Noble Rot – Issue 38

Noble Rot Issue 38 is available now at LOREM (not Ipsum). One of the few irksome things about fine wine culture – apart from its pretence, and its propensity for snobbery – is the sheer cost of getting through the front door. Whereas anyone wanting to explore the best in art, for example, has access to Kahlo and Caravaggio at their fingertips, few people will ever have the means to taste the world’s most fabled crus.

Which is why ‘The Wines They Don’t Want You to Know’, Noble Rot 38’s tongue-in-cheek cover feature, is a coup for readers looking for world-class wines with a limited budget. Having persuaded a crew of leading sommeliers, chefs, restaurateurs and wine writers to reveal their single favourite most undervalued bottle, it’s an eminently usable centrepiece to this issue’s theme of ‘simple pleasures’, featuring characterful cuvées from places like Rueda, Muscadet, the Itata Valley and Gers (us neither – apparently it’s in south-west France).

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 38

• Felicity Cloake lauds salt as the most important element in good cooking, Simon Hopkinson revels in the perfection of eggs and Stephen Harris asks why many diners consider drinking anything other than filtered tap water to be a pretentious waste of time.
• Dan Keeling profiles the Basque Country’s Txakoli and meets the growers reinvigorating Chianti Classico and Rioja, Alice Feiring celebrates house wine, Slutty Cheff reveals her homely delights and The Yellow Bittern’s Hugh Corcoran hails a plate of home-grown green beans dressed in butter as the perfect lunch.
• We raise a glass to the art of the leisurely lunch in ‘Wine, Dine, Recline, Repeat’. Featuring Fergus and Margot Henderson, Philippa Perry, Gary Lineker and a cast of other Rotters, it’s the next best thing to being able to go AWOL for a day of hedonistic pleasures.
• We hear about Le Bernardin NYC’s Eric Ripert’s Greatest Meal, Keira Knightley tells us about her shellfish antidote to Fashion Week and we feature stories about Bangkok’s burgeoning wine scene and German Chardonnay, in addition to offering a gastronomic guide to the Basque Country, among much more.
• Cover by Jose Mendez.