Sommelier: Valentine’s Day gems

Feb 12 2008 by Mathew Sloane, Liverpool Daily Post

TO ALL you fellas out there, planning NOT to do anything for Valentine’s Day, allow me to paint a picture to you of a sorry day that I’m hoping to help you to avoid.

Your little lady wakes to an average day – no breakfast in bed, no flowers, no card, not even a heartfelt few words.

She’ll tell you it’s OK and respects that you’re rather nice most of the time – yeah, right. After an uneventful journey to work on a bleak, February morning, the light of your life will hang her coat up and witness happy colleagues talking about flowers, dinner arrangements, proposals, poetry and so on – but not your lass, she’ll be claiming through a lemon-faced smile that she’s "not bothered" with all that – are you catching on yet?

A day of tiresome toil will follow, a miserable rainbow of darkening greys with no over-priced, table for two shaped pot of gold at the end of it. On returning home, alone or with your heartless self, this wronged woman will endure an evening of remembered embarrassment and, eventually, self-pity will turn to anger, anger to loathing and loathing into the worst doghouse of your life for a very, very long time – the kind of doghouse that’s going to need Sky telly in it if you plan on seeing the World Cup . . . in 2012.

So, get your wallets out. It’s not too late. I am here to save you from a lifetime of never being able to play out with the lads.

You can pop down to our shop, Vinea, Albert Dock, and I can furnish you with some rosé Champagne and some arty chocolates to put next to the flowers and the breakfast tray. I’m doing a few offers on the stunning Bruno Paillard, Moet et Chandon Rosé, Billecart Salmon Rosé and a few others. They all come in a smart, girly box and start from around 50 quid.

If you haven’t booked a table yet, good luck. I’m going to be dining at the new Jalon’s Bridewell, Campbell Square, off Duke Street. Unfortunately, the girl I would have asked to join me is swilling wine in faraway lands, so I’ll be joined by an expensive escort, one of the lads or my laptop – unless any of you are free!

The new menu is excellent and the service rocks my tiny world. Restaurant manager Vlastimil Banetka is an old colleague of mine from The London Carriageworks and, if you’re nice, he may let you have some of the sneaky bottles from his secret list.

I had my birthday bash there and had a marvellous time with the stunning Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir and, an old favourite, Marques De Riscal Reserva – a big, dirty Rioja with more clout than a Capital of Culture executive with an expense account. Both wines came in at under 30 quid; it’s nice to dine in a restaurant that isn’t trying to bankrupt you before you’ve ordered pudding.

In a slightly more wine- related matter in the form of a shameless plug, I’m running a wine course at Vinea, five weeks of teaching and tasting some very nice wines in the company of yours truly and my magnificent staff. It starts on Monday and it’s only 70 notes for the whole five weeks. Give us a bell on 0151 707 8962 and we’ll sort you a place out.

And ladies, they’ve all been warned, so do not tolerate any Valentine’s shortcomings, of any description. Sorry, chaps.