For me, dessert wines remain the wine world’s best kept secret. For many people however, I suspect sweet wine brings back bad memories of Concorde and Blue Nun. (For those born after 1980, no I’m not referring to supersonic aircraft or Mother Theresa telling dirty jokes, but the cheap and sickly sweet wines that attracted, then quickly repelled, so many novice wine drinkers in the 80s).

The reality today is that some of the world’s finest, and correspondingly expensive, wines are the highly specialised, super-concentrated and exquisitely-balanced dessert wines of Sauternes, Tokaji, or even the depths of the Canadian winter.

Fine dessert wines are typically made by one of the following methods:

• Botrytis or ‘noble rot’: a rare condition requiring a series of specific conditions in which the fungus botrytis cinerea attacks healthy and fully ripe grapes. The resulting rot causes the grapes to shrivel and produce the most incredible concentration of sugars and acids. Botrytised wines such as Villard’s El Noble Sauvignon Blanc and Keith Tulloch’s Semillon show that critical balance of sweetness and acidity referred to in last week’s post on the tasting senses.
• Late picking: often labelled ‘Late Harvest’ as in Tabali’s Muscat, and in the right climate rivalling botrytised wines for sheer concentration of flavour, grapes are left on the vine for as long as possible to concentrate the grape juice naturally.
• Drying the grapes: in the same principle as late harvesting for concentration of juices, Italy’s sweet red Recioto wines are produced by picking the ripe grapes and drying until shrivelled before pressing.
• Freezing the grapes: Canada, Germany, Austria, and most recently New Zealand all produce the incredible delicacy of ice wine (or Eiswein), with New Zealand’s Siefried and Canada’s Inniskillen proving stunning examples in recent personal tastings.

Good dessert wines don’t tend to come cheap, and that’s mostly down to the labour-intensive processes outlined above, and the often tiny yields that get produced. Inniskillen as an example claim that each frozen grape contributes just one drop of grape nectar to the finished wine.

But trust me as I let slip our best kept secret, these dessert wines have to be experienced. And if you’re struggling to justify a little luxury in the current doom-and-gloom, let me pass on the advice of a more experienced work colleague on the birth of my first child: “From now on Mike”, he said, “always fly First Class. Because if you don’t your son-in-law will.”

Dessert anyone?

Ok, so we’re jumping on the Great Pancake Bandwagon today. One day of pancake-mania where you’d swear you couldn’t get a pancake the rest of the year.

They’re actually a Saturday breakfast staple in the Kane household, where all three of our munchkins line up along the breakfast bar, patiently waiting their turn. At the ages of 3, 2 and 1, you’ll get patience isn’t generally a virtue, which shows how quick this recipe really is.

The recipe I’ve always used is Delia Smith’s, from the still inimitable Complete Cookery Course. (30 years old it may be, but if you want to know how to make good mashed spuds, or what a roux is, there’s still no-one does it better.)

The difference between Delia’s method and most others is the lack of standing time required - there’s none. The ingredients take about 3 mins to weigh, measure and mix, and you’ve the first one coming from the pan 2 minutes later.

For 8-10 pancakes, you’ll need:

• 4 oz (100g) plain flour
• 2 large eggs
• 7 oz (200ml) milk mixed with 3 oz (75 ml) water (the secret to the instant batter bit).

Now get your pan on the hob while you’re making the batter - standard frying pan on about 75% heat. To make the batter, it’s as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Put the flour in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the middle.
2. Break the eggs and put them in the well.
3. Start mixing with a hand-whisk whilst slowly adding the milk/water to create a smooth batter.

By now your pan has heated. Throw a knob of butter in and swirl it to coat the bottom of the pan, and ladle in enough batter again to cover the bottom. Now wait about 30 seconds, then start agitating the pan - just gently sliding back and forward on the hob to loosen up the pancake. If it sticks, give it a hand with a spatula just to loosen.

Now don’t panic on the flipping! It’s a matter of trial and error to get the technique but (a) if you mess it up you’ll often be able to recover the pancake, and (b) your kids will think you’re great when you master it. It’s all in the wrist, a quick sharp flip of the pan, ensuring you get a bit of spin to the pancake. If it’s cooked properly on one side (about a minute on the pan), it should hold it’s shape while flipping over and landing cooked side up.

Now whilst taking the plaudits from your admiring public, wait 30 more seconds for the underside to cook, tip it onto a plate, and get coating or filling. For breakfast we drizzle on Lyle’s Golden Syrup (they do a pouring version now, as well as a gorgeous maple-flavoured one) before rolling up and cutting into bite-size pieces. Alternatively you could go with the classic sprinkling of sugar and lemon, or maybe a drizzle of honey. The fact is pancakes are SO adaptable you can add whatever takes your fancy.

If filling, try fresh fruit, or for a dessert, ice-cream, fruit, honeycomb, chocolate, marshmallows, crumbled meringue… ohhh! (Sorry, I’ve actually just drooled on my keyboard now.)

Now I’m afraid even I can’t advocate a wine match for breakfast pancakes, but if you’re doing the dessert version in an evening I haven’t tasted a better match than our Keith Tulloch Botrytis Semillon. It’s not lusciously sweet like many great dessert wines, so retains an element of savouriness, and just oozes butterscotch and honey to compliment the sweet filling suggestions listed above.

So, apologies for jumping on the pancake bandwagon, but do remember, unlike sprouts at Christmas, pancakes really shouldn’t just be for Pancake Day.