‘I am sorry to inform you, Sherelle, but you have expensive taste in wine,” said Daniel. With satirical flamboyance, I sniffed then sipped my Schioppettino red from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia wine region on the border with Slovenia, which – under Daniel’s direction – I had analysed as robust, complex, rustic and zinging with fresh berries and herbs.
We moved on to a Puglian offering, Moros, Salice Salentino Riserva.
“What can you smell? What can you taste?” Daniel probed.
“Jammy? But spicy?” I ventured, relieved to be met with his approval.
“But do you like it?” he pressed. I thought for a second about being polite but decided to be honest.
“All froth, no substance. Not keen.”
Daniel reacted with inscrutable professionalism, though I could tell the cogs in his mind were whirring as he silently analysed my taste profile. I sensed that my rejection of this popular £35-a-bottle red had confirmed his suspicions about my love of wines priced at the higher end.
An oenophile’s dream
I was at a wine-tasting experience as part of a stay at the Vices, York’s hippest new three-suite, “private house” hotel, run by the Italian duo Daniel Curro and Moreno Carbone. Set in a converted Victorian police station with vaulted ceilings, arched windows and red brick, it prickles with history. But it also radiates designer cool, from modish rocking chairs to light installations that resemble burning dynamite and Gothic fairytale modern art.
