Chase swaps vodka for rosé

William Chase, founder of Herefordshire-based Chase Vodka, is to move into wine, having recently bought a vineyard in Aix en Provence. Speaking at the launch of the Chase Terrace at Harvey Nichols in London last week, Chase told the drinks business: “I’ve been keen to do a wine for a while and rosé is the perfect fit for us, plus Provence is a lovely part of the world.” 

“I’m really impressed with whay they’re doing at Château d’Esclans and Domaine Ott, and would like to do a similar thing in terms of launching a top end rosé,” Chase added, admitting he was drawn to making rosé for its easy drinking aspect. “Most rosé is made to be drunk within a couple of years, which appeals to me,” he said. 

Asked what he is to call his new estate, he said: “I’m toying with the idea of Domaine Chase, but I might call it something completely different.” Chase also revealed that he is experimenting with different bottle shapes at the moment, keen to do something distinctive to give the wine a signature. Bottling laws are relaxed in Provence, with a number of different shapes and sizes permitted, though Domaine Ott’s signature amphora shape is patented.

Bompas & Parr pancake magic at Harvey Nichols

Culinary alchemists Bompas & Parr unveiled their latest set of tricks at Harvey Nichols last week, celebrating Shrove Tuesday in style with an evening of pancake-flipping frippery at the 5th floor restaurant. The event, in collaboration with Lyle's Golden Syrup, kicked off with a pear Bellini, which, when stirred with a magic swizzle stick, turned purple.

While enjoying my now grape-tinged Bellini, I'm ushered to my seat. The restaurant is packed with expectant spectators. At the crashing of a cymbal, Bompas & Parr appear, handsomely dressed in black tailcoats and white bow ties. Overflowing with energy, the boys explain their aim for the evening – to woo and wow us with their magic skills – then quickly launch into their first act: electrocuting a gherkin. Bompas stabs electrodes into the gherkin while Parr mans the mains. It sparks a little a first, but doesn't create the fireball they were hoping for. The second attempt proves more fruitful – the gherkin lights up like an engorged glow-worm, and leaps into the air from the 240-volt shock.

Having made the humble gherkin magnificent, there is a two-course interlude in which to get down to the serious business of eating. The paper-thin discs of beef carpaccio served beneath a rocket and parmesan salad are delectable, as is the hearty, silver-skinned sea bass piled high atop a new potato throne, though I was slightly disappointed at how un-magical the food was, given the theme of the evening. I'd rather hoped for something more ludic and Heston-like, or at least a sprinkling of popping candy here and there.

Before our magical pancake pudding, the boys reappear. Bompas is holding a huge black goblet filled with moonshine. He passes it round the restaurant, asking everyone to take a sip. When it gets to me, I stick my head in. It's the most intoxicating smell I've ever experienced – like pure ethanol mixed with nail polish remover, making me instantly light-headed. My lungs object to the onslaught and I begin to cough. Soldiering on, I take a sip. It's lethal. A few more and I'd be on the floor. The salty aftertaste leaves me craving for something sweet.

For their next trick Bompas leaps inside a black box, while Parr attempts to make liquid nitrogen ice cream on Sam's stomach. He cracks a few eggs, pours some cream down a test tube, fills the black box with nitrogen, then proceeds to saw Sam in half to the sound of the Top Gun soundtrack. Having been put back together, Sam emerges, Humpty Dumpty-like, covered in egg. "Some things are best left across the road", Parr quips, in reference to Heston Blumenthal's runaway success Dinner at the neighbouring Mandarin Oriental hotel.

After a quick outfit change, the boys have two more tricks up their sleeves before pudding. Having traced the enzymes that make fire flies glow, they show us the enzymes in action, making the clear liquid inside a medicine bottle glow turquoise for a few glorious minutes. For their final flourish, they blow up a tin of Golden Syrup, causing a bang so loud my ears nearly bleed. The violence of the explosion is offset by the beauty of the resulting Time Square-style ticker tape shower.

