Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2011 | Page 130

FOOD

Fine wine that is
'home from home'

There is a real ‘home from home’
flavour about one of the many
fine wines on offer at Chale Green
Stores.
Although ‘Barkus’ is a tempting
red all the way from California, it in
fact comes from grapes grown in the
vineyard of the US home of Vernon
Tyerman and his Island-born wife
Jenny Kerry (above), who own the
popular outlet at Chale Green.
Their US vineyard has 1,000
vines, and the wine they produce

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is a clever play
on words from
the Roman
God of Wine,
named Bacchus.
They call their
wine Barkus,
translated as the
Dog of Wine,
and well worth
a taste at an
inviting £12.60
a bottle.
There are
also wine
tasting sessions
with a subtle
difference at Chale Green Stores
every other month, with the next
one scheduled for September 15.
Vernon explained: “We like the
concept of what we basically call
wine and food pairing, rather than
just tasting.
“Wine tasting can be a bit out of
context; like the words of a song
without the music. We feel food
and wine need to be taken together,
otherwise wines may taste too

strong or overpowering. So with our
food pairings we have six wines and
six different food dishes to pair with
them to get a good match.
“Part of the fun is whether
people agree, or disagree and say
what they think would be a better
pairing, because we all taste things
differently. For example there are
some white wines you can have with
powerful food and some red wines
for mild food. We are not trying to
create wine experts but to be able
to choose wine that goes well with
what they are planning to serve, for
example at a dinner party.
“If people buy their wine from
a supermarket they would not be
helped with the choice like we try
to do.”
Chale Green Stores try to further
simplify the customers’ choice
by displaying all wines from a
particular country together – so
whether it’s Californian, South
African, French or wherever, the
wines are grouped for easy selection,
and clearly marked with the flag of
that particular country.