Noble Rot

Noble Rot. (Botrytis Cinerea to the classicists.) Is it a mould? Does it sell wine? A small group of restaurants, perhaps? Or even a magazine?

Well as many of you may know, it's all four. In viniculture, in the right climate combination, grapes can develop this fungus. It penetrates the grape skin, causing water to evaporate and concentrating the sugars and flavour inside the grape. The berries become shrivelled, almost raisin-like, and develop extraordinary sweetness and complexity. The French call it la pourriture noble, and that's how the world's most famous and luscious sweet wines come to be.

But today we focus on the London businesses run by the remarkable duo of Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew. While the latter had a background in the wine trade, Keeling was managing director of Island Records, the man who was credited with signing Coldplay. I guess they got together through a mutual love of the grape and established the magazine. I discover that the wine business came later. That's handy, because today's article is inspired by the former.

I have just finished chuckling and smiling my way through edition 42 of the magazine, which is published thrice yearly. I have read wine magazines from time to time over the years. So many of them are a bit stuffy and rather technical, perhaps a little intimidating for the non expert. My research online suggested that the boys wanted to create, something that treated wine as part of a wider cultural experience, alongside food, music, literature and art.

That's funny, I thought. Sounds like wot I've just read. Lest you be concerned that the focus is too much on drink and that we shouldn't be featuring these good folk in Tom's Food!, let me reassure you. They feed people too. There are now three London restaurants, all, confusingly, under the Noble Rot moniker. I know about the confusion at first hand - I once nearly sent L to the wrong one, the panic phone call coming just in time for the taxi to turn round. You'll find them in Bloomsbury, Soho and Mayfair. We've reviewed them all, the first being in the old website.

The executive chef is Stephen Harris. The food, therefore, is wonderful. You'll find the man himself in most editions of the magazine. (He has also featured in Tom Cooks!, with his fabulous Christmas pud.)

But today it's the magazine I want to talk about. It's always a great pleasure when this pops through the letter box. 14 quid's worth of sheer delight, which I felt had to be shared. Lest the true wine experts among you are tempted to dismiss it as frivolous, pause. Dan Keeling has written an in in-depth article about the wines of Mallorca. Last issue he featured Bairrada in Portugal. There is much for the true connoisseur.

Perhaps closer to home he debunks the idea of hanging on to that bottle for a special occasion. The wine may not survive the wait. Most of us have been there. I experienced an example of the opposite approach. Back in the 80s my local Oddbins gave regulars a chance to buy one each of the five first growth Bordeaux. I gave one to my business partner. He didn't keep a cellar, but I told him to lay it down for a bit for a special occasion. He came in to the office the following Monday rhapsodising about the wine. The special occasion? I enquired. Well, it's not every day you find a bottle of Chateau Margaux in the house. Impossible to refute the logic. I suspect Dan would approve.

To give you a true flavour of Noble Rot I would have liked to have provided a few choice quotations. Unfortunately, the boys were too busy to respond to my request for permission. What I can say is that top restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin (The Guardian, Sunday Times) is Contributing Editor, usually with two or three articles in her own inimitable style. Last issue also featured Giles Coren on Michael Winner.

From inside the restaurant trade itself, there is a regular recipe column from Simon Hopkinson.  Stephen Harris muses on the naming of courses on menus, something which has been the subject of comment a few times in these columns. Jeremy King offers some elegantly written pointers on The Art of Being A Guest. At the other end of the rainbow of refinement a lady with the soubriquet of Slutty Cheff contributes an article entitled Bonk Appétit, in which she considers the relationship between eating well and getting laid. 

There is often a mouth watering description of a lengthy lunch in one of their own places where chosen celebrities are wined, dined and wined again. This time Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley (recent Oscar winner for Hamnet) were the guests. I have offered my services to fill an extra chair. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

I have to leave the best till last. The Dear Niven column is at the end of the magazine, but is often the first I turn to. Writer John Niven is described as the magazine's antisocial agony uncle. Do not read this column if you have a hint of wokeness or political correctness in your DNA. His responses to the readers' questions are as scabrous as they are hilarious. What to do about the relative who drinks most of your wine at Christmas while telling you that you're mad to pay that much? Or how to deal with a boyfriend who, on the first date, orders a bottle of the second cheapest and announces that he really doesn't care about wine?

I'd love to give you a flavour, but you'll just have to buy it for yourself. A subscription will cost £48 for four issues, a saving of £2 per copy. Find out more on their website here.

Good News For Wine Lovers Part 1

Just over two weeks to go till Diana Thompson's annual Fizz Feast  on Saturday 28 November at the Edinburgh Academy, 48 Henderson Row,  Edinburgh. There are two sessions, 12 - 3 and 4 - 7. Tickets are for sale at the ludicrously low price of £32 and, if you're quick, there are also masterclasses available. There is a 15% discount for our readers. When booking quote the code FFTOMSFOOD15. If you go to only one wine tasting in 2026, make it this one. Been to one already? Make it two.

 

 

Good News For Wine Lovers Part 2

Noble Rot's Dan Keeling has just produced a book entitled Pick Your Bottles - 100 Wines to Change the Way You Drink. This is Dan's guide to discovering them - the wines he loves to recommend. His secret is simple: the most exciting wines come from real people in real places - not brands. Priced at just £22, the book is available either directly via their website or at good booksellers.