The wine list at Eyre Brothers

This review was published in October 2001

Great wine lists rarely spring fully formed from the womb; they need a little time to come to terms with the world, prove themselves, and move off in their chosen direction. I have high hopes of the promising young list at Eyre Brothers. It just has to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.

Is it a journey of Iberian discovery? Is it an Italian excursion? Is it a ramble around small-producer France, or is it a savvy look at Australia and New Zealand? At the moment, it seems to be trying to do all of these things, which, with just 75 bins to call on, is a challenge.

Take a look at the best value on the list, and then take a look at the menu, and the answer seems to be obvious. The inspiration for all of the most interesting and successful dishes comes from Portugal and Spain, and few regions of the wine world better reward passionate commitment than these.

One should be led by sales, naturally, but are there really diners out there who might think the perfect partner for a starter of cordonices escabechadas (Spanish marinated quails) might be Tall Poppy Viognier from the Murray-Darling irrigation zone, or that feijoada branca (Portuguese pork and white bean stew) longs for a bottle of skinny Monthelie or piercing Washington State Merlot? This is catholicism taken to fundamentalist extremes. London, the wine world's crossroads, has long proved that it can provide the most bizarre wine-list gallimaufries in the world. It's time for more settled cultural effort and depth.

Anyway, we both ate and drank Iberian, and had a good evening. No champagne, no kir and no cocktail can provide a more graceful and enchanting step over the threshold of a fine meal than Manzanilla and Puerto Fino. Both were from Lustau. The former was grippy and pungent (£4.50 for a 100ml glass including service), the latter softer and simpler (£3.94 ) and, unless the list is misprinted, just £13.50 including service for a whole bottle, which if it's true is the best wine bargain in any London restaurant). Having ordered these glasses, we had to explain to a bemused French waitress that they were sherry.

To accompany starters of wellselected and presented black-foot charcuterie and perplexingly battered and deep-fried fresh sardines (why fry these lovely fishes when grills exist?), we chose the great-value 2000 Segada white at £13.50 including service. This is made from the Fernao Pires grape by the talented Jose Neiva. He'd managed to bring out all the subtly musky fragrance of this native Portuguese variety, and give its oily charm some definition. We were less pleased with the fact that he also seemed to have left around 5g/l residual sugar in the wine, which decreased its sardine-friendliness markedly. (This habit of "rounding" out wines with a little sugar, a hallmark of cheap Californian wines, shows that not all New World influences are good ones.)

With enjoyably jolly main courses of roast monkfish and grilled leg of lamb, we chose one of Europe's last genuine Neanderthal wines - the 1990 Beira Mar Garrafeira (misspelled on the list) of Colaresbased Antonio Bernardino Paulo da Silva. Why did we choose it? Because you don't often come across serious 11-year-old red wine in restaurants for £17.44 including service. Why is it Neanderthal? Because this is wine produced according to the ancient Portuguese garrafeira tradition of blending, long ageing in large wooden vats, and late bottling. The winemaking is antique too (this is made in much the same way Bordeaux was in the 1970s). The result is a wine of thunder-crack intensity, smooth tannins and lunging, bitter-edged fruits given a bit of stewy composition by age. It's not an easy mouthful (thanks to its sledge-load of acidity), but it has a kind of historic conviction to it which made it memorable drinking. At less than half the price of most of the Australian wines on the list, it wasn't an expensive journey into the past.

Fay Maschler investigated the Italian and Spanish zones of the list, and was impressed with the 2000 Anfora Zinfandel (or, as the Italians call it, Primitivo) of La Corte in Puglia. This was one of the 14 wines offered by the glass at £5.91 including service for 175ml.

There aren't any notes or descriptions on the list, which is a shame with so many singular bottles jostling for attention. Perhaps for the future? As I said, it's a good start.

Wine list scores three out of five.

Eyre Brothers
70 Leonard Street, EC2A QX