At The Review, we’re partial to a libation or six. We’re very clear on that. Drink responsibly, of course, but on your own terms. In this segment, new for 2021, we’ll be tasting some of the team’s most favoured spirits from around the world.
Let’s be honest. If I have to read, write or smile through another terse sentiment on how the last year has been, I might just throw my laptop out of the window. So let’s just jump straight into it. How are you sleeping?
I’ve spoken many times over the undulating course of the last year about Covid and its effect on the industry I not only work within, but love dearly. More than just survival, the stirring efforts made by so many across beauty and wellness to bring their customers closer to their brand is something that deserves celebrating in itself.
Founded in the mid-1800s by Clemente Santi, a pharmaceutical graduate from Pisa University, the Biondi Santi family lineage of wine production and curation dates back to the middle ages.
Notes of candied lemon, delicate undertones of soft apples and pears and softer notes of honey and floral chamomile.
Longmorn, Caperdonich, Glen Keith, Braes of Glenlivet, four artisan producers from some of Speyside’s revered distilleries. Perhaps if the family had been sporting a measure from the Secret Speyside collection, I might have come into the fold a little sooner.
Ashling Park’s 2014 Rosé is a confident number amongst its peers. Made from 80% Pinot Noir grapes and 20% Pinot Meunier on the family’s 50-acre estate in the hamlet of West Ashling in the South Downs.
“It was perfection,” wrote the late Michael Broadbent MW. The legendary wine critic and author, not to mention the man who launched Christie’s wine auctions more than 50 years ago, was describing the equally-legendary private cellar of Dr. Benjamin Ichinose at his home in Hillsborough, California. The cellar was, he insisted, “Absolutely perfect in every sort of way.”
The Morgan raced on down the lane as the late October rain pelted the demure metal figure of British engineering. The storm had been battering my small enclave of the British Isles for some time. So much water had risen, I was beginning to forget a time before the flood.
Considering how prime its position on the square is, the exterior is rather understated. Though the interior decor is about as dramatic as anything I have ever seen. The floors are made of rare esmeralda onyx marble imported from Iran. There’s a large shoal of Frank Gehry fish lamps above the red stone bar that are guarded by some rather buxom bronze mermaids from Damien Hirst. Interior designer Martin Brudnizki has curated the interiors with Art Deco light fixtures, coral-coloured leather banquettes and a sizeable ceiling mural that covers the 190-seat restaurant.