Finally, it's time for pudding. We're presented with a pair of pancakes, upon which is a silver spoon. Upon the spoon is a red pill made from the miracle berry – a small red fruit grown in Africa. Along with the pill is a note, stating: "In 257 years of production, there have been no known side effects, but please take the pill at your own risk." Always keen to push culinary boundaries, I can't wait to try it. Sucking the pill blocks your bitter receptors, causing sour foods to appear sweet.

I give mine a good go, sucking it almost into non existence, and then, having doused my pancake with lashings of lemon juice, take a bite. It has worked. The sharp sensation has been replaced with an overriding sweetness. Still unconvinced, I chomp on a wedge of lemon, expecting to wince, but it's perfectly sweet. My tastebuds have been hypnotized into thinking sour things sweet. I'm seriously impressed, if a little concerned that my sour receptors may never return. How clever to have tricked my tongue. Alas, I didn't go home with one of the 10 food and magic kits the boys were giving away, but I did bag a box of Golden Syrup chewing gum, which tasted of childhood.

Bompas & Parr pancake magic

Culinary magicians Bompas & Parr celebrated pancake day in their typically quirky style by electrocuting a gherkin in the Harvey Nichols food court as part of their pancake magic event. Don't try this at home...

Spanish wine masterclass at Harvey Nichols

Harvey Nichols has just added another string to its already well furnished bow – first they brought us the deliciously decadent Tanqueray 10 Terrace and now, as summer folds its golden wings back in for another year, they've started hosting wine masterclasses.

Curious to see what was on offer, I headed to the infamous 5th floor after work the other evening, making a double-pronged detour: firstly to peruse their food hall and drool over the cheese, and secondly to dribble over their extensive Champagne selection – they even had a label for Krug's super rare and eye-wateringly expensive Clos d'Ambonnay, but the bottle was sadly absent.

Dragging myself away from the Champagne, I took my place at the tasting table, along with a sprinkling of fellow wine lovers. I was quickly handed a glass of golden fizz, which I presumed was Champagne, but was surprised and delighted to find out it was in fact vintage Cava: Gran Caus Brut Nature Reserva 2004. I'm a huge fan of Spanish wine but have never been a Cava nut - I find it a bit too earthy. This was different. It was amazingly elegant and refined, with rich, biscuity, autolytic notes. It had excellent body and depth, and was easily the best Cava I've ever tasted. We were off to a good start.

Frenchman Patrick Salles, Harvey Nicks' head sommelier, was our host for the evening. He championed himself to us as something of a maverick in the sommelier world - a man happy to go against the grain and push for dairing pairings in food and wine matching, which I'm all for. Food and wine, like life, is all about experimentation and discovery.

Salles chose to pair two different whites with our starter of elderflower marinated salmon with fennel and apple creme fraiche: one wine to complement the salmon and the other to complement the creme fraiche. First we tried Allende 2007, a barrel fermented Viura from Rioja. Rich, rounded and creamy, it went wonderfully well with the sashimi-like salmon and I was immediately seduced. Next up was Terras Gauda, O Rosal Albariño 2008 from Rias Baixas, which was fresh and fruity, with lemon, grass, gooseberry, peach and apricot dominating.

After a brief lesson in decanting, remarkably my first in three years at Decanter, Salles performed the same trick with the main course: smoked duck breast with cream cabbage and bacon in a Madeira jus. The duck, smoked in Earl Gray tea, was heavenly. It had a gamony flavour, which, when combined with the meaty Spanish reds, absolutely sang. First we tried Pittacum Mencía 2005 from up-and-coming region Bierzo. Mencía is an exciting Spanish grape variety to watch, and the rising star didn't disappoint. Dense with bramble fruits, wild cherries, herbs and flowers, there was a lot going on in the glass.

The second red was Aalto 2006 from Ribera del Duero, one of the northern Spanish region's icon wines alongside Vega Sicilia and Pingus. It was distinctly different from the Bierzo – sweeter, more opulent; more hedonistic. The nose and palate showed black currant, black cherry, chocolate, vanilla and toffee, wrapped around toasty oak and spice. Pudding was an equally decadent affair - a gooey chocolate fondant with banana and coconut ice cream paired with Moscatel, Emilin NV from Bodgeas Lustau that looked and tasted like treacle.

The day after the tasting I called Aalto winery, as I was researching an article on Ribera del Duero and needed some quotes. The bodega's founder, Javier Zaccagnini, picked up the phone. We get talking and he mentions that he's in London for the next few hours, so I suggest we meet for lunch. I take him to my local tapas bar, Mar I Terra in Southwark, and over octopus and lamb cutlets I tell him that I tried his wine for the first time last night. That's the crazily beautiful thing about the wine world - one minute you can be discovering a wine for the first time, and the next you're having lunch with the winemaker. You can see my video interview with Javier here.

London International Wine Fair

The London International Wine Fair, an unmissable fixture in the wine calendar, always proves eventful. You can spot the fair goers as you squeeze onto the ExCel bound DLR in the morning. Enthusiastic Aussies and Italians in immaculate suits chatter, coffees in hand, as the tram swings into action.  

I made it my mission this year to turn up with some sort of game plan. It's chaos if you don't. With hundreds of producers, importers and generics showing thousands of wines, you need to be selective. Yellow speed guide in hand, I scribbled all over my floor plan, mapping out who I wanted to see.

First stop, Romania, where I tried some exciting reds made from the native Feteasca Neagra grape. One tasted like blackcurrant Fruit Pastels and the other like a buttery baked potato. The winemaker took the latter description surprisingly well, and even agreed with me. His wife went on to show me a copy of an Orient Express wine list from the '30s offering a number of their wines. It reminded me that even upcoming wine regions have rich histories.

Next stop: the Access Zone, where I said a quick hello to a very busy (and shattered) Ryan Opaz, founder of Spanish wine blog Catavino. I'd interviewed him in Decanter the week before and wanted to check out his stand. Cameras were rolling, bloggers were blogging, and there was a real buzz about the place.

Portuguese blogger Andre Ribeirinho of Adegga grabbed a bottle of wine and told me to pull up a chair. Whipping out his i-phone he scanned the barcode at the back and it immediately loaded a web page full of information about the wine - reviews, scores, the price, stockists. My eyes were wide, like I'd been given a sneak preview into the future. These guys are at the forefront of change, and are taking the wine world in a very exciting direction.

Before lunch I found time to squeeze in a masterclass on Southern Spain hosted by Peter McCombie, who took us on a tour of the beautiful south, taking in wines from La Mancha, Castilla, Valdepeñas, Jumilla and Jerez. Huge plates of jamón did the rounds during the class, giving me the chance to refuel before heading to the Penfolds stand, where Chris Stroud gave me superstar treatment, taking me out the back, magicking a pair of Riedels and tutoring me through a Penfolds vertical, which ended with the stunning 2005 Grange.

On a Penfolds high, I whizzed round the Gonzales Byass stand and tasted their limited edition new release: Tio Pepe En Rama. Cloudy as apple juice, it had an intense, yeasty nose. Nipping round Spain, I fitted in a quick Chivite vertical, then went to Russia to try Abrau-Durso's much-hyped sparkers. I was quite taken with the Russian script on the labels – Rodchenko and Popova would have loved them.

The white sparkler, that has a splash of Riesling in the blend, had a Sherry-like nose, and the red distinct blue cheese aromas. The young guy manning the stand said it had been described as everything from 'Sangría with an Oxford education' to 'the sweet blood of the revolution'. After Russia I made a quick detour to Lebanon via Château Musar to try Serge Hochar's legendary aged whites. The 1991 was unlike any white I've ever tried. Complex, oxidized (in a good way), waxy and honeyed, it's a wine that lingers hauntingly in the memory.

After clocking up serious amounts of air miles on my journey around the wine world, I hopped back on the DLR and popped into Harrods for their Women in Wine event, where I tried a delicious Pinot Bianco from Frescobaldi, juicy Brunellos from Pinino and 1996 Duval Leroy. My last port of call was the 5th Floor of Harvey Nicks for the launch of their pop-up Tanqueray terrace.

Taking a seat on the bright green astroturf, my friends and I were served classic martinis from the Tanqueray trolly, alongside adorable mini burgers and mini apple pies for pudding. Sipping my martini and looking out onto the London skyline in the Gastby-esque setting, it occurred to me what a charmed life I lead, and how golden these days of my fleeting youth are.