Sustainability researcher Richard Mylles writes this entertaining entry to our 2024 wine writing competition about a visit to The Goring hotel in London. See our competition guide for more superb wine writing.
Richard Mylles writes I am a sustainability researcher. I hope one day to convince colleagues of the need for a report about regenerative viniculture, backed, naturally, by extensive empirical research.
Going, Goring, Gone
We don’t go to the grand London hotels very often. We live in Bethnal Green, so we’re more used to wine lists featuring the funkier, “more interesting”, low intervention styles beloved of east London. Sometimes these are a little too interesting for our tastes, and we are suckers for a more “conventional” (read, more expensive) white Burgundy. So on one of the rare occasions we venture west, we were tempted when we saw the Goring Hotel’s own brand Meursault on the menu.
A Rick Stein pop-up had brought us there. We’d recently visited Padstow—which an alien would assume he rules as god-emperor, given the number of venues he owns—and were looking to recapture some long Cornish weekend magic. We were seated outside on the Goring’s lush patio, the sun beaming, the waiter looking with slight bafflement at our clearly superfluous umbrella, which he kindly stowed away.
Now, it perhaps goes without saying that The Goring does not make its own Meursault, but we had to look up “Hospices de Beaune”. Presumably the most famous hospital in wine, it dates back to 1452 and is funded in part by a charity auction, held each November. Bidders can buy wine made from the 61 hectares of vines owned by the Domaine des Hospices de Beaune, and, for a little bit extra, can have it branded with their own name. This is the Burgundy Donald Trump would drink (I say that, but if at some point I haven’t, ahem, wowed friends with my own self-branded cuvee, then something has gone horribly wrong.)
A bottle of the Meursault Cuvée Loppin The Goring Cuvée by Albert Bichot set us back about £180. It arrived with two glasses that were both unnecessarily large and impossibly thin, and which felt all the more luxurious for it. As soon as I’d raised the glass to my nose I knew I was in for something special. I have never in my life enjoyed a wine more. On my first sip it coated my tongue like a benign oil spill, concentrated and generous, buttery, but not flabby, held together by a taut, mineral backbone. Pairing beautifully with several courses of fish (this was Rick Stein after all) it held court on my pallet, telling captivating and varied stories, but not overpowering the excellent food—dover sole, lobster, razor clams. My now wife and I looked at each other. Was this the best £180 we’d ever spent. Yes. Emphatically, yes.
The meal, not to mention the bottle, ended all too soon of course, capped off by some puddings that have been lost to posterity and some cheerful little sweets that we were too full to eat. And then the bill arrived. It was significantly lower than I was expecting. I took a closer look—yes, about £180 lower. After some hushed discussions I won’t dwell on, I gestured to the waiter and informed him of the mistake. And then we waited, I won’t deny it, with a slight frisson of excitement, for what little surprise they would bring us, on the house, of course, to say thank you for our honesty.
The waiter returned with the corrected bill and discreetly retreated. We looked at each other, communicating with our eyes. Of course, we couldn’t have paid without saying anything. Could we? No, of course not. Still, a thank you would have been nice, I suppose. Agreed.
As we got up to leave, feeling, to be honest, slightly bittersweet, the waiter cried to us, “Sir!”
Of course! I knew they weren’t going to let us leave without a little something.
“Your umbrella”.
Image by Constantine Johnny via Getty Images.