Noble Rot – Issue 30

Noble Rot Issue 30 (Don’t sulphur fools) is available now at LOREM (not Ipsum). Are the Sulphur Wars – the exhausting ideological battle over the addition of SO₂ that has polarised the natural and traditionalist wine scenes – finally coming to an end? Judging by the recent softening of rhetoric from previously purist quarters, we dare to hope. Here at Rotter Towers, we’ve always valued an open mind above generalisations, celebrating the best zero/ low-sulphur wines alongside decidedly unnatural classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s. So we’re delighted that divisions over one of the most important methods for wine preservation and hygiene are fast giving way to a middle ground. Here, we report on how adding the tiniest amounts of brimstone – the ancient name for sulphur – can mean fewer mousey, oxidised, or otherwise bogging wines.

The Noble Rot magazine is published quarterly and the home of exciting wine and food writing. Since its launch in February 2013 Noble Rot has seen chefs Fergus Henderson, Valentine Warner and José Pizarro rubbing shoulders with artists like LCD Soundsystem, Lily Allen and David Shrigley, blurring the boundaries between gastronomy and the creative arts. Contributors include cult Scottish author John Niven, eRobert Parker’s Neal Martin, The River Café’s Emily O’Hare, Jamie Goode, Richard Hemming and Skint Records’ Damian Harris. Noble Rot was founded by two friends, Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew, who met through a shared love of wine, design and independent magazines whilst working next door to each other on Kensington High Street. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised £11,600 of funding in Autumn 2013, Noble Rot is continuing to expand at a considerable rate. The magazine is based in London, and published quarterly.

Features: Noble Rot – Issue 30

• Interview rapper/actor Kano – A.K.A Sully ­from Netflix gangster classic Top Boy – and the TV star who almost single-handedly taught Britain, and almost certainly your mum, to cook: Delia. Fellow culinary legend Angela Hartnett talks to the icon – for whom, like Pelé just one name suffices – about everything from her days at the BBC to owning Norwich City FC, while Kano waxes lyrical about his burgeoning love of wine.
• Travel to Saint-Joseph in the Northern Rhône Valley to meet Jean-Louis Chave and Jean Gonon, and profile Corsica’s Sciaccarellu, France’s tiniest domaines, the wine-centric area of New York City that you should not call Dimes Square, and the old-school Napa wineries that are being bought up in their dotage.
• Elsewhere, Henry Harris professes his love for fatty foods, Alice Feiring reflects on temporarily losing her smell, Marina O’Loughlin reviews Vasco & Piero’s Pavilion, anti-social agony uncle John Niven answers readers’ questions, Brawn’s Ed Wilson kicks off our new series on cooking with wine, Kate Spicer tells us why she can’t love any restaurant that doesn’t love her dog, and Simon J Woolf reports on how vignerons are eschewing the use of new oak. Roll out the barrel!