Food and Drink

Dogged FoI inquirers are always trying to find new ways to pry nuggets out of the BBC. Here's the result of one asking for the ten most expensive bottles of wine purchased by Auntie in December, and the ten most expensive meal claims in the same month. I suspect they were trying to find pre-Christmas excess - and haven't hit paydirt this time; maybe if it had been framed differently...there's many ways to fund a seasonal jolly..

Bar

The news that Nick Jones (Mr Kirsty Young) of Soho House is in talks with Television Centre developers Stanhope about the possibility of a club with rooftop pool and 50 bedrooms on the inner ring of the building sets the mind buzzing.

Will the old Television Centre Club be reborn ?  And in which incarnation ?  Surely not as it was left last year - faux-Hoxton wooden (simulated) floors, daft leatherette booths, and a counter selling jacket potatoes ? The ambience of a motorway service station, blended with a football pub, where cocky waiters stack lager glasses fifty-high, and then drop them to the whinnying of a crowd of bored IT engineers and returning pensioners ?

Pic from Tony Scott

No, surely they'll aim for the early seventies - BBC-branded Jubilee champagne; Tantine (Auntie) and Sans Fil (Wireless) wine; Ruddles County and Ringnes Lager on draught. Jacket potatoes confined to a glazed, separate, cafe; a small lounge bar, "owned" by News and Light Entertainment, and a huge standing area, packed on Top of The Pops' nights, by lonely men hoping for a glance of Pan's People.

That, and a pool on the terrace outside - a winner.

Wine

"The cost, excluding VAT, of all alcoholic products purchased from the BBC’s preferred supplier during the period 01/01/2012 to 31/12/2012 was £42,971.38. We can confirm that there was no spend on champagne. A detailed breakdown including the type and brand purchased is detailed at Appendix I."

"If you plan to use the information provided in this FOI for the purposes of a media report, we have provided you with the following on the record response from the BBC. “The BBC has very tight guidelines that govern the limited occasions when alcohol may be bought. For 2012 the total spend from our preferred supplier amounts to just over £2 per head.”

Appendix 1 can be found here:

Here are the top brands, by volume...

Still Wine
414 bottles of Mountain View Sauvignon Blanc (from "the largest family-owned winery in Chile") @ £4.00
384 bottles of Pinot Grigio Pavia Pasqua (Venetian)  @ £4.03
269 bottles of Neblina Sauvignon Blanc (Central Valley - Chile) @ £3.97

Sparkling Wine
261 bottles of Unduragga Brut (Maipo Valley Chile) @£4.77 (currently £8.99 at Majestic)

Beer
1920 bottles of Peroni Nastro Azzuro @£0.98 a bottle

Spirits
31 bottles of Smirnoff Red Label Vodka @£13.13 a bottle

But it's not all hair-shirt stuff. There were two bottles of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, at £16.66 each; two of the Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir, at £19.99, and a sprinkling of "Gift sets".

Nugget

The cost, excluding VAT, of all wine purchased from the BBC’s preferred supplier during the period 01/01/2012-01/12/2012 was £29,242. We can confirm that there was no spend on champagne.

Last orders

The most famous fish tank in broadcasting will twinkle only in drunken memory after tonight. The aquarium has been a feature of the BBC Club bar in the basement of Bush House for as long as most people can remember. When the Club was twice the size, it sat grandly across the middle of the room; then, in the Birt era, gym took precedence over gin, and the other side of the tank was blocked off to conceal sweat and exercise bikes.

The Club was meant to close its doors for the last time last Friday, with a party organised by studio managers, stalwarts of drink and human glue for the World Service. But so many current and former staff have been asking for a last chance to pay a nostalgic visit that there was a week-long extension. And the place is chock-full of memories, from its old wooden floorboards (and the previous sticky carpet) to its low-slung ceiling. This happy spot has played host to one of the world's most diverse, entertaining and gossipy clientele - the staff of the BBC World Service. I hope someone collates a small tome of bar-room tales; a guaranteed good read.

• One bar closes, another....  It's all very different at MediaCityUK. This pop-up bar is due to open today, providing it's not already floated away. 

Estate Agents Choice

Drinking after 5pm is a struggle in All Bar One, Regent Street. It's probably going to get even more rammed in 2012, with the news that Great Portland Estates have pre-let the upper floors of what was once Marcol House to Savills.

The redevelopment, now known as 33 Margaret Street, has proceeded with only a few days out of business for All Bar One, brought to you by Mitchell & Butlers.

Having a do ?

The Telegraph has got sniffy about a party to mark Jana Bennett's exit from the role of Director, BBC Vision. It estimates the wine and canapes event, for some 200 guests, might have cost up to £4,000 "depending on the quality of the wine".  And, after all, she's only moving "next door" to BBC Worldwide.

A BBC spokesman downplays the event , as being "held in meeting room", as if that makes any difference. And points out that her leaving present, a telescope, was funded by donations from colleagues.

The cost the papers always miss in these stories is the video - a collection of tributes from stars and peers that actually takes a producer, crew and editor over an average working week to make. If properly priced, you could add a nought to the Telegraph's estimate of the event cost.

"Guv"

This excellent article, which was hidden behind the Sunday Times paywall, reveals the drinking preferences of Lord and Lady Patten - "Guv" and Lavender to you and me from now on.  The new Chairman of the BBC Trust will be sad to find that there are no cellars associated with the Trust's offices in Great Portland Street, and the BBC hospitality trolleys no longer clang and clatter with in-house branded champagne, interesting Australian reds, etc.  The last convivial dinner I can find recorded by the Trust was in the restaurant of Durrant's Hotel, though Sir Michael Lyons and Mark Thompson did have dinner at the Landau Restaurant in the Langham after an RTS speech.

Guv will have to sneak into Villandry undercover - or ask for an inside table at Iberica.   Or maybe amble down to John Lewis, where you can uncork any bottle from the basement wine shop shelves for corkage of just £7. Meanwhile research continues on the Tarn Region, home to the Patten weekend and summer home....

What's yours ?

The team at one of my happiest stomping grounds, Newsbeat, are having an Alcohol Week.  This is not an internal event, but an attempt to engage with the Radio 1 audience about a serious problem.  Two reality checks are needed.  1: Chris Moyles.    2: These figures, used for the price of drinks in the Radio 1 Booze Calculator, working out prices of drink in pubs.
. 
Pint of weaker beer/lager/cider = £3.06
Pint of stronger beer/lager/cider = £3.06
Standard wine = £3.35
Large wine = £4.50
One measure spirits = £2.50
Double measure spirits = £3.90
Alcopop = £2.75
To calculate this we took an average of typical prices from three large pub chains across the UK. Source: All Bar One (National), Bar Ha Ha (National, Leeds, Cardiff), Walkabout (Sheffield). 

The trouble is that before the Radio 1 listener gets to the pub for a session, there's often some warming up with bottles and tins on the way.  Bargain Booze currently offers 8 pint cans of Carling for £6, 4 pint cans of Strongbow for £3.59,  3 bottles of Blossom Hill wine for £10, and eight Bacardi Breezers for £8.19.

The Prezzo is right

Meacock and Morris from Granada Reports could be sharing tables with wealthy students, as pizza and pasta chain Prezzo plans to open on the ground floor of the building ITV will share with Salford University at MediaCityUK. 

It'll be around restaurant number 150 for company founder Jonathan Kaye, who comes from the dynasty that brought you The Golden Egg. No dish over £12, Pizza Margherita at £6.75.

Blow here

Two supermarkets in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania are piloting a new auto-vend wine dispenser, which should only give you a bottle if you can prove you're over-age, and you're sober.

AP reports the machines are the size of four large fridges, though the wines are kept at room temperature. A customer chooses a wine on a touch-screen display, swipes an ID, blows into an alcohol sensor (no contact with the machine is required) and looks into a surveillance camera. A state employee in Harrisburg remotely approves the sale after verifying the buyer matches the photo ID. The kiosks only takes credit or debit cards, and are closed on Sundays and holidays.

Presumably the angle of the surveillance camera notes who's really blowing into the sensor.

Found on Gawker.

Grape nuts

Some oenophiles I know will be pleased. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the 2009 pinot noir crop in California was a record for the state, up nearly 50% on the previous year. But will it be any good ?

Burgundy news

I enjoyed this piece in The Sunday Times about how Archie Norman sounded out candidates for the ITV job over meals at Wild Honey in St George St. Writer James Anderson says the venue was chosen for first for privacy - that didn't work, because someone got close enough to see that Adam Crozier had the fish, and Norman chose steak and Gevrey-Chambertin - and, secondly, to be away from media types in Soho and Covent Garden. The more likely reason is that the restaurant is less than three minutes walk from the offices of Archie Norman's private equity operation, Aurigo Management Partners, in Davies Street.

(The Gevrey Chambertin on the Wild Honey list is Cuvee Ostrea, Domaine Trapet, year unspecified on the website, at £97 for a full bottle, £47.50 a half).

Another advert...

...and while were at it, can someone open a wine bar here ? Please ? Just off the Highbury Corner roundabout, started as a Gill Wing Cafe, vaguely ran as an Italian restaurant/jazz venue called Osso until closing last year. A mere £45k a year for 2200 sq feet...

Detail

The New York Times, and others, have noticed that nobody really proof-read the menu for the Obama's first State Dinner. Can you spot the goofs ?







Answers here.

Over the (blossom) hill....

A selection of wine stories, all from the Telegraph this week.

UK drinkers bought more wine from the USA than from France in the year to November.


The USA has also overtaken France in the league table of production by volume.


Australia still leads the world in terms of volume of wine consumed, but France has fallen into 3rd place, behind the USA.


The average price for American wine in the UK stands at £4.15 a bottle, with French wine at £4.46.

Chinese scientists are trying to accelerate the ageing of wine by pumping it through an electrical field. They believe it speeds up the chemical reactions that mellow wine, particularly reds.

An Australian doctor says that he's found a way to increase the amount of resveratrol, an anti-oxidant, in wine. He says it's tasteless, but by increasing its proportion, it could help clear arteries.