Food & Drink: Clearing out the cupboard

RICHARD EHRLICH'S BEVERAGE REPORT

A few praiseworthy oddities to mention before the onslaught of the traditional wine-tasting season

AT THE TIME of writing, I am gearing up for the autumn tasting season. The supermarkets and chains, the national and regional trade associations, the agencies and smaller outfits - all display their wares for trade and press over the space of around a month. Which means that you get to taste just about everything that's making its way into the country, and to form an idea about what we'll all be drinking for the next six months or so. The relentless crash of vinous waves upon taste-buds will provide this column with energy for months. In the meantime, various oddments floating around deserve a round-up of their own. In no particular order, a few of the more noteworthy.

Item one: there's a tasty Madeira wine tour for people who love the wines of that sun-baked island as much as I do. It isn't until 23 February, but it's never too early to book if you're interested. The cost is pretty steep: pounds 849 for four nights. But it will give the opportunity to do some serious tasting under the expert tutelage of Richard Mayson, who guided me through the delights of a clutch of ancient Madeiras some months ago. Would-be Madeirists should contact Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours, 01730 893344 (e-mail: sales@winetours.co.uk).

Item two: for Martini aficionados, Oddbins is offering what may well be the best white-spirit bargain in the country. Buy two bottles of their own Pavilion gin, an excellent cocktail choice at full 40 per cent strength, and the price goes down from pounds 11.29 to pounds 9.79 per bottle. It's worth buying a pair of them just to keep the shaker busy, and perhaps a single bottle of warm, mellow Krupnik Honey Vodka (pounds 12.99 to pounds 10.49) for slow sipping from a shot glass. Oddbins is also cutting the prices on numerous single malts (Ardmore 1981, for example, down from pounds 25.99 to pounds 21.99).

Item three: elsewhere on the malty front, a new launch to set pulses racing. The Balvenie, one of Speyside's brightest stars, is at its best with plenty of age: 15 years is a good minimum. As if to prove the point, the distillery has selected a few casks of their 1966 production and bottled them as The Balvenie Vintage Cask 1966 (widely available from Oddbins and elsewhere). All the rich peatiness and rounded intensity of younger Balvenie is there, but in even greater proportions. Heaven on the nose, smooth on the palate, long finish.

That's the good news. The bad news is that it's going to cost you pounds 199. Since it seems slightly sadistic to recommend something you can't afford, let me commend another oldie, this one from the unstoppably successful Highland Park. They do not make anything other than loveliness up there, and their Highland Park Bicentenary Vintage 1977 Reserve Single Malt combines oaky sweetness with briny tang in roughly equal measures. Delicious stuff, and slightly more approachable at pounds 69.99 (Oddbins mail-order, 0870 601 0015).

Item four: just to make things perfectly clear, as Richard Nixon used to say before he told another lie, let me explain that I do not like cider. I'd certainly prefer water if that were the only alternative, and would consider drinking battery acid (low-calorie, please) if that were the only alternative. Nonetheless, I am swayed slightly by Thatcher's Single Variety Dabinett Cider (Waitrose, pounds 1.29). This is a pleasant mouthful of malic acidity in balance with gentle sweetness and a full flavour of rather over-ripe apples. It's one of a group made with unusual varieties, including Tremletts Bitter, Somerset Redstreak and Katy, and it should appeal to those who - unlike me - count themselves as true ciderians.

Item five: another London addition to my Dozen Club, the elite group of restaurants offering at least 12 wines by the glass. This one's called Le Metro. It's part of L'Hotel (0171 589 6286), which is owned by the same man (David Levin) who has the nearby Capital, and was nominated first by a couple of readers and then by its general manager, Nigel Buchanan. The recommend-ations are justified. On their 50-plus list there are only a few bottles that can't be ordered by the glass. As well as splitting into the standard categories, the list also divides more subjectively: "Hedonistic", "Cool Elegance" and the like; I would drink happily almost anything on it. Producers are well selected - Anselmi Soave, Au Bon Climat from California, Trimbach from Alsace, Paul Bruno from Chile - and per- glass prices are barely marked up over bottle prices. What's more, they almost never break the pounds 6 barrier. Do you have a favourite restaurant that should join the club? Write to me and let me know.