Noble Rot – Issue 41: Beyond the Pale

A Coffee Table Mags pick for those who treat wine and food as culture, not just consumption — Noble Rot is the most interesting table in the room.

Noble Rot Magazine is the home of exciting wine and food writing. Since its launch in 2013, Noble Rot has seen chefs Fergus Henderson, Honey & Co and Stephen Harris rubbing shoulders with artists like Brian Eno, Mark Ronson and David Shrigley, blurring the boundaries between gastronomy and the creative arts. Contributors include Marina O’Loughlin, Shaun Keaveny, John Niven, Neal Martin, Jamie Goode, Kate Spicer and Jon Bonné. The magazine is based in London, and published every four months in both print and digital formats.

Noble Rot returns with its most far-reaching issue to date: a celebration of wine, food, travel and the pleasures of getting gloriously lost. Issue 41, Beyond the Pale, journeys from Portugal to Georgia, Germany and Greece; from Afghanistan via New York City to Los Angeles and California; from Spain’s Gredos Mountains to Hokkaido, Gloucestershire and Highbury Corner.

At its heart lies the belief that wine is never simply a drink, but a way of understanding places, people and cultures through what they grow, ferment and cook. Among the issue’s featured guests, Lily Allen returns to Noble Rot 13 years after first appearing in Issue 3’s ‘Too Cool for Wine School’, reflecting on hosting friends in ‘My Greatest Meal’. Meanwhile, Contributing Editor Marina O’Loughlin joins actor, comedian and director Aziz Ansari for a long lunch at London’s Otto’s, where conversation moves between natural wine, filmmaking and leaving behind online life. Microbiome pioneer Tim Spector rounds out the issue’s contributors over dinner at Trullo, arguing for fermentation and pleasure in an age increasingly suspicious of both.

The issue’s cover illustration, created by celebrated Canadian artist Gary Taxali, emerged from a blind-tasting of more than twenty rosés conducted with Noble Rot’s sommeliers. Beginning with Mateus Rosé — the enduring icon of 1970s dinner parties — and culminating in Valentini’s benchmark Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, the tasting became an exploration of how rosé has evolved from kitsch curiosity to serious wine category (again).

Elsewhere in Issue 41

· Noble Rot travels to Portugal’s Bairrada region in search of traditionally made wines; climbs the steep terraces of the Douro Valley with the growers redefining the region’s unfortified wines

· Profiles California’s new generation of wine rebels and their improbable grape varieties

· Visits cult Japanese vigneron Takahiko Soga on the wild coast of Hokkaido.

· Examines Comando G’s influence on Argentine wine 

· Germany’s vertiginous vineyards

· A guide to Athens’ thriving food and wine culture.

· Issue 41 also includes recipes for roast best end of lamb with creamed spinach and Georgian lamb chakapuli.

· Chefs Stephen Harris, Tomos Parry, Jeremy Chan and Jun Tanaka discussing the dishes they loved creating — but which nobody ordered

· John Niven administers more advice to gastronomically challenged readers