Wines of the Napa Valley

Quite apart from my general disapproval of bank holidays, this has been one of those irritating weeks: we had three fun things to do, but since they all happened at the same time, we could only do one of them. So on Tuesday, I could have gone to the Graphic Novels Reading Group, or we could have accepted a last minute invitation from friends whose wine club was mostly on holiday: would we like to take up some of the spare spaces at their New Zealand wines dinner? But we were long since booked into Helen Savage's Napa Valley Masterclass, so that's what we did. It wasn't a hard choice: we don't see Helen and Olwen often enough, and the evening's wines were supplied by Napa Vintners, so for a reasonable price we tasted wines well above our usual price level, some of them stratospherically so.

I'd like to be able to report that it was an eye-opener, but no. Once, at a Wine Society event I was served maybe a teaspoonful of Château Pétrus, and that was stunning. I thought then, if you had the money that this stuff costs, it wouldn't be a silly way to spend it. I didn't taste anything on Tuesday that I would have paid the price of - and I'm not just talking about the Heitz Martha's Vineyard cabernet sauvignon, which retails at £194. The Grgich Hills zinfandel (my notes say "smoky, smooth, elegant, pleasant") costs a mere £45 - but you will note that 'pleasant' is not a term of praise in my vocabulary. Compare it to the Wine Society's exhibition zinfandel, which is made for them by Frog's Leap and costs £16, next to which I have written a combative "There is nothing wrong with this." Even so I prefer the Ravenswood, not to mention the zins we drank last time we were in California...

It wasn't just me: the consensus of the evening was nice wines, shame about the price. In fact, I found myself making the case for the defence (well, maybe it's more of a plea in mitigation), arguing to our neighbours at table that prices reflect not only how good wine is, but also how rare it is, and how difficult to produce: the Trefethen riesling had been made with great care to retain its freshness and acidity despite the California climate, and if you want a Napa valley riesling you won't have much choice, so you might consider paying £28.80 for this one; and then if you serve it to me one a summer afternoon in the garden, I won't complain. But if you simply want even more clean, fresh riesling acidity, here's one we enjoyed in Trier, and it costs under €8 a bottle (though you might have to go to Germany to find it). I certainly wouldn't pay the high price for the curiosity factor of a California riesling - but I will, at least occasionally, pay the extra for English wine.

One odd thing is that we tasted ten wines (not counting the Frog's Leap) with two bottles of each to go round 30 people; and of these, there were two bottles which were to some extent faulty. As chance would have it, the two bottles served the two halves of the room, and we were lucky enough to be in the half which got the less faulty one. One of those very fancy reds was underperforming: and my notes are sufficiently garbled at this point that I'm not going public on which one (but I will say that if I had opened this bottle at home, I might well have been disappointed, but I wouldn't have known it was faulty, and I certainly wouldn't have sent it back). The other half of the room had a white with a distinct cork taint, and they were all aware there was a problem. So that's educational.

A final treat: a couple we know both from Helen's tastings and through another connection, but don't often see, were there, though as we arrived quite late we didn't see them until we reached the station. But we had pleasant conversation on the homebound train.

Golden hot cross buns

As previously noted, Felicity Cloake puts saffron in her hot cross buns, and I thought I'd give her recipe a try. In theory, I believe in following the instructions faithfully, the first time you make a new recipe, because the alternative is that you always use the same seasonings and everything you cook comes out the same. In practice, I often diverge from the recipe because I just don't believe it; also, some modifications are needed to make things work with my sourdough. So, this is what I did:

• Original recipe here



• Warm 200 mls milk with saffron, cardamom, cloves and the last corners of a couple of nutmegs. Leave to stand. I didn't use stick cinnamon because I couldn't be bothered. Might be worth trying. Two cloves is plenty, but the cardamom wasn't really identifiable. The saffron did wonders for the look of the buns, but I couldn't really taste it, which was a waste.



• Add 3 oz butter (I'd meant to use 2 oz, which was how much I'd used previously, but I ended up emptying the butter dish) and warm the milk so that it melts. Then beat in 1 egg, and add to the starter.



• Mix in the flour - and for once I used all white flour - the cinnamon and the ginger. The sourdough doesn't need any extra sugar, so I don't add any, but I see that the recipe also adds the salt at this stage, and while I usually add it much later, don't forget all about it (I did, and wish I hadn't).



• I add the fruit at this stage, because I like the vine fruits to soften in the dough: a couple of ounces of peel and 3 or 4 oz sultanas - I see the recipe calls for currants, but I like sultanas.



• Usual process of rising and knocking back, for as long as time permits.



• Form into buns: the recipe says 16, which would be on the small side, and also tells you to use two baking trays. My usual dozen buns were fine, and would have been even better if I'd managed to make them more even. But I am improving at this. Slash with crosses and leave to rise. I gave them as long as I could, which turned out to be between an hour and an hour and a half. Longer might be better, but this was fine.



• Brush with beaten egg, and bake. 25 minutes at mark 5, on the top shelf, was plenty. They were so tender when I removed them from the baking tray that I was afraid they were underdone, but cooled overnight and then warmed in the oven they were fine. Better than fine.

The combination of saffron and egg wash (and, I suppose, white flour) produced beautiful golden buns, on which the crosses were not very distinct. They were just about discernable if you looked, though, which will have to do, because I have no intention of piping flour-and-water paste, or any of the other methods of marking the cross. Nor am I going to add the sticky sugar glaze.

Anyway, we have buns to see us through the breakfasts of the Easter weekend, and that's the important thing.