The wine list at Philip Owens

This review was published in February 2002

When, back in 1996, I surveyed wines, merchants and bars for The Evening Standard Wine Guide, Corney and Barrow presented a strange paradox. The company had access to some of France's finest: if you wanted to buy Pètrus, Leflaive or Domaine de la Romanèe-Conti en primeur, then you joined the long and immaculately tailored queue on the company's mailing list (you still do).

Those in the wine bars, meanwhile, were fobbed off with Cranswick-Smith and Staton Hills, plus lots of champagne for the moment when the bonus came through. Class distinctions, it seemed, were alive and well within the walls of this triple Royal Warrant holder.

To the company's credit, much has changed over the past half-decade, and C&B now provides a far more exciting range of wines in its bars than it once did. Things should be best of all, of course, in the Philip Owens Dining Room which perches, pigeon-like, above the traffic pit of Trafalgar Square. They are, almost.

I don't mean that you can get Pètrus by the glass - you can't. The posh wines still go first to expensive restaurants, which is a shame. There is no trace of even the most modest offering from DRC or Domaine Leflaive on the list, and the only wines from the Pètrus stable are the humble Haut Troquard '97 and a '95 from Certain Guiraud in Pomerol, made before owner Moueix acquired the property.

The single tentative step towards great bottles at reasonable prices (including one Domaine Leflaive wine) is made via short 10-bottle Fine Wine list available at the revamped Broadgate Circle Wine Bar only. Why not chez Owens? The list at St Martin's Lane has, however, expanded into agreeable catholicism, and there is a wide range by the glass (or, to be more accurate, two sizes of glass, 125ml and 175ml).

Every dish on the menu carries its own wine recommendation, which is an unstressful way of ensuring a palateexpanding meal. That meant Fay Maschler , Reg Gadney and I were able to put away no fewer than 10 wines on the night we called and still set off home in the right directions. Not that we assented to all the recommendations - South African Chenin Blanc with shin of veal and white Bergerac with Lancashire hotpot didn't appeal on a January night, somehow. The staff were sweetly patient as we asked for little tasting samples of some of the others; I'm sure they'd do the same for you.

The best wines were the 2000 Bacchus from Chapel Down in Kent, a briskly fragrant apèritif white (£4.25 for a small glass, or £4.78 including 12.5 per cent service); the '97 Cote de Baleau St Emilion, which had a bit more tannic muscle than most from that kittenish vintage (£7.82 including service); the softly crunchy 2000 Beaujolais Villages from Chateau de la Terriëre (£4.44, though it was served far too warm) and the lithely curranty-1999 Crozes-Hermitage "Millepertuis" from Domaine Guyot (£6.47). We felt the 2000 Albarino Lagar de Cervera (£6.47), the 1997 Chateau Septy from Monbazillac (£4.22) and the 1996 Chateau Briatte from Sauternes (£7.82) were all makeweight, unexciting examples of what they should be.

In many ways, the most interesting combination was the 1999 Gew¸rztraminer Cleebourg (£5.23) with a gratifyingly textured potted chicken liver p?tè, since the strong and scented wine produced a jolt with the creamy meat, yet was strangely dull on its own afterwards. The recommended Crozes with pheasant was sage, and we felt we had improved matters by bringing St Emilion to bear on both veal and hotpot - though maybe the organic 2000 Bastide des Oliviers, a mountain-fresh, midweight red wine from the rarely seen Coteaux de Pierrevert, would have been good, too (£5.46).

If you happen to have some bonus to burn, a bottle of 1988 Salon champagne (£140.63) is about as good as you can get here; none of the still wines is really in the same league, though the 1999 Meursault Poruzots from nÈgociant Olivier Leflaive should charm (£50.57). There are also changing specials every two months, and, in February and March, Spain will feature. The range includes refreshing half bottles of Tapada Manzanilla at £11.19 and the lush red 1999 Granja de Monasterio at £31.44.

I hope the C&B improvements keep coming. If Harry Gill's amazing Arches Wine Bar at 7 Fairhazel Gardens, NW6, can serve Domaine Leflaive (as it has in the past), why not the top restaurant owned by the wine's importer?

Wine list scores three out of five.

Philip Owens Dining Room
Corney and Barrow, 116 St Martin's Lane, WC2