever the hell that is), 20% Cabernet Franc, with a bit of Syrah and Pinot Noir. Maybe it was just me at the end of another lovely meal, but it was everything a young but brilliant claret wine should be like. Incredible length and succulent tannins. It was so good, I took another glass of it over a harder edged night cap.

I see online Jancis Robinson, the esteemable veteran British wine writer, has given this bottling only a B+ kind of grade, which does make me wonder: maybe it is all in the setting, and the ambiance, and the expectation to enjoy one's wine. By the way, with conversion, the glass of this amazing restaurant's best red wine cost about £8. About what you'd pay for a large glass of plonk in a Kensington pub.

the old tour guide in me

As for the rest of our site-seeing, naturally we had more history on the docket. First up was the largest synagogue in Europe, which upon entering is notable for its basilica like plan. What was especially moving was the adjoining cemetery, which was full of dates from the winter of '44-45. Spectacularly, not even needing transportation to the concentration camps, the vast majority of these poor souls had simply starved to death locked inside the streets of the Budapest ghetto.

Next, we travelled by commuter train to the northern hinterland of the city for a glimpse at archaic and repetitive Roman crap, which I adore. We found ourselves in the half decently preserved shin-high ruins of Aquincum, one of the remotest Roman civilian towns in the empire. The very limits of the province of Pannonia.

On our final day we toured the Hungarian Parliament in the morning, a building often regarded as one of the jewels of the Danube. Afterwards we hit up the thermal baths at the renowned Gellert Hotel on the Buda banks of the river.

Bathing suits in plastic bags, we manage a sortie into the side entrance of this grand edifice. It was kind of like entering a central national library and asking where we go swimming. Soaring vaults, marbled floors, and bronze statues greeted us as we paid our day pass.

We split our time between the hilarity of the Jude Law-ian Grand Budapest Hotel scenes in the main indoor pool, to chilling with a couple beers on the patio deck of the outdoor wave pool and massive hot tub. And to think we were situated in a veritable oasis in the middle of a large metropolis, was one of the coolest experiences of my life.

From the Keleti Station we boarded the train westbound and disembarked in the Habsburg capital, Wien.