The Place I First Ate Lamprey  Add/Read Comments

There are the occasional compensations to being a near-penniless wine writer, even one hovering on the F list - you get to eat fabulous food in rooms such as this. This is the dining room of Château Picoron in the Cotes de Castillon a region of Bordeaux just to the east of the more famous St. Emilion.

As is the way with these things they treated us grandly - the local speciality of lamprey, which everyone had seconds of, turned out to be just the starter! To be honest I thought, initially, that the lamprey was chicken in a red wine sauce; it has such a firm, meaty texture, and only on the 'finish' to grab a wine tasting phrase, did any fishy flavour emerge. Lamprey is the dish that 'did it in' for King Henry I. The only reason that was mentioned, during the meal, was to stop me going the same way!