The Wine Spy returns

Time to eat some food with a glass of wine this time!

Wine-makers often like to pair food with their wine, so I thought it was the right time as the weather gets better to think of an outside venue to take a couple of friends from out of town to enjoy our lovely weather, a decent meal and of course a good couple of bottles of wine.

As my friends were staying in the Radisson Blu, Dubai Media City, we met upstairs on the eighth floor for a sundowner or two. It had to be beer at this stage, as it was still quite warm, and a bottle or two went down very well.

We were then meeting another friend, originally downtown, but the horrors of Sheik Zayed Road convinced us to stay in the area — so we headed off to The Westin, swayed by talk of the nice wine bar, Oeno.

Well, don’t try that one on a Monday night! I have been on a Tuesday night before and parted company with AED90 (US $25) for a glass of Wither Hills — but no such luck on a Monday, as the bar was in fact closed.

(This begged the question: if you give away all your sparkling wine on one night of the week, do your regulars desert you on other nights to such an extent that you have to close?)

We decided to wander across the lobby to the Senyar Bar, which advertises vodka galore, but in fact encouraged more beer to be consumed as the main entertainment was watching Liverpool finally get that elusive win, and over Manchester United!

So on to the main course for the evening, and the four of us sat down outside on the terrace at Hunters Room and Grill.

I have eaten at Hunters before and the only issue has been the speed of service — especially when you eat outside, for some reason.

Happily, they seem to have resolved this and we were well looked after by a helpful and knowledgeable waitress who had lots of suggestions for what we could both eat and drink.

The only issue she was struggling with was availability, as we seem to choose every wine which was not available! It took three choices to get the white wine to start with, the first two being unavailable — but for once the importers were not blamed, just a clear statement that the wine was “unfortunately unavailable”.

(I know that difficult times have forced hotels to cut down on their inventories as well as the importers’, but does this mean that only one in three choices being available is a regular occurrence?)

We eventually settled for a fairly decent if not really memorable Italian Pinot Grigio, which was after all, only really the starter drink, being in a steak restaurant.

All four of us opted for a steak variant for the main course, so a serious red was called for. Our choice was a Ribbon Vale Winery Cabernet Merlot, from the excellent producer Moss Wood, based in the Margaret River in Western Australia.

We had one Australian with us who has spent a lot of time in Western Australia, and he was delighted this was on the menu.

He was extolling the virtues of this wine, describing the deep yet bright colour, with a powerful nose of redcurrant and blueberry, mixed with leather and earth, with a full-bodied palate, fruit flavours and firm ripe tannins (he was a wine-maker from Australia, to give him his due!)



After much searching for the AED700 ($191) bottle of wine, our friendly waitress returned with the worryingly familiar news that the wine was not available.

Clearly embarrassed, she brought a suit-wearing back up, already armed with a bottle of wine to pacify us. He had on him a bottle of Antinori Tignanello: a fine wine indeed, but we were after an alternative to a Cabernet Merlot blend from Margaret River, and here was an Italian, Sangiovese-dominated Tuscan!

Quite how the two are related beat all four of us, until we realised that this wine was AED1200 ($327) to replace the ordered AED700 bottle.

I have seen this practice often in Dubai, but it is normally reserved for shops in the souk who sell the highest price relevant to the nationality of the person, irrespective of the customer requirements!

When challenged, our new suited friend merely suggested that he thought this was a good wine as well.

Then, something I haven’t seen before in Dubai happened: We suggested that this replacement would be okay, but we were only prepared to pay the original Moss Wood price of AED 70 instead of the required AED1200.

The haggle started, originally at an in-between price of AED 950 ($259), but the customer won, and we finally got the bottle for the same as the previous one!

Now at Dubai’s five-star prices, Tignanello is good value for AED 700 a bottle. It is truly one of the most famous and original super Tuscan wines, starting in 1971, with a complex blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

This wine was starting to age nicely, although a little premature possibly, and had the complex spicy aromas, with deep flavours of plum, chocolate and leather, and a very long finish with silky and soft tannins; great wine to accompany steak.

So much so that, before the main course was finished, ‘The Suited One’ reappeared tentatively, and looked please when we said the wine was to our satisfaction, but a little ashen when we asked for a second one at AED 700 as well!

In fairness again, the second bottle was despatched without hesitation, and he was even seen smiling and politely wishing us goodnight after the obligatory round of espressos which followed.

We retired back to the rooftop of the Radisson Blu to compare notes, and think we may have discovered a whole new pastime whilst eating out — choose the best wine you can afford on a menu, pray they don’t have it and then haggle like crazy to get the best wine on the menu that you can’t usually afford!

It might just work — and if it doesn’t, hot-foot it down to The Westin Dubai, where they will certainly have some decent wines you can sample, if not your first choice.