Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Master of wine, author and TV presenter, known for editing the Oxford Companion to Wine and her BBC Two wine course.
On the island
Eight records
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
I think this music would remind me of winter chill, of the smell of very old oak in a church, of going to lots of evensongs and um and England.
Marvin Gaye, William "Mickey" Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter
Very ancient record of my teenage, and to me it conjures up cheap scent and warm beer and sweat and disco strobe lighting, the late sixties.
Io t'abbraccio (from Rodelinda)
Joan Sutherland and Alicia Nafé
I listened to it for the first time in a hotel room in California... waiting for him to arrive... I've loved Rodalinda ever since.
I just find this a a wonderfully um relaxing piece of music which I have never grown tired of and it always lifts the spirits and I think I will need my spirits lifted at my own little oasis on this island.
Ah, perdona al primo affetto (from La clemenza di Tito)
Lucia Popp and Frederica von Stade
This is a love song. Again, that the lovers of course sort of separated by the plot. And it's just a a beautiful bit of music that whenever I listen to it I just go, oh.
Washington Phillips, Ry Cooder and Russ Titelman
I love Raikouda. He's one of the few people that I've I've actually been to listen to... He's a brilliant musician. This is just one of my many favourite Raikuda tracks.
Inflammatus et accensus (from Stabat Mater)Favourite
Margaret Marshall and Lucia Valentini Terrani
Nick says [it] sounds like his gut. He suffers from Crohn's disease. It in fact is all about ascending to heaven to meet your Maker. And I think I'll have to be very introspective on the island, and I'll need the help of music like this.
Viva il Madera (from Lucrezia Borgia)
RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra and Chorus
This is Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, but I've chosen perhaps not the most beautiful part of the opera, but certainly the most appropriate. It's a chorus singing the virtues of wine in general and Madeira in particular, but of course they don't know that it's going to be poisoned.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:41Is that because wine talk [has become a rather affected business]?
I think it's because what's important about wine isn't words, it's the sensation that it creates inside your system, inside your brain, sometimes inside your soul, certainly your heart.
Presenter asks
2:04Would your palate tell you immediately [the difference between an Australian and a French Chardonnay]?
I think Australian Chardonnay in particular has a particular style... And what's interesting is that in this burgeoning new world of wine... the differences between classical traditional wines and the best of the new world are getting smaller and smaller because people in the new world are getting better and better at realising that what is important is that spot on the globe and trying to get some essence of that geography into the bottle.
Presenter asks
2:04Do wine writers exist in countries where wine has always accompanied food?
There are wine writers in France, say, and they do have a very, very different approach... They see wine and food, as you say, very much more closely allied. But we do, because we haven't been exposed to wine all our lives, we want to be sure that we don't waste money on wine we're not going to like. So we're rather desperate for our wine critics to tell us, is this a good buy?
The keepsakes
The book
George Eliot
I will want something which will make me smile, if not laugh. Is very is easy to read but is profound and long. That's what I want.
The luxury
Uh oh, mixture. It's got to be from all over, yep. And and it's got to keep m titillating my palate because the last thing you know, people who don't know much about wine always choose a wine they know they're going to like. That those of us in the business completely ignore something we know we already like. We're always looking for something new. So it's got to be very varied, but the most important thing is, of course, I've got to have a corkscrew.
Presenter asks
14:00What was the seminal moment when you drank what and thought what?
I think you find that most people who've devoted a large part of their lives to wine do have a seminal glass... And mine was in a restaurant outside Oxford called The Rose Revived, and it was a red burgundy. It was a 1959 Chambon Musigny les amoureuse... It just took me to another place, and I thought... There is something very exciting about this drink.
Presenter asks
17:46Can you argue that having to taste wine for a living is hard work?
Actually, I yes I can. It's very, very different, the process of tasting, from the process of drinking. And what I tend to do during the day is is hard work, it's tasting... You have to fight against all odds to keep any of that the the occupational hazard, alcohol, from affecting you.
Presenter asks
31:58If you were about to depart this earth, what would be the last meal you would like to have indulged in?
I wouldn't want to feel sort of bloated, I wouldn't want to say probably not anything terribly stodgy. Some wonderful I suppose perhaps it would happen on this island, some some wonderfully fresh shellfish, perhaps.
“what's important about wine isn't words, it's the sensation that it creates inside your system, inside your brain, sometimes inside your soul, certainly your heart.”
“the British are great connoisseurs. There is a great tradition of connoisseurship in this country, and I feel very lucky to be here.”
“any anorexic knows, any food you give somebody else is a sort of negative in the equation. You know, you automatically lose weight yourself by giving food to others. That's the sort of the crazy logic that you have.”
“technology seems to have run away with food. It seems to have... Taken it too far from its roots somehow and rehashed it and transformed it and put it back together again as... a a technological product rather than something one actually wants to eat.”