Great Food Demands Great Wine

As director of wines and official food and wine matcher at Northcote, Craig Bancroft has been pulling in the awards. Last year saw them win AA wine list of the year and this year they achieved two glasses with American Spectator. Northcote has also won Portuguese Best Wine List of the Year three times and Bancroft himself has been given a special award from the Portuguese Ambassador for his services to Portuguese wines. Up until 2000, Bancroft built Northcote’s wine list himself, but, more recently, he has expanded his ‘wine team’ to include Nick Adams MW, who consults with Bancroft on a monthly basis, and head sommelier Adam Pawlowski MS, newly qualified as a Master Sommelier. All of their wine is bought from just the one merchant: Julian Kaye of the Wright Wine Company.

The ethos of Northcote’s wine list is that it must have a huge and wide range of food matching opportunities, including grape varietals from all different parts of the world. When pairing wines for a tasting menu, Bancroft seeks to take guests on a journey, with no repeated stopovers. Bancroft believes there are two ways to make the wine match: it’s either a marriage – ‘a beautiful combination of subliminal blending where you can’t see the join’ – or it’s a contrast, bringing out both sets of flavours. The ethos is all about customer satisfaction. For OBSESSION, Bancroft and his team have worked closely with Nigel Haworth to discuss the visiting chefs’ menus and find the best possible international wines to accompany and enhance them. Guests can look forward to experiencing the very finest wines from around the world.

Sit back and enjoy the flight.