Jamie Oliver, Wine and Beef

An unexpected meeting with renowned chef Jamie Oliver last week got me reflecting about the similarities between sourcing quality wine and food.

I was dining with Wine Society supplier Daniel Castaño, behind the unpretentious Spanish monastrell we list, at Barbecoa restaurant in London (which happens also to list Daniel’s wine under its on-trade label – for obvious reasons, it’s several times more expensive there).

Jamie Oliver, Daniel Castaño and me

Barbecue beef is the speciality here and by happy chance Jamie Oliver was enjoying a night out with friends a couple of tables down from us. We soon got talking about wine and beef.

Jamie’s passion for quality was as evident as when he’s performing on TV. Apparently the choice of farmer, breed and feed are the key to a good piece of juicy, flavourful beef. And the parallel with wine starts here too. The decisions of the grape grower (like the farmer) will determine the quality of the harvested grapes. For breed read grape variety, for feed read soil management which aims to maximise vine nutrition and health. Like Jamie, The Wine Society starts by selecting the growers whose philosophy matches our quality expectations.

But it doesn’t stop there. Jamie Oliver goes one step further. He employs someone to select the very best from his chosen farmers by looking at the ‘marbling’ of each animal in the slaughterhouse. They might pick just two out of ten.

It’s what the Wine Society buyers do; granted, in the more amicable surroundings of a cellar or winery tasting room, but of the thousands of wines we taste each year, only a very small percentage makes it to the List.

Pierre Mansour
Buyer for Spain