Marks & Spencer Food Hall: Your wine-stop shop
The M&S brand has over 200 awardwinning wines and the Power Plant Mall Food Hall carries 129. Filipinos have indeed embraced wine culture very well.
Discover the Tastes of Great Britain,” said Marks & Spencer’s picturesque garden setup located at North Court, Power Plant Mall last June 24 to celebrate the opening of its third modernized M&S Food Hall in the Philippines, the cherry-on-top of the new M&S boutique format where the men’s and women’s clothing, accessories, and lingerie, which the brand is known for, are now presented in flattering lighting, modern interiors, and seasonal imagery.
Welcoming guests and mall-goers were Marilou Pineda, Thomas Gray, Chris Tantoco, Bienvenido Tantoco Sr.; Bienvenido “Rico” Tantoco Jr., Zenaida Tantoco, Maritess TantocoEnriquez, and Steven Sarmienta, who led the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Renowned sax player Vince Lahorra filled the venue with soothing tunes.
The M&S brand has over 200 awardwinning wines and the Power Plant Mall food hall carries 129. “The way the range is built is a ‘ best of’ range from each category from the UK stores where there are 5,000 products,” Gray explains, having worked on this selection process in his last post within the brand. This cuts it down to 650 kinds of ambient food, room temperature food, savories, confectionary, and sweets offered in Manila, all of the best quality and responsibly sourced. (M&S moved to 100 percent Fairtrade Tea and Coffee in 2006 and uses only free range eggs in all its food ranges since 2002.)
Also gracing the opening was L’Opera Group president and CEO Paolo Nesi, a trained sommelier from the Associazione Italiana Sommelier who after giving a quick talk on wine, could not help but express his excitement about the growing wine-drinking culture in the Philippines.
“When I came here in 1994 from Italy, it was hard to find good wine. When I opened L’Opera, a lot of the Filipinos came to the restaurant with a bottle of expensive cognac or whiskey and drink them with ice or soda together with the food. A lot switched from sweet wine to dry and considered it great,” he recalled.
Nesi claimed there are more varieties in Manila now than in Rome because Filipinos have embraced wine culture very well, though he wished we would catch up on our consumption.
With M&S Food Hall’s selection, he helped us narrow it down with his recommendations.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR: What qualities do you look for in red, white, and sparkling wine?
PAOLO NESI: For red wine, the first thing to assess is if it is dry or sweet. Red wine has tannis, which comes from the skin of the grapes. I check for depth by placing my hand from the back of a filled glass; if I can’t see it, it is deep. There has to be no smell of wet cardboard or animal skin. Also, for the intensity of the aroma. I like something that comes out smoky, like licorice and dark chocolate with food, not for seaside in Boracay, looking at the beach. The sign of a good quality wine is if the finish stays for a long time.
For white wine, it has to linger in your mouth. The acidity is nice and fresh, not like a ripened mango.
Everyone likes to drink sparkling wine or champagne from a flute but sommeliers don’t use a flute because we can’t put our nose inside (laughs). The flute doesn’t trap the aromatic molecules when it’s soaking. You can see it rising in the bubbles. For the palette, if sparkling wine is only sweet, it’s not good wine. It has to have acidity and freshness to balance the sweetness. It’s like a green mango
which is acidic, then there’s a ripe mango which is very sweet but boring. The one in between is what’s best. What are your top picks from Marks & Spencer?
The good thing about Marks & Spencer is they keep it white label, very simple and informative. They don’t put a lot of jargon others tend to put on a label which are not related to the quality of the style of the wine.
If you are looking for a wine that goes with light food or to sip by the pool, you can always go with the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. If you get a steak, an easy choice is a Shiraz from Australia. After dinner, you can go with a Moscato. All of this is very inexpensive. A lot of Filipinos enjoy wine without food as well. What wines do you recommend for this?
In Italy, like in France or Spain, we hardly drink wine without food, but for this, a fortified wine like Port Sherry or Moscato are refreshing. How about for those mixing a sangria?
Go for a light-bodied wine. You can get a Pinot noir from France or from Australia. Get something inexpensive, you only need the acidity, the color, and the alcohol. You don’t need a complex wine for Sangria. It can be mellow, with only 12 percent of alcohol content. What’s your recommended way to enjoy wines? For me, there’s no such a thing as what they call “meditation wine,” a glass of wine that you take with you to sit down and look out of the window. I think wine is a hedonistic pleasure and wine is best appreciated with delicious food, always with people that you love the most. Good company and good food. That’s the only way.
The modernized Marks & Spencer store and food hall is in R1 Level, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati.