Weingut Willi Bründlmayer, Riesling, Zöbinger Heiligenstein 2004

Weingut is winery in German; Zöbinger Heiligenstein is the vineyard in the Austrian region of Kamptal where this wine comes from. We were briefly worried we might have picked up a sweet wine but, unlike Germany, almost all Austrian Rieslings are made in a dry style.

Quite a developed dark gold colour. The bouquet is a classically Riesling blend of petrol and honey; the sweetness of the honey is not represented on the palate, quite dry. From 2004, already with the weight and dimension of a more mature wine; very classy. The texture is unusual; oily, but also with a suggestion of spritz. There are citrus notes that clarify into lime. With time, there is a suggestion of toasted hazelnuts (which I try to write off – this is not from the Mâcconais! But it is certainly there). N1 keeps saying “banana and moisturiser”, but I certainly don’t get banana; eventually she settles on coconut. A very fine Riesling; enough to keep us arguing about its identity right through the bottle.

Kleines Café – Vienna

The aptly-named “Little Café” is a charming institution on the lovely Franziskanerplatz, with table seating outside for the good weather. Inside, small tables crowd up against upholstered benches and mirrored walls. It really seems busier in the evening, when there are crowds drinking beer and wine, but on the morning we were there they did do the best coffee we’d had so far in Vienna (admittedly, that wasn’t actually saying so much – the Viennese may have had Europe’s earliest coffeehouses, but they don’t seem to have mastered the art of milk yet). A charming ambience, though, and we were pretty much the only non-Austrians – one gentleman in full Tyrolean fig stopped by for his morning coffee while we were there.

Franziskanerplatz 3

Café Tirolerhof – Vienna

Another Viennese institution: looks a little tawdry and run-down these days, but I found that added to the charm. It was quiet and pleasant in the afternoon, with old Viennese men and women reading the paper outnumbering tourists. Once again, the coffee is not superb, but it beat Café Central. Go here for your dose of Viennese past glories.

8 Führichgasse, Vienna, Austria

Café Central – Vienna

Supposedly a Viennese institution, and it certainly is pretty, with faux gothic vaults and brocaded benches. But the coffee is dire, and where it once might have been the haunt of Austrian intellectuals, it is now a nasty tourist trap. Our waiter turned very assertive when the bill came along and made it damn clear that we had better leave a tip. Boorish behaviour unworthy of his institution – no one else in Vienna ever did that to us, and as a result, everyone else got tipped properly.

Go halfway round the block instead, and find the shopping gallery that runs right through it (from Herrengasse to Freyung) – there is a delightful small Paris-style café which is far more charming.

Les Deux Salons

A classic Parisian brasserie, they call it, except that it’s round the corner from Trafalgar Square – does that not disqualify it from being Parisian? Or is, as the French would surely have it, that being Parisian is an esprit, not a geographical condition? Never mind. They are certainly trying very hard to look the part – the décor is very fin-de-siècle, and not the last siècle, but the one before that; dark wood, old lamps on gilt poles, faded mirrors, the bread served in red, upturned baskets that look like the sort of hats one sees in sixteenth-century paintings of religious dignitaries. It looks very much like the kind of place that would have turned away George Orwell in Down and Out in London and Paris, like Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère. I screw my eyes half-shut and see the room bustling with arrogant bankers and impoverished young men of high sensibilities, characters from the pages of E.M.Forster.

Enough of the décor. N1 was lured here by the promise of the snail and bacon pie, and I must say, for a so-called starter, it was a generous pie well-studded with the little de-shelled gastropods (surely something with the name gastropod was made to be eaten – must not gastronomy be the art of eating snails?). Also starting, lamb sweetbreads were accompanied by mushroom-filled vol-au-vents. Nice enough, sweetbreads and vol-au-vents, but didn’t seem to do anything for each other.

We shared a big main of Andouillette de Troyes. I haven’t had an Andouillette that smelled so, shall we say, rustic (in the sense that some fine Burgundies can also be very euphemistically rustic) since I was last in Lyon some years ago. A big, fat, smelly sausage interlaced with the undulations of wandering intestines, with a beurre blanc sauce and frites on the side. For those who dislike tripe, this dish might be a repulsive mystery, a weird gastronomic challenge destined for Japanese gameshows, but at the end of our little pre-theatre the score was very decidedly N+N: One, Challenging French Sausage: Nil.

I started off liking the ambience, but somehow it waned; by the end of lunch, it had all come to seem somewhat overwrought. Les Deux Salons treads a fine line between real charm and feeling like Café Rouge on a mission to conquer the upper end of the market.

www.lesdeuxsalons.co.uk

Château Musar Overview

By far Lebanon’s finest red wine; made with a Bordeaux-meets-the-South blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault, Carignan, Grenache and Mourvèdre, in the hotter vintages it can come out a bit Californian before veering off to a very hot-fruit animalistic typically Southern French style, although I find it often reminds me of right-bank Bordeaux. It is made in a natural style, and there can be quite a high degree of bottle variation making tasting more difficult!

Château Musar 1993

Paler than the 94 and the 95, with a tawny rim. A classic Musar nose (stewed fruit, volatile acidity, meaty), but on the lighter, more mature side, with the spice notes of cinnamon and clove very much to the fore (very Middle eastern), just a hint of smoke and leather. Musar can be very long-lived, but this is showing its age a bit more than the 94 and the 95